Patch might’ve turned back but saw Misty standing at the foot of a winding driveway, the looming of a white colonial pressing him into the shade.
She wore a simple red dress, and on another day in another life she would have slayed him dead right there on the street.
Misty didn’t look him up and down or notice his bowtie and creased shirt and slacks that shone at each knee.
He held out the flowers and she took them.
“She’s been out here an hour worried you wouldn’t show.”
“Mom,” Misty said, shooting her mother a look.
Mrs. Meyer was tall and severe and walked straight over to Patch and shook his hand lightly. And then she appraised him in a way her daughter had not.
“Do you like flowers, Joseph?” she said, as she led him toward the house.
She talked of yarrow and milkweed and coneflowers. Pointed at an area she’d lost to ironweed. The borders bloomed with summer colors too bright for that fall evening, like the Meyers were rich enough to see them year-round, like they did not know the pallor of winter from their spot so high above.
Patch kept his eye on everything Mrs. Meyer pointed out, listened to stories of trees with diseases they’d brought back from the brink so they could preserve the landscape of the oldest house in town.
Mr. Meyer met them at the door and pumped Patch’s hand too hard, like in that simple act he was trying to convey that he too would’ve taken a knife in the gut for the life of a girl that had not even known his name.
Franklin Meyer stood six two and wore cream slacks and a shirt opened three buttons. He looked Patch up and down but kept that smile on his face, his teeth large and white.
Mrs. Meyer dragged Misty into the kitchen to search out a vase as Franklin led Patch through to a formal living room.
He handed him a glass of something brown, and Patch drank and almost choked at the burn.
“Don’t tell Mary I gave you this.” That smile again, and Patch wondered if he could keep it going the whole evening before the muscles failed and drooped like the rich man was having a stroke.
In a dining room of heavy drapes and silk wall hangings, maple chairs and leaden china, Patch suffered through five courses, now and then looking to Misty to see exactly how you went about eating a lobster. He picked at it lightly, not wanting to fire out hot butter and take out an antique.
Misty talked of swim meets and track while her parents orbited him, Franklin aiming for sports, Mary floating the arts like she knew nothing of her audience. Tristan und Isolde, Otello, and Tosca.
“Misty wants to go into politics,” Franklin said matter-of-factly.
“Because you were so proud when I campaigned for Jane Roe,” Misty fired back, then turned to Patch and smiled. “I made the front page of The Tribune.”
“That’s religion, not politics,” Mrs. Meyer said.
“Yeah, I forgot. Which church did Roe v. Wade play out in?” Misty said.
Mrs. Meyer turned to Patch, asked if he’d ever been to Chicago or Boston, drank another glass of wine, and dabbed the heat from her cheeks with a napkin when he said he had not left the state.
Patch asked about Swan Lake, and Prince and Odette.
Mrs. Meyer lit up, took his hand and led him into yet another room where she rummaged in the drawer of an oak desk.
“New York State Theater, near six years back now.” She found a small paper program and handed it to him.
“Cynthia Gregory was divine, though of course Franklin found her uninspiring.”
Patch looked at the image, at the bold type and the running order. “Will they have a list of people that bought tickets?”
“I shouldn’t think so,” Mrs. Meyer said, still looking in the drawer. “I kept the stub…such wonderful memories.”
She moved on to Dr. Coppélius and spoke of Franz and his toy girl, but Patch heard none of it, his mind instead finding Grace.
“And at the end, when they’re reunited in death, you’ll be the first to stand and clap and whistle.”
She took command of his every thought.