I can tell he’s genuinely interested. It’s almost sweet, and so I let myself relax a little bit. I’m still on the clock, but there’s no harm in actually having a conversation. It will make my job easier in the long run if Frankie and I are on good terms.
“I’ve been to Boston and New York,” I say. “One time we visited the Grand Canyon when I was a kid.”
“I’ve been there,” he answers.
“Really? What did you think?” I ask.
“I thought it was big,” he responds, giving me a generous smile. “And a little bit scary.”
“I don’t think people really fall in,” I say.
“I stood pretty far back,” he recalls. “My dad kept pushing me to come to the edge, but I didn’t want to.”
“You didn’t go out on the skywalk?” I ask.
He laughs and shakes his head. “You couldn’t drag me out there.”
“That’s the best part,” I say, pretending to be shocked at his admission of cowardice.
“I like to keep my feet on the ground,” he responds.
The car pulls up to the curb outside the restaurant. There are dozens of people parked on the streets, so there’s nowhere for the driver to pull over. Instead, he pulls on the parking brake and stops traffic to let us out.
I notice a bunch of angry drivers honking at us as we step outside. Frankie sees it too, but he ignores them. As soon as we’re clear of the vehicle, the car drives off. Frankie puts one hand on the small of my back to guide me toward the door. I feel a jolt of electricity shoot through me at the innocent touch. It sears my fingertips and my toes, warning me I’m in this too deep. I’m actually enjoying spending time with Frankie, and that’s a big red flag. I need to be more careful.
I give him a sweet smile, pretending that I’m into it. I open the door myself and we walk through. We’re immediately shown to a spot near the kitchen. The ambiance is expensive, the lightinglow, and the tables spaced pretty far from each other. This gives us a lot of privacy, which we are supposed to use to get to know each other better. But I have other things on my mind.
“So, you were saying, about your father,” I remind Frankie.
“I don’t think I was,” he counters.
“How does he make his money?” I ask, folding a cloth napkin into my lap.
“This and that,” Frankie replies without specifying.
A waiter arrives and pours us each a glass of ice water.
“Can we have a bottle of pinot noir?” Frankie asks. He appears to think about the order some more and then turns to me for approval. “Is that okay?”
“Yes, that’s fine,” I agree. I do want to get him drunk. It will be that much easier to get him to open up about his family. After he’s had a few glasses of wine, all the walls will come tumbling down and he’ll tell me everything I want to know.
The waiter returns with our bottle and two wineglasses. Frankie pours us each a glass and sips on his own. I hold mine like I’m going to drink it, but don’t. I want him to get drunk, not me.
“When you traveled, did you travel with your family?” I ask. If he won’t open up about his father’s finances, maybe I can approach things from a different angle. Maybe I can learn more about their operations overseas and work my way back here.
“Yes,” he confirms, but doesn’t elaborate. “So you say you’re not a poet, have you written anything I might have read?”
“Oh,” I moan, wondering how much detail I can safely go into about my writing career. “I was on the school paper, and I have a few stories out there on blogs.”
“Really?” He sounds interested, and my heart twists painfully. Frankie really likes me. He thinks we’re out on an actual date. I wish I didn’t have to break his heart, and I wonder how much he really knows about his father. Maybe he is innocent. Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree.
“Yeah,” I reply, running my fingertip around the rim of the wineglass. “I was thinking about writing a novel, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.”
“The great American novel,” Frankie waxes philosophical.
“If you could write a novel,” I begin, trying for a third time to turn the subject onto his father, “what would you write about? Would it be a family drama?”
“Maybe a romance,” he says seriously.
