“I adore tall, dark men. What happened?”
“He was with this burly blond Viking with all this hair, and they made their way around the room and approached us. Apparently his friend knew Lia, the artist I was talking to. So his friend walks up and starts hitting on Lia, and Lia is having fun with it, but I can tell she’s not interested. We were just standing there, looking at each other, a pair of third wheels, while this sculptor, Ralph . . . “
“Ralph? Ralph Mays? Is that who you’re talking about?”
“I don’t know, I never got his last name.”
“I bet it was him,” Amalie tossed off, “There aren’t too many sculptors named Ralph in Boston.”
“So you know him?”
“I only know of him. Was your Christian Bale an artist, too?”
“No, that’s the funny thing. I never did find out exactly what he did, but he wasn’t an artist.”
“Don’t let me interrupt, I’m dying to know what happened next.”
”Well, we just stood there looking at each other, and Ralph is still trying to pick up Lia. He seems to be getting off on the challenge. Lee, that’s his name, rolls his eyes and shrugs, then he nods at the bar. So we wander off to get a glass of wine, and we start talking, and it’s like we knew each other in another life. We went outside into the sculpture garden, and . . .”
“And?”
“We had this moment. We looked at each other and our conversation stopped. You know that moment, when the air is alive with tension, when you know what’s going to happen next, but everyone is still poised on the edge of deciding whether or not they want it to happen? That second that seems to last forever? It’s like being at the top of a roller coaster, right before it plunges over the edge.”
“That sounds extraordinary.”
I detected a hint of jealousy in Amalie’s voice.
“It was. There was such clarity in that moment. He kissed me, and it was bells ringing, the earth moving, and that kiss became the center of the universe, like my entire life had been leading up to it.”
“That sounds like some kiss.”
“I’ve never experienced anything close to it. He confessed that Ralph hitting on Lia was a set up so he could get me alone. Can you imagine? We had this magical night together, and then we both had to go home. He was from out of town, too. We lost contact. I never saw him again.”
“Lost contact? In this day and age?”
“I know, it’s weird. I woke up and he was gone, but he’d left this sweet note to meet him at Top of the Hub. Then he never showed. I think something must have happened, and then there was no way for us to contact each other. So this was more Serendipity than Bridges of Madison County.
“Serendipity?”
“John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale? I’ve never been able to get him out of my head.”
“So tragic! How do you stand it?” Amalie’s face was all sympathy. I knew she was lapping up Joss’s pain like a tasty cre`me br?le′e.
“I keep thinking, somehow we’ll be together again. You’ve given me hope. I can track down Ralph Mays, and maybe he can help me. It’s a long shot, but it’s worth a try, don’t you think?“
Joss’s story was interrupted as the bell on the door tinkled. A tall man sporting a dark mustache and soul patch entered. He had a lean, interesting face that lit up when he spotted the women.
“Lee!” Joss clapped a hand to her chest, eyes wide with shock. “I can’t believe it’s you! How did you find me?”
He looked confused. “Excuse me? I uh, came here to meet Amalie . . .”
Joss spun to face Amalie’s raised eyebrows and folded arms. “This,” Amalie pronounced imperiously, “is Jonathan. My Jonathan.”
Joss looked from Amalie to Jonathan. “Lee?” She pleaded, “Don’t you remember me? Boston? Painted Vision at the Patrick Davis Gallery? Walking along the Charles? That lovely fountain? You said we were soul mates.”
“Miss, ah, I think you have me mixed up with someone else.”
I was about to intercede when Amalie spoke, gluing me to my spot.
“Does she, Jonathan Leighton Mathers?” Amalie asked, her voice dangerously soft, her posture rigid. “Didn’t your wingman, Ralph, call you Lee back at Harvard?”
“Amalie, I don’t know this woman!”
“Then she isn’t your soul-mate? How tedious, Jonathan.”
Joss’s chin trembled as her ideal love was exposed as a sham, a chimera invented out of a tawdry one-night stand, her magnificent passion, her raison d’etre, mocking her from every wall.
“Lee?” she implored, her voice not penetrating the domestic squabble.
Amalie remembered I was there. “David! You can tell Phillip we are not buying this painting, or anything else from him. I am not coming back, ever!”
She grabbed Jonathan by the arm and hauled all six feet of him to the exit, her Persian cat of a scarf fluttering behind her like a banner of war. Jonathan looked over his shoulder at Joss as he was being dragged, still trying to place her.
The chime jangled as the waif-turned-Hulk wrenched the door open. “Really Jonathan. That woman isn’t even white.”
I walked up behind Joss, placed my hands on her shoulders as the door slammed. We watched through the glass as Amalie stormed away, Jonathan dogging her heels while she shrilled at him, the sound diminishing as they distanced themselves from ground zero of this disaster.
“Joss, darling,” I said. “When are you going to stop doing this? Phillip is going to be furious when he gets back from Baja. Amalie was his favorite customer.”
Joss turned and took my hands. She kissed my cheek. Her eyes sparkled, but not with tears. “I know. Isn’t it wonderful?”