Casey's Choice Page 14

  “Monica. Hi!” Her voice was strangled and strange. “Sorry, allergies, something in my throat. Be right back.” She raced for the small bathroom, clutching her hand across her mouth, and heard Blake struggling for sobriety as he spoke.

  “Monica. Casey and I are ready for the two p.m., we’re in complete c-control here.”

  When Casey came back, her boss had disappeared into her office. “Blake! The look on your face was priceless. I almost died. Did she see the tie?”

  “Nope. Total stealth man, here.” He patted his chest.

  “She probably hates us.” Casey rolled her eyes.

  “I doubt it. She lets us handle the high-profile clients, so she must trust us, right? I mean, Mr. Empty Coffee is her latest moneymaker and we get to meet with him. She’s never trusted anyone else to meet with her top buyers.”

  “I know.” Casey’s smile faded. “I have the coffee mugs ready.” She wrinkled her nose at the kitchenette and touched her stomach. “I was so nervous this morning I couldn’t eat. I want to pull this off for her. Show her that I can handle things here.”

  “Me too.” Blake’s smile came and went. “We’re going to kill this, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, I’ve got the plaques dusted until they gleam. There are no marks on the floor. I have the paperwork here, and the painting is on the wall, lit up as requested by three sidelights and two top lights.”

  “It makes strange shadows.” Casey stood up and regarded the work.

  Blake shrugged. “Monica said not to ask about anything, just to be supportive.”

  At the mention of her name, the woman in question entered the room, impeccable and frowning. “Casey. Please brush your hair, yes? MMX will be here in ten minutes.” She checked an elegant Rolex on her slim wrist. “It must all be as we discussed. I trust that you can hold back your mirth for at least an hour without an unorthodox outburst, correct?”

  By the way she patted her hair several times, and the way her fingers tapped on the desktop, Casey could tell that Monica was nervous. She flipped over into work mode. “Absolutely,” she said, stepping to the bathroom to check her hair, which seemed normal, but brushed it anyway. “Monica, we’ll be fine,” she called out as she reentered the room.

  Her boss’ voice was taut. “Please do. If we keep him happy, he’ll use our services to procure future works. This could be a million-dollar client, Casey. He usually plays with galleries; we’re the tenth he’s gone through in a year. He’ll ask a gallery to procure a piece for him, and oh, he pays for it. But then he asks them to do something ridiculous, complains that they don’t meet his needs, and he moves on to another. I’d love for us to land him as a return client. If you can be a consummate professional, I think we might just pull it off.” She winced, her hand hovering over the waist of her suit before she placed it onto the desktop. When her phone buzzed, she glanced at the number, over to the door, and back to her phone. “I need to take this.” She started for her office.

  “Monica?”

  “I said, I’ll be back. I have an urgent call. If he comes, you start the meeting and handle him as we discussed.” Monica’s voice was sharp. “Do not disturb me.” She disappeared into her office and shut the door.

  “Blake?” Casey turned her eyes to her friend. She gestured toward Monica’s office.

  His response was a shrug. “Fuck if I know.”

  The front gallery door opened and there was no time for discussion, because their client had arrived. “Greetings.” MMX Bailey stood before them, resplendent in a suit of golden sequins and tall, high-heeled red boots. His hair was long and blond, and adorned with several stuffed birds that looked so realistic that Casey almost took a step back.

  “Welcome to our gallery,” Casey said, pasting her best “nice to meet you, and I am not surprised in the slightest at your appearance, which is unorthodox even for the art world” expression onto her face.

  “It looks like every other gallery I’ve seen.” Their guest’s voice was flat.

  “Yes, well, but what makes us special is not what’s on the outside, but what we can provide for you. We are a gallery who work with clients personally to get the perfect art for them.”

  “Welcome,” added Blake, possibly, thought Casey, because he felt as stuck for words as he looked.

  “I do not feel especially welcome,” announced their guest, looking around, spending time on several works of art, and wrinkling his mouth. “I feel like I’m in Grand Central Station.”

  Blake clutched his hands together. “Please let us tell you how thrilled we are to have you as a client.”

  “Yes!” Casey stood beside him, two children asking a grownup for dessert. “We will devote ourselves to finding you the art that matches your style and desires.”

  “I could do with a drink.” MMX gave Casey a glance. “As per my instructions.”

  “Of course. I have your coffees coming right up.” Casey stepped into the kitchen and returned with one full mug of coffee, and one empty mug. She shot Blake a wide-eyed plea and he held up both hands behind MMX’s back, finger crossed, and gave her a look of sympathy.

  MMX’s pointed at the empty mug. “This one isn’t empty.”

  “It is empty.” Casey kept her voice bright.

  “It is not.”

  Casey darted her eyes to Monica’s door, but it remained closed, and no sounds came out from behind it. She leaned forward, widening her eyes at Blake in supplication, but he shook his head.

  “Um, well, let me just take care of that.” Casey picked up the empty mug and pretended to pour the contents into the full one. “There. Empty.” She was Alice. This was Wonderland. Lucky Abby, with her weekend dom, and her million-dollar job with predictably unpredictable toddlers who didn’t hold your career in their—was that purple polished?—fingertips.

  “It is still full.”

  Casey bit her lip and looked again toward Monica’s door. “Perhaps my boss can help? If I can just go get her—”

  “I want you to take care of this for me. A topnotch gallery can take care of their clients without running to the boss for every tiny detail.”

  “Would you like to examine your painting while Casey prepares a new empty cup?” Blake gestured at the wall. “It’s ready with the lights as you requested.” He sounded desperate.

  “Not until I’ve enjoyed my drink. If you can’t do it, I’ll find a gallery who can.”

  “Oh, we can do it,” Blake’s voice was adamant. “Right, Casey? We can do it.”

  “Yes.” Casey licked her lower lip.

  MMX shrugged one shoulder and turned his head away. “I suppose it doesn’t really matter after all,” he said. In the light from the window, the wrinkles under his eyes were more prominent, and his expression, which should have been a complex of sanctimonious condescension and irritation, based on his words, simply looked tired. “Just tell me about the picture I bought, then. More about Martin Wong. His life and death.”

  Casey was surprised with a sudden surge of compassion for this strange, prickly person, who dangled a prize of financial security and success just above their heads, but who also seemed to be tantalized by his own hard-to-reach desires.

  Blake made a sound beside her, and gave her a beseeching look. Monica was nowhere. Casey realized it was up to her to solve this riddle, to work out the mystery of what MMX Bailey needed. It surely wasn’t coffee, and it wasn’t obsequious attention. Certainly not consummate professionalism. Maybe, she considered, MMX was someone else on the outside, like she was at the BDSM club. Perhaps MMX was stuck in his own Sofia role, and didn’t know how to break out.

  She got up. “Wait here,” she ordered, “I’ll be right back.” She poured two full cups of coffee and brought them out, trying to glide like a ghost, so as not to spill.

  “Here.” She put the mugs down between herself and MMX. “I can’t do this for you. You’ll have to empty the mug yourself.”

  MMX turned. “Yes?”

 
; She took a deep breath. “Either you’re a psychopathic asshole, or you’re a fascinating person, and I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and go with fascinating. You’ve gone through ten galleries this year alone, asking them to do things like this coffee stunt and then walking out. But you take a lot of time and energy to do it, so it must mean something to you.” She shook her head. “So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re each going to empty out our own mugs, together. And then we can fill them up with anything we choose.”

  MMX didn’t speak.

  “We’re going to pour them out right here onto this white fluffy carpet beneath the expensive couches where we’re sitting, and we’re going to create unsalvageable stains. Now I’m not the kind of person who believes in augury from reading tea leaves or coffee grounds, but I’m pretty damn sure that the marks are going to tell you what you came here to find.”

  Blake poked her, not gently. “Casey. Monica paid over three thousand dollars for that rug. I don’t think…”

  MMX smiled for the first time. “I like you.”

  “Are you ready?” Casey pointed at the cups, and he nodded.

  They each picked up a cup of coffee and poured it onto the white rug.

  Casey felt a sense of sick anticipation; this was either going to be a raging success, or she’d be out of a job in about ten minutes, and she had no idea which would prevail. Still, it was mesmerizing to watch the thick material absorb the coffee like a sponge, to see the spreading patch of brown. It looked like caramel, soft, wet.

  MMX seemed likewise intrigued, and together they watched the carpet for a long minute. When Casey set her mug back onto the table, she said, “I didn’t do this for you.” Her voice was low. “Not just for you. There’s something I need to empty out of my soul, too, so I can fill it back up with what I want.” She thought about Sofia, Hunter, Max. It was time to come clean, no matter what happened. She was ready to grow up. “But it’s also for you. I hope it helps you find what you’re looking for.”

  Blake stared at the carpet and wrung his fingers together. “Casey, Casey, this is, oh, God, Monica is going to skin you like a rodent from Louisiana, a nutria, it’s like a very large rat, did you know they have a problem with them? She’ll kill you and sell your fur. Oh Good Sweet Baby Jesus.”

  MMX gestured at the wall. “Do you know why I asked for the lights to be set up like that?”

  Casey nodded. She realized that she did know, now; maybe she’d known all along, and it just took a jolt to make her look at things from a new perspective. “You wanted to see it in a way that nobody has ever thought to examine it before. That makes it new. It makes you the first, in a way, to view it. It gives you a relationship with this piece of art that nobody before in history has ever had, or will have again.”

  MMX walked to the wall and looked at the painting. “I think I chose well this time,” he said. “Have it sent to my address. I don’t need the lights.” He hesitated, then pointed. “I’ll take that carpet, too.”

  Blake sucked in his breath and his face lit up so hard that he seemed to glow. He squeaked with joy as he rushed over to move chairs and pull off the patch of fabric.

  “And I’ll be back.” MMX nodded. “I’ll work with you directly. I think I’ve found the gallery that gets me.”

  When he left, Casey exploded into a happy scream, and Blake pulled her up into his arms and twirled her around until they both slammed into her desk and knocked papers and pens to the floor.

  “We did it, we did it!” Casey shouted. “The struggle is real, and we survived!”

  Blake chortled and swung her again. His voice was light and happy. “Casey, you slayed! I’m going to sit you at a special table at my wedding, the one reserved for Goddesses. You can handle that, right?”

  Settling back into themselves, rearranging hems and hair, both of them fell silent as they peered over at Monica’s door. “She didn’t even come out once. What the hell?” Blake’s voice was curious, worried.

  “I don’t know. But she has her ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign up, so… I guess she wants privacy?” Casey’s voice trailed off. This was different in a big enough way to be concerning, but still barely within the eccentric boundaries of Monica’s behavior, so she wasn’t sure what to feel.

  “We’ll wait another half hour, then knock, so we can brag about MMX,” Blake announced.

  * * *

  That evening, Casey relaxed in yoga pants, petting the cats who came and went on her couch on a schedule that made sense only in their strange feline brains, drinking her favorite Teavana brew, Blueberry Bliss, and talking with Echo.

  “OMG. The look on Blake’s face when I poured the coffee onto the rug? Priceless. Now a photograph of that could sell for a million. Such a true expression.”

  “I can’t believe you did that.” Echo’s voice said just the opposite. “Except it’s the kind of thing you do. Good job, you reprobate. And your boss was okay with this?”

  “Yes, well, once she came out of her Boss Cave and I told her, she was pleased. She’s been distracted lately, though, and it’s weird. It’s like she’s off her game, for some reason.”

  “Well, maybe she’s been sneaking into a top-secret BDSM club.” Echo tossed a cat toy, a partially chewed-up mouse made of cloth and feathers, at Casey.

  “God. What if it was the same one, and I saw her there? I’d die. Literally.” Casey laughed, thinking of the horror. “But it’s not her scene. It’s a younger, hotter crowd.” But thinking of the club had her pensive. “I’m going to tell him next time, Echo. That was the whole reason I poured the coffee.”

  “Oh. Because yes, it’s very natural to link the two in your mind. Tell a hot guy the truth equals ruin boss’s décor with Starbucks. Totes normal.”

  Casey threw the cat toy back, giggling when it almost landed in Echo’s tea. “Sorry not sorry! Seriously. It’s been bothering me, and not in a little way. It’s like a kind of itch in my soul, and if I don’t clear the thing out I’m going to scratch open my chest or something. I can’t handle being such a fraud. I’d never make it as a con man.”

  “I’m glad you’re going to tell him. I hope he’s cool with it and doesn’t act like a jerk.” Echo leaned forward and patted Casey’s hand. “I’m in your corner.”

  “Thanks. I have a feeling I need all the support I can get.”

  * * *

  When Casey entered the foyer on Friday, she could only focus on one thing: No matter what happened, she was going to tell him tonight, at some point. She would enter as Sofia, and it might take her a while to work up her courage to do it, but she was going to leave that party tonight as Casey.

  She took a deep breath and looked at Le Rêve. Lit up, the iconic masterpiece gave away nothing unusual, no insights into Hunter or the situation at hand. Casey felt her neck prickle as if she were being watched—but that was probably just her own guilt, because Le Rêve didn’t have those Mona Lisa eyes that followed you everywhere in the quiet room.

  Too quiet—she noticed the silence. Frowning, she pulled her phone out of her clutch; it was 11:30 p.m. And it was Friday. Had the club been cancelled? Her eyes widened and she turned back to the door. But no, the doorman had let her in, impassive and accepting.

  “Hello?” she called, then walked to the second set of doors. “Hunter? Are you guys here?”

  When she pushed open the doors, she gave a gasp of surprise to find Hunter and Max sitting in two straight-backed chairs in the middle of the room, with a third chair facing theirs, and a spanking bench in view of the arrangement. “Oh! You startled me there. I didn’t—where is everyone?”

  “This is it for tonight,” Hunter said. “Just the three of us. Sit down… Sofia.” He pointed to the empty chair.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Just—us? But why?” She came over, holding her clutch in front of her stomach. “You didn’t text me back today, Hunter.”

  She’d sent him a flirty message.

  Wearing my black thong and thinking
of how you’ll take it off with your teeth. Can’t wait to get to know you better.

  “I thought we could talk here,” Hunter said, his voice easy, but something in his eyes sparked at her, and the set of his jaw looked angry. “I agree—think it’s time we got to know you better. As club leadership representatives.”

  Casey swallowed hard and sat down, her face flushing. “Know me better?” The chair was so close to theirs, both of theirs, that she had to pull her knees up to avoid touching theirs. She looked at her fingers, then up at Hunter’s face.

  “Exactly.” Max took a sip from a glass of wine and set it on a small table between him and Hunter. “Just a conversation, to learn more about each other. What drives you? Where do you see yourself in five years? A few things about you confused me from our talk earlier this week.”

  “In five years?” Casey frowned and tugged at the hem of her black mini-dress. It was quite covering compared to the usual club attire, but she felt naked.

  “Sure. Don’t we all have long-term goals? What are yours?”

  “Can I have a glass of wine, if we’re going to chat?” She pressed her knees together and wiggled her toes in her tall pumps. She’d worn extra sexy heels today, hoping that Hunter would admire her legs and that such admiration might ease the way to an admission. Right now, that admiration was the last thing on her mind.

  “Certainly. Max, do the honors?” Hunter gestured to a third glass sitting on the table. “Fill it. I think she’ll need it.”

  “Why would I need it?” Casey’s fingers trembled as she accepted the glass. The red liquid swirled in the glass, reflecting the chandelier’s golden light in hundreds of sparkles, refracted from the ornate cut crystal.

  “Oh, I think you’ll figure it out in a few minutes. Drink.” Max gave her a stern look. Casey gulped the wine. “That’s a 2011 Napa Valley Screaming Eagle,” observed Max. “Usually savored.”

  “Well, in five years, I hope to be—further ahead in my career.” Casey bit her lip. “Have a set of amazing friends. Do regular volunteer activities.”