NOTES: Thank you all kindly for the reviews of Chapter One. Every time I get an alert in my inbox, my heart skips a beat. Please keep them coming!
Honestly, I feel like this chapter is pointless and doesn't go anywhere. Also, I did an illegal point-of-view change in there somewhere, which is bad form, but I couldn't figure out how to write around it. So let me know what you think, especially about what needs improvement.
The next chapter will continue where this one stops. So much for this being a series of oneshots. Seems I might end up telling an actual story.
Chapter Two: KISS
About a week after their first dinner together in London, Betty appears in front of Daniel's table at a trendy café near his hotel, where they had arranged to meet for breakfast.
"Congratulate me," she says, "because right now I am the most awesome person you know."
Daniel raises his eyebrows, but doesn't look up from his laptop screen. "I'm fine, Betty. Thanks for asking. How are you?"
She makes an impatient sound, and drops into the chair across from him. "Ask me why I'm awesome. Go ahead."
Daniel feigns a put-upon sigh. "Gee, Betty. You seem especially awesome today. Any reason why?"
"Why yes, my friend Daniel. Would you like to know what it is?"
She is really dialling up the cute factor this Saturday morning, with the messy half-ponytail, pink heart-shaped earrings, and mile-wide grin. "Absolutely. The suspense is killing me."
"Well," she says, practically trembling with excitement, "guess who helped Dunne Publishing score their most successful web content launch for any of their publications? Before the first issue has even hit the stands?"
Daniel is grinning back. "I don't know, my friend Betty. Who could it be?"
She waves imaginary pompoms in the air. "Me!" she crows.
The cafe patrons at the next table look over curiously, and she makes a 'whoops, sorry' face at them before turning back to Daniel, practically blinding him with her high-beam smile.
"Betty, that's amazing news!" he says, shared joy racing through him. "When did you find out?"
"Literally just a few minutes ago," she says, clutching her Blackberry, the bearer of good news, to her chest. "The web developer guy was up all night after we went live at noon yesterday. He sent out a mass email just now. We broke the record for most hits in twenty-four hours after launching."
"Not that I'm surprised. You've been working your ass off," he says, boasting on her behalf. "But that's really something else."
"Isn't it?" she gushes. "Behold the power of Twitter and Facebook buzz, huh?"
Daniel holds out his hand, and raises his eyebrows hopefully. "Would it be really lame if I high-fived you right now?"
She slaps his palm, laughing at their old joke. She gives him a warm look, before her expression becomes subdued. "Daniel," she says, sounding a little awed, "I don't want to get ahead of myself—I mean, we haven't even gone to print yet—but I think this might really turn into something."
"You sound surprised," he says. He watches her closely, sensing there is something she wants to get off her chest.
She picks up the salt shaker from the table and examines it from all angles. "I guess I am surprised. Even if shouldn't be. This is a Dunne publication—biggest publisher in all of Britain, after all. And God knows Mr. Dunne is pouring some serious money into making sure this thing takes off. I mean, the budget we're working with..."
"But?" Daniel prompts, gently steering her back to the point.
She sighs and sets down the salt shaker. "But, what?" she says, smiling at him ruefully. "You know me, Daniel. You know how I get."
He nods, feeling the urge to stroke her hair, or rub his thumb across the frown line between her brows. He settles for touching the back of her hand. "I do. You start to worry and doubt yourself just when things are going right."
"I do. And I know that I'm doing it," she insists. "It's just that this job is everything I ever dreamed of, professionally. It just feels a little too good to be true sometimes."
"Betty, you can't— "
She holds up her hand to interrupt him. "I know what you're going to say, and I know I'm being ridiculous. Forget I said anything. It's just stress."
Daniel had no intention of doing any such thing, but seeing as how she won't let him a word in edgewise—she has that brick wall-like, 'we're going to talk about something else now' look on her face—he decides to save the pep talk for later, when she is feeling more receptive.
"Well, if it helps make things less intimidating, I'll let you in on a secret."
She half-smiles at him, curious. "What?"
He flips the laptop around so it's facing Betty. On the screen is the website for Betty's magazine, Capital Issue. "At least fifty of those hits were mine. So there's not that many people interested in your magazine yet."
She bursts into giggles, because they both know the number of hits is in the tens of thousands.
"So," Daniel says, feeling a little proud for making her smile, "I take it there's going to be some celebrating at work on Monday."
"Oh, for sure." Then she smiles ruefully. "Listen to me, going on like I did this all myself. Daniel, I can't tell you how amazing the people I work with are. They could've hated me for sweeping with my American accent and landing this job with so little editing experience. But everyone's been so kind and welcoming."
Daniel is about to say something about her first months at Mode, probably something apologetic even though her untainted smile tells him she is likely not even thinking about that. But her Blackberry, which she was spinning idly between her fingers, interrupts him with a ping. Checking the message, she gives a snort of laughter.
"Perfect timing," she says. "That was the web guy. Apparently we're all booked for a pint at 'the local' after work on Monday. "
"You have a 'local' already? Impressive. I need to get on that."
"Yup. I've been there every Friday night with the rest of the staff since I started. And get this: it's the same pub we came to for Hilda's bachelorette!"
Daniel sits up straight, remembering her blog post. Without thinking, he asks, "You mean the place you flashed Gio?"
She groans with embarrassment, and nods. "The very same. It was the closest place to the hotel we were staying at, which happens to be only a few streets away from the office. Just my luck."
"Small world," he says, suppressing a smirk. Not for the first time, he wishes he had come to Fashion Week with Betty. He remembers reading her blog post on the incident, half-hoping someone had uploaded a picture. Thinking about it now makes it hard to keep his eyes from dropping instinctively. Stupid lucky Gio.
"I know," she says, making an 'ugh' face. "I almost turned tail and ran out the first time my coworkers brought me there. I was convinced one of the bartenders would remember me and start spilling the story."
"But so far so good?" Daniel fights the urge to laugh uproariously. Some small part of him is comforted by the fact that goofy things still happen this sleek, fashionable woman in front of him.
"Yes. Thank God," she replies fervently.
Making a decision, Daniel shuts his laptop and starts packing it away in its sleek silver case. "Hey," he says. "Let's get out of here and do something fun."
"Oh, but we were supposed to be job hunting for you today. Look, I brought newspapers and everything," she says, digging into her purple leather satchel.
She holds up a small stack of newspapers, looking earnest. Daniel feels a warm swoop of affection, and it's all he can do to keep himself from reaching across the table, cupping her face in his hands and kissing her. He refrains, barely.
Daniel realises that he needs to work out this next stage of his life by himself, without leaning on Betty for help. It would be so easy to pull her chair over until they're sitting side by side in front of the screen. He doesn't even need to ask; he knows she would happily spend the rest of the morning helping him email resumes and tweak cover letters. He doesn't even flatter himself thinking she would only do that for him. That's just how she is, and he loves her for it. But Daniel has something to prove for once in his life, and he won't let Betty's giving nature thwart him into compliance. He wants to be the kind of put-together guy she deserves.
"First of all," he says, plucking the newspapers out of her hands, ignoring her dismayed noise as he folds them away into his laptop bag, "the job hunting thing was your idea, and I never agreed to it. I think we can find a better way to spend a beautiful"—he glances out the café window—"not raining yet Saturday than that."
She looks unconvinced. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure. I've been here for nearly two hours already. Nothing out there that won't keep."
She seems somewhat appeased. "I guess a Harvard degree and four years as Editor-in-Chief of a world-famous fashion magazine does kind of over qualify you for most of the stuff in the classified section."
"I'm surprised to find that, yeah, that does seem to be the case. Who knew?"
He doesn't tell her, then, that the laptop thing was mostly for show. He did most of his job hunting this past week while she was at work, and he has several interviews lined up. Before she arrived at the café, he was surfing the Capital Issue website, as well as emailing his mother, searching for properties for rent, reading the New York Times headlines, and also, bidding on a really wicked acoustic guitar on eBay. He's been thinking of getting back into it again; he hasn't picked up a guitar since that day he played for Molly after the poetry reading, when she laid herself emotionally bare to him and he felt the desire to do the same.
Pathetically, Daniel knows that if there was any doubt about whether he is truly in love with Betty, it disappeared when he felt the urge to strum out that shitty song his band wrote in high school about the girl with hair as wild and dark as a stormy desert night.
They exit the café onto busy Brompton Road. Betty is not familiar with this area personally, but looked it up when she found out Daniel was staying here. Even without Google telling her that Knightsbridge is one of the most expensive places in the world to live, she can tell it's mega ritzy: the red brick Queen Anne-style buildings house some seriously upmarket retail, and every other entranceway they pass has a gentleman in a top hat and tails manning the door.
"So, you must be enjoying London, if you're staying around here." Betty winces at the judgy in her voice. Daniel looks over at her, and she gives a friendly smile.
"To tell you the truth, this is a bit much, even for me," he says. A fleet of gleaming Rolls Royce Phantoms glide past, flanked by a police motorcade. "I asked my mom to book me into a place before I came, and this is what she came up with. I've been looking for an apartment, and I've got a few viewings on Monday."
"Flats."
He rolls his eyes. "Right, flats."
She giggles. "Hey, just helping you fit in."
As they walk, Betty observes a great number of Middle Eastern women strolling along in groups of threes and fours in this neighbourhood. Some are accompanied by a bored-looking male. Peeking from beneath their long black robes, Betty's Mode-trained eye identifies Louboutins, Choos, and Blahniks; their gloved hands are laden with shopping bags bearing similar labels. Most of the faces are covered, but those that are not are startlingly beautiful, and sporting a sheen of expertly-applied makeup.
Betty's inner journalist is intrigued, and she makes a mental note. Her mind then jumps back to something else.
"By the way. What's the second of all?" Betty asks.
Meanwhile, Daniel is pulled from his meandering thoughts; mostly he's wishing he had detoured to the hotel to drop off his laptop bag, because it is already digging into his shoulder. "Hmm?"
"Earlier. You said first of all, the job hunt was my idea, blah blah blah. What's the second of all?"
"Oh, that." What the hell, Daniel thinks. "Second of all, you look pretty today. Seems a waste for you to sit inside all day."
She gapes at him. "Oh. I do?" she asks, guilelessly.
He nods, stifling a smile. "Yeah. I like your hair like that. It suits you."
Betty fingers some loose waves framing her face, and tucks them behind her ear. "Oh. Thank you. For, um, noticing."
Interesting, Daniel thinks to himself. Over the years, he's come up with hundreds of verbose ways to compliment a woman's appearance, most of them composed entirely of bullshit. The last time he simply told a woman she was pretty was probably Miss Li, the teacher he had an agonizing crush on back in sixth grade.
"You're welcome," he says. "By the way, am I leading here? Because I have no idea where we are."
Her self-consciousness fades in the face of his goofiness. They stop in the middle of the sidewalk, ignoring the other pedestrians who continue to flow past them.
Betty looks around, orienting herself using the nearest street signs. "Okay," she says, pointing up the road. "We could do the obvious and check out Harrods."
The elaborately Victorian building dominates the entire south side of the road, and continues around the corner. Underneath the green hood-like awnings, the long stretch of display cases feature a Roaring '20s theme, with mannequins wearing designer flapper dresses and vintage diamond necklaces. The Rolls Royces from earlier are parked in a row on the street in front of the main entrance.
Daniel nods slowly. "Or?"
She sighs in relief. "Oh, thank God. My wallet was about to make a run for it."
He laughs. "What are our other options?"
"Well," she says, looking at him uncertainly, "it's not super exciting, but Hyde Park is close by. We could go for a walk? Since it's a not-raining-yet day?"
The laptop bag suddenly feels weightless, like he could carry it around all day. "That sounds perfect."
Shoulders brushing, they cross the street and head north. As they stroll down the busy streets, heading to wherever Betty is taking them, Daniel smiles inwardly at the way she is looking at him out of the corner of her eye. He thinks there is something to that old saying, Keep It Simple, Stupid.