Down on Love

by Jayne Denker

  “Next Friday night. That’s enough time for you to change your mind at least three times, but I hope you don’t.”

  “No guarantees.”

  “Oh—and it’s black tie.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “A date?!”

  “It’s not a date. It’s . . . research.”

  “Oh, honey, no,” Jaz said smugly as she gingerly lowered herself to the floor to start her back exercises. “It’s a date. You probably haven’t been on one for so long you’ve forgotten, but that is definitely a date.”

  George turned to Sera. “Need a ruling.”

  Her sister made a face and said nothing at first. Then, “I suppose it’ll be what you make it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? And who sewed your lips into that weird Church Lady pucker?”

  “It sounds like a date. I thought you weren’t interested in dating.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Then why are you going on one? With Casey Bowen?”

  “Wait a minute.” George looked up from peeking in Amelia’s diaper; it was mercifully empty. For the moment, at least. “You like Casey.”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t like Casey. I just . . . think you should be careful.”

  Now both George and Jaz stopped what they were doing to stare at her. Amelia did too, probably wondering what everybody was so incredulous—and, for once, silent—about.

  “He’s the most un-psycho guy George could possibly date,” Jaz said.

  “We’re not dating!” George threw in.

  “I didn’t say he was a psycho, either.”

  “Then what’s your problem?” Jaz challenged her wife.

  “Don’t gang up on me,” Sera snapped. “I’m just saying George is . . . vulnerable. And she’s spent all this time saying she’s not interested in dating, and now . . .”

  “Well, I think they’re adorable together.” Jaz’s words became muffled as she lowered her face to the carpet.

  “Ew. ‘Adorable’? Now you make me want to cancel.”

  “Don’t you dare!” she admonished, looking up abruptly. “I think you’re good for each other.”

  “Now you sound like we need fixing.”

  “Maybe you do.”

  “We’re not broken.”

  “Sweetie, everybody’s broken in one way or another. And we’re all looking for the one person who can help the broken part heal.”

  “I happen to be of the mind that nobody can heal us but us. The only purpose for a significant other is to have someone to hang out with.”

  Jaz’s smile was more of a grimace as she slowly pushed up on her hands. Panting a little, she said, “Then you’ve never had a decent significant other.”

  “I could have told you that.”

  George absently started playing with one of Amelia’s toys, stacking some primary-colored, graduated rings on a plastic spike, which, of course, inspired Sera to snipe, “Challenging your mind again, little sister?”

  “Bite me.”

  “Aren’t you wasting time? You should be shopping for a dress,” Jaz reminded her.

  “Ugh. Don’t remind me.” George liked shopping as much as the next chick, but formal wear was a little out of her league. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had to buy a fancy dress. Oh wait, yes she could—her prom. And even then she hadn’t had a date. Was she really so pathetic that she couldn’t recognize an actual date when it was staring her in the face? Was this occasion way more loaded than she was letting herself believe?

  Was she really going out on a date with Casey Bowen? After all this time?

  This was utterly, completely bananas. And yet she was going, wasn’t she? Why yes, she was already thinking about suffering through shopping for a dress.

  “Say hey to Mrs. P for us.”

  And that was where she’d gotten her prom dress. Some things never changed.

  No, George decided. No Missy’s Hits for Misses—not this time. She just couldn’t bear to go into Mrs. P’s shop; she couldn’t look at the woman ever again without thinking about the e-mail asking for advice on how to get some octogenarian to drop his trousers. If it had been her. And George still wasn’t convinced it hadn’t been, no matter that Casey had explained how unlikely it was.

  And—oh God—what if Mrs. P had heard through the grapevine that she and Casey were going to Taste of Whalen? She’d never be able to face her. That wink, that leer, the inevitable probing questions, the details that would be broadcast to the rest of the town within seconds of George’s leaving the shop, not to mention what kind of garish, sequin-laden dress the well-meaning proprietor would try to foist on her . . . Nope, nothing doing. There were other high-end clothing shops in town—certainly more than had been around when she last lived in Marsden—and she was going to investigate them.

  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 ign
oring 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?

  Chapter 16

  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 w
ore 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.