Ex’s and Oh’s by Sandra Steffen Page B

lease these spaces. What do you think? Can you imagine yourself seeing clients here, providing it isn’t a hundred and ten stifling degrees?”
    Caroline took some time to consider that. The first two offices had been renovated twenty years ago, this onewithin the past five. The drop ceilings were probably good for acoustics, as was the commercial-grade carpeting beneath her feet. She supposed she could have set up an office here, but the space could have housed an insurance office or a Baby Gap just as easily. “It seems awfully generic,” Caroline said.
    “I thought you’d say that.”
    The last door Tori opened led to a narrow back alley paved in old bricks. The buildings lining the alley were covered in vines stirring on a marvelous breeze. Tori and Caroline were silent for a moment, appreciating the relief from the oppressive heat.
    “That must have special meaning,” Tori said.
    Caroline hadn’t realized she was tracing the edges of her charm. “It was my mother’s.”
    “What is it?” Tori asked, taking it between her thumb and index finger.
    “It’s whatever you want it to be. My mother found it in the dirt on a narrow little street in Seville on her honeymoon. It’s a dollop of pewter she thought looked like an abstract heart. My father had it made into a charm for her. My grandfather said she never took it off. I’ve always wondered why she wasn’t wearing it when the plane crashed.”
    “You said she died when you were small?”
    She nodded. “I found it in the bottom of a large box my grandfather brought to my room my first summer with him.”
    The bangles on Tori’s wrists jangled slightly as she released the charm. Inhaling something sweet on the warm air, Caroline spied a honeysuckle vine growing up the side of the building. The pale yellow flowers were a perfect match for the blond streaks in Tori’s hair, and the scent was synonymous with her bold sweetness. On that day when Caroline’s grandfather had placed the box of her parents’ things on her bed, it had been raining outside, and the air had been heavy with the scent of rain-drenched wild roses on the trellis outside her bedroom window. Until this moment, Caroline hadn’t realized she associated scents with particular events and experiences in her life.
    “It must have been hard on your grandfather, losing his daughter that way, and suddenly finding himself parenting again. What did he say?”
    “He didn’t say anything. He removed his glasses, took an old-fashioned handkerchief from his pocket and dried his eyes.”
    Caroline remembered it so clearly. For the first eight years of her life, she’d been a carefree little girl who took for granted that she was the center of the universe. Her parents had been young. Her grandfather was old. She recalled making the distinction. She’d loved him with herwhole heart, and she was so thankful to have him, to have somebody. Watching him dry his eyes that day, she’d vowed to cause him as little worry and grief as possible.
    “Subconsciously I think I’ve been looking for a man like my grandfather ever since.”
    “At least we won’t be competing for the same guys. You can hold out for the saints and I’ll take the sinners.”
    Caroline never knew what Tori was going to say. “You like sinners?”
    “Not abusers or criminals or creepy guys, but I prefer guys who are at least as bad as I am.”
    While Caroline was wondering about that, Tori led the way back through the building. After making sure everything was locked up tight, she said, “What else was in the box that day?”
    They fell into step, starting toward the realty office a few blocks away. “My father’s watch and some framed pictures and photo albums. My father was an amateur photographer, and my mom and I were his favorite subjects. Every time I looked at them that summer, I cried and cried. The hardest part was coming to the end where there were pages left unfilled. A psychiatrist would probably say I began