Chapter Two
It had been almost two weeks since the dinner, and Faye hadn’t been able to get William Sullivan off her mind.
She imagined him walking into the shop every time the bell above the door chimed.
She had practiced how she’d keep her eyes down, demure and coy, how she’d toss her hair, fiddle with the buttons on her blouse just so.
For days, she’d chosen skirts instead of her regular trousers, which she preferred.
But every day the door chimed and chimed, and it was never William.
She’d given up skirts after a week but not the daydream.
She’d even asked Thomas, as casually as she could muster, whether he thought William had enjoyed their company.
Her father had considered her over his paper, one brow raised, and told her that, yes, William had thanked them for coming and thanked Thomas again for his help.
“Nothing else?” she asked, sipping her morning coffee.
“What were you expecting?” he’d replied, a hint of mischief in his voice.
The weather had turned to a bluster that week, the dragon’s tail of a hurricane whipping through, and the store that Saturday morning was quiet.
When the bell sounded, Faye startled, pricking herself on a thorn.
“Shoot!” She stuck her finger in her mouth absentmindedly and looked up.
There was William Sullivan, larger than a man ought to be in a small store.
He wore a barn-style raincoat with patch pockets, where he buried his hands.
“Oh, God,” Faye said. “Oh, I mean hello. Hello. William.” She spread her hand on her chest, wondered if she should remind him of who she was. Thomas and Jean’s daughter, you remember. We had dinner at your house.
“Hello, Faye. It’s nice to see you. Are you okay? Did you cut yourself?”
She wiped her bleeding finger on her pants.
Drat. She had been dabbling with her watercolors earlier, a distraction she likened to doodling.
That would have been such a better image than this one, the bleeding shopgirl.
“This? No. Job hazard. I’m fine.” She shook her head, loosened the stardust. “How can I help you?”
He pulled his hands from his pockets and undid the button of his coat while he looked around the shop.
Faye followed his gaze. Strictly for decoration, Aldo lined high wood shelves with his favorite ironstone pitchers, depression and milk glass candy dishes, ruby and cobalt and golden goblets and birdlike vases.
“The owner is from Venice, in Italy,” Faye offered. “The colored glass is from there.”
“It’s nice in here,” William said, crouching to pet the spaniel who lay quietly on her little bed in the corner. “And who’s this?”
Faye smiled at the old girl, who shifted to accept William’s rubbing. “That’s Emily, the owner’s guard dog.”
William gave the dog a final pat. “Not very threatening.”
Faye took a breath between her teeth. “Suppose not.”
She worried her pounding heart might rattle the shelves, but she could think of nothing else to say.
William broke the silence. “I’m in need of flowers. I’m afraid I’ve been a bit neglectful.”
So, he was one of those. There was a girl already, someone he hadn’t mentioned to Thomas, someone he wasn’t close enough to yet perhaps, but ready to take the plunge.
Or, he said he’d been neglectful. How neglectful exactly?
Hurtful maybe. Or too many beers after work, and he’d missed a date.
Faye had heard it all. She wanted to ask him what he’d done wrong.
But it was not her business. He was her father’s coworker, and too old, as she looked at him, for her to have wasted a moment of thought.
“What flowers does she like? Carnations?”
William turned up his nose. “Can’t stand the smell. You?”
Faye shook her head. “We have them in all colors. But they’re not for me. I prefer daisies personally, something a bit wilder.”
The gesture that had so charmed her, he made again. A tilt of the head, fingers running through red hair. That grin. “So, we’re in agreement. Would you mind putting together something you would be happy to receive, something that would put a smile on your face? I’m certain that would be perfect.”
Faye tightened her lips into an accommodating smile. “Of course.”
“And big,” he said. “I really want to make a statement.”
They’d gotten a delivery that morning from Boston.
Fresh and fleeting. She chose her favorite flowers, the most expensive ones in the store.
She added the sums in her head as she selected stems. Aldo was in his greenhouse, so she would charge William extra for preoccupying her thoughts.
She imagined the woman who would receive this beautiful bouquet—tall certainly, blond of course, with an hourglass figure and breasts siloed in the latest foundations.
Faye licked her own lips, imagining the woman’s lipstick—fire engine red, no doubt.
Too bad William had the good taste to eschew the carnations.
Otherwise, she would have bombarded him with them, which any woman with half a mind would know was a cheapskate’s way out.
It was beautiful, even Faye admitted. Pink and yellow daisies, delphinium and freesia, branches from a second flush of wisteria Aldo had cut from his own stock.
“Make sure she puts it in water right away,” she said, setting the bouquet on the counter next to the register. “I assume you’ll be paying in cash?”
“Oh, yes,” William said. “Of course.”
“And a receipt?”
“Not necessary,” he said.
Faye made the sum, her take included, and gave William the total, expecting him to gasp.
“Worth every penny. Absolutely gorgeous. And perfectly fitting.”
He took his wallet from his pocket and counted out the bills to the exact amount. Faye cashed out the register and put the money inside, expecting William to walk out of the shop and out of her life into his own. Despite herself, she let a disappointed sigh escape.
But William didn’t move. He stood there, smiling and staring.
“Is there something else?” Faye asked, annoyed. Go on. Go find your woman.
“Faye,” he said, presenting the bouquet back to her with both hands.
“I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to do this.
I was unsure whether it was the right thing, and I had to think so hard about it, then work up the courage to ask Thomas if he would approve, considering our age difference.
And then more days to get here after work and before the shop closed.
Maybe I should have called your house or come by.
But I wanted to ask you without your mother and father around in case you felt pressured by them. Or me.”
“What’s this?” Faye had never been asked out on a proper date, not by a man worth his salt, someone who wasn’t being a silly flirt teasing a shopgirl. But she knew what he was trying to say. And she knew how she’d answer by the beat of her heart, the pulsing in her body.
“I was hoping you might have dinner with me.”
That night, Faye put the three extra dollars she’d charged William into her coffee can with the rest of her getaway money.
Through a window left ajar, she heard the tide lap the granite rocks, the buoy bells clang in the harbor.
The bouquet on her dresser overwhelmed the room, but she didn’t care a bit.
She had a date with William Sullivan.
Over the next month they had dinner together twice, then attended a matinee about a teenage boy who turned into a sheepdog.
Every kid in town was there, and the wild guffawing made the movie nearly impossible to hear.
At one point, William joined the popcorn throwing, beaning a particularly obnoxious kid in the back of the head before slouching in his seat, pulling Faye down with him.
They laughed, foreheads together, and William pecked her on the lips.
She leaned back in the seat, fireworks bursting like they were on the screen.
Her first kiss. William took her hand, laced her fingers in his.
They turned their attention back to the screen, but Faye stole a glance. William beamed.
They didn’t talk about the kiss on the ride home, but William held her hand walking to the car.
When they arrived, the sun was setting, casting long fall shadows across the front lawn of the house on the cove.
William opened the car door for Faye and walked her to the porch.
Usually Thomas or Jean was outside to greet them, but not this time.
Faye welcomed the reprieve from their brazen curiosity and hopeful grins.
“Thanks,” she said, her mind on the kiss, her lips wanting more. “That was fun.”
“Those kids, though.”
“More like hyenas,” Faye added. She ran her fingertips down the grainy door frame, searching. She smiled at William. “Old habit.”
“What’s that?” He put his hands in his pockets, leaned against the porch rail.
“When we first arrived. There was a story about Papa’s brother.”
“Your uncle,” William added. “My father knew him.”
“Yes. My uncle. I was in a bit of a shock when we arrived. It was all new, of course. And to come from a place so different from all of this.” She waved her hand around.
“Their house,” she stuttered, “our house, in Ireland, was quite rustic. Stone and dirt and sea. Here, everything was white and wood. It’s always had this same green trim.
Very Irish,” she said, her nerves on edge, trying to keep the story right as she told it.