The Stranger Just One Night Part 1(22)

“He was so enthusiastic for the first half of the tour,” she continues, “and then . . . something happened in that office.”

The wind is picking up, lifting my hair, chilling my neck. “I didn’t notice,” I say. My car’s in sight now. I reach for my keys.

“You did,” Asha says, “and now you’re denying it. I wonder why?”

I turn my profile to the wind so I can look at her. I hadn’t expected her brazenness and I speculate on whether or not a confrontation is brewing. But she doesn’t say any more until we reach my car and even then she only adds a cheerful good-bye as she continues her walk to her own vehicle.

Asha started at our firm only weeks before I arrived. All these years I had quietly admired her mystery. Only now does it occur to me that she might be dangerous.

I get in my car, grip the wheel, and breathe, waiting for my thoughts to catch up to my actions. Looking up at my reflection in the rearview mirror I touch the freckle that I forgot to cover up this morning. When did I become so careless? When did I become one of the lost?

But that’s an easy question to answer. I got lost at the Venetian in Vegas.

If I want to find my way, I have to retrace my steps. Find that path I strayed from, rediscover the joy of being loyal to one man. If I can mentally retrace my steps, I can leave this insane detour behind.

At eight I’m meeting Dave for dinner, but that’s well over three hours away.

I pick up my phone and call Simone.

* * *

WHEN I GET to Simone’s condo, it’s just short of five o’clock. She waves me in. On her beige couch are leopard-print throw pillows; on the walls, framed black-and-white photographs of women and men dancing, the sensuality of their movement caught in a split-second pose.

“Can I get you something to drink?” she asks. “Tea? Sparkling water?”

“Maybe a cocktail?”

She pauses a moment and looks out the window at the smoggy blue sky. She knows I rarely drink before sunset. It’s a rule my mother taught me when I was young. “Drinking is for the moon,” she would say as she poured her wine. “Darkness hides our smaller sins. But the sun isn’t so forgiving. Light requires the innocence of sobriety.”

But how innocent had I been when I drank water in Mr. Dade’s waiting room, fixing the buttons on my shirt? How many sins have I already committed in the brightness of day? The rules are changing and I need a cocktail to deal.

Simone disappears into the kitchen and returns with two glasses, one for her, one for me. The clear liquid does have the look of chastity but the bite of something much better. I take several sips and lower myself onto her sofa. She places herself on the armrest by my side.

“You always tell me your secrets,” I say. One of those leopard throw pillows presses against my back.

“And you never tell me any of yours,” she replies, lightly.

It’s not true. I told Simone about my sister once. I told her about her blinding brilliance and her energy that was as powerful as it was frightening. But Simone didn’t know those confessions were secrets. For her a secret was something no one knew, not something everyone was trying to forget.

“I never had any secrets before,” I say, using her definition.

“Before.” She says the word carefully, tasting its meaning. She curls a lock of her golden hair around her index finger like a ring.

“You know, secrets and mysteries, they have . . . weight. I’ve enjoyed traveling light.”

“What kind of weight are you carrying, Kasie?”

When I don’t answer, she changes tact. “When did you start having secrets?”

“In Vegas,” I whisper.

“I knew it!” Simone leans forward and places her glass on the coffee table with a triumphant thump. “You were different when you came back to the room—”

“I told you, I had a drink with a man in the bar with glass walls.”

Simone swats aside my words like irksome flies. “There was more.” She gets up as if standing over me will force out my story a little faster. “When I left you at the blackjack table you were still that woman without secrets. And now?” She shrugs.

“Now I’m something different.” I turn my focus inward, gathering up the courage to continue. “I betrayed him.”

“Dave?”

“Yes Dave. He’s the only man I have the power to betray.”

Simone turns out her left leg, shifting her weight forward to her toes. She looks like the immobile dancers on her wall. “It was more than a kiss?”

“Yes, more than a kiss.”

A slow smile forms on her lips. “You slept with a stranger.”