Page 20 of See You at the Sunset

The group in front of him sat down around a table, and one of them produced a deck of cards from his pocket and started dealing while the others settled in.

Henry saw the door with the Office sign above it and headed in that direction. Sitting behind the reception desk was a young woman in what looked like a well-worn set of scrubs with a teddy bear pattern on them. She had her hair tied back with a bright pink scrunchie, almost neon, and the color on her lips matched the vibrancy. She had her feet crossed on the desk, clad in yellow Crocs decorated with charms. She was leaned back in the desk chair reading a magazine that looked to be decades old. It was as if she was a young woman dressed as an old nurse in an explosion of colors and patterns. Henry felt like he’d stepped back in time into a scene of a television sitcom.

And yet, something about her was so familiar, Henry wanted to physically scratch his brain to try to recall where he might know her from. Not knowing made him feel on his heels.

“Excuse me,” he said and quickly glanced at the name placard on the desk, “Gladys?” It wasn’t a name he’d recognized nor seen many younger women have these days, and it honestly didn’t fit the one sitting here.

“How can I help you?” she said. She looked up at Henry, and her eyes widened in surprise. She seemed to recognize him too.

Henry quickly thought through any possibilities. He had no reason to know anyone out here other than Dennis. Had he met her at the airport? She didn’t work for the rental-car company. She wasn’t the flight attendant on his trip. He couldn’t place her as the barista at the coffee shop. Who the heck was she?

She furrowed her brows together. It was a race to see who could figure it out first.

“Wait.” She squinted her eyes as if trying to look through a different lens. “Oh my god,” she gasped. A wicked smile took shape on her face. She scanned him from head toe. “Willow on Ninety-Fifth Street. A couple weeks back. Good scotch. And great, well—” she cleared her throat and winked “—you know.”

Henry’s jaw dropped. Of course the one time recently that he’d allowed himself a one-night stand and it turned into some weirdTwilight Zoneepisode.

She smiled and shook her head. “What are the odds? Tell me, what brings you here to Sunset Hills Senior Living Community in Palm Springs, California?” She delivered the question like a marketing campaign for the neighborhood.

Henry could not believe this was the same woman he’d hooked up with. He could see traces of the stunner from that night. God knows he’d let the memory of her run through his mind enough times since. She had been so sexy and responsive, lithe, incredibly good in bed. But she looked decidedly very different now. He couldn’t wrap his head around what was happening. Why was she here on the other side of the country when he was also here, and why was she dressed like that?

Henry’s lawyer brain immediately ran through questions and scenarios in his head. He started with the most obvious possibility.

“Are you the... nurse here?” Henry asked, nodding his chin toward her scrubs.

She looked down at herself almost surprised at what she found herself wearing. “Ha! No, not a nurse. Just found these in Mimi’s closet from her working days and decided to wearthem today. These too,” she said, pointing at the hair scrunchie and then down to her shoes.

He had no idea who this Mimi was and wasn’t sure he wanted to ask. “So you don’t live in New York? I’m sorry, I’m just confused.”

“God, I’m confused too,” she said and laughed. “Actually, I do live in New York. Well, I did. Maybe I still will. For now, I live here. And hopefully I won’t be living in Florida. It’s all kind of a mess.”

Henry had been so attracted to her the other night. Regretful, almost, for not having gotten her name or her number. Maybe he was lucky he hadn’t. She was a bit scattered and odd in the light of day.

He felt a headache coming on.

“Weren’t you celebrating a work thing that night? A promotion, was it?”

She dropped her head and avoided his eyes. “Yeah, that was a mistake on my part. Turns out that celebration was a bit premature. I wasn’t trying to mislead you for free drinks or to get in your pants or anything.”

He honestly did not know how to respond. She could have said almost nothing to him at Willow and he’d likely still have been interested. The chemistry was too good. He took another look at the odd woman in front of him and wasn’t sure he’d have felt the same way if he had met her here.

For now he had more pressing questions, and it appeared she was the one he needed to be asking. “Okay, well, I was wondering if you might be able to help me. My granddad just moved in yesterday, and the email with his community information said he’d need to check in with the office. I’ll also need to register for a parking pass for my rental. I’ll need a copy ofthe liability waiver for him to sign so he can ride the community shuttle when needed. And I guess, if I can do it all right now, I’ll register myself as an underage visitor for the next couple weeks.”

Gladys’s eyes grew wide. “Oh gosh. Well, I absolutely do not know how to do any of that, so I don’t think I can help. I’m sorry. Um—” she leaned in and lowered her voice “—who told you that underage visitors needed to check in?”

“I read it in the HOA bylaws,” Henry replied.

Her brows lifted.

“You read the HOA bylaws?” she said, nodding. “Well, I doubt anyone’s gonna hold you to those.” She turned her head away from him. “At least, I hope not,” she said under her breath.

“Well, you never know. And I’d like to follow the rules just to be safe. Don’t want to get my granddad in any trouble for harboring an underage visitor past his welcome,” Henry joked.

Gladys leaned back in the desk chair looking completely stumped. She looked him over from head to toe, head cocked to the side, assessing him. Henry refused to squirm. Why should he be concerned what this wacky person thought of him?

But then she shook her head and shrugged a shoulder as if she just wasn’t going to give it another thought.

“Someone will be here in—” she looked at the clock on the desk “—seven minutes to help you. This is above my pay grade,” she said.