Slow Dancing on Price's Pier (29 page)

“Do you have children?” he blurted, embarrassed by the question the moment he asked it.

“Yes. I have eighty this year. Ninety the year before that. But none of my own.”

He stood with some awkwardness, bumping his thighs on the bottom of the desk and nearly lifting it off the ground. He was about to thank her again and duck out when a Philip K. Dick novel on her desk caught his eye.

“You like Dick—I mean—oh Lord.”

She suppressed a smile, standing. “I'm into dystopic fiction.”

“Funny, I never would have pegged you for the type. I'm writing a science fiction novel. I just started. It's . . . I'm sure it's terrible. But I'm amusing myself.”

“You could come to our reading group!” she said, her face entirely without reservation. “We meet on the second Thursday of the month. We're reading Isaac Asimov next!”

“Well, thanks.” He tried to look nonchalant, but something in him thrilled at the invitation. “Great tip. Maybe I'll come by.”

She was next to the door now, pushing it open. “Don't feel weird about showing up. We're a bunch of SF geeks. An easygoing crowd.”

“That's great. I—” He paused. In the hallway, Irina was no longer in her chair—she was on it. The chair had been laid on its back, so her legs jutted into the air, perpendicular to the floor.

“I'm still in my chair,” she said.

Jonathan shook his head. Before he could think of joining a reading club, his obligation was to get Irina back on track. “Thanks again,” he told Lori.

“Don't hesitate to be in touch,” she said, and he could hear that her voice had shifted slightly, back into a more professional caliber.

He held out his hand for his wayward daughter and wasn't surprised when she didn't immediately right herself. “Come on, sweetheart,” he said.

 

 

Once the baristas at the Dancing Goat heard about the Gilded Age Ball, they insisted Thea go shopping. She protested: she already had a dress—a tried-and-true black cocktail dress that seemed to get just a little smaller every year.

“But you're trying new things,” Dani said. “You have to get something new.”

“Maybe you'll land a rich new husband,” Claudine said.

“The old dress is fine,” Thea said.

“I hate that old dress.” Dani smacked her lightly on the arm. “The old dress is one you picked out for Jonathan. The one you wore publically when you dressed up in the role of Jonathan's wife.”

“True,” Claudine said. “I cannot get on the wagon with dress shopping, because I would never wear one, but for you? You get to pick out a dress for yourself that is only for yourself. Not for a date. Not for a man. For no one but you.”

Thea thought of her old dress hanging in the closet, where it stayed 364 days a year. Now that she was thinking about it, she'd bought it because it was on sale. It hadn't been her first choice, but it had been acceptable. It had made her feel pretty enough.

But compared to the pinks, teals, and purples that flirted with her from the gleaming window of Athena's Closet, her old cocktail dress was fit for a woman that Thea hadn't been in quite some time—and she wondered, When was the last time she'd done something impulsive? She used to be impulsive. She wanted to be impulsive still.

She looked at her friends, who were anticipating her pronouncement with the eagerness of kids waiting for the school bell to ring. “Okay,” she said. “You talked me into it. But we don't have much time.”

 

 

All along Bellevue Avenue, the traffic dragged inch by inch along the pavement, brake lights blinking red against the dusk, buses dressed as trolleys stopping and putting their hazard lights on, drivers waving for other cars to go around. On Ochre Point, Garret parked across the road from the big Italian Renaissance arches of the Breakers, and he could hear the tour guides giving their normal spiels through the open windows of a trolley.

“Yes, I recommend you take a tour of the Breakers. But no, not tonight.”

Tourists leaned out of the trolley, snapping pictures as Garret walked past them. Probably, he could give a tour of this part of Newport by heart. He, Jonathan, and Thea had spent hours here, riding their bicycles down the road, sneaking onto the cottage properties to wonder at the oversized mansions and ditching their bikes to climb on the rocks at the water's edge.

The Breakers was the most excessive residence in a long line of excessive palatial summer homes. The tall front gate was gnarled iron scrollwork and soldierly limestone, so that it almost seemed to snarl as any guard dog might. From where Garret stood, not far from the porte cochere entrance, the mansion itself was simply too much for the eye to take in—its high red terra-cotta roofs trumpeting Mediterranean flair, its many thickset chimneys, rounded arches, balconies, quoins, and gardens. One had to step back a bit to be able to handle so much in one glance.

The interior was no different. Garret walked into the mansion and followed the sound of voices to the indoor Italian piazza, two stories from floor to ceiling, so that he never failed to suffer the strange vertigo of feeling like he was outside when he was actually in. High Corinthian pilasters drew his gaze up to the second-story loggia, and a dramatic, red-carpeted staircase descended to the first floor like a waterfall.

Garret glanced casually around the room to see who was in attendance that he knew. He always looked forward to evenings of small talk, of mingling, of meeting new people and making connections. He liked the challenge of it, the thrill of not knowing who he might meet next. Careers were made or broken over glasses of champagne, and he loved that about Newport life—the crude and wild undercurrents beneath all the gentility.

But before he could work the room, he needed to pay his respects to his family. To better scan the crowd without having to walk through it, he climbed the circling stairs that led to the second-level balcony. Fresh, warm air blew in from the sea, and beneath him the throng of revelers was thick and lively. He looked around until he saw his mother standing with a tall brunette who was just his type. As he waded back through the crowd to greet them, he prepared his most charming smile.

“Mom,” he kissed her on the cheek. She was wearing an apricot spangled dress, square cut and modest, but stunning on her. “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you, darling.”

Garret shook his father's hand and gave him a quick nod. With his full head of silver white hair and his navy suit, Ken looked as much at home in the Vanderbilt mansion as he did baiting lines and drinking beer on the bay.

His mother tapped his arm. “Have you met Kate Cooper, of Cooper-Simon Holdings?”

“Kate Cooper . . .” He held out his hand. She wore a gray satin dress that was so thin it would have shown every bump and curve, if she had any. She was athletic and wiry, with a strong face that could almost be described as handsome. “So nice to meet you.”

“I've heard a lot about you,” Kate said. “You've got quite a reputation.”

“For what?” he asked, laughing. “What's my mother been telling you?”

“Only that you're a good man to know around here. That you can get things done. Actually, I wanted to ask you a question. You see, my company . . .”

He didn't hear the rest of her story. Not a word. And he was only vaguely aware when his mother picked up the slack where he'd dropped it.

Thea had come into his line of vision, and if he hadn't been so wrapped up in his own reaction to her appearance, he might have laughed at himself. He'd caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and even before he'd turned his head, he knew it was her—could feel that it was her—somehow. He'd been looking for her, though the search had never been a conscious one.

She was wearing a burgundy dress that had no tolerance for understatement: swags around her midsection showed off a trim waist and flared hips, and a halter top made her breasts alluringly plump. Her hair fell down around her shoulders, and his reaction to it was the same as when they'd been kids.

“Thea! Look at you. You're gorgeous!” Sue exclaimed.

Thea kissed Sue and Ken. Garret was next in line, and when she didn't move to kiss him, he did it for her, leaning down, dusting her cheek with his lips as quickly as he allowed himself, then moving away.

“Where's Jonathan?” she asked.

“He'll probably show later,” Sue said. “He never liked these kinds of things.”

Thea shook her head, smiling. “Tell me about it.”

“So who's watching Irina?” Garret asked.

“My friend Dani,” Thea said.

They talked for a few minutes of nothing consequential: food, history, the incredible building, and the days of an economy before income tax. Kate was new to Newport, and she'd heard very few of the stories about the Breakers—the ghosts of servants, the luxury of pipes that ran both water from the town and water from the sea. It wasn't long before Ken and Sue excused themselves: they had to mingle. Garret, Kate, and Thea were left alone.

Garret stood listening to the women debate whether or not the Hawaiians or the Ethiopians made the best coffee. He tried to pick up the thread of the conversation, but something was off. He gazed out over the crowd, forcing his shoulders and face to relax. But the restlessness that gripped him did not let up—he felt as if he was waiting for something to happen. He couldn't quite understand it: he usually felt so comfortable in crowds.

Thea laughed, the sound seizing him physically as if she'd wrapped her hands around his wrists and tugged. And then he knew what he wanted: he wanted Thea alone. The urge to have a private moment with her was intensely distracting, almost painful. He didn't even care what people might say or what they might not say. He knew only that he wanted her undivided attention, to claim a few stolen minutes of her life for himself, minutes he once thought he would never get again.

When the band in the corner struck up an old Frank Sinatra tune, he held out his hand. “Care for a dance?” he asked. Not his smoothest move, but he'd lost his appetite for patience the moment she'd arrived.

Thea glanced nervously at Kate. “It's a little early in the night yet.”

“Oh, don't worry about me,” Kate said, her hard face giving away nothing. “I've had my eye on an old friend I haven't seen in a while. If you'll excuse me . . .” She glanced at Garret. “Have fun this evening.”

He nodded, and when she disappeared, he fixed his eyes on Thea. Her dark hair fell around her face in gentle curls. “Are you going to come up with an excuse to turn me down?”

“No,” she said. She gave him her hand.

He led her to the center of the great hall, beneath the high corniced ceiling. Her fingers in his were small and light, and he could feel her calluses on his palm. She stood close to him, her spine schoolteacher straight, and when he put his hand on her lower back, heat rushed through him like fire. Her dress was backless. Her warm skin was naked under his hand.

“You look . . .” he searched for the word. How could he tell her? He thought of the mansion, so big that he'd felt he couldn't quite grasp it unless he stepped back. “Breathtaking.”

She narrowed her eyes, but he didn't miss the playful spark behind the cynical stare. “Are you hitting on me?”

“If I say yes?”

“Your mother will disown you.”

“Maybe it would be worth it,” he said.

She laughed and looked away from him, past his shoulder. When he flirted with women, it was usually an automatic response. He liked making women smile, liked seeing their color change beneath the luster of a little compliment. Thea was no exception. He told himself: flirting with her was far more ordinary than
not
flirting with her, and so he wasn't going to stop.

“That was terrible what you just did to that woman back there,” Thea said. “Ditching her like that. Your mother wanted you to dance with her, not me.”

He grinned. “You forget which son you're talking to.”

Her face changed, the light in her eyes fading into something less carefree and much, much more aware. “It wasn't more than a couple of days ago that you were telling me you could never like me again. Now you ask me to dance?”

“A couple of days ago you weren't wearing that dress,” he said. And just to see what she would do, he didn't stop himself from looking down at her, the slope of her shoulders and the swell of her breasts.

He saw her throat work as she swallowed. “How can you be so hot and cold?”

“It's easy,” he said. “I'm faking.”

He felt her muscles stiffen under her skin, under the tips of his fingers where they pressed her spine. He couldn't help it, he moved his thumb. A little forward. A little back. “I fake everything,” he said. “It's part of the job description. I'm an expert faker.”

“Some things are real,” she said, and he heard the hitch of her breath in the noisy room with all the clarity of a pin dropping in an empty cathedral. “So which is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Which is real? The hot? Or cold?”

He adjusted his whole hand on her back, spreading his fingers as wide as they would go, the texture and warmth of her skin coming alive when he brushed over it. “Which do you think?”

For a fraction of a second, her gaze fell to his mouth. Then her grip on his hand loosened, and she stepped away.

“Thea . . .”

He followed her through the crowd, hanging back just enough so that she wouldn't notice he was behind her. She walked out of the back of the house, down the long green lawn toward the water. The crescent moon was bright and high, and the waves were breaking against the dark rocks at the edge of the harbor, sprays of silver white arching then splattering like rain. He stopped to watch her and consider if he should follow her. She stood alone against the moonlit ocean, the roaring breakers, the endlessly clear sky.