LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter 4

      Working on Saturdays is for suckers, Noelle thought. Which made her the biggest sucker of all since this was the third Saturday in a row she was in the office. She worked the extra hours for no reason other than she wanted to finish the work on a pending case that her boss needed ASAP.

      “Fuck my life,” she muttered as she stepped outside the law firm’s five-story building into the sunshine and eighty-degree heat.

      It was a gorgeous fall day with just the right amount of crispness in the late morning to make her long for a walk to her favorite Cuban bakery for a pastelito and then a stroll back home to savor that hint of cool weather that Miami got blessed with once in a blue moon. But instead of doing that, she’d been at work. Researching, collating that research and sending it off to her boss in a format he could understand.

      Noelle shrugged out of her sweater and draped it over her arm, slid on her sunglasses and walked toward her car. A few feet away from her little red Honda Civic, she stopped mentally complaining for long enough to realize there was somebody leaning on her car.

      “Hey, there.” Margot waved her phone at her. “I was just about to text you.”

      “How did you know that I was here?”

      “You told me you were catching up on some work, remember?”

      Noelle searched her memory but couldn’t find such a conversation. But she shrugged. “Okay. What’s going on?”

      “I’m taking you out to lunch.”

      Noelle looked at her watch and saw it was just past eleven o’clock. She’d been in the office since eight.

      “Come on. I’m parked over there.”

      Margot gestured toward her own car, a black four-door Mercedes parked in the shade.

      Noelle was never one to turn down a free meal. “Okay. Let me just switch out these heels for my flip-flops.” She’d gotten dressed for the office, just in case someone else happened to come in. The professional suit and high heels were comfortable in the office, but now that she was off and on her own time, she felt like putting on sweats and sneakers.

      “No, you should keep on your shoes,” Margot said. “Let’s go.”

      Oh. That meant they were going someplace fancy. With small portions. Lord help her.

      “All right.” Noelle suppressed a sigh, hitched her purse more securely on her shoulder and walked with her sister to her car. The Mercedes still smelled new after nearly a year. The interior was as clean and organized as if Margot had just driven it off the lot. Noelle settled in beside her sister and let Margot sweep her away to parts unknown.

      Parts unknown turned out to be a restaurant in Key Biscayne. Four stars, without listed prices and with a sommelier on staff, according to the menu. Noelle secured her bag under the table with a purse hook and wriggled herself to comfort in the plush chair. Leather and wood cupped her back like the hands of a lover, tucking her sweetly up to the table.

      “This is a nice place,” she felt obliged to say.

      She loved her sister and had known her all her life, so she sensed Margot was up to something. Noelle waited for it, ordering an appetizer and glass of pomegranate juice in the meantime. Margot looked like she was coming from a meeting, wearing one of her obvious power suits with a pair of those red-bottomed shoes she loved so much. She appeared commanding and cold; a look she deliberately cultivated. Sometimes Noelle missed the sister she’d known before their parents left their lives. The sister who played made-up games with her and loved to push her in shopping carts through store parking lots until they were both giggling from the rush.

      Noelle sipped her juice and made small talk with Margot, sneaking peeks at her watch and waiting.

      Then finally Margot said, “This place is nice, right?”

      Noelle let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. “Yeah,” she said. “This is good.” She raised her glass of bright red juice, served in a wineglass with a lemon peel curled on the edge and a sprinkling of pomegranate seeds at the bottom.

      The waiter came then, properly dressed in his dark apron, and presented their appetizers on tiny plates. He was gone so fast it was as if he disappeared into thin air. This was the kind of service Margot liked. Efficient and just about invisible. Noelle picked up her fork and prepared to demolish the prettily presented crab cakes, determined to at least get Margot’s money’s worth before her sister ruined her appetite.

      “This is a nice place,” Margot said again, picking through the sparse leaves of her starter salad with a fork that looked like real silver. “It’s nice to be able to afford a place like this, don’t you think so?” She ate her salad without dressing and tipped her head to look at Noelle with what Margot seemed to think was her most inscrutable expression.

      But Noelle had known Margot long enough to read nearly everything about her. Right now, the slight upward curve of her mouth, the minute quiver of her eyelashes said she was feeling pleased with herself about something. In other people’s company, she laughed often, sometimes even reached out to touch in a show of closeness and connection. When she was being herself, though, she was contained. Barely there smiles instead of laughs, hands still and clasped close to her body. Their parents’ abandonment and then death had changed them both.

      “Yes,” Noelle agreed. “It’s nice you can afford this place and treat me to lunch.” Although she knew that wasn’t the point, Noelle added, “Thanks for inviting me out today.”

      “You know it’s nothing. Anytime I can take my little sister out is a good day.” Margot twirled her fork in a pile of spinach leaves like it was spaghetti.

      “I could take you out to a place like this if that’s what you really want,” Noelle said. “But you’d have to wait until payday.”

      “That’s just my point.” Margot’s eyes snapped with triumph, a subtle shimmering under her thick fan of lashes, the only thing about her that was lush. “Wouldn’t you love to take yourself out for meals like this whenever you want? Without worrying about a paycheck or making payments toward it on your credit card?”

      Noelle shrugged, forked off another piece of crab cake in her mouth—and it practically melted there, buttery and faintly sweet—before she said anything. She slowly chewed, savoring the crab meat on her tongue.

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