LITMIR.BIZ

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By train. Which was another place he didn’t find himself very often. Or, for that matter, ever. This time of day, though, the train was fastest and easiest, and he needed to be back in Manhattan ASAP.

      But as he walked down Greenpoint Avenue toward 44th Street, he couldn’t quite make himself hurry. Queens was different from Manhattan—less frantic, more relaxed. Especially now, at the end of the workday. The sun was hanging low in the sky, bathing the stunted brick buildings in gold and amber. Employees in storefronts were turning over Closed signs as waiters at cafés unfolded sandwich boards with nightly specials scrawled in bright-colored chalk. People on the street actually smiled and said hello to him as he passed. With every step he took, Yeager felt like he was moving backward in time, and somehow, that made him want to go slower. Hannah’s neighborhood was even more quaint than he’d imagined.

      He hated quaint. At least, he usually did. Somehow the quaintness of Sunnyside was less off-putting than most.

      Whatever. To each his own. Yeager would suffocate in a place like this. Quiet. Cozy. Family friendly. Why was a healthy, red-blooded young woman with beautiful silver-gray eyes and a surprisingly erotic lip nibble living somewhere like this? Not that anything Hannah did was Yeager’s business. But he did kind of wonder.

      Her apartment was on the third and uppermost floor of one of those tawny brick buildings, above a Guatemalan mercado. He rang her bell and identified himself, and she buzzed him in. At the top of the stairs were three apartments. Hannah had said hers was B, but before he even knocked on the door, she opened it.

      At least, he thought it was Hannah who opened it. She didn’t look much like the woman he knew from Cathcart and Quinn. The little black half-glasses were gone and the normally bunned-up hair danced around her shoulders in loose, dark gold curls. In place of her shapeless work jacket, she had on a pair of striped shorts and a sleeveless red shirt knotted at her waist. As small as she was, she had surprisingly long legs and they ended in feet whose toenails were an even brighter red than her shirt.

      But what really made him think someone else had taken Hannah’s place was her expression. He’d never seen her be anything but cool and collected. This version looked agitated and anxious.

      “Hannah?” he asked, just to be sure.

      “Yeah, hi,” she said. She sounded even more on edge than she looked. “I’m sorry. I totally forgot about your pickup tonight.”

      “Didn’t my assistant email you yesterday to confirm?”

      “She did, actually. But today was...” She shook her head as if trying to physically clear it of something. But that didn’t seem to work, because she still looked distracted. “I got some, um, very weird news today. But it’s okay, your shirt is finished.” She hurried on. “I just...” She inhaled a deep breath, released it in a ragged sigh...and still looked as if she were a million miles away. “I forgot about the pickup,” she said again. Almost as an afterthought, she added, “Come on in.”

      She opened the door wider and stepped back to get out of his way. Good thing, too, since the room he walked into was actually an alcove that was barely big enough to hold both of them. As he moved forward, Hannah wedged herself behind him to close the door, brushing against him—with all that naked skin—as she did. It was then he noticed something about her he’d never noticed before. She smelled like raspberries. Really ripe, really succulent, raspberries.

      Another step forward took him into her apartment proper, but it wasn’t much bigger than the alcove and seemed to consist of only one room. Yeager looked for doors that would lead to others, but saw only one, which had to be for the bathroom. The “kitchen” was a couple of appliances tucked into another alcove adjacent to the single window in the place, one that offered a view of a building on the next street. The apartment was furnished with the bare essentials for living and the tools of a seamstress’s trade—a sewing machine and ironing board, a trio of torso stands for works-in-progress, stacks of fabric and a rack of plastic-covered garments.

      “I guess my place is a little smaller than yours, huh?” Hannah asked, obviously sensing his thoughts.

      Smaller than his place? Her apartment was smaller than his bedroom. But all he said was, “A bit.”

      She squeezed out of the alcove, past him—leaving that tantalizing scent of raspberries in her wake—and strode to the rolling rack, from which she withdrew one of the plastic-covered garments. As he followed, he noted a half-empty bottle of wine on one of the end tables by the love seat. He thought maybe he’d interrupted a romantic evening she was spending with someone else—the bathroom door was closed—then noted that the near-empty glass sitting behind the bottle was alone.

      “Do you want to try it on before you take it?” she asked. “Just to be sure it fits?”

      Yeager figured it probably wasn’t a bad idea, since he was leaving in two days for South Africa and there wouldn’t be time for Amira to come back for it if it needed alterations. Truth be told, he also wasn’t sure he should leave Hannah alone just yet, what with the wine, the distraction and the anxious look...and, okay, all that naked skin.

      “Yeah, I guess I should, just in case,” he replied.

      As she removed the plastic from the shirt, he tossed his suit jacket onto the love seat, tugged free his tie and unbuttoned the shirt he was wearing. By the time he shed it, she was holding up his new one for him to slip on. She looked a little steadier now and seemed more like herself. His concern began to ease a bit. Until he drew near and saw that her eyes housed a healthy bit of panic.

      It was obvious there was something bothering her. A lot. Yeager told himself that whatever it was, it was none of his business. But that didn’t keep him from wondering. Boyfriend troubles? Family conflicts? Problems at work? He knew nothing about her outside her job. Because there was no reason for him to know anything about her outside her job. There was no reason for him to care, either. That wasn’t to be cold or unfeeling. That was just how he was. He didn’t care about much of anything outside his immediate sphere of existence. Somehow, though, he suddenly kind of cared about Hannah.

      “I’m sorry,” she said as he thrust his arm through the shirt’s sleeve, “but the fabric isn’t exactly the same as the original. Since I was moonlighting, I couldn’t use what we have at work, and that came from Portugal. But I found a beautiful dobby in nearly the same color. I hope it’s okay. It brought the price down a bit.”

      Yeager couldn’t have cared less about the price. He cared about quality and style. Maybe it was superficial, but a man who was the face of a Fortune 500 company had to look good. And, thanks to Hannah, he always did.

      “No, this is good,” he said. “It’s got a great texture. I actually like this one better than the one you made for me at Cathcart and Quinn. Why aren’t you the one they’re sending on buying trips to London and Portugal?”

      “You’ll have to ask Mr. Cathcart that question,” she said in a way that made him think she’d already broached the topic with her employer and been shot down. Probably more than once.

      “Maybe I will,” he said, wondering about his sudden desire to act as her champion. “Or maybe you should just open your own business.”

      As she studied the fit of his shirt, she gestured to the rack of clothes against the wall. “I’m trying.”

      Out of curiosity, Yeager walked over to look at what she’d made for her other clients. He was surprised to see that the majority of items hanging there were children’s clothes.

      “You mostly make stuff for kids?” he asked.

      Instead of replying, Hannah moved to her sewing machine to withdraw a business card from a stack and handed it to Yeager. It was pale lavender, imprinted with the words, Joey & Kit, and decorated with a logo of a kangaroo and fox touching noses. Below them was the slogan, “Glad rags for happy kids.” At the bottom were addresses for a website, an email and a PO box.

      “This is your business?” Yeager asked, holding up the card.

      She

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