Oh, seven. And thanks for watching Grand-Em for me.”
“My pleasure. It’s been too long since you’ve been out of this house and Tom’s a—”
“Really nice guy. I know. You’ve told me that.” And Joy knew it too well.
“There’s nothing to be defensive about,” Frankie said gently. “What’s going on, Joy? Are you nervous?”
“No. Not really. Now let’s get you out of that dress, okay? I’m living in terror of the grass stains you may have gotten on the skirt.”
“Are you sure you’re not worried about tonight? It’s been a while since you’ve gone on a date.”
“Thanks for the reminder.” Joy winced at her sharp tone. Biting her sister’s head off wasn’t normally something she did, but being reminded that she was going to be alone with Tom made her feel raw.
Probably because he wasn’t the guy she wished she was having dinner with and she felt badly about that. And also because she couldn’t have the man she wanted.
Neither of which was her sister’s fault.
“Sorry. I take that back, Frankie.”
“It’s okay. I suppose I just want you to have what I found.”
Joy took her sister’s hand. “That’s because you’ve always sought the best for me and you’re totally in love with a great guy. But maybe that kind of thing’s not in store for me, you know? And if it isn’t, that’s okay. Come on. Out of that dress.”
But it wasn’t okay. Not really. Somehow going on a date with a nice guy she really should like made her feel lonely. But Frankie was right. Even if Tom wasn’t the man she was going to end up married to, Joy needed to get out of the house.
Although by the time six-thirty rolled around, she almost had to cancel. Grand-Em was all worked up because she’d misplaced her first edition copy of Jane Eyre. The trouble was, she’d lost the book in 1963 while traveling abroad. Frankie insisted on handling the crisis so Joy could get ready and all was eventually calmed when Grand-Em took to reading the operating instructions for the new backup generator they’d bought.
The relief Joy felt when it looked as if she might have an out seemed like an insult to Tom so she became determined to make an extra effort. While blow-drying her hair, she talked to herself about giving people a chance, seeing past the obvious, valuing the steady over the exciting and dangerous. She even tried to channel various fairy tales with happy endings. The trouble with that, though, was Gray kept showing up in the prince suit with the glass slipper in his hand.
When Tom’s pickup rambled up to the house, she went downstairs, said goodbye to Frankie and Nate, and headed outside.
Tom came around and opened the door for her. He was freshly showered, wearing a button-down shirt that was painfully free of wrinkles. His khakis were likewise right off the ironing board. He looked like a man who had taken special care with his clothes and was uncomfortable in them, either because of all the effort he’d gone to or because he wished he had better options.
“You know what I think we should do?” he said as he got behind the wheel. “There’s a concert in the square tonight. They’re serving barbecue. We could walk around, listen to the music, eat on the grass.”
“That’d be great.”
He put the truck in gear and looked across the seat at her. “You look really pretty, Joy.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She smelled Windex, as if he’d cleaned the cab for her. “Thanks, Tom.”
Gray parked the BMW in front of Barclay’s Liquors, taking a space as it was vacated by a minivan. The town square was hopping tonight. A couple of white tents covered about half of the two-acre stretch of grass. Underneath them, people sat at picnic tables, eating barbecue that was being cooked over open flames on big, flat grills. In between the tents, a twenty-piece swing band was set up in Saranac Lake’s signature Victorian gazebo, its righteous horn section ripping through a Count Basie standard. People were dancing on a parquet floor lit with torches.
“Does the town do this often?” Cassandra asked as they crossed the street.
“Once a month or so in the summer. This must be the last one. In another couple weeks, it’s going to be too cold.”
Three teenage girls skittered by wearing glow-in-the-dark, green neon necklaces. In their rush, they moved over the ground with the same restless excitement and chatter as the loose, colorful leaves swirling in the chilly wind. The sound of their laughter made Gray smile as he and Cass ambled over to the tents. Smoke, infused with molasses and cayenne pepper, drifted into his nose. His stomach checked in with a grumble of approval.
“When are you going back to D.C.?” Cassandra asked.
“Very soon. I need to go to New York next week and then I’ll move Papa down.”
“Are you teaching that poli-sci seminar at Columbia again this semester?”
“Yeah. They asked me back.”
“We’ll have to have dinner. Maybe Allison and Roger can join us.”
“Sounds good,” Gray replied, even though the thought of the Adamses made him wince. He still couldn’t believe the adultery story, and was hoping when he looked into the facts Beckin had given him, that it would all be just a bunch of BS.
As he and Cass stopped in front of the band, he glanced over at her. She was staring at the couples that were dancing. “You ready for some food or do you want to risk a little swinging with me?”
“Sounds good.”
“Let’s try eating first,” he said gently. Cassandra had been remote since going to see Alex Moorehouse. Gray gathered that the meeting hadn’t gone well, but she didn’t seem to want to talk about it so he didn’t press.
As they got in line, he looked over at the people in front of the band. There were a couple of folks who could really dance, the men swinging the women over their shoulders, twirling their dates or wives around in circles. There was one couple who were damn good. The guy handled his woman as though she were an extension of his own body and she responded to him as if thinking of the same move at the same time he did.
Gray stopped moving.
Good Lord, it was Joy.
As the song came to a fevered end, that White Caps cook spun her around, flipped her over his back and then dipped her low, holding her in place. Joy hung on to his shoulders, head back, breathlessly laughing. Her hair drifted down, almost touching the floor as she looked up at her partner.
Young and free. So beautiful, she hurt Gray’s eyes.
The man slowly lifted her to the vertical, his hands lingering on the small of her back.
Gray ground his teeth. He had a stupid, near overwhelming urge to march across the dance floor and peel the other guy off her. Roughly. And sure enough, he felt his weight shifting to his left foot and his right knee bending up. As if his body were not under his control.
