Valentine's Dream: Love Changes EverythingSweet SensationMade in Heaven

by Sandra Kitt

  “Do you love her?” she asked quietly.

  “In more ways than I’d ever be able to express.”

  Val would have asked him to try expressing a couple of those ways, but the houselights dimmed, signaling that the previews and the feature film were about to begin. By his own admission, Eric was a romantic. Netanya Gardner was romance and femininity personified to the nth degree. Like Eric, her business was romance. Val really wanted to dislike the woman, but she couldn’t. Netanya, gentle, sweet soul that she was, had been friendly and helpful from the very first.

  Val couldn’t compete with the years-long commitment they had to each other. If Eric knew the intimate contents of the woman’s closet, there had to be more to their relationship than friendship. They’d had years to cultivate their romance. And here Val was falling in love with the man.

  Falling in love?

  Val took in his chiseled profile, the one bushy eyebrow she could see from where she sat next to him, the smooth skin. She glanced down at the large, well-formed hands that had stroked her until she whimpered. Those physical things she appreciated, but she also liked his easy smile, his gentle but sometimes wicked humor, his love of fun, and the proud way he carried himself.

  Falling in love? Yes, and with a man who loved another woman.

  While Eric and the other people in the audience laughed at the highlights of a movie preview, Val felt positively glum.

  But, she reasoned as the opening credits to the romantic comedy began, if Eric loved Netanya, why was he out with her? They have an open relationship, the voice of doubt quickly supplied.

  She sighed. Seeing no use in fretting over the issue right then, Val decided to sit back and try to enjoy the film. She’d talk to him about it after the show.

  In the darkened theater Eric’s hand sought hers. He weaved his fingers through hers and gently squeezed her hand.

  Maybe everything would be all right, Val thought. She then turned her full attention to the movie.

  About two hours later they left the cinema laughing and chatting about the movie. By mutual agreement they’d decided to see two films, Eric’s romantic comedy first, then Val’s action-adventure. They had forty-five minutes to kill before the next showing and decided to grab a bite to eat at a rotisserie chicken restaurant adjacent to the theater.

  Settled at their table, Val steeled herself to ask him about Netanya. But before she could articulate the question in her head and get it out of her mouth, Eric picked up their earlier conversation.

  “I never did finish answering your question about my definition of romance,” he said. Eric broke off a piece of a sweet corn muffin and contemplated Val. He smiled easily. “I’ve given it some thought.”

  “And?”

  “And romance is what each person makes it. If two people madly in love think it’s romantic to walk in the rain, wallow in the mud together or rob a bank together, it’s romance.”

  “Rob a bank? That’s not romantic, that’s criminal.”

  “But maybe the criminal couple considers it romantic.”

  Val was having trouble with the concept. “And what if the two people’s notions of romance differ?”

  Eric thought about that for a moment. “I don’t know. Tell me your definition of romance.”

  She realized with a wry smile that she didn’t have one. “I think I’m deficient in that department. I know I’m deficient in that department. For so long, Eric, I’ve been bombarded with the idea that my name and my birthday automatically signified I’d be a romantic. If anything, those assumptions helped reinforce the fact that I’m not.”

  She looked away shyly, then peeped at him. “It wasn’t until yesterday that I realized how pretty pink roses are,” she said quietly.

  Eric picked up her hand and placed a kiss in her palm.

  They ate for a few minutes. Then Eric wiped his mouth with a napkin. “How is it you’re single?”

  “I was wondering the same thing about you,” she said.

  “You first.”

  Val smiled. “I guess I’m one of those women who looked up one day and realized I’d forgotten something. After college I was so busy trying to find myself and my place in the world that I didn’t even consider marriage. It wasn’t until recently,” she said, “that I began missing what I didn’t have.”

  Eric gazed in her eyes. “Recently?”

  Val simply nodded.

  Eric shifted in his seat. “I’ve been so busy building up my business that I didn’t even consider it. Until recently,” he added. “I’ve always known I’d get married, have children. I just didn’t write it on the goal sheets to check off along the way.”

  Val smiled. “How many kids do you want?”

  Eric shrugged. “I never really thought about that either. I have this mental photograph of me, a wife and children. There’s no specific number, just more than one. What about you?”

  “I’m an only child and I always missed not having brothers or sisters. So I’ve always wondered about a houseful, three, four, five. Whatever the market bears.”

  Eric smiled. “You’d be a terrific mom.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you’re a terrific lady.”

  Val smiled at the compliment.

  “I like the idea of three, four or five children,” he said.

  “Do you?”

  Eric’s expression was intent, masculine. She felt his gaze lower to her breasts, and Val wondered if he was thinking the same thought that crossed her mind. The notion of Eric’s baby suckling at her breast didn’t give her pause. It filled her with longing.

  “We’d better head back to the theater,” Eric said quietly.

  Val nodded, rose and took his hand.

  * * *

  Later that night they stood in her doorway.

  “Your shoot-’em-up film was good,” he admitted.

  “Told you.”

  “And what did you think of the romantic comedy?”

  “It made me feel happy,” she said. “I enjoyed tonight. Thank you.”

  “I’m glad. You should always be happy.” Eric inserted her key into the lock and pushed the door open for her.

  “I’ve agreed to spend my birthday with you. Where are we going?”

  “It’s a surprise. You can wait one more day.”

  Val gave him a saucy smile. “What about clothes? Do I need to spin a wheel to determine what to wear? Casual wear? Business attire?”

  Eric laughed. “You’ll get no clues from me. Dress special.”

  She eyed him speculatively. “What does that mean?”

  Eric leaned over and kissed her on her cheek. “It means whatever you interpret special to mean.”

  “Hmm” was all she said.

  Eric laughed. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Eric,” she said, taking his hand.

  “Yes?”

  Val leaned toward him. Capturing his chin in her soft hands, she kissed him slowly, tenderly on the lips. “Good night.”

  With that, she slipped in her door.

  * * *

  The one concession Val always made to her birthday was in taking the day off from work. She got up, dressed and was about to start misting and watering her plants, when the doorbell rang.

  She grinned.

  When she opened the door, a floral delivery driver thrust a clipboard at her. “Happy Valentine’s Day, ma’am.”

  Val signed the sheet and accepted the delivery. The package was covered in layers of dark green floral tissue. She brought it inside, placed it on the breakfast bar, and ripped the paper off.

  “Oh!”

  The elaborate flower arrangement consisted of an assortment of cut flowers, baby’s breath and greens. Val searched for the card. Eagerly, she opened the tiny envelope. She read the note and a puzzled frown marred her face. The card simply read YOU. Val flipped it over, looking for more message. She then searched through the tissue paper and peered through the blooms, trying to find more informati
on about the sender. She found nothing.

  “What in the world does YOU mean?” she asked out loud. But the pretty flowers offered no response.

  Val decided to leave the arrangement on the breakfast bar. She glanced at the note again, then placed it on the counter.

  “YOU. Hmm.”

  Thinking about the card and the flowers, she completed watering the green plants and cutting back dead leaves. She’d just pulled out potting soil to transplant some cuttings, when her doorbell rang again.

  “Hi, again,” the floral driver said. Val signed the clipboard and accepted a small white box from him.

  She had the box half open before she closed the door and got to the sofa. Tucked inside the box and protected by tissue paper was a mug with the words Pretty Woman scripted in calligraphy around the cup. A small assortment of herbal teas padded the box. Val found the card and opened it.

  BRING

  “What does BRING mean?” Val looked at the mug and the teas, then got up and carried the items and the small card to the breakfast bar.

  “You bring. You bring what?”

  Could the mystery packages be from Eric? Val couldn’t quite imagine Shelley and Kalinda doing anything like this. She and her parents had a lunch appointment at twelve-thirty. Try as she might, she didn’t believe her folks to be behind the presents. This just wasn’t their style.

  Val left the second card on the counter next to the first one. She turned on her stereo, then went back to puttering with her plants. An hour later, at eleven o’clock, the doorbell rang. Val glanced at the gifts on her counter, then went to the door.

  This time she didn’t recognize the delivery person.

  “Miss Val Sanders?”

  “Yes.”

  “Delivery for you. Sign here, please.”

  Val scrawled her name on the form, then accepted the vase full of daisies. The whimsical flowers made her smile.

  The small white card, obviously the third in a series, read SUNSHINE,. Val looked at the comma after the word and tried to figure out the odd punctuation. With a delicate finger she gently touched the edge of a daisy, then placed the vase on the counter area near the sink. The card she carried to the breakfast bar. But before she could settle on a barstool, the doorbell rang.

  Val laughed out loud. “This is great!”

  The new arrangement had an obvious Valentine’s Day theme. A balloon with HAPPY BIRTHDAY/HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY on it was tucked into the display, as were red paper hearts.

  Val placed the arrangement on an end table in the living room. She found herself unaccountably pleased to read not a solitary bold word on the card but a cheery birthday and Valentine’s Day greeting from her folks. If Eric was indeed behind the earlier deliveries, he’d steered clear so far of the Valentine’s Day theme. She liked that.

  Half an hour later she was ironing the blouse she’d wear to the lunch appointment with her parents, when the doorbell rang yet again.

  “You must have done something awfully special,” the delivery driver said, as he handed her the clipboard.

  Val laughed. “No. It’s my birthday.”

  “No fooling. That’s nice to have a birthday on Valentine’s Day,” he said as he traded the clipboard for a medium-size gold-colored box.

  “This doesn’t look like flowers,” Val said, accepting the box.

  The man shrugged. “They just pay me to do deliveries. I don’t question the contents.”

  “Let me get you something for your trouble,” Val said.

  “Nosiree, ma’am. That’s been taken care of. You have a good one. And happy birthday to you.”

  “Thank you.” Val closed the door and went to the sofa.

  Hidden inside the box were sinfully delicious Godiva chocolates. “Oh, Eric, you do know the way to a woman’s heart,” Val said as she selected a chocolate and bit into it.

  The card read JOY,.

  “Okay, Val. The mystery sentence now reads: You bring sunshine, joy,. At least the punctuation makes a little more sense.”

  Val picked up the telephone and called Shelley. When she got her friend’s answering machine, she remembered Shelley was at work. Valentine’s Day wasn’t a holiday that closed down the college where Shelley was on the faculty.

  Val left a message. “Call me when you get in. You are not going to believe what Eric has been doing all morning.”

  Before Val left for lunch with her parents, she received two more deliveries. A golden pothos plant with a big yellow bow arrived with the card AND. And the word LAUGHTER accompanied a plush white teddy bear clutching a balloon that read “For your special day.”

  Since her cards now read YOU BRING SUNSHINE, JOY, AND LAUGHTER, Val couldn’t determine if the message had ended. Just in case, she asked the parcel driver to hold any other deliveries that might come until she returned from her appointment.

  She almost canceled out on her parents just to see what else might arrive at her condo. But she didn’t.

  “Darling,” her mother said over dessert. “We have a wonderful surprise for you. Well, actually two,” her mother said, glancing at Quentin and smiling.

  “Turning thirty is a milestone,” Quentin Sanders said. “And it should be treated like one.”

  “We wanted to get something for you that you’d always keep and remember.”

  “So we bought you memories,” Quentin said.

  Val’s confusion was evident. “Memories?”

  Naomi smiled as Quentin handed Val a gaily wrapped slim package. The balloons tied to the back of her chair bobbed as Val pushed the chair back a bit to open the package in her lap. It was awfully light.

  She glanced up at her parents, then ripped through the wrapping. Val opened the lid of the box and peered at a thin layer of tissue. Pulling it back, she lifted an envelope from the box. A photograph of a to-die-for sunset scene off a beach was imprinted on the top of the envelope. Val glanced up at her parents, who beamed at her.

  “Go ahead, darling. Open it,” Naomi said.

  Val opened the envelope. Her eyes widened and she clasped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, my God. Mom, Dad! Are you serious?”

  Naomi grinned and shook her head. “Do you like it?”

  “Like it? I love it!”

  The envelope held airline tickets, destination: Hawaii.

  “But how, why?” Val said, alternately looking at the tickets and at her beaming parents.

  “Darling, we’ve been saving for this for you for years. Your father and I wanted your thirtieth birthday to be very, very special. We spent a beautiful week there before you were born. Hawaii is a place for beautiful memories. Happy birthday, darling.”

  Val’s eyes got damp. She got up and hugged both her parents. “This is very, very nice. Thank you.”

  “We thought about someplace like Jamaica,” Quentin said. “But these days, people go there for weekend getaways. We wanted you to be able to see someplace a little more exotic. The trip is for two, so take who you will with you.”

  “Oh, Dad. This is wonderful. Thank you both so much.” Val dabbed her napkin at the corner of her eye.

  Quentin glanced at Naomi. “We have another surprise for you.”

  Val took her seat and shook her head. “This is more than I ever would have imagined. You can’t top this,” she said, holding up the ticket envelope.

  Naomi handed her another box. This one didn’t have wrapping paper on it.

  Val eyed her parents. “What is it?”

  “Open it and see.”

  Val opened the box and lifted out a sheet of paper, a photocopy of some sort. Val read the paper.

  “Oh, my God!” This time her exclamation drew the curious glances of people at nearby tables. “You two got married! I don’t believe it. My parents got married.”

  Val was out of the chair in a flash and hugging her mother, then her father.

  Naomi held out her left hand for Val to see. A stunning diamond anniversary ring was in the place where her wedding band used to be. Va
l hadn’t even noticed.

  “When? Where? How?” was all Val got out.

  “Last night,” Naomi said.

  “This morning,” Quentin said at the same time.

  The couple looked at each other, then smiled and cuddled. Val went back to her chair. As they all sat, she reached a hand across the table to again look at her mother’s ring. She never would have guessed that her parents were even thinking of getting back together. After years and years of living apart, living separate lives, why this and why now?

  But as Val took in the beaming faces of her parents, she couldn’t begrudge them their renewed happiness.

  “We wanted to get married on Valentine’s Day,” Naomi said.

  “So we did. Just a stroke after midnight,” Quentin explained. Then, with eyes only for Naomi, he added, “I love your mother very, very much. Sometimes it takes being apart to realize just how deeply your love goes.”

  Val shook her head. “You two are really something. I mean, I know you got together from time to time. I just figured you remained friends. How did you manage to pull this off without me knowing?” she asked with a smile.

  Naomi and Quentin shared a smile that only two lovers could understand. “Sometimes you’re given a second chance to make things right,” Naomi said.

  “I don’t think we ever stopped loving each other,” Quentin added. “We just stopped communicating and let little issues become huge obstacles in our relationship.”

  Naomi patted her husband’s hand. “But we know better now, right?”

  In answer, Quentin leaned forward and kissed his wife on the cheek. “You’re my sunshine and my stars.”

  Val’s eyes widened as she thought about something. “You gave me your honeymoon. I can’t take this,” she said, offering her birthday present back to her mother.

  “No, darling. Hawaii is yours. I meant it when I said we’ve been planning that for you for some time.”

  “But you need to go on a second honeymoon,” Val protested.

  “We are,” Quentin said. “We’re just postponing it a bit.”

  Naomi’s smile was charming, girlish. “Your father’s taking me to Paris in the spring.”

  Val’s mouth dropped open. Then she clapped her hands delightedly. “I’m very, very happy for the two of you.”