This was what talking to Garnet always did to a person. Lily was usually so dizzy after their conversations she generally forgot what she’d started out discussing. She wasn’t sure if Garnet’s brain was more advanced, or if she was just incapable of holding on to one subject for more than forty-five seconds.
“I really like your philosophy,” Garnet continued, mentally zigzagging. “Date a lot, settle on no one.”
Lily was mildly uncomfortable being a role model for a twenty-one-year-old. While she and Garnet were only seven years apart agewise, it seemed decades separated them in every other sense. Garnet and the girls she hung out with seemed so jaded and…well, fast—to use an old-fashioned word. She worried about them jumping into life and relationships before they were ready. “I do date a lot, I guess. But you understand I don’t sleep with every man I date.”
Garnet waved her hand. “Oh, yeah. Lots of scumbags out there who are only interested in getting laid. But how do you feel about blow jobs?”
Lily swallowed. “I, uh—” Wasn’t this a conversation a girl had with her mother? Since Lily knew she wasn’t ready for kids—and wasn’t sure she’d ever be—she certainly wasn’t the right person for this.
Quit being goofy. She talked about all aspects of sex with her girlfriends all the time.
Garnet’s bright, curious blue gaze was fixed on her face.
“I think you should consider all sexual acts carefully.”
Garnet pursed her lips. “That’s a good philosophy. Now, about the messages…I promise to e-mail them if he’ll take a look at this computer and those weird exclamation points.”
Her head still spinning from the tangents they’d veered off on, Lily glared down at her receptionist. “If that was the problem, why didn’t you just tell him that?”
Garnet glanced from side to side, then leaned forward and whispered, “Don’t tell anybody, but he kind of intimidates me sometimes.”
Lily could definitely relate. She and Garnet were talkers. James was most certainly not. She figured Garnet felt the same way she did—quiet people made her nervous. Dead silence was a space she was obligated to fill. “Okay, well, let’s see what we can do.”
“You’re going to help with the computer?”
“Hey, I did all this stuff on my own before you two got here.” Admittedly not too well, but she’d managed. She leaned toward the phone. “Let’s start with the voice mail. I’m extension one, James is extension two. When you need to forward a call to his voice mail you press this button, then this one.” Lily demonstrated with a pointing finger.
“And when I need to forward a call to you?”
She’d actually told most anyone she could think of to call her cell when they needed to get in touch with her. “Same thing, just press this—” She stopped and considered the phone pad and its myriad similar-looking buttons. “How about color-coded labels? Blue for James, pink for me.”
Garnet grabbed her arm. “Oh, that’s perfect.”
They spent a few minutes finding labels, cutting them into two small sections, then coloring them with Lily’s sketching pencils. Now that the buttons on the phone were colors instead of numbers, she could only pray Garnet would get things right. She couldn’t afford to piss off James and lose his host of office skills.
“Now for the e-mail.” Lily eyed the computer with innate distrust, then closed her eyes and pressed the spacebar. When she opened them, the dancing shoes had disappeared, and the main screen was in view. She double-clicked the e-mail program—and who, exactly, had come up with that redundant system?—then waited while the computer did whatever it did to accept mail.
A yellow caution sign with an exclamation point popped up in the middle of the screen. Lily stepped back. “Yikes.”
“Told ya.”
Lily linked her fingers behind her back. “Let’s just—” She scooted away from the computer. “Let’s just not touch this anymore. I’ll, uh…go tell James.”
“Better you than me.”
As Lily slinked away from Garnet’s station, she noted the receptionist had found an emery board and was filing her nails—hard at work as usual. Lily poked her head around the door frame to James’s office, told him about the problem, then darted to her workroom. She had designs to go over.
She spent the next several hours evaluating the sketches she’d made for the Spectacular. One designer wanted her signature color to be bright orange—a hue Lily could relate to—so she’d come up with orange dots, stripes and checks; orange patent leather, bows and wraparound straps; and, finally, orange logos of the designer’s crest.
After approving the sketches with her signature, she stretched her arms over her head. She had a lukewarm date to prepare for. Maybe she should get to it. She liked cute designer Brian Thurmond, but she considered them more friendly colleagues than about-to-connect lovers. She’d befriended him a couple of weeks ago at a fashion show, since she understood what it was like to want so badly to succeed, but still be floundering. And connections were gold in the fashion business.
She couldn’t find a ton of enthusiasm for the night out, though. He’d spent most of their last date trying—a little too obviously—to convince her to get him into the Spectacular.
She was on her way out the workroom door when Garnet called down the hall, “Li——ly!”
“I’m right here,” she said as she ground to a halt in the foyer. “We have an intercom, you know.”
Garnet smiled over her shoulder. “Oh. Forgot. Line one. It’s your sister.”
Suppressing a groan, Lily picked up the extension on the foyer table. “Hi, sis, you just caught me on my way out.” Well, she was going out—in about two hours, after she showered, redid her makeup, dressed and snacked.
“Out with who?” her older, bossier and nosier sister asked.
“A guy.” She knew her sister would never settle for that, so she added, “A fellow designer.”
“Do things look—” She broke off as something crashed in the background. “Jack Jr., get out of those cabinets!”
“Maybe you should check on him. I could let you go…”
“No, he’s fine. I was going to ask if things look promising between you and this guy.”
“I’m not going to marry him, if that’s what you mean.” Giving up the single life in the city wasn’t going to happen anytime soon—if ever.
“Lily, you really need to get busy. You’re twenty-eight, you know. When I was twenty-eight—”
“I know. You’d been married for eight years and had two kids already. I’m not you, Karen,” she added quietly.
She sighed. “Sorry. I’m nagging again. That’s my job.”
Lily smiled, relieved her sister wasn’t
