Deceptive Innocence (7 page)

chapter nine

T
he dress I
picked for the interview was based on Travis’s 1980s “Addicted to Love” aesthetic tastes. There’s nothing more pathetic than people who think “retro” and “modern” are interchangeable fashion concepts.

But that look isn’t for Lander. For him, I put on a pair of skinny jeans, a white tee that’s just fitted enough with a cropped secondhand brown leather jacket and a few long silver chains I picked up at the Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market.

Funny, but the clothes I know will impress Lander are the clothes I actually like to wear.

A tiny voice in my head tells me to be wary of that, that any commonality with the enemy is a warning sign, not a convenience.

He had wanted to pick me up—or maybe he just wanted to find out where I lived. I came up with an excuse for why he couldn’t arrive at my doorstep, but I didn’t bother coming up with a
good
excuse. It didn’t matter if he believed me or not. It only mattered that he wanted me enough to ignore the fact that he didn’t believe me. Men are incredibly easy that way.

When I arrive at the restaurant—a popular Italian place, his pick—he’s already there, waiting at a table in an outfit that looks almost designed to complement mine: dark-blue jeans and a creamy cotton pullover, long sleeves pushed up on his forearms, five buttons at the neck, the top one undone. Very casual and, oddly, very sexy. He’s drawing something on a piece of scratch paper, but when he spots me across the room he folds it up and puts it in the pocket of his jacket, which hangs over the back of his chair. The pen he leaves idle on the table.

“You’ve gotten all your errands done?” he asks as I sit down, his tone somewhat bemused.

“Virtually.” I take my seat across from him, giving away nothing.

A waiter arrives with two cocktails. “I hope you don’t mind,” Lander says, “I thought you’d like their specialty.”

I examine the two cocktails. His drink, which appears to be bourbon on the rocks, looks considerably simpler than mine, which is . . . something mixed with several other things and garnished with a twist.

“You like to add interesting flourishes to your alcoholic beverages, don’t you?” he asks, his voice casual, though immediately I think of my garnet ring.

“Why do you say that?” I ask, matching his tone.

“You’re a bartender. All bartenders like intricate mixed drinks.”

Is he playing with me? I can’t quite tell. I hold up my drink and smile. “Well, let’s see if this ends up being a little too interesting for me.”

We clink glasses. My drink tastes of bourbon and grapefruit and bitters. A little comfort, a little tart, a little bitter . . . not a bad balance to try to strike in life. But then, I gave up striving for balance a long time ago.

“You realize that this is our first date?”

I smile, nod. “It’s very . . . traditional of us, isn’t it?”

“What would have been traditional is if we had started with dating and worked our way up.”

“I meant that having dinner together is normal, and up until now nothing about us has been . . . normal.
You’re
not normal.”

“You don’t think so?” He picks up his menu, studies the choices. A few tables over a group of slightly drunk voices launch into a rendition of “Happy Birthday.”

“I’ve been to your penthouse,” I say, taking another sip of my drink. “I’ve been . . . in your limo.”

That causes his eyes to flicker up to mine, his smile growing a bit more mischievous.

“I know how you live,” I continue. “I know that the clothes you wear are expensive as hell . . . and I know you don’t have to go to a dive bar in Harlem to get cheap drinks. It’s totally out of your way and it takes you way out of your element. Yet you’re a regular there.
That’s
not normal.”

Lander hesitates a moment before lowering the menu. “I like . . . I like the clarity of the people that frequent Ivan’s.”

“Seriously? Most of the people in that bar are too wasted to have clarity about anything.”

“That’s not what I mean . . .” He takes a moment, gathers his thoughts, and starts again. “That girl with the rainbow hair, it took me about fifteen seconds to realize that she has a drug problem.”

“Wow,” I say as I scan the appetizers on the menu. “You’re a real Sherlock Holmes.”

“That’s my whole point.” He picks up the pen and starts drawing on the back of a paper napkin. “I didn’t have to figure it out. If she were advertising her addiction with a neon sign it couldn’t have been any clearer.” From my position I can make out that he’s drawing someone in a biker’s jacket. “That man I got in a fight with, he doesn’t like himself very much, so he uses violence and intimidation to give himself a sense of self-worth. The guy I gave the two hundred dollars to, he’s an alcoholic with no family and no home and a lot of money problems.”

“Lander, he literally told you all that. He stood by your side and he said—”

“I know what he said, I was listening.” His pen is still moving. It’s almost as if he’s unaware he’s the one moving it. It’s like a tic, except in this case his “tic” is creating something rather interesting. “That’s why I like Ivan’s so much. All I have to do is watch and listen to know what the people there are all about. I
know
what their issues are.” The biker he draws has his fist raised as he shouts at an invisible foe. “The people I work with, the people who live in my sliver of Manhattan, they have a lot of the same issues. But it can take months before you realize that your secretary has a Valium addiction. Alcoholics disguise themselves as wine connoisseurs because they have enough money to float their addiction ‘responsibly,’ and others who aren’t making enough to support their way of life are buttressed by credit cards. You never know what
anyone’s
issues are.”

“And the bullies?” I ask. The waiter approaches our table, but Lander waves him away.

“There are plenty of those, and they all look and dress like me. We all shop at the same stores, work in similar jobs . . . It can be incredibly hard to distinguish them from everyone else, and many of them are so subtle in their aggression that you don’t know you’re a target until you’re already down for the count.” He studies his picture for a moment, his forehead creasing as if he’s in the middle of solving a puzzle.

“I spend all day, every day,” he says, somewhat distractedly, “trying to peel back the layers, trying to peek behind the curtain, trying to figure out who the people I’m dealing with really are, trying to figure out what they really want and what they really need. It’s a game . . . and I’m not bad at it.” Carefully he writes the word
Cries
under the picture. “But I get tired,” he continues. “So I go to bars where the people aren’t hiding behind curtains pretending to be Oz. I go to places where the patrons dance around with rainbow-colored hair or snarl behind grizzled beards.” He writes the word
in
. “I go to places where I know exactly who and what I’m dealing with at all times.” He smiles to himself as he finishes the title of his art with the word
Rebuke. Cries in Rebuke
.
“
At Ivan’s, that’s the way it is.” He suddenly looks up from his picture and meets my eyes before adding, “I’ve always known who I’m dealing with at Ivan’s . . . except when it comes to you.”

My mouth rises into a one-sided smile. “I’m the only one at Ivan’s you couldn’t figure out, so I’m also the only one you took home. You say you don’t like complications, but”—I lift my drink, take another sip—“I think the lady doth protest too much.”

Lander laughs and now catches the waiter’s eye, letting him know it’s all right to approach. “Are you a fan of Shakespeare?”

“I know a few of his plays.”

The waiter takes our orders. For himself, Lander gets the escolar appetizer and fettuccine as an entrée, then he orders for me, a spring pea salad and branzino, before topping it off with a rather expensive bottle of wine to share.

“So you’re an artist?” I ask and take another long sip of my cocktail.

“I doodle,” he says quickly. He briefly holds up the picture, giving me just a few seconds to examine it before folding it up and tucking it into his pocket. It’s as if he’s suddenly embarrassed to have it in the open, as if he hadn’t thought I’d notice what he was doing.

It
is
a kind of tic
, I think to myself. When he ponders things he draws . . . it’s a little odd, but then, at least it’s helpful to me. It means that those drawings I saw at his place are a peek into something . . . deeper.

“You’re right, you know,” he says as if trying to draw my attention away from the picture. “I did choose to take home the most complicated girl at the bar. For instance, after talking to you for five minutes I sensed that you were well-educated . . . most well-educated women don’t work at bars like that.”

“Most well-educated men don’t frequent them,” I counter.

Our conversation is momentarily put on hold as the waiter comes back and pours a small amount of red wine into Lander’s glass. Lander swirls it almost impatiently before tasting it and giving his nod of approval. When my glass is filled, I take a moment to admire the color, which is so dark it’s luscious. I would wear this color if I found it in a dress. Lander’s right: The rich disguise their sins so well. Their vices are actually made pretty . . . before they turn ugly.

“When you quit, you didn’t do the expected thing,” Lander continues as the waiter retreats again. “You didn’t seek employment at a different, better bar. No, I run into you on the streets of the Upper East Side looking like you just stepped off the pages of some cutting-edge style guide. That’s a pretty dramatic switch.”

“Guess I’m a Renaissance woman.”

“And then when I asked you to come home with me, you said yes, but you were conflicted. There were moments when I thought . . . the way you looked at me sometimes . . .”

“It made your heart melt,” I say teasingly.

“It made me think you wanted to hate me.”

I hesitate a moment, take another drink. “I don’t want to hate you,” I lie.

“Who are you, Bellona?”

A warrior
. That’s what I want to say. But instead I shrug bashfully. “If I’m mysterious, Lander, I’m certainly no more so than you. I’ve . . .
been
with you twice, I’m about to share a meal with you now, and I still don’t even know your last name.”

He’s taken aback for a moment and then laughs, genuinely. He truly didn’t realize he’d kept this fact from me. “I guess I haven’t been so forthcoming either, have I?” He smiles and casually says, “My last name is Gable.”

“Gable,” I repeat, then I widen my eyes with practiced surprise. “
Gable?
You’re not any relation to Travis Gable, are you?”

“Yes,” he says warily. “He’s my brother.”

The waiter returns with a breadbasket as I prepare to launch into a performance. “Lander—that’s who I just interviewed with. Travis and Jessica Gable. I’m going to be Jessica’s personal assistant!”

Lander looks at me for a moment, his face washed of emotion. I can’t read him at all.

“Seriously,” I press. “I mean, what are the odds? I can’t believe—”

“No.”

He says the word so quietly I’m not sure I heard him correctly. The restaurant is bustling with laughter and chatter. “Did you say—”

“NO.”

Our appetizers come but neither of us reach for our utensils as the food is placed in front of us. “No . . . what?”

“You can’t work for my brother.”

“Actually, I can.” I pause before deciding to throw on a carefree grin as if he hadn’t overstepped. “Although technically I’m working for Jessica.” I pick up my fork and stab my salad. “I’ll only be doing things for your brother when . . . well, when he needs me. I still can’t believe the guy’s your brother. Are you sure we’re talking about the same—”

“Don’t do this.”

“Lander, I was a personal assistant before I started working at Ivan’s. The bartending gig was really more of a holdover than anything else. This PA job is just perfect. And the pay—”

“Listen to me!” he snaps, stopping me short. The people at the next table send him a quick, curious glance before turning their attention back to their meals.

“Bell, you have to understand,” Lander continues. “My brother—” He pauses as he searches for the right word before finishing with, “My brother is an
asshole
.”

I break into a fit of giggles, making a display of levity as I mentally parse out his reaction and comments. The sibling rivalry between Lander and his brother isn’t exactly a secret, but from all appearances it’s a
friendly
rivalry. In fact, my studies and observations had led me to believe that the two brothers had actually become closer over the last few years. I’m pretty sure that’s what
everybody
believes. But that’s apparently not the case. So perhaps the brotherly love is all just for show?

I let my laughter die down and take another forkful of salad.

“This isn’t a joke,” Lander presses.

“I can deal with your brother. I’ve always been skilled at managing men.”

“I didn’t say he’s a man. I said he’s an asshole.”

“There’s a difference?” I snap before I can stop myself, then grin teasingly to take away the impact.

“Bell, please don’t do this.”

I sit back and really study his face. He’s completely serious, but he doesn’t look angry . . .

. . . he looks worried.

Could he actually be
worried
about me?

“I need you to trust me,” I say. And in a way it’s true: I need him to trust me so I can betray him.

I stare down at my hands clutching the fork and knife.

This is the first time you’ve thought about what you’re doing in terms of betrayal.

It’s the silent whispered voice in my head, moving me toward something that bears a dangerous resemblance to guilt.

“I can handle myself,” I continue. “But if there’s something I should know about your brother, you should tell me now. Don’t ask me to step away from a very lucrative job just because you have sibling rivalry issues. Tell me
why
your brother is an asshole. What
exactly
has he done?”