The One Who Got Away (5 page)

‘Oh, I'm fine for now,' I said, winking back, ‘but maybe we'll get dessert.'

Candy wasn't in on the joke – she was the dessert – but she smiled, and gathered up the menus. ‘Super! I'll get that underway for you!'

As soon as she was gone, David tried again. ‘So … what kind of dessert did you have in mind?'

I pretended like I didn't get it, and David took that as a cue to back off. The champagne came, and he raised a toast. ‘To old friends!' We clinked and drank and shared some small talk. The food arrived, but who had an appetite? Not me. There's no denying that the atmosphere was electric: twenty minutes into lunch, I was wet through my G-string, and David surely knew it.

Neither of us wanted to leave.

‘Hey, don't you have to get back?' he asked at one point.

‘I'm having too much fun,' I said. ‘Don't you have to get back?'

‘I'm the boss,' David replied, all swagger. ‘I don't have to do anything.'

We smiled at each other. David picked up a fry, dipped it in mayonnaise, and offered it to me. I burst out laughing. We kept on drinking. The sun started to sink and the other customers began to leave, and the point came when we had to go, too.

Candy brought the cheque. David paid, and we rose together.

‘That was so much fun,' I said.

David appeared surprised. ‘Don't tell me we're done? You promised me dessert.'

‘Oh, look, I'd love to,' I said, ‘but I've been out all afternoon already. I only ever told Molly I was popping out to Starbucks. I've got to get back.'

David seemed to be devastated. Alright, that might be pushing it, but he did look dismayed, and he was still trying to talk me around as he drove me back to my car. ‘Are you sure? Because when am I going to see you again?'

I held my nerve. Given how much I'd had to drink, I probably shouldn't have gotten out of his car and into mine, but I did, and I made it back to Molly's safely, thank goodness.

‘Where have you been?' she demanded, as I crashed through the front door.

I didn't want to go into the story with her so I fudged and weaved.

‘You reek of alcohol,' she said accusingly. ‘Don't tell me you drove?'

‘Don't lecture,' I complained. ‘I just bumped into an old friend and we had lunch.'

I could tell she wanted to scold me – Molly can be funny like that – but I wasn't having any of that nonsense. I curled up on the sofa beside her, so we could, like I'd promised, watch re-runs of
Friends
.

‘No, we shouldn't watch this,' Molly cried, halfway through the first episode. ‘It'll make you miss New York too much.'

‘Do you know what?' I said dreamily, ‘I haven't even thought about New York, not once, all day.'

* * *

Did you make it home okay?

I was sitting in my office at Book-IT when my cell phone buzzed with a message from David. He was in his office in Bienveneda, but his mind wasn't on the job. I don't want to sound smug, but it seemed like he was thinking about me.

I'd been thinking about him, too.

Hey, are you there?

I hadn't replied to David's first text. That was another thing I'd learned in the time we'd been apart: guys don't seem to mind when you play a little cool.

I'm here
, I responded.

Call me
, he texted,
I want to hear your voice
.

This was working out better than I'd hoped, and yet I felt so anxious. Spending time with David in Bienveneda had confirmed for me what I'd always suspected – I was crazy about him – and I really didn't want to blow it.

I texted back:
lunch was great … next time you're in nyc we should def catch up
… and then I waited, and ping!

CANT WAIT. NEED YOU NOW.

I suppose there's no real point in going over how fast things moved from there. David made plans to get on what may even have been the next flight to JFK and within weeks we were again an item, meaning I had to tell Molly, because how else was I going to explain why I was suddenly in town all the time?

‘But don't worry,' I said, ‘this time I have one foot on the brake.'

Molly was concerned. ‘You have exactly no feet on the brakes,' she said, ‘I can tell from your voice. You're in love with this guy.'

‘No, no, no,' I said, but who was I kidding? I wasn't just in love. I was planning on moving.

Six weeks after that lunch at the Jetty, I had my résumé up on LinkedIn, with the preferences set to California.

‘It just makes sense,' I told Molly, ‘all this commuting is driving us both crazy. And you should see my Verizon bill. The phone sex alone is costing me a hundred dollars a month.' (Ah, yes, the phone sex! Who remembers phone sex?
Suck me, lick me, touch me, fuck me, suck me, lick me, touch me, fuck me …
)

‘Also, with the business I'm in – online – there are a lot more opportunities on the West Coast,' I continued. ‘I mean, a lot more.'

‘The way you're talking, it's like this is a done deal,' said Molly.

‘It's not,' I said, but in truth, I'd already had two offers. One of them was to work at a place called Facebook. In fact, I remember saying to Molly: ‘I don't know, it seems a bit risky …'

Argh!

The second offer was from the
LA Times
, which was where I went.

‘It's more solid than Facebook,' I said, ‘and it's in LA. I can live in Santa Monica! That'd be nice. I'd be by the beach, out of the cold.'

‘Closer to David,' said Molly.

‘Closer to David,' I agreed, without even thinking.

‘You're a fool,' said Molly. ‘How do you know he's not going to break your heart. I mean, again?'

‘No, no, not this time,' I said. ‘This time, I'm in charge.'

* * *

‘David?'

‘Hmm?'

‘That guy – the one from Bienveneda Golf? He's just sent you another email.'

It was a holiday weekend in California, and I was seated at the kitchen bench at David's place on Bienveneda's High Side. We'd been dating for something like six months, and I guess I'd become a regular there, so much so that the housekeeper knew how I took my coffee.

David was on the patio, doing his bicep curls. His laptop was on the bench in front of me, bleeping like mad.

‘Ignore him,' David grunted.

‘I can't ignore him. He's been sending emails for an hour and it's driving me crazy. Why don't you just get back to him? It's not like he wants you for a bad reason.' I held up the screen so David could see the messages coming in. ‘Can't you see all these dollar signs? He wants to give you money.'

‘I don't want his money,' said David, curling the hand weight up towards his chest.

‘But why? Isn't that what you do? Take people's money? Invest it? Turn it into more money?'

‘Technically yes,' said David, grunting again, ‘but I don't do it for everyone, and I don't do it on demand.'

He placed the weight gently back into its rack, and reached for a gym towel.

‘I don't get that,' I said, closing the laptop. ‘What's wrong with this guy's money?'

‘Not a thing,' said David, stepping into the kitchen to reach for my juice, ‘except that right now, I'm not taking it.'

‘Well, it's driving him crazy,' I said, swiftly moving the glass away from his grasp.

‘And that's the point,' said David.

How was that the point? I genuinely wanted to know. David knew exactly what I did at work – I managed the Lifestyle pages for the
LA Times
– but I had only the vaguest idea what it was that he did for a living.

‘Look, investing is nine-parts a confidence game,' David said, opening the laptop so he could begin deleting emails. ‘I get requests like this all the time. People want me to take their money and make a fortune for them. For one thing, it's not that easy. For another, I don't take money from just anyone. Believe me when I tell you that ignoring a guy like this makes good business sense.'

‘I just don't get how,' I said, stretching out my legs so I could wrap them around David's naked torso.

‘Well then, watch and learn,' he said.

I watched as David tapped away at the keyboard:

Dear Pete, thanx for your emails, but as outlined in our earlier conversation, Capital Shrine is
not
currently seeking new investors. I wish I could be more help, but my best advice is for you to find an alternative investment vehicle at this time.

‘There you go,' David said, pressing ‘send'. ‘Now watch what happens.'

Within seconds, a flummoxed email came back:
Cut to the chase, David. What's the minimum spend?

David grinned. He replied:
No minimum spend. Just no openings at this time. I'm sorry, Pete. I'll let you know if circumstances change.

Send.

‘Okay,' he said, shutting the laptop, ‘now, let's go do something fun, and then we'll see what he's saying when we come back.'

Something fun? I knew what that meant. I let David pick me up from the bar stool and carry me back to the bedroom. Emerging two hours later – wet from the shower this time, with a towel on my head – we returned to the laptop and sure enough, there were a dozen more messages from desperate Pete.

Can't we talk about this?

When do you anticipate an opening
?

Is there some sort of message here I'm not getting?

‘Are you going to answer him?' I asked.

‘Nope.'

I shrugged. That didn't sound like great business sense to me, but how was I to know? I'd never run a business. Besides which, we had things to do. Our morning had been taken up with David's workout, followed by sex; our afternoon was to be consumed by David's desire to buy an expensive mountain bike (maybe followed by more sex) and he'd taken a table at a fundraising gala for the Booster Club for Bienveneda Grammar, his old school, to be held at the Nineteenth Hole that evening.

The gala was black tie, and I was excited about it. I'd never been to the Nineteenth Hole. It's members and their guests
only, and that includes the ballroom. I'd ordered a silky red dress – it was floor-length, with one shoulder – to be delivered to David's, and I had new shoes – Jimmy Choo – plus David had splashed out on a pretty pendant, with the sun, the moon and a tiny gold star.

We arrived at the venue shortly after seven pm. Waiters stood by the door, holding silver trays of champagne. I was standing near the bar, waiting for David to return from the washroom, and admiring the decorations – the organisers had gone over the top with the nautical theme; there were giant plastic lobsters hanging from the ceiling – when a red-faced Pete came barrelling towards me.

‘Where's your man?' he said.

My first impression was that Pete's tuxedo was too small. My second was that he was drunk.

‘My man?' I said.

‘David Wynne-Estes!' he said.

David – resplendent in black tie – joined us.

‘I've been trying to raise you for like a month.'

‘I'm sorry, Pete,' said David, ‘I thought I emailed you this morning. What seems to be the problem?'

‘The problem is that I can't get you to take my money,' Pete boomed, slapping David so hard on the back that David's whole body jolted forward and his champagne splashed, ‘and that's making me feel bad.'

I reached for a napkin to mop David's hand. He took the napkin from me. ‘It's fine, Loren.' Turning to Pete, he said: ‘I'm sorry, my friend. I've laid it out straight for you; it's nothing personal, but I'm not taking new investors at this time.'

‘What I don't get is why not,' said Pete. ‘My money not good enough?'

‘Please,' said David. ‘Your money is fine. And I do appreciate you thinking of me. But again, we are simply not taking new business at this time.'

Pete's eyes narrowed further. I found myself clutching the little star part of the pendant David had given me. Pete was a big man, and he was furious.

‘Well, I can't understand that,' he said, shaking his big head, ‘because I happen to know from my wife that you took money from her hairdresser. But everyone knows that story, right?'

Some of the people standing close – ladies in their finery, and men in their bow ties – looked embarrassed.

‘He took five thousand dollars from my wife's hairdresser and she's paid off her mortgage,' Pete boomed, ‘but he won't take money from me.'

The woman standing closest to me – an older lady with a fox stole, including the paws, draped over her shoulders – gulped at her champagne. Were things about to get ugly?

‘Okay, Pete,' said David, putting his hand onto the small of my back and gently moving me away from the bar. ‘I've had enough, and I'm pretty sure you've had enough.'

We pressed on into the elegant crowd, but there was hardly a moment during the night when I couldn't see Pete's red face glowering at us.

Driving home, I quizzed David: ‘Don't you care how angry he is? I got the feeling he was bad-mouthing you to everyone, all night long. And what is this about his wife's hairdresser? Did you really pay off her mortgage.'

David laughed. ‘Of course I didn't,' he said. ‘
She
paid off her mortgage. And good for her. She works hard.'

‘And he doesn't?'

‘Fat Pete? He probably works hard, too.'

‘But you're not helping him. Although I can't say I blame you after how he behaved tonight.'

David glanced in my direction. The roads were dark and wet, and he'd had a bit to drink.

‘That doesn't mean anything,' he said. ‘I'll take his money soon enough. Let me see if I can explain this …'