In the end, Georgia saved me, like I knew she would. When I called and told her I had a real and true date with Jack directly following a ten-hour shift at work, she rescheduled her late afternoon appointments for another day and headed to my house. After feeding and walking Jasper, she declared everything in my closet totally unworthy and texted me to say she’d decided to go shopping. Five hours later, around ten o’clock, she arrived at Emerald City Events just as I was putting the final touches on the fire-roasted tomatoes I would later blend into a savory jam for the Chandler wedding’s goat cheese tartlets. Georgia wore boot-cut jeans that showed off every inch of her curves and a teal sweater that made her pale skin appear as if it was lit from the inside.
Juan, the only one left in the kitchen, gave her a generous whistle when she blew in through the doors. “Mmm, mamacita. You are one lovely lady.”
“Gracias,” Georgia said graciously, bowing her head. She had two huge Nordstrom shopping bags in her hands.
“Oh man,” I said, eyeing the bags. “What did you do?”
“I picked up three outfits that could work, but I have to see them on you before I can decide. I got shoes, too.”
“Before you can decide? It’s my date, right? I’m not remembering that wrong?”
She pushed me back toward my office. “Yes, it’s your date. But I’m your personal shopper and I need you to trust me on this.” She waved at Juan. “Adios, monsieur!”
He gave Georgia a strange look. I’d have to explain about her foreign-language quirk another time.
“Good night, Juan,” I said. “Thanks for all your hard work tonight. You’re taking tomorrow off, right?” I’d pushed the issue with him earlier, insisting that he let me make up the time he’d covered for me the Saturday when I’d come in late after Bryce’s competition.
“Yes, ma’am!” He saluted me. “Good night, ladies.”
Once inside my office, Georgia hugged me, then pulled back to gaze at me with bright eyes. “I’m so excited for you!”
“Oh, Lord. It’s only a date, Georgia. I have been known to go on them before.” I dropped into my chair and gave her a dreamy smile.
She pointed at me, shaking her arm a couple of times. “Ha! Not just a date. Look at your face.” She sniffed the air and wrinkled her nose in distaste. “But you smell like food.”
“Gee, I wonder how that happened?” I reached up and took my hair down from the messy twist I’d put it in that morning.
“Oh, perfect!” she exclaimed. “Don’t move a strand. That I-just-got-laid look really works for you.”
I laughed. “I look like I just got laid?”
“Well, no, not exactly. More like you just got out of bed. But it works, and that’s what counts.” She clapped her hands together. “Okay, you need to take a whore bath, and then we’ll try on some clothes.”
“Excuse me. A whore bath?”
“Yep. Pits and privates.”
“Nice.” I shook my head and smiled. The phrasing was pure Georgia.
She reached into one of the bags and pulled out a container of mandarin-scented body wash. “Here, this will go with your ‘I smell like food’ theme.”
“Thanks.” I stood up and grabbed it from her, then stepped into the small bathroom connected to my office. I quickly stripped, then wet a washcloth with warm water and a touch of the body wash. “I hope you didn’t go overboard on the outfits,” I called out as I cleaned up. “Studio Zen is pretty casual.”
“You’re talking to the dating queen, my friend. Just trust me. I know what will work at Studio Zen.” She stood just outside the door, waiting for me to scrub up. I dried off and then swiped on some of the deodorant I kept in the medicine cabinet.
“Are you nervous?” she asked when I exited the bathroom in my underwear.
I shrugged and grinned at the same time. “Not really. A little excited maybe. There’s just something about him.”
“Buttons, I’m telling you. He pushes your buttons.”
I followed her back into the office, where she had laid out two separate outfits. My eyes went immediately to a scarlet V-necked blouse trimmed with delicate black embroidery. She had paired it with dark denim jeans and three-inch open-toed strappy black sandals. I sighed. “There is no way in hell I’m wearing those shoes, Georgia. Not only would I tower over him, I’d twist my ankle and end up in tears again.”
Georgia rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. You can’t go in those clodhoppers.” She nodded her head toward my discarded brown kitchen clogs. She grabbed a pair of suede black ankle boots from one of the bags. “How about these?”
I inspected the more practical two-inch wedge heel while I carefully picked up the scarlet blouse. “I like them. They’d put me about even with him height-wise, I think. And this blouse.” I started to pull it on, but Georgia stopped me.
“Wait!” She reached into the bag and handed me a matching scarlet bra-and-panty set. “Ta-da!”
“He’s not going to see my underwear.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m not going to get naked with him on our first date.”
“Oh, because that has never happened before. How long did you know Ryan? Three hours?”
“That was different.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Hardly.” She shook the undergarments at me impatiently. “Put them on. Even if he won’t see them. It’s not just an outfit, it’s an attitude.”
I snatched them from her. “Fine!” In the privacy of the bathroom again, I took off my ratty white bra and underwear and slipped into those she had purchased. They fit like a glove, as did the blouse and jeans. I suddenly went from chef to chic.
Georgia looked me over, smiling triumphantly. “I knew it. I bought the other things as backup, but I knew this was the one. You look amazing.”
I twirled, looking down at myself, trying to get a better view. “Really? Are you sure?”
She nodded her head vigorously. “Yes. Now let me do your makeup and you’ll be ready to go.”
I acquiesced, knowing resistance was futile. I trusted Georgia not to make me look like a streetwalker; her own makeup was almost always flawless.
“So, do I get to meet Mr. Wonderful?” she asked. She used the edge of her pinky finger to smudge the charcoal liner beneath my eyes.
“Sure, if you want to.” I glanced at the clock. Jack was due to arrive any moment. There was always a small part of me that was hesitant to introduce a man I was interested in to Georgia. Not that I questioned her loyalty; it was more that I couldn’t imagine a man meeting her and not wanting to take their chances with her instead of me.
She pulled back after smudging a little red stain on my lips. “Nah, I think I’ll pass. I’ll meet him the next time.”
“You think there’ll be a next time?” I was afraid to get my hopes up. I didn’t want to wish for something I wasn’t going to get.
She winked at me. “I have no doubt.”
I walked Georgia to the parking lot. After a quick hug and a wish for good luck, she drove off. Moments later, Jack pulled up. “You look great,” were the first words out of his mouth.
“Thanks,” I said, smiling. “So do you.” He was wearing jeans and a black sweater, both cut to flatter his leaner build. It struck me that he looked a little like Tom Cruise without the slightly crazed look in his eyes.
“Shall we go?” he asked, and I nodded. He opened the passenger-side door for me and I climbed inside. The formality of this felt a little awkward after our casual errand just the day before, so I was happy the bar was only a five-minute drive.
We were lucky enough to find a parking spot right out front. The lounge wasn’t very full, so we were seated right away and ordered a bottle of Merlot along with a tasting menu of the chef’s select midnight snacks.
“This is nice,” Jack remarked, moving his gaze around the dimly lit dining room. The walls were hung with pearl-gray velvet curtains accented by deep plum cloths on the tables. Whip-thin potted bamboo rose up in unexpected places, creating a sense of privacy between the diners, and low votives flickered all around us.
“It is,” I said. “I’d love to own a place like this someday. Not too big. Warm and intimate.”
He smiled. “I didn’t know you wanted to run your own restaurant.”
“Oh, definitely. It’s sort of every chef’s dream, you know? I just haven’t built up enough capital yet. And investors are keeping their purse strings closed right now, with the recession.”
“I can imagine.” Jack fiddled with his water glass. “So, Tom called you, I take it? Despite his disappointment that I asked you out first?”
I nodded. “He did. But he said he couldn’t stop by until tomorrow, so I guess you’ll just have to wait for your surprise.”
“A little anticipation won’t kill me.” He grinned wickedly. “I actually kind of enjoy it.”
“Really? Not me. Give me instant gratification any day of the week.”
He laughed. “You were the kind of kid who peeked at her Christmas presents, weren’t you?”
“Maybe one year.” I paused to sip my wine and Jack gave me a doubting look. “Okay, every year. The uncertainty drove me crazy. I couldn’t handle the pressure.”
“I knew it,” he said as our server brought us the first course of buttery Cajun popcorn tossed with sweet and spicy pistachios. We both took a couple of pieces and moaned appreciatively. “Wow,” he said. “That’s pretty great.”
“Not like Mom used to make, huh?” I threw another bite in my mouth.
“Is that where you learned to love cooking? Your mother?”
I shook my head, realizing that it was Rita, not Jack, whom I’d told about my father teaching me to cook. I hoped I wouldn’t cry again. “My father was the cook in the family. He had me standing on a chair whisking eggs for breakfast by the time I was three years old.” I took another bite of popcorn, chewed it quickly, and swallowed. “Plus my appetite has always been a little out of bounds, so my dad said if I wanted to eat, I’d better learn to cook. How about you?”
“Me, what?” He smiled and my stomach did a backflip.
“Your family. Are you close to them? Did you grow up in Seattle?”
His smile melted away. “I did grow up here, but no, I’m not close with my family. I’m the black sheep, I suppose.”
“Really? How come?”
He sat back and took a long sip of wine, not speaking until he set it back down on the table. “I refused to follow in my father’s footsteps. He wanted me to take over his company. I’ve been groomed for it my entire life.”
“Ah,” I said. His discarded business degrees suddenly made sense. “And I imagine it didn’t go over well when you decided you wanted to work in social services instead?”
He shook his head. “Not very well at all. We don’t speak unless there’s some kind of family emergency my mother dreams up that demands my presence. She’s constantly trying to get my father and me to reconcile, which is really pretty pointless.”
I nodded but then fell quiet. Jack finished off a couple of more bites of popcorn, then lifted the bowl to offer me the rest. “No, thanks,” I said, holding up my hand. “I’m good.”
He looked concerned. “Did I say something wrong?” The server came to the table and took the bowl, replacing it with a tray full of bacon-wrapped shrimp.
“No, no. I guess I was just thinking how ironic it is that I’m pretty desperate to find my father and you’ve written yours off.”
“I haven’t written him off, exactly,” Jack said. “We’re both just so stubborn about the whole thing, I can’t see a way out of it. He won’t accept the path I’ve chosen and I can’t walk the one he thinks I should. I’m not sure what either of us can do about that.”
“Why did you decide to open the shelter?” I asked. “It’s a pretty far stretch from the corporate world.”
He nodded. “You’re right. It is.” He looked away from me for a moment, then brought his gaze back to mine. “I guess you could say my work began as sort of a penance.”
“A penance? For what?”
“For previous wrongs.” He took a deep breath and released it in a short hiss. “I don’t tell too many people the details. Are you sure you want to hear this?”
“Of course,” I said, wondering what awful act Jack could have committed to make him so uncomfortable talking about it. It was a story he hadn’t wanted to tell me the first night I volunteered at Hope House; I was glad he felt comfortable enough to open up a little now.
“Okay,” he said. “It happened when I was in high school. I hung around with a big bunch of guys—jocks, mostly. I was on the martial arts team.”
“You were a tough guy, then,” I said.
Jack gave a short laugh. “Yeah, we thought we were tough. Strutting around like idiots trying to impress the girls. All that predictable, adolescent crap.”
“Sounds fairly innocent so far,” I said, a little baffled by the apparent conflict in Jack’s expression. Whatever he was about to say, he was not proud of it. He could barely make eye contact with me.
“It was innocent, for the most part. We raised a little hell at parties, but nothing too bad until one night, we went driving around downtown and one of the guys, Dennis, came up with the idea to head into Pioneer Square and see if we could pick up any drunk college girls coming out of the bars. Like that was going to happen, right? Hot college girls are always into boys in their high school letterman jackets.”
I smiled but didn’t say anything, waiting for him to continue.
“So, anyway, we were walking along and this homeless guy came over and asked if we had any spare change. My buddies sort of waved him off and we kept going, but this guy was determined to get something from us, I guess, because he tried to keep up with us, saying, ‘Come on, give a vet a break.’ Shit like that.” Jack took another breath. “So Dennis pulled out his wallet like he was going to give the guy some money, and when the guy reached out for it, Dennis yanked the money back like a game of keep-away, you know?” Jack dropped his eyes to the table and took a big sip of his wine.
I nodded, my stomach turning a bit at what I was afraid Jack might tell me next.
“The guy kept grabbing for the money and Dennis was laughing—we were all laughing until Dennis looked away for a minute and the guy actually nabbed Dennis’s wallet and started running. We chased him and finally cornered him in an alley about two blocks away.” Jack looked up at me, the pain he felt over this memory evident in his eyes. “A couple of the other guys pinned him down and took all the money he had in his pockets, which was only like fifteen bucks or something like that, and then they took turns punching and kicking him. I screamed at them to knock it off, but they wouldn’t listen. When I tried to pull them off of him, they started to come at me, too.” He looked up at me, his green eyes clouded with regret. “Watching it happen and not being able to stop them was pretty much the most horrible moment of my life.”
“I can imagine,” I said, picturing the scene and feeling my stomach twist even further at the images flashing through my mind. Had something like this happened to my father? If it had, did anyone try to help him?
Jack blew a long breath out and sat back in his chair. “I had nightmares about the guy dying in an alley. The guilt was pretty overwhelming.”
“Did you ever talk to anyone about it?”
“A few people. I tried to talk to a couple of the guys who were there, too, but they laughed at me, you know? Like it was just a stupid prank and I should just forget about it.” His eyes held mine. “But I couldn’t. I pushed it down and tried not to let it bother me most of the time, but it always worked its way back up. The look on the guy’s face, pleading for me to help him, kept me up at night. It’s definitely part of why I couldn’t stay working for my dad. I knew I needed to do something to balance out what I’d done.”
“Most people would just write a check to the United Way and call it good,” I said. “You’ve gone a little above and beyond, starting a shelter.”
He smiled. “I’m an overachiever, I guess. I tried doing volunteer work with the homeless during college and it only fueled the idea of the shelter. I thought about waiting until after I retired or something like that, but I didn’t want to put it off. It was just something I knew I needed to do.” He leaned forward and reached across the table to take my hand in his. “Have you thought about what you want to do once you find your dad?”
I gave him a half smile. “Not really, to tell you the truth. I’ve been so focused on the search.”
“What made you decide to start looking for him?”
“I’ve always worried about what happened to him to some extent, but I was pretty angry with him too, for leaving and never coming back to see me.”
“But what about the letters he sent when he was living in the apartment? He at least tried to reach out, right?”
I sighed. “Yes. But by that time I was pretty bitter about not hearing from him for so long. All my adolescent angst went in one direction—toward him. I still worried about him, especially after I realized he’d ended up on the streets, but the real catalyst to start looking for him came about a year ago when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had a double mastectomy and went through chemo. The thought of losing her brought it home pretty hard that if she died, I’d be an orphan.”
“That must have been really rough. How is she now?” Jack picked up a shrimp with his free hand and popped it in his mouth. I liked that he didn’t let go of mine.
“She’s doing well. I still worry, of course. And she wants grandchildren something fierce.”
“Did she remarry?”
“She did, but I don’t really think of John as my father. I mean, I like him, and he’s been great for my mother, but I was so close to my dad before his illness started to get the better of him. Not having him around was a pretty big hole in my life. And then my mom got sick and I just felt this overwhelming need to make sure he’s okay, you know? And also apologize for not answering him when he tried to contact me. I know it’s a cliché, but life really is so short. I didn’t want to look back and regret not at least trying to mend what was broken between us.”
“I can understand that,” Jack said. “And I’d like to say I’m ready to follow in your footsteps with my dad, but I just don’t think I’m there yet.”
I understood what he meant. It took me a long time to work up the courage to start looking for my father; I was sure Jack would reach out to his when the time was right. We ate a little more, and our conversation shifted to our siblings—Jack had a younger sister who worked in residency as a plastic surgeon in Los Angeles, so I joked about setting her up with my bodybuilding brother and the two of them raising a brood of physically perfect children. He told me stories about trying to build up enough capital to open Hope House and we discussed the idea of putting on a fund-raiser. I discovered he loved movies but hated TV. He promised he could tolerate my addiction to reality television if I could tolerate his to playing Xbox games online. Before I knew it, we had sipped our way through a bottle of wine and the lights flashed for last call.
“I probably shouldn’t drive yet,” Jack said. “Want to take a walk? I don’t think it’s raining.” There was no way he was drunk; we’d both only had two glasses of wine. I suspected his offer of a walk was made so we could spend more time together. I wasn’t about to argue with that.
“Sure,” I said, happy I’d insisted on the boots instead of the towering stiletto sandals Georgia would have had me wear.
Jack paid the bill and we set out on our stroll along the fairly deserted downtown streets. I had a happy, skipping feeling in my belly that only intensified when Jack stopped walking and reached over to lace his fingers through mine. We made eye contact as we touched and I gave him a big smile. I stood very still, my heart thwapping like a helicopter in my chest as he turned toward me.
“I like you, Eden. Very much.” His shorter stature suddenly seemed like an enormous advantage with his face at the exact level of mine. If he kissed me, there would be no craning of my neck or standing on tippytoes.
“I like you too,” I said a little breathlessly.
He leaned in slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. I closed my eyes as he drew in closer. His lips were soft and the kiss was gentle but insistent. When he reached his free hand up to brush my cheek with the tips of his fingers, it sent sparks off throughout my body. It had been a long while since someone touched me with such tenderness. I couldn’t help but emit a low groan.
His eyes snapped open at the sound and he pulled back, though still less than two inches from my face. Illuminated by the streetlight, I saw that he had slivers of gold sewn through the green of his irises.
“That good, huh?” he asked with a small grin.
I gave his arm a playful squeeze and smiled. “No, it was horrible, actually. I think you’d better do it again immediately to make up for that pitiful excuse for a kiss.”
He gave a low chuckle and unwound his fingers from mine, bringing both his hands to my face, cupping it before he kissed me again. This time he didn’t hold back. I felt his tongue flick against mine, just the tip, questioning. I opened and pressed my body against him. His arms encircled me and as his hands roamed lightly over my back, an unfamiliar sensation rose up in me. Right there, in the middle of the night on a downtown street corner, Jack held me in his arms and for the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt safe.
