“Well, aren’t you lovely?” she said.
He batted his lashes. “Stop,” he said. “You’ll make me blush.”
On the drive home, Faye replayed the evening, ignoring her parents, who chattered like grackles in the front seat. All of it—the messy kitchen, the dining room with wallpaper beginning to peel, the living room with the lumpy davenport and matching chairs, the way William had asked if he might keep a slice of pie to have with his coffee the next morning. She had been certain her fate was to be alone. She hadsealed it herself. She was too quiet, too selfish, too suspicious, too lost inside for companionship. And yet something had shifted in her, some closed-off space had opened a crack.That William!He was golden, like sunlight might follow him into the bleakest of places. Faye let her head fall back. She couldn’t help but smile.
Chapter Two
1959
It had been almost two weeks since the dinner, and Faye hadn’t been able to get William Sullivan off her mind. She imagined him walking into the shop every time the bell above the door chimed. She had practiced how she’d keep her eyes down, demure and coy, how she’d toss her hair, fiddle with the buttons on her blouse just so. For days, she’d chosen skirts instead of her regular trousers, which she preferred. But every day the door chimed and chimed, and it was never William. She’d given up skirts after a week but not the daydream. She’d even asked Thomas, as casually as she could muster, whether he thought William had enjoyed their company.
Her father had considered her over his paper, one brow raised, and told her that, yes, William had thanked them for coming and thanked Thomas again for his help.
“Nothing else?” she asked, sipping her morning coffee.
“What were you expecting?” he’d replied, a hint of mischief in his voice.
The weather had turned to a bluster that week, the dragon’s tail of a hurricane whipping through, and the store that Saturday morning was quiet. When the bell sounded, Faye startled, pricking herself on a thorn. “Shoot!” She stuck her finger in her mouth absentmindedly and looked up. There was William Sullivan, larger than a man ought to be ina small store. He wore a barn-style raincoat with patch pockets, where he buried his hands.
“Oh, God,” Faye said. “Oh, I mean hello. Hello. William.” She spread her hand on her chest, wondered if she should remind him of who she was.Thomas and Jean’s daughter, you remember. We had dinner at your house.
“Hello, Faye. It’s nice to see you. Are you okay? Did you cut yourself?”
She wiped her bleeding finger on her pants. Drat. She had been dabbling with her watercolors earlier, a distraction she likened to doodling. That would have been such a better image than this one, the bleeding shopgirl. “This? No. Job hazard. I’m fine.” She shook her head, loosened the stardust. “How can I help you?”
He pulled his hands from his pockets and undid the button of his coat while he looked around the shop. Faye followed his gaze. Strictly for decoration, Aldo lined high wood shelves with his favorite ironstone pitchers, depression and milk glass candy dishes, ruby and cobalt and golden goblets and birdlike vases. “The owner is from Venice, in Italy,” Faye offered. “The colored glass is from there.”
“It’s nice in here,” William said, crouching to pet the spaniel who lay quietly on her little bed in the corner. “And who’s this?”
Faye smiled at the old girl, who shifted to accept William’s rubbing. “That’s Emily, the owner’s guard dog.”
William gave the dog a final pat. “Not very threatening.”
Faye took a breath between her teeth. “Suppose not.”
She worried her pounding heart might rattle the shelves, but she could think of nothing else to say.
William broke the silence. “I’m in need of flowers. I’m afraid I’ve been a bit neglectful.”
So, he was one of those. There was a girl already, someone he hadn’t mentioned to Thomas, someone he wasn’t close enough to yet perhaps, but ready to take the plunge. Or, he said he’d been neglectful. How neglectful exactly? Hurtful maybe. Or too many beers after work, and he’d missed a date. Faye had heard it all. She wanted to ask him what he’d done wrong.But it was not her business. He was her father’s coworker, and too old, as she looked at him, for her to have wasted a moment of thought. “What flowers does she like? Carnations?”
William turned up his nose. “Can’t stand the smell. You?”
Faye shook her head. “We have them in all colors. But they’re not for me. I prefer daisies personally, something a bit wilder.”
The gesture that had so charmed her, he made again. A tilt of the head, fingers running through red hair. That grin. “So, we’re in agreement. Would you mind putting together something you would be happy to receive, something that would put a smile on your face? I’m certain that would be perfect.”
Faye tightened her lips into an accommodating smile. “Of course.”
“And big,” he said. “I really want to make a statement.”
They’d gotten a delivery that morning from Boston. Fresh and fleeting. She chose her favorite flowers, the most expensive ones in the store. She added the sums in her head as she selected stems. Aldo was in his greenhouse, so she would charge William extra for preoccupying her thoughts. She imagined the woman who would receive this beautiful bouquet—tall certainly, blond of course, with an hourglass figure and breasts siloed in the latest foundations. Faye licked her own lips, imagining the woman’s lipstick—fire engine red, no doubt. Too bad William had the good taste to eschew the carnations. Otherwise, she would have bombarded him with them, which any woman with half a mind would know was a cheapskate’s way out.
It was beautiful, even Faye admitted. Pink and yellow daisies, delphinium and freesia, branches from a second flush of wisteria Aldo had cut from his own stock. “Make sure she puts it in water right away,” she said, setting the bouquet on the counter next to the register. “I assume you’ll be paying in cash?”
“Oh, yes,” William said. “Of course.”
“And a receipt?”
