“Lucinda,” I said, “why are you really here?”
Lucinda sighed. “The point is,” she said, “because of his hand, your father won’t be making his trip to Vienna next week. So I invited him to your art show.”
I shook my head. “Why?”
“Because! We’re family.”
“Have you ever seen a family?” I demanded. “We’re nothing even close.”
What was this new determination to bond?
More important: Was the art show next week?
Wow, the time really flew after brain surgery.
After a second, I said, “He’s not coming, is he?”
“Of course he’s coming,” Lucinda said proudly. “We’re all coming. Me, your dad, and Parker.”
“No,” I said.
Lucinda’s shoulders dropped, and her disappointment almost felt genuine.
“You’re not coming,” I said. “Not him. Not you. And sure as shit not Parker.”
“But he had his secretary add it to his calendar.”
“Make her un-add it.”
“But I’ve already bought an outfit.”
“I feel like you’re not listening. You’re not invited. If you show up, I will call security and have you forcibly removed.”
“You wouldn’t do that,” Lucinda said
And then before I had a chance to say Watch me, she lifted up a shopping bag I hadn’t noticed in her hand and held it out to me.
“What’s this?”
“Open it.”
I looked between Lucinda and the bag. Finally, curiosity beat out hesitation. I walked to my art table and set the bag there so I could reach inside.
And what I pulled out made me gasp.
It was pink fabric with appliquéd flowers.
I held my breath for a few minutes, was afraid to even hope …
“Is this…” I said, just holding it and staring.
Lucinda waited for me to finish the question.
But I just started over. “Is this…?”
I loosened my grip so the fabric could unfurl, and then I had my answer.
It was.
“It’s the dress!” I said. It was so impossible, I turned to Lucinda. “Is it the dress? From the hospital that night?”
“It is,” Lucinda said.
“But how?” I said, still staring at it in disbelief. “I thought it was destroyed.”
“After I left your room, I went looking for it.” She paused, then said, “What’s the expression? I went ‘full Karen’ on that hospital. I even demanded to see the manager.”
“I don’t think going full Karen is a good thing,” I said.
“It worked, though. Didn’t it?”
I marveled at the dress. “I thought it had been incinerated.”
“Five more minutes, and it would’ve been.”
I walked over to the mirror on the closet door to hold it up in front of myself.
“It’s not the same,” Lucinda said next. “There are a few dark spots where the wine stains wouldn’t come out. We were able to reweave some of the shredded fabric, but not all of it—so the fit may be more snug.”
I felt like I’d never been so astonished. “You did this?”
“Lord, no. I took it to a tailor.”
“But…” I didn’t fully understand what was happening. “You saved it.”
“Yes,” Lucinda said, her voice softer.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because it was your mother’s.”
My eyes filled with tears at those words. “I never told you that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
She let the softness linger for a second, and then she snapped back to business. “Anyway, that’s the emergency. We need to make sure this version fits you. Now. Tonight. Otherwise, we’ll never get the alterations back in time.”
“In time for what?”
But Lucinda’s answer was almost as incredulous as my question. “For you to wear it to the art show.”
And as I tried the dress on so she could check the fit, and as she fussed and clucked over me like real mothers sometimes do over their real daughters, one thing was pretty clear.
Lucinda would be coming to the art show.
And maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.
Twenty-Three
IT’S FAIR TO say that this was a time in my life when almost nothing made any sense.
But after that night, one thing in my life was more than clear.
I’d have to call off my engagement to Dr. Addison.
That was it. Joe was the one.
The one I would choose. The one I wanted to date. The one I could talk to and joke around with. The one I couldn’t stop thinking about. The one I longed to put my hands all over. Again. And again. The one I wished were still in my bed right this very minute.
It wasn’t even a contest.
Dr. Addison had only ever been a romantic daydream—and of course I’d known that from the minute I first fixated on him. He was the notion of a love match. He was the suggestion of future happiness. He was pure fantasy.
Joe, in contrast, was reality. He was scars and collarbones and the smell of juniper. He’d seen me have a panic attack, and he’d rescued me when I was locked out, and he’d brought me tissues when I was crying.
Now that the whole bulldog situation was cleared up, there was nothing left to do but give up and give in, and like him like crazy.
I liked him. This wasn’t a shocking revelation. But it felt good to put it in writing in my head. He wasn’t some illusion of a boyfriend I was summoning to help me through a hard time. He was a real person with an empty apartment and a wounded heart.
I didn’t want to mess this up.
I didn’t want there to be any confusion.
I wanted to honor my incredible luck in finding somebody like Joe by ending things cleanly and neatly with Dr. Addison.
Even though, of course, it seemed crazy to end something that had never started. We hadn’t ever even had one date yet. But I just wanted to clarify with him in a nuts-and-bolts conversation. We hadn’t started anything, and we were never going to.
Was it copacetic to do that at Peanut’s checkup during Dr. Addison’s working hours?
Probably not.
But we happened to have an appointment that day. And it felt like the sooner, the better. I couldn’t imagine Dr. Addison would care too much, anyway, given the whole standing-me-up-and-then-never-calling-again situation.
I could settle things while he was palpating my dog.
How much could he possibly care?
* * *
IT WAS STRANGE to see Dr. Addison again at the appointment. I’d almost forgotten about him. It hadn’t even been that long, but I guess getting infatuated with someone else made it seem longer.
As Dr. Addison strode toward me in the waiting room in his crisp white coat and tie, his hair back in that Ivy League style, I couldn’t help but notice how that GQ look didn’t do it for me anymore. How utterly eroticized floppy hair and hipster glasses had become for me now.
Validating.
Dr. Addison, my once-fantasy-fiancé obsession, had become just another random guy.
Peanut’s checkup was good. The playlist that day was nonstop Louis Armstrong, and I noted that the vet tech had been right. Peanut really did like him.
Dr. Addison was being shadowed by a vet student that day, and he let her do most of the exam. By the end of the appointment, the student and Dr. Addison agreed: Peanut was just about the healthiest elderly dog either of them had ever seen.