Dear Rita. Simona Taylor

the enormous man-made lake that took up almost a quarter of the park’s area. The trees that ringed the lake had begun shedding their leaves, which crunched under their pounding feet like musical accompaniment.

      Cassie cleared her throat. “Rita…” she began.

      Rita was too engrossed in the pleasing rustle of the leaves to pick up on the note in her friend’s voice which, under other circumstances, would have set off alarm bells. “Yeah?”

      “You know how I’m always saying you should get out more often?”

      “You know how I’m always saying I’m happy with my life just the way it is? Dateless?” she joked back.

      Cassie didn’t laugh. “Well,” she began, and then stalled. She tried again. “Well…”

      This time, Rita heard that note loud and clear. “Well, what?”

      “I have a favor to ask you.”

      She didn’t like the sound of that. “Tell me you’re going away for the weekend and need your plants watered.”

      “No, it’s not that.”

      She was almost afraid to ask. “What, then?”

      “I need you to go out on a date with me.”

      “Sorry, I’m not that sort of girl.”

      “You’re being deliberately obtuse, and you know it. I need you to go on a double date with me.”

      Rita halted, shoes scraping on the footpath. “You’re kidding, right?”

      Cassie, who had stopped a few yards farther down, turned and jogged back to her side. “No, I’m dead serious.” She jogged on the spot, keeping her rhythm, even though Rita was standing stock still.

      “Cassie, we’re two sane, adult women. I haven’t been on a double date since I was seventeen. Why, for heaven’s sake? Is my lack of a love life that pathetic? Because, let me tell you, I’m perfectly—”

      “Perfectly happy being single. I know. It’s not that. I need you.” She stopped her on-the-spot trot and faced Rita.

      “Okay,” Rita gave in wearily. “Out with it.”

      “Remember last week how I told you about this guy who chased down a purse snatcher for me?”

      “Ah, yes, your knight in a three-piece suit.”

      “His name’s Clark.”

      “Okay, Clark. What about him?”

      “Well, he asked me out.”

      “You talked to him for ten seconds and he asked you out?”

      “Well, uh, it was more than ten seconds. After this total stranger chases down my purse for three blocks and brings it back, I feel like I owe him a few moments of my time, you know? So I thank him, and the next thing I know we’re chatting. About the weather and the news and the Middle East and what we do for a living. Then what d’ya know? We’ve been standing on the sidewalk for more than half an hour. He apologizes for keeping me, and says he’d better let me go. I say, nice meeting you. And then we go on talking for another fifteen minutes.”

      “You stood on the sidewalk in rush hour traffic talking with a stranger for forty-five minutes?”

      “He brought me back my purse!”

      “Thank him, slip him a twenty, and go your separate ways.”

      Cassie was scandalized. “You don’t slip a twenty to a lawyer in a fifteen-hundred-dollar suit!”

      “Lawyer, huh?” Cassie and a corporate man? Could’ve blown her down. Cassie’s idea of a thrill was a galaxy away. Her men tended to sport do-rags, wear way too much bling, and drive hand-detailed, ten-second rides. Most of them had jobs that paid by the fortnight.

      “Yeah. His name’s Clark. Got his own company, on Temple Street. Niiiice. He’s involved in the negotiations for that new mall they’re putting up on—”

      Cassie had a tendency to ramble. Rita reeled her back in. “What about the date?”

      Cassie came back to the subject without any further prodding. “He called me up and asked me out.”

      “You gave a stranger on the street your number?”

      “Not exactly. I told him I was a magazine editor, and he tracked me down. Not many magazines come out of this neck of the woods, I guess.”

      “Not that many. But don’t you think that someone tracking you down, calling around blind and asking for you, was kind of creepy?”

      “No! It was romantic!”

      “Ah. Romance.”

      Cassie pouted. “Well, it was!”

      Rita didn’t bother arguing. “So, you like him?”

      Cassie’s dark skin glowed prettily. “Uh-huh.”

      “Go out with him, then.” It wasn’t the kind of thing she herself would have done, but Cassie was different. Cassie walked around with magenta hair.

      “I will, but you gotta come, too.”

      “Why?”

      “Because he could be wacko.”

      “What makes you think he’s wacko?”

      “I don’t think he’s wacko, I said he could be wacko.” Cassie’s large brown eyes were pleading. “Rita, please. You know how things have been with me. After what happened and all…”

      Rita softened at once. The left sleeve of Cassie’s lime-green sweat top hid a long, ugly scar, inflicted a little less than a year ago by an ex-boyfriend just days after she’d tried to call it quits. The man had begged her not to end the relationship, peppered her with calls and unwanted visits, before his passion turned to rage. He stormed into her office drunk, calling her every name he could think of for dumping him, while at the same time begging for a second chance. When Cassie refused, he went after her with a letter opener. Only the intervention of a security guard had prevented a tragedy.

      The fact that her jealous lover had been put away did nothing to erase Cassie’s fear. It killed Rita to watch her, a natural flirt who gravitated toward men and loved going out, withdraw from male company. Her friend hadn’t been on a date since. Now she’d met someone she liked, and was afraid.

      “Let’s walk,” Rita said gently. She didn’t much feel like running anymore. They fell into step along the footpath. “Tell me more.”

      “Well, he calls me up at the office yesterday and apologizes for hunting me down like that. I say okay, no problem. He says he really wants to see me.”

      “And you said?”

      “I say I’d like that. But if he wants a date, it’s got to be a double. He says okay, he understands. Please, Rita. Just one date. Just so I can get to know him better. And you can give me your opinion on him. You know I value your advice.”

      “Dear Rita,” she quoted, smiling, “can you tell me if I should see this man again?”

      “Exactly.”

      Rita stopped walking again and looked out onto the lake, buying herself a few seconds. The reds, oranges and yellows of the changing leaves were reflected in the rippling water, and the clear blue of the sky filled the middle. Why not? It was only one night. That was what friends were for.

      “So,” she said, “who’s the frog your prince is bringing along?”

      “He’s not a frog. He’s a very good friend of Clark’s. His partner, in fact.”

      “Another lawyer?” Ick. She wasn’t one for the corporate type, either.

      “Uh-huh. Clark says he’s smart— and good-looking.”