Polly stood smiling at the side door of the old Schumacher Building. She smiled; Stewart just loved the irony. Caught up in the moment she tapped out the secret knock with a little extra enthusiasm. Tap-Tap-Tippy-Tap-Tap. The solid steel door opened just wide enough for her to slide her narrow shoulders and hips through. Stewart shut it on the strap of her overlarge backpack. For an awkward moment he frowned at Polly, imagining that she was going to back out of the plan. Stewart wasn’t going to back out. His ego wouldn’t let him. The same ego wasn’t sure if Polly was committed to animal rights or just to him, he had been known to give a girl amnesia, a time or two..

Stewart reopened the door releasing the bag. Heavy, it thudded against Polly. Stewart didn’t register this. Instead he stuck his nose out the door scanning the street. “You weren’t followed, were you?” He relished the sound of his question; it put him firmly in charge. He always found this a challenge with Polly.

And as usual, as soon as he turned to look at her, he lost his Christopher Walkin cool, “What in god’s name are you wearing?”

Polly turned a little pirouette in a red and white sundress cut to emphasize her small proportions. “Isn’t it cute?” She tugged at the short hem when it stopped spinning. “It’s the first real spring day, and I thought it was just perfect. See the shoes?”

She twisted her ankles seductively to show off a pair of shoes Stewart would neither admire nor remember later. She leaned up on her tettery shoes and tippy toes and planted a kiss on Stewart’s mouth to stop the flow of expletives that began to erupt. “Don’t worry silly, It’s all hemp. And.” She hefted her bag on her shoulder to prove her point. “I brought a change of clothes.” She looked around when she set the full sized pack down in the center of the empty showroom. “It was harder than I thought to find something.”

“How hard is it to find black pants and shirt?” Stewart knew he was asking a silly question. He stepped to her and smoothed Polly’s straight, hay colored, hair while she explained that she finally found some ‘Bandito Gear’(B word for clothes) at Urban Outfitters.

And just before Stewart could get back into his preplanned persona, Polly asked, “Where can I change?”

Stewart, always lecher before animal activist smiled, “Right here.” And he sank, thanks to years of yoga, into a powerful lotus position.

“What about the, uh, ‘crew’?”

“Can’t expect real bad-guys to be on time, can we?” Stewart laughed. “Plus, I won’t let them in, until you’re done.”

Polly looked down at the full frame bag and pulled a small parcel of clothing out of the top. She set it in Stewart’s lap. Then, in Stewart’s opinion, Polly did what she did best. She smirked and flirted wordlessly while unbuckling her complicated shoes. She wiggled the area a curvier woman would have hips as she lifted the hem of her dress. She dropped it twice with a wink before she slid it upwards. It hid her face for a moment, then she revealed her only remaining adorenment )) a broad grin.

“Tap-Tap-Tippy-Tap-Tap.”

“Shit.” Stewart tossed Polly the clothes as he lept to the door. “Who is it?” He demanded in what he thought was his best intimidating voice. He had practiced it, along with his Polly-Dialogs all week.

“Open up, asshole. Unless you want every other white asshole in ten blocks to report a invasion of illegals.”

Stewart looked over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of a hurried Polly pulling her pants up. He worried, not for the first time, that from behind, Polly resembled a twelve year old boy. Reassured by the Lorax tattoo on her right shoulder that disappeared under her shirt, he snapped open the door and ushered the group of four dark skinned men clad in black.

***

“Snout to Tail? Are you seriously making me go to this?” Otto Thomsonkin wrinkled his nose at the ecru invitation. “They spelled our name wrong.”

“Everyone spells our name wrong.” Mrs. Thomsonkin, (actual name Bunny, but no one called her that), sang from the third bedroom, or as she called it, her dressing room.

“Darling, I’ll give you a trip to Tiffany’s if I don’t have to go?” Otto leaned into the perfumy realm of his second wife of two years. Awash in crimson and cream upholstery it looked to him, like a hotel lobby. Mrs. Thomsonkin didn’t look up from her toilette. Otto switched tactics, “You look so wonderful. Why waste it at a deli?”

Mrs. Thomsonkin spoke to him Disney-style, through her reflection in a gilt mirror. “But, Otty, it’s for c-h-a-r-i-t-y.” She drew the last word out through the seductive smile of a woman half her husband’s age. And just as easy as that, her fourth husband of two years was stopped in his tracks.

She reached into a velvet box and removed a necklace. Otto, and his accountant, knew that it demanded the reverence of a moment of silence. So he waited until she broke the spell.

“Otto, be a darling and help me with this.”

He stood behind her and took the diamonds from her hands. He laid them on her smooth d

Read More By Leah Wade