A Beauteous Flower

Chapter 57 - The Place Where the Story Just Stops

Days turned to weeks, which turned to months, which turned to years until one day Madison found herself in Mrs. Selene's place. Dr. and Mrs. Selene both passed away with their customary graceful elegance and left their estate, which included the football team, to their son, Richard, whom Daniel counted as a friend. At Richard's request Madison accepted the position as executive director of the dance team and sought to carry on Mrs. Selene's legacy of ladylike grace and poise as hostess of magnificent parties and clandestine and successful matchmaker.  After all, romance was a beautiful calling.

Invitations to every party that she and Daniel threw were coveted, but this particular party was special. This party had a youthful flair to it and many young men and women circulated around and socialized. They were mainly the sons and daughters of their friends and family, but their children's friends were also present. One of them didn't know it yet, but she was a very special guest.

As was their habit, Madison and Daniel mingled with their guests in separate orbits that intersected at regular intervals to allow the guests to transition from one sphere of influence to another. They were at the apogee of their latest orbit when Madison saw Daniel smile his admiration from across the room.  In return, Madison posed subtly with a clandestine smile over her champagne glass. Their ongoing and secret flirtation flitted between them across the room as it had since the night of their unification.

With Madison's love as a foundation, Daniel's confidence in crowds had blossomed, and he became the elegant star she had always known he could be. Daniel effortlessly charmed everyone around him, just as Mrs. Selene had observed that night long ago. In return, Daniel had always seen the best in Madison since that night in the garden, even when she and the rest of the world didn't see it; even when she was at her worst.  Over the years they had kept each other warm and safe and grounded and loved, and, as always, the champagne was pink and demi-sec and, therefore, doubly and bubbly thoughtful.

She got a familiar tingle up her spine as Daniel returned her toast with a wink. He was older now. His hair was thinner and touched with distinguished gray. He was thicker around the middle and had what people referred to as a "dad-bod", but his smile still brought that warm glow that she thrived on and she counted herself a very lucky woman.  To her Daniel was still the most delectable man in the world; the man of her dreams and the man of her darkest fantasies come to life. 

With a slight incline of his head to her, Daniel slid seamlessly back into his conversation with the circle of guests that surrounded him. To his left his best friend Burt and her best friend Cassidy, still as fiercely and tenderly devoted to each other as husband and wife as they had been when they met in Chili's, laughed heartily as Daniel reached the punchline of his story. Burt and Cassidy lived across the lake with their two sons, Mark and Matthew, and twice a year hosted huge LARP events on their sprawling property upstate.

To Madison's left, the laughter at the bar announced the presence of Adalina and her oil-man husband, Glen. Somehow Adalina found a man that matched her energy and the two of fell madly in love with each other in the course of a weekend at a bed and breakfast near a local ski resort, even though neither Adalina or Glen ever skied a day in their lives.  Together they shot like a meteor across the city's society set. Their passion for each other had produced five children, four boys and a girl, and despite childbirth, Adalina still was a sexy mamacita in barely- there-skirts, and stacked high heels and could still do a magnificently florid aerial.

Ivy joined Adalina with her husband Eric in tow. Eric was a bookish real estate lawyer that Ivy dug out of the stacks of the local library, and they had a son and a daughter and a comfortable colonial off by itself in the woods. Impossible as it seemed, the detached and businesslike Ivy was thoroughly smitten with her husband, and their evident love for each other made Ivy's previously pouty and morose countenance radiate like a bright firework of joy. Madison took a moment to admire Ivy's shoes with a twinge of jealousy.