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Surprise plus embarrassment blurred Adrian’s features. “So you didn’t know anything? Not even that I’d be here today?”
I looked over at my two friends, who’d long since stopped laughing. “They wouldn’t have told me about this wedding if they could’ve gotten away with it.” My voice trembled, trying to conceal the truth of the statement.
Adrian didn’t speak. Instead, he gave me what I needed. Another hug. “It’ll be okay. I prom…” He let the word drift away, along with the pain that must have rimmed my eyes at his mention of promises. “It’ll work out.”
I dared look up at him, dared feel his embrace around me, knowing all that had gone between us, all that had been broken. There was something still there, a shadow of a time when his face alone had been a promise. When his hugs had been a vow. How I’d missed those times.
Missed him.
I reached up to hug him back, only to hear that terrible sound of fabric going wrong again, this time not so softly.
As a swatch of animal print emerged from the pink satin, I suddenly questioned Lane Bryant’s decision to sell cheetah girdles. And my decision to buy one. Adrian pulled me into his pineapple-orange chest as Tracey and Rochelle’s laughter resumed behind us. He didn’t laugh. He knew me too well. “I am sorry,” he whispered into my hair.
“It’s not your fault.” I took a deep breath, knowing it wasn’t my dress he was apologizing for.
“Where’s your car?” he whispered.
I nodded to a gravel lot about a hundred feet away from the tent.
“Don’t worry. We can do this.” With that, Adrian swept me into his arms and calmly passed my table, where Rochelle sat on the edge of her seat, now devoid of mirth and ready to spring to my aid. I reached back for the bouquet and gave both Rochelle and Tracey a don’t-move-don’t-say-a-word look. I needn’t have bothered. They both knew better.
Jericho obviously did not.
“You riding in the Benz-o, Aunt Dane? Save me a seat!” He cupped his hands around his mouth for volume. No one missed the message or its implication.
To think that I diapered that child.
Adrian squeezed me closer and set off for my Mercury Cougar. Adrian somehow managed to get me into the passenger’s seat. He tossed his jacket across me before shutting me in. He rounded the car and got in.
I considered crying, but this was so far beyond that. “Now what?”
He reached in the ashtray for my keys. My mind reeled. He remembered. “Now, I take you home, Miss.” The salutation hung in the air. The ignition revved. Adrian looked over his shoulder and backed out slowly. “Or is it Mrs.?”
The sun glinted off his wedding band as he spun the steering wheel.
I turned to the window. A rose petal Rochelle had somehow missed slid into my lap. “I’m still Miss. Miss Dana Rose.”
He carried me upstairs. I tried to protest, but Adrian wouldn’t hear it. By the time we topped the first landing, sweat trickled of his bald head and onto my shoulder.
“I can walk,” I whispered, suddenly feeling worse than before.
Adrian kept climbing. “You don’t have to.”
I slipped through his grasp and stood. “I know. Thank you.” I gathered my skirts, careful not to scratch him with the thorny bouquet I’d snatched off the table as we went by. Why I’d kept it, I had no clue.
“Just like old times, huh?” I said, as we topped the landing of the stairs to my apartment. The apartment I’d stayed up nights in dreaming of this very moment. Only in my dreams, I wasn’t dressed as an animal trainer/ballerina in need of a Band-Aid and Adrian wasn’t wearing another woman’s wedding band.
She’s gone.
That was true. But where did that leave him and me?
Adrian nodded toward the door across the hall from mine, the place where he’d spent a few minutes of his childhood. The rest of the time, he’d been at my house. His grin faded into a pained expression. I knew he was thinking of his mother. I was, too.
“Your mother’s funeral was beautiful. I loved that song you sang. She would have loved that.” The service was a year ago, the last time we’d seen each other.
Adrian nodded. “I thought she would have liked it. Nothing else seemed appropriate. Thank you for coming, Dane.”
I leaned back against my door, happy for the thorns pricking my hand. Their pricks muted the tearing of my heart. “If I’d known about it, I would have come to Sandy’s funeral, too. Really.” How long had I waited to say that? Two, three years?
He stiffened at the mention of his late wife, then fingered his ring, probably out of habit. “Sorry for not inviting you.” He pulled off his glasses, pinched the bridge of his nose. “I needed some time.”
Me, too. Still do.
I tried not to imagine what a mess we might have made of things if I’d responded to his phone call after his wife died. Without looking at the caller ID, I’d known it was him. Felt that it was.
Sandy had called me herself the night before and expressed regret for pursuing Adrian while she was supposed to be my friend. With labored breaths, she’d asked me to take care of him. I’d assured her, like I really had the power to do so, that she would recover and take care of him herself. When the phone rang again, it was Adrian, with all that pain in his voice.
“I called you once. When it happened.” He ran a palm over his sweaty head. “I’m glad you didn’t say anything.” He reached out and pressed against the door, as if trying to hold himself up.
Staring up at him, I remembered that anguished hello. My phone outlet was still chipped from where I’d yanked out the cord, not trusting myself. His tone had reeked of need: emotional and physical. I’d known I wasn’t the one to fill either category. Only Jesus could.
Both then and now, I feared one word might escape his lips.
Please.
So I kept running, not giving him, or me, a chance to say it. Though Adrian loved God, I didn’t fool myself about his humanity.
Or mine.
I smoothed my hairline, raking a broken nail between my braids. When did that happen? “I’d better let you get back to the reception. Again, I’m sorry.”
“No more apologies.” He paused. “Please.”
There it was, filling the hall like a fog. Time for me to exit, or in this case enter.
Adrian’s fingers brushed my hand as I fumbled with my keys. I pulled away. I’d already broken a nail because I wasn’t paying attention. If I wasn’t careful, my heart would be broken, too. Why had Daddy made that stupid punch filled with childhood memories? Why had God allowed Adrian to come here, waking love I thought long dead?
I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.
The Song of Solomon. I avoided that book of the Bible, but Rochelle had included this verse in yesterday’s devotional. I’d laughed at it, not knowing it would haunt me so soon. I hugged my middle and slipped out from under Adrian’s outstretched arm. “Well, thanks again. I’d invite you in but—”
“That wouldn’t be a good idea.” His shirt eased across the rapid rise and fall of his chest, releasing more of that intoxicating tropical scent. He turned and headed for the stairs.
I brought my hand to my throat and slid my key into the lock. “Exactly.”
I’d known Adrian would come back one day, and that it would hurt when he did, but I had no idea how badly. And Rochelle showing up at my door before I could lick my wounds didn’t help a thing.
“You’ve got to admit it was funny.”
What was funny? Rochelle racing over here like a maniac? “Not really.” I kicked off my torturous shoes and started off across my living room, shoving an industrial-size tub of cocoa butter out of my path. My next destination was my room, to take off this wretched dress.
Rochelle kicked her pumps off. Her bare feet echoed mine against the hardwood floor. She paused at the tub I’d pushed aside. “That’s a lot of cocoa butter. What are you making with it?”
Here we go with the interrogation. “Body balm, soap and lotion. For Renee’s cousin’s wedding. Spa party for the bridesmaids. More stuff that I can’t think of right now.”
“Wedding favors. Now that idea is a winner, Dane. You could build a business off weddings alone.”
And feel like this every day?
I rubbed my eyes and leaned against the sofa, eager to end the chitchat. “I don’t think so.” I ignored Rochelle’s attempt to cheer me up and hobbled to my bedroom, shutting the oak door before she could enter, but knowing she’d come in anyway.
My room, still darkened by my closed blinds, allowed a few strips of afternoon to leak through. Tracey had always jerked them up every morning. I missed her sunshine already. I yanked at my zipper for a few seconds, and then padded to the door. “Rochelle, can you come here a minute? Help me?”
She arrived all too quickly. “Sure.” The zipper gave way and the dress with it. I maneuvered over the skirt and buried myself beneath my comforter. I turned to the wall. “Thanks.”
Daytime flooded the room as Rochelle whisked my blinds up.
A pillow over my head solved that.
Pointy fingernails, Rochelle’s version of tickling, jabbed at my middle. “Oh, come on. Get over it. It wasn’t that bad. Probably broke the ice between you two.”
I snickered. “It broke the ice all right. More like unplugged the dam.”
My friend’s hands went still. “But he didn’t come in, right? I came right over—”
“No, Mother May I, he did not come in. Thanks for trying to block though. I see now what you really think of me.” I lifted my head a little and gave her a smile, just enough to clear the concern in her eyes.
Rochelle slapped at the pansy-covered blanket. “I trust you, girl. Him, too. It’s the enemy I don’t trust. Know what I’m saying?”
I eased upright, resting my back against the headboard. “I do know. And I’m thankful you’re looking out for me. You could have done one better though and warned me he would be there.”
She held up both hands. “I’m innocent on that one. I figured she’d throw the flowers, but Tracey and I both agreed not to tell you about Adrian’s move until after the wedding and not to invite him. Seems she couldn’t go through with the second part. Probably knew you wanted to see him. Thought she was doing you a favor.”
“Traitors.”
She shrugged. “Just because you can’t deal with him doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t love him. Adrian is like a brother to me.”
A frosty pause ensued, probably at the mention of the word brother, as mine was still missing in action.
“So what did happen?” She slid under the covers, too.
“He carried me up the stairs.”
Rochelle’s jaw went slack. “Is that straight out of a fairy tale or what?”
Straight out of my nightmares more like it. “I got down on the second flight.”
Rochelle nodded. “Brothah fell down, didn’t he? I told you to stop eating all that pizza.”
I punched her shoulder, for real this time. “He didn’t say a word. I thought that holding my breath was making me lighter, until he started sweating.”
She held her stomach. “Don’t make me scream.”
“Make you scream? You weren’t the one standing there in that thing.” I pointed to the rumpled dress on the floor.
Rochelle patted my arm, looking down at her own dress, a smaller, yet just as terrible version of the one I’d removed. “I tried to talk some sense into Ryan’s mother about these dresses, but you know everyone thinks I’m too conservative. If you had—”
“I know. I know. I dropped the ball. I don’t know why I let my feelings—or lack thereof—about Ryan get to me. I regret it already.”
Rochelle pushed back the covers and stood. “No regrets, missy. Get up out of that bed and get dressed. We’ve got BASIC tonight, a special meeting and elections for officers. You’re going.”
I groaned and flopped back onto the bed. BASIC. Our sham of a singles group. A certified freak show if I’d ever seen one.
There goes my pedicure. And I’ll never get to that ice cream with Rochelle here.
“Please. I just had to put a block on my phone because of Deacon Rivers calling me from the retirement home. And Tad-the-Harvard-Grad? If he starts in with why he can’t seem to find a woman who is at his spiritual and intellectual level, I think I’ll throw up. Watching him do the weather is punishment enough.”
Rochelle leaned over my bureau and started her assault on my top drawer, no doubt looking for something suitable for me to wear.
“Don’t start throwing stuff out of that closet, okay? Last time it took me half an hour to refold all those clothes. You know there isn’t anything in there you like. Not one thing.”
She waved her free hand. Her other five fingers remained buried in my drawer.
“Don’t pay Tad any mind. He’s already in love—with himself. And I’m encouraging Deacon Rivers to join the Seniors Bible Study, but he’s still not convinced he belongs there.”
“Neither am I. He chased me to my car so fast a few Sundays ago that I thought he was Jericho.”
Rochelle harrumphed at the mention of her son. “That boy wishes he could run that fast. Maybe if he was chasing a girl. His coach called me all last year about his sluggish playing. I hope the summer AAU league helped some.”
I considered telling her that summer league ball hadn’t helped and that Jericho ran slow because he hated basketball, but some secrets were best kept. If Rochelle knew how much her son confided in me, our friendship wouldn’t be the same. That Rochelle was head over heels for her kid was obvious, but sometimes she could only hear what she needed for him to say.
My amateur wardrobe professional slung a pair of jeans on the bed with a turquoise short-sleeved sweater. I narrowed my eyes. The shade was too close to teal, Adrian’s favorite color. “Did you invite him? To church tonight, I mean?”
Rochelle stopped and stared at the ceiling. “I may have mentioned it, but I doubt he’ll show. He’s going to another church. That Messianic fellowship we went to last year.”
Wow. “The place we went for the Feast of Tabernacles display? That was awesome.” I’d wanted to visit again, once this work project was over. So much for that. The Nehemiah Group, comprised of a mix of believers—those Jewish by blood and those made Jewish by His blood—had intrigued me, both with the breathtaking outdoor display and open, vibrant worship.
Some of the detailed historical teaching had flown right over my head, but Rochelle had broken it down for me afterward. Such a place of scholarship and praise would be right up Adrian’s alley, given his late father’s Jewish background and his love of learning. I smiled, remembering his joy when I gave him his first Hebrew lexicon on a long-forgotten Christmas. Even when it came to the Bible, he was a nerd at heart. “I doubt he’ll show after this morning anyway.”
Rochelle picked up the pair of jeans and held them up? “A Velcro zipper? Dana, you’ve got to stop. This is crazy.”
I pouted a little. “They’re comfortable. And just for holidays and church potlucks, thank you.”
She grabbed another pair off the hanger, clucking her tongue. “And look at these. Elastic in the waist.”
“But they have a zipper. Look.” I pointed to the front of the pants with satisfaction. Rochelle looked at me with pity, which made me laugh harder. I couldn’t live her lacquered life for anything. The hairspray alone would do me in.
“Okay. Put these on. And no sneakers, either. I really don’t think that Adrian will show, but now that he’s back, you need to—”
