Daniel Strauss had been her first adult boyfriend. Only two or three years older, he’d also been one of her earliest creative mentors. She remembered wanting to impress him with her drawings and sculptures as much as she’d wanted to impress her favorite professors.
There had been no drama when they parted. He’d graduated, and Anna still had two years left to complete her degree. It hadn’t made sense to make promises or plans. Later, she’d thought about him in an offhand way whenever the art school they attended was mentioned in the news. Oh, and she had thought about him when passing highway signs for his hometown during a road trip from Toronto to New York City.
Sharper pangs, edged with guilt, reminded her she thought about Daniel a lot during a rare rough patch with Gary.
The skin across her chest and down her arms prickled. Embedded shards of memories pushed to the surface, their glassy veneer washed clean by splattering raindrops. She had been an awestruck freshman living in a big city, hesitant to approach the worldly, self-possessed junior until that day in the university’s dining hall.
Brooding, dark-haired Daniel, dressed in snug jeans and a pressed white shirt with perfectly rolled sleeves, sat at the head of a long table. His chair was turned toward the entrance door, his legs outstretched, bare ankles crossed. His gaze had made it clear he’d been waiting for her, and his pointed appraisal had cut through the cacophony of voices and clanging metal trays, unfurling an invitation of the most delicious sort.
Anna lifted her head, inhaled the scent of cedar and salt water, and welcomed the raindrops pelting her face. Cold wind teased at her patched pajama pants, slapping the soaked cuffs against her ankles, reminding her she wasn’t eighteen and in lust. She should go inside, change into dry clothes, and wash her face before the water pouring down from the sky finished wearing away whatever barrier cordoned off the Daniel part of her past from the discomfiting parts of her present.
Chapter Two
Two days after her fiftieth birthday, Anna awoke to a sunlight-filled room, a sense of dread, and a mild hangover. No amount of pillow-plumping and cover-rearranging helped pacify the wild brawl taking place in her chest.
Daniel Strauss was back in her life.
Dust motes filtered through beams of light. She squinted at the sparkly, carefree bits, willing them to take the shape of a sign or a code, something to point her in one direction or another. They remained frustratingly non-compliant, and her morning coffee wasn’t about to brew itself and offer a liquid lifeline. She rolled out of bed, pressed a button on her way into the kitchen, and waited for her desktop to wake up. Time to fashion a response to Daniel before her tendency to overthink forced her words into a tangle of mismatched consonants and vowels.
Dear Daniel,
My fingers are trembling as I type. I don’t know where to begin so I’ll start with yes, of course I remember you, and yes, I would like for us to correspond.
Obviously, you know I was married. Gary and I were together more than twenty years. We met soon after the last time I saw you at your family’s summer house. My husband and I had two kids, a boy and a girl. We moved to British Columbia when they were little to be closer to Gary’s family. I’ve lived here ever since.
I run my own business. Most of my clients are boat owners who visit the Gulf Islands.
I want to know more about why you were looking for me. And now that you’ve written, I can’t stop the memories I have of you, of us, of school. And now it’s your turn!
Annalissa
PS. Your email arrived on my birthday.
No one had called her Annalissa since college, when her unusual first name gave people at least one reason to remember her. She pressed send, rested her fingertips on the keyboard, and held her breath, waiting for Daniel’s response. He was out there, somewhere, his presence palpable at the other end of a long chain of invisible connections.
Next to the computer screen, the pink-striped box begged to be reopened. Anna peeked at the vibrators stacked alongside the packets of lube and noticed a gift receipt tucked underneath the sandalwood-scented tissue paper. Maybe she could exchange the travel-sized sex toys for something more befitting a woman who couldn’t remember the last time she had an orgasm.
Maybe she and Daniel could pick up where they’d left off.
A surge of nerves at the thought lifted her upright onto legs going jelly-like. Lack of support sat her back down. She couldn’t believe she’d let that idea slip out. She pulled the waist of her pajamas away from her belly and surveyed the loose elastic on her cotton underpants.
Her situation was dire.
If she and Daniel were going to move this exchange of words along into phone calls, she needed…she didn’t need anything except to actually listen to one of Elaine’s coaching sessions rather than shush her friend on to a more comfortable topic. But if this escalated into physical contact as quickly as it had when they’d first met, she needed new lingerie. And a shower. And something for the headache brewing behind her eyes.
Anna stroked the glossy surface of the gift bag as she stood. Pink. When was the last time she bought something feminine for herself, something pink and lacy, thin-strapped and high-heeled, or spectacularly frivolous?
Sometime in the past five years, maybe longer, she had given up. Widowhood and the start of her menopausal years collided, shrouding her in grief and dulling her skin, her hair, her outlook on life. Her clients were loyal and continued to refer others her way, but at heart she longed to be engaged in something more fulfilling than helping boat owners improve their vessel’s comfort and resale value.
Her
