‘No, it’s OK,’ she told him. ‘I have a … secret admirer, so to speak.’
Nick crinkled his brow. ‘A secret admirer? I don’t like the sound of that. I’ll fight the guy off if I have to,’ he joked, and Holly burst out laughing.
‘No, not like that, I already know what this is. These boxes arrive from time to time, when I have stuff going on in my life.’ Quickly she told him the story of her charm bracelet, and showed him the individual charms that graced her wrist.
‘And you don’t know who sends them?’
She blushed. ‘Well, I have my ideas, of course, but I feel a bit like Cinderella, like I have a fairy godmother.’ She didn’t want to get too deep into her theory about exactly who might be looking out for her from afar; it was information Nick didn’t need to know just yet. Notwithstanding that, it was a deep topic for a first date.
‘Aren’t you going to open it?’ he asked, studying the package. ‘You have me intrigued. That’s if you don’t mind me seeing it,’ he added quickly,
‘Not at all.’ Holly grinned and ripped open the package. Inside was the same lilac box from before. She untied the ribbon and popped open the lid.
‘What is it?’ Nick asked, moving closer.
Holly put a hand to her mouth. She grinned happily. ‘It’s a little dress, made out of silver –look!’
‘Wow, your fairy godmother must know you got a job today, a job in fashion,’ Nick said, leaning closer once again to kiss Holly full on the lips. At that moment, all thoughts of charms, fairy godmothers, and everything else left her head immediately.
He was right, though. Her mysterious benefactor must definitely have known about the job and how today had been a very big day for her, a memorable day. But whoever it was, they definitely didn’t know about this, about Nick. Because if they did they would have forgone the dress charm, and instead almost certainly sent a trinket in the shape of a heart engraved with the word ‘Love’.
20
Light crept into Greg's apartment like a thief and, for once, when it hit his sheets and slowly made its way up to his pillow and rested on his face, he didn't leap out of bed as if his hair was on fire. Instead he stretched lazily and stared out through the window. With no five a.m. wake-up, he could now sleep in when he worked late the night before. What a novelty, and how civilised, he thought. He glanced at his clock: 7 a.m. Sounded about right. He pushed the sheets off and walked over to the window, realising he really had never seen his own neighbourhood during the day.
However, Karen was still on the corporate schedule, and as she entered the bedroom, stilettos clacking on the wooden floors, it was obvious she was not impressed with his time-clock.
‘I hope you aren’t planning on sitting around in your pyjamas all day,’ she commented.
Greg looked at her. Things around the house had been slightly tense over the last while, and he was sure the remainder of the tension would subside once he popped the question.
‘Oh babe, of course I’m not going to sit in my pj’s. Just because I work at home doesn’t mean I’m some sort of bum.’
‘I know that,’ she said tersely. ‘Anyway, it would be great if you could pick up my dry-cleaning sometime today. There’s a suit I need for my presentation tomorrow.’
Greg’s face fell. Not that he minded doing errands and helping out, but it seemed as though Karen had been issuing a lot of these kind of requests since he’d started working from home, as if he had nothing else going on.
And that wasn’t the case. He had been extremely busy. Not only had he been out and about taking shots for hisNYTportfolio, but he had also gone about getting listed on several freelance websites, and had been in touch with a web designer to get going on a company website. He had touched base with a lawyer friend to get the paperwork organised for his newspaper gig, and had sent out numerous emails and made countless phone calls to let everyone in his circle of interest know what he was doing.
But he wasn’t sure if Karen realised any of that.
He guessed she was still just getting used to this transition, and finding it hard to adapt. Every couple went through some tough times, but it was the serious ones who persevered. Take his mom and dad for example.
Greg knew that he had a tendency to put his parents up on a pedestal, but part of it was because he admired their relationship so much. Being an only child, he had grown up as an integral part of their love for each other, and was often a direct witness to their happy marriage and their way of coping with both the good and the bad. There was no denying that his parents had been soulmates. He wanted a love like that for Karen and him, and he had to admit that he felt somewhat troubled by the question that his father had posed to him days earlier, about how he had known that he wanted to spend his entire life with Cristina within minutes of meeting her.
That hadn’t quite been the case for him, had it? If anything Karen had been the one who’d pursued him, shortly after they were introduced at a charity benefit at the Guggenheim a couple of years back. He remembered being silently impressed by her confidence, not to mention her beauty, but he was so busy with work (which basically ate up every daylight hour), he hadn’t been looking for a relationship.
But as they had talked about careers and children and school and apartments for years now, the only thing left was to tie the knot. What were they waiting for? Until there was enough money? There never would be enough money, and Greg knew from experience that no matter how hard you planned, nothing in life was ever meant to go perfectly.
Pondering that thought, he then decided that his parents’ courtship had taken place in a different time, a different era, even. Life today seemed so much more complicated than in years past.
It was then that he realised that he hadn’t yet answered Karen’s question about the dry-cleaning.
‘Of course honey. It’s no problem. Listen, would you like to meet up for dinner later? I could meet you after work … ’
Karen was already shaking her head. ‘No, I don’t think so. I can’t be out late, not when I have an early tomorrow.’
Greg raised a surprised eyebrow. ‘You never used to mind going out on work nights. We did it plenty when I was at the firm’.
