Chapter 14 #3
Especially when he pulls a bouquet of flowers from behind his back. I don’t know the specific name of these, but they’re some kind of purple lily wrapped in florist paper. Beautiful.
Grinning, he strides over to me and holds them out. “Roses seemed too on the nose,” he says. “I’m not sure what these are but they were the prettiest ones.”
I shouldn’t be so choked up over this. They’re just flowers, already dead. Will be wilted in a few days.
But … I haven’t gotten flowers in a really long time. I honestly don’t remember David ever buying them for me. He did so many other wonderful, thoughtful things. I’m not sure he knew—probably because I never told him—how much I love getting flowers.
“Thank you,” I whisper, taking them from him. Immediately, I step away so he won’t see the stupid tears forming in my eyes. “I’ll find something to put them in.”
“There aren’t any vases in this bachelor pad—go figure—but he has a big glass jar around here somewhere that should work,” Winnie says, crouching to root around under a cabinet.
For a moment, I had forgotten she’s still here.
Now I’m stuck with Winnie on one side of me and Tank on the other.
I don’t want either of them to see me almost crying over this simple, sweet gesture.
I pick the lesser of the two evils and face Winnie.
For a moment, her eyes go wide behind her glasses as she sees my expression. But she quickly recovers.
“This should work.” She shoves a wide-mouthed glass into my free hand, then takes me by the shoulders and turns me toward the sink.
This keeps me in profile to Tank, so hopefully my distress won’t be as visible.
“You can fill that up with water here,” she says, like I needed step-by-step instructions on how to use a sink or put flowers in water.
I couldn’t be more grateful when she walks over to Tank, hugs him, then says she wonders if he could look at something weird with her car. “It’s parked down on the street. I’m sure it will only take a minute. It was making this clanking noise earlier.”
“Earlier today? Why did you drive when you’re half a block away?”
“I mean earlier, like, a few days ago,” she says quickly. “But I do need to drive it today. So I need help with the clanking.”
“Did you have James take a look?” I can tell Tank is concerned. But I can also tell that he really doesn’t want to go down and look at Winnie’s car right now—he wants to be here. With me.
Which is flattering. But I want him to go. I need a minute or two to collect myself before he really does rethink all of this because I’m being overly emotional.
“I forgot to ask him,” Winnie says. “But when I googled it, I saw some results that said clanking could be this one thing that could cause a fire, and I don’t know if I should drive it.” Winnie is really selling this clanking car thing hard, and I wonder if Tank sees through it.
He doesn’t seem to. “I’ll be right back,” he says with a sigh.
I busy myself with arranging the lilies. I need to cut the bottom of the stems so they’ll fit. “Take your time!” I call, trying to sound cheerful.
Briefly, I glance at Tank’s retreating back. Winnie turns to wink at me, like she totally understands my stupid breakdown, before she practically drags Tank out of the loft. I have a very strong suspicion the clanking car will have miraculously healed itself when she turns on the engine.
As soon as they’re gone, I set down the flowers and open the freezer door, leaning my face inside.
This is a trick I discovered years ago when I needed to pull it together in front of my kids.
Something about the cold air can put a halt to an impending cry.
I don’t know if there’s science behind this or it’s just something that works for me, but the point is that it does work.
At least … it works to stop my tears.
Unfortunately, it does nothing to curtail the onslaught of intrusive thoughts and worries. I hate this feeling, where the thoughts I’m supposed to have a firm control over are mutinying in my mind, throwing me—the captain—right off the ship and taking charge.
I almost consider locking myself in the guest room, feigning my own case of clanking car engine.
Which I guess would have to be something like a sudden illness.
I could claim lady troubles. Men, as a general rule, don’t like talking about feminine issues.
Tank isn’t likely to press and ask if I still have periods or where, exactly, I am on my menopausal journey.
(For the record, I am currently on month ten of no period, so we’ll see.)
I decide that running away and faking period talk is more immature than using the word boyfriend when you’re over fifty.
I’m no longer the people-pleasing twentysomething who didn’t want to speak up about how she felt.
If I’m going to get into a relationship now, I will communicate well.
Even if that means confessing that something as little as flowers has put me into panic mode.
So I breathe in a few more lungfuls of freezer air, tell my intrusive thoughts to take a hike, and force myself to sit down on the couch to wait for Tank.