I can’t go back without doing something.
I grab my purse, which clanks audibly because it’s full of fucking Tupperware, and stand up too fast. My chair scrapes against the floor. The businessman next to me gives me a look like,ma’am, are you okay?
No, sir. No I am not.
But I walk. Cool. Calm. Just a woman going about her absolutely not suspicious business.
I glide, read: stumble, toward his table, hands trembling, sweat blooming in unmentionable places.
His table’s empty. Papers stacked neatly. Pen sitting beside them. Water glass half-full.
I fumble the containers out of my purse. Nearly drop one. Catch it. Set them down next to his papers with all the grace of a feral Girl Scout mid-manic episode.
Okay. Payload deployed. Mission nearly complete.
Except he has no idea they’re from me.
As it stands, it’s just: Unlabeled baked goods, do not eat unless you want to die.
Which is fair. But I need him to know it’s me.
His weirdo.
I grab his pen, sleek, black, sinister in that ‘I close million-dollar deals and maybe order hits’ kind of way.
Rip a napkin from the dispenser.
My hand is shaking so hard I can barely write. The letters come out jagged, desperate, like a ransom note from someone having a medical emergency.
You said you’d be okay. Are you? - S
I shove the napkin under the lid of the cookie container.
And then I realize I’m still holding his pen.
His expensive pen.
Put it back. Put the pen back. You cannot steal a pen from Dario Marchetti. That’s not romantic, that’s larceny. That’s the kind of thing that ends up in your FBI file under “additional evidence of instability.”
I hear footsteps coming from the back. I shove the pen in my purse.
I just stole a pen from a mobster.
I’m going to get whacked over a Montblanc.
My obituary will read: Died as she lived, making terrible decisions over office supplies.
I pivot hard, and speed-walk toward the exit like I’ve just remembered a dentist appointment in another state.
My hip clips a chair.
It skitters across the tile, loud enough to startle the dead.
Every head turns.
Yup. Just me. Definitely not doing anything weird.
The hostess looks up as I pass, her smile flickering with confusion. “Everything okay?”
