The Look of Love: A Novel Read online

  “Merry Christmas,” Bernard says as Sam begins pulling on the leash.

  “Merry Christmas to you,” I reply. The words echo in my head. Merry Christmas. I don’t feel merry. But I never do this time of year.

  I round the corner and nod at Mel, the owner of the newsstand at Pike Place. He winks and points to the mistletoe hanging on the awning. “A kiss for old Mel?”

  I play coy and smirk, and Mel frowns. “Not even on Christmas Eve, Janey?”

  I lean in and give him a quick peck on the cheek. “There.” I smile. “Are you happy now?”

  He clutches his cheek and feigns paralysis. “Best day of my life,” he says. Mel is at least seventy. He’s operated the newsstand for forty years, maybe longer. A short, balding man with a potbelly, he flirts with every woman in the market, then goes home to a little apartment two blocks up the hill, where he lives alone.

  “My Adele loved Christmas Eve,” he says. “She loved mistletoe. She’d do it up big, with a roast and a tree and lights.”

  I place my hand on his arm. Although his wife passed away eight years ago, he speaks of her as if they’d just had breakfast this morning. “I know you miss her so much.”

  He looks up at the clouds, and I wonder what he sees. “Every damn day,” he says. I see the grief in his eyes, but his expression changes when a woman, perhaps in her seventies, approaches the newsstand. She’s tall and towers over Mel like the Columbia Center perched beside the much smaller Fourth and Pike Building. She has silver-gray hair and chiseled features. Elegant with a strand of pearls around her neck, she was no doubt very beautiful in her youth.

  “Do you have the Times—the London Times?” she asks in a tone that telegraphs disappointment. Her voice is sharp, commanding, and I hear the telltale clip of a British accent.

  I watch the two face each other, and my vision clouds a little, as it sometimes does. I rub my eyes as Mel grins jovially at his prim-and-proper customer. “The Times?” he exclaims. “Ma’am, with all due respect, this is Seattle, not merry old England.”

  The woman’s eyes narrow. “Well, any proper newsstand would carry it. It’s the only publication worth reading.” She scans the racks of tabloids and newspapers. “So much rubbish these days.”

  Mel raises an eyebrow at me as the woman adjusts the collar of her trench coat and bristles past us.

  He looks momentarily stunned before his face twists into a half smile. “Snobs!” he says. “Rich people think they own the world.”

  I glance over my shoulder and rub my eyes again, careful not to disturb my recently applied mascara, which is when I remember the appointment I have tomorrow with Dr. Heller, the neurologist I’ve been seeing for most of my life. The British woman has disappeared around the corner. “Maybe she’s just unhappy,” I say. “My grandmother used to say that most of the time, people don’t mean to be rude; it’s just their sadness showing through.”

  I’m hit with a sudden memory from childhood, when the first time I encountered deep sadness was the same day I first noticed a change in my vision. I was four years old, standing in the doorway of my mother’s bedroom. Mom sat hunched on her bed, sobbing into her hands. The curtains were tightly drawn, and darkness stained the walls. My father hovered behind her, begging her forgiveness. He held a suitcase in his hand and was leaving that day for Los Angeles to follow a woman he’d met. He said he was going to marry her. Dad was in love, and Mom was heartbroken.

  I don’t remember my father’s face, or the exact words they exchanged that rainy Seattle morning. I recall only my mother’s deep sadness, and when my father placed his hand on her shoulder as if to say, “Please forgive me,” I blinked hard. It was as if my eyes had completely fogged over, but not from tears, from something inside me. I remember taking a step back, rubbing my eyes, and stumbling in the hallway, where I waited until my father slipped through the doorway. If he had intended to say good-bye to me, he didn’t get around to it. And so he left us—my brother, Flynn, oblivious, watching TV on the couch; me, confused and partially blind in the hallway; Mom, crying so loudly, I wondered if she might be dying.

  I wanted only to cheer her up, so that morning, with a shaking hand, I offered her a cup of coffee. I’d watched her grind the beans and place them in the French press a hundred times, and I summoned the courage to try it myself. But my vision was still blurry, and I’d gotten it all wrong, and Mom was quick to tell me so.

  “What is this?” she snapped.

  “I made you coffee,” I said in a squeak.

  She looked down at the coffee cup and shook her head, then slowly walked to the kitchen sink and dumped it out.

  I held my tears as I watched her walk back to her bedroom. Dad had failed Mom. And I’d failed her too. An hour later, Grandma came over and explained that sadness has a way of controlling our behavior. I never forgot those words, or the way Grandma summoned Mom, and the two of them rushed me to the hospital when I told them about my eyes, still mildly blurry an hour later. After an inconclusive CAT scan and a needle prick in my arm that made me cry, I went home with a sticker and a cherry Popsicle. We didn’t talk about Dad anymore after that. And even now, as hard as I try, I can’t picture his face. In my mind’s eye, he remains a permanent blur.

  Mel shrugs as he slices open a bundle of newspapers with a box cutter.

  “Well,” I continue, “I’m off to the shop. It’ll be a busy day today. Last year Lo created this arrangement with poinsettias, holly, and rosehips, and I swear, every socialite in this city wants four for her holiday table.” I sigh. “Which is not a bad thing, obviously. It just means that by the time this day is over”—I pause and hold up my hands—“these fingers are going to be arthritic.”

  “Don’t work too hard, Janey. I worry about you.”

  “I love that you worry about me,” I say with a slow smile. “But I can assure you, my life does not warrant any worrying. I get up and go to the flower shop, then go home. Simple, drama-free. No need for worrying.”

  “Sweetheart, that’s why I worry about you,” Mel continues. “I’d like to see you cut loose a little, find someone.”

  I smile and pat my golden retriever’s head. “I already have someone,” I say. “Sam.”

  Mel returns my smile as I wave good-bye. “I’m going to set you up with a fishmonger I met yesterday. His name is Roy. He could make you a nice fish dinner sometime.”

  “You do that, Mel,” I say, rolling my eyes playfully as I lead Sam down the next block and open the door to Meriwether Bakery. Elaine waves at me from the counter. Her dark hair is pulled back into a neat ponytail. There’s a dusting of flour on her cheek.

  “Morning,” I say. Sam jumps up and places his front paws on the counter, waiting for Elaine to toss a dog biscuit in his mouth. The bakery smells of burnt sugar and yeasty, fresh-baked bread. In other words, like heaven.

  Elaine, a third-generation owner of the bakery, befriended me when I took over my grandmother’s flower shop five years ago. We bonded over our shared love of chocolate croissants and white peonies, and we continue to trade them regularly. She wipes her brow. “We’ve taken forty-nine orders for pecan pie in the last hour. I may never make it home tonight.” The bells on the door jingle, and I turn to see her husband, Matthew, walk in.

  “Honey!” she chirps from behind the counter. Matthew, an architect with rugged good looks, walks toward us and leans across the counter to give her a kiss. They have the kind of life that makes everyone around them just a touch envious: two beautiful children, and a house on Hamlin Street overlooking the Montlake Cut with a Martha Stewart–approved flower garden and a backyard chicken coop that yields unlimited fresh organic eggs.

  “Did you pick up the Lego set, the one Jack wanted?” Elaine asks, twisting her wedding ring around her finger.

  “Got it,” Matthew says, lifting a bag onto the counter. “Oh, and I got Ellie that American Girl doll she’
s been talking about.”

  Elaine exhales. “Good, because that would have been a major Santa fail.” She turns to me. “This man is my savior.”

  Matthew grins. “Hey, did you meet the new neighbor?”

  Elaine shakes her head.

  “I said hello to him this morning,” Matthew continues. “His wife died last year. Just moved out from Chicago. I thought we might invite him over tomorrow for Christmas dinner.”

  “Sure,” Elaine says. “If you think he’d want to come.”

  Matthew shrugs. “He just moved into town. I’m sure he knows no one. And besides, his daughter is about Ellie’s age.”

  While Elaine is inclusive and welcoming, Matthew is that, amplified. At their Thanksgiving celebration, I sat across from a recently divorced colleague of Matthew’s with a bulging midsection and a perma-frown. Elaine took me aside in the kitchen and complained that if Matthew had his way, he’d invite every third person in Seattle to dinner.

  “It’s fine,” Elaine says. “Tell him he’s welcome.”

  Matthew nods, then turns to me. “Plans for Christmas? You know you’re always welcome too, Jane. And who knows, maybe you’ll hit it off with our new neighbor.”

  I meet his wink with an eye roll. “You are incorrigible, Matthew.”

  “Honey,” Elaine says. “Leave Janey alone. She doesn’t need the matchmaking services of Matthew Coleman.”

  He grins.

  “Besides,” Elaine continues with a grin of her own, “you forget that Christmas is Jane’s birthday.”

  I grimace. “Yes, I have the poor luck of being cursed with a Christmas birthday. At least I get both out of the way on the same day.”

  Elaine frowns. “You’re such a grump.”

  I shrug. “I go into survival mode on December twenty-fifth. You know that. It’s brutal.”

  “At least let me bring you survival rations, like a cake,” Elaine says. “You refuse every year.”

  “Please don’t,” I say. “I’d honestly rather order takeout and have a Scandal marathon on Netflix.”

  “That sounds depressing,” she says. “And what takeout place is open on Christmas Day?”

  “Yummy Thai,” I reply with a grin. “They’re open every year. See? All covered.”

  Elaine sighs. “At least give yourself a vase of flowers.”

  I smile. “I can probably do that, yes.”

  “How’s business going?” Matthew asks.

  “Great,” I reply. “Booming, actually.”

  If there is any constant in my life, it’s flowers. My grandmother Rosemary founded the Flower Lady, Pike Place Market’s original flower shop. It opened in 1945, shortly after the war, and when my grandmother’s fingers became arthritic in the 1980s, my mom, Annie, took it over until she passed away when I was eighteen. Mom’s assistant kept the place afloat until I finished college, and the baton was passed to me.

  I grew up in the shop, where I’d sweep up leaves and petals and sit on the stool at the counter and eventually help Grandma arrange. “You’re a born florist,” she told me time and time again. “We have the special touch of knowing how to reach people, to make them feel.”

  And I suppose she was right. Mom had it too. We knew—we were born knowing, perhaps—how the right blend of roses and freesia can help a man tell a woman he loves her; how a tasteful combination of chrysanthemums and yellow tulips can express a heartfelt apology.

  I ache for my mother then, as I always do this time of year. Mom used to love Christmas, and she’d make it beautiful in every way, decorating every spare surface of the apartment with evergreen boughs and cedar garland. She’d never settle for a small tree either. Despite the space limitations, we’d lug home the biggest noble fir at the tree lot.

  Mom’s cancer was sudden. A blessing, in some ways, as she didn’t suffer long. And yet, only weeks passed between the diagnosis and her death. It didn’t give me enough time to ask her the things I needed to ask her about life, and love. There I was, faced with losing the most important woman in my life, overwhelmed with the idea of cramming a lifetime’s worth of wisdom into a few final days.

  On the morning of her death, I intended to bring her flowers, as I had done every few days. But the doctor called me at six a.m. He said to come quick, that Mom may not have many hours left. So I came empty-handed, tormented by the thought of losing my mother, and regretful that she didn’t have her beloved flowers beside her at the end.

  But then I heard a faint knock on the door of Mom’s hospital room. A moment later, a young woman with a volunteer badge appeared, smiling tentatively. “Excuse me,” she whispered. “My boss said to deliver these flowers to your mother.”

  At the time, I hadn’t stopped to consider how Mom knew this volunteer’s boss. It seemed an insignificant detail. And besides, Mom made a habit of befriending people at every turn, even at the end of her life. “Thank you,” I said, accepting the vase of flowers, with its gorgeous blend of blooms in stunning shades of pale green. “These are exquisite. Obviously your boss has excellent taste. Please, tell her thank you.”

  Mom smiled when she saw the vase. Her voice had grown hoarse, and in a whisper, she said to me, “The last time I saw an arrangement like that, I was here, in this hospital. I had just given birth to you, honey.” Tears welled up in her eyes then. “But you know what? They didn’t come with a card. I never knew who sent them.”

  I remember trying so hard to fight the tears as I watched Mom extend a shaking hand to touch one of the green roses in the vase, its petals as delicate as her pale skin.

  When I think back to that cold morning in October when she took her last breath, I can still see her face: the look in her eye, her will to hold on, even a few minutes longer. And when the doctor entered the room and asked to have a word with me privately, I didn’t want to leave her. Every moment was precious.

  But Mom smiled and called me to her a final time. “Your eyes, my dear Janey, have always been the color of new growth,” she said, placing her hand on my cheek. “Like the green shoots of spring on all the trees, like the flowers in this vase. You’re special, my beautiful daughter. So special.”

  The tears came then. I couldn’t fight them any longer. “Go talk to the doctor,” she said, shooing me out the door. “And bring me back a coffee.” She smiled to herself. “And not instant or drip. Espresso. I want to taste espresso a final time.”

  “I’ll be right back,” I said. “I’ll only be a moment.” I touched her cheek lightly. When I returned, with a double-shot Americano, Mom was gone.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket as Matthew kisses Elaine good-bye and waves to me. “Merry Christmas,” he says, heading to the door.

  “Merry Christmas,” I say with a smile as I reach for my phone. It’s my older brother, Flynn.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Hey.” He sounds down, which is typical of my big brother. He’s melancholic, the way Mom described our father. While I have my flowers, Flynn has his art. A painter, with reasonable acclaim in the Northwest, he opened his own gallery a few years ago, as a way to surround himself with artists. The venture has paid off, both in being a successful stream of income and also in cementing him as a leader in the Seattle art community.

  His good looks don’t hurt either. And if you ask me, Flynn has always been much too handsome for his own good. All of my friends had crushes on him when we were growing up. And they still do. He’s devilishly handsome, with his thick dark hair and light stubble on his chin. But at thirty-five, he still has no interest in settling down. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure if he’s ever truly loved a woman. But, oh, have there been a lot of women in Flynn’s life.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Oh, I was calling to say happy birthday in case I forget to call tomorrow to say happy birthday.”

  I grin. “You are such a guy.”

&n
bsp; “I am. But at least I remembered, even if I’m a day early.”

  “Well, thank you, big brother.”

  “Are you going to come to my New Year’s party?”

  I sigh. Flynn hosts a raging party in his Belltown loft every year, and I make it my mission to do my absolute best to avoid it. Flynn’s scene is one that, well, I tend to feel a bit obtuse in: anorexic-looking women in skintight dresses, men with fully tattooed arms, and loads of smokers crowded on the balcony.

  “I don’t know, Flynn.”

  “Oh, come on,” he says. “You have to come. Maybe you’ll meet someone.”

  “Meet someone? That’s the last thing I need.”

  “Jane, have you ever considered the fact that a relationship could do you some good?” he says. “It’s just you and Sam. Don’t you get lonely sometimes?”

  “My dear big brother,” I reply, “we may be related, but I am not wired the way you are. I do not need another person to make me happy.”

  “You’re bluffing,” he says. “Everyone needs someone.”

  “And apparently some of us need a new person every night of the week.”

  “Please,” he says.

  “Well, who are we dating now? Did things work out with what’s-her-name?”

  “Lisa?”

  I watch as Elaine fills the pastry case with lemon tarts, each with a sprig of lavender on top. “I thought her name was Rachel,” I say.

  “That was before Lisa.”

  “See?” I say with a laugh.

  “Just come to my party, Janey, please?”

  “I’ll think about it,” I reply.

  “Good.”

  I blow a kiss to Elaine, and Sam and I walk out to the street and round the corner. The Flower Lady is in the distance. The sight of it still warms me, just as it always has, with its old grid-style windows and emerald-green awning. Loayza—Lo—my assistant, has rolled out the carts to the curb. Barrels of festive holiday bouquets beckon passersby, and I watch as a woman lifts an arrangement of red roses and boughs of fir to her nose. I smile to myself. Who needs love when you have rewarding work?