Always You: A Lilac Bay Novel (Friends with Benefits) (16 page)

“And you wanted to drag us all down into that hell?” Iris asked. “Nice one, Posey.”

“Absolutely not,” Tessa agreed. “I did not pay for a babysitter so I could drink green tea and eat kale cookies.”

“The kale is only a little part of it,” Posey argued, but no one was listening anymore, instead grumbling to their neighbors about the waste of a night.

“Oh, I feel bad for her,” Jenny murmured. “It looks like she tried hard.”

“She broke the cardinal rule of the Libbies,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“No healthy shit.”

Jenny giggled but cut off when a few people stood up. “Does that mean it’s over?”

She looked so disappointed at the prospect that I felt bad.

“Let’s see if we can turn things around,” I told her, standing. “Who wants to order pizza?” I called out.

“Ooh, pizza would be great,” Libby said. “I’m starving.”

“And we can raid Libby’s fudge counter,” I added. “And her wine.”

“Great,” she said as everyone chattered in agreement. “Clean me out right before the season starts.”

“Would you rather eat mung bean cookies?” I asked.

She was up before the words were out of my mouth. “Who wants to help me with the wine?” she called.

Ten minutes later we were all munching on fudge and drinking wine while we waited for the pizza guy. Posey finished packing up her supplies and joined Jenny, Libby, Iris and I at our table.

“Sorry, Posey,” Jenny said. “That was kind of mean of everyone. The cookies sounded really…interesting.”

Posey shrugged. “It’s my own fault. I broke the cardinal rule of the Libbies.”

“See,” I muttered. “Told you.”

“It was all Paul’s idea anyhow,” Posey continued. “He’s been trying all these new recipes for this cleanse thing.” I met Iris’s eyes across the table and wondered, not for the first time, what in the world Posey saw in her fiancé.

“Anyhow, we’ve been eating nothing but veggies and juice for the past week.” Posey laughed a little but I thought it sounded sad. “So pizza is sounding pretty darn good to me right about now.”

From the front of the store, a voice called out a hesitant hello. “We’re back here!” Jill called, her eyes flashing in a way that made me feel sorry for the pizza guy. He clearly had no idea what he was walking into. Luckily the kid turned out to be no more than fifteen. Young even by Jill’s standards.

“This is much better,” Cora said a few moments later, bringing a paper plate back to her table. Posey merely whimpered as she scarfed down her slice in seconds flat.

“What do we do now?” Jenny whispered.

“Now it’s time for the good stuff,” I told her. “Now we drink and gossip.”

The girls didn’t disappoint. No sooner had I finished speaking than Cora called out to me from a neighboring table. “Hey, Riley! What’s this I hear about you hooking up with the hot new dining room manager from the Big Hotel?”

“Oooh,” several of the women chorused.

“Riley, you got yourself a man?” Sherry called. “Feel free to let him sleep over at the apartment, I don’t mind.”

“I would hope not,” I told her. “Considering the fact that you’re my landlord, not my mother.”

“I’m just saying I support you, dear.”

I raised my wine in her direction. “Thanks, Sher.”

“I notice you’re not denying it,” Cora said. “So you are hooking up with him?”

“I’m not.” I took a swig of my wine and smiled at her. “Yet.”

That, of course, elicited several wolf whistles from the girls, and a little squeak from Jenny.

“You haven’t even been on a date yet!”

“Which is why I’m joking,” I told her.

“Oh.” She looked embarrassed, but then she smiled, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “He is awfully cute. I wouldn’t blame you for hitting that.”

I nearly choked on my wine, and Libby had to pound me on the back. By the time my eyes had stopped watering, Jill was well on the way to redirecting the gossip towards her.

“No one ever cares about my love life,” she said, her usually husky sex-kitten voice sounding very near to whiney. “Why doesn’t anyone ever ask me if
I’m
seeing anyone?”

“Because,” Libby told her patiently. “We all know that you’re going to tell us whether we ask you or not.”

“And whether we want to hear it or not,” Iris added.

“Well,” Jill said, taking on an expression of martyrdom that really didn’t fit her in the slightest, “maybe I wouldn’t always be the first to offer up information about my love life if my best girlfriends ever showed the slightest interest in my relationships.”

“Maybe if your relationship stories didn’t so often involve handcuffs and whips, we would be more interested,” Cora said, to a chorus of laughter.

Never one to be embarrassed by her interest in sex, Jill bowed from her stool, a wicked grin on her face. “You’re just jealous, Cora. A few whips and chains might do you good.”

“Oh, God,” Posey muttered. “Do we have to have the whips and chains conversation again?”

“Yeah,” I called out. “You’re going to scare Jenny away.” I was joking, but there was some truth to the statement. Jenny’s wide-eyed gaze was currently flicking back and forth between Cora and Jill, and I couldn’t quite tell if she was fascinated or terrified. Or maybe a little of both. In any case, her bawdy teasing from a few moments ago was long gone.

Jill turned her smile in Jenny’s direction, and I was pretty sure the terror won out on my friend’s face. “I always find that fear heightens the experience, don’t you?”

“Oh, sit down you poser,” Sherry called from the back. “I’ve got years of experience on you in the bedroom department. I could tell you a thing or two.”

Posey slapped her hands over her ears, but the rest of us were laughing.

“Sorry, Jenny,” Libby said, patting the younger woman’s arm. “Some of these girls can’t seem to help devolving into sex talk when they get tipsy. They’re as bad as pre-teen boys.”

“People will assume Jill is the worst because of the whole sexy librarian look,” I added. “But I’d put my money on Sherry. She can be downright filthy when the mood strikes.”

“Does Jill really use handcuffs and whips?” Jenny whispered.

“I think it’s all talk,” Libby assured her.

I wasn’t so sure I bought that, but I figured there was no sense in freaking Jenny out any more than she already was. Though everyone was laughing right now, I knew that there were people in this room who had a pretty low opinion of Jill. And there were definitely people in the town at large who looked down on her. That, apparently, was the consequence of being a woman who enjoyed sex and wasn’t afraid to talk about it. Particularly in a small town. Personally, I’d always found Jill’s frank discussion refreshing and pretty damn amusing. And there was no doubt she looked pretty killer in her endless wardrobe of pencil skirts and tight blouses.

More power to her
, I thought, looking down at my normal uniform of faded jeans and old track t-shirt. Not for the first time, I wondered what it would be like to be so confident, so feminine, like Jill. I just wasn’t born with the right genes, I supposed. But that was no reason to blame Jill for flaunting hers.

“I don’t know about that, Sherry,” Jill was saying smugly. “Maybe you should ask Andrew Powell about my bedroom experience.”

Wait—what did she just say?

I turned to gape at her, certain I hadn’t heard that correctly.

“Oh, God,” Iris moaned. “That’s my cousin. Can we not?”

“Yeah,” Posey agreed. “Please spare us the details, Jill. Some of us are related to him.”

Okay, so maybe I had heard it correctly after all. But she had to be full of shit, right? I mean, Andrew and Jill? There was no way. They had absolutely nothing in common. Well, except for the fact that they were both on the promiscuous side.

And knowing both of them, that’s really all they needed.

The thought sent my stomach spiraling somewhere near my ankles. Why did it bother me so much? It was just sex.

Sex with Jill
, a little voice in my head said. Not some random day-tripper from the mainland. Not some tourist you’ll never see again. Jill Franklin. Andrew was hooking up with Jill Franklin.

Which, of course, was absolutely none of my business. And definitely not something to get worked up about. And yet—the niggling little sense that something about this wasn’t right just wouldn’t go away.

“You girls are no fun,” Jill said. And then, thankfully, she dropped it.

And that, unfortunately, did absolutely nothing to stop me from thinking about it until the end of the meeting.

O
n Friday evening
I met Gina and the camera crew on the dock off the ferry. “Welcome back,” I told them, handing cups of coffee from the paper carrier I’d picked up from Rose’s cafe.

“Thank you,” Gina said gratefully. “It’s a pretty long trek to get out here.”

“I can imagine.” There were no direct flights from New York to the nearest airport in Traverse City, which meant the crew either needed to book an inconvenient connection or fly into Detroit and drive the rest of the way. “There’s a bunch of snacks and bagels waiting.”

“Great.”

We started up the dock towards Town Square, where a large crowd was already waiting for us. The instructions for our shoot this week had been vague. Everyone who wanted to participate needed to meet at the gazebo at six in comfortable clothes and be prepared to stay until evening and come back again tomorrow. Those were the only details we had, and everyone was pretty much going crazy trying to guess what they would have us do.

“Any hints?” I asked as we made our way across the lawn.

Gina laughed and shook her head. “You’ll just have to wait like everyone else.”

Luckily, I didn’t have long to wait. As soon as she had greeted the rest of the committee, Gina grabbed the megaphone and jumped up onto the gazebo steps. “Good evening, Lilac Bay!” she called. “Thank you so much for being ready to go on time! I think we’re going to have a good time with your challenge this weekend, so I hope you’re all rested!” She looked out into the crowd. “Mayor Jones, will you come up here please? From Riley’s application video I have a feeling that you’re really going to enjoy this one.”

“Oooh,” I muttered to Andrew. “Maybe it’s sports-related.”

“That wouldn’t be too bad,” he began, but then Gina was talking again.

“Your task this weekend is to plan and perform a flash mob.”

The crowd in front of the gazebo was silent.

“Did I hear that right?” I whispered. Surely she hadn’t said—

“I figure you guys have a nice advantage, what with your mayor being so proficient at dancing,” she continued, an arm around his shoulder.

Oh my God, they were going to make us dance? All of us?

“The challenge involves everyone working as a team,” she said. “You’ll need to choose people to choreograph the dance, choose the music, and practice until you’re ready to do the entire thing on camera. You’ll just have one shot—no do overs if you mess up.”

The crowd erupted into whispers and Gina pulled the megaphone away from her mouth to whistle loudly for attention.

“Couple more things, guys, and then you can get to work. We’re looking for as much creativity as you can muster here, okay? We’re asking you to put on a full presentation. So that means everything counts—the clothes you choose to wear, the way you want to decorate for the shoot, the theme you come up with. Everything. I’m going to meet briefly with the committee to go over some guidelines, and then you can get started. You have tonight and tomorrow to get it done.”

As soon as she stepped down the crowd broke into excited chatter. “You better get over there,” Andrew said.

I glanced up at him. “Don’t you dare think about leaving,” I said. He held up his hands in surrender and I took off across the lawn in a jog, my brain spinning. Gina was already surrounded by the other committee members.

“Okay, guys, here are the rules,” she said. “Based on the size of your town, you need to have at least one hundred participants in order for it to count. Of course, having more will only help you. We’re looking to be wowed here.” She rattled off a few more rules. “Any questions?”

I felt like I should have a million, but my brain felt too fuzzy, too panicked. This was one of the most important days of the entire competition, and I was at a loss.

“There’s a list of songs that we’re licensed to use,” she said, passing me a piece of paper. “You can choose any of them. Your dance needs to cover the entirety of the song, okay?” She grinned around the group and I forced myself to take a deep breath, to look calm before we made eye contact. “I have total faith in you,” she said. “Have fun with it.”

And then she was gone, leaving the seven of us to gape at each other.

“Is anyone else freaking out right now?” Libby asked. “I don’t have the slightest idea how to choreograph a flash mob!”

“What are the songs?” David asked, and he too sounded more than a little freaked out. “Should we just pick the shortest one?”

“I think I’m going to throw up,” Mayor Jones said, pulling out a handkerchief to wipe his face.

“You?” Rose snapped. “You know how to dance. You give lessons! You should be all over this!”

“That’s too much pressure,” he moaned.

This isn’t good
, I thought to myself.
We’re falling apart. You have to do something, get everyone on task.

“Excuse me,” a familiar voice behind me said, and I spun in place to see Chase standing there, two girls at his side. “I just wanted to offer our help,” he said. “This is Julia, and this is Angie. Julia teaches dance up at the hotel, and Angie is one of our fitness instructors. They both have experience with choreography.”

I met Libby’s eyes, and I knew she was thinking the same thing as I was. Taking help from employees from the Big Hotel felt entirely wrong. But we were in a jam, and if they could help—

“Thank you,” I said, making a split second decision. “We can use your help.”

Chase nodded, looking pleased, and I turned back to the committee. “We need to get organized first,” I said. “Let’s get all the people that have dance experience together, okay? Then we can assign them teams of dancers. There’s no way we’re going to get anywhere if we try to teach something to this whole crowd at once.”

“Good thinking,” David said, looking a lot calmer now. “I’ll grab Tina and see who else from her studio can help.”

“Posey can dance, can’t she?” Libby asked Rose. “Didn’t she do tap in high school?”

“Everyone fan out,” I said. “Go through the crowd and find people with experience. There are tourists here too, remember, we have no idea how much talent we might have out there. Bring the leaders back here.”

I turned to Mayor Jones and grabbed his shirt before he could disappear into the crowd. “You’re one of our team leaders, buddy.”

“Oh, but Riley,” he said, his eyes wide, but I wouldn’t let him finish.

“No way are you getting out of this. We need you, Mayor Jones. This is your chance to shine.”

He nodded, wiping his forehead one more time.

“Good. I have total faith in you. Now go start asking for help.”

I watched as he headed out into the crowd with the others. Okay. So we had a plan now, at least. That alone made me feel better. Maybe I couldn’t help with the dancing itself, but I could get these people organized.

As I turned to the crowd, I caught Gina’s eye. She winked at me, and I couldn’t help but think that she looked a little bit proud.

“Are those the songs?” I looked up to Chase still standing there.

“Yeah.” I held up the paper. “I’ve never even heard of half of these.”

“Can I see?”

I handed him the paper and he scanned it. “Some of these are pretty old. I bet they were going for cheap licenses.”

“Great. So not only do we have to plan this thing, we have to do it to crap music.”

“Not necessarily crap,” he insisted. “Some of this is classic. I bet you could find most of them on YouTube if you wanted to listen to them.”

“Thanks, Chase. I’ll do that.”

He grinned at me, and I did my best to stay immune to his charms. There was too much to do. “Can I help at all?”

“You could go around and try to find more people with dance experience.”

He nodded. “Got it.”

I decided to take Chase’s advice and get to work checking out the music. I was holding my phone up to my ear, trying to hear over the noise of the crowd, when Jenny found me a few minutes later.

“I’m no help at this,” she announced. “I’m too shy and quiet, no on is listening to me. What are you doing?”

I handed her the sheet of songs. “Trying to figure out what half of these even are.”

She scanned the list. “Hmm, these are pretty old. Oh, I know this one. You do too, I bet. It’s in movies and commercials and stuff.”

“What is it?”

She pointed at the list. “
Sing, Sing, Sing.
Benny Goodman. It’s jazzy. It’s a good song for swing dancing.” Suddenly she gasped and slapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, my God, I have the best idea!”

“What?” I cried, grabbing her hand.

“That could be our theme!”

“Swing dancing?”

“No, the roaring twenties! It fits
perfectly
, Riley! That was the heyday of this island, all the auto barons coming up here on vacation. The glamor and the romance of it!” She was actually jumping up and down. “I mean, the Ottawa is completely steeped in that exact style!”

She definitely had a point. I wasn’t exactly an expert when it came to identifying fashion of the varying decades, but even I knew that a lot of the history of our island was established in the teens and twenties.

“I think you’re onto something, Jenny.”

But she was barely listening. Instead she grabbed my arm, her eyes huge in her face. “You’re not going to like this, but hear me out. We should have the flashmob at the Big Hotel.”

She was right. I didn’t like it. Yes, the hotel was an icon of this island. But doing an entire televised event up there felt like rewarding them in a way I wasn’t comfortable with. I just couldn’t get the image out of my mind of that ferry full of employees heading out every night.

“Riley, I
know
,” she said, her voice pleading. “I know what you’re thinking. But just picture it, okay? The big stairs coming down into the foyer. The front porch! All of that old paneling and the chandeliers. The lawn! It would be perfect.”

It
would
be perfect. I could see it clearly. We had at our fingertips a truly gorgeous space that would fit this theme perfectly. Was I going to refuse out of pride?

“Let’s get the rest of the committee together,” I told her, excitement rising in my chest.

“Yeah?” She threw her arms around me, squealing, and released me before I had a chance to hug her back. “Sorry, I just got really excited.”

I laughed. “Get everyone over here.”

A few minutes later the rest of the team gathered around me.

“Jenny just had an amazing idea,” I said, then explained the whole concept of the roaring twenties at the Big Hotel and the Benny Goodman song.

“Ooh,” Libby murmured. “That would be so cool!”

“Like Gatsby,” Donovan said, nodding. “I like it.”

Only Rose was frowning. “Wasn’t Benny Goodman in the thirties?”

Jenny and I looked at each other, wide-eyed. Had we based this entire plan on the wrong decade? “It doesn’t matter,” I said firmly. “It’s jazzy. It will work.”

And that was that. We had a theme and a song and now all that was left was to do the actual work of making it come together.

The next several hours passed in a blur. More than two hundred people volunteered to dance, while a good fifty more were on hand to help get the square set up. Once we had everyone divided up into teams, we assigned dance captains to each one. While their teams worked on the steps, the captains meet at the foot of the gazebo to plan the rest of the dance. Meanwhile, David and I divided the non-dancing volunteers into three groups—one to concentrate on decorations, one to come up with costumes, and one to worry about food and drink. I had decided that if we were going to all of this trouble to plan a single dance, we were damn well going to enjoy it. And what was an event on Lilac Bay without a party? Besides, Gina had said they wanted us to go all out. So we would have the flash mob, and then we would celebrate with a dance party on the great lawn of the Ottawa. If that wasn’t going all out, I didn’t know what was.

“What’s next?” Andrew asked, appearing at my side. David had taken the food committee off to plan a menu, leaving me with those that were going to help me decorate.

“We need to brainstorm ideas,” I said. “Our theme is the roaring twenties, so we need everything to reflect that.” I looked out over the group sitting in front of me on the grass.

“We have all the decorations from the Fish Fry in the storage room at the senior center,” Andrew said.

I shook my head. That wasn’t good enough. Sure, the square had looked great all done up in lanterns and fairy lights for the first feature, but this needed to be more than that. We needed to step up our game. Besides, the Big Hotel was way too glamorous for crèpe paper and lanterns.

“The roaring twenties, huh?” Andrew asked, rubbing his chin. “What if I built one of those lighted signs? You know, the ones with the bulbs that stick through.” He pulled out his phone to show me what he had in mind.

“You think you can do that?”

“Sure, it’s an easy enough project if I have some help.”

I gestured at our group, which contained his cousin Greg and his father. “Take whoever you need.”

“Okay. What do you think about a tent? For the lawn? We can fill it up with tons of lights. Maybe you could get these guys to cut out a bunch of paper stars. That would be glamorous, right?”

I could have kissed him. “Andrew, that’s perfect!”

He looked pleased with himself. “I know a guy on the mainland, I can get us a tent.”

“And have it set up by tomorrow?”

“Piece of cake.”

Before he left to get started, he grabbed my elbow and pulled me a few feet away. “Put someone else in charge of the decorations,” he said.

“Why? I need a job and I sure don’t want to dance—”

“You
have
a job,” he said, speaking slowly as if I was very dense. “You’re the boss.”

I must have looked confused because he rolled his eyes.

“Look around, Riley.” He gestured around the square. The dance groups had divided up and were going over simple steps, while the captains ran around back and forth conversing with each other. David’s team was a few feet away, talking about the menu. The people on costumes had their phones out, looking at pictures. Only the decor group was sitting still, not working. “You need to run this whole show, Riley. There has to be someone keeping it all organized and answering questions. That’s you.”