Page 37 of November

“Will you please just let me take you there? I don’t need a fancy dinner, India. I knowyoudo. You like stuff like that, but I can’t give you stuff like that all the time. I’m not wearing three-hundred-dollar shoes.”

“These are eight-hundred-dollar shoes,” she said while she reached for her keys in her purse.

“You spent eight hundred dollars onshoes?” Maisie asked loudly.

“They’re perfect,” India replied. “And I have some that are more expensive and some that are less.”

“You have shoes that are evenmoreexpensive?” Maisie asked. “But why? They’re just shoes.”

“Have you admired my ass in these shoes?”

“What? No. I mean… Well, yeah. You left the store, and I could–”

India laughed and said, “That’swhy.”

When she unlocked her car, Maisie turned to hear the two back-to-back beeps.

“You have a Jaguar?”

“Yes, I do. And before you get upset about that, too, it’s four years old. I don’t get a new one every year or something. I only have one car; not a garage full of them, one for each day of the week or anything. And I don’t use that driver. Well, Ihavea few times, but it was mainly for work or charity functions where I don’t want to drive myself, and I don’t want to use a shared-ride app.”

“I’m not upset with you, India.”

“You’re not?”

Maisie walked around to the other side of the car and opened the door.

“I just… I worried you might be one ofthosepeople.”

“What people?”

“People with money. Super-rich people who act like jerks to those of us who aren’t.”

“Oh.”

India climbed inside the car, turned it on, and waited for Maisie to get in.

“I saw you wiping off that table, and I thought you didn’t want to be there, but you were slumming it because of me or something.”

“I’ll admit: I’m not one for places like that most of the time, and thatisone of the reasons Finley and I didn’t work. She’s very much into places like that, and I wasn’t good about compromise in our relationship.”

“Which is over, but you’re still nervous around her and Molly?”

India pulled them out of the lot and said, “Nervous isn’t the right word, I think. It’s more that I’m getting used to seeing them together, but there’s an adjustment period. Finley was the person I once saw myself marrying.”

“Really? You and her? Married?”

“Why is that so strange?”

“Because she’s not at all your type.”

“My type? You know my type already?” she asked. “Wait. I don’t evenhavea type.”

“Finley seems like a top. Am I right?”

India laughed and said, “Yes, you’re right.”

“Did you two fight about that sometimes?”