She’d never forgiven him for the jungle gym.
With a fresh scotch, midway through dinner, Dean approached Harper’s table.
“I can’t believe how beautiful you look tonight,” he said, crouching at her chair. “I had to come over and tell you.” Then,
Dean stood. “And I wanted to finally meet this fella.” Rich also stood. “Hey there old sport. I’m Dean, Harper’s bodyguard.” He smiled. “I don’t know how I’ve missed you each time I’ve been in town, but I’ve heard nice things about you.”
Rich blushed. “Thanks. I’ve heard a lot about you, too.”
Squeezing Rich’s shoulder in a chummy sort of way, Dean leaned in close. “Hurt her,” he whispered. “And I’ll kill you.”
“Got it,” Rich said before sitting back down.
As he walked away, Dean offered another big smile to the table.
“Cheers,” he said, raising his glass.
As dinner progressed, it didn’t take long for Harper to spill cabernet on her white dress. She’d always been a bit clumsy. Even with her refined social graces, she was a whirling dervish at her core.Rich snickered as he tried, unsuccessfully, to wipe it with his napkin.
“You’re no help,” Harper huffed. “I’ll be back.”
Stopping at Grace’s chair was all Harper had to do. When Grace saw the dribble, she stood before Harper even asked for help.“We can dress you up,” Grace began.
“But you can’t take me anywhere,” Harper finished.
In the restroom, at the marble sink, Grace knelt down and slid her hand under Harper’s dress to where the stains were.
“How did it go up on stage?” she asked.
“It’s all a blur, really, but I think well.”
“Some slaggy waiter was in my way,” Grace complained as she dipped the linen towel into the soda, “so I could only see half of you get presented. The top half.” She looked up, smiled. “You were beautiful.”
“So were you,” Harper said. “Yikes, your hand’s cold!”
Grace grabbed her leg and Harper screamed.
As she rubbed soda into the porous fabric, Harper watched her every move: the delicate lace along her cleavage and the tulle bustling around Grace’s legs. In her mind, she saw snapshots of Grace on stage, getting lost as the wave moved through her again.
Grace’s arm suddenly sizzled, was now like hot metal against her thigh, a branding iron.
“What are you thinking about?” Grace asked, focused on the stains. It was just the two of them. “You seem. I don’t know.
Lost in something.”
“Nothing,” Harper said. “Just”—she thought for a moment—
“nothing.”
Grace finally fluffed Harper’s dress. “I think I got it all.”
Looking down, Harper pointed to a small red dot and Grace went back to work.
Harper wanted to stay in the bathroom forever, pour a whole bottle down the front of her gown and let Grace work on it all night.
The room exploded into movement after dinner. Rich, dancing with the girls, was the best dancer at the ball. He was smooth and flexible, scuffing the wood floors with his steps.
During a break, as Harper stopped to take off her shoes, Cilla came up from behind. “Our little Harper,” she said, hugging her.
“All grown up. You’re just gorgeous.”
“Thanks.”
“Tell me”—Cilla put her arm around Harper as she whispered—“are you going to marry that Rich? He’s so handsome.”
Was she crazy? Harper thought. She was only nineteen.
What was with everyone?
“I don’t know. We’ll see.”
“He’s a great catch. You ought to scoop him up while you can. Good ones are hard to find.” Benson pulled her away as a slow song started.
Harper walked slowly and watched them join the dance floor until she spotted Rich, who, like a suitor, was across the room with his hand out. Grace stood next to him. As if they’d rehearsed it, she approached Rich and he twirled then lifted her off the ground.
While Rich and Harper swayed to the music, the Glenn
Miller classic Moonlight Serenade, he told her he wanted to make amends with Grace. “Do you think she’d dance with me?”
Even though she wasn’t sure, Harper said, “Of course.”
“I know I’m not her favorite person.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Harper said. “Believe it or not, there was a time when I didn’t think she liked me either.” Harper flashed on their first match, the way the tennis ball whopped against the fence each time Grace aced a winner.
Harper danced with Dean when Rich made his conciliatory move.
“So that’s your boyfriend,” Dean said.
While they waltzed, Harper kept a curious eye on Grace and Rich. “What do you think?” she asked Dean.
“He seems nice.”
Unexpectedly, Dean dipped Harper backward. Still in the dip, he said, “Does he treat you well?”
“He does. He gave me this earlier today.”
Dean looked at the bracelet. “Very nice.” His approval was fleeting. “If he’s such a great boyfriend, why did he want to dance with Grace?”
“Oh that’s nothing. He’s got this idea she doesn’t like him.”
Dean let his gaze go back to Grace and Rich across the dance floor. “He’s trying to make amends.”
“Grace doesn’t like him?”
“I don’t know”—Harper was fixated on them again, too—
“Not really. I guess.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure. She’s never liked anyone I’ve gone out with.
She doesn’t think anyone’s good enough.”
“Well, I agree with that,” Dean said with a smile.
A saxophonist played a solo and time passed as they both enjoyed it. “How’s your date going?” Harper asked.
Together, they both looked at the woman talking with Cilla at their table. “Fine,” Dean said. “She’s in the Junior League with Cil.” He smiled. “Not really my type.”
Later that night, as Harper ate dessert with Rich at their table, she continued watching Grace, who danced with various admirers throughout the evening. When Jamie wasn’t around,
they lined up.
As You Are My Lady began, Jamie, who’d been drinking gin and smoking cigars with his dad at the bar, cut in and took back what was his.
In the small of Grace’s back, with his hand, Jamie kept their bodies close together as they danced, his face flush with hers.
By this time, some of Grace’s hair, golden and soft, had escaped her pearled clip. Harper closed her eyes, imagining Grace’s perfume, how careful she was with the wine stains, the way Grace’s hand had singed the inside of her thigh.
For a moment, sitting in her debutante dress amidst the Scottsdale elite—the governor, CEOs, and her parents—Harper wished she were him.
0
“If Only For One Night”
Luther Vandross
After the ball, the limo driver dumped Grace, Harper and Dean, along with their dates, at Ernie’s Bar.
Still in their gowns and tuxedos, they overran the neighborhood dive, which was filled with regulars. It was somewhere Grace and Harper had been before, a safe refuge where they could escape the usual clubs and social outlets.
At the bar ordering the first round, Harper and Grace slid their fake IDs to the bartender with attitude. “Two pitchers,”
Grace said before throwing down her money, tipping well.
“And a pack of Camel Lights,” Harper added, trying to stand as tall as Grace, with as much chutzpah. The balding, perspiring bartender wasn’t sure what to make of the faux wedding dresses.
Under a bright humming Coors sign, the jukebox waited, giving off an impatient energy as the girls delivered the drinks to where the boys waited, grinning. Harper wasted no time making her way to the music. In her clutch bag, next to her lipstick case, was a small pocket she’d
filled with quarters. It wasn’t the first time the jukebox had called out to her, nor the first time she’d suggested Ernie’s so she could play DJ all night—they had the best jukebox in town. The glass was smudged, finger and nose
prints, and the “u” in Wurlitzer was missing, but the speakers worked fine.
Holding her quarters, Harper read the titles carefully, flipping through album after album. Its metal siding was cold against her shoulder as she rested against it. Before she played her first song, she glanced back at her group, gathered around two high bar tables on the other side of the room. It was Grace she was looking for and Grace she caught eyes with as Grace pulled darts from the board and handed them to Jamie.
B12, Harper told herself before punching in her request—
Debbie Gibson’s “Lost In Your Eyes.”
After it started, Harper looked again. This time, Grace was talking to Dean and his date, a woman drinking white zinfandel who looked very uncomfortable at Ernie’s. As Debbie Gibson hit the bridge, Grace looked over at Harper again. A wink.
Cutting the line in between them, Rich walked up and blocked her view. “Things are better with Grace,” Rich said, rattling the ice in his glass.
“So it seems.”
“You were right,” he added, crunching a cube. “She doesn’t hate me.”
“I told you,” Harper said, distracted. She continued scanning the music. “Did she actually say that?”
Instead of answering the question, Rich said apologetically,
“I’m sorry if I suffocate you. I don’t mean to overpamper you.”
He looked at Harper’s new bracelet, as if embarrassed.
“What…are you talking about?” Harper stopped, got serious.
“Grace said that you’re nomadic and that I shouldn’t dote on you so much. She said I should play harder to get.”
“Did she?” Across the room, Grace was throwing darts again. “Did you find that helpful?”
Jamie called Rich’s name from the pool table; they were up for doubles.
“Yes,” he said.
“I bet you did,” Harper said under her breath as he walked away.Getting back to business, Harper picked up where she left off and continued searching the jukebox albums.
Lenny Kravitz.
Bruce Springsteen.
Carole King.
Luther Vandross.
Luther, Harper thought, scanning his album. That one song…
And there it was—number four.
“If Only for One Night.”
She put in the right combination of letter and number and waited for the familiar song, one she’d first heard after rifling through Grace’s CDs that summer.
Harper closed her eyes when it started. As Luther sang, something stirred deep within her. The wave was back, rolling through her slowly this time with his soulful beat.
The song was in its second verse when Grace approached from behind. Her eyes still closed, Harper sensed Grace’s energy before she spoke.
“Nice choice,” Grace whispered, getting even closer, her chin against Harper’s shoulder. “Didn’t know you knew that one.”
“There’s a lot about me you don’t know,” Harper said.
“Really?”
The bass drum kicked in. And so did the alcohol.
Grace—still behind Harper, the two of them swaying together—sang softly in Harper’s ear about not telling a soul and no one knowing.
Stepping to the side, Harper opened her eyes quickly to see Grace and then closed them again as she slowly reached for her hand. Rich and Jamie were busy with the pool game.
Grace sang some more, twirling Harper like Rich had on the dance floor, and then pulled their bodies together. Harper closed her eyes again as Grace continued singing even more softly about eyes saying what she didn’t hear. She delivered several more lines, steamy blasts that scorched Harper’s skin.
For Harper, Luther ended too soon. Like their moment in the bathroom with the wine stains, she wanted it to last forever.
On Luther’s final note, they stopped moving and stood for a moment together, both still locked in.
When Harper opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was
Dean. He was standing at the bar, another scotch in his hand, watching them at the jukebox.
It was late when Rich finally dropped them off. Grace, sitting on a stone bench at the Alessis’ front door, waited while he and Harper said good night.
“Took you long enough,” Grace said, holding her shoes.
“Sorry.” Harper stepped into the light and searched for her keys.
“What were you doing out there?”
“Saying good night.”
“Did you kiss him?” Grace asked.
Harper looked at Grace. It was a crazy question.
“Is he a good kisser?”
“Yes, Grace,” Harper said, sliding the house key into the hole. “He’s a good kisser.”
“Are you?”
Harper paused. “Am I what?”
“A good kisser.”
Flummoxed, Harper said, “I don’t know,” and pushed open the glass door.
Grace smiled and followed her inside. “Oh I bet you are.”
In her room, Harper threw off her dress and dove onto her four-post canopy bed. She was in her gartered pantyhose and bra, her hair still fixed into place.
“I’m so tired,” she whined.
“I know.” Grace unzipped her gown and tossed it onto the chair. “I can’t believe it’s over,” she said, flopping next to Harper in her slip.
Lying on their sides facing one another, they both exhaled a breath of exhaustion. A spray of fleur-de-lis—their sorority flower—was in a vase by the bed.
Grace put her leg over Harper’s body. “What was your favorite part of the night?”
Harper thought for a moment, staring at the ceiling fan.
“Getting to Ernie’s.”
Grace laughed. “Me, too. Although seeing you get presented was pretty awesome.”
“You couldn’t even see me,” Harper said, tucking her hands under her head. “That waiter was in the way.”
“I could see enough.”
Harper’s eyes were heavy as Grace asked, “Was Rich mad he couldn’t spend the night?”
“Kind of,” Harper sighed. “Not mad. Disappointed. Why did you tell him I don’t like to be pampered?”
“You don’t.”
“Yes I do.”
Grace played with Harper’s hair for a spell before either of them spoke again.
“Do you think you’ll marry Rich?”
Harper paused. “You sound like your mother. She asked me the same thing tonight. I don’t know. Maybe. We’ve got a lot of living to do before then. You and me. Like that B & B we want to open in Napa and that trip to the moon.”
“Right, the moon,” Grace said.
“Are you going to marry Jamie?”
“Jamie isn’t even my boyfriend.”
“Yes he is,” Harper said. “Why won’t you admit it?”
“Because he’s not my boyfriend. He was just my escort tonight.
That’s all.” Grace sat up, pulled the clip from her hair and launched it across the room. Harper watched her hair come down all the way. She could smell the Aveda. “But who needs guys anyway. We should both be single. We’re in the prime of our lives.”
A run in Harper’s pantyhose caught her eye and she lifted her leg to inspect it.
Grace—sliding her finger down Harper’s thigh—stopped at the small snag. “Uh-oh,” she said.
“I’m so white trash.”
Grace touched the hole with her finger, and then tore it even bigger.
Hysterically, they laughed as Grace pulled harder. Harper wrestled her off the bed, and they knocked over the small side table on their way down, ripping the alarm clock out of the wall.They struggled until Harper restrained Grace against the chair.
“Truce,” Grace finally said, though not giving up easy.
Back in bed, Harper, missing an entire leg of hose, rolled over and turned out the lamp. In the stillness of the room, Grace began scratching Harper’s back in slow circles.
“I miss you when you’re asleep,” Grace whispered.
Harper reached back and gently touched the sway of Grace’s hip. “I miss you, too,” she said, letting her hand rest there in the dark.
Together, on top of Harper’s duvet, they drifted off to sleep against one another, skin-to-skin, Grace’s arm looped around Harper’s waist.
“Hello Again”
Neil Diamond
Harper and Rich lasted only another six months. It was Rich who’d taken Harper’s virginity, and it was she who’d broken his heart for reasons she still couldn’t pinpoint.
She genuinely loved Rich. But in all the wrong ways. She simply wanted to be friends. For much of that summer, at least until she went back to the university, late at night, Harper would wake up to Rich knocking on her French door. She’d let him in, guilty over his pain, and they’d talk and talk about how she just didn’t love him the way he loved her. He’d cry, she’d cry, and then he’d leave. It was a vicious cycle.
Harper and Grace both dated a string of fraternity guys during their sophomore and junior years. Nameless, faceless men.Harper had been waiting—patiently, she thought—for the big bang, the fireworks everyone talked about.
Harper had orgasms, and so, she confessed, did Grace, but not at the hands of the men of whom they’d pleased. The girls had had to ring that bell on their own.
By their senior year, Harper and Grace were living in Europe for the summer, several countries apart. Grace had signed up for a Spanish immersion program in Barcelona, and Harper was living in Dusseldorf, learning German photography techniques from one of her parents’ colleagues at an art college.
Harper knew about the lax drug laws in Holland. She also knew that Dusseldorf was close to the Dutch border, but she was still blown away when she walked into her first coffee shop and saw the giant Tupperware containers full of the greenest, almost iridescent, marijuana she’d ever seen. In high school she’d tried it a couple times at parties, but this was a whole new deal. It was legal. It was even taxed. Just like coffee shops in America, the bar—where patrons sat and ordered eggs and bacon—was instead packed with people of all walks of life getting stoned.
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