Page 106 of Just for Tonight

“Why does he have to be such a hard ass?” Madison grumbles once we’re in the elevator.

“Maybe because nobody ever gave him a hand up.”

She turns to look at me.

“He loaned you a good sum of money at fair terms,” I remind her.

She blinks, then inhales sharply. “You’re on his side.”

“I think he did a really nice thing today, even if he was a bit surly about it.”

“You like him.”

“I respect him. The things he said to you were probably the kinds of things your dad said to him. We tend to parrot our parents.”

“Well, Dad must have bought Jake a car.”

“I don’t think so.”

“And paid his university tuition.”

“I don’t think so.”

“And given him spending money.”

“Is that what you remember?”

She frowns as the doors open at the ground floor. “No, it isn’t. I remember Jake having a lot of part-time jobs. I remember him being out a lot, missing meals. And I remember that he never came home from university, not even for Christmas.”

I nod and point in the direction of the parking garage. We drive in silence to my appointment. She waits in the car and is mucking with her phone when I get back about forty minutes later. I take off my jacket and slide back behind the wheel.

I need to establish détente before this long drive. “You were right about the shirt,” I admit. Even my client admired the color on me. “I don’t think very much about clothes.”

“I know.”

“How?”

“You have really good bones and an athletic build. You could wear pretty much anything. You could be a cover model. You have that classic look. But you don’t always look as good as you can and that has to be because you’re not interested in clothes.”

“White shirt vs. green shirt.”

She nods.

She has shaken me on the shirt thing, actually. And whenever I know I can do better, I want to. It’s just how I am.

“I wear things that feel good, but it’s true that some things make me feel better than others.”

“Of course.”

I navigate our way to the highway and into the express lanes. It’s not as busy as I’d suspected it might be, but the traffic still demands my attention. Gives me time to think, too.

When we get to Milton, the traffic loosens up and I dive back into the conversation.

“My mom never went shopping for clothes,” I admit. “There used to be a Hudson’s Bay store at the mall in Havelock and there was a woman working there who used to run a boutique. When she went to work at the Bay, she kept her selling strategy.”

I have Madison’s interest now. “Which was?”

“She had a box of index cards, one for each of her regular customers. It listed their size and colouring, what clothes they’d bought from her and what gaps they had in their wardrobe. And when she got a delivery, she’d go through those cards and matchmake. Then she’d call people. My mom would hear from her and learn that there was a new suit from some brand that she liked and that this woman would put one aside in her size if my mom liked. She’d always have shoes and blouses and whatever matched up with it, so my mom would spend maybe fifteen minutes there. She’d try something on, cherry-pick through the selections reserved for her, put down her credit card and carry on.”