“Maybe because we think alike,” Brandon guessed, opening the door for him and bowing low. “Up, up, and away!”
Buddy shuffled out the door, thinking of his little secret, the bottle he’d picked up and stashed in his bedside table, where even in the mightiest of cleaning fits Brandon wouldn’t look. Ava was a lady, but there was no sense in not being prepared, not living up to the Boy Scout code. The name on the label might be Viagra, but it was really a bottle of hope for men of all ages.
Up, up, and away, indeed.
“Laura wants to know if you went with the white suit,” Suzanne called from the kitchen, the portable phone pressed to her ear. “She thinks that would be great with your coral-colored shell.”
“She did. She’s just putting on the last touches of makeup,” Molly called back.
“What did she do for a necklace?” Laura asked, her tone suggesting that this was a matter of incredible importance rather than a simple accessory.
Maybe witches have a thing about jewelry, Suzanne thought. They sure as hell wear enough of it.
“Mom!” Suzanne called. “Laura wants to know what necklace!”
“Tell her the pearls,” Ava bellowed back.
“She went with pearls,” Suzanne informed her. “The ones Grandpa gave her when she graduated.”
“Single strand or double?”
“Single.”
“Good.” Laura nodded on her end. “Classic, elegant, never goes out of style. Perfect. Earrings to match?”
“My mother wouldn’t leave the house without earrings to match,” Suzanne said wryly. “But they’re dainty pearls, not those god-awful great big fake monstrosities you see on little old ladies at the mall.”
Molly rushed out of the bathroom beaming, clasping her hands in excitement. “Wait till you see her,” she gushed. “She’s a vision. She looks like a model.”
“For cream for mature skin or for adult diapers?” Ava asked airily, floating out into the kitchen and twirling slowly. “Do I have anything stuck to my ass? And while we’re at it, does my ass look like a buffalo’s in these slacks?”
“Grandma!” Molly said, swatting at her. “You look fabulous, and you know it. You do yoga at least once a week, and you walk half an hour a day, and that pays off. I’d kill for your glutes.”
“Me too,” Laura shouted over the phone.
“Okay, Laura, I’ve gotta hang up now. We’re about to put the HMS Ava out to sea,” Suzanne said happily.
“You call me the second she gets back with all the details,” Laura warned, “or there will be swift and terrible retribution.”
“I promise! I said I promise three times! Geez, trust a girlfriend, wouldja?”
Laura lowered her voice to a whisper, so only Suzanne would hear it. “And we can also talk about what you’re going to wear to the dinner you’re having with Mr. Sean next week.”
“Shh!” Suzanne glanced over at Molly and Ava, who were looking at her eyelashes in a hand mirror, trying to decide if Ava should use fake eyelashes or not. She lowered her voice. “I haven’t told them yet. I didn’t want anything to distract them from this evening. I’ll tell them tomorrow, I promise.”
“If you don’t, I will!” Laura sang happily before hanging up.
Molly placed her hand on Suzanne’s shoulder, heaving a mock sigh. “You think you’re prepared for it, you spend years telling yourself it’s only a matter of time, but then, it finally happens . . .” She paused to wipe a fake tear away. “Your Grandma finally starts dating.”
“Oh, hush, you,” Ava scolded, but she was obviously pleased.
Suzanne whistled. “I don’t know how to tell you this, Mom,” she sighed, “but you look absolutely, completely, drop-dead gorgeous.”
Ava looked in the mirror. “I do, don’t I?” she said proudly. “Not bad for a broad on the farther reach of sixty-ish.” She closed her compact and slipped it into her purse. “Okay, here I go.”
“Mom?” Suzanne called out warningly. “Don’t be late. If you’re going to be late, call. And just because he buys you dinner doesn’t mean you owe him anything.”
“Boys like it when you play hard to get,” Molly offered.
Ava turned to her, exasperated. “The man has been lusting after me secretly since we were teenagers,” she reminded her granddaughter. “How much harder could I be to get than that?”
Molly smiled impishly. “Then don’t forget to bring protection.”
“What for?” Ava wanted to know. “Neither one of us has had sex since you’d have to worry about such things . . . And I’m pretty sure I won’t get pregnant.”
“Buddy’s been on the sex wagon?” Molly’s eyes widened. “Wow, from the stories Mom’s told me . . .”
“Yeah, but in my experience, the more you brag, the less you do it,” Ava said loftily. “Besides, I asked him.”
“You did what?”
“I asked him.”
Molly was laughing so hard her stomach hurt. “You mean, you called him up and said, ‘Hey, how’s it going? And by the way, when was the last time you got down and dirty?’”
“No.” Ava looked down her nose at her granddaughter. “I did no such thing. I called him to ask if he liked the muffins, and then I asked him—discreetly—when the date of his last, shall we say, intimate contact was.”
“Tell us!” Molly demanded, and Suzanne nodded. “No fair dropping a bomb and then not giving us the details!”
But Ava was shaking her head.
“Let’s just say,” she allowed, “that it couldn’t be safer sex if we were both wearing full body rubber suits.”
“You know what?” Suzanne said suddenly, “I think that Daddy would really, really have liked this.”
Ava turned to her, her eyes both fearful and hopeful. “Do you really think so, dear?”
“I do,” Suzanne nodded. “I think he’d have hated for any other man to have you, but if he couldn’t be with you, I think he’d pick Buddy to be next in line, every time.”
“So do I, Grandma,” Molly echoed enthusiastically. “Buddy’s just . . . well, he rocks. He’s good people.”
“I’ll have to tell him you said so,” Ava said wryly. “Okay.” She drew a deep breath, checked her lipstick one last time in the hall mirror, and squared her shoulders. “Okay, girls, off I go.”
“Ladies don’t do it on the first date!” Suzanne and Molly called in unison and then dissolved into giggles. Ava rolled her eyes. Sometimes, those two, when they got the giggles, there was no stopping them. Now that the tension was gone around the house, all she had to worry about was Suzanne and her disgusting devotion to tobacco.
“None of that tonight,” she told herself aloud. “No worrying tonight. Tonight’s for me. For me and Buddy.”
And from far, far away, she could have sworn she heard Jimmy say, You go get him, kid . . . You’re too great a treasure to stay buried forever.
She opened the door and started down the stairs.
“You’re sure I can’t talk you into a little foundation?” Brandon asked. He was setting up the final touches of the picnic table: two glasses, a bottle of sparkling cider on ice, a boom box quietly playing romantic music. He lit the candles, and the spread was perfect.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Buddy replied. “I’m as modern as any man my age would be, but I draw the line at makeup.”
“Okay.” Brandon took a quick inventory. “Got the candles, got the drinks, got the music, got the citronella candles so you won’t get eaten alive by no-see-ums . . . All we need now is the girl!” he sang, gleefully quoting Gilbert and Sullivan.
“I think that must be my cue.” They heard Ava’s voice cut through the dusk. “Although, I must admit, it’s been a while—several months at least—since anyone’s called me a girl.”
Buddy then saw Ava come down the stairs, her fingertips daintily trailing the handrail.
“Wow, Ava,” Brandon marveled. “You make me think that the straight guys might know what they’re talking abou
t, after all.”
“Do you think?” She turned her eyes to Buddy. “What do you think, Mr. McKinley?”
It took a moment for Buddy to answer, and when it did, he breathed, “Wow.”
“Okay, I’m going to take a powder,” Brandon announced, clapping Buddy on the shoulder. Buddy reached for him, suddenly nervous at the thought of being alone with her. “Hold up a sec,” he said, fumbling. “I think the CD player is . . .”
“Fine.” Brandon leaned in close to Buddy, whispering, “The CD player is fine, and so are you. You’ve got this one covered, Superstud. And to give you privacy, I’m going to hang over at Molly and Suzanne’s tonight.”
“Don’t you mean Ava’s?” Ava complained, pouting her lower lip out seductively. “I’m the one paying the mortgage; I should at least get first dibs on the title.”
“Fine, I’ll be at Ava’s, doing my nails, just a screech away.” Brandon bowed low to the lady—his big move of the night—and leapt up the stairs.
“Make sure you open the windows first this time!” Buddy called after him. “Trust me,” he told Ava, “last time he did that, it took three days to get rid of the smell.”
“I’m used to it,” she told him. “Been sniffing the fumes since I was twelve. Whatever brain cells the booze didn’t get, I lost to acetone.”
Buddy chuckled and then stepped back to get the full view of Ava in her outfit, bathed in candlelight. “You look lovely,” he said simply.
“Thank you for saying it.” She touched her hand to her pearls, then patted her hair, shaking it a little so the back flowed over her shoulders in auburn waves. It made Buddy’s mouth go dry. “When Brandon decided to give me a makeover, and then tonight when the girls were fussing over me, telling me what to wear, I was afraid I would look a little silly.”
“No, you don’t look silly.” He couldn’t stop looking at her, couldn’t really believe she was here, with him. “Silly is definitely not the word that leaps to mind.”
Ava gazed at him then, in the soft light.
“You look just the same,” she said tenderly. “Minus the dimmed lights of the Rochester Community Center, of course.” They shared a laugh about that, and Ava realized suddenly that she already shared a lifetime of memories with this man.
“I have to tell you,” Buddy confided, “I’ve replayed this moment over and over again in my mind for quite some time now. Not that I thought it would ever happen, outside my dreams, that is.”
“I did too,” she admitted. “Couple of times, anyway.”
“You did?”
She smiled. “Don’t sound so surprised; you’re not an easy man to forget, Buddy McKinley. Certainly several dozen of the ladies in your life have told you that.”
“Yeah. But it didn’t mean a damn thing, coming from any of them.”
“Why?”
“Because,” he shrugged, “they weren’t you.”
Ava heard his words and let them sink in for a moment. “For a while,” she recalled, “I just felt so guilty. I hated leading you on, I hated hurting you, I hated breaking up with you at all. But I just couldn’t get that telegram. Two of my girlfriends got that telegram, and they were never the same. You were so upset, I thought you probably hated me, and then when Jimmy started writing . . .”
Buddy held up his hand; no need to go on. It was water that had long since passed under the bridge.
“And then,” she continued, “you were our best friend. Part of the damn family, even. You were the first person to hold Suzanne after she was born. Every Christmas, every Thanksgiving, every Fourth of July, there you were, with your flavor of the moment . . . Every one of them gorgeous, and most of them even able to carry on a conversation with words that were multisyllabic.”
“Dumb women never did much for me,” he agreed.
“And then, after the restaurant business,” she clapped her hands over her eyes, shaking her head, “I hated you. Oh, how I hated you!” She giggled again, the moonlight shining in her hair. “But in all that, I never forgot you. Not ever.”
Buddy tried to think of something witty to say; nothing came to mind.
“Hey, do you want some champagne?” he asked, fishing the bottle out of the ice bucket. When he saw her doubtful gaze, he hastily added, “Well, you know, not champagne, but that stuff that looks like champagne.”
“That would be delightful.” Her ladylike grace was on full tilt that night.
“Here you are.” He carefully handed her a champagne glass not quite filled to the rim. “To . . .” He searched his mind, but he didn’t want to come on too strong too fast. Brandon had warned him that too much gushy right up front could be a turn-off. “Your hair,” he said at last. “I always loved your hair.”
“Really?” She shook it out again so the light from the candles danced in her golden highlights. Buddy wanted to plunge his hands into it, but he managed to control himself. “I always loved your eyes,” she continued. “Not just blue. Dark, dark blue. That’s rare.”
“Oh, sure, as if you could see them,” he tapped his frames, “behind these lenses.”
“Sure you could,” she softly contradicted. “All you had to do was look hard enough.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Buddy could see the kids and Suzanne peering at them through the window. They were having a merry old time spying, then shoving each other out of the way for a better look.
So this is what it would have been like to have children and grandchildren.
He supposed it was the closest he’d ever get, but he didn’t mind that. No, those kids (he still thought of Suzanne as a kid, thirty-six years old or not) were pretty damn special, and he wouldn’t trade a single one of them, even if they weren’t actually flesh and blood.
“I can’t believe this.” He gestured around, his faux champagne sloshing just a little in his cup. “See? Look at my hand. See how nervous you make me?”
“Blame me, will you?” She turned on the boom box. Brandon and Molly had been in charge of the music, and they’d assured Buddy that he’d be pleased. After a moment, the Byrds’s “Turn, Turn, Turn” came flowing from the speakers. “Ah, real music!” Ava cried happily. “Never has there been any decade that could touch the music of the sixties. Ever.”
“I agree with you completely.”
“Care to ask a girl to dance?” Ava batted her eyelashes coyly, just like Brandon had taught her.
For a startling second, Buddy was catapulted right back to that dance, all those years ago, when Ava had uttered those exact words to him.
“Sure,” he said. “But I’m warning you: I’ve got two left feet. You’ll be the one needing a cane by the time we’re done.” He tentatively put his arms around her. She responded by putting hers around him, firmly.
“See? You’re doing fine,” she chided him. “In fact, I feel like I’m walking on air.”
“Yeah, whaddya know?” Buddy asked, pleased with himself. That afternoon’s worth of dance lessons with Brandon and Molly was really paying off. “I guess I’m not so bad, after all.”
“I appreciate you letting me lead with grace and dignity,” she told him.
“Considering the option was falling flat on my ass,” he admitted, “it wasn’t a difficult decision.”
They danced in silence for a moment, drinking in the night.
“You know, on the day I first saw you here, I wouldn’t have believed I’d ever be saying this, but . . . I’m so glad you moved in next door, you big jerk.”
“I wish I could say I planned it,” Buddy said wistfully. “That would be romantic as hell—would make a good story. I can see the headline: OLD BACHELOR CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT HIS FIRST LOVE, SO TRACKS HER DOWN IN THEIR TWILIGHT YEARS.” Oh, now he’d gone and mentioned love. He hoped it wasn’t too soon, but Ava didn’t seem to notice.
“Sure. And if you look in the dictionary, you won’t find the world gullible,” Ava scoffed.
Buddy shrugged, and Ava stopped the dance dead in its tracks.
�
�You can’t tell me, oh, my goodness, you honest-to-Goshen didn’t know?” she asked suspiciously. “It’s okay. You can tell me if you did. I won’t be mad. I’ll be flattered. Can you imagine how jealous Liz Isermann will be? I’m actually surprised she hasn’t made a move for you already.”
“What would be an example of one of Liz’s moves?”
“Oh, she’s got a bagful,” Ava snorted. “But her classic is knocking on the door and telling you she’s got car trouble. Then she’ll ask you to pop her hood and help get her running.”
“Oh, Lord” Buddy winced. “I like direct, but that’s a bit on the too-easy side.”
“Or, she’d drop off a casserole that she made, insist on heating it up for you, and drop enough hints until you couldn’t help but invite her to eat it with you.”
“Ah,” he nodded. “Okay, if she comes over, I’ll just sic Brandon on her.”
“Anyway,” Ava demanded, “don’t think you’re getting out of answering the question. You really, honestly, swear-on-your-life didn’t know I lived here?”
“I’m telling you: I really, really didn’t know.” He shook his head. “Frankly, my dear, if I had known, I don’t think I’d have dared. You, ahem, f-ing hated me for years, you know.”
“Sssshhhh!” She covered his mouth gently with her hand. “I just hate that word, Buddy. Even if you only say ‘f-ing.’ What can we say? What is it that they do on television when something’s live, they . . .”
“They bleep it?” Buddy offered.
“That’s it! Bleeping. That’s it, we’ll call it bleeping. I bleeping hated you.” She grinned at him with satisfaction, then she ducked her head and looked up at him, shyly. “And I didn’t hate you, Buddy. Not really. You know that. I hated what happened.” Ava looking up at him with those big dark eyes was almost too much to bear.
“Me too.” Then he brightened. “Hey, maybe Jimmy talked to some guys up in heaven, and it appealed to their sense of irony.”
Ava laughed, “Suzanne said something really similar right before I left.”
“Did she, now?” His smile broadened. “Well, you know what they say about great minds thinking alike, and all that sh . . . jazz.” He corrected himself at the last minute, and the effort was not lost on Ava.
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