The Idea of Love (26 page)

“What are you doing?” Ella turned to see a groggy Sims enter the kitchen.

“Eating, drinking coffee … you know,” Ella said.

“I mean, what are you doing
here
?”

“I live here,” she said. “And
you
?”

He walked toward her, rubbing his face and stretching. “Well, then,” he said, in that I-just-woke-up voice she knew so well. “I guess that means we live here together. And you know what that means…” He trailed off.

“I thought I did.”

Sims responded with something like enthusiasm in his voice. “God, I'm so glad you're back. I didn't sleep all night and finally I just got up and went to your favorite chair. I thought, If I just stay here and wait, she'll come home.”

He drew closer. Ella took two steps back.

“I'm so sorry, Ella. I am
so
sorry. You're all I've ever wanted. All I've ever needed. I don't know what I can do to make up for this hell, for what I've done. Tell me what to do and I'll do it. Anything.”

“I don't know, Sims. But I need more than words.”

He reached for her then and drew her close, wrapping his arms around her. She fell into his chest and he held her there, running his hands through her hair, mumbling into her neck. “It was like I lost my mind.”

At first she thought it was him, but then she understood that she was the one trembling. This, right here, was what she'd dreamed about. All those weeks in that apartment, slipping shoes onto bridesmaids' feet, eating food she cooked off a hot plate. This is what she'd wanted. Exactly this. Even the words he was saying. It was like she had scripted them.

Ella drew back and looked at her husband's familiar features, his blue eyes, his etched forehead. “I don't know how to do this, Sims. I don't know how to pretend nothing ever happened. Things happened. Terrible things. My heart is a mess.”

“I know.” His eyes were dry, but his voice held pain. “I'm a mess, too.”

“What happened, Sims? Tell me what happened.”

“That's what I need to figure out. And I will. I promise. But I love you and you alone.”

“No.” She backed up. “No, I don't think you do. If you had, you wouldn't have done what you did.”

He shook his head. “That's not true. I loved you even while I was with…” He stopped short of Betsy's name. “I just got lost. That's all. You have to forgive me.”

“Have to?”

“Yes. You'll kill me if you can't.”

“I already killed you,” Ella said quietly.

“What?”

“Nothing … it's just … nothing.”

He held her close again. “Anything you say, I'll do. I just can't live without you. It's like it was all a terrible dream.”

“No,” she said. “It was all very real.”

He backed away. “I am going to win you back. There's enough love here to save us. I know there is.”

“But I don't want that kind of love—the kind with limits and secrets and love-by-half. I don't want that. I loved you completely and still you were able to go be with Betsy. As if what we had was cheap. As if our marriage wasn't enough.”

“It's not that. It's everything. I will show you. I made a mistake.” Her husband, the man she loved, took her by the shoulders and looked at her so intensely she needed to look away. He pulled her to him and kissed her. His hands ran up her back and nestled into her hair, pulling her even closer as if he needed to feel her body contact his on every surface. He clung to her as if he was a drowning man.

Hunter was wrong. Love was not just an idea. It was real. It was a man. A woman. A marriage.

After a while, Sims let go and pulled back. This time he had tears in his eyes. “I have to go to the marina, but then I'm coming home. We're going to start over.”

Ella faltered. “How are we supposed to start over?” she asked.

“We'll find a way. We have to.”

It wasn't until she heard the front door click shut that Ella realized that she wasn't doubting his love. She was doubting her own.

*   *   *

She spent the next days in a haze of organization. With the music on high, Ella weeded the garden, adjusted the kitchen, and the closets. She dusted and swept, vacuumed and polished. She scrubbed everything with Lysol. She washed every dish in the kitchen and soaked the pots and pans in lethally hot water. The slipcovers were sent to the dry cleaner. The pillows, too. She bought a smudge stick and walked through the house, trailing smoke behind her. Betsy was like a ghost that needed exorcising. A virus that had infected her home.

In between, in the hours when cleaning became too much, Ella sat down and worked on her portfolio. Spreading her sketches across the kitchen table, organizing them, she could see how they worked together, how they formed a collection. It was as if the designs had gathered themselves into groupings almost without her knowledge. Yes, she had intended that some garments appear flowing, others more structured, and others casual. But only now, looking at them collectively instead of focusing on one particular design or one particular detail—the stability of a shoulder, the hang of a skirt, the paneling of a bodice—could she see that the collections each had a distinct personality. Flirty. Sexy. Classic.

White Diamond. That's what Margo had named the hijacked design. Margo probably had no idea that she'd named her design perfectly, that hydrangeas represented “heartlessness, arrogance, and vanity.” Yes, exactly.

Ella lifted the sketch and held it up to the light. It was obvious it was hers (her hand strokes were distinct), although she supposed that anyone could say she'd drawn it only after seeing Margo's entry. But would they say that if they saw the entire collection? If they saw all the designs that preceded this one?

*   *   *

After the weekend, Ella started her letter to
Vogue.

She was in the kitchen. Sims was home, too. Monday morning had arrived with a thunderstorm so brutal he delayed the opening of the marina. The rain slammed hard against the windows, but Ella barely heard it. She had to act quickly. Only one more week until the contest was closed, until the winner was chosen. She would do the first draft by hand before she typed it up, found her way into the words. She didn't want to sound like a crazy person, but she did have a legitimate grievance. This was her design. Her creation. Her life.

Sims came into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and yawning. “Come back to bed. It's the first time in weeks that I don't have to get up at five
A.M.
”

“I'm … trying to write a letter.”

“To who?”

“I'm writing to…” Ella stopped. Why hadn't she told her husband? “I guess I didn't tell you about Margo,” she said.

“What about Margo?” he asked.

“What she did to me.”

“What did she do?” Sims nuzzled the back of Ella's neck, ran his fingers across her collarbone, and then slipped his hand under her shirt. “Come back to bed.”

“I want to finish this. I've been thinking about it all night. What to say, how to say it.”

“Well, I've been thinking about this all night,” he said, and slid his hand further down, running his finger along the waistline of her jeans. “I can't get enough of you.”

Ella twisted in her chair to lift her face to his, but not to kiss him. “Not now, Sims. Let me finish this.”

He made a small huffing noise and walked off to the coffeepot. She had to smile. It was true. He couldn't get enough of her. They'd made love every morning, every night. A starving man finding his way to food. Her, too. She'd needed to feel his body next to her, near her. But right this minute she needed his ear, which he seemed unable to offer. She tried again. “Margo stole my design,” she said.

“Your what?” He came to her side, glanced at his cell phone, and scrolled through a list of messages.

“My dog. She stole my dog and gave it to a bridesmaid in the shop. And then she did a cartwheel through the store and ran off with one of the groomsmen.”

Sims looked up from his phone “I'm sorry she did that. I'm sure you'll work it out.” He walked off, still talking. “I'm headed out. Seems the workshop flooded. I have to get a crew in.”

“Okay,” Ella called after him. “Be safe.”

If it were someone else, anyone really, she would have laughed. This was the man trying hard to win back her heart? Well, it didn't seem funny at all.

She would focus on her work.

Editor-in-Chief

Vogue
Magazine

Re: Wedding Design Contest

 

Dear Judges:

My name is Ella Flynn. I live in Watersend, South Carolina, and work for the premier wedding destination shop in the southeast: Swept Away. During the months that I worked there, I designed at least twenty dresses, not one of which I've shown to anyone but the store owner, Margo Sands. A few weeks ago, she saw one of my designs, the Wisteria, and asked if she could look at it, even make a copy of it. She then took this design and redrew it, renamed it the White Diamond and entered it into your Wedding Design Contest. I understand it is now a finalist.

I know this must seem a preposterous claim, but sadly, it's true. For the integrity of your esteemed magazine, and the validity of the contest, I urge you to look closely at my claim. I am enclosing some of my other sketches and designs to show you the similarity between my drawings and White Diamond. You will notice the drawings are too similar to be coincidental, and the embellishments are exactly the same.

You can contact me at any of the below numbers.

Sincerely,

Ella read the letter four or five times before typing it up. She designed a logo, drawing a peony and writing “Ella” in script font across the flower. It looked official. Would it be enough?

She needed a second pair of eyes on the letter. Really, there was only one person to read it, and he was in L.A., out of her life now. So, Mimi, then. She'd have Mimi read it.

Ella visited Mimi every day. She liked looking in on her friend and her bedraggled little dog, especially now that he had stopped barking.
Almost
stopped barking, that is. It seemed that Hunter was right; Bruiser was allergic to his medicine. At least
that
wasn't a lie.

Mimi would have something to say about the letter. Something smart and practical. She could count on Mimi.

But the woman who answered the door was just a shadow of her friend. She looked paper thin and worn, like she would tear apart if she were touched. Her face, faded to pale, was wet with tears. Her hair, that white coif that usually puffed out from her head like a pom-pom, was flat, stuck to the side of her head. And her clothes—usually so carefully chosen—were just a pair of drawstring pants and a sweatshirt worn at the edges.

“Oh, Ella,” Mimi said. “I don't know what to do.”

“What's wrong?” Ella looked inside for clues.

“Bruiser.”

“He's not barking,” Ella said. “That's good, right?”

“No, it's not good. He's not barking because…” Mimi stepped back and pointed at the back of the room, where the oversized dog bed dominated the corner.

Ella understood before another word was spoken.

“Oh, Mimi,” Ella said. “I'm so, so sorry. What can I do?”

“I don't know. I just don't know.”

“Let me call the vet,” Ella said. “Where's his number?”

Mimi shuffled to the refrigerator and took down a piece of paper. “Here.”

Ella forgot about her letter, which she dropped on Mimi's coffee table. She forgot about everything but Mimi's grief, which seemed as large as she was small. Mimi crumpled into her chair, the one where she sat every time Ella visited, the one where she ate pound cake and drank bourbon, the one from which she offered advice and consolation and took in Ella's secrets like a vault.

After Ella called the vet they sent a tech, Floyd something or other. His dark hair curled around his ears. He wore pale blue scrubs and a nametag that hung crooked from the left pocket. He was past a teenager, but probably still in college. He had the look of sympathy, his eyes downcast and his hands clasped behind his back. “I'm so sorry, ma'am,” he said. “I know this is so difficult. I'm here to help. I will wrap him up and take him and then…”

“Then what?” Mimi asked in a whisper. “My God, then what?”

“We can have him cremated and if you want … we can give you the ashes to keep forever.”

“No!” Mimi said. “You can't cremate him. You can't.”

“I know it's terrible to think about.” Floyd touched Mimi's arm. “It's the good-bye that's the terrible part. I know.”

“I want to bury him,” Mimi said, and closed her eyes. “Somewhere beautiful.”

“I'll find a place,” Ella said. “I will.”

“Well, let me take him for now.” Floyd had kind eyes, soft and aware. He was perfect for his job.

“I'll come with you,” Ella said, and then, leaning down to Mimi. “Stay here. I'll be right back. We'll honor Bruiser. We will.”

Ella was awash in grief. Bruiser. Mimi. Her mom. Her marriage. Her job. Hunter's false friendship. It was a porous pain that acknowledged all the hurt that came from being alive, from trying to live a good life, from just being human. It was then that Ella realized all the energy she had put into keeping this precise knowledge at bay. That pain came no matter what. That life offered to everyone their own grief and despair. It was a part of living, a part of everything.

Floyd lifted Bruiser so gently, as if he were still alive. Ella held the tears until they were in the stairwell. When they reached the sidewalk, Floyd turned to Ella. “I'll take care of this. Okay?”

“Can I pick him up later? I'm going to find a nice place to bury him.” Ella spoke through tears.