She had no problem remembering the feel of his skin, smooth and flawless. She had loved lounging naked against him, fitting herself into and around the curves of his arm and shoulder muscles and his high, tight butt.
And if she was so inclined, she could put down the dessert and take that memory into her bedroom, along with her bag of goodies, and test the efficacy of her birthday bonanza.
Oh, my God. What are you doing, Anna?
She struggled off the floor, closed the refrigerator door, and took her treat into the living room. As if on cue, her computer pinged, announcing the arrival of an email. She set down the plate, washed and dried her sticky, lemon-scented hands, and didn’t bother sitting before opening the letter.
My dear Annalissa,
Finding you, and now writing to you, has somewhat of a surreal quality, I will admit. It was one thing to find you, and it is another thing altogether to picture seeing you in person.
Thirty years is a lot of time to cover in writing. I have been asking myself what I want from our correspondence. I imagine providing you some details about my life would be appropriate at this point.
I have never been married. I do date, but there is no serious romantic partner in my life. I live in New York City and travel frequently to oversee my business. If you follow the link below, you’ll see what I do.
Aside from my sister and her son, I am the only one left of my immediate family. I never fathered any children.
I didn’t mean to sound pushy. What matters is I have found you. I’m eager to hear about you and your life, and I agree, a phone call will be a good start. Let me know when you feel ready.
Hopefully yours,
Danny
She followed the link in his email signature to his website. The last bite of cake hovered on the tines of the fork as she scrolled, mouth agape, through page after page of exquisitely photographed interiors. She even recognized the names of some of his clients.
A realization blossomed across her chest, burning at the old bra she’d grabbed from her underwear drawer. She would need more than new underwear to meet Daniel Strauss’s aesthetic. She would need a total makeover.
Collapsing onto the couch, head draped over the back of the couch cushions and dessert plate empty but for crumbs, she gazed past the pink-and white-striped box and scanned the horizon of her past. Once upon a time, she’d attracted the handsome and talented Daniel Strauss.
Anna wasn’t at all confident she could do it again. She wasn’t at all convinced she should want a second chance.
She looked for clues in the rafters and beyond the windows, wished more memories from long-ago would surface, wished more pieces of the wild and fearless Anna would visit, take a seat on the couch, share their secrets.
She and Daniel arranged their first conversation for the next morning at nine o’clock her time, allowing her ample opportunity to shower, fret, and obsess. The water was either too hot or too cold, she ran out of conditioner which meant her hair would frizz, and her eyebrows were in dire need of shaping. She could use one of those pencil thingies, but she never wore make-up and now wasn’t the time to start.
Also, she had no idea what to wear. If she called Gigi for advice, she would have to offer an explanation, and she wasn’t ready to tell her daughter that mama wanted her groove back.
She called Elaine.
“Stay away from black,” she counselled. “It’s funereal on you. Rub coconut oil through your hair, makes it glisten, and if you don’t have coconut oil, use olive oil.”
“Olive oil?” Anna asked, incredulous. She was so woefully out of practice.
“Anna, he’ll be talking to you, not smelling you. Go for a V neck top, something that’ll give you more height, and make sure the camera is at eye level or higher. You don’t want him gawking at all that extra skin under your chin. Call me later. I need details.”
Extra skin?
She lifted her chin, pressed the tops of her fingers against the droopy section, and turned her head side to side. Her charcoal gray turtleneck sweater would elongate her neck and camouflage the “extra skin.” She brushed her teeth while fussing with the position of her computer’s camera in case they decided to add video to their chat and slipped sterling silver hoops into her earlobes as she stood at the bathroom sink.
The only thing left to do was answer the phone when Daniel called.
Or was she supposed to call him? She sat at the computer and reread their email exchange. She was calling him. The terrifying thought shot her to her feet and sent her pacing, unable to get her breath past her upper chest and into her belly, where she needed it to soothe the building swell of hysteria.
Wait. This was Daniel. Picture him naked. Wasn’t that the advice she’d heard about public speaking? She took a deep breath, sat back in her chair, and smiled at the reflection in her computer’s monitor.
She could do this. She picked up her cell phone, hand shaking, and dialed his private number.
“Annalissa.”
The voice coming through her cellphone knocked her back thirty years.
She wasn’t in her shabby living room any more—she was in Daniel’s apartment, sprawled face up in his bed, with him on top of her in a tangle of white cotton sheets after a second round of Sunday morning sex. And for once, he wasn’t rushing through the afterglow to get to the design studio in his constant push to stay at the head of the pack.
“Daniel,” she said, closing her eyes, lingering in the sensory recall of his bed at her back, their legs intertwined. “Your voice sounds the same.”
“I can’t believe I’m talking to you.”
“I keep having these memories from when we were
