Reggie rolled his eyes and went back to stacking daily multis. “I just want to get something good,” I said. “Something that means something.”
“Just try to forget about it for a while,” she replied, adjusting a rack of pendants. “Then, out of nowhere, the perfect gift will just come to you.”
I looked at my watch. “I have about twenty-six hours. Not exactly a lot of time for inspiration to strike.”
“Oh.” She took a sip of her coffee. “Well, then I’d get him some of those macaroons you bought me at Christmas. Those you can’t go wrong with.”
In the end, though, it didn’t come to that, although what I did end up with was almost as pathetic: a gift card to PLUG, the music store. It wasn’t phenomenal, not even decent, and as I left the mall feeling thoroughly defeated, all I could hope was that Harriet was right, and I’d come up with something better in the short time I had remaining.
The next morning, though, this still hadn’t happened, a fact made even more obvious when I came down for breakfast and walked right into Jamie’s first wave. Four dozen roses in varying colors were arranged in vases all around the kitchen, each tied with a big white bow. Cora was at the counter, reading the card off of one of them, her face flushed, as I helped myself to coffee.
“He always overdoes it on Valentine’s,” she said, although she looked kind of choked up as she tucked the card into her purse. “The first year we were married, he got me a new car.”
“Really,” I said.
“Yep. Totally overwhelmed me.” She sighed, picking up her mug. “It was so sweet, but I felt terrible. All I’d gotten him was a gift card.”
I swallowed. “I have to go.”
What I needed, I decided as I headed down the walkway to Nate’s car ten minutes later, was to just stop thinking about Valentine’s Day altogether. Which seemed easy, at least until I opened the car door and found myself face-to-face with a huge basketful of candy and flowers.
“Sorry,” Nate said from somewhere behind the tiny balloons that were poking out of the top of it. “We’re a little cramped in here. Do you mind holding that in your lap?”
I picked up the basket, then slid into the seat, pulling the door shut behind me. The instant it was closed, the smell of roses was overpowering, and as I shifted in my seat I saw why: the entire back was piled with baskets of assorted sizes, stacked three deep. “Where’s Gervais?” I asked.
“I’m here,” I heard a muffled voice say. A huge bunch of baby’s breath shifted to one side, revealing his face. “And I think I’m having an allergic reaction.”
“Just hang in there for a few more minutes,” Nate told him, opening his window as we pulled away from the curb. His phone rang, rattling the console, and I peered around the flowers in my lap to look at him as he grabbed it, putting it to his ear. “Yeah,” he said, slowing for the next light. “I’m on my way to school right now, so in ten or so I’ll start down the list. Lakeview first, then over to the office complex. Right. Okay. Bye.”
“You’re not going to school today?” I asked as he hung up.
“Duty calls,” he said, shutting his phone. “My dad got a little overambitious with the response to the special, so we’re pretty booked. We’ll be lucky to get it all done, even with the two of us going all day.”
“Really,” I said quietly.
“Don’t worry,” he said as his phone rang again. “I’ll be done in plenty of time for our thing tonight.”
But this wasn’t what I was worried about, and I wondered if he knew it. It was hard to tell, since he was talking to his dad again as he pulled up in front of Perkins Day, and Gervais and I extracted ourselves to disembark. As he headed off, sneezing, I put the basket I’d been holding back on the seat, then stood by the open door, waiting for Nate to hang up. Even as he did, he was already shifting back into gear, moving on.
“I gotta go,” he said to me, over the flowers. “But I’ll see you tonight, okay? Seven, at the pond. Don’t be late.”
I nodded and shut the door. He already had his phone back to his ear as he pulled into traffic. As he drove off, all I could see were a bunch of heart-shaped balloons in the back window, bobbing and swaying, first to one side, then back again.
Jamie and Cora were out for dinner—in the midst of a wave, no doubt—so I was alone, sitting at the kitchen table, my stupid gift card in hand, when the clock over the stove flipped to seven o’clock.
I stood up, sliding it into my pocket, then ran a hand through my hair as I stepped out onto the patio, Roscoe rousing himself from his dog bed to follow along behind me. Outside, the air was cold, the lights from Nate’s pool and house visible over the fence.
Call it a bad feeling. Or just the logical conclusion to an unavoidable situation. But I think I knew, even before that first fifteen minutes passed with no sign of him, that he wasn’t just late, something was wrong. Before my fingers— even jammed into the pockets of my new jacket—began to get numb, before Roscoe abandoned me for the warmth of the house, before another set of lights came up from the opposite side, lighting up the trees briefly before cutting off and leaving me in darkness again. It was eight fifteen when I saw Cora appear in the patio doorway, cupping a hand over her eyes. A moment later, she stuck her head out.
“Are you okay?” she said. “It’s freezing out there.”