Page 87 of All's Well that Friends Well
“It’s fine,” I say quickly. “I just wondered—” I break off and clear my throat. “You’ve tried using fidgets, I assume?”
“I have,” she says. She looks back at her notebook with a little furrow between her brows as she speaks again in an absent voice. “I’ve had a couple, actually. I keep losing them. But they don’t really do anything.”
My gaze trails slowly down to her legs as I nod. “What about feet fidgets? Have you tried those?”
“Is that a thing?” she says. She still has that little frown on her face as she underlines something in her notebook. Then she snaps the journal closed, slides the pen into the binding, and looks back at me. “I’ve never heard of them.”
“Well, you move your legs a lot?—”
But I break off when she gasps, her eyes brightening. “Are you saying you’ve been admiring my legs?” she says, leaning forward. She uncrosses her feet and stands up. “Want to look closer?” she adds as she hurries toward my desk. “Here?—”
“No,” I bark as my pulse flashes in my veins. “I—no. Goodgrief.”
“Boo.” Her face falls. Then she says, “You should takeyour glasses off and pinch your nose. That’s what you do when you’re wearing this expression.” She points at my face.
And as a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I was about to do. Now that she’s said it, though, I’m not going to.
“No, I don’t,” I say shortly. “Keep your legs to yourself.”
“They’re nice legs, though, aren’t they?” she says, the words eager, her expression still bright. “One of my best features. From all the dancing, you know.”
“They’re nice legs,” I say on a sigh, because it’s something I’m comfortable admitting. To any woman, no—but to Juliet? She’s so playful, and she handles topics like this with such ease. “But this is not the time or place to discuss such things.”
It’s the wrong thing to say.
“So we could discuss it later?” she says as excitement tugs her lips into a full smile. She clasps her hands. “Like maybe this evening? You could take me to dinner?”
“There will be no discussion of legs, noworlater,” I say firmly, pointing to the couch. “I just thought you could consider looking into foot fidgets or leg fidgets or something similar. That’s all. Now go sit.”
I’m unwilling to promise I’ll never take her to dinner, I realize.
She slumps with disappointment, but she listens to me and drifts back to the couch, settling with the grace I’ve come to expect from her.
We work in silence for a while—by which I meanIwork as she looks around with interest, every now and then standing to inspect random things in the room. When it finally becomes too difficult to concentrate, I tell her she can head home for theday, but she refuses.
“No,” she says. “I don’t want to leave until you do. Look, I’ll be good”—she hurries back over to the couch—“and I’ll be completely silent.” She mimes the zipping of her lips.
It’s not the noise that’s distracting, though. It’s seeing her in my periphery, noticing her perusal, wondering what she thinks about what she’s looking at.
“Or,” I say, holding up my mostly empty mug, “you could go refill this.Assistant,” I add when she opens her mouth to protest. At least this way I’ll get a moment to myself.
She narrows her eyes at me but stands up and holds out her hand for the mug. A little frown tugs at her lips when she looks inside. “Do you just drink tea throughout the day? A mug of tea?”
I shrug, already turning back to the papers on my desk. I pick up the phone to call one of the desks out on the floor with a question about the report I’m looking at. “Two mugs, maybe three.”
“Mmm.” And even though I’m no longer looking at her, I can picture her expression—eyes still narrowed, brows still furrowed, but her lips twisted thoughtfully rather than in a frown. “Peppermint? Chamomile?”
“Chamomile,” I say, and then I lift my finger to my lips as the phone begins ringing on the other end.
She nods and heads to the door, moving more silently than I’ve ever seen her move—the same way she was moving, in fact, when she was sneaking out of her parents’ backyard after breaking in to find her book. Every step controlled, concise. She slips out of the room so magically that even the blinds don’t rattle, and I’m once again left wondering how she manages to move that way.
It’s Prue I’m calling, the woman Juliet mentioned at the picnic when she dragged me into that pantry. I try to remember what she said about the woman, but I come up blank. So I ask Prue to clarify a spot on the report she submitted, and then I thank her before hanging up.
Juliet returns just as I’ve finished the call, easing into the office and setting the steaming mug on my desk.
“Here you go,” she says, a little breathless. “One cup of chamomile tea.” Then she looks up at me. “I’ve been assembling a list today that we can go over tomorrow.”
I pick up the mug and almost burn my tongue when I take a sip. Juliet hands me a paper towel seemingly out of nowhere as I splutter, her brow twisted as though she pities me for my inability to drink normally.
