Down on Love (16 page)

Right after she did her nanny duty. She’d been drafted into taking Amelia to BabyFit at the Marsden Athletic Club. Sera had thoughtfully signed them up for the early-morning class after seeing George and Amelia sitting around the house for too many days in a row, George arguing her case to gurgling, attentive Amelia about who was the cuter
Blue’s Clues
guy—the first one or his replacement. Now they could sweat someplace else besides in front of the TV or on the front porch, and they might even be treated to exercising along with a vintage Barney soundtrack. As if George didn’t have enough to deal with.

Because they were running late, and because she was afraid she’d be required to expend some energy alongside Amelia in the gym, George indulged herself by bombing the few blocks down to town in her car. She knew it looked stupid, driving such a short distance, to an exercise class no less, but what was the harm? Plus, unlike nearly everyone else, Amelia liked the way she drove. (At least George assumed the squeals coming from the backseat meant her niece was entertained.)

George had some difficulty finding a parking space close to the gym on Fourth Street, so she got a little creative near a fire hydrant. Hey, she didn’t have time to cruise around the block looking for something better if they were going to make it to class on time. She grabbed the diaper bag, lifted Amelia out of her car seat, and closed the car door with her butt, then hurried through the door of the gym, only to run smack into a herd of brightly colored, chattering gym bunnies coming from the previous class.

This brought George up short. In one small space she was surrounded by the pride of Marsden, feminine edition, all sleek ponytails and geometric-patterned jog bras and tight yoga pants dipping just low enough to show off belly-button rings. Suddenly she felt out of shape, washed out, and sloppy. (It didn’t help that Amelia had barfed up half-digested milk on her T-shirt earlier, the result of a failed burp.) She ducked her head and tried to scoot past them. But then...

“George?”

Dammit.
Stupid small town. George found herself longing for the anonymity of a bustling walk down Mass Ave., among hundreds of other people, yet entirely alone. And at peace. Here, she couldn’t go ten feet without someone wanting to stop and chat for half an hour.

She scanned the herd of bunnies to locate who had spoken. It was the nearest bunny, and by far the cutest, because she was fresh and natural and un-made-up, making the others look like they were trying too hard. George hesitated, and in that brief moment, the bunny filled in the blanks.

“It’s Celia,” she said softly. “Celia Marshall. From school?”

Eek. Casey’s Celia. George put on a smile. “Yeah!” she choked out. “Wow. Good to see you. You look . . . fit.”

“Thanks.” She blushed. She actually blushed. And a cute blush, too. None of the splotchiness that crept across George’s skin like a red tide. Celia’s blush tinted her high cheekbones with the perfect amount of rosy pink that made her look like a fairy-tale princess. “You’re looking great too.”

George brushed off the compliment with strange, nondescript noises as Celia cooed over the baby. “Not mine,” she blurted out uselessly. “Niece.”

“Sure,” Celia said, politely ignoring her stupid statement—of course everybody knew this was Sera’s child—when she could have been catty about it. “She’s gotten so big.”

“They do tend to do that.”

“I heard you’ve been living in Boston.”

“I have.”

“Must be exciting. I mean, compared to here.”

George thought of how she’d just found a parking space within twenty yards of the gym, and even though she was perilously close to encroaching on the fire hydrant, she probably wouldn’t get a parking ticket. How she wasn’t regularly woken by sirens or blaring horns, but by muffled baby-fussing coming through the wall of the adjacent bedroom. How she’d left Boston because there was no one there to beg her to stay.

“It’s . . . different,” was all she could muster.

“I’ll bet.”

“Well, I should—” And she gestured with her free hand to the inner part of the gym.

“Oh, right. But we should get together sometime. Catch up, talk?”

Oh God.
George grimaced. “You know, I—I really don’t . . . do that much . . . relationship advice . . .”

Celia looked prettily baffled. “Sorry?”

“Relationship advice. I mean, I
do,
but not serious stuff, you know? I just do it for fun, on the . . . blog . . . annnd you’re not asking for relationship advice, are you?” George sputtered to a halt, realizing.

The other woman smiled, and her fresh face got all glowy. “No, I wasn’t.”

“Oh, wow! George! Hey!” one of the other bunnies, a bottle blonde with scary wide eyes, interrupted, reaching across Celia to capture George’s wrist in a fierce, claw-like grasp. “I love your blog.”

“Thanks—?”

Celia cut in. “George, do you remember Audra from school?”

“Actually, I don’t. Sorry.”

“I graduated before you—but don’t tell anybody!” Audra brayed. As if everyone in town didn’t already know everyone’s graduation year. “But can I just say? What you’re doing is
so cool?
I have got a
ton
of stories for your blog. I mean. A.
Ton
. I could fill up your entries for weeks—!”

“You don’t say.”

George’s sarcasm was lost on the woman, who went on as though she didn’t even hear her. “Oh, honey, you have no idea. Like, there was this one time—”

“Um, you know, I’ve really got to—”

“Or—wait! Do Celia!”

“‘Do’ Celia?”

Audra flapped her hands, her sparkly manicure glinting in the sun streaming in through the front windows. “You know, her and Casey! High school sweethearts, true love, blah blah blah, they break up—”

“Audra,” Celia murmured, but Audra was not about to be put off when she was on a roll.

“—She marries somebody else, it’s a nightmare, the fucker has the nerve to divorce
her
so he can shack up with a
nineteen-year-old
—”

“Audra.” Celia tried for a more warning tone, but she just didn’t seem to have the fire for it. George, however, was more than ready to stuff a yoga mat in this chick’s mouth if she didn’t stop talking. She was upsetting Celia—that was obvious. But Audra was determined to recite every chapter of her poor friend’s romantic history.

“So
now
she’s all alone, and now her and Casey can get back together, right? Happy ending and everything!”

“Come on . . .” Celia tried to stop her friend one more time.

“Well, you did make him dinner a couple of weeks ago, didn’t you?” the other woman demanded with a leer.

“That wasn’t . . . that was just . . .”

“Mm hm,” Audra said archly, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow.

“We’re not—”

“You know, it’s like I always tell you—you’re still young enough to have kids. But you’ve got to go for it
right now
.”

George bit back all the things she wanted to spit at this highly annoying Audra person. Instead, she decided to keep Celia from any more embarrassment. “Speaking of kids, I
really
have to get to the BabyFit class. Celia, it was nice to see you again. And sure, give me a call sometime. I’m at Sera’s.” Too late, she realized everyone in town knew that already too. “Audra,” was all she said to the other woman, and she hurried farther into the athletic club as fast as her entirely inappropriate sneakers could carry her.

Once she was out of sight of the bunnies, around the corner and in a thicket of chrome and white workout machines, her steps faltered, and she hugged Amelia a little tighter, burying her nose in the little girl’s feathery wisps of hair. Celia had cooked dinner for Casey. That thought sent a little alarmed
zing
through her midsection, even though she didn’t care. Did she? No, she
didn’t,
she told herself. Self, business, family—that was her focus these days, she reminded herself. That was all. And, she thought as she hurried toward the exercise room in the far corner, she was only going with Casey to this Taste of Whatever because he’d asked her to help him research the thing. It was too late to back out now. Besides, it would be fun—dress up stupid, score some free food and drinks, do grown-up things for an evening. Whoops—wrong words. “Grown-up things” gave her an inappropriate tingle. Revise. She could
hang out with
Casey and it would be no big deal.

Right?

It was official: George hated dresses. She hated strappy sandals and cute purses too. She hated fancy events, and she hated Whalen most of all. Naturally all of these things were innocently neutral, and she knew that deep down, but her frantic and frustrated—and so far fruitless—efforts to find something to wear to the stupid, hated Taste of Whalen were wearing her down, and she needed to hurl her blame somewhere. Dresses, fancy events, and Whalen were the perfect targets, because they couldn’t debate the issue.

She was so wrung out after only an hour of shopping in the stifling summer heat that she retreated to Pizza Now to stuff her face with a floppy, cheesy New York–style slice. Hang the dresses. (Heh. Okay, she could still make a joke, so she wasn’t entirely defeated, but still.) She’d done her best. She’d visited more than a few clothing boutiques in the prime spots in the center of Main Street, but one gander at their prices had her reaching for her smelling salts. She even dared to visit Missy’s Hits for Misses to see if she could find something on the racks at the consignment shop. Nothing wrong with a cut-price worn-only-once fancy dress. Nothing at all.

Of course, she could only sneak in after casing the joint from the wind-chimes shop’s doorway, waiting for Mrs. P to make her daily trip to the bank with a deposit so she didn’t have to chat with the shop owner. If Mrs. P found out she was going out for an evening with Casey Bowen—! George shuddered. The woman’s thumbs would seize up, she’d be texting the news to the whole town so fast.

And after all that, she hadn’t found what she was looking for in Mrs. P’s shop, either. So forget it. Pizza was better than a fancy dress, anyway. She mopped up a dribble of grease that ran down her chin and sighed. Maybe she’d just wear one of her cotton sundresses. Maybe she’d go naked. Maybe she’d just bail.

But she didn’t want to. She kind of liked the idea of looking nice and being on Casey Bowen’s arm for the evening.

On Casey Bowen’s arm.

Damn, there went those personal convictions she’d been working on all morning. George had spent the entire BabyFit class, and time at home afterward, in a fog, convincing herself this date wasn’t a date, just in case Celia and Casey actually were . . . er . . . And even if they weren’t, it didn’t mean she wanted Casey to be her . . . blargh. At that point her brain shorted out.

And yet, once she headed back to town, this time without Amelia, she’d found herself taking the dress quest way more seriously than she intended. Dress, shoes, bag, jewelry, hair, nails . . . and no matter how frequently she told herself not to care, she ended up drifting right back to kitting herself out like a Barbie doll.

This was so unlike her, she was scaring herself. Especially because she didn’t seem able to stop thinking about how, if she wore just the right thing . . . what? What was she out to prove? Nothing, that was what. And then she’d get this cartoony image of Casey’s pupils turning into pink hearts, and little fireworks going off over his head, when he looked at her in whatever fabulous outfit she was wearing, and she knew what she was hoping for.

Which did not fit in with her grand plan. Not in the slightest.

And yet there it was.

George kept her head down as she hurried back up the sidewalk, just to make sure nobody caught her eye so she’d be forced to stop and make small talk. She tried to look deep in thought, just for good measure. It was soppily humid, and she felt a bead of sweat trickle down the middle of her back. Maybe she should give up on shopping today, she thought. Trying to yank a slinky dress on when she was sticky with perspiration wasn’t exactly high on her list of fun things to do.

Then she spotted one more shop, across the street and up another block, that she hadn’t tried. The name on the black and white striped awning read “Suzette’s.” She didn’t think she knew a Suzette. Maybe it was someone who was new to town. Maybe it was an artist—a dress designer or a jewelry maker—who had come to participate in one of the occasional fashion shows held at the arts center and decided to stay. It happened fairly often, thanks to the town’s picturesque beauty. George’s hopes rose; maybe she wouldn’t know anyone in there, and she could shop in peace, without anybody quizzing her about her date.

Her optimism renewed, she headed over to Suzette’s, gnawing on the crust of her pizza slice.

 

“We’re closed.”

“But you were open a second ago.”

“George, right?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re closed.”

The woman’s shadowed face was only partially visible in the divided panes of glass in the door, but George knew a cranky look when she half-saw it. She stood there, staring at the door, trying to figure out what was happening. Then a hand reached up to turn the little cardboard sign from “open” to “closed,” and George recognized the hand’s sparkly manicure.

“Audra?”

“Who wants to know?”

George felt stupid shouting at a closed door, but Audra had just out-stupided her. “You just said—!”

“Go away.”

“Look . . . what the hell is your problem?” Might as well cut to the chase, she figured.

“You can’t shop here.”

“Why the hell not?”

“It’s my shop. I say who can shop here and who can’t.”

Even though George had more pressing issues, she couldn’t help asking, “Wait—who’s Suzette, then?”

“My great-grandmother. It sounds more French. French is classy.”

“Okay . . .”

Audra’s heavily made-up eyeball loomed in one of the glass panes. “You’re looking for a dress, right? For the Taste of Whalen thing?”

She sighed. Why was she even a
little
surprised word had gotten out, even about something so mundane? “So?”

“Because you’re going out on a date with Casey Bowen, bitch.”

“Celia’s my homegirl, okay? You mess with her, I’ll mess you up.”

George had no idea why Audra had suddenly gone ghetto, but she got the gist. “Audra, not that I owe you any explanation or anything, but it’s not a date.”

“Casey belongs with Celia. Stay away from him. I’m warning you!”

At this point George started laughing at the absurdity of the situation. “Or what? You’re going to beat me up under the bleachers after school lets out?”

“Just step off.”

“You know, I really don’t need this aggra—”

She stopped and turned when someone tapped her on the shoulder. Nobody was there. She looked down to find an older woman, about four and a half feet tall, auburn wig slightly askew, peering up at her.

“Don’t mind Audra, sweetie,” the woman said in a slightly shaky voice. “She’s always been a bit . . . tightly wound.”

“Mrs. Osterberg?” George barely stopped herself from adding
I thought you’d be dead by now.

“It’s lovely to see you, dear. I had been planning on stopping by and bringing you a cake to say welcome home, but I couldn’t remember if you liked vanilla or chocolate.”

“Mrs. Osterberg, how in the world would you ever remember whether one of your former kindergarten students liked vanilla or chocolate cake?”

“Oh, I remember everything from my teaching days. But I can never remember if I’ve put my teeth in every morning.” She laughed, and George caught sight of some pink gums. She wondered if she should fill the woman in on today’s denture status, but before she did, her old teacher said, “For what it’s worth, I’m on your side, dear.”

“My . . .
side?
I don’t—”

Mrs. Osterberg patted her arm and winked. “Team George all the way, that’s me.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Don’t you worry about Audra. Just between us, she’s always been rather obnoxious. I never liked her much. Although Celia’s very sweet.” Completely confounded, George shook her head slowly as her old teacher called out, “Audra! Get yourself a juice box. You know you always get cranky when your blood sugar drops.” To George, she said, “Remember, don’t worry. You’re doing just fine.” And she continued down the street.

George had a vague recollection that Mrs. Osterberg always said that to her when she was practicing her letters and numbers in kindergarten: “Don’t worry. You’re doing just fine.” But she had no idea what the little gnome was on about this time.

 

“Hi. It’s me.”

“Hey!” George was slightly surprised Casey was calling. She wasn’t proud of the fact that her first thought was maybe he was calling to cancel—and the corresponding stab of fear hit her in the stomach with a little too much force. “What’s up?”

“There’s a small problem. I’m going to be a little late.”

That was all right. Late she could deal with. She leaned over to pull the strap of her sandal over her heel, caught sight of her cleavage in the mirror, had her thousandth second thought about the dress she’d chosen, realized it was too late, and vowed never to bend over the entire night just in case she gave someone (Casey?) a view of skin all the way down to her navel.

“Everything okay?” she asked, stuffing her boobs back into the gauzy fabric that was doing a piss-poor job of containing them.

“Yeah, yeah,” Casey rushed to reassure her. “It’s just . . . Big D asked if he could borrow my truck to help his cousin move, and he’s not back yet. I knew I should’ve said no . . . of all days . . . He was supposed to be back an hour ago at the latest.”

George smiled to herself at how concerned he sounded. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I’ll figure something out. I’ll call Jill, see if I can borrow her car—”

“Casey.”

“Or maybe Elliot doesn’t need his—”

“Casey!”

“I don’t suppose you’d be interested in riding to Whalen on a tractor, would you?”

“Casey,” she said a third time, patiently, “I have a car, remember? I’ll drive.”

There was a silence. A long, heavy silence.

“What?” George demanded.

“Well . . .”

“Don’t tell me you’ve got a problem with a woman driving you someplace.”

“No, of course not.”

“What, then?”

More silence.

“Is this about my driving?
Why
does everybody give me shit about this? It just so happens I drive fine!”

“Okay, okay!”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes. No arguments.”

 

Casey started when he heard the back door slam, then George’s high heels clacking on the floor. Her footsteps got louder as she got closer to the sitting room, and Casey told himself to look casual. He toyed with the idea of resting his elbow on the fireplace mantel, tried it, realized he looked like an idiot, and put his arm down just as George stalked past, spotted him in the room at the last second, and changed course.

“See?” she exclaimed, positioned in the double doorway as though at center stage, arms extended out from her side, a tiny silver clutch in one hand. The gems in her bracelet glinted in the light. “I got here in one piece. Perfectly safe.” She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “What?”

From somewhere deep in the recesses of Casey’s suddenly fogged brain, a command floated to the top.
Say something.
But he couldn’t obey. Because he couldn’t form words. His mouth was dry, his throat constricted, his palms damp, his fingers icy. Maybe, he thought, this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

George,
he told himself.
It’s just George. Deal.

But he couldn’t do that, either. This was not just George—not the George he knew. This woman in front of him was . . . well, what he always thought a goddess would look like. She was in a light blue dress made of some filmy fabric that clung to her torso, then flared out below her waist. It dipped low in front, showing off so much of her pale skin it made his brain seize up. Her strawberry-blond hair swept forward over one shoulder. Her dark amber eyes glittered as she stared at him, and it occurred to him he really,
really
should have said something by now.

“What’s the matter with you?” she asked, starting to look more concerned than truculent.

“Nothing,” he finally answered her, and his voice was raspy. “You look beautiful.”

She obviously didn’t expect that. Her hands dropped limply to her sides, and she glanced around uncomfortably. “. . . Thanks?”

And now Casey had an overwhelming urge to go to her, feel her smooth skin under his hands. The more he thought about that, the more disjointed his thoughts became. Before he knew what he was doing, he found himself across the room, inches from her, his gaze darting to her dress, her shoulders, her face, her hair, her hands, wanting to take in everything at once.

But the more he stared at her hungrily, the more jumpy she became. She looked off to one side and crossed her arms, her free hand grasping her elbow. “Should we get going?”

“Yeah, of course,” he rushed to answer, extending a hand to direct her out of the room first. She turned to go, and Casey nearly fell over at the sight of her very bare back, framed by mere slips of fabric from her shoulders down to her waistband. The rest was all George’s skin, and he had to force himself not to reach out a hand to find out if it was as soft as it looked.

“You look really good too, you know,” she said as they walked down the hallway toward the back door.

“Thanks.” He’d better; he felt like he was going to suffocate in this monkey suit. Once they got out into the slightly cooler air of evening, he was able to take a more satisfying breath, but he wasn’t sure if his struggle to breathe was caused by the tux or George.

“I’m driving, you know,” George argued preemptively. “Don’t get any ideas about getting behind the wheel of the Pink Lady, because it’s not going to happen.”

“Wouldn’t even dream of asking. But am I at least allowed to open your door for you?”

“Oh.” She had reached for the handle, but she let her hand drop. “Sure.”