A CLASS ACT

by Pamela Burford

  Seemingly oblivious to Gabe's presence on the sidelines, she leaped to spike the ball over the net, successfully firing it into the sand at her opponents' feet to score the winning point. She shared a triumphant hoot and a spontaneous hug with Scott Cafferty, playing left forward.

  "Devlin's got the moves!" Scott hollered, giving her a congratulatory whack on the rump.

  Most of the players, including Dena, wandered off the court as a handful of diehards tried to drum up interest in another game. Dena was flushed, breathing hard, and Gabe's first thought was that this was how she must look after sex.

  No, not quite, he decided. Her smile would be a tad dreamier, her hair a bit more mussed, her green eyes slumberous.

  But you'll never know for sure.

  Succumbing to an impulse, Gabe caught Dena's eye and wagged his frosty beer bottle invitingly. Her steps slowed. Her expression turned wary as she approached him. He held out his beer to her, knowing she had to be thirsty, silently daring her to turn it down. She stared at the bottle, three-fourths full, and finally took it from him.

  As Gabe watched her take a long swallow, he felt he'd achieved a small victory. There had been a time when he and Dena had shared everything, from bottles of Dr. Brown's black-cherry soda, to the Nestle's Crunch bars they'd both craved, to the pizza they'd ordered at Carlucci's every Friday night without fail, topped with anchovies and fried eggplant. No one else had been able to appreciate the appeal of anchovies and eggplant, but so what? No one and nothing else had mattered, as long as he and Dena were together.

  She handed him the beer, and he took a sip as he placed his hand on her back to steer her toward the water. She stiffened slightly, prompting him to let his hand linger a few more seconds. If Reverend Cafferty of the movie-star hair and the ball-player's build and the tattoo, of all things, could hug her and give her a friendly slap on the bottom, then Gabe could damn well touch her back. He paused on the boardwalk to set down his beer and remove his sandals.

  Dena glanced over her shoulder. "We should be helping Rhonda."

  "Yeah, you sound real enthusiastic about that," he said dryly, as they started shuffling through the sand. "Don't worry, Rhonda Peterson's never had a problem recruiting 'volunteers.' You didn't come to this reunion to be at that woman's beck and call." The sun was slipping into the western sky, casting long shadows and gilding Dena's skin and wind-whipped hair. "Why did you come to this reunion?"

  She shrugged. "For the same reason you did, I suppose."

  I wouldn't be that lucky.

  "To see the old gang," she said. "Get caught up."

  "Or to let everyone see you no longer groom dogs for a living?"

  She shot him a hard look. "You think I came to brag about my accomplishments?"

  "Why not? It's why most of these people are here. To rub everyone else's nose in their success. Ginger Steadman carries around this little photo album with pictures of her summer place in the Hamptons, with the his and hers matching Beamers out front. Making sure everyone knows she married the liposuction king of Park Avenue. To hear her tell it, this guy's trimmed more thighs than Frank Perdue."

  "I don't need to prove anything to anyone."

  "Maybe not," he said, "but I don't mind telling you, I'm impressed. Never knew you had it in you."

  "I know." Her tone was flat, resigned.

  He studied her profile, silently urging her to look at him. When she didn't, he said, "I can't get anything right, can I?"

  They came to a stop, having reached the water's edge. The sand under their feet was wet and studded with shells and sea-tossed stones. A wave rumbled ashore and receded, just missing their toes.

  Dena stared fixedly at the ocean. When she spoke, her voice was strained. "It shouldn't matter. Not anymore. Not after everything else."

  He wanted to reach out, to touch her, soothe her. Instead her said, "What shouldn't matter?"

  "I thought we knew each other so well. Back then. It was almost … almost as if we could read each other's minds."

  He swallowed hard. "I remember."

  "But we never did know each other, not really."

  "Dena. Look at me."

  She closed her eyes briefly, shook her head as if trying to dislodge a persistent tune from her mind. She took a deep breath and raised her face to his, and in that instant as he looked into her eyes, Gabe knew she was right.

  This wasn't the Dena he thought he knew. That Dena used to gaze at him with perfect adoration, making him feel like there was nothing he couldn't do, no worlds he couldn't conquer. That Dena had never looked at him with this cool implacability.

  She said, "Did you think you were the only one with aspirations?"

  His first impulse was to spout another pat denial. But then something broke loose inside him, and he said, "Yes. I guess I did. I was young and stupid. And arrogant."

  His candid response seemed to throw her off balance. "Imagine that," she murmured with a little smile, "an arrogant eighteen-year-old."

  "As far as I was concerned, the future was this bright, wonderful place where I'd work hard and plug myself in to this great life I had all planned out. If I thought of your future at all, I guess I saw it as sort of—well, as an extension of mine. You had these big dreams, but to me, they were just that, because I figured we'd always be together."

  There was that trademark lopsided smile, more cynical than amused. "And in your bright, wonderful future, I would've been tickled pink just to be a member of the team: Mrs. Gabriel Moreau, Esquire."

  "Like I said, young and stupid."

  "And arrogant."

  "I believe we've established that."

  Dena studied him, her expression solemn. "Thank you, Gabe. For your honesty."

  He shrugged. "What have I got to lose at this point?"

  She didn't even try to answer that, but started walking along the shoreline toward the lowering sun, partly concealed by thin stratus clouds tinged pink and apricot. Gabe fell into step beside her. The aromas of charcoal-grilled burgers and hot dogs drifted from the picnic area.

  "Do you still like sunsets?" he asked.

  "I don't think that's something you ever stop liking."

  He used to pick up Dena after school—to do their homework at the library, or so they'd told her parents. He'd park the Camaro someplace where they could watch the sunset, usually the local duck pond, and they'd neck and pet until he thought he'd explode.

  Their pants had always remained zipped, at her insistence, but he'd discovered there was a heck of a lot you could do with your pants zipped. They'd planned to make love for the first time after the senior prom, and Gabe had purchased condoms five months in advance.

  As it happened, neither of them had attended the prom. Gabe's parents, oblivious to the Golf Course Incident and the havoc it had wreaked on his life, had urged him to escort Andrea. Such a nice, sweet, suitable girl, they'd insisted. She and Gabe had so much in common. Why didn't he ask her on a second date?

  As for Dena, even if someone else had invited her to the prom, Gabe could only assume she'd been too humiliated to attend, having become an object of ridicule, thanks to him.

  "Why haven't you ever married?" she asked.

  "Why haven't you?"

  "Objection, Your Honor. Witness is evading the question."

  "And here I was hoping to get away from the courtroom for a week." Gabe reached down and picked up a flat black stone, about the size of his thumb tip. He turned it over in his fingers, let its cool smoothness center him.

  "Isn't that part of your master plan," Dena asked, "along with the partnership and the sprawling home in Greenwich? An ornamental wife, two point three kids—"

  "And the family dog that we'd board at Xanadu so we wouldn't have to feel guilty."

  She chuckled—a coup! "Precisely."

  "It's the old story," he said. "I never met the right woman. And the sprawling home in Greenwich is a sprawling apartment."

  "I know. I saw the photo spread in New England Accents.
"

  He grimaced. "My mother's handiwork. She brought in her decorator. It isn't the way I would've fixed the place up."

  "Then why didn't you?"

  "What?"

  "Fix the place up yourself."

  "Who has time?"

  "Some people make time. So Mom is furnishing your home, and Dad is calling the shots at work. Why do I get the feeling not much has changed in your life?"

  The way Gabe figured it, Dena was entitled to get in a few punches. Still, he felt compelled to point out the obvious. "There's more to life than what kind of sofa you sit on and how many billable hours you put in each week."

  The breeze blew her hair across her face, and she pushed it back. He had the feeling she wanted to ask him to elaborate, but she remained silent.

  "How are Mimi and Carl doing?" he asked, referring to Dena's parents.

  "They retired to southern Maine two years ago. Dad's back got too bad for him to keep working."

  "I always liked your folks. Tell them I said hi."

  She nodded.

  "Or maybe you shouldn't. Do they know what happened? Why we broke up?"

  "No." Dena's voice was tight. "I never told them."

  Gabe should have known. He'd spent weeks looking over his shoulder fifteen years ago, dreading a confrontation with Carl Devlin and his three strapping sons, a confrontation that never materialized.

  "So," Gabe said. "Is there anyone special at the moment?"

  "Not at the moment."

  He felt a glimmer of satisfaction until she added, "I almost got married four years ago."

  He tossed the black stone into the waves. "What happened?"

  "I caught him cheating on me."

  He studied her face for some hint that she was joking. She wasn't.

  She gave a nonchalant shrug. "Maybe it's me."

  Gabe stopped walking. Dena took another few steps and glanced over her shoulder.

  "It isn't you," he said. "Don't ever think that."

  She stared at him, and in her eyes he read the crushing self-doubt she kept carefully hidden from the world. He'd helped put that self-doubt there, and the knowledge shamed him. He moved to close the distance between them as a wave broke and icy seawater surged over their feet. Dena flinched as if burned, and stepped back onto dry sand. The fleeting connection they'd shared vanished in the blink of an eye, as fragile as sea foam.

  She looked at him, the impassive mask once more in place. "I told you, you don't know me. You never did."

  Then let's start over, he wanted to say, but she was gone, striding swiftly across the beach toward the picnic area.

  * * *

  4

  « ^ »

  The winery tour guide, a rangy man in his mid-fifties named Ted, led the group into the cellar room where wine was aged. An agreeable sweet-musty aroma filled the cool, windowless space, crammed with sealed wooden barrels stacked on their sides. Those nearest Dena jostled her as the eighteen people in their party tried to get near enough to hear the guide expound on the type of wood used for barrels and the length of time various wines were allowed to age.

  Dena heard the muted ringing of a phone, and turned to see Andrea, at the rear of the crowd, fish her cell phone out of her shoulder bag. Andrea turned her back and kept her voice low; nevertheless, her side of the conversation was clearly audible.

  "You're missing a terrific morning, Gabe. We've already been to two wineries and I don't know how many antique shops. If you'd brought those files out with you Saturday, you wouldn't have had to go back for them. You know what they say—the memory's the first thing to go." After a moment she laughed. "Okay, the second thing."

  Dena felt a stab of irritation listening to Andrea banter with Gabe. They were work colleagues only, he'd claimed. Dena still found that hard to believe, although she had to admit he'd been surprisingly candid yesterday evening during their walk on the beach—endearingly candid, she thought with a half smile.

  Which didn't mean he was above skirting the truth when it suited him, she reminded herself. He was, after all, a consummate lawyer.

  At the very least, Gabe and Andrea must have developed a warm friendship over the years, having attended Harvard together before joining the family firm, where they presumably worked closely on cases. The fact that their fathers had been best buddies since childhood, and law partners for thirty years, meant Gabe and Andrea no doubt saw a lot of each other outside the firm as well.

  "You sound like you're calling from the road," Andrea said. "Well, floor it! We'll save a place for you at lunch. Our reservation's for one-thirty." She gave him the name of the restaurant and directions, and returned the phone to her bag.

  From the cellar the group moved on to the favorite part of any winery tour, the tasting. They crowded around the bar in the tasting room as Ted poured a modest amount of pale wine into eighteen wineglasses. He explained that they'd be sampling six wines, starting with the lightest white and ending with a robust cabernet. The first offering was dreadful, and Dena was grateful for the basket of bland crackers sitting on the bar.

  As Ted poured the next selection, a chardonnay, he explained that wine is meant to be drunk with meals rather than on its own, because of how it reacts with the carbohydrates in food. Dena felt a sharp tap on her shoulder and turned to see Andrea beaming up at her. She'd been doing that all morning, catching her eye, smiling at her—as if they were the best of pals!

  "I've been waiting for a chance to chat with you," Andrea said. "To kind of, you know, get caught up."

  As Dena grappled for a response, Andrea tugged her arm, urging her away from the crowd toward a quiet corner where wine paraphernalia was displayed for sale.

  "Trust me," Andrea said, "You don't want to try any more of those wines. This vineyard is far from the best Long Island has to offer. I love this, by the way," she added, plucking at Dena's short white sundress, embellished with appliquéd images of cats and dogs.

  "I'll make one for you," Dena said.

  "What?"

  "I decorated it myself. I'll do one for you in your size."

  "Oh … that's not … I couldn't possibly let you go to so much—"

  "No trouble at all." With a straight face Dena added, "Throw a dark blazer over it and you can wear it to the firm."

  That muscle twitched near Andrea's eye again, even as her grin stretched wider. "You're just … the same sweet, generous Dena, aren't you?" she gushed. "I can't tell you how many times I've meant to pick up the phone and give you a call, but, well, you know how it is. Life just happens, and before you know it, fifteen years have passed!"

  "Gosh, Andrea, I haven't thought about calling you at all," Dena said pleasantly. "Not even once."

  Andrea's strained chuckle was followed by, "Well, you see? We all get so caught up in our work. Speaking of which, I heard about your string of pet resorts." She gave Dena a playful shove. "Who'd have thought our Dena had it in her?"

  "No one, it would seem."

  "From dog groomer to owner of a business enterprise worth five point three million dollars and growing! I'm telling you, I nearly collapsed in shock."

  "Me, I'm not so easily shocked," Dena said. "For example, it doesn't surprise me at all that you lost no time finding out what Xanadu is worth."

  "I knew you wouldn't mind, savvy businesswoman that you are. Now, I'm going to ask you straight out," Andrea said, spreading her palms, "and feel free to tell me to go to hell. But are you happy with your current legal representation?"

  "Go to hell, Andrea."

  "Because I'll be honest with you, and this is advice I'd give my own mother. The firm you're using—Gilliam, Shapiro and Manning—is a fine one, Harry Manning is a real smart lawyer—"

  "Yes, he's done very well for me."

  "—but every firm has its weak points, and I'm not trying to run down Gilliam, Shapiro, but between you and me—and this is something you might not know, not being an insider as it were—but their track record for companies like yours—"


  "Andrea?"

  "Yes?"

  "Tell me you're not trying to get me to switch my business to your firm."

  Andrea smiled indulgently. "I've seen it before, you know, when a moneymaking idea takes off unexpectedly, and an inexperienced entrepreneur suddenly finds herself struggling to cope with rapid expansion, site acquisition, tax repercussions, all kinds of liability… It's all too easy to make the wrong decisions, trust the wrong people. At Moreau Pittman we—"

  Dena made a "time-out" T with her hands. "Okay. As for my 'unexpected' success. Let me share with you Dena Devlin's First Rule of Business: If your success comes as a surprise, you don't have any business being in business. It's not a game where you try this thing and that thing willy-nilly and hope that something takes off. You have to do your homework and know it's going to take off before you commit your time, assets, and energy."

  "Well, there's no question—"

  "I'm not finished. As for inexperienced little me struggling to cope with the 'suddenness' of it all—I've worked for fifteen years to get where I am now. Days, nights, weekends, holidays. When you were still in law school, I was opening my second location."

  "Oh, I know how hard you must've—"

  "Did you discuss this with Gabe?" Dena asked.

  "Well, naturally we talked it over. Bringing new business into the firm is a priority for us both."

  Dena's stomach clenched, and it had nothing to do with the lousy wine. Gabe had come across as so sincere, so candid—endearingly candid! And why not? He'd been actively wooing a prospective client. He and his law partner had discussed Dena and Xanadu, had no doubt strategized about what it would take to win her trust and get her to switch to their firm.

  Dena heard Ted wrapping up the tasting and inviting everyone to peruse the merchandise and the wines offered for sale. She moved closer to Andrea and, keeping her voice low, said, "Listen carefully, because I don't want any misunderstandings. I will never give my business to your firm. Don't ask again."