Turtle Reader

“Linda,” Art said, placating.

“No,” she said. “Screw it. I’m not here to meet your friends. I came all the way across town to meet you at your office because you wanted to head back to your place after work, and you play headgames with me like this?”

“All right,” Art said. “I’ll show you back out to the lobby and you can wait with Tonaishah while I get my jacket.”

“Don’t take that tone with me,” she said.

“What tone?” Art said. “Jesus Christ! You can’t wait in the hall, it’s against policy. You don’t have a badge, so you have to be with me or in the lobby. I don’t give a shit if you meet Fede or not.”

“I won’t tell you again, Art,” she said. “Moderate your tone. I won’t be shouted at.”

Art tried to rewind the conversation and figure out how they came to this pass, but he couldn’t. Was Linda really acting this nuts? Or was he just reading her wrong or pushing her buttons or something?

“Let’s start over,” he said, grabbing both of her hands in his. “I need to get my jacket from my office. You can come with me if you want to, and meet my friend Fede. Otherwise you can wait in the lobby, I won’t be a minute.”

“Let’s go meet Fede,” she said. “I hope he wasn’t expecting anything special, I’m not really dressed for it.”

He stifled a snotty remark. After all that, she was going to go and meet Fede? So what the hell were they arguing about? On the other hand, he’d gotten his way, hadn’t he? He led her by the hand to his office, and beyond every doorway they passed was a V/DT Experience Designer pretending not to peek at them as they walked by, having heard every word through the tricky acoustics of O’Malley House.

“Fede,” he said, stiffly, “This is Linda. Linda, this is Fede.”

Fede stood and treated Linda to his big, suave grin. Fede might be short and he might have paranoid delusions, but he was trim and well groomed, with the sort of finicky moustache that looked like a rotting caterpillar if you didn’t trim it every morning. He liked to work out, and had a tight waist and a gut you could bounce a quarter off of, and liked to wear tight shirts that showed off his overall fitness, made him stand out among the spongy mouse-potatoes of the corporate world. Art had never given it much thought, but now, standing with Fede and Linda in his tiny office, breathing in Fede’s Lilac Vegetal and Linda’s new-car-smell shampoo, he felt paunchy and sloppy.

“Ah,” Fede said, taking her hand. “The one you hit with your car. It’s a pleasure. You seem to be recovering nicely, too.”

Linda smiled and gave him a peck on the cheek, a few strands of her bobbed hair sticking to his moustache like cobwebs as she pulled away.

“It was just a love tap,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

“Fede’s from New York,” Art said. “We colonials like to stick together around the office. And Linda’s from Los Angeles.”

“Aren’t there any, you know, British people in London?” Linda said, wrinkling her nose.

“There’s Tonaishah,” Art said weakly.

“Who?” Fede said.

“The receptionist,” Linda said. “Not a very nice person.”

“With the eyes?” Fede said, wriggling his fingers around his temples to indicate elaborate eye makeup.

“That’s her,” Linda said.

“Nasty piece of work,” Fede said. “Never trusted her.”

“You’re not another UE person, are you?” Linda said, sizing Fede up and giving Art a playful elbow in the ribs.

“Who, me? Nah. I’m a management consultant. I work in Chelsea mostly, but when I come slumming in Piccadilly, I like to comandeer Art’s office. He’s not bad, for a UE-geek.”

“Not bad at all,” Linda said, slipping an arm around Art’s waist, wrapping her fingers around the waistband of his trousers. “Did you need to grab your jacket, honey?”

Art’s jacket was hanging on the back of his office door, and to get at it, he had to crush himself against Linda and maneuver the door shut. He felt her breasts soft on his chest, felt her breath tickle his ear, and forgot all about their argument in the corridor.

“All right,” Art said, hooking his jacket over his shoulder with a finger, feeling flushed and fluttery. “OK, let’s go.”

“Lovely to have met you, Fede,” Linda said, taking his hand.

“And likewise,” Fede said.