Destined by Gail Cleare

we’d seen An
Inconvenient Truth ,
the movie about global warming. Like trying to take public transportation more,
and driving around alone in our cars less. I had actually started to take the
bus to work on days when I didn’t really need my car. It wasn’t bad, and it
solved the parking problem.
    “That said,” I concluded, inhaling
deeply the spicy leather scent, “This is one lovely machine.”
    “Well, I’m glad you like it,” he said.
He told me he kept it garaged in Manhattan, so he could use it whenever he was
here on the East Coast. I gathered that was quite often, if it warranted
keeping a car like this in an expensive New York City garage.
    We pulled up outside the sprawling
Victorian residence where I lived on the third floor.
    “Shall I come in?” he asked.
    I quickly tried to remember what kind
of condition my studio apartment was in.
    “Um...OK, sure, you can come in.”
    I opened my own car door before he
could move, and got out of the car.
    “I’ll feed the cat while you change,
if you like,” he offered.
    I did want to slip into something
nicer (and sexier?). I’d worn jeans to work, and spent a long time collecting
dust bunnies in the basement. I started thinking about having a champagne
cocktail, possibly two. Sitting across from him at an intimate table. Eating salmon,
perfectly broiled, with lemon butter sauce…yum.
    We climbed up the twisting, turning
staircase and I unlocked the door at the top. The attic of the house was all
mine, one large room with four dormer windows, a skylight, a tiny galley
kitchen behind a partition, and an even tinier bathroom.
    Tree greeted us at the door with a
polite “Mmrrrh?” He is a brown and gray striped tiger with white bib and paws.
Very stylish. He goes in and out through one of the windows, getting down to
the ground via a series of precarious rooftop acrobatics. He is very proud of
this, and values his independence as much as I do. He sulks all winter long
when I have to keep the windows closed, much preferring to come and go whenever
he pleases.
    Anton Novak let Tree sniff his fingers
and then stroked him on the back. Tree loved it, arching up into the man’s
hand. Novak’s touch seemed to affect the cat the same way it had me, earlier
today in the park. I was impressed. Tree is a very good judge of character.
    “What do people actually call you?” I
asked. I couldn’t imagine calling anyone “Anton” with a straight face. “I mean,
like, when they speak to you?”
    “Tony,” he replied.
    “Aha,” I said, relieved. “I can do
that.”
    “Can you?” he inquired, seriously.
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Let’s hear it?”
    “Tony.”
    “Try it again,” he said, closing his
eyes, waiting.
    “Tony,” I sighed, in a sultry voice.
    He shivered with mock delight. We both
laughed.
    “And do they call you Em? Emmie?”
    “Yes,” I admitted.
    “And where do we keep the cat food,
Em?” he asked, as Tree began to rub up against the doorway to the kitchen,
leading the way.
    I showed Tony where, and went to
shower and change. Everything had to come into the bathroom with me, since a
studio floor plan allows for very little privacy. When I emerged, dressed in
black slacks and a yellow silk shirt worn open over a black lace camisole, he
looked at me admiringly.
    “I must say I like the idea of going
out to dinner with James Bond’s boss,” Tony said, “Em. You look very nice.”
    He arose from the sofa, where he had
been flipping through National Geographic . He smiled and came closer.
    “And I have always had a crush on
Mafia bosses from New Jersey, Tony,” I said teasingly, hoping he had been
watching The Sopranos and batting my eyelashes.
    He laughed, thank goodness. “Well,
I’ve spent a lot of time in New Jersey, but I am not in the Mafia, I am sorry
to disappoint you!”
    We went out the door and started down
the stairs.
    “New Jersey? Somehow I can’t imagine
you there,” I remarked.
    “Oh yes,” he said, “I went