“She classes up the place, that’s for sure.”
Our second shock came when we perused the leather-bound menu.
“There’s no meatloaf,” I said.
“Or gravy,” Pam said.
“Thank God,” we said in unison.
“Look, they have tapas,” Pam said, pointing to a section of the menu. She read the description: “A selection of small plates of food from around the world, which allows a wide variety of choices and ample time for conversation between courses.”
“I see bruschetta and sautéed prawns,” I said.
“And stuffed figs,” Pam said. “I don’t even know what that would taste like, but I’m intrigued. Should we start with two or three and go from there?”
“I’m in.”
We were on our second round of tapas—duck meatballs, calamari, and mushroom and brie crostini—and halfway through a bottle of wine when I spotted Scott DiStefano across the room. He spoke to a bartender and then stopped by a booth in the corner where he spent several minutes talking to the people seated there.
I’d known Scott all my life and had, in fact, recently come across a box of keepsakes, one of which was my kindergarten class photo. In it, Scott had been missing one of his front teeth and his blond hair was so light it looked white. He was quiet, bookish, and sort of shy, and I’d never thought of him in a romantic way despite the fact that he was good-looking. He’d had the same girlfriend all through high school, a studious and quiet girl named Megan who moved here from Philadelphia in sixth grade.
“Scott DiStefano is over there,” I said to Pam.
“Where?”
“He’s talking to the people in that booth.”
“Do you think he’s the one behind all this?” Pam asked.
“Maybe.” That surprised me, though, because I wouldn’t have guessed that staying in Fenton had ever been on Scott’s short list of goals for the future. He’d graduated in the top five percent of our class and been named “most likely to succeed” in our senior roundup. I’d assumed he’d go the investment banker route, or maybe pursue a law or medical degree.
I must have been staring because Scott caught my eye and smiled. Two minutes later, a server arrived with a much nicer bottle of wine than the one we’d been drinking. “With compliments, from Mr. DiStefano,” our server said.
Scott eventually made his way to our table. “Hey,” he said. “I’m glad you stopped in.”
Scott at twenty-three was even more attractive then he was when I’d last seen him, which was probably the summer after we graduated high school. He’d always been tall, but he’d filled out a little and his boyish good looks had given way to features that were a bit more mature and refined.
“This is absolutely fantastic, Scott,” Pam said. “I’m full, but I don’t want to stop eating.”
Scott smiled modestly. “I’ll let the chef know.” He turned to me. “What about you, Daisy? Do you like it?”
“It’s incredible. And thank you for the wine.”
“You’re welcome.”
“So, are you running the restaurant now?” Pam asked. “I thought you were at UCLA.”
“I was. I graduated with a business degree last spring. But then my mom got sick and she and Dad started talking about selling the restaurant and moving to Florida.”
“What’s wrong with your mom?” I asked.
“Congestive heart failure.”
“How old is she? Are her symptoms due to heredity or lifestyle?” I asked. “Is she responding to treatment?”
“Daisy’s a nurse,” Pam said. “She’s not just being nosy.”
“You’re a nurse?” Scott asked.
“Yes. At the hospital in Barstow.”
“Oh,” he said. “I figured you were the type who would move away.”
“Really?” Because it was just my grandmother and me, I assumed most people would think I was the type who would never leave.
“I just pictured you in a bigger city. You have that look.”
What look? “I don’t know about that,” I said, “but I decided to stay.”
“The doctor said my mom’s prognosis is good, but that she had to make some changes. She can’t be on her feet constantly. The strain of fourteen-hour days isn’t something she can handle anymore, and my dad is just tired in general, I think. They’re only in their late fifties, but they want to retire. They weren’t ready to sell the restaurant, though. They asked me to consider postponing my plans for a year and asked if I’d be willing to take over.”
“Well, you’ve done a fantastic job,” I said.
“Thanks,” he said. “I didn’t expect to like it this much. I only agreed because I could tell they were really torn up about parting with this place. I figured I could give them a year. It helped that they told me I could make whatever changes I wanted. I hired a new chef and we put our heads together and decided to completely overhaul the menu, which was risky because I wasn’t sure how customers would respond. So far, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.”
“This is exactly what this town needed,” Pam said. “Although I have to say my boyfriend, Shane, will probably miss the old menu. That boy is meat and potatoes all the way.”
Scott laughed. “Well, when you come back you’ll have to leave him at home and bring Daisy instead.” He looked right at me when he said it, and suddenly I saw my future in a whole new light.
Scott pursued me with the same diligence and enthusiasm he poured into making the restaurant a success. He was kind, he was romantic, and he treated me like a princess. I fell for Scott DiStefano, and I fell for him hard.
“He sure is a charmer,” my grandmother used to say.
I stopped thinking about leaving. Why would I? Everything I wanted was right there in front of me.
By the time I turned twenty-four, Scott and I were engaged. We were married at twenty-five and pregnant at twenty-six. Elliott came along right after my twenty-seventh birthday. Scott worked long hours and so did I, but my grandmother watched Elliott on the days I worked, and I still had four days a week to spend with him. When I wasn’t working, we’d go to the restaurant for lunch and Scott would carry Elliott around, showing him off to the staff.
I had never been happier.
Eventually, the fatigue of working fourteen-hour days, seven days a week, caught up with Scott. He tried to take time off, but whenever he attempted to steal away he inevitably got called in to solve a problem or cover a shift because an employee called in sick. I convinced him to hire a general manager, but Scott was unable to turn over the reins to anyone for very long. He needed to have his hand in everything, which resulted in frequent power struggles. The manager stormed out one day and didn’t return. Scott refused to hire a replacement.
Over the next year, our household and marriage started to suffer.
Then one day Scott abruptly stopped complaining about being tired. He didn’t come home, eyes red-rimmed, and announce that he was about to fall asleep on his feet. He didn’t grumble when two of his waiters called in sick on the same night. He stayed at the restaurant doing inventory and organizing the back room long after the last employee had left. He was suddenly energetic after working for days on end. When he was home, he was either playing with Elliott or working on the long list of odd jobs around the house that needed attention.
I wasn’t completely naïve when it came to drugs, thanks to my pot-smoking college boyfriend Joe, but when I caught Scott smoking a bowl of meth with one of his busboys, I knew I had a much more serious problem on my hands. Scott’s ability to stay awake, to multitask and be superdad, had come from a source much more sinister than caffeine or energy drinks.
I cried.
I raged.
He confessed and promised he’d never do it again.
What followed was a year and a half of confrontation, threats, and watching our disposable income go straight into the coffers of the local meth dealers. When the abuse turned into full-fledged addiction and I wat
ched all the money we’d saved for a down payment on a home disappear, I decided I could no longer save him and started making plans to leave. The night my husband stood by, idly waiting for me to pay off his drug debts with my body, was the night I realized how treacherous my environment had become. All that mattered was finding a safe place for Elliott and me.
I’d always thought Scott and I would grow old together, front porch swing and all that, but instead I signed my name on the dotted line of several legal documents, severing our union permanently.
And though I had no interest in dating right away, I found myself rebounding from Scott with Nick. He was smart, attractive, kind, and—most importantly—he hated drugs.
But it should come as a warning to all women that the first man they fall in love with after they get divorced should not be the lawyer who’d handled it for them. Especially when you later discover you are compatible in every single way except the one that matters most to him.
So all I wanted by the time Brooks came along was one good man. Someone who was smart, attractive, kind, didn’t do drugs, and was on the same page as me.
Someone who would treat Elliott as his own.
I was willing to keep looking with the hope that someday a relationship would work out for me.
I chose to remain optimistic.
I wanted to fall in love again.
I’d never understood the notion of putting up walls or pushing away a great guy because those who’d come before him had hurt me. Wasn’t that the same thing as being unhappy? Wouldn’t I be just as alone?
But it wasn’t only about me anymore. I had Elliott to consider.
When I told Brooks that the end of my last relationship had been hard on Elliott, it was nothing compared to what it would be like as each year passed. The older Elliott got, the more he would have to bear the loss of any man I introduced him to, without the cognitive ability necessary to fully understand it.
If I didn’t have a child to consider, I would have entered into a long-distance relationship with Brooks in a heartbeat. Yes, they had their limitations, but so what?
It would have been worth every mile I put on my car.
Every phone call.
Every vacation day.
But I did have a child, and his well-being meant more to me than anything in the world.
I was getting really tired of what the universe kept throwing at me, but I held out hope that one day what the universe sent would be everything I needed.
CHAPTER 35
BROOKS
I flipped on the lights and set down my keys and phone on the counter, loosening my tie as I walked down the hallway to my bedroom. A few of my fellow reporters had taken me out for a welcome-back beer, which turned into several after half the newsroom decided to join us. I’d stumbled my way out of the bar at one a.m. after the Features editor finally stopped ordering shots for everyone.
I’d taken the train home and now all I wanted was to trade my work clothes for a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. After I changed, I stopped in the kitchen for a big glass of water, some Motrin, and an antacid.
I’m getting too old for this shit.
At least it was Friday. I could sleep in unless there was breaking news, in which case I’d haul my tired, hungover ass out of bed to chase the story. My phone signaled an incoming text, so I grabbed it from the counter and headed to the living room, resting my feet on the coffee table after I sat down on the couch and turned on the TV.
The text was from Diana: I heard you were back. I’m so sorry about your mom. Are you free tomorrow night?
Diana was a pretty thirty-five-year-old brunette who worked as a broadcast journalist for one of the local news stations. We’d met many years ago when we were first starting out. She’d scooped me on a very big story—although I maintained it was only because she happened to be in the vicinity of the crime when the news broke—and I made sure it never happened again. This resulted in a mutually respectful—yet highly competitive—friendship that morphed into something else after Diana’s marriage failed roughly two years after mine. Unlike me, Diana had been married to her high school sweetheart for fifteen years and had promised herself at least one year—maybe two—to sow the oats she hadn’t sown when she was younger.
I’d been divorced longer than Diana, and I still hadn’t figured out what I wanted. Sex? Absolutely. Commitment? Sure. If the right girl came along. In the meantime, Diana and I had a casual arrangement that included overnight visits once or twice a week and not much else. It suited us both. Occasionally I brought Diana to a wedding or other function that warranted a date, but that was about as far as it went with us. Ours was a union of convenience, mostly, and I held no illusion that I was the only guy Diana was sowing her oats with. But since we always practiced safe sex, I was hardly in a position to complain.
It’s difficult for reporters to date someone outside the industry. The news waits for no one, but women aren’t usually okay with the idea that you might have to randomly abandon them at a moment’s notice, regardless of what you’re in the middle of doing. This is especially problematic when the woman you’ve been dating for a few months—who you really like and could picture settling down with—suddenly reads the writing on the wall and realizes you may be gone.
A lot.
Without notice.
Which doesn’t work for her.
That means a reporter either has to find a woman who doesn’t mind (trust me, they all mind), or he dates another reporter. Since I have an aversion to dating my coworkers, this leaves me with an incredibly small pool of women to swim around in.
I sent a quick text back to Diana. Thanks. Sorry. Already made plans.
The fact that Diana and I hadn’t interacted during the whole time I’d been gone didn’t bother me, because it had not crossed my mind to reach out to her, either. But it did serve to highlight the emotionless quid-pro-quo nature of our relationship.
Daisy’s name was right above Diana’s on my text log. I clicked on it and read the text I’d written when I got back into my Jeep the day I said good-bye to her and Elliott.
I’ll miss you, too.
I’d never sent it, because what purpose would it serve?
But now that I was back in San Francisco, Daisy was never far from my thoughts. On my first day back to work, I stopped at the coffee shop around the corner from my apartment. As I stood in line, I noticed the music playing on the sound system, an instrumental version of “Daisy Jane” that they’d probably played hundreds of times before. Instantly I pictured Daisy in her yellow dress, red lips curved upward in a smile. I was so lost in the memory that the barista had to say, “Sir. Sir?”
Two days later I spotted a woman beside me on the street who was walking with a child, a little boy who looked about Elliott’s age. She was holding his hand and they were laughing. I slowed my pace to match theirs and watched as a man walked out of a building up ahead. He spotted them and smiled, and when the little boy broke free from his mother and ran toward the man, he swung him up into his arms. When the woman reached them he leaned down while holding the child and kissed her.
Everywhere there were things that reminded me of Daisy: chicken parmesan advertised as the daily special on a restaurant’s sidewalk chalkboard, a display of pinot noir at the market, a gelato stand. It seemed that every beautiful woman I passed on the street wore her blond hair in a ponytail.
I deleted the text message and typed a new one.
I hope things are going okay. My thumb hovered over the Send button.
It was one thirty a.m. by then, and Daisy would be sleeping. The last thing I wanted was to wake her up by sending the lamest text ever, especially after she’d shot down my offer to stay in touch via phone and computer, which, in hindsight, was a little bit like the type of relationship I had with Diana in that it would cause very little disruption in my life.
Or effort on my part.
But when I closed my eyes I didn’t see Diana, I saw Daisy.
&nbs
p; I saw her face and her smile and that damn hollow at the base of her throat that I wanted to press my lips against.
I erased the text and threw my stupid phone across the room where it hit a chair and clattered onto the hardwood floor.
And even though there were no breaking-news stories overnight and I could have slept in until noon if I’d wanted to, I woke up at six a.m. because for some reason, I couldn’t sleep.
CHAPTER 36
DAISY
“Hold still, Elliott. I can get you into this thing a lot faster if you quit moving around.”
“Hey, Pam,” Shane yelled. “Did you know Batman is in our kitchen?”
Pam came waddling around the corner. “Oh my God, look at him!”
Elliott beamed.
“Let’s put your mask on so Pam and Shane can get the full effect,” I said.
“Does Batman wear gwasses? If Batman doesn’t wear gwasses, I don’t want to wear them either.”
“If Batman needed glasses to help him see, he would wear them. I know he would. And you want to be able to see, don’t you?”
“I guess so,” he said.
I maneuvered the bows of Elliott’s glasses underneath the mask and then took several pictures of him. “You are the most adorable superhero I’ve ever seen.”
“Will I get lots of candy?”
“Way more than you need,” I said.
“Is it time to go?” he asked.
I glanced at my watch. “A few more minutes. Where’s your bucket?”
“It’s out there,” he said, pointing to the living room.
“Why don’t you grab it and we’ll get ready to head out?”
Pam stayed behind to hand out candy while Shane accompanied Elliott and me as we walked around Pam and Shane’s neighborhood, stopping at every house within a three-block radius until Elliott began walking slower and slower. Shane picked him up. “You gettin’ tired, little guy?”
Elliott rubbed his eyes. “I’m not tired. I want to eat candy.”
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