I spend a minute transferring the desserts to a bed of napkins and put the container in the bag alongside my new book. I bend to plant a kiss on Charlie’s cheek, wave goodbye to the other women, and duck out of the coffee shop where their monthly meetings are held.
I told Brady I would make dinner for him tonight, but maybe it would be more fun if I taught him how to cook something.
Hmm. It’ll have to be something basic. Then again, he taught himself how to bake. Sort of. He said he watched me and then found a few good tutorials on the internet. Something tells me he’s a quick study.
On Fridays in the summer, a cute outdoor market stays open until six. I’ll swing by there and grab some things for tonight. We’ll start easy with pasta. A light sauce, a bunch of roasted veggies. Pre-made noodles so as not to complicate things.
The market is a collection of white topped tents and folding tables, people selling their wares. I choose organic summer squash, one green and one yellow, an orange bell pepper, and cherry tomatoes. Very colorful. I also pick up an orange blackberry jam with the idea of making thumbprint cookies. My next stop is for Sancerre. Pasta like the one we’re making tonight needs a light, crisp, but not sweet wine. Sancerre will be perfect.
A memory invades my brain. A cool Chicago evening, the leaves on the trees just beginning to turn. I’m walking to my apartment from Whole Foods, carrying dinner and wine, to be enjoyed alone because Warren’s state had been determined by then. I glanced down to admire my new shoes. I splurged on them. Being a baker means always wearing sensible, flat shoes. I gazed lovingly at the pointed-toe black Jimmy Choo’s. I felt a pang knowing they didn’t really belong to me; every month, until I paid them off, I would only own a fraction of them.
My lustful gazing at my footwear kept me from looking where I was going. I tripped, reaching out for something to hold on to, but there was nothing there in the middle of the sidewalk. I hit the ground hard, my knees bearing the brunt of it. They were a scraped mess, blood oozing onto the pavement. The wine bottle had broken, and cabernet spilled out. I watched it stream toward me, the burgundy color mixing with the bright red of my blood. People rushed over. The wine spill made it look far worse than it was. Someone handed me a napkin, and I wiped my knees. By then they’d already stopped bleeding. I’d thanked everyone around me and done my best to dispose of the broken wine bottle. The embarrassment stung more than my scraped knees. As I took my first steps away from the unfortunate incident, I saw a swish of icy blonde hair up ahead. Not many people have hair the color of a Frozen princess, but I knew one person: Warren’s sister, Shannon. She walked quickly in the opposite direction, and just when I thought maybe she didn’t see my fall, she glanced surreptitiously over her shoulder. Right into my eyes. She stopped, turning around and plastering a smile on her face. As she approached, she pretended to be shocked to see the angry red of my knees. I played her game, recounting the story, and she responded as if she had no idea what occurred.
It’s an unpleasant memory, one I’d rather forget. I wiggle my shoulders, as if I can wring it from me like a wet towel. Warren, and his family, are gone from my life.
I put the memory out of my mind and make the rounds to each tent, hoping to come across someone with homemade pasta. I’ll even settle for the dried variety, if it will mean not having to run to the grocery store.
I get excited when I find I’m in luck. And freshly made, to boot. I choose a fettuccini. I need a noodle big enough to hold up the veggies.
It happens when I reach for the bag, taking it in my grasp and smiling my thanks at the owner/pasta maker. The white-blonde flash of hair catches my eye in the twelve inches of space between tents, then it’s gone.
Shannon? No.
There’s no way she’s here. Why would she be? Other people have that hair color too. Despite all the rationalizations, my pace speeds up. I dodge a double stroller and almost trip over the toddler walking beside it. I wasn’t expecting him. Shouldn’t he beinthe stroller?
I make it around the corner and turn into the next row of tents, where I saw that hair, but now I don’t see it anywhere. A sigh slips from my lips. It was just a memory coming to life, feeling real, like when I was a kid and swore up and down a clown lived in my closet.
It didn’t, of course, nor did I see hair that belongs on Shannon’s head.
Ugh.
Fishing through my bag, I find the wine and inspect the top, hoping it’s a twist-off. It’s not.
A few yards away, a vendor sells popcorn. That’ll do.
I order buttered popcorn and a cold bottle of water, then go to a bench and sit down. My frazzled nerves are slowly eking out, drop by drop.
I shake my head and let out a soft, disbelieving laugh. That was wild. I hope nothing like that happens again for a long time. It’s bad enough tha—
“Hi, Addison.”
I shoot from my seat, upending my popcorn, and whip around. My breath slams up my throat, choking me.
Tall. Thin. Too thin.
“How…I…” A sob mixes with a word, incoherent. I step into him, wrap my arms around his neck, and I’m careful, so careful, because he looks frail.
“Warren.” His name is a whisper, a question, a statement, ahow the hell are you here.
“Addison.” My name is a reverence on his lips, but his voice is wrong. The baritone is scratched, like a cat reached into his throat and clawed him. Something else is missing, too, something so essential.His smell.Where is the spicy cologne, the scent of freshly washed clothing? Warren had been meticulous in his appearance. This is my Warren,but it’s not.
White-blonde hair shimmers. Shannon stands a few feet away. The tips of her mouth turn down.
I pull back to look at him, open my mouth to ask how this all happened, but he silences me. His lips come down on mine, and suddenly he’s Warren again. The pressure, the feel, down to the scruff of his chin scratching my own. His kisses always had a cadence, long at first, followed by two shorter pecks.
He might look and sound different, but this kiss is like every kiss we shared. As if he’d never fallen into a dreamlike slumber, as if the past year never happened.
My heart, stitched together only recently, breaks again.
