Chapter 13
Bill Diamond had gotten himself into a bit of a pickle.
He owed it to himself to see where this thing with Deborah might lead, but at the same time, he didn’t have it in him to further injure Sake’s already-ragged feelings by keeping her apart from Taylor in the evenings.
Bottom line: Sake needed him. Despite a bloodline to one of the most famous wine families in the valley, all he saw when he looked at her was a lost soul who needed saving.
And no. It had nothing to do with the sport of matching wits, the contrast of black hair on pearly skin, or the way his heart threatened to thud out of his chest at the sight of her pink tongue doing a number on that swirl of butter pecan.
But a successful real estate man didn’t let doubts get in his way. He cobbled crumbling deals back together. Solving problems was Bill’s forte. So, as usual, he came up with a plan: he’d take Deb out for lunch. What made it a particularly brilliant plan was that a lunchtime date wouldn’t interfere with Sake time. Plus, there was an excellent deli, Aaron’s, conveniently located right next to the medical center where Deb worked. Bill’s family had been going there for years.
He arranged a date for the middle of the following week.
Bill met Deb inside the restaurant.
“What did you do this morning?” asked Bill, holding out her plastic chair for her.
“Nothing much. I’ve been working on developing an appropriate intervention strategy for a patient with a medical diagnosis of Athetoid cerebral palsy. I’ve determined that his PT diagnosis is motor incoordination resulting in gait abnormalities and inability to negotiate uneven surfaces. He also shows signs of lower extremity weakness, leaning to inability to transition from floor to standing independently,” she said distractedly, eyes darting over the menu.
“Oh,” said Bill.
Deb snapped her menu shut. “I’ll have the Reuben.”
Bill’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Can’t go wrong with that.” Apparently, ordering lunch was child’s play compared with executing a PT plan. As for him, it usually took longer to decide what to get than it did to actually eat his meal.
“And you? What have you been up to?” Her sharp gaze dissected him.
“I just came from putting a sign on my newest listing.” He’d had to wrestle the metal legs into the hard-packed ground, hoping the entire time that nobody was watching. It hadn’t been pretty.
“I see.” Deborah nodded, but her tone was a reminder that schlepping real estate, while a perfectly respectable profession, wasn’t exactly on a par with helping people walk.
After they ordered, Bill, rarely at a loss for words, could suddenly find nothing to say.
While he watched, hands folded, Deb pulled out her phone and scrolled until their plates arrived. Just as he was salivating over his first, luscious-looking bite, he heard a familiar voice.
“William! Billy!”
He lowered his intact sandwich. “Hi, Mom, Dad.”
“Son,” said Dad. “What are you doing here?”
“Having lunch. What are you doing?”
“Same thing. What a coincidence.”
Bill turned to his date. “My parents, Rachel and David Diamond.”
“And who is your lovely friend?” asked Mom, taking in every detail, from the top of Deb’s short brown curls down to her Crocs, giving special scrutiny to the naked third finger of her left hand.
“Deborah. Pleased to meet you.”
“Doctor Deborah?” asked Mom, zooming in on the name stitched into the breast pocket of her lab coat.
Deb threw back her shoulders. “Technically I’m a DPT—doctor of physical therapy.”
“Very nice!” At Deb’s shelf-like chest, Dad’s eyes grew round as saucers.
Bill gave Dad a pass. A man would have to be dead not to notice that.
Mom whacked Dad’s arm. “Feinstein, is it?”
“That’s right.”
“Feinstein! Wonderful!” Mom crowed, calculating eyes flitting from Deborah to Bill and back again.
Inside that head of hers, Bill was pretty sure Mom was already debating whether to go short or long for her mother-of-the-groom dress.
Dad left to go to the counter and Deborah lunged into her sandwich.
“How’s the Reuben?” Mom asked.
“Noh bah,” Deborah murmured.
“Bill, you should have told her to get the pastrami.” Then she addressed Deborah. “I’m telling you, Aaron here, the owner, is like the pastrami whisperer. He makes the best pastrami sandwiches I’ve ever tasted.”
“Gooh bahance oh fah an leah?”
Bill touched his own mouth with his finger in a discreet signal to Deb to wipe the little glob of Russian dressing from the corner of her lips.
“A terrific balance of fat and lean! And they pile it high, but not too bulgy, you know what I mean?”
Finally, Deb swallowed. “Layered, so the meat bites away cleanly? Because that’s how my mother taught me.”
“And you cook, too!” Her eyes met Bill’s. “She cooks!” She returned to Deborah. “Yes. That’s it. That’s exactly how Aaron makes it. The way it should be done.”
“Rachel,” called Dad from over at the counter. “Can we stop talking about pastrami and start ordering it? I’m starving over here.”
“Very nice meeting you, Doctor. I hope to see you again soon,” said Mom, leaving Bill with a look that meant, What are you waiting for? You should have proposed yesterday!
“I’ll have to try the pastrami, next time,” called Deborah.
“I’ll be waiting to hear how you like it.”
“Rachel! I’m ordering. Do you want the chips or the fries alongside?”
***
Though Sake couldn’t forget about her lame attempt at coming on to Bill that day in his apartment, he had never again brought it up. That was the thing about Bill Diamond. He never made you feel “less than.” Judged.
But there was another thing he hadn’t repeated after that day, either. He hadn’t touched her. Had those kisses in the alleyway just been sympathy kisses, after all?
She’d weighed that question over and over. There were only two explanations: either he wasn’t attracted to her at all, or he was more interested in his other so-called “dates.”
Now that their times together always included driving around, it only made sense for them to stop and get a bite somewhere. People-watching next to Bill as they dined al fresco, Taylor lying contentedly at her feet, was her favorite new thing. From one of Napa’s many outdoor restaurants, she could observe her new environment without feeling obliged to interact with any of the fancy people up here, and risk saying the wrong thing in the wrong way.
On Friday evening, as they sat eating clams, Sake noticed Bill eyeing something—or someone—over her shoulder. The café tables jutted into the sidewalk, making it impossible for passersby to go unnoticed. He put down his fork, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and looked up.
“Sylvia,” Bill said. Sake looked over her shoulder to see a woman with heavy dark brows, long wavy hair parted in the middle, and a straight, if melancholy, smile.
“Hi, Bill, how are you?” Her voice was soft and breathy.
Bill stood up, ever the gentleman, and gave her a hug. “Fine. You?”
“Great!” she said with forced enthusiasm. “Pete Junior’s playing JV next fall.”
“Chip off the old block.”
“Yeah . . .” With curiosity, the woman looked down at where Sake sat.
“Oh, pardon me. This is Sake.”
A glint of recognition—and was that jealousy?—swept over her features. “Sake St. Pierre?”
Sake smiled. “Nice to meet you,” she heard herself mumble.
It was hard for two women to hide hate at first sight.
“Well, better scoot. . . . Call me sometime.” She kissed Bill’s cheek before flouncing off, giving Sake the view of her hips swishing from side to side that Bill had been treated to moments earlier.
“Who was that?”
Bill resumed eating. “Sylvia Goldsmith. Er, Johnson, now. Or was, until she got divorced,” he said, not looking up from his plate. “Not sure which name she’s going by these days.”
He wasn’t going to get away with acting like nothing momentous had happened. Sake circled her fork in the air. “And?”
Nonchalant, he chewed his mouthful of salad. “And what?”
“Seriously? ‘Better scoot.... Call me sometime,’ ” Sake aped, with a flip of her hair. “What happened between you two?”
He sipped his beer. “It was over between us years ago.”
“What? What was over?”
Resigned, he set the bottle down. “I grew up with Sylvia. We dated all through high school. Our families just assumed we would go the whole happily-ever-after route. That is, until the morning of prom, when I came down with a bad case of the flu. Sylvia already had the dress and all, and after hours of handwringing and a tearful apology, she made the brave decision to go to the dance by herself, with my blessing. Fine with me. Done and done, right?”
“Then what happened?”
“Then August rolls around, and I’m as shocked as the rest of the school when Sylvia announces she’s no longer going to college in the fall. Turns out she got knocked up at the after-prom party by Petey Johnson. From the football team.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“You think she cried about the prom?” Bill buttered a chunk of bread and let his knife clatter to his plate. “That was nothing.”
“She regretted it.”
“She couldn’t say she was sorry enough. But that didn’t stop her from marrying the guy.”
“But now she’s divorced, you said.”
“Just this summer.”
Sake was dying to ask him how he knew that, but that wouldn’t be cool.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Sylvia Goldsmith Johnson though, even after Bill took her home. Why should she care if Bill called Sylvia? What had gotten into her? It was ridiculous, when she’d probably never see him again after September first . . . after her world was set to rights.
Only she wasn’t sure exactly what “right” looked like anymore.