An Engagement in Seattle - Debbie Macomber [81]
Lesley’s gaze went to the café, situated next to the grocery store in the strip mall. She’d just been mugged, and having coffee with a stranger didn’t seem to be an especially brilliant idea.
“I can understand your hesitation, but I assure you I’m harmless.”
“All right,” Lesley found herself agreeing. Chase smiled and his brown eyes fairly sparkled. She’d hardly ever met a man with more expressive eyes.
When they took a table by the window, the waitress immediately brought menus and rhymed off the specials of the day.
“I’ll just have coffee,” Lesley said.
“What kind of pie do you have?” Chase wanted to know.
The waitress listed several varieties in a monotone as if she said the same words no less than five hundred times a day.
“Give me a piece of the apple pie and a cup of coffee.”
“I’ll take a slice of that pie, too,” Lesley said. “I shouldn’t,” she muttered to Chase when the waitress left, “but I’m going to indulge myself.” She’d forgo the gourmet ice cream in favor of the pie; later she’d drown her blues in a 1990s Meg Ryan movie, where love seemed to work out right and everything fell neatly into place just before THE END scrolled onto the screen. If ever there was a time she needed to believe in fairy tales, it was today.
“Sure you should,” Chase said.
“I know,” Lesley said, straightening and looking out the window as she thought about the reason she was pampering herself. To her embarrassment, tears flooded her eyes. She managed to blink them back but not before Chase noticed.
“Is something wrong?”
“Delayed shock, I guess,” she said, hoping that sounded logical, and that he’d accept it without further inquiry. Funny, she could go weeks without dwelling on the pain and then the minute school was out and Tony and April weren’t around anymore, she started weeping.
“It’s just that today was supposed to have been my wedding day,” she blurted out. Lesley didn’t know what had made her announce this humiliation to a complete stranger.
“What happened?” Chase asked softly. His hand reached for hers, his fingers folding around hers in a comforting way.
“Oh, what usually happens in these situations. Tony met someone else and…well, I guess it was just one of those things. The two of them clicked, and after a whirlwind courtship, they got married. They both seem happy. It’s just that…” Her voice faltered and she left the rest unsaid.
The waitress delivered the pie and coffee and, grateful for the interruption, Lesley reached for her purse and took out a tissue. “My friends forgot that today was the day Tony and I’d chosen for the wedding.” She sighed. “In retrospect, I don’t know if I miss him as much as I miss the idea of the wedding. You know, starting off our marriage with this beautiful celebration, this perfect day.…”
He nodded. “And?”
“And I guess I became so involved in getting ready for the wedding that I didn’t realize how unhappy and restless Tony had become. When he asked for time to think about everything, I was shocked. I should’ve known then that something was really wrong, that it wasn’t just pre-wedding jitters. As it turned out, it was good old-fashioned guilt. He’d met April—Oh, we all work at the same elementary school,” she explained.
“Teachers?”
Lesley nodded. “Anyway, he was attracted to April, and she was attracted to him, and the whole thing got out of control.… I’m sure you get the picture.”
“Yes, I do. It seems to me that your friend’s a fool.”
Lesley laughed, but it sounded more like a hiccup. “We’re still friends, or at least he tries to be my friend. I don’t know what I feel—not anymore. It all happened months ago, but it still hurts and I can’t seem to put it behind me.”
“It’s only human that you should feel hurt and betrayed, especially today.”
“Yes, I know, but it’s much more than that. Tony felt terrible and with all of us working together, well, that just makes it more difficult. I asked the school district for a transfer but when Tony heard about it, he asked me not to. He didn’t think I should disrupt my life and why can’t we still be friends, blah,