Chapter 12
DELPHINE
The evening of my date with Dorian, Annie was sitting cross-legged on my bed when I came out of the bathroom wearing just my robe.
“Hey, honey, what’s up?”
“I thought you might want help picking out what to wear,” Annie said.
“He said casual, so I’m thinking just jeans and a blouse.”
“It might get cool later, so you should bring a sweater. Casuals my thing, but you never miss with a touch of practicality.”
My Annie. Fifteen going on forty.
“I’ll do that,” I said.
“Even though it’s casual, you need to look hot,” Annie said with a wink.
“Hot? That’s a tall order.”
“Not like your perfect gallery look or your stained overalls when you’re working, but something cute and hip.” She jumped from the bed. “Actually, I know just the outfit.”
She went to the closet and pulled out a pair of boyfriend jeans and a sage green, tight-fitting T-shirt. “This is perfect for a date at the beach. Oh, and your cute yellow sweatshirt with the hood.” She placed them on the bed as if designing a store window display.
“Wait, how do you know where we’re going?”
“He told me today at work,” Annie said. “He didn’t make it sound like a secret, so I don’t think he’ll mind.”
“Men don’t understand how hard it is to pick something to wear when you don’t know where you’re going.” I sat on the ottoman to pull on the jeans. “Will you pick out earrings for me? Top drawer.”
Annie muttered to herself as she looked through my collection. “Too sparkly. Too dangly.” I heard her moving things around, then she went quiet.
“Mom, what’s this?”
Something in her voice made me look up.
She was holding a small wooden box with a brass clasp that I’d had since my twenties. “What’s in here?”
I crossed the room. For a moment I just looked at it in her hands.
I could have taken it from her and put it back saying something like, nothing, just old things and changed the subject.
A week ago I might have done just that. But tonight?
I was going out on a date for the first time in six years.
This was forward motion. I needed to keep it up.
“Open it,” I said.
She unclasped it carefully. Inside, nested in the velvet lining I’d cut from an old jewelry box years ago, were two rings.
A plain gold band and a slightly thinner one with a small diamond that caught the last of the evening light coming through the curtains.
Beneath them, folded into a soft square, was a menu from the restaurant near the campus where her father and I had been students. Underneath that, were two photographs.
Annie picked up the first one.
It was of Jon and me on our first date, eighteen years old and broke.
I had on a blue cotton dress that was the nicest thing I owned in those days.
Jon had on a T-shirt with our art school logo on it and baggy jeans.
He’d worn his hair long then, but that night it was pulled back into a short ponytail.
I’d thought he was the coolest guy I’d ever met.
“You look so young,” Annie said.
“We were. That’s from our first date. The owner took it for us.”
“Where is this?”
“A little Italian place near school. Tiny, maybe ten tables. The owner had a cat that slept on the counter.” Kind of like Poe, only he was a tuxedo. “The food was so good. Huge portions, which we appreciated back then.”
Annie looked up at me. “This is where you went? That first night?”
“Yep. When we first met, we were just friends, even though I was already half in love with him by the time he finally got me to agree to a date. He’d asked three or four times.” I sat on the edge of the bed, tears lying in wait at the backs of my eyes. I could not cry and ruin my makeup.
After a moment, Annie sat beside me, still holding the photograph.
“Why did you keep saying no?” Annie asked.
I looked at the photograph of the girl I’d been, sitting in that restaurant in her nicest dress, so full of hope.
“I had rules. No getting involved with classmates. I’d worked too hard to get to that school to let anything derail me.
My mother had told me I was wasting my time going.
She said art school was for people who could afford to fail.
I was determined to prove her wrong.” I paused.
“Men were a distraction I couldn’t afford. ”
“So what changed your mind?”
“He started leaving things outside my dorm room door every morning.” I could still see them, those small offerings lined up on the threshold.
“A flower one day. A muffin the next. A paperback he thought I’d like.
A packet of colored pencils when he saw mine were worn down to stubs.
And then one morning I opened the door and there was a small paper envelope with seeds inside.
Peony seeds. With a note that said for whatever garden you make wherever you end up. ”
Annie didn’t move a muscle. “Oh, Mom. I didn’t know that.”
“Those seeds are out there.” I gestured toward the garden.
“I planted them in pots at our first apartment, and they went with us wherever we moved. Now they bloom every summer, reminding me that someone had once loved me enough to know exactly what I wanted. Something beautiful. Peonies. My favorite flower.”
“How did he know?”
“I mentioned it to him in one of our classes. He was like that. Could remember small details about people. It always amazed me. He’d asked why I was always painting flowers and gardens.
I told him that someday I would have one of my own, with flowers everywhere, spilling over one another.
And that the crown beauties would be peonies. ”
“Wow.” Annie’s voice was barely above a whisper.
“One date. That’s all it took. He ordered spaghetti and meatballs, joking that it was too messy for a first date, which made me laugh.
I had angel hair pasta with capers. I still remember how good it was.
After that, we were pretty much together every day until …
” I didn’t finish the sentence. I didn’t need to.
Annie picked up the second photograph—Jon holding her as a newborn, his enormous hands cradling her like she might break as he gazed down at her, his expression one of pure love.
“Dad used to tell me about how you met. He made it sound like a movie.” She turned the photograph over in her hands. “He always said you were the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen, and he knew from the first day of school that he was going to marry you.”
I laughed softly. “That sounds like him.”
“Was that true or just a story?” Annie asked.
“It was true. He decided it was me he wanted. And he never gave up.” I looked at the rings still nestled in the box on her lap.
“Your father loved very completely. That was his gift.” I reached over and touched the thin gold band lightly with one finger.
“To be loved by him was so intoxicating, so pure. I never doubted he thought I was a wonderful person. Special. That’s why it was so …
” I stopped again. “Your dad was a beautiful person. Kind, sensitive. So good. Like you are. Whatever else, he was all those things.”
Annie leaned her head against my shoulder. We sat like that for a moment, the box between us, the two photographs side by side on the bedspread.
“He never told me about the seeds,” Annie said.
“He wouldn’t. He never told stories that made him look like a hero, even though, to me, he was. God, I loved that man.”
“I loved him too. But the memories are starting to fade. I hate it,” Annie said, just above a whisper.
“I’m sorry.”
She lifted her head and looked at me with those eyes that seemed much too old in her young face. “He would want you to be happy, you know. He’d be so mad if he knew you’d closed everything off.”
“I know. He truly thought I’d be better off without him. If only he’d understood what it cost me when we lost him.” I swallowed, holding my breath, trying not to cry. “How utterly heartbroken I was.”
“Mom, I know he wouldn’t have hurt you on purpose. He just couldn’t see a way out.”
“I know that too.”
“It helps me to talk about him,” Annie said.
“I’ll try to do better.”
“You’re doing great, Mom.” She turned to look at me, tears in her eyes. “Thank you for sharing all that with me.”
I pulled her close, kissing the top of her sweet head. “I’m a work in progress, but I’m trying.”
The doorbell rang downstairs.
“Oh no, that’s him, and I’m not ready,” I said.
“Don’t worry, I’ll go down and tell him you’ll be ready in a minute.” She gave me another hug. “Have fun tonight. Let Dorian make you laugh, okay?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“And try not to be scary,” Annie said.
“I’m not scary.”
“Mom. You know you’re scary.”
“Fine. Go answer the door.”
She jumped from the bed and ran out of the room, her footsteps loud on the hardwoods. I heard the door open and their voices.
I finished dressing, put on earrings, and slipped my feet into a pair of sandals. Before I left the room, I picked up the discarded photo of Jon and me at that table from so long ago. I traced my thumb over his face and whispered, “I want to laugh again. I hope that’s okay.”
The curtains shivered in the ocean breeze coming through the window. Maybe an answer from my long lost love?
I took one last look in the mirror and headed out the door. Toward what, I could not yet say. But at least I was headed somewhere.
Dorian and Annie were standing in the entryway when I came downstairs. They both turned to look up at me.
“Sorry to make you wait,” I said.
“I can safely say, you’re worth the wait,” Dorian said.
He had a bouquet of pink roses in his hand, wearing a pair of faded jeans and a simple white T-shirt that stretched over his muscular frame just right. What would those muscles feel like under my fingertips? Was I going to find out any time soon? Or would I run?
“These are for you,” Dorian said, handing me the flowers. “According to Esme, not as pretty as the ones from your garden, but they’ll have to do.”