The Look of Love: A Novel (9 page)

New Year’s Eve

L
o is hovering over an arrangement of gerbera daisies when I walk into the shop. “When will people lose their love for these flowers?” she says with a sigh. “They’re so cliché.”

“But they pay the bills,” I say with a smile.

Lo smirks. “I wouldn’t trust a man who gave me gerbera daisies.”

“What if what’s-his-name gave you them?”

She pauses for a moment as if I’ve just hit her in the Achilles’, then shakes her head. “He wouldn’t. He gets it.”

I set my purse down on the counter and fiddle with the stereo system, then pop in Lo’s Sarah McLachlan CD. “So you’re still going out with him.”

“Grant, yes,” she says. “You disapprove, I know.”

I shrug. “I do, but I’m starting to sound like an overprotective mother.” I fix my eyes on hers. “Just be careful, OK?”

“Deal,” Lo says with a smile. “Are you going to Flynn’s party?”

I nod. “Reluctantly.”

“Oh, Jane, you’ll have fun. Drink some champagne. Talk to a boy. Enjoy yourself a little.”

“Easier said than done. Especially among the kind of guys in Flynn’s circle.”

“What are you going to wear?” she asks.

“I have no idea.”

She nods and walks to the back room, where a bunch of freshly dry-cleaned dresses hang on the door. “I just picked these up from the cleaners. We’re the same size. Take your pick.”

I shake my head. “I can’t pull those sorts of dresses off like you, Lo.”

“Of course you can,” she says, pulling the plastic wrapping off of them and selecting a black dress that’s cut low on top and daringly short. “This would look perfect on you.”

I hold it up, then shake my head. “I’m not so sure.”

Lo nods. “I’m sure.” Then she reaches in her bag. “And take my Louboutins,” she adds, handing me a pair of black patent leather heels. “You’ll wow in these.”

“I don’t know,” I say, kicking off my UGGs and slipping one on.

“They fit,” she says. “Perfect.”

My phone rings, and I reach for it on the counter. I don’t recognize the number. “Hello?”

“Jane, this is Dr. Heller.”

“Oh, hi,” I say.

“Have I caught you at a bad time?” Her voice sounds a bit more serious than normal, and I feel a surge of adrenaline.

“No, no, this is fine. Is everything OK?” I think of the recent MRI. Did she have bad results?

“Yes,” she says. “At least, I think. But it’s about your MRI. Jane, the results were quite puzzling. In fact, we’ve never seen anything like it. The temporal lobe was lit up in a way I’ve never witnessed on imaging.”

“What does that mean, exactly?”

“We’re not entirely sure,” she says. “At least not at this moment. I’m sending your scans to some of the country’s top experts to see if they can offer some alternate explanations. But the reason why this concerns me, at least for now, is that the type of activity revealed in your scans is most often seen in people who have had significant seizures, even strokes. But we know your health history, and I don’t believe that you’ve had either. It has to be something else. There has to be some other explanation.”

I nod to myself. “Dr. Heller, a long time ago you told me about the various parts of the brain. I was twelve, I think. You showed me a diagram of the different sections and I recall thinking that it was really gross. Remember?”

“Yes,” she says. “I do.”

“So what is the temporal lobe responsible for?

Dr. Heller is silent for a moment. “It’s part of the limbic system. It regulates our emotions and is the place in the brain that researchers have been able to measure . . .”

“Love?”

“Well, Jane, no one can scientifically measure love, but yes, feelings, emotions, affection.”

“Love,” I say again.

I arrive at Flynn’s party at eight. I feel awkward in Lo’s dress and shoes, and as I peek my head through the door, I tug at the hemline nervously. For 2.5 seconds, I consider turning around, running back to my apartment, and changing into my typical uniform—a pair of black leggings and a sweater—but Flynn sees me instantly and gestures grandly from the bar in the kitchen. I’m trapped.

“Jane!” he calls out. “You made it!”

I smile and walk to the bar, where I kiss my brother on the cheek.

He hands me a glass of champagne. “Look at you,” he says. “You look
stunning
.”

“I’m glad you think so,” I say. “I feel like an idiot in this dress, honestly. Lo made me wear it.”

“How is Lo?” he asks.

“Good,” I say with an eye roll. “Up to her usual antics. Tonight’s she’s out with a married—well, ambiguously separated—man.”

Flynn raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“And who is your woman of the hour?” I ask facetiously.

He hesitates for a moment and looks out the window of his loft apartment, where the city lights sparkle all around, then snaps his head back to a group of young women standing across the room.

“Good luck with that,” I say with a grin.

“Hey, there’s someone I want to introduce you to,” he says.

“No, please,” I say. “Not another guy in a band. Or an artist.”

Flynn shakes his head. “He’s a writer, actually. Just relocated from New York.”

“A writer, huh?” I take another sip of my champagne and yawn. Sam woke me up at five a.m. needing to pee, and I wasn’t able to get back to sleep.

Flynn takes my hand and leads me across the room to the door that opens onto the balcony, where a group of people are packed together smoking or locked in deep conversation.

“Cam,” Flynn says to a man in the far corner. His back is turned to us, and all I can make out of this stranger is his gray tweed suit jacket and dark hair.

He turns around to face us, and I take a step forward, then realize the heel of one of my shoes has gotten lodged in the metal grate of the balcony. “I think I’m stuck,” I say.

“Here, let me help you,” my brother’s friend says, laughing.

I grip Flynn’s arm for balance as my cheeks burn with embarrassment. I slip off my right shoe, painfully aware of the chipped pink nail polish on my toes, as Cameron kneels down to free the heel from the grate. I slip the other heel off before it succumbs to a similar fate.

Flynn grins. “Now that we have this problem solved, Cameron, I’d like you to meet my sister, Jane. Jane, this is Cameron Collins.”

He extends his hand. “Nice to meet you, Jane. Please, call me Cam.”

He’s about my age, and definitely fits the scene at Flynn’s, with his plaid shirt, slim-fitting pants, and a hint of stubble on his chin. But there’s something different about him too. Preppier? Smarter? I’m not sure, and I can’t quite pinpoint if I like it or despise it.

“Cam just moved here from New York. He’s a correspondent for
Time
. He writes about medicine.”

“Oh,” I say. “What sorts of topics do you cover?”

“Neuroscience, mostly,” he says. “Between the research that’s coming out of the University of Washington and what’s happening in the biotechnology space on South Lake Union, Seattle is a medical writer’s paradise.”

Flynn looks at me, then at Cam. “My sister’s been seeing a neurologist her whole life. You two have something in common.”

Cam raises his eyebrows curiously as I shoot Flynn an annoyed look, then turn back to Cam. “It’s not that interesting,” I say.

“I’m sure I’d find it interesting,” he replies.

A woman who looks vaguely like Kim Kardashian approaches Flynn and they head back inside.

“So you’re his little sister, huh?” Cam asks, grinning.

I nod. “How did you say you knew him?”

“We went to college together,” he says. “I attended the University of Washington for one year before transferring to NYU for journalism. I lived with Flynn for one crazy semester.”

I grin. “Yeah, I’m sure it was.”

Cam’s gaze is intense, and I find myself looking away every few moments to avoid eye contact. “You’re not much like him, are you?” he asks.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” I say, feeling my cheeks burn again. “What do you mean, exactly?”

His expression softens. “You just seem different; that’s all. Good different.”

I smile. “I mean, I love my brother to pieces, but a serial-dating hipster, I am not.”

He reaches for an open bottle of champagne on the table outside and refills my glass. I take a long sip. “What do you do for work?” he asks.

“I’m a florist.”

“A florist.” He grins. “I don’t think I’ve ever known a florist.”

“My mother owned the shop before she died,” I say. “And my grandma, before her. It’s called the Flower Lady. It’s a Pike Place institution.”

“The Flower Lady,” he says, genuinely impressed. “I passed your shop the other day, I think, when I was down getting a Dungeness crab melt at Beecher’s. Ever had one?”

“Yeah,” I say. “It’s lunch’s equivalent to crack cocaine.”

Cam chuckles. “I bet you have great cocktail party fodder about the emotional moments you see in your line of work. Like men who get all nervous before big dates or proposals. A lot of cheesy love stuff.”

I raise one eyebrow. “Cheesy love stuff,” I repeat. “Obviously you’re not a romantic at heart.”

He shrugs. “I guess I take more of a logical, scientific understanding.”

I furrow my brow. “I’m sorry, but love is hardly
scientific
.”

“Oh, but it is,” Cam replies. “I don’t mean to come off as rigid, but I think we as a culture overthink love. The concept is highly logical, actually. You choose to be with someone, or you don’t.”

“You make it all sound so simple.”

“Well, it is, when you break it down.” He smiles. “How about you? Ever been in love?”

I cock my head to the right. “Coming from someone I’ve just met, that’s an awfully personal question.”

“Sorry, you don’t have to tell me,” Cam says, sensing my hesitation. “Having covered neuroscience in depth, here’s my takeaway: Whether we believe we’re in love or not, I think we’re responding to a chemical reaction in the brain. Neurons talking to other neurons. The collision, the spark. Bam—love, or what we think is love. And then it dissipates as it always does. There’s a whole science to it. And whether you define it as love or not, it never lasts. It can’t. The brain isn’t made to sustain that feeling of intoxication you get from a new romance. Even the greatest love stories turn into pots and pans.”

I grin. “Pots and pans, huh?”

“Exactly,” he says. “Eventually routine takes over.”

“If there is truth in your words, there is also sadness.”

He nods. “Because we want the kind of love that sells movie tickets. Everyone does. But it just doesn’t happen, and if it does, it doesn’t last.”

I feel a shiver come over me, and before I know it, Cam has peeled off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I say.

“But I did,” he says. “You were shivering.”

“Right,” I say with a grin. “Logical.”

I finish my third glass of champagne and pour myself another. I feel light and uninhibited now.

“Let’s go in and grab some food before the teenagers eat it all,” he says with a wink.

I follow him inside. Flynn catches my eye from across the room and motions for me to come over.

“Go,” Cam says with a smile. “I’ll catch you later.”

I hand him his jacket, then walk over to my brother.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he says. “It looks like you two are hitting it off.”

I grin. “I’m not so sure I’d say that.” I glance across the room at Cam, who’s now chatting with an Asian woman who’s wearing a “Happy New Year” headband. “But he
is
interesting. And how about you? Which girl gets the privilege of kissing you at midnight?”

Flynn looks serious for a moment, then leads me over to the window. He points at the apartment across the street. “See the window with red curtains, with the lamp on the coffee table?”

I nod.

“A woman lives there,” he says, rubbing his forehead. Then he lowers his voice to a whisper. “Jane, she absolutely possesses me.”

“Have you met?”

He shakes his head. “No, I just see her every day. She makes pottery, and I sometimes watch her work. God, it’s beautiful. Her intensity, her determination, the way she moves her hands.”