Doris shifted in the modern leather and chrome chair and crossed, then recrossed her legs before she answered. “How I came to love Mr. Lehman has very little to do with how you might experience love with Theo.”
Lucy sighed and kicked off her new strappy little mules. She now wore an entire shoe size smaller than last November, and she’d just gotten her toenails painted a bright pink, her first pedicure since the Clinton administration. “So you’re not going to tell me?”
“The real question is one that only you can answer, Lucy.” Doris smiled kindly. “So. Are you in love with Theo?”
“Oh God! I’m completely, utterly, nutso in love with that man! But how do I let go of the rope? How do I loosen my grip and fall into the water if I can’t even see what’s down in there? Piranhas? Sharp rocks? Toxie waste? I don’t even know how deep the water is! I could snap my neck like a twig!”
Doris raised an eyebrow. “That was quite a metaphor.”
Lucy glared at the kimono kittens on the paper screen and swore she heard them tittering and snickering at her outburst. She was really starting to hate those little trollops.
“Actually, Doris, I was hoping this is where you tell me
what the hell I’m supposed to do with my life
!”
Lucy could hardly believe it, but Doris got up out of the therapist’s chair, walked over to the love seat, sat down right next to her, and hugged her tight.
It felt nice. It felt safe. And Doris smelled like she’d just strolled out of the Hermes boutique in Bal Harbor.
“Everything’s going to be all right.”
Lucy shook her head vehemently and wailed, “He keeps asking me to tell him what happened to me ten years ago!”
“Here, sweetheart.” Doris shoved a tissue into Lucy’s cupped hands, and Lucy realized that lately people seemed to be forever fetching paper goods in her company. She blew her nose and straightened up a little.
“I’d rather die than tell Theo Redmond about the Taco Bowl incident.”
“Why does telling him the truth frighten you so?”
“Because if he knows, that’s how he’ll see me! In his mind, I won’t be
me
anymore. I’ll just be the fattest Pitt State coed Brad Zirkle could find to have sex with!”
“Lucy-”
“I’ll be the ugly chick Zirkle used to break his rash-ing slump!”
“Do you really think-”
“I’ll be that pathetic porker everyone felt sorry for when the shit hit the fan and the ESPN camera crews descended on campus and people started getting expelled and fired! And I don’t
want
Theo to see me that way! I can’t
let
him! I don’t want him to know I was the
Pitt State Slump Buster
!”
“He already knows who you are, Lucy.”
She shook her head.
“Perhaps Theo would prefer to form his own opinion based on the truth. Maybe he can handle it without running away.”
Lucy let loose with a loud sob.
“Theo has spent seven months getting to know you. This part of your past won’t make him love you any less than he does.”
Lucy stopped crying and raised her head to stare at Doris. “Love me?” She blinked and blew her nose. “You think he loves me?”
Doris smiled sweetly. “You know, Lucy, in addition to my weekly sessions with you, I’ve also grown to know Theo the way the rest of this city has. I see him with you on TV. I hear what he says and the way he says it. I notice the way he looks at you.”
Lucy sat up straight.
“He cares very much for you, Lucy.”
“I know he does.”
“He deserves to know.” Doris loosened her hug and stroked Lucy’s hair. “When the time is right, you might consider telling Theo that you’ve been in love with him for a long time now.”
Lucy sniffed. “And I’m supposed to do this without Milk Duds? As if!”
Doris laughed. “You know, being true to yourself takes courage, Lucy. Great joy always requires great risk, and even effort.”
“Yeah. OK. But I’ve always been more of a drive-through person.”
“Now, to answer your initial question, it felt like someone zapped me with an electric cattle prod.”
Lucy wasn’t sure how her therapist got from joy to animal husbandry techniques but figured it might be worth clarifying. “What in the world are you talking about, Doris?”
She smiled and patted Lucy’s knee. “Every time I saw Irving-Mr. Lehman-it was like I’d been struck by a very friendly little bolt of lightning and the atmosphere became clearer in the aftermath.”
“Oh.” Lucy was following her just fine now.
“You’ll know when the time is right to tell Theo. You’ll feel it.”
She imagined it would feel an awful lot like indigestion.
Journal Entry July 11
Breakfast: 1/2
grapefruit; 2 egg whites, scrambled; 1/2 whole wheat bagel
Lunch: 3
oz tuna; 1 tbsp light mayo; 1 apple; 3 Ry-Krisp
Diner: 3
oz sirloin; 1 small baked potato; 1 tbsp light butter; 1 c steamed cauliflower
Snack:
1 light yogurt; 1 c strawberries
Affirmation for Today:
Light mayonnaise is like masturbation
-
it approximates the real thing but leaves you unfulfilled, ultimately leading to fantasies about diving face-first into a big-ass jar of the real stuff
.
Veronica poked her head into Lucy’s office. “I’ve answered two crates of fan mail today, but I’m running out of storage room. Any suggestions?”
Lucy groaned. “None.”
“Oh. And there’s another package for you out front. A big one. You want me to open it?”
The anonymous delivery of junk food in bulk had become so commonplace that Lucy no longer even bothered mentioning it to Theo. Malomars. Oreos. Fritos. There was even a shipment of frozen Snickers bars on dry ice. Somebody with a significant disposable income thought it was funny to torture her like this.
“Sure. Go ahead and open it.”
“You don’t want to know what’s in it, like usual, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“You got it, boss.”
Veronica left and Lucy sat patiently at her desk, waiting. Eventually, her assistant returned, giving her a sympathetic nod.
“Frozen stuffed pizzas shipped directly from the original Pizzeria Uno in Chicago.”
Lucy’s heart stopped. “People can be so sick and twisted,” she hissed.
“Sausage.”
“I’m not strong enough for this.”
“It’s OK, Lucy. I’ll put them in Stephan’s office. He’s the one who’s been taking most of this stuff home anyway.”
“You like the dress?” Lucy was standing toward the entrance of the grand ballroom as the guests began to filter in. Tyson had been one of the first to arrive, and he’d come with Lola, who was already hitting on the bartender.
“Not my style, to be honest.”
“Oh really?” Lucy would have been offended if it weren’t for the glint in Tyson’s eye.
“No.” He shook his head, his eyes still scanning every detail of the item of clothing in question. “That’s the kind of dress that belongs on the floor, all wrinkled up, with the zipper broken and the sleeves torn. That dress isn’t right for you at all. In fact, I think you should take it off right now.”
Tyson had remained her friend-her flirtatious, fun friend-even though they hadn’t dated since she returned from Tampa. He’d seemed disappointed when she told him she couldn’t keep seeing him, but he’d never lost that gleam in his eye or that smile for her. Tyson’s playful attention made her feel appreciated, even while she wrestled with the more serious feelings she had for Theo.
Lucy was laughing when Theo arrived between her mother and father. The entire arrangement felt like a nonsensical wedding march-she stood with a guy she used to date waiting to receive her beloved, who was being escorted by her parents.
It briefly registered that her mother looked smashing in a shimmering blue dress and her father remarkably put-together in his rented tux; then Lucy’s eyes returned to the real sensory delicacy at hand.
Seeing Theo Redmond in a white dinner jacket was like eating a DoveBar in an outdoor Jacuzzi while listening to Mozart and
gazing
at the aurora borealis-almost too many pleasures going on at once for the brain to absorb. His golden skin and sun-touched hair, his clear blue eyes, that killer smile, tall and lean and knock-you-on-your-ass delicious, all set in a framework of starched white dress shirt, austere black bow tie, creamy suit jacket…
“My, my, my.”
“Stay strong, Lucy.” Tyson shook his head. “He’s just a man-puts his jockstrap on like all the rest of us.”
She blew out air and looked up at Tyson. “Must we discuss jockstraps tonight? I’m all dressed up and nowhere near the gym and I’d much rather just gawk at Theo.”
Tyson laughed. “You’re a goner, aren’t you, Lucy? You really love Redmond.”
Lucy was saved as Tyson’s gaze wandered toward the ballroom entrance, his champagne glass hovering in midair. “Now who is
that
little lady?”
Lucy sought out the object of Tyson’s inquiry. “Oh. That’s Veronica, my assistant. Be gentle with her.
I need her able-bodied and alert at the office on Monday.“
“The able-bodied part’s not going to be a problem,” he said, already moving away and toward Veronica.
Buddy came in next, right behind Theo, along with Dan and Gia. Mary Fran was on their heels-without Keith. Lucy hadn’t actually seen her brother-in-law since Holden’s baptism and was starting to think that Mary Fran had killed him and disposed of his body in the crawl space of their lovely redbrick Georgian in Buckhead. She’d have to remember to ask.
Then Stephan sauntered in with Carolina Buendia and John Weaver, who looked exactly as they did on the
WakeUp Miami
set, and it was obvious that the party was indeed getting started.
He’d picked a hell of a time to have this epiphany, but there it was, just a few feet away in the grand ballroom of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. It was Lucy, breathtaking in that bare hint of a dress, and he was sure this would soon be one of the defining moments of his life. A moment that would change everything.
Theo put one foot in front of the other, his eyes on hers, and it all rushed into him-every other defining moment in his thirty-two years on the planet.
His brother’s birth had been hard on his mom. Brian Joseph Redmond was born after eighteen hours of labor, and the doctors whisked him away and came back to explain to his distraught family that the baby had Down syndrome. Theo was just sixteen, but in that instant he went from the focus of his parents’ lives to their peer, an independent and grown person they relied on for help.
He’d suddenly become his father’s friend and ally, his mother’s confidant, and a big brother to a beautiful and perplexing child.
Theo had observed how the soft-spoken doctor comforted his mom, held her hand, and gently told her the truth about Buddy. Immediately Theo knew that’s what he was meant to do with his own life. He wanted a job that was real, important, healing. He wanted that mix of human connection and hard science. He wanted to be a doctor. Theo cornered the physician in the hallway afterward, talked to him for a good half hour, and his mind was made up. Everything he did after that was done in pursuit of that goal.
Another defining moment came when the dean of the med school came for Theo in the middle of assisting with a routine appendectomy. As Theo followed him into the hallway outside the operating suite, he already felt the weight of tragedy hanging over him-he just didn’t know who was dead or how it had happened. When the dean put his hands on Theo’s shoulders and said the words, “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this…” everything changed again.
The lunch date where Jenna broke up with him was another of those moments. As she laid it all out for him, Theo saw that he’d never really known the woman sitting across from him, that he’d been so enthralled by what the eye could see-her beauty and drive and smooth elegance-that in five years he’d never dug deep enough to know the person inside. Maybe he’d done that intentionally, knowing what he’d find would not be as pretty as the outer wrapping. But there it was-the truth-and the truth was, the woman he’d been convinced was his ideal life partner was really nothing but a cold mystery to him and he wasn’t enough for her anymore.
Theo looked at Lucy again and his chest grew hot and he felt a smile spread across his face. He thought,
She’s beautiful
, and then scolded himself for the inadequacy of those words. Yes, she was shockingly beautiful. She was luminous and alive and damn hot in that nothing of a dress. But she was also the bravest, funniest, best woman he’d ever known.
And the kicker was, she wasn’t his Lucy anymore. She was everyone’s Lucy. Now everybody could see what he’d seen in her from the very start-that she had it all.
Theo smiled a little broader, still walking toward her, his eyes still on hers, and something primal stirred in him. It was a dark need in his psyche he could identify only as possessiveness. Maybe that’s why he’d been relieved to see Tyson leave her side just now.
It struck Theo as odd that he hadn’t been able to spit it out-that he loved her. Because he really did. That was an oversight he intended to correct immediately, as soon as he was close enough for her to hear the words. He no longer gave a rat’s ass about Palm Club policy- Ramona would just have to deal. He no longer minded the amount of gossip it would generate or that it was going to be a difficult seven years ahead of them. All that mattered was that he’d spend those years with Lucy.
And that was his epiphany-he wanted Lucy as much as he’d ever wanted anything. As much as he wanted to be a doctor.
“Hey, Theo,” Tyson greeted him on his way toward the door, stepping right in Theo’s line of vision. “You clean up real nice, bro.”