“So, one day, when she was out swimming in the lake with a few of her girlfriends, I stole all her clothes. I told her that I wouldn't give them back unless she gave me a kiss and swore she'd never go near Mick Forrester again for the rest of her life,” Jerry said, shrugging, a wicked gleam in his eye.
I blinked at him. “And that worked?”
“Of course it did,” Betty said, giggling like a schoolgirl, as though the event in question had just happened yesterday, rather than fifty-some years ago. “I always appreciated a man who was bold.”
“Anyway, I relented on the thing about never going near Mick Forrester,” Jerry said. “He was the best man at our wedding, and he and his eventual wife Mindy were our best tennis partners for years and years. He and I still hang out together at our country club and shoot the shit.”
I laughed. “It was a happy ending all around, it sounds like.”
“Life is always a happy ending if you're willing to let things happen the way that they're supposed to,” Betty said, a strange note in her voice. “When Jerry broke up with me, I thought I'd die. And when I met Mick, I knew that I didn't love him, but I managed to convince myself things were going to be fine anyway. But when you love somebody…”
“You just know it,” Jerry said, his voice gone a little husky. He dashed a tear out of one eye, looking adoringly down at his wife and squeezing her hand. “If I had lost this little lady here? That would have been the worst mistake of my life.”
I thought about my relationship with Lino and then my relationship with Christian. I could see elements of their relationship in both of those relationships that I'd had, but when it came down to it, if I had to lose one or the other, I didn't want to lose Christian.
“What about you, sweetheart?” Jerry asked me, as though sensing the introspective turn of my thoughts.
“I thought I had lost my man,” I said, tripping a little over calling Christian
mine. We hadn't defined exactly what we were doing still. It was enough that he was there in Hawaii and living with me. The whole communal living thing was more from practicality's sake than anything else. There was no reason he should be paying to stay at a resort when I had a perfectly good guest bedroom that he could take over. We ended up sharing a bed most nights anyway.
“What did that rascal do?” Betty asked.
I sighed. “He had a job back in New York, and he was supposed to go back to it,” I told her. “I knew that from the start, but for some reason, I didn't think about it all. By the time we had to think about it, it was time for him to go, and we got into a fight.”
“But you didn't lose him?” Jerry asked.
“No,” I said, smiling a little. “He came back. He quit his job in New York, and he's moved down to Hawaii to be with me.”
“Now that's a good story,” Betty said. “I don't know too many guys who could figure out their feelings well enough to move across the country to be with a woman. At least in my time, we women were stuck following our men around, wherever they wanted to be.”
“You didn't follow me anywhere, you cow,” Jerry said, rolling his eyes. “I had to follow you to Missouri when your mother got sick; don't you remember that?”
Betty laughed. “That was my mother,” she said. “I had to go help out. You know that.”
“And I had to live in Missouri,” Jerry said with a bit of a shudder. He turned to face me. “Don't ever let him convince you to leave Hawaii, dear. Next thing you know, you'll be living on a cow farm in the middle of nowhere.”
“Oh, pish,” Betty said. “It was six months, not an eternity. And you liked those cows, don't try to tell me that you didn't!”
As enjoyable as their bantering was, the appointment was over soon. I walked the two of them out, thanking them for coming in. I paused at the doorway, seeing Christian standing there with flowers. Betty paused as well, eyeing Christian shrewdly. Then, she shook her head, looking back at me over her shoulder. “If you've gone and convinced this handsome young man to quit his job and move across the country for you, I'm convinced that you're a witch,” she told me. “Whatever spell you've got him under, you could make a fortune selling charms to do half of what you did.”
Christian stared at her for a moment in shock and then burst out laughing. “That's exactly what it is,” he told Betty, nodding. “She's got me spelled.” He grinned at me, holding out some daffodils toward me. “I was just wondering if I could take you out to lunch.”
“You hear that, Jerry?” Betty said to her husband as the two of them walked off. “Why don't you ever take me out to lunch?”
“Because I love your cooking too much when we're back home,” Jerry said sweetly. “But today, I got a recommendation for a seafood place downtown.”
“Seems like that was a fun appointment,” Christian commented as they walked out of earshot.
I smiled at them and then transferred my gaze to him. “It was,” I said. I bent down to sniff the flowers, smiling even more. “What are you up to?” I asked him. “Flowers and lunch? Did you break something? Do I have to fill out more paperwork for the business?”
Christian laughed and shook his head. “No,” he said. He shrugged. “I just wanted to see you, that's all.”
I shook my head, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. Thinking back over everything that Betty and Jerry had said, I wondered if someday we could be like that.
I realized that what Mina had said earlier that morning was true. I was in love with him. I only hoped that he loved me back.
Chapter Thirty-Nine