The Look of Love: A Novel

by Sarah Jio

  I smile at him. “Don’t take that too personally,” I say, hesitating for a moment. Should I tell him? “I think she . . . likes you.”

  Mel’s eyes widen. “No, there’s no way she likes me. I am a humble street vendor. And she probably grew up in a palace.”

  I shake my head. “None of that matters, and you know that. I still think she likes you.”

  “You’re just being kind, Jane,” he says. “It’s OK. A man knows when he’s out of his league.”

  “I don’t think you are,” I say. “She just doesn’t know how she feels yet. You have to be patient.”

  He looks intrigued, and I hope I haven’t given him false hope, but my eyes don’t lie; at least, I don’t think they do.

  “OK,” I say, squeezing his hand. “I’m off.” I walk a few paces, then turn back to face him. “By the way, love the bow tie!”

  He tugs at the edges, cinching the knot tighter, and casts an appreciative smile my way.

  As I walk, I scroll through my Facebook mobile newsfeed and see that Mary’s just announced her pregnancy. Beneath the sonogram photo are dozens of comments from elated family members and friends, peppered with Mary’s gleeful responses. But between the lines, beyond the smiley faces and emoticons, I can sense my friend’s deepest sadness.

  I call her immediately. “I just saw the Facebook post,” I say. “Let’s pray to God this child looks like you.”

  “Thanks,” Mary says. I can tell she’s been crying.

  “You hanging in there?”

  “Trying,” she says.

  I hear a loud banging sound in the background. “What’s that?”

  “Oh, it’s just Luca,” she says.

  “Luca?”

  “He’s my contractor. I’m remodeling my kitchen, remember?”

  “Oh, that’s right,” I say.

  “Yeah, I’m living in a construction zone. Dust everywhere. Doing the dishes in the bathtub. And Luca’s English isn’t good. But it’s weird, Jane; I really like having him around. I actually don’t know what I’d do if he weren’t here right now when I’m missing Eli so acutely.”

  “Good,” I say. “I’m glad he’s giving you some comfort.”

  I hear her crying now. “Jane,” she says in a weak voice, “how long do you think it takes for a heart to heal?”

  “Oh, honey. You will heal. In time.”

  “But how long do you think it will take? Because, Jane, I’m not sure I’m strong enough to walk around with this gash in my heart forever. God, I feel like I’m leaving a trail of blood all over Seattle.”

  “It won’t be forever,” I assure her. “I promise you that.” I pause for a moment and remember the way Mom grieved after my father left. “My mom used to say that for every year you loved someone, it takes a month to recover.”

  Mary sighs. “Nine years. Which means by the time I have this baby, I might be myself again.”

  “Not might, Mary, will. You will be yourself again. You can’t see this now, but I can. Every runner who ever starts a race cannot see the finish line. But it’s there; it’s out there. Just trust.”

  “Thanks, Jane,” she says. “Come over sometime, OK? I’ll show you the kitchen, and we can eat takeout on paper plates.”

  I arrive at Il Bistro five minutes early. The quiet Italian restaurant tucked beneath the street has been in the market almost as long as my flower shop. There is wisdom in the walls of long-standing establishments. I walk in and hang my coat on a rack near the door, and I think of all the proposals and breakups and declarations of love that have happened in this space. I see Cam at the bar, and I wave to him.

  “Hi,” he says, closing his laptop, then sliding a glass of whiskey my way. I take a sip.

  “Working at the bar, huh?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Big deadline tomorrow. Just finishing it up. How was your day?”

  “Interesting,” I reply.

  The bartender walks over. “Can I get you anything, miss?”

  “A Manhattan, please.”

  “And why was your day so interesting?” Cam asks.

  “Well, for starters, I drank champagne in a bridal shop.”

  He looks intrigued. “I take it this isn’t an everyday occurrence?”

  I grin. “No, not exactly.”

  “I’ve been thinking about you a lot,” he says, eyes fixed on me.

  “And I’ve been thinking about you.”

  His eyes widen. “What about?”

  “Well, lots of things,” I reply. My eyes scan the bar as I collect my thoughts. “I have this feeling that I hardly know you. You definitely know more about me than I do about you.”

  He folds his arms across his chest. “Then what can I tell you?”

  “Your career,” I say. “You hardly talk about it. And yet, I’ve looked up your stuff online, and you’re a pretty big deal in the world of science reporting. Why didn’t you tell me that you won a Pulitzer?”

  “Shy, I guess,” Cam says, grinning.

  “You are the last person I’d call shy.”

  “Well, would you have preferred that I bragged about it on our first date?”

  “Good point,” I say. “And what about you and past relationships? Have you ever dated someone long-term? Ever been in love?”

  “Ah,” he says. “The elusive topic of love.”

  “That’s right. You don’t believe in love; let’s not let this fact slip our minds.”

  “That’s not true,” he says. “I told you I believe that love is a choice. It’s about choosing and doing rather than just feeling.”

  “Ah, so you acknowledge that there is a feeling associated with love?”

  “I guess there is truth in that, yes,” Cam says with a brief conciliatory smile.

  “And when have you felt that . . .”

  “Feeling,” we both say in unison, and I feel my cheeks burn and my heart rate quicken.

  I think of what Flynn told me about the death of the woman Cam once loved, and I instantly feel guilty about prying.

  “Her name was Joanna,” he says, clearing his throat in a way that tells me the very sound of her name still moves him, deeply.

  I place my hand on his wrist. “It’s OK,” I say. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I didn’t mean to—”

  “I want to go on,” he says softly. “I want you to know this side of me.”

  I nod and listen as he tells me about the circumstances of her injury and her eventual death.

  “I guess I feel, in some ways,” he continues, “that by writing about the topics I do, I’m doing her justice.”

  “You are,” I say tenderly. And, at once, it all makes sense: his secrecy, his caution about love.

  “Hey,” Cam says, breaking the silence. “I have to fly back to New York for meetings next week, and then I’ll be on assignment in Chicago the week after, but my parents are flying up for a visit shortly after. And, well, I’d like to introduce them to you. I mean, if that’s OK.”

  “I’d love to meet them,” I say, beaming.

  “I know it’s a little early to ‘meet the parents,’” he says with a grin. “I just don’t have a lot of friends in the city yet, and believe me, you’ll be doing me a favor. If I don’t bring you, I’ll have to endure a one-hour lecture from my mother about why I should be dating a nice girl.”

  I grin. “A nice girl, huh?”

  He returns my smile. “Be my ‘nice girl’ for the night? Please?”

  “I’d be delighted to.”

  He reaches for my hand and when he pulls me toward him, I feel a flutter in my stomach. “Want to get out of here?”

  “Sure,” I say. “Where to?”

  “My apartment’s just up the block, and I have a balcony,” he says. “Want to order takeout and watch the ferries c
ome and go?”

  “Yes,” I say, smiling. “That sounds nice.”

  On the walk to Cam’s apartment, Flynn calls. “It’s my brother,” I say apologetically. “I’ll just be a sec.”

  “No problem,” Cam says, stepping back a bit on the sidewalk.

  “Hi, Flynn,” I say into the phone.

  “How’s my favorite sister?”

  “Good,” I say. “I’m with Cam.”

  “Put him on the line. I want to get his word that he’s doing right by you.”

  I glance at Cam, whose eyes are fixed on his phone. I watch as the muscles in his forearms flex as he rapidly types a text or an e-mail. I can’t help but wonder who the recipient might be.

  “He’s not available to talk just now, but I want to know when you get that promise out of him,” I say. “How’s everything with you? Who’s the latest lady in your life?”

  He pauses for a moment. “I’m not dating anyone.”

  “My brother, with no love interests? This can’t be true.” I laugh. “Wait, are you still obsessing over the girl in the apartment across the street?”

  His silence tells me my hunch is correct.

  “You are! Have you met her yet? Tell me you have at least taken this flirtation to real life.”

  “I haven’t met her yet,” he says. “And this is going to make zero sense, Jane, but I’m afraid to meet her. What we have is so intense from afar. I’m worried that if we were to meet, neither of us would live up to each other’s expectations.”

  “So you’ll just continue to flirt with her from your window until the end of time?”

  “No,” he says. “I mean, I don’t know. I’m worried about her. She always seems so sad. I would give anything to take away some of that sadness from her.”

  “Then knock on her door.”

  Cam lives on the corner of Cedar and Elliott, in a new apartment building with dark hardwood floors and big windows that open onto a balcony overlooking Elliott Bay. “You’re so neat,” I say as I walk into his living room, which consists of a black leather sofa, a side chair, and a coffee table with three remote controls arranged in parallel formation. Even the decorative pillow on the chair seems to stand in submission.

  “Not really,” he says. “I don’t own a lot of stuff, have a great cleaning lady, and am not home a lot. The neat-apartment trifecta.”

  I walk to the window. “The views are amazing from up here.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “They are pretty great. I didn’t expect to like Seattle as much as I do.”

  “The city gets under your skin, doesn’t it?”

  Cam uncorks a bottle of wine, pours two glasses, and walks to the balcony, where he stands beside me and offers me a glass. Our eyes meet. “You’ve gotten under my skin too,” he says, reaching for my hand. I let him take it. “In the best of ways.”

  I take a sip of wine and smile. “Thank you.”

  His cell phone buzzes on the kitchen counter.

  “It’s OK if you want to take that,” I say.

  He makes an annoyed face in the direction of his phone. “I don’t want to, but I probably should. I’ve been trying to track down a very important source all week, and this could be him.”

  I smile. “Go ahead.”

  He picks up the phone. “This is Cameron Collins,” he says in a confident, businesslike tone. I love his voice, so confident and, well, sexy. “Yes, hi. Thank you so much for calling.” He casts an apologetic glance at me and then holds up two fingers as if to say, “Just two minutes.”

  I nod as he walks to his bedroom down the hall. His voice is muffled from behind the partially closed door, but the intensity in his tone comes through.

  He returns five minutes later, looking harried and distracted. “Sorry,” he says.

  “I’m enjoying the view,” I say, reaching for his hand in an attempt to regain the closeness the call interrupted. “Thank you for telling me about . . . Joanna earlier.”

  “I wanted to tell you,” he continues, sitting beside me. “It’s important that you know the circumstances that have molded me.” He’s thoughtful for a moment. “You know, she was going to have surgery. A potentially life-saving surgery, one that could have cured her, but she passed away three days before the scheduled operation.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I say in a hushed voice.

  He rubs his forehead. “Yeah, you mentioned that your neurologist was in favor of your having surgery. I have to be honest and say that, well, I’m worried about you. What if surgery really could prevent the type of cognitive decline your doctors are worried about?”

  I sigh. “For now, I’m not ready to have the operation. Of course, Dr. Heller thinks I’m foolish, and you probably do too.”

  “I don’t,” he says. “But you know that I side with science. Still, it’s your decision, Jane, and no one else’s.”

  I nod. “I know it sounds crazy, but I believe that what I see is real.”

  “You mean, your gift, your ability to see love?”

  “Yes,” I say. “It’s a gut feeling. And even in the face of Dr. Heller’s warnings about the damage these episodes may be doing to my brain, I know I must complete my process.”

  Cam looks inquisitive. “You mean, identify the six types of love?”

  “Yes.”

  He leans closer to me. “Do you ever wish that you could see love in your own life?”

  “Yes,” I reply. “It would make things a whole lot easier, wouldn’t it?”

  “Maybe, maybe not.” He looks away suddenly and rubs his hand through his dark hair.

  “Why do you say that?”

  He shakes his head. “It’s nothing.”

  “No,” I say, a little more firmly than I intended. “Tell me what’s bothering you.”

  He looks at me, hesitant at first. His eyes soften. “She didn’t know me in the end,” he says. “After all those years of loving her, of caring for her, she didn’t even know me.”

  “But it was her illness,” I say. “Not her heart.”

  “That’s what I tell myself,” he says. “But I looked into her eyes in the end, and there was no love there.”

  “Surely she loved you, deep down,” I reassure him. “She just couldn’t access it anymore. She was ill.”

  He nods. “And yet it’s nagged at me all these years, how love is like a switch that can be turned on and off with the flick of a finger. If it can be illuminated and then darkened so quickly, effortlessly, how can you trust it?”

  “Oh, Cam,” I say, reaching for his hand again. He takes it in his.

  I inch closer to him. “I want to kiss you.”

  He smiles and leans toward me. His skin smells of soap, fabric softener, and man. “Thank you for telling me your story,” I say. “I think I understand you now.”

  “I still don’t believe in all the voodoo,” he says, grinning. “And I may side with your doctor about there being a medical explanation—”

  I place my finger on his lips. “Let’s agree to disagree. For now, I just want to kiss you.”

  He smiles bigger, then pulls my hand to his mouth and kisses it softly, before cupping my cheeks in his hands and pulling my mouth toward his. He kisses me softly at first, then with a surge of intensity, and for a moment, I forget the season, the month, the day of the week. I am entwined with Cam, and he with me.

  Chapter 13

  342 Pine Street #4

  Mel stares at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. It is the first of June, and he misses his late wife, as he always does this time of the year, when birds are chirping and couples walk hand in hand through the market. He can see her there, the way she used to be, standing behind him in the mirror, arms lovingly wrapped around his shoulders. The mirage feels so real, he swears he can smell her perfume.

  As he walks to the elevator, through
the lobby of his apartment building, and out to the street, he thinks of Adele. The two were married the first weekend of June fifty years ago, and he is sorely aware of this fact when he sees a wedding party in the distance, posing in front of the iconic Pike Place Market sign. He smiles and waves at the bride in a fluffy white dress, walking in heels along the Market’s cobblestones, with her new husband beside her. A photographer follows behind, documenting their love in all its perfection.

  Adele always loved weddings. She’d place her hand on her heart, and the other in Mel’s hand, and say, “Look at them, dear. Aren’t they beautiful?”

  She was special, Adele. She could read him like a book, and even when she came across an unsavory passage, she never once set the book back on the shelf. She adored the story of their love, even the rocky chapters.

  High school sweethearts don’t often last, but Mel and Adele stood the test of time. And when her cancer came, Mel faced it fiercely. He could not fathom the idea of letting a disease take the love of his life. But it did. First it took her body, whittling her away to a mere ninety pounds. Then it took her mind, ravaging her brain, until she no longer recognized him.

  Adele had died on June 2, eight years before. She took her last breath at a quarter past nine. Mel held her hand and watched her eyelids flutter for the last time, then crawled into her hospital bed and held her for hours, until her body grew cold beside his and the hospital staff told him he must go.

  The night of her death, Mel went home to the apartment they had shared above the market, and for the first time, he felt like a stranger in his own home. Without Adele, home felt like a hollow place. Where there was once love and laughter, there was only sadness, grief. He couldn’t bear to sleep in their queen-size bed with the quilt Adele had lovingly made. Instead, he retreated to the couch, where he has slept for the past eight years.

  Sometimes, even now, and especially on warm June days, he expects her to round the corner and appear in the distance, smiling. She’d hand him a sandwich, kiss him, and ask when he’d be home for dinner, though he was home for dinner at five o’clock sharp each day. She never got tired of asking him, and he never got tired of telling her. “When will you be home for dinner, dear?” “Five o’clock, darling.”