True Blend (16 page)

George walks out to the living room, slipping his arms into a long-sleeve shirt loose over his tee. “I’m going by Amy’s for a while.”

“What? Now? It’s almost nine,” Nate says from the couch.

George picks up the remote and shuts off the television. “Get out.”

“Okay, okay.” Nate stands. “She talk much about that day?”

“Sometimes.”

His brother squints at him. “Just be careful, all right?”

“What are you talking about?” George shrugs into the shirt shoulders and heads for the door.

“I’m just thinking about you. You’ve got a good life with your shop and all now. Real good. Maybe some day you’ll enjoy some of that extra money and start living the dream. Is she worth losing it all?”

“Move it,” George tells him, holding the door open to the night, watching his brother pass by.

*  *  *

When he gets to Amy’s, he’s a little surprised to see her windows closed up tight, the shades drawn. Summer’s in the air and it seems she would want to hear the whisper of it in the leaves, feel the breeze puffing her lace curtains, maybe sit on the front porch, the scent of flowers and dew rising in the evening.

“She’s upstairs, checking on Grace,” Celia tells him after he knocks. When he steps inside, she continues quietly, “She didn’t have such a good day. Maybe you can cheer her up?”

“I’ll try,” he answers, turning to see Amy coming down the stairs. “Hi there,” he says, studying her closely. She wears a long sundress with cowboy boots, her hair down, a turquoise bangle on her wrist.

“George, hey. No card game tonight?” she asks.

“It broke up early. One of the guys, Craig, he and his wife are splitting up. After he told us, the game kind of died. How about here? Everything okay?”

“Celia and I were having movie night.”

“Could you get me a soda, Amy?” Celia calls out from the living room over the banter of Danny Zuko and Sandy, and the music of
Grease
.

George takes Amy’s hand and leads her into the kitchen, where she pulls the ice tray from the freezer and fills a tall glass with cubes. “How’s Grace today?” he asks.

She glances up from pouring soda into the glass. “She’s fine, but still not talking.”

A quick smile passes over her face, trying, trying to stay strong always for her daughter. He sees it more than she does, and so takes the glass from her hand. “You hold your thought.” He brings Celia her drink and returns with Amy’s denim jacket. When he holds out the sleeves, she turns and slips into it.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“I’m taking you out for a drink.”

“But Grace—”

“Celia says she’ll stay as long as you want. The house is closed up tight, your daughter is safe. Come on, sweetheart.” George moves in front of her and takes her hands in his, his voice quiet. “Do this for yourself. The weather’s good, your friend is here, the house is locked, bring your cell.” He glances at her boots, then moves his hands up her arms to her shoulders. “And do you happen to have a cowboy hat?”

“Yes, actually,” she answers, stepping back. “Grace and I have matching hats.”

“Bring it,” he says with a wink, jangling his car keys and turning to head outside.

*  *  *

“No way.” Amy glances out at the flashing neon cowboy in the window as George parks his pickup truck at Joel’s Bar and Grille. “Line dancing?”

He reaches over and tugs at her cowboy hat. “You know how?”

“Well, yes. But—”

“Oh no,” he says, swinging his door open. “No buts about it. Thursday is Line Dancing night and you need to stomp a little fun into your day. Come on.”

Inside the bar, the music is loud, the talk and laughter raucous, and a chorus of boot kicking stomps keeps the beat on the wooden dance floor. George takes her elbow and leads her right into the thick of it, leaving no time for hesitation, no seconds for resistance, no moments to think as she hooks her hands on her hips and step-touches her way through a song about breaking hearts. And she wonders if there’s any better way to shake off a breaking heart, hers included, than to stomp it off.

George must be thinking the same thing because when she laughs and starts to leave the dance floor after the first song, he shakes his head no, takes her arm and gets her to shuffling and tapping, strolling and swaying through the next two songs, putting her worried heart on hold with honkytonk words of rocking cowboys and good times and footloose attitude. When she takes off her hat and bends into a low bow after the third song, he finally leads her to a small table in the back.

“One drink,” she says, breathless. “Really, George. One drink, then I have to go.”

“Let’s make a deal,” he answers, reaching across the table and moving a strand of hair behind her ear. “One drink and one more dance.”

Sometimes, like right now, there’s just no arguing especially if you’ve already been swayed. She glances over to the crowded dance floor, then back to him with a grin. “Okay,” she finally says. “Deal.”

He orders them each a draft beer and she likes that, the way he has them become a part of the whole night at Joel’s, completely. When the waitress sets down their drinks, Amy takes a sip, watching him. “Tell me about yourself, George.”

George sits back and shifts in his chair. “What do you want to know?”

She tips her head and eyes him. “Tell me about your family.”

George looks away and rolls his shoulder.

“Loaded question?” she asks.

He laughs. “No. Well, maybe a little. My parents are both gone. But I’ve got a younger brother. Nate. He’s thirty-six and a little rough around the edges, but he polishes up okay. He’s the family risk-taker. The greater the risk, the more determined he gets. Typical kid brother stuff.”

“You don’t take risks?”

George hesitates. “No,” he says then. “I’m not a gambling man.”

“But you play cards.”

“It’s a social thing, not really gambling. It’s what happens while we’re playing that counts. You know. The talk, the laughs. I play mostly for my brother, as a way to stay in touch. We do things like that. A hand of poker, a ballgame.”

“You never married, George?”

He looks at her for a long second. “No.”

“A guy like you? You must have had some close calls.” She glances over at the almost fluid lines of dancers stomping through another love-gone-wrong song. “No achy breaky line dancing song that suits you?”

He winks and picks up her cowboy hat from the table, setting it on an angle on her head. “Not really. I was seeing someone for a few years, but it didn’t work out. My father convinced me we get one shot to do it right, do love right, the way he did with my mother. If it’s not love, the marriage won’t stand up to life. So it’s actually the ultimate risk.”

“Marriage? A risk?”

“To be sure you get it right. I mean, we’re talking love, and emotion, and two-stepping with the right cowgirl off into the sunset.” He raises his drink in a toast to the dancers electric sliding across the floor. “Serious stuff. That’s why my brother’s divorced. He likes risk, win or lose. He jumped in to a wrong marriage at twenty-one and lost. They broke up in a year. Me? I’ve had a few chances, once or twice. But I’m also somewhat of a workaholic. So I give most of my time to the shop. It’s been in the family a long time and means a lot to me.”

“Oh, you’re one of those then,” Amy says from beneath her hat brim, pulling it down low and eyeing him cautiously. “Married to the job.”

“Something like that. I took over the business when my father died.”

“Now that’s very honorable. And before then?”

“Baseball. I was in the minors, Triple-A. And had some good times there. But then there was an accident and it changed everything. Nate and my father were at our summer cottage at Stony Point and Nate had my old man doing work he was probably too old to handle. Things happened, an unfortunate fall from a ladder. And a heart attack. Which came first, we don’t really know. Did the heart attack cause the fall, or the other way around? To this day, my brother still feels the blame.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. It couldn’t have been easy, for any of you then. Life deals difficult cards sometimes.”

“Isn’t that the truth.” George takes a long drink of his draft. “Now tell me about yours, Amy.”

“About my life?”

“No. About the cards life dealt you today. Celia said you weren’t having a good Thursday.”

“It’s nothing, really.”

George raises an eyebrow. “Let me be the judge of that.” He reaches across the table, takes her hands in his, and waits.

And she tells him about the nothing behind silent, hang-up phone calls. The nothing overcoming her when she found Mark’s coffee cup in the sink. And mostly the nothing that came out of her sweet child’s mouth today. “It’s all either nothing, or it’s my whole life. Sometimes I can’t tell which.”

George looks past her when the line dancing breaks up and the music shifts to a slow country number about driving and love and destinations in the heart. He stands, gently takes her cowboy hat off her head and sets it on the table, lifts her hands and tells her, “We had a deal. One more.”

When Amy stands, he puts an arm around her waist and walks her to the dance floor. She turns and he takes her in his arms, and when he leans close, she hears his words in her ear.

“I was wondering,” he begins. “Has Grace ever been to the beach?”

She shakes her head no, nearly moved to tears by the lightness he brings into her life.

“It’s the best medicine, you know. The salt air. Why don’t we go Sunday? We’ll stop at my family’s cottage at Stony Point, spend a few hours on the beach, right at the sea.”

Amy pulls back and smiles at him. “That sounds beautiful,” she says. Her fingers move to the side of his face and when they do, he slips his hand around her neck, tangles it in her hair and presses his mouth to hers and the kiss becomes part of it, the moment when she closes her eyes and imagines the sun reaching the sea in a thousand sparkles, its warmth touching her face, the salt air reaching deep into her lungs, the waves breaking close.

George pulls away then, stroking her cheek before pressing her head against his shoulder. “We’ll have a good time. But right now, don’t think, don’t plan.” His arms hold her closer and his body moves with hers. “Just dance.”

Fourteen

DO GLIMMERING MOTHER-OF-PEARL paillettes count as wishing stars? Because if the wonder of those star-like vintage sequins could grant a wish right now, Amy has a few she’d like to make. And so she sends a silent wish out to the heavens when the bride-to-be walks out of the dressing room wearing a gown meant somehow just for her. This Princess-line cream silk gown drapes elegantly on the woman. Silver beads and those iridescent paillettes shimmer like stars in the sky.

“It’s been close to a year since I saw this,” the customer tells her. “My sister Eva and I were passing by and saw it in your window. I’m so glad you still have it,” she says while turning on the raised pedestal in front of the full-length mirror.

“She’s a designer, a denim designer,” Eva tells Amy. “And she incorporates stars in her work.”

“Well then, you couldn’t custom order a more perfect dress.” Amy adjusts the gown’s small train. “This one’s from the early 1970s and I’ve seen variations of stars on wedding gowns, but the hand-worked beading on this one is really special. It may even be a couture gown. If you give me your name, I can hold it for you until you decide.”

“Maris. Maris Carrington. And you’ll only have to hold it for an hour while we shop a little more. I’m so buying this gown today.”

“Yes!” Eva exclaims. “She’s getting married right on the beach. An evening wedding in August.”

“That sounds beautiful. Imagine if a few early stars are out in the sky during the vows?”

“That’s what we’re hoping,” Maris says, pulling her brown hair back off her face as she continues to study the wedding gown. “I’ll be wearing my sister’s veil for my Something Borrowed.”

Amy turns to her daughter sitting on the settee with Bear and a small doll. “Grace, would you get Mommy the flowers please?”

“What a great assistant you have,” Eva says, turning to watch Grace retrieve a small bouquet from a low shelf. Grace walks quietly to Maris, stopping a few steps shy.

“Come on, sweetie,” Amy says quietly.

Maris bends low and smiles at her, reaching out her hand. In a moment, Grace stretches out her arm and relinquishes the bouquet laced with ribbons.

“Thank you,” Maris tells her. “You’re a great helper to your Mommy. And the flowers are as pretty as you are.”

“Remember,” Amy says as Maris turns back to the mirror. She places a very simple veil on her head to complete the look. “When you’re choosing your flowers, the shorter the veil, the smaller the bouquet.”

“Wow,” Eva exclaims quietly at Maris’ reflection in the mirror. “Jason’s going to love seeing you in this gown.”

Amy thinks of Maris as she buckles Grace into her car seat at lunchtime. The idea of getting married right on the beach with the sea and sky spread before you seems almost magical. She hopes for some of that wonder in Grace’s life this weekend, when George takes them to the beach. The sea breeze will lift her hair, the endless blue Long Island Sound fill her vision, the cries of swooping gulls reach her ears, the salt water waves play tag with her toes as she laughs and runs from them. The beach will leave no room for silence.

But for now, the words to gentle love songs come easily to Amy. She’d closed up Wedding Wishes for this lunch hour excursion to buy new bathing suits, playing the radio softly on the drive to the mall. She serenades Grace while driving to the rear entrance of Macy’s, where the steel grid work of a new mall wing rises and construction vehicles lumber past.

Once Grace is settled in her stroller, Amy glances behind them often, checks parallel traffic lanes and keeps an eye on the passing trucks while walking to the store. No one would realize, seeing this young mother dressed in black skinnies and a sleeveless peplum blouse, a large handbag looped over her shoulder, that the sheer lunacy of masked gunmen has her so alert. That firearms once aimed directly at her elicit tentative steps.