Whole Latte Life (48 page)

“Just a little warm,” he says, shifting in his seat, glancing at Sara Beth.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” Rachel asks.

“I haven’t gone back.” He picks up his cup and sets it down without drinking any.

“Is everyone all right? Summer is okay?”

“She is,” he says, snagging a piece of her cake. “She got in to the Marine Studies Program, so she’s pretty psyched.”

“Wow! Go Summer! And Joe and Lena?”

“Everyone’s fine.” He spears another hunk of cake, so Sara Beth takes his cup off the saucer and slides a fresh piece of cake on that. He nods at her, then turns back to Rachel. “I had something to take care of.”

“Oh,” Rachel says, sounding left out of things. Absence has a way of doing that. She told Sara Beth just the night before that the time came to decide which absence she’d prefer: Addison or New York.

“Sara,” Michael says. “I was sorry to hear about the fire. It must have been tough.”

It takes her a moment to get her thoughts about the fire together. She’s still sizing up Rachel’s new guy. But something seems off; he’s perspiring around his hairline, which he keeps dabbing at, and he’s tapping his foot.

“I lost everything,” she finally says. Sometimes something is too huge to put into words, like this, right now. “I can’t say how grateful I am to have Rachel as my friend. She saved me in more ways than one.”

“Here, here,” Rachel says, forking a piece of chocolate cake. She sits back straight and eyes Michael sitting with them at their coffee table, pressing his fork into the cake crumbs. “And you. What
are
you doing here today? And how did you track me down?”

“Tracking you down was the easy part. I stopped at your house first, and when you weren’t there, I thought
coffee
.” He turns to Sara Beth. “Now for the hard part. Sara. Would you mind if I borrowed your friend?” He clears his throat and rolls his shoulder. “Just for a little while, outside?”

“Actually I’ve got to run,” she answers. “I promised the kids some shopping.”

Michael turns to Rachel. “Can we take a walk?”

Sara Beth motions for Rachel to go. “Don’t worry. I’m just going to finish my coffee.”

“You’re sure?” Rachel asks as Michael slides from the booth, sending his fork clattering to the floor. “What about that painting you wanted to show me?”

“Painting? Oh we’ll go see it later. Really, it’s all right.”

“I’ll call you,” Rachel says. “Promise.”

“Have fun, you two.”

“It was good seeing you again, Sara.” Michael picks up his sunglasses from the table. “And good luck with that shop.”

“Come and visit when it’s opened.” She stands and gives him a hug so that Rachel can’t hear her whisper to him. “You take care of her.”

He nods, looking closely at her. And what she figures, with her wrap sundress, cork sandals, makeup, and, okay, feather earrings, is that she must look a lot different from the sorry state she was in walking into The Plaza that May morning.

“Thanks for the cake,” Rachel says. She gives Sara Beth a quick kiss. “And happy birthday, sweetie. Forty’s a good year. Don’t worry! You’ll see.”

The couple walks outdoors and when Sara Beth catches sight of them on The Green, it feels like she’s holding on to her friend a little longer, but a little less. Then, reaching into her hobo bag, she pulls out her leather journal.

Dear Mom,

I know, deep down, Tom’s not to blame. I do know. But if we’re going to make our marriage work, there’s got to be some changes. For starters, I’m definitely buying him a pair of those aviators.

Michael does have a reason for being here. Seeing her now, he knows Coach was right. Make it special. They stop at his pickup to retrieve a package, then cross over to The Green and sit on a bench near the fountain.

“You really haven’t been back to work?” Rachel asks. She touches a drop of perspiration on his face. “You’re still warm.”

“I had to extend my vacation a few days. Something important came up.”

“Important?”

“It started with your phone call last Thursday.” He stands then, looks at her, and sits again. There’d been a few uncomfortable silences in that talk, that’s what he remembers now.

“My phone call?”

“Yes. When you said you needed to help Sara Beth and weren’t sure when you could make it to the cottage. Then you had your meeting for new teachers this week. I understood about helping Sara. Mostly it had to do with the meeting.”

“The meeting’s this afternoon. One o’clock.”

“Well, you need to go, but maybe under a different pretense. Because,” he takes a long breath, slow exhale, “when you told me about the meeting and about your job, I got to thinking about how you’re starting a new career and making changes in your life. And I realized it’s time I made changes too. There’s something I’ve been putting off.”

“You’re not quitting your job?”

“Nothing like that. And it’s not school either. What I’ve been putting off is taking chances. I haven’t taken one in years. That bullet had enough chance to last.”

“I’m sure it did.”

“Now it’s time.” He pulls his cap off his head and resettles it twice. “Here.” He hands her the small, flat box. His foot starts tapping, his baseball cap is pulled low against the bright sun, his aviators shade his eyes.

Rachel lays her open hands on top of it. “Are you okay? You look pale.”

“I’ll know in a minute. Open the box.”

Rachel shakes the box a little before pulling off the cover and moving the white tissue.

Michael leans forward, his elbows on his legs, hands clasped between his knees, and after a long moment, looks back at her.

Her fingers lightly trace the wooden oval cottage sign, painted deep navy blue, the color of the twilight sky above Long Island Sound. A gold shooting star curves across the top of the sign, a trail of glittering gold stardust sparkling behind it.

But it is after she reads the name,
Wish I May
, painted in gold below the shooting star, when Michael looks away. If the answer’s no, he doesn’t want to see her face shift to sadness or regret. Doesn’t want to remember that moment.

“Is this what I think it is?” she asks.

“What do you think it is?”

“A cottage sign?”

“That’s right,” he says, pulling off his cap and fidgeting with it between his knees.

“For me?”

“Yes. For you.”

“But…I get the feeling a really big something goes along with this.”

He studies the stitching on the Yankees cap and clears his throat. “It does.”

Rachel leans on her knees, too, and watches him. “This is really for me?”

“Well, there is one condition.” He pulls off his sunglasses. Perspiration is running down his cheek now. He knows that. He knows his heart is beating fast. He knows he’s at a loss for words, and that he’s afraid, too. Afraid of her answer. He’s so aware of every single damn thing right now. No deep breaths, no self-talk are going to stop this fear.

“A condition?”

“Yes. If you don’t mind a modest diamond, because, well, my finances are a little tied up with that.” He nods at the sign. “But I wondered if, I don’t know, maybe instead of having this long-distance thing, maybe you’d consider marrying me.”

Rachel looks at him, then drops her gaze to the
Wish I May
cottage sign and doesn’t speak.

“I know I have issues to work out, and I am. I’m getting regular therapy, and doing my exercises.”

Still she’s silent, still looking at the sign.

“Help me out here, Rach,” he finally says, his voice low. “I’m having a tough time.”

“I’m the first chance you’re taking since the night you were shot?”

He nods.

“You bought that cottage, didn’t you? Little Gull.”

“I haven’t closed yet, but the contract’s signed. Oh, and I painted it.”

“That’s what you’ve been doing this week, instead of working?”

“Yes.” He thinks how the whole time he painted the little cottage, every second on the ladder, every bit of sanding the window trim, every eave he dabbed the brush into, he wondered if she would say yes, if he could change, if he should go back to school, which he decided no on that one, and then worried if that would make her say no.

“What color?” She can’t take her eyes off of him now.

He nods at the sign. “Pale yellow. The color of a star.” That night in the rowboat when she closed her eyes on the first star, that’s when he knew he had to do this.

“You didn’t,” she says.

“I did.”

“And you want to marry me?” Rachel asks, moving her hand to her heart.

“More than anything, Rachel. Okay? When you told me about the teachers’ meeting today, I thought I’d better hurry. Before you got yourself settled in the position. This way the Board of Ed would have enough time.”

“Time?”

“Yes.” He stops. “It shouldn’t be so hard for me to say this, except I guess I’m really afraid of your answer, which, by the way, I’m still waiting for. But yes, time. The Board of Ed will need time to find your replacement. Because this is what I want, you and me. Every day, every night. At home, at the beach. I thought maybe I could ask you to marry me
and
come to New York instead of starting your new job here. I’m working on changing things, you know, with my nerves and all. I know it’s a problem. But I’m trying. So if you need to think about it, I understand. I mean, it’s a lot all at once.”

Rachel runs her fingers across the painted sign that means a little summer cottage. “You want to do this right away?” she asks.

“The sooner the better.”

“Yes.” Her tears won’t stop.

“What?”

“Yes, yes, a million yeses. I’m going to take that chance right with you.”

He takes her face in his hands and caresses her cheek with his thumb.

“And yes, I’m crying,” she says, laying her hand on his checking hand. “
I’m crying
.”

“That’s why I’m wondering if you’re sure. Because you know it would mean leaving your home. I didn’t know if you could do that. I just didn’t know.”

“A pretty house, a coffee shop, that can’t keep me here. I want to be there with you, I’m so ready. But it’s important that you know something else.”

“What’s the matter?”

“This cottage. My piece of heaven?”

“It is, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Well. I
thought
it was, but really, I’ve found heaven all summer long. Bowling, in the city, at the beach, even here.” She stops and kisses him once, then again, longer. “I love you.”

“That’s what matters, sweetheart.” He kisses her tenderly, never believing that she’d settle for a regular guy like him, quirks and all, nerves and all. Rachel slips her arms around his neck and it takes him back to the Empire State Building, eighty-six floors up, gazing out at the Manhattan sky on a cool, May night. It seems so long ago now, waiting for a wayward friend to return.

And as he stood with her then, eighty-six floors up, as close to heaven as you can get in Manhattan, one thought moved him. It was the same thought that bothered him right after he’d been shot. Standing with Rachel on the observation deck of the Empire State Building worrying for Sara Beth, that
What if
crossed his mind.

What if? What if the gunman’s hand was minutely lower? What if Sara Beth had never run away? What if she came back and Rachel took her home the next day? Whether he imagined the bullet’s deadlier path or losing Rachel from his life, both questions scared him the same.

Wishes? On a star? He never believed in wishes and all that sentimental stuff. Fate is predetermined, some people say. In the stars, is how they put it.

Picturing the Manhattan sky, remembering that May night behind his closed eyes now, he pulls Rachel a little closer on Addison’s Green, kisses her a little deeper and loves her a little more.