In for the night

The telephone rings: Señor Carlisle.

“Hello,” Señorita Mill pretends not to know.

“Where are you?” Carlisle says.

“At home,” Mill tells him.

“What are you wearing?”

Mill is silent.

“What are you wearing?” Carlisle asks again.

“A skirt!” Mill says.

“The skirt I bought you?” Carlisle says.

“A skirt my mother gave me,” Mill says. “And a lightweight cardigan.”

“The brown skirt?” Carlisle says.

“It’s beige,” she says.

“What are your plans?”

“I have no plans,” Mill says.

“You’re in for the night?” Carlisle insists.

“I’m in for the night,” she says.

“You’re safe?” he asks.

“Perfectly,” she says.

“This is New York City,” he reminds her.

“I’m safe in my apartment,” she says.

“Your door is locked?”

“Yes,” she says.

“You have plenty of food? What are you having for dinner?”

“Sandwiches,” she says.

“What kind of sandwich?”

“Grilled cheese with salad,” she says.

“And you have shopped?”

"Yes,” she says.

“Umberto said you came in twice this afternoon -- that you were ‘working.’ I said that unless you were in the room upstairs that you were bamboozling him. He didn’t know the word ‘bamboozle.’ ”

"I’ll explain last weekend’s overtime then,” she says.

“Define bamboozle,” Carlisle says.

“Gyp,” Mill says.

“Look it up,” Carlisle says. “Read it to me.”

Mill goes to her computer. “1. cheat somebody: to trick or deceive somebody through misleading statements or falsehoods
2. perplex somebody: to make somebody confused”

“I bamboozled Umberto,” Carlisle proffers.

“Yes,” she says.