Shadows At The Window. Linda Hall
right. Greg had been planning on proposing. “Not anymore. Now the very same surprise is for him.”
That was my second mistake. My first was thinking that nothing had changed since last week.
I went to the church with coffees for everyone. I was nervous. I hadn’t seen Greg since Griffi’s. I’d walked out ahead of him and when I’d turned to say goodbye, he was gone.
I had to walk through yet another detour, down another dingy hallway, and through the basement which was, I saw, piled high with all kinds of workmen’s tools and boards and Sheetrock. And then it was back up the stairs and into the office, but at least I knew my way now. Several workmen greeted me with hellos as I went past.
When I finally got to Greg’s office, after dropping off coffees for Brenda and Dave, I saw that it was even in more disarray than a week ago. The wall that used to contain his bookshelves had been entirely removed, and through the gaping hole, I could see a couple of guys hammering. Despite the fact that we were on display, I put the coffees on the desk, kissed him quickly on the cheek and said, “Keep tomorrow open.”
“Tomorrow?” he said.
I playfully put my fingers to my lips and said, “Shh, it’s a surprise.”
Here was my plan: I was going to let Greg propose to me. I had a feeling he would bring the ring. And if he didn’t get around to proposing to me? I’d propose to him. I’m a perfectly modern woman and pefectly modern women are well within their rights to make the marriage proposal these days. I could picture us twenty-five years from now, Greg telling people, “And when she asked me to marry her? How could I say no?” And then I’d laugh and say, “I only asked him because I knew he was going to ask me the week before.”
“Any hints as to where we’re going?” he asked, looking doubtful.
I grinned and batted my eyelashes theatrically at him. “It’s a total, one-hundred-percent surprise.”
Greg frowned slightly, and rubbed his cheek where I’d kissed him. “Lilly?” The expression on his face was part hurt, part confusion and part hope. “What’s this all about?”
I grinned. “Can’t I come up with a surprise for you? A secret?”
“Your eyes,” he said.
“What?” I put my hand to my face, wondering if my mascara was running.
“You don’t seem like yourself.” He frowned and looked over to where two workmen were mixing paint and chatting. They couldn’t hear us.
“What about my eyes?”
“Right now—I don’t know—your eyes seem too bright or something.”
“Too bright?” This wasn’t going entirely as planned. Why wasn’t he more enthusiastic? Maybe because the last time we’d seen each other we had a fight? “Okay, here’s the deal, Greg. Just erase this past week. It never existed. Rewind the video. Tomorrow night, everything will be changed. You’ll see. I’ll pick you up at six-thirty. Be ready, okay?”
“It’s really not so easy to erase an entire week from a person’s mind.”
“I made a mistake, Greg. I was scared. I shouldn’t have cancelled our original night out. But now I want to make amends. I have seen the error of my ways…” I batted my eyelashes at him again. And then I quickly stopped, remembering what he’d just said about my eyes. “Greg, what I’m trying to say is this. I want to make it up to you. I’ve changed my mind about our relationship. I want to pick up where we left off a week ago.”
“If you say so.”
Greg said nothing.
“Well then, I’ll see you,” I said. I was standing close enough for him to kiss me. If he wanted to.
He reached down and picked up a piece of paper from his desk and studied it. “Yeah,” he said, without looking at me.
My next stop was the college cafeteria where I was meeting Neil. I couldn’t dwell on Greg’s less than enthusiastic response. It would all be fixed soon. Tomorrow night, we would be engaged and then this whole dreadful week would be history.
I should have realized, however, that Greg’s lack of enthusiasm was merely a shadow of things to come.
My equivalent of an engagement ring for him was going to be a CD of my own compositions. Over the past six months, I’d written three love songs for Greg, songs he’d never heard; I’d been saving them for the precisely right moment. And this was it. I had recorded them with the help of Neil and Tiff and converted them to MP3s on my computer. When I’d recorded the first one, Neil’s eyes had widened behind his thick glasses and his mouth formed itself into an O making him look like an owl.
“That one—” he’d raised his hands excitedly “—that one would be good with some cello behind it.”
“Yeah,” Tiff had said. “As subtle undertones, like a drone, almost.”
Neil was a perfectionist and an expert at mastering. When I asked him yesterday if there was any way he could possibly find the time to take these three songs, remaster them, maybe add some strings, cello or piano perhaps, he said, “No problem.” It would be an honor, he told me. And he was sure that Tiff could help. Tiff has a good ear, he added. I agreed.
I was sitting in the cafeteria, waiting for him to show up with my brand-new engagement CD and planning my night—what to wear, what to say, how to act, how to do my hair, how to erase the past week from the universe. I was browsing through a wedding planning Web site when I looked up.
Neil stood there, his hair perfectly combed, wearing a brown jacket that looked like it belonged to someone’s father. He was holding out the CD and smiling broadly.
“Hey, hello,” I said, closing the lid of my computer.
He placed the CD down on the table in front of me. “I was up until two in the morning,” he said, “but I got it done. And I think you’re going to like it. I even recorded a bit of me on cello. Tiff had some good suggestions. We both worked on it.”
I picked it up. I was on the cover, sitting on a piano stool and holding my guitar. “Where’d the picture come from?” I asked.
“It was on your church Web site.”
“Really?” I hadn’t realized there were so many pictures of me on the Web site. I felt a fuzzy unease, a touch of chill in my spine, but quickly dismissed it. The e-mail meant nothing. It was a week ago. Everything was fine now.
I opened the case and examined the CD. He’d printed a label for it with “All My Love” and a place for me to sign. “This is cool, Neil. You are such a great person to do this for me.”
“We want you to be happy.”
There were even liner notes. I pulled them out and flattened them on the table. He’d spent a lot of time on this. He pointed at the words of the three songs surrounded by flowers and hearts. “That was Tiff’s idea. She did the artwork. She’s good at that.”
I turned the notes over. “It’s beautiful. You guys did a great job. Thank you!”
“I knew you wanted it to be special.”
I looked up at him, at the innocent earnestness in those brown eyes. “You’re a romantic, Neil,” I said. Neil wasn’t every girl’s cup of tea. He was a little too studious looking, his hair was usually a bit too precisely combed and he wasn’t much of a dresser. “What you need,” I found myself saying, “is a nice young woman of your own who you can regale with flowers and music on a regular basis.”
“I do have a nice young woman that I’m in love with, but she doesn’t know I exist, at least not in that way,” he said.
Tiff, I bet it’s Tiff, I thought, as she waved at us from across the cafeteria. His eyes brightened as he said goodbye and took off toward her. They left