Cupid's Christmas (Serendipity #3)(4)

I turned to Traci, his wife, thinking she’d jump in and give me some support. But one look and I knew she wasn’t going say anything. She was sitting there looking like she had a sour pickle stuck sideways in her mouth.

After two hours of such nonsense, I told Ray he’d better go on home and get used to the idea because like it or not, I was going to marry John. When Ray stomped out the door, Traci followed along. At the last minute, she turned back and mumbled, “G’nite.” That was the only word she’d spoken since the first mention of John’s name.

I’m praying Ray will simmer down and come to accept the idea. I’d like him to be happy for me, be glad I’ve found somebody, be glad I won’t grow old sitting here alone. Right now he thinks the worst of John, but I’m betting he’ll have a different opinion once he meets him.

Kids might think their parents are too old for love, but I can say for a fact it’s not true. John makes me feel something I haven’t felt for years. When he kisses me and traces the edge of my cheek with his thumb, I get a tingle that goes clear down to my toes. He feels exactly the same. I know because if we’re apart for one afternoon he calls to say how much he’s missing me. Ray’s daddy never did that, not even when we were first married.





Cupid…Mistakes & Misconceptions



Lindsay is not at all like her mom. Bethany was a practical woman who looked at life and saw it for exactly what it was. At the end of each day Bethany packed her troubles into a closet of forgetfulness and the next morning she awoke to a new day and another chance at happiness. Lindsay, well she’s another story.

After her breakup with Phillip, she moved through the days like a person with no reason to live. Tuesday through Saturday, she left her apartment at the same time, stopped at the same Starbucks and worked at the bookstore from nine until six-thirty. Day after day she returned home carrying an armload of books. In the evening she read until her eyes were weary and then went to bed. On Mondays she cleaned the apartment then went right back to reading.

You might think that after centuries of dealing with humans I would be accustomed to their peculiarities, but certain ones, like Lindsay, still boggle my mind. The end of a love affair is always cause for a certain amount of despondency, but this girl carried it to the extreme.

While she was at the bookstore Lindsay spent most of her time walking from aisle to aisle, looking for books that had nothing to do with love. She avoided the romance section and took to browsing the exotic cuisine and travel shelves, even though she had little appetite and nowhere to go. One evening as she staggered in with an unusually large armload of books, Walker, the building doorman, lifted several from the top of the pile and followed her to the elevator.

“Thanks Walker,” she said, “I think they were about to fall.”

He nodded, “Seems you’re doing a lot of reading these days.”

“I am,” she replied, “It helps pass the time.”

“Pass the time?” He set his pile of books down on the foyer bench then took the remaining books from her arms and placed them beside the first pile. “Why would a girl pretty as you need books to pass time?”

“It’s a long story…” she gave sigh that came from the pit of her stomach and swirled through her chest, “I had this terrible argument with Phillip and…”

“I know,” Walker nodded, “I heard the noise. When I went to take a look at what was going on, I spotted him scooping his stuff off the street.”

“We’re through. He won’t be back.”

Walker smiled, “Good. You deserve better.”

“I do?”

“Sure. That guy was no gentleman.”

I could see the wheels turning in Lindsay’s head…She’d looked at eyes, muscles, even the swagger of bravado, but not once had she searched for a lover who was a gentleman.

“How can you tell he wasn’t…” she asked Walker.

“People don’t notice me standing here, but I see things…”

“What things?”

Walker went on to say how he’d seen Phillip walk through the door first and let it swing shut on Lindsay, how he’d let her struggle with packages and not offered to help, and how he’d openly flirted with the girl in 9A. Walker was a man who knew heartache close up. He’d experienced it in his own family, so he never mentioned that he’d also seen Phillip in Washington Square Park, kissing a woman who was old enough to be his mother.

Lindsay listened as he told her about his daughter, “My Emily got mixed up with the wrong man,” Walker said, “and she’s had a real hard life. That no-good walked off and left her with two little girls to raise and no money to pay the rent or buy a bag of groceries.”

“How awful,” Lindsay gasped.

“It was awful alright, but by then the deed was done. She couldn’t do a thing about it.”

The tale of a girl far worse off than herself caught Lindsay by the throat, “What happened to Emily and her daughters?” she asked fearfully.

“Three years later Emily met a fine church-going man and married him,” Walker said. “That man took care of those girls like they was his own.”

“Thank goodness,” Lindsay sighed.

“Amen to that,” Walker said. “Most important thing about any man is his principles. A man with no principles ain’t worth the shoes he wears on his own feet.”