Page 62 of The Fifth Avenue Apartment

Sophie guessed that Dave was in his late thirties or maybe even early forties. He had one of those baby faces, smooth shaven with a small, upturned nose, deep dimples and a ready smile that gave him a mischievous look. He was easy to talk to and explained that he’d worked with the firm for over ten years.

“It’s a great group of guys. No one ever leaves, so I was lucky they made room for me,” he said modestly.

“He’s being humble,” Jim said. “Dave is a brilliant analyst and built us a computer program that, well, I don’t know how we lived without it.”

“You enjoy your work,” Sophie said.

Dave grinned. “I suppose you could say I’m mildly obsessed. What about you? What do you do?”

“I work in real estate sales. I’m with Fulton. I’m fairly new, but I really love it so far,” Sophie said passionately.

“Sophie found us our new home, and we couldn’t be happier about it,” Emily said.

Paul, the man sitting next to Dave, looked intrigued when he heard that. He had an air about him that made Sophie guess that he might be the head of the firm. He was maybe late fifties with thick black hair that was lightly tinged with gray and cool brown eyes that seemed to take everything in.

“And now you have the listing for their current home? Jim mentioned just yesterday that he was going to use someone new.”

Sophie nodded. “Yes, we’re doing our first open house this weekend.”

Paul raised an eyebrow. “You’re not going out of town for the holiday weekend?”

“Oh, I am. I’m heading out Wednesday afternoon. But I’ll be back for the weekend. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Sophie is doing one the following weekend, too,” Emily said. “In case traffic is slow this weekend. As you said, people might be out of town.”

He nodded. “Good. Last realtor we used was just awful. No sense of urgency about anything.” He looked around the table. “As you can imagine, that didn’t go over well.” He turned back to Sophie and smiled. “Good luck with your open houses.”

Their food arrived a moment later, a simple salad with a truffle vinaigrette followed by poached lobster on a lemon mousse topped with caviar. It was decadent and Sophie savored every bite. Dessert was baked Alaska, something Sophie had read about in old novels and never tried before. The filling was vanilla ice cream and passionfruit sorbet, surrounded by a yellow sponge cake and smothered with fluffy meringue. It was baked just long enough for the meringue tips to toast golden brown.

Emily and Sophie ate just about everything. They sipped coffee with their dessert and Emily laughed.

“I’m so full, can I confess all I want to do now is go home and get into my sweats and curl up on the sofa. These heels are killing me.”

“Mine are too. I don’t wear them often enough,” Sophie said.

“The dancing will start soon,” Emily said. “Once the band starts, the dance floor will fill up. I figure we’ll stay for a few songs and then we can sneak home.”

That sounded good to Sophie too. She had to fight back a yawn. It was after nine and she usually headed to bed by ten. She looked over at the table where Rick was seated. His dessert sat in front of him, mostly untouched and he was deep in conversation with the man next to him.

“I need to move around. Let’s go dance,” Emily said. Jim was in the middle of telling a work story and it didn’t look like he would be joining them on the dance floor anytime soon. Sophie followed Emily and they joined the crowd of people already dancing to a lively song that everyone knew. Rick caught her eye and gave her the thumbs up, and Sophie laughed.

“I wasn’t sure what this event would be like,” she admitted to Emily. “It’s definitely a work thing for Rick. He’s networking up a storm.”

Emily laughed. “Well, for what these tickets cost, he should be.”

They danced two more songs and just as they were about to go and sit, Rick joined them on the dance floor, and they all danced. The music was fun, and everyone seemed to be having a good time. When the song ended, the next song was a slow one and Sophie started to follow Emily to the table, but Rick took her hand.

“One more dance?” He held her gaze and smiled.

Sophie nodded and let him pull her toward him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he put his lightly on her waist. They swayed to the music.

“Are you having fun?” he asked.

“Yes, it’s been a great night. Thanks for bringing me.” It had been fun, sitting with Emily and taking it all in.

“I thought you might enjoy it. And living where you do, I thought you might meet some of your neighbors and other people it would be good to know. You never know when someone might need a realtor.”

“You were deep in conversation. Are you working on something?” Sophie asked.

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