Brown-Eyed Girl (Travises 4)

“No, Ryan’s trying to figure out a special way to pop the question. I told him you’d be here tonight to give him some ideas.”

“Whatever I can do to help.”

“We couldn’t have asked for a nicer young man for Bethany,” Hollis said. “Ryan’s an architect. Smart as a whip. His family, the Chases, are close kin to the Travises. Ryan’s mama died young – so unfortunate – but his uncle Churchill looked after the family and made sure the kids got educations. And when Churchill passed on, the Chases were included in his will.” Hollis gave me a significant glance as she continued. “Ryan could live off the interest of his trust fund and never work a day in his life.” She grasped my wrist with a clatter of multiple cocktail rings. “David, I’m going to tour Avery around the house. You can do without me for a few minutes, can’t you?”

“I’ll try,” her husband said, and she winked at him before pulling me away.

Hollis chatted with the ease of an accomplished hostess as she guided me through the house toward the modern addition. She stopped to show me some of the auction paintings displayed throughout the house, each lot numbered and accompanied by information about the artist. Along the way, Hollis texted Ryan to meet us in what she called “the skyroom.”

“He’s going to slip away from Bethany for a few minutes,” Hollis explained, “so he can talk to you without her. He wants the proposal to be a surprise, of course.”

“If he’d rather come to our Montrose studio,” I said, “we could discuss it there. That might be easier and more private —”

“No, it’s better to take care of it tonight,” Hollis said. “Otherwise Ryan will drag his feet. You know how men are.”

I smiled noncommittally, hoping that Hollis wasn’t trying to push Ryan into proposing. “Have he and Bethany been dating for a while?” I asked as we entered a small glass-sided elevator.

“Two or three months. When you meet the right one, you just know. David proposed to me just a couple of weeks after we met – and look at us now, twenty-five years later.”

As the elevator ascended to the third floor, I had a perfect view of the tent in the back. It was connected to the house by a carpet runner of fresh flowers arranged in geometric swirls.

“Here’s my skyroom,” Hollis said with pride, showing me a spectacular gallery with steel-framed glass walls and a segmented glass ceiling. Sculptures perched on Lucite pedestals at various places in the room. The floor itself was made of clear glass with few visible supports. A tiled outdoor swimming pool glittered three stories directly below. “Isn’t it fabulous? Come, I’ll show you one of my favorite sculptures.”

I hesitated, staring uneasily at the glass floor. Although I had never thought of myself as having a fear of heights, I didn’t like the looks of it. The glass didn’t look nearly substantial enough to support my weight.

“Oh, it’s safe as could be,” Hollis said as she saw my expression. “You get used to it right away.” Her heels clinked like cocktail ice as she walked into the gallery. “This is the closest you’ll ever get to walking on air.”

Since I’d never had any desire to walk on air, that assurance wasn’t exactly motivating. I reached the edge of the glass and my feet stopped, toes curling in my pumps. Every cell in my body warned that walking onto that expanse of clear glass would result in sudden and ignominious death.

Steeling myself not to glance at the sparkling swimming pool below, I ventured out onto the slick surface.

“What do you think?” I heard Hollis ask.

“Amazing,” I managed to reply. I was tingling all over, not in a happy, excited way, but in an epic-freak-out way. Perspiration collected beneath my bra.

“This is one of my favorite pieces,” Hollis said, guiding me to a sculpture on a pedestal. “It’s only ten thousand. Such a bargain.”

I found myself staring blankly at a cast polyurethane head that had been divided in half. A collection of found objects – things such as a broken dish, a plastic ball, a cell phone case – had been wedged between the two sides. “I’m not sure how to interpret postmodern sculpture,” I admitted.

“This artist takes ordinary objects and changes their context —” Hollis was forced to pause as her phone vibrated. “Let me check this.” Reading the message, she gave an exasperated sigh. “I can’t slip away for ten minutes without someone needing me to do something. This is what I hired my secretary for. I swear, that girl is one twist short of a Slinky.”

“If there’s something you need to take care of, please go right ahead,” I said, inwardly relieved at the prospect of being able to escape from the skyroom. “Don’t worry about me.”

Hollis patted my arm, her rings clattering like castanets. “I’ll find someone for you to meet. I can’t run off and leave you here alone.”

“I’m fine, Hollis. Really —”

She pulled me even farther across the treacherous floor. We passed a trio of women chatting and laughing and an elderly couple examining a sculpture. Hollis tugged me toward a photographer who stood in the corner taking candid shots of the old couple. “Shutterbug,” Hollis called out playfully, “look who I’ve got with me.”

“Hollis,” I protested faintly.

Before the man lowered his camera, I knew who he was. My whole body knew. I felt his presence instantly, even before I looked up into the eyes that had haunted me every night since we had met. Except that now they were as hard as onyx.