Oh So Close

Walter invited Amanda to Australia for Christmas. “Didn’t you say Evie and DeeDee were going skiing with Mike and his parents?” He knew Amanda and her mother no longer spoke. “So it would be just us visiting Olivia in Brisbane.”

“Really.” Amanda clung to the kitchen counter as her mind spun madly around in a hammock. “Walter, are you sure?”

“What do you mean, am I sure?”

“You and me traveling to the other side of the earth? Just you and me. No Evie or DeeDee.” A line of energy shot through her.

[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

“Yes, honey, I’m sure. And yes, of course, it scares me. But I’ve done all I can do. Olivia invited both of us. We’ll see what happens.”

Now the charge was circulating through her whole body.  “Can I meet you in New York? We’ll fly together from there?”

“I’ll call you in a few days with an itinerary.”

For thirty-six hours her pulse beat so furiously she couldn’t sleep or eat. If Walter loved her the way she wanted him to, which was all she had ever wanted—Amanda would be transformed. Every thought and gesture, every sorrow and every joy would sing with layers of new meaning.

Now, she was scared. Possibility burned through her with such intensity she was sure she would die before she and Walter ever got on a jet together, seated side by side for 24 hours, flying 30,000 ft. into the atmosphere at 500 m.p.h.

Then Olivia phoned. Her mother was demanding Olivia come to the states for Christmas. Sterling hadn’t seen Olivia in two years. And Sterling and her second husband refused to travel. They couldn’t leave their horses. Or their boat. 

Olivia said, “So after seeing them, I’m spending Christmas with Daddy. You should be there, too, Amanda.”

A secret part of her wasn’t surprised. If it were possible to know anything ahead of time, Amanda had known something like this was bound to happen.

“Another year, O. I was going to tell Walter; I can’t get away.”

Walter called an hour later. “We can still go someplace, Amanda. Just you and me. Some other time.”

“We’ll see,” she said, too disappointed to think beyond the next minute. He was saying he loved her and hanging up, when she asked if he’d come in January, MLK weekend.

“Evie and DeeDee will be here, but they love you, too.”

“Yes, of course. Or, maybe you can trade weekends with Mike. That is, if you want.”

She didn’t want anything anymore. That’s what she thought. The only thing she had ever wanted was impossible. Time to stop hoping; time to get real.

Christmas Eve Amanda and Freddie Berger danced in the hotel’s ballroom till dawn. Freddie could drink all night with nary a stumble or hiccup. They slept in the penthouse suite. She used birth control. He used birth control.

But by the New Year’s Eve party, Amanda recognized a tenderness she’d experienced just twice before. At the hotel’s New Year’s Eve party, she danced and sang to celebrate. But she didn’t drink Champagne. Her intuition said, better not.

(Click here to read the next episode.)