PART FIVE: I'VE NEVER DONE THIS KIND OF THING

It took two medium drips before Kurt had enough caffeine in his system for meetings. He spent two hours in the morning discussing details of delivery and payment and returns with Leonard, the oriental rugs guy the Duchess is so crazy about, and then walked around his warehouse for hours, taking in the multitudes of patterns, shapes, sizes, colors. It was overwhelming. He could see why the Duchess had sent him here. Leonard had everything, and he had a soft way of speaking that was disarming and utterly charming at the same time. If every inch of Kurt hadn't been tingling with the anticipation of a later coffee date, he might have slipped Leonard his personal number, sent him his patented variety mix of Kurt Hummel Flirty Faces. As it was, he had thanked Leonard for his time and attention and asked if he could walk around the factory by himself. Leonard had said yes.

Kurt knew the shape he was looking for and had a few different color schemes in mind. It was the patterns that were difficult. He had always been good with patterns, always matching them into outfits where for any other person they had no right existing but for Kurt, they were perfect. He liked anything with clean lines but twisted concepts. He liked simplicity. He liked complexity. He liked squares, triangles, circles, rhombuses. He liked Blaine.

Kurt stepped back abruptly from the rug he had been examining and closed his eyes, agitatedly putting a hand to the side of his head and working at his hair a little bit. Where did that come from? He didn't know what he was doing, developing a schoolboy crush on his high school sweetheart, ten years too late. And Blaine was a librarian now, what was that all about? He wore oatmeal cardigans and glasses and plaids and corduroys. He lived in Chicago. The player might have been the one, but all his pieces were in the wrong place on the board.

Kurt wandered on through the hanging rugs, idly making notes on his favorites, his brain half on Blaine, half on the rugs, not able to commit fully to either. He narrowed down his options for the Duchess's parlor to three choices, but he couldn't figure out which one was the right one. He had Leonard bring them all down from where they were hanging and spread them out on the floor in front of him, but all he could do was look from one to the next in hopeless confusion. Which one? The elaborate one with the flowers and leaves and vines and shapes all beautifully tangled together? The bold one with the red? Or the one with all the boxes interweaving each other perfectly, like a grid upon a grid upon a grid with loveliness embroidered in each square? He liked all of them, and he knew the Duchess would like them all too. They would all add something special to the room, pull it together, but in different ways. The elaborate one for a sense of elegance and regality; the bold one for power and status; the boxy one for comfort, grace, a sense of belonging to a home.

In the end he called the Duchess.

"Yes, Elizabeth?"

She always called him that, since he had introduced himself to her as Kurt Elizabeth Hummel upon their first meeting.

"I'm having trouble deciding among a few rugs."

"Oh, darling, but you always pick the right thing."

Kurt sighed. "I like all of them. They would all work in the parlor. I don't know."

The Duchess was very quiet for several seconds and Kurt worried he had somehow offended her. But then she said, very gently, "Dear, is something wrong?"

Kurt stiffened. They didn't normally discuss their personal lives. He knew she'd had nine husbands. She knew he was gay. That was about it.

"Because," she continued softly, "you don't sound like the Elizabeth who left me in New York."

"I met someone," he blurted out, then slapped his hand to his forehead. Why did I say that?

"Oh, my dear! How perfectly lovely. Is he tall and handsome and dark and mysterious?"

Kurt laughed. "No. Handsome and dark, yes. Tall and mysterious, not so much. He's a librarian."

He could almost see the look on her face when she asked, very puzzled, "How on earth did you meet a librarian, dear? Did you need a book?"

"No, no. I know him from high school." He paused. She didn't interrupt him. "We dated," he admitted.

"Oh my goodness, your high school sweetheart! Now that is lovely. And he's a librarian now. But what—whatever is the matter? Why do you sound so glum about it?"

"I broke his heart," Kurt said frankly.

The Duchess breathed out heavily. She started talking, then, in a rhythm that sounded rehearsed but was not: she was not conversing with Kurt anymore; she was telling him a story.

"I knew a boy when I was your age. We went everywhere together, did everything together. He was my first love, after the harpsichord. I lost myself to him completely, and I think he felt the same way toward me. But I was poor and he was not—yes, there was a time when I was poor, just think of it!—and his parents had objections. He wanted to marry me, that one, but I wouldn't let him. I kept thinking about the look on his mother's face when she met my eyes. A mask for the utter contempt for me that lived inside her. I didn't blame her. I was poor, I meant very little to society, and society was very important, you know. So I broke it off with him, for her sake. He never forgave me. Drowned himself in a river."

"Oh my god," Kurt said, but then she laughed shrilly.

"No, I'm just kidding, but wouldn't that be a truly proper ending to such a pathetic story! No no, he married someone else, they have children. But I regret my choice every day, and I've married nine times since him, and had countless more lovers than that. But I regret saying goodbye to him. The look on that woman's face—what did it matter? She was his mother, but I would have been his wife. He chose me, and I chose him. But I gave up on it, because it was the easier thing to do. And I still think about him, every day."

"I do that with Blaine too."

"With Blaine, dear? Oh, that's your librarian's name, is it? You do seem more like Blain is your type than Ducky."

"I will never be seen with a man who wears duck shoes," Kurt said immediately.

"Of course not, dear. You would have chosen Blain too, just like Andie did. Although really I think Andie ought to have picked Ducky, I mean honestly, what a way to end a movie, but you, Kurt. You need your Blaine."

He didn't know what she was on about, really, but what she had said had hit him. He regretted breaking up with Blaine, regretted it so hard that he pushed it to the back of his mind until he forgot Blaine, until he didn't have to think about him at all—until he inevitably came up again and all the pain was pulled out again. Kurt clutched at his heart through his shirt and spoke slowly into the phone.

"Thank you. I think I know what to do now. But it will take a little time."

"Oh, Elizabeth, take all the time you need. A rug can be a very difficult thing to choose, let alone a lover."

Kurt said goodbye and called to Leonard. He asked him to have the three rugs sent to his hotel room. He would take his time picking one that night after he'd had time to refresh his eyes. Leonard obliged, and Kurt left the warehouse just a little before two. He checked his phone for text messages.

There was one. Kurt's heart skipped a beat as he hailed a taxi and climbed in, taking the Duchess's advice with him.