Work Text:
It was all bah humbug. That was Miranda’s view anyway. Commercial exploitation. Nothing whatsoever to do with romance. Or, god forbid, love. The fact that in January, ahead of February, Runway put out a Valentine’s feature each blessed year, was due to the fact that Runway was a commercial magazine. It was nothing to do with how Miranda felt in her private life.
But here was the quandary. Andy, her Andréa, loved Valentine’s Day. She knew this because she recalled hearing Andréa’s enthusiasm and excitement at the prospect when she had worked for Miranda. Miranda always had her ears alert to what went on in the outer area to her office. Her assistants were her unwitting moles. She recalled how Andréa had babbled about her plans with the cook boy, and asked Emily whether she had plans too, much to Emily’s embarrassment, as she deflected from the fact that she was spending yet another Valentines contemplating solitary cheese cubes on her own.
But that was several years ago now. Andréa no longer worked at Runway. Andréa was no longer her employee. Her subordinate. By some magnificent fluke, for the last eight months Andréa had become her, her, whatever. They hadn’t decided on a label as yet. “Girlfriend” sounded so half hearted, so tepid. “Lover” smacked of deception and illicit trysts. They didn’t live together, so “Partner” or “Significant Other” felt inappropriately proprietorial. Theirs had been a private relationship, their social circles separate, their works spheres far apart, rarely seen together in public, a relationship known only to their closest friends, and of course the twins, who, it turned out, adored Andréa and freely expressed their approval and enthusiasm when she found time to come over or accompany them out as a family on some rare excursion. As far as the press were concerned, they were unawares, and if they noticed anything at all, they might suggest, tentatively, that they were friends. They hadn’t however, as the idea that Miranda might have a friend was an absurdity in itself. To the press at least.
So what to do about Valentine’s Day ?
You see Andréa mattered to Miranda. Mattered to her a lot. No one, apart from her daughters, had ever mattered so much, and her daughters were a completely different sort of mattering. No one had ever looked into her eyes and understood her in the way Andréa did. No one had ever spun Miranda’s insides with longing as Andréa had done. No one had ever mattered so much. And Miranda hated to disappoint her Andréa. Not that Andy would give her a hard time. She’d understand. She always understood. That was half the problem. But even a fleeting moment of disappointment flitting across those chocolate doe eyes would be too much to witness.
But really ? Valentine’s Day ? Andréa was an adult. Not the ingénue she’d been at Runway. She was harder at the edges now. The result of her job as a journalist, and, Miranda sighed, as a result of the battle to win Miranda. It had not been smooth sailing. Miranda had resisted, until she crumbled. There were scars. On both of them. Miranda winced. She wasn’t proud of how she’d behaved. Then. In denial to herself, fearful of looking a fool. Not trusting in the honesty that was Andréa. Not trusting in the honesty of her own heart.
She looked at her calendar. There was a supper penciled in for the fourteenth. A business supper, with members of the board. She could blame that. Yes, she could legitimately ignore the ghastliness of Valentine’s Day, restaurants full of couples trying to convince themselves that their present partner happened to be their soulmate, by disguising cracks and differences with glasses of champagne, bouquets of flowers, and ridiculously expensive boxes of chocolates. Not that she was cynical or anything.
So when her cell phone rang lighting up with Andy’s name, she was ready with her answer to the question as to whether she was free on Thursday night, the night that just happened to be 14 February. And if there was the slightest hint of disappointment at the other end, she chose not to hear it. It was, after all, merely bah humbug.
*********
On Thursday morning she heard the hurried stomp of her now teenage daughters on the stairs before she had even made it down herself. Clearly the postman had obliged with an early delivery and there were shrieks of delight as cards were opened, no doubt sent by their latest prepubescent inamorato, or maybe even inamorata. Miranda was not sure Cassidy had yet determined her own preference.
By the side of the coffee machine lay a single red rose stem. She wasn’t sure who it was for or indeed whom it was from. She poured herself a drink, hot, hot as the centre of the sun. It would be a shame to let it just wither. She placed it in a slim single stem silver vase with some water and momentarily wondered at the velvet like touch of the deep red petals, before turning her attention to the far more pressing matter of the daily newspaper.
Roy’s arrival was announced by the flash of her cell phone. As every morning, she descended the steps from her front porch to the road to find him standing by the side of the car, ready to open the rear door. Miranda slid into the back seat with her usual grace, only noticing once the door was closed behind her, the single red rose stem, lying across the seat beside her. She thought to pick it up, and began to ask Roy where it had come from, before thinking better of it, and allowing herself the further indulgence of stroking at the velvet petals, a small smile of recognition creeping across her face.
If Roy expected to find it on the seat after she’d left the car, he was to be disappointed. She tucked it into her Bottega Veneta purse, its head peeping out discretely, almost invisibly. That she was careful not to crush it, was no more than accidental. Obviously.
Emily greeted her that morning, as every morning, as she exited the elevator. She seemed a little more exuberant than normal, and Miranda couldn’t fail to notice the new drop earrings she was wearing, largely because of the fact Emily kept touching them, and then smiling to herself, earrings which Miranda had watched Serena select from the delivery of accessories that had arrived from Vivienne Westwood’s latest collection. Miranda’s amusement did not deflect her from issuing her usual stream of commands, leaving Emily to trot beside her scribbling them down in her little notebook.
Miranda showed no surprise when she noticed the third red rose stem placed as it was on the seat of her office chair. She pursed her lips and before Emily could notice her hesitation at sitting, she waved her hand dismissively, and uttered her familiar, “That’s all,” leaving Emily to retreat to the outer office. Miranda picked up the stem, placing it tenderly on her desk, extracting the other from her bag, and laying it by its’ companion’s side. She disappeared into her personal bathroom returning with a small glass vase into which she popped both stems. She placed the vase at the far end of her desk. That it was in her line of vision was no more than co-incidental. Obviously.
With her lunch arrived a fourth stem. The delivery of a large paper carrier revealed a stem hidden from public view, laid across the container containing her steak. She removed it, added it to the others in the vase on her desk, and summoned Emily to provide her with her required table wear. She couldn’t recall ordering the steak, but it was welcome nevertheless, and as she bit into the succulent flesh, she acknowledged to herself it was just what she had wanted.
That afternoon she left the office for a viewing for a collection of an up and coming designer she was hoping to mentor and introduce to the world of fashion in the March edition. If they were ready, that was. And that was far from guaranteed. She sighed. Why was no one ever ready ? On her return to the office she would need to change for the board dinner. Emily would have her clothes ready and waiting.
She was perhaps pleased to see the fifth stem lying by the side of the light grey marble bowl shaped washbasin in her private bathroom. She allowed herself another little smile, as she buried her patrician nose into the bloom, inhaling the sweet scent. It lay on the marble counter whilst she dressed, and reapplied her make up to her usual perfection, before she carried it to her desk and set it in the vase amongst its’ compatriots. If there was an added spring in her step as she left for the board meeting no one, least of all herself, commented on it.
The board dinner dragged on. At least she hadn’t had to face Irv’s sour face throughout it. He was now ancient history following his, assisted, departure from the board. It was late by the time she got home. The girls were fast asleep when she looked in on them. Entering her own room, she unzipped her dress and let it slip to the floor, bending to collect it and hang it up, before moving swiftly into her en-suite to remove her make up. Cleansed, the fabric of her satin nightdress soft across her naked skin, she made her way to the bed.
The sixth stem was laid across her pillow. She picked it up and dragged the flower petals softly across her lips. And smiled. As she settled into her bed, she reached for her cell. She had not yet spoken to Andréa that day. It was nearly midnight. But Andy was used to late night calls. She surely wouldn’t mind. Especially after leaving Miranda such a message. Half a dozen red roses. Their meaning, “I want to be yours.”
She called her number.
A croaky sleepy voice answered.
“Hello Miranda.”
“You already are,” Miranda purred in response to the unspoken request, and felt the smile that broke across Andy’s face, “Come for dinner tomorrow night.”
Miranda might think Valentine’s Day was bah humbug. But Miranda had discovered she believed in love, surprised as she was to find it where she had. And she had plans for Friday 15 February, as the dark green velvet ring box, now hiding in her bedside table would soon attest.