Table for Seven: A Novel

by Whitney Gaskell

  Will blinked at his wife, who was wearing a black-ribbed sweater over a dark denim skirt and low black heels.

  “It seems like overkill for movie night,” Will said.

  “No, it’s for tomorrow. To wear to the dinner party.”

  “You’re pre-dressing?”

  “I’m trying to decide what I’m going to wear.”

  Will decided this must be one of those odd womanly behaviors that he was never going to understand, and was therefore better off not asking too many questions. “It’s fine.”

  “Fine?” Fran made a face. “I don’t want to look fine. I want to look pretty.”

  “It’s very nice,” Will said.

  “Nice isn’t any better than fine.”

  “You look great. Don’t you think, Rory?” Will asked, hoping his daughter would bail him out.

  Rory scrutinized her mother. “I think the sweater is too tight. It shows your stomach.”

  Fran clutched her stomach. “Seriously?”

  Rory nodded.

  “Then why did you tell me it looks good?” Fran asked Will accusingly.

  He shrugged. “I like it.”

  “I swear, I have nothing to wear. I’m going to have to go shopping tomorrow,” Fran said. She turned and stalked back into the house.

  Will looked at Rory.

  “What?” Rory said. “I had to tell her the truth if you weren’t going to. And I was nicer about it than Iris would have been. She would have told Mom she looked fat.”

  “That’s true,” Will said. Iris had recently become incapable of saying anything nice to anyone and was especially nasty to her mother and younger sister. “Where is your sister, anyway?”

  “Babysitting,” Rory said.

  “Again?”

  “She’s saving up for some ceramic iron thingy,” Rory said.

  “She’s saving up for an iron? You mean, like, to iron her clothes with?” Will asked, completely bewildered. “What’s wrong with the iron we have in the laundry room?”

  Rory laughed. “No, not for clothes. It’s an iron for her hair. You know, to make it straight.”

  “Why would Iris want to straighten her hair with an iron?” Will asked. Iris had inherited Fran’s beautiful dark corkscrew curls. He’d always been glad one of the girls had lucked out. Rory had straight hair so baby fine, barrettes and ponytail elastics slid right out of it.

  “She hates it. She says that curly hair makes your face look fat.” Rory turned her attention back to the battle bot and began sifting through a pile of bolts. “It’s so stupid. I’m never going to bother with that girly stuff.”

  Will remembered with a pang Iris saying almost exactly the same thing when she was Rory’s age. Just a few years earlier, Iris had been more tomboy than girly-girl, always climbing trees and playing soccer and helping him in the workshop. He tried to remember the last time she’d been in the garage. Months? No, longer. It had been over a year, at least. He glanced at Rory, who was intent on the workbench, distractedly pushing her blue wire-frame glasses back up onto the bridge of her nose, and wondered how much longer she’d be willing to hang out with him out here, building fighting robots, talking about upcoming competitions. Rory was still young enough to lack the self-consciousness that made the teen years such hell. Sometimes Will would catch her breaking into a dance for no reason at all, throwing her skinny arms around and shaking her head, lost in rhythmic abandon. The sight never failed to fill him with joy.

  Will gave Rory a one-armed hug, which she tolerated for exactly three seconds before wiggling free.

  “Come on, Dad. I want to get the front wheels mounted before we watch the movie,” she said.

  “Then we’d better get to work,” Will said, smiling at her.

  COOP GRADUALLY BECAME AWARE of a wet, rough tongue licking his cheek. He opened one eye. His dog, Bear—who was a mutt of undetermined parentage—continued to give his face a bath.

  “Knock it off.” Coop groaned and pushed the dog away. Bear didn’t seem offended. He sat, panting happily, smiling his doggy smile.

  Coop sat up on the couch, stretching. The muscles in his back made an odd popping noise. When had he gotten so creaky? Lately, it seemed that there was always something aching somewhere on his body. Today’s lower back pain was courtesy of some work he’d done on his boat that morning—the water pump had been on the fritz—before taking it out on the water.

  “What time is it?” Coop asked aloud. Since Bear didn’t seem prepared to answer him, Coop glanced at the digital clock on the cable box. 6:07. “Oh, no.”

  Coop leapt to his feet, trying to ignore the twinge of protest from his back. He was due at the dinner party at 6:30. Between the morning of work, the day spent out in the sun, and the beer he’d had with lunch, he’d sacked out on the couch when he came back from the marina and had managed to oversleep.

  “Why did I ever agree to go to this thing?” he muttered as he headed to the bathroom. The last thing he wanted to do was spend a Saturday night eating dinner at somebody’s house with a bunch of people he didn’t know, save for Will and Fran.

  It was all Fran’s fault, he decided. He’d never been able to say no to her. She was a force of nature. They really should ship her off to the Middle East, he thought ruefully. She’d have the Israelis and Palestinians squared away in no time.

  Twenty-five minutes later, he was showered, shaved, and dressed in a crisply ironed white shirt tucked into his favorite faded jeans. He stopped at the liquor store down the street from his waterfront condo, purchased two bottles of Taittinger champagne and drove fifteen minutes inland to the address he’d scribbled on the back of a receipt. Mark and Jaime lived in a looming white house with a carefully manicured front lawn and a huge silver Lexus SUV parked ostentatiously in the tile-paved driveway.

  Coop sighed. It was going to be a long night.

  He climbed out of his white pickup and headed to the front door without bothering to lock the truck. The neighborhood didn’t strike him as a hotbed of crime. He made his way up the walk to the front door—which was flanked with two tall black urns, each containing a leafy palm tree—and rang the bell. A moment later, he heard the clacking of high heels against hard floors and then the door was opened by an attractive woman with a thin, gym-toned body and stick-straight blond hair whom he’d met briefly at the Parrishes’ New Year’s Eve party.

  “Hi,” she said. She smiled, displaying professionally bleached teeth, and held out a hand. “It’s nice to see you again. I’m Jaime, by the way.”

  “I remember. Nice to see you again.” Coop juggled the champagne bottles so that he could shake her hand, which was thin and cold. Then, he held up the bottles. “These are for you.”

  “Thank you,” Jaime said, looking with delight at the bottles. “What a treat.”

  “An apology for my lateness,” Coop said.

  Jaime shook her head. “No need for apologies. In fact, you beat my husband home. Come on into the living room, everyone’s in there. What can I get you to drink?”

  “Do you have whiskey?” Coop asked as he followed Jaime across the foyer. He took advantage of his position to admire the curve of her bottom. If she was logging time at the gym it was definitely paying off, he thought. It was too bad she had a husband. Coop had never been interested in the drama of extramarital entanglements.

  “Yes, of course. How would you like it?” Jaime asked. She led him into a large living room tastefully decorated in shades of cream and beige. There was a small knot of people gathered there, including Fran and Will.

  “Straight up,” Coop said. “I’m easy like that.”

  He grinned again, although out of respect for Jaime’s marital status, he was careful not to use his most dazzling smile, which had on many occasions caused women to tear off their clothes and throw themselves at him.

  “Just give me one minute,” Jaime said and headed over to a bar just off the living room.

  Fran looked up. “Coop!” she called out and bounded over to
him. Her long curly hair was loose around her shoulders and she held a wineglass in one hand. “I was starting to think you’d ditched us!”

  “Would I do that?” he asked, kissing her cheek.

  “Of course you would,” she said. “You’re thoroughly unreliable, and you know it.”

  “Hey, guy,” Will said, slapping his shoulder. “Good to see you.”

  “You, too,” Coop said, grinning at his friend.

  “Coop, do you remember Leland?” Fran asked, gesturing to an elderly man who was sitting in a cream jacquard arm chair. It was impossible to tell his age. He could be a hard-living seventy-five or a ninety-year-old with excellent genes. Either way, he looked fragile and shrunken, and his face was a web of lines. Still, his eyes were a sharp, bright blue and he seemed alert.

  “I would get up, but it would take so long you’d grow bored waiting for me,” Leland said, gesturing to the curved cane resting against the chair.

  “Then, I’ll come to you,” Coop said. He stepped forward to shake Leland’s hand. “And please, call me Coop.”

  “And this is Audrey, who you also met on New Year’s,” Fran said.

  Coop turned. Audrey had glossy dark hair cut into a short angled bob that showed off a long, graceful neck. Her smile reached her brown eyes, causing faint laugh lines to appear at the corners.

  Coop pointed at her. “You were on door duty and said I was lucky not to have been named Phoenix,” he said.

  “Good memory,” Audrey said. She was wearing very high heels and dark red lipstick, a combination Coop was very much in favor of.

  Coop covertly checked for a ring on her fourth finger. There wasn’t one. The evening was looking up, he decided. This time when he smiled, he didn’t hold back—he went for the full dazzling effect. Strangely, Audrey didn’t swoon or throw her bra at him.

  “Fran told me you make nature documentaries,” Audrey said. “That sounds fascinating. How did you get started in it?”

  “In the most ass backward way possible,” Coop admitted. “When I was fresh out of college, I took a job with a small company down in the Keys that ran boat tours taking tourists out for dives. One day, a production company was looking for some qualified divers to help out with a film they were making about shipwrecks off Key Largo, and they hired me on. I liked the work and managed to talk my way into a permanent spot with the production company.”

  “Coop can talk his way into just about anything,” Fran interjected.

  “Is that so?” Audrey said, shooting Coop a smile that was encouragingly flirtatious. He accepted the glass of whiskey Jaime handed him.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “You’re welcome. Leland, can I get you a refill?” Jaime asked.

  “The answer to that question is always an emphatic yes,” Leland said, holding out his glass. Jaime laughed and took his empty tumbler from him.

  “Jaime, do you need any help?” Fran asked.

  “There’s a cheese tray and a plate of gougères in the kitchen. Would you mind bringing them out?” Jaime asked.

  “Sure thing,” Fran said.

  Once they were alone, Coop leaned toward Audrey. “What in the world are gougères?” he murmured.

  She smiled. “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”

  “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

  “You were saying, about your job—you worked your way up to directing?” Audrey asked.

  “Basically.” Coop nodded. “Directing, and now producing, too. We just wrapped filming a piece about the effects of the coastal tide on marine life off the coast of Nova Scotia.”

  “Wow. That sounds fascinating,” Audrey said.

  “And what do you do?” Coop asked Audrey.

  “I own a day spa.”

  “Sounds very Zen,” Coop said.

  “I hope it’s relaxing for my patrons. But, no, I don’t think the actual running of a business is ever very Zen,” Audrey said.

  “Do you have many male clients?” Coop asked, leaning a bit closer toward Audrey so that his arm brushed against hers. She didn’t move away. Another good sign, he thought.

  “Absolutely,” Audrey said, nodding enthusiastically. “It’s actually a growth area in the industry that I’m hoping to capitalize on. In fact, quite a few of my regular clients are gay guys.”

  Coop blinked, confused by this non sequitur.

  Audrey continued. “I’ve introduced a few men to the joys of manicures. They were resistant at first, but now they’re hooked. In fact, one of my clients keeps telling me I should advertise them as our man-icures. Emphasis on the man part.” Audrey tilted her head and scrutinized him. “Actually, you’d really like him. His name is Ron.” Then she smiled and shook her head. “No, never mind, forget I said anything. I’m as bad as Fran.”

  “As bad as Fran?” Coop repeated, his brow wrinkling. He had a feeling he was missing something. But before he could ask Audrey what she meant, Will clapped a hand on his shoulder again.

  “When are we going to go fishing?” Will asked.

  “Haven’t you gotten your own boat yet?” Coop asked. Audrey had turned to talk to Jaime and Leland.

  “No way. A wise man once told me that owning a boat was an expensive, time-consuming pain in the ass, and that I’d be much better off finding a friend with a boat and then bribing him to take me out on it,” Will said.

  “What wise man?” Coop said.

  “Some drunk guy I met in a bar down in the Keys. I think he was about twelve hours into a bender.” Will shrugged. “But the advice was still solid.”

  “Would either of you care for a blue cheese gougère?” Fran asked, appearing beside them with a silver tray piled with what looked like cream puffs.

  “At long last, a solution to the gougère mystery,” Coop said, helping himself to one. It was a bit like a cream puff in texture, although it was savory, not sweet, and didn’t have a cream-filled middle. “Mmm.”

  “I’ll set them down right here next to you,” Fran said.

  “I knew there was a reason I liked you,” Coop teased her. Fran grinned at him, and then turned to join the conversation Audrey and Jaime were having about the best place in town to buy seafood.

  Coop observed the women for a few moments. Audrey was calm and still, especially standing next to Fran, whose hands moved frenetically while she talked, constantly threatening to spill the contents of her wineglass. Jaime seemed tense. Her fingers played nervously at the diamond charm she wore around her neck on a gold chain, and she kept glancing back over her shoulder, as though looking for someone. The mystery of just who she was looking for was solved when a tall, lean man wearing a Lacoste polo shirt, khaki shorts, and sneakers strode in and said, “Hello, everyone, sorry I’m late.”

  “Hi, Mark,” Fran said, as Mark leaned down to kiss her cheek.

  “Emily won the tournament,” Mark announced proudly.

  “Good for her!” Fran said.

  “Way to go, Emily,” Will said, shaking Mark’s hand. “Where is she?”

  “I dropped her off at her mom’s house. She wanted to show Libby her trophy. It’s nearly as tall as she is,” Mark said.

  Coop noticed that as everyone greeted Mark and repeated words of congratulations about Emily’s big win, Jaime remained silent. And when Mark reached her and tried to slip a hand around her waist, she stepped away, out of his reach. Unfazed, Mark turned to Coop.

  “Mark Wexler,” he said, holding out his hand for Coop to shake. “You look familiar.”

  “We met at Fran and Will’s house,” Coop said, remembering that Mark had been pretty drunk that night.

  “That’s right. Sorry I’m late. My daughter was in a tennis tournament today. I couldn’t bring myself to leave while she was winning,” Mark said.

  “I just got here myself,” Coop said.

  “And you’ve already got a drink, I see. Good. I could use one of those.” Mark glanced around. “Although I’d better not ask Jaime to get me one. She’d probably du
mp it over my head. I’m in the doghouse for being late.”

  Coop merely raised his eyebrows. Listening to spouses complain about each other had to rate near the top on his list of least favorite conversations. But he was saved from having to hear any further details by Jaime saying, “Now that we’re all here, let’s move into the dining room. The first course is ready.”

  There was a stir of activity. Will leaned down to help Leland out of his chair. Those who had empty glasses set them on the bar. Fran continued to talk to Audrey and Jaime, her hands moving constantly, as they turned to head into the dining room, just off the living room. Coop followed closely behind them, still holding his whiskey. He wanted to make sure that he got to the table in time to claim a seat next to Audrey.

  AUDREY WAS ENJOYING HERSELF more than she thought she would. She ate the excellent warm goat cheese salad Jaime had made, sipped a very good glass of red wine, and for once she didn’t mind being seated between the only two single men present at dinner. Coop was flirtatious and attentive, obviously the sort of gay man who truly liked women. And Leland was a hoot.

  “Everything tastes better when you add bacon,” Leland announced.

  “Everything?” Will asked. “That can’t be true. There must be some foods that clash with it.”

  “No such thing,” Leland said. “I’ll go so far as to say that you can’t name a food that isn’t improved by bacon.”

  Will smiled mischievously. “Care to make a small wager on that?”

  “Look out,” Mark said. “Dinner party smack talk.”

  “You’re on,” Leland said, pointing a finger at Will. “How much are we betting?”

  Will considered this. “I’m in for five dollars,” he said.

  “High stakes gambling,” Mark said.

  “It’s a deal,” Leland said. “Go ahead. Name something that is not improved by the addition of bacon.” He sat back and waited, while Will thought.

  “Beets?” Fran suggested.

  “No helping him,” Leland admonished her. “And besides, a roasted beet salad would be delicious with bacon bits.”