Hand-Me-Down. Lee Nichols

said “I love you” were my father and my dog?

      Was it normal that I could neither commit to a man or a career?

      I used to think I was missing the ambition gene, but actually it’s the success gene. Specifically the “fame and fortune at a young age” gene which my sisters got in such abundance. One famous for her beauty, the other for her brains. I wasn’t as beautiful as Charlotte or as clever as Emily—though I was prettier than Emily and smarter than Charlotte. So what was left for me—to be famous for my spirituality? Sports? My personality?

      Great. My idea of spirituality is a chocolate éclair, my only sport is dog-walking, and my personality is composed of one part sibling rivalry and two parts vague dissatisfaction.

      Ny barked and startled me from my self-indulgent gloominess. I was standing on a California mountain overlooking the ocean on a beautiful morning. I had a good man, a steady job and a loving family. It was time to stop whining about Charlotte and Emily.

      Well, except I had to pick up Charlotte’s gifts and be back to work by noon. Maybe I’d stop whining tomorrow.

      CHAPTER 07

      Tazza Antiques, scourge of all things new and improved, was located in El Paseo, a slightly old-world marketplace downtown. Traditional Spanish architecture and winding adobe hallways led to quaint gift shops and jewelry stores. It was old-world meets tourist trap. There were a few good restaurants, though—the always-delicious Wine Cask, the cheesy-but-fun Mexican restaurant—and a couple gift stores worth the visit, plus a scattering of offices on the second floor. Natives rarely entered the place, but Emily and Charlotte had stopped at the Wine Cask to buy a few bottles of wine, and had window-shopped the antiques store as they passed.

      Tazza was my worst nightmare. Well, actually a thrift store was my greatest horror. I’d spent a decade and a half trapped in “vintage clothing,” so the last thing I wanted was to see it displayed on a rack, advertised as if it were a good thing. Antiques were supposed to be better than Goodwill left-overs—valuable, chic, possibly elegant—but when you got right down to it, they were just thrift-store gunge from a previous era. Maybe there were no recent stains and fluids, but that’s about all you could say.

      Still, I mustered my familial loyalty, took a deep breath, and pushed my way inside.

      The shop was cool, with stone floors, pale peach walls and a wide wooden staircase leading to a loft. A bell over the door jingled pleasantly, and despite the invisible clouds of noxious old, the shop smelled clean, of lemon and lavender. There were flowers in a pretty blue-and-white vase on a rich mahogany hall table which I pretended was new and perfectly hygienic. There was a set of Asian-looking chairs and a glass-front cupboard with jugs and spoons and things, and a couple rugs on the floor that were fairly gorgeous—just so long as you didn’t start wondering how many generations of sweaty feet had tread upon them.

      I stood awkwardly, afraid to venture too far into the sheer agedness of the place. “Hello?”

      Movement in the loft. “Be with you in a second,” a man’s voice floated down. “Feel free to poke around.”

      The last thing I wanted was to poke. But hovering in the doorway wasn’t polite, so I crept inside. I’d come straight from the walk with Ny, and was fairly repulsive and sweaty. I was wearing a gray T-shirt, black shorts, and last-gasp sneakers which were shedding mud from the wet trail onto the expensive aged rugs.

      I was scuffing at the dirt, trying to conceal it among the ornate blue and gold pattern of one of the rugs, when the man cleared his throat on the stairs behind me.

      I swiveled. My sweaty hair spun. My shoes flaked. I said, “Hi.”

      He was familiar but I couldn’t place him. His hair was dirty-blond, his eyes dirty-blue—and they held a glint of mischief. He stood on the stairs, hand on the railing, looking self-confident and regal—the master of this ancient decrepit domain. He wore gray flannel trousers and a soft blue dress shirt, a thick cotton oxford that looked like it had been worn and washed into perfect comfort. He looked hot. I looked overripe. If I’d been between boyfriends, I would have felt self-conscious. Good thing I had Rip.

      “See anything you like?” he asked, walking down the stairs toward me.

      Oh, yeah. One thing I wouldn’t mind taking home. “I, um—my sister saw an old pot—I mean, an old box. A lacquer box—”

      He smiled at my words, and I realized who he was. Ian.

      Oh, my God. Not in my loose gray tee and baggy soccer shorts. I crammed my hair behind my ears in a desperate attempt to tidy myself, and toed the ground. Knocking more mud to the floor, of course.

      “Anne Olsen!” he said. “How are you? I haven’t seen you in years.”

      “Oh, um—years,” I said, thinking: don’t invite him anywhere, don’t invite him anywhere.

      Ian hugged me, manfully unafraid of my pig-sweatiness. “You look great,” he said, fudging the facts.

      “Oh, um,” I said. He smelled good, too.

      “You don’t remember me, do you?”

      “Of course I do.” What I didn’t know—after all this time—was why he’d rejected me when I’d propositioned him eight years ago. I may not be Charlotte, but I’m not repulsive. And he was a man—he wasn’t supposed to have standards. Especially not so high that I didn’t meet them. “How are you?”

      “You don’t,” he said. “You have no idea who I am.”

      “I know exactly who you are.”

      “What’s my name, then?”

      He looked so pleased with my faulty memory that I couldn’t help saying, “Does it start with a D?”

      “Sort of,” he said. “I can’t believe you don’t remember.”

      “Oh, c’mon. How could I forget?” I smiled vaguely. “We had such…great times together.”

      “Sure did,” he said, growing thoughtful. “Remember that time we went skinny-dipping at the reservoir?”

      “When we what?”

      “What a crazy summer that was.”

      We had never gone skinny-dipping, and he knew it. I tilted my head and said, “How could I forget?”

      He nodded, eyes twinkling dangerously. “We’d been downtown for Fiesta, dancing to one of the bands. Back when the lambada was big, remember?” He curled his hands around an imaginary dance partner and rocked his hips—his leg between her imaginary thighs, his hand on her imaginary waist. “Dancing until dark. Midnight in August, one of those hot, steamy nights…”

      I steadied myself against a worm-eaten coatrack.

      “That’s right,” he said. “The full moon and the clear sky. We were hanging out on the hood of my car, edge of the water, and you suddenly said, ‘That’s it! I’m going in.’”

      Well, two can play that game. I smiled wistfully, as if remembering. “We were high on Tecate and churro sugar. All sweaty from dancing. The air was sticky and warm and I needed to cool down.”

      “You took off your shirt….”

      “I never! I mean, I never take my top off first. Bottoms up, for me. I took off my skirt, then my panties—”

      His eyebrow twitched at panties. Men. “That’s right,” he said. “Bottoms up.”

      “Then you started stripping down….” Because I refused to be the only imaginary naked person in the game.

      “Top down,” he said. “Unbuttoned my shirt and tossed it on the hood. Then my jeans and underwear.”

      “Boxer briefs,” I said, in a reverie. “You remember how I prefer boxer briefs.”

      “The