Chapter 4

Once in a while, Red did manage to get an entire hour for lunch. In the middle of the week, she called up Keval to ask if she could bring her salad over.

Truth be told, she had an ulterior motive for stopping by the consortium. That RSVP in her bag was getting more tattered by the day, and she was still trying to figure out a way to get Sam to go with her.

She crossed Main Street, walked down the block past the café, and around the corner. The public area of the building Manolo had built for Sam last summer was bright and uncluttered. Behind tall windows sat tables, dining chairs, some comfy upholstered couches, and a bar where wine aficionados could sample local products. It was nothing like the settlement-era house the consortium had started out in, where Sam still resided. Apparently Sam was blind to the dinginess of the old building.

Then again, not everyone was as preoccupied with houses as Red.

She spotted Keval in his usual seat, behind his computer monitor.

“How are you?” she said, a little out of breath.

“Okay,” he replied, in a very “not okay” voice.

“You sure? You sound kind of down.” She plopped into the visitors’ chair.

“I still don’t have a date for Junie’s wedding and the RSVPs are due next week,” he said.

“What about that new guy in town? The one who bought Curl Up & Dye?”

“Jordan.” Keval got a dreamy, faraway look.

“That’s right, Jordan. Why don’t you invite him?”

“Have you seen Jordan Hasselbeck? He’s from Seattle. He’s way too hip for me.”

“Are you kidding me? With those mad sideburns of yours and those”— she peeked under the desk—“er…fitted, jogger pants? Have you looked in a mirror lately? Trust me, Keval Patel, you are plenty hip. Who says he wouldn’t go? He’s probably lonely. You know how it is when you move to a new town. I bet he’d jump at the chance.”

“Maybe.” He sighed, unconvinced. “Who are you going with?”

She hadn’t seen that coming. “Uh,” she hesitated, “no one, yet.”

“I know!” Keval brightened. “We should go together. Neither of us has anyone else, right?”

Red envisioned slow dancing with Keval, she in her fitted, salmon-colored dress and ivory wrap, Keval in his mustard-colored pants with the green stripe down the side. They’d look like a hotdog in a bun with relish.

Grandma’s words sprang to mind. You need to put yourself first.

But Keval was her friend, and he needed her. The last thing she wanted to do was to hurt his feelings. And her hope of going to the wedding with Sam was growing dimmer by the day.

She got a reprieve in the form of an angry voice from down the hall.

“Why do you even list a customer service number if all I get is a recording? Do you think I have all day to sit on hold? I’m trying to run a business here!”

Keval cringed.

“What’s going on?” asked Red.

“You know the new wine subscription program? We’re having a computer glitch on our sign-up page.”

Red rose slowly, gazing in the direction of the yelling.

“I’m paying you for a service, and I expect service.”

Keval bit his lip.

Holly Davis, the sales manager, and Mona, Sam’s newest employee, popped their heads out of their respective spaces.

Red took off down the hall.

Keval half rose from his seat. “Don’t go,” Red heard him plead from behind her. “Give him time.”

But she kept going until she was standing in the doorway of Sam’s office.

The face Sam put on for the outside world was that of a supremely competent businessman with an endless supply of jokes. But Red had gotten a glimpse behind the façade: the fleeting rages, gone almost as soon as they started, using work as an avoidance tactic, and above all, the reluctance to let anyone get too close.

She watched him pace his small office like a caged lion, his attention fixed out the opposite window.

“We’re paying a lot of money for this broke-dick service of yours. We’ve already promoted it and you assured me it’d be up and running yesterday. What’s it gonna take to give you a sense of urgency?” Pause. “Put a manager on the phone. And don’t keep me waiting another fifteen minutes, or—what the—hello? Hello? Dammit!”

Something whizzed past Red’s ear.

When Sam saw her standing there, he came flying around his desk.

“Doc. You all right?”

“I’m fine.” She picked his phone up off the floor, dusted it off on her shirt, and handed it to him. “What’s going on? You look upset.”

“Upset? Damn right I’m upset. My vintners have gone to a lot of trouble and expense to haul cases of their wine over here to ship to subscribers starting today, and now I find out there are problems with the website?”

“Take a deep breath.” Red lowered herself into the chair across from Sam. “So what I hear you saying is, you have wine ready to ship, but customers aren’t having a positive subscribing experience. Is that right?”

“Right.” He kept up his restless pacing. “How am I supposed to fix it? Do I look like a programmer?”

Maybe, if said programmer had smoldering eyes, a nose that listed slightly left, and flat abs.

“What about Keval? Can’t he help?”

Sam scraped a hand through his hair, making it stand adorably on end. “If he could get into the system, but he’s locked out.”

Finally he took his seat, mirroring Red’s calm body language.

Worked every time.

“I’m really sorry you’re going through this.”

He shook his head, his tempest having blown itself out as quickly as it had started. “I’ll figure it out,” he said in a more rational tone.

He blinked as if seeing her for the first time. “What are you doing here?”

“I had an actual lunch hour, for a change. Thought I’d eat with Keval, al desko.”

He began gathering the papers strewn across his desk. “First time for any project is bound to hit a few snags. I’ll be here till midnight working it out.”

“Have you eaten? I could get you some food.” Her next appointment would be at her office in a half hour, but if she only ate a few bites of her salad she could run down to Poppy’s and pick up something to go for him.

“I’m meeting a grower around Lafayette in”—he checked his watch—“ten minutes,” he said, standing up, patting his pockets. “Where’d I put my keys?”

Red spotted a set on the end table next to where she sat. She dangled them aloft, and he swiped them from her finger on his way out the door.

“Thanks,” he said with that grin that made her weak.

When had her happiness become dependent on Sam’s moods? It was unwise. But she couldn’t help it.

She followed him into the hall. “I hope you get things straightened out,” she called to his back.

In his wake lingered a clean, masculine scent. She closed her eyes and sniffed like a dog with its head out the car window.

Sam should have his own candle.

She opened her eyes to see Holly staring at her with a blank expression and back in the reception area, Keval with his fingertips pressed to his lips.

Red breezed past Holly with a casual wave of her fingers. But there was no reply, just the sensation of pitying eyes boring into her back.

When she reached Keval, he said, “Oh. My. Gosh.”

Red frowned, glancing over her shoulder at where Holly and now Mona stood, both with shell-shocked expressions.

“What? Why are you all looking at me like that?”

“You got it bad,” said Holly gravely.

Red scanned her exposed skin for obvious signs of disease. But freckles weren’t contagious.

No. She couldn’t have it all over town that she was gaga over Sam Owens.

What if he got wind of it? They had an unspoken agreement to be mature about their arrangement. Modern and unfettered and free.

She waved off Holly’s exaggerated pronouncement with a smirk. “I’m the shrink around here. I’ll do the analyzing.”

But her denial must have looked as phony as it felt.

“You’re in love with Sam,” Keval stated matter-of-factly.

Red met each pair of eyes in turn.

“No I’m not,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as them.

“Yes,” said Holly, slowly closing in on her like a zombie. “You are.”

In love. From a scientific point of view, she had to admit the evidence deserved serious consideration. She’d been carrying around these mushy feelings for far too long. Something was going on.

“Maybe.”

Keval took her by the arm and led her back to her chair. Everyone started talking at once.

“Are we the first to find out?”

“That is so exciting! How long have you known?”

“Does Sam know?”

“One at a time, please! Yes, about a month, I think, and no.”

“Sit,” said Keval, pressing on her shoulder, giving her no choice.

“I’m in love. I’m not an invalid.”

In love. There. She’d said it out loud.

Sweet relief flowed through her. She’d been struggling under her burden even longer than she thought. She fanned her face while the three fussed and fluttered around her.

“What can we get you? Some water?” Without waiting for an answer Holly dashed over to the water cooler, opened the spigot and scurried back, sloshing water in her wake.

Keval upended his brown bag and there was the sound of crinkling plastic wrap. “Here.”

Red lowered her cup from her lips. “What’s this?”

“Vegan sandwich. Hummus and cashew cheese. Clean protein.”

What little appetite she’d had disappeared. Gently, she pushed it away. “Thanks, Keval, but that’s your lunch. I still have my salad. I’m fine, you guys. Really.”

“That’s why your cheeks are all pink.”

“When aren’t my cheeks pink? It’s a package deal. Comes with the hair and freckles.”

Keval hauled his chair around his desk to directly in front of hers, facing backward. He straddled it and folded his arms across its back. “I want you to tell me everything, starting from the beginning. Go.”

The temptation to get it off her chest was overwhelming.

“I—”

What was she doing?

She sealed her lips and sprang to her feet.

She’d made a colossal mistake. She couldn’t tell Sam’s entire staff that she’d been sleeping with their boss for months on end. It might not violate any HIPAA laws, but it was a gross breach of trust.

“I didn’t come here to talk about my love life. I have to get back to my office. I have clients coming….”

Keval glanced at his smart watch. “It’s only twelve twenty-five. We have plenty of time.”

Red picked up the bag containing her untouched salad.

“It’s too late now,” crowed Keval. “The cat’s out of the bag.”

“None of your beeswax.”

Maybe she could grab some bites between clients.

“He has no clue, does he?” Keval stood too and rested an elbow in his hand, tapping his lips. “Now that I think about it, you and Sam are perfection together. Who else could handle his ups and downs?”

He turned to his coworkers. “Imagine…a saner, calmer Sam. No more approaching life like it’s a battlefield.”

“No more pushing things to the edge,” said Holly.

“We call him El Capitan behind his back,” confided Mona.

Keval and Holly gave Mona a scathing glance.

Then Keval’s eyes narrowed. “The wedding,” he said to Red. “You’re not committed yet?”

“What about Sam?” Mona caught on quick. “Is he?”

“His response card was still in his in-box last time I looked.” Keval sprinted back to Sam’s office to check.

Within seconds he came flying back, holding Sam’s unsent card.

“Still he-re,” he sang happily.

Holly said, “You have to get him to go with you.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“What’s so hard?” asked Keval. “You just come right out and ask him to go.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s not how Sam operates. He only—”

She’d almost said Sam only dates women to whom he had zero attachment, but that would be an admission of sorts. In Sam’s eyes, going to the wedding with Red would make a public statement. Set expectations.

“Sam doesn’t date friends. Only strangers.”

“She’s right,” said Holly. “Remember the Houser wedding…that pretty brunette? Where was she from—McMinnville? Whatever. We never saw her again. One and done.”

“If you don’t ask him to take you, I will,” said Keval.

“No.”

“Yes I will.”

“Keval.”

“Sophia.”

“If you say something to Sam, then I’m going to say something to Jordan Hasselbeck about you, next time I get my nails done.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“Wouldn’t I?”

“Who’s Jordan Hasselbeck?” Mona and Holly asked in chorus.

“This is stupid,” said Red. “We sound like twelve-year-olds.”

“The responses are due back next week. Ask Sam to go to the wedding by Sunday, or I’ll ask him for you. I don’t care if you do go to Jordan.”

Realization washed over Red. “You want me to.”

Keval shrugged, his lips curving up in a coy smile.

“Who’s Jordan?” asked Mona. “I’ll go to him.”

“I’m out of here,” said Red with a roll of her eyes.

“You have until Sunday,” Keval called after her as she crossed the threshold. “And if you think I won’t know, don’t forget—I have access to Sam’s desk.”

* * * *

Red’s nails were soaking in a bowl of soapy water when Jordan Hasselbeck waltzed over and asked how she was. Jordan was conscientious like that, being new at his job. This time, Red took it a step beyond the usual small talk.

“Clarkston must be another world compared with Seattle. How are you adjusting to life in a small town?”

“I love it. I used to have a salon up in Seattle. Then, my parents retired in Tigard. I came down to visit them and some people in Portland and fell in love with the Willamette Valley. I saw a for rent sign on this building, and next thing you know, voila. Here I am.”

“Did you come alone?”

“Yes, just me.”

“Are you finding it easy to make friends?”

“Oh, sure. I mean, you know. I meet people here at the salon.”

Red met Jordan’s eyes in the mirror and made a decision. No more tiptoeing around—for Keval or her.

“Maybe you know Keval Patel? He gets his hair cut here.”

“Keval. Let me think.” He tapped his lip. “About five ten? Dark hair cut in a high fade?”

“That’s him. He’s in charge of social media for the Clarkston Wine Consortium. Keval and I have been friends forever. In fact, we’re both invited to the same wedding.”

“Really? I love weddings.”

“You do? If I think of it, I’ll have to mention it to Keval. He might be looking for a date.”

“Oh? When is this wedding?”

“August thirty-first.”

“Well, if he still doesn’t have one by his next appointment, maybe we can talk about it.”

The minute Red left the salon, she called Keval to tell him what had transpired.

“Oh my God. Are you serious?”

“That’s what he said. I laid the groundwork. If you’re still interested, talk to him the next time you go in.”

She hung up feeling victorious, already imagining the sight of Keval walking into Junie’s wedding with Jordan, thanks to her wise intervention.

Later that evening in her room, with the Keval problem sewn up, she went back to concentrating on Sam in the same, straightforward fashion.

To determine exactly what was working with her and Sam and what wasn’t, She used the same questioning technique on herself as she did when counseling a couple.

Propped against her pillows with a tablet, she tapped her lips with the end of her pencil. Studies had shown that sometimes writing in longhand versus typing onto laptops increased conceptual understanding.

What kept Sam and her together? A passion that only grew stronger with time.

What stressed them? For Sam, any suggestion that they were anything more than casual hook ups. For Red, just the opposite. She was ready to take the next step.

What about the nature of your conflicts? Simple. Sam didn’t want to talk about anything emotional and Red wanted him to. Period.

What qualities are missing or dysfunctional in your relationship? See above.

An hour later, she had a concise list of suggestions for improving their relationship.