Did he say, Fiancée?

Welcome back! Slowly but surely, Francie is telling her tale to me - and I'm relating it to you! Remember to head first to the oldest post and work your way forward. Enjoy!

So, as near as I can remember, I mumbled, “Nice to meet you, Lauren,” followed by some indecipherable excuse about needing to change, or something like that. Lauren mentioned that Lila wanted everyone at the main house for lunch at one, and I’m pretty sure I heard Keeley promise that we’d see them there. But, by then, I was heading down the path toward Seagull Bungalow.

I entered the little cottage and dropped onto the white and blue-striped sofa. James and Keeley hovered in the doorway and, even though I wasn’t looking at them, I could sense their nervous tension.

“What?” I asked, irritably.

“Girl, I’m sorry,” James said. “Totally didn’t see that coming.”

“I can’t believe he never told you he was engaged,” Keeley added. “It’s really crappy of him.”

I sighed and shook my head. “No, it’s not.”

“It’s not?” Keeley and James said in unison.

“No. It would be if he had actually been leading me on.” I groaned in embarrassment. “But, he never said or did anything to suggest he was interested in me. That was all my stupid imagination.”

“He flirted with you,” Keeley insisted. “No imagination there.”

I shrugged. “Guys flirt. I read too much into it, that’s all. He felt bad for being rude to me when we first met, and probably felt he owed to his grandmother to be nice to me. I’m the one who ignored my better judgment and decided it was more than it obviously is.”

James sat on the arm of one of the matching striped armchairs - really, the nautical-themed living room looked like something out of a Ralph Lauren catalog. Gorgeous. Anyway, James sat and looked at me with a very curious look in his eyes.

“What?” I asked again.

“It’s a bit odd, don’t you think?” he asked.

“What is?”

“Well, you’ve known Michael, and Lila, for months. The fact that he’s engaged never came up?”

I shrugged. “I Why would it? To be honest, I haven’t spoken with Michael all that much, and it’s almost always been with Lila around. It’s not like… it’s not like we’re friends.” I tried not to examine too closely why that last statement left such a hollow feeling in me.

“You’re friends with Lila, aren’t you?” James pressed.

I considered this. Lila and I had worked together very closely over the last few months. And she paid me a very handsome salary for my services. But, as I looked back over the time we had spent together, I realized that we had enjoyed more social events than business meetings. So, yes, I suppose I could say Lila and I were friends. I nodded.

“And never,” James pursued. “in all the time you’ve spent together, has she mentioned that her grandson is engaged to a statuesque brunette who looks like she just stepped out of Vogue?”

“Not helping, James,” Keeley murmured.

I looked from James to Keeley and back again. “Look,” I said. “It just never came up, OK? There’s nothing odd about it. The only odd thing is how I could have let myself get so carried away by some guy who never gave any indication that he was interested in me. I know better.” I rose from the sofa. “Now, we should get changed for lunch. We don’t want to be late.”

“I’ll say,” James remarked quietly.

I glared at him and turned to head to my bedroom. It was true, what I had said. I had no reason to be disappointed. Michael had never suggested that he wanted anything other than a friendly truce. I was the one who interpreted it as more, so it was my own fault if my misguided fantasy had blown up in my face. Somehow, that thought didn’t really comfort me.

****

A little after one o’clock, Keeley, James and I were shown onto the verandah of the main house by Dennis. Lila, Michael and Lauren were already seated, although they all rose at our entrance.

Lila smiled as we all sat down, but her smiled seemed a bit strained. Or maybe it was just my imagination. I was still pretty flustered by the sudden turn of events.

“I understand you all met Lauren down at the beach,” Lila began. “I’m sorry I was not there to make the introductions.”

“Don’t worry about it, Lila,” Lauren assured her, with a warm smile. “You could hardly be expected to introduce a houseguest that descended on you with no warning whatsoever. I promise, Michael did an admirable job. He still manages to remember some of the manners you taught him, when it counts.”

Michael looked uncomfortable, but managed a weak smile. The rest of us also smiled, but there was a definite air of awkwardness at the table. I chewed silently on my salad as I waited for someone to steer the conversation to other topics. No such luck.

“Not that I’m not delighted to see you, my dear,” Lila commented. “But I thought Michael said you were coming home at the end of the month.”

Lauren smiled again. It seemed genuine. Really, she seemed to be the only person unaffected by the tension at the table. “My fault,” she said. “I was due to come home at the end of the month. But, we had another evacuation, and it just seemed to make sense for me to come back now, rather than kill time in Nairobi.”

“Lauren works for the UN,” Michael explained quietly.

Lila laughed gently. “You always were a master of understatement, Michael,” she said. She turned to Keeley, James and me. “Lauren is - let me see if I have this right – a Senior Policy Advisor with the United Nations Development Programme in the Sudan.” She glanced at Lauren. “Did I get that right, Lauren?”

“Perfect, Lila,” Lauren said. “Except for the fact that I’m now the former Senior Policy Advisor with the United Nations Development Program in Sudan.” She smiled again. “I’m at the end of my contract in Sudan, and haven’t yet decided what to do next, so I’m doing a bridge assignment here at headquarters in NY for the next few months.”

That last was said with a slight sideways glance at Michael. If he noticed it, he didn’t react. Instead, he said, “I was more surprised than anyone when Lo showed up at my door at 6:00 this morning.”

“It was a good surprise, I hope,” Lauren said.

“The best.” Michael reached to put his hand over hers where it rested on the table. He seemed like he meant it, and I knew I shouldn’t look for hidden meanings in their conversation. But, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that there was something more going on than was immediately apparent.

“I hope you don’t mind that I came with Michael,” Lauren was now saying to Lila. “He insisted it would be fine, but I hate dropping in unannounced like this.”

Lila shook her head. “You’re always welcome in my home, Lauren, you know that. Ah, here’s the main course.”

There seemed to be a collective air of relief around the table as we all turned our attention to the Panko Crusted Cod. The atmosphere seemed to lighten as the meal progressed, and the afternoon turned out to be a lot of fun. To be honest, I had to grudgingly agree with Keeley, when she uttered this assessment of Lauren as we headed back to the cottage later: “Damn. She’s nice, and a humanitarian. You’re SOL, Francie.”

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