Working Man. Melanie Schuster

uncle is smitten,” her mother said.

      “Oh, I knew that yesterday. She’s so pretty, Uncle Nick went for her in a heartbeat.”

      “You don’t get it, Ebony. Your uncle really likes this lady,” her father said.

      “You think so?” Ebony tapped her lower lip thoughtfully. “I’m glad you think so, too, but why do you say that?”

      Her parents looked at each other and laughed again. “Because your Uncle Nick hates cats,” Patsy told her.

      After she and Billie ended their call, Dakota tried to get comfortable on the bed and found that the only was she could do that was to sit in the very center of it. She gazed around the room again, in awe of her surroundings. She hadn’t been kidding when she’d told Billie it was the tackiest place she’d ever seen. When Nick had opened the door to the place, she’d almost thought he was playing a joke on her.

      They had gotten some dinner for Cha-Cha and gone back to the brownstone where Dakota had given the cat a lecture on her future diet. “You’re not going to be eating like this every day, so don’t get used to it,” she’d told her. “This is a special treat.”

      While the cat quickly devoured her food, Dakota and Nick had put her few belongings into his truck and soon they were on their way to the apartment he insisted she use. “It’s empty and there’s no need for you to spend a lot of money for a hotel. Just relax, it’ll be fine,” he assured her. The building was ten stories high and it was a pleasant surprise to Dakota’s eyes. It had been built in the thirties and Nick had rescued the deco-looking structure by gutting the inside and restoring it to its former glory. Everything had been carefully modeled to retain the look of the era in which it had been originally built. He’d used exquisite skill and care in putting the building back together and Dakota was blown away by his ability and taste. She was still complimenting him on his workmanship when they reached the door of the apartment he’d once occupied. He’d thrown the door open with a flourish and it was all she could do to keep her eyes open and her mouth shut when she saw what was on the other side.

      The interior of the apartment was nothing like the public areas of the building. There was nothing sleek or classic about the furnishings she beheld, unless someone just had a real jones for classic playa-playa decor. The walls were covered in a hideous royal-blue raw silk and there was a big plush rug in the same color in the middle of the living-room floor. It had the misfortune to be covered in faux zebra stripes, but the bizarre design didn’t disguise the fact that the rug, like the wall covering, was expensive. And the hardwood floors were beautiful, she freely admitted that. But the things that were arranged on the floor were awful. There were two floor lamps that looked as if they’d been hacked out of a glacier. They were composed of big, irregular blocks of crystal and they were overly bright to Dakota’s eyes, as well as being butt-ugly. The sofa seemed to be a mile long and it was cheetah-printed leather that Nick informed her was hand-painted. There were two chairs that made her want to bite the back of her hand to keep from screaming. They were made of gold velvet and they were shaped like high heels. Not the cheap versions, either, these were the originals that Nick had acquired at a gallery. The whole place was like the living room, full of very expensive tasteless items that made her flesh crawl.

      The dining room had a gigantic table made entirely of glass. Not acrylic, the way most tables of that kind were constructed, but real glass. It looked like it weighed a ton and Dakota couldn’t imagine trying to consume a meal seated there. The chairs carried out the jungle motif as each one was made of pony-skin dyed to emulate some other poor dead beast. She took one look at the light fixture over the dining-room table and this time she did have to put her hand to her face. She’d never seen anything so repulsive in all her life and she’d spent a lot of time in morgues and at murder scenes. It was made of brightly plated gold fixtures and it had crystal dollar signs all over it. Big ones, little ones, medium-sized ones; they were everywhere. There were also prisms interspersed here and there and they caught the light from the hundreds of halogen bulbs that adorned the garish display and made dancing rainbows all over the mirrored walls.