If You Could See Me Now (31 page)

Elizabeth looked down at her black outfit
and thought about that.

“So, what have you got there?” he asked, breaking into her thoughts.

“Oh, nothing,” Elizabeth mumbled, folding the pages together.

“Let me see it.” He grabbed the sheets. “What have we got here? Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse.” He
flicked through the pages. “Winnie-the-Pooh, a racing car, and what’s this?” He twirled the page around to get a better view.

“It’s nothing,” Elizabeth snapped, snatching the page from his hand.

“That’s not nothing, nothing looks like this.” He stopped talking and stared at her blankly.

“What are you doing?” she asked after a few minutes of silence.

“Nothing, see?” He held out his hands.

Elizabeth stepped away from him, rolling her eyes. “Sometimes you are worse than Luke. I’m going to have a glass of wine, would you like anything? Beer, wine, brandy?”

“A ssalg of klim, please.”

“I wish you’d stop speaking backward,” she snapped, handing him a glass of milk. “For a change?” she asked irritatedly, throwing her pages into the bin.

“No, that’s what I always have,” he said rather perkily, eyeing her suspiciously. “Why is that cabinet locked?”

“Em . . .” She faltered. “So Luke can’t get at the alcohol,” she explained, not mentioning anything about the fact that it was to keep Saoirse away. Luke had taken to hiding the key in his room whenever he heard his mother coming.

“Oh. What are you doing on the twenty-ninth?” He swung himself around on the tall bar stool at the breakfast table and watched her rooting through the wine bottles, face twisted in concentration.

“When is the twenty-ninth?” She locked the cabinet and searched through the drawer for a corkscrew.

“It’s on Saturday.”

Her cheeks pinked and she looked away, giving her full concentration to opening the wine bottle. “I’m going out on Saturday.”

“Where to?”

“A restaurant.”

“With who?”

She felt like it was Luke
firing questions at her. “I’m meeting Benjamin West,” she said, still keeping her back turned. She just couldn’t face turning around right at that moment and she didn’t know why she felt so uncomfortable.

“Why are you meeting him on Saturday? You don’t work on Saturdays,” Ivan stated.

“It’s not about work, Ivan, he doesn’t know anybody here and we’re going to get something to eat.” She poured the red wine into the crystal glass.

“Eat?” he asked incredulously. “You’re going to eat with Benjamin?” His voice went up a few octaves.

Elizabeth’s eyes widened and she spun around, glass in hand. “Is that a problem?”

“He’s dirty and he smells,” Ivan stated.

Elizabeth’s mouth dropped open; she didn’t know how to reply to that.

“He probably eats with his hands. Like an animal,” Ivan continued, “or a caveman, half man, half animal. He probably hunts for—”

“Stop it, Ivan.” Elizabeth started laughing.

He stopped.

“What’s really wrong?” She raised her eyebrow at him and sipped her wine.

He stopped spinning on his chair and stared at her. She stared back. She saw him swallow, his Adam’s apple moving down his throat. His childishness disappeared and he appeared to her as a man, big, strong, with such a presence. Her heartbeat quickened, his eyes didn’t move from her face and she couldn’t look away, couldn’t move. “Nothing’s
wrong
.”

“Ivan, if you’ve got anything to say to me, you should say it,” Elizabeth said
firmly. “We’re big boys and girls now.” The corners of her lips smiled at that.

“Elizabeth, would you come out with me on Saturday?”

Elizabeth sighed. “Ivan, it would be rude of me to cancel the appointment at such short notice, can’t we go out another night?”

“No,” he said, stepping off the stool. “It has to be July twenty-ninth. You’ll see why.”

“I can’t—”

“You can,” he interrupted her. He took her by her elbows. “You can do whatever you want. Meet me at Cobh Ciúin at eight
p.m.
on Saturday.”

“Cobh Ciúin?!”

“You’ll see why,” he repeated, tipped his cap, and disappeared as quickly as he had arrived.

... Before I left the house, I called in to Luke in the playroom.

“Hey there, stranger,” I said, collapsing on the beanbag.

“Hi, Ivan,” Luke said, watching TV.

“Have you missed me?”

“Nope.” Luke smiled.

“Wanna know where I’ve been?”

“Smooching with my aunt.” Luke closed his eyes and did fake kisses in the air before collapsing into hysterical laughter.

My mouth dropped open. “Hey! What makes you say that?!”

“You
love
her.” Luke laughed and continued watching cartoons.

I thought about that for a while. “Are you still my friend?”

“Yep,” Luke replied. “But Sam is my
best
friend.”

I pretended to be shot in the heart.

Luke looked away from the television to face me with big, hopeful blue eyes. “Is my aunt your best friend now?”

I thought about that carefully. “Do you want her to be?”

Luke nodded his head emphatically.

“Why?”

“She’s much better fun, she doesn’t give out to me as much, and she lets me color in the white room.”

“Jinny Joe Day was fun, wasn’t it?”

Luke’s eyes widened and he nodded. “I’ve never seen her laugh so much.”

“Does she give you big hugs and play lots of games with you?”

Luke looked at me like that was a ridiculous idea and I sighed, worried about the small part of me that felt relieved.

“Ivan?”

“Yes, Luke.”

“Remember you told me that you can’t stay around all the time, that you have to go to help other friends and so I shouldn’t feel sad?”

“Yes.” I swallowed hard. I dreaded that day.

“What will happen to you and Aunt Elizabeth when that happens?”

And then I worried about the part in the center of my chest that pained when I thought about that.

...

I stepped into Opal’s office, hands in my pockets and wearing my new red T-shirt and a new pair of black jeans. Red felt good on me today because I was angry. I didn’t like the tone in Opal’s voice when she called me.

“Ivan,” she said, putting down her feather pen and staring at me. Gone was her beaming smile that once used to greet me. She looked tired, bags hung under her eyes, and her dreadlocks were down around her face and not in one of her usual styles.

“Opal.” I imitated her tone, throwing one leg over the other as I sat before her.

“What are the things you teach your students about becoming a part of your new friend’s life?”

“Assist don’t hinder, support don’t oppose, help and listen don’t—”

“You can stop right there.” She raised her voice and cut in on my bored tones. “Assist and don’t hinder, Ivan.” She allowed those words to hang in the air. “You made her cancel a dinner reservation with Benjamin West. She could have made a friend, Ivan.” She stared at me, her black eyes like coal. Any more anger and they would have gone on
fire.

“Can I remind you that the last time Elizabeth Egan made a date with anyone for non-business purposes was
five
years ago.
Five
years ago, Ivan,” she stressed. “Can you tell me why you undid all that?”

“Because he’s dirty and he smells.” I laughed.

“Because he’s dirty and he smells,” she repeated, making me feel stupid. “Then let her
figure that out for herself,” Opal said. “Don’t overstep your mark, Ivan.” With that she looked back down at her work and continued writing, the feather blowing as she scribbled furiously.

“What’s going on, Opal?” I asked her. “Tell me what’s really going on?”

She looked up, anger and sadness in her eyes. “We are incredibly busy, Ivan, and we need you to work as quickly as you can and move on instead of hanging around and undoing the good work you’ve already done. That’s what’s going on.”

Stunned by her chastising, I silently left her office. I didn’t believe her for one minute, but whatever was going on in her life was her own business.

She’d change her mind about Elizabeth canceling her dinner with Benjamin

as soon as she saw what I had planned for the twenty-ninth.

“Oh, and Ivan,” Opal’s voice called out.

I stopped at her doorway and turned around. She was still looking down and writing as she spoke. “I’ll need you to come in here next Monday to take over for a while.”

“Why?” I asked with disbelief.

“I’m not going to be here for a few days, I need you to cover for me.”

That had never happened before. “But I’m still in the middle of a job.”

“Good to hear you’re still calling it that,” she snapped. Then she sighed, put down her feathered pen, and looked up. Her eyes were tired and she looked like she was going to cry. “I’m sure Saturday will be such a success you won’t need to be there next week, Ivan.”

Her voice was so soft and genuine that I forgot that I was angry at her and realized for the
first
time that if it were any other situation, she would be right.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Ivan placed the finishing
touches to the dinner table, snipped a stem of fuchsia that was growing wild, and placed it in the small vase in the center. He lit a candle and watched as the
flame darted around in the breeze, like a dog running around the garden yet chained to his kennel. Cobh Ciúin was silent, just as the name suggested, christened hundreds of years ago by the locals and untouched since then. The only sound was the water gently lapping, swishing back and forth, and tickling the sand. Ivan closed his eyes and swayed to the music. A small
fishing boat tied to the pier bobbed up and down on the sea, occasionally bumping the side of the pier and adding a soft drumbeat.

The sky was blue and beginning to darken with a few stray wisps of teenage clouds lagging behind the older clouds of hours ago. The stars twinkled brightly and Ivan winked back at them; they too knew what was coming. Ivan had asked the head chef at the work canteen to help him out tonight; he was the same chef responsible for catering the tea parties in the back gardens of best friends, but this time he went all out. He had created the most luscious spread Ivan could have imagined. Starter was foie gras and toast cut into neat little squares, followed by wild Irish salmon and asparagus cooked in garlic, followed by a white chocolate mousse with dribbles of raspberry sauce for dessert. The aromas were lifted by the warm gulf wind and carried past his nose, tickling his tastebuds.

He played around with the cutlery nervously,
fixing all that didn’t need to be
fixed. He tightened his new blue silk tie, loosened it again, opened the button of his navy blue suit jacket, and decided to close it again. He had been so busy all day arranging the setup that he had barely taken time to think about the feelings that were stirring inside him. Glancing at his watch and at the darkening sky, he hoped Elizabeth would come.

Elizabeth drove down the narrow winding road slowly, barely able to see past the end of her nose in the thick blackness of the countryside. Wild
flowers and growth reached out to brush the side of her car as she passed. Her full headlights startled moths, mosquitoes, and bats as she drove in the direction of the sea. Suddenly, the blackness lifted as she reached a clearing and the whole world was spread out before her.

Ahead of her were thousands of miles of black sea, glistening under the moonlight. Inside the cove was a small
fishing boat tied up beside the steps; the sand was a velvety brown, the edges being licked and teased by the approaching tide. But it wasn’t the sea that took her breath away; it was the sight of Ivan standing in the sand dressed in a smart new suit beside a small, beautifully set table for two, candle
flickering in the center, casting shadows across his smiling face.