Excerpt
Diana in Love
Chapter OneL’Wren pulls up to the valet outside the Hunt Gallery and we take in the chic crowd. “Who is this guy again?”
Well-dressed partygoers have spilled out onto the sidewalk. They don’t look the way I had imagined they would—they’re older, and if not dripping with wealth, definitely sturdy with it. “Thanks for being here.”
“Of course. What are best friends for? But really, who is this guy?”
“An old friend from New Mexico,” I say. “He wasn’t quite this popular when we knew each other.”
I fix my lipstick one last time in the mirror, my pulse quickening at the idea of seeing Jasper again. I think about all the ways I’ll play it cool—Inhale:
This was a good idea. Exhale:
This was a terrible idea.. . .
Jasper, the first love of my life, whom I had not seen in almost fifteen years, got in touch last week. He was in town. We met for a coffee. And it’s had me rattled all week. I wasn’t prepared to see him, for one thing. I thought I was meeting a business contact, a sort of blind setup arranged by my friend Alicia. When I looked up and saw Jasper, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
He was taller than I remembered, with longer legs and broader shoulders. When he sat across from me, the table and everything on it seemed to shrink. My mind raced, trying to figure out how and why he was there, right in front of me—but all my brain could conjure in that moment was a memory, from over a decade ago: the two of us lying in bed, Jasper asking if I liked the way the afternoon light fell across our naked bodies.
“Diana.” Jasper’s smile was warm and unhurried. “Thanks for taking the meeting.” He rested his elbows on the table, his face in his hands. “Alicia and I thought it would be a fun surprise. And it seemed like a really clever idea until about a minute ago when I was standing outside and saw you through the window.”
At the thought of him watching me, the tips of my ears burned. I wished I had brushed my hair this morning instead of pulling it into a messy topknot. I wished I was wearing something sexier than an old blue T-shirt of Oliver’s.
“Well.” I smiled. I could only laugh. There he was: deep brown eyes, dark hair, rosy lips. “It is a surprise.”
I’d pictured Jasper so many times over the years, but always resisted the urge to look him up. Now that he was in front of me, I realized how uninspired my imagination had been—I’d left out all his familiar dimensions and I’d forgotten how exciting it is, the feeling, exactly, of being near a body that holds all its energy right at the surface.
Mr. Art Throb. Those playful eyes. The smooth skin and rugged good looks.
He tipped back in his chair and crossed his arms behind his head, charisma fully intact. “I tried to call you, you know. When I got back from that first London trip. But your number was disconnected.”
That was so long ago that, sitting across from him, I honestly couldn’t remember if I had purposefully—while in the throes of a broken heart—changed my number when I moved from Santa Fe to Dallas, or if I was just so young and broke that I couldn’t pay the bill and went without a phone for a while.
“I figured you had moved on,” he said.
I noticed people noticing Jasper. A few lingering glances from other diners. He’s so attractive it’s comic. Sad-comic, he likes to remind you, with those sometimes-doleful eyes. “It was a million years ago.”
“Fourteen. Fifteen?” he asked.
But I didn’t want to go back in time. I was too excited to be with him here. Now. “How long will you be in Dallas?”
“A week, probably. I don’t know.” He looked up from his hands and then found my eyes. My pulse quickened. “It’s nice here.”
Watching him across the table, I remembered one freezing night we’d camped out in West Texas and it rained for hours. We didn’t sleep at all. In the morning, groggy and shivering, I expected him to be more than ready to pack up. But he just looked at me in our cold, leaking tent and smiled. “One more night?” He could always make a terrible idea sound good. He was looking at me like that now.
We stayed like that—watching each other across the table—for what felt like several minutes, blood rushing to my cheeks, a familiar stir between my legs. The heat between us had not cooled after all these years.
“When I asked Alicia what you’ve been up to, she forwarded a link to the site you’ve been working on. Diana, as soon as I saw all your new paintings and heard your voice on those recordings, I had this swell of pride—” He stopped himself, suddenly embarrassed. “Not that I had anything to do with it, I just—”
“It’s pretty wild, right?” I let him off the hook. “Sex positive. Sex obsessed? I don’t know what it is yet.”
“It’s all that. Incredibly sexy. Beautiful, raw paintings.” Jasper’s phone rang then, and he excused himself. He took the call outside, pacing in tight circles, while I watched through the window, wondering if he would return anytime soon. It was a familiar feeling, waiting for Jasper. Finally, back at the table, he apologized for having to run.
“Would you come to my show’s opening? It’s Thursday. Here in Dallas.”
My heart sank at the word
Thursday. I wanted to see him that night. The next night. And the next. For what exactly, I didn’t know. So I promised I would come to the show, and at the same time I thought,
This is not a good move. Not now. Terrible timing. He shattered your heart, remember?We parted minutes later, agreeing how great it was to be back in touch. We were both very polite, as if niceties could cover up any of the gaping holes we were digging with all our unsaid feelings. What do you say to a near stranger who at one point you loved more than anyone? Then we embraced and the scent of him almost made my legs give out.
Of course I spent the entire week thinking about whether or not to go to Jasper’s show. What would it be like to see him now that the surprise was out of the way? And why
wouldn’t I go to see his work? Here it was, right in Dallas. I convinced L’Wren to come with me, but I haven’t really told her much. And as we squeeze into the line of people waiting to enter the gallery, she falls uncharacteristically quiet.
“L’Wren?” I let her name hang like a fully formed question. I squint into the late-afternoon sun looming just over her shoulder, then add, “Tell me.”
“It’s nothing. Honestly.” Her eyes dart from me to her sandals and back to me. “I was just thinking . . . Kevin told me he heard that Oliver wasn’t seeing that lady from the food court anymore.”
I’ve spoken to Oliver very little since he moved out and seen him even less. The last time he dropped off our daughter, Emmy, at my house, a woman was sitting in the front seat of his car. She sat the way I imagine a new girlfriend would—smiling politely, sunglasses still on, a gentle wave in my direction, but nothing to make too big a show of her presence. She had a wide smile with lots of white teeth and pulled off a pixie cut in a way that makes other women believe they, too, could pull off a pixie cut. And while she could very well be an astrophysicist or an Olympic swimmer, because L’Wren had heard a rumor that Oliver met her at the mall, and in allegiance to our friendship, L’Wren refers to her exclusively as “that lady from the food court.”
“And so I just wanted to make sure you had all the facts,” L’Wren insists. “About Oliver being single.”
I study her expression, her mouth turned down in a slight frown. Does she think it’s a good thing or bad thing that Oliver is single? Before I can decide, she changes the subject entirely. “I’ve always wanted to come here.” The line moves forward and she loops her arm in mine, smiling. “Trish’s husband claims he bought a Seok here for over a hundred K. Your mystery guy must be fairly well known.”
“He’s not my guy.”
“Can I make him my guy?” A picture of Jasper in the gallery’s window welcomes partygoers. He looks just like he did at the café
—all dimples and easy charm.
As soon as we enter, L’Wren runs into a couple she knows from her club and I slip away, steadily working my way through the gallery, staying alert in case Jasper should suddenly appear. I glance around the room. He should be quick enough to spot, a crowd of admirers buzzing around him.
When he’s nowhere to be seen, I decide to make a slow lap and take in the show. It’s easy to get sucked in. Jasper’s photographs are commanding, making you want to hold their unflinching gaze. A woman alone on what looks like desert sand newly soaked in rain; a young boy’s narrow face in the window of a crumbling villa. The show is more varied than the last one I’d seen, especially with the mix of landscapes and portraits.
