“Are you mad at me?” Daniel asked after I threw his sport coat at him and stomped off to the truck.
I could hear more stitches popping after I hoisted myself up to the seat. I looked down and saw the right side seam had ripped halfway up to my thigh. I was past caring. Daniel had already seen my nipples. Too late for modesty now.
“Just take me home, please,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
“It’s not even ten o’clock yet,” he protested. “What’s your hurry?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, my dress is disintegrating,” I said.
“Well, hell, I don’t mind if you don’t mind.”
“I mind.”
“You gotta admit, Weezie, that dress of yours made for a pretty exciting night. Did you ever see that Alfred Hitchcock movie where the guy is dangling off the torch that’s being held by the Statue of Liberty? And another guy is hanging onto the falling guy, just by the sleeve of his jacket. And all of a sudden, the camera focuses in on the sleeve, coming apart, thread by thead. Pop. Pop. Pop. And there’re maybe three little stitches that’re the only thing keeping him from falling to his death. Your dress is kind of like that, you know? Real suspenseful.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed the peep show,” I said. “But then, you weren’t the one whose boobs were about to fall out on the dining-room table in front of God and the chief assistant district attorney and his sweet little white-haired mama.”
“I gave you my jacket,” he said. “What else could I do?”
“Nothing. You’ve been a real sport. Except when you were looking down my dress or feeling up my crotch with your toes.”
“You liked it. Admit it.”
“Swine.”
“OK,” he said, turning the corner onto Abercorn Street. “So now I know what turns you on. Want to know what turns me on?”
“I know what turns you on,” I said. “Almost everything. Including groping women in public.”
He sighed. “And here I thought I was just doing what you asked me to do. ‘Act like you like me, Daniel,’ she says. ‘Be my friend.’ I was being friendly.”
“It was embarrassing,” I said. “Now Merijoy thinks we’re rushing off to go jump in the sack together.” I buried my face in my hands. “God.”
“I just said we had to go home because your dog got out,” he protested.
“I’d already told her a different lie, about an emergency at the restaurant.”
“I like my lie better,” Daniel said.
“Doesn’t matter now,” I said glumly. “You heard what her friends say about Merijoy. She’s the gossip queen of Ardsley Park. She knew we were both lying. Now by tomorrow morning it’ll be all over town. Weezie Foley is sleeping with that hunky chef at Guale.”
“She thinks I’m hunky? Really?” He checked himself out in the rearview mirror, finger-combed his hair. Looked really pleased with himself. “Hunky. I like that. Probably be good for business too. BeBe will love that.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You’ll be the hottest stud muffin in town. And I’ll be that jailbird slut junk-picker. Mama and Daddy will be so proud.”
“Hey,” he said, reaching for my hand. “Don’t take it so seriously. You worry too much. You know that?”
His hand was warm. He stroked mine with his fingertips. I yanked it away.
“I’ve got a lot to worry about,” I said. “My life is crap. But up until now, people thought I was a nice respectable nobody.”
“Those people at the Ruckers’ thought you were nice. I’ll tell you the truth. I thought this was gonna be just a bunch of stuck-up snobs. But everybody acted real friendly.”
“It wasn’t so bad,” I admitted. “Until they started talking about Caroline. And Tal.”
“You handled that pretty cool,” Daniel said. “Very classy. Grace under fire.”
“Really?”
“Damn straight.”
“Thanks. That helps. A little.”
“So. What about finishing our dinner?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I can’t face those people again, not in this dress. It really is about to fall to pieces.”
“I didn’t mean at the Ruckers’. I thought maybe I’d run over to the restaurant, get some dessert to go.”
“Well…”
“You’re not one of those women who won’t eat sweets, are you?” he asked, looking worried.
“Hell no,” I said. “I love desserts. That’s one of the reasons I bake those cheesecakes for BeBe. Tal had a monster sweet tooth. Now that I’m single, I don’t have an excuse to do much real baking.”
“So,” he said, pulling into the lane behind the restaurant, “what do you want for dessert, Weezie Foley?”
“Chocolate. Definitely chocolate.”
Jethro sniffed Daniel’s pants leg. Then he sniffed the bag from the restaurant. Then he got around to sniffing me. Satisfied, he lay down under the coffee table and gave us his best woeful dog stare.
“Absolutely not,” I said, when Daniel started to open the dessert bag. “Chocolate is bad for dogs. He can have a beef jerky treat. They’re in the kitchen, in the cookie jar. Could you get him one, please? I have to get out of this dress.”
“Need any help?”
“Don’t start,” I warned.
Upstairs, I pulled the dress off and let it fall on the floor. It felt so good to be free of its viselike grip that I hated to put clothes on again.
I stood in my dressing room staring at the clothes rack, trying to decide what to put on. My usual sweats and T-shirts didn’t seem quite right for the occasion.
But I had a gorgeous old yellow silk kimono embroidered with dragons that Mama’s brother had brought back to her from Japan. It might work, I thought. Long, loose, yet glamorous. And the yellow was good with my skin and hair. I belted it loosely around my waist, did a turn in front of the mirror, and was satisfied.
I had a date. It was such a funny feeling. Maybe it was the wine. A new man, waiting downstairs in my house—with chocolate, even. This could be good.
“Is that a bathrobe?” Daniel asked.
“No,” I said, “it’s a kimono.”
“Very nice. Although I was getting attached to that dress of yours.”
“That dress is history,” I said.
He’d set the dessert out on glass plates. It was two thick hunks of something chocolate, covered with whipped cream and topped with chocolate sauce and chopped nuts.
“Yum,” I said, dipping my fingertip in the whipped cream. “What do you call this?”
He had a bottle of champagne and two crystal flutes. He popped the cork and poured the wine. Daniel handed me a glass and picked up his own. “It’s called chocolate seduction,” he said. “Shall we toast to that?”
I raised an eyebrow, but we toasted.
“Let’s take this into the living room,” I suggested.
We sat down on the sofa in front of my tiny coal-burning fireplace.
Jethro was still stationed under the coffee table, staring balefully out at us.
I took a bite of chocolate. It was smooth and slightly bittersweet, with a hint of coffee and some kind of liqueur. “Mmm,” I said.
“I like your place,” Daniel said, looking around. “It’s got a lot of character. Not too girly either. Did you do all this yourself?”
“Pretty much,” I said, washing the seduction down with a gulp of champagne. “This was basically a two-car garage when we bought the place. I always figured I’d make it my own someday. For an antique shop. Never in my wildest imagination did I think I’d end up living here. Alone.”
He stood up and walked around the room, stopping to look at my artwork, reading the titles of the books on the shelves, even opening the powder room door to get a peek in there.
“Where’d you get all this neat stuff?” he asked.
“Everywhere,” I said. “That’s what pickers do. This sofa was my grandmother’s. I had it re-covered with a bolt of old fabric I found when a dry goods store in Statesboro closed down. The wrought-iron coffee table top was an old window grate I bought for five bucks at a demolition yard on President Street. That chest under the windows there, I bought at St. Michael’s Thrift Shop, out at the beach. It only cost twenty dollars, but it had about ninety coats of Pepto-Bismol pink paint on it. Took forever to strip, but I knew there would be pretty old pine underneath, and there was.”
He came over and sat down right beside me. “Know what?” he said. “You amaze me.” He put his arm around my shoulder. I flinched, just a bit. Jethro made a growling noise deep in his throat.
Daniel looked hurt. He took his arm away.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted.
“It’s all right,” he said, shaking his head. “I guess you’ve made it pretty clear tonight that you’re not attracted to me.” He sat up and looked around for his jacket.
“This stuff with Tal still shakes you up, doesn’t it? I saw your face tonight when that woman talked about Caroline shacking up with Tal. You looked like you’d been slapped. I guess you’re not really over him.”
He leaned over and patted Jethro on the head. “I’ll go,” he said, standing up. “Maybe you’ll give me a call sometime. We could just be friends, I guess.”
“No.” I wanted to shout, but it came out as a whisper. “No. I don’t want you to leave.”
Daniel eased back onto the sofa.
“Could you be patient with me?” I asked. “It’s been a long time since I was with another man. I don’t really know how to act. But I am over Tal. Really and truly I am.”
He put his arm around my shoulders again and pulled me closer.
“How about if I took things really slow? Would that make you feel safer?”
I took a deep breath and nodded.
“No sudden moves,” Daniel said. He nuzzled his chin in the top of my hair. “Is this all right?”
“OK,” I said. He smelled wonderful. Like fresh-mown grass, and aftershave. And chocolate.
“Now I thought I’d kiss your neck.” A series of featherlight kisses landed at the nape of my neck. I closed my eyes and felt his warm sweet breath on my skin. I was a little dizzy from all the wine. Or maybe the newness of it all.
“Do we need these earrings?” he asked, nibbling on my earlobe.
“Not necessarily.” I took them off and put them on the coffee table.
He pulled me back to him.
“Now for the good stuff,” he said, working his way from my shoulders down to my breasts, then up again toward my lips.
“Feel free to kiss back at any time,” he said. “It’s customary, you know.”
Daniel Stipanek had learned quite a lot of good stuff since our last encounter. I couldn’t decide if he’d picked up his moves in the Marines or chef’s school, but I didn’t care. He was wonderful.
He pushed me gently back on the sofa. His hands found the small of my back and kneaded it while he pushed me closer. He kissed my shoulder and then a lonely spot in the hollow of my throat, and then he was working on the knotted belt of my kimono, with agonizing slowness.
I heard Jethro growling deep in his throat.
“Go away, Ro-Ro,” I gasped, in between kisses.
Now Jethro was barking. And someone was knocking at the front door.
“Weezie?”
It was Tal. I jumped up from the sofa, smoothing the kimono back in place.
“That’s him, isn’t it?” Daniel said, getting up, tucking in his shirt.
I nodded.
“Tell him to drop dead,” Daniel suggested.
I just shook my head, tears in my eyes.
“Weezie? Baby, I need to talk to you.”
I froze.
“Never mind,” Daniel said, grabbing his jacket. “I’m outta here.”
He pulled the front door open and stalked past my ex-husband, who was slumped in the doorway with a bottle of wine and two glasses in his hands.