“Zachary Dorn, ma’am,” he introduced himself to the tall, lean handsome older woman who greeted him in the front hallway of the spectacular mansion. He was still trying to recover from his first view of the Penrods’ vast white wedding cake of a house. For reasons he still couldn’t quite fathom, he had opted against flying up to Boston in the private plane the Penrods had chartered for their New York guests, though half of the Dorn & Delaney office had accepted the invitation. Instead he had Elise rearrange her schedule to spend the weekend in Boston with him, and he had flown up on a commercial flight the night before. Though Elise had expressed more than a little interest in going with him to the Penrod reception, Zach found himself persuading her that he was going only for business reasons and that she would be bored to tears as usual. For some reason he knew it was important for him to face the coming ordeal alone. He vowed to arrive late, get out early, and steer clear of being alone with Janie for any length of time. He steeled himself as he drove the rented car up the long, winding, oak-lined driveway that led to Janie’s home.
Gabled, corniced, glistening white in the late afternoon sun, the Penrod house was elegant yet inviting. Though the lush green lawns were immaculately maintained, Zach saw from an abandoned game of croquet that the grass was meant to be walked on. There were gardens everywhere you looked—skirting the woods, tucked beneath windows, running along the side of the house—but they were all slightly wild and overgrown, frothy masses of color and scent.
“The Zachary Dorn?” the woman asked. She had silver-gray hair, a direct probing gaze, fair, slightly freckled skin that made him think of Janie. “The famous man himself? Everyone’s been asking where you were. Janie’s told me so much about you. Oh, I’m sorry,” she added, holding out her hand, “I’m Janie’s mother, Faith. So pleased to meet you.”
“Pleased to meet you, too,” he replied politely, returning her effortless smile. Her lips were like Janie’s—warm and generous—her eyebrows the same soft questioning curve. She must have been a beautiful younger woman, he guessed, and the years had been kind to her. Her face was etched with fine wrinkles, most prominent around her mouth and eyes when she smiled, but she was still elegantly attractive, graciously feminine. Janie would look something like this in another forty years, it occurred to Zach. Though he’d promised himself to stop thinking about it, he felt a sudden rush of anger and regret that he wouldn’t be growing old with her.
As if sensing something was wrong, Faith put her hand on Zach’s sleeve and said, “A tough drive up? Janie told me you had some business in Boston. The highways can be utter hell on summer weekends. Would you like to wash up before joining the others?” She had started walking down a wide, highly polished corridor hung with family portraits which opened to various high-ceilinged, beautifully appointed rooms. To the right was an oval dining room with an enormous mahogany table and breakfronts glimmering with ornate china and silver. To the left was a spacious living room with a fireplace at either end, a jungle of expensive chintz-covered furniture, and a number of Impressionist paintings that Zach sensed were the real thing. The whole house smelled of flowers and furniture polish and was filled with the cool, comforting sense of a well-loved home. The party was obviously taking place outside. Zach could hear voices, the tinkling of glasses, a distant rumble of ocean, and broken strains of lute music. He suddenly felt thoroughly unprepared for what was ahead.
“Actually, yes, if you don’t mind,” Zach told Faith, “I could stand a washup.”
“We’re sending the men up to the second floor,” Faith told Zach. “If you go back to the front hall, it’s your first left at the top of the stairs. Actually, there’s any number of bathrooms up there. You can take your pick. I really should get back to the Chansons—you know they flew in from Paris this morning.”
“I didn’t know,” Zach answered politely. Then he added lamely, “How nice for Alain and Janie.”
“I guess so,” Faith said, though her smile had faded somewhat. “I’m afraid, though, that they’ve found us all very, well, American. It certainly hasn’t helped matters that two members of my husband’s medieval music troupe came to the party already well fortified, if you know what I mean.”
Zach laughed aloud.
“It is rather funny, isn’t it?” Faith replied, laughing herself. “I can’t pretend we’re something we’re not, after all, can I? Thank you for reminding me of that. I’ll see you outside then, Mr. Dorn?”
“Please, it’s Zach,” he told her. “And I’ll keep my eye on the more wobbly musicians when I get out there, okay?”
“Oh, would you?” Faith asked, and at that moment she looked so much like Janie that Zach could feel his heart start to ache all over again.
“Happy to,” he told her, turning away. He didn’t need to use the bathroom, but he went up anyway, closing the door behind him. It was a large, blue-tiled room with lacy white curtains that looked out on the back lawn and, farther, the sun-dazzled sea. Blue-and-white-striped tents had been set up on the bluffs from which waiters in white tie came and went with round trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres. There were at least a hundred people here, Zach estimated, and yet, unerringly, his gaze fell almost immediately upon Janie. She was wearing a pale lemon-colored, off-the-shoulder sundress. Her red hair was pulled back and held at the nape of her neck by a wide white bow. She was talking to an older couple—both small-boned and immaculately dressed—whom Zach decided must be Alain’s parents. She leaned closer to hear what the older man said, nodded, and smiled prettily at him. Zach looked down at his hands and saw that they were clenched tight—two large, mean balls. He shook them out, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and once again renewed his promise not to do anything to spoil Janie’s happiness.
A few moments later he felt composed enough to go downstairs. The first person he ran into was Louella, her arms full of elegantly wrapped presents.
“We’d almost given up on you! Where have you been?” she demanded in breathy tones. But before he could explain she excitedly went on in a lowered voice, “My God, Zach, you wouldn’t believe who all’s here. The governor, two senators, and—yes—Teddy Kennedy. Janie’s mother introduced me to him. They called him Ted, can you believe it? I mean, anybody who is anybody in the entire state is here. But they’re all so nice, Zach, I can’t get over it. They’re just like real people.”
“Well, they are real people,” Zach pointed out.
“You know what I mean,” Louella told him. “The only ones who act like they’re something special, if you ask me, are Alain’s parents. The mother gave me a pretty fishy eye when Janie introduced me as her maid of honor. She started in on me in that goddamned rapid-fire French and seemed disgusted when I told her as nicely as I could that I didn’t speak the language. God, what a snob! And the old man isn’t much better. I tried to have a conversation with him—but forget it, he pretended not to understand my English.”
“Perhaps he didn’t.”
“He understood Teddy Kennedy’s English well enough,” Louella retorted as she started toward the side door. “I gotta put these gifts in the study. I’ve never seen so many presents in one place in my entire life!”
Remembering his promise to Faith, Zach circulated through the crowd until he at last found the source of the music: four elderly men, dressed in medieval garb, wandered slowly around the grounds and performed with breathy abandon. Zach could immediately spot the two performers Faith had told him about: they lagged behind the two leaders, faces flushed and cloth caps askew. Keeping his distance, Zach followed until the group disbanded for a break, and then shadowed the two malingerers as they edged their way behind one of the refreshment tents. Zach waited until he saw one of them pull a flask from his vest pocket before descending on them.
“Excuse me,” he said, hurrying up, “I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your playing. I used to play a little mandolin myself, back in college. You just never get to hear it anymore.”
“I play the cittern actually,” the man with the flask replied curtly, hoping his unfriendliness would drive the unwanted stranger off.
“Is that so?” Zach asked with acute interest. “May I see it, please?” The man had to return the flask to his pocket in order to hand the instrument over to Zach. And that’s where the flask stayed as Zach managed to keep the conversation rolling with his enthused questions. “So, this is a cittern. What’s the difference, exactly—I mean, between this and a mandolin?”
Ten minutes later, Zach heard a man calling, “Harold? James? It’s time to start again.”
“It’s Henry.” The man with the flask interrupted Zach’s monologue abruptly. “We’ve got to go.”
“Oh, great,” Zach replied, “I’ll walk back with you. You know, I think I’ll just kind of follow you guys around the rest of the afternoon. This is all so interesting to me—I may even take up the mandolin again.”
“Oh do,” the cittern player retorted as Zach herded them back into the crowd, “take up something.”
Perhaps it was Zach’s imagination, but the musicians did sound a bit improved after that. More in tune. Better rhythm. It wasn’t really Zach’s sort of music at all—too sweet and monotonous for him—but he did rather enjoy trailing in the troupe’s wake. The leader, Henry, seemed to Zach to be more than a little talented. A tall, balding gentleman, dressed in ridiculous medieval garb and walking with undaunted pride through the crowd, Henry appealed to Zach’s more eccentric side. When cocktails were winding down and the guests were being ushered into the tents for dinner, Zach looked around for Henry, hoping to have a word with him before the troupe departed. He was stunned when he spotted Henry, now dressed in formal dinner wear, striding toward him across the darkening lawn.
“Zachary Dorn,” Henry announced, holding out his right hand. “Both Faith and I want to thank you for your beautifully executed rescue effort this afternoon.”
“Sir?” Zach replied, more than a little baffled.
“With Harry and Jim,” Henry elaborated, “my fellow musicians? Faith told me you were instrumental, so to speak, in sobering the old boys up. Sorry to have to put you out like that,” Henry went on, taking Zach’s elbow and steering him into one of the tents. “I insist you join Faith and me at the head table. We’re right this way…”
And so, though Zach had hoped to remain at the fringes of the party, away from Janie’s smile and gaze, he found himself seated at her table, between Faith and Janie’s sister Cynthia, and diagonally across from the honored couple. Henry, who Zach now realized was Janie’s father, sat between the Chansons. The rest of Janie’s seemingly endless family ranged down the long table and spilled over onto adjoining ones. There were fifteen or so tables altogether under the airy striped tent, each with a fragrant centerpiece of fresh flowers and aglitter with candelabras.
It was one of the most delicious dinners of Zach’s life: chilled fresh Maine lobster tails dabbed with caviar and sour cream, grilled Cornish game hens served on crisp squares of polenta, salads of wild dandelion and arugula, and grilled fresh garden vegetables.
“Mama worried over this menu so,” Cynthia, Janie’s lovely older sister, told Zach after he had complimented her on the meal. Though Cynthia was Janie’s senior by at least a decade, she was still the epitome of American beauty: shoulder-length blond hair, classical features, a large-boned, athletic body, and a direct blue gaze that Zach sensed did not suffer fools gladly.
“She needn’t have,” Zach said, digging into a slice of warm blueberry cobbler topped with homemade vanilla ice cream. “It’s all superb.”
“Well, she was just so determined to please the Chansons,” Cynthia replied with a tinge of bitterness in her voice. “Wanted to make them feel at home. She decided everything should be local New England produce. These vegetables and the blueberries are from her own garden.”
“It’s all great,” Zach assured her again, glancing sideways at Cynthia. “You sound defensive for some reason.”
“Only because I happened to overhear the Chansons talking before dinner,” she replied in a lowered tone. “I speak French fluently. I’ve lived in Paris with my husband for many years now. So I pick up on things my dear parents and younger sister can’t.” She hesitated and looked at Zach. “I’m sorry. I’m being rude and mean-spirited. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, except that Janie told me you were one of her best friends…”
“I am,” Zach answered. “And you really haven’t told me anything, you know. But you can if you like. At Janie’s suggestion, I’m making a real effort these days to improve my listening skills.”
“Is that so?” Cynthia smiled, and Zach sensed that the Penrod women had broken more than their fair share of hearts. “Janie keeps surprising me. All these years we thought she was drudging away in some grim little ad office—and actually she was running around with men like you and Alain Chanson.”
“I own that grim little office,” Zach corrected her nicely, “and Janie and I are just friends. That’s all we’ve ever been.”
“Pity,” Cynthia replied with a sad smile, “you’re more our style than Alain. Between you and me, I think he’s a bore and the worst kind of male chauvinist. I know too much about his amorous exploits to want him anywhere near my sister, let alone married to her. I’ve never been that close to Janie, you know. I was in college when she was just twelve or so. She was such a shy … lonely kid. I always felt protective and concerned. And now I’m downright worried. I’m convinced that the two elder Chansons are sitting over there trying to calculate our net worth. I overheard her ask him if he thought the Pissarro and Monets in the living room were genuine!”
“I wondered the same thing,” Zach said, trying to soften her anger. He could almost feel the heat of her sisterly outrage radiating from her strong body, and he felt warmed by it. Here was someone who truly loved Janie, who wanted to protect her, and see her happy. They had a lot in common.
“Don’t you worry about this at all?” Cynthia demanded, meeting his gaze.
“Yes,” Zach told her, looking away and across the table at Janie. She was sitting erect, almost frozen in perfect posture. Alain’s arm was draped possessively across her shoulder. He worried that she had bartered too much for what she was getting. He worried for her spontaneity. Her dreaminess. Her soul. And he worried deeply that Alain’s commitment to her was no more lasting than that of a victor to his newly acquired spoils. A sportsman to his trophy. In another year or so, with Janie saddled with a baby or two, Alain would be off again seeking new conquests. And that could shatter Janie’s life forever.
“Yes, I worry. But you have to let people make their own mistakes, Cynthia. It’s too late to warn her now.”
“You’re right,” Cynthia replied. “I should have been a better sister years ago. I should…”
“Dance with me,” Zach interrupted, scraping back his chair. It was a night for celebration, not recrimination, Zach told Cynthia as he guided her to the dance floor that had been set up at the far end of the tent overlooking the sea. Zach danced with Cynthia, and Faith, and Janie’s other sister, Victoria. He avoided Janie, though he watched her surreptitiously all evening—a swirl of pale yellow dress and soft red hair, the bright throbbing center of his aching heart. At one point, as another dance began and Zach saw Alain pull Janie into his arms, Zach found Henry at his side, watching him.
“She’s a beautiful woman now, isn’t she?” Henry asked Zach proudly.
“She’s always been beautiful, sir,” Zach corrected him and, in the brief silence that followed, realized he had said far too much. He thanked Henry for his hospitality, made record time back to Boston, and took Elise to bed with such fervor that she once again began to plan a wedding of her own.