bought a ton of clothes that Olga herself paraded in front of her. She explained that she was going to the hairdresser at Charleston Place and paid extra to have her purchases delivered to her home on the Battery.
At seven o’clock, when she left the beauty shop, her long crop of hair was sheared, sunstreaked, and highlighted. Her mane of curly hair, what was left of it, was now styled into a becoming skullcap hairdo that curled winsomely around her face. She liked the change because she looked totally unlike herself. The beautician said she looked ten years younger. The woman’s testimonial pleased Lily so much that she purchased two shopping bags of products she knew she would probably use once. Her face glowed and tingled, but she was zit-and blackhead-free. She hadn’t even known she had zits and black-heads, which probably just meant she needed glasses.
From time to time when she parked her car in her driveway, Lily would stop and look at her house. She would marvel at how far she’d come in life, from the ramshackle house she’d lived in with her grandmother to this historical house that she had restored. A house that was far too big for one person. Oh, she had a housekeeper and a gardener, but they went home at five o’clock. It was a house that begged for children and pets, not a young single woman who rarely got home before nine at night and left at six in the morning.
Lily pressed the code to the gate in her walled-off courtyard. The solar lights guided her toward the kitchen, which was awash in light. In fact, every light and every television set was on inside the house, something she insisted on. She hated coming home to darkness and silence.
Lily set her shopping bags on the counter and poured herself a glass of wine that she carried out to the courtyard, where she settled herself in a comfortable cushioned glider. She leaned back and closed her eyes, but she couldn’t turn off her mind.
If only…if only…
Lily woke a little past midnight bathed in sweat. The damn dream again. She dropped her head into her hands and started to cry. It was always the same dream: children, dozens of them, dressed in clothing she’d designed, and who looked just like her at their age, picketing with faceless parents outside Sandcastle headquarters. Everyone was screaming and shouting, but she could never make out what they were saying. Until a week ago—when she had the dream again, and the words were so crystal clear it felt like they were burned into her brain just the way they were minutes ago when she woke.
Lily choked on her own sobs as she struggled to get herself together. The words—“See, see, it is a big deal”—wrapped themselves around her very soul.
What a fool she’d been. She knew she was still being a fool to think Peter Kelly could help her. First, she needed to help herself. She needed to talk to someone, to try and unload the guilt she’d been carrying around for so long. At the very least she needed a professional to help her come to terms with what she considered “Lily’s folly” so many years ago.
Lily was stiff from the damp air. She picked up her empty wineglass and made her way into the house, where she climbed the stairs to the second floor to take a shower. She knew there would be no more sleep for her that night, so she might as well pack and get things ready for her early-morning trip to the airport.
The image in the bathroom mirror startled her until she remembered her makeover just hours ago. “The new me,” she mumbled as she stepped into the shower. This new me is going to turn her life around or die trying. With that promise, her spirits lifted. Maybe, just maybe, she would finally be able to get a handle on her life.
Fifteen minutes later, a luxurious towel wrapped around her, Lily padded out to her bedroom to look at what Olga called her “traveling attire.” She stared at the pale green linen suit with matching sandals and winced. Linen? How had she allowed Olga to talk her into linen? She’d be one wrinkled mess before she even got to the airport in Charleston. She hung the suit in the spacious closet as she moved hangers this way and that. She finally chose a pair of off-white capri pants with a matching top. She rummaged through her shoe rack until she found a comfortable pair of straw sandals for the trek through the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where she had a layover.
She just needed one more thing. Her old hat, the one she’d been wearing when she had first met Pak/Peter Kelly. He’d even commented on it. Said he liked it. How weird was it that she would remember a detail like that after all these years?
In the dressing room off her bedroom, there were shelves and shelves filled with head busts wearing hats. All from back when she first thought she wanted to be a hat designer. Hats, she’d been told back then, were in the tank, so she’d given up on that idea and designed hats only for herself. There it was, her very first creation. A denim fishing hat with the brim rolled up. A huge silk sunflower was pinned to the middle. She smiled. She’d always loved that particular hat, maybe because it was her first design. The sunflower wasn’t the least bit faded or droopy. Nor was there any dust on the denim hat. She plopped it on her head and sashayed out to her bedroom where she got dressed, still wearing the hat. It didn’t exactly go with her outfit, so she changed the capri pants to a pair of soft denims with a design around the hem. They weren’t jeans, so that was okay.
Lily realized she was feeling better and better as the time moved forward.
It was four thirty when Lily descended the stairs to leave her oversize piece of luggage by the front door. The limo driver could carry it down the front steps when he arrived at five thirty to take her to the airport.
With time to kill, Lily made coffee and toast. While she waited, she scribbled off a note to her housekeeper, saying she would call when she was certain of her return date. She looked around the pleasant kitchen, pleasant because her housekeeper had made and hung the checkered curtains. She had also sewed the place mats, and the padded cushions on the wooden chairs. Nelda had also brought in the green plants and looked after the little herb garden on the windowsill. The ceramic-tile floor was spick-and-span, all the appliances sparkled. She smiled when she remembered the day one winter when Nelda asked if Lily would mind if she bought a rocking chair for the kitchen. Nelda liked to sit and rock in front of the fire she always had blazing because of her arthritis. Lily had sat in the rocker on many occasions herself, watching the flames and daydreaming. It had been a good decision on her part to repair and rebuild the old kitchen fireplace, since it was now the focal point of the big room. She looked upward, startled to see a lush philodendron climbing the bricks. She wondered when that had happened. Obviously, she needed to spend more time in her kitchen.
Her eye on the clock, Lily tidied up the breakfast things. With minutes to spare, she was on the front verandah waiting for the car service promptly at five thirty.
Please, please, she pleaded silently as she settled herself in the back of the Lincoln Town Car, let this be the right thing that I’m doing.
Chapter 3
Garment bag over his left shoulder, battered duffel on the other, Pete Kelly sailed through the security checkpoint, the shoelaces of his battered Nikes flapping in his own breeze. He headed straight for a kiosk, where he bought a bottle of iced tea and a paper. He settled himself on a blue hard-plastic chair and settled down to read the paper. He liked to brag that he read the paper cover to cover, line by line. Those people foolish enough to question a particular article or phrase usually ended up with sheepish smiles on their faces when they walked away after he snapped out the correct answer.
Settling his New York Mets cap more firmly on his head, Pete reached into his pocket for his reading glasses. He didn’t look up once for the next ninety minutes as he read the paper from beginning to end. If he had looked up just three short minutes before he closed and folded the paper, he would have seen the woman he was so desperate to find walk right by him.
The
