“I’m sorry I ever even hired that girl,” Marcia said with an edge to her voice that approached the one she had when she discussed his mother. She sat beside him on the couch. “But I did and you just have to put it behind you, Mason.”
“She doesn’t want me.” There. He said it and was finally coming to understand, without one word from her since she had walked away from him, that it was true. And the world wasn’t going to end because of it. It was only going to be a pale imitation of what it had been in the three or so days he’d spent with her.
“If she doesn’t want you, then she’s a hell of a lot dumber than I gave her credit for being.”
“She doesn’t care about my money.”
“I’m not talking about your money!” She tipped his chin up, and he jerked it away, not looking at her.
“You are such a wonderful boy, Mason.”
He had to smile, just a little, at the “boy.” He’d always be a boy to Marcia. “I’m a nut, odd…awkward.”
“Now, that’s your mother talking.”
“That’s Camilla talking.”
She shot up from the couch. “Did that girl have the goddamn nerve to say that to you? I’m going to call her up and give her such a piece of my mind!”
He pulled her back down. “No, of course she didn’t say that. She’s… She’s wonderful.”
“Not in my book, she ’aint.”
The outer door opened and a man, dressed in neatly pressed trousers and a plaid shirt, started to enter, a roll of plans under his arm. Upon seeing the both of them sitting there, he backed out instead.
“No, that’s okay Frank,” he said. “Come on in. What do you have there?”
“I don’t want to bother you, Mr. Talbot. I was just fixing to leave this and set up an appointment with Miss White here to maybe talk to you about them, whenever you get a moment.”
“I have a moment now.” He held his hand out, but Marcia swiped the roll away before he could take it.
“No, he doesn’t,” she said. “Sorry. But I’ll check your calendar and set something up next week, how’s that?”
“Oh, fine, just fine.” The poor guy practically sprinted out.
“Give me those,” Mason said to Marcia when the door closed behind him.
“No. You can look at them tomorrow or whenever.”
“You didn’t need to chase him out like that.”
“See, like that. Like Frank.”
“What about him?”
“You think most folks in your position would take somebody like him in, put him in the training program, somebody who I happen to know hasn’t had an address for the last year or so, and give him a chance? Hell no!”
He shrugged. “The guy’s a natural. I bet I’m going to look at those plans and be impressed.”
“And I bet if you aren’t, you’re going to give him another chance and work with him. Don’t think I don’t know you made sure he got some help at AA.”
“You don’t have to do everything for me, Marcia. I can make a call on my own once and a while.”
“Well, don’t get used to it,” she snapped. “Anyway, I’m just trying to say you’re a good person, and if Miss High and Mighty doesn’t see it, then she isn’t.”
He rested his head against the back of the couch. “Thanks. But she is a good person. I think she just… I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”
“Have you called her?”
“I thought you wouldn’t discuss specifics about me and her?”
“I can discuss a phone call. So the answer is probably no, right?”
He shook his head, feeling lost and anxious as always at the thought of Camilla. And he’d thought of her a lot this past month. Kind of with every waking breath…and sleeping, too, since he dreamed about her—long, silky dreams where they touched and talked and laughed. Some where she just smiled. Even some where she actually had all her clothes on. “She asked me to give her time. Wouldn’t calling her be reneging on that? Though, fuck, I’ve picked up the phone a dozen times.”
“Which means a hundred times.”
“Hundred and fifty, tops.”
They smiled at each other.
“So you’re really going through with this tonight? The whole burrito?”
He stood up. “I am. Time for me to get out into the real world, I guess.”
He added, heading back to his own office, “Though I have no idea what that expression you just used means.”
Camilla continued boxing up the contents of her studio apartment as her sister Carly sipped a Diet Coke and watched the proceedings.