His screen name, letsbefrank, had made her smile for no particular reason, and she’d very much liked his eyes- kind and brown, the sort of eyes that looked right at you, in, well…a frank expression.
Turns out, his real name was actually Frank Fiorelli, and he was now late for the meet-for-coffee date they’d scheduled after exchanging e-mails.
Okay, maybe he wasn’t actually late. Julia couldn’t remember if she’d set her silver watch five minutes fast the way she did the clocks in her house, and being the perpetually early person she was, she’d gotten to the coffee shop a full half hour before the date. So, she’d been waiting a while, growing more and more anxious as each second ticked by.
Her green-tea latte, neglected on the table, was still full. She took a sip and discovered it had cooled to room temperature.
Then a buzzing sound came from her purse-the cell phone set to vibrate so as not to interrupt her coffee date- and she let out a sigh of relief, thinking it must be Frank calling to cancel.
Which would be great, since she now understood from her terrible case of nerves that she wasn’t cut out for this Internet-dating stuff after all.
But the name on the cell phone’s little screen was West, her middle son.
She answered with a tense-sounding hello.
“Hey, Mom,” he said.
Was it her imagination, or did he sound a little distressed, too?
“Oh, West, honey, how are you?”
“I just got into town, actually.”
“What?” Julia blinked in surprise. “Today? I thought you weren’t arriving for two more weeks.”
A pause, during which she wondered if he’d somehow discovered her Internet dallying.
“It’s Dad,” he finally said, his voice tight.
Julia had been divorced from the General long enough that mention of his name didn’t evoke any particular emotion, but she certainly didn’t wish him any harm, and her stomach flip-flopped at West’s tone.
“What is it? Is he okay?”
“He’s having some problems I need to deal with in person,” he answered vaguely. Julia knew for sure something was wrong, but she decided it was better not to push.
West would tell her the whole story when he was ready. But her mother radar was picking up signals. Something was definitely wrong, with the General, or West, or both.
“Will you be staying with me? Can you come for dinner tonight?”
Her gaze fell on a tall, well-built man with close-cropped gray hair and kind brown eyes, headed toward her, and she barely heard what her son said next.
“I need to stay with Dad for now, but I may want to move to your guest room once I’ve got him squared away. And I’d love to have dinner with you, but I’ll have to let you know later, if that’s okay.”
“Sure, dear,” she said hurriedly. “I have to go now. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.”
She hung up on the sound of her son’s befuddled “Oh, okay, talk to you la-”
Then Julia tucked the phone in her bag and took a deep breath in a failed effort to soothe her jangled nerves.
Frank Fiorelli was standing inside the doorway of the coffee shop now, looking around for her. His gaze swept in her direction, and she smiled tentatively at him.
She hadn’t felt this keyed up, frantic and nervous since her early twenties-the last time she’d been on the dating scene, she realized with some chagrin.
Dear Lord.
He was walking toward her now, his confident stride a stark contrast to the shaky feeling that had overtaken her.
First impression-she liked him. The lines on his face were all smile lines, as if he’d spent a lifetime in a good mood, and it had the effect of making him seem as though he was smiling even when he wasn’t.
She stood when he reached her table.
“Frank?” she said, feeling like a ridiculous schoolgirl.
He smiled broadly, revealing a set of white, healthy teeth that looked real. Never a thing to take for granted in the over-fifty crowd.
“You must be Julia.”
She was about to extend her hand for a handshake when he leaned in and gave her a brief, friendly hug. This could have been awkward or even creepy, but he managed to make it feel utterly natural, and Julia found herself charmed already.
“I’m going to grab a cup of coffee. Can I get you anything while I’m at the counter?” he asked.
“Oh, no.” She cast a glance at her now-cold cup of tea. “I’m fine.”
He grinned again, and she thought she detected the slightest hint of nervousness, which made her feel a little more at ease. He was human, like her.
She sat and took advantage of the chance to stare at Frank as he waited to place his order, his back to her. He wore a sage-green T-shirt tucked into a pair of worn khaki pants, a small braided leather belt that also seemed to have lived a long and well-loved life. On his feet were a pair of brown leather thong sandals, revealing tanned skin and well-shaped toes.
The whole effect was casual, relaxed, unpretentious…
Nice.
Her gaze returned to his broad shoulders, solid and strong, tapering to a narrow waist. He looked like a man who stayed in shape, and she remembered his online profile, which had read like an itinerary at an outdoor- adventure resort-kayaking, hiking, surfing, biking…
Could Julia keep up? She managed to stay fit between her daily yoga practice, a pilates class twice a week, long walks and hikes and religiously working in her garden, but she was no extreme-sports person. Not by a long shot.
Heck, she wasn’t even sure what
Oh, well, at the age of fifty-eight, she was as happy as she could be with her body, and she wasn’t about to worry for more than a moment about how Frank Fiorelli would feel about her physique. She was strong and healthy and still looked nice in a pair of jeans, and if he wasn’t happy with that, he could keep right on looking.
Yet another glorious thing about aging-the loss of the crippling self-consciousness of youth.
Frank returned to the table with coffee in hand, sat across from Julia and grinned again. “So,” he said. “You’re even prettier than your photo. Too bad you can’t say the same about me.”
She laughed, grateful for the joke to break the ice.
“You’re the first person I’ve met online,” she confessed.
“Really?”
She nodded. “It’s even stranger than I thought it would be.”
“Can I make a confession, too?”
Oh, dear. “Sure.”
“My daughter signed me up on the site without my knowing it.”
“No!”
He shook his head, smiling ruefully. “She told me about it afterward, said I might start getting e-mail from ladies interested in going on dates with me.”
“And?”
“I thought, am I so pathetic my daughter needs to intervene in my personal life?”
“I wouldn’t say that’s pathetic. It’s kind of sweet, actually. Like an older version of
“Anyway, I figured I’d better log onto the Web site and see what the heck she’d gotten me into, and before I could stop myself I was looking at your profile and e-mailing you.”
“Wow. I’m the first person you contacted?”
“The only one. When I saw that self-deprecating smile of yours, I knew there had to be something special about you. Not many people could communicate so much with one facial expression. But you…it’s all written right there on your face.”
