Blue Heart Blessed

by Susan Meissner

  I make my way over to her and tell Valerie what a lovely gown she has chosen. I’m halfway through telling her about the blessed little blue heart that will rest just under the small of her back, when the front door opens and a man steps inside. Mom walks over to him, all smiles.

  Why didn’t she tell me she was expecting someone?

  Out of the corner of my eye I see her lead the man over to meet Kellen and Laura. Okay, so he’s not a customer or Valerie’s future groom or a man wanting to sell a used wedding dress.

  I finish up with Valerie, placing her lovely tea-length dress in a garment bag. I walk her to the door, thank her for shopping at Something Blue and lock the door behind her. Mia has joined her parents and the man I don’t know. I walk over to them.

  “Oh, and this is my daughter, Daisy,” Mom pulls on my arm as I approach. “Daisy, this is Marshall Mitchell.”

  That’s it. No explanation. Just here’s a man with interchangeable first and last names.

  “How do you do?” I offer my hand.

  “Hello.” Marshall Mitchell shakes my hand. He’s of average height. A little thick around the middle. Clear, watery-blue eyes. Goatee. Suit and tie.

  “Marshall is very interested in learning how to invest in the stock market, and I knew Kellen would be just the person to help him out.” Mom sounds sincere but I’m having trouble understanding why on earth she’d arrange for a little financial mentoring when we’re supposed to be having dinner as a family.

  Kellen catches my eye. The tiniest smirk is on his lips. He nonchalantly toys with his wedding band and lets his eyes travel to Mitchell Marshall. I mean, Marshall Mitchell.

  I follow his gaze to Marshall’s left hand.

  No wedding ring.

  Marshall Mitchell is single.

  I could strangle my mother.

  I look back at my brother and he is fighting for control. Bridled laughter is etched across his face.

  My mother is telling us how she met Marshall at the golf course last week and how they got to talking and I am only catching half of it. I am glaring at Kellen, imploring him with my eyes to please, please get me out of this.

  He gets it.

  “Well, sure, Marshall. We could talk sometime. You ever come up to White Bear Lake?”

  Marshall starts to answer but my darling Yenta rushes in. “Well, since you’re here, Marshall, why don’t you just join us for dinner? We’re going to Ping’s. Have you been there? It’s fabulous.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to intrude on family time—”

  “Oh, it wouldn’t be an intrusion at all, would it, Kellen?” Mom doesn’t wait to hear Kellen’s answer. “This isn’t a big family to-do! We just love Chinese food. Please, you must come!”

  “Well, okay,” Marshall says this as sheepishly.

  “Lovely!” Mom claps her hands.

  Kellen offers me the slightest shrug of his shoulders as if to say, “Sorry! Nothing I could do!”

  Well, I can do something.

  “Um, Mom, I need to ask you something about that dress that you just sold. It won’t take but a moment. Excuse us.”

  I say these three sentences with as much urgent nonchalance as I can.

  Mom opens her mouth to protest but I propel her away with a touch on her elbow.

  “Really, Daisy,” she says as we head to the other end of the store. “Can’t this wait?”

  “Nope.”

  Seconds later we are at a far rack and I have my mother’s complete attention.

  “Mom, we had an agreement. No more fixing me up, remember?”

  Mom produces a look of astonishment. “I am not fixing you up. Didn’t you hear what I said? Marshall came here tonight to talk to Kellen. Not you.”

  “We haven’t seen Mia in weeks and you invite a man you just met at the golf course to have dinner with us so he can talk to Kellen?”

  “What’s so crazy about that? Kellen is an excellent investor. Marshall has money to invest. He’s quite wealthy.”

  A groan escapes me. I can’t rein it in. “Mom…”

  “What? Your brother likes helping people!”

  “Yeah, and so do you, Mom.”

  She looks me straight in the eye. “And there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  Marshall Mitchell may be the catch of the year but I’m not interested in playing catch. Dinner now looms before me as a tedious affair.

  An idea enters my mind. “So this is not some kind of blind date you’ve concocted here?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Okay. I’m going upstairs to put on a different blouse.”

  Her eyes widen just a tad and I can see that it is on the tip of her tongue to suggest which blouse I should wear. She catches it before it falls off.

  I turn and make my way to the back of the building, to the stairs that lead to the apartments. I am on the second floor in seconds. I stop quickly at my apartment and dash in to grab a lacy shawl to wear over my black silk shell.

  Then I scurry up to the third floor and pound on Max’s door, hoping he’s home.

  The door opens. Max has an iPod in one hand, and a single-serving Stouffers lasagna in the other. He’s barely touched it. He’s wearing jeans and a button-down shirt that no longer has any buttons.

  “We’re all going out to Ping’s. Want to come?” I ask.

  “What?” He pulls out an ear bud.

  I sigh and repeat my question.

  “Who’s ‘we’’’?

  “Max, does it matter? Do you really want that instead of Ping’s?” I point to his microwaved masterpiece.

  “No.”

  “Then come.”

  “Okay.”

  Max yanks out the other ear bud and tosses his iPod onto a little table by his front door that is littered with opened mail and loose playing cards. He hesitates for a moment and then places the Stouffers lasagna there, too.

  He steps out to join me, his open shirt flapping like a main sail.

  “Max, you might want to change your shirt.”

  He looks down at his chest. “Oh. Yeah. Right.” He reaches behind him and selects one of three shirts hanging on his doorknob. He lets the tattered one fall away and slips a striped polo over his head. “Okay.”

  Max closes his door behind him and we head toward the stairs.

  “Max, please do me a favor and sit by me.”

  “You want me to sit by you?”

  “My mom has invited some guy to come with us. I don’t want to sit by him.”

  “So that’s why you wanted me to come.” He stops and looks at me. He’s not hurt. He’s amused.

  “Please, Max.”

  He laughs. “You’re gonna owe me one.”

  “Fine.”

  He begins to descend the stairs.

  “Want me to pretend like I’m in love with you?” he teases.

  I can play, too. “Well, aren’t you?”

  He doesn’t answer. And he doesn’t look at me.

  Good Lord, now what have I done? A hot poker seems to have suddenly been inserted into my ears. It feels very warm in my befuddled brain.

  “Max, I was just kidding.” I reach out to touch his arm. He’s got to understand that for sure.

  He stops at the landing between the first and second floor. His head is dropped and I can’t see his eyes.

  “Max?” My voice sounds ridiculously unhinged. “Really. I was just kidding.”

  He looks up.

  “So was I.” He winks, laughs and dashes down the last set of stairs. I have to run to keep up with him.

  When we get to the bottom, he throws open the door that leads to Something Blue. The little party of five looks up.

  “I ran into Max upstairs,” I say as we walk toward everyone. “Thought he could join us. Max, this is a friend of my mother’s, Marshall Maxwell.”

  “Marshall Mitchell,” the man kindly corrects me.

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  Now, that was an honest mistake.

  Kellen is staring at
me but I won’t look at him. If I do, he will burst out laughing and then I will. It’s not good to be laughing when no one is telling a joke.

  We start to head toward the back entrance, to the little parking lot at the back of the building. Mom sidles up to me.

  “Max?” she whispers.

  “You said this wasn’t a date you fixed for me and that it wasn’t a big family to-do, so I figured no one would mind if Max joined us.”

  She says nothing.

  What can she say?

  I catch Kellen’s glance and I quickly look away. His face is wrapped with mirth.

  Thirteen

  Dear Harriet,

  I am feeling quite feisty tonight so don’t even think of messing with me. I don’t want advice. I just want to vent. So please do me a favor and just let me do it.

  I’ve decided to write a book. I’m going to title it, Rules of Disengagement. It will be a how-to book on how to survive getting dumped by your fiancé. Here’s rule number one.

  Don’t let people set you up on pity dates.

  Okay. Maybe that won’t be rule number one. But it’ll be up there. Four, maybe.

  My mother, and you know I love her, set me up tonight on a blind date without having the courage to call it that. She met a rich, single, never-been-married, Christian man at the golf course last week and she convinced him to join us for dinner tonight under the pretense of chatting stocks with Kellen. Even Kellen saw this for what it was, a chance for poor dateless Daisy to meet a decent man. A decent, single man. A decent, single man who drives a Jag.

  She denied it of course—but you should have seen her face when I asked Max to join us. She knows there is nothing between Max and me, despite her desperate attempts to play Cupid there as well, but she was annoyed nonetheless that I asked Max to join us at the last minute. And yes I know I was using Max, but I told him I was and he came anyway.

  Max was supposed to sit by me; that was my hasty plan to get out of making small talk with a rich man I’m sure I have nothing in common with. But somehow Mom got her way. Marshall Maxwell Mitchell Melville sat by me. She finagled the fates and got Kellen to sit on his other side so we could continue the ruse that the Rich Single Man had been invited to talk investments with my brother. But on Kellen’s other side was my mother, which meant when she wanted to pull Kellen’s attention away from the RSM, all she had to do was lay a hand on his arm and say, “Kellen, dear…”

  And that’s not the worse thing that happened.

  The worse thing is that Max ended up sitting by Mia. And they had a great time. Laughing and talking and her showing delight in Max’s ability to make half-dollars appear out of nowhere. I seriously doubt Mom had any intention of fixing Max up with her granddaughter. No, what happened between them was that monstrous thing called natural attraction. It was appalling. Give me a break. We’re talking Max. And Mia. They’re like polar opposites. She is elegant, sophisticated and brainy and he is disorganized, organic and un-cerebral. He’s also eight years older than she is. He’s too old. He’s too Max.

  To be perfectly honest, I think Marshall was embarrassed to have been snookered into Mom’s little plan. He had, like, this mental list of topics to discuss, and when we had exhausted those, he turned to Kellen and asked him his opinion on OTC stocks. No joke. Here was his list:

  1. So, you’ve lived in Minnesota your whole life?

  2. So, you graduated from Bethel?

  3. So, you go to church downtown?

  4. So, you’ve had your boutique for six months?

  5. So, your brother was born in Korea?

  I was practically hyperventilating waiting for him to say, “So, you got dumped at the altar?”

  Would she have told him that? Would she?

  Don’t answer that.

  I bet what he really wanted to know was why I needed help getting a date for a Friday night.

  That’s what I wanted to know about him.

  He seemed like a nice man. He’s obviously done well for himself. He plays a gentleman’s sport—golf. He was polite, kind, and tried to make small talk with me. He’s probably a little older than me—thirty-two or thirty-three.

  He’s a polite, single Christian man with money.

  Does that mean he met the right girl some time ago but she died? Or he met someone who he thought was the right girl but she dumped him? Maybe he dumped her.

  Maybe he’s never dated. Maybe he’s never kissed anyone. Maybe he’s kissed lots of girls. Maybe he’s a lousy kisser. Maybe he’s too picky. Maybe he wants perfection and he’s never been able to find it.

  Maybe that’s why he only asked me five questions and then turned to Kellen. He probably thinks if he can’t be won over in five questions, there is no point in going on to number six.

  And to top it off, Max and Mia were sitting across from me the whole time, joking and chatting like they’re old friends. Or newlyweds.

  I could barely eat my General Tsao’s Chicken.

  I feel like I’ve been rejected. And by a man I didn’t even want to sit by.

  This is sick. I wanted the RSM to want me so that I could fend off his advances. And I don’t want Max to want me but I don’t want him to want Mia. Or anyone else. He’s my Max.

  Sick, sick, sick.

  I have Sleepless in Seattle waiting in the DVD player and I can’t seem to press play.

  I wish Father Laurent didn’t go to bed so early.

  I wish my dad were here.

  I miss Daniel. I miss having someone to love.

  And having someone to love me.

  Dear Daisy,

  If I were going to give you advice, this is what I would say: No man worth having drops a woman minutes after meeting her on the basis of five questions. If the RSM is indeed a decent guy, he no doubt picked up on your I-really-don’t-want-to-be-here signals and was politely letting you off the hook. You might want to think about who did the rejecting first.

  Max is not yours. You don’t love Max in a romantic way. He’s nearing his thirtieth birthday just like you are and he surely wants to spend his life with someone who finds him irresistible, just like you do. Stand in the way of that and you will lose a good friend.

  Yes, Father Laurent is sleeping at the moment, and yes, you still mourn the loss of your dad, but you are not left without a Father. Skip the movie and go to down to that little chapel you are so keen about and pour out your woes to someone whose advice you will listen to, since you don’t want to listen to any from me.

  That’s what I would say if you had wanted my advice tonight.

  But you don’t.

  Harriet

  Fourteen

  Want to hear a love story? It’s actually the story of two loves. It’s my favorite love story. I never get tired thinking about it. Or imagining that sometime something like it might happen to me.

  Once upon a time there were two best friends named Chloe and L’Raine. They had grown up in a farming community in southern Minnesota and spent their high school years wearing bobby socks and saddle shoes, listening to Tommy Dorsey and dreaming about moving to the city and going to college to become teachers. Chloe was tall and had hair the color of chestnuts and L’Raine was blond and petite. They had known each other all their lives. They knew each other’s deepest hopes and desires.

  After high school, Chloe and L’Raine shared a dorm room at St. Olaf College near Minneapolis. They joined the choir because they both loved music. One evening, in early November of their freshman year, they had to meet up with the choir at a church north of the Twin Cities for a concert. Chloe and L’Raine had to leave later than the rest because they were volunteering at an after-school program and couldn’t leave with the rest of the choir. They didn’t have a car, so they were wondering how they were going to get there when they found out two other choir members would be leaving later and they had room in their car. The two other choir members were music majors. They were also brothers. Twin brothers. And their names were Owen and Warren Murien.

&n
bsp; Owen and Warren had grown up in the Iron Range in northern Minnesota. Their father taught band at the local high school where they were raised and their mother was the church organist. They had never thought of any career other than one in music. Owen and Warren were identical twins, red-haired and hazel-eyed, and sounded so much alike that Chloe and L’Raine had a very hard time distinguishing one from the other. After they met at the campus parking lot on the day of the concert, Owen said he’d wear one of Chloe’s clip-on earrings for the rest of the evening so that there wouldn’t be any confusion. This was the 1950s, before men wore earrings, so when Owen clipped one on and said, “Let’s go.” Chloe and L’Raine couldn’t stop laughing.

  The roads were icy and slick that night, and neither Chloe or L’Raine or the Murien brothers had ever been to the place where they were headed. They found the town where the church was located but couldn’t find the church. Owen, who was driving, stopped at a jewelry store just off the town’s main street to ask for directions. It was one of the few stores that still had its lights on. It was cold in the car, so Warren, Chloe and L’Raine got out, too, and went inside with him.

  They were talking loud and stomping their feet when they went inside and didn’t notice at first that the store clerk had his hands up and that tiny beads of sweat shone on his forehead. An instant later, it became very clear that they had stumbled in as the store was being robbed. Directly in front of the store clerk was a man in a dirty brown parka, aiming a gun.

  “Go back outside!” Owen had said and he moved his body to shield the girls behind him. Warren dropped back, too, covering the girls with his body.

  “No—no you don’t!” the man yelled and he stepped back a little so that he could see all of them, the store clerk and the four choir members. “Get over here! Right in front of me. Get on your hands and knees!”

  Owen moved his arms protectively around his back, and Warren did the same, shielding Chloe and L’Raine.