“Wow, you’ve thought of everything, Claire. I’m impressed.”
Claire laughed, but she was flattered. “If this impresses you, I’m glad I didn’t go to the bother of getting one of the big restaurants to cater this.”
“Well, I am a poor student don’t forget, so I don’t need fancy things to impress me.”
“I’ll remember that.” She didn’t know why she’d just said that, but she would remember Amanda’s words. And yet she also wanted to spoil Amanda if the opportunity ever arose.
They ate cheese and crackers and drank nonalcoholic strawberry coolers and talked about one of Claire’s favorite topics—books. They discovered they’d both read Wally Lamb’s latest, as well as Jonathan Franzen’s. They both loved Sue Miller, Anne Tyler, Alice Munro—character-driven novels. Claire went on at length about her latest visit to a bookstore and her discovery of a new author. “Actually, she’s been around for a long time, since the 1970s, but she’s only written a few books—Hilma Wolitzer. I loved In the Palomar Arms.”
“Can I borrow it?”
“Of course. I’ll dig it out for you when we get back to Chicago. It’s funny how your aunt hates those kinds of books.”
“I know. I swear the only books she reads are lesbian romances.”
Claire smiled, thinking of the bookcase in her own bedroom that was full of them. “Actually, there’s nothing wrong with lesbian romances. Some of them are really quite good.”
“I know that.”
“You do?”
Amanda’s face colored at her confession. For a moment Claire was tempted to press, but chose not to. She was dying to ask which of the lesbian novels were her favorites, but didn’t. She was dying to know too if Amanda had a girlfriend, or if she’d ever been in love with a woman. She was too shy and didn’t want to make Amanda uncomfortable.
“Ready for a little hiking among the rocks?”
“Oh yeah!”
Chapter Fourteen
Dani
So much for lounging in bed and a little premarital sex. Shannon had torn out of the room at the ungodly hour of nine o’clock to meet with the florist, then the caterers. To Dani, tending to such wedding details was like a trip to the dentist. Oh, she wanted the gorgeous, perfect wedding, all right. Was more than happy to pay for it. Well, had been more than happy to pay for it when she thought the bottomless well that was her job was going to keep bringing up those golden buckets. But Shannon loved the details and loved being busy. Planning the wedding was pretty much her domain, and Dani was glad for it.
In their room, she was on her second cup of coffee and the third section of the Las Vegas Review when Shannon returned.
“Hi, love!” She blew Dani a kiss.
“Hi yourself. How’d it go?”
She kicked her sandals off and joined Dani at the little bistro table by the window. “Any more of this coffee left?”
Dani nudged the carafe toward her. “Help yourself.”
Shannon poured herself a cup. “Can you believe it? No hitches so far! The flowers are going to be awesome. The orchids are absolutely beautiful, you should see them!”
“And the food?”
“Oh my God, I’ve been sampling things all morning. You should see these little canapés shaped like hearts, they’re so cute.”
“Hearts?” Dani snickered.
“And the champagne fountain is like nothing I’ve ever seen before! It’s eight feet high, can you believe that? It’s like something out of a Food Network show.”
Dani winced. Christ, this shit is going to cost a bloody fortune. But now was not the time to dwell on the negatives. It was too late to scale back anyway; they’d have to suck it up. “Back to the food,” she said, deliberately lightening her tone. “See anything pink and succulent and that belongs in my mouth? You know, kinda rosebud shaped?”
Shannon studied her hard, straining to figure out what she was talking about before Dani’s lewd intent dawned on her. “Dani Berringer, you’re a pig!”
Dani stuck her tongue out and waggled it acrobatically. “You know you want it.”
Shannon’s face predictably grew heated as her gaze settled on Dani’s tongue. Oh yeah, Shannon knew what that tongue could do to her. Let’s see her resist it! Shannon was squirming in her chair a little, getting hungrier, her defenses clearly weakening. It wouldn’t be long.
“Dammit, Dani. We have to go to the airport and pick up your sister in a few minutes.”
Dani stood and reached for her lover’s hand as though she were asking for a dance. She led her to the king bed. “We’ve got at least ten minutes before we need to grab a cab. C’mon baby, let me do you. You know you want me to.”
A gentle nudge sent Shannon toppling backward onto the bed, giggling and protesting mildly while simultaneously Dani stripped off her shorts and underwear. Shannon never could resist an oral display of Dani’s love for her, and Dani, for her part, loved going down on Shannon. Many times at work she had sat at her desk with the vision of getting down on her knees, pulling Shannon to the edge of the bed and burying her face in the sweet, willing wetness that felt and tasted like home to her. It made the afternoons at work crawl by when she longed to slip home for a little afternoon delight. Now she dropped to her knees and ardently performed, her tongue, lips and mouth giving endless pleasure to her lover.
“OhGodohGodohGod,” Shannon muttered in breathless ecstasy over and over again. “I love when you suck me off. Oh Dani, suck me!”
Dani loved the verbal urgings, loved how Shannon’s hips pushed in sync against her mouth, loved the hands that tangled in her hair and roughly pulled her in, mashing her face against the slick velvetiness. Even as Shannon, dripping wet and bucking wildly, came in her mouth, she didn’t want to stop. She kept it up until Shannon pulled away and turned over, still writhing and spent.
“God, I love doing that to you,” Dani whispered excitedly, softly stroking Shannon’s back. “I could do that all day.”
“Honey, if you did that all day there’d be nothing left of me. And nothing left of your tongue.”
Dani laughed. “Well, we could always try it and see if your theory is correct.”
“Oh, God, you’re trying to kill me with kindness.”
“Is there a better way to go?”
“Please tell me the sex isn’t going to dry up after we get married.”
Dani gently turned her over and kissed her deeply. “Never, my love. Even when we’re dead tired and the baby’s crying in the next room, we are not going to stop having sex.”
“Shit, look at the time. We need to get going.”
Dani sighed loudly. “I know, I know. God only knows what kind of trouble Heather might get into if we leave her alone in Vegas.” She was kidding, but not entirely.
Heather, three years older, had been the first to rebel. Not long out of high school and working as a bank teller in their hometown, she successfully seduced the older, married branch manager. The scandal erupted when, at twenty-one, she became pregnant, and much to everyone’s surprise, her thirty-six-year-old lover actually left his wife for her. The problem was compounded by the fact that the wronged wife was the local Baptist minister’s daughter, and so Bob and Heather were pretty much run out of town on a rail. They ended up in Portland, Oregon, and married on their son’s second birthday. With an older sister bringing such scandal and unforgivable shame upon the family so early on, Dani’s taking off to college and supporting herself, and then her avowed lesbianism, didn’t spark quite the same fireworks. Not that her parents approved of her by any stretch of the imagination, but it would have been worse without Heather having blazed a trail. She owed a debt to Heather for being her own person, for raising her middle finger to the world and making her own choices, because her actions had given Dani the confidence to do the same.
Thirty minutes later, in her short shorts and tight, neon pink tank top, Heather hugged them both. “How are my two favorite girls?”
Dani smirked and couldn�
�t resist teasing. “I thought your two favorite girls were compliments of that talented boob doctor in L.A.”
Three years ago, newly divorced from Bob and dating a guy fourteen years her junior, Heather had gotten an expensive breast augmentation with her alimony settlement. The boyfriend was gone now, but the boobs remained. Heather rolled her eyes. “Dani Berringer, I know you’re a boob woman, so don’t even pretend to disparage these babies.”
Dani shook her head. Her sister always knew how to put her in her place.
“How’s your cold?” Shannon asked.
“Much better, thank you. Good drugs help, and the lure of coming to Vegas! It’s so nice and warm here, I love it. By the way, how are the blushing brides doing? You guys okay?”
“Nerves of steel,” Dani answered. “Thanks for coming. Seriously.”
“Aw, sweetie, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Just because the rest of our family are a bunch of jackasses, it’s their loss not to be here.”
Dani had never been able to write off her family as effortlessly as Heather. As much as it pissed her off, a small part of her still craved her parents’ approval. She knew it was a waste of time and a waste of her emotional energy, but just once she wanted them to say “good job,” or “well done,” or “we’re proud of you.” Her sensible side knew it was never going to happen, but she couldn’t stop trying to figure out why the sun continued to shine out of her younger brother Jim’s ass and never hers. He was a high school dropout, twice divorced and a hard-core alcoholic, and yet he could do no wrong in their parents’ eyes. Same with the youngest in the family, Mary. She was the good girl, and so she probably actually deserved her parents’ admiration, except that she knew it and ate it right up. She dutifully and happily conformed to the script her parents would have written for all of them. She’d gotten a job as a secretary out of high school, then quit in her mid-twenties to marry a solid, nerdy guy from the same church. Mary also lived up to her name, for she was very religious, perhaps even more so than their parents. Seven years younger than Dani, they weren’t close, but that hadn’t stopped Mary from condemning Dani’s “sick and perverted lifestyle” several years ago. Yes, she’d used those very words in a letter Dani had committed to memory before burning it. They hadn’t spoken since.
“Yeah, well,” Dani quipped, “there’s probably a big Cornhuskers basketball game on this weekend. You know, something important.”
“Yeah, or a sale on Budweiser at that gas station down the street.”
The three of them laughed, knowing the comments probably weren’t far off the mark. Their parents had been sent an all-expenses-paid invitation to the wedding, but the returned RSVP simply said they couldn’t make it, without explanation. Well, that was fine, Dani told herself. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to make it to their funerals one day, either.
Later over a glass of wine, just the two of them, Dani asked her sister how she was really doing. She looked older, a little more worn down since the last time they’d seen each other nearly a year ago. Her latest boyfriend, this time younger by only single digits, was taking a little time out from the whole committed relationship thing at the moment, Heather explained with rolled eyes. But her job at an investment company was good and her son Jack, a college sophomore now, was doing great. He was the one bright spark in her life, a good boy who treated his mother right and was excelling in his pre-med courses, she said. “But don’t worry, Mom and Dad wouldn’t be impressed even if Jack discovered the cure for cancer.”
“Yeah, well, fuck them.”
“If you really meant that, then why’d you invite them to your wedding?”
“How about if I blame Shannon and say it was her idea.”
“Nice try.”
“All right.” Dani sighed loudly, having no legitimate explanation. “I don’t know, okay? I guess I try to keep rewriting the story, hoping the ending will magically change. You ever read a book or watch a movie, and you don’t like the ending, so you kind of make up a whole new one in your mind and then believe that’s really the way it went down? Like Romeo and Juliet used body doubles or something and ran off together. Or Hitler actually got offed in one of those assassination attempts.”
Heather looked at her quizzically. “Dani, I wouldn’t know a happy ending if it bit me in the ass, okay? Anyway, you’re better off just forgetting about them, like I do.”
Dani shrugged and sipped her wine. Heather was right, of course, but it was hard to give up something she’d secretly yearned for most of her life. Wanting that parental connection and approval seemed especially important now that she was getting closer to becoming a parent. So she battled with the pragmatic and cynical part of herself that was like Heather and knew it was useless; the other part wanted to try one more time. “It’d be nice if just once—”
“Don’t even go there, sis. Listen to yourself.”
“I know, I know. Pathetic, isn’t it?”
“What’s pathetic is there’s no good-looking young guys in this place.” She scanned the lounge until she spotted the only man under thirty-five—a cowboy type with the makings of a beer belly. “Anyway, baby, life goes on, you know? You got the world by the balls. A gorgeous fiancée, a job that pays you more money than you know what to do with, and pretty soon a baby too.”
Something heavy, like a lead ball, lodged deep in her belly. It was a sense of foreboding because for the first time today, Heather was not right about something. Dani couldn’t bring herself to contradict her and tell her about her job.
Chapter Fifteen
Amanda
They heard the commotion before they came upon the cause of it. Someone was yelping in pain. Terrible pain. Claire was off and running like a shot, quickly disappearing on the trail ahead.
By the time Amanda caught up, Claire was bent over a gray-haired man lying on the ground, her attention on his leg. She looked solemn, concentrated, totally in doctor mode. The man’s face was pale, constricted in pain, and upon closer inspection, Amanda saw that his ankle was badly broken. She had never seen a broken ankle before, but the fact that his foot was facing the wrong direction was a pretty good indication of how badly it was broken. Someone was on their cell phone calling 911 and Claire was asking the man questions to keep him conscious, checking his pulse at the same time. She directed Amanda to collect jackets or extra clothing from people to help keep him from going into shock.
“Is there anything else we can do?” Amanda asked after she’d completed her task, her stress spiking at the whimpers of pain from the man. What she really wished for was that Claire could fix him, stop his pain, but of course that was impossible.
“His pulse is fairly strong, his breathing is a little ragged. His BP is probably on the low side. I’d like to keep him from passing out and going into shock. Other than that, we need to wait for the paramedics.” Her expression was grim as she whispered to Amanda, “He’ll need surgery right away.”
Amanda couldn’t keep looking at the crooked foot without wanting to throw up. She engaged in conversation with a couple of the others who’d stuck around to see if they could help. She was fully confident and relieved that Claire was on the job. If she were injured or sick in any way, she would want Claire by her side, offering comfort and reassurance, just as she was doing now.
It was a good thirty minutes before the paramedics appeared, though it felt much longer. Probably to the poor guy too, who seemed to be holding his own thanks to Claire’s attentiveness.
“Jeez, I felt so useless back there,” Claire confessed quietly on the hike back.
“Are you kidding me? You were totally professional and a huge comfort to that guy. I’m sure he would have been in a lot worse shape if you hadn’t been there to help. The rest of us would have been in a lot rougher shape too I suspect. We’d have been whining like helpless babies.”
“I highly doubt that.”
“No, you were amazing. You knew exactly what to do.”
“Just basic first aid was a
ll it was. If he’d been having a baby instead, I would have felt much more at home.”
Amanda laughed. “Now that I would like to see!” She was too shy to show how totally impressed she was. In a crisis, Claire acted just as she’d expected she would—calm, in command, compassionate, competent. Her respect for Claire took another leap forward, and she tried hard not to seem like she had the biggest crush in the world on the very capable Dr. Cooper. “Anyway, you did great.”
“I think I’ve worked up an appetite. And I could use a drink after all that. Do you mind if we head back and look for a restaurant on the edge of town somewhere?”
“I’d love to.”
The sun was beginning to set by the time they pulled into the parking lot of an Italian bistro. The colors of the desert and the mountains seemed to ignite under the setting sun, seared with golds and pinks and burnt oranges.
“What do you think of the desert and all the open space?” Claire asked after they were seated at a small table beside a large window. A votive candle shimmered from a bowl of rose-colored water in the center of the table, lending a decidedly romantic air to the environment.
“It does feel a little strange here after being surrounded by skyscrapers everywhere back in Chicago. But as an architecture nut, I can understand why you would ask me that, and I like the change. It feels like you can actually breathe here with all the open space. Nature and architecture don’t necessarily have to be at odds with one another.”
“Have you ever thought of becoming an architect?”
Amanda smiled at the question. “You mean instead of just studying the art and history of it? Yes, and I still might one day. But I’ve always wanted to be a student of architecture before ever becoming an architect myself. I want to be an expert in the history and appreciation of it before ever trying to build something myself. I don’t think you can build anything new without understanding what came before it.”
The bottle of Chianti Claire had ordered arrived, and they waited for the waitress to fill their glasses and take their dinner order—chicken parmesan for Claire, gnocchi for Amanda—before Claire said, “That makes sense, actually. Kind of like learning about the history of wine and how it’s made in different cultures before trying to make it yourself.”
The Wedding Party Page 10