“Gotcha covered,” said Alder.
CHAPTER
48
T
ONY OPENED THE DOOR AND LET HER IN TO THE warm light of his house. “Is everything okay?”
“Remember that family I cook for sometimes?” she said. “Dermott McPherson—he’s a patient of yours.”
“Of course.” He helped her off with her coat and tossed it over the varnished wooden banister. “You gave his wife that blouse.”
“He died today. I went to bring them dinner, and he had just died.” She didn’t think it was possible to produce any more tears, but her eyes filled nevertheless. Then his arms were around her. “I thought I was all cried out,” she whispered.
“All right,” he soothed, his hand stroking her hair. “Okay.” She felt as if she’d arrived at someplace perfect, as if this were the only comfort that would do.
After a moment she pulled back. “Do you have a tissue?” she said, sniffling.
“Sure thing.” He stepped into a doorway behind the stairs, a half bath, she guessed. When he came back with a box of tissues, he led her into the living room and they sat on a brown leather couch. Two hardwood lamps on either side spread their pools of light across the room.
She blew her nose, self-conscious because she knew he was waiting. “I didn’t come here to cry,” she said, stuffing the tissue into her pocket, “I came because ... I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.”
“Yes, but you
know
that. I mean, you know how you feel. Not that I’m making any presumptions ...”
“It’s not presumptuous,” he said. “Marie actually came right out and told me to knock it off.”
“Knock what off?”
“Being irritable because you weren’t there today. Kendra’s a good receptionist, but she’s got nothing on you for lunch conversation. Or anything else, for that matter.”
“How’s she feeling?”
“Fine,” he said, making it clear he had no intention of pursuing that tangent.
“Marie’s a Wiccan, by the way,” she told him.
“Great.”
“Did you already know?”
“No, but I’m not really interested in Marie right now.” He leaned back against the couch and crossed his arms.
She gazed at him for a moment and remembered her initial impression of him: a birdbath—short and squat, his essential goodness an open reservoir. She took a breath and released it. “Okay,” she said. “I’m a little freaked out.”
“Because ...”
“Because I’m not really sure how I feel. Part of me is so comfortable with you, it’s like I’ve known you my whole life. And I trust you. A lot.”
“Maybe too much,” he speculated.
“Yes! And that scares the hell out of me. You’re a terrific person, but you’re not perfect.”
“Well,” he said, “I’d like to think I’ve got a little more under the hood than the last guy you were with.”
A laugh burst out of her. “
That’s
a pretty safe bet.”
He uncrossed his arms and allowed himself a smile.
“The thing is,” she said, “sometimes less under the hood is easier to deal with. You don’t get so ... attached.”
“Which comes in handy if they leave you.”
“Wow,” she breathed, looking down at her hands, the truth of it hitting her like a rogue wave. “That’s really messed up.”
“We’ve all got our issues,” he said.
“Connie says the problem with me is I seem too normal. I should ‘embrace my psychosis.’” She made quote marks with her fingers.
“Sounds like Connie’s on to you.”
“She says
you’re
on to me.”
“I’m liking her better and better.”
“She still refers to you as Santa,” Dana admitted.
His eyes narrowed. “That part not so much.”
They sat there in silence for a moment, the brown-and-cranberry coziness of the room insulating them from the bitter cold. “This is a lovely house,” she said. “I can see why you didn’t move.”
He nodded agreement and thanks. “Dana,” he said. “Why are you here?”
I miss you,
she thought, but she knew it wasn’t enough. “I’d like ... I’d like to try.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Not just because you saw something incredibly sad and needed a safe shoulder to cry on?”
“Well ... to be honest, I was already thinking about you all the time, and that sort of tipped the scales. Not the safe-shoulder part so much as not wanting to lose you.”
“What makes you think you’d lose me?”
“Tony,” she said, “you’re a very understanding guy and all, but you don’t put up with much. You wouldn’t go for the whole ‘let’s just be friends’ thing.”
A hint of a smile crossed his face. “Sounds like
you’re
on to
me.
”
“I hope I am ... I want to be.”
He slipped his arm under hers and clasped her hand. She slid over next to him, rested her head against the back of the couch and felt the muscles in her shoulders release their grip on her neck. He put his feet up on the oak coffee table, and she did the same. They talked or sat silent, listening to the gurgles and pops of the heat cycling on and off and the wind making the trees brush up against the house. At eleven-thirty she said, “I should probably get home.”
He walked her to the door, helped her on with her coat. Just as he reached for the doorknob, she slid her arms around him and kissed him. She had meant it to be more than a peck, but not much more—and yet it went on, an exploration, a confirmation, her heart rate rising, her arms tightening around him, pressing toward him, allowing him to pull her closer. When they began to separate, he kissed her cheek and her chin and her nose, then rested his forehead against hers.
“Oh,”
she sighed.
“Mm,”
he said.
Yes,
she thought as she drove home.
A little more under the hood than the last guy.
CHAPTER
49
P
OLLY RANG THE DOORBELL AT A QUARTER TO three, just before the kids were due home. She never rang the doorbell, not since the early days of their friendship. She’d yell, “It’s me!” and walk in.
When Dana opened the door, Polly said, “Should I wait out here?” It had a tone to it, but Dana suspected that Polly truly needed to know, and held the door open for her. They stood in the mudroom, not looking at each other until Polly blurted out, “I quit that book group. They’re a bunch of gossips, and I let myself sink to that level. Nora thinks she’s permanent prom queen or something, but she’s just a manipulative bitch.” She gave her head a hard, frustrated little shake. “I’m not making excuses—it’s all on me. But I just want you to know it’s not a mistake I’ll ever make again.”
Dana nodded. “Good,” she said.
“Also, Victor’s practically ready to divorce me over this.” An exaggeration, but Dana understood her point. “He keeps saying, ‘You threw Dana under the bus for what—that snotty Nora Kinnear? What’s the matter with you?’ And he’s right, but can you believe the nerve of him, after the crush he had on her? And then he says to me every day, ‘Don’t you go up there to the Stellgartens’. Don’t you hound her till she takes you back from sheer exhaustion. You let her come to you when she’s ready.’ Like he’s got a Ph.D. in human relationships or something. Let me tell you, he
doesn’t.
”
Dana looked her in the eye. “It’s not what you did to me, Polly, though that’s bad enough. It’s what you did to Morgan.”
Polly blanched. “God, I know,” she breathed. “I’m sick over it. I
never thought
—”
“No one ever thinks gossip will go very far. But it’s gossip, that’s what it does. She overheard Nora say you were the one who told her. She knows you did it.”
“I could kill myself.” Her pixielike stature seemed to diminish even further, and Dana thought of that line from
Peter Pan
.
“Clap if you believe in fairies.”
“And now she feels bad because she thinks she ruined our friendship.”
“That’s crazy! She didn’t do a thing!”
“I wish you’d tell her that. Today, if possible. Don’t let on that you know she feels responsible. Just apologize and let her see she’s not to blame. Please.”
“It’s a done deal.”
“How’d it go?” Tony asked when he called that night around ten, just as Dana was getting into bed and wondering if it was too late to call him.
“Okay, I think.” She told him about her conversation with Polly.
“Did she do it?”
“I think she must have. Morgan seemed calmer tonight. But I didn’t want to ask her—then she’d know I set it up.”
“Good thinking,” he said. “You’re a heck of a mom.”
Dana groaned. “You know that saying, ‘It’s not rocket science’? It’s not—it’s harder.”
“Tell me about it.” Tony chuckled. “I talked to Lizzie tonight. She’s all happy because—wait for it—”
“She got back together with Zack!”
“No, Zack
tried
to get back together, and she told him to go jump in a lake. Actually, I’m sure the phrasing was much more current than that, but you get the gist.”
“Good girl!”
“Also, I told her about you.”
Dana’s breath caught in her chest for a second. She hadn’t told anyone yet. It seemed too fragile, still, to expose to public scrutiny. “And?”
“I believe that her exact words were, ‘
That’s
what I’m talking about!’ Something along those lines. I always sound ridiculous when I use their lingo. Which has been confirmed by them, of course.”
He asked about the funeral arrangements for Dermott. Dana had stopped by with a suit jacket for the oldest boy, remembering how the sleeves were too short on the one he owned. She had learned that there would be no wake or funeral. Dermott had requested that his ashes be spread over Nipmuc Pond, and since it was currently frozen, Mary Ellen had decided to do a memorial service in the spring.
They talked a while longer, and Tony gave her pointers for her job interview the following day. Finally he said, “Good night, sweetheart.”
Dana grinned. “You’re calling me sweetheart?”
“Your heart is very sweet,” he said. “I couldn’t help but mention it.”
Dana changed her clothes twice before the job interview. The first outfit was too boring, and she didn’t want to look like some sad sack who’d be so grateful for the job that she’d agree to low pay or put up with disrespect. The second outfit was too synthetic—a polyester print blouse and tan rayon slacks.
It’s a renewable-energy company,
she chided herself.
You need to look green!
Finally she got into the car, dressed in wool pants, a cotton sweater, and Marie’s triple-goddess necklace. She hoped the sheep-farming and cotton-growing industries were environmentally friendly. And if her potential employers were aware of the charm’s symbolism, she hoped they weren’t, in Marie’s words, “religious bigots.”
The office was in a small industrial park in the nearby town of Glastonbury, and when she arrived a few minutes early, she could see the need for her services. Files splayed out on tables, office supplies piled haphazardly in a corner, and the phone ringing and ringing.
“I’m not getting it!” she heard a man call from an office in the back. “I got it the last time!”
“And I made you breakfast, walked the dog, and did the laundry,” Ben’s voice called from another direction. “Payback’s a bitch!”
The next day she met Tony for lunch at Keeney’s. She couldn’t wait to tell him about the new job. “It’s not a ton of money, but they did give me a tiny bit of stock in the company.”
“They decided that fast? You just interviewed yesterday.”
“I already started! They’re paying me under the table until they get the paperwork filed. God, it’s a mess, but they seem really nice.”
Their conversation wandered from Marie’s new tattoo to Kendra’s enormous lunches to the pair of polypropylene walking socks that Polly bought her and sent home with the kids.
“She really wants you back,” said Tony.
“I’m thinking about it,” said Dana. “She was a really good friend before she totally betrayed me. Plus, at the moment she’s in my life whether I want her or not—she’ll be with my kids for most of the weekend. The rehearsal dinner’s on Friday night, the wedding’s on Saturday, and her husband’s the best man.”
“Speaking of this weekend ... I’d like to take you out on Friday. On a date.”
A date.
“That sounds very official.”
“As official as you want it to be.”
She didn’t let herself think for more than a moment before she said, “As official as you can make it.”
All too soon he had to get back to work. In the parking lot by the edge of the pond, he kissed her like he meant it, his body pressing her against the minivan. She didn’t want it to end, but there was a cough not far from them, and they turned to see its source. Two fishermen stood a little ways down the shore, lines reaching into one of the few parts of the pond that wasn’t frozen. The men were grinning appreciatively in their direction.
“How’s it going,” Tony called wryly.
“Good,” one of the guys called back. “You?”
The other guy burst out laughing.
Polly’s apology seemed to settle something for Morgan, and for the next day or two she was more relaxed. She even went to Rita’s house after school on Thursday. But on Friday she came home and went right to her studies. She played her cello for an hour and stalled when Dana told her it was time to put it away and get dressed for the rehearsal dinner.
“Can I bring it?” Morgan asked. “I have to practice for the concert.”
“Oh, sweetie, I’m not sure. It’s kind of a busy weekend, don’t you think?”
“I could practice tomorrow morning. The wedding’s not till noon.”
When Polly came to pick up the kids and take them to the dinner, Dana pulled her aside. “I think Morgan’s pretty stressed about all of this. She’s not saying much, but it shows,” she said. “Polly, I need you to keep an eye on her. Just make sure you’re with her, if you can.”