The dozen people in the room looked like a cross-section of the world or a normal Tuesday in Good Samaritan’s emergency room.
At least three languages were being spoken and laughed in.
Dree was picking up Central American Spanish from the people over in the corner who were trying to match computer cables to ports and cracking up at the impossibility of it.
Four people were sorting binders and speaking English with African French accents. The lilt they spoke with sounded like Father Moses Teklehaimanot, who’d gone back to Paris, despondent, when Maxence had broken the news that he was going to ask to be laicized. The fifth person sitting with that group spoke American English with them and wore a bright yellow, turban-style hijab, so that must be why they weren’t speaking French amongst themselves.
A few more people wandered through the office.
Dree turned back to talk with the guys.
Casimir was holding onto Arthur’s shoulder and laughing, his head tilted back, while Arthur just looked pleased with himself as he gazed around the room.
A woman walked by them. She was shorter than Maxence and the other Le Rosey guys, as usual, because those guys were freakin’ redwoods, but she seemed a little taller than Dree. Her pale skin contrasted with her ebony-black hair and unrelieved black business suit. She looked like she might be a monochrome picture of a white person except for her vibrant red lipstick. The effect was almost vampiric.
Arthur’s icy silver eyes widened. “You, there! I say, wait a moment.” He dodged around Casimir, whose eyebrows were suddenly at two different elevations.
Maxence cursed softly and stared at his shoes.
Dree elbowed him. “What?”
Maxence told her, “Just a minute. There’s something I need to take care of.” He followed Arthur over to the woman.
Arthur was talking to the vampire in disguise, but he didn’t encroach too closely, and he hadn’t tried to touch her. From where Dree was standing, it didn’t look creepy, and her smile seemed unperturbed.
When Maxence reached them, he extended his arm and tapped Arthur very lightly on his shoulder, as if he were moving him back.
Wow.That was an unusually aggressive move for those guys with each other.
Dree trotted over before something weird happened. Arthur didn’t seem to be the type to be weird with women, but you never knew. Max’s strange reaction was concerning.
By the time Dree got over to them, though, the woman was grinning, her red lipstick forming an upward-curving crescent. Her black eyeliner fit in with her otherwise monochrome theme, however. “Yeah, I remember you,” she said to Arthur. “You came in those couple of times with Maxence on some of his appointments.”
“Came in where?” Dree asked as she got there.
Arthur’s smile wilted, and he didn’t say anything when he looked at Maxence.
Max’s expression didn’t change for a moment, his face a smooth mask that usually meant his mental gears were grinding so fast they were in danger of overheating.
The woman ducked her head a little bit and leaned toward Dree as if she wanted to whisper something private. “When I was getting my master’s in social work in Phoenix, they came in where I worked. That’s where I met these guys. I’m Mairearad.” She stuck out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Social work! That’s awesome. I’m a nurse practitioner. I worked at Good Sam in Phoenix.”
Mairearad grinned with her whole face, her dark eyes, her mouth, and her dimples. “I can’t believe you’re fromPhoenix,and we had to come all the way toMonacoto meet!”
“Yeah, I could have run into you at Los Dos Molinos over on the south side.”
“Oh, no.”Mairearad reared back, her hands up and her palms out. “I ate at Los Dosonce.I cannot handle itthathot. ‘The green is hotter than the red.’ Thosesadists.”
Out of the corner of Dree’s eye, she saw Maxence twitch when Mairearad said that, and then he scratched the back of his neck.
“You okay?” she asked him.
He looked up at her. “What? Yeah. Fine. I think a fly bit me the other day.”
Mairearad asked Dree, “Do you live here?”
“I guess I do now, yeah. I’ve been here about a month.”
