Читать книгу Wedding Vows: Just Married - Nancy Warren - Страница 24

WHEN KAREN WALTZED into the kitchen, Laurel experienced a pang of uneasiness. She’d finished The Thirty-Nine Steps and was getting together with Ron Saturday morning for their promised coffee to talk about the book. But she only had his word for it that Karen and he were friends. She’d heard of men who used Internet dating to pull together their own personal harems.

Not that she could imagine Ron with a harem, but then how well did she know him?

Karen was in full business mode and checking timing on the various cakes that Laurel was making for her over the next two months. After they’d finished confirming delivery dates, she said, “Um, there’s something I need to tell you.”

Karen grabbed at her arm. “Oh, God. You look guilty. Please don’t tell me you’re leaving. I can’t take it. Really. Your cakes are so spectacular, you’re part of our success.”

“No,” she said, half laughing. “It’s nothing to do with my cakes. I’m really happy here.”

“Oh, that is such a relief.” Karen slapped a hand over her heart. Her manicure was perfect. Laurel really should think about getting one of those. She imagined her fingernails with that shiny pink finish, then couldn’t. She wasn’t the nail polish type. “I’ve finally got my dream team, I can’t bear to lose one of you.”

“It’s more, um, personal.” She looked down and suddenly wished she hadn’t opened this conversation. She had no idea how to explain herself and felt foolish even trying.

“You can trust me,” Karen said gently. “If you’re in any kind of trouble…” The hand on her arm was both warm and soothing.

“Oh, I’m being stupid. It’s nothing. Only Ron asked me out and then he said you and he… And I don’t want to do anything you wouldn’t feel comfortable with, because I am so happy here and…” Her voice petered out and she continued to stare at the floor until she couldn’t stand it anymore and raised her gaze.

But Karen didn’t look at all angry. More stunned. She said, “You and Ron?” the way a person might say “ice cream and horseradish?” As though the two things couldn’t possibly belong together. “You’re surprised?”

“Well, yes, to be honest. You don’t seem like you’d have a lot in common.”

“We both like spy novels. And he has such nice eyes.”

“Yes, he does.” She tapped her pretty pink nails against her binder. “Wow.”

Laurel couldn’t gauge what “wow” meant. “So, are you okay with that?”

The wedding planner seemed miles away. She came back with a start. “Oh, absolutely. Ron and I met through a dating site but we had absolutely no spark. I think he’s a very nice man and he’s a talented accountant and I think we’re becoming friends, but we’re definitely not dating. I’ve hired him to do some work for us.”

“Okay then, that’s good.”

“You and Ron. Who should know better than a wedding planner that opposites attract.” She shook her head. “You’ll have to tell me how your coffee date goes.”

“How did you know we’re having coffee?”

“That’s how he always starts a relationship.” Then as Laurel’s eyes widened she hastily added, “At least, that’s what he told me. It’s not like I know him intimately or anything.” She cleared her throat, obviously embarrassed. “Because, in case you’re wondering, there was no, you know, between us.”

Laurel was insensibly cheered by this news. Not that it was any of her business, obviously, if Ron and Karen, who had met before she’d ever met Ron, had hooked up. Still, she was glad they hadn’t. She couldn’t imagine how weird it would be to have sex with a man who’d also slept with a colleague who was the closest thing she had to a boss. Not that she was thinking of having sex with Ron. The very idea had her thinking as muddled as one of her crazy icing color experiments that failed.

LAUREL ALMOST MISSED the letter grade.

It wasn’t until she’d made sure she hadn’t left a bookmark or a smudge or anything that might lessen the book—or her—in Ron’s eyes that she noticed the neatly penciled letter A marked on the inside back cover of the paperback.

An A and then a line of equally neat handwriting. It said: Book that began a genre. Masterpiece?

She loved the question mark at the end of masterpiece, as though he didn’t want to give out superlatives too easily. Was the A a letter grade like a teacher would give a student paper?

She traced the comment with her fingertip. She thought of the way so many people throw out words like masterpiece, genius, brilliant, groundbreaking and so on and how rarely the rave was deserved. She’d often heard ridiculously over-the-top praise for her own efforts. But then, Laurel, who was modest about most things, knew that some of her cakes were, in fact, masterpieces. Which suggested that not only mastery of one’s medium of work was necessary, but also something more. Some whiff of the creative, the unusual, that took a creation to a new level.

She’d never thought of herself in the same realm as artists—she made bakery goods to be consumed, her works of art were no more permanent than a sand castle or an ice sculpture.

And yet, she liked to think that she lifted the mere cake to a new level, infusing it with meaning and giving joy to those first viewing it and then consuming it.

A shy woman, she spoke through food.

Usually.

Sometimes other forms of communication were necessary and she never found it easy to converse. She was shy, loath from a child to put herself forward. She’d always admired bold women, like Karen, who could go out and meet new people, sell products and services, fight when she had to. Laurel was much happier alone in her corner of the kitchen putting her thoughts into icing rather than words.

Somehow, she recognized in Ron a kindred spirit. The fact that he’d made this short and measured judgment of a book appealed to her. She couldn’t imagine him in a book club arguing the merits of chaining oneself to a stranger of the opposite sex as a way to solve crime, or discussing the sexual undertones of the book and how they related to the mores of the time. The very notion of Ron arguing in public about sexuality made her want to giggle.

And if he did want to discuss the book with her over coffee she knew she’d find herself tongue-tied and stupid.

But she had to say something. In the end, she took a Post-it note, so impermanent it wouldn’t even leave a mark in the book, and below his A and comment she put her own. She said, after much thought and the wanton waste of half a dozen yellow sticky notes:

He’s an ordinary man who, when forced to save his country, can do extraordinary things. As in so many thriller novels, things aren’t what they seem to be on the surface. I think that’s true of people, too.

She realized that her note was hardly significant literary criticism, but she didn’t care. Her last line was more of a personal observation that had nothing to do with the novel but she was trying to tell Ron, in her own way, that she wasn’t exactly what she appeared either. She hoped there was more to her than she could articulate.

As the date approached, she realized, she wanted to be different from all the other women he’d had a first date coffee with. Well, it stood to reason she would be because she was different from pretty much everyone she knew. But ever since Karen had told her that Ron started all his relationships with a coffee date, she’d decided that she wasn’t going to tell her grandchildren that she and Grandpappy had got together over coffee in cardboard containers.

Nothing as permanent as love should start over anything involved in takeout.

Laurel wasn’t a bold woman, but she was intuitive and if she’d learned anything in the years she’d studied and practiced yoga and meditation it was to honor her instincts. Of course, she could be wrong. Ron might be entirely wrong for her in the long term but she wasn’t willing to ignore the strong feeling she had that the way they began would be important to their future.

Wanting to respect his idea of a first date, and yet still make it special, she called him.

When she picked up his business card to call him on Friday she accidentally left a purple icing thumbprint on the pristine card stock. When she identified herself he sounded instantly distressed. “You’re not cancelling, are you?”

“No. I’m not. I have an idea. Instead of meeting at a coffee shop, I thought we might have a picnic.”

There was a tiny pause. “A picnic coffee?”

“Yes. I will meet you at JFK Plaza.” She didn’t call it by its more familiar name, Love Park, named for the famous red-and-blue sculpture that spelled LOVE with the O tilted sideways.

“But it’s almost winter.”

“Wear something warm. I’ll bring the coffee.”

She was inordinately pleased with herself when he agreed. A first date at Love Park was the kind of outing to tell her grandchildren about. Even if the fountain wasn’t operating, there was a great view of the city by looking northwest down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, which was supposedly modeled after the Champs Elysées in Paris.

Laurel had no idea whether that was true or not. She’d never been to Paris, but she liked the idea that she could pretend. Besides, the art museum was at the other end of the plaza and she never tired of going there.

As she imagined their first date, thought about Ron, she began to create a perfect first cake to go with a perfect first date.