Reunion (30 page)

“It’s not really a sneer—I know it sounds like one, but he’s just that way, you know?”

“He can be any way he wants,” she said, taking a fresh glass of champagne. “I’m more concerned about Brenda.
Are
you ‘throwing her over,’ then?” Oddly, the thought made her sad for the woman, who she’d genuinely liked.

“I wouldn’t put it in those terms … but, suppose I was?” he asked, just as the announcement came that seating for dinner had begun.

“We’ll have to talk more later.”

He proved popular with the other partygoers. She took every opportunity to introduce him as both a long-time friend and a likely biopic host, ensuring
Literary Lions
would get its start—though he seemed unaware of the scope of the game being played. She coached him along: “That woman in the white silk is on the
Tribune’s
board, and helps organize the Printers Row Book Fair. Very well-read.” And, “The man by the window to your left is a major patron to Northwestern’s Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities—new, since you left there. I’ve heard he likes John Dos Passos; I’ve also heard he likes boys.”

In many ways it was nice to have a date like Mitch, who was a novelty among this kind of crowd. If there was another person on the estate (staff excluded) who earned less than a million dollars a year, she’d be surprised. In this fishbowl, Mitch was a pretty striped minnow, holding still enough that everyone could admire him.

Yet when she pulled him aside at ten minutes to eleven and said they’d be leaving on the hour, her main feeling was relief that the evening was ending. The night was not quite turning out to be the replay she’d envisioned yesterday. She was distracted. The atmosphere was different. Snow was not falling, flashbulbs were not the equivalent of twinkling light strings, and she was not… seeking. Or, possibly, not seeking Mitch.

The fantasy she’d been entertaining when she invited him along tonight was exactly that: a fantasy. This was no magical New Year’s Eve, for all that it was imbued with
auld lang syne.
Yes, she’d danced with Mitch and enjoyed his company. He was handsome and funny and as interesting as ever. When dessert was being served (mixed spring berries, mint leaves, imported cream), he’d enthralled the group at their table with the tale of Hemingway’s Montana car accident and resulting broken arm, surgically repaired with kangaroo tendon. The resulting pain and recovery time led, Mitch said, to several brilliant short stories but was, he thought, “the beginning of the end.”

The difference was that even with dancing and dinner, she in a pretty dress and Mitch in a tux, much of what she’d done this evening was work. The difference—and it was to be expected, after all, and was not necessarily a
problem
—was that she was not nineteen, and not in love.

redictably, the media didn’t care about Blue’s current age or emotional truth. The following morning even the
Trib
ran the photo in color: Mitch kissing her in a way that, when captured on film, looked much more significant than it was. She studied it. It could be real. She could let it be real.

Marcy called at seven. “Good morning. ‘Spring Fling for Beautiful Blue?’ You do look beautiful. Killer dress.”

That wasn’t the
Tribune’s
headline. “What are you looking at?”

“I’m online. This is
TMZ
, but you and the ‘Noted Hemingway Scholar’ are everywhere. Here’s another one: ‘A Blue Clue: Is It Love?’
Peter’s
loving it, I know that; he said now no one will be thinking about the crying thing. Things must be improving fast.”

“It looks that way, doesn’t it?”

“It looks very sweet, in this photo. Do you have time to fill me in on what came after?” Marcy asked, a leer in her voice.

“Yes,” Blue said. She took a bowl of grapes from the refrigerator and sat down at the counter.

“Well?”

“Nothing. That’s what happened. We left at eleven, did a kind of
play-by-play roundup on the ride to Julian’s, where he’s staying, I dropped him off without going in, and then I came home and went to bed.”

“That’s it?”

“If you want to talk porn, call your boyfriend.”

“He’s right here. Boyfriend,” Marcy said, “Blue’s story is boring. You got anything better?”

“I’m hanging up,” Blue said.

Her phone rang again a few minutes later. Mitch.

“Good morning,” he said. “I hope it’s not too early. I left Julian sleeping—he has a long day ahead of him—”

“Why’s that?”

“He’s off to Iraq today. When I got in last night, he was waiting up to say they asked him to come sooner—so really, the timing of things has all worked out perfectly for him. Anyway, I’m out getting coffee and the paper—have you seen it?”

“It’s right here on my counter.” Next to the coffee she’d made, which was not as good as the Cuban, but necessary today.

“What do you think? Romantic, isn’t it? I felt like Prince Charming at the ball last night.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself. Listen, pictures are all over the place. If you haven’t prepared Brenda for this, you’d better call her soon.”

“It’s all right. We spoke Thursday night.”

“And?”

“And … she said she already had a sense this might happen, and she wishes us good luck.”

“Surely not as kindly as that—and who could blame her?”

Mitch said, “Blue, I’m a pretty easygoing guy … I don’t mean to avoid all conflict, exactly, but I sure don’t court it. It’s time I was a little more … deliberate in my choices, and I have to say, it seems like we have a shot here.”

Despite her misgivings, it did seem that way. Last night was not a fiasco; she’d had as nice a time as she ever did at those sorts of events.

Could restarting their romance be this easy, then? A coincidental meeting in Key West after twenty-three years, a dress-up date, a kiss, a photo, and public approbation? Was this strange bubble of calm she felt surrounding her what fate felt like when you knew the moment it was happening?

“Blue?”

“Can you hold on a second?”

She pressed the phone against her thigh and looked again at the photo. His words hung before her like ripe fruit she could reach out and pick, if she was hungry enough. Too much emotion made things murky and unpredictable, made people behave inadvisably. This was straightforward and clean and easy. Mature.

She could do this. It was a perfect setup, the nearest to a sure thing that she could ask for. She put the phone to her ear again. “Sorry about that, my doorman was buzzing me—my mom’s here to talk about plans for the shower I’m throwing her next weekend.”

His voice was soft when he said, “You must think I’m a fool—who but a fool would have let you get away the first time?”

“If only there were glasses for hindsight.”

“I’d buy those. Life is complicated, isn’t it?” he said.

“To say the least.”

“Consider this my attempt to simplify matters. The media already thinks we’re serious, so why not?”

What would it mean to open her mouth and let her wishes, all of them, escape into the care of someone else whose singular goal was to see her happy? Was that what he was offering? Was that what she wanted from him?

With far less certainty than she would ever show him, she said, “Why not.”

“All right then,” Mitch said. “All right. So I’ll call you tonight, after I get home.”

Right after she hung up the doorman did buzz, letting her know that her mother was on her way up. For the first time since her mother had declared her intention to marry Calvin, Blue got a whiff of their excitement
and liked the smell. She wasn’t going to kid herself; what she felt for Mitch wasn’t what her mother felt for Calvin. The dynamics of the two relationships were as different as she was from her mother. She liked the idea of being settled, though, and who better to be settled with than a man like Mitch? She was excited for her mother, and hopeful that the feeling would bleed over into her new romance, given a chance.

She had plenty to feel good about in the meantime. Hiatus was coming. Her house in Key West was waiting.

ith all of what mattered packed into his two bags, Julian walked through his apartment shutting off lights, double-checking the thermostat, locking the windows, shutting off the water main so that the dripping bathroom faucet didn’t waste a village-worth’s supply of water while he was gone.

His camera gear had its own two cases; those were packed and locked and waiting on the kitchen table. Though he was bringing three cameras, probably he’d be reduced to using a single one for most of his work in Iraq. Close quarters and frequent movement pretty much guaranteed that once they left the base he’d be traveling light. He was taking extra gear anyway, now that he’d given himself some time to go roaming before the assignment began. There were still several Middle Eastern birds he hoped to spot, birds he hadn’t seen in Afghanistan; with Iraq at roughly the same latitude and of similar climate, much of the bird population would be alike.

In particular, he was looking for the rare Red-backed Shrike, known by its eponymous back and thick black eye stripe, and then also the Blue-cheeked Bee-eater, with its black-in-white eye stripe, rufous throat, pale blue face, blue rump, green wings. A true beauty that wintered in Africa but should, by now, be back. Wouldn’t Blue be impressed with that one?

Not that it mattered to him one way or the other.

His father came into the living room, pulling his suitcase behind him. “All set?”

“Yep.”

“Here, look at this …” His father handed him a section of the newspaper. On the front was a photo of a kissing couple.

“Ah,” he handed it back quickly. “So the flowers worked.”

His father smiled. “You’ll have email access, right? I’ll send you Blue’s email address in case you think of anything more to put into the prospectus. I’m hopeless with the technicalities.”

“My BlackBerry is pretty much an everywhere tool, so, yeah. I should have email, and phone, too. No telling if I’ll be able to
answer …
”

“About that. You’re going to have to be hard-nosed about not following the troops into any gun battles—you don’t have to prove your manliness. I mean, you only have nine fingers left. Seems like you’ll need most of them for your work.”

“Nah,” Julian said, playing off the light tone his father was trying for, “I bet I could get by with maybe six, depending which six they were.”

“I’d feel better knowing you won’t be taking the chance.”

“Dad, I’ll be fine. I’ve been in a lot of ugly places, I know what’s what.”

His father nodded. “Just… just promise me you’ll be careful.”

“I will be,” he said. “You, too.”

n route to Iraq, he did his best to clear his head of all domestic nuisances. None of it made a difference to the way he lived his life, after all. Until a few months ago, he had hardly given his father a passing thought—and Blue Reynolds none at all. Then he’d agreed to do
Lions.
What he ought to be occupied with was whether to buy the new Nikon lens he kept hearing about. That, and what the troops in Iraq liked to do when they were off patrol. He should be thinking of how to finagle another assignment to Bangladesh, to Hanoi, to one of the research stations in Antarctica—he’d never been to the bottom of the Earth. Though, really, what was there to photograph? Penguins, maybe. Whales. No matter, he could find something.