The F-Word

“Thank you. And when Violet and I get back…Can I call you? Take you to lunch? Ask you a few questions about, you know, my business?”

I think of telling him I don’t know jackshit about washers and dryers, but this isn’t a time for that.

“Sure,” I say, and he grins and pumps my hand.

So all is well. Bailey has faced her demons. Violet has shown she has a human side…

Maybe not.

“We’ll get together when Chester and I get home from Greece,” Vi tells Bailey. “I’ll take you to my hairdresser. I’m sure he can do something with that mane of yours. Not that the way you wear it doesn’t have a certain, you know, Nature Girl charm.”

Her smile would put a diabetic into a coma.

Bailey draws back. It’s barely perceptible, but I can see it and I prepare for the worst.

The worst doesn’t come.

Instead, my girl smiles. “Thank you,” she says pleasantly, “but I like my hair just the way it is.”

“Oh,” Violet says, and the conversation ends because I put my arm around Bailey and lead her into the ballroom.

No buffet this time, just a lot of formally dressed tables. A ten-piece band is playing a credible cover of an old tune, While My Guitar Gently Weeps. I’m not sure it’s wedding music, but I’ve always liked it and I draw Bailey close.

“You were wonderful,” I tell her quietly.

She looks at me. “Really?”

“Yeah.” What I want to tell her is that she’s always wonderful, but I sweep her into my arms and out onto the dance floor.

* * *

The evening passes quickly. And yes, we have a good time.

We’re seated at a table with a bunch of cousins and they turn out to be nice people. We laugh and drink champagne—the real stuff this time. And we dance a lot. Bailey thinks she can’t dance, but once she relaxes and lets go, she’s fine.

Besides, I don’t really want to dance.

I just want to hold her in my arms and sway to the music.

Everything is going fine. This whole weekend was about helping Bailey find her wings and it’s turned out to be more than that. It’s turned out to be—special. Hell. There has to be a better way to describe it. Not just what’s happened in bed. The rest of it. We’re having fun. Enjoying being together. Bailey is blossoming, and I’m not foolish enough to think it’s because of me.

I’m simply fortunate enough to be watching a woman come into her own.

And, in a way, so am I.

The past couple of days have been, I don’t know, a kind of exploration of myself and my life. I guess this is mindfulness, maybe even the next step one of the monks talked about. Joyfulness. The realization puts a prickly sensation on the nape of my neck, kind of the way you might feel standing in the doorway of a dark room, trying to decide if you’re frightened or excited by what 's ahead. It’s pretty much what the monks told us would happen at some point in our lives, Coop’s and mine, if we let it. I always thought my moment had come when I realized being in finance wasn’t for me, but now I start to wonder if it might be something more than that…

And then it all comes to a screeching halt.

Bailey and I are alone at our table. Everybody has abandoned us in favor of the dessert carts that have just been wheeled in, meaning these are our first few moments alone in what seems like hours, and we are making the most of this quiet time together.

I’ve pulled my chair against hers. My arm is around her and her head is on my shoulder. We’re talking about things. Nothing important. Just things, the way people do when they’re comfortable together. I’ve just said something about who-knows-what, certainly nothing urgent or brilliant, but she’s listening to every word with her face turned up to mine and a sweet smile on her lips. It’s so sweet that I kiss her. It’s a demure kiss, the kind that’s okay in public, but then I run my hand over her shoulder and into her hair, and she sighs and I kiss her again…

That’s when a woman’s voice screeches my name.

“Matthew O’Malley! Matty, it really is you!”

Bailey jerks away as a hand lands hard on my shoulder and waves of perfume envelop us. I look up, but I already know who it is. The perfume, the screechy voice, the Matty.