Enchanting Lily (18 page)

Ben nodded, and she hurried to the restroom, an expansive lounge with brass fixtures and soft elevator music piped in through invisible speakers. She took a deep breath, gathering her wits.

She expected to look disheveled in the mirror, but she looked…pretty. Had some of the gray hair disappeared? How could that have happened? Did her skin look younger? Or maybe it was the lighting in here.

She ran the brush through her tangled locks, wiped away the smudged liner beneath her eyes, and touched up her lipstick. A woman came into the restroom—Paige.

Paige stopped, and her eyes widened. “Lily, fancy meeting you here. Small world!”

“Sure is!” Lily said. “How are you?” Had Paige seen her come in with Ben?

Paige came up beside Lily, shoulder to shoulder, and looked in the mirror. “You on a date?”

“Sort of—”

“This is the best restaurant on the island. Best-kept secret. Now you know!”

“So I hear.”

“Who are you with? Ben Cole?”

Lily looked at Paige in the mirror and blushed.

“I was right!”

“It’s not serious.” Lily fussed with her hair. She was beginning to think a small island could be too small.

“Enjoy the not serious.” Paige winked in the mirror.

“He was showing me around the island.”

“Showing you, huh?” Paige lowered her voice to a whisper. “Let me know how he is. You know—”

“I’m not going to sleep with him!”

“Uh-huh.” Paige winked at her again.

Lily elbowed her. “And who are you here with, my dear?”

Paige’s face turned a mild shade of pink. “A guy I met. Not a big deal.”

“Spill!”

“At John’s wedding. That dress, Lily—”

“You met a guy at your ex-husband’s wedding?”

Paige waved her hand. “It’s all so new. Very casual right now.”

“Keep me posted,” Lily said.

“I will!” Paige went into the stall, and Lily hurried out of the restroom and back to her table and fumbled with the menu.

“This is going to sound strange, but I don’t know how to do this, how to act on a dinner date,” she said. “I haven’t been with another man in a while—”

“Neither have I. With another woman, I mean.”

She laughed, not believing him. “I don’t even know what to order.”

“Whatever you feel like having.”

She sipped her water. “A luxury. It’s been so long since I enjoyed food.”

“Close your eyes and choose something.”

“Really?”

“Why not?”

She closed her eyes and pointed, but she had to try again, as her first option was prawn and garlic butter pasta, and she was vegetarian. Next was the garden burger. “That’s it,” she said.

“Pretty tame, but okay.” He chose the wild salmon.

She kept an eye out for Paige but didn’t see her. She was probably on the other side of the restaurant, out of view.

As they ate their meals and sipped wine, they talked about their histories, their hobbies, the island. Ben had grown up here, his father an attorney who worked in the city and liked to sail in his free time, his mother a teacher. He had two older brothers, one an air force pilot, the other a businessman in Montana.

Ben told her stories from his life, from the clinic.

“Once a pet psychic called one of my clients to tell her that her cat wanted her to leave, that she shouldn’t have the cat. What was I supposed to say?”

“You didn’t let her get rid of the cat, did you?”

“I told her the psychic was wrong. She could not, under any circumstances, abandon her cat when so many millions of cats are homeless.”

“That’s what I like about you. You stand up for what you believe in.”

“I also have to understand my clients and not judge them.”

“You judged me when I first brought the cat in there.”

“Sorry if I came across as harsh.”

“I know you’re a softy.”

“I am, huh? Here’s to softies.” He grinned, and they raised their glasses in a toast.

After dinner, they walked on a stretch of quiet beach where the waves lapped the shoreline in a rhythmic lullaby. Lily felt warm and comfortable walking with his arm around her. In a protected cove, he pulled her smoothly into his arms and kissed her. His lips were warm, firm, and confident. She felt her body coming alive again, unfettered.

“My place?” he said, his voice husky. “Bish is away for the night.”

“Yes,” she whispered back without a second thought. She’d expected to be careful, to keep her boundaries intact, but at his house, she found herself walking inside with him, letting him undress her and carry her into a land of enchantment. He paid attention to parts of her body, to nerve endings that she’d forgotten even existed, and for a while, she also forgot about Josh.

Kitty

Lily returns late, when the moon is high, and she smells of the sea, of Dr. Cole, of bliss and sleepiness. She talks to me while she brushes her teeth and wipes the paint off her face.

“I could have stayed over there but it didn’t feel right. I mean, it did feel right, but I couldn’t.”

Why can’t she make up her mind?

She blinks at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. “But was that me? Or someone else?”

Is this really a question?

“I’m still alive. Oh, kitty. I know this sounds crazy—but for the first time since Josh died, I feel like I might survive.”

To me, everything a human says can sound borderline crazy. “I don’t think I’ve truly believed that I could ever really live again. I mean, feel things like a touch, the taste of food. But I can.”

Of course she can. She’s putting on a nightgown, climbing into bed, and pulling me close. In a moment, she is asleep, but the next day, she is different, changed again in a small way. Perhaps she is closer to the woman she once was. Her heartbeat has shifted—a subtle alteration.

She’s happy for the next few days, occasionally going out to see Ben, preening beforehand, throwing clothes around before choosing each outfit.

Bish comes in, too, to talk about boys and school and new shoes and other boring subjects, but she’s always good to me, bringing me treats.

But Lily’s perfume, I can do without. That dusty little bottle that sat on her dressing table for so long? She wiped it off and spritzes her neck with that horrendous, sharp scent. Why doesn’t she rely on pheromones? She probably can’t even smell them.

When Paige returns to the shop, Lily alters another dress for her, this one a deep red with scratchable lace.

The thin woman with the thin little son comes back in, too, and he reads to me again from a giant picture book. This time, I don’t fall asleep. The story is about a naughty cat that runs away from home to join a gang, but then the cat misses his human, calls home from a telephone booth, and meows at the top of his lungs. His human races over in the car to pick him up, and he goes home to live happily ever after. A good story, except what is a telephone booth?

Lily’s shop attracts more interesting customers, like a weird guy who unloads pockets full of sunglasses, all of which he removed from corpses at an Arizona funeral home. And a frail woman brings in a zippered green dress. She insists it’s over a hundred years old, but Lily explains that plastic zippers weren’t used on clothing until the sixties. The woman stalks out in a huff.

The people in the shop keep me entertained, and I entertain them in return, but often I sit in the windowsill, my thoughts drifting to the life I had outside. Occasionally, I wish for a little air, but the feeling quickly passes.

Construction continues on the shop across the street, and one afternoon, the tall woman, who sometimes works on the window displays, comes striding up the path and right into Lily’s boutique.

Lily

“I’ve wanted to stop in here for a long time,” Florence said, unbuttoning her Burberry coat. Her voice came out toffee-smooth and deep, and she looked immaculate. The blustery walk across the street had not displaced a single hair on her well-coiffed head. But close up, she looked older than she had appeared from a distance—her face lined, the skin fragile, her eyes tired.

“I’m glad you stopped by.” Lily decided to be polite and friendly.
She wouldn’t stoop to petty competitiveness, and yet she stole glances at her window display, her sale racks, and her customers. She counted five women in the shop. How many were in Flo’s boutique?

“I heard all about the kitty.” Flo strode over to the cat, who sat sphinxlike on a table of scarves, and gently patted her head. “She’s adorable.”

“But I thought you might not like cats.”

“Did Chris tell you that? I love cats. She’s the one who doesn’t like animals. She’s my sister’s kid and, well, my sister invested heavily in my business.” Flo seemed about to add something more, perhaps to say
That’s why I hired Chris, not because she’s great at her job
, but she pursed her lips.

“I didn’t realize,” Lily said. “If you ever want to pet the cat, please feel free. Come in anytime.”

“You’ve got some absolutely lovely pieces.” Flo strode to a blue floral Hawaiian dress. “This is Alfred Shaheen?”

Lily nodded, surprised. “How did you know?”

“I love vintage Hawaiian, but I’ve never trusted myself to know which clothes will sell and which aren’t worth their salt.”

“Really? I’m not always sure, either. It’s hit and miss.”

“Like anything, right? I should take more risks with my inventory, but…the economy is so fragile these days.”

“I can relate to that. But I see you’re offering clothes on consignment now.”

“I’ve got to ride the waves of the future,” Flo said, coming up to the counter. “But I never know what I’m doing.”

“I don’t, either,” Lily said.

“Still, we keep moving forward.”

“We do.”

Flo shook Lily’s hand. Her bejeweled fingers were long, cool, and firm. “This was a long time coming, honey. I should’ve met you long ago, but the truth is, I’ve envied you.”

“You’ve envied me?”

Flo waved her hand. “Oh, you know, the whole quaint cottage look, the little vintage sign in the yard, all the bells and whistles, and I’m stuck in a square brick building right on the sidewalk.”

“But you have customers traipsing in and out all the time, and the addition—”

“The addition wasn’t my idea. It was my landlord’s. He might be preparing to kick me out and move one of his other businesses into the space. But right now, it’s all going up under the pretense of helping me out and letting me expand.”

Flo had a landlord? “That’s not a nice thing for him to do,” Lily said.

“Maybe I can talk some sense into him. I’m good at
talking people into things. But I came to ask you something a little crazy.”

“What do you mean?” Lily imagined that Flo would ask her to close up shop and leave, or—

“Do you want to join forces? I don’t mean literally. But we could coordinate our advertising, have our sales together—it could bring in double the business. I’ll send people your way, you send people mine. I could carry a few of your things, you carry a few of mine?”

Lily gaped, at a loss. She had expected Flo to come in exuding swagger and confidence, but not this. “It’s an idea,” she said slowly. “But you’re not around too often.”

Flo looked at her fingers, which had begun to tremble. “I’ve been a caregiver for my mom in hospice. But…she hasn’t got much time left.” She looked up at Lily, her eyes dark with sadness and resignation. “When she’s gone, which will be very soon, I expect I’ll have more time again.”

“I’m so sorry,” Lily said, her throat dry. She looked around at her shop, at the care she had taken to arrange the lighting, the mannequins, the displays, all to rival the beauty of The Newest Thing. All this time, she’d had no idea what was really going on. “Why don’t you stay for a while, and we can talk? I’ve got some herbal teas, and there’s a soft chair over there in the corner. You could take a break and put your feet up on the ottoman.”

The immaculate Florence smiled and shrugged off her coat. “I would love some tea, chamomile or lemon would be fine. And I take a little honey, too, a spoonful if you’ve got some.”

Kitty

Lily and Flo have become buddies now. If Flo isn’t rushing over here with something to say or something to bring, Lily is racing over to the other shop. Flo sends her customers to Lily for alterations. Lily sends people to The Newest Thing. Many more people come in to see “the cat,” and I have to groom my fur far too often, what with all the petting.

I play my dutiful role, pawing at the appropriate dress or suit or vintage wedding gown. People gasp and say I’m an enchanted cat, able to see into their souls and show
them what they need. That much is true, since I’m descended from the ancient Egyptian cat goddess, Bastet.

I can also see what Lily might face when she finishes altering the Homecoming dress. She slips the blue Cinderella gown into a garment bag.

“All done,” she says to me. “Bish is going to love this new look. What do you think?”

I sit upright and stare at Lily, trying to tell her what I know is coming. But she turns around and leaves the shop. What else can I do? I sit in the window and watch her truck disappear around the bend. Sometimes, humans must discover the truth for themselves.

Lily

Lily had transformed the Cinderella costume into a one-shoulder A-line evening dress in royal blue. With each step, Bish would reveal one tantalizing leg, and yet the hem nearly reached the floor, keeping it formal. Lily had sewn ruffled flowers along the bodice and up over the shoulder strap, and as a final touch, she had added a flowing sash. Simple, yet elegant.

She zipped the dress into a garment bag and tried to keep to the speed limit on the drive through town. What would Ben say when he saw her? He’d called her the morning after
their night together. He said he missed her, wanted to see her again, only he wasn’t sure when he could get another day off. Now she was full of anticipation, checking her face in the mirror, her hair.

When she arrived at the Cole house, Ben’s truck was gone, and an unfamiliar silver Mercedes Impressor sat in its place, nose against the garage. Before Lily turned into the driveway, she already knew to whom the car must belong. She could keep on going, drive right into the ocean, but instead she parked behind the Mercedes, draped the garment bag over her shoulder, and strode up to the front door.
Head high, shoulders square. Deep breath, nothing to worry about,
she thought. Maybe Ben had bought a new car. The Mercedes could be his or it could belong to anyone—a friend, a client.