Cure for the Common Breakup (13 page)

“You guys, no. Dutch and I are not a thing.”

“Really. That's not what it looked like when he dragged you out of the bar the other night.”

“Nothing happened.” She tried to look innocent. “Scout's honor.”

Hollis scoffed. “Uh-huh.”

“You can tell us,” Jenna said.

“Yeah, we can keep a secret.”

“
No one
in this town can keep a secret,” Summer said. “Besides, for real, there's nothing to tell. Dutch and I are not dating. We're not having sex. We're not even kissing.”
Yet.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“That is so disappointing.”

Summer wound a lock of hair around one finger. “Well.”

Hollis leaned in. “Yesss?”

“We might be having dinner on Saturday.”

“I knew it!”

“It's no big deal. He just needs a plus-one for some stuffy country club thing, and I need a suitably boring cocktail dress. Do you think Retail Therapy is still open?”

“No, but let me make a call.” Jenna picked up the phone. “Hi, Beryl.” She paused. “Wow, word travels fast, huh? Yeah, that old witch was going to sue, but Summer Benson convinced her to call off the dogs. Yeah, I know, she's my hero, too. Speaking of which, she's actually at the Whinery right now, but I'm sending her your way. I need you to give her the First Lady treatment.”

“F
irst you want a muumuu, then a red thong, now this? You're all over the road, aren't you?” Beryl unlocked the back door of the boutique and ushered Summer in as she flicked on the overhead lights.

“Yep,” Summer said.

“I knew I liked you.”

“So I'm going to this super-stodgy dinner.”

“Really? With who?” Beryl put one hand on her hip and waited. “Dutch?”

“Funny—I thought the sign out there said ‘boutique,' not ‘interrogation room.'”

Beryl grinned. “I try to give my customers a full range of services.”

“Whatever.” Summer scowled. “I need to look . . . I believe
dainty
is the word. No cleavage, no sequins, no leather.” She felt the life seeping out of her just saying the words.

“Well, you do have dainty bone structure.” Beryl studied her face. “Look at those cheekbones.”

Summer waved this away. “Just make me look like I'm a lobotomized lady who lunches. On something other than grilled cheese.”

“This is all so exciting!” Beryl made a beeline to the sale section, and indicated Summer should follow her. “Dutch never takes anyone anywhere. He must really like you.”

“The old panties-in-the-wineglass.” Summer laughed weakly. “Works every time.”

“I mean, he's taking you to a fancy dinner! At a country club! As his official girlfriend!”

Summer stopped laughing. “Whoa, there. I'm not his official
anything
.”

“If he's taking you to a fund-raiser, you're official.” Beryl genuflected. “Oh mighty man-wrangler, I bow to thee!”

Summer focused her attention on the racks. “My best friend almost got married last summer and strong-armed me into this tasteful mint green tea-length deal, so I thought I might be able to wear that. But then I remembered that I threw it in the garbage the second the ceremony was over.”

“Just as well—you don't want to wear a bridesmaid's gown to a political fund-raiser. I have the perfect thing in mind. . . .” The hangers clicked against the metal rack as Beryl flipped through the inventory. “Now, where did I put that lilac chiffon?”

Summer caught a glimpse of her expression in one of the dressing room mirrors. She looked pinched, anxious, pale. “That sounds like an ice-skating costume.”

“It's going to look fabulous with your skin tone.” Beryl plucked a demure lavender cocktail dress from the rack. With a modest bateau neckline and a full, filmy skirt, it was the polar opposite of everything else in Summer's wardrobe.

Summer shied away as Beryl tried to hold the dress up to her shoulders. “I have a strict policy against pastels. I should have mentioned that earlier.”

Beryl gave her a little push toward the dressing rooms. “Stop stalling and go try it on.”

Four minutes later, Summer was staring at a version of herself she almost didn't recognize. The light purple fabric was formfitting without being clingy and the hemline hit midknee.

“Too stunned to speak?”

“Stunned isn't the word. I look . . .” Summer paused to tamp down the dry heave rising in her throat.

“Appropriate for a fund-raiser at a country club?”

Summer shook her head. “It just screams . . .”

“‘I'm dating the hottest mayor in Delaware'?”

“I feel like this should come with white gloves and a flowered hat. And a chastity belt.”

“You do need accessories.” Beryl rushed to the shelves by the cash register, then rushed back with a slim silver headband, which she arranged in Summer's choppy blond hair. She stepped back to assess the effect and smiled. “There.”

“I'm wearing a headband,” Summer informed her reflection. “Next up, the apocalypse.”

“You look like a punk rocker pixie at charm school!” Beryl gushed. “I die.”

Summer yanked at the material brushing her collarbones. “I feel like I'm choking in this neckline.”

“A V-neck would be better with your face, I agree, but you want to play it safe. Trust me.”

Summer ripped off the headband. “Why did I agree to this, again?”

“Because Dutch is the hotness and you want to get him into bed?”

“Oh, yes, that's right.”

Beryl hummed a happy tune. “So a few hours in pastels will be worth it. Give me your credit card, and I'll ring it up while you're changing.”

Summer looked down at the lavender frock. “I don't suppose there's any way you'd let me keep the tags on and return everything after the dinner?”

Beryl just laughed.

“Please? I'll be careful. I won't eat or drink or dance.”

“Oh, that reminds me: You're buying some dainty shoes to go with your dainty dress.”

“I have shoes,” Summer said.

Beryl raised one eyebrow. “You don't have country club shoes, and don't even front like you do. Now hand over your card and let me do my job. If you're going to be with Dutch, you'll be doing this a lot, so you better get used to the charm school look.”

“For the last time. I'm not with him.”

“Whatever you say.”

“No, I mean it.” Summer reached both hands behind her back and yanked at the zipper. “We have rules. Deadlines. Clear-cut expectations. It's all very orderly.”

“You're wearing a silver headband for him. You loooove him.” A few minutes later, Beryl had bundled everything up in tissue paper and shopping bags. “Come back when you're ready to buy a wedding gown!”

Summer stuck out her tongue. “You're dead to me.”

“Have a great time! Oh, and here.” Beryl grabbed the black version of the lacy red panties and threw them in the bag. “For good luck. Enjoy your deadlines and your rules, you crazy kids!”

O
n the evening of the fund-raiser, Summer barricaded herself in the bed-and-breakfast's attic and tried to psych herself up for all that lavender and tulle by blasting old-school hip-hop on her iPod. With the resigned air of a martyr donning a hair shirt, she pulled the chiffon dress over her head.

When she checked her reflection in the tiny oval mirror in the corner, she had to turn off the music right in the middle of Run D.M.C.'s “It's Tricky” because the contrast between the downbeat and the dress design was bringing on a headache.

She looked like she was getting ready for prom. In 1958.

Horrified, she snatched up her cell phone and dialed Emily, who refused to treat the matter with the solemnity it deserved.

“What are you so worried about?” Emily asked. “I thought you hobnobbed with politicians on the regular.”

Summer stepped away from the mirror, bonking her head against the sloped ceiling. “If by ‘hobnob' you mean that I pour them gin and tonics and then fend them off when they try to snake their hands up my skirt in the middle of meal service, then yes, I routinely hobnob with politicians. But fund-raisers? Small talk? Rhetoric and platforms and whatever? Not my scene.”

“Well, look on the bright side. You're not thinking about Aaron anymore.”

Bonk.
“Aaron who?”

“Exactly.” Despite being inundated with scheduling difficulties and studio demands, Emily sounded chipper and cheery. “This guy must be quite the charmer if he can sweet-talk you into lilac chiffon.”

“That's the problem, Em. He's not a charmer.” Summer paused. “Well, sort of. He's charismatic, but it's not all practiced and manipulative. He's . . . nice.”

“Okay. I'm waiting for the bad part.”

“No, I mean he's
really
nice.”

Emily laughed. “And that's a problem because . . . ?”

“You know how I am with men. I like to play a little rough.”

“Are we talking about
Fifty Shades of Grey
stuff? 'Cause if we are, I'm going to need a margarita before we continue.”

“No, no, that's not what I'm saying.” Summer gnawed the inside of her cheek. “I'm used to master manipulators. Take-no-prisoners psychological warfare followed by hot sex. ‘Nice' puts me off my game.”

There was a long pause on Emily's side of the line, so Summer kept blathering.

“I mean, I'm offering to be his dirty little secret, and he's taking me out to a country club to meet all his fancy friends? Who does that?”

Emily sighed. “You know you have serious emotional problems, right?”

“Of course I know that. Everyone knows that.” Summer started brushing her hair with renewed vigor. “Let's stay focused. What am I going to do?”

“Here's an idea: Why don't you go meet all his fancy friends and have a good time?”

Summer's stomach churned. “I should probably cancel. I think my spleen might be acting up.” She glanced down at the whitewashed floorboards. “And I have a splinter.”

Emily laughed and quoted their favorite line from
Pretty Woman
: “‘Call me when you're through. Take care of you.'”

“You know, when you were going through a romantic crisis, I didn't laugh at you,” Summer said. “I listened. I helped.”

Emily snorted. “You forced me to go to a male strip club.”

“Exactly. I
helped
.”

At six o'clock, she heard a knock on the door, but couldn't bring herself to open it.

“Summer?” Marla's voice drifted up from the landing. “Your date's here.”

Summer dropped the hairbrush.

A few moments later, she heard another light rap.

“Keep knocking,” Marla's voice urged. “I know she's in there.”

“Summer?” Dutch sounded both concerned and amused.

She forced out her breath in a dry cough. “Yeah?”

“You okay in there?”

“Absolutely! Almost ready.” She grabbed the sparkly silver headband and set her jaw.

But she could not bring herself to actually put it on. So she stood there, clutching the row of rhinestones, for what felt like forever. The sharp little prongs bit into her palms.

“Do you need a few minutes?” Dutch called. “I can wait downstairs.”

“I made iced tea!” Marla exclaimed.

“No, I'm ready,” Summer replied. “I just . . . uh . . . Any minute now.”

Dutch's voice changed from concerned to cajoling. “I can't tell if you want me to take the door off the hinges or leave and never call you again.”

Both.
She sidled closer to the door and said, “I don't want you to leave.”

“So I should go find a screwdriver, then?”

She took a deep breath, shoved the headband into her hair, stepped into her ivory shoes, and, without glancing in the mirror, flung open the door.

Dutch took a step back and smiled at her. “You look . . .”

Marla actually said the word “Squee!” then skedaddled back to the lobby.

“You look beautiful,” Dutch finished.

She had no idea how to respond, so she volleyed back with, “I have to tell you something. There's been a slight change of plans, and I'm going to be in town a little longer than two weeks.”

“Okay.” He seemed to be staring at her headband.

“I'll be here at least another month, maybe longer. Which I know is a violation of our pact.” She went to fluff her hair, then realized that the headband was in her way. So she pivoted, grabbed her clutch (ivory, beaded, borrowed from Hollis), and marched toward the stairs. “But we can still stick to the original agreement: two weeks. I don't want you to think that—”

“Summer.” He said her name quietly but firmly and reached for her hand. “Let's go have dinner.”

“Two weeks is what we agreed on.” She clutched her clutch until her knuckles went white.

“It's fine. Don't be nervous.”

“I'm not nervous.” She cleared her throat. “But our pact also specified fun, and this whole thing sounds like the opposite of fun.”

“I promise you, we'll have fun.” He took the lead as they started down the stairs. “I won't bring you back until we do.”

“You say that now, but I'm wearing lilac chiffon and you're wearing a blue blazer. ‘Fun' is going to be kind of a tall order.”

He looked over his shoulder at her, his eyes gleaming. “I love a challenge.”

—

“I'm drinking water,” Summer pointed out during a five-second break between introductions to people whose names she forgot immediately. “I want full credit for my restraint.”

“It's called ‘cocktail hour' for a reason,” Dutch said. He looked completely at ease in the country club ballroom, surrounded by crystal chandeliers and servers in black bow ties. The faint strains of jazz music played in the background, and though they'd rotated through countless conversation partners, the small talk was always the same. “Have a glass of wine. Have two. You'll be glad you did, come speech time.”

“No way. I'm on my best behavior, and wine doesn't go with that. Trust and believe.”

“It's dinner, not purgatory. The goal is to have a little fun, remember?”

Summer took another sip of water, trying to imagine it was vodka. “That's what I'm trying to tell you—with me, there is no such thing as ‘a little' fun.”

“Well, then, let's try to make it through dinner,” he murmured into her ear, “and then we'll get out of here and go take off your . . . headband.”

She stared at him, deliberating. “Are you being inappropriate?”

Before he could reply, Mimi Sinclair swanned into the room, pausing in the doorway so everyone could take note. She was perfectly turned out in a black-and-white bouclé cocktail suit with sparkly buttons . . . and several inches of toilet paper trailing from the heel of one of her black pumps.

Her dramatic entrance caused quite a stir—the amount of snickering and whispering would have been more suited to a middle school assembly than a room full of elected officials. But the terrorist in tweed was oblivious to the commotion. She sashayed toward Dutch, then stopped in her tracks when she noticed Summer by his side. “
You're
here? With him?”

“Kind of.” Summer grinned. “Unofficially.”

“You look”—her icy gaze raked over Summer's lavender dress—“different.”

“Don't I?” Summer squeezed Dutch's hand and stepped away from him. “May I have a word?”

Mimi sniffed. “I have nothing to say to you.”

“But I have something to say to you.”

“If you're trying to apologize for the scene you caused at the nail salon—”

“Don't worry, I'm not.” Summer put her arm around Mimi's shoulder and steered her back to the ladies' room. “We'll be right back.”

—

“I am humiliated!” Mimi's voice came out as a strangled little squeak as she sagged against the wall of the white wooden bathroom stall. “Positively
mortified
.”

“Oh, relax. It's no big deal.” Summer plucked the last bit of tissue off the socialite's shoe. “Happens to everyone.”

“But it didn't happen to everyone—it happened to me. People were laughing at me. The lieutenant governor was laughing at me!”

Summer's forehead creased. “I don't even know what that is. Is that a real job?”

“Yes! An important job!” Mimi looked as anguished as her Botox would allow.

“Well, I'm sure the lieutenant governor has walked around with toilet paper stuck to his shoe, too.” Summer appropriated Mimi's handbag and started reapplying the traumatized woman's powder. “I know I have. In fact, this exact thing happened to me at my dad's Pulitzer Prize luncheon.”

Mimi looked at Summer with new interest. “Your dad won a—”

“That's not the point of this story. The
point
is, I made people laugh with me instead of at me.” She winked. “Not to boast, but agents and publishers in New York still talk about that day. I've dined out for years on that story.”

Mimi accepted the lipstick and hand mirror Summer offered. “What'd you do?”

Summer shrugged one shoulder. “Since everyone was already talking about me, I figured I'd give them something worth talking about. So I went back to the restroom, bided my time, and waited until the speeches were about to start.”

“And then?”

“Then I gave my encore.” Summer crouched down and liberated a spare roll of toilet paper from the metal dispenser. “Here. You'll need at least two more of these.”

—

Ten minutes later, in the lull after the band stopped playing while diners were taking their seats, Mimi traipsed back into the ballroom. She'd tucked the ends of three rolls of toilet paper into the waistband of her skirt. The rolls unfurled behind her like a two-ply bridal train.

The crowd laughed. Mimi laughed. The lieutenant governor and his wife got up from their seats and went over to greet her. And after she'd schmoozed and simpered her way through all the VIPs, Mimi beamed at Summer and informed Dutch, “Chip and I will be writing you a check for your next campaign.”

“Mrs. Sinclair likes you now?” Dutch turned to Summer, his voice lowered in awe.

“Yeah. And bonus, now you can spring for the fancy, four-color campaign leaflets.” She toasted him with her water glass. “Enjoy.”

“First Ingrid, now Mrs. Sinclair.” He kept staring at her. “How do you do it?”

Summer smiled and straightened her headband. “I have my ways.”

—

As Dutch had predicted, Summer was regretting her water-only policy halfway through the speeches. She'd had better entrées and more comfortable seating on transatlantic flights. She'd heard more engaging oration on the talking-heads portion of
Real Housewives of Orange County
. But she kept herself in check with her ankles crossed, her hands folded, and her eyes on the podium.

Then, after the servers cleared the dinner course, Dutch pulled a pen and a stack of business cards out of his suit jacket pocket, drew a tic-tac-toe grid on the back of a card, placed an “X” in the center of the grid, and slid the card over to Summer.

“Your move,” he murmured as the audience broke into applause.

“Game on, buddy, you're digging your own grave.” Summer drew an “O” in the upper right corner.

For the next hour, they played increasingly cutthroat rounds of tic-tac-toe, then moved on to hangman. And all night, she was acutely aware of her posture, her expression, and the headband pressing into her scalp. Though she felt like a fraud, she looked like a lady. And Dutch always looked thoughtful and engaged, even as he tried to provoke her with tic-tac-toe effrontery. She realized the two of them weren't so different: They both spent their lives hiding their true feelings and putting up a good front in public.