Olivia (45 page)

“Polaroids,” she decided. “Of everything we see.”

“We’ll take one for me, and one for you.”

“And we’ll take a third to leave behind for someone else to find.”

“Let’s go tonight. Right now.”

“And let’s not pack. Let’s just go.”

“Right now.” He smiled.

“Right now,” she agreed.

And they went.

Chapter Twenty

On an unbearably-muggy Saturday afternoon in the middle of August, Olivia and Mel got a quickie divorce and Mel and Carl Jr. got married again, this time in the little, white church on Chicory Street instead of the Pizza Hut. Carl Jr. had failed to get paroled back in January, but thanks to the regular time he started to spend with the minister who visited the jail every day, he finally figured out that he had done something wrong, and became remorseful. He was awarded parole the last week of June and came out of prison clean and sober, twenty pounds heavier and born again. Olivia hoped for Mel’s sake that this time he was serious about straightening out his life.

After the wedding, the guests burst from the church and pooled in the street, pausing to gossip and reminisce and enjoy a bit of sunshine before breaking off in smaller groups to make their way around the corner to celebrate at Kitty’s. Clete and Allie missed the wedding, but they came to the reception. Olivia swore Allie had grown a full foot taller since she had seen her last, and Allie gave Olivia the best hug Olivia had ever received in her life.

They sat together at dinner and Allie taught Olivia how to fold a napkin into a duck, then they danced together and Olivia taught Allie the Cupid Shuffle. Allie asked Olivia if she could start coming over for dinner again and, for lack of a better answer, Olivia said maybe. There was no way to explain to a child that she couldn’t come for dinner because she was in love with the host, so she didn’t even try.

Over a year had passed since Olivia had first met Clete in the middle of the road in the middle of that Northside neighborhood. While that didn’t seem like a lot of time compared to the rest of her life, it was massive in terms of Allie’s. Olivia would blink and the braids would be gone, the cute, crooked smile would be straightened, and Allie would be making her own mistakes in the back of a Camry or behind the bleachers on the football field. And Olivia wouldn’t be there to offer support or advice or a shoulder to cry on when any of it happened. She bit back a tear and pasted on a smile and enjoyed her precious time with her little girl while it lasted.

The party lasted late into the night and Olivia spent as much time as she could on the dance floor. She danced with George and with Sam and Kenny and John. Carl Jr. wasn’t much of a dancer so she only did one awkward two-step with him, and then scratched him off her dance card. George kept her moving and kept her full of drink and kept her in his arms.

As they were slow dancing to K-Ci and JoJo, she caught Clete’s eye as he watched her from across the room. A blush rose up her neck and her face felt flush and she had to look away. But her eyes kept drifting back to meet his, which never left her.

She hadn’t seen him in months, but her heart pounded in her chest as if they had kissed a moment earlier. She could feel his hand on the back of her neck and taste the remnants of left-over chocolate cake on his lips. Her knees grew weak as if his breath still blew hot on her neck. She could feel his skin under her fingertips and smell his distinct scent—slightly spicy with a hint of coffee and car exhaust and the heavy dose of testosterone that only comes from working alongside other testosterone-filled men all day long.

The color of his skin had deepened with a tan, his sandy blonde hair a little longer than normal and slightly bleached from the sun, and she wondered if it was from working on his house or if he played baseball for the Juliette men’s senior league. There was so much about him that she didn’t know and she desperately wanted to know all of it, every single silly bit.

“Would you mind if I dance the next one with Clete?” Olivia asked George. The question had come out on its own, tumbling off her tongue before she could stop it.

“Not at all.” George held her a little bit closer as they finished their song. She closed her eyes and kept her cheek pressed against his, their bodies moving in perfection as they danced, and she lived in the moment with George for one moment longer.

When the last note played, George kissed her lightly as he let her go, and told her to have a good time. She didn’t look back as she moved across the room. She couldn’t have if she wanted to. She felt as though she were being pulled, her feet moving on their own accord, her heart leading her body. Even so, she moved slowly, careful not to rush so she wouldn’t fall.

“You look beautiful tonight,” Clete said as she approached him with a glass of wine in her hand. She had no idea where it had come from, whose it had been, but she took a sip if it to calm her rapidly beating heart.

“Thank you.”

Her dress was simple and pale blue, and flowed across her hips. She chose it because it had flared out when she spun in front of the three-way mirror in the dressing room at Penneys and it had made George smile. Her hair had been curled and pinned in butterfly clips earlier in the day, but the butterflies had long since flown away and her hair had fallen into a mess across her shoulders and into her eyes. Her shoes were under a table somewhere and if she never saw them again she wouldn’t mind because they pinched her toes when she walked. The only jewelry she wore was the eternity ring on her left hand and the Daffy Duck watch that no longer kept time on her right wrist.

“You look pretty good yourself,” Olivia said. Other than the sadness in his eyes, Clete looked amazing in his suit and tie with his nose lightly sunburned and a slight spattering of freckles across his cheeks that she hadn’t noticed before. The blue of his eyes brightened into sky when she smiled at him.

“I’m sorry things didn’t work out between you and Mel,” Clete said with a wink.

“We’re just two people moving in opposite directions.” Olivia sighed with a theatrical wave of her glass. She sipped her wine and gazed into Clete’s baby blues. People milled about them and talked and laughed and danced, but Olivia only saw Clete and only heard his heartbeat. “Are you going to ask me to dance?”

“Would you care to dance with me, Olivia?” Clete asked.

“Yes.”

Clete lifted the wine glass out of her hand and set it on the jukebox. The DJ and Limp Bizkit were jamming out “Rollin’” over the loud speakers, and the drunken wedding guests were jumping around and slamming into each other on the dance floor as they sang along, but when Olivia’s hand slipped into Clete’s, the noise and craziness faded away. The lights in the room dimmed, candles in the corners lit, and they were lost alone in a world of their own making. He stepped into her and she placed her hand on his shoulder as Nat King Cole appeared on stage in front of the string section.

As the violins began, Nat stepped up to the microphone, and the inner music that had been missing from Olivia’s life for so long returned with the director’s cue. Nat serenaded Clete and Olivia with “Illusion,” and as they danced a slow and beautiful waltz, the room disappeared and gave way to something magically real.

Soft, dewy grass sprouted under Olivia’s bare feet, tickling her toes as the air became heavy with the sweet scent of wisteria and Clete led Olivia around the moonlit garden in a heavenly dance. The musical interlude between each verse lasted a lifetime so Clete could hold Olivia in his arms forever. Her heart had known pain and longing, as well as George’s passionate, unconditional love, but something about the way her heart felt as Clete slipped inside during that dance was new and beautiful and made her feel like the woman she had been born to be.

She could see their future together as clear as day as it played before her like an old-time motion picture projecting on the leaves of the trees and the bushes and flickering against the night sky. They would love. They would marry. They would stay up late at night, lying in bed, whispering and laughing, debating and contemplating, and love making. They would dance and argue and dream and reminisce. They would cry, and they would mourn.

His skin would get leathery, his legs thin and his knees boney. She would get softer and fuller, and her back would start to curve downward. Time would speed up year after year as they raced from one milestone to the next, one memory to the next, until finally time would all but stop as their days filled with overly-loud television and meals of Campbell’s soup and not talking but not needing to because they had already said it all a hundred times before.

And, one day, one of them would wake up and the other wouldn’t. But it would be ok because the other would follow soon enough and they would be together again. It was a forever thing that they shared, an indelible love promised in every whispered beat of their hearts as Clete held her in his arms.

As the song came to an end, his lips met hers. Clete’s kiss was warm and sweet and promised her a lifetime of every dream come true. She could see it all, she could feel it all, and it was right where she was supposed to be. When the music inevitably ended along with their kiss, he spun her out slow and delicate and let her go with a nod of his head as a bow. He disappeared into the mist without looking back, knowing she would soon follow.

When George and Olivia got home that night, Olivia stood in the middle of the living room and looked out the sliding doors, onto the balcony and beyond to the night sky. The stars were twinkling brighter than ever before, almost as though they were encouraging her on. She had to do it, but she didn’t know how, and she was scared.

George came up behind her and lifted her hair away from her neck. His lips were soft as they played along her skin to her ear where he whispered, “I wish you could see how beautiful you and Clete are when you dance.”

“George…” She breathed out as tears came to her eyes. She couldn’t say it. Simply saying his name broke her heart.

“I already know, Baby Girl. I’ve known for a long time now.” His hands slid across her shoulders and down her arms, traveling slow as he turned her around. “I’d hoped I was wrong, but when I saw you two together tonight I knew I wasn’t.” He tipped her chin so she would look into his eyes. “You’re in love with him.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“What if I’m wrong?” she started, faltered. “What if he doesn’t…?”

“Oh, but he does.” George’s eyes softened, tears glistening as he held her face in his hands, stroking her cheeks with his thumbs. “He’s loved you for a very long time now.”

Olivia placed one hand over George’s heart as she cupped his face in the palm of the other, and he closed his eyes at her touch.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

“Don’t ever be sorry for falling in love.”

She nodded, and the tears came pouring down.

“We all have to grow up sometime, Baby Girl, and this is your time. Someday soon I will, too. I can feel it coming, and I’m more than ready for it now—because of you.”

He drew in a deep breath and brushed her hair back, a smile on his lips as he pressed them to her forehead. When he pulled away, she looked down at her hand and started working off the eternity ring he had given her for their future. Her tears had turned into a river. Through them the diamonds sparkled as bright and clear as the stars in the night sky.

He took her hand in his. “Please don’t. When I bought this for you I knew in my heart this was not our lifetime to share together, but the beautiful thing about eternity is it never ends.” He slipped the ring back into place. “We came close this time, Baby Girl—
so
close—but it’s not quite right yet. What we had was a little peek in the window of the lifetime we’re destined to share, sometime in the future, when it circles around again, and I know without a doubt that when that time comes, it will be absolute.”

She couldn’t pull her eyes away from his ring. It fit her so perfectly in every single way she wished it was their lifetime to share. It had seemed so true. “What if I come back as a Dalmatian next time?”

“Then I hope to God I’m not a cat.” George smiled through his tears.

“I want you to keep Kitty’s. She was always yours.”

“No, Liv. I couldn’t do that.”

“Please? For me?”

“Will you still come in every once in awhile and dance with me?” he asked.

“Every night,” she promised. “You won’t be able to kick me out. You’re my Jack…”

“My beautiful Diane…” He brushed her hair away from her face and kissed her with unrestrained passion as tears slid down his cheeks and mixed with hers. He was saying goodbye in that kiss, but she wasn’t ready to let him go. Not yet.

“Dance with me, Georgie,” she whispered. “One last time.”

He was silent but for a moan as he unzipped her dress and let it fall to the floor. His hands skimmed down her sides and her hips began to move against his. They didn’t need music to find their rhythm. They only needed to listen to their hearts.

For the final time, in the low light of the moon, Olivia’s hips moved in perfection with George’s and their hearts beat as one as he danced her in a slow, private dance that would last them a lifetime apart until they were destined to be together again.

*  *  *

Olivia’s heart went into mourning over the loss of George. While it struggled to heal, she lived with Carla and Eugene. The house was as silent as the silence Olivia remembered from her childhood, but this time it was a silence that she didn’t have the urge to try and fill. It was a full, vibrant, pulsing silence, alive with the love that Carla and Eugene felt for each other.

They slept in separate rooms, and Olivia never saw them as much as touch hands, let alone kiss, but the more time she spent with them, the more she knew with certainty that Eugene and Carla had made love to each other in their own special way, and would continue to do so for the rest of their lives. What they had was a forever thing, as well, and it was as beautiful as it was complete.