Nothing too suspicious in his mail. Mostly junk mail or bills. A letter from Mount Rose Hospital did catch her eye, but about that time, Eli reappeared. She tried to act casual as she left the kitchen, but Eli was already scrutinizing her with a coy smile.
“Were you snooping?” he asked.
“Just admiring your apartment,” Leila replied, despite the fact that she could feel her ears turning red.
Eli laughed at her lie. “It’s alright. I don’t mind. Besides, you caught me looking through your scrapbooks, so it’s fair.”
He held out a rectangular velvet box, which Leila assumed was what they had come here for. She was profoundly startled when he opened it to reveal a perfect string of pearls. Just because Leila rarely wore jewelry by no means meant she couldn’t tell the difference between costume and the real thing. The milky depth of the pearls belied their authenticity.
“Eli, they’re beautiful.” But then she wondered, “Why do you have pearls?”
Not distracted by her blunt question, Eli handed her the velvet box after removing the pearls. “These were my mother’s. I thought you might like to borrow them for tonight.”
“You mother’s? Is she …”
“Dead?” Eli finished as he stepped behind her. His hand crossed in front of her body with the pearls. A slight gasp escaped her lips as the cold pearls rested on her bare skin. As Eli clasped them onto her neck, he said, “No, my mother isn’t dead.”
There was a strange flatness to his voice as he said it that made her curious. “Does she live here in Chicago?”
“Yes.”
The sharp, one word answer was almost enough to quiet Leila. Almost, but not quite. “Do you see her very often?”
“No.”
Another one word response. But Leila couldn’t let it go. Eli was so kind, so intent on helping people, she could not imagine him brushing off his own mother so completely. “Do you and she not get along?”
“Not anymore.”
Two words that time. Leila considered that progress. “What …?”
“Leila,” Eli said sharply, “if you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about my mother.”
The severity in his voice shut her up. She muttered a quiet “sorry” and dropped her gaze. She could hear Eli’s sigh, but she didn’t react to it. She stepped away from him, wanting to give him space. When he caught her hand it surprised her. Still, she didn’t look at him.
“Leila, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
“It’s okay,” she mumbled.
His hand forced her chin up. She met his sad eyes and felt even worse for dredging up what must be painful memories. “No, it’s not. Don’t let people talk to you like that, even if it’s me. Especially if it’s me. I was incredibly rude.”
“I shouldn’t have pried in your personal life.”
“Why not?” Eli said, his smile beginning to return. “I’ve dug all through your personal life.”
“Yes, but I asked you to. You didn’t.”
“Regardless, I didn’t have to bite your head off about it. I apologize.”
Leila smiled up at him. “Fine. I accept. Now we better get going or we’ll miss the beginning and have to wait until intermission.”
That made Eli laugh. Leila loved to hear him laugh, but she wasn’t sure why he was laughing until he spoke. “You looked up the rules for attending the symphony, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” she said, grinning. “They have a question and answer section on their website about bringing kids, what to wear, and when to arrive. It was very helpful.”
“Good girl, and you’re right. Let’s go.”
The trip back down was a bit more harried than the trip up, and thank goodness for Eli’s driving skills or they wouldn’t have made it on time. They were practically running into the theater when they finally arrived. Vance and Stephanie were anxiously waiting for them in the lobby as the other patrons filed into the hall.
“Where have you been?” Vance demanded. “I told you to get here early.”
“Sorry, I had to stop back by my apartment on the way,” Eli said. “Are Leo and Julie already inside?”
“Yes, now let’s go.”
Stephanie grabbed Leila’s arm as soon as they started to walk. She wanted to know all about her dress and where she had gotten it from. Stephanie tended to prattle, but Leila didn’t mind. The conversation was one-sided enough that when Eli and Vance starting speaking behind them she heard every word.
“What was so important you almost missed the first half?” Vance demanded. Leila was surprised at his irritation. Guys usually complained about coming to events like this, but perhaps Vance truly enjoyed the symphony.
“I accidentally made Leila self-conscious about not wearing any jewelry, so I ran by my apartment to get the pearls for her.”
“The pearls?” He asked it as a question, but then his voice changed, becoming honestly stunned. “The pearls?”
“Yes, and I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
“But, Eli … your mother’s pearls?”
“I said I don’t want to discuss it,” Eli snapped.
Vance sighed. “We’ll talk about this next week.” Eli had no reply for that.
Leila’s hand drifted up to the pearls as she answered another one of Stephanie’s fashion related questions. She was able to hold her own in the conversation, but inwardly she was worried. Why would Vance be so upset about Eli lending her the pearls?
The sudden pressure of Eli’s hand on the small of her back made Leila jump. Eli’s mouth appearing next to her ear didn’t help. “These are our seats,” he said.
She let Vance get in ahead of her so he could sit next to Stephanie, but ended up sitting between him and Eli because of it. The tension between them made her sink into her seat. She had been looking forward to the symphony all week. The idea that she may have ruined the experience for three people—herself included—made her very anxious. She turned to Eli to ask … maybe apologize … she wasn’t sure, and was surprised when she found him smiling. Her eyes whipped over to Vance, only to see him grinning at Stephanie as he whispered something in her ear.
“Are you okay?” Eli asked.
Almost, she asked him what Vance had been so upset about, but she swallowed her curiosity now that they seemed to have put it behind them. “Yes, I’m fine.” She rubbed absently at her arm, a nervous habit, as she tried to turn her words into the truth.
“Are you cold?” Eli asked.
“No, no. I’m fine, really.”
Eli didn’t look convinced. That was probably because Leila wasn’t convinced, either. “Well, if you need my jacket, just let me know.”
“Thank you.” She smiled, knowing Eli meant it.
That was why his behavior tonight seemed so odd. He was a very open person, but apparently not when it came to his mother. Leila knew it was none of her business, but she also knew Eli was hiding something about his mother. The why of what he was hiding was a concern, but knowing that it now had something to do with her worried her most of all.
Chapter 14
Not Entirely Altruistic
Walking into Vance’s office had never been so anxiety ridden for Eli. He had half expected his friend to show up at his door Sunday morning to discuss the pearls. True to his word, Vance waited until their regular session. The fact that he hadn’t called during the week was a telling sign. The two usually talked regularly, and Vance’s silence left Eli feeling wary as he sat down across from his friend.
Most of their sessions started off with Vance clapping him on the back and asking Eli how his week had been. This session began with Vance folding his arms across his chest and voicing a demand rather than a question. “Tell me about the pearls.”
Eli sighed and sunk into the armchair. “Tell you what? I lent them to Leila. She returned them after the symphony and they went back into the box.”
“The box, that unti
l that night, they hadn’t left since you found out about your mom.”
Vance didn’t miss the way Eli’s fingers dug into the armrests. Eli saw how his friend’s left eye twitched, something it often did when he was upset. At least they were on even ground.
“Eli, did you manipulate the situation so you could see Leila wearing the pearls?”
The shock Eli felt at his friend’s question was profound. “What? No! Why would you say something like that?”
Vance held up his hands in a pacifying gesture. “Look, I had to ask. You’re fixated on her, and capable of doing something like that.”
“I didn’t manipulate anything,” Eli said angrily. “And I’m not fixated on her.”
“You think about her constantly. Your entire day revolves around finding opportunities to see and talk to her. You’ve talked to me about her almost exclusively for the past month.” Vance looked at his friend seriously, but with the hint of a smile. “You’re happy, too.”
“So?”
The hostile posture Vance had been holding began to soften. “So you’re either developing an unhealthy fixation on Leila, or you’re in love with her.”
Eli did not respond, and Vance let him sit in silence for several long minutes. Maybe he knew his friend wasn’t ready to answer. Or it might have been that he was sick of waiting. Either way, he moved on. The new topic was hardly any easier for Eli to discuss.
“How did Leila end up wearing your mother’s pearls?”
Scrubbing his hands through his hair, Eli stared at the carpet. “When I saw her walk out of her building, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. She was so beautiful.” He paused. “I don’t know why I noticed she wasn’t wearing a necklace.”
“Yes, you do,” Vance argued.
Eli’s head dropped into his hands. Yes, he did. He took notice of Leila’s bare neck right away because every time his mother took him to the symphony as a child, she wore the pearls. His dad had given them to her on their wedding day. The symphony had been their favorite place to go, and it was the only time she removed her most prized possession from the velvet box. Not seeing a string of pearls around Leila’s neck when he picked her up stood out right away to him.
“I made the mistake of mentioning her lack of jewelry,” Eli said.
“And she had none of her own?”
Eli shook his head. “She said nothing she had looked right. She hardly ever wears jewelry, and what she does have are items Ana has given her, nothing meant for the symphony.”
“What made you consider the pearls?”
“That’s what they were meant for, weren’t they?” Eli growled under his breath. He wasn’t even speaking to Vance. His anger was directed at his mother. Vance didn’t even seem to know what he meant by the comment.
“Pearls are meant to be worn? That’s a pretty weak excuse, considering everything.”
Eli was surprised he even heard him. His question finally caused him to look up at his friend. “That’s not what I meant,” he said with a sigh. “The pearls, they were meant to be passed down. She wanted … ” Eli’s hands curled into fists. “She said she wanted me to give them to my wife someday, but we both know what a lie that was, don’t we?”
“Eli, let’s try to stay focused on Leila today, alright?”
Nodding, he desperately tried to shove away thoughts of his mother, of his anger at her.
“What made you give Leila the pearls?” Vance asked. “They obviously evoke a whole horde of difficult emotions for you. Why bring all of that to life?”
He pondered the question. Leaning back into his seat, a thought occurred to him then that he hadn’t noticed at the time he was placing the pearls on Leila. “You know, it wasn’t hard like I thought it would be.”
That comment perked Vance up considerably. “What do you mean?”
“When the thought first occurred to me to lend Leila the pearls, I got excited about seeing her wear them. On the ride over, I started to doubt myself, and I’ll admit that taking them out of the closet took me a good ten minutes. I didn’t even want to touch the box.”
“Then why didn’t you stop? Leila wouldn’t have cared, I’m sure,” Vance said.
Eli smiled. “Because I wanted to see her wear them.”
“You wanted to move on.”
Brushing away his friend’s comment—Eli didn’t want to talk shop right then—he looked at Vance. “Despite the emotions connected to the pearls, to my mother, it meant a lot for me to see Leila wearing them. I wanted to see them and have a better memory.”
The thoughts forming in his head brought a more profound smile to Eli’s mouth. “I know my mother never intended me to actually find someone and have a real life, but for so long, that was what I believed. I would see her wearing the pearls and know that one day I would be walking into the symphony with my wife wearing them. When I put the pearls on Leila, I felt like that innocent childhood dream I clung to for so long had life again. The pearls weren’t about my mother and her past. They were about my future.”
“How did it feel seeing the pearls on Leila?”
The tension he had been holding mellowed. Eli finally felt himself relaxing. “It felt great. She looked beautiful in them, didn’t she?”
“Yes, she did,” Vance agreed, smiling at his friend.
Leila looked beautiful without the pearls. She looked beautiful even when she was grumpy with bed hair at seven in the morning when they ran together. But with the pearls, she was a treasured vision, because in that moment, she erased so much of his pain and replaced it with her warmth without even knowing.
“So, back to my earlier question,” Vance said, “is Leila becoming an unhealthy fixation, or are you in love with her.”
With the question posed again, Eli couldn’t refuse to answer. His head fell back into his hands as he groaned. “I’m definitely in love with her.” He shook his head then looked back up at Vance. “What am I going to do?”
“Tell her, you idiot!” Vance stared at him like he had just said the most obvious thing in the world.
“Are you kidding me? Ana would kill me, for one. She’s in a relationship with Luke, for two. And three, I can’t tell her until I’ve helped her,” Eli argued.
Vance threw a pen at Eli’s head. Eli dodged the missile easily enough, but his friend’s insistence annoyed him. Vance was pretty annoyed himself. “You have got to be the stupidest person I have ever met.”
“Do you throw things at all your patients and call them stupid?” Eli shot at him.
“Only the ones that deserve it.”
Eli shook his head. “There’s no way.”
“Why not? All Ana wants is for Leila to be happy. Can you make Leila happy?”
That was all he wanted out of life lately. “Yes, but … ”
“This Luke character, they’ve been one what, three dates?”
“Four,” Eli grudgingly admitted.
Vance rolled his eyes. “Wow, that definitely means they’re on the road to spending the rest of their lives together. You’re the one who told me you didn’t see the relationship lasting because you thought Luke’s adventure enthusiasm was going to push the limit too far at some point and cause problems.”
“Well, yeah, but look how much Leila has already tried because of him!” Eli argued. “She’s been excited to try new things. Maybe their relationship will work out fine. I don’t know! How can I step in and ruin something that may be a good thing for her?”
“Because you love her,” Vance said frankly.
“She wants to be with Luke right now.”
Sitting back into his leather arm chair, Vance pressed his lips together. Eli knew that meant he had something to say, but didn’t know if he should, didn’t know what effect his words would have. Eli had seen that look dozens of times on his friend while working with patients. Eli squared his shoulders. He wasn’t letting Vance get out of telling him now. Having recognized that, Vance relented.
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“If Leila knew you were interested, Luke would only be a memory.”
“What?” Eli demanded.
Vance frowned. Apparently that was the reaction he had been hoping to avoid, but he continued anyway. “Leila obviously won’t let herself believe you would ever be interested in her. You’ve already established she has confidence issues. She sees you as a friend because you’ve told her that’s what you are, but I can guarantee you she wishes it were different.”
“No, she sees me as a mentor or something.”
“That’s all she’ll let herself see you as.” Vance leaned forward, elbows on his knees, fingers laced together. “Don’t you see the way her eyes follow you? She smiles every time you’re near her. Sometimes her fingers twitch because she wants to touch you, but she thinks she shouldn’t. When she looks at you there’s a calmness that settles over her. She wants you …”
“… but she doesn’t see a future with me as a reality so she dismisses it as soon as the idea forms,” Eli finished. He wasn’t admitting Vance was right—he still had his doubts—but if he was, he knew Leila was doing exactly as they guessed.
While Vance looked eager that his assessment would inspire his friend to take his advice, Eli rubbed a hand across his forehead. “And that only backs up my third reason. I can’t tell her, not until she sees herself as someone who is good enough to land any guy she wants. She’s such an amazing person. I don’t want to have to convince her she should be with me.”
At that, Vance sat back in his chair. His eagerness backed off. “You’re a better man than me, Eli,” he said. “I’d just tell her and hope for the best. I couldn’t take the torture you’re putting yourself through.”
It was a compliment, but his words made Eli wonder. Talking about his mother had brought up memories he had kept tucked away for a long time. Part of him wondered if his unwillingness to tell Leila how he felt about her had more to do with his mother than chivalry.
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