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“Maybe something’s come up. Anyway, our dinner reservation is half an hour after we get done here, so we’ve got to stay on schedule.”
“Hey,” Jillian said softly as Lisa’s pacing route brought her near, “it’s going to be okay.” Normally, Lisa was organized to within an inch of her life. Normally, she was as cool as could be. There was something about weddings, though, that broke the nerves of the calmest person. And Lisa was only twenty-one, Jillian reminded herself.
“I know, I know, I’m worrying about nothing,” Lisa said too quickly. “It’s just all the details that are driving me crazy. I mean, I know five o’clock was a bad time for the rehearsal but it was the only one they had. We put this together so quickly. And we’ve got to get all the centerpieces over to the reception hall and I need to tie up the favors and I still have to do the holder for the place cards. And I hung my dress from my ceiling light fixture so it wouldn’t wrinkle and I just know it’s fallen down by now and it’s in a pile all over the floor and—”
“And all that matters is the ‘I do’ part,” Alan drawled, coming up from behind to slide an arm around her waist. “Forget about the centerpieces. Forget about the place cards. Hell, we can skip it all, if you want. My corporate jet could have us in Vegas in three hours. Get married tonight and come back tomorrow for the party.”
Lisa laughed and turned to kiss him. “You have no idea how tempting that sounds. But everyone’s here and the arrangements are already made. We’ll get through it. You’re sweet, though.” She kissed him again.
“And you’re beautiful,” he replied. “We make a good pair.”
Together, Jillian thought, just like Doug and Shelly. “Can’t we rehearse without Alan’s friend?” she suggested to Lisa as Alan walked away, flipping open his cell phone. “Let’s run through it with the people who are here. The Invisible Man can figure things out tomorrow.”
“I suppose. It’s just that he’s supposed to be first usher, right next to Neal.” Neal Barrett, Alan’s brother and best man.
“I’d say the Invisible Man just got demoted for tardiness,” Jillian told her. “You show up more than twenty—” she consulted her watch “—twenty-five minutes late, you take your chances.”
“I agree,” said Carrie Summers, walking up from behind. Carrie had that brisk, take-charge air that mothers seemed to acquire. Of course, it made sense. Carrie was practically like a second mother to Lisa, ever since they’d met when Carrie and her husband, Brian, were adopting Lisa’s son, Timothy. Somehow birth mother and adoptive parents had become friends, then family. And Lisa, who’d lost both parents to an auto accident when she’d been young, had a home again.
“Let’s reshuffle things,” Carrie said now. “Besides,” she added sotto voce, “if we leave everyone in the order you’ve got them, we’ll have Jillian towering over her escort.” She nodded at the short, stocky guy standing across the way. “A switch would be better, assuming Alan’s friend is tall.”
Tall enough for a five-nine woman wearing heels, to be exact. Yet another reason Jillian had never quite fit in. “Well, if he’s not here, I can’t very well be taller than him, now can I?” she asked.
“Oh, Gil’s taller than you,” Lisa said distractedly, watching her fiancé. “I think he’s even taller than Alan.”
“Then it’s settled.” Carrie briskly shooed the ushers toward the altar. “We’ll match him up with Jillian.”
“It’s a straight shot down the aisle,” Jillian said drily. “I’m pretty sure I can find my way on my own if I have to. And if not, I’ll just hitch a ride with Christina’s usher.”
“I’ll arm wrestle you for him,” Christina, Alan’s college-aged daughter offered, laughter in her blue eyes.
The usher in question, standing nearby, frowned. “If I was a chick, you’d be screaming sexism,” he complained.
“But you’re not a chick, so you should be flattered,” Christina said, giving him a saucy look from under her lashes.
“You take him, Christina,” Jillian said, getting into position at the end of the line of bridesmaids. “I’ll make it on my own.”
Just as she always had.
Gil Reynolds typed furiously, his fingers clattering swift and sure on the keyboard, and then leaned back to read what he’d written.
Snow & Taylor Construction, contractors for the billion-dollar downtown Portland streetcar line slated to begin construction this fall, may have won the project without a proper bid process, according to recent documents unearthed by the Gazette.
His favorite kind of story, blowing the lid off corruption in city government. He had his facts up front, a couple of source quotes. Just the way he liked it. Of course, it was still missing that certain something.
A comment from the guest of honor.
With a smile, Gil pushed his dark hair back off his forehead and reached out to dial the phone.
“Yeah?” a man’s voice answered brusquely.
“Nash? Gil Reynolds from the Gazette. We’re running a story on possible fraud in the contracting of the streetcar project. According to the transcripts I saw, Snow & Taylor managed to get the project without competitive bidding.”
Charlie Nash, city councillor. Better than a few, worse than most. There was a pause while Nash took it in. “Reynolds? What the hell are you doing calling me? I thought you were an editor now. You get busted back down?”
“Filling in for one of my reporters who’s on compassionate leave.”
“You don’t have a compassionate bone in your body,” the city councillor growled.
Gil’s teeth gleamed. “Now, come on, Charlie, aren’t we friends? I figured this story was a good chance for us to catch up. Snow & Taylor dumped a lot of money into your campaign, didn’t they?”
“You’re a menace.”
Gil leaned back in his chair. “Maybe you should get that put on a plaque. I could hang it on the wall next to my Pulitzer.”
“You run that story, I’ll sue.”
“I’m just running the facts. What makes you think there’ll be anything to sue about? That sounds like a guilty conscience talking. Come on, you’ll feel better if you confess to Uncle Gil.”
“In a pig’s eye. Why don’t you go after O’Donnell?”
“O’Donnell wasn’t heading the appropriations committee when the contract got let. You were, and your buddies got the job without even trying. Seems to me like the public ought to know. I wanted to be fair and give you a chance to air your side, though. You could set the record straight. Or should I just call for an audit? You got some state and federal bucks for the project, didn’t you?”
“You piranha.”
Gil grinned. “Can I quote you on that, Nash?”
“You can quote me on this.” When the line clicked, Gil chuckled. Merrily, he tapped away, listening to the hubbub of the newsroom outside his office door. In these, the waning hours before deadline, the room was gripped with a feverish purpose, everyone working as quickly as they could to get the paper together and out the door. Not the least of which was him, given that he’d been trying to fill in for two people ever since Mark’s father had had his fatal heart attack.
“I need that streetcar story.” Ron Bates, his copy editor, stood at the door impatiently. “And the Willamette pollution story and the Logan piece.”
“The streetcar story should be in your in-box.”
“What about the other two?”
“Soon,” Gil promised.
“How soon?”
“Gee, let me get my magic wand out and see. Look, I’m going to need at least fifteen minutes to go through them.”
Ron glowered. “You make me miss deadline and the press manager will be coming after me. Which means I’ll be coming after you.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you’re beautiful when you’re angry, Ron?”
“Kiss my ass,” his copy editor said, and turned away.
Grinning, Gil picked up the ringing phone. “Reynolds.”
“Gil, this is Alan. Alan Barrett? You know, your college buddy who’s getting married tomorrow? The guy whose rehearsal started half an hour ago? That guy?”
Gil snapped his head around to stare at the clock, which had somehow vaulted forward an hour and a half since he’d last checked it. He uttered a heartfelt curse.
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“Hell, Alan, I’m sorry. One of my reporters just lost his dad and I’m filling in while he’s gone. I lost track of time. Deadlines are biting my ass today.” Gil sent off the first of the articles.
“Yeah, well, I’ve got a deadline here, too. And a fiancée who’s working on an ulcer. You thinking about gracing us with your presence any time this year?”
“I’ll be there in—” he calculated quickly “—twenty minutes. Twenty five.”
Now it was Alan’s turn to curse. “Forget about the church. We’d be leaving by the time you got here.”
“I’m really sorry, Alan.”
“I know. Look, come to the dinner, at least, so you get a chance to meet everyone. It’s at the Odeon. You know, the new McMillan’s place?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Chapter Two
One thing Jillian could say for Alan, he knew how to throw a rehearsal dinner. Forget about a discreet restaurant back room. Instead, he’d taken the upper balcony of the Odeon Tango Theater, the newest in the McMillan brothers’ chain of brewpub hotels. The old Thirties movie palace had been completely renovated, from the trompe l’oeil and molded-plaster ceiling to the gold-leafed moldings to the deep burgundy curtains that covered the stage.
The tables on the balcony were arranged to accommodate the wedding party and the various out-of-town relatives and friends of Alan’s who’d been invited. At the gleaming walnut bar against the wall, the bartender pulled pints of the McMillan’s award-winning beers. On the tables, bottles of champagne chilled in ice buckets, readily at hand for the rash of toasts that were already taking place.
That was fine with Jillian. In her current mood, it was easy to substitute sipping champagne for conversation. Not that it was necessarily a smart move, especially since drinking wasn’t normally her thing. Champagne, even with its effervescent bubbles, wouldn’t banish the loneliness. Champagne wouldn’t banish the memory of the pang she’d felt when she’d walked back up the aisle all alone, toward the laughing crowd of paired-up bridesmaids and ushers. Sure, it was just the wedding rehearsal, but in a way it was a reflection of her life. She wasn’t a part of the laughing crowd, she wasn’t a part of a pair.
She never had been.
When, she wondered with a thread of desperation, would it change?
When you make it change.
She knew the textbook explanation for why she kept people at arm’s length—raised in squalor, abandoned at four with her twin brother, David, by their mother, neglected by their stroke-ridden grandmother, raised to feel unimportant, unloved, unwanted.
Unworthy.
She knew it was irrational. And as a therapist, she knew how difficult it was to root out feelings grown from the seeds of childhood trauma, however irrational the adult knew them to be.
As a therapist, she also knew that sometimes you had to go out of your comfort zone first to make yourself change. That had been Lois’s point; Lois, who had known Jillian since the Logans had adopted her. At a certain point you needed to move on with your life. Drinking champagne wouldn’t change the fact that she was alone. Doing something different would. If being alone hurt, then she needed to open the gates that she kept locked shut against the world.
I’m afraid.
It was ridiculous, of course, she thought, watching Carrie Summers laugh with her husband, Brian, watching Lisa and Alan as they leaned in for a kiss. What was there to fear? They were glowing with happiness, with the sheer wonder of being parts of a whole.
And suddenly, desperately, Jillian wanted to know what that feeling was like.
An intelligent woman would do something about it. That was what the therapist side of her would suggest if she were in a session with herself. Make a plan and execute it. Go on a blind date. Ask someone she knew to fix her up. Hell, say hello to a guy once in a while.
Of course, if she were in a session with herself, it might be time to consider medication for multiple personality disorder, she thought. And she surprised herself with a hiccup.
A couple of places down from Jillian’s spot at the end of the table, Lisa turned, eyes wide. “Was that a hiccup I just heard?”
“It’s nothing,” Jillian told her, surprised that she had to work just a bit to make the words come out clearly.
Down on the stage, the curtains parted to reveal a stunningly beautiful brunette partnered with a man dressed in a black shirt and trousers. They stood, pressed against one another and, slowly, they began to dance.
She never touched anyone, Jillian thought. Oh, she hugged her mother and her sister, Bridget, now and again, or maybe a girlfriend. That was about it. Her world was so small: don’t touch, don’t look too hard at anyone, don’t make eye contact for too long in case it’s too much. Because without the freedom of having that one person into whose eyes she could gaze, that one person she could hold on to without worrying, all contact with other people seemed perilously complex. How much was too much? How much would inadvertently cross the line because she no longer knew where that line was?
When she was at work, in sessions, she felt confident. Anywhere else, forget it.
The dancers whirled in the tango, twining around one another in the choreographed seduction of the dance. Even up in the balcony, Jillian could feel the heat, the sexuality. What must it be like to want and be wanted? She was thirty-three and she’d never been intimate with a man. Kisses, yes. She’d even felt a man’s hands touch her body, if you could call the clumsy college boy she’d fooled around with one night a man. She’d read about sex, she’d even counseled patients, but she knew nothing about it from personal experience.
She knew nothing about relationships, at all.
It wasn’t right, Jillian thought suddenly, watching the dancers. It wasn’t right that she didn’t know, it wasn’t right that she hadn’t even tried to change things. She was a social worker, a skilled therapist. She should do better.
Why not? she thought, feeling suddenly bold, and tossed off the rest of her champagne. Why not try going after what she wanted?
It’s your turn now.
“Hot, huh?”
Jillian turned to see Lisa’s maid of honor, Ariel, looking as mischievous as Peter Pan with her spiky brunette pixie cut and her sparkling eyes.
“They’re pretty amazing,” Jillian said. The flow of dancers’ bodies, their silky-looking touches gave her a little flicker of excitement just watching. “I’d love to learn.”
“Oh, me, too. I think they give lessons after the show. We ought to come sometime when we can try it out.”
“What if I don’t have a partner?”
Ariel laughed. “Like that’s a problem? Just smile at a guy and grab him by the arm.”
Jillian looked at Ariel in admiration. Was it really that simple for her? It seemed extraordinary. There was no way Jillian could ever work up that much nerve, not immediately. Smiling, maybe. She could start with smiling. Whereupon she’d probably be standing around forever. “They should set it up like one of those dime-a-dance places from World War II. That way you wouldn’t have to worry.”
“Dime a dance? Try a five spot, at least.” Ariel’s eyes brightened. “Ooh, just imagine if it was like one of those vending machines where you use the lever thing to pick out exactly who you want. Just put your money in the slot and—”
“Darn it!” Jillian slapped her forehead.
“What?”
“I totally forgot. I’ve got to go feed my meter. I didn’t have any change when I parked,” she explained, digging in her purse for a dollar. “I meant to go right back out.”
“Drinking champagne will do that to you. Anyway, why are you worried? This late, no one cares.”
“It’s only six-thirty.” Jillian rose. “And trust me, if anyone’s going to get a parking ticket at six fifty-nine, it’ll be me.”
Downstairs, she walked out the front door and through the old-fashioned half-moon movie-house entryway with its central ticket booth. On the street, the late afternoon was bleeding into June dusk as the sun dipped toward the horizon. The clouds of the morning had burned away. The air felt soft and welcoming.
