The Look of Love: A Novel (12 page)

His eyes dart right, then left. “Have you seen her yet today?”

I don’t catch the reference. “Her?”

“Vivian.”

“Vivian?”

He takes a step closer. “The Queen of England.”

“
Oh
,” I say, recalling the British woman who gave Mel a talking-to about not carrying the
Times
, and whom I saw at Mary’s salon. “I do remember her.”

“Thinks she’s better than everyone,” Mel says, adjusting his bow tie. “I’m going to show her that we have plenty of class here in Seattle.”

I smile to myself. “I saw her getting her hair done. She’s an elegant one. You have a crush on her, don’t you?”

He frowns. “A crush? On her?” He shakes his head. “Not me. For starters, she’s—”

“You have a crush on her,” I say, grinning, as I reach for a copy of the
Seattle Times
, before waving to him and heading down the sidewalk toward my apartment. Just as I reach for my keys, I hear my name.

“
Jane
? Is that
you
?”

I turn around to find Katie, a friend from high school, who went on to attend law school and became a successful immigration attorney. She’s just as beautiful as ever, with her shiny brunette hair and big brown eyes. She stands beside a man who is equally attractive. Tall, with the kind of chiseled, handsome face that you’d find in a fashion ad for Eddie Bauer or maybe Abercrombie & Fitch. “Josh, this is my old friend Jane,” Katie says, “the one I was telling you about, who I met when my parents moved to Seattle. Jane took pity on my eating lunch alone every day and invited me to share her table. She owns the flower shop in the market.”

Josh takes my hand. “Pleased to meet you,” he says with a smile, before wrapping his arm around Katie.

“Josh and I are engaged,” she says. “We’re getting married this summer.”

I immediately hug her. “Katie, that’s wonderful news!”

Josh caresses her cheek lightly, and she leans in closer to him. Their connection is electric, and my vision immediately clouds, but not in the typical hazy way. This time it’s a full-fledged fog, which startles me. I remember the bench on the sidewalk behind me, and I take a few steps back and collapse onto it.

“Uh-oh, you’re not feeling well?” Katie asks.

“I’m fine,” I say. “I’m just a little fatigued. We’ve been busy at the shop today, and I forgot to eat lunch.”

Josh points to the record store across the street. “You two have girl talk for a bit,” he says. “I’m going to run over and see if they have that Dylan album I’ve been looking for.”

Katie smiles to herself as he walks across the street. She watches his every step, then turns back to me proudly. “Is he the hottest thing you’ve seen in your life or what?”

I smile, grateful that my vision is returning to normal. “Yeah, I’d have to agree with you. He’s very handsome.”

“Oh, Jane,” she says, “and our chemistry is . . . well, let me just say that we can’t keep our hands off each other.”

“The last time we talked was last fall, and you were going through that awful breakup with Chris,” I say. “I’m glad to see you so happy.”

“Thanks, Jane,” she says. “I can’t even explain it. I’ve never been with anyone I’ve clicked with like this, which makes me think that I’ve never really known love until now. Does that make any sense?”

I nod. “It does.”

Katie looks ahead to the record store. “A lot of people believe they’re in love when they’re not. I certainly did. Remember how much I wanted to marry Chris? I thought he was
it
. But looking back, I never had the type of connection I have with Josh. Nothing will ever compare to the way he makes me feel. And I didn’t even know I could feel this way; then, bam—I meet him in a coffee shop in Ballard one Sunday morning, and my world is changed forever. That’s how love goes, I think. It just hits you upside the head like Popeye with a baseball bat.”

I grin. “Like Popeye with a baseball bat, huh?”

“Well, that’s how it felt for me,” she says. “It was intense.” She pauses for a moment. “Jane, I want you to be in our wedding. I was going to call you this week, but running into you is even better. Would you? It would be such an honor to me if you’d say yes.”

“Of course I’ll say yes, Katie.” I don’t tell her about my gift. I don’t tell her that the love I saw between her and Josh is so powerful, being in its very presence weakened me. I am only happy for my friend.

After taking Sam on a quick walk, I call Dr. Heller. “Something happened today,” I say.

“Another episode?”

“Yes, but it was stronger than anything I’ve experienced.” I tell her about Katie and Josh. I describe the fogginess of my vision, the way my eyes clouded over almost completely.

“Interesting,” Dr. Heller says. “And it sounds like you still believe that these symptoms have something to do with love.”

“I know you think I’m nuts, but I do. At least I think I do.”

“Well,” Dr. Heller says, “I’d like you to come in, and soon. I want you to have another MRI. There’s a clinical trial that I’ve been watching closely with you in mind. It may give us some entirely new information about what’s going on in your temporal lobe. Jane, I’m worried that these episodes are doing more damage to your brain than we think, and if there’s an opportunity for intervention, I think we should take it. There may be treatment options we haven’t considered before.”

I can’t help but think of the way my vision changed in Dr. Heller’s office shortly after her interaction with Dr. Wyatt.

“Dr. Heller, there’s something else, something I didn’t tell you about the last time I was in the office.”

“Oh?”

“I didn’t want to say anything because it was about . . . you.”

“I don’t understand,” she says.

“That day, my vision clouded while I watched you speaking to Dr. Wyatt. Do you follow?” I pause for a moment. “You love him, don’t you, Dr. Heller?”

There’s a silence, and for a moment, I worry that she’s hung up the phone.

“Please,” I finally say. “I hope I haven’t offended you. I just thought you should—”

Dr. Heller clears her throat. “Jane,” she finally says. Her voice falters a little. “All you have to know is that I could never, ever love Dr. Wyatt. And there is nothing more for us to discuss on the matter.”

“Of course,” I say. “I got it wrong; I see that now.” But I know that I haven’t. Love knows no bounds. Whatever restrictions Dr. Heller has placed on her love, it was still there, as clear as day. I saw it.

“All right, I’ll see you at an appointment soon, Jane,” she says in a distant, distracted voice. The mere mention of Dr. Wyatt makes her emotional, and Dr. Heller is never emotional.

I say good-bye and set the phone on my coffee table, then pull out the scrap of paper with Cam’s number on it. I stare at it until the digits appear to dance.

“This is Jane,” I greet him after he picks up on the third ring. “Jane from New Year’s Eve. I own the flower shop.” My voice is jumpy and sporadic, and my palms feel suddenly sweaty.

“Right, Jane. Hi. I thought you blew me off.”

“No, sorry,” I say. “My assistant forgot to give me the message until today. I . . . I wanted to get back to you.”

“I’m glad you did,” he says confidently, with a touch of amusement, which instantly annoys me. “I wanted to see if you’d have dinner with me one night.”

“Dinner?”

“Yeah, you know, the meal that people eat every day around six or seven, or, more fashionably, at eight or eight thirty?”

“You’re funny,” I say sarcastically. “And what makes you think I’ll say yes to having dinner with you?”

“Because I’m arrogant,” he says. “And I know you like me.”

“You
are
arrogant,” I reply.

“I have to work out of the New York City office for the next three weeks, but I’ll be back the first full week of March. Let’s meet that Wednesday night. We’ll start with drinks. Lowell’s in the market? Five thirty?” He pauses, then continues, “I’ll take your silence as a yes. See you then.”

I set the phone down and shake my head while simultaneously grinning. On the coffee table is today’s copy of the
Seattle Times
that I picked up from Mel’s newsstand earlier. I flip open the newspaper and my eyes scour the front page, then flip beneath the fold to a headline that reads:
WOMAN REACHES PEOPLE WITH FLOWERS
. The photo is grainy and black and white, but I recognize the woman immediately: Colette.

I scan the first few paragraphs of the story:

A native of Paris, Colette Dubois was raised in a flower shop on the Left Bank. When she came to Seattle in 1972, she brought her love of flowers with her and began working in the flower shop at Swedish Hospital. That position soon turned into a unique position at the hospital, “special supervisor of floral affairs.”

“Basically what I do,” she says, “is make sure that the hundreds of flower arrangements that arrive at the hospital each day get to the people they’re supposed to.”

And then there are the patients who aren’t sent flowers. Dubois finds a way to brighten their day. “We have a team of donors and volunteers who source flowers from weddings and special events and repurpose them for people in the hospital who need cheering. There are a lot of things I don’t understand about life, but over the years I’ve learned one thing: Never underestimate the power of flowers to reach someone’s soul.”

When asked what her favorite flower is, Dubois offers a quick response. “Gloxinia,” she says. “It’s the flower that represents love at first sight.”

220 Boat Street #2

L
o takes a long look at herself in the mirror. Thirty is approaching, not that age matters much to her. She’ll still be sexy at forty, fifty, sixty-five. She knows that. It’s her good genes. Her mother, after all, has a boyfriend twenty years her junior.

Men. Lo knows them well: what makes them tick, what makes them quiver. She’s had a lot of them, after all. Young ones. Old ones (before her self-imposed rule of forty-two, that is). Rich ones. Poor ones. She lets them in her bed but never into her heart.

And then there’s Grant. He walked into the flower shop like an arrow, or a perfect sword lily, and she felt it pierce her. She felt
him
.

Lo sighs, circles her eyes with a black eye pencil, then smudges the edges before applying mascara in swift strokes.

Rain pelts the roof of her Lake Union houseboat. It would be a nice night to stay in, with a glass of wine and a good book. Normal people do that. But Lo is not a normal person. Lo has the need to fling herself into the world. To be on the arm of a man. To be adored. Jane asked her once why she filled her schedule with so many dates. She asked her, point-blank, if she was uncomfortable being alone, if she peppered her life with men and noise to quiet her own voice, to numb some sort of pain. But Lo shrugged off her friend’s words. She changed the subject. And then she went home and put on a tight Helmut Lang dress and went dancing with a man named David.

She slips on her heels when she hears a knock at the door. It’s Grant, here to take her out to dinner at a secluded restaurant in West Seattle, where no one is likely to recognize them. After all, he is still married. This is a fact that nags her like a swollen mosquito bite on the farthest corner of her back that she can’t quite reach.

“You look stunning,” he says, standing in the doorway. He’s wearing a long-sleeved dress shirt with the top button open, dark jeans, and a pair of Italian leather shoes. His smile makes her melt in a way no other man’s has.

“You don’t look too bad yourself,” Lo quips.

“Ready?”

She nods, locks her door, then takes his hand. Her heels clack along the dock. She likes the way his hand feels in hers. She likes the way she feels standing beside him.

At the restaurant, they slip into a dark booth in the far corner. Instead of sitting across from each other, they nestle in on the same side, and Grant reaches for Lo’s hand under the table, knitting their fingers together. They eat, they drink, but mostly they’re lost in this secret moment, this delicious, connected place. They’ve barely touched their wine, and yet both of them are drunk, on love and desire.

“What are we doing?” Lo asks. “
This
 . . . What is it?”

Grant doesn’t hesitate. He kisses her hand. “It’s love,” he says. “I know it.” He closes his eyes tightly, then opens them again. “I know it, I know it, I know it.”

She smiles. “I do too,” she says. The words fly out of her mouth, and in a surprising way, she hardly recognizes her own voice. In fact, she hardly recognizes her own
feelings
. And it frightens her. She looks away from him and refolds the napkin in her lap.

“Is it already ten?” Grant says then.

It could be ten or eleven or three in the morning. Lo doesn’t know; nor does she care. Time is frozen, somehow. She glances at her cell phone. “Yeah.”

He rubs his forehead. “I have to get home. My alibi was that work dinner I had earlier. If I stay out any later, I—”

“I know,” Lo says quickly. “I get it.”

He runs his hand along her thigh and pulls her closer to him. “Don’t be sad, baby,” he whispers. “We’ll figure this out.”

She nods and looks away. She knows his situation is complicated, to say the least. He’s going to leave his wife just as soon as his attorney helps him formulate an exit plan, one that won’t leave him hemorrhaging money or cut him out of shared custody of his two daughters.

“You know what this feels like?” Lo says, as Grant pulls out his wallet and sets cash on the table.

“What?” he asks, taking her hand in his again.

“It feels like we’ve been climbing a mountain,” she explains. “Everest. We started out at the same base camp and began our climb together. But I climbed faster. I always do. I made it to the top, and I can see you down there on a ledge below. I keep wanting to throw you a rope to help you up. I keep wanting to yell down for you to keep climbing.”

“I’m climbing,” he whispers in her ear.

“But what if you run out of oxygen? Or what if your gear fails you? Or what if—”

“What if I’m attacked by angry mountain ants?”

“Yeah, angry mountain ants,” she says with a smile.

Grant returns her smile, then presses his nose against hers. Their eyes lock. “I will never, ever stop climbing to you,” he whispers.

They are perfect words. And it should be enough, this promise of his. But Lo finds herself wanting more. She can’t help it. She wants all of him. Every lazy Sunday morning. Every glimpse of the moon from the bedroom window. Every good-morning and good-night.

His cell phone buzzes, and he pulls away, their moment shattered. “It’s home calling,” he says. Lo knows that “home” means his wife, and she hates it. She hates the secrecy. She hates his unavailability. She hates all of it.

“Right,” she says, turning away. She won’t let him see her tears. She thinks of her favorite Billy Joel song, “And So It Goes,” the one Jane’s mother introduced her to. The lyric, “In every heart, there is a room, a sanctuary safe and strong.” Yes. This is where she will tuck away her love, her fear that it will not be actualized. No man has entered this room in her heart.

But then Grant whispers three words in her ear that make her want to hand him the key: “I love you.”

“I love you,” she whispers back.

The words are simple and sure. And they change everything.