“One and the same,” he said. He walked with her out the door and down the hallway as they talked.
“I had no idea. I’m sorry I didn’t make the connection. If I had, I would have been knocking on your door a long time ago,” she replied, laughing.
Sal laughed as well. “I’m sure you would have.”
“How is Laci? She was my Resident Advisor during my freshman year at college.” Alana said, shaking her head at what a small world it really was. “I just spoke to her about a week ago and she wasn’t having a good time in the last few weeks of her pregnancy.”
Sal smiled, and Alana could see the love in his eyes despite his obvious weariness over the impending pregnancy. “No, she definitely hasn’t been very happy these past few weeks. But she’s due in about three more weeks so there’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” he explained.
From his words, Alana guessed he had been a very harried husband lately.
“Wow! I’m a little embarrassed now. I never made the connection with you and Laci. She talks about you all the time though.”
“Well, she didn’t take my last name so it gets a little confusing sometimes,” Sal said.
“I’ll bet she just loves that,” Alana laughed, knowing her friend well.
“She loves it even more when a sales person calls the house and asks for Mr. Anderson.”
Alana laughed softly. “I bet she does,” she said, pressing the elevator call button.
“It was good talking to you,” Sal said, holding the doors to the elevator as they slid silently open. “And I’ll give you a call regarding your projects.”
“Thank you for considering it,” Alana said and smiled genuinely at the tall, elegant man who had married her college mentor. “Tell Laci to hang in there and I’ll give her a call soon.”
“Will do,” Sal said as the doors closed.
Sal walked back into his office and found his brother Gus lounging against his desk. “What’s up?” he asked, tossing the brochure onto the glossy surface.
“We need more space for the Los Angeles office,” Gus said without preamble.
“So go get it,” Sal said and took a seat on the sofa, waiting for his younger brother to get to the point. Sal knew it had to be more than just the lack of space update. Gus drove himself too hard on a regular basis so it was odd to see him just lounging around.
“Already on top of it,” Gus said absently.
“So what’s the issue?”
“What’s that smell?” Gus said, pushing away from the desk and walking over to the grouping of chairs and sofa in one corner of the office. The rose smell seemed to be concentrated in this area and he sniffed the air, wanting to absorb more of the scent.
“What smell?” Sal asked, rolling his eyes at his younger brother.
“I don’t know,” Gus said, inhaling deeply. “You have a woman on the side I should tell Laci about?”
Sal had moved to stand beside his brother, flipping through the orphanage brochure again but he laughed at Gus’ teasing. “I wouldn’t dare,” he said. “Laci unpregnant is one thing. But Laci more than eight months pregnant is….well, she’s just…”
“No diplomatic way to put it, huh?” Gus said, thinking back to their youngest sister and sister in law who had both become irritated with their last month of pregnancy.
“Exactly.” Sal nodded his head. “Sometimes, life just isn’t fair,” he said.
Gus laughed. “Don’t even try it,” Gus said, shoving his oldest brother’s shoulder. “You’re just as thrilled and excited as Laci is.”
Sal smiled sheepishly but didn’t deny the statement. “Here,” he said, changing the subject by handing Gus the glossy brochure of the orphanage program. “Can you go over and check this out?”
Gus took the brochure and flipped through the pages. “Sure. What is it?”
“That’s the rose scented perfume,” Sal replied, walking back to his desk. He wanted to get out of the office so he could take Laci out to dinner tonight. She needed cheering up, he thought.
“Ah. Well then in that case, you can definitely count me in. But why are kids wearing rose perfume?” he asked, laughing at his own joke.
Sal rolled his eyes. “The kids aren’t wearing the perfume. The woman asking us to donate money was.”
“She doesn’t know you’re a happily married man, does she?”
“I’m not the one who noticed that she was wearing perfume,” Sal said, looking pointedly at Gus. “And more to the point, she’s a good friend of Laci’s. She also didn’t strike me as the type to use those kinds of tactics,” he said absently, already moving on to the next issue of the day.
“Pity,” Gus said, and moved towards the doorway.
“Why is that a pity?” Sal asked distractedly.
“Any woman who wears that perfume has to be beautiful and….” Gus wracked his brains for the appropriate adjective but his mind came up blank. “Well, I don’t know what, but I’m already interested.”
That caught Sal’s attention. He glanced at his younger brother’s retreating back with surprise. “You haven’t even seen her. She might be an ugly old hag with buck teeth and scraggly hair with the personality of a goat,” Sal emphasized.
Gus turned around and smiled roguishly. “You’ve been out of circulation for too long, old man,” shaking his head in dismay and mock disappointment. “With that perfume, I’m imagining that she’s a hot little red-head just itching to have me sweep her off her feet,” he laughed.
Sal looked up from his desk. “Get the hell out of here,” Sal said, but laughed at his brother’s voracious appetite for beautiful red-heads.
“A sultry brunette?” he asked hopefully at the doorway.
“Sorry,” Sal shook his head. “She’s a blond.”
Gus’s whole face fell. “Pity.”
“What in the world is wrong with a blond?” Sal asked, mildly curious. “Victoria is a blond and she’s very nice,” Sal said, referring to Thomas’ wife, the second to oldest brother, right behind Sal.
Gus shrugged. “I don’t know. Just not interested in blonds. Something about their coolness, lack of fire,” he said and ducked out of Sal’s office.