“So, how’s the Chicken Portobello?”
“It’s great. How’s your dinner?” I asked.
“Perfect, he said,” drawing out the word. His eyes searched mine and his lip curled up into a sexy smile.
I felt myself blush, as I reached for my glass of wine. There was something in his smile, his eyes, I didn’t know what it was, but his mannerisms were all so familiar.
“So,” he said, “let’s talk about you. Have you any hobbies?”
I wished I could have said, sure, parachuting out of a plane at twenty thousand feet and diving off Carlisle Bay in Barbados looking for shipwrecks.
“Yoga,” I muttered, sounding somewhat apologetic.
“I practice yoga, too! Have you mastered the ‘bow’ pose yet?”
“Ha! Maybe if I was Gumby.”
“That would be interesting,” I heard him say in my head. I felt a little uncomfortable, even deceptive at being able to hear some of his thoughts. However, nowhere in my “Dating for Dummies” book had I read anything remotely close to mind reading being an appropriate topic of conversation on a first date.
“Hmm,” Gavin said, waving a fork at me. Has anyone ever told you that you look like a young Elizabeth Taylor?”
“Um, once or twice maybe,” I said, as I tried not to react to the sudden invasion of voices in my head when one voice broke through the clutter.
“What the hell!” The voice screamed.
Over Gavin’s shoulder, halfway across the restaurant, I spotted a woman with a striking mane of long auburn hair and bare long tanned legs. Her size two body, packaged in a tight, low-cut yellow organza print, showed off a crease of golden cleavage. She was the woman I’d seen him with at the mall--Miss Universe. As all five feet seven graceful inches of pure sensuality strutted toward us, I only had one thought. How the hell do I compete with that?
She focused in on the back of Gavin’s head, and then shifted her gaze at me. She gave me the same look “Mean Mary,” a.k.a. “Double M,” had given Laura in the seventh grade right before she ripped the head off Laura’s Barbie doll.
Miss Universe stepped up her pace and headed toward us like a bloodhound on a hot scent.
He does have a girlfriend or perhaps--fiancée!
The legendary Paris Hilton and Shannen Doherty catfight from many years before flashed in my head, as she swooped up to our table.
“Gavin Donnelly,” she said teasingly, as she leaned over to give him a kiss on the cheek. Her heart-shaped tush faced me like a bulletin board.
Gavin looked surprised, as he peeked around the side of her to introduce me.
“Ah, Vanessa, this is Aubrey.”
She turned and tossed back her long silky hair. Her full red lips, glossy like strawberry fruit glaze, pouted slightly before giving me a weak smile. “It’s nice to meet you.” Her feline green eyes looked down at the mound of food on my plate, before giving my upper body a quick scan.
“Pathetic,” her voice sneered in my head.
I had the sudden urge to shove her arrogant little freckled sprayed nose into the volcano of gravy laden mashed potatoes on my plate.
“Sweetie,” she said, in a breathy Marilyn Monroe sort of way, as she turned to face Gavin. “I’m meeting a couple of girlfriends here. Later we’ll be at Renaissance dancing till who knows when. You should meet up with us.”
“Vanessa,” Gavin squawked. “I’m on a date, and I plan on going home afterward.”
Awkward!
“Will you excuse please. I’m going to freshen up,” I said. Telling a fib was easier than listening to some bimbo flirt with my date. I felt the tension at the table as I left.
I pushed open the door at the back of the restaurant that led to the restrooms and ran into the forty-something-year-old stock boy who worked at the grocery store where I shopped.
“Excuse me,” I said, as I lowered my head hoping he wouldn’t recognize me.
“Sorry,” he said, using his index finger to push up his coke bottle glasses to the bridge of his nose. “Hey, weren’t you the one looking for fresh asparagus a few days ago at the grocery store?”
I had tried to avoid him that day, but the bum wheel on my grocery cart rattled so loud it drew his attention. I saw him slither past the tomatoes and stop to eye me while pretending to line up the peaches alongside the pears.
“Um, no,” I said, as I slid past him.
The washrooms were so far away from the main dining area, they might as well have been one building over. Halfway through the L-shaped hallway, the overhead light flickered a couple times and went out. It was darker than the bottom of a mineshaft and finding my way back out would have required I be Helen Keller.
I stretched out my arms and found the wall. Feeling my way down the hallway I crashed into a narrow table that sat against the wall. With as many times as I’d been to that restaurant, I should have had the hallway memorized.
I groped my way past the table, and lifted a palm to the wall, but knocked into the four-foot long Tuscan countryside painting, which I managed to stop from swinging off the hook. Before moving on, I tried to recall what other obstacles could be in the way, when something lightly brushed my back. The weirdo from the grocery store!
I swung around and swatted at the darkness.
“Who’s there?” I said, thinking if he laid one finger on me, I’d twist it off at the joint.
In my head, I heard someone say, “Chaton.” Matt’s pet name for me. I was confused. Is Matt back? I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Aubrey, is that you?”
I squinted, as the harsh overhead fluorescent lights came back on.
“It is you,” said Gavin.
I felt silly that I let my imagination get the best of me. “So, what happened?”
“Don’t know. The whole block lost power. Thought I’d better look for you.”
Gavin took my hand. “I want to apologize for my friend, Vanessa,” he said, as we walked back to our table. He explained he was once engaged to a woman by the name of Kerri who died in a car accident many years before. As he shared with me his hurt and how he’d felt lost and had lived in a state of limbo after her death, I felt my heart draw closer to him. And as I shared my own experience of a world that suddenly seemed scary after Matt died, I’d felt as if I’d found a true kindred spirit.
“Vanessa was Kerri’s best friend,” Gavin said, as he gazed down into his Merlot, while his fingers twirled the stem of the glass. “She was with me twenty-four seven and helped me through my depression. We grew close, and though I can’t pinpoint when it happened, our friendship grew into a boyfriend, girlfriend type thing.”
He leaned back in his chair and looked at me through thick, dark lashes. “But after dating on and off for four years, I realized we both needed to move on. I broke it off with her last year, but we remain close friends.”
The incredible connection I felt with Gavin made me forget my own struggles. Most of all, I didn’t feel alone anymore.
The waiter delivered a slice of lemon biscotti cheesecake to me, but I hadn’t ordered it. I pushed the plate over toward Gavin. “Sorry, this must be yours.”
“I ordered it for you,” he said as he pushed the plate back toward me.
“Two forks, please,” I said to the waiter, and looked at Gavin in amazement. “How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That of all the desserts on the menu, this is my favorite.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Lucky guess,” he said in a tone of voice laced with a tinge of mystery.
Over another glass of Merlot and a shared slice of cheesecake, I talked about Nicholas and he shared stories about his cousin’s children. Every now and then he’d stop to compliment me on my frilly new blouse, my aqua stud earrings, and believe or not, my hair. He left a generous tip for our waiter and as we walked the block back to his truck, the soles on my practical Tory Burch pumps barely touched the sidewalk.
The drive home seemed like an illusion
, as if the evening was draped in luminous silk fabric. Gavin walked me to my front door. We stood for a moment in awkward silence under the arched covered porch in the golden glow of the coach lamps. He shoved his hands in his pockets and shuffled a loafer over the smooth concrete.
“Aubrey, he said looking deep into my eyes. “Have you ever met someone for the first time and felt as if you’ve known them forever?”
I paused before answering. “Yes, I have,” I said while wondering if he knew I was talking about him.
He pulled his hands from his pockets and moved closer to me. Even in the darkness, I could still see his expressive blue eyes. He gave me a soft, respectful kiss. Regardless of its simplistic purity, it was the most complex kiss I’d gotten since Matt died.
Gavin smiled, whispered “Goodnight” in my ear, and headed down the front walk.
I’d thought back to the last passage in the book Matt had left for me to find. The protagonist had found love again. They’d had dinner together, sat and talked for a long time, and walked in the moonlight.
Although I couldn’t even begin to put all the pieces together that evening with Gavin, I walked into the house knowing the date I’d been on was anything but ordinary.
Seventeen
It was four-fifteen in the afternoon. I sat in my office staring at the phone and wanting to respond to the voicemails Gavin had left me since our first date, three days before, but each time I thought about it, the Twilight Zone played in my head.
I was confused. I missed him more than I should have, pressing the replay button on my recorder again and again, just to listen to his voice like some love struck teenager.
“Hi, just wanted to let you know I had a wonderful time last night,” was the message that had me reliving our kiss. He laughed when he said, “I love your sense of humor and that dating story was off the hook!” Then that very morning he had left another message while I was in court. “Thought maybe you’d like to do lunch this week. Give me a call.”
Ever since the night of the blue moon and afterward seeing Matt and then Gavin, my life was becoming a series of hidden meanings, layer upon layer as in an ancient grimoire with locked covers. I couldn’t imagine what it all meant. However, each morning when I awoke thoughts of my date with Gavin was like the softly echoing mourning dove in the elm tree outside my bedroom window.
As I shuffled the papers on my desk, the thought of being dishonest stung my heart like acid dripping on an open wound. However, having a heart to heart with Gavin about broken clocks that chime, books with clues from a ghost, voices that call in my head, and a husband who had come back from the dead…would make Gavin run faster than an antelope chased by a cheetah.
Stop laboring over this and get to work!
I opened the file folder on my desk, picked up the phone, and called Melanie to come to my office to discuss a couple of cases, one being Jeb Donnelly’s eviction case.
As I read the contents of the file folder, Vanessa popped into my thoughts. The word insecurity flashed in my head like a bright neon sign. I rifled through my purse, found my compact mirror, and held it up to study my face. That little snit, Vanessa, didn’t have one single line on her face, while my crow’s feet were beginning to expand into duck’s feet.
Through the years that I wasn’t interested in dating, my face was smooth as porcelain and my tush was tight as a banjo string. Now that I had someone I wanted to impress, the pores on my face were morphing into tiny craters and the skin on my tush--let’s just say the only place dimples look cute is on the face.
My office door swung open. Melanie walked in dressed in a very smart, beautifully tailored powder blue suit. She reminded me of a vintage Jackie Kennedy, minus the pillbox hat. I quickly snapped the compact closed and stashed it in my top desk drawer.
“They have surgery for that you know, said Melanie. “Or you could always do Botox, a much simpler remedy. However, adding in the cost of maintenance, surgery is really the best choice. She smiled and her cheeks looked like little pillows tight enough to bounce quarters off of. “You know me, always willing to share the talents of the great Dr. Stevens,” she said.
The word “quack” not “great” came to mind when she mentioned her plastic surgeon. Personally, I was worried about her obsession with already having had two facelifts. I had the feeling she wasn’t going to be happy until she was able to tie her ears together at the back of her head.
“Thanks, but I think I’ll stick with Ponds for now and call it a day.” I pulled a folder from file drawer and handed it to her.
“This is the information on the Ray Peters’ sexual harassment lawsuit.”
“Oh,” Melanie said, raising her eyebrows. “Isn’t this the case Judge Trudy Lopez is presiding over?”
“Yes, her views alone on the whole Bobbit thing really bothers me. Moreover, that framed photo of Sandra Day O’Connor she has hanging in her chambers should tell you she’s a staunch supporter for women’s liberation. That’s why I desperately need your help. Besides getting a hold of the plaintiff’s attorney to make a request for discovery, I’d like you to do a very thorough snooping of the plaintiff herself.”
“Oh, so you want me to dig up dirt on her,” Melanie said, as her eyes sparkled. Uncovering buried secrets was the lifeblood that pumped through Melanie’s veins.
“Well, let’s just say that along with a background check, see if you can find something that would mar her from being anything less than a solid, model citizen. No matter how minuscule it might seem.”
“Okay, I’ll get right on it.”
“One more thing,” I said, waving another folder at her. “In here is the information on the Jeb Donnelly eviction, a copy of the pleadings is in the folder. Please see what you can find on Benjamin Solomon, the landlord. I get the feeling there’s something shady going on with this.”
“Will do,” Melanie said, as she took the folder from me and hurried out the door.
“Aubrey?” Ashley’s voice dissolved into giggles over the intercom. With her desk perpendicular to the glass wall of my office, I saw her wave to someone who was out of my view.
“What’s so funny?”
She quickly glanced sideways at me, and flipped back a silky sheet of black hair from her shoulders. “Oh, nothing, Neil’s at the end of the hall making a goofy face at me. He’s such a flirt and sooo cute.”
“Ashley, what have I told you about Neil? Was that Mother’s voice? “If you have the slightest inkling of even going for coffee with that man, just remind yourself how terrifying it would be to spend days logging onto Web MD looking up symptoms of the latest STDs.”
“I know, I know,” she said, sounding a bit irritated.
“Okay then, so why were you buzzing me?”
“Cacey Simson is holding for you.”
“Oh, thanks!”
“Well, it’s about time,” I said jokingly, as I leaned back in my chair. “Thought you were supposed to be back from Spain last week.”
“Well, after the equestrian competitions, Madison and Spencer were having so much fun we decided to hop over to the Madrid festival where Emily learned the word churro, a tube-shaped pastry she couldn’t get enough of, and the kids loved the Royal Palace. Since the Spaniards consider dining before nine barbaric, the kids thought it was cool to stay up so late.”
Madison was Cacey’s thirteen-year-old stepdaughter from her first marriage to Paul, who she divorced when Madison was six. With Madison’s mother dead and Paul not only a lousy husband, but also an abusive parent, Cacey won custody. Spencer was Cacey’s nine-year-old son from her second marriage to Mark, another jerk, and three-year-old Emily was from her marriage to Phil, her wonderful pediatrician husband.
“So, how was your flight this time?”
“Like hell, as usual,” Cacey grumbled.
Cacey had always flown first class so I knew she was over exaggerating the hell part, because hell was sitting in seat number 32C across from the bathroom on a long flight to Phoenix.
I’d thought about tucking a blanket in the overhead compartment and letting it hang down as a “stick shield.”
“Enough talk about me,” Cacey said. “I’m calling about two things. First, I want to invite you to a ‘girls only’ luncheon that I’m having at my house two weeks from this coming Saturday.”
“What’s the occasion?”
“I am planning something special. It’s a surprise. Besides, it’s also an excuse to cook. You know that ever since that embarrassing blunder on national TV four years ago, I’ve overcompensated by replacing booze with an extreme cooking obsession.”
Cacey was born with a silver spoon dunked in Belgium chocolate and drizzled with strawberry sauce. I used to dream of whipping up astonishing six-course meals and leaving guests in a drooling frenzy while waiting for dessert, but for Cacey it came true.
For college dorm parties, everyone’s contribution consisted of a six-pack of beer. Cacey however, would bring fancy hors d’oeuvres that she’d whip up in her college apartment and serve them with wine. She said the wine would cleanse the palate, make the taste buds stand at attention, and enhance the flavor of each tiny morsel of seasoning.
After college graduation, Laura and I went off to law school and Cacey took off to Hollywood to find herself. That’s where she met her first husband Paul, a TV producer. The only good thing that loser ever did was help her launch “Cacey’s Kitchen,” a cooking show that took off like a bullet.
“So, do you think you can make it?” Cacey asked.
“I don’t see why not.”
“Good, everyone who shows will in a sense perform a wonderful humanitarian gesture.”
“How so?”
“Simply by eating the food I make. Since I can’t seem to pull the reins in on my cooking obsession, and Phil and the kids can only eat so much, I’ve been consuming large quantities of leftovers. Even as we speak I can feel the zipper on my shorts slipping down my former size ten belly to accommodate my ever expanding size twelve waist.”
“You shouldn’t worry about your waist. Age has a way of expanding us all--except for Laura and Katelyn, of course.”
ONCE UPON ANOTHER TIME Page 16