he asked, stumbling over the pronunciation. “That’s a city or something?”
“Well, some people call it Kishinev, but you’ve got to figure that’s just a dialect difference. Besides, I’m not one for splitting hairs.” A minute in, and I was already lying to the guy, for I split hairs on a regular basis.
“I was just going to ask what you were drinking or start with the weather or something.”
I felt my cheeks flush. Why was I always assuming that people would be as interested as I was in lesser known facts and smaller topics, things that I found fascinating?
I thought quickly. “Maybe I’m Moldovan,” I said.
“But you don’t have an accent.”
“Or maybe Moldovan-American.”
Kevin nodded. “I guess I should have thought of that. I forget that everyone’s not a mutt like me. So who’s from Moldova? Your parents? Your grandparents?”
I didn’t want to lie to him again. “The truth is, I’m not the slightest bit Moldovan. That I know of, at least.”
He laughed. “Maybe we should start over,” he said. “Read any good books lately?”
Martina had shoved my dog-eared copy of Principles of Accounting into my purse, but I could still see it peeking out. “I did have a great-grandmother from Romania. Family legend has it that we’re all part gypsy.” As I said it, I picked up my purse as surreptitiously as I could and stowed it at my feet.
“Now you’re just pulling my leg.”
“It’s true,” I said. I could almost feel the words forming, the story of my great-grandmother as told through the generations. How she’d long sworn that we had nomadic blood. But I caught myself just in time. I realized that I wanted Kevin to stay and that a long-winded and unprompted account of my family history was an unlikely aphrodisiac. Besides, my father’s Anglo genes had washed out my mother’s gypsy swarthiness along with whatever remained of the ancestral wanderlust. I’d lived in California for twenty-six of my thirty-one years at that point, and with light brown hair and blue eyes, I didn’t look like any gypsy.
“Can you tell my fortune?” Kevin asked.
“Well, I could, but I’m off the clock,” I said. “I do see an intriguing stranger in your future.”
“I see one in my present,” he said.
Oh, he was good.
We talked for the next ten minutes, throughout which I managed to keep the conversation relatively light and avoid referring to any Eastern Bloc countries. He was funny, relatively new to the East Bay, and worked as a building contractor, renovations mostly. Martina, meanwhile, had taken the bar stool on my other side and struck up a conversation with the man next to her.
“I understand you’ve already met my meddling friend,” I said, elbowing Martina. She looked over and smiled at Kevin.
“In line,” he said. “Cheers on your promotion, by the way. Marketing crackers, did you say? Got any samples on you? These pretzels are stale.”
“Premium packaged edibles,” Martina said, nodding. “It goes way beyond crackers, my dear. And I don’t. I’m waiting for my next assignment. Oh, this is Carl. Carl, this is Sasha. That’s Kevin.”
“Hey,” Carl said, with a wan nod. He seemed uninterested in any detour in his conversation with Martina. He fidgeted with his key ring. From where I sat, I could see that it sported a Porsche trademark.
“So your friend pitches food. I build things. What do you do?” Kevin finally asked me.
“Besides hang around with barflies?”
“Those weird facts in your head didn’t get there by accident. And it’s a pretty head, if you don’t mind my saying.”
“You know, I got it on special over at the dollar store.”
I meant it as a joke, but he frowned a little, as if trying to gauge whether I was serious. “You’re a little kooky, aren’t you?” he finally asked.
It had taken him all of fourteen minutes to notice. Martina would probably count that as a record.
“I don’t mean that as a bad thing,” he added quickly. “But seriously, where do you work?”
I felt my heart rate rise a little. I wasn’t ready. “You know, the usual. In a building. Inside a cubicle. Behind a desk.”
“So where’s the desk?”
“Not far. Approximately 2.56 miles from here,” I said. “You could walk it, if you needed to. I mean, I didn’t. I drove.”
“2.56 miles, huh?”
“Give or take. I had my reasons for measuring it,” I added, when I saw his frown return. I wanted the smile back.
“And what do you do there, besides sit and look cute?”
“That’s about it,” I told him. “Looking cute accounts for ninety percent of my billable hours. It’s a huge growth industry.”
“No, really.” He was waiting, and at some point, I would have to answer him.
“Truthfully, I work for the government. I’m a civil servant,” I finally said.
Sometimes that would be enough. Some guys would have stopped pressing for details and let me relax. But not Kevin. He was determined. He was focused. In other circumstances, those traits would have been appealing.
“Better than being an uncivil servant,” he said.
“Only when cornered,” I said. “Then I scratch and hiss.”
He laughed. “So who do you civilly serve?” he asked. “We do a lot of government work. Maybe I’ll come visit you. Do you have a card?”
Martina must have overheard him. Suddenly, she was at my elbow. “So, Sasha, Carl was just showing me his shoes. Show Sasha your shoes,” Martina ordered, pulling us both into their conversation.
Carl held out his leg. The black leather of his loafers was shiny and even, as if he’d taken them from the box that morning.
“They’re Prada,” Martina said. “This season.”
“Wow,” I said, though I didn’t trust a man who wore triple-digit shoes. I preferred Kevin’s dusty work boots.
Carl’s shrug belied how much he cared. “You gotta dress the part,” he sniffed.
“And your part is?” I asked.
“I work over at Morgan Chase,” he said.
I knew the investment bank, so I nodded. “What do you do there?”
He paused, narrowing his eyes ever so slightly. “Well, I’m
