LITMIR.BIZ

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      When I moved in as a child, Emmie gave me the tiny bedroom on the salon side of the apartment. That room was my own, papered with clippings from Vogue and my own childish sketches, but the rest of the place was decidedly Emmie’s. I knew how quickly people could be wrenched from your life, and I didn’t want to lose Emmie, too. So I learned fast to tiptoe around the Dresden figures on the end table and to always make sure there was scotch in the crystal decanters, ice in the silver bucket. There was no official bedtime at Emmie’s. If one of her salons was in full swing, I could slip through the apartment and stay up as late as I wanted. I liked it better when there was no one there with us, but that wasn’t often.

      “Kyra, Kyra.” Emmie’s voice trilled from the hallway.

      She stepped into the living room, wearing gray wool slacks pressed to a fine point and a black cashmere turtleneck. At that time, Emmie only worked two days a week, acting more as a figurehead at the literary agency than anything else, but she always dressed for the day like a professional. No bathrobes or sweats for Emmie. She has very short auburn-red hair (“I dye it, sweetie, so that I’ll die a redhead” is what she’s always said), and her eyes are still the most striking teal blue.

      “Oh, and you’ve brought a friend! Delightful!” She wafted into the room and kissed me on the cheek, then Declan. “Welcome,” she said. “I’ll get tea.” And then she was gone just as quickly, puttering away in her service kitchen.

      “Nice to meet…” Declan said to her retreating back. He turned to me quizzically.

      “She has a lot of visitors,” I said.

      Soon Emmie was back, carrying a tea tray. Declan jumped off the couch to take it from her.

      “Gallantry,” she said. “It’s so rare these days.”

      She sat on a maroon velvet chair, “the queen’s chair” I used to call it as a kid, and began pouring tea. Her signature ring, a sapphire set in a gold braided band, glinted in the afternoon light that streamed in the windows. “I detected an accent,” she said to Declan. “Tell, tell.”

      “Oh,” Declan said. He looked at me, then back at her. I nodded in encouragement. Emmie always just jumped right into conversations like this—she abhorred pleasantries—and I was used to her running the conversation from the get-go.

      “All right,” Declan said. “Well, I’m Declan McKenna, and—”

      “Declan McKenna? Oh!” Emmie interrupted. She looked at me and smiled. I had told her only a little about our Internet and phone flirtations, but Emmie could read me well enough to know I’d been delighted.

      I shot Declan an embarrassed smile. “We’re just stopping by to say hello, Emmie.”

      “Of course.” She handed Declan a cup. “Are you a writer?”

      “No,” Declan said.

      “Pity. You have the perfect name.”

      “I’m an actor.”

      “Ah.” Emmie sounded disappointed, and Declan, as all men do, rushed in to appease her, telling her how he’d moved to the States from Ireland and how he was in town shooting a film.

      “Mmm,” Emmie said, sounding more impressed now. “And remind me how you two know each other.” Emmie would cut off an arm before she would read the National Enquirer, and I hadn’t told her about my photo.

      “We met in Vegas,” I said.

      “When you were with darling Bobby?” she said.

      I nodded.

      “Interesting.” She patted the chair next to her. “Declan, move over here, won’t you?”

      I groaned a little, but God love him, he crossed the room without hesitation and sat next to her. I remember thinking they looked lovely together: Emmie with her cap of ginger hair and her lined, pale face; Declan with his amused grin, his white teeth, his golden-brown eyes.

      “Do you mind if I smoke?” Emmie said.

      “Christ, no. I’ll have one with you.” Out of his pocket, Declan pulled a red book of matches.

      I left them alone for a moment. When I returned, Emmie was in her prime entertainer mode, telling the story of a dinner she’d had with Prince Charles when he was a teenager. Declan’s quirky, rolling laugh filled the room. He cracked a joke about the royal family “splitting heirs.”

      Emmie laughed and clapped her hands. Then she gave me a little bow of her head. Declan had been accepted.

      When cocktail hour arrived (5:30 p.m., sharp, for Emmie), she whisked the tea tray away and brought out a bottle of champagne in a silver bucket.

      “To Declan,” she said, raising her glass, “and the success of his film.”

      Declan beamed. We all touched glasses.

      Two hours and another bottle of champagne later, Declan and I left Emmie’s apartment. It was dark already, in that strange, sudden way that darkness falls when you’ve been drinking in the late afternoon.

      “She’s fantastic,” Declan said. His hand was in mine again, and we were walking up Madison. We were moving in the direction of my apartment, although we hadn’t planned anything yet.

      “I’m glad you like her,” I said.

      “Now don’t get me wrong, here. She doesn’t hold a candle to you.”

      I sneaked a sideways glance at him. “Is that right?”

      There was a second’s pause, during which we kept walking, both of us looking straight ahead. “I don’t mean to give you a fright saying that,” Declan said. “I’m not usually like this, you see?”

      Have I already said that I was smiling so much that afternoon? It seemed I couldn’t drag that grin off my lips, and right then it became wider. “Sure, I see,” I said.

      Another pause. Declan held my hand tighter. “Where are we going?”

      We’d reached my apartment by then. Without a word, I tugged him toward the door.

      “Yeah?” he said, looking up at my brick building.

      “Yeah,” I said.

      Afterward, when we were lying in bed, he stared at my face. How strange to be studied like that, when there hadn’t been a man in my bed for so long, but how amazing to be there next to him. It was simply right.

      “What kind of name is Felis?” he said, surprising me. I thought he was working up to something sexier.

      “It’s Puerto Rican. My father was from there. My mother was Irish.” I said this proudly, though I’d never been to Ireland or even Puerto Rico, and I knew so little about my heritage.

      “Thank God you’re half-Irish! Now I can marry you,” he said in a jokey tone.

      His words sent a zing up my spine—terror and thrill in equal parts.

      The next morning, Declan slept later than me, and when he came into the kitchen, he found me standing naked at the counter, eating my normal breakfast—pickles and peanuts.

      “Nude breakfast?” he said.

      I nodded. He growled in return.

      “Christ, what’s this?” he said, walking to the counter. He glanced down at the two jars side by side. I had a small serving of peanuts poured into a cap. The pickles I pulled out one by one.

      “Breakfast, just like you said.”

      “What happened to oatmeal and runny eggs and slabs of bacon?”

      “You must be thinking of breakfast in Dublin. But what you’re seeing here is the perfect start to a morning.” I picked up the jar of pickles and waved my hand under it like a game-show hostess. “Vegetables,”

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