He kissed me again, telling me that it would be worth it. My body was trembling when he pulled away.
“It will be worth it. I know it. I am just not liking the idea that we’re going to have to wait for months to see each other again.”
I touched his face. “It will go by quicker than you can imagine. I will see you again before you know it.”
Amber
10 years later
My assistant was calling my name when I finally heard her. I had the model standing in front of me with my newest design on her perfect form, and I was supposed to be doing tweaks to the hem. Thank God they just wrote off my spaciness for being an artist and it was just my way of doing things. I was glad for the leeway that creative types were given.
“Amber, are you okay? I was telling you that Frank Levin was on line one. Did you hear me?”
It was not the Frank I was thinking of. I couldn't help, though, every time I heard Frank's name, I thought about the last time that I saw him, on my grandfather’s roof. We had kissed and made promises to see each other soon. We were going to call, we were going to write. All these things we were going to do and none of them happened. Instead, I got wrapped up in school and quickly put him to the wayside. By the time summer arrived, I was excited to see him again, but then I realized that he no longer lived in Hampton. He had moved away to stay with one of his uncles for that summer. His uncle was an investment banker and wanted to teach Frank the ropes.
I didn't really care about any of it, just that I’d lost my favorite person that quickly. Frank and I had a great summer the year before, but that was the last time we spent together. To this day, ten years later, I still hadn't seen him again, and I caught myself wondering from time to time how he was doing.
“Right, what does he want?”
“He says that the dresses that were sent are not the right color. They’re more purple than mauve.”
I rolled my eyes and tried not to be upset. I wished that it had been the other Frank on the phone. Frank Levin was one of my better clients, but he insisted on being so high maintenance that it was almost not worth it. I kept telling myself as soon as I had my own fashion house, I would not need to sell to people like him, anymore. Then, I could just sell my own wares and cut out the middlemen like Frank.
Today was not that day, though, so I took the call and tried my best to calm down a man that was obviously too upset over the color of a dress. It made me wonder if he was having a bad day in the rest of his life and that's why he was so adamant about the dresses. I promised that I would come down and check them out to make sure that something hadn’t gone wrong. I thanked him for bringing it to my attention, and we made a meeting for later that day. It was a meeting that I wasn't looking forward to.
Once again, I started thinking about Frank Smith. What was he doing, and was he still the man that I’d fallen for and then been crushed by his departure? What would I even say to him, if I ever saw him again?
Those thoughts kept my mind active for a while before I realized that I had so much more to do. The real question that I asked myself was the same. Did Frank think about me as much as I thought about him?
2
Amber
It was about a week later from that incident when I got a phone call that I wish I hadn't gotten. As soon as I heard where the nurse said she was from, Hampton, the small town of my childhood summers, I knew that it was going to be bad news. My grandfather was old, really old, and apparently, he had died an hour before in the hospital. I thought that they wanted me to come identify the body, but they said they were calling for something else.
“I need to give your information to a lawyer that came in after your grandfather passed. I cannot give out that information, unless you okay it. Or, you can give it to him yourself.”
I was confused by what a lawyer was doing with my grandfather. He wasn’t the type to go with the crowd, but this was a bit much. What would he have a lawyer there for?
The phone was exchanged to someone else and then a deep voice got on the line.
“Miss Ravel?”
“Yes, this is she.”
“I would like to talk to you about your grandfather’s estate. As you know, it was rather large, and your grandfather called me to the hospital to make sure that everything was taken care of. He wanted to make sure that you were taken care of, Ms. Ravel.”
“Taken care of? Did he know he was going to die? He didn't even tell me about it. I didn’t even know that he was sick.”
“You know how Gerald was. He did not like to admit to anyone that he couldn’t do something. He thought that he could beat it. He had cancer for several years, and he kept it from most people. The only reason I knew about it was because I was the one that did all the paperwork. I promise that your grandfather spoke very highly of you and cared deeply for you. You could tell when he talked about you.”
That was good to hear, of course, because I loved my grandfather as well, but I was still a bit shocked about it all. What did he
