chair, Kit blurted out what happened.
“That’s perfectly dreadful,” Baby declared. “The man should be shot.”
“Yes, but so should I. It was just so stupid of me to believe he was the real deal.”
“It’s not like you let someone convince you the moon landing was faked. Thinking an attractive, educated-seeming man is who he claims to be isn’t stupid. It’s a mistake any woman could make.”
“I appreciate your saying that, Baby. But it was a lapse, a big one. The guy was a freaking con artist. I hate the thought of making a bad call like that.”
Baby tapped her hands together softly, her red nails gleaming.
“I don’t know if I ever mentioned this to you, but I was married briefly in my twenties before I met Dan. These days they call that a starter marriage, though back then the euphemism was ‘too young to know better.’ The man was a real cad and he cheated on me within months. For years, even after I married Dan, I beat myself up about it, really doubted my judgment. What helped me was to finally step back and ask myself what the warning signs might have been and why I missed them.”
“Had there been warning signs?” Kit asked.
Baby scoffed. “Does French kissing the maid of honor at the rehearsal dinner count? Unfortunately I didn’t learn that until much later. But there had been subtle signs from the very start, ones I’d chosen to ignore. Put this behind you, Kit. But there may be something to learn from it.”
Kit nodded glumly. The only lesson she’d gleaned so far was that taking a risk had blown up in her face.
“That said,” Baby added, “it’s time for you to meet someone new and wonderful. Why don’t you finally give Match a chance?”
“But I thought you said it was full of losers and lunatics.”
“Oh, in my age category—also known as the court of last resort—it’s positively swimming with them. I had a date two weeks ago with a man who told me he would never travel to Italy because the Italians inject sleeping potions into their train compartments so they can rob you while you are unconscious. But you’re in an age category with far more options. Plus, it’s a numbers game. You have to cycle through a certain number of bad ones for something good.”
“Maybe I’ll give it a try,” she said half heartedly. She did want to meet someone. It had been five months since her split with Jeremy, a mutually agreed upon one, and she felt hungry for a real connection with a man, hungry, she had to admit, for love. But getting there seemed like such an awful lot of effort, something you needed to work at like a second job. That was part of the reason the night with X had been so gratifying. Instant attraction. No game playing. Or at least that’s how it had presented itself then.
“Just a word of caution,” Baby advised. “Don’t believe anyone who announces in the first email that his baggage is small enough to fit in the overhead compartment.”
“Ha,” Kit said, smiling. “I’ll watch for that.”
Baby’s face clouded.
“You don’t have any concerns that this man will try to track you down, do you?”
Kit sighed. “I have to admit, I’ve felt anxious since last night. But I’m banking on the fact that he’s one thousand miles away. And at noon, I’m going in to meet with the security chief at Healy’s firm. Who knows? Maybe there’s something they can do.”
“I’ll be eager to know how it goes.”
Kit turned her attention to work. Beyond the Griggses’ Greenwich Village apartment, she was juggling five or six other projects, including a one-bedroom Murray Hill condo for a recently divorced, fifty-something tax attorney named Barry Kaplan with the simplest of demands (“I just want a place women will dig and doesn’t have any of those little towels and soaps in the bathroom you’re never supposed to actually use”); a two-bedroom rental in Chelsea that a picky couple insisted be spectacular on next to nothing; and, of course, the Jersey Shore cottage that was supposed to have a Florida Keys vibe.
She knew the last project would make it difficult to put X out of her mind, but at the moment it had to be her priority. Following her return last Monday, she’d forwarded the owner, Avery Howe, some of the photos she’d snapped in Florida and explained that she’d soon be following up with a plan.
But something about the whole project had