The second time Caroline stumbled in the space of a block, Adrian called to cancel their dinner reservation. In lieu of his favorite little French bistro, which was nearly a mile away, he steered Caroline into a small sushi restaurant across the street from the looming brick shoebox of the symphony hall.
“Sorry you have to play zookeeper to my baby giraffe,” Caroline said, digging her nails into his sleeve and wobbling to the nondescript entrance of Symphony Sushi. He’d eaten there before, so he knew it was reliably good and not too busy. It wasn’t Masa or Nobu, but they’d be able to hear each other talk.
“Don’t worry about the restaurant,” Adrian said, ignoring the inconvenient rush of protectiveness he felt as he held out his arm for her to hold while they crossed the street. Guilty, that was how he ought to feel; he’d picked out the shoes in the first place.
“Is sushi all right?” he asked belatedly, once Caroline had already taken off her pink sleeping-bag-shaped parka. It ruined the line of her dress. He wondered if she knew, or cared. It was probably for the best that he spent less time looking at her legs.
“Yes,” she said, but she looked a little uncertain as thehostess led them to a table against the banquettes in the back and handed them order cards.
Caroline took the seat on the upholstered bench and removed one strappy shoe, prodding at a red spot on her ankle.
Adrian automatically reached out to take her heel in his hand and examine it himself. He’d been premed for a single miserable year, but he didn’t realize until her foot was in his lap that, first, he wasn’t exactly going to perform surgery in the middle of the sushi restaurant, and second, he needed to scoot his chair back so that he couldn’t see up her dress. He felt his cheeks heating as he brushed his thumb along the little blister.
Caroline smiled at him, expression innocent of both conclusions, and said, “Probably not a fatal injury.”
“No,” he agreed. “I think you’ll live.” He wasn’t an EMT; he needed to keep his hands to himself. He gingerly put her foot down and moved back to the other side of the table, now uncomfortably burdened with knowledge of the extent of Caroline’s tan and the color of her underwear. He willed his libido to go home early.
The server came to get their drink orders.
Caroline stared up at the server for a minute, then turned her head to Adrian. “What do people drink with sushi?” she asked.
“Rice wine,” he told her. “Sake.”
Her furrowed brow was skeptical, and she must have decided that was a bridge too far, because she stuck to water. She picked up the long white order card, her expression guarded as she scanned the options.
“I’m going to put some paper towels or something in my shoe,” Caroline said when she set the card down. Shelooked from the restroom to the front entrance. “Or would that not be classy?”
Adrian shrugged. The restaurant had a white tile floor and big-screen TVs showing satellite soccer games. The vibe was casual. “I don’t think we’ll be asked to leave. What should I order for you if the server comes?”
“Whatever you’re having,” Caroline said, pushing up from the table and limping on her blistered foot.
She left her purse on the table and wobbled off. Adrian checked off the same sashimi platter and unagi rolls he’d ordered the last time he’d eaten there, then took her card. Did they have sushi restaurants in Templeton? Just in case they didn’t, he ordered her a sampler so that she could figure out what she liked.
When the server came back to collect their cards, Caroline’s phone vibrated in her purse. Adrian ignored it, but after fifteen seconds of silence, it started vibrating again. He looked awkwardly at the restroom until Caroline emerged, wet paper towels rolled around the buckles on the ankle straps of her shoes.
As she was making her painful way back to the table but before he could tell her that her phone had been ringing, the restaurant door opened again, admitting a blast of cool evening air and a middle-aged couple in tailored charcoal wool, both of them dressed for the theater. Unfortunately, Adrian recognized their faces, even if he couldn’t quite summon their names.
The wife elbowed her husband sharply in the ribs when she saw Adrian, and a wide smile spread across the man’s face when he saw who his wife was pointing at. Adrian had sold them a painting the previous year... and maybe another one a couple of years before that? He rememberedtheir poorly trained Lhasa apso. Jan, that was the husband’s name. Jan Mayer the hedge fund guy, who had bragged about his bonus and tried to pass Adrian stock tips. Jan lumbered across the restaurant so quickly that he beat Caroline to the table, his wife following more slowly behind him, hobbled by her tall spike heels.
“Adrian Landry!” Jan exclaimed. “Small town, huh?”
His wife cackled as though Jan had said something supremely hilarious.
Caroline hesitated on the outskirts of the conversation as Adrian’s hand was seized and pumped.
Jan drew away from the space between the tables, but not very far; Caroline had to brush past him to make her way to her seat. Jan and his wife looked back and forth between Adrian and Caroline, evidently impressed by his pretty, too-young companion. Adrian took a deep breath, wishing he could have avoided the entire interaction.
“Jan, this is my friend Caroline,” Adrian told the collector, and Caroline startled with pleasure, as though not expecting to be introduced. Adrian couldn’t remember whether Jan and his wife had been friends with Nora or just frequent gallery customers. The very interested gleam in Jan’s eyes as he raked them over Caroline suggested the former, in which case Adrian needed to brace for the fallout of being caught having dinner with a pretty woman almost two decades younger than Nora. Or maybe Jan was trying to see whether he could look down Caroline’s dress; he was looming over her, well positioned to ogle Caroline’s exposed collarbones. Adrian gritted his teeth at the man’s sleaze.
“Very nice to meet you. Never would have thought to run into our favorite artist right here at the symphony, huh? Small world,” Jan proclaimed.
Caroline was oblivious to Jan’s wandering gaze. She smiled up at him as he chattered about how he knew Adrian, bringing his phone out to show Caroline pictures of the couches he’d decorated by hanging Adrian’s art behind them.
“Samantha,” Jan said to his wife, “didn’t we just get asked about the one with the nurses at the Battle of Passchendaele?” He mispronounced itpassion-dilly.
“Oh, yes!” Samantha said. “We gave away all the gallery cards you left.” She put her clawlike hand on Adrian’s shoulder, squeezing him through his suit jacket, then resting her hand familiarly on the back of his neck.
Now he remembered them better. Samantha had called to ask him to come back a week after hanging the last painting to “look at matching fabric swatches,” which he’d worried was code for her clothes on the bedroom floor, given the amount of casual groping she’d subjected him to already. He hadn’t gone; that was when he could afford boundaries.
