had time for that, but Holt was now officially a client and clients didn’t appreciate the words, “I’m sorry I can’t.”
“Sure,” she said. “That works for me. Just tell me where.”
They met at a small café around the corner from the hospital, nearly empty now, though the air still seemed to pulse from a lunch crowd that had dispersed just a short time before. Holt was already seated and as Kit approached, she spotted the folder on the wooden table. He was in a sport jacket today, wheat colored with threads of blue woven through, and a crisp blue shirt. Handsome, just as Baby had pointed out.
After rising to greet her, Holt flagged the waitress with just a tilt of his chin. Once the espressos were ordered, he turned his attention back to Kit.
“I hope I didn’t browbeat you into coming. I’m just anxious to know what you think.”
He lifted the folder off the table and offered it to her.
“It seems like you had fun with the project,” Kit said. “I’ll want to spend time going through these, but can I take a peek now?”
“Please, be my guest.”
She opened the folder and began to sift through the clippings. The mix, she saw, included not just pages from shelter magazines, but also two magazine travel stories and photocopies of about ten pieces of art. Kit thumbed through them, struck immediately by the contrast between what she was viewing and a comment Holt had made at their first encounter.
“Why are you smiling?” he asked.
“You have two Agnes Martin paintings in here.”
“I told you I loved modern art.”
“I know, and I like Martin, too. But it’s not quite what I was expecting from you. You said you wanted your apartment to be gutsy, but at a glance I can see that a lot of what you chose is wonderfully pared down and subtle. Perhaps you really crave something with a calming effect. Which would make sense considering how demanding your work is.”
He reached to take the folder back and thumbed quickly through it.
“I see what you’re saying,” he said, nodding softly. “And this may be the real reason my current apartment irks me. Not because it’s so nice but because it’s just too busy with all that red and gold.”
“That’s a great point.” This was what gave her the biggest rush of all in her work, even more than the kick that came from deciding to pair a bunch of wildly different prints or painting a tiny room chocolate brown in order to draw attention to its size rather than distract from it. She loved helping people recognize that what they’d convinced themselves they wanted wasn’t necessarily so, and that there was something else entirely that would capture their fancy.
Holt leaned back in his chair, his brown eyes pensive. “How are you doing, by the way? I felt so bad for you on Saturday.”
“It’s just like you always hear about these situations. You feel so violated when someone breaks into your home.”
“I have a colleague whose apartment was burglarized and the police actually recovered some of her jewelry at a pawn shop. Maybe that will happen in your case, too.”
“Fortunately they didn’t find my nice jewelry. All in all, whoever broke in was probably disappointed with their take.”
“Bad for them but good for you.”
They spoke a few more minutes, with Kit urging him telepathically to drink faster. The meeting with X was only hours away and it weighed on her nerves. Finally, with another nod, Holt signaled for the check.
“I’ll be anxious to hear your final verdict on the clippings,” he said as they rose simultaneously from the table. “In fact, here’s an idea. Would you be free to meet for dinner later? We could discuss them further.”
Was he asking her for a date? she wondered. Maybe he was the kind of guy she should consider seeing, just like Baby had suggested, but now was certainly not the time. Plus, he was a client, and that could make it thorny.
“I’d love to,” she said, “but I need to get back to the office and then I have to run out at seven for a meeting. But let’s plan to review everything soon.”
“Of course,” he said, looking mollified. “I look forward to it.”
As they stepped outside, she saw that the sky was smudged with gray but the forecasted rain had yet to break through. She bid goodbye to Holt and started for the subway.
“New development,” Dara announced when Kit finally arrived at the office.