They were standing by the bar, waiting for the men to bring them their drinks. Katharine nudged Mary Bliss. “Do you see who I see?”
The Acorn ballroom at the country club was packed. The room was dimly lit to begin with, and tonight it seemed darker than usual, which Mary Bliss decided was a good thing.
She scanned the room until her eyes lit on a beautiful strawberry blonde who was flirting with the deejay the club had hired to provide music for the dance. Mary Bliss hadn’t seen her in months. “Who? You mean Ava Grace Samford? I thought they were spending the summer up in Highlands this year.”
“It’s not Ava Grace I’m talking about,” Katharine said. “You’re looking in the wrong direction. Look over there. Under that big bunch of silver balloons hanging by the ceiling.”
Mary Bliss spotted the balloon bouquet. Directly beneath it she spotted Nancye Bowden, who was doing a wicked shimmy to “Louie Louie.” Nancy was wearing a strapless, ruched silver lamé sheath that reminded Mary Bliss of aluminum dryer vent hose. With every slither Nancy made, the bodice of her dress slipped a little further south, and her surprisingly full breasts were a little more exposed.
“I can’t believe it,” Mary Bliss said, her jaw dropping open.
“Can’t believe what?” Charlie asked, rejoining them with the drinks and Matt.
“Nancye Bowden,” Katharine said.
“Where?” Charlie asked. He knew all about Fair Oaks’s biggest summer scandal.
“Check the balloons,” Katharine said.
Charlie had found Nancye Bowden. “Literally,” he said dryly.
“The woman in the silver dress?” Matt asked, handing Mary Bliss her glass of white wine. “I’ve seen her around town. What’s her name?”
“Nancye Bowden,” Katharine said. “The town tramp. Will you look at that outfit she’s wearing? And those honkers which she is happily exposing to God and everybody? Isn’t that amazing?”
Charlie was openly staring at Nancye, grinning in appreciation. “Amazing. Yessir.”
“You’re drooling,” Katharine said, dabbing at Charlie’s chin. “Anyway. They’re store-bought. You know, a boob job.”
She had Matt looking too. “Is that right?” he asked. “Women still do that kind of thing? They go through that kind of thing, just to get bigger breasts?”
“Pain is beauty,” Mary Bliss said, quoting the Spa Serenity slogan. “Anyway. It’s not nice to stare. And I should know.”
People had been staring at Mary Bliss all evening, or it felt like it anyway.
She’d made Charlie drive twice around the parking lot at the club, just trying to delay making an entrance at the dance. Still, heads had been turning and jaws had been jabbering since they’d walked in the door.
“They’re staring because they don’t recognize you, and they’re trying to figure out who you are,” Charlie told Mary Bliss.
“No, they’re staring at you because they can’t believe what a knockout blonde you are,” Matt said proudly.
Katharine clutched Matt’s arm in a chummy gesture. “Or they saw the four of us come in together and they think I’m with Matt, and you’re Charlie’s new girlfriend.” She gave Matt a noisy kiss on the cheek.
“Or they can’t believe you and Charlie are back together again,” Mary Bliss said, feeling better about things.
“We’re just the biggest scandal in town.” Katharine giggled, loving the idea. “Nancye Bowden is yesterday’s news.”
The deejay had slowed down all the southern frat party music and was playing a Johnny Mathis song, “The Twelfth of Never.”
“Come on,” Katharine said, edging Charlie toward the dance floor. “This one is just our speed.”
Matt looked expectantly at Mary Bliss. “Is dancing allowed? Was that part of our agreement?”
Mary Bliss had been hoping for something a little more up-tempo for her first dance.
“I guess,” she said, giving him a tentative smile.
He led her onto the dance floor and put a chaste hand on her waist. “See?” he said, gliding her easily around the floor. “I’m not so bad, am I?”
“No,” she said, smiling up at him. She remembered something Nina used to say. “Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.”
It truly wasn’t awful. Matt was an easy, relaxed dancer. It was strange, though. Strange dancing with somebody who wasn’t Parker McGowan. Strange catching on to another man’s rhythm.
They danced that dance and sat out a cartoonish Macarena, because Matt said he didn’t do the Macarena. Then the deejay started spinning “The Tennessee Waltz” and Matt nodded at her; she nodded back, and then she saw him.
Randy Bowden hovered near the bar, sipping a bottle of beer and staring balefully in his estranged wife’s direction. He looked pitiful, his face pinched, his dinner jacket ill-fitting. He broke Mary Bliss’s heart.
She kept seeing him over Matt’s shoulder as they waltzed around the waxed country club dance floor. She saw that he saw her too. She gave him a generous, beaming smile and an encouraging wave.
When the dance was over, Randy materialized at her side.
“Mary Bliss? Is that you?”
She nodded. “All my life I’ve heard blondes have more fun. I decided to give it a shot.”
“It’s wonderful,” Randy said. “You were beautiful before. But now…”
She noticed Matt’s amused smirk.
“Randy, this is Matt Hayslip,” she said, gesturing in his direction. “Matt lives in the Oaks. And Matt, this is Randy Bowden. He’s sort of the boy next door.”
“Across the street, actually,” Randy said, taking a long swig of beer.
“Randy’s son Josh is Erin’s boyfriend,” Mary Bliss explained. Randy gave her a funny look, then finished off his beer. Was it possible that he was tipsy? He was always so serious, it was hard to tell. “Josh is a great kid,” she added. “A talented musician.”
The deejay was changing the tempo again. It was “Double Shot,” the old Swinging Medallions song, a country club anthem for middle-aged people who liked to think they could still party hearty like they had in college.
Randy glanced over his shoulder toward Nancy, who was thrashing around the dance floor with a different man than she’d been dancing with earlier.
“Come on,” he said, grabbing Mary Bliss’s hand. “How ’bout a dance with the boy next door?”
They had to fight their way onto the dance floor. Along the way Randy picked up a fresh bottle of beer.
“Woke up this morning, had a headache so bad,” he shouted, off-key, moving his arms but not his feet to the music.
Mary Bliss sang along, too, laughing. Randy really was tipsy. He was adorable. He apparently hadn’t learned any new dance steps since seventh-grade cotillion, because he was gyrating his arms in something approximating a dance Mary Bliss had always called “The Robot.”
“It wasn’t Budweiser that I had too much of,” Randy hollered, waving the Budweiser bottle over his head.
“It was a double shot of tequila!” everybody screamed in unison.
They went on like that, screaming the words to the song, adding silly improvised verses, until Mary Bliss was laughing so hard that she could hardly dance.
She was standing still, trying to catch her breath, when the deejay switched tempo again.
His choice brought howls of approval: “With this Ring,” another southern frat house standard.
Randy caught her up in his arms and they were dancing again, this time not so frenetically, and much closer.
He was tall, much taller than Parker, taller even than Matt. And the beer had given him the courage to hold her tight against his dinner jacket.
He was very sweet, Mary Bliss decided, much better at slow dancing. But she worried about the words to the song, which promised “I’ll always love you,” over and over again. He had probably danced to this song with Nancye a hundred times, sung the words, promised the promise. And she had probably promised back, the little liar. How humiliating to have her here, flaunting herself and those silicone boobs with every man in the room. Randy Bowden was a wounded bird, and she felt an urge to bandage him up and put him in a shoe box and feed him milk through an eyedropper.
He didn’t smell bad either. She inhaled and had a sudden sensory overload.
“Brut!” she said, surprised.
He stepped back a little. “I’m sorry. Did I step on your feet? I haven’t slow-danced in a long time.”
“No,” Mary Bliss said, patting his sleeve. “It’s all right. I meant Brut, the aftershave. Aren’t you wearing Brut?”
“A little,” he said apologetically. “The kids made me wear it. They gave it to me for Father’s Day. The little guys put it on me. I guess they overdid it.”
“I like Brut,” Mary Bliss said dreamily. “The first boy I ever dated wore Brut aftershave.”
The song ended then, and Randy gave her a deep, courtly bow.
“Thank you,” he said, kissing the back of her hand. “For the dances. And for everything.”
“You’re welcome,” Mary Bliss said. “Anytime at all.”
He drifted away then, and later in the evening Mary Bliss saw him, standing by the bar, drinking another beer. She smiled, he waved. Then Matt and Katharine and Charlie dragged her off to the midnight supper being served in the men’s grill, and before she knew it, the deejay was breaking down his sound system and the dance was over.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Matt asked. They were sitting in the plush backseat of Charlie’s Lincoln, Matt’s arm thrown casually across her shoulders. Katharine was up front, driving, because she claimed Charlie had disgraced himself with one too many Manhattans.
“It wasn’t bad,” Mary Bliss said. “But it was an adjustment.”
They were two blocks away from Mary Bliss’s street, and Katharine was laughing wildly and driving way too fast, careening around corners, going up over the curbs, actually trenching old man Kirby’s grass at one point.
Matt saw Mary Bliss’s alarm. “Hey, Katharine,” he called. “Why don’t you just let us off here? It’s cooled off a lot. I’ll walk Mary Bliss home and then walk home from there.”
Katharine slammed on the Lincoln’s brakes, sending Mary Bliss nearly airborne. “Sure,” she cried gaily. “We get it, don’t we, Charlie?”
Charlie’s head was slumped to the side. He snored loudly.
“You guys want to be alone,” Katharine said. “I can take a hint.”
Mary Bliss still had one leg in the car when Katharine screeched off.
“Charlie wasn’t the only one dipping into the Manhattans tonight,” Matt said. “Think she’ll make it home all right?” he asked, watching the Lincoln’s taillights disappear.
“It’s all a show,” Mary Bliss said. “I was watching her. She sipped the same club soda all night. I think she wanted you to do something like this.”
“So we’d be alone?” he asked, reaching out to take her hand. “Isn’t that against the rules?”
“I forgot to tell her the rules,” Mary Bliss said.