Whatever. Stop being bitter, Harper, I scold myself. It’s just this weekend making me grumpy. I’ll be fine again next week.
I finally find the scissors and abscond back to my room. At least whatever Mom and Dad sent should make me feel better. Maybe it’ll be cookies. Or chocolate. Yes, definitely chocolate.
I slice through the package, and peel back the flaps, only to stare in confusion. There’s another, slightly smaller package inside. I turn the box over, dump the smaller carton out, and cut open that one as well. Yet another box inside, only slightly smaller than the second one. I raise an eyebrow, unsure whether to be annoyed or amused.
I keep going, finding more and more boxes within boxes, like Russian nesting dolls, until my whole bedroom is covered in cardboard refuse. Finally, I slit open the last box, which is about 1/8th the size of the original one, and find a bed of wrapping paper inside.
From within the paper, I withdraw a length of fabric. No, not fabric. A dress. A gown, actually. Floor-length, black, backless, and completely stunning. The gown slides across my fingers, the smoothest silk I’ve ever felt, gently ruched in all the right places, so I already know it will look amazing on me.
A slip of paper flutters to the floor beside the dress. I bend to pick it up, assuming it will be a card. It’s not.
It’s a ticket to the Philadelphia Orchestra. A box seat. For tonight.
My hands shake as I turn the ticket over in my hands. But there’s nothing else. Even when I tear the remaining boxes apart and dig through the wrapping paper, there are no other clues. No return address on the box, either.
But my stupid, traitorous heart has started to beat again. Hope pumps through my veins, intoxicating. Dangerous.
Because I still remember everything he ever said to me. I remember sitting at dinner in the Cotswolds as he gaped across the table at me. You live right there and you’ve never seen one of the best orchestras in the world?
He wouldn’t. Would he?
Only one way to find out, I suppose. I shut my bedroom door, pull off my shirt, and shimmy into the dress.
#
The Kimmel Center is gorgeous. Its huge glass dome dominates the block where it’s situated. And tonight, with night fallen already, it glitters like it’s made of gold, lit from within and without, by the light of the surrounding city.
I pull my roommate’s coat tighter around my neck as I step out of the taxi. When she saw the dress I’d put on, with my towering high heels to match, and a simple pearl necklace from my father, she refused to let me wear my normal old puffy down coat. She dug this gorgeous fur out of her closet and forced it around my shoulders, complete with matching sparkling handbag. I feel like a movie star, as if the taxi is a limousine.
I quick-step from the warm cab through the glass doors of the building. The lobby alone stands at least four stories high. From the base of it, I can peer up at the box seats, and watch other people pass by, some in furs and gowns and tuxes, others in jeans and T-shirts and sneakers. It’s a weird mix.
I check the ticket again, but the numbers don’t mean anything to me. I’m turning to look for a box office, somewhere I can stop to ask for directions, when a familiar warm hand rests on the small of my back.
“I didn’t think you’d come.”
Even now, after all this time, after everything, his voice still makes my knees go weak. I spin around, and there he stands, towering over me, even taller than I remembered somehow. Dressed to the nines in a suit and black tie, his normally ruffled hair coaxed into mostly behaving. His eyes, dark and piercing as ever, catch mine the moment they meet.
For a solid minute, we don’t say a word. We probably look insane to anyone passing by, two people dressed for a ball staring each other down in the middle of the lobby. I don’t care.
The outside world fades away every time I’m with him.
“What is this?” I finally manage, with a weak gesture toward the dress. Though what I really mean, of course, is what the hell is he doing in Philadelphia, buying me orchestra tickets and sending me gowns.
“You told me you’d never been to the orchestra. I told you, we’d have to remedy that one day.”
“Jack . . . ” I’m not sure how to begin.
Luckily, he doesn’t let me. “Harper, please. Hear me out. I’ve been . . . lost without you. Completely, utterly lost. I know what I did is unforgivable, that I don’t deserve for you to be standing here, let alone listening to what I have to say. The way I behaved at the funeral, the things I said to you . . . I’d give anything, I’d sell my soul to undo that moment, but I can’t. All I can do is tell you now—I was wrong. You are more mature and more level-headed than I’ll ever be. Trying to blame you for the situation with my family, and . . . I was the one being insane that day, Harper, and you have every right to hate me for it.”