“Ms. Jacobs for you,” His secretary, Jennifer said over the intercom, adhering to his command that any time Lily called,
any
time, she was to be put straight through.
Nate didn’t spare his two employees a glance (if he had, he would have seen their eyes widen in surprise), he just picked up the phone.
Lily had called him once to complain about her living room furniture being carted away.
Tash, on the other hand, called him every day when she got home from school to tell him every minuscule piece of news that she felt might be of import which was practically every second of her day. Nate looked forward to his daughter’s calls. Natasha was talkative but clever, incredibly clever. She had at her command a great number of words, and she used them well and often, far better than people three times her age. It was clear Tash was advanced and Nate was already looking into special schools for her something, he thought vaguely, he really should discuss with Lily.
Nate had learned quickly that Tash’s calls were to come on a regular schedule and he had Jennifer clear his diary for that hour, without exception.
But Lily had only called once. There was no more furniture to be hauled away and most of the work was being completed that week. He had no idea why Lily would call and he was concerned it was not good news.
“Lily,” he greeted her.
“Hi! You busy?” she responded brightly, her light hearted tone taking him by surprise.
Nate was busy. Nate was always busy.
“No,” he replied.
There was a pause. Then she asked, “What’re you doing?” And she spoke as if she was calling just to chat, as if she did this every day.
He sat back in his chair, taken aback by this latest development that was the New Lily and finding himself wondering at her intentions.
His glance slid past his two employees who were pretending (poorly) not to listen in to their normally cold and indifferent boss’s unprecedented conversation with the unknown “Ms. Jacobs”, a woman for whom he would interrupt a meeting without even the briefest hesitation.
He ignored them.
“Working,” Nate answered.
She let out a carefree laugh then remarked, “Of course.”
“Lily, is there something –”
She interrupted him. “Tash is going to be on school holidays soon and I think we should plan a family trip.”
Nate froze at her unexpected words.
He’d had family holidays with Victor and Laura but as Victor worked constantly, they’d been few and far between. During those holidays Jeff had taken every opportunity to torment Nate in his own special way while Danielle had taken her own opportunities to torment Nate in entirely different ways.
Nate did not have fond memories of family holidays.
Then again, Nate had very few fond memories and most of them centred around two weeks eight years ago and his most recent three.
Not knowing any of this, Lily continued. “I’m thinking Disneyland Paris. Tash has been wanting to go there forever and I’ve never –” She stopped abruptly and then quickly went on, trying to cover her reference to what she and Natasha had done without over the years, a reference she knew would put Nate on edge. “Anyway, we’ll all go for a few days and then Fazire can take Tash to the park and perhaps you and I can go into Paris for a day, or a couple of days, just the two of us. I’ve never been to Paris.”
Nate was silent at this suggestion of a stereotypical family holiday with the inclusion of an intimate couple’s getaway. Lily was also silent.
Lily’s silence was expectant. Nate’s was stunned.
And pleased.
She finally broke it. “Well, what do you think?”
“I’ll have Jennifer set it up,” Nate replied.
“Yippee!” she shouted so loudly that he had to take the phone away from his ear and he couldn’t stop a small grin from forming on his lips as he heard her unconcealed glee.
Nate was also relatively certain his two employees heard her cheer especially since they glanced at each other with knowing looks and they
definitely
saw his heretofore unseen grin.
“I have to go,” Nate told her, his grin gone and he was sending a cold look to both his staff which immediately wiped any speculation off their faces.
“Oh, okay.” Her voice sounded disappointed and at that, Nate felt that strange, relaxed feeling in his chest again. “When will you be home tonight?”
“The usual time.”
“Oh, okay, she repeated then hesitated then she sighed deeply, and if he wasn’t mistaken, meaningfully, then she said, “Bye.”
“I’ll see you later.”
He waited for her to hang up. She didn’t.
“Lily?”
“Nate.”
“Hang up,” he commanded.
“
You
hang up,” she retorted.
His eyes lifted to his employees again and one of them had dropped her head to stare at her lap, the other one was looking to the side and his lips were twitching.
“Lily, I have two of my staff in my office with me.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “If you were busy, why did you take my call?”
“I’ve missed enough of your calls in the past, I won’t miss another one,” he responded and the steel in his voice, a far more familiar sound to them, caused both of his employee’s faces to go instantly blank.
Lily’s tone was warm and soft. “Nate.”
Lily saying his name in that tone went straight through him.
“I have to go,” he repeated, this time with a reluctance that he allowed to be read in his voice.
“Bye,” she said, that one word sweet and intimate and Nate felt it almost as if it was a physical touch and that thing in his chest loosened just a bit more.
* * * * *
Two weekends later on a Saturday afternoon came the most profound of a month full of surprises.
Nate and Victor had finished going over some business in Nate’s new study on the garden level. Father and son went in search of everyone else and found them in Lily’s office on the top floor.
The house was complete, the workmen and decorators gone, the furniture and appliances replaced and it was now what Nate considered a home appropriate for Lily and Natasha, a home of consequence and quality for his family. A home
he
provided for them. The kind of home they deserved, the kind of home he would work until he died to be certain they always had.
The mortgage was now settled and Lily owned the house free and clear.
The furniture and fittings were all top of the line and even if something happened to him, she’d not have to replace them for decades.
Lily had stamped it with her quirky style that was both refined and offbeat, muted colours mixed with bold; classical, elegant furniture twinned with distressed cottage-style antiques; the walls and most surfaces adorned with Fazire and her mother’s framed photographs of family and her home in Indiana.
Lily had decorated her office in eggshell white with furniture upholstered in grass green with lilac and sunshine yellow toss pillows and accents.
The usually tidy room was covered in opened magazines and catalogues with pages torn out and strewn all over the place. There were also torn and frayed swatches of fabric dotting the floor and several surfaces. Fazire was reclining in his usual armchair and he was, for some reason, partially covered in an enormous swathe of taffeta the colour of an eggplant. Maxine, wearing a turban nearly the same shade as Fazire’s swathe but not a part of the afternoons planning session, instead a part of her own bizarre ensemble, was seated at Lily’s white, spindly-legged desk, clicking through photo after photo on Lily’s laptop. Laura was reclining on Lily’s chaise, an enormous book open on her lap displaying invitation selections.
“No purple,” Lily decreed as Victor cleared the door and Nate stopped in it, taking in the scene.
“It has to be purple!” Maxine cried in a tone that said she’d absolutely
expire
if whatever-it-was-they-were-discussing was not purple.
“I agree,” Fazire announced pompously.
“No purple,” Lily repeated.
“Pink!” Tash shouted over the conversation.
Lily was on her knees on the floor, her bottom resting on her calves that were folded underneath her. Four magazines were opened in front of her and swatches of fabric in every colour of the rainbow were arrayed around and amongst the magazines.
Tash was standing behind Lily, her body pressed against her mother’s back and her arms around Lily’s neck. Lily was lightly holding on to Tash’s elbows, keeping her daughter close.
“No pink, doll baby,” Lily said softly then bent her head to kiss a spot just above Natasha’s wrist and at this sight Nate felt a warmth seep through him, starting in his gut and emanating upward.
“Grey. A nice, soft, dove grey,” Laura suggested, “no one ever uses grey.”
“What are you talking about?” Victor sat next to Laura on Lily’s green chaise longue.
“Wedding colours,” Maxine answered. “Fazire and I are agreed on purple. It’s the only colour that has more than one vote.”
“Purple isn’t very Lily, Maxie,” Laura put in.
“Dove grey is
definitely
not Lily,” Fazire stated firmly.
Nate leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms on his chest, surveying the scene with a vague sense of satisfaction.
Lily’s eyes lifted to him, they dropped to where he was lounging against the jamb and then back to his face. Then he was arrested when he saw a secret, intimate smile play at the corners of her mouth before she looked away.
“It’s
Lily’s
wedding, she should pick the colour,” Victor noted logically.
“Lily, can I speak to you privately?” Nate cut in to the discussion, deciding to assuage his curiosity about her smile the answer behind which he very much wanted to know, rather than wait for a determination of what their wedding colours would be the answer to which he didn’t care about in the slightest.
Everyone turned to stare at him but without hesitation Lily kissed Natasha’s arm again, gently disengaged from their daughter, stood and followed him out of the room, down the hall and into their newly completed bedroom.
Their room she had decorated in rich indigo, sharp vermillion and deep violet, somehow managing to make it both comfortably masculine and softly feminine, a place in their home that Lily was able to make for them both together and separately.
Once he closed the door behind him, she slid her arms around his waist and leaned her weight into his torso, a habit she had formed the last several weeks. It was something she did often, in fact, most every time she was near him.
“What’s
your
favourite colour?” she asked, her head tilted back and that strange, knowing smile still visible on her face.
One of his arms went about her, the other hand cupped her jaw, his thumb running along her cheekbone.
New Lily, he saw, was firmly in place. She was a mixture of his sweet Lily, the Lily he had saved from the purse snatcher, the mature, but not lost nor broken Lily and something else altogether. She was cheerful, playful, teasing, loving and relaxed. She was also something different, something alluring and mysterious, as if she had a secret but not a bad one, a delicious one.
She’d begun spending the evenings in her office writing, using the laptop Nate had bought her or writing longhand in notebooks. Natasha would sit with her and watch the new flat screen television using her headphones or Tash would sit in Nate’s study when he was there, watching his flat screen television and wearing her headphones. Fazire would often join them when they were in Lily’s office, Fazire sitting in Lily’s grass green armchair, his feet up on the ottoman, reading one of his books (Fazire didn’t join Tash in Nate’s study, however).
Lily had also started the habit of calling Nate regularly at his office, not every day but several times a week. She had nothing to say and didn’t want to know much of anything. She’d ask what he wanted for dinner (he never had a preference, food was food). When he’d be home (he was home the same time every night, except five minutes earlier each time). What he was doing at that particular moment (always working). Did he want Chinese takeaway that night (again, food was food). How he felt about beef wellington served at their wedding reception (he only cared about Lily being legally tied to him, he didn’t care what they ate after that came about).
It was clear she didn’t really care about his answers, in fact, didn’t demand them as he often didn’t give them. It seemed, instead, as if she simply wanted to talk, as if she wanted a brief connection with him during the day and this connection had no strings. There was nothing loaded in their conversation, no wrong answer he could give, it was just her way of establishing a connection, any connection.
Each time she called, he dismissed anyone who was in his office with a sharp nod of his head, turned his chair to face the window, sat back and rested his ankle on his knee. Then he let her blather on, just like he let their daughter do when she called.
When Lily phoned, it, too, became known around the office as uninterruptible.
Without exception.