True Blend

by DeMaio, Joanne

  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.

  “V-3,” she says to Grace when she notices the square sign mounted high on a lamppost. She bends forward to see her daughter’s face, hoping her words are an invisible lifeline. They keep coming, her words, one on top of the other, to keep Grace from going under. “It’s busy here. We have to remember that Mommy parked in row V-3, halfway up.” She approaches the entrance door, just to the right of the row in which she parked. “V-3, V-3,” she repeats, committing it to memory.

  * * *

  George is in two places at once. He ties on his black apron and stands in front of the meat grinder at The Main Course. The beef has to be ground first, while the machine is still cold. He knows this without thinking. Bits of bone have a tendency to break warm gears or chip warm knives. But today his heart isn’t in preparing the comfort foods for his clientele in this small plaza of shops. Because part of him is still sitting in Detective Hayes’ office, where he had been summoned before work, glancing at the shoulder holster holding the detective’s department-issued firearm. Could George have used the gun he had held? Should he have turned it on Reid and put a stop to that whole day? Brought it to an end with a bullet?

  He maneuvers the meat into the grinder. The sound of Dean’s voice talking with lunch customers up front reaches him the same way Detective Hayes’ message on his voicemail did, asking him to stop in before work. “Coffee?” Hayes asked when George sat earlier in the wooden chair beside the desk. George waved him off. What he’d like to do is wave his whole life off. Just take enough of the damn money and go. Pack a bag, board a plane and disappear into the skies, leaving the mess of his life in the white vapor trail behind the jet, evaporating with each passing day. But he can’t. He won’t leave Amy behind, alone.

  Curls of meat exit the chopper as he continues to feed in more.

  “The FBI completed an analysis of the psychological profiles of our suspects. Our intention now is to mesh different angles of thinking with the profiles. It’s a method of drawing out their identities and estimating their movements following the crime.”

  “Okay. Makes sense,” George answered, resting an arm on the desktop and studying the detective’s face. Hayes was clean-shaven, his light brown hair combed back and his heavyset frame in pretty good shape. The casual clothes and composure indicated a learned patience. But his holster fit as well as his shirt, leaving George no doubt that Hayes knew precisely the quickest route to slipping his weapon from its place and aiming it at someone’s head. He must have spent days at target practices during his years on the force. Maneuvers had been mastered, situations predicted. George had lifted the forty-five from his dresser drawer last night after bringing Amy home, laid it on his kitchen table and familiarized himself with its eight-round magazine, its rounded trigger guard, its four-inch barrel.

  Did he fit the psychological profile? Did the profile suggest that the suspect never once pulled a gun trigger? That the suspect protected the life of a child? That the suspect just last night aimed the loaded gun at his reflection to try to feel what Amy had felt? Until he saw his father looking back at him in shame? He removes the overflowing plate of ground beef now and starts on a second round.

  “One scenario we’ve devised is that every single aspect of that day was painstakingly planned to manipulate our thinking and investigating. It isn’t pure dumb luck that left us with a cold trail. And if this idea holds any water, then you are clearly part of the plan, George. They would have observed you recently and specifically selected you as their accomplice, if you will, without your knowledge.”

  George eases up on the pressure when the meat starts to back up. Damn right it was without his knowledge. Would that count for anything, if he started talking right then and there? If he came clean with the detective? If he drove him to his home, released the latch behind the kitchen tiles, pulled out the hidden safe, separated the zippers on the duffel bags and opened the flaps to banded stacks of currency, the scent of ink and paper rising to meet them?

  “They knew there was a dragnet in place searching for them and couldn’t risk losing four million by accidentally handing the girl over to an undercover guy in a parking lot. They insured that bankroll with total premeditated control. Nothing was left to chance—not their freedom, not the welfare of the child. Her wellbeing was put into a familiar, upstanding citizen’s hands to ensure no assault or murder charges. Your hands.”

  George spoons the two full plates of ground beef into a display tray, pressing the edges with the spoon back. “Got it. They researched me and trusted I’d take care of her.”

  “In which case, you would have been tailed that entire day. They couldn’t lose you before finishing the crime as planned. And that explains why they held the kid so long. That unaccounted-for block of time’s been a thorn in my side. But they were waiting for you to get back from the casino.”

  George still wavers between the two places at once. He takes the grinder apart and washes each piece with soap and hot water before setting them out to air dry. The knife and plate stay together because they wear to fit each other during grinder use and can’t be interchanged with others. This, too, he knows without thinking. His movements are rote, including the visual inspection ensuring no food is drying on the surfaces, so rote his mind is still in Detective Hayes’ office.

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nbsp; “So I’m looking for your itinerary,” Hayes said. “Start to finish. I know you came from the casino, but I need exact times, names of who accompanied you, any stops along the way for coffee, food, the tables you played, who you talked to, ETAs, ETDs.”

  George sets a thinner plate and knife on the grinder and tightens the adjustment ring. He needs to prepare breadcrumbs for the cranberry herb stuffing. It didn’t take him long to relinquish Nate’s, Steve’s and Craig’s names. Normal. That’s what he told the detective. It was a normal day, four friends spending it at the casino.

  He picks up a knife, hacks a chunk of bread off a day-old loaf and feeds it slowly into the chopper. Too much at once will jam the gears. He knows that, too, without thinking.

  One more thing he knows: Distractions cause accidents while working the knives—he’s got the scars to prove it. So with worries about Amy coming at him from one direction, and the authorities from another, and his brother from a third, he knows to stay away from the combination of razor-sharp boning knives and slippery sinew and bones. Instead he sticks with the breaded stuffing, leaving the chicken thighs for Dean to debone.

  All while picturing Detective Hayes picking up the phone, calling the casino and requesting the surveillance video, completely unaware that he is hot on the right trail.

  * * *

  “Will this be on your credit card?”

  “No. Cash today.” Amy sets a royal blue tankini and a pair of tropical flip-flops on the counter.

  “It’s going to be a nice weekend for the beach,” the sales associate, Susan, says.

  “I know, we can’t wait to get there.” Grace sits in the stroller, stretching and pressing against the safety strap, restless after an hour of trying on swimsuits and cover-ups. And Amy’s glad. Any expression of emotion, including agitation, is welcome. Grace twists back and looks up at her as she pulls her wallet from her handbag.

  “Don’t you love this style?” Susan folds the swimsuit into white tissue paper and slips it into a shopping bag, then counts back the change. “And remember to bring sunscreen, too!”