One Good Friend Deserves Another (11 page)

Because what he’d confessed to her at Wendy’s engagement party in January—blessedly alone in the light-bedecked winter pavilion—was a glimpse into the boy Trey once was, and an insight into the man he’d become.

“Kelly, here’s the thing a lot of women don’t know. To a young guy, a pretty girl is like a lioness in lipstick. If he approaches her right, she might give him a chance to get to know her. If he fumbles, or stutters, or says something asinine, she’ll cut him cold. Those pickup guys gave me confidence. I didn’t realize, until long after, that they asked way too much in return.”

Now she watched him eating across the table, while her gaze lingered on the red highlights gleaming in his hair. That night, his confession had seemed so heartfelt, his expression so vulnerable, and it had taken a great force of will to calmly reassure him that all was forgiven, and then, even more calmly, to walk away from him. Only when he pursued her six weeks later did she loosen her grip on her libido, and then her heart.

Now she had to prepare to leave him again, with as much dignity as a fisherman’s daughter could muster.

“Do you remember that brunch we shared a few months ago,” she murmured, running her fingers through her tumbled hair, “that dim sum place near my apartment?”

It was one of her favorite local finds—a tiny storefront Cantonese restaurant that served massive amounts of steamed dumplings and rice noodle rolls, along with bottomless pots of fragrant jasmine tea.

“I remember you originally offered me a breakfast of powdered milk, store-brand instant coffee, and frozen cans of orange juice.”

She flushed, remembering the look of horror as he perused the contents of her kitchen that first rainy March morning before suggesting in his most polite way that they go out for brunch.

“I’d have eaten anything after that.” Trey pointed a piece of steak at her. “And I believe I did—chicken feet, right?”

“They called them phoenix talons,” she confessed. “That waiter spoke English, you know. He just wanted to see the look on your face. He did that to me, too, the first time I showed up.”

“Yeah, I figured there was a reason every Chinaman in the room was grinning.”

“It wasn’t all bad.”

“Oh, no. Those buns with the bean paste—”

“Three orders, I remember.”

“Yeah, they were something.”

“And do you remember when we went bowling?”

Trey laughed into his napkin. “I think that was the first time I understood what it was like to be a minority.”

The two of them had been the palest people at the lanes off Times Square, a lively bowling alley that—despite all the new neon lighting, fancy fruit drinks, and shiny polished lanes—still exuded the smell of stale tobacco and cheap spilled beer, a particular blend that she always associated with the ten-pin bowling alleys of her youth.

She remembered teasing him about his reluctance to wear rented shoes. “If I remember correctly, I whooped your ass.”

“Oh yeah, I sucked. The rum shooters didn’t help.”

“You know,” she said, picking up her sandwich, “that might have been my favorite date of all.”

She bit into her panini, not really tasting it, sensing as she did his sudden stillness. His fork and knife clinked as he laid them on the plate, and she felt a little tremor inside her. It was going to take more strength than she thought to make sure this lovely affair ended with as much dignity as possible.

“What’s going on in that techie head of yours, Kelly Palazzo of the Gloucester Palazzos?”

“Come on, Trey.” She felt a swelling pressure in her throat. “We had a really good run of it, didn’t we?”

He looked at her as if she’d just sprouted wings. “Whoa. Whoa.”

“I don’t want to ruin all this.” She gestured to the hotel room with its down comforter and flat-screen TV and impossibly big bed, meaning so much more than the place. “I mean, it’s really been great, Trey. It’s been exciting and incredibly romantic, and you’ve just been…well, you’ve been wonderful. But I know you didn’t get into this expecting forever.”

“Hold on—wait a minute.”

“I understand you better than you know.” Her breath caught in her throat; it hitched against her will. “I know, from Wendy, that you rarely stay with a woman more than a few months—”

“Hey—”

“—and I don’t want to make things difficult. I told myself, way back in March, that if things got complicated—messy—well, I promised that we would just skip that part and go right to the end.”

His face mottled. “You’re breaking up with me.”

“I’m Kelly Palazzo.” She held up her hands, palms out. “I’m a working-class girl from the wrong part of Gloucester. The only reason I got into Vassar is because I hooked the admissions officer with the sob story in my essay—you know, about how my father’s living depended on the seasonal runs of whiting and how I nearly broke my mother’s budget insisting on bags of lemons so I could scrub the smell of fish off my skin every night.”

She could tell, by the way his eyes widened, that she was going too deep—into waters he’d never be able to fathom.

“Do you have any idea what it means, for a girl like me, to attract a guy like you? It’s fairy godmother stuff, Trey. I’m a freakin’ geek. After our little scene in the office today, my social cred went up, like, a trillion gigabytes. But midnight is coming, and the ball is over.” She leaned across the table and covered his hand with hers. “Let’s cut bait now, before everything gets complicated. That way, we’ll both leave with good memories.”

His thumb came up from under her hand to stroke her fingers. He fiddled with them while a line deepened between his brows. The sound of cab horns and squealing tires drifted up from the street.

“You’re always taking me by surprise, Kell.”

She shivered a bit at the sound of the nickname.

“I mean, if I didn’t know you better, I’d think you’d practiced all of that.” Hurt brown eyes, wide and wounded. “That you were playing me, somehow.”

“Trey, I wouldn’t know how to ‘play’ anyone.”

“You’re making it too easy.” He shifted his weight against the chair. “I mean, one word, and I’m cut loose entirely.”

“No anger, no hurt feelings.” Damn her eyes, prickling already. “And absolutely no regrets.”

How long could she do this? She focused on the wink of a gold fleck in his left eye, becoming more blurry as tears gathered. Then, to hide the tears, she dropped her gaze to the naked V of his chest, growing more and more blotchy under the influence of some internal struggle.

The silence stretched. Her heart swelled, choking her. She tried, very hard, to smile.

Trey tightened his grip on her hand and fixed her gaze across the silver, china, and linens. His face looked strange. There was no laughter in his brown eyes, no devil-may-care Wainwright looking for a quick and easy joke to slip them both out of the moment.

“You’re not like anyone else I’ve ever dated.” A muscle moved in his cheek. “The girls I’ve known have certain…expectations. You don’t. You take me as I am. It’s weird. And it’s really good.”

And for a moment, she felt like a very tiny, charged particle in a very quantum world—a world where you can know where you are or how fast you’re going—but never both at the same time.

“Kell,” he said. “I am not letting you go.”

W
endy leaned back against the stern pulpit of Parker’s forty-foot sailboat, shading her eyes against the sun winking between the jib and the mainsail. “Hey, Parker, the telltales on the jib are fluttering. You want me to trim it?”

“I got it.”

“I’m right here,” she said, picking up the handle by her feet. “I can crank the winch—”

“That’s my job.” Parker came out of the forward cabin clutching a glass of cranberry ice tea in one hand and a frosty microbrewery beer in the other. “We made a deal. Your only purpose today is to soak up some sun and give me an eyeful of that fine, blue bikini.”

Wendy took the drink out of his hand, hoping Parker didn’t notice the strain it took to make her smile reach her eyes. She handed him the handle for the winch and then slid down the pulpit to settle on the port bench.

She let her gaze linger on her fiancé. The sun blazed on his hair, bleaching more white streaks in the blond mop that flopped in barbershop perfection over his brow. That hank of hair had always begged for her fingers to run through it, even when he was a ten-year-old stealing her pencils at their private Montessori day school. Of course, he’d long grown out of the skinny brat phase, maturing into the athletic young man whose diffident, let’s-not-take-this-too-seriously attitude had gradually coaxed her out of the brooding celibacy of her post-Soho days. For a girl so battered by stormy seas, Parker’s arms had proven to be a peaceful harbor.

Yet now the sight of him, lean and sunburned, only pinched her heart. For though she’d carefully avoided the subject as Parker tacked out deeper into Long Island Sound, eventually, Wendy knew she’d have to bring up Birdie again.

“Now that’s what I want to see.”

Parker squinted in her direction, grinning as he pulled off the handle of the winch. She blindly patted her shoulder, wondering if a bathing suit strap had slipped off, but she was wearing a bandeau and everything was in place.

“You sitting there,” he said, “with your long legs stretched out, making me look like the luckiest man in the world.”

She made a soft hitching sound. She planted her tea in the cup holder, then rose to her feet. She wrapped her fingers around the rail ropes that curved around the stern, gripping them so hard that sharp bits of fiberglass dug into her palm. “Hey, Park, how about we go out a little farther today? Maybe into deeper water? We haven’t done that in a while.”

“Who are you,” he laughed, as he tucked the handle back where it belonged, “and what did you do with my fiancée?”

“I’m just in the mood for adventure.”

Deeper water meant gusty wind, bigger swells, and a straining lean to the boat. Deeper water meant she’d have to concentrate on helping Parker sail in order to battle the currents around the tip of the island. Deeper water meant she had more time to avoid the inevitable.

“Well you know, I’m always jonesing for speed.” He gave her an odd look as he made his way back to the wheel. “But I thought you’d want to relax today. You know, just take it easy.”

Yes, she knew she should be enjoying the swift, clean cut of the
Livibell
through the rippling water, the feel of the sea breeze in her hair, the unscheduled, unstructured afternoon free of fittings and floral appointments, rather than battling a fierce longing for an unfiltered cigarette. “Maybe I just want to fight the boat a little.”

Or just win a fight for a change.

She winced. Part of her itched for the battle. Part of her was royally pissed that Parker didn’t want Birdie at the wedding. But she was determined to be mature about this. She understood the need for diplomacy. She’d been struggling to identify with Parker’s point of view while cultivating an argument strong enough to change his mind.

“Well, it’s true I haven’t had this girl of mine out of the marina for days now.” He eyed the sudden fluttering of the mainsail as he palmed the wheel a bit. His ears seemed perked to notice the changing pitch of the wind through the ropes. “You think she feels a little neglected?”

Wendy thought not. Some of the guys at the club loved horses—bought them, stabled them, raced them, and talked endlessly about them. Other guys loved yachts—the bigger, the more customized, the better. Parker’s passion was more visceral. He liked the way the water felt rushing past the fiberglass hull; he liked the rasp of the ropes in his hand; he liked the way the bulging sails harnessed the power of the wind. She’d often figured that he’d marry this boat, if it were an option.

But stating the truth wouldn’t further her goal. “I think,” Wendy said, “that it’s always dangerous to take a girl for granted.”

“Maybe she’s just jealous that I spent last week at another regatta, feeling up another boat’s rudder.”

“You cheating bastard, you.”

“She has to know,” he said, sidling her a glance, “that for all the time I spend away, she’s my one and only girl.”

Wendy met his dark blue eyes with a prickle of guilt. She knew Parker was true-blue loyal. With the boat and the regattas, there was no room in his life for another lover. Yet into her mind, unwittingly, slipped the image of a sexy Brazilian electrician, an artist with an unforgettable face.

“No, we stay in the sound today,” he said firmly. “I promised I’d give you a relaxing day, and that’s what you’re getting.” His gaze drifted from the sleek upsweep of her hair all the way down to the pale pink polish on her toes. “Gotta keep to the plan.”

“What plan?”

“Lunch.”

Then she looked ahead to where he was directing the boat. She saw a familiar shallow-draft curl in the shoreline. She glanced at him sharply, but he kept his profile toward her. They’d been to this cove often enough that she knew why he’d chosen it. The knowledge brought a wave of irritation.

“Hey, Parker,” she said, struggling to tame her tongue, “just remember you’re cut off.”

His lip did a little pull. “Yeah, I remember.”

“I warned you a long time ago. Three months before the wedding, no more horizontal rumba.”

“I completely respect your opinion.”

“It’s the only way to make the wedding night special.”

“I know you’ve got my best interests at heart.”

“Then why are we heading to the old parking spot?”

“Just lunch. Lobster salad from Brennan’s. Fresh rolls. A bottle of Dom. Strawberries dipped in dark chocolate.”

She knew, in his own guy way, this was Parker’s method of apologizing. He’d brought along her favorite food from a roadside seafood deli at a marina twelve miles up the road.
And
he’d made the trip to the farmers’ market downtown for the dipped strawberries. But it annoyed her that he would fall back on food and sex while a quarrel still lingered between them.

“Hey, hey.” Parker laid his hand on her arm, sensing, perhaps, that he’d gone too far. “Listen, it’s just lunch.”

“Right.”

“Not that I’ll say no to any dessert you offer.”

“Parker.”

“I’m only human, Wendy. And that bikini is killing me.”

“I shouldn’t have come out today.”

“Yes, you should have. You need to relax. You’re not yourself. It’s like when I’m with you, you’re not even
here
.”

She imagined, fleetingly, a pair of tilted brown eyes, wistful with regret.

“Cove first,” he added, “and rough water later, if that’s what you really want. Today, I’ll grant you any wish.”

“Then let me have Birdie at our wedding.”

The words cut through the screeching of the gulls and the flapping of the mainsail. They fell into a strange pool of silence, and hung there.

And Wendy remembered a moment at last year’s annual charity gala, as Wendy watched her mother talk with a generous donor about some new acquisition for the museum. Mid-sentence, the donor made some rude joke about the ethnicity of one of the museum’s employees. Her mother stiffened, frozen for a moment of uncomfortable silence, then discreetly changed the subject.

By the sight of Parker’s suddenly blank face, there was no way to discreetly ignore what Wendy had just blurted aloud. She didn’t want to ignore it. She was tired of pretending that the issue hadn’t been churning in her stomach ever since their truncated discussion at the country club.

Parker gripped the wheel against a windy gust shooting around the headland of the cove. “So that’s what this is about.”

“You know it is.”

“We resolved that issue at the club.”

“We didn’t resolve the issue.” She remembered the looks they’d received as they’d discussed the issue in low tones outside the yellow parlor. “We just stopped talking about it.”

“Your own mother doesn’t want Birdie at the wedding.”

“God forbid there’s any unpleasantness.”

“She’s not wrong.” Parker reached for his beer, took a good long swallow, and then squinted out at the curving coastline. “You told me the seating arrangements have been finalized.”

“There’s nothing so written in stone that it can’t be adjusted for one or two more guests.”

“So you expect me to just forget the dinner we had with Birdie last year.”

Wendy suppressed a wince. It had been the first time the three of them had gone out in public. Birdie had misbehaved. She’d made a terrible scene in the restaurant. Birdie hadn’t meant to…she was just overexcited, uncomfortable, and unsure of Parker.

“Birdie,” Wendy said with conviction, “will behave at our wedding.”

The breeze tossed Parker’s hair wildly. “Wendy, for God’s sake, you know you can’t guarantee that.”

No, she couldn’t. Birdie was chaos, Birdie was blessedly unpredictable. Wendy remembered a day in her teens when she and Birdie ran out to the little shed where a towering drift of snow from a storm nearly met the roof. Wendy had called her friends—Miss Porter’s girls—to join her in sledding, but they had refused. They were too old for that, they said, as they headed out to Vermont for the weekend. But Birdie wasn’t too old for sledding. They’d pulled out their toboggans, climbed the roof, and sailed off it down the long, sloping hill to the frozen pond.

Birdie was never too old for fun.

“Does it really matter if she behaves badly?” She thought of Dhara’s engagement party, where one of the uncles had tried to break-dance to Usher. “Aren’t weddings supposed to be filled with family drama? Birdie is our own homegrown family drama. Why leave her out?”

“Because people will stare.”

“We’ve invited lots of ignorant guests to our wedding.”

“People will walk wide circles to avoid her.”

“Birdie doesn’t care about that.”

“Why would you do this to her?”

“Really, Parker? You’re asking me why I’d invite my only sister to our wedding?”

“You’ll embarrass her in front of everyone we know. Do you think James won’t make mocking imitations—”

“Parker. She’ll laugh along with him. She won’t care.” Wendy fixed him with her gaze. “Or is it
you
who will be embarrassed, to have at our wedding an adult with Down syndrome?”

The eyes he turned on her were harsh. Wendy felt an urge for a cigarette—as bitingly keen as when she’d first quit, years and years ago. Her accusation wasn’t completely fair, and she knew it. Parker had dutifully trudged up to Birdie’s assisted living facility with Wendy many a long Sunday. It wasn’t completely his fault that Birdie didn’t warm to him. Wendy shared a special relationship with her sister, cultivated in the bubble of their childhood, insular and fierce. Parker, awkward in Birdie’s presence, couldn’t help but be viewed as an intruder.

That stung nonetheless. Birdie didn’t act that way around anyone else. Dhara had met Birdie when Wendy wanted a second opinion on the situation with Birdie’s heart defect, and the two of them had gotten along fine. Kelly had spent a Thanksgiving with the Wainwrights during one college year, when Birdie still came home for the holiday and Trey was abroad, and Birdie still asked after her. It was actually through the eyes of her college friends that Wendy came to understand how disruptive Birdie’s presence could be, how unusual were Birdie’s unpredictable moods and awkward social inhibitions. Birdie lived at the physically and mentally more challenging end of the spectrum. Birdie simply wasn’t the TV-ready version of Down syndrome.

But Wendy had grown up with her. The rollicking chaos of Birdie was what she adored the most.

“She’s my sister,” Wendy said, mustering up all the well-practiced arguments. “She’s my
only
sister, Parker. The girl I shared my childhood with, the woman who is among my best of friends—”

“Then have her at the wedding.” Parker put his shoulders into steering the boat around the headland winds, his muscles straining against the salt-and-wind-faded Princeton crew team tank. “Okay? Just arrange for her to be there, Wendy, if that’s what you really want.”

Wendy wove a little, unbalanced by Parker’s sudden capitulation. She felt like she’d just swung a fist through thin air.

She said, “You’ll support me when I tell my mother.”

“Yes.”

“Even though she’ll fight this.”

“Yes.”

“But you think it’s a terrible idea.”

“Yes.”

Wendy grasped the stern ropes. She thought of all the compromises she’d made for Parker’s sake. She’d allowed their honeymoon to coincide with a Greek regatta, where Parker would be spending a full day sailing around the isles without her. She’d agreed when he’d asked her to cross two names off the guest list, artists from her Soho days.
(For God’s sake, Wendy, you think that crazy Ukrainian is going to remove his ball gag? And what if your Lebanese friend decides to make naked performance art out of the Viennese Waltz?)
She’d compromised with him, in a hundred little ways, thinking that was how happy marriages were made.