Lock and Key(100)

He pushed a piece of paper across to me, and I glanced down at it, reading over the familiar titles of the songs my mom had always sung to me, listed in block print. “No,” I said finally. “This is pretty much all of them.”

“Great.” He hit another button, taking out the CD and putting it on the counter as I pushed out my chair, getting to my feet. “Where you headed?”

“Shopping,” I said, pulling my bag over my shoulder. “I have to find something phenomenal.”

“You will,” he replied. “Just remember: the heart! Start there, and you can’t go wrong.”

I remained unconvinced, however, especially once I got to the mall, where there were hearts everywhere: shaped into balloons and cookies, personalized on T-shirts, filled with chocolate and held by fuzzy teddy bears. But even after going into a dozen stores, I still couldn’t find anything for Nate.

“Personally,” Harriet said as I slumped onto her stool an hour later for a much-needed rest, “I think this holiday is a total crock, completely manufactured by the greeting-card companies. If you really love someone, you should show it every day, not just one.”

“And yet,” Reggie said, from his kiosk, “you are not averse to running a two-for-one Valentine’s Day special on bracelets and assorted rings.”

“Of course not!” she said. “I’m a businesswoman. As long as the holiday exists, I might as well profit from it.”

Reggie rolled his eyes and went back to stacking daily multis. “I just want to get something good,” I said. “Something that means something.”

“Just try to forget about it for a while,” she replied, adjusting a rack of pendants. “Then, out of nowhere, the perfect gift will just come to you.”

I looked at my watch. “I have about twenty-six hours. Not exactly a lot of time for inspiration to strike.”

“Oh.” She took a sip of her coffee. “Well, then I’d get him some of those macaroons you bought me at Christmas. Those you can’t go wrong with.”

In the end, though, it didn’t come to that, although what I did end up with was almost as pathetic: a gift card to PLUG, the music store. It wasn’t phenomenal, not even decent, and as I left the mall feeling thoroughly defeated, all I could hope was that Harriet was right, and I’d come up with something better in the short time I had remaining.

The next morning, though, this still hadn’t happened, a fact made even more obvious when I came down for breakfast and walked right into Jamie’s first wave. Four dozen roses in varying colors were arranged in vases all around the kitchen, each tied with a big white bow. Cora was at the counter, reading the card off of one of them, her face flushed, as I helped myself to coffee.

“He always overdoes it on Valentine’s,” she said, although she looked kind of choked up as she tucked the card into her purse. “The first year we were married, he got me a new car.”

“Really,” I said.

“Yep. Totally overwhelmed me.” She sighed, picking up her mug. “It was so sweet, but I felt terrible. All I’d gotten him was a gift card.”

I swallowed. “I have to go.”

What I needed, I decided as I headed down the walkway to Nate’s car ten minutes later, was to just stop thinking about Valentine’s Day altogether. Which seemed easy, at least until I opened the car door and found myself face-to-face with a huge basketful of candy and flowers.

“Sorry,” Nate said from somewhere behind the tiny balloons that were poking out of the top of it. “We’re a little cramped in here. Do you mind holding that in your lap?”

I picked up the basket, then slid into the seat, pulling the door shut behind me. The instant it was closed, the smell of roses was overpowering, and as I shifted in my seat I saw why: the entire back was piled with baskets of assorted sizes, stacked three deep. “Where’s Gervais?” I asked.

“I’m here,” I heard a muffled voice say. A huge bunch of baby’s breath shifted to one side, revealing his face. “And I think I’m having an allergic reaction.”

“Just hang in there for a few more minutes,” Nate told him, opening his window as we pulled away from the curb. His phone rang, rattling the console, and I peered around the flowers in my lap to look at him as he grabbed it, putting it to his ear. “Yeah,” he said, slowing for the next light. “I’m on my way to school right now, so in ten or so I’ll start down the list. Lakeview first, then over to the office complex. Right. Okay. Bye.”

“You’re not going to school today?” I asked as he hung up.

“Duty calls,” he said, shutting his phone. “My dad got a little overambitious with the response to the special, so we’re pretty booked. We’ll be lucky to get it all done, even with the two of us going all day.”

“Really,” I said quietly.

“Don’t worry,” he said as his phone rang again. “I’ll be done in plenty of time for our thing tonight.”

But this wasn’t what I was worried about, and I wondered if he knew it. It was hard to tell, since he was talking to his dad again as he pulled up in front of Perkins Day, and Gervais and I extracted ourselves to disembark. As he headed off, sneezing, I put the basket I’d been holding back on the seat, then stood by the open door, waiting for Nate to hang up. Even as he did, he was already shifting back into gear, moving on.