Sisters

All three of Annie's sisters helped her dress for her dinner date with Brad. She tried on four different outfits, and each of them had a different opinion about what she should wear for a first date. High heels, low heels, something simple, a little more dressed up, a sexy sweater, a light color, a flower in her hair, earrings, no earrings. In the end, Candy picked out a soft pale blue cashmere sweater for her, a good-looking gray skirt, suede low-heeled boots so she didn't fall on high heels walking into the restaurant, and pearl earrings that had been her mother's. She looked beautiful and young and uncluttered, and not as though she was trying too hard to impress him or seduce him. They all decided it was a good look, just as the doorbell rang. He found himself instantly surrounded by the entire group of sisters, and all three dogs.

“This is quite a welcoming committee,” he said, as Annie introduced him to Tammy and Sabrina for the first time. And two minutes later, Chris arrived.

“Now you know everyone,” Annie said happily. They left five minutes later, for a small Italian restaurant nearby. It was so close, they walked and didn't need a cab. Candy had loaned her her short gray mink jacket, so Annie was warm, and felt very fancy for her first real date in months. It was a far cry from her arty days in Florence with Charlie. This felt very grown up. And at dinner, he told her he was thirty-nine.

“You don't look it,” she said, and they both laughed. “Or maybe I should say you don't sound it.”

“You don't look your age either.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “At first, I thought you were younger.” He sounded embarrassed then. “I checked your records.”

“Aha!” she chortled. “Insider information. That's not fair. You know a lot more about me than I know about you.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything. Where you went to school, what you studied, where you grew up, who you hated in third grade, who you married, why you divorced.” He looked surprised then.

“You have insider information too. How did you know that?”

“Someone told me at school,” she admitted. But she was curious about him. Since she couldn't see him, she wanted to hear all the details. And she would have wanted to know them anyway. It was just that now she couldn't see the expressions on his face, of sadness, guilt, or regret. Those things were important. So she had to rely on what she heard, and how he said it.

“I was married for three years, to my college sweetheart. She's a wonderful girl. She's married to someone else now and has three kids. We're good friends. We wanted very different things out of life. She wanted a career in television, like your sister. I wanted a family and kids. I had lost my parents young, and wanted a family of my own. She didn't. It seems funny now that she has kids. But she's had all three of them in the last four years. We were divorced a long time ago. We were divorced by the time I was twenty-five, fourteen years ago. At the time, we were pretty angry at each other. She felt pressured. I felt cheated. We grew up in Chicago, but she wanted to live in L.A., I wanted to live in New York. I wanted to start the school. She hated the idea. It was a very stressful three years and terrible for both of us.”

“So how come you never got married again?”

“Scared, burned, busy. Starting the school was a huge amount of work. I lived with someone for four years. She was a great woman, but she was French and wanted to go back to France. She missed her family too much. I had already started the school and didn't want to move away. I guess I've been married to the school for sixteen years. It's been my baby and my wife. Time flies when you're having fun, and I am.” She could understand that to some extent. Both her older sisters felt that way about their work, and she had about her art. It hadn't precluded romance in her life, but it had in Tammy's case and even in Sabrina's, to some extent. They were both workaholics, and maybe he was too. You paid a high price for that, and sometimes wound up alone.

“What about you, Annie? No man in your life now?” She laughed dryly. She hadn't had a date since Charlie in Florence and thought she never would again.

“I had a boyfriend in Florence before the accident. He dumped me for someone else, before he found out I was blind.” She always took comfort in that. “I thought it was serious, but I guess it wasn't. Or not as serious as I thought. And before that, I only had one real boyfriend, after college. I was always too passionate about my work as an artist to put a lot of energy into other stuff. It's been a huge change not having my art. Now I have no idea what I'm going to do when I grow up.” She looked desolate for a minute and then shrugged and looked in his direction although she couldn't see him. But he could see how beautiful she was, and she touched his heart with her openness and sincerity. There was no artifice about her.