She Has Your Eyes (9 page)

I boarded the ferry, locked up the car, and went to the top deck. As the boat pulled away from the dock, I saw my mother standing on the boardwalk next to Danford’s, watching me sail away.

chapter thirteen

By the time I got home from Port Jefferson it was about seven o’clock, and I decided to return the rented car the next day. When I entered the house I called for David, but heard no response. Too tired to eat and still without an appetite, I put my untouched lunch into the fridge and slowly dragged myself up the stairs. The downstairs and stairwell were unlit, but I saw a flicker coming from my bedroom in the hallway and was greeted with the soft glow of strategically placed votive candles around the room, emitting a scent of vanilla cake. A towering crystal vase of red roses covered the dresser, their reflection in the mirror giving off the illusion that the bouquet was twice as bountiful. David had fallen asleep on the bed, a hardcover book resting on his chest along with his reading glasses. He was dressed in blue jeans and a maroon T-shirt. My favorite colors on him. He still had the body of a model sculpted from marble, of the alluring escort I’d met ten years ago who’d taken my breath away. His brown hair, more salt-and-pepper, remained full and thick and perfect for running my fingers through.

In short, he
still
took my breath away.

I kicked off my shoes and climbed onto the bed. A red rose rested on my pillow. I gingerly picked it up, pulled it to my
nose and inhaled, then moved it to the table, careful to keep it away from the flame. Then, with the same touch I applied to the rose, I slid his bangs to the side. His eyes fluttered and opened, then turned warm upon seeing me.

“Hey, beautiful,” he murmured.

“Hey, sleepyhead.”

The book and glasses fell to the side as he moved, and he tried to orient himself.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“A little after seven. There was an accident on I-91. Surprise,” I said sarcastically. “Didn’t you get my message? I left it on the landline.”

He yawned and stretched. “Forgot to listen to voice mails.” He gave me a look as if noticing me for the first time. “So how was lunch with Genevieve?” he asked. David never called my mother “Mom.”

“OK, I guess,” I said. He sat up, instructed me to do the same, and massaged my shoulders from behind. “It had its moments.”

“Good moments or bad moments?” He kissed my neck as he worked out a knot.

“A little of both, although ‘bad’ is probably too strong a word. Just”—I searched for a better adjective—“typical, I guess,” I said, unsatisfied with the choice. I often had trouble putting together any kind of coherent thought when David was kissing my neck.

“You told her everything?”

I nodded. “Mm-hmm.” A soft moan escaped me. “God, that feels good.…” I trailed off into a whisper. My eyelids grew heavy. “What did you do today after leaving Hartford?” I asked. “Besides romance up the room to get me laid?”

He chuckled. “What makes you think I was trying to get
you
laid?” I turned to face him in mock offense, only to be undone by his wink. “Not much,” he replied. “Made some calls, answered some e-mails, that kind of thing.”

I gestured toward the flowers. “Those are beautiful. You buy them for your girlfriend?”

“Nope,” he corrected, “my fiancée.”

I opened my mouth. “Wha…”

David stopped massaging me, arose, and moved to the edge of the bed, where he beckoned me to join him. He then knelt and pulled a box out of his pocket.

“
Mia cara Andrea
,” he began, knowing how I melted when he spoke Italian.

I took in a breath and put my hand to my chest, feeling my heart pound.

“Please, please marry me.”

Despite all our recent talk about marriage, I hadn’t expected anything so formal as a proposal. The last time David had popped the question was Christmas Eve almost two years ago. I had said no, and we broke up for almost a year after that. Back then I was still clinging to Sam, still afraid to let myself love another man, even the man who had taught me to love myself. But in the present moment I could almost see Sam in what was once our bedroom, his and mine, standing behind David and giving me a thumbs-up sign of approval. I could almost hear him say, “Go ahead, sweetheart. It’s time.”

Shortly after David and I had gotten back together, I moved the engagement ring Sam had given me from my finger to a chain around my neck, and put our wedding bands in a keepsake box that I kept in a drawer beside my bed. The ring David had presented to me the first time he proposed was a
hunk of a square diamond on a platinum band—magnificent in its radiance. I had never asked if he kept it. This new one was more like an anniversary band than a traditional engagement ring, yet still dazzled in the glow of the votives.

Moist and misty, my eyes met his.

“You rat-bastard,” I said, a tear slipping down my cheek; his expression turned confused for only a second as I laughed. “I was gonna ask you first.” And then he understood and released his smile.

And with that I let out a squeal as I hopped off the bed and nearly knocked him over. “Yes,” I said as I plastered his cheeks with salty-teared kisses. “Yes, yes,
yes
!”

We knelt in the middle of the floor, maniacally kissing each other and laughing simultaneously, until David grimaced and said, “Fuck, I’m too old to stay on my knees like this!” We clumsily lifted each other up to standing positions, and embraced for a long time, the outside world disappearing with every second. And as our breathing slowed and evened to something more sultry and serene, I took a step back, looked at him fiendishly, and it hit me.

“Ohmigod, Dev, I am
starving
.”

David looked at me as if I was nuts. I bent over to put my shoes back on. “C’mon, let’s get some Chinese food.” He did a face-palm, shook his head with incredulity, and laughed as he blew out the votives and followed me down the stairs.

“You sure know how to tease a guy,” he said.

“I’ll let you feed me the dim sum,” I said seductively. “Who knows where it’ll lead.”

chapter fourteen

“So that’s it?” said my friend Miranda as I showed off my hand to her at Perch, about a week after David’s proposal. Maggie was with us. I had texted them both the day after, but this had been the first chance we had to officially celebrate. “You and David are officially engaged, finally, after all this time?”

“Yep,” I said.

“Oh, Andi, I am
so
happy for you!” she said. “You and David deserve it.”

“He’s certainly been patient,” I said.

“Have you told your family yet?” asked Maggie.

“Yep.”

Miranda possessed a dazzling, toothy smile worthy of a Colgate commercial as she ogled my finger again. “It’s quite a ring.”

I held out my hand and admired it. “I think it’s perfect. Simple, yet elegant. Totally not something Sam would’ve picked out for me, but I think he’d like it.”

“He would’ve wanted you to be happy,” said Maggie. “I know that’s a clichéd thing to say about a loved one who’s deceased, but it’s true with Sam.”

I nodded in agreement. Then I withdrew my hand to my lap and changed the subject without warning. “So, Mags, what’s the big news you had?”

She brushed her hand in the air as if to wave off a fly. “Totally trivial in the wake of your recent developments. Classify it under gossip, I guess.”

“Ooooh,” said Miranda, who couldn’t resist an occasional snippet of gossip. “Spill it!”

“Well…,” said Maggie as she turned to me and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose with her index finger. “Someone from your past is looking for you.”

“Did you get this from a fortune cookie?” I asked. And yet, no sooner had I said the words than I filled in the blanks so that I didn’t even need her to elaborate.

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“What?” said Miranda.

“I kid you not,” said Maggie. “Ran into him at the symposium Westford-Langley hosted in Boston the other day.”

“Who?” asked Miranda.

“How’s he looking these days?” I asked.

“Lonely,” said Maggie, “but otherwise the same. He’s back to clean-shaven.”

“If one of you doesn’t tell me who you’re talking about in the next three seconds, I am going Real Housewife on the both of you and flipping the table over,” said Miranda.

“My ex-fiancé, Andrew,” I said.

Miranda’s eyes widened. “Wait—you mean…”

I nodded and finished her thought out loud as I had Maggie’s. “Andrew Clark. Dumped me to marry someone else, then divorced her a few years later.”

“Played acoustic guitar. Folk music, I recall,” said Maggie.

“That right there should’ve been a red flag,” I said. “So, he specifically asked about me?”

Maggie nodded. “Asked how you were, what you were up to, that sort of thing.”

“And?”

“And I told him you were doing great. Happy. Writing and publishing and teaching and all that.”

“Did you mention David?”

“I thought about it, but something told me not to. Is that OK?”

“Of course it’s OK,” I said.

“Why would it be so bad if you told him Andi found someone else and is very happy with him?” asked Miranda.

“It’s not that it would be bad,” said Maggie. “I guess I forgot that he didn’t know how Andi and David met.”

Ah, Maggie. So sweet, so loving, would give you the clothes off her back in the dead of winter if you asked her to. But she seemed to love the taste of her foot in her mouth, even if just a toe. I was used to it by now, but it didn’t make the moment less mortifying. Then again, she probably assumed Miranda knew who David used to be, given that Miranda and I had been friends for so long, and who could blame Maggie for that?

Miranda looked at me, puzzled. “You met in Rome, didn’t you?”

When Maggie realized she’d done it again, she gasped and touched my arm apologetically. I directed an
it’s OK
glance at her, but addressed Miranda. “The second time, yes. The first time was when I lived in New York. Let’s just say it was under unusual circumstances. He was going by a different name back then.”

“Was he in trouble with the law or something?” she asked.

“Oh, you might as well tell her,” said Maggie. “It’s ancient history by now.”

My forgiving glance turned into a frosty glare. Now I was genuinely mad at her. I didn’t think it was right to tell anyone about David’s past without his permission. But I didn’t want Miranda to feel as if we were keeping secrets from her, either, or that she couldn’t be trusted.

I leaned in as close as I could, and gestured to Miranda to do the same. Even Mags leaned in.

“He was an escort,” I said almost inaudibly.

“What did you say?” said Miranda, “something about a quarter?”

“An ES-CORT,” I enunciated, raising the volume by a fraction.

Miranda got it the second time. She sat up straight and exclaimed, “
No way!
” before catching herself and going stealth again by leaning in and asking above a whisper, “Seriously?”

I nodded.

“Did you hire him?”

“Sort of,” I said. “Not for what you think. I mean, he wasn’t exactly
that
kind of escort. I mean, he was and he wasn’t. It’s really complicated.”

Have you ever noticed how “it’s complicated” has come to mean, “I totally don’t want to have to explain this to you right now”?

“Wow,” said Miranda, leaning back in her seat. “It all makes sense now.”

“What does?” I asked.

“Last year we were all joking around at the Christmas party and I compared him to Richard Gere in
Pretty Woman
—you know, because he acts so cool and collected and is such a schmooze-boy—and then Kevin made a crack like they should
remake the movie and have David play Julia Roberts’s part instead, because he’s so wicked smooth and handsome. I swear, I thought he was going to deck Kevin. I thought maybe it was just some homophobic thing.”

David had never told me about the incident.

“Look, Randa, you can’t tell anyone about David. Not even Kevin. Especially not now, with everything going on with this new situation.” I had already filled her in about Wylie the day after David got the call. He was OK with my telling them, knowing they were my closest friends.