A CLASS ACT

by Pamela Burford

  She smiled, thoroughly enjoying the naughty pleasure of playing hooky. All it would take is one whiff of those flowers, she'd told Rhonda last night, and my allergies would level me like a freight train. I could stop breathing!

  Rhonda's nose had already been out of joint due to Gabe's sudden transmission trouble. This double whammy was wreaking havoc with her careful planning. Without skipping a beat, Ham had cheerfully picked up the phone and called Gil Reyes, who lived in the next town, to help with transportation.

  Ham's sanguine attitude struck Dena as odd, considering how anxious he'd been to have both her and Gabe available for these kinds of chores. Perhaps mood swings were another manifestation of the aging process, Dena thought as she moved away from the window and opened a dresser drawer.

  Which swimsuit to wear? She'd brought an even dozen. One by one she lifted them, idly speculating on Gabe's reaction to each. When she realized what she was doing she chided herself and grabbed one at random. After a moment's hesitation she shoved the simple black-and-white maillot back in the drawer and pulled out her prettiest, sexiest suit.

  Well, hell, she'd brought it not even knowing Gabe would be here this week. Why shouldn't she wear it?

  Dena quickly stripped off her short red sundress and stepped into the slinky navy one-piece. Sheer navy mesh fabric extended above the deeply plunging neckline, giving it the appearance of lingerie. The same mesh filled a diamond-shaped cutout on the midriff. The suit dipped to the waist in back and was cut high on the thighs, making her legs look even longer. Slipping her feet into towering white platform sandals, she grabbed her sunscreen, slung an oversize white T-shirt over her arm and headed downstairs to find Gabe.

  The first floor was deserted, so she crossed the breezeway to the workshop, only to discover it was empty as well. Could he be at the pool? Crossing to the window, she scanned the backyard. Nothing. On her way to the door she spied a yellow legal pad on the worktable. A note had been scrawled on it.

  Dena,

  Something came up at work. Andrea and I had to go to the office. I'll call you later.

  G

  G? she fumed, ripping the page off the pad and wadding it up. The man can't even take the trouble to sign his name?

  He hadn't had the common decency to knock on her door and tell her in person. If he had, she might have decided to go on that stupid garden tour after all. What was she supposed to do with herself all day? Sit around waiting for His Highness to call?

  No one special, he'd told his mother when she'd asked who was staying at Ham's. Which made sense, when you thought about it. This was certainly the way you treated no one special.

  Dena stalked out of the workshop and into the house, slamming doors and stomping her platform shoes all over the bare wood floors. So she was acting infantile. So what? No one was around to witness her performance, and it made her feel better.

  No it didn't. She didn't know who she was more angry with, Gabe for standing her up, or herself for allowing it to happen. In the huge country kitchen she tossed her shirt and sunscreen on the counter and threw open the refrigerator, scavenging for breakfast leftovers. She was starved, having sequestered herself in her room that morning, loath to endure the inevitable, protracted discussion of her "allergies." She had no desire to compound her lie or listen to well-meaning advice on the latest non-drowsy medication.

  Particularly since she was, as far as she knew, allergic to absolutely nothing.

  There it was, on the bottom shelf, a platter of leftover pancakes and sausage. All she had to do was nuke it in the microwave. She grabbed the platter, turned around, and nearly dropped it as a scream barreled up her throat.

  "Don't sneak up on people like that!" she cried, pressing a hand to her thumping heart.

  Scott stood near the entrance to the basement, scratching his bare chest, wearing nothing but a pair of white boxer shorts embellished with pictures of exploding firecrackers. His thick salt-and-pepper hair was sleep-rumpled. "I thought everyone was gone. Till I heard the racket up here."

  "Oh. I was, uh … I thought I was alone."

  He sauntered into the kitchen, eyeing the pancakes and sausage. "Enough for two?" He lifted the carafe from the coffeemaker and poured the dregs into two stoneware mugs, causing the knotted-rope tattoo circling his right biceps to stretch.

  "More than enough. I take it you skipped breakfast, too?" Dena peeled the plastic wrap off the food. Scott opened the door of the microwave, and she slid the platter inside.

  "Slept in," he said. "I don't know a pansy from a chrysanthemum, and that's the way I intend to keep it. So who are you angry at?"

  "Who says I'm angry? How the hell do you turn this thing on?" she asked, stabbing blindly at the microwave keypad.

  He shooed her hands away, studied the keypad for three seconds and pushed two buttons. The machine started humming. "Is it Gabe?"

  As Dena opened her mouth to deny it, Scott crossed his arms and gravely intoned, "I'm a man of the cloth. You can't fib to me."

  She eyed the good reverend up and down. "Well, you'll excuse me if that little fact kind of slipped my mind for a moment. Perhaps if you wore your clerical collar with that getup, it might help."

  He glanced down at the firecracker undies. "The church secretary gave them to me for my birthday."

  "Which is—let me guess—the Fourth of July." She hauled the jug of maple syrup out of the fridge.

  "A Yankee Doodle dandy, that's me. Speaking of intriguing getups…" He stared pointedly at Dena's sexy swimsuit.

  "I was … going to go for a swim."

  "Were going to go for a swim? No more?"

  "I don't know what I'm going to do," she snapped. "I have the whole damn day to figure it out."

  The microwave beeped and she yanked hard on the door handle, with no success. Scott reached over and pushed the button marked Open Door.

  "You know, you're really getting on my nerves," she said, as he set the platter on a corner of the work island in the middle of the kitchen and pulled knives and forks out of a drawer.

  "You're projecting your anger on me because Gabe stood you up." He started eating right off the platter.

  "Who said Gabe stood me up?"

  Mouth full, he said, "I counsel people all the time. I'm a trained professional." He wagged his fork at her. "Kids, don't try this at home."

  "He had to go back to the city." She hacked at a stack of pancakes and skewered a big wad on her fork. "With Andrea. If his work is so damn important, why is he even staying out here all week?"

  "That sounds like a good question to ask him."

  "Forget it. I don't even want to talk to him. It was a mistake to even—" She broke off with something between a growl and a screech, bayonetting a sausage link with far more zeal than the task required.

  "Looks like he got that transmission fixed pretty fast," Scott said, deadpan.

  The look she gave him said she could do without the pithy observations.

  He asked, "So do you think he has a thing going with Andrea?"

  "I don't know. Probably. It makes no difference to me." She sawed the sausage into bite-size pieces.

  "Because I don't really know the guy," he said, "but I know the look, if you know what I mean."

  "I don't. No."

  "The look when a guy's interested. And he doesn't have it. With Andrea."

  "That doesn't mean anything. They've known each other for years. Hell, they've known each other forever. Their mothers shared a baby shower, of all things! They were born less than a month apart. Their families have had them unofficially engaged since they were spitting up pablum."

  "But it didn't take."

  "What?"

  "They never got married. What do you think they're waiting for? Hey, leave some sausage for me."

  Dena attacked the last link. "Well, why should he buy the cow when he's getting the milk for free? Isn't that the expression? Maybe they're just waiting till they're ready to have kids. I don't know. Although he did say…"


  "What?"

  "Well, he said he hadn't met the right woman—when I asked why he wasn't married."

  "Do you believe that?"

  She hesitated. "Why shouldn't I?"

  Scott didn't answer. He scraped up the last of the pancakes and laid down his fork. "I found the right woman," he said at last, and Dena knew he was referring to Annie Goode, his high-school sweetheart who'd died within two years of their wedding. "That's the good news. The bad news is, she's gone and I can never get her back."

  "Scott." Dena's eyes stung. She remembered how close he and Annie had been in high school. "Someday you'll meet someone else who's right for you."

  "Maybe." He smiled gently. "Maybe not. When Annie was taken from me, I was angry. Angry at her for leaving me, angry at God for letting it happen, angry at myself for not somehow preventing it. You know, the 'if only' game. If only I'd made her go to the doctor sooner, if only I'd paid more attention to her headaches…

  "It took me a long time to come to terms with her death, and with my faith. I think that experience has helped me counsel couples who are having problems. As bad as those problems sometimes are, I'd give anything to be in their shoes. They still have a chance to be together."

  Dena couldn't look at him. She knew he was talking about her and Gabe, she knew she should tell him to keep his unsolicited advice to himself, but somehow the words wouldn't come.

  How could everything have gotten so complicated in four short days?

  Dena felt his hand on her arm, a fleeting touch.

  Scott carried the platter and flatware to the dishwasher. When he turned back to her he said, "I'll meet you down here in fifteen minutes. Is your map still in the car?"

  "Yeah, but … where are we going?"

  He smiled. "It's a surprise."

  "What should I wear?"

  "Well, I'm tempted to say, come as you are…" His appreciative gaze lingered on the sheer parts of her suit. "But shorts and a T-shirt should do it. Oh, and sneakers."

  "Sneakers? Ugh."

  "Do you own a pair?"

  "Yes, I own a pair," she replied, indignant.

  "'Cause I was going to offer to lend you some. Looks like we wear about the same size."

  "One more crack about my big feet and I don't go anywhere with you. And I'm the one with the car."

  Scott pointed imperiously toward the staircase. "Fifteen minutes."

  * * *

  8

  « ^ »

  When Gabe finally located Dena, she was standing with her back to him, staring at a barrel-chested suit of plate armor featuring elaborate scrollwork and a wicked-looking codpiece of equine proportions.

  She wore a form-fitting coral-colored silk dress with iridescent threads running through it. The dress seemed to comprise two layers, sheer chiffon over an opaque underslip. Thin spaghetti straps exposed shoulders that looked more sun-kissed than they had yesterday. Had she gone to the beach without him? Looking past the flowing calf-length skirt, Gabe saw spike-heeled metallic sandals in a pewter tone.

  He'd just driven uptown from his office on Wall Street, still dressed in khaki shorts and a black T-shirt, the clothes he'd thrown on that morning in his haste. Not exactly suitable attire for a private reception at the Metropolitan Museum of Art followed by dinner at the Harvard Club, but he'd had to see Dena.

  He wondered if it meant anything that he'd found her perusing the museum's extensive armaments collection. Gil and Cookie Reyes strolled nearby, chatting softly. Gabe waited until they'd disappeared into the next gallery, then he silently walked up behind Dena.

  She became very still, as if she possessed some sort of internal warning system alerting her to his presence.

  He asked, "What do you think that guy did when he had an itch?"

  Dena cocked her head, studying the suit of armor. "I think he probably wished they'd hurry up and invent Kevlar."

  She turned to face him, outwardly cordial, but Gabe wasn't fooled. Her gaze held no warmth.

  "You're angry," he said. "I left you a note."

  "Yes, you did," she agreed, too calm. "Thank you."

  Ham and Reba entered the room, and Gabe lowered his voice. "I tried to call you. Five times. There was no answer."

  "I wasn't there." Dena greeted Ham and Reba, prompting them to amble over. She'd done it purely to vex Gabe, he was sure.

  Ham consulted the pocket watch tucked into his baggy white painter's paints, which he'd paired with a mold-green bowling shirt with his name stitched onto it. Well, at least Gabe had competition for most inappropriately dressed. Reba was, as usual, impeccably turned out in a pale taupe suit with matching spectator pumps. Not a blue hair out of place.

  "We should start heading out to the street," Ham said. "It'll take eight or nine cabs to get us all down to the Harvard Club."

  "I don't know, Ham," Gabe teased, as the two couples made their way through galleries toward the front of the museum. "I'm kind of afraid to let you into that bastion of stodginess. Don't know what mischief you might get up to. They could end up revoking my membership."

  Ham said, "I was there once. When FDR was in office. All I remember is dark paneling and cigar smoke and old farts dozing in leather club chairs with the Wall Street Journal spread out on their laps."

  Gabe slapped him on the back. "Well, prepare yourself for a time warp, my friend. It's the same place you remember."

  Dena said, "Except that nowadays, some of that cigar smoke is being blown by women."

  "And once in a while you actually see an old fart in there wearing a bowling shirt and painter's pants," Reba added, with an impish smile.

  "Plenty of progress for six decades, wouldn't you say?" Ham asked dryly.

  Evening traffic was thick on Fifth Avenue

  . About a dozen of their fellow reunion-goers were clustered outside the museum, hailing cabs, so the foursome walked a block downtown and got a taxi within half a minute, with help from Ham's ear-splitting whistle. Gabe took the front passenger seat. Dena sat in the back between Ham and Reba.

  Reba turned to Dena. "I understand you had quite an adventure today."

  "What did you do?" Ham asked.

  "Scott took me whale-watching out of Montauk Point," Dena said, in a tone of voice bordering on rapturous.

  So, Gabe thought sourly. Now he knew why she hadn't answered the phone.

  Had anyone gone on that garden tour?

  "Oh, that sounds lovely!" Reba said. "I've always wanted to do that. Did you see any whales?"

  "We sure did. A couple of finbacks, these great gray beasts as long as the boat. They didn't do much, just kind of floated there, sizing us up, I guess. But there were also these little guys—well, little for whales. Minkes, they're called, and they're really spirited, frolicking around in the water. I could have watched them forever."

  How could a day at the beach compete with whale-watching? Gabe thought—uncharitably, he knew. He was, after all, the one who'd left her in the lurch. He should be glad she'd salvaged the day and had such a great time.

  With Scott.

  "I'd never seen whales in the wild before," Dena gushed. "It was incredible! And we saw sharks—basking sharks, they're called. They're about as big as the minkes and they just kind of move slowly along the surface of the water…"

  "Basking in the sun?" Gabe said.

  "Well, that's what it looks like, but they're really feeding, straining plankton. And we saw these huge, ugly sunfish, too. And birds—seagulls, of course, but also gannets and petrels, birds you really only see out on the ocean. The boat's a research vessel that doubles as a whale-watching boat."

  "Well, it sounds like you and Scott had a very special day," Reba said. "Such a sweet boy. So sad about his wife. Wouldn't it be wonderful if he found some nice girl and settled down?"

  It sounded to Gabe as if the "sweet boy" was working on it.

  The taxi let them off on Forty-fourth Street

  in front of the Harvard Club, with its burgundy-colored awnin
g and marble steps leading to the foyer. Gabe grasped Dena's arm, detaining her on the sidewalk as the others entered the building. The tide of pedestrians flowed around them with barely a ripple.

  "Listen," he said, "I didn't want to break our date today, but sometimes things happen."

  "I thought it wasn't a date."

  He sighed in exasperation. "You are angry. Just hear me out for a second."

  "I really don't feel like getting into this out here on the sidewalk."

  He released her arm. "Correction. You really don't feel like getting into it, period. You have no use for explanations, isn't that right? You never did."

  "What's the point of—"

  "As far as you're concerned, you've been wronged, and nothing can excuse it." Déjà vu.

  "You're very good at twisting things around," she said. "Do you do that in the courtroom, too? Make the victim out as the guilty party?"

  "Is that how you see yourself? As a victim?"

  Dena opened her mouth—to deny it? to agree? Whatever she'd started to say came out as an irritated huff.

  "You can believe whatever you like," Gabe said, "but I was looking forward to spending the day with you. It didn't work out, and for that I'm sorry, but I would've thought as a business owner you'd understand that these things happen." Wearily he scrubbed the back of his neck. "We'd better get inside. You're right. This isn't the place for this."

  He moved past Dena, but stopped halfway up the steps when she said his name. Looking back, he saw that she hadn't budged.

  "It wasn't that," she said quietly. "That you had to go in to the office. That, I understood."

  She looked so vulnerable standing there, so like the unassertive girl he used to know.

  "It was that you didn't tell me in person," she said, her voice wobbling a little. "All you had to do was come up to my room and knock on my door."

  "It bothered you that much? That I left a note?"

  "I felt like a … like an afterthought. Like I didn't matter."