Dreaming in Technicolor (11 page)

“Not a problem. We've got folks to take care of the numbers side of things. You just have to write it up and make it sound good to attract some high-end clients.” Phil dangled the security carrot. “We provide a full benefits package, complete with dental, vision, 401K, and stock options.” He zeroed in for the kill. “And remember, Pheebs; there are more restaurants and theaters in one downtown Cleveland block than in all of Barley.” He paused. “And stores.”

Visions of movie theaters and shoe stores filled my head.

To live and work once more in a city where I can see first-run movies, attend film festivals, have my choice of ethnic restaurants and stores. So many stores. Bliss.

Phil lobbed the friendship guilt grenade. “Please come home, Pheebs. I really need you.
Lins
needs you.”

“But I already have a job.”

He snorted. “A job you really don't like that doesn't pay anything.”

He had a point there.
But my family's here. This is where I belong, isn't
it? That's why I came back here in the first place. Besides, Alex will be back
any day now, and things will really start moving with us then . . .

I told Phil I'd consider his job offer—that whole friendship thing and all—although I really didn't think I'd accept. I mean, come on. Me? Writing about budgets and investments?

Nearly as bad as emus.

Sure, the money was good. Really good. But money isn't everything. I wouldn't want to leave Gordon in the lurch. Besides, no journalist worth her five-
W
s-and-an-
H
news training would ever consider becoming a public-relations flack.

After hanging up, remembering my promise to Phil, I called Lins.

“Did you say yes?”

“Huh?”

“To Phil's job offer.” Lindsey bubbled over with excitement. “It will be just like before, Pheebs. Except of course for the rock on my finger.” She giggled. “You can return to the city life you love so much and all the friends who love you
and
make great money in the process. How cool is that?”

“Well—”

She plowed ahead. “You only left Cleveland in the first place because you lost your job, right? But now you'll have an even better one—and still get to write!” Lins giggled again. “And as an added bonus, you'd be able to do the maid-of-honor thing up close and personal, which will help take some of the pressure off Phil.”

Would you like a side of fries with that emotional blackmail?

“Speaking of Phil and pressure . . .” I gently tried to convince my best friend to cool it with the wedding obsession. But all my running interference for the groom did was get the bride mad at me.

Note to self: Kill Phil. Then call Dr. Phil.

After dinner that night, I climbed up to the top of my beautifully reorganized closet and pulled down all my No More Lone Ranger scrapbooks.

There were me and Lindsey dressed up in poodle skirts and bobby socks at the fifties sock hop we'd organized. And there we were in costume again—this time in hoop skirts doing a Southern belles skit at the singles retreat—and in soaking jeans and sweatshirts at the carwash fundraiser, dressed to the nines for opening night at the ballet, painting sets for the Christmas play, gabbing at Starbucks, working out at the gym . . .

The gym. Eew. How'd that photo ever see the light of day?

Lindsey of course looked cute as always, her petite little self in a sports bra and a pair of bike shorts, but my thighs in Spandex was not a sight I want the whole world to see. I wasn't too wild about seeing them myself.

Rip.

We sure did have a lot of fun together. And would again. Probably. I miss
those days. Maybe I should give serious thought to Phil's job offer after all.

I turned the page and my heart clutched.

Alex. His first time at Lone Rangers.

I remembered everything about that night.

He wore black.

I wore red.

He ate Doritos.

I munched on pretzels.

I knew movie trivia and he matched me film for film, star for star. We played Trivial Pursuit together and wiped everyone else, including Phil, off the board.

That's when I knew we were destined to be together.

I sighed. How could I ever leave Barley and Alex?

Uh, Alex isn't exactly here right now,
my bratty stop-and-face-reality self reminded me.
Hasn't been for a while.

But I wasn't a
Gone with the Wind
devotee for nothing.

Ah won't think about that right now. Ah'll think about that tomorrow.

[chapter six]

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre

v
alentine's Day found me moping around the office the same way I did every year on that stupid romantic holiday.

“If it were up to me, I'd banish this barbaric date from the calendar,” I fumed to Gordon. “All it does is make single, dateless women everywhere feel like a bunch of junior-high-school wallflowers all over again. Even my beautiful niece Ashley is a basket case, wondering if this guy at school she has a crush on will give her a card. If he doesn't, she'll be crushed.”

I was really on a roll now. “Did you know that these days boys are even having flowers delivered to their girlfriends at school? Right to the classroom! Guess how that makes the rest of the girls feel? Can you say Loser with a capital
L
?”

Gordon was looking around for an escape route.

But I was just getting started.

“It becomes this big competition:
My
boyfriend-slash-sweetheart-slash- fiancé-slash-husband loves me more than
yours
. . . Look what he sent.” I ran my hand through my hair and scowled. “When I worked at the
Star,
there were always a few women who got huge bouquets of roses, balloons, or boxes of Godiva chocolates—sometimes all three. Sometimes even jewelry! While the rest of us sat at our flowerless desks feeling like a bunch of losers.”

I paced the floor. “A couple of us talked about sending each
other
flowers—under false names, of course—just so we wouldn't look like unwanted, unlovable spinsters. How pathetic is that?”

“So did you?”

“Send the flowers? Nah. Couldn't afford it. Did you know that a dozen roses costs close to seventy-five bucks?”

Gordon blushed. “Actually, it's even a little more than that now.”

Pausing in midrant to say “Awww” and bestow a brilliant smile on my boss for treating my mother right, I picked up right where I'd left off. “Valentine's Day is just another overhyped, overcommercialized holiday ploy created by florists and greeting-card manufacturers to earn big—”

The
Bulletin's
front door burst open to reveal an armful of daffodils above a T-shirt and jeans. “Phoebe Grant?” a muffled feminine voice said from beneath the sunny mass.

“You might as well just turn around and take that bouquet right back to the flower shop,” Gordon instructed the florist delivery girl from Lodi, “or keep it yourself. Ms. Grant doesn't believe in this over-commercialized holiday.”

The flowers inched down to reveal a perplexed pair of hazel eyes.

“Don't pay any attention to that crotchety old man,” I said. “He thinks he's a comedian.” I waved her over. “You can just bring those right over here. Thanks.”

The delivery girl left with a backward bewildered glance.

A goofy grin spread across my face. And I couldn't help belting out the song that popped into my head—except it was
today
the sun had come out, not tomorrow.

Today was the first time a guy had ever sent me flowers on Valentine's Day. (My relationships always seemed to end at some point before February 14.) Unless you counted the single white rose my dad always used to give me as his “second-best girl” so I wouldn't feel left out when Mom got her bouquet of two dozen pink tulips. Dad had always said it was a cliché to send red roses to a sweetheart on Valentine's Day. Any man could do that. But his and Mom's love was so special; it called for a special flower. So every year he'd sent pink tulips instead.

And now, on this fourteenth of February, I got special flowers too. Daffodils.

Gordon's eyebrows knit into a frown as he gazed at my bouquet. “I thought roses were the flower of choice on Valentine's Day.”

“Depends.” I searched for the card, then glanced over and saw his eyebrows still knit together. “Gordon, Mom loves yellow roses. Don't worry.” I grinned again, looking at my happy daffs. “Women love it when men send them flowers. It's an extravagant gesture that makes them feel special and appreciated.”

Finally found the card. “Phoebe, hope this host of golden daffodils brightens a dismal February morning. Happy Valentine's Day. Fondly, Alex.”

“Fondly?” And I was off again. “You men!” I shot daggers at Gordon. “So afraid to say the L-word. I don't think absence is making Alex's heart grow any fonder, to tell the truth. I think it's making it grow distant and forgetful.”

Gordon peered over his bifocals. “And that's why he sent you flowers. Because he's feeling distant and forgetful.” He cleared his throat. “Phoebe, I think it's time you took a vacation. Things are slow here. Why not take a little time off, get away from everything for a while?” He tapped his pen on the desk. “I hear they've got really cheap flights overseas right now.”

My head snapped up. “What are you talking about?”

“I noticed in the
Chronicle
yesterday that they have some roundtrip flights from San Francisco to London for just a couple hundred dollars.”

“You think I should go see Alex?” I stared at him. “I'd love to, but I thought men hated it when women chased after them.”

“Who said anything about chasing?” Gordon slid me an innocent look. “Haven't you always wanted to go to Europe? Seems like I remember someone way back in their high-school days who was deterdreaming mined to see the world—so much so in fact, that she up and joined the air force right after graduation.”

“Yeah. And the farthest I got was Cleveland.”

“Well, here's your chance to change that. You've got a passport, haven't you?”

“Uh-huh. A blank one that never gets used.”

“So put it to use. Give it a workout. Like our friend Esther did.” He gave me a gentle smile. “Life's short, you know.”

“But what about the paper? With Alex gone, and now me . . .”

Gordon scratched the nicotine patch on his upper arm. “Esther and I ran the
Bulletin
by ourselves for thirty years without any problems. I think I can manage for a few weeks without you.” He squinted at me over his bifocals. “Besides, young Ryan Moore wants to get some newspaper experience before he goes off to college, so I thought we could do a little internship like you did back in high school.”

He gazed thoughtfully out the front plate-glass window. “Don't you tell your mama I said this, but sometimes you've just got to go after what you want. If you don't, you might lose your chance. Or someone else might get there before you do.”

All right. Now I understood. Gordon had been sweet on my mother for years. She first caught his eye her senior year in high school. But he was nearly ten years older, and she was too young, so he'd bided his time and waited. Unfortunately, he had waited just a little too long. My father had come to town the summer after Mom graduated from high school. And once they met, no one else had stood a chance.

Do I want to wait around and take the chance of someone else swooping
in and stealing Alex from me?

“What's that Latin saying—
carpe diem
?” Gordon was saying. “Well, I think you need to carpe your diem over to England posthaste, young lady. And if you have time, maybe you can even squeeze in a quick trip to Paris while you're there. They've got that Chunnel now; you can go right under the English Channel.” He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “But if you go to Paris, you need to make sure and have a drink in Harry's Bar for me. That was one of Hemingway's favorite haunts.”

Ernest Hemingway was one of Gordon's favorite authors. I remembered Esther mentioning Hemingway too, when she talked about her European adventure. And Hemingway wrote
To Have and Have Not
, which was made into the movie where Bogart and Bacall fell in love. And
For Whom the Bell Tolls—
that great scene where Gary Cooper gives Ingrid Bergman's character her first kiss . . .

Is this a sign, Lord? Telling me Alex is the one and you don't want me
to lose him?

A Yodalike voice sounded in my head:
It's not all about Alex. The
journey is what's important.
And Esther's words replayed in my head like an old summer rerun: “Don't wait as long as I did. Enjoy these
things while you're still young.”

“Gordon, do you still have yesterday's
Chron
?”

Sure enough. There it was in black and white: supercheap airfares to London. Cheaper than flying to Cleveland, as a matter of fact. Definitely affordable. “But what about hotels? I hear London's pretty expensive.”

“He—I mean, heck, you could just stay with Alex,” Gordon said. “Then it would be free. I'll bet he has plenty of room.”

I raised my chaste good-girl eyebrows at him. “Uh, I think it'd be better to just find an inexpensive hotel. Besides, if I go—and that's a big if—I want to surprise him.”

“Well, you're a journalist. You know how to research.” He gestured to my computer. “I'll bet if you go online you could find some reasonable places to stay.”

“True.” I snapped my fingers. “And if I have someone go
with
me, that would cut the lodging cost in half.” I beamed. “Lindsey and I can finally do our European grand tour like we've always wanted! At least to London. Maybe Paris too.” A satin-and-lace thought intruded. “I wonder if I can get her to forget about the wedding for a while and come along?”