while Mom was still living with us.
“It was a great vacation, wasn’t it?” Dani said quietly from behind me.
“It was fun. I’m not sure it was as fun as we thought it was, though, at least not for Mom and Dad.”
“What do you mean?” Danielle bristled.
I pointed out what I’d seen in the photos, the tension between our folks, but Dani wasn’t buying it. She was annoyed with me for daring to suggest that the vacation she had convinced herself was perfect in every respect hadn’t been. Taking the album from me, she slapped it closed and slotted it onto a bookshelf. There was a moment of awkward silence before I said, “So, I think a white sofa would really look good against that aqua wall.”
“Are you insane?” Dani asked, reverting to normal. “White? Do you know how hard that would be to keep clean?”
We spent the rest of the evening drinking strawberry daiquiris from a frozen mix Dani had left over from a party several months back, and discussing her sofa options. I even broke down and looked at some sofa photos in her decorating magazines. Jekyll Island didn’t come up again.
Chapter 13
Friday morning found Tav and me setting up a Graysin Motion table at the expo center for the bridal fair. There wasn’t much setting up for us to do, in truth, not compared to some of the other vendors. Florists had colorful, pungent displays of corsages, bouquets, and flower arrangements bursting with carnations, orchids, roses, lilies, and a host of blooms I couldn’t identify. Bakeries had multitiered cakes on display, some with layers canted at strange angles and iced in every color imaginable, although white predominated. My favorite stood twelve tiers high and looked like a sunset, with tangerine, pink, and yellow layers decked with fresh flowers in the same colors. Mannequins from wedding dress stores wore gowns with skirts wider than Marie Antoinette’s, slim sheaths, and mermaid-style skirts that belled at the bottom like an upside-down champagne glass. Jewelers displayed rings in glass cases. Deejays and bands played discs that showcased their talents and added a festive sound track to the buzz of a thousand brides-to-be, grooms, mothers, wedding planners, and heaven knew who else.
Dani and I had attended a bridal fair like this one soon after I got engaged to Rafe. Before I found out he was cheating on me. Before I broke it off. Before he died. I’d strolled from table to table, sampling cakes, sniffing bouquets, and generally brimming over with excitement that I was going to be a bride, a wife. Watching the excited brides-to-be flitting from display to display, I wondered sadly how many of them would never walk down the aisle, at least not with the man they were currently engaged to.
“Weddings are big business,” Tav observed as he fanned a handful of Graysin Motion brochures across the table.
“The biggest.” I propped up a life-size, 3-D cardboard image of Rafe and me that had been used to advertise our presence at a fund-raising exhibition a couple years back. “Have you ever been married?” I asked impulsively.
Tav straightened, looking handsome enough to pose for one of the tuxedo ads plastered in the space next to ours. “Once. A long time ago.”
“Really?” I don’t know why I was surprised. “What happened?”
“She decided she did not want to be married. It lasted seven months. We were both twenty, far too young to get married.”
“Are you still in touch with her?”
He shook his head. “Last I heard, she was working for a television producer in Australia. You?”
“Nope. Rafe’s as close as I ever got, and you know how that turned out.”
“My brother was a fool,” he said.
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I set the foot-shaped cutouts on the floor in front of our table in a simple waltz sequence. A young brunette who might have been of Indian or Pakistani extraction watched me. “Are you her?” she asked, pointing with her chin at the 3-D stand-up.
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m not that flexible,” she said dubiously.
In the photo, I had my left ankle on Rafe’s shoulder, right leg extended behind me as he dragged me. “That’s the paso doble,” I said. “Probably not what you had in mind for your wedding. The waltz is much easier. Want to try?”
She shook her head and hurried past.
“We will get clients from this,” Tav said, noting my disappointed expression. “That dress was an inspired choice.”
I smoothed the deep orange skirt of the gown I used to wear for international standard competitions. Cut almost to the waist in back, with crisscross straps, it was eye-catching. I’d worn my hair up, like for a competition, but gone easy on the makeup, skipping the false eyelashes that I wore to compete.
“Orange stands out,” I agreed.
We weren’t as mobbed as some of the bakery or wedding dress vendors, but a steady trickle of people stopped by to take brochures. Several couples actually signed up for lessons, prompted by Tav’s smooth patter. One or two embarrassed couples even gave it a go, using the cutouts on the floor and my encouragement to guide their first tentative steps.
Shortly before lunchtime, a bride who looked close to my age stopped in front of the table, dragging her fiance to a halt beside her. “Drew, doesn’t this look like fun?”
His expression suggested he’d rather wrestle alligators. “I don’t know, Hailey…”
“C’mon.” The woman laughed. “It can’t be that hard.”
“It’s easy,” I assured him, holding out my hand. “I’ll show you.”
“I’ve never danced,” Drew said, backing away.
“Even someone who has never danced before can learn to waltz. Look.” I turned to Tav with a mischievous twinkle. “Tav will demonstrate.”
He looked taken aback but came around to the front of the table.
“But he’s a dancer,” the groom-to-be objected.
“Not even close,” Tav said. “Football is my game.”
“He’s my business partner,” I said, “not my dance partner. Here, we’ll show you.” I grabbed Tav’s left hand and raised it to the proper position, then laid my other hand across the back of his shoulder, arching my back.
“Did I not mention once that learning to dance in front of a crowd does not appeal to me?” he whispered. He didn’t sound angry, although the look in his eyes promised retribution. His breath against my ear made me shiver.
“Think of it as growing the business.” I smiled up at him and felt his hand tighten against my back. We hadn’t been this close since we agreed to be partners and I’d given him an impromptu lesson in my kitchen. With his nearness creating a fog in my brain, I remembered why I’d kept my distance. Dancing with Tav undermined my determination to keep our relationship strictly business.
Faking a composure I didn’t feel, I talked him through a few steps, for the benefit of the watching couple. He moved gracefully, with the balance of an athlete. That didn’t surprise me greatly, because I knew he had played soccer seriously in college and now played with a league in D.C. a couple of times a week. Too aware of the muscled strength in his chest and thighs where they touched mine, I whispered, “There’s supposed to be more space between us.”
“Where is the fun in that?” His smile was devilish, and his hold tightened.
Resisting the temptation to melt against him, I ended the “lesson.” The engaged couple applauded when I stepped back and dropped into a curtsy.
“See? Easy.” I smiled as they let Tav sign them up for a series of lessons. My stomach growled, and I motioned to Tav that I was going to grab something to eat in the concession area.
Serpentining through the maze of tables, booths, and displays, I made for the concession area and the tantalizing aroma of hamburgers and onion rings. I couldn’t afford to eat either one-Vitaly would kill me if I gained
