A High Heels Haunting by Gemma Halliday Page A

“All right, I guess you really aren’t there.  But please, please, please call me back as soon as you get this message.  I mean pronto.  This is a serious code red, 911 emergency.  I need to talk to you now!”   I punctuated this last word by laying on my horn as a bald guy in a convertible cut me off then had the audacity to give me the finger.  Welcome to L.A. 
    I flipped my phone shut, breaking a French tipped nail in the process, and counted to ten, trying to remember some of that calming yoga breathing from the one class Dana had dragged me to last month.  Unfortunately, at the time I’d had my full attention focused on not falling flat on my face during a downward facing dog, and I think I was beginning to hyperventilate.  
    I merged onto the 10 freeway, glancing down at the digital readout on my dashboard clock, and realized with a twist of irony that I was now not only late, but late.  As in not on time to meet my boyfriend, Richard Howe, for lunch.  He’d made one o’clock reservations at Giani’s and it was now twelve fifty-eight.  I eased my suede ankle boot (which had maxed out my Macy’s card, but was so worth it!) down just a little harder on the accelerator, after checking the rearview mirror to make sure the highway patrol was nowhere in sight.  Not that I was speeding.  Much.  But considering the day I’d had so far, an encounter with the CHP was not on my list of to-do’s. 
    As I checked for motorcycle cops, I also gave myself a quick once over in the mirror.  Not bad considering I was having the freak out of my life.  My ash blond hair was still tucked into a flattering half twist, a few flyaways but the messy look was in, right?  I pulled out a tube of Raspberry Perfection lip-gloss and applied a thin swipe across my lips, ignoring the obscene gestures from the guy behind me.  Hey, if a girl in a crisis doesn’t have her lipstick, what does she have? 
    I’m proud to say I only got flipped off two more times before pulling my little red Jeep (top up today as a concession to my hair) into the parking garage on the corner of 7 th and Grand.  I fastened The Club securely on my steering wheel and prepared to hoof it the two blocks to my boyfriend’s firm where I was supposed to meet him… I looked down at my watch… damn.  Twelve minutes ago.  Well, on the up side, as soon as I told him about being late, I had a feeling he’d forget all about my being late.   
    A conversation I was seriously dreading.  In my mind it went something like this: Hi Richard, sorry I’m late, by the way I may be having your child.  Insert cartoon sound of Richard hitting the door at roadrunner-like speeds.  Ugh.  There was just no good way to ease into information like that.  We’d only been dating for a few months.  We hadn’t even made it to the shopping at Bed, Bath and Beyond stage yet, and suddenly we had to have this conversation?  I adjusted my bra strap as I walked, tucking it back under my tank top, trying like anything to present the appearance of a woman with it all together.  And not a woman trying to remember which pregnancy test commercial touted early results with digital readouts. 
    Exactly fourteen minutes behind schedule I walked into the law offices of Dewy, Cheatum and Howe.  In reality the firm was called Donaldson, Chesterton, and Howe.  But I couldn’t resist the nickname.  Considering the type of clientele they represented (the Chanel and Rolex crowd) it fit like an imported, calfskin glove.   
    Beyond the frosted front doors maroon carpeting yawned across the reception area, muffling the sound of my heels as I made my way to the front desk.  The large oval of dark woods stretched along the back wall of the spacious room, flanked on either side by more frosted doors leading to the conference rooms and offices beyond.  The faint clicking of keyboards and muffled conversations billed at three hundred dollars an hour filled the background. 
    “May