Blue Heart Blessed (5 page)

I’
ve had a revelation. It happened this morning while I sipped a mocha in the back room of Something Blue, far away from anything white. Mom was helping a young gal sort through our size fours. I couldn’t see them from my vantage point behind a computer monitor, but I could hear them. The gal had just told my mother how she and her fiancé met, and then my mom said, “And how did he propose?”

And that’s when I knew.

That’s when I knew I’d had a clue all along that something in my happily-ever-after plan had been seriously flawed. I’d had it all along.

Daniel hadn’t proposed to me.

I had proposed to him.

In all my girlish dreams and fantasies I had never imagined that my life as a contented spouse would begin with
me
asking the Big Question. It was always going to be the guy who asked.

Harriet would say at this point,
Daisy, get a grip. You did not say to Daniel, “Will you marry me?” That’s
the ‘Big Question’. And you did not ask it.

She’d be right. I didn’t actually say that.

I said, “Let’s get married!”

And Daniel said, “You think?”

Before you label me a complete idiot, let me tell you that we were cuddled in his hammock on his deck with the hues of a gorgeous late September sunset all around us. He had just told me I was the only girl for him. And it wasn’t the first time he’d said that. He also said it in a kind of cute way. I can’t describe it.

And I had said, “Yes! Let’s get married!”

And he kissed me and said, “Okay.”

I never really let myself believe, until this moment, that it was all my idea we get married. When we announced our engagement—and by the way, we went shopping for rings the very next day—I said to all who asked that Daniel and I both decided we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. Like we both came up with the same idea at the same exact moment in time. And then I thrust my ring in front of their noses to prove it.

I had totally forgotten he’d said, “You think?” before “Okay.”

Until today.

I’d remembered only what I wanted to. The invigorating chill as we held each other close. The woodsy tang in the air from someone burning leaves nearby. The words he had said to me only moments before. How it felt to be within Daniel’s embrace as we laughed about letting his golden retriever, Elmo, be the best man.

I should’ve caught on during the months leading up to our chosen date that I was running the show entirely by myself. And that
that
was why Daniel wasn’t giving me any fuss about my planning every little detail and not insisting he do anything. It wasn’t because he’s such a compliant, genial guy but because he was only halfway into the engagement from the get-go.

But I honestly didn’t see it coming. Mom said it floored her. L’Raine told me—after she finished sobbing—that she never would’ve guessed Daniel was the kind of man to back out of a promise. Shelby told me didn’t see it coming either, but sometimes I think that maybe she did. I’ve been too afraid to ask her.

I wonder what Mom and L’Raine would’ve said if I had remembered how that conversation in the hammock
really
went. I wonder if they still would’ve thought that news of life on Mars would’ve surprised them less than Daniel’s calling off our wedding.

You think?

I
am
a complete idiot.

Shelby hands me a plastic container of gelato and a tiny, paddle-like spoon.

“It’s coconut.” She is wearing a faded T-shirt and denim cut-offs that are unraveling in every direction. Her hair is pulled back with a blue bandana, haphazardly, so that her short ponytail looks like a spill of Schilling ground nutmeg at the back of her neck. June for Shelby is like one long Saturday. So is July and most of August. She teaches junior high science at a middle school in Eden Prairie, on the west side of the metro. We are sitting on the roof of my building, in Adirondack chairs atop a sea of pea gravel.

The ice cream, smooth and creamy, melts away on my tongue like edible silk. “Why can’t all ice cream be like gelato?” I murmur.

Shelby slides her own spoon out of her mouth. “Because it would cost $20 a half-gallon and we’d all become destitute buying it.”

“I suppose.”

“Besides, if you had it all the time it wouldn’t be special.”

I squint my eyes against the late afternoon sun. “You been around my mother?”

Shelby grins. “You can’t have
extraordinary
every day. Whatever it is would become ordinary. It would cease to be extraordinary.”

I close my eyes and swallow another heavenly spoonful. “Who says something ordinary can’t be appreciated as much as something extraordinary.”

“No one has to say it. That’s just how we are. Give me a taste of yours.”

I hold out my cup and Shelby plunges her little spoon into it.

“Mmmm. That’s good.” Shelby’s words are thick with coconut gelato. “Want to try mine? It’s orange cappuccino.”

“No, thanks.”

I sense that Shelby is studying me. She knows me perhaps better than anyone. She’s been my best friend since ninth grade and has shared every monumental moment of mine since then. Shelby is one of the very few people who knows about Harriet and she’s never chided me once for having her. In fact, sometimes when Shelby wants my advice she will say, “Ask Harriet about such-and-such and tell her to make it snappy. I need to decide what to do here.” Shelby is also one of the few single friends I have left. Everyone else is married and popping out babies.

“So. You having an okay week?” Her tone is light, but I can sense the concern in her voice.

I scoop out the last of my ice cream. “On a scale of what?” I don’t have to pretend anything with Shelby. So I don’t.

“Well, let’s say one is ‘managing quite well, thank you very much,’ and ten is ‘my life is a total mess.’”

I toss the container on the pea gravel at my feet. “A four oughta do it.”

Shelby leans back in her chair and scrapes up the remnants of her orange cappuccino gelato. “Well. That’s not too bad. If you’d said eight or nine, I was going to tell you I know this great guy…”

“Please, please!” I sputter while I try to laugh. “No more blind dates.”

“Ah, but this one’s not blind! He’s mute.”

We burst into giggles. Shelby is not the one who sets me up on blind dates. It’s actually my mom and L’Raine who excel in that department. Shelby tosses her container down by mine.

Easy silence. And then, before I can decide if I really want to know the answer, I blurt out the question that’s been on my mind for nearly a year. “Shelby, were you truly shocked that Daniel backed out of the wedding? I mean, did it take you by total surprise like it did me?”

Shelby turns to look at me. “What brings this up?”

I shrug. “I just want to know. I’ve always wanted to know.”

She looks away. “What difference does it make now, Daisy?”

“It doesn’t. I just need to know.”

Shelby picks at a long frayed thread on her shorts. “I wasn’t completely surprised. I was completely
mad
at him. But not completely surprised. He never seemed like he really deserved you.”

My mouth has dropped open. I am blushing. “Why didn’t you say something?” I gasp.

“Because you were in love with him. It was my job to be absolutely thrilled for you. Besides. I thought maybe I was just jealous. I was kind of, you know. I couldn’t decide if what I was feeling was envy or concern.”

My mind is reeling around this new information. I hardly know what to make of it. “So, were you, like, relieved, when he called it off?”

“Of course not!” Shelby turns back to me. “You loved him.”

“But you weren’t surprised.”

“You said ‘completely.’ I wasn’t
completely
surprised.”

“I feel so foolish.” My cheeks are still warm with embarrassment.

“Well, knock it off. You weren’t being foolish. You were being vulnerable, open and trusting. He didn’t deserve you.”

There is silence again. Not as easy this time. We are both looking off in no particular direction.

“I had a chance to sell my wedding dress earlier this week,” I announce a few moments later.

She turns her head again to look at me. “Couldn’t do it?”

“I was this close.” I hold up the fingers on my right hand, making them display an inch of space.

“Liar.”

“This close.” I widen the gap to four inches.

Shelby stares at me, cocks an eyebrow.

No one knows me like Shelby.

“This close.” I put both arms in the air and stretch them out as far as they will go.

“Daisy, why don’t you just keep it? It’s a great dress. One of a kind. You can wear it when you marry the guy who does deserve you.”

I stare off into the distance, to the bumpy horizon of flat and pitched roofs. “There are moments when I look at that dress and I still think it’s the most beautiful gown in all the world. But all the other times I just remember how devastated I was when Daniel told me he didn’t want marry to me after all. It’s like looking at a car wreck. With bodies strewn all over the place. And broken glass. And parts of toys and skid marks and
…”

Shelby holds up a hand. “Okay, okay!”

We are both grinning.

“What does Harriet say you should do?” There is not even a hint of mockery in Shelby’s voice.

Deep within me I’m certain that I’ll at last be at ease with the turn my life has taken when I can let that dress go. How could I not be? Let’s face it. Who consents to keeping a car wreck in full view all day, every day? A person who’s hanging on when they need to let go, that’s who. I know what I need to do.

“Harriet says I need to get rid of it.” Not a lot of vigor to my voice, but at least I’m being truthful.

“Does she?”

I nod.

“It’s such a cool dress,” Shelby murmurs.

Again, I nod.

Shelby tosses a hand in the air and crinkles her brow. “What does Harriet know?”

I turn my head to face her. “Harriet knows everything.”

Dear Harriet,

You can now add Shelby to the list of people who weren’t completely surprised that Daniel deserted me at the altar. And don’t ask me, “What list?” I know there’s a list. Shelby is on it. There are probably a lot of people on it.

I’m beginning to think that way down at the bottom of that list, I’m on it, too.

Shelby says I should just keep the dress. She says one day I’ll look at that dress and I won’t think of Daniel. Maybe so, but I will always think of me, and how that dress made me feel when Daniel was my fiancé. And then when he suddenly wasn’t.

I can’t imagine looking at that dress someday and feeling nothing. If I were to get to that point, I’d surely be a cold person incapable of feeling anything.

I love that dress. I want to hope that Shelby is right.

She asked me what Harriet thinks about it. I told her you’d say the dress needs to go. I’m right, aren’t I?

Shelby had a date tonight with the phys-ed teacher at her school. His name is Eric. She didn’t call it a date, but that’s what it is. She pretended like it was just a casual thing—dinner, maybe a movie. But I could tell she likes this guy, her nervousness as she talked about him gave it all away. I could also tell she very much wanted to protect me from feeling sad that she had a date tonight with a guy who makes her heart flutter and I didn’t. So I pretended like I believed it was just a casual thing.

She probably knows I was just pretending, but it made it easier for her to climb down off my roof to go home and get beautiful for her non-date.

I watched
The Princess Bride
tonight, a lovely way to spend a Friday evening alone in your apartment. I invited Maria Andréa to watch it with me, but she was spending the night with one of her cousins. Max and Liam actually came down and watched the first half but they left after Westley killed the Rodent Of Unusual Size, retreating to Max’s where he supposedly was going to teach Liam how to make a quarter emerge from his belly button.

Princess Buttercup’s wedding dress is exquisite and gets far too little camera time. Were I not so enamored with the dress I cannot sell, I’d want a dress (and a love) like hers.

Dear Daisy,

Of course there’s a list. But what difference does it really make if your name is on it or not? You feel a fool for not having a clue that Daniel wasn’t ready for marriage. But who’s the bigger fool? The one who can’t see her fiancé is going to dump her or the one who sees it and plans the wedding anyway?

You worry too much about what other people think you should do with that dress. It’s your dress. And you have to live with it or without it. The fact of the matter is, you will live with it. And you will live without it. It is not oxygen to you. It is eight yards of expensive organza. Whatever you are feeling at this moment about Daniel and the wedding you would probably still feel if that dress was long gone. It’s not the dress you need to get over. It’s the guy.

And the dream.

Harriet

P.S. If you will remember, Princess Buttercup did NOT get married in the dress that you think is so exquisite. She never said, “I do.”