Читать книгу If You Only Knew - Kristan Higgins - Страница 11
ОглавлениеTHE NEXT DAY, I have to go to the city for a fitting from a bride who’s so high-maintenance that asking her to come to Cambry-on-Hudson might well cause a brain aneurysm. The gown hangs in its blush-colored bag; I had a hundred of them ordered for Bliss, as well as special hangers that can hold up to twenty-five pounds, because some of these dresses are heavy. The bride, Kendall, is the kind who treats me like a servant, texting and complaining as I kneel at her side, pinning her last-minute changes and adjusting the seams since she’s lost ten pounds in the past two weeks out of sheer rage. To call her bridezilla would be unkind to Japan’s favorite monster.
But first, my sister.
Rachel texted me last night around ten, saying it was all a mistake, and she felt terrible for thinking Adam had cheated. I asked if I could call, but she said she was really tired.
I’m not sure I believe my brother-in-law, and I hate that I’m not sure.
When I first met Adam, Rachel was already overwhelmingly in love. Her first love, really, though she’d had a few boyfriends, always these rather nice, shy, geeky man-child types who wore Doctor Who T-shirts and spoke Klingon. But Adam was different, very sure of himself, and very charismatic. She glowed around him. They dated only a month or so before he proposed—asking for permission from Mom and me first, which won serious points with me and turned the event into an “I Miss Rob” occasion for Mom.
Adam cried when he saw Rachel in the church on their wedding day—it wasn’t just the dress, which, trust me, was amazing, a modified A-line satin and French lace with a sweetheart neckline and delicate capped sleeves. He kept his sense of humor through the infertility years, and he brought Rachel flowers twice a week all through her pregnancy.
He’s also a really good dad, though perhaps not as good as Rachel thinks he is… He’s a little too aware of the fact that he does more than some of his peers, but he’s content to let Rachel do the hard stuff, the getting-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-when-someone-has-the-pukes stuff, the grocery-shopping-with-all-three-of-them-at-once stuff. But he’s there, and he loves them, and he does contribute. And let’s face it. Rachel loves being a stay-at-home mom.
I call Rachel just before I leave the house. “Oh, hey,” she says. “Just a minute, okay? Charlotte, honey, I have to take this, okay? Can you please give that to Daddy? Thank you, sweetheart.” There’s a pause, and I hear a door close. “Hi,” she says.
“How are things today?” I ask.
“Well, I showed him the picture,” she whispers, “and he was really confused and then he got upset that I thought…you know. He has no idea who sent it. But he was really nice about it.”
“Nice about what?”
“About me thinking that maybe he…strayed.”
I press my lips together. “Hmm.”
“So we’re good. I think this is just a case of a mistaken phone number. I just feel really bad for what I thought.”
“Rach, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think your husband is having an affair when Private Number sends him a crotch shot,” I say. “I hope he got that.”
“No, no, he did,” Rachel says. “We’re past it. Actually, we’re just leaving for church, so I have to run, okay? Listen, I’m so sorry about yesterday. I really wanted to help you get settled. I just freaked out.”
“It’s really okay. You deserved to freak out.” I pause. “And I’m glad things aren’t what they seem.”
Except I smell a rat. Leo, a total stranger, smelled a rat. Yes, yes, there’s a chance Adam is telling the truth.
But my gut is telling me he’s not.
“He’s a great husband,” Rachel says. “And you know how the girls adore him.”
“Yeah. I do. You go, hon. I have to run down to the city with a dress.”
“Okay. Hey, tell your friend thanks for me. I’m so embarrassed.”
“My friend?”
“Leo.”
“Oh, right. Okay, have a good day. Talk to you later.”
If Adam is cheating on my sister, I will rip off his testicles. Through his throat.
I pick up the dress and my purse and head outside. Leo is lying on his lounge chair, eyes closed, dog by his side, bottle of beer in his hand. “Hi,” I say. “A little early for drinking, isn’t it?”
“It sure is, Mom,” he says, taking a swig without opening his eyes. The dog lifts his head and growls at me.
“My sister wanted me to say thanks.”
“She’s welcome.”
“And thank you from me, too. You were very nice.”
“No problem. I excel at catching women when they faint.” He scratches behind Loki’s ear, and the dog makes a guttural sound.
There’s something arresting about Leo’s face. Angular and a little thin, unshaven. Despite his easy words, there are two lines between his eyebrows. He looks up at me.
“No eye-fucking,” he says.
“Because you’re gay?” I suggest.
“Only where you’re concerned, darling.” He winks, and though I’ve just been rather brilliantly insulted, I can’t help a smile. “Are you going to the prom?” he asks, gesturing with the beer bottle at the dress bag.
“No.” Placing the dress carefully on the backseat, I secure the hanger onto the hook. “I’m a wedding dress designer.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“That’s a real job? I mean, they all kind of look alike, don’t they?”
“Have a nice day,” I say, waving. Well, my middle finger waves. Leo laughs, and there it is again, that warm pressure in my chest.
* * *
“I WANT YOU to take all the rosettes off,” Kendall says.
We’re in the living room of her parents’ Upper West Side apartment, and I’m kneeling at her feet, my pincushion strapped to my wrist, taking the dress down from a size 00 to microscopic. It looks like her bones are about to slice through her skin.
“Your wedding is in six days, Kendall,” I say. “It’s a little late to change the design completely.”
“Look, I hate them, okay? Just lop them off or something.”
Being a custom wedding dress designer means one thing—the bride gets what the bride wants. We start the process, which takes a year on average, with the bride emailing me pictures of wedding dresses she loves. But there’s a reason she’s not getting one of those, and it’s either that she’s a hard size to fit, or she wants something completely unique.
Kendall wanted something unique. She sent me thirty-nine pictures of dresses she loved, from a minidress to a ball gown with twelve-foot train. I made her seventeen sketches, then, when she finally settled on one—the one festooned with beautiful, creamy rosettes—I ended up making twenty-two alterations to that sketch. Then, when she said she was deliriously happy with the design, I made the pattern. Cut the dress out of muslin and had her come in for a fitting. She wanted the dress changed again; not a problem, but from then on, it would cost her. A lot.
Alas, money was no object. Seven muslin dresses and thousands of dollars later, she signed a contract saying yes, I could proceed with the actual dress. A sleeveless sheath dress with a crisscrossing tulle bodice, a belt made from Swarovski crystals that tied in the back with a long, floating tulle sash and a skirt that made her appear as if she were rising from a giant pile of white silk roses, each of the 278 flowers made by the hand of yours truly. It’s pretty. Of course it is.
All told, the dress will cost almost twenty grand.
“If I cut off the rosettes,” I say patiently, “I’ll have to make another skirt.”
She doesn’t bother looking up from her phone, which chimes with a text. “Oh, Christ, you gotta be kidding me! Mom? Mom!” the blushing bride roars. “Ma! Where the hell are you? Now Linley doesn’t want to be in the wedding, either! Those bitches! How dare they bail on me!”
One wonders.
A half hour later, it’s decided that yes, Kendall will get another skirt, made from tulle to match the bodice, and a full skirt with a sweep train that will trail out six feet behind her. I request payment in full plus aggravation pay—I call it an emergency alteration fee—and wait as her poor mother writes me out a check.
“You’ve been wonderful,” the mom says. “Kendall, hasn’t Jenny been wonderful?”
“What?” Kendall says, dragging her eyes off the phone. Her thumbs continue to tap out her message. “Who’s Jenny? Oh. Yeah. Sure.”
“She’ll make a beautiful bride,” I tell the mom.
“You’re very kind,” she says. “I’ll refer you to all my friends.”
“I really appreciate that.”
Granted, I’m used to badly behaved brides. It can be a stressful time. But believe it or not, even women like Kendall can morph into a sweetheart on the big day. Not always, but sometimes. And happily, most of my brides are much nicer.
The lobby doorman holds the door for me. I stash the dress back in the car and stretch my lower back.
The sky has cleared, the cherry trees are in bloom and I decide to take a walk through Central Park. I love the happy noise of the throngs—kids laughing and yelling, the blur of languages I don’t speak, a homeless man wishing everyone a blessed day, the thunk of bass music from an area where kids are doing backflips, entertaining the tourists.
The city has been my home since I was eighteen, and though I’ve only lived in COH a day, I feel as if I’ve been away for weeks.
Central Park is truly the crown jewel of the city, with its curving trails, the statues and flower beds awash in red tulips and yellow daffodils. People are out in droves—runners and parents and nannies and students. A lot of babies are being aired out today. I would pick that one, I think, eyeing a beautiful little boy with bushy black hair and enormous eyes. Or maybe that little girl in the purple windbreaker and red plaid skirt.
There’s a man sitting on a bench, reading. An actual book, too, not a phone. I can’t quite make out the title, but that doesn’t matter. He’s blond and wears glasses, and he has a scarf around his neck, but it’s not dreadfully self-conscious. He seems to be about forty. No wedding ring. Nice face.
I consider talking to him. What to say, though? “Hi! Want to father some kids?” seems a little blunt. I glance around, hoping for inspiration.
Oh.
I seem to have wandered all the way across the park to the East Side. Two blocks from my old place. Owen’s place, rather. Paging Dr. Freud…
I could visit them. You know…for self-torment purposes, in case my bride wasn’t difficult enough. I could ask to smell Natalia’s head. Maybe put her in my purse, which would easily fit a baby. I actually look to judge the baby-capacity of my bag. Yep. It could work. I’d make sure to move my sewing scissors first.
I turn around and face the scarf-wearing reader. “Hi. Beautiful day, isn’t it?”
He doesn’t look up. New Yorkers.
“What are you reading?” I ask more loudly.
He raises his eyes to me. “I’m sorry, were you talking to me?” he asks with a nice smile.
“I was just wondering what you were reading.”
He holds the book up. “Lord of the Rings. My third or fourth time, actually. I’m sort of a geek about it.”
My wedding dress looks like Arwen’s when she finally sees Aragorn again. (Yes, yes, I’m referencing the movie, not the book. Sue me.) My nieces are our tiny flower girls, and Rachel wears pale green as my matron of honor. Mom has a boyfriend and doesn’t sob about Dad. For a wedding gift, I give him a first-printing edition of LOTR, and—
And my fiancé’s boyfriend sits down and kisses him. “Hi, darling, sorry I’m late. Brought you a cappuccino, though.”
“Have a nice day,” I say, but they’re busy kissing.
It only takes me two minutes to get to Owen’s place. I still have the code to the building, but I buzz 15A just the same. “It’s Jenny,” I say, cringing a little.
“Jenny! How wonderful!” comes Ana-Sofia’s voice.
Five minutes later, I’m sitting in my former living room, holding my former husband’s child, accepting a cup of coffee from his current wife, who’s back in her regular clothes. It’s been thirteen days, after all. Why go through all that mushy belly stuff when you’re clearly on Darwin’s list of favorite children?
“Do you remember Jenny?” Owen asks, smiling down at his daughter. “She helped you into this world.”
“She’s incredibly beautiful,” I say honestly. Not a pore to be seen. Rosebud mouth, full, lovely cheeks. “She looks like—” you, I was about to say, but I clear my throat. “Like Ana-Sofia.” I smile at my replacement.
“Thank God for small favors,” Owen says, leaning over my shoulder to stroke his daughter’s cheek with one finger.
She doesn’t. She looks just like Owen, the same shock of black hair, the same sweet eyes, and I remember in a furnace-blast of embarrassment how I used to look at Owen when he was asleep and picture our children.
Funny how I didn’t think this was going to be so hard.
There’s a flash. Ana-Sofia has taken my picture. I imagine Ana-Sofia showing it to Natalia someday. There’s poor Aunt Jenny, just before she went crazy. We should visit her in the asylum this week. “I’ll send it to you, yes?” she asks.
“Sure,” I say. Who wouldn’t want a picture of her ex and his baby and her doleful self, after all? Maybe I’ll blow it up and hang it over my couch. “So I just wanted to stop by. I had a fitting a couple blocks from here, but I should head home. Still have lots of unpacking to do.”
“We can’t wait to see the new place,” Ana-Sofia says, taking the warm little baby from my arms. It’s all I can do not to grab the baby back. “And we’re so excited about the grand opening of Bliss!”
The thing is, she’s sincere. I want so much to hate her—to hate them both—but they’re just too fucking nice.
“I can’t wait, either,” I say in that oh-so-jolly voice I adopt around them. I wonder if there are any escort services in COH.
I should really get out of this friendship, I think as I walk back across the park to the garage where I parked. I know hanging around Owen and Ana-Sofia isn’t doing me any favors.
It’s just that when Owen broke my heart, he also begged me to stay friends with him, saying he couldn’t picture life without me, that ever since we’d met, I’d been incredibly important to him, and even if we weren’t working out (news to me), it would kill him if this was the end.
I’m still not sure if that was kind or incredibly selfish of him. I’ve been going with kind.
I moved out of our apartment the day after Owen told me he didn’t want to stay married, and it felt like I’d slept through the apocalypse. The air had seemed too heavy to breathe, and panic had flashed through me in razor-wire slices. How can I do this? How can I do this? How can we be apart? How can he not want me anymore? What the fuck went on here? Where was I when it all went to hell?
The only island on the horizon had been the idea that the following week, I’d be having lunch with him.
You may think I’m quite an ass for hanging around, hoping for a few kind words. I understand. I feel that way myself quite often. The thing is, there will be a lot of kind words. Let’s not even bring up the great food those two always have on hand.
Owen still asks about my work. He loves my sister and nieces and mother. He thinks I’m pretty and funny and smart. He admires my creativity. We have a similar sense of humor. Conversation comes easily, and since the day I met him, and even through our quickie divorce and his marriage, I have yet to go three days without hearing from him. Even when he’s been in a third-world country with Doctors Without Borders. Even now.
So. Being Owen’s ex-wife is still better than any relationship I’ve ever had, except for one—when I was his actual wife.
It’s not just his job—Dr. Perfect of the Great Hands and Compassionate Heart. It’s not just his looks, which sure don’t hurt. I always had a thing for Ken Wantanabe, after all.
It’s all those things and just how golden he is. How privileged I felt as the chosen one, Owen Takahashi’s wife.
In most marriages, lust and love become tempered by normalcy. If you hear your husband farting in the bathroom seconds before he emerges and asks if you want to fool around, you generally don’t want to fool around. You might, after a few minutes, but you have to forgive your husband for…well, for being human. For eating a bean burrito. After all, you ate the bean burrito, too.
You discover his irritating habits. He uses your shampoo and doesn’t mention when it’s gone. He leaves his workout clothes in a sweaty pile in the bathroom. When his parents visit, he runs out to the package store around the corner to buy his dad’s favorite beer, even though you reminded him yesterday to pick it up, and that errand takes him ten times as long as it should, and you have to text him twice to say Where the hell are you? Your mother wants to know why I’m not pregnant yet! and he doesn’t respond, claiming not to have received that text when he finally walks in the door.
Maybe he grunts at you when he comes in home from work, but he gets down on all fours and croons to the dog for ten minutes, using that special voice that sounds vaguely familiar because he used to use it for you.
Maybe he’s just boring, and you sit across the table from him night after night as he drones on and on about the tuna sandwich he had at lunch, amazed that this man is the reason you didn’t go into the Peace Corps.
Yeah. But it was never like that with Owen and me. I’m serious.
If he was sick, which hardly ever happened, he insisted on staying in the guest room—and using the guest bathroom. I’d make him soup and he’d accept it, but the man is a doctor, and the last thing he wanted to do was spread germs. A day or two later, he’d emerge, clean and showered, and he’d apologize for his downtime, and then make me dinner.
But if I was sick…oh, happy day! I loved being sick. And here’s a secret. In the five years Owen and I were married, I was never once sick. Just don’t tell him that.
I admit, I was feeling a little neglected one night. I’d made a really nice dinner, but he was late coming home from rebuilding children’s faces, so I could hardly complain, could I? As the risotto coagulated on the stove, I waited. He texted that he’d be half an hour late. After half an hour, he texted again. So sorry. Closer to 8. At 8:30 p.m., he came through the door. I pretended not to mind, but I’d had this fabulous call—Bride magazine was featuring one of my dresses on the cover, and I’d been saving the news all day long, because I wanted to tell him in person.
So I poured the wine and Owen and I sat down—I’d set the table beautifully—and we ate the now-gelatinous and slimy risotto, which Owen proclaimed delicious. He was late, he explained, because he’d had to rebuild a child’s nose in a particularly difficult surgery, and he’d wanted to stay until the little guy woke up from anesthesia, and then the little guy wanted to play Pokémon with Owen, and he just couldn’t say no, and the parents were crying with amazement that their son was once again so beautiful and would no longer have to endure the stares and cruelty of the unkind, and the horrible fire that took the kid’s nose could now be a memory and not a flashback every time the kid thought about, touched, saw or had someone look at his face.
The cover of Bride now seemed pretty unimportant.
“Is something wrong, darling?” Owen finally asked.
And because I couldn’t say I’m tired of you being so damn perfect, especially when I made risotto! I said, “No, no.” Pause. “I’m not feeling that great. I’m sorry, babe.”
“Oh, no! I’m sorry! And here I’ve been going on so long! What’s the matter, honey?”
I spewed out a few made-up symptoms—aches, some chills, a sore head—feeling perversely happy with my lie and my husband’s subsequent guilt and attention. He tucked me into bed, found a movie I loved, then went to clean up the kitchen. “I’m running out for a few minutes,” he called. “You need anything?”
“No,” I said, immediately peeved once again. Stupid hospital.
But he returned fifteen minutes later with a pint of the notoriously hard-to-find Ben & Jerry’s Peanut Brittle ice cream. My favorite. “I thought this might be the best medicine,” he said with that sweet smile. Then he lay on the bed next to me as I ate straight from the carton. Later, we held hands. There was no guest-room sleeping for me, no sir. Owen wanted to be close, in case I needed him. He stroked my hair as I fell asleep, told me he loved me.
And he did. But he never needed me. I didn’t complete him. He felt we both deserved more.
All those other marriages—those imperfect marriages with their smelly bathrooms—had something ours didn’t. That moment when you’ve had the worst day ever, and you come home, and you can’t go one more step without a long, hard hug from your spouse. Only they have the arms that will do. Only they really understand.
I don’t think Owen ever had a day when his life was in the shitter. When we met, he was already a star resident, on his way to greatness. And when I had a crappy day, when someone shot down my work, or when a buyer treated me like an assembly-line worker, when a bride had a tantrum because I had done exactly what she asked, I felt as if my complaints were petty and unimportant. After all, I still had my nose, didn’t I?
I told myself that it was good, keeping things in perspective. In order to have interesting things to talk about with my husband, the heroic saver of faces, the smiter of deformities, the changer of lives, I’d listen to TED Talks on my computer while I worked. I’d read important novels. Listen to NPR in order to have interesting things to contribute to our dinner conversations.
But I never let myself have regular feelings when I was with Owen. I was almost afraid to bitch about Marie, the mean and less-talented designer who trashed me to our coworkers after Vera told me my work was “glorious.” When a homeless man peed himself on the subway, and I only noticed because it leaked into my own seat, it was such a sad and horrifying occurrence that I wept as I gave him all the money in my wallet to the disapproving stares of my fellow riders. I cried all the way home and took a forty-five-minute shower. Threw that skirt in the trash and triple bagged it. It was one of my favorites.
But I didn’t tell Owen. He’d just returned from Sri Lanka, fixing faces marred by war, after all. My brush with the homeless man…pah. It was nothing compared to what Owen had seen. So I kept that, and all the other little vagaries and irritations of life, to myself.
There’s that saying—true love makes you a better person. I thought at the time that this was my evolution into a better person. What I didn’t realize was that I wasn’t better; I was just less me. I wanted to vent about Marie and her petty little pecks. I wanted to be consoled about sitting in someone else’s urine.
But it was nothing compared to what Owen dealt with every day.
And so Owen and I had a very happy marriage, a seamless relationship of mutual affection, love, interesting conversations and enjoyable trips. When I felt the need to be human, I faked a mild virus, and Owen would attend to me as he might a patient, and I felt more special and loved than at any other time in our years together.
We were happy.
Except I saw it, that slow erosion of love. Of interest. Of that delight that Owen used to feel toward me, from the very first day we met, that incredibly flattering sense that Owen believed I was the most charming, adorable person he’d ever encountered. For a year, maybe two, I saw Owen’s love flickering, like electricity during a thunderstorm. He was never cruel, never impatient. He was simply leaving me, a surgical centimeter at a time.
I don’t think he was consciously aware of it, but I saw it, and I fought it, believe me. Tried to rock his world in bed, though sex had always been lovely and comfortable and intimate. After reading an article in Cosmo, I talked dirty to him one night as we were making love—dropped the f-bomb, as instructed. He pulled back and said, “What did you just say?” looking as stunned as if I’d just slit his throat.
I invited our friends over more frequently to show Owen that we were the couple to be, that we had this great life, of course we did, we were having a wine-tasting dinner! See? I tried to book a vacation, but Owen said he couldn’t take the time. I booked a weekend in Maine instead, so we could walk on the stony beaches and take a boat ride to the Cranberry Islands, so we could get sloppy eating lobster and laugh and hold hands and sleep late. But Owen had an emergency surgery that day—a little girl shot in the face—and he had to stay the entire weekend at the hospital.
So, in all honesty, I wasn’t all that surprised when he came home that fateful night and told me he wasn’t living the life he felt he was meant for. That though he loved me, he couldn’t help feeling a little…empty…lately. It wasn’t my fault, of course. It was just a feeling that his destiny lay elsewhere.
I knew it was coming. It didn’t make it any easier.
Is there anything more humiliating than begging someone to stay with you? To keep loving you? The answer is no. I begged anyway. For five solid hours, I begged and sobbed and shouted. He couldn’t leave me. He was everything to me. Please, everything should just go back to how it was when we were happy.
But he was resolute. “You’re my best friend,” he said, and there were tears in his eyes. “Jenny, I’m so, so sorry. I hate doing this, but I feel like I have to. The same way I knew I had to go to medical school, even though my dad wanted so much for me to be a lawyer. It’s not you. It’s just… I have to.”
It’s not you. The stupidest line in the history of lines.
I moved out the next day. Of course it was me.
Three months later, Owen proved that fact by meeting Ana-Sofia. We were having our weekly lunch, and he hadn’t said anything. I just knew. I could tell, because I recognized the look on his face; he used to look at me that way. “So you’ve met someone,” I said.
He hesitated.
“Please be honest, Owen.”
“Yes,” he said. “I think I have.”
A month later, he introduced me to Ana-Sofia, whose first words to me were, “Owen has sung your praises for so long! I’ve been dying to meet you.” She hugged me. I hugged her back.
And that’s how it’s been. I want to get away from them. I want to be close to them. I love them. I hate them. I feel hateful that I have to love them, and I guiltily love that I hate them. I vow to be busy the next time they call.
My phone rings as I pull up onto Magnolia Avenue. “Hi, it’s Ana-Sofia! Jenny, I’m so distracted, I completely forgot to ask you. I have tickets for the Alexander McQueen exhibit, and you were the first person I thought of! Would you like to go?”
That exhibit has been sold out for months. Of course she has tickets.
“Yeah, I’d love to,” I say. “Thanks, Ana!”
“Wonderful! I’ll email you details. Bye!”
I take a deep breath and get out of the car.
Leo is once again in the lounge chair. He seems sound asleep. I can tell he got up at some point, though, because he’s wearing a dark gray suit, white shirt, a striped tie. His arms are folded tight across his chest, and there’s a slight frown on his face. The wind, which has gotten nearly cold, ruffles his hair. Beside him is a bouquet of flowers.
He looks…sad. No, not sad. Lost, as if he forgot he was supposed to go to a party and just gave up, found this chair and hunkered down for the night. A well-dressed homeless man and his mangy dog.
I wonder if I should wake him.
Instead, I go inside, lugging Kendall’s dress with me. A second later, I come out again with the red plaid blanket Andreas gave me for Christmas—cashmere…it pays to have friends with exquisite taste—and open the gate.
Loki growls. I ignore him; he’s not terribly big, and he doesn’t look as if he could spring to his master’s defense without a trampoline. Indeed, his lip curls back, but the rest of him remains lying on his pillow bed.
Trying not to indulge in too much gooey tenderness—after all, I’ve known Leo for all of twenty-seven hours—I spread the blanket over him, then go back up the steps to my new home, put Pandora on Kelly Clarkson and start unpacking.
* * *
A FEW HOURS later, there’s a knock on the door. It’s Leo, holding my blanket in one hand, the bouquet of flowers in the other. “Is this yours?” he asks, lifting the blanket.
“Yes. You looked cold.”
“I was fine.”
“You’re welcome.” I give him a pointed look and take the blanket.
“Thank you.”
We look at each other for a minute. “Come on in,” I offer, and he does. “I was going to ask you to come up anyway. The living room light doesn’t work.” It’s a gorgeous fixture, authentic Victorian, I think, ivory with a leaf pattern embossed into it.
“What the hell are you listening to?”
“This? This is Toby Keith.” Leo stares at me like I’m an exhibit at the zoo. Right. He’s a pianist or a musician or a snob. “Who are the flowers for?”
“Oh. Uh, my mother. She didn’t like them.”
“They’re beautiful.”
“She decided she didn’t like orange.”
“Ah.” I wait for him to offer me the flowers. He doesn’t. “How about fixing that light, Leo?”
He sits on the couch, puts the flowers down and takes a bottle of beer out of his suit pocket, pops the top off with the opener on his key chain and sits back, putting his feet on the coffee table. “Have you tried changing the lightbulb?”
“Make yourself at home. And yes. It’s not the lightbulb.”
“Sounds like the switch is broken. Maybe a problem with the wiring. Good thing there’s a lot of natural light in here.”
“Still, it would be even better if the super would fix my light. I believe you are the super, Leo?”
“I am. But I’m not that good at fixing stuff. I got this job because of my looks.” He smiles.
“Well, then, since you’re inept, would you call an electrician for me?” I ask.
“I’ll make it my life’s new mission. Can it wait till tomorrow, or are baby sea otters dying because your light won’t go on?”
I sigh with exaggerated patience. “It can wait till tomorrow.”
He takes another drink. It’s an IPA, which I quite like.
“Bring me a beer next time,” I say.
“Buy your own beer.” He smiles as he says it, and damn, he’s just too adorable. “How’s your sister?”
Right. I sigh and sit down. “She’s… I don’t know.” I grab a throw pillow and smoosh it against my stomach. Rachel had texted me a picture of the girls earlier, all of them on the slide at the park. No note. “She says she’s good.”
“But she’s not good?” Leo says.
I pause. He was awfully nice last night. Caught Rachel, scooped her up in his arms and set her on this very couch. As I was saying, “Rachel? Rach? Rachel!” in a panicked voice, he got a damp dishcloth and put it on her forehead, then stuck around to see if she was okay. I guess he has a right to ask.
“It seems her husband has no idea who sent it,” I say.
“Ah. It was all a mistake, then?”
“That’s what we’re going with.”
He shrugs, a Gallic gesture that belies his very Irish name, a shrug that says, Ah, poor kid, people are stupid, whatcha gonna do. “She seems sweet.”
“She is.” I pause, not wholly comfortable with the topic. “So why the suit, Leo? Do you have a date? Those flowers aren’t really for your mom, are they?”
“Yes, they were. I don’t date. I’m strictly for recreational purposes.”
I feel an eye-roll coming on. “Then were you giving a performance?”
“Nope.”
“Shall I keep guessing, or does your dog need you and you really should be leaving?”
“I visit my mom every Sunday.”
“You sure you’re not gay?”
He laughs. “You’re all right, Jane.”
“Jenny.”
“Whatever.” He looks around my apartment. “So you like the apartment?”
“Sure. It’s beautiful. Bigger than what I’m used to. And Cambry’s my hometown, you know.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Did you grow up around here?”
He looks at me carefully, taking another drink from his beer bottle. “Iowa.”
“A corn-fed Midwestern boy, huh?”
“That’s me.” He takes another pull of beer. “So what did you do today? You’re a wedding planner?”
“We need to work on your listening skills,” I say. “I’m a wedding dress designer. I just opened Bliss here in town.” This fails to elicit any reaction. “I had a fitting in the city for a very irritating bride, and then I took a walk in Central Park, and then I went to see my, uh, friends.”
He gives me an incredulous look. “Not the ex-husband and his lovely wife?”
“How did you—Yes.” He cocks an eyebrow. “And their beautiful new baby,” I add.
“Are you shitting me?”
“Not that it’s your business, but we’ve stayed friends.”
“No, you haven’t.”
“Yes, we have. Your dog growled at me, by the way. While I was covering you with your blankie.”
“You put Mother Teresa to shame. Back to the ex… Why would you stay friends? Isn’t that torture?”
“Are you married, Leo?”
“Do I look married?”
“Divorced? Separated? Are you a therapist? In other words, do you know anything about me or Owen or Ana-Sofia or marriage and divorce? Huh? Do you?”
“No on all fronts, and Ana-Sofia, sweet. That is a smokin’ hot name. Is she beautiful?”
“Some people find her attractive.”
He smiles. Just a little, but it works.
“Yeah, she’s gorgeous,” I admit. “As for why we stayed friends, maybe he was so devastated by our breakup that he couldn’t stand the thought of not seeing me anymore. Maybe we still share a very special bond and despite marriage not working out, we want to stay in each other’s lives. Maybe I really admire and respect his—”
“Stop, stop, I can’t stand any more.” Leo gets up and glances at the ceiling. “Call someone about that light. I just moved here myself and don’t know anyone. Oh, and could you have him stop down at my place? My toaster doesn’t work unless I plug it in the hallway.”
I look at him for a second. “You blew a fuse. That’s probably why my light won’t go on.”
“Ah. Fascinating.”
“Where’s the fuse box?”
“What’s a fuse box?”
“Are you serious? How did you get this job?”
“I already told you. Good looks and charm.”
“I can’t wait to meet the charm part. Come on, I’ll show you what a fuse box is, pretty boy. Take me to your cellar. Do you know where that is?”
We go out my front door, through the gate, where I earn another snarl from Loki. “That dog is really good-looking and charming,” I say.
“He’s old. Be respectful. The cellar’s through here.” He lets me into his apartment, into a tiny foyer, which opens into a large living room. There’s an upright piano topped with piles of paper and music books. It’s too dark to see anything else.
“This way,” he says, pointing toward the small, sleek kitchen. He opens the cellar door, and we go down. It occurs to me that I’m going into a dark place with a stranger, and even as I think the thought, I know this guy is no threat to me at all.
“You’re surprisingly quiet,” Leo says, clicking on a light.
“I’m assessing the odds of you murdering me down here.”
“And?”
“I hereby deem you harmless.”
“How emasculating,” he says. “What are you looking for again?”
“This, my son. Behold the fuse box,” I say, pointing to the gray box on the wall. I flip open the panel and, sure enough, a switch is over to the right instead of the left. I push it back. “Modern technology. Show me your toaster.”
His toaster is plugged into the same outlet as the coffeepot, which is on the same circuit as the microwave. “Just move the toaster in over there and you should be fine,” I tell him. “This is an old house. You might get an electrician in here to update the amperage.”
“Did you learn all this in wedding school?”
He’s tall. The kitchen light makes his hair gleam with copper, and the line of his jaw is sharp and strong.
“The eye-fucking, Jane. It has to stop.” But he smiles as he says it.
“So you teach down here?” I ask, stepping back. Since he made himself at home upstairs, I do the same, flipping on a light and wandering through the living room. A gray couch and red chair complement the red-and-blue Oriental rug. There’s a bookcase filled with tomes about the great composers. A bust of Beethoven glares at me next to a photo of a lake surrounded by pine trees.
The place is very, very neat and, aside from Beethoven, oddly devoid of personality, which isn’t what I’d expect from Leo, not that I know him well, obviously. But still. I’d expect sloppy and welcoming, not sterile and…well, sterile. It looks like a model home, aside from the sheet music.
“So you just teach piano, or do you play anywhere?” I ask.
“I just teach. Sometimes I compose a score for something.”
“Like a movie?”
He smiles. “No, nothing that complicated. Audio books, mostly.”
“Neat. Did you go to school for music?”
“Yep. Juilliard.”
“Really? Wow, Leo. Very impressive. Why don’t you perform anywhere? You must be great.”
“In the world of concert pianists, I’m probably a B minus.”
“In the world of humans, I bet you’re great.”
“What do you know? You listen to country music.” Another smile.
“How narrow-minded of you. Taylor Swift is a musical genius.”
“Stevie Wonder is a musical genius, Jane. Taylor Swift is a woman still bemoaning what happened to her in high school.”
“It’s Jenny. My name is Jenny. So you do listen to Taylor Swift.”
“I don’t. But I don’t live in a cave, either.”
“No, this is a very nice place. Very tidy.” I reach out to touch a key on the piano. “Can you play me something?”
“Sure,” he says. He leans over the keys and taps out a few notes. “And that was ‘Lightly Row.’ Any more requests?”
“How about ‘Paparazzi’ by Lady Gaga?”
“Get out,” he says, leaning against the piano. There’s that smile again. He slides his hands into his pockets. “Thanks for fixing my toaster.”
“I didn’t touch your toaster.”
“Well, you can touch my toaster anytime you want, Jenny Tate.”
So. He does know my name. And he’s flirting. And he’s tall and lanky and his face is really fun to look at, all angular planes and wide smile and lovely crinkles around his eyes.
His smile drops.
“Don’t get any ideas, missy,” he says.
“Like what?” I ask.
“Like, ‘Hey, my husband married someone else and has a new baby and I’m still single but there’s an incredibly hot guy who lives downstairs, so why not?’ I’m for recreation only.”
“I’m not thinking those things, but bravo on your excellent self-esteem.”
He goes to the foyer, opens the door and waits for me to follow, which I do. “You’re thinking all those things. It’s written all over your face.”
“You know, Leo, in the day and a half we’ve known each other, I don’t remember pinning you to the ground and forcing myself on you—”
“Yeah, I hope I’d remember that, too.”
“—but I’m really not interested in you. Besides, you have all those moms and thirtysomethings who are dying to learn piano, as the kids are calling it these days. So go recreate with them, pal.”
A smile tugs at his mouth. “You want to have dinner this week?”
I open my mouth, close it, then open it again. “On a date?”
He throws his hands in the air. “What did I just say? No, not on a date.”
“For recreation?”
“For dinner.”
“Why?”
“Because I have to eat, or I’ll die,” he says. “Never mind. It’s a bad idea. The offer’s been revoked. Bye, Jenny. See you around.”
He smiles as he closes the door, gently, in my face.
It’s only when I get back to my apartment that I realize he left the flowers on my coffee table.
