But she hadn’t heard from him since.
She knew the blush that was the bane of her existence was now creeping up her neck but hoped the dusky light concealed it. “Yeah, you weren’t around when I was here in April.”
“I was in DC, meeting with this task force I’m on. I hear you’re back for our class reunion .”
“My mother’s doing, not mine. She signed me up. The half-dozen people who emailed saying how great it was I would be there made me feel guilty enough that I didn’t have the nerve to back out.”
“Not like you to give in to social pressure.”
“Maybe I’m getting soft in my old age.”
“Better work on your argument, counselor. No one who’s ever met you will believe that one.” He’d kept his hand on her shoulder and was studying her face. “You look great. West Coast agrees with you, doesn’t it?”
“It does. As much as Philly agrees with you. Every time I see you, I wonder if there’s a portrait turning wrinkled, soft and flabby in an attic somewhere. I swear to God you still look like the guy the yearbook described. Let’s see: best athlete in the class with the body to show for it. A smile that would melt glaciers. Brown eyes every girl wants to get lost in.” She glanced over his broad shoulders and trim body in jeans and a denim jacket, and up at his handsome face. “Yup, all still there.”
He dropped his arm, laughed and made a very Italian gesture, one that even a non-Italian, at least a non-Italian from Philadelphia, would recognize. “Jesus, Margo, leave it to you to remember that shit.” He motioned toward her empty hands. “Not to change the subject but, no luggage? You’re not staying with your mom?”
“Impressive analytic skills. No wonder you made detective on your first try. Congratulations on that, by the way. Where’re you working?”
“Thanks. I’m working with the white-collar crime unit.”
She looked embarrassed. “Good choice. You had a running start on the subject fifteen years ago, didn’t you?”
“Are you evading my question about where you’re staying, Madame Prosecutor? Can’t imagine you let witnesses do something like that.”
“No, sir, Detective Alessandro, I do not. I’m staying at the Bellevue. Between a conference in Center City next week and not wanting to go to the reunion feeling like the twelve-year-old I seem to turn into when I stay here, I thought it best.”
“Sounds like neither one of us is too anxious to go to this thing.” He looked away from her and stuck his hands in his jeans pockets.
“Why are you worried? I thought you went to all our class reunion s.”
“This time, Nicole will be there.”
He didn’t need to say more; she knew the story. Nicole, who’d been his off-again, on-again high school girlfriend and then fiancée, broke their engagement to elope with a much older — and definitely richer — man, banging up Tony’s pride badly. Neighborhood gossip said it could only have been the promise of life on the prestigious Main Line that had won Nicole away from Tony. But then, the neighborhood always favored the Alessandro side of any story.
“I didn’t think she did reunion s, either.”
“Not ’til this one.”