Livvy

  “I bought the stone over spring break, and your mother helped to make sure the ring I designed for you would be acceptable.”

  “You designed it?”

  “Everything but the blue stones at the bottom. I had selected the diamonds,” he says, holding my hand up closer to my face to I can see the details in the band. I hadn’t even noticed. “Your mom thought it was romantic to have the two blue stones, one on either side, symbolizing us... and then the one blue stone in the center.”

  “Becoming one,” I say, blushing again. “Good job, Mom,” I mutter. “It’s very romantic. Okay, good, so Dad knows.”

  “Jack knows. Jack finally approves of me,” he says with a sigh.

  “Dad finally came to his senses. And how does he feel about the Brazil arrangement?”

  “A little better with the ring, I think. And the promises.”

  “I love you so much, Jon.” I kiss him once more.

  “I want to give you this, too,” he says, opening the ring box and showing me a crumpled up piece of paper. “That was the claim slip that you almost discovered a few weeks ago.”

  “No way,” I laugh.

  “You almost ruined the surprise.”

  “I’m so glad I didn’t.”

  “Well, you still did, technically. We have reservations at eight at Recette so I can propose.”

  “Recette? Can we still go?”

  “Of course. And we’re coming back to a little impromptu engagement/going away party. Hope that’s okay.”

  “This is the perfect send off...”

  “For us,” Jon says.

  “For us.”

  I hug him tightly, holding him and feeling his heart pound against my chest. It’s the best feeling in the world right now, because I’ve never felt more alive and free, either.

  “They’re probably wondering where we are,” I tell him, finally standing up and holding my hand out to help him up.

  “I’m sure they are,” Jon agrees, standing and straightening his jeans. He opens my bedroom door for me, and my parents and his mom stand a few feet back, not a dry eye to be found.

  “Seriously?” I ask, a little amused. Jon’s laughing, too. “Is there no privacy?”

  “Not in my house,” Dad says smugly, then holds his hand out to Jon. “You did perfectly, son. Welcome to the family.”

  “We’re a hugging family, Jacks,” Mom says, pulling him into a tight hug. Jon’s mom looks at my ring first, then embraces me.

  “Good choice, Jonny,” she says to him, but before I can even question her comment, she adds, “on the girl and the ring.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” He steps behind me, hugging his mother while Dad watches me, waiting for me to come to him.

  “I love you, Daddy,” I cry.

  “I love you, Livvy. God, how I love you. Congratulations, my little Contessa.”

  JACK - CHAPTER 21

  “Mr. Holland,” the flight attendant says softly with a tap on my shoulder, “we will be landing in Floripa in about thirty minutes.”

  “Thank you, Maurine,” I whisper, blinking my eyes rapidly to adjust to the light in the cabin. Placing my hand on Emi’s leg and moving my thumb against her smooth knee, I admire my wife in her last few minutes of sleep. She rests peacefully against the window, the second glass of wine finally permitting her to doze off. It’s the first time we’ve made the trip that she has been able to temper her enthusiasm and allow herself to unwind. She’s always so excited to see Livvy.

  I can’t wait to see her, either. It’s been six months since her last trip to Manhattan, and I miss my little girl.

  “Dad?” Jackson’s voice cuts through the silence abruptly. The deeper timbre of it still surprises me. I peer through the seats behind me, and he takes out one earbud. The music continues loudly in his other ear.

  “Turn that down, son, you’ll go deaf.”

  “I won’t either,” he argues, but complies. “I left my razor at home.”

  “You can use mine,” I tell him with a shrug.

  “I don’t like yours,” he says.

  “Jacks,” Emi says groggily, her eyes still closed, “he can’t use a safety razor.”

  “He can,” I argue with her, “if he’d just listen to my instruction.”

  “Trey, we’ll stop and get one. Or maybe Jon has one you can use.” Jackson raises his eyebrows, as if asking my permission. I simply nod my head and turn around. “How much longer?” Emi says to me, placing her hand on top of mine.

  “Twenty-five minutes.” She finally opens her pale green eyes, the bright sun dancing in them as she faces me. We lean into one another for a kiss.

  “Do you think she’ll be happy to see us?”

  “Undoubtedly,” I assure her. “I’m sure she’ll be utterly surprised. The whole family showing up unexpectedly on her twenty-sixth birthday? Yeah, she’s going to be happy.”

  “It was so sweet of Jon to plan this for her. I just hate that we can’t see her until tomorrow. I don’t know why we can’t see her tonight.”

  “Because the party isn’t until tomorrow. The impact will be better if we wait for everyone to get in. Plus, you only got two hours of sleep.”

  “I won’t sleep tonight. I just want to see her.”

  “We’ll call her when we get settled in the hotel. You can rest well knowing she’s less than a mile from us... that’s a lot fewer than five thousand.”

  “I guess,” she nearly sighs, beginning to gather up her things in preparation for our landing.

  Once we’re on the ground, Jackson is the first to get out of his seat, opening the overhead bins and bringing the rest of our luggage down. I stand next to him, wondering how my son has grown up so quickly. It seems like yesterday we were playing t-ball together in the backyard. Now, he’s two inches taller than me, a star on the basketball team and one of the most popular kids in his class. When he was younger, I was certain he would favor his mother, but as he’s matured, he has taken on more of my features. Emi’s strawberry blonde hair and pale skin are the only genetic contributions left of hers. Just looking into his blue eyes alone, anyone would know he was my son.

  “I’ve got it, Mom,” he says to Emi when she tries to take her laptop bag from him. “You can steer the rolling luggage.”

  “Thanks, honey.” Stepping aside, I let her out of our row and pass off the handle of the smallest suitcase to her. As soon as she has descended the last step of the private jet, a man is there to take the bag from her. We follow him to a town car where another young man I’ve come to admire is standing by the trunk. He walks quickly toward my wife.

  “Jon!” Emi exclaims, happy to see Livvy’s fiancé. They embrace tightly, only letting go when I make it to the car. Jon shakes Jackson’s hand first, doing a silly handshake that they’d concocted one summer a few years ago. He then holds his hand out to me. I shake it once, but pull him in for a quick hug and a pat on the back. Although he isn’t officially family, he still feels like another son to me. It’s hard to believe I’ve known him longer than Jackson’s been alive.

  “How are you?” I ask him.

  “Great. How was the flight?”

  “Smooth flying,” I tell him.

  “Can we see her tonight?” Emi cuts in before I can say anything else.

  “Party’s tomorrow, Emi,” Jon says. “I know you’re excited, but I really want this to be a big surprise.”

  She frowns a little.

  “She has plans tonight, anyway. Plus, she’s had a long day,” he adds, “as I assume you’ve had, too.”

  “Is everything okay with her?”

  “Yeah, she was just putting some final touches on this piece downtown. You’ll be amazed,” he says assuredly. “It’s bold and... well, it makes a statement like no other. Public opinion is very favorable, as always.”

  We get settled into the car and start heading toward the hotel.

  “How’s your work?” I ask Jon.

  “It’s good,” he says.

  “Wh
en’s that desire to come back to New York going to kick in?”

  “You know?” he says contemplatively. “I’ve started to look at some opportunities there.”

  “Don’t get her hopes up,” I tell him quickly when I see Emi’s eyes widen in disbelief. She’s been waiting for any hint of news that would bring them back home since the moment they decided to live here four years ago.

  “Well, Manhattan finally seems to be warming up to the idea of major street art initiatives. You know this is what she loves to do.”

  “I know,” Emi says.

  “We’ll come back. It was never our plan to be Brazilians forever... although it’s been nice.”

  “And it’s definitely been a nice place to visit,” I say.

  “I do love it here,” my wife admits.

  As Jon and Jackson discuss their predictions for the World Series, Emi leans into me as we watch the city’s scenery pass by us.

  “Hold that thought,” Jon says, interrupting my son. “Você pode parar o carro e nos esperar, por favor?” he says to the driver. It takes me a minute to translate. My Portuguese is rusty, but I finally determine he’s asked to pull over to the curb just before the driver actually does it. “Up here on your right...” Emi cranes her neck to see out the window on my side of the car.

  “That building?” I ask, staring up at a ten-story high-rise that’s covered in colorful imagery that has my daughter’s signature strokes all over it.

  “Incredible, right?”

  The driver pulls over to the curb and stops the car, letting us get out and see the artwork up close. “It’s figurative,” I say, taking in the scene that spans the entire wall from the sidewalk to the roof.

  “Very good, Jacks,” Emi says, clearly impressed that I recognized the style Livvy had used to paint this particular work.

  “It’s a wedding?” I ask, making out the forms of a bride and groom standing alone in front of a vast expanse of rolling hills on one side and the endless sea on the other.

  “The building owner wanted something romantic, but traditional.”

  “It’s beautiful,” I say, marveling in the way the forms of the bride and groom seem to meld into one another. “Look how she shaded their hands, Em,” I say to her, pointing to the single point that clearly unites them as one.

  “Stunning. Jon, will you take our picture in front of it?” Emi asks, handing him her camera.

  “Of course.”

  Jackson steps out of the frame. In most instances, I’d want to include our son in the photo, but I like the romanticism of the old happily married couple standing in front of the painting of the young happily married couple. We hold hands, just as they do in the wallscape.

  Once Emi has approved of the pictures, we get back in the car and resume the drive to the hotel. “Listen, Trey,” Jon says. “Livvy has dinner plans tonight with Ariana. I thought maybe you and I could go shoot some hoops or something and grab a bite. She thinks I’m hanging out with some of my co-workers.”

  Jackson looks to me for approval. Every time we make a trip to Brazil, Jon and Livvy take Jackson out or invite him to stay in their apartment with them. He thinks it’s for his benefit, but I have no doubt they do it to give my wife and I some time alone. “That’s fine. Do you think you could take him to get a razor? He left his at home.”

  “No problem. Is there anything else we can pick up for you? Anything to make your stay more comfortable?”

  “No, thank you,” I tell him. “We splurged and did the VIP service at the Alessandro hotel. I’m pretty sure we’ll be okay.”

  “I’m pretty sure you will,” Jon laughs. “We did that one weekend, just to see what it was like. For the hell of it, we requested authentic Italian food for dinner one night, and then we told them we wanted to wake up to the sounds of birds singing in the morning. ‘Of course, Mr. Scott,’ they said without flinching. And sure enough, we had the best gnocchi I’ve ever had, home cooked by one of their chefs, and they piped in some beautiful bird sounds over the speaker system the following morning.”

  “Gnocchi sounds good,” Emi says. “I like yours, though, Jacks.”

  “Give them a list of ingredients,” Jon says, “and you can cook it in your own suite.”

  “Maybe another night,” I suggest. “I’m a little worn out today.”

  “Perfect,” she says. “I could use a nap, too.” She weaves her fingers between mine and squeezes my hand in hers. I glance at her only briefly, kissing her forehead to agree with her silent suggestion. I love her so much, as much as I did the day I married her nearly twenty-three years ago.

  Jackson, Emi and I spend the following morning and afternoon sight-seeing and shopping. Every time we come to Brazil, there are new things to see–especially where Livvy is concerned. Her involvement in their vast street art project has helped to revitalize many of their older communities. Her schedule has been to plan, create, and implement a new project every three months. The other two sites that we visited today had taken us to two neighboring cities. It’s nice to see more of the country, and to see how my daughter has weaved her sensibilities and creativity into their culture astounds me.

  Her work was always beautiful to me, but seeing how careful she is in design and concept to make sure her artwork suits the neighborhoods she contributes art to makes me realize how intuitive and intelligent she truly is. There were times today that the same realization brought proud tears to Emi’s eyes. While I held my wife close, reveling in those same emotions, I was able to hide from her my own tears. I missed having Livvy in New York. Jackson caught me swiping my eyes once. Although he rolled his eyes at me in mockery, I wasn’t ashamed that my son saw it. I’ve always tried to instill in him that it’s okay to be vulnerable at times. At fifteen, he was beginning to pull away and assert his independence, but he was still very respectful of the boundaries we’d set for him. Every day, he did something that made me feel like we’d done a good job of raising him. I truly feel like he’ll be just as successful as Livvy in whatever life pursuit he chooses. While Livvy had known from a young age what she wanted to do with her life, our son’s interests span from sports to music to creative writing. He’s good at nearly everything he’s tried to do, so he has plenty of options, and just as Emi and I think we’ve identified which direction he’ll go in life, he surprises us with some new talent that once again catches us off guard.

  Livvy and Jon have become local celebrities in the areas in and around Florianópolis, although in stark contrast to their earlier notoriety in Manhattan, the Brazilians aren’t fascinated by their every kiss, embrace or fight. Livvy’s artwork helps brighten the communities on which she chooses to focus. Many of her paintings have become local landmarks that tourists travel the world to see. She likes the attention, because she knows that so many of the people who visit Floripa are only there for the artwork. Although everyone in America came to know that Olivia Choisie was actually Livvy Holland, my daughter, most people who came to Brazil neither knew nor cared about me. Jack Holland wasn’t a name most had ever heard before.

  While Livvy’s impact has been very visual, Jon’s work has taken him behind the scenes. He has been heavily involved in sustainable urban planning projects at the start-up architecture firm that hired him away from the company to which he’d become indispensable when he was at Columbia. His work has impacted multiple large cities in Brazil, and he and his firm had garnered worldwide praise for their careful concepts of environments and infrastructure. He’d even won awards for a few of his designs, and in the four years that he’s been here, he’s become a senior partner of the firm that has quadrupled in size since he came on board. Like he promised me when he was in college, he has provided a good life for my daughter. His more than adequate income has allowed her to work with cities who couldn’t invest in expensive revitalization efforts. A few of her projects have been pro-bono, and with each location she picks, she manages to get Jon involved in some way. The cities greatly benefit from what they do, and the peo
ple of Brazil aren’t afraid to show their appreciation.

  No longer did my daughter and her fiancé feel the need to hide from passers-by under their alumni caps or hooded sweatshirts. They faced everyone with grace and poise, presenting a unified front anywhere they went. They truly remind me of myself and Emi.

  “Jacks, where’s your tie?” Emi asks from the adjoining room.

  “It was hanging in the closet,” I tell her as I check my watch. “I guess it’s about that time, isn’t it? Wow,” I say as I take in the sight of her in a beautiful dress that matches her eyes.

  “Do I look okay?”

  “No, you don’t look okay. You look extraordinary.” She smiles at my response, ducking into the closet momentarily and producing my tie.

  “I think this is the dressiest we’ve ever been for a birthday party. I wish I had remembered to take a picture of Trey before Jon picked him up. He looked so handsome in his tux.”

  “I’m sure we’ll get plenty of pictures tonight,” I assure her, letting her put the necktie on for me. When she finishes the knot, I lean down to kiss her.

  “You look handsome, too,” she whispers, breathless, running her hands through my hair. I kiss her once more in appreciation.

  “You ready?”

  “Ready. Where’s this place?”

  “Hotel Unique. The front desk said it’s about ten minutes away,” I tell her, holding the invitation and checking the route. She picks up her purse and the present we’d bought for Livvy and slides her palm against mine, linking fingers.

  The town car is waiting for us, and the driver confirms our location before I even have a chance to tell him where we’re off to. The service here has been stellar.

  Emi’s phone rings as soon as we pull away from our hotel. Recognizing Jon’s ringtone, she hurries to answer it. “We’re on our way,” she says after putting him on speakerphone.

  “Perfect,” he says. “I was thinking... why don’t you two head up to our hotel room and have a little private moment with Olivia? She was saying all day how much she missed you two and wished she could spend her birthday with you. I think she might be a little emotional when she sees you. Plus, it’ll give me a little extra time to corral everyone in the party room. Clara says Jen and Bryan are running a little late.”