Let's Be Frank by Brea Brown

late?” I ask Frankie as we nurse our second drinks and wait for Betty to arrive.
    She rolls her eyes. “Yep. I have a feeling she likes to make an entrance.”
    This insight makes me laugh. “Just a feeling? You’ve never called her on it?”
    With a tiny shake of her head, she replies, “Nope. But when she gets here, you’ll see. In the meantime, I need to use the bathroom.”
    Before I can object to her leaving me alone as her best friend is about to arrive, she practically climbs over me in the booth with a “Be right back!”
    “But—” I sigh and watch her trot toward the bathrooms. “Great,” I mutter, facing forward and training my eye on the front door.
    Not too much time elapses before the door opens. A black-haired woman in a black cashmere coat, red scarf, and matching red leather gloves blows in with the cold, snow-scented air. She pauses on this side of the threshold, stretches even higher in her three-inch heels, and scans the room, ostensibly to find Frankie and me. Since I’m in the first booth directly in her eye line and I’m only one of a half-dozen patrons in the place this early on a Friday, she sees me right away, but she takes her time acknowledging me with a regal nod and slow smile.
    We have a live one.
    She sashays toward me, as if she’s in slow motion. Drawing even with the table, she pulls her gloves from her fingers, one-by-one, and waves one of the gloves in the direction of the bar. “Cab Sav, Russell!” she bellows at the server, who’s kept his eyes on her every move from his vantage point, leaned against the bar.
    Turning her full attention to me, she stands expectantly next to the table.
    “You must be Betty,” I say, for lack of any better way to kick off the introductions, considering our mutual acquaintance has apparently fallen into the toilet. There’s no chair for me to pull out for her, but I slide from the booth and stand, offering her my hand to shake.
    In a whimsical role reversal, she pulls my knuckles toward her face and brushes them against her blood red lips. “ Enchanté , Nathaniel,” she murmurs, studying me through her thick eyelashes. She drops my hand so she can glide into the booth across the table from me.
    As she unwinds her red cashmere scarf from around her neck, I retake my seat, covertly rubbing her lipstick from my knuckles onto my jeans. “Actually, it’s Nathan, not Nathaniel,” I casually correct her original greeting. “But everyone calls me Nate.”
    “Nurse Nate,” she croons, touching her top lip with the tip of her tongue.
    Russell arrives, setting a cocktail napkin on the table directly in front of Betty, then placing a large, round wineglass on top of the napkin.
    She beams at him. “Thanks. You’re a doll.” The smile dies in her eyes but stays on her lips. “Now, scram.”
    How did she…? Before I can marvel at the shift in demeanor and the speed with which Russell complies with her command, her laser beam eyes return to me. “I think I like Nathaniel better,” she declares.
    Frankie returns to the table, and I stand once again to let her into the booth. “So, you guys have met?” she inquires, taking her seat and fishing the chocolate kiss from the bottom of her martini glass.
    I watch her fingers, feeling a strange mixture of mesmerized and repulsed. Knowing what’s lurking on the average person’s hands—even someone with good hygiene—makes me shiver at her dipping her fingers in her drink, especially since she just came from the bathroom. I only hope she washed those hands thoroughly.
    That being said, she has long, graceful fingers, and neat, short nails, painted a deep red that’s almost black, a color probably named something dramatic, like “Black Currant.” It immediately makes me think, “Deoxygenated Blood.” That’s not helping the queasy feeling her behavior’s prompting. Oh, and it’s probably a good thing cosmetics companies don’t consult me on names for nail polish.
    Betty pulls my