Chapter Seven
Seven
Vivian slid her key into the apartment mailbox she shared with Polly, anticipation filling her as she turned it with a twist of her wrist, the little door pulling open to reveal—
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Not a bill, not a letter from a college friend, not a postcard from—
Well.
She shouldn’t be so disappointed that he hadn’t written.
It had only been a week since his last postcard, and he had mentioned that he was busy with training.
And still—she had been thinking of that trip to the mailbox all day.
While she was working on the afternoon news story for Kerry Krieger, her thoughts had drifted to this moment, wondering if Joe had written again.
It was unlikely, considering she had just sent her own response to him a few days ago, but over the last few months she’d learned that Joe’s letters came at unpredictable times with no discernable rhythm.
It was as though he thought of her during random moments in his day, and decided to send her a note to let her know.
Vivian closed the mailbox and walked up the stairs and down the hallway to her apartment, trying to convince herself that it was perhaps for the best that he hadn’t written as she unlocked the front door and shut it behind her.
Maybe he’d moved on from their correspondence as he reached the conclusion that it wasn’t going anywhere, or he’d met someone—
“I’m getting married,” Polly shrieked, thrusting her hand in front of Vivian as she stood in the front hall, a sparkling diamond sitting atop Polly’s left ring finger.
Vivian didn’t have a chance to respond before Polly embraced her.
Tears filled Vivian’s eyes.
She’d never considered herself to be much of a romantic, but watching her roommate fall in love with Frank was enough to sway even the biggest skeptics.
Frank was still stationed at the Pentagon, and he spent so much time at their apartment that Vivian jokingly called him their third roommate.
Sometimes when he spoke about his time in the military or told stories about his flying, Joe would feature in them, and it felt like Vivian was getting glimpses into his life.
In all of Frank’s stories, Joe was always the one accepting a dare or taking a risk, and he always seemed larger than life to the point where she couldn’t decide if the version of him she’d seen those two times they’d met was the real Joe, if perhaps he’d let her see a side of him that few did.
“I’m so happy for you,” Vivian whispered in Polly’s ear. “So happy for both of you. You deserve every happiness in the world.”
Polly pulled back, absolutely beaming from ear to ear. “Thank you. Will you be one of my bridesmaids? You’ve been so supportive from the beginning of our relationship—it would mean so much to have you standing up there with us.”
“I would be honored,” Vivian replied, tears filling her eyes.
Polly grinned. “I was hoping you’d say that. Listen, we’re having a small engagement party in a couple weeks. Just a little get-together for friends at the bar where we met. You’ll come, won’t you?”
“Of course.” Lately, it felt as though all she did was work, and it wasn’t like breaking news operated on a schedule you could anticipate, but there were some things that were more important than her job, and Polly’s friendship was one of them. “I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
“Graham is invited, too. We’d love to have both of you there.”
It still took getting used to, the idea of being part of a “both of you.” She kept telling herself that it was just that it was so new—they’d only been dating for four months, only known each other for a few months longer than that.
In the moments when Vivian questioned her own feelings on the matter, she focused on the things she knew to be certain: she had admired him for nearly her entire adult life; he was a good man, a man who treated her with respect, which seemed like a rarity these days, a kind man, a smart man.
He hadn’t even taken her out on a date until a week after he’d left the station, and in the beginning they’d kept their relationship private to avoid any suggestion that she’d received any favoritism at work.
It was hard enough to be taken seriously as a woman in this industry, and the last thing she wanted was for the career she was working so hard to build to be undermined.
And he loved her—or so he’d told her a month ago.
She tried to tell herself that it didn’t matter that she hadn’t been able to tell Graham she loved him back. Or that each time she walked to her mailbox and found it empty, disappointment filled her.
“Graham will be in New York for work then,” Vivian replied. “I know he’ll be sorry to miss it.”
“We’ll miss him,” Polly replied. She waved her hand in the air, the diamond catching the light. “I need to go call my parents and tell them the good news,” she squealed.
Polly took off in the direction of their little living room, and Vivian couldn’t resist asking—
“Who will be at the party?”
She tried to keep her tone casual, but she must have failed miserably because Polly turned around, meeting her gaze, answering the question Vivian hadn’t been able to fully ask.
“Joe’s coming to town. He’ll be there.”
—
Vivian glanced at the entrance to the bar for what must have been the twentieth time all evening, her fingers nervously stroking the champagne glass a waiter had passed her.
The party had started thirty minutes ago, but Joe hadn’t arrived yet, and the more she waited, the more the anticipation built inside her, until she felt like she would combust.
Laughter filled the room, followed by a smattering of applause, and Vivian tore her gaze away from the entrance to the makeshift dance floor where Frank—normally quiet, staid Frank—spun Polly around in the air.
When she thought of the life Polly would embark on with Frank—the uncertainty and danger that they would be forced to confront because of his job—she marveled at her friend’s willingness to take on such a choice.
And at the same time, watching them together, Vivian had to believe that if anyone stood a chance of making it work, it was these two.
Did it matter that she didn’t look at Graham that way?
That their relationship was different, quieter, more muted?
They wouldn’t have the same challenges to face that Polly and Frank did.
In fact, one of the things that had attracted her to Graham was how easy things were with him.
She didn’t get that dizzy feeling in her stomach when she was with him, didn’t feel off-balance and antsy.
In the beginning, she’d been nervous enough considering how much she had looked up to him, but Graham had a way of putting you at ease—likely what made him such a good reporter.
Their relationship was comfortable in a way that suited Vivian just fine.
Let Polly have fireworks. After the childhood she’d had, Vivian wanted companionship and ease, a home to call her own, a place to put down roots.
She wanted a man who didn’t demand too much of her, a man who would understand that she needed her life to run parallel to his rather than intertwined.
She glanced at the entrance once more.
No sign of Joe.
“Toast, toast, toast—” a voice cheered from across the room.
One of Frank’s Air Force buddies lifted a glass in hand, and the others moved in, surrounding the engaged couple.
His pilot friends were a rowdy group, their good-natured energy injecting quite a bit of life into the party.
Seeing them in action reminded her of Joe, and she could easily see how he fit into the bunch—
Her gaze drifted to the entrance and her breath hitched.
He was here.
His hair had grown a bit in the months since they’d last seen each other, although it was still cut short with military precision. He’d acquired a tan in Italy, and it was easy enough to imagine him in the settings of those postcards he’d sent her—on a beach or skiing the slopes.
He looked good.
The night they met, she’d registered that he was objectively handsome in a predictable sort of way, like a movie star, but now that she saw him after the postcards he’d written her, the conversations they’d had, now he seemed handsome in an intrinsic way—the sum of all the things that made him interesting taking her breath away for a beat.
Joe scanned the room, moving past the entourage surrounding Polly and Frank until his gaze settled on her.
Vivian gripped her champagne flute more tightly, waiting to see if he would approach her, torn between hoping that he did and wondering if it was better if he didn’t, and despite all the time she’d spent thinking about what she would say when she saw him again, her mind went completely blank.
Neither one of them moved.
Joe stared at her as though he was registering every detail about her, and Vivian tried to smile and found that her composure failed her, the anticipation that had been growing inside of her in the two weeks since she’d found out she would see him again building to a crescendo.
Joe took a step forward, a step toward Vivian—
“Joe!”
Vivian whirled around in time to see Frank stride toward his friend, calling out to him.
For a moment, it seemed like Joe hadn’t even heard Frank because he made no move to turn toward his friend, but then he broke the connection between them as he greeted Frank, offering him his congratulations before the two men strode over to Polly.
Vivian stood there, watching their retreating backs, and then she turned, heading over to where a few of the other bridesmaids—Polly’s friends from nursing school—congregated together, discussing the bridal shower they wanted to throw, and the dresses Polly was considering they wear for the ceremony.