So Close (5 page)

              “Don’t you need to be back at your house helping Pym with the party?” I asked. 

              “Nah.”  He plunked himself down on a tufted ottoman and leaned back.  We were the only two customers there.  “Pym’s a bit of a control freak.  Tonight I’ll do my thing.  Be Paxton Westerbrook, whatever the fuck that means.”  His face darkened for a moment.  “Hey, I can tell you’re not going to get into the swing of this.  Miss, excuse me.”  He called the anxious woman over.  “My friend, Amanda, here needs a dress for a fundraiser at my parents’ place tonight.  Can you suggest a few things?”

              “I’d be delighted.” 

              “Something simple,” I added, hoping that translated into cheap.

              “Okay, fine,” he conceded.  “No feathers, no rhinestones and nothing that lights up.”

              As I headed into the dressing room I wondered if perhaps this was what he wanted—to dress me up—and then undress me.  But he made no move to come in.  And a sliver of me was disappointed. 

              “That’s it,” he said.  “That’s the winner.”  It was a mink brown halter, made out of silk .  It clung through the hips, then spun out into a circle skirt that ended at the knee. Elegant, classic, and sexy.

              “Very light to pack, great for travel,” she said and I felt like maybe she was mocking me.  “Do you need shoes?”

              “No.”

              “Yes,” he said over me.  He was enjoying this more than I could figure out. 

              “I feel like something horrible is happening,” I said when she left to fetch me some heels.

              “Not the reaction I was expecting, but okay.”

              “I mean, like, I’m going to take this and then somehow I’m saying it was okay, how Trevor behaved—how you behaved.  And I’ve been bought.  For a few hundred dollars.”

              “Hey.”  He stood up and looked me squarely in the face, the glint in his eye extinguished.  “I’m someone who has done a lot of stupid shit.  And this could’ve just been one more thing—it almost was—that just gets stuck in my head like one of those pointy things you jab in a lobster claw, one more embarrassment.  But I—I don’t know why—I couldn’t let you be that.  So I’m trying.”  He stared in a way that paused my breath.  “And failing, clearly, but I’m trying.  Okay?” 

              “Well, in that case, I think I also need some underwear that won’t show.”

              “You got it.”

I don’t remember what we talked about as we drove back—just that, given how different our upbringings had been, he was surprisingly easy to talk to.  Pym set me up in the pool house to shower and change and I found myself listening for the click of the bathroom lock—would he let himself in, slide in behind me under the steam? 

              I knew that was the Delilah part of me talking.  That what I
needed
tonight were introductions to meet people I could never otherwise get my resume to, if I’d even had a resume.  What I
had
was two hours to change my life. 

              I blew out my hair and headed up the walk, trying to channel the girls in dresses just like this one I’d seated a thousand times.  A server waiting around the hedge with a tray of champagne-filled flutes directed me to the house.  “Hello, good evening.”  Pym was standing on the stone patio, greeting the guests as they arrived.  “You look great,” she said.

              “Thank you.  So do you.”  She was wearing a black version of the dress from this morning and swapped out her pearl studs for discrete diamonds. 

              “Mom, this is Amanda Luker, Pax’s friend.”

              Cricket turned and I instantly felt like a leaf with a gale force wind bearing down on me.  It wasn’t just that she was tall, easily six feet in heels, it was that she had an energy like a languorous cat on the plains—the kind that makes rabbits freeze in their tracks and stop breathing.   “Nice to meet you.”  She extended a hand and shook mine vigorously.  “Where is he?”

              “Maybe helping James get ready,” Pym suggested.

              “Uch,” Cricket said, “I told the nanny to put his clothes out for him, he shouldn’t have needed any help.”

              “Younger brother?” I asked.

              “He’s a little devil,” Cricket said looking over the crowd, fingertips to her sternum.  “He’ll be trying to steal the change from people’s pockets.”

              “Isn’t that what we’re all doing?” Pax asked, coming up behind her.  “This is a fundraiser, right?”  Cricket smiled as he leaned over her shoulder to kiss her cheek and she slid a hand into his hair.  “Hey, you look awesome,” he said to me as he broke from her embrace. 

              “Thanks.”  I could have returned the compliment.  He was wearing tight seersucker pants and a custom-fit white shirt.  Whoever designed his clothes could not have hoped for a better body than his to be taking them out in the world. 

              “Pym, dear,” Cricket said, surveying the party, “I don’t like those hurricane lamps—can you have them swap them out?”

              “Of course,” Pym said as she walked away the way I used to say
of course
to Kurt when I really meant, suck it. 

              Cricket turned her full feline focus on her son.  “Have you seen the bore?” she asked, pulling the ruffled neckline of her cocktail dress slightly open.  I wondered which of their guests had earned this distinction.

              “I think he’s hiding in his study.”

              Cricket rolled her eyes.  “He is the most dreary man on God’s green earth.”  They laughed together.  “Alright, I better circulate.  Amanda, nice to meet you,” she tossed off, but as she left she threw a look to Pax that ordinarily I would have said meant,
don’t forget you’re leaving with me.
 

              I had seen so many mothers like this at the hotel—single, travelling with only sons who had grown to resemble the ex-husbands who had broken their hearts.  Having never relaxed into the mom role because they were still aggressively on the market they flirted with their sons out of habit—who flirted back because it was all they knew.

I didn’t want Billy to end up in that role.               

“Who’s the bore?” I asked.

              “My step-father—Taggart Westerbrook—yes, I took his name.  Raw bar?” Pax asked, extending a hand toward where the crowd thickened. 

              “The magic is gone, huh?”

He placed a hand lightly on my lower back to steer me.  “According to legend my father swept her off her feet, fireworks, the whole Cole Porter shebang with a good deal of drugs thrown in.  Then left her in Marakesh seven months pregnant.  I don’t think magic was what she was looking for on round two.  Let’s get some oysters.”

We wove into the crowd toward the table laden with all matter of ocean creature and abutted with ice sculptures of the state flag.  Not knowing what to answer to Pax’s explanation I simply said, “People always ordered those seafood towers at the hotel, but I couldn’t understand it.  I mean, I get expensive cooking, but why would you spend a fortune for groceries on ice?”

              Pax grinned and waved his arm like a magician’s assistant.  “E voila.  Groceries on ice.”

              I smiled and took a shrimp.  Which was admittedly delicious. 

              “So, how long did you work there?” he asked, slurping an oyster. 

              “Four months.”

              He pulled a W-monogrammed napkin from the pile to dab his chin.  “And what would you like to do—in all seriousness.”

              “Join the navy—see the world.”

              “Really?”

              “No.”  I shifted my drink to my other hand to take a passing pastry puff.  “What about you?”

              “Oh, you haven’t heard?” he said sarcastically.  “I’m being groomed to take over Westerbrook Equities.”

              “Like monkeys?” 

              “Yes, just like that.  Whoever can pick the most grubs off my step-dad’s fur gets to be CEO.”

              “That’s how I got my hostess job.”

              He clinked my glass with his.  “Want to meet Tom Davis?”

              “Oh, I couldn’t,” I said, suddenly shy for perhaps the first time in my life. 

              “Come on.”  He led me across the dance floor to a cluster of men in seersucker and women in sherbet-colored dresses.  We elbowed our way in. 

              “I’m sorry, Dale,” Tom was addressing an older gentleman.  “But you’re going to have to explain to me what the fuck a bootstrap is.”  The crowd laughed.  Lindsay grinned.  “I mean it.”  Tom was smiling.  “I went to the same public school as my parents.  When they graduated it still had a Math Club—can you imagine that?  We had two stoplights and a Math Club.  By the time I passed through VH1 was already trying to save the music and now they have kids zoning out in class because their houses are meth labs.  And how do you keep the teachers giving a crap in that kind of environment for that kind of pay?  My parents got a bootstrap.  These kids aren’t getting shit from us.”

              “Forget Watkins,” someone said, “You should run, Tom.”

              He blushed.  “Nah, I’m a long way off from anything like that.” 

              “Your sure?”

              “Sure.”  Tom took Lindsay’s hand and squeezed it.  They smiled—not at each other, but into each other.  The way couples look at the altar.   Then he turned back to his enthralled crowd.  “Now, if you’ll excuse me I need to make sure I have my note cards in order.” 

The Davises started to walk away when Pax took two quick steps after them.  “Mr. Davis, sir.”  He turned.  “Pax Westerbrook.  We’re delighted to have you here this evening.  I’m sure my sister has everything organized to the minute, but is there anything you need?”  He was suddenly formal.  Groomed. 

“For the Tampa Bay Rays to beat the Red Sox tonight—any update?”

“He really wants to know,” Lindsay said wryly.

“I do,” Tom admitted.

“I will get right on that.  And this is my friend, Amanda Luker.” 

Tom shook my hand.  “Pleasure to meet you, Amanda.  This is my wife, Lindsay.”  She startled as she registered me.

“Nice to meet you.”  I took her hand, trying to telegraph that whatever happened in the ladies’ room was nobody’s business as far as I was concerned.  “I heard a little bit of your speech last month in South Beach,” I said to Tom. 

“I wouldn’t have taken you for a class-action lawyer.”  He smiled.

“I was—refilling the water pitchers.”  I didn’t want Lindsay to think, standing here in this dress, I was trying to be anything I wasn’t—or that I was trying to sleep my way to being Cricket. 

“Well, thank you.  I get a very dry mouth when I’m nervous so you helped a great deal.”  As Tom spoke Pax actually squeezed my hand.  “Well, thanks again for having us, Pax.  Great to meet you, Amanda.  You two kids enjoy yourselves tonight.”  Oh God, I wanted to, but instead I just felt a vibrating sense of urgency.  In seven months my mother’s dependency on me would expand exponentially—again.  I had to find a life preserver before she scrambled on my back. 

We walked to the periphery of the dance floor.  “So this company you’re being groomed to run.  Do they need anyone to make coffee?”

“I think they have those pod machines now.”

“Seriously, I can type faster than a water moccasin.  I know Excel and QuickBooks.  My Mom had a job at a dealership for a bit and the other assistant taught me.”

He put his finger on his chin.  “I actually
might
know the right people.”  He seemed delighted.  “Let’s look for the man with the bowtie.”  We wended our way through the crowd while I tried to swipe something off every passing tray.  Tomorrow it would be back to bologna sandwiches.  I observed the crowd observing us.  Even though Pax seemed to deliberately tune it out, like the celebrities at the hotel, I knew he had to be aware of how the girls—and even women—were looking at him.  Hungrily.  And wondering who he was escorting around the party. 

“Roger.”

“Pax.”  The older gentleman with the bowtie slapped him on the back, sloshing Pax’s champagne onto my bare toes.  “Your mother looks lovely, as always.”

              “Amanda, this is Roger Barkingdale.  He runs our Palm Beach branch,” he said proudly.  “Roger, this is Amanda Luker.  She’s looking for a job and I thought we might have an opening in admin.”

              “Any relation to Elizabeth?” he asked me.

              “No—I’m from Tallyville,” I answered, assuming that clarified that he had not passed me on the polo grounds.  “But I’d be happy to relocate for the right job.”

              “Where are you working now?”

              “I’m—”

              “She’s between things,” Pax jumped in.

              “Well, have your resume and college transcript faxed to my office and I’ll see what we can do.”

              “I’ve actually been working in the hospitality industry until recently, but I’ve completed a semester at our community—”  

              “She’s hardworking,” Pax jumped in.  “I think we could at least give her a trial.  And I vouch for her. ”

              Roger looked me up and down, his wattles covering more of his collar as his face bowed.  He leaned in to Pax and lowered his voice ineffectively.  “Without your step-father reluctantly covering your ass I’d have fired you ten times over, so I hardly think you’re in a position to ‘vouch’ for anyone.  I don’t know what you get up to when you roll in late and leave early, but I don’t think you should bring it here, to your mother’s doorstep, do you?”  He moved away slowly, favoring one hip.

              Pax didn’t turn to me—or apologize for Roger.  I thought of another party—eleventh grade—Matt Dwyer and Bobbie Pittford wanted to get one of the dance squad girl’s attention, so they picked up the cooler to fling its contents in her direction—only they stumbled under the weight of the beer-sodden ice and doused me.

              “Come on.”  Pax grabbed my arm, his affability suddenly gone like a retriever hearing an intruder.  He deposited me at the start of the wood walkway to the sand.  “Wait here.”