Reunion for the First Time

by K. M. Daughters

“I figured as much. But at least Jack was willing to help me, and you weren’t let down completely. He seemed to think he did all right by you. Was he right?”

  Charlie had talked to Jack when he came back. Something seemed to change with him. Jack wouldn’t comment further except to say things went well, but he had seemed guarded, too eager to change the subject. Charlie suspected something had happened, but he might never know unless Lizzie was more forthcoming.

  “Yes. It was fun. He was a perfect gentleman. Wallace paid attention big time. I’ve seen Wallace once since then, and we have a date for dinner and the symphony tomorrow night.”

  Mari, for crying out loud. A little help here, please?

  “That’s good.” Charlie considered tying her to a chair until Jack made an appearance.

  He wanted to see them together and try to figure out what he had to work with to fulfill Mari’s wishes

  “So Wallace is interested in you again?” Wallace is an ass and she deserves to be happy.

  “It seems so.” Lizzie stood and poured coffee from a pot on the credenza into a Styrofoam cup. “Wallace bought me roses and champagne. He took me on a picnic by the Charles River. It was a perfect day.”

  Charlie’s spirits sank. How could she fall for this guy again? He rubbed his hand through his hair in frustration.

  “Hey, did Jack tell you I beat him at golf?” Her eyes gleamed as she turned around to face him leaning against the credenza. “What a good sport. I had the most fun playing that round.”

  “Why no. He didn’t mention that.” His spirits lifted some. So Jack was withholding information as he had suspected. “But I’m sure I know why. I don’t think Jack would brag about letting a girl beat him on the links.”

  “Not just any girl. Why don’t you come out with me sometime and see if you can beat me?”

  Her hopeful look melted his heart. She’d never stop trying to nudge him toward a “normal” life. As if that were possible without Mari.

  But he appreciated that Lizzie didn’t give up on him. And he wouldn’t give up on her, either. She didn’t belong with Wallace. Mari had known it and so did he. At that moment, he made up his mind to make sure that didn’t happen.

  “It’s none of my business, Liz, but I got the impression from Mari that Wallace mistreated you. Why are you allowing that again?”

  “Hmmm. You know, I always thought that if he were interested in me again I’d feel vindicated. And I could choose him or reject him. I certainly won’t accept any mistreatment that’s for sure.” She drained her coffee cup. “Do you need anything else from me, Charlie? I’ve got a dinner meeting on the north side with my editor. She’s in town overnight, and it’s a bit of a command performance.”

  “No. I guess we’re done. I’ll get Jack’s opinion later. He still might get over here if his meeting’s finished. You want to wait a while longer?”

  Lizzie looked confused. “No, I can’t. Why would Jack have an opinion?”

  Charlie laughed. “He probably won’t. But I like to run these things by him.”

  “OK. Sure, Charlie. Well, tell Jack hello for me.”

  She turned to go, then pivoted back around. “Want to join me and Ellen for dinner? There may be some boring trade talk, but she’s a really nice person. It might be fun to get out.”

  “No, thanks. I’d be outnumbered. Hey, maybe Jack would want to go. You know, even out the genders a little? Let me give him another call.” He had to stop this Wallace thing.

  Charlie picked up the phone and dialed before Lizzie could protest. Disappointed that Jack was still in his meeting and couldn’t be disturbed, he hung up shaking his head and rolling his eyes.

  “Guess not.” Now he appreciated how frustrated Mari was with the whole matchmaking quest.

  She looked at him quizzically. “Charlie, are you all right?”

  He tried to brighten the expression on his face and hoped he had succeeded. “Of course. Enjoy your evening, Lizzie. Come on. I’ll walk you to the door.”

  Offering her his arm, he ushered her to the reception area.

  Chapter Eleven

  “What is your name?” Wallace demanded an answer, peering at the security guard’s name badge. “Byron, is it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, Byron, Miss Moran is expecting me, and I expect you to give me her floor number right now.”

  Wallace faced off with Byron. “No sir. You may not go upstairs without a resident escort. You will sign this book and show me a picture ID.”

  Byron folded his arms, resting his huge hands over bulging biceps and leaned forward, looming toward Wallace. He stared at him, pursed his lips into a solid straight line and waited, stoic and duty bound.

  The nerve of this man. As if I presented a security risk.

  Wallace pulled a slim wallet from the inner pocket of his impeccable Armani suit jacket, opened it and pried out his driver’s license. He slapped it on the console between them with a snap. The billfold probably cost more than one week of Byron’s salary.

  Byron picked up the ID and read it ridiculously slowly while Wallace fumed. Byron handed it back to him, a neutral expression on his face. “Mr. Prescott. If you’d be so kind as to sign here.”

  Sliding the visitors’ log toward him, Byron placed the tip of a finger on the next blank line. The pressure of the security man’s hand on the book was obviously a power play.

  Let this underling play his games. I’ll figure out a way to get him fired.

  Wallace ignored the ballpoint on the counter next to the log and pulled a fountain pen from his inner pocket. He unscrewed its cap and scribbled something indecipherable on the line. May have been his name, maybe not.

  He looked up at Byron annoyed with this pointless inconvenience. “What is Elizabeth’s unit number?” Wallace walked over and had his hand on the door leading to the bank of elevators.

  Byron had the phone to his ear. “I’m calling Ms. Moran right now to tell her you’re waiting for her to escort you from the lobby.”

  Wallace switched direction, “Tell her I’ll be in the car.” He skirted the security desk bound for the revolving door.

  “Asshole,” Byron muttered.

  Wallace spun on him. “What did you just say?”

  “I said, as you wish.” Byron glared at him deadpan.

  Disgusted, Wallace shoved through the revolving door outside.

  ****

  Lizzie peered inside the car. “Hello, Wallace. It’s so good to see you again.”

  She took a seat where he patted his hand. The silent driver eased the door shut, walked around the car and took the wheel.

  Classical music and Wallace’s citrus cologne filled the car. The smells of masculine power enveloped her, Ralph Lauren and luxury leather. He took her hand and held it limp in his.

  “It’s good to see you, too, Elizabeth. Four weeks was too long. You look lovely tonight.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You look perfect for what I have planned this evening.” He gestured to the driver to turn at the light. “Much less provocative than the dress you wore at the gala.”

  Lizzie remembered Jack’s reaction to the red dress. She preferred provocative.

  “So,” Wallace’s voice cut through, “we have a great deal to catch up on.”

  Lizzie looked out the window at the display of Christmas lights on tree-lined streets and building facades and then turned toward him, his features at once in shadow, and then spotlighted by the movement of the car. “It’s hard to know where to begin.”

  “I’d like to begin with the present.” Wallace crossed his leg and didn’t seem to notice that he’d brushed the bottom of his shoe on Lizzie’s silk hose. Miffed, she brushed away a smudge of dirt.

  His expression mild, he obviously wasn’t taking any accountability. “I’ve had a very successful series of meetings in Chicago. I’m confident that my design for the new Global Commerce Building will win the day. I’m sure I impressed the panel. First I told them…�
��

  Her mind registered a drone. The car merged into Michigan Avenue traffic, traveled several blocks, and stopped in front of Orchestra Hall. The driver opened the door for Wallace on the street side. When Wallace didn’t make a move to open the door for her, the driver raced around the car and yanked Lizzie’s door open.

  Wallace waited for her on the sidewalk. He placed his hand on her back and ushered her through gilt framed doors into the vestibule of the great Hall. Then he directed her to a small elevator off the lobby that took them above the concert area to a private dining room.

  A few tables flanked a bank of windows overlooking Michigan Avenue. A wood fire flickered in the hearth of an ornately carved fireplace at the far end of the room. Diners conversed quietly and ignored newcomers.

  The young Barbie doll hostess greeted them and checked a list on an antique desk at the entrance when Wallace pronounced his name. Lizzie followed the bouncy blond to a table set for two in the center of the room, and Barbie pulled out a chair for Lizzie. She bent to take her seat, but Wallace walked away from the table.

  He pointed to a vacant table for four at the window. “We’d like that one.”

  The hostess’s gaze darted back and forth between the two tables. “Sir, that table is reserved for a party of four.”

  Wallace took a seat at the window table and gestured to Lizzie to come over. “This will be fine. A waiter can remove the extra settings.”

  Poised over the chair, Lizzie looked at the hostess for direction.

  “That will be fine, madam.” The hostess clipped every word.

  Embarrassed, Lizzie sat down at Wallace’s table.

  The hostess handed them each a menu and removed two settings. “As you wish, sir.” She walked away.

  A waiter bustled over and swept a napkin into Lizzie’s lap. “Wallace, I don’t want to sit here.”

  “Well, we are.” He took the menu out of her hand and placed it on top of his on the table. “So, Elizabeth, I’ve been rambling the whole way over here. Tell me about your experiences in the Peace Corps. That must have been interesting.”

  Lizzie had faced a lot of difficulties in her life. The Peace Corps had saved her. And the man who asked her about it, the only man she had ever loved, was the reason she had needed saving in the first place. Surprised, she could think back now, even with him, and not buckle with despair.

  “It was transforming. It gave me just about everything worth having. I wouldn’t have my career in photography without the Corps.”

  “But you never used your engineering degree. What a waste.”

  He plucked a roll from the basket a server placed on the table and slathered it with butter. Shoving a bite into his mouth, he chewed lazily while he watched her.

  “Well, actually, I did use my training in environmental engineering on an irrigation project. I certainly wasn’t in charge, but I had to know what I was doing in order to be useful. But eventually I was more useful helping out at the orphanage. I was hurting, and I had something in common with those children.”

  “Ah, yes.” He stretched his arm across the table and covered Lizzie’s hand. “I heard about your parents. My condolences. It must have been very hard for you to lose both of them at the same time.”

  Was he being dense on purpose? She had lost him the same day.

  Lizzie sat there with Wallace’s cool hand on hers and thought about his sympathetic but hollow words.

  “Thank you. It was hard. Very.” She reached for a roll for something to do with her hands.

  “Elizabeth, you look a million miles away.” He bit into his roll again.

  The waiter approached their table.

  Wallace mouthed around a wad of bread. He didn’t refer to the menus. “We’ll have Caesar salad and steak Diane for two, the usual sides. Make sure the steak is rare. I want a bottle of Chateau Latour 1982. We’ll have the wine now before dinner.”

  Wallace hadn’t looked at the waiter and dismissed him by holding two menus out in his direction. The young man with dark brooding eyes took the menus in hand and turned to go.

  “Excuse me? Sir?”

  The waiter arched an eyebrow and looked at her. “Yes, madam?”

  “I’d like to revise my half of the order, please.” She looked directly at the waiter. “I’d prefer grilled swordfish with lemon and steamed vegetables for my entrée. Can you please make the Caesar salad for one and bring me a small green salad with the house dressing? And I’d like a Cosmopolitan before dinner.”

  “Shall I bring two wine glasses?” The waiter’s hands fidgeted with the menus as he looked first at Lizzie, then Wallace.

  “Yes, please.” Lizzie smiled at the waiter.

  “Well, Elizabeth, I should order a white wine for you.” Wallace picked up the wine list.

  “Don’t bother.” Lizzie touched the sleeve of Wallace’s jacket.

  She turned to the waiter. “I will have a glass of the red wine with dinner, thank you.”

  The waiter nodded and walked away.

  “I like red wine with everything.” This was the first time she’d had the strength to ever contradict Wallace. The flip her stomach did made her nervous waiting for his reaction.

  Wallace looked pained. “You used to rely on me to order for you.”

  She wasn’t a desperately lovesick girl any longer. She was a competent, intelligent, self-sufficient woman, and Wallace needed to acknowledge that.

  “I did, didn’t I? Huh. Well. I can navigate menus pretty well on my own now in several languages.”

  She leaned back in her chair as the waiter put a brimming martini glass of pale red liquid in front of her. After the ceremony of cork removal, pouring, swilling, tasting, nodding, Wallace held his wine glass up for a toast.

  “You surprise me. I like that.” He clinked her glass and drank, draining the glass by a third.

  Lizzie sipped her drink and listened to Wallace talk with half an ear and relaxed. She remembered being chronically unsure of herself with him. She was so young, so inexperienced. But that was then.

  “…They were wrong for me from the start. I was so blind in my youth. It should have been you. We were perfect together. You always put me first.”

  That got her full attention. “I did, didn’t I? Huh.” And you never put me first. Lizzie suffered a rush of self-loathing for her lack of self-esteem in her relationship with him. Why was I such a doormat?

  The waiters placed the food before them with decorum, as if the romaine lettuce and piece of fish were rare jewels. Wallace fussed that the steak was overdone and sent it back to the kitchen. Well, he’s going to have spit in his food for dinner. Hope it adds taste.

  Conversation during the meal centered on the food. She complimented it, and he criticized it.

  There was no time to linger over coffee. “I want to select the best seats, and the performance starts in a half hour.”

  “I don’t understand.” Lizzie let him usher her out of the restaurant. “Aren’t the seats reserved when you buy a ticket?”

  “Not exactly, Elizabeth. First come, first serve for patrons who purchase box seats and I want the front row.”

  Moments after they were situated to Wallace’s liking in the Great Hall, the concert began. Lizzie was mesmerized by the power of the music. Too soon for her, the final crescendo brought the endnote, and the audience applauded the conductor off the stage for the intermission.

  The enjoyment of the night was lost to her guilt during the rest of the concert when Wallace insisted on remaining in front row seats despite the tradition to rotate seats with other box patrons after intermission. Lizzie imagined that the angry people behind her threw eye-daggers at her back. The music was glorious, but she kept thinking about the concert’s end. She hoped they’d be the last to leave the box. She couldn’t face the other people without feeling like she had stolen something from them.

  ****

  Gliding down the Miracle Mile in the car afterward, Lizzie pondered the highs and lows of the e
vening with Wallace. Her hand loose in his, she was comfortable enough. But the slow admission that she no longer enjoyed Wallace’s company nagged her.

  “If my design is chosen for the Global Commerce Building, I’ll need to be in Chicago often the next few months.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “We will see each other again.”

  Lizzie didn’t respond to his statement right away. She wished he had asked, rather than told her.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Ten years is a long time and we’re different people now. I’m not the same girl who always put you first. I like being independent. I don’t think that’s what you are looking for.”

  “It’s that John Clark, isn’t it? I knew the minute I saw him at the reunion that he was trying to flaunt his imagined superiority.” He kept his voice low, but it looked like it was an effort.

  “Jack?” Pleasure flashed through her at the thought of the man. “This isn’t about Jack and, as always, you’re not listening. This is about me. I’m different. And, spending time with you this evening convinces me what we had together is in the past. I don’t think I want to go back.” She shivered at the strength it took to tell Wallace no. Every ounce of pain now came to the surface.

  The car cruised in front of her building and stopped. The driver looked in the rear view mirror for some signal from Wallace.

  Wallace looked stricken when she put her hand on the door handle.

  “I’ll get the doors,” Wallace blurted. The driver nodded.

  She stood outside in the clear brisk night and faced him. “May I kiss you, Elizabeth?”

  No. Yes. I guess. She nodded.

  He cupped his hands on her face, laced his fingers in her hair and pulled her face toward his.

  She remembered the move well. Wallace’s this-will-get-her-in-the-mood move. It was a nice memory and a nice kiss. But it didn’t get her in the mood now.

  When she pulled back out of the kiss abruptly he kept his eyes closed for a few seconds as if savoring it. Not much to savor here.

  “Please let me come up for a little while, Elizabeth.” His voice honey, humble. “Give me a chance to make up for whatever it is I’ve done to push you away. You make me nervous. I can’t seem to do anything right lately when I am with you. Please.”