“Wait,” I say. “What do you know about his education? Did he happen to attend Queen Mary University, by chance?”
Debbie’s eyes widen. “As a matter of fact, he did.”
“Val,” Liza says with a big smile. “I think we just found your guy.”
“Why don’t I call him?” Debbie says, reaching for her phone. “I talked to my mum the other day, and he’s definitely single. I could set you two up for a lunch date or coffee.”
I shake my head. “No, no, it’s okay. And besides, aren’t you sort of smitten with him yourself?”
“Please,” she says, holding out her left hand to display a diamond ring. “I’m engaged. Besides, our window of romantic possibility expired the year we both turned nine. Kissing him would be like…kissing my brother. Eww.”
I laugh.
“So,” she continues, taking another section of my hair, “will you please let me set you two up?”
“I can’t believe this,” I say, turning to Liza for validation. “I don’t know. Shouldn’t it happen…I don’t know, more organically?”
Liza nods. “Maybe you could go to his favorite café and accidentally bump into him, spilling coffee on his shirt or something?”
“Yeah, that,” I say, “but minus the bit about me spilling coffee on his shirt.”
Liza holds up her index finger. “Wait, you could steal his briefcase on the train, and then follow him and return it!”
I shake my head. “Definitely no.”
Debbie nods. “In grade five, I did something like that. I was completely besotted with this boy named Craig. I concocted an elaborate plan to get his attention by accidentally poking the edge of his arm with a plastic fork at lunch. I fantasized about how he’d think it was funny, and that we’d laugh about it for years to come. I imagined that after we got married, he’d tell people how hilarious it was that I’d stabbed him with a fork on the day we met. The thing is, somehow the fork missed him, but the ketchup on my tray didn’t. It splattered all over his polo shirt.” She shakes her head.
“Tragic,” Liza says.
Debbie nods. “It was.” She turns back to me, her gaze meeting my reflection in the mirror. “Let me call him later and work on setting you two up.”
“All right,” I finally say.
She smiles and hands me a pad of paper and a pen. “Here, leave me your phone number so I can pass it along to him.”
I scrawl my number onto the page and laugh to myself. “Will somebody please tell me why I feel like I’m fifteen years old all over again.”
Liza smiles. “And with that, Val, you may have just uncovered the best-kept secret about adulthood—that there’s no such thing.”
* * *
—
“Your hair looks nice,” Millie says later when I stop into the store at the end of the day.
“Thanks,” I say happily. Debbie had indeed brightened me up, and it felt like a nice change in the wake of…everything.
“It was quite a banner day,” she says, flipping off the lights. “The best sales we’ve had in weeks.”
“Really?”
She nods.
“Why don’t I walk you home? You can tell me all about it.”
“Sure,” she says, locking up the store. “Come along if you like, but not because you think I need protection. I’ve been walking far darker streets of London longer than you’ve been alive, my dear.”
“I know,” I say with a laugh. “I just thought you might like a little company, that’s all.”
I tell Millie about my latest call from James Whitaker of Bevins and Associates. He’s encouraging me to consider two new offers that would easily settle the estate taxes. Of course, both involve closing the bookstore and demolishing the building to make way for a modern block of flats, but the longer this drags out, the deeper in hot water I find myself.
“Lawyers never give up,” Millie says.
“I don’t want to make any decisions until after the fundraiser,” I say. “We still have time.”
“Exactly. Be vague. Tell him you’re considering your options. He’ll get his answer in time, and hopefully for us, it’ll be a big fat no.”
I nod as I feel my phone buzz in my back pocket. When I glance at the screen, I don’t recognize the number, but I decide to pick up, just in case.
“Hello, is this Valentina?” It’s a man with a deep, resonant voice.
“Yes,” I reply.
“This is Daniel. Daniel Davenport.”
“Daniel,” I say, a fluttery feeling creeping up inside of me. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he replies.
Millie grins, then mouths “good night,” before disappearing around the next corner.
“I’m sorry, am I interrupting you?” Daniel asks.
“No, no,” I say quickly, perhaps too quickly. I take a deep breath as I lean against a lamppost on the sidewalk. “Not at all.”
“Good,” he says. I can picture him right now, smiling out the window of his loft flat in the city, with dark, wavy hair, a coy smile, dinner simmering on the stove beside a freshly uncorked bottle of wine—a book on his nightstand. “I spoke to our mutual friend Debbie today, and she tells me that we have a lot to talk about.”
March 1990
A stream of light spilled out to the hallway from Frank’s bedroom door. I normally knocked, but I had a water glass in one hand and his shirts on hangers in the other. Besides, he’d left his door ajar, so I didn’t worry about disturbing him.
“Hi,” I said, pressing the door open with my elbow.
He was lying on his side, in the striped pajamas I’d bought him for Christmas two years ago. When he heard my footsteps, he sat up quickly. “Eloise,” he said, startled. “I’ve told you to please knock.”
“Oh,” I said, taken aback. “I’m sorry. I picked up the dry cleaning this morning and just wanted to put your shirts in the—” I paused, suddenly noticing dozens of photographs laid out on his bed, some black-and-white, some color. “What are you doing, Frank? What are these photos?”
“Nothing,” he said, gathering them into a pile as quickly as he could, but one escaped him, falling to the floor, where it lay, faceup, in front of me. The clump of hangers fell from my hand as I kneeled down to pick it up.
I noticed her eyes first—big, enchanting orbs—and then her other features: high cheekbones, perfect, plump lips, a tiny waist. Her blond hair cascaded in soft waves that hit her shoulders. She was laughing, beaming, as if the person behind the camera was everything to her. I swallowed hard, looking up at Frank. I knew the answer to the question I was about to ask, but I asked it anyway. “This is her, isn’t it? This is Diane.”
Frank took the photo from my limp hand and set it on top of the others, before tucking the stack into a manila envelope and placing it inside the drawer of his bedside table. He didn’t say anything, and neither did I, both of us cloaked in an icy silence.
A few moments passed before he turned to me, his eyes filled with regret, tenderness even. “Eloise, I’m…so sorry.”
“Don’t, Frank,” I said, shaking my head. “All these years. I could never reach you. I used to think it was me, that I wasn’t good enough, pretty enough, interesting enough. But I see now that it wasn’t any failure on my part. Frank, I couldn’t reach you because you were unreachable—because your heart is still with her.”
* * *