Page 16 of The Perfect Deception

He placed their or­ders and once their craft beers ar­rived, he di­rected her to a va­cant ta­ble with two high stools. She climbed up, grate­ful she had taken his ad­vice and worn jeans. He had too, with a but­ton-down blue Ox­ford. He was tall and rangy with a mel­low voice and a pierc­ing stare.

“So tell me how you know Re­becca and Aaron,” he said, when they’d set­tled, turn­ing his stare on her.

Such in­ten­sity made her self-con­scious and she could feel her cheeks heat­ing.Great, I prob­a­bly match my pink sweater.“We be­long to the same tem­ple. I’ve known her for years. And you work with Aaron?”

“Yes, I’m a re­search di­rec­tor in the lab next to his. How’s your beer?” He jig­gled his knee.

She took a sip of the dark brew. “A lit­tle bit­ter, but not bad, thanks. I’ve never heard of this place. Do you come here of­ten?”

“Some of us in the lab come here for their game tour­na­ments. It’s a fun way to let off some steam.” His face lit up. “Would you like to play one of the games?”

She would much pre­fer to talk and get to know him, but he didn’t seem like much of a con­ver­sa­tion­al­ist. “Sure, why don’t you pick one?”

He walked away for a few min­utes and Dina checked her watch. Thirty min­utes. She’d never checked her watch when she was with Adam.

When Zach re­turned, he brought Bat­tle­ship. “I love this game,” he said as he set up the board.

It had never been one of her fa­vorites. “That’s a great one. Did you know it used to be known as Salvo?”

“I had no idea. That’s fas­ci­nat­ing!”

As they played the game and talked, Dina tried hard not to com­pare him to Adam.

Zach wasn’t flashy. He wore a smart watch, but it didn’t cost more than her en­tire pay­check. His shirt was wrin­kled in the back and his jeans were func­tional, rather than de­signer.

Zach wasn’t smooth. His hair wasn’t slicked back and he didn’t seem to have a set of re­sponses he took out and used.

Zach wasn’t pop­u­lar. De­spite his claim that he and his friends came here of­ten, there was no line of groupies wait­ing to talk to him while siz­ing her up.

Zach was…nor­mal. He was smart, av­er­age-look­ing…and bor­ing.

She sighed. “You sunk my bat­tle­ship.”

He smiled at the com­mer­cial ref­er­ence as he added points to his side. He was smil­ing at the ref­er­ence, right?

“I re­mem­ber those com­mer­cials,” he said, and re­lief trick­led through her.

He pulled out the pegs in his board. “Want to play an­other one?”

Good­ness, no. “I re­ally en­joyed this one, but it’s get­ting late and I think I need to get go­ing.” Okay, it was nine o’clock, but some peo­ple might con­sider that late. If you were sev­enty.

“Ah, sure. Can I walk you to your car?”

Think of Re­becca. “Sure.”

She fol­lowed Zach out the door and walked with him down the main street of Madi­son. Lit store win­dows and bright street lamps of­fered a kalei­do­scope of black, yel­low and shades of grey for them to walk through, and at times it seemed to Dina as if they were walk­ing through an old movie. Zach pointed out restau­rants he and his col­leagues had eaten at, stores he’d stopped in and in­ter­est­ing facts about the town, such as its nick­name of The Rose City. “In the 1800s it had a flour­ish­ing rose-grow­ing in­dus­try. In fact, the Mor­ris and Es­sex rail line en­abled that in­dus­try to flour­ish and for farm­ers to sell their pro­duce in Man­hat­tan.”

“How in­ter­est­ing.” And it was. As a lover of ob­scure facts, she could ap­pre­ci­ate his knowl­edge. She looked up at him. He looked proud of know­ing that in­for­ma­tion. And he’d thought her in­for­ma­tion about Bat­tle­ship was fas­ci­nat­ing. His in­tel­li­gence sat well on him, truly be­com­ing a part of who he was, un­like Adam, who hid his in­tel­li­gence be­hind a ve­neer. Would Adam have known some­thing like this? Would he have told her? And how would he have acted if he did?

“Oh wait, I see a col­league of mine up ahead,” Zach said. “Come on, I’ll in­tro­duce you.”

Tak­ing her arm, he led her half a block to a group of peo­ple stand­ing out­side a restau­rant. “Steve, Ann, how are you?”

“Zach, funny run­ning into you here.”

“Let me in­tro­duce you to Dina. She and I were just at The Game Set.” He made the in­tro­duc­tions and ev­ery­one smiled and chat­ted with one an­other. Dina made small talk for a few min­utes un­til Zach made eye con­tact with her, in­di­cat­ing it was time to leave.

Dina pulled up short. Un­like Adam, Zach had made a spe­cial ef­fort to in­tro­duce her to his friends. He hadn’t acted ashamed of her. Her in­tel­li­gence didn’t em­bar­rass him.