Saturday morning, Evan swung through his place, grabbing his workout bag and tossing it in an otherwise empty closet. Most of his closets were empty. He'd shipped a few boxes from Tampa, but beyond clothes and some books and pictures of his family, Evan had managed to reach the age of thirty-one with very few possessions. His bike and his laptop were his treasured items. Besides those family photos, which were easy enough to replace if necessary. The married siblings were great archivists.
So cleaning up his furnished corporate two-bedroom was a breeze. Getting over himself so he could invite in the East women without it feeling like a supervised date was a little tougher. Blame it on Natalie and her constant warnings about the matchmaking mother. Knowing full well neither of them was interested in being coupled off, he and Natalie had become quick friends, despite the pressure from all their parents. Maybe even because of it.
And his parents were just as invested in the relationship. Non-relationship. They adored Natalie, asking about her almost every phone call, mentioning her in the emails to their kids. Which meant Alice, Ben, and Danny joined in. Only Chloe seemed capable of understanding he and Natalie were only friends. And Chloe wasn't exactly polite about the superficial things she found wrong with Natalie. Evan had protested a couple of times that Natalie was attractive as well as sharply smart and fun, but that only backfired from all sides, so he was trying a silence is golden approach in hopes the entire Lee clan would find a new favorite topic of conversation.
As it stood, they were bound to hear about this little tea party once Dad got his birthday photo, so he would do his best to convey the non-dating vibe to Elaine.
Who was, it seemed, at the door. He went to answer the bell, smoothing his hair once more, then scruffing it up so he wouldn't look like he was trying too hard to be attractive. Then forcing himself to let it go lest he spend more time thinking about his appearance than he would if he was a fifteen year old with a crush.
"Did I tell you I read people are more likely to fall in love if their partner's first name starts with the same letter as someone they already love?" Natalie's mom asked as they headed up the walk to Evan's front door.
"Shame Evan doesn't have eight more siblings, then, so there's no 'N' love in his life." She normally curbed her sarcasm. Her mom didn't approve of it. But Natalie had emptied her portfolio of discussion topics on the way to this bogus set-up, and each time Elaine had brought the conversation around to Nat's single state, Evan's prime mate-ability, or her own need for a man to help her through the small trials of her life. The only reserves Natalie still had were deep down the sarcasm well.
"True, but ’N’ is right next to Marisa, alphabetically. It's almost as good."
"Who are you going to go out with then? Do you know any Nathans? Nicks? Nadavs?"
Elaine stopped short a moment, then shook her head and reached for the doorbell.
"Wait, Mom. You know a Nathan?"
"Nadav. He's the new cantor. But he must be ten years younger than me. I was startled to hear the name."
Too late to delve into that juicy tidbit. Making a mental note to attend services sometime soon, Natalie turned to greet an uncharacteristically untidy Evan. She'd never seen him out of a professional or highly social context; could be his hair stood on end every time he was without his cleverly knotted ties.
"Hi, come in." He stepped back, revealing the most blandly furnished living room Natalie had seen since, well, since the time she'd been commissioned to sell off some corporate rental houses for a company that was outsourcing a lot of positions overseas. After staging three of them, her own house had ended up almost as stripped down as the rentals had started; she often used her own smaller furnishings and decor to increase the visual appeal of the places she was selling.
Evan needed splashes of color, and a coffee table large enough for the couch. And something alive, which she was in a position to help him with. She handed him a potted ivy. "Welcome to town."
He stared at it a minute.
"It likes indoor lighting, so don't put it by a window. Water it when the soil feels dry. I just gave it plant food, so it should be set to grow almost ignored in a corner for a few months."
"Oh. Thanks."
She stepped past him, clearing the way. Evan could finally see the petite, elegant, well-shod woman who'd been hidden by her larger frame.
"And this is Elaine. Mom, Evan Lee." She didn't say, "Come on, man, it's a plant. You're supposed to be working with me here on polite and neutral. There's nothing in the world more politely neutral than an ivy."
But she thought it, and he was mind reader enough to regroup and tuck the pot under one arm so he could shake her mom's hand. "Great to meet you at last, Elaine. Can I get you two a drink? Soda, coffee?"
They circled past a staircase to the kitchen and dining area, where Evan deposited the plant on the small table. He set them up with coffee, apologizing that it wasn't as good as Black Gold's, and Natalie refrained from nudging his shin as a reminder they shouldn't be chatting about extracurricular time spent together.
"How do you like Houston? It's a warm time of year to move here, but I suppose Florida was no picnic in the summertime, either." Elaine took one of the incongruously huge gulps of coffee she tended towards. "Of course in Florida I bet you didn't have a cute young friend like Natalie to show you around town."
Now Natalie was refraining from nudging her mom's shin. She should move from the table before she lost the ability to control her feet. "Show Evan the picture."
"We were just getting to know each other. I'll show him in a moment. Evan, you remind me so much of your mother. Doesn't he remind you of Marisa? She has such a beautiful face. His cheekbones and chin are identical."
"Mom, I have clients in an hour." She didn't. Not for ninety minutes. But the last thing she wanted was to listen to her mom detail Evan's attractive qualities.
"I thought you weren't meeting them until one," the not-so-handsome man offered.
She tried to glare at him with the side of her face her mom couldn't see. His smirk told her she wasn't very successful. It also made him go from possibly-a-bit-handsome to completely unappealing.
"Well then, Evan can answer my question about Florida summers and how they compare to Houston's. You were in Tampa for three years, right, Evan? Your dad told us all about the merger."
His sonorous peal of laughter wasn't as compelling as she'd thought, either. Evan said, "My dad told me about the merger--what they're still calling a merger--before the bank did. For a tax accountant, he keeps a pretty close eye on corporate gossip."
"Your brother helped him set up alerts for all your employers. As soon as one of them hits the internet, he gets an email." Natalie caught herself feeling guilty for telling, although Koray hadn't said it was any kind of secret. The jumble of tight lines and lifted eyebrows in Evan's face said her words held some real significance for him.
"He did?"
She nodded. "He, um, also got me to set up a new one for your new job. Or modify the other one, I should say, with the name change."
Evan shifted his jaw a minute. "Well. That's par for the course."
She couldn't quite figure out how to ask if he was upset by his dad's virtual tracking. Not her business, she decided. Natalie was uncomfortably aware that the emails she'd exchanged with Evan's parents since returning from the trip crossed the line into gossip about their son. Not as thoroughly as Elaine crossed the same line, based on some of her mom's reports, but Natalie definitely played a part in spying on their son for Marisa and Koray. Just in arranging this flimsy pretext of a meeting, she'd given all three parents plenty of fodder. After too long a silence, Nat said, "Sorry," and hoped it conveyed her resolution to keep him off the virtual table.
Evan's smile might have said he understood. "Dad has a tendency to want to live our lives for us. Could be because I'm the youngest, I think I get it the most. I have high hopes my nieces and nephews will steal my limelight soon."
"You sound like a man with a plan."
The smile turned a little smug and a little evil. "I might have mentioned a lot of school districts these days have online portals so parents--and grandparents--can log in and see grades and upcoming assignments. I might have asked Alice and Ben in a family email if their kids' schools had implemented anything similar."
"And?"
"Ben texted me some impressively rude things, considering he's a responsible parent and the big brother who was supposed to be such a good example to me my whole life."
Natalie toasted him with her coffee cup. "Nice."
Elaine's cleared throat reminded Nat she was trying to avoid fodder. "It's lovely to see how close your family is. I was never able to give Natalie that. Siblings, a clan. She gets along so well with people, too. I hope someday she belongs to a large tight-knit family like yours."
Subtle, Mom. Real subtle. Nat caught Evan's gaze and narrowed her own eyes at his glinting amusement. "Let's see your photo, Mom."
Undaunted by the failure of her bait, Elaine reached into her tote bag and unboxed the framed picture. "I know your parents told you how much they loved those anniversary flowers you sent, Evan, but you should have seen their faces light up when they were showing them off. You're such a good son. I had some lovely shots of them on that day, between the flowers and the little blessing ceremony we had. But this one, from when we were at Ephesus, really struck me."
Marisa and Koray were bathed in a golden afternoon sunlight as they stood in front of the marble-columned ruins of the Library of Celsus, the clear blue sky glowing through each window. Evan's parents weren't looking at the camera. They were turned toward each other, hands clasped, smiling. Their faces spoke of familiarity, of happiness, of understanding. Of love. Forty-five years of love.
"Oh, wow," Natalie said softly.
Evan reached out to take the picture. His gaze scanned Natalie's for a moment, then dropped back to take in his parents' faces. "Oh, wow," he agreed.
Elaine stayed quiet, watching them both. She slid a copy of the print onto Evan's table, and he used a fingertip to slide it his way.
With his softest smile yet, Evan handed the frame back to Elaine. "Thank you. They'll treasure it. You've got an amazing eye."
"It was more luck than skill, but I like to think I can recognize magic when it's right in front of me."
Still looking at the photo, Natalie found she didn't have a single rejoinder.