(partial) Devil In The Waters, Book 2, Chapter 1

On Tuesday, as luck would have it, Josh was sent out of the office and into Toronto with two other managers for a scheduled meeting with three executives from Forefront, a product placement company that was growing fast and wanted more and more data. Forefront already signed a contract with Swanson, and now they wanted streamlined logistics and delivery sequenced just for them. The meeting was straightforward—a bunch of nothing at the table, and a shitload of to-dos in the coming week, but he was excited to take the opportunity of being in the city to track down Amy who should still be in the country and staying at the nearby Four Seasons.

He’d gone to the meeting with Rita and that idiot Rafe, taking Rafe’s car, his stupid Charger with all its aftermarket glory. Rafe’d cranked some type of dumb techno music the whole way from Ajax to Toronto, and if he wasn’t going to see Amy after the meeting, he’d like to come up with some other way to get out of having to drive back to Ajax with him and his music. So after the meeting he told Rita he was going to bail for the afternoon, it was late anyway, and he’d catch a train back to Ajax early evening, take an Uber to the office to get his car. They said bye, and he tried tracking Amy down, starting on Facebook. Didn’t find her there, but was lucky enough to know her Instagram, saw that she had posted this morning a picture of the vintage art deco neon sign of the Senator diner, #TripHome, her comment saying Visit to the TDot & lunch today with an old friend.

It was one o’clock, so that’s where he headed.

Off the subway and in the complex below the Eaton Center, he sent Amy a message on Facebook saying You had lunch at the Senator?

It took a full ten minutes—and he thought he’d be heading home without a meeting—but Amy got back to him. She sent a thumbs up.

The vague reply wasn’t much to go on, but he messaged Fancy a coffee at the Artisan Bean?—I’m buying which was where he was sitting right now, waiting . . . 

***

Amy showed up twenty minutes later, coming across the coffee shop’s patio dressed in tight, intimidating clothing. In high school Amy’d been serious, and now she was some bigwig executive in London, she’d become downright steely. Her no-nonsense form strutted the broad concrete flagstones in a black suit and skirt combo, four-inch heels, legs bare, muscles flexing. She’d shorn her hair, cut it to a severe bob now, changing its gingery color to a pure white-blonde.

Josh had picked a spot at the counter that stretched the coffee shop’s window, perched on a stool, one reserved next to him for Amy since the place was busy today. He waved at her through the glass, but she ignored him—reflection and the brightness, probably showed her only her own face. He greeted her when she came in, and she hugged him lightly.

“Josh, darling,” she said, “glad to see you upright.”

He groaned, rolled his eyes. “Probably why I wanted to meet you.”

She said, “I’m not looking to get drunk today, dear,” and patted him on the waist, slipping past him to get in line for a coffee. He scooped his from the bar and joined her in the line. He said, “I have a spot over there, is that all right?” His jacket over the stool still reserved his spot.

“At the window? No, I’m not sitting at the window, there’s a booth at the back, get that one.”

“I said I’d buy you a coffee . . .”

“I can buy my own coffee, get the booth before it’s gone.”

He brought his coffee to the back of the busy shop, saw there was indeed a vacant setting, and he slipped into the booth and waited. Amy came to the table with a cappuccino on a saucer. She said, “So what’s this about needing to talk to me.”

He sipped his coffee said, “Not needing. Wanting. About the party . . . ?”

“What about it?” She indexed through the sugar packets in a square bowl on the table, selecting none of them, sipping at her cappuccino.

“I was in the city today for a meeting, and I was just killing time afterward, I saw you post where you were, thought I’d take a chance, see if you’d have a coffee with me.”

“Here we are,” she said, tipping her cup to him in salute before taking another sip. “The coffee in this city is shit.”

He said, “All the beans come from the same place, no matter where they serve it . . .”

“Everybody here just wants an angle, Josh, trying to make a dollar, nobody’s actually trying to make a good cup of coffee.”

“Some do.”

“You come to this place?” she said.

“No, never been—this is the closest good coffee shop. It’s supposed to be popular . . .”

“It’s all right,” she said, sipping, “just not what I’m used to.”

“How is England?” he said, “capital of fine coffee . . .”

“You’re such an asshole,” she said and laughed.

“You’re the asshole, shitting on my country’s coffee.”

“It’s my country too,” she said, eyes narrowed slyly.

“So you’re happy in London?”

“I always thought I’d come back here after uni, now I can’t imagine leaving London.”

“How is work going?”

Amy told him all about life in London, working in the Canary Wharf, and what she did there; managing the legalities for the St. James Gallery, plus legal consulting work. Not bad at twenty-seven years old. She asked him again why he wanted to talk to her.

“I suppose I expect I need to apologize . . .”

She smirked, swirled the remaining foamy mixture in the bottom of her cappuccino cup cup. “How so?”

“You know, for my behavior at the party . . .”

“And what did you do for which you need to apologize?”

He said, “You don’t think I need to apologize? Look . . . Kimmy told me . . .” He let it hang, fishing.

She didn’t bite. “Kimmy told you what?”

“About, you know . . .”

“For that? You should apologize for that?”

“I’m sorry.”

She frowned and leaned closer, whispered, “For the peeing thing?”

He licked his upper lip, stomach turned. A toehold on the truth of what happened, but not what he’d expected. “Yeah,” he said, “I thought I should apologize.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve helped a lot of guys pee.”

His stomach and scalp tightened, and he held his breath a moment. Helped him pee? He joked: “That’s something to brag about?”

She laughed politely, drained her coffee cup then wiped her mouth with a napkin, looking to get out of here.

He said, “What do you mean you helped me pee—Kimmy didn’t tell me that part . . .”

“We helped you, Josh, we,” she said. “Kimmy and I had to get your pants down, it took you forever to get it going . . .”

“It took me forever to get what going—pee?”

She wagged both her hands, quitting the conversation, and looked away, smiling, expression like this was the last thing she wanted to talk about.

“I didn’t know that,” he said quiet and morose.

“Then what did you want to apologize for?”

“For getting drunk,” he said. Then: “You helped take my pants down?”

“Josh, you don’t need to apologize. I went to uni in Glasgow, I work in London. Not exactly a culture of teetotalers.”

His mouth hung open, a question hanging in the air. “Did you see . . . my . . . ?”

He didn’t even need to finish it. She said, “Josh, the last thing I want to do today is talk about your penis. It’s not what I thought of this morning, it’s definitely not what I want to think of for the rest of the afternoon.”

He tried to be light: “I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not.”

“It’s not,” she said firmly, smiling still but tossing her napkin down on the table between them. “This was nice, thanks for calling me out for coffee, Josh.”

“You have to go?”

“I do, it’s crazy—coming back to Canada I didn’t think I’d be so busy, but everybody wants a piece of me. Now I have to go see my aunt and uncle out in Mississauga, God help me, my cousins tomorrow, friends to see up in Newmarket, then I’m on a plane on Thursday . . .”

“Thanks for your time though . . . but . . .”

Amy was checking to make sure she had her phone, wallet, purse, anything else she might leave behind. “But what?”

He said, “What happened with Kimmy? You know, after I passed out . . .”

“What did she tell you?” Amy said without looking up.

“That she got in a fight with Devin.”

“That is exactly what happened.”

“Over what?”

“What did she tell you?”

“Politics.”

“That’s exactly what it was about,” she said, putting her Hermes bag on the table, resting her hands over top and looking in his eyes now. “If you want to know what happened, ask Kimmy. Not me.”

“So nothing happened?”

“It’s just what Kimmy said.”

“Now you’re making me think it’s a lot more than that.”

“Why?”

“You’re saying that whatever she told me is right—you’re her friend who’s just going to back up whatever she says. You wouldn’t tell me the truth.”

“You don’t trust me to tell you the truth?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“That’s totally what you said, Josh, kind of surprising really.”

“What do you mean surprising?”

“Thought you guys had respect for each other.”

“Don’t pull that with me.”

“You don’t trust her?”

“I trust her,” he said.

She flashed a satisfied smirk. “Then why are you here?”

“You’re right,” he said, trying to save face now. “I’m just worried Devin put his hands on her and she’s afraid to tell me.”

“Why? What would you do?”

“I don’t know. But I would have to do something, right?”

She shrugged, said, “Beats me, I was lucky enough to be born with a vagina.”

“Here, here,” he said, and saluted her with his coffee cup now. “To vaginas.”

“Droll, Josh,” she said, grimacing like his remark was distasteful.

She rose to stand, and he followed suit. They embraced awkwardly, he told her he’d say bye to Kimmy for her, she kissed the air near both of his cheeks, patted his back.

She said, “Talk to Kimmy, don’t go behind her back.”

“I didn’t,” he said, but even the sound of the words coming out of his mouth—and the guilty expression he knew was on his face—made him a liar. He’d tried to go behind her back. “Safe flight,” he said then, and she waved, strutted to the front door, heels brightly clicking on the marble floor.