“A-m-” Sam began without enthusiasm.
“Let me do this.” Ashley came up behind her to whisper while Molly determinedly smashed and flipped hamburgers. “You need to go brush your hair—and put your shoes on! And some lipstick!”
“-i-t-” Sam continued.
Molly, attending to each of her siblings with half an ear, glanced down at her feet. They were bare again, as they usually were when she was at home. Tonight she wore a pair of ancient, slightly too small gray sweat pants and another of Mike’s oversized flannel shirts, this one a red-and-black buffalo plaid with sleeves rolled to her elbows. Her face was scrubbed clean, and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail at her nape. She could not be said to be looking her best by any stretch of the imagination.
She hadn’t been looking much better earlier in the day, when Will had called her beautiful.
“-i-o-n.”
Clearly Ashley wanted her to impress Will. Which meant Ashley liked and approved of Will, and would like to keep him around. Which was both foolish and impossible, though of course Ashley had no way of knowing that.
Under the circumstances, looking good for Will was the last thing Molly wanted to do. She had no intention of forgetting for so much as a moment who he really was and why he was showering so much attention on her and her family.
He wanted something. While he waited for her to provide it for him he was playing the part of her boyfriend, and making it look good. The man should be an actor, not an FBI agent.
But an FBI agent was what he was, and his presence in their lives was strictly temporary.
“You don’t think I look sexy like this?” Molly whispered to Ashley with a teasing smile.
Ashley shook her head in an emphatic no.
“Molly, are you listening?” Sam demanded in outraged accents.
“Of course I am,” Molly said to him, shrugging at Ashley to signify, Oh, well.
“You are not! I deliberately left out the b and you didn’t even notice!”
“What makes you think I didn’t notice? I was just about to tell you to spell it again.”
“You’re a liar!”
“Ambition,” Molly said with bite, giving Sam a look that silenced his budding smart mouth.
“A-m-”
“I’ll set the table.” Ashley gave up the fight to make her sister more presentable, and turned away to get the plates out of the cabinet.
“-i-t-”
“What about that b?”
“Just checking to see if you were listening.”
“I’m listening. Now spell it again. If you don’t get it right this time, you’re going to have to write it down five times.”
“I hate spelling,” Sam said with loathing. “A-m-b-i-”
“I don’t get it! Why would you multiply both the top number and the bottom number by four?” Susan wailed from the table.
“-t-i-”
“It’s called finding the lowest common denominator,” Will responded with quiet patience, and began to explain the finer points of multiplying fractions one more time.
“Molly, you’re not listening!” Sam said furiously.
“Yes, I am,” Molly lied, lifting the burgers from the skillet and sliding them into the white glass casserole dish that Ashley had placed at her elbow. “You got it right. Good job. Successful.”
“S-u-c-”
The telephone rang. Molly answered it, cradling the receiver between her shoulder and her ear and pouring gravy over the hamburger patties while she listened to both the caller and Sam’s spelling. The call was for Mike, of course. Molly glanced toward the living room doorway, hesitated, hardened her heart, and told the caller her brother was unable to come to the phone.
She hung up, tossed the final word to Sam, exchanged speaking glances with Ashley, who shared her anxiety over what to do about Mike, and dumped the green beans into a bowl.
“Supper!” she announced just as Susan closed her math book with a snap and a beaming smile that pronounced her homework done, and carried the casserole dish and bowl of green beans to the table.
17
The phone rang three more times during supper, twice for Mike, who went into a major sulk when he wasn’t allowed to speak to his friends, and once—surprise!—for Ashley.
“It’s a guy,” Sam announced as he held out the receiver to his sister.
Ashley pinkened, cast a self-conscious look around the table, and left her seat to take the call. Once his sister was safely behind him, Sam, on his way back to the table, rolled his eyes expressively and grinned. Molly frowned him down, and initiated some inane conversation to give Ashley the illusion that her end of the conversation was not being avidly listened to. Molly herself thought her ears might fall off from the strain of trying to hear what was being said. She was only able to catch an occasional word as her sister leaned against the wall with her back toward the table, talking much more softly than usual, her shoulders hunched protectively to afford the maximum privacy. A boy calling Ashley was so unusual as to be unprecedented. To a man, the Ballards were agog.
Ashley was still blushing when she returned to her seat, but she was also smiling and there were stars in her eyes.
“Got a boyfriend now, Ash?” Mike asked with an aggravating smile as his sister sat down. An enthusiastic eater, he was already working on second helpings of everything.
“What’s his name?” Susan breathed, vitally interested. Only half finished, her supper was forgotten in her excitement. Susan frequently had to be reminded to eat. Food didn’t have the importance for her that it did for Mike and Sam.
“Eat, Susie Q,” Molly prompted in an aside as she always did.
“I hope you’re not going to be as bad as Molly,” Sam said to Ashley. “All the guys who hang around her, it’s enough to make you sick. And most of ’em are real jerks too.”
“Sam!” Ashley hissed, directing a speaking glance at Will, while a thump from under the table and a pained look from Sam indicated that his twin had rewarded him for his tact with a well-placed kick. Mike snickered behind his hand. Molly narrowed her eyes warningly, dividing the speaking glance between her two brothers.
“Uh, I didn’t mean you, Will.” The look Sam sent their guest was brimful of wide-eyed entreaty. “I like you.”
“Thanks, Sam, I like you too.” Will continued eating, apparently unperturbed. Despite Molly’s misgivings, he had tucked into the meal with enthusiasm, and was almost finished.
“That was Trevor.” Ashley glanced down at her plate, which she had barely touched, then across the table at Molly. Her cheeks were so rosy with embarrassment, her eyes so bright with joy, that Molly wanted to walk around the table and give her sister a hug. She refrained, but her answering smile was warm with understanding and an echoed pleasure.
“He wanted to know what color dress I’m going to wear to the dance. He’s going to buy me flowers to match!” Ashley broke into a huge grin. “Oh, gosh, Moll, he wanted to know if I’d prefer a corsage to pin on my dress, or a wrist corsage!”
“Oh, wow!” Susan said enviously, laying her fork down again.
“Flowers, sick!” Sam put in with a groan.
“Women!” Mike muttered, and slumped lower in his seat. Fork in hand, he attacked the food remaining on his plate with an enthusiasm that appeared undiminished despite his distaste for the topic under discussion.
“What did you tell him?” Molly asked, doing her best to continue casually with her dinner. In truth, she was as excited as her sister. Though Ashley never talked about it, Molly knew Ashley’s lack of a social life bothered her. A group of kids at school persistently teased her, calling her “egghead” and “brain.” To the boys she was apparently invisible.
“I said I’d let him know. I said I didn’t have my dress yet. Oh, Molly, what am I going to wear?” Ashley started to eat again, but it was clear her supper no longer held any interest for her. Molly doubted if she even knew what she was putting in her mouth.
“The dance is next Friday?
” Molly asked, although she knew the answer. In a gentle aside, she prompted, “Eat, Susie Q.”
Reminded, Susan picked up her fork again.
Ashley nodded in response to Molly’s question.
“We’ll go shopping next week.”
“I could just wear that yellow lace dress I got for Rosalee’s wedding last year.” Clearly the expense of buying a new dress for the occasion had just occurred to Ashley, and troubled her. The beginnings of worry shadowed her eyes and voice. Ever conscious of the family’s financial needs and limits, Ashley would resist spending money on something as unnecessary as a new outfit for a dance.
Molly shook her head determinedly. “You need a long dress, honey. Anyway, it’ll be fun to shop for something new.”
She’d scrape the money together somehow, Molly vowed, if she had to hock the TV to do it. Unfortunately, her regular Friday paycheck wouldn’t stretch to cover the cost of a new dress, and Simpson, the so-and-so, had not yet paid her for the two weeks he’d owed her when she quit. Then a happy thought occurred to her: Maybe they’d be able to find something suitable in the secondhand shops that had recently sprung up all over Lexington’s downtown. That would keep the cost down.
“Get pink,” Susan counseled. “You look really pretty in pink, Ash. With a big full skirt like Cinderella. And lots of ruffles.”
“Cinderella, yuck.” Sam put both hands to his throat and made noises as if he were gagging.
“Finish your supper, Sam,” Molly told him. Then, remembering their guest who occupied the place of honor in a chair pulled up to the end of the table, she explained, “Ashley’s been invited to her high school’s homecoming dance next weekend.”
“I gathered something of the sort was up.” He grinned at Ashley. “Sounds fun.”
“It should be.” Ashley’s answering smile was shy but happy. Her gaze swung around to Molly. “Only it just occurred to me—I don’t even know how to dance.”
Mike hooted. “All you gotta do is get out there and shake your booty, Ash. You know, like this.” He mimed a jerky version of the Swim from his place at the table.
“Eat, Mike,” Molly said.
“Shut up, Mike,” Ashley echoed, then glanced at Molly. “I can’t just get out there and flail around. I can’t!”
“Do you think any of the other kids know how to dance?” Molly asked. “I mean, anything besides what Mike just showed us?”
Ashley nodded. “A lot of them went to cotillion. Trevor did. He was telling me about it right before he asked me to the dance. He said he hated it, but his mom made him go.”
“What’s cotillion?” Will asked, sounding genuinely interested.
“You never heard of cotillion?” Susan was scandalized.
“He’s from Chicago,” Molly excused with an amused glance at Will, who grimaced an apology for his ignorance.
“Strictly for preps,” Mike said. “Total nerd city.”
“I’m not going,” Sam chimed in. “No way.”
“You couldn’t get in,” Susan said scornfully. “None of us could. You have to be invited. By one of those women’s clubs.”
“You have to be rich,” Mike said. “A rich snob.”
“Trevor’s not a snob,” Ashley objected. “He’s nice.”
“Ashley’s in lo-o-o-ve.” Mike made kissing sounds at his sister, who reddened with anger.
“Mike!” Molly reproved. She glanced at Will. “Cotillion is kind of a dance club that some of the kids go to from about fifth to ninth grade. They meet twice a month, and they learn ballroom dancing.”
“And manners,” Ashley put in.
“The girls get all dressed up, and the guys have to wear suits and ties,” Sam added with revulsion.
“How do you know?” Mike stared at his brother. Such knowledge seemed totally foreign to everything his siblings knew about rough-and-tumble, sports-mad Sam.
Swallowing a forkful of macaroni, Sam shrugged. “Some of the kids in my class go. They talk about it sometimes.”
“You’ve been to dances before, Molly. You can teach me, right?” Ashley looked hopefully at her older sister.
“Sure,” Molly said, though she had some doubts. She had not had formal dance instruction either. “Actually, Ash, the truth is, you just follow the guy. He leads, and you just do what he does. Only kind of backward.”
“Great,” Ashley said gloomily. “I don’t even know the steps, and I have to do them backward.”
“She’ll fall on her a—uh, butt,” Sam said with glee, glancing quickly at Molly to see if she’d noticed his near profanity. Ashley’s coltish lack of grace was something of a family joke.
“Sam!” Molly warned, having noticed.
“She will not!” Ever loyal, Susan stuck up for Ashley.
“I probably will,” Ashley said, and stabbed her meat with her fork with rather more viciousness than was called for. “Trevor will think I’m a total dweeb.”
“All you need is a little practice,” Will spoke up from the end of the table, his gaze on Ashley’s downcast face. “Which I’d be glad to provide, if you like.”
“You know how to dance?” Ashley and Susan spoke in unison, while every eye at the table focused on Will.
“I’m no Arthur Murray,” Will said dryly. “But then, I doubt Trevor is either. I can teach you the basics, that’s all.”
“How great!” Susan exclaimed, clapping her hands.
“Thanks, Will,” Ashley said with fervor. “If you could, I would really, really appreciate it.” Pushing her plate away, she started to get to her feet there and then.
“After supper,” Will added, and Ashley sank back down with a self-conscious grin.
Sam’s expression made it clear that he was shaken by Will’s admission that he could dance. Mike’s lip curled with derision, but he said nothing, concentrating on his meal. Susan and Ashley were both starry-eyed, while Molly wondered why she was even surprised. What would be astonishing was if a man of Will’s age and background had never been to a dance.
“Eat, everyone,” Molly ordered. For a few minutes only the clink of flatware against china broke the silence.
“I’m finished.” Mike pushed his end of the bench out from the table.
“ ‘May I be excused,’ ” Molly corrected automatically.
“Whatever,” Mike answered with a dismissive wave, and disappeared into the living room. Molly thought about calling him back, or at least sailing a reprimand after him for his rudeness, but then decided it wasn’t worth the scene that would almost certainly result.
“I’m done, too,” Sam piped up, scrambling away from the table. Molly opened her mouth to repeat the same admonition she had given Mike, sighed, and closed it again. Might as well count her blessings, she thought. At least he had swallowed that swear word.
“Are you going to teach Ashley to dance now?” Susan asked Will eagerly.
“I’m game if she is,” Will said, looking at Ashley with a smile. Ashley’s cheeks pinkened, but she smiled back. Shy as Ashley was, that smile and her willingness to allow Will to teach her to dance spoke volumes. She no longer saw Will as what he was—a near stranger—but as someone she trusted, and could turn to for help. A friend.
“I’m game—but I just remembered it’s my turn to do the dishes,” Ashley said.
“I’ll do them,” Molly offered abruptly. What harm could it do for Will to teach Ashley to dance, after all? It was such a simple thing.…
As long as she took care to impress on her sister, and her other siblings, that Will was not going to be a long-term addition to their lives. She didn’t want them getting attached to him, only to have them wake up one morning to discover that he was gone for good.
“Can I watch?” Susan asked as everyone stepped away from the table.
“Fine with me,” Will said with a smile, while Ashley nodded.
“It’s fine with me, too,” Molly put in, “as long as you clear the dishes while you watch. It’s your turn, remember?”
&
nbsp; Susan groaned.
“Sam, your turn to sweep,” Molly reminded him. Calling into the living room, she added, “Mike, tonight’s your night to feed Pork Chop and take the garbage out.”
“Yeah, yeah,” came Mike’s answer. By the time he appeared in the doorway, Susan already had a big pile of scraps scraped onto one plate. Mixed with a generic brand of dry dog food, the scraps constituted Pork Chop’s dinner.
“Okay, step back on your left foot,” Will said to Ashley.
Squeezing a frugal amount of dishwashing liquid into the water running into the sink, Molly watched the proceedings out of the corner of her eye. Slim in her white painter’s pants and fluffy pale blue turtleneck, Ashley was laughing as she tried to follow Will’s instructions. Her glasses slid down her nose, and she pushed them back, then returned her hand to his shoulder. Her right hand was clasped in his. His other hand, long-fingered and tan, rested at her waist.
Will smiled into Ashley’s eyes.
Molly was surprised to feel a tiny spurt of something that felt very much like jealousy. Of Ashley? she thought, amazed. The notion was absurd.
Then she realized that it wasn’t so much Ashley she was jealous of, as Ashley’s left hand, because it rested on Will’s broad shoulder; Ashley’s right hand, because Will’s fingers curled around it; Ashley’s waist, because Will held her there.
She wanted to be where Ashley was with an intensity that frightened her.
“Now slide left,” Will instructed. Ashley went right instead, bobbled as Will slid left, and was dragged along willy-nilly.
“I’m sorry,” Ashley said to Will, her brows drawn together in concentration. Her face was flushed, her body stiff, and even renegade strands of her curly fair hair seemed tense with effort.
“That’s okay,” Will said soothingly. “Now come forward left, and slide right. Then we do it all over again.”
“Come on, Pork Chop,” Mike said to the dog, who was frisking around his feet in his eagerness for dinner. Susan, her gaze hardly leaving Ashley and Will, brought the pile of scraped plates to the counter as Mike and Pork Chop went out the door.
“All right now, come forward left, then slide right,” Will said. He stepped backward, Ashley forward—but on the wrong foot. Her slim foot in its soft blue sock landed on the toe of Will’s well-polished black shoe.
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