I see the hopefulness in those clear blue eyes and get sick to my stomach. Which is stupid because I have no claim on the man and never have. No matter how I feel about him, the fact is he’s never given me any indication that my feelings are reciprocated. And why should he? Whatever his motives for marrying Tina, the fact remains that he did. No matter how you slice it, our getting together now would be weird.
I look hard at my drink. “Of course not, don’t talk crazy. Even if…” I stir the Coke frantically, releasing all the little bubbles. Then I look up at her. “I don’t do rebound relationships, Tina.”
No, just ten minute trysts in the shower that might have resulted in my daughter.
I cannot tell you how relieved she looks, even as she says, “It’s not like I could’ve said anything, you know, if you two had started up something. I mean, it was me who practically shoved you into his arms, right? But then I got the final divorce papers to sign, and I don’t know…” Her voice trails off. She takes a swallow of her gin-and-tonic and meets my gaze.
My stomach pitches. “So all that you said before…?”
“I was hysterical, you know? All the hormone swings after…” She reaches over, grabs my hand. “You never told him, did you? About the abortion?”
Since I don’t dare open my mouth right now, I settle for shaking my head. Tina lets out a huge sigh, pressing her palm to her rampant cleavage. A pair of guys I’ve never seen turn the corner. I see the one poke the other, then point at us. Subtle. Sure enough, they make a beeline for us.
You know, it was bad enough when we used to have to fend off the freaks inside the bars. Now with this no-smoking thing, we gotta deal with the ones outside, too.
Thank you, Mayor Bloomberg.
“Hey, ladies,” the shorter one says, not even pretending to look at my face. Funny how on some guys a soul patch is just not attractive. “What are you two beautiful women up to tonight?”
Okay, zero points for creativity, but I’ll give him two for directness. Except then his buddy gets a negative ten with, “Yeah, wanna go back to my place and, you know, get it on?”
Am I wearing a Hard Up sign around my neck or what?
Except then Tina reaches over and takes my hand. “Sorry, guys,” she says, winking at me, “but we’ve got our own private party planned for later.”
“Hot damn!” Soul Patch says. “Chick on chick action!”
“Yeah,” his buddy puts in. “Can we watch?”
“I dunno…” Tina’s eyes slide to mine. “Should we?”
“Oh, I think we definitely should,” I say. And as the turkeys high-five each other, Tina and I simultaneously grab their waistbands and pour our ice water down their crotches.
As the string of obscenities fade into the night—as does the laughter and applause from the other tables—Tina turns back to me, grinning. And I know that no matter how much things might have changed between us, or how much we might grow apart, that nothing will ever be able to completely sever the threads of lunacy and love that have always held our wacky friendship together.
Not even our being in love with the same man.
And I can see in her eyes that she knows this, too. Not just the nothing-will-ever-rip-us-apart part, but the we’re-both-in-love-with-Luke part.
“I want another chance,” she says, her eyes never leaving mine. “With Luke.”
Funny how knowing something’s going to hurt doesn’t do diddly to alleviate the pain when it strikes. “What happened? Did you get cold?”
Her brows pucker. “Cold?”
“Yeah. Now you want your coat back.”
The blossoms of bright red clash with the burgundy contouring under her cheekbones. “I’m sorry,” she says to her drink. “I just had no idea how much I’d miss him.”
A bead of sweat trickles down my back, making me twitch. “And what if Luke and I had started something?”
After a moment, she again lifts her gaze to mine. “Then I would’ve backed off.”
“Really?”
Her brows nearly meet. “Yeah, really. But since you didn’t, why are we even talking about this?”
“I don’t know. Especially since whether the two of you get back together isn’t up to you or me alone, is it?”
“But you could help. Like you always have.”
I drain the last of the Coke from the glass, then fold my arms across my stomach, rattling the half-melted ice cubes at the bottom of the sweaty glass as I nurse the white-hot kernel of anger sizzling in my gut.
“Okay, cookie, it’s like this,” I say, watching her eyes go wide. “Maybe the coast is clear—although to be honest, I have no idea what Luke’s thinking—but no way am I going to help you with this. All I can promise is that I’ll stay out of your way. But if you want him, you figure out how to make that happen.”
After a moment, she pushes out a heavy breath. “Okay, okay…you’re right, this is something I’ve gotta do on my own.”
“Only…” I can’t believe I’ve got the nerve to say this. Because God knows, I don’t have the right. “Don’t you think you should tell him about the abortion?”
All the color drains from her face. “You know I can’t do that!”
“Tina, honey…how can you even consider trying to pick up where you left off without fixing the problems that broke you up to begin with? Luke deserves to know exactly how strongly you feel about not having kids.” I reach over and take her hand. “Just like you deserve someone who’ll love you whether you want children or not.”
Her mouth thins; she yanks her hand from mine, then gets up and tosses a few bills on the table. Déjà vu. Only this time, I follow suit, so that we hit the sidewalk at the same time. “And you know damn well,” she says as a sudden, lung-suckingly hot breeze whips our hair, “there’s no chance in hell we’ll get back together if I tell him. And just where do you get off, anyway, judging me because I don’t want kids?”
“I’m not judging you! Whether you have kids or not is totally your choice! But what’s the point of trying to resurrect something with someone who does?”
When she tries to walk away, I grab her hand and pull her back around, locking our gazes. “Secrets are like cancers, Tina. Believe me, I know.”
“You don’t know shit—”
“Tina—” Oh, God. After everything I said, about waiting until I knew, about not being ready…Luke’s going to hate me for this. But then, since he already does, what have I got to lose? “There’s a chance Starr is Luke’s.”
For a long moment, her face registers nothing. Then her mouth quirks into a humorless smile.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” she says, then wrenches herself from my grasp, spins on her rope-soled wedgie and storms down the sidewalk, her tiny pleated skirt flouncing angrily with each step.
In spite of the loudest orchestra this side of Secaucus blaring from the stage, it’s everything I can do not to lay my head down on the banquet table and take a little snooze. I doubt anyone would notice, since the dress I spent so long (two minutes) picking out to wear to Heather’s wedding happens to be a perfect match for the seafoam green tablecloths.
My daughter is in here somewhere, having the time of her life. Even if she, too, is wearing a dress. When she found me curled up on the sofa in the basement at six this morning (I’d finished up the last bridesmaid hem at five) she’d patted my hand, told me I looked like holy hell and to go fix myself up before I scared somebody.
Nice kid I’m raising here.
Anyway, so here I am, somewhere in Great Neck, surrounded by five million wedding guests and dressed like a banquet table, sans the centerpiece. Whenever I’m tempted to doze off, somebody else comes up and tells me how gorgeous the dresses are and then asks me for my card. Which, if I had a grain of sense (or foresight) I would have had made up. I’ve taken all their numbers and said I’d get back to them.
I just didn’t say when.
The minute this shebang is over, I’m down for three days straight. And when I wake u
p, I am on the A train, boy, headed straight for Manhattan. Pure torture, that’s what it’s been, knowing the city was less than an hour away and not being able to get to it. And you know what’s really great about going into Manhattan? Getting to leave Dolly and Tina and Jen and Luke and all the rest of them here. Well, there, since I’m not here at the moment.
Okay, I’m gonna just prop my chin in my hands here, like this, and shut my eyes for a second…
“There you are! Smile!”
I jerk awake just in time to be blinded by the flash from one of the disposable cameras Heather’s so thoughtfully left on the tables. By the time the dots stop dancing in front of my eyes, the picture-taker has disappeared. A good thing, I’m thinking, since I’m feeling a touch murderous right now.
Suddenly a golden image materializes in front of me. Frances, looking foxy as all get-out in this clingy gold jersey number that ninety percent of women my age can’t wear. It’s so unfair.
“Hey, baby,” she says, leaning over to give me a hug, then sitting beside me. “You don’t look like you’re having much fun.”
“Sure I am,” I say covering a yawn with my hand, then blinking. “Can’tcha tell?”
She chuckles, then says, “You did fantastic. It’s all anybody can talk about, how good you made everyone look.”
I frown. “I thought that was the point.”
“No, I’m serious. Look at Elissa over there. I’ve never seen her look so pretty. Or happy.”
The size 24. It is true. She does look good. In fact, she looks fabulous.
Thanks to me.
I grin. It’s a little wobbly, and I feel another yawn coming on, but I definitely grin. “I did that, huh?”
“Yes, you did. You know, baby, anybody can make a skinny girl look good.” She lowers her voice, talking out the side of her mouth. “But it takes talent to make most of these women look good.”
“Remember to tell me that again when I’m awake, ’kay?”
“You got it. Oh, look…Luke’s dancing with Starr. Isn’t that the cutest thing you ever saw?”
I look over. And because being next door to comatose leaves me with no emotional defenses whatsoever, longing swamps me, so swiftly and suddenly I can hardly breathe. Whatever’s going on—or not—between Luke and me, he’s refused to let Starr suffer for our sins. Or my sins, whatever. And the sight of him in a classic Christian Dior tux, holding Starr—in her frilly powder blue dress and black patent Mary Janes—up in his arms so she won’t get stepped on, nearly takes me under. I imagine I can hear her laughter all the way over here. I can definitely see it, though.
Oh, yeah, I can definitely see it.
I’ve been too busy to think about anything but getting these damn dresses finished—Jennifer pretty much took over the house and the kid, much to my shock and profound relief—so I have no idea if Tina’s spoken to Luke or not. If she has, Luke hasn’t said word one to me.
I feel Frances’s arm go around my shoulder; she presses her temple to mine and whispers, “All I want is to see all of you happy.” She lifts her glass of champagne to her lips, then chuckles. “Even that one,” she says, gesturing with the glass to Jason and…what’s his name. Connor, that’s it. He looks like a nice kid. If very Irish.
“Now if he were just Italian,” Frances says, pulling away, “I’d be much happier about the whole thing.”
As I said.
I look over at her. “Are you really okay? About Jason being gay?”
Frances is quiet for a moment, then says, “You know, I always thought, what’s the big deal? People are who they are, right? Until suddenly it’s one of your own you’re talking about.”
She takes my hand in hers, her wedding rings glinting in the overhead light. Her fingers are long and strong; she’s recently started wearing false fingernails. Tonight they’re polished a glimmering champagne color, putting mine (I was doing well to scrape a nail file across them before we left) to shame.
“You know what upset me most that night,” she says, “when Jason came out? Well, besides finding out about Uncle Carmine,” she says with a half grimace. “It wasn’t so much that Jason was gay, but my reaction to it. I felt suckerpunched at how much I didn’t want to believe it. Scared the hell out of me, like I didn’t know who I was anymore.”
“And now?”
One shoulder shrugs gracefully under the gold fabric. “I keep telling myself, he’s the same kid he was before.” A smile tilts her lips. “Better, actually, since he’s not carrying around this huge, dark secret anymore.” Then the smile droops a little. “But I worry. Because he’s still so young. And young males aren’t known for always making the smartest decisions, you know?”
I notice her gaze has shifted back to Luke, still dancing with Starr, and a slight chill crawls up my spine. Is she talking about Luke’s marrying Tina? Or his letting the marriage die? Or—grinning, Luke spins Starr around, making her giggle—does Frances suspect more than she’s ever let on?
“Why is it,” I wonder aloud, “that nobody warns you before you have kids how much you’re gonna worry about them?”
Frances chuckles, a dark sound I’ve always loved. “Oh, they do. We just don’t hear them. Otherwise, nobody’d ever have kids.” Then she squeezes my hand. “Things always have a way of working out, baby. Maybe not always the way we hoped, but they do.”
“Oh, no.”
“What?”
“You’ve turned into an old wise Italian woman, dispensing sage advice at the drop of a hat.”
“Bite your tongue, little girl,” she says as she gets up. “I’ve got a long way to go before I’m even close to old!”
With a wave, she’s once again swallowed up by the crowd. I’m thinking of rousing myself enough to go find something else to eat—we already had dinner, but I can see there’s munchies over by the cake—when Luke suddenly appears in front of me. Without my daughter.
I get to my feet, trying to see behind him. “Where’s Starr?”
“Monica took her to the bathroom, she’s fine.” He holds out his hand, his eyes huge and sexy and unreadable. “Wanna dance?”
“Luke, I—”
“Dammit, just come dance with me. Before somebody’s fourteen-year-old cousin gets any bright ideas.”
I smile. “Maybe…that’s not such a good idea.”
“Why?” One eyebrow cocks. “Afraid I’ll try to feel you up on the dance floor?”
I laugh, as something goes “Hel-lo” inside me. “No. Afraid I’ll keel over on the dance floor.”
“C’mon.” He comes around the table and takes my hand, placing his other one on the small of my back to steer me out to the dance floor. “I won’t let you keel over. I promise.”
Underneath his palm, about a million skin cells have just been startled awake and are now running around in confused circles and crashing into each other. “And about the other?”
“That,” he says on a grin, his breath teasing my moussed-to-death hair, “I won’t promise.”
I tell myself—and my libido—to get a grip. This is Luke. Flirting is what he does. It doesn’t mean anything, and never has. Please, we’ve been trading sexual banter since forever. Granted, there was a period there right after the shower episode during which we could barely look at each other, let alone banter. But once he settled into marriage, oddly enough, things eased up again. Even when Tina was around, he’d do this playful teasing thing with me. But he always kept it light and friendly, with absolutely no room for misinterpretation. He’d never do—and never did—a single thing to give Tina the idea that I was in any way a threat.
Which begs two questions: One, was she really not surprised when I told her about Starr, or did she just say that to save face?
And two, is she back in the picture?
Up until this moment, I hadn’t realized just how weak my legs were. Logic tells me it’s only exhaustion; my libido, however, is howling with laughter. The good news is, it’s a slow dance, which requires a minimum expend
iture of energy on my part. The bad news is, it’s a slow dance, which requires bodily contact.
This is obviously not a problem for Luke, who pulls me close, tucking our linked hands against his chest, his other one still at the small of my back. Which, by the way, happens to be a major erogenous zone for me. A fact I’d totally forgotten until this very moment.
Keep it light, keep it light.
I look up and grin. “A word of warning—my hair could inflict serious injury, so you might not want to get too close.”
“Yeah, I kinda noticed that. What the hell did you use on it? Superglue?”
“As good as.”
“Women,” he mutters, pulling me closer. Uh-oh. I’m about a millimeter away from the there’s-nobody-here-but-us zone. Not good. Then he says, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but the bags under your eyes don’t go with the dress.”
“Smart-ass.”
He grins, but his brows are saying something else. “You look like you’re ready to drop.”
“Good call.”
“Starr told me she found you asleep in the basement this morning.”
I shrug. “No big deal.”
Luke doesn’t say anything for several seconds. Then: “You know I don’t know anything about sewing or dresses or any of it, but I know everybody’s really happy with what you did for them. Heather, especially. You’re good at this, El. Damn good.”
I try to smile, but it’s getting wobblier by the second. Especially since my eyes are stinging. “You wouldn’t kid around with a sleep-deprived person, would you?”
Suddenly, his expression goes serious. “I don’t bullshit, Ellie. You know that. At least…” He takes a breath. “At least, not anymore.”
“Oh.”
Then his expression softens. “You can go ahead and lay your head on my chest, if you want. Unless you think your hair might make holes in the tux.”
“No, I think we’re safe.”
Safe? Who the hell am I kidding? I’m slow dancing with a man I’ve had a thing for since I was six, a man with his hand planted firmly on an area of my body with, apparently, a direct link to my woefully neglected clitoris (Yeah, I know all about taking care of myself, but the thing about masturbation is, there’s no one to cuddle with afterwards, is there?) and I’m so tired I can barely stand up. But not so tired that I don’t think to say, “Doncha think people will get ideas if we look, you know, too cozy out here?”
Hanging by a Thread Page 29
