Page 64 of Single-Minded
Out of breath, I yank the front door open. It’s a delivery guy, with a stunning arrangement of pink peonies. I beam. The last time I got flowers was almost eight months ago, from Michael, on the morning of our anniversary. Yep, three weeks to the day before he told me he was gay.
“Alex Wiggins?” asks the delivery guy.
“That’s me!” I say, a little too enthusiastically. He hands me a clipboard to sign, and when I finish, he hands me the flowers.
“Thanks!” I say, feeling in the pockets of my robe for a tip. “Hang on,” I say. I set the flowers on the kitchen counter and rummage around in my wallet for a five-dollar bill. All I have are two ones and a ten and a couple of twenties.
I grab the ten-dollar bill and hand it to the delivery guy. Why not? I’m in a spectacular mood.
“Thanks, miss,” he says, pocketing the tip. “Thanks very much.”
“Thank you,” I say, quickly closing the door. I can’t wait to read the card to see who sent me the flowers. Every cell in my body hopes the card readsDaniel.
The peonies are beautiful, and the scent is sweetly unexpected, almost rose-like. The florist mixed in a few pale green blooms in the arrangement, and I search around among the flowers looking for the card. At last I find it.
I slip the small card out of the envelope, and my breath catches in my chest as I read the message:
ALEX,
I’M STILL THINKING ABOUT OUR DANCE LAST NIGHT.
DANIEL
I make my way out to the lanai and lay back on the lounge chair, closing my eyes and letting the sun warm my face.
My phone rings and I pick it up to check the caller ID: Daniel Boudreaux.
“Oh Daniel, your flowers just arrived. Thank you. They’re just beautiful. I love peonies.”
“You’re welcome,cher,” he says in his perfectly melodic lilt. Daniel seems to hesitate and then speaks again. Like this brash, confident guy is suddenly shy. “So I was calling, because… would you have dinner with me tonight?”
I sit straight up on the lounge chair. Is this really happening?
“No pressure, of course,” he says suddenly. “I don’t want to assume anything, it’s just after last night I thought you might… consider…”
“Sure, I’d love to have dinner with you,” I say, far more casually than I’m feeling. But I guess jumping up and down and yelling “Woo-hoo” is probably not standard dating protocol, even if it’s your first second date ever. Maybe it is, what do I know? I stand up and dance around on the pool deck in my pajamas, holding the phone away from my mouth so he can’t hear that I’m breathing like a cavewoman from all my jumping around and nineties-pop-star-quality dance moves.
A group of boaters on the inlet are cracking up; they wave at me with their phones like they’re at a rock concert. I feel my face turning scarlet, but I take a dramatic bow and wave back to them. I’m so happy I hardly care.
“I’ll pick you up around seven-thirty?” Daniel asks.
“Sounds good,” I say. “I’ll text you my address.”
“Until tonight,cher,” he says softly, his voice a quixotic melody in my ears.
54
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Daniel all day, even if I wanted to stop. Which I kind of don’t.
I realize I never felt this kind of sweet infatuation about Michael. I adored him, for sure. But there was never a day in my whole life when my mind went back to Michael over and over again, thinking about his eyes, his hair, the firmness of the muscles in his shoulders. His voice, his scent, the softness of his lips, what it felt like when he was pressed up against me.
I’m giddy, my brain drenched in an intoxicating potion of endorphins I studied in school, but apparently never fully experienced until now.
I lie out in the sunshine for a while longer, trying and failing to focus on a book I wanted to finish. I can’t concentrate; every other sentence is punctuated with thoughts of Daniel and my intermittent analysis of the fact that I have surely lost my mind. Eventually, I give up on the book and decide to just spend the next hour lost in my own thoughts, staring out at the view in my backyard.
When I get too warm, I retreat to the air-conditioning inside. It’s fairly obvious I’m not going to get anything useful done today, so I survey the contents of my closet to figure out what I’m going to wear tonight.
I pull out half a dozen dresses, all in bright happy colors that match my optimism, and try them on in front of the mirror. I plug my iPod into speakers and dance around the bedroom to my favorite playlist—Embarrassing Songs I Love—a compilation of frothy, feel-good pop songs from Hansen, ABBA, Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, and Beyoncé. Basically, the cotton candy of music.
