Down on Love Page 17

  “Audra?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  George felt stupid shouting at a closed door, but Audra had just out-stupided her. “You just said—!”

  “Go away.”

  “Look . . . what the hell is your problem?” Might as well cut to the chase, she figured.

  “You can’t shop here.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “It’s my shop. I say who can shop here and who can’t.”

  Even though George had more pressing issues, she couldn’t help asking, “Wait—who’s Suzette, then?”

  “My great-grandmother. It sounds more French. French is classy.”

  “Okay . . .”

  Audra’s heavily made-up eyeball loomed in one of the glass panes. “You’re looking for a dress, right? For the Taste of Whalen thing?”

  She sighed. Why was she even a little surprised word had gotten out, even about something so mundane? “So?”

  “Because you’re going out on a date with Casey Bowen, bitch.”

  Ohhhhh.

  “Celia’s my homegirl, okay? You mess with her, I’ll mess you up.”

  George had no idea why Audra had suddenly gone ghetto, but she got the gist. “Audra, not that I owe you any explanation or anything, but it’s not a date.”

  “Casey belongs with Celia. Stay away from him. I’m warning you!”

  At this point George started laughing at the absurdity of the situation. “Or what? You’re going to beat me up under the bleachers after school lets out?”

  “Just step off.”

  “You know, I really don’t need this aggra—”

  She stopped and turned when someone tapped her on the shoulder. Nobody was there. She looked down to find an older woman, about four and a half feet tall, auburn wig slightly askew, peering up at her.

  “Don’t mind Audra, sweetie,” the woman said in a slightly shaky voice. “She’s always been a bit . . . tightly wound.”

  “Mrs. Osterberg?” George barely stopped herself from adding I thought you’d be dead by now.

  “It’s lovely to see you, dear. I had been planning on stopping by and bringing you a cake to say welcome home, but I couldn’t remember if you liked vanilla or chocolate.”

  “Mrs. Osterberg, how in the world would you ever remember whether one of your former kindergarten students liked vanilla or chocolate cake?”

  “Oh, I remember everything from my teaching days. But I can never remember if I’ve put my teeth in every morning.” She laughed, and George caught sight of some pink gums. She wondered if she should fill the woman in on today’s denture status, but before she did, her old teacher said, “For what it’s worth, I’m on your side, dear.”

  “My . . . side? I don’t—”

  Mrs. Osterberg patted her arm and winked. “Team George all the way, that’s me.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Don’t you worry about Audra. Just between us, she’s always been rather obnoxious. I never liked her much. Although Celia’s very sweet.” Completely confounded, George shook her head slowly as her old teacher called out, “Audra! Get yourself a juice box. You know you always get cranky when your blood sugar drops.” To George, she said, “Remember, don’t worry. You’re doing just fine.” And she continued down the street.

  George had a vague recollection that Mrs. Osterberg always said that to her when she was practicing her letters and numbers in kindergarten: “Don’t worry. You’re doing just fine.” But she had no idea what the little gnome was on about this time.

  “Hi. It’s me.”

  “Hey!” George was slightly surprised Casey was calling. She wasn’t proud of the fact that her first thought was maybe he was calling to cancel—and the corresponding stab of fear hit her in the stomach with a little too much force. “What’s up?”

  “There’s a small problem. I’m going to be a little late.”

  That was all right. Late she could deal with. She leaned over to pull the strap of her sandal over her heel, caught sight of her cleavage in the mirror, had her thousandth second thought about the dress she’d chosen, realized it was too late, and vowed never to bend over the entire night just in case she gave someone (Casey?) a view of skin all the way down to her navel.

  “Everything okay?” she asked, stuffing her boobs back into the gauzy fabric that was doing a piss-poor job of containing them.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Casey rushed to reassure her. “It’s just . . . Big D asked if he could borrow my truck to help his cousin move, and he’s not back yet. I knew I should’ve said no . . . of all days . . . He was supposed to be back an hour ago at the latest.”

  George smiled to herself at how concerned he sounded. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’ll figure something out. I’ll call Jill, see if I can borrow her car—”

  “Casey.”

  “Or maybe Elliot doesn’t need his—”

  “Casey!”

  “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in riding to Whalen on a tractor, would you?”

  “Casey,” she said a third time, patiently, “I have a car, remember? I’ll drive.”

  There was a silence. A long, heavy silence.

  “What?” George demanded.

  “Well . . .”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve got a problem with a woman driving you someplace.”

  “No, of course not.”

  “What, then?”

  More silence.

  “Is this about my driving? Why does everybody give me shit about this? It just so happens I drive fine!”

  “Okay, okay!”

  “I’ll be there in twenty minutes. No arguments.”

  Casey started when he heard the back door slam, then George’s high heels clacking on the floor. Her footsteps got louder as she got closer to the sitting room, and Casey told himself to look casual. He toyed with the idea of resting his elbow on the fireplace mantel, tried it, realized he looked like an idiot, and put his arm down just as George stalked past, spotted him in the room at the last second, and changed course.

  “See?” she exclaimed, positioned in the double doorway as though at center stage, arms extended out from her side, a tiny silver clutch in one hand. The gems in her bracelet glinted in the light. “I got here in one piece. Perfectly safe.” She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “What?”

  From somewhere deep in the recesses of Casey’s suddenly fogged brain, a command floated to the top. Say something. But he couldn’t obey. Because he couldn’t form words. His mouth was dry, his throat constricted, his palms damp, his fingers icy. Maybe, he thought, this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

  George, he told himself. It’s just George. Deal.

  But he couldn’t do that, either. This was not just George—not the George he knew. This woman in front of him was . . . well, what he always thought a goddess would look like. She was in a light blue dress made of some filmy fabric that clung to her torso, then flared out below her waist. It dipped low in front, showing off so much of her pale skin it made his brain seize up. Her strawberry-blond hair swept forward over one shoulder. Her dark amber eyes glittered as she stared at him, and it occurred to him he really, really should have said something by now.

  “What’s the matter with you?” she asked, starting to look more concerned than truculent.

  “Nothing,” he finally answered her, and his voice was raspy. “You look beautiful.”

  She obviously didn’t expect that. Her hands dropped limply to her sides, and she glanced around uncomfortably. “. . . Thanks?”

  And now Casey had an overwhelming urge to go to her, feel her smooth skin under his hands. The more he thought about that, the more disjointed his thoughts became. Before he knew what he was doing, he found himself across the room, inches from her, his gaze darting to her dress, her shoulders, her face, her hair, her hands, wanting to take in everything at once.

  But the more he stared at her hungrily, the more jumpy she became. She looked off to one side and crossed her arms, her free h
and grasping her elbow. “Should we get going?”

  “Yeah, of course,” he rushed to answer, extending a hand to direct her out of the room first. She turned to go, and Casey nearly fell over at the sight of her very bare back, framed by mere slips of fabric from her shoulders down to her waistband. The rest was all George’s skin, and he had to force himself not to reach out a hand to find out if it was as soft as it looked.

  “You look really good too, you know,” she said as they walked down the hallway toward the back door.

  “Thanks.” He’d better; he felt like he was going to suffocate in this monkey suit. Once they got out into the slightly cooler air of evening, he was able to take a more satisfying breath, but he wasn’t sure if his struggle to breathe was caused by the tux or George.

  “I’m driving, you know,” George argued preemptively. “Don’t get any ideas about getting behind the wheel of the Pink Lady, because it’s not going to happen.”

  “Wouldn’t even dream of asking. But am I at least allowed to open your door for you?”

  “Oh.” She had reached for the handle, but she let her hand drop. “Sure.”

  “Good.” He reached past her to open the car door, which reminded him of the night he’d driven her home from Beers. She certainly hadn’t been as guarded then. He missed that side of her.

  George gathered the floaty folds of her dress and slid into the driver’s seat, and Casey closed the door once she was tucked inside. When he belted himself into the passenger seat, George fired off, “And no remarks about my driving in heels. We women can handle it, you know.”

  He just smiled and asked, as she backed into the parking area to turn around, “Where’d you get the dress? Mrs. P’s? Anna Banana and Clothes Horse don’t sell stuff like that.”

  “Who said I bought it in town? There’s this little thing called the Internet, you know.”

  “Ah. I should’ve known. Mrs. P would never let you out of her shop looking . . . like that.”

  George actually growled. “What the hell! When are the busybodies around here going to stop treating me like a kid?”

  “Well, we could take a detour, parade you around downtown in that dress for a while. That’ll convince ’em. Of course,” he added with a grin, “you’d also have to stop blogging about Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber if you want them to really take you seriously.”

  She glanced over at him and smirked, and Casey was relieved to see she was getting back to normal. Now he just had to work on his drooling issue, not to mention calm his pounding heart and stop the thrumming elsewhere in his body he really shouldn’t focus on because then it would only get worse. Oops. Like that. He decided to pay attention to what George was saying instead, making sure he looked at the profile of her face and no lower. Not that it did any good.

  “I’ll make a note of it,” she muttered dryly. “But they’re not just teen idols, you know. They’re icons by now—like the whole country’s captain of the football team and head cheerleader. Like you and Celia.”

  Casey’s brow furrowed. Where did that come from? Him and Celia? He took the easy way out. “I didn’t play football, and you know it.”

  “Stop playing dumb, Bowen. Would you rather I’d said prom king and queen? Because you were that.”

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but a lot of water has passed under the Marsden River Bridge since then. Now it’s . . . Tyson and Madison, I think. Speed!” he couldn’t help blurting, because once she left the confines of the gravel drive, she stomped on the accelerator, and the car lurched forward like a bull goaded by a picador’s spear.

  “Whatever.” Casey wasn’t sure she was dismissing his cautionary yelp or his comment about high school. “You and Celia are still seen as prom king and queen—permanently. Nobody in any year since has been able to eclipse your legacy. And,” she cleared her throat and gave him a sharp, I’m-about-to-instigate-something look, “I’ve been hearing all about it lately.”

  He rubbed his face vigorously, settling his hand over his mouth as he looked at her. “Christ. What have you heard?” he asked from between his fingers.

  “What do you need to tell me?”

  “Don’t answer a question with a question. What are you implying?”

  “‘Don’t answer a question with a question.’”

  He grasped the edges of the seat and grimaced as they took a curve at around seventy miles per hour.

  “Here’s another question,” she persisted. “Casey Arthur Bowen, is this a date?”

  Ooh, she meant business, using his middle name like that. It knocked him even more off kilter that she remembered it. “A date? What—what—why—”

  “Ub, ub, ub,” she mocked his stammer. “Answer the question.”

  “You mean—”

  “A date. With . . . you know.” Suddenly she seemed to lose confidence. “Romantic overtones,” she muttered.

  Casey couldn’t help laughing. “What the hell are ‘romantic overtones’?”

  “Are you dating Celia or not?”

  “What?” He couldn’t take the twists and turns of this conversation and this road. He’d never been carsick before, but there was a first time for everything, and this might very well be it. He started to perspire in earnest under his layers of monkey suit.

  “You heard me. I was warned, in no uncertain terms—upon pain of death, in fact—to keep my mitts off you, so I need to know.”

  “By Celia?” That was impossible.

  “No, not Celia. I ran into her at the gym the other day; she was a doll.”

  “She is a very nice person.”

  “Stop hedging. Answer the question.”

  “Wait. If I tell you I’m not dating Celia, and this is a date, what would you do with your mitts then? Blind curve! George! Pay attention to the road!”

  Was he shrieking? He was probably shrieking. But he didn’t care how he sounded at the moment, because George was looking over at him instead of at the dark country road, which was about to get a whole darker and curvier in the next quarter mile. Then, with a perfunctory glance in the rearview mirror to make sure nobody was behind them, she slammed on the brakes.

  Casey took a steadying breath. “Mind pulling over?”

  “Why?”

  “You’re in the middle of the road.”

  “So? There’s no traffic.”

  “I am never riding with you again.”

  “Why does everybody always say that?”

  “Can’t imagine. Why’d you stop?”

  “Because I want to see your face when you answer. Are you dating Celia? Is this a date? If you’re dating Celia, this can’t be a date. If you’re dating Celia and you call this a date, I’m throwing you out of the car right now for being a two-timing dog. If—”

  “Hey, whoa! You said answer the question, but I can’t get a word in edgewise. May I?”

  “Oh.” George stopped. Then, “Sorry. Go ahead.”

  He turned in his seat to face her squarely, then took another breath. “No, I am not dating Celia. We’re friends. That’s all.”

  “Why aren’t you?”

  “Dating?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Because we did that in high school, we did that after high school. We tried to keep up a long-distance relationship when I was at college, and it didn’t work. So we broke up. It was for the best, considering. I still care about her, though.”

  “She’s a good person.”

  “I know. But I don’t—” He paused. “Are you trying to get me to go out with her again? Because if you are, you’re going to have to get in line behind half the people in town. Those ‘busybodies’ you mentioned.”

  “I could tell. I met the president of her fan club the other day.”

  “Who?”

  “Audra.”

  Oh God. Casey laughed ruefully. “She’s . . . a special kind of crazy. Don’t pay any attention to her.”

  “Kind of hard not to. It got ugly.”

  “Why?”

 
; “Because she saw me as Celia’s competition. So answer the other question.”

  “Is this a date?” Casey decided to bite the bullet and said firmly, “Yes. This is a date. If you’ll agree to it. I didn’t call it that because I didn’t want to freak you out.”

  “Good call.”

  “I mean, it is kind of weird, right?”

  “Kind of. Very.”

  He took as deep a breath as his tie would allow. “Well, I would love it if it could be normal and natural. I wanted to take you out so we could enjoy each other’s company in some sort of pleasant environment. I like you, Goose. You’re beautiful, and bright, and funny, and interesting, and I would like to spend time with you. So I asked you out on this thing, which is a date. I’m sorry I didn’t buy you flowers. I’m also sorry I didn’t have the chance to knock on your door and pick you up so I could stand in your foyer, sweating in my shoes, while Sera gave me the hairy eyeball and asked when I’m bringing you home and what my intentions are—because that would have been on my ‘extreme experiences’ bucket list, right up there with being tasered just to see what it feels like. But yes, this is a date. Do you have a problem with that?”

  It was hard to tell in the twilight shadows, but it looked like George was blushing. After a moment, she answered, “No. I don’t have a problem with that. But I do have a problem with you calling me Goose all the time. If you want to treat me like an adult, you can start by not using that nickname you gave me when I was a kid.”

  He laughed. “Old habits.”

  She smiled back, shyly, and took her foot off the brake. “Fine, then,” she said quietly, a touch of wonder in her voice. “This is a date.” She started the car moving forward again. At least this time she wasn’t acting like she was coming off the line in a drag race, Casey thought.

  “That’s okay, isn’t it?” he ventured.

  She hesitated. “I’m not sure.”

  “Oh?” It felt like someone had grabbed his intestines and twisted just a little bit.

  “It’s . . . weird. I wasn’t planning on dating. Anybody. For a good long time. You could call it a hiatus, I guess.”

  “Because of all those crap relationships of yours?”