Deep thoughts.” Charity shook her head again. “Make that list. And while you’re at it, add Amaretto and ice cream to it.”
Nina stopped her search for paper. Amaretto milk shakes could mean only one thing: a My-Life-Is-In-Trauma party. And with Charity, who ran her life as efficiently as she ran the boutique, trauma could mean only one thing. “Not Sean, too?”
Charity nodded. “Sean, too. How do I do it? How can I live in a city full of men and always pick the rats?”
Nina searched for something comforting to say. “Well, they’re not always rats.”
“Oh, yeah?” Charity folded her arms. “Name the one who wasn’t.”
“Well…” Nina searched her memory. “Of course, I didn’t know you for all of them—”
“Twelve of them,” Charity said. “Twelve guys since I was sixteen, twelve significant guys since I was sixteen, twelve guys in twenty-two years, and I can’t come up with a winner.”
“You’re sure it’s over?” Nina tried to find a bright side. “Maybe he’s just having second thoughts because you’re both getting so serious. Maybe—”
“I caught him in bed with his secretary,” Charity said. “I don’t think she was taking dictation. Not with what she had in her hand.”
“Oh.” Nina wrote down Amaretto and ice cream on the list. Amaretto milk shakes might not be the healthiest way to get over a life trauma, but it was Charity’s way. Come to think of it, she could use one, herself. “Get chocolate syrup, too,” she told Charity. “Let’s go for the whole enchilada.”
While Charity went shopping, Nina and Fred practiced on the fire escape.
“Come on, you can do this,” Nina coaxed him, and together they climbed in and out over the low polished wood windowsill.
Fred was not crazy about the metal staircase, so Nina spread out a rag rug so he’d land on something soft.
On the other hand, he loved the leap from the window.
“Try not to overshoot,” Nina warned him, but the fire escape was wide, and Fred was not aerodynamic, so after an hour, Nina was content that Fred would not be plummeting to his death from overexuberance.
She was also sure it was time for Fred to see some grass. “It’s a shame you’re not a cat. I could just get a litter box,” she told him as she coaxed him down the two flights of fire escape with a piece of ham.
Fred whined a little as he eased himself down to the second floor.
“Shh.” Nina glanced in the closed window of the second-floor apartment. “I don’t know this guy yet. He keeps strange hours. Be very, very quiet here, Fred. We want the neighbors to love you.”
Fred shut up and eased himself down another step.
“I love you, Fred,” Nina whispered as she backed down the metal stairs. “You’re the best.”
By the time Charity came back, Fred had done the fire escape twice and was philosophical about it. “We’ll take walks, too,” Nina promised him. “But this is going to work.”
“He can do it?” Charity walked back into the room after putting the ice cream in the freezer and shook her head, amazed. “I wasn’t gone that long.”
“Fred is very intelligent,” Nina told her. “Watch.” She opened the window. “Here you go, Fred. Born free.”
Fred scrambled onto the box Nina had put by the window to aid his exit. He turned to look once over his shoulder, and Nina nodded.
Then he hurled himself through the window.
“Oh, my God!” Charity ran to the window, Nina close behind.
Fred sat on his rug on the fire escape, looking smug.
“Part basset, part beagle, part kamikaze,” Nina said. “We have to work on his takeoff, but he’s pretty good, don’t you think?”
Charity stepped back from the window. “I think he’s great.” She smiled at Nina. “I really do. He smells, but he’s great.”
“Well, that’s what I thought, too.” Nina watched Fred sway down the fire escape to the backyard.
“Here’s the rest of your stuff.” Charity handed over the paper bag she’d been clutching. “Your change is at the bottom.”
“Thanks, Char.” Nina dumped everything out onto her round oak dining table and pawed through it, stopping only when she found a small jeweler’s box tied with a silver ribbon in the middle of the pile.
“That’s a baby present,” Charity told her. “I’ll give you a shower later.”
Nina opened the box and took out an oval sterling-silver name tag engraved with Nina’s address under a lovely script “Fred Askew.”
“Oh, Charity, it’s beautiful,” Nina said.
“Just in case he gets lost.” Charity watched as Fred’s top half appeared in the window, wobbling back and forth as his toenails scrabbled on the brick outside. “Or stolen.”
“I think I’d better put a box outside, too.” Nina put the tag down and went to haul him in. “He seems to have a rear-end-suspension problem.”
“Among other things,” Charity said. “Listen, I’ve got to go.”
Nina put Fred on the floor and straightened. “What about the Amaretto?”
Charity bit her lip. “Can we do it tomorrow night? We both have to work tomorrow morning, and I’m going to need you a lot more tomorrow night since it’s a Friday and…you know.”
Nina nodded. “I know. Fridays are the worst. Sure. That’ll be better. You can spend the night.”
Charity looked down. “That all right with you, Fred?”
Fred sighed and waddled off.
“He’s delighted,” Nina said.
“Yeah, I could tell he perked right up,” Charity said. “See you tomorrow.”
THE PHONE WAS RINGING when Alex let himself into his stuffy second-floor apartment. He answered it, cradling the receiver between his shoulder and his ear as he struggled to put the window up and let a little air into the place. “Alex?”
Great. Debbie. “Yep, it’s me.” Alex stuck his head out the window, trying for some fresh night air. The hell with it. He climbed out the window and sat on the fire escape, taking off his shoes and socks and throwing them back in through the window as he talked. “What’s up?”
Debbie’s voice was relentlessly cheery. “I thought we might do something tomorrow since it’s your birthday. And my sister’s kids want to go to the movies, so I thought we could—”
“Sorry,”
