I thought for a second. “You know those children who try to trap ground squirrels so they can torture them?”
“I guess so?”
“That’s her. And I’m the ground squirrel.”
Joe took that in.
“Anyway,” I went on, “now she’s set her sights on you, so be warned.”
“What makes you think that?”
I looked into his puzzle-piece face. “She told me.”
Joe paused like that was completely nuts—which, in fairness, it was. “Why would she tell you that?”
I saw this coming. I could so easily have shrugged and said I didn’t know—and left it at that. But I was going to have to do a little bit of leveling with him to get him oriented. It was my civic duty to inform him what he was dealing with.
So I said, “Because she thinks I like you.”
It was a hell of a thing to just … put out there.
What was I doing? What was I thinking?
Sure—I was trying to be accurate.
But I miscalculated. I thought that if I rolled my eyes a little in the delivery, he’d dismiss the underlying truth of it out of hand while still grasping the essentials: that Parker was out to get me—and he could become collateral damage.
But I far overestimated my acting skills.
An eye roll is a complex thing to manufacture. It’s not just eyes. Eye rolls also require a slight shrug, an imperceptible tilt of the head, a microscopic retraction of the neck. Plus impeccable timing. An eye roll, when you really think about it, requires a whole ballet of delicate and precise muscular choreography timed to the millisecond. It’s not for amateurs.
All to say: I flubbed it.
I came off like a kid actor in a bad sitcom.
And I realized I was overdoing it as I overdid it—and so then I grimaced involuntarily and gave myself one thousand percent away.
But—and I’ll always be grateful to him for this—Joe didn’t call me on it. He didn’t put me on the spot. He didn’t lean in all curious and say, Is she right? Do you like me?
He just graciously focused on the thing I clearly wanted us all to focus on: how incomprehensibly terrible Parker absolutely was. “Is that why she fainted in the elevator?”
“Pretended to faint,” I pointed out.
“Was she—making a move?”
“She was.”
“By fainting?”
“It got her into your arms, didn’t it? And it got you into her apartment.”
“I mean—sure. In a medical way.”
“Baby steps,” I said. “Give her time.”
Joe nodded like this was all really fascinating.
“Anyway, I thought you should be warned.”
“Thanks for the warning. Though I didn’t need it.”
How very cocky of him. “And why not?” I asked.
Joe leaned forward, swiped the garlic bread off my plate, shrugged charmingly, and then said, “Because she’s not my type.”
Seventeen
MR. KIM DID wind up answering my text eventually, and I did wind up standing in the hallway with him in Joe’s too-big bathrobe as he got the lock working.
“Why is the handle dented?” Mr. Kim asked.
“No comment,” I said.
“Where’s Helpful?” Mr. Kim asked.
I frowned. “Where’s—？”
“Helpful,” Mr. Kim said, gesturing toward Joe’s apartment with his head. “He couldn’t get this fixed?”
Mr. Kim’s nickname for Joe was Helpful? He had nicknames for lots of people in the building—often just their apartment numbers. But this one seemed, suddenly, especially on the nose.
“I don’t think he’s very mechanical,” I said.
All the other locks on the penthouse floor were, of course, high-tech, digital fanciness you could operate with your phone. This lock, however, was like a 1980s punch box. Something a real estate agent in shoulder pads would operate.
“This is a terrible lock,” I pointed out to Mr. Kim.
He didn’t disagree. Just glanced in the direction of the roof. “Technically, nobody’s even up there.”
“Fair enough,” I said.
Mr. Kim could fix anything, and that was a point of pride with him. He had it working again in record time—and I wasn’t sure if I was glad or disappointed.
Before he left, Mr. Kim leaned in to tell me something. “When Sue calls you with her news, don’t worry. He got our permission.”
“Who got your permission?” I asked.
But Mr. Kim shook his head and made a little key-locking gesture at his mouth. “I’ve said too much already. But trust me. It’s okay. They have our blessing.”