Skirting The Issue. HEATHER MACALLISTER
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if she discounted the leather cowboy vest one wore and she was inclined to until she realized it was fake leather. And…and that the green color was not a trick of the light. Still, even with green faux leather with, she swallowed, silver fringe, they compared favorably to Josh and his stupid plaid jackets—if she’d been thinking about Josh, which she wasn’t.
The two men were one loop behind Sam and approached her as the line wound toward the counter windows. One man held a stack of printed postcards and the other man stuck preaddressed labels on them.
“Tavish, every year you go through this,” said the man with titanium glasses. “Stop waiting until the last minute.”
“But I always find a sublet,” replied Tavish, the taller of the two.
Sam liked tall men and it had nothing to do with her own height. Josh was tall—not that it mattered.
“But you don’t even investigate the tenants first!”
Tavish stuck on another label. “I go by instinct.”
“Someday your instincts are going to leave you with a trashed apartment.”
“Then it’ll be time to redecorate.” He looked off into the distance. “I’m growing weary of sage.”
If he’d asked, Sam could have told him what colors were predicted to be popular in the next couple of years. Carrington was building a new hotel in Trenton and she’d seen the reports from the decorating team. Colors were going to be clean and complex, whatever that meant. She made a mental note to find out. It might be important for her to know.
“And you always send these cards. Haven’t you heard of e-mail?”
“Who can keep up with everyone’s e-mail address? All those letters and dots and symbols…” Tavish grimaced.
“Who can keep up with your summer addresses?”
“That’s why I send the cards.”
The men had moved behind her. Sam was now passing by the supply counter and people kept reaching in front of her for forms, labels and envelopes. She was relieved when she moved by it, looped around, and several minutes later faced the two men again. Tavish was still peeling off labels and sticking them on his postcards. He apparently had a large acquaintanceship.
“Didn’t you just go on safari a couple of years ago?”
Tavish laughed, a warm rich chuckle that was oh-so-different from Josh’s predatory cackle—not that she was thinking about Josh Crandall while standing in line at a New York City post office. That would be foolish.
“There are safaris and there are safaris,” Tavish replied.
“An elephant is an elephant is an elephant.”
“But the aptly named Mona Virtue will be a member of the group.”
“Ah.” They both laughed.
Men.
“Some men have all the luck.”
“I make my own luck.” Tavish held out his hand for another postcard.
The other man nodded. “I’ll have to admit that holding a lottery for a Central Park West apartment is genius.”
“Thank you.”
Sam had been idly eavesdropping but hearing about the apartment again made her focus her attention even though Central Park West was so out of her league.
“And you don’t even advertise.”
“I don’t have to.”
The movement of the line brought the men closer to Sam and the supply table. People kept cutting through the line which interfered with her eavesdropping.
“…agents do screen, so I’m not taking the wild risk you seem to think.”
“Risk, or not, didn’t you tell everyone to be there at noon?”
Both men checked their watches. Sam did as well. It was twelve-thirty.
Tavish shrugged. “They’ll wait.” He spoke with supreme confidence.
His apartment was being shown at noon. His unadvertised apartment. A sublet. Knowing what she did of New York, Sam knew the sublet was likely illegal. The fact that this didn’t bother her must mean something, but Sam wasn’t going to explore that now. This man in the fake leather cowboy vest had an apartment for rent. Sam needed an apartment. There was no need to complicate matters.
Except maybe to wonder in what kind of apartment a man who wore a fake leather cowboy vest in June might live, but wasn’t that what posters, pillows and artfully placed colorful throws were for?
As the men approached, Sam strained to see the return address on the postcards Tavish labeled. NY, NY. Yeah, yeah. Tell her something she didn’t know. She leaned closer, but at that moment, someone trying to cut through the line jabbed her with an elbow, then bumped into Tavish and his friend.
“Hey, watch it, buddy.” Mr. Titanium Glasses made a rude gesture as several of the postcards fell to the grimy floor.
Not proud, Sam grabbed for one. She intended to give it back—truly she did—but somehow, in the commotion, a strong self-preservation instinct kicked in. She read the printing, “Tavish McLain announces his summer itinerary. In June, he will be on safari and can be reached in care of Mavis Trent Travel…” In July, he’d be summering at a villa in Italy. And so on until Labor Day. Sounded like a great summer. Better than hers, even if she did get the promotion. Must be nice. Sam flipped the card over and there, printed in the upper left-hand corner, was an address.
It had to be his apartment. It had to be.
I make my own luck. Well then. If this wasn’t a sign, she didn’t know what was.
Without giving herself time to reconsider, Sam kept the card and walked out of the post office, hailed a cab, then gave them the address of the apartment.
The man ran a lottery for his apartment. She couldn’t win if she didn’t play the game.
AFTER FLINGING WAY TOO much money—guilt, no doubt—at the cabbie, Sam climbed out of the taxi and looked quickly up and down the street.
Nice neighborhood.
Who was she kidding? Fabulous neighborhood. The kind where all the apartment buildings had snooty uniformed doormen. Except this one, it seemed. There was no doorman, uniformed or otherwise.
Maybe he was performing one of those errands everyone seemed to have doormen perform. Sam only knew this from movies and television and not from personal experience. But she could learn. Would love to learn, in fact.
She pushed open the plate-glass door. And shouldn’t that be a duty of a doorman? she was thinking when her eyes were assaulted by a tableau featuring a man with a pale, hairless chest smack dab in the tiny foyer.
Actually, he was smack dab on a folding lawn chair as he soaked his feet in a plastic wading pool featuring cartoon fishes. He wore baggy blue polka-dot swimming trunks, which clashed with the blue wading pool, she noted, as well as with the lime-green zinc oxide he painted on his nose. And…could that possibly be the Beach Boys? Yes. Definitely the Beach Boys.
“Password?” he shouted over “Surfin’ U.S.A.” He slid his mirrored sunglasses down his nose, which got them gunked up with the zinc oxide.
Password? She should have known good luck always came with a catch. Sam wondered if the password bore any resemblance to the name of a dead president and wished she hadn’t been so generous to the cab driver.
While she considered her next move, the man cleaned the green stuff off his sunglasses and reapplied more to his nose. “I’m waaaaiiiiting,” he sang. Then he cleared his throat and sang it again an octave lower, adding a theatrical vibrato. “Not bad. Certainly good enough for off Broadway, not that there are many musicals off Broadway these days. But better