And there was Ellie, serving on the cosmetics counter, laughing with a customer as she demonstrated a perfume on her wrist. She didn’t see Andrew at first, so that he had time to stand and watch her. And in that moment he knew that all the discipline and control, all the mental tricks to blot her out, had been for nothing, and the truth was that he had thought of her night and day since their last meeting.
She looked up and saw him. Smiled. He smiled back. It was all over.
When the customer had gone he approached her, heart thumping. To cover his confusion he made his face sterner and more rigid than usual.
‘Good morning,’ he said, almost fiercely.
‘Hey, don’t bite my head off,’ she protested, laughing. ‘What have I done wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ he said hastily. ‘I only said good morning.’
‘You made it sound like the crack of doom.’
Her smile touched him again, and this time he relaxed a little. ‘I’m looking for something for my mother,’ he told her. ‘I don’t see why Johnny should have all the gifts.’
‘Johnny?’
‘His nineteenth birthday.’
‘Is it? I didn’t know.’
‘But aren’t you coming to the party?’ he asked, dismayed.
‘I haven’t seen much of Johnny lately,’ she said with a light shrug. ‘Do you want perfume, or lipstick, or-?’
‘Pardon?’
‘For your mother.’
‘My mother? Oh, yes, her present.’
Pull yourself together, he thought. You’re burbling like an idiot.
‘What sort of make-up does she wear?’ Ellie asked.
‘Um…’ He looked at her, wild-eyed, and she laughed at his confusion. But not unkindly.
‘I’ll bet you’ve never noticed if she wears any at all,’ she teased.
‘It’s not the sort of thing I’m good at,’ he confessed.
‘You and the rest of the male population.’
‘What do you do for the others?’
‘Scented soap is pretty safe, especially with some nice gift wrapping.’
She showed him a variety of boxed soaps and he chose the biggest, an astounding pink and mauve creation.
‘I thought you’d pick that one,’ she said.
‘I guess that means everyone does, huh?’
‘Not everyone. Only the fellers. I’ll gift-wrap it for free. I guess I owe you, and I like to pay my debts.’
‘Ah! Now that’s a pity because I was hoping you’d pay your debt in another way.’
‘How?’
‘I’d feel self-conscious turning up alone at this do. Since you and Johnny are-aren’t-well, you might come with me. Just to make me look good.’
‘You didn’t bring Lilian?’
‘Why should you ask that?’ he demanded, suddenly self-conscious. ‘It’s what my mother said. I don’t know why everyone assumes that-I’m fond of Lilian but we’re not joined at the hip-head-’ he corrected hastily. He had a horrible feeling that he was blushing like a boy.
‘The only problem is that it’s the store’s late night,’ Ellie said. ‘We don’t close until nine.’
‘I’ll be outside, waiting.’
When the time came she was late, filling him with dread lest she’d thought better of it and stood him up.
‘Did you think I wasn’t coming?’ Her voice burst through his gloomy reverie. ‘I’m so sorry, but the manager wouldn’t stop talking.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said, brilliant with joy. ‘You’re here.’
She tucked her arm in his as they began to walk. ‘Have you been to Johnny’s party?’
‘Yes, and it was noisy. Johnny was talking about going to the funfair in the park later, and most of the food at home has gone now. Why don’t we grab a snack somewhere, and join them later?’
‘Great.’
He took her to a small French restaurant, formal, but pleasantly quiet. She didn’t look out of place here as she would have done in her gold party get-up, Andrew realised. Everything about her was more restrained, more gentle, more delightful.
‘Did your mother like her present?’ she asked.
‘She was over the moon,’ he said truthfully. ‘You’d have thought I’d bought her a whole bath house instead of a few cakes of soap.’
‘It’s not the soap. It’s because you thought of her.’
‘I guess you’re right.’
‘I know I’m right. You should see some of my male customers, getting all worked up about this perfume or that perfume, treating it like rocket science. And I want to grab their lapels and yell, “Just show her you’ve thought of her. That’s the real present.” Gee, men can be so dumb.’
‘I guess we can,’ he said, entranced, willing her to go on.
She did so, entertaining him for several minutes with a witty description of life at the cosmetics counter, which seemed to be a crash course in human nature. Again he had the feeling that she was more mature than he remembered. The true reason didn’t occur to him. This was her subject. She was an expert in it, and therefore at an advantage.
She was a joy to treat, revelling in every new taste with a defenceless candour that went to his heart.
‘You aren’t eating,’ she challenged, looking up from the steak dressed with the chef’s ‘special’ sauce.
‘I’m enjoying watching you too much,’ he said, and was surprised at himself. Normally he avoided any remark, however trivial, that savoured of self-revelation. It was her, he decided. Her frankness demanded a response.
‘It’s yummy,’ she said blissfully.
‘And there’s even better to come.’
‘Ice cream?’
‘That’s right. We’ll have everything on the menu.’
‘Go on, I’m more grown up than that.’ She looked at him slyly. ‘Well, almost.’
He groaned. ‘Am I ever going to be forgiven for the things I said that time?’
‘Well, I guess you were right. Mind you, I’d die before admitting it.’
He grinned. She laughed back, and suddenly their first meeting became a shared joke.
‘I’m surprised you want to bother with a kids’ party,’ she said. ‘Don’t we all seem very juvenile to you?’
‘My mother wanted me to come, and I guess I did it to please her.’
‘That was kind of you. Like the soap.’
Again he knew the unfamiliar impulse to frankness. After resisting for a moment he yielded and found it unexpectedly easy. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Part of me’s trying to ease my conscience for being a bad son.’
‘A bad son? You? No way. Your mother’s terribly proud of you, all you’ve achieved-top marks in all your exams, really going places.’
‘But in a sense I’ve done it at her expense, or at the expense of the family, which is the same thing. You can only give all of yourself to one thing at a time. I’ve held back from my family and given myself to work, which is something that benefits me, first and most.’
‘But what about the people you heal? You benefit them. If you were only concerned about yourself you could be a banker or-or anything that makes a lot of money.’
‘But I’d have been a terrible banker and I’m a good doctor. It makes sense to play to my skills. And by the time I’ve finished I’ll have made a lot of money. But I have to be the best. And I will, whatever the cost.’
He’d gone further than he’d meant to. She was staring at him.
‘You really mean that, don’t you?’
‘Do I sound very cold-blooded? Should I have talked about my mission to do good?’
She shook her head. ‘People with missions to do good scare me. They always want to tell other people what to do. As long as you make sick people well, who cares about your reasons?’
‘That’s what I think,’ he said, feeling a load slip away from him at finding someone who understood.
Suddenly he was talking, telling her about the frustrations of his childhood when he’d dreamed of escaping this dull little town where his parents had lived their contented lives.
‘They’re happy, and that’s fine for them, but this place couldn’t be enough for me.’