“I’d love to have dinner with you again,” she said sincerely, and he suggested that Saturday night, which in theory dispelled the worry that he had a weekend girlfriend, unless he was seeing her on Friday, Victoria reminded herself. Jack had done that. But Collin was not Jack. He was great.

He kissed her on the cheek and saw her to her elevator, and said he’d call her the next day. She was smiling when she walked into the apartment, and Harlan beamed from ear to ear when he saw her. John had already gone to bed.

“I owe you ten bucks,” she said as she walked in, and beat him to it.

“How do you know?” He looked intrigued.

“Fantastic conversations, great evening, great guy. Arm around me in cab on way home. Touched my hand twice at dinner. Doesn’t care if I’m fat or not, he likes ‘real’ women. And invited me to dinner Saturday night.” She was beaming, and he reached over and hugged her. Harlan was always hugging and kissing her. John was always a little cooler with her, it was just his nature, and he was less comfortable with women. He had a horrible mother who used to beat him, and put him off females forever. Everyone has their scars.

“Shit,” Harlan said after he hugged her, “you owe me fifty. Maybe a hundred. That’s better than a date. It’s a real guy. He sounds fantastic. When can I meet him? Before the wedding. Yours, I mean. Screw Gracie’s.” They were both laughing, and she peeled a ten-dollar bill out of her wallet and handed it to him. She had a date! And with a terrific guy! He had been worth waiting nearly thirty years for, although it was much too soon to know what would happen. It might go nowhere, and even if it did, it might fall apart. Real life.

Collin called her right before she went to sleep that night and told her what a great time he’d had, and couldn’t wait to see her again. She felt exactly the same way about him.

“Sweet dreams,” he said before he hung up, and she smiled as she lay in bed with the phone still in her hand after they did. Sweet dreams indeed.


Chapter 24


Victoria’s second date with Collin was even better than the first. They went to a fish restaurant in Brooklyn and had fresh lobster wearing big paper bibs. The restaurant was noisy and fun, and they enjoyed each other. Their conversations were just as meaty as before, and they both felt comfortable talking about themselves and who they really were, and exposing themselves to each other. They started meeting at the gym in the evenings and talking about their day as they rode the bikes. They were totally at ease. He always hugged her and kissed her on the cheek, but it had gone no further and she was fine with that, and liked it.

For their third date, he took her to the ballet because she said she enjoyed it. They went to an exhibit at the Met on a Sunday, and brunch after. He took her to the opening of a Broadway play. She was having a ball with him, and Collin was very creative about where he took her. It was always well thought out and something he thought she’d enjoy.

And after their night at the theater, he looked uncomfortable for the first time when he asked her to dinner. He warned her that it was an evening she might not like, and not likely to be exciting, but he wanted to ask her anyway.

“My parents are coming to town. I’d like you to meet them. But they’re not a lot of fun. They’re just not happy people, and they’ll talk about my brother all night. But it would mean a lot to me if you met them. What do you think?”

“I think they’ve got to be a lot better than mine,” she said gently. She was touched and flattered that he wanted her to meet them.

And when she did, they were everything he had said and worse. They were good-looking, aristocratic people, and they were intelligent. But his mother looked depressed, and his father looked broken by life and the son he had lost. His shoulders drooped, and their faces and lives were colorless. It was as though they didn’t even see Collin, and only the ghost of his brother. All subjects led back to him, and all mention of what Collin was doing led to an unfavorable comparison to his brother. Collin couldn’t win. In their own way they were as bad as her parents, and just as depressing. She wanted to put her arms around Collin and kiss the hurt away after they dropped his parents off at their hotel, but he kissed her instead. It was the first time he had, and everything she felt for him poured out of her, all the compassion and sympathy and love. She wanted to heal all the old hurts he had suffered, and the loneliness of his parents’ rejection of him. They talked for a long time afterward about how hurtful it was for him, and he was grateful for her support.

John and Harlan had already gone to bed when Victoria and Collin went back to her apartment and they talked and kissed for several hours. She disliked his parents almost as much as she did her own, although his had an excuse and hers didn’t. Hers just didn’t like her. His were mourning their son. But either way they had been unkind and unloving and rejecting to the point of being cruel, and in both cases had convinced their own children that they were unlovable. And both of them would carry the scars of it forever, as so many people did. To Victoria, it seemed like one of the worst crimes perpetrated by parents, to convince your own child not only that you didn’t love them, but that they were unworthy of it, and no one else would ever love them either. It had been the curse of her life, and of Collin’s too.

And that night they managed to give each other the love, comfort, and approval that they deserved and had needed for so long. It had been a meaningful evening for both of them. Very much so. And she was no longer telling Harlan everything that happened on their dates. She was developing an allegiance to Collin, which seemed right. And he felt the same way about her. He would only tell his sister so much whenever she called. He wanted to protect Victoria too, and the budding relationship they shared. They were both respectful and discreet.

The next dinner they shared after his parents’ visit was an important one for both of them. It was silly and hokey, and Victoria was embarrassed that it meant so much to her, but it did, and Collin got that. It was Valentine’s Day, and he took her to dinner at a small romantic French restaurant with delicious food, although she ate sensibly. The dinner was wonderful, and afterward they went back to his apartment, not hers. He had champagne for her, and a little gold bracelet with a small diamond heart on it that he put on her wrist, and then he kissed her, and it was the perfect time and place for both of them. She melted into his arms, and a moment later into his bed with him. Their clothes disappeared, and all the lonely years they had lived through until then without each other. And the one thing they both knew, when the evening ended, was how much they were loved. They felt worthy of it, and lovable at last.

From then on their life together took on an everyday quality. They went out to dinner, stayed home, did laundry together, went to the gym, spent nights at his apartment or hers, went to movies, and managed to blend two real lives into one. It all worked, better than either of them could ever have dreamed.

And it was Collin’s idea to take a week off and go away with Victoria for spring break. Gracie was begging her to come to L.A., but Victoria didn’t want to. She knew that her family would spoil it for them, and if they stayed together, he’d have to meet them soon enough. She dreaded introducing him to her parents, and had discussed it several times with her shrink, who was happy for her.

“Why are you afraid of having him meet your parents?” the psychiatrist asked, puzzled by her resistance. And the relationship was going so well. Better than Victoria had ever dreamed.

“What if my parents convince him of how unworthy and unlovable I am, and he decides they’re right?” She looked panicked as she blurted it out.

“Do you really think that’s going to happen?” the doctor asked, looking her in the eye, and Victoria shook her head.

“No. But what if it does? They’re so convincing.”

“No, they’re not. The only one they’ve ever convinced is you. No one but their own child would believe them, which is why what they do is so cruel. No one else would buy into it or has. And Collin sounds a lot smarter than that.”

“He is. I just worry about what they’ll say, and that they’ll humiliate me in front of him.”

“They might. But if they do, I guarantee he won’t like it, and will think even less of them. Have you invited him to your sister’s wedding yet, by the way?” Victoria hadn’t mentioned it.

“Not yet. But I’m going to. I don’t want him to see me in that brown dress that looks so horrible on me. It’s embarrassing.”

“You can still get her to let you wear something else. It’s not too late,” the therapist reminded her.

“I tried. She won’t let me. I just have to suck it up and wear it. But I hate for Collin to see me looking awful.”

“It sounds like he loves you anyway. The brown dress won’t matter to him.” The doctor was sorry Victoria wouldn’t confront her sister about it.

Her sex life with Collin was also terrific, but she had been embarrassed about her weight at first. Even with her weight down she was bigger than she wanted to be, and there were plenty of extra rolls here and there and some jiggle. She didn’t want him to see it, and always turned out the light. She kept covered up and ran to the bathroom in the dark, or wore a robe. Until one day he finally convinced her that he loved her body exactly the way it was, he reveled in it, he worshipped it, he loved every inch of her womanly body, and she actually believed him. He looked at her like a goddess whenever he saw her naked. He made her feel like the queen of sex and the high priestess of love. Nothing had ever been as exciting in her life, and once she began to realize how he felt about her, and believed him, they were in bed all the time. She had never had so much fun in her life, and the desperation came out of her diet. She ate sensibly, and she stayed away from ice cream and the really fattening stuff, and was diligent about going to Weight Watchers. But above all, she wanted to shout from the rooftops that Collin loved her. She was lovable after all. She had never been as happy in her life, and Collin felt the same way too. He basked in the warmth of Victoria’s love, approval, and admiration, and thrived. It was all he had been missing in his life for years. Their life together was a watered garden where everything grew lavishly. The love they shared was a beautiful thing for both of them.