Page 74 of Ten Years and Then…
He hadn’t even been thinking about Nora until this instant. But he had to give her something—something special. Something she’d always carry with her, always remember him by. She was in his heart; he had to make sure she’d have something of him with her no matter where she went.
Bianca gave him a blank look. “Mont Blanc, like the fancy pens?”
Daniel pointed at the window—the Mont Blanc boutique. “Let’s go in.”
“This place is really expensive, Daniel. Are you sure?”
One other thing he’d never told Bianca: two years ago, when his father had told him about the summer job in Pittsburgh and how much it would pay, he’d mentally set aside $1,500 to buy a proper gift for Nora. And even after they broke up, he’d kept that money set aside. He couldn’t even say why he had, but now he knew. It was for this moment.
He went all through the store; he had no idea there were so many kinds of pens, or so many designs. But in the end he decided something simple and classic was best. It was black with a cap and gold accents—real gold.
“I think this one,” he told the sales clerk, an older man in a well-tailored suit.
“Are you certain, sir? It is $720, plus tax.”
Daniel just stared at him. “Yes, I saw the price.”
Bianca stared at him. “Daniel, that’s a lot of money. I know this girl helped you with the job offer …”
“No, it’s not for her. It’s for Nora. And I was ready to spend twice that much on her.” He turned back to the clerk. “I’ll take that, and let’s get two—no, three refills. I wouldn’t want her to run out of ink. And I believe you’ll engrave it?”
The clerk nodded, not looking Daniel in the eye. Well, it was his own fault for making assumptions.
There was one problem, though—the little sign announcing free engraving also said you could only have twenty characters on the pen. That wasn’t really very much space for a message. “Bee, I need your help with this. It has to be short, but it has to say everything.”
It took fifteen minutes for them to come up with a message he was satisfied with. He gave it to the clerk and then remembered that his original goal was a gift for Valerie, and that still wasn’t accomplished.
“I need one more thing. Another gift. I think …” He looked over to Bianca. “What about—I think I saw business card holders. She’s about to graduate, she’ll need that, right?”
“You’re crazy, Daniel. Buying an expensive gift for one ex-girlfriend is nuts already, but for two of them?”
“It’s my money, Bee. And they both deserve it. So what do you think? Business card holder, yes or no?”
“Yes. And I’d better get something fantastic from you at Christmas this year, Danny. Remember, I’ve loved you way longer than Nora or Valerie or anybody else.”
He hugged her. “Count on it, Bee.”
He found a pink leather card holder that he thought Valerie would love, and they personalized that, too—although there was only room for her initials, and he’d had to wrack his brain to remember the one time she’d mentioned her middle name. “You can put VAV—Valerie Angelica Vance.”
When he finally checked out, between both gifts and the pen refills and sales tax, he ended up spending over $1,200. But they were both worth it.
And even if they didn’t appreciate it—impossible as that seemed—it was worth it because he’d kept a promise to himself.
That was worth everything in the world.
Chapter 23
Graduation Eve—Albion College
Daniel, May 14
“She’s the girl you bought the card holder for? You never said she was a lawyer!”
Daniel stood with Bianca on the edge of East Capitol Park, in the shadow of the state capitol. It seemed fitting that the Albany College of Law had their graduation here. And on the makeshift stage only feet from the capitol steps right now, Valerie Vance was receiving her diploma.
Daniel clapped for her, even though the audience had been instructed not to cheer for individual graduates but to wait until the end of the ceremony. And even from a couple of hundred feet away, she heard, and saw him, and smiled.
“Technically, I don’t think she’s a lawyer until she passes the bar exam. But, yeah. That’s her.”
