“So you didn’t even wait to be introduced to his fiancée?” Sherry asked as they made their way through the crowds in Grant Park.
The lineup at the jazz festival was both big names and local talent. The festival drew crowds from across the city and beyond, even from neighboring states. It was one of the best in the country, and Weslee had missed few of them. Her father had taken her in years past, then she and Michael had gone every year they were together.
This year Weslee couldn’t wait to see Liquid Soul, Joshua Redman, and Dianne Reeves. This was one of the things she missed the most about not living in Chicago: great jazz, anytime, anyplace.
“God, there are some good-looking men in this town.” Sherry looked around.
“Tell me about it,” Weslee said.
“So, how do you feel now?” Sherry asked.
“I feel fine. You know, I thought it was going to be this huge ordeal, that I’d feel some regret or sadness or joy or something. But I felt absolutely nothing. I mean, the guy’s gut is sticking out. He was nearly drunk. I don’t know what I saw in him.”
Sherry raised her eyebrows. “Now this is the same man who almost sent you to a therapist?” she said, putting her hands on her hips.
“I guess I was a different person back then.” And she truly believed that.
They listened to the bands and bought CDs, flirted with strangers, and tried not to melt in the blazing August sun. When Joshua Redman finally came on, Sherry urged Weslee toward the front of the crowd.
Weslee had seen Joshua once before at the Jazz Showcase with Michael. After that first time, she bought all of his CDs.
Halfway through his set, he stopped to make an announcement.
“Before we go any further, I just wanted to say happy birthday to a friend of mine, Weslee Dunster. Happy birthday, Weslee, from Sherry.”
Weslee looked at her friend in total amazement. “How did you do that?”
“Ah, I still had an old press pass from when I worked at the Sun-Times, so I used it to get backstage when you went to the bathroom.”
“Sherry! You are so scandalous!”
“Happy birthday, girl.”
Weslee couldn’t have been happier. She hugged her friend as Joshua played the “Birthday Song” on his saxophone. She would never forget turning thirty.
Chapter 33
It was another sticky August in the City of Big Shoulders. The tourists slogged their way up and down Michigan Avenue sipping bottles of designer water. Businessmen slung their jackets over their shoulders and rolled up their shirtsleeves. Children broke open fire hydrants, turning South Side streets into gushing fountains of cool water. The city was crackling with heat, and if the cloudless blue sky was any indication, there was no relief in sight.
Weslee had finally broken down and bought an air conditioner for her bedroom. It was the only way she could sleep. Her parents, having survived decades of Chicago’s temperamental temperature swings, stoically sweltered through the nights.
But she couldn’t sleep tonight, despite the coolness in her room. She felt restless. The more she thought about it, the more she could see her mistake. It had been too much too soon, and she had gotten caught up in the heady high of romance and Duncan himself. Her first instinct about him had been right. He was selfish and self-absorbed, but he was a charmer, too. And that last part was the one that had gotten her into the emotional black hole she was in now. She had been trying so hard to just put him away, put the pain away, but it kept coming back.
Her ennui this summer did nothing to ease the pain. Since Sherry left she had felt so useless. She was doing nothing, just sweltering in this big city. She wanted to do something, learn something, go somewhere, any other thing than having him pop back into her mind unannounced and unwanted.
She didn’t cry anymore. All she felt was sadness and sometimes anger, and always a deep sense of loss. She was thirty now. No husband, no boyfriend, not even a prospect. She had become a statistic.
The next morning she awoke early and went for her run along the lakefront. It was crowded as usual at seven A.M. with the before-work crowd.
She was a little excited about seeing William, though she knew that his interest was in Megan—the good cook with the high girly-girly voice. Weslee frowned.
Well, she told herself, it wasn’t a date: just two friends catching up. She was prepared for it, for him talking about Megan. The jealousy would fade. It was more important to keep him as a friend.
That night she dressed carefully. She didn’t want it to seem as if she were going out of her way to look sexy, but at the same time she wanted to look good. She had picked the place: The Red Fish. He had said he wanted Cajun. She wore a plain white linen sheath dress with pink sandals and her favorite pink Kate Spade handbag. Simple yet elegant, she thought. She laughed at her reflection in the mirror, remembering the old Weslee, who just about a year ago probably would have worn khakis and a T-shirt.
She heard the doorbell ring as she applied her lipstick. She didn’t hurry. She heard him talking with her father downstairs.
She descended the stairs into the living room. His back was turned to her. She took a deep breath. He was wearing blue—a blue golf shirt and neatly pressed khakis. She loved him in blue. He turned around as she came up behind him, and they both broke into wide smiles on seeing each other.
“Hey, you.” She grinned and hugged him chastely.
Her father called out to her mother, who came quickly from the kitchen.
William introduced himself and sat down to chat with her parents.
Ten minutes later, Weslee tore him away from a conversation about soccer with her father that threatened to last forever.
“So, how are you, FloJo?” William asked as he pulled out of the driveway in his rented Toyota Camry.
“I’m all right. Bored, mostly.”
He nodded. “You look good.”
She smiled and pointed him toward Lake Shore Drive North.
“So, where are we going?”
She gave him the directions to The Red Fish.
The two of them caught up on his increasingly busy schedule with his company, which was growing larger and larger. “I wish you knew how to draft. I’d hire you to work for me,” he joked.
“Oh, I’m not joining the work world for another year or so,” she said.
“But you’re going back to training in the fall, right?”
“Yes. I actually miss doing it. I think about those old women every day. I hope they’re taking care of themselves.”
He turned to face her for a moment. “See, that’s what I don’t understand about you.”
“What?” she asked, confused.
“You’re doing this personal training thing, which you love, and you’re making great money, and yet you just leave it behind.”
“Well, it wasn’t just that. I had to get away from Boston for a while.”
“Well, life goes on, Wes,” he said after a brief pause. “And you shouldn’t miss out on opportunities that are in the present because of something that happened in the past.”
At the restaurant, William couldn’t stop raving about his sweet potato-stuffed catfish.
“Man, I love this place,” he exclaimed. “If I could, I’d marry the chef.”
Weslee laughed. “I’m glad you like it. But I think the chef’s a man.”
She could only finish half of her black beans and rice and blackened chicken; she had stuffed herself on cornbread.
When the waiter came back with the dessert menu, she ordered coffee, and William ordered pecan pie with vanilla ice cream.
“You’re going all out tonight,” Weslee teased.
“I haven’t had a real meal in months. It’s been so crazy lately with work. I’ve been basically eating out of the vending machine in the office.”
“That’s not good, William. I hope things will calm down soon.”
“Not likely. I’m going to be going at this pace until November.”
&n
bsp; She wondered when she would see him again.
“Will you be going to any of those parties on the Vineyard this summer?” he asked.
“What parties?” She hadn’t heard about any parties. The newly sober Lana’s social life had ground to a halt, and Weslee certainly wasn’t in enough on the circuit to know when or where the next bashes were, much less be invited.
William looked slightly embarrassed. “Well, Eleanor’s parties, and the Smalls’s. Rainee Smalls.”
Weslee cleared her throat. How could she tell him that as much as she liked Rainee and tolerated Eleanor, she did not plan to ever attend any of those events ever again? “I don’t know about that crowd. I can only take them about one at a time,” she said wryly.
He laughed. “Sometimes I feel the same way. But you have to look at it as networking. I’ve gotten three or four contracts to design houses from that group over the last two years.”
She sighed. “I guess it works for you, then. I just don’t like to be made to feel as if I don’t belong.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Where would you get that idea?”
“Just from the questions people asked me. Listen, I really don’t want to talk about this.”
“Weslee, it’s OK. Just because you met a few jerks there doesn’t mean that you should lump them all in the same group. Besides, Rainee Smalls loves you. She’s telling her friends all about you. They think you’re a miracle worker.”
Weslee smiled but wasn’t convinced.
“Just take them for what they are. They’re just people. If they have hang-ups, it has nothing to do with you. They did the same thing to me in the beginning. And I’ve known Duncan since our college days together.”
That made her feel a bit better.
“But I’m not ashamed of where I come from,” William continued. “I’m proud of the way my folks worked hard to raise me and my sisters and put us all through college. There are people who have lived in this country for generations and generations who haven’t gotten as far as my parents have come since they left Kingston thirty-four years ago.”
William’s words touched her and at the same time made her feel shame at her petty insecurities. Who was she to discount everything her parents—and she herself—had accomplished just because she came face-to-face with people who had more? William was right. Their hang-ups had nothing to do with her.
The sun had just set at eight-thirty, and Weslee did not want the night to end. “When was the last time you rode a Ferris wheel?” she asked as they walked out of the restaurant.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I don’t know. Gee, maybe since tenth grade.”
“Wanna go ride tonight?” She was being bold again, and it thrilled her to take control.
He looked puzzled for a spell, then understanding came over his face. “Oh, at the Navy Pier! You know, I’ve always wanted to do that.”
“Well, tonight’s your big chance.” She was ecstatic that she had actually gotten him excited about something.
As much as Weslee liked the Ferris wheel, she hated the rest of the Navy Pier. To any tourist—especially those with young children—it was a mandatory stop. But to the average Chicago resident, it was hell. The crowded subpar restaurants, the tacky souvenir stores, and the long lines at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company were enough to drive one crazy. But to Weslee, the giant Ferris wheel made up for all the hassles.
The lights shone brightly way up in the sky, and Weslee couldn’t help but get a thrill as she looked up and saw the wheel turning slowly. She squeezed William’s arm unconsciously. He teased her for her childlike enthusiasm.
Once they were seated, she was breathless. They both were. He had bought a disposable camera from a souvenir store and began to snap pictures of the night skyline in the distance as they began to rise. “I just love this skyline,” he kept saying.
“Isn’t this just perfect!” Weslee looked about her and felt the cool summer night air caress her face.
William turned around and took her picture.
She punched him playfully on the arm. “Why didn’t you warn me?”
He laughed and snapped another photo of her dismayed face. “I’ll make double prints.” He nudged her.
“Remember when you were talking to me about Chicago way back last summer?” she asked him.
He didn’t look at her. “I remember. That was a while ago.”
Yes, before Duncan, she thought.
“It’s just so beautiful from here, the city,” she said.
He turned to face her, and their eyes met. It was as if they couldn’t help themselves. He leaned in and kissed her. She hesitated for a second and then kissed him back. It lasted for a couple of minutes before he pulled back, apologizing.
“You don’t have to apologize. I wanted it to happen,” Weslee said.
She thought she saw him frown, but she wasn’t sure.
He turned his attention back to the skyline and started taking pictures again. She felt embarrassed. She wasn’t sure what she should say. Maybe he regretted it. Maybe she had made a mistake. She didn’t want to lose his friendship. She had to fix this.
“OK. Before we forget this ever happened, can we blame it on the altitude?”
He laughed. “Yes, the altitude.” But he still didn’t look at her.
She grabbed the camera from him, catching him off guard.
“My turn,” she sang as she snapped his picture.
Just like that she lightened the mood. They would try to forget the kiss had happened.
But as soon as he dropped her off around midnight, she couldn’t come down off the high that kiss had placed her on. She replayed it in her mind over and over again. It had been totally unexpected, so spontaneous yet so perfect. Close-mouthed yet far from chaste. It had lasted just long enough to let her know that he’d wanted to do it for a while. He’d come close enough that she’d felt his heart racing. He likes me! He likes me! She couldn’t stop smiling as she lay in her bed looking up at the glow-in-the-dark stars she’d stuck on her ceiling back in seventh grade. He likes me!
Chapter 34
Clara and Milton Dunster ate breakfast every morning at six A.M. Milton would leave the house at seven A.M. sharp to head downtown for his job at LaSalle Bank—a job that he couldn’t bear to retire from though he could afford to at any time he wanted, frugal as he was. Clara, on the other hand, had been happy to retire at age fifty-five from the hospital. Now she had more time to spend with her grandbabies, her church choir, her friends, her cooking, and on worrying about her two girls.
Weslee pulled out a chair at the table. They looked at her, surprised to see her awake so early.
“Mom, Dad, I’m going back to Boston.”
“Honey, why? Was it something we did?” Clara wailed.
“No, no, no. I want to start training again. And I’m really bored here,” she said.
After her date with William, she’d felt an energy that was pulling her back to Boston. She was wasting her time in Chicago, she decided. In a month, she would be heading back to school for another grueling year of studying and working at HealthyLife. She couldn’t bring herself to spend any more money and take herself on a fabulous vacation as Lana had suggested when they talked on the phone. What she needed to do was earn enough money so that maybe she wouldn’t need to return to HealthyLife when classes started again in late September. Sherry had offered her a room in her house so that Weslee wouldn’t have to kick poor Beth Worthy out of her apartment prematurely. Weslee had been so excited about her plan that she hadn’t slept the night before. She couldn’t wait to tell her parents.
“Well, I’m glad you finally came to your senses,” Milton Dunster said, putting down his Chicago Tribune. “We’ll miss you though,” he added.
Once her father left for work, Weslee began to pack. She wanted to leave immediately. As she packed, she talked with her sister, Terry, on the phone.
“Girl, what’s going on with you? You’re
always doing crazy stuff these days.”
“This is not crazy, Terry. I’m bored out of my skull. Plus, I could be making some serious money this summer.”
Terry sighed. “So who’s gonna babysit for me free of charge?”
“Sorry. You’re gonna have to go back to begging Mom or paying that little girl across the street.”
“Man, I’m gonna miss having you around. Why Boston, anyway? It’s so far.”
“Tewee, you can always come visit.”
“I wish I was driving up with you. That sounds like so much fun.”
Weslee had decided to bring her Honda with her this time.
“Yeah, right. You and me stuck in a car for sixteen hours? I don’t think we’d make it to Toledo!”
Terry laughed. “We don’t have to fight if you let me do all the driving.”
“Ha!” Weslee said. Terry had always criticized her sister’s slow and careful driving.
The next day, Weslee said good-bye to her parents, sister, niece and nephew, and brother-in-law. It had only been a few weeks since her return to Chicago, yet saying good-bye to them again made her feel like a scared teenager going off to college. She promised to call often from the road and to be careful. She waved as she pulled her weighted-down Accord out of the driveway.
Aaargh. How did my life go from stable and predictable to all this constant change? she wondered as the Chicago skyline faded in her rearview mirror.
Chapter 35
The Boston that Weslee was returning to was not the one she had known. In this Boston, summer didn’t mean alfresco dining in trendy neighborhood restaurants, day trips to Nantucket or Block Island, ferry rides from Rowes Wharf to Provincetown, upscale shopping trips, and air-conditioned nightclubs.
In Sherry Charles’s Boston, summer meant Saturday afternoon family barbecues at Franklin Park with WILD blasting on eight-foot speakers, kids with Puerto Rican, Jamaican, Ghanaian, Dominican, and Haitian flags waving from their cars as they sped by on narrow streets, speakers booming the summer’s hip-hop anthem, young girls in tiny tops and even tinier skirts playing jump rope on side streets, ice cream trucks tinkling with a trail of young children following, and knock-down, drag-out basketball in Washington Park.
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