“Why do you think that?”
She rolls her eyes and sighs. “Because he just went for a run. Which reminds me, we’re going to start running over by my house.”
“What? Why?” I whine. I hate exercise.
“Because if he runs near the store, that means he lives nearby. So, if we can catch him running….”
“It’s cold outside. It’s frigging January.”
“It’s not icy right now, and lots of people run in the winter.”
“But, Lauren,” I whine harder. “I hate running.”
“I bet you’d run with Mr. Three o’Clock,” she singsongs.
True. Very True. I’d be in the best shape of my life if I were with him. “Fine. But I work for the next five days.”
“Jesus, you need to quit that job. It gets in the way of my plans,” she mutters.
I snicker at her. I know she’s only kidding, but part of her comment is correct.
“Hell, maybe if you marry Mr. Three o’Clock, you can quit working and hang with me all the time.”
“But you work too.” She does. She works hard. Sure, she can take two-hour lunches and head off for a three-day weekend whenever she wants, because her parents own the company. But, honestly, she works hard as a media consultant. She’s so different from the rest of the Jacobs clan, who are all pretty snobby. Some of her aunts literally walk around in tiaras and diamonds—like during the week—to lunch and stuff. For some reason, she’s really down-to-earth. If you saw her on the street, you’d have no idea that her mom and dad are on the Forbes 400 list. Lauren contends that it’s not her money and she shouldn’t pretend that it is. It belongs to her parents.
“Don’t remind me,” she states glumly.
“Well, I’ll tell you what, I’ll start to walk, er, jog with you, but not every day. What time are you thinking?”I hate running.
She grabs her phone again and looks at the time stamp on the photo she took. “I took this at five thirty-seven. So, let’s say he runs for an hour. That means he probably runs around four thirty—assuming he’s got a regular schedule.”
“You really should be a detective. You gave this some thought. Way to go, Watson.”
“Um, Watson?Paleeese.It’s Sherlock.”
We both laugh. I finish my fries as she nibbles on hers. She didn’t eat any of her burger. I’m pondering asking her if I can take hers home when she gets up for a to-go box. “Here, dinner for you, my little street urchin,” she laughs.
The truth is, Lauren knows my financial situation, and it’s not as dire as you might think. Okay, I live in the shittiest neighborhood in Chicago, and the house I live in could fall down at any moment, but I’m comfortable. My grandfather sold me my apartment for a song. He wanted me to have my own place while still living with him. So, I took out a mortgage because he said, “It’s good for your credit, macadamia nut.” He cosigned for the small loan, and then he died the next week.
God, that still hurts. I loved my Pops so much. He was my everything. It was just the two of us for as long as I can remember. My dad was never in the picture. Hell, I’m not even sure who he is. My mom, Madelyn Parker, was crazy funny and beautiful. We lived with Pops and Grandma Margaret until the accident when I was five. Mom and Grandma were driving home from shopping one snowy day and lost control of the car. They both died on impact, so they didn’t suffer. That’s what Pops always told me. “I’m just glad they didn’t suffer, peanut.” Me too.
I feel the same about him. I hope he didn’t suffer, but I know he must have. He went to bed one night and didn’t wake up the next morning. His doctor told me he had pancreatic cancer. He’d been diagnosed a little over sixteen months before he died. I had no idea. I knew he was tired a lot, and he’d lost a lot of weight,but he told me he was a tired old man. I miss him so much. At least I had twenty-seven good years with him. I feel lucky to have had that.
The funny thing about all of that money stuff is that when I turned thirty, I got a letter from his lawyer. Pops had left money for me in trust “to be given to me upon my thirtieth birthday.” It was the same amount of money I paid for my place plus a little extra that remained after the sale of the rest of the house and after all of his outstanding bills were paid and settled. He’d arranged everything ahead of time. So I paid Pops for this place, and he put the money back for me. It’s not much, but it’s enough cushion in case I need it. I want to save it for a rainy day; or if I decide to really get going on my jewelry business, it’ll be there for me. I could use it to pay down my student loans, but I’d rather use it for something special. He’d want that, too.
“Yoo-hoo, Mac? Where’d you go?” Lauren asks, waving her hand in front of my face.
“Oh, just thinking about Pops.”
She gives me a sincere smile. “He was a cool dude. I miss him too. But he’s always with you,” she says, pointing at my trench coat. It belonged to Pops. “You still wear that hideous coat of his. He’d have burned it by now.” She laughs.
“He loved this coat. Said it made him feel like he should be in the movieCasablancawith Ingrid Bergman.”
We both giggle, recalling how funny he was. “Your pops was a hottie when he was younger. I bet he could have snagged him some Ingrid.”
“I don’t doubt it.” I chuckle. He was one of a kind.
Lauren stands, doing her best to wipe off the cola residue I spat on her cream-colored blouse, “Okay. I’ve gotta go. Work calls. In five days, we go jogging. No getting out of it, so don’t even try.”
