Maybe it was time to stop blaming her failures on her circumstances, and instead focus on God in the midst of them.
It seems such a simple concept, God, but please help me figure it all out.
Fifteen
At the sound of a knock, Stephan looked over at the front door of the shop. The shadow of a man could be seen against the shades covering the windows. The knock came again. Minnie caught his eye and shook her head.
A muffled voice came from the outside. “Delphine! I need to talk to you.”
His curiosity piqued, Stephan edged to the window and lifted the shade an inch. He saw a tall, blond man on the other side of the glass, holding a bouquet of flowers.
He became aware that Minnie had come up just behind him by the smell of her herbal perfume.
“That must be Brad,” she whispered. “Oh my, he’s gorgeous!”
Experiencing an unexpected pang of jealousy, Stephan sent her a quelling look. He wondered what he should do. Delphine had left to go to the bank and she’d be back at any moment.
“Let him in,” Minnie said with a tremor in her voice. “He’s got more flowers.”
Stephan gave Minnie a suspicious look before turning the lock on the front door. He opened the door a crack. “Who are you?”
“Brad Larsen. Is Delphine here?”
Stephan opened the door enough for Brad to enter. “No. Can I give her a message for you?”
The blond man’s shoulders slumped. He held out the flowers. “Can you give these to her for me?”
A sound from the rear of the shop drew Stephan’s attention from the bouquet of daisies. The back door opened and closed. Delphine had returned. He heard her footsteps approaching the front.
“Hey, where is everybody? It’s so quiet in here!”
She came into view—and saw Brad.
Her face went pink and white by turns. Stephan’s gaze swiveled back to Brad. His face was doing the same thing. As they stared at each other, a tenuous thread of emotion seemed to thrum between the two. Stephan held his breath. He sensed Minnie doing the same.
Brad took a step toward Delphine. That small movement broke whatever spell held them. Delphine turned on her heel and went inside her office, shutting the door with a decisive snap.
Stephan glanced at Brad. His face looked hard and set. Thrusting the flowers at Stephan, Brad walked out the door.
Minnie gave a loud sniff. Stephan looked over at her, seeing tears in her gray eyes. Suppressing a stab of impatience, he locked the front door.
“They must be so very much in love,” Minnie said in a quiet voice. “We have to do something to help them get back together.”
Stephan turned. “Au contraire, as our fair boss would say. It’s for that exact reason we keep our noses out of their business.”
Minnie bunched her fists. “You don’t have one romantic bone in your body.”
Stephan shrugged. “I like my job. I want to keep it.”
Giving him a basilisk stare, Minnie turned and went back to her work.
****
In her office, Delphine tried to control the rate of her breathing. Dizziness assailed her. Seated in her chair, she wrapped her arms around her waist, waiting for her world to right itself again.
Over the past few days, she’d convinced herself that her thinking was becoming clear, more circumspect. Certainly, she’d sensed a new closeness to God which had heartened her immensely.
But seeing Brad just now had been like a karate kick to her solar plexus. She closed her eyes, seeing again in her mind the stricken look on his face. Delphine had read his many notes attached to the flowers with a jaundiced eye, but the expression on his face couldn’t be denied. He was hurting.
She’d been so consumed with her own hurt, she hadn’t really considered he might be suffering. Why would he be? He’d said those terrible words that had pierced her heart.
Delphine slowly looked around her office. On every horizontal surface, bouquets crowded office paraphernalia. Some of the flowers—roses, sunflowers, carnations, daisies, even arrangements with snapdragons and amaryllis—were fading. Petals littered her desktop. Delphine picked up the bouquet of pink roses that had been delivered the day before and pressed her face against the velvet petals.
God, what do you want me to do? I know I have to forgive him but even then I’m afraid of letting him back into my life. Please give me wisdom.
Images of Brad’s otherwise wonderful treatment of her flickered through her mind. Maybe she didn’t deserve such a man. Why would he want her back anyway?
She inhaled the light fragrance of the roses and set them back on the desk, no closer to any resolution. The action brought to her attention the piles of paperwork on the desk. Glancing at her watch, Delphine realized she’d have to work late again to catch up.
****
Brad fumed while he drove away from the shop. This was getting ridiculous! Delphine would listen to his explanation one way or another. He wouldn’t allow her to shut him out forever. If, after he’d made his excuses she wanted nothing more with him, fine. But he refused to allow their relationship die based on a misunderstanding.
Checking his watch, he saw that it was nearly six. Soon Delphine would arrive home, or at least he hoped. She either hadn’t answered her door or hadn’t been home at all in the past week. Since she didn’t have a car, he couldn’t tell for sure when she was at her apartment.
At a stoplight, Brad punched his home phone number into the cell phone. When he got the voice mail, he checked his messages. Nothing. Next, he called his parents’ line, reminding his mom to let him know if Delphine called. After that, he decided to grab a bite to eat. On his way to a fast food restaurant, he noticed a competing chocolate shop on the other side of the street. A familiar craving assailed him.
He fought against it.
No more chocolate until Delphine forgives me.
****
“Don’t do it, Minnie. It’s none of your business.” Stephan sent a stern look to his co-worker, where she slouched down in the passenger seat of his car. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she had a particularly mulish expression on her face.
“Like it was none of your business to read Delphine’s florist note?”
“That was different. Now that I know she’s not suffering from anything life-threatening, I don’t feel the need to get involved.”
“Have you ever been in love? How do you know it’s not life-threatening?”
Stephan snorted. “Puh-leeze.”
Minnie grabbed the door handle of the car and scrambled out. She leaned down, her cheeks red with anger. “Well, I’m calling Brad and telling him Delphine will probably be at the shop tonight, like she has been every night this week.”
She slammed the door shut and marched toward her apartment. He watched her go up the wooden steps to the complex and disappear through one of the doors.
Stephan frowned and thought about the boring night he’d have at home by himself. He really shouldn’t leave Minnie to her own devices. But as he was older, and technically had more authority over her since only he had a key to the shop, he felt responsible for her. Rather like a big brother. If she got herself mixed up in something, he should be there to extricate her—and crow about how he’d been right afterwards.
Stephan stumbled out of the car in an unseemly haste.
Minnie allowed herself a little curved smile when she heard Stephan banging on the door. Composing her face into one of indifference, she opened the door and feigned surprise at the sight of him.
“Change your mind?” she asked sweetly.
Stephan uttered a grunt and edged past her into the sparsely furnished living room.
“So, how did you get Brad’s number?”
Minnie felt her face heat up. “Um, I don’t have his number. I assume it’s in the phone book.”
Stephan laughed out loud. “You thought you could just open up a Los Angeles phone book and find somebody’s number?” He collapsed on to t
he second-hand couch and let out an unmanly giggle.
Feeling her affection for Stephan begin to wither somewhat, she lifted her chin. “Well, it’s a place to start. So unless you have any better ideas, just be quiet.”
Minnie went to the telephone book, slapped it on the dinette table, and opened it to Larsen. She blinked at the seeming miles of listings for B, Brad, or Bradley Larsen. Stephan came up and peered over her shoulder.
“Put on a pot of coffee ‘cause we’ll be up all night making calls,” he said in an amused tone.
Minnie grimaced and felt her glow of a good deed done begin to fade. She cleared her throat. “Well, smarty pants, give me an alternative.”
Stephan shrugged. “Do you have Internet access? Maybe we can look him up online.”
“How would that be any easier than the phone book? Besides, I don’t know much about computers.”
“Then why do you have one?” he asked, pointing to a desk in a corner of the kitchen nook.
“It’s my roommate’s,” she mumbled, embarrassed to be caught being so e-illiterate.
Stephan dragged one of the dinette chairs over to the desk and turned on the computer. “May I?” he asked, obviously as a formality.
“Make yourself at home.” Minnie couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice. How was it that a guy she was crazy for made her feel so prickly all the time? Maybe it was because he refused to consider her in the light of a romantic possibility. His daily flirtation was merely a matter of form.
A few moments later, silhouetted by the glow of the monitor, Stephan turned to her. “So how do you spell his last name? Is it ‘e-n’ or ‘o-n’ or something else?”
Grabbing a chair and scooting up beside him, Minnie peered at the screen. “Try it with ‘en’ first.”
He tapped away at the keys. “I’m entering his name into a search engine. You never know what you can come up with this way.”
After a moment, several links appeared. “Hmmm, there’s a Brad Larsen who is apparently a surfer. It’s on a site about surfing competitions. Let’s try that one.”
Clicking on the link, Stephan gave a victorious hoot when an image of Brad appeared on the screen. “First attempt and he scores!”
Minnie ignored his outburst and leaned closer to the screen. She read about Brad’s past history as a surfer, along with his competitions. In the shop, she’d thought him cute. Seeing him glistening with water, tanned, and in bright colored shorts, she let out a low whistle.
“Quit slobbering all over the screen, if you please,” Stephan huffed.
Minnie tore her gaze away from the photo and looked at Stephan. Tall, skinny and pale, Stephan was probably a closet nerd despite his show of bravado—but she still preferred him over the beach bum her boss was hung up on.
She gave him a pitying smile, and continued to read the information on the screen.
“This doesn’t say much about him currently. Is there another site that mentions him?” she asked.
Stephan clicked on another link provided by the search engine. “This one here says he’s from Redondo Beach.”
“Well, that narrows the field. Back to the phone book. The South Bay one, I think.”
It turned out that there were twenty-five possibilities, so Minnie decided to call all the Bradley’s first. After five calls, she hit pay dirt. She only had to mention Delphine’s name when the woman on the other end began to babble incoherently. After a moment she was able to decipher the fact that the woman was Brad’s mother.
“I’ve been so worried about Delphine. You say you work for her? How is she? She never answers her phone anymore.”
“She’s doing okay, Mrs. Larsen. I was really hoping to talk to Brad.”
“He’s not here.”
Minnie furrowed her brows in consternation. To come so far only to fail! “Can you get a message to him tonight for me?”
“Yes, he has his cell phone.”
Minnie looked at Stephan while she spoke. “Tell him that Delphine will be at the shop late tonight.”
“Oh, okay, I’ll let him know. Thank you, dear.”
After saying good-bye, Minnie hung up the phone and gave Stephan a smug smile. Folding her arms behind her head, she sighed. “I feel quite like Cupid, I must admit.”
“More like a Machiavelli. You’ll probably be responsible for their break up.”
“They already are broken up, you dolt.”
“You don’t have to get nasty about it.”
She opened her eyes to their widest. “Moi? Nasty? You must have me confused with your other girlfriend.”
Stephan’s face turned red. “I don’t have any girlfriends!”
Minnie walked over to him. “Good. That means they won’t get jealous when I do this.” Acting quickly, before she lost her nerve, she bent down and kissed him on the lips.
If Stephan seemed surprised, he rallied quickly. To Minnie’s delight, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her right back.
****
The tweetering of a cell phone jolted Brad awake. He uncoiled himself from his cramped position behind the wheel of the car and reached for his phone. As he answered, he glanced at his watch. He’d only been asleep for a few minutes, but it felt like hours.
“Brad, this is your mother.”
Brad managed a groggy smile. “Oh, I wondered who this was.”
Not missing a beat, Elaine continued. “When I went to your room to check your messages like you asked, the phone rang. I picked it up. Someone named Minnie was asking for you. Apparently, she’s one of Delphine’s employees. She wanted you to know Delphine will be working late tonight.”
Brad pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at it quizzically. Putting it back, he said, “Why would she call to tell me that?”
“Well, I didn’t ask, but presumably so you could see Delphine. And when you see her, could you have her give me a call? I’d like to have her over again soon. Oh, and bring her to Bible study tonight. Don’t forget it’s Wednesday.”
He shook his head at her stream-of-consciousness speech. “Sure thing, Mom.”
After his mother hung up, Brad stretched. He looked around Delphine’s neighborhood, noticing the early evening sunset. He wasn’t overly surprised that he’d fallen asleep. Romantic distress didn’t do much for regular slumber.
At the same time, he began to wonder if anyone had taken note of his car. If he weren’t careful, a local resident would be calling the police, complaining of a neighborhood stalker. Brad started the car and after looking over his shoulder, he pulled away from the curb and made his way to Delphine’s shop.
While he negotiated traffic, he wondered why her employee would make that call. It didn’t add up. Then again, it didn’t really need to. He wanted to see Delphine, and he hadn’t considered she might stay at the shop late.
A few blocks from the shop, Brad saw a flower vendor. Deciding to walk to the shop and gather his thoughts before he faced her, he parked and decided to purchase a bouquet of lilies. When he went inside, he saw an assortment of stuffed animals. Next to a blue teddy bear sat a shaggy rabbit wearing an old-fashioned plaid shirt and overalls. He forgot about the lilies as a new idea came to him.
After paying for the toy, he headed toward the shop. As he came abreast of it, he noticed for the first time a blue neon sign glowing in the window—Chez Chocolates.
Brad smiled a little. That was one of the names he’d mentioned some time back when they were still speaking. She’d laughed at his pronunciation, saying his accent sounded more Hispanic than French.
He came to a full stop in front of the shop. The windows were covered by shades. He assumed they would be there until her grand opening. The neon sign cast a blue glow onto the sidewalk as the sun continued to sink behind the building.
All his insecurities regarding Delphine washed over him in a depressing wave. He closed his eyes for a moment, shaken by an overwhelming longing for her. Would she speak to him? What could he say to erase his blunder?
Taking a deep breath, Brad walked up to the door and knocked hard. He was dimly aware of the constant traffic behind him, of passersby, and the bark of a dog somewhere in the near distance. When Delphine didn’t answer right away, Brad felt hollow and despondent. How long would she avoid him? How long would he keep trying? “Del-phine!”
Brad leaned his forehead against the glass and swallowed back a choking sense of desperation. When he focused his eyes, he suddenly realized he could see through a gap in the shade covering the window. A thin sliver of light shone from under the door in the back room.
His heart hammered against his ribcage. She’s here! He knocked again.
With his head still pressed against the glass, he took a shuddering breath. “Open up, please! I love you! I’m miserable without you!”
“Well!” wheezed a shocked voice behind him.
Brad whirled around and saw an elderly man staring at him with a keen gaze.
The man looked at him, at the sign, and back at him again. “That must be some candy!” He cackled and continued on his way.
Brad heaved a beleaguered sigh and turned back toward the window, letting his head fall forward until it plunked against the glass.
****
Delphine lifted the shade away from the window a spare inch and gazed hungrily at the sight of Brad. It reminded her of the first time she’d seen him. He’d had his face up against a chocolate shop window then, too.
Do I open the door and possibly open myself to more hurt? What can he say to erase his terrible words?
Delphine peered at him, at his slumped shoulders and downcast gaze. To have him so close without being able to touch him tortured her—while her brain told her to be firm against a man who uttered such heartless things.
How Sweet It Is Page 15