“Great!” she says. “Listen, Jessica’s done opening my register, so I’m going to get to work, but I’m glad we could talk.”

“Why does she do that?” I ask.

“Control issues,” Linda says. “I’m just surprised she hasn’t tried to tie my shoes yet. If anyone needed a long, hard, sweaty—Jessica, how are you this morning?”

Yup. Jessica is definitely Linda’s soon to be replacement. She just doesn’t know it yet.

“I’m fine,” Jessica answers. “Are you ready for today? It’s going to be a big one.”

“What’s going on today?” Linda asks.

Jessica looks at me and says, “Today, we get the store back.”

*                    *                    *

“Don’t you think we should be getting back?” Jessica asks.

“We haven’t even gotten our appetizers yet,” I tell her. “What’s the rush? It’s not like we’ve got a five-course dinner coming.”

“I just need to get back,” she says.

“Just relax,” I tell her.

“I don’t even know what we’re doing here.”

“I just thought it would be a good idea for you and I to sit down and see if we can work out some of our differences,” I tell her. “Things have gotten a little out of hand on both our parts.”

“Maybe so,” she says, “but what’s the point? After today, chances are you and I will never see each other again.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I tell her, “but don’t you think it’s nicer to part with lunch than just the memories of how we’ve screwed each other over in the last couple months?”

“I don’t really care,” she says, and starts to get up.

“Where are you going?”

“I’ve got to get back there,” she says. “What if we have a big client come in and I’m not there to answer their questions or help them find what they’re looking for?”

“That’s what your staff is for,” I tell her. “You can’t be there all day every day. Besides, it’s not like I’m asking you to take a whole day off, I’m just talking about the next twenty minutes to have some breakfast or lunch or brunch or whatever we’re calling this.”

“Twenty minutes?” she asks, now standing next to me. “That’s about nineteen minutes longer than I can be gone from the store.”

There’s something familiar in the way she’s talking, but I’m sure it’s a coincidence.

“You work hard,” I tell her. “You need to eat. Otherwise, where are you going to get the energy to micromanage everyone and stress yourself out to the point of near-psychosis?”

“Yeah,” she says, “calling me crazy is going to really work for you here.”

“Just sit down for a minute,” I tell her. “The waiter’s coming with our appetizers. If you find yourself having a conniption before the entrees arrive, you can go.”

“You don’t get it,” she says. “If I’m not there, the store falls apart.”

She really is a control freak.

More than my ex was but somehow this trait always attracts me.

“I doubt you have any evidence to support that theory,” I tell her, “seeing as how you’re never not there.”

“Fine,” she says in a huff, resuming her seat. “But this isn’t leisure time. This is a business lunch.”

“All right,” I chuckle. “What business would you like to discuss?”

I’d expected the silence. What I hadn’t expected was that she’d actually pull out her cellphone, dial her own store and ask whoever’s on the other line if things are going all right, all the while assuring her employee that she’d “be right back.”

She hangs up, and I can’t stop smiling.

“What?” she asks. “I get that you don’t take your job seriously, but that doesn’t mean everyone else works the same way.”

“That’s hilarious,” I tell her. “I take my job very seriously. I just don’t fetishize it like you do. Do you have any idea how condescending and insulting that phone call was?”

“It wasn’t condescending at all,” she says. “They all know that I like to take a hand-son approach when it comes to Lady Bits.”

“You know, out of context, that would be hilarious,” I smile.

“Oh, ha-ha,” she says as a smile forms.

“And you’re right,” I start. “You just told your employee that you don’t trust her or any of your other workers enough to let them handle the store for ten minutes, all the while assuring her that ‘mommy will be back soon.’ There’s nothing condescending about that at all.”

“You just don’t get it,” she says, shaking her head. “This is the way I work—it’s the way I’ve always worked.”

“I can tell,” he says.

“What is that supposed to mean?” she asks.

“Well, that’s a gray hair, isn’t it?” I ask. “You’re what? Twenty-seven, twenty-eight?”

“I’m thirty,” she says. “And how exactly did you manage to insult me for being too young and too old in the same breath?”

I grin. She looks like she’s in her early twenties. Not a single wrinkle and I can tell because her face isn’t plastered with makeup. Thank God. This way I know what I’ll be waking up to in the morning once I fuck her.

“I’m not saying you’re either too young or too old,” I tell her. “I think that you’re too stressed out, and it really shows in the way you deal with your employees and your customers.”

“How does it show to my customers?” she asks. “I have a spectacular game face.”

“You really don’t,” I tell her. “Remember last week when that woman came in looking for a new handbag? She made some stupid pun and you terrified pretty much everyone within range of your too-long, too-loud, wide-eyed laughter. You kind of looked like that kid in school who’s extra nice to everyone because she doesn’t know how to relate to people.”

“You know,” she says, “if you just brought me here to insult me, I really don’t see the point in continuing.”

“Before you use what I’m saying as a pretext to go lord over your staff and make everyone, especially customers, nervous, why don’t you just take a minute to have a bit of the onion rings?” I ask. “They’re pretty tasty and you haven’t so much as looked at your food because you’ve been too worried about what may or may not be going on at the store.”

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. When she opens them again, she hails a passing waiter and orders a double shot of whiskey.

As the waiter’s walking away, Jessica leans forward and says, “Look, I know I come off as overbearing, but I guess I just don’t trust that things would get done if I’m not there to oversee it.”

Oh shit.

Is there any way the woman I’ve been texting could be Jessica? I can’t imagine that would be possible.

That response, as I recall, is almost verbatim to what that woman told me last night during a similar discussion though. I decide to test the theory.

“Your staff seems like they’re all perfectly capable women doing a great job for you. You’re acting like they don’t know Prada from Donna Karan and would just as soon kill and eat your customers as give them good service,” I tell her.

“Do you know Prada from Donna Karan?” she asks.

“Not even remotely. Really, I’m just proud of myself for remembering the names,” I answer.

She tries to hide it, but I can see that brief flicker of a smile come over her lips.

“They’re a good staff—great, really. Without them, I don’t know if I’d even have a store. They just don’t have that—oh, what’s the word?” she asks.

“Inside experience?” I ask.

She cocks her head a little and eyes me.

“That’s what most control freaks use as their justification for their control freakery,” I cover.

It’s her. It’s got to be her.

The wording’s different, but the idea is exactly the same. Add to that the knowing look she gave when I used the phrase “inside experience,” and I’m almost certain that I’m talking to the woman who’s been giving me something to look forward to after work for the last while.

“That’s a good way to put it,” she says.

“Then why don’t you train them so they’re less dependent on your being there to solve every problem? You’re not superwoman.”