The Girl in the Glass (6 page)

But, then, of course, I probably wouldn’t have come.

“To surprises,” I whispered, wondering if he would hear me, hoping he would. A smile, small but genuine this time, cracked across his face.

“What was that, Meg?” my mother asked.

“To Fridays,” I said.

“Oh yes. Most definitely. It’s only April, and the kids at school are already restless for summer.”

We sipped from our glasses and then in unison placed them on the table.

A weighty silence followed.

Devon cleared his throat. “So, I suppose your company has published books on all kinds of places?”

I hesitated, wondering what else I could reply to a question like that except yes.

“That was a dumb thing to say,” he said quickly. “Of course you’ve published books on all kinds of places.”

My mother laughed easily. “I said the same thing when she got the job!”

Devon turned back to me. “Okay, how about what’s the one place you’ve published a book about that you want to visit more than any other?”

The moment he asked this, I felt a tingling kinship with him, tiny and subtle. He had detected there was a place that called to me, a place that reminded me of home and family and safety, even though I had never been there. He did not know all this, of course, but he sensed there had to be a place …

Florence
was on my lips, a breath away from being said when my mother interrupted.

“Oh, that’s easy!” my mother said, smiling. “I know the answer to that.”

The tingling sensation stilled. Devon blinked, waited.

“Florence,” I said. It fell off my lips somewhat flat.

Devon nodded. “Beautiful place.”

“You’ve been?” I couldn’t keep a trace of envy out of my voice. I’ve met plenty of people who’ve been to Florence but never on a first date. Or a first date–like evening.

He nodded. “I hope you get to go sometime. You’ll love it.”

But I already do
, I wanted to say.

“She’s always wanted to go there, ever since she was little,” my mother said. “She had a grandmother who was born and raised there. She had pictures of Florence all over her walls.”

“Oh well, then, you must be sure to go.” Devon’s voice was soft but urgent, as if he understood my longing.

I felt for the stem of my wineglass and tried to pull my gaze away from him. The waitress appeared at our table and asked if we needed more time with the menus, and I nearly thanked her for the well-timed intrusion. Except that we hadn’t even opened the menus.

“A few more minutes would be great,” Devon said, the take-charge tone of his voice surprising me a little.

The waitress left and awkward silence fell across us again.

Devon folded his arms on the table and cocked his head. “Look, I don’t think we started off very well here, Meg. I am sorry about that. Maybe we should back up a little?”

“What do you mean back up?” My mother looked from him to me. “You two only just met!”

Devon’s gentleness and honesty calmed me at once. “It’s not your fault,” I said to him. “And it’s not you, Devon. Really it’s not. You seem like a very nice person. It’s me.”

“What do you mean, it’s not his fault?” my mother said. “What is not his fault? I’m the one who set this dinner up.”

Devon turned to look at my mother. His smile was kind. “I think maybe you should’ve told Meg I’d be here.”

He laughed lightly and so did I. A laugh that was not a laugh. And yet felt nice.

Then, to my thundering surprise, Devon reached out his hand to cover hers. He stroked it tenderly and rubbed her thumb.

The room seemed to squeeze in around me. My eyes couldn’t leave those two hands on the table. My mother’s and Devon’s. My mother hadn’t brought me to the Melting Pot to set me up with a polite, eligible pharmacist. She had invited me to meet the man
she
was dating. A much younger man.

My mother, the epitome of safety, convention, and temperance, was dating a man closer to my age than hers.

It took everything in me not to laugh out loud at the absurdity of it. Of me, warming up to what I thought were kind advances. I choked back a chortle.

“I think I need to use the rest room. Excuse me.” I exited the booth as Devon half-stood. As I headed to the rest room, I could hear my mother close behind me.

When we were behind the closed door, I braced my hands on the granite counter.

“What was I
thinking
?” I exclaimed to myself, but not to myself, aware that a woman washing her hands at the sink looked at me wide eyed.

“What do you mean?” My mother’s face in the mirror above me was wrapped in confusion.

“He’s
your
date!”

The bewilderment on her face deepened. “I wanted you to meet him. Why is that so odd?”

“He’s
your
date,” I said again, incredulous. “And he’s
my
age!”

My mother’s face blossomed a pale crimson.

The woman washing her hands tiptoed past us with a barely audible “Excuse me.” The door closed silently behind her.

“You … you thought I brought him for
you
to meet?”

“How old is he? Thirty-seven? Thirty-six?”

Her flush on her cheeks deepened to scarlet. “Not that it’s any of your business, but he’s forty-three. He can’t help it if he looks younger than that.”

Devon’s real age set me off balance mentally, but only for a second.

“And you are fifty-six.”

She took a step toward me. “In case you hadn’t noticed, he doesn’t seem to mind that. And for Pete’s sake, Meg, we are just dating. It’s not like I’ve run off to Vegas and eloped with a twenty-year-old.”

Just dating.

She’s was
just
dating a man I thought she was fixing me up with. A kind soul who had, in mere minutes of meeting me, coaxed Florence out of me. A man only thirteen years older than me, thirteen years younger than her.

“We met at a children’s health conference in February and became friends. We didn’t plan to date. We just started seeing each other and realized we liked each other’s company. We like a lot of the same things. And he knows what it’s like to have your spouse leave you for someone else. He’s been divorced for five years, if you must know.”

“You’ve been dating him since February? And you never said anything?”

“This is exactly why I waited to tell you. You’ve never encouraged me to date anyone. All these years, you’ve never asked me if I might want to date again and actually have a life beyond the school and you.”

My mouth dropped open. “Are you saying I don’t want you to be happy?”

“That is
not
what I am saying. It’s just you’ve never … You’ve always made it seem like no one but your dad was good enough for me, even though he left me and married someone else.”

“That’s not true!” I had no idea what she was talking about. “And he didn’t leave you; you left him!”

She swallowed. Blinked several times. We had, the two of us, opened something black and ugly. Still.

“He had an affair.” She said each word calmly but with effort.

“But he was sorry. He wanted to make it up to you. You wouldn’t let him.
You
left him.”

“You’re not married. You don’t know what it’s like. He was sleeping with another woman. That is not something a person can just be sorry about. And it’s not something you can just forget.”

Tears glistened at the corners of her eyes, and I felt wetness in my own eyes. “You can if you want to bad enough.”

For a few seconds we just stood there, each flicking glimmers of tears away. I knew I was being unfair to her. But she had gotten what she wanted after my father hurt her and I hadn’t.

“This is why you never gave me permission to date, isn’t it?” she said. “Because you blame me for what happened.”

Caution had kept her single. Not me. “You don’t need my permission to date,” I answered.

“But that’s exactly what you’re demanding! Permission!”

I stared at her, wordless.

“You never let me feel like I could date again, that I deserved to date again. And for a very long time, I didn’t think I did either. That’s why I waited to tell you about Devon. And why I picked a public place and told you nothing before you got here. But you’re right about one thing. I
don’t
need your permission to date. I’m going back to the table.”

She turned, swung open the door, and left.

I stood there for several minutes waiting for the tumbling thoughts in my head to settle. I couldn’t make sense of anything she had said, and I knew that wouldn’t change by standing there in the ladies’ room at the Melting Pot. I needed to go back to the table, collect my things, and offer a suitable excuse to bow out. I needed to be home in the quiet of the cottage to deal with this.

I took several deep breaths and walked back to our booth. The menus
lay on the table unopened. My mother had refilled her wineglass. Devon’s expression was kind but pensive. I didn’t like the lingering wave of attraction that I felt for him. I reached for my purse.

“I am so terribly sorry to do this, but I won’t be able to stay for dinner. I’m not feeling very well. Devon, it was a pleasure to meet you. I do mean that. Please stay and enjoy the fondue.”

Devon stood and shook my hand. The sheen of concern on his face was nearly paternal. I looked away from him. “Sorry, Mom. Really. Call me tomorrow?”

She nodded and raised her glass to her mouth.

“Can I walk you out?” Devon asked.

“Thanks. I’ll be fine.”

He touched my elbow. I wavered a bit. “I am really sorry about this,” he said.

“Don’t be,” I said quickly.

“Perhaps another time?” Devon asked.

My mother looked up and waited for me to answer.

“Of course. Another time.”

I waved good-bye to my mother, and she blew me a kiss, though her eyes betrayed the hurt she still felt.

I walked away from the booth, passing table after table of patrons happily plunging tiny skewers into sizzling, steaming pots.

When my father was young, did he lie awake and wonder what it might be like to feel his mother’s hand pressed to his cheek? Did he ever envision how his life would have been different had his father lived? Did he know that if he’d been groomed to be an Orsini duke, as he should have been by his father instead of being left to untangle life’s hardest lessons on his own, he might’ve been a different man? I’ve heard that my father frequented brothels, spent money as though it had no value, and was addicted to having the latest fashion or convenience, whatever it may be. Had he the guidance and discipline of an attentive father, would he have still led an unsatisfied life?

In my lessons I was given the opportunity to learn a variety of instruments, but I wanted to paint. I wanted to see what it was like to create beauty out of nothing. I hadn’t the skill of the masters; I knew this. And my tutor was not inclined that I should take up the brush—painting was messy work. But he provided me canvases and colors, nonetheless, and an instructor named Benito who needed the money. For my first work, I painted a picture of how I imagined my father as a child. I painted him standing at his mother’s knee, leaning slightly toward her. Her arm is around him, and his papa stands close behind. The three of them are so close the fabrics of their clothes touch. Nurse told me it was quite good for it being my first.

It was not a very good painting. The older I grew, the more I saw the painting’s flaws. I thankfully became more adept at form and depth, and
my first works were put away, as they should have been, replaced by better pieces, including a self-portrait that my instructor said was the best he’d seen from me as an artist.

But I still remember the peculiar joy that was mine as I gave my father his mama and his papa—an imagined moment, caught in oils, of a satisfied life.

6

A few months before my father met Allison, he took me and Nonna to Disneyland. I was nine. My mother had suffered a miscarriage very early into a surprise pregnancy and needed a day with none of us in it. The loss of that much-wanted child would take my mother to an emotional place my father didn’t understand, which begins to explain—though doesn’t excuse—why he ended up having an affair. She thought a new baby would fill the holes in their marriage. He didn’t know how to handle her grief.