Six Times a Charm

by Deanna Chase

  Madam? Me?

  I couldn’t help but answer with a British accent—it just seemed like the appropriate thing to do. “Yes, please. The Concert Opera Harvest Gala?”

  “Of course, Madam,” he murmured. “Right this way.”

  Rather than point to the door on the far side of the lobby, he walked me across the inlaid floor. I murmured my thanks as he left me framed in the ballroom’s ornately carved double doorway.

  The Gala seemed to be in full swing, or at least as full a swing as the evening was likely to achieve. A surprisingly good jazz band filled the stage at the end of the room, energetically playing something that was actually danceable. At least a dozen couples were taking advantage of the parquet floor.

  Rectangular tables had been set up around the edges of the room, pushing up against heavy gold brocade curtains. Each table had a green-shaded accountant’s lamp, directing light onto a beautifully-printed silent auction form. As I sidled along the wall, I could see that several bids had already been entered for many of the prizes. Deciding that I should keep my promise to Gran early, I wrote in her bids on the appropriate sheets, taking especial care with her first pick, a landscape painting by local Impressionist artist, Bill Schmidt.

  The bar was set up against the near wall of the room, and a few people were waiting for drinks. Next to the bar was a towering display of desserts; even from my vantage point, I could make out perfect mini-éclairs, a glistening croquembouche, and wave after wave of individual fruit tarts.

  Feeling strangely anonymous without my glasses, in my grown-up dress with my grown-up hair and my grown-up clasp hand-bag, I secured a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. Alas, once I had my drink in hand, I slipped back into the trauma of every party I had ever attended anywhere in my life. I didn’t know anyone. I was terrible at making small talk. No one was ever going to ask me to dance. I’d never even heard of most of the operas that were the bread and butter of this crowd.

  I made another circuit of the room, upping one of Gran’s auction bids that had already been countered, and then I retreated to the corner farthest from the band. I wished that I could lock myself into a stall in the ladies room until the evening was over.

  I considered it a success that I made my champagne last for an entire jazz number. When a too-attentive waiter took my glass away on his silver tray, I practically sprinted to the bar to secure another flute. After all, it wouldn’t do to have my hands empty. People might think that I wasn’t enjoying myself.

  That second drink, however, only made things complicated. Just as I was feeling the first heady tickle of the champagne, a flock of waiters descended on the room, passing enormous trays of sinfully tempting appetizers.

  The first that came my way was a deconstructed Peking Duck—slivers of duck served with shreds of crisp pancake and a drizzle of hoisin sauce, all presented on porcelain Chinese soup spoons. The food was delicious, and I managed to eat it without leaving behind unsightly streaks of Pick Me Up Pink. But then, I was left holding a spoon in one hand and a champagne glass in another.

  And I realized I was really hungry.

  Other waiters sailed by. There was a tantalizing tray of miniature frenched lamb chops, their curved bones serving as the perfect hand-hold. Another tray of grilled pear slices with blue cheese melting on top. A third of roast beef tenderloin, sliced paper thin and presented on caraway flatbread.

  But not a single server was collecting used soup spoons. If I had planned better, I would have eaten the other treats first, then gone for the Peking Duck. Having gone out of order, I was stuck without fingers for the finger food. (In theory, I could have put down my champagne glass, but I never actually considered that as an option.)

  Just as my stomach actually gurgled a protest, I heard someone say, “May I help you with that spoon?”

  I turned around, relieved that one of the tuxedoed staff had finally noticed my predicament. I found myself face to face with Samuel Potter, the owner of the shih-tzu named Beijing. “Mr. Potter!” I said, surprised to find a person instead of a waiter. No, I knew that waiters were people too. But you know what I meant.

  Much to my embarrassment, he took my spoon, and my now-empty glass. Within seconds, a waiter materialized to relieve Mr. Potter of the burden. I started to make a snappy complaint, but I decided that the Harvest Gala was neither the time nor the place.

  Mr. Potter kissed my cheek gallantly. “You look ravishing, dear.”

  I flushed, even as I wondered at the strength of my grimoire’s love-spell. How many weeks had passed since I had first worked it? How long could my witchcraft hold? And why had I repeatedly forgotten to ask David about the spell? I’m sure I would have remembered at some point in the past week, if he hadn’t been plying me with tray after tray of dusty rocks.

  I remembered that I needed to reply. “It’s certainly kind of you to say so, Mr. Potter.”

  “And are you enjoying yourself?”

  “Absolutely. The Peking, er, Beijing Duck was excellent.”

  Mr. Potter’s laugh boomed across the room. “My Lucinda used to do that all the time. One of our neighbors owned a yappy little Beijingese, if you listened to my wife—you know, those lap-dogs with the dark little faces and fluffy bodies.”

  “I’ve always thought they looked like mops,” I said.

  “Precisely!” Mr. Potter laughed again. “Lucinda also irritated the smile off my cousin, an anthropologist, by always referring to Beijing Man, no matter how many times he explained that the evolutionary find was made well before we became politically correct in our pronunciation.”

  “And how is Beijing the shih-tzu tonight?”

  “Home alone, and probably howling at the window. He hates to be abandoned.” For just an instant, a frown crossed Mr. Potter’s face, and I regretted having reminded him of his loss. Before I could think of something to say, though, the jazz band began an energetic swing number. Mr. Potter’s face cleared, and he said, “May I have this dance?”

  He sounded so formal that I almost wondered if I was supposed to have a dance card. I wouldn’t put it past those opera people to perpetuate the tradition. Ordinarily, I’m afraid of embarrassing myself on a dance floor, but the poor man looked so smitten. And I was wearing my new green silk dress. And I did have the perfect haircut. And new contact lenses. “I would love to, Mr. Potter.”

  I felt like a child, being led out to the middle of the parquet surface. I wondered if Mr. Potter would let me put my feet on top of his, matching him step for step, as if I were a little girl. Instead, he clasped one hand firmly to my waist and offered me his palm. We shuffled awkwardly for a moment, trying to find the beat of the music. As he stumbled left and I leaned right, I wondered if I had a dance-spell hiding in my basement, a few magical words that would lend us even a faint semblance of grace and beauty.

  We staggered around the floor, Mr. Potter muttering the count beneath his breath. We never quite found the rhythm projected by the band, and we certainly didn’t mesh with each other.

  But none of that really mattered. The entire time that we were demonstrating how not to dance, Mr. Potter was beaming. He looked from me to his fellow opera fans, then back to me. He maneuvered us so that we were standing directly in front of the band. He was proud of me. And proud of himself for being with me. And I was pleased that I could make him happy.

  I wished that my grandfather had lived longer.

  As if summoned by that thought, Uncle George was waiting for us at the edge of the dance floor when the band finished its number. His applause was partially for the musicians, but he tilted his head toward me in an amused acknowledgment of my supposed dancing skills. Or, at least, my social skills. I laughed and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Jane,” he said. “You look stunning.” He clapped his hand on Mr. Potter’s shoulder. “Sam, you old dog. You were quite a sight out there.” Uncle George winked at me, and I grinned in response.

  Mr. Potter said, “Jane, your grandmother must be so prou
d of you. Not only are you accomplished in a noble profession, but you’re willing to fritter away a weekend night with us old farts, in support of a good cause. What a pity that Sarah couldn’t be here tonight.”

  Sarah. I never thought of my grandmother as “Sarah.” I never thought of her having any life separate from being my grandmother.

  Mr. Potter turned to Uncle George. “Have you heard about the holdings in the Peabridge Library, George? They have original manuscripts dating back to the seventeenth century.”

  I smiled at Mr. Potter’s enthusiasm. He had the vigor of the newly-converted whenever he mentioned libraries. I said self-deprecatingly, “Not that we could find anything if we needed to.”

  Uncle George shook his head and waved one hand about vaguely. “Surely you’ve got them all arranged by Dewey Decimal number, or something like that? I remember learning those numbers when I was just a boy. Always liked the 920’s. Biography.”

  “I was an 800 girl, myself. Literature.” And a touch of 133, I added silently. Witchcraft. Before I could say something aloud that I might regret, I surged ahead in the conversation. “But we don’t use the Dewey Decimal system in our library. If we did, all of our holdings would be under the same few numbers, for American Colonial History.”

  “Ah!” Uncle George said, as if I had explained some secret of the universe. I saw that his attention was being drawn across the room. Anything, I supposed, to escape a discussion of the joys and beauties of library science. Either that, or he was actually taking seriously his role as “host” at this soiree. He made polite excuses and crossed the room to talk to a potential donor.

  “So,” Mr. Potter said. “No Dewey Decimal. What do you use instead?” He seemed so interested that he ignored the three waiters who converged upon us with silver trays of appetizers. I snagged a lamb chop and a napkin, operating on the assumption that I needed to make up for time lost to both the Peking Duck spoon and the dance floor.

  I managed one quick bite of the most succulent meat I had ever tasted before I said, “We’ve pretty much invented our own system.”

  Mr. Potter breathed in, as awed as if I had told him we were constructing an atom bomb in the basement. “Just like that? Without guidance from anyone? You must be so proud of yourself!” I could hear echoes of his love and respect for his lost librarian wife in the question.

  I smiled gently. “I wish. I’ve never been fully trained as a cataloger.”

  “Like my Lucinda was,” he said, and sighed.

  “If we had the money, we would hire someone like her tomorrow. Good catalogers are worth their weight in gold.”

  Mr. Potter looked out over the dance floor, his face gone soft and vague. I wanted to know what he was remembering, what private jokes, what secret love. A pang daggered just beneath my heart, and I wondered if anyone would ever miss me as much as he missed Lucinda.

  I took another bite of lamb, trying to fill the silence with some sort of normal life activity.

  “Jane Madison. I didn’t know you were an opera fan.”

  I knew the voice before I turned around. Before I finished chewing. Before I swallowed. Before I thought about the animalistic awkwardness of clutching a lamb bone in my supposedly-delicate well-manicured hand.

  “Jason,” I choked out after I had gulped down the partially-chewed bite in my mouth.

  He was stunning. He wore a tuxedo that had clearly been tailored specifically for him. His glistening linen shirt shone against a scarlet cummerbund. As my eyes lingered, I realized that the red was shot through with gold—a perfect complement to my own silk dress. The satin stripe on his pants accentuated the long line of his legs, and I felt myself melting right there.

  Mr. Potter cleared his throat.

  “Oh! Jason Templeton, this is Samuel Potter, one of the board members of the Concert Opera Guild. Mr. Potter, Jason is—” I started to say “my Boyfriend,” but I couldn’t bring myself to say the words. Not in public. Not in front of another man I had snared with my love-spell. “Jason is a professor at Mid-Atlantic. He uses our collection regularly.”

  “The best in the city,” Jason said. “For my purposes, the best on the entire eastern seaboard. And the reference librarian is the finest in the profession.”

  I blushed.

  The band struck up a spirited waltz. “I’m sorry, Mr. Potter,” Jason said. “May I steal Jane away for this dance?”

  The older man looked disappointed, but only for a moment. “Of course. I should mingle with the crowd, anyway. The role of a board member you know.” He turned to me, though, before he walked off. “Thank you, Jane. This has been a most memorable evening.”

  “Thank you,” I said, hoping that Gran would be proud of me. I glanced around, desperately hoping that I could find a waiter to take my nasty lamb bone, now wrapped in a napkin.

  “Here,” Mr. Potter said, just before stepping away. “Let me take that for you.”

  “I couldn’t—”

  “Now, don’t keep your young man waiting.” He took the napkin and waved me toward the dance floor. Once again, I felt like a child, spitting out my gum into an adult’s hand before a meal. But Mr. Potter smiled, and I turned away. To dance with “my young man.”

  Jason guided me toward the floor with a hand on my waist. My heart was beating so hard that I could scarcely breathe. If Neko had found me a dress one bit tighter, anyone could have seen the pounding inside my chest.

  And Jason proved to be everything in a dancer that Mr. Potter wasn’t. His arms around me were strong, confident. He guided me about the dance floor—not in any showy way, but in a manner that convinced me—and apparently everyone around us—that he knew what he was doing.

  Where had a man his age learned to dance? My peers had mostly managed to shuffle back and forth at the occasional bar mitzvah, or we had jumped up and down at school dances in high school. I would never have learned ballroom dancing myself if it weren’t for Uncle George and some misguided Arthur Murray lessons that Gran had insisted on giving me for my Sweet Sixteen.

  But who was I to question my Boyfriend waltzing me around the dance floor of the Harvest Gala?

  I finally recovered enough presence of mind to say, “What are you doing here?”

  “The opera folks contacted the university about this fundraiser. They said they wanted to build town-gown relationships. The head of the history department is a big opera fan, so he bought tickets for everyone—to help us bond as a department, he said.” Jason nodded toward a cluster of people in the far corner of the room. I darted a glance and saw that Ekaterina was anchored in the middle of the circle. Well, any department head that brought me my Boyfriend could bring the Ice Ballerina as well, I supposed. Jason asked, “But what are you doing here?”

  “My grandmother is on the board. Sarah Smythe. She’s the one who thought it would be a good idea to build up the guild’s relationships with universities.”

  He smiled, and I suddenly felt faint. “I suppose I should meet her and thank her for getting me here. For letting me see you. I should have phoned you this past week, but things have been insane. I have an article due on the fifteenth. You know—publish or perish.”

  I took a breath, the first time I’d filled my lungs since turning around to see Jason. So, that was why he hadn’t phoned. He’d been busy with work. Nothing more ominous than that. Everyone got busy. I did, myself.

  “Which one is your grandmother?” he asked.

  “She’s not here tonight. She’s still recovering from her pneumonia.”

  “What a shame,” Jason said, pulling me in closer as he led us through a graceful spin. “I’ll have to meet her another time.”

  And that’s when it hit me. The perfect plan. After all, I’d already promised Gran that I would go to the Farm. And she had said that I could bring someone. And after my little, um, makeout session with Jason beneath the stairs at La Perla, it was time to see just how far my Boyfriend was willing to follow me….

  I took a deep breath, clos
ed my eyes, and leaned in closer to Jason’s ear. “Come with me to my family reunion.”

  He almost stopped moving, right there, in the middle of the parquet floor. Not exactly the reaction I had hoped for. Nevertheless, he recovered his dancing legs quickly, and he asked in a careful voice, “When is it?”

  “The third weekend in October. Two weeks away. We get together up in Connecticut, at our family farm. Gran will be there, and a couple dozen cousins and aunts and uncles.”

  “The third weekend…. That’s Historical Politics.”

  “Excuse me?” I knew that my family had a lot of issues, but I’d never heard anyone phrase it quite like that.

  “The Historical Politics Society of America. The ‘trade association’ all we history professors belong to. They always have their annual meeting the third weekend in October.”

  “Oh.” I knew that I shouldn’t feel so disappointed. I mean, five minutes before, I’d never even considered asking Jason to join me. I looked up to find him staring across the dance floor, looking at his historical political colleagues. He was probably imagining the raucous time they’d have, discussing Hegelian Dialectic and Cartesian Dualism over endless beers in the hotel bar at the conference.

  He pulled me a little closer to his chest, his fingers spreading more broadly across my back. “This reunion thing. It’s for the whole weekend?”

  “Friday afternoon until Sunday afternoon.”

  “I wouldn’t be able to make it up there until Saturday. I can’t get out of a commitment Friday night. I could drive up and meet you there, though.”

  I knew that the music was playing. I knew that other couples were dancing around us. I knew that Jason was holding me close, waiting for me to say something.

  I knew that my entire world was opening, expanding, like the moment that a theater curtain flies up and a play begins and all the possibilities are spread out on the stage, just waiting for the audience to discover them.

  “That would be wonderful,” I finally said.

  Suddenly, I thought that he would kiss me. There. On the St. Regis ballroom dance floor, with his arms folded around my perfect green silk dress, as he looked down at my new-cut hair and my manicured nails, into eyes not obscured by glasses.