The gym has been hung with crepe paper, like something out of the fifties, and it’s so noisy you have to yell to be heard.
“I can’t believe it,” Chris says. “Hank’s actually here.”
Gwen looks toward the refreshment table and there he is, with a group of the boys who are clearly the most popular, since they all look so pleased with themselves. All except for Hank, who appears to be rather anxious, and who is wearing a new white shirt he got at the discount shop in the basement of the Red Apple supermarket and boots he spent over an hour polishing.
“He never comes to these things,” Chris confides. “He’s always working or something.”
At first, Gwen and Hank avoided each other whenever they ran into each other at the barn, but they don’t do that anymore; now, they actually talk. Usually, it’s impossible for Gwen to let down her guard, but it was too hard not to be nice to Hank. He said they were related somehow, which made it okay for her not to be nasty. Though she’d never admit this, Gwen feels good just being around him, and this is not the way she ordinarily feels when confronted with human life-forms. But all that may change. Hank may prove himself to be nothing more than another jerk, after all. Here he comes, and Gwen is fairly certain that Chris is the one he’s after.
“I didn’t know you were going to be here.” He’s walked right up to Gwen, and either he’s nervous or he’s choking, because he keeps putting his hand into his collar, as though he needed more air.
Gwen glares at him fiercely. What is his comment supposed to mean? That she doesn’t belong here?
“I thought you hated people.” Hank goes for a joke, but it falls flat. Gwen blinks her heavily mascaraed eyes and looks blank. “Well, anyway,” Hank says-what the hell, he has nothing to lose-“you look great.”
Chris and Lori elbow each other, and then they elbow Gwen too, who suddenly seems to be dead on her feet. She looks like hell, with her horrible haircut, a pair of black jeans, and an old white sweater she borrowed from her mother. What is wrong with Hank? Is he stupid or blind or what? No one says things like that, especially not if they mean it, and from the way Hank is staring at her, he appears to be sincere.
“Thanks.” Gwen says. “So do you.”
She must be out of her mind. She has never been this civil in her entire life. She’d never say a thing like that to a guy, and certainly not in front of her friends. But here she is, smiling, agreeing when he asks her to dance. As soon as he circles his arms around her, she feels like she’s having a heart attack. She doesn’t even know if this is possible for someone her age, but by the end of the dance she’s certain that she’d better take a break.
“I have to go outside,” she tells Hank, and who can guess what he thinks, although he follows her through the door and stands there watching while she takes a few deep breaths of fresh air.
They’ve both left their coats inside the gym, but they don’t notice the low temperature or the wind from the Marshes. The weird thing is, Gwen had sex with her last two boyfriends on their first dates, if fucking someone in his father’s car can be considered a date. She’s always been wild, she’s never given a damn, and she’s the one who’s currently a wreck. Her hands are sweating, and her heart continues to go crazy; she’s in the middle of thinking she might as well give up, just leave the dance and walk home by herself, when he kisses her. He kisses her for a really long time, and even though her heart is still pounding, she no longer feels she is suffering from some sort of attack. She’s seen the way he looks at her when she comes to take Tarot out to the field; all along she’s been wondering if he was attracted to her or if he was merely an idiot. She’s genuinely shocked by the depth of her pleasure now that she knows the answer.
“Do you want to go back inside?” Hank asks.
They can hear music playing and there’s a wash of light when Lori and Chris open the door and call out for Gwen. Gwen shakes her head no; she doesn’t want to go back. She waits on the bleachers while Hank goes in for their coats.
“I told your friends you were sick,” Hank says when he comes back.
“Good one,” Gwen says. “Not that they’ll believe it.”
They walk back to Fox Hill together, taking the long way, but that’s all right with them. They can’t wait to be on a dark, empty road and out of the village, which is so crowded for the Founder’s Day celebration. They pass right by Dimitri’s, the restaurant where March and Susanna Justice are having dinner, but they skitter by like leaves, and even though March is looking out the window, she doesn’t see them.
“Did we really order all this?” March asks when more food arrives.
Their waitress, Regina, has already brought over lasagna and baked stuffed shells, and now she’s delivering the crab-and-mushroom pizza they ordered.
“We’re pigs,” Susie says, and she asks for a second bottle of wine.
Although March would never have placed her, she and Susie went to school with Regina, who recognized March as soon as she walked through the door.
“I don’t remember anyone,” March says when Regina has gone off for their wine.
“Yeah, well, you had one person on your mind and he took up a lot of space.”
Now March recalls why she hated Susie when they were kids.
“You’re judging me. It must run in the family.”
“I’m not at all. Okay, I used to, but I’m not anymore. I’m only saying that you were in a Hollis-induced fog.” Susie sprinkles Parmesan cheese onto a piece of pizza. “You never seemed to notice that my father was over at your house constantly.”
For several days, March and Susie have been dodging around this subject, on the phone and in person; it’s definitely not a comfortable topic for either of them.
“He was always at Fox Hill, allegedly on business.” Susie sighs. “Why do you think I hated you?”
“I thought I hated you.” March sticks out her tongue and Susie laughs, but then Susie looks sad and she pushes her plate away. “You knew about them all the way back then?” March asks.
“I knew right after your father died. My dad kept going over there, every single night, for weeks. Maybe he was in love with her for ages before that, who knows? Maybe they’d already been lovers for years. But I knew because one night I saw him when he came home from your house. It was about ten o’clock and I was supposed to be in bed, but I was looking out the window. My mom was downstairs listening to the radio; she was used to him being out late. He turned off the headlights of his car; then he got out and he walked over to the roses, which were especially beautiful that year, and he ducked his head to smell them, and I knew. He looked like someone else entirely, standing there. He looked like someone who was in love with a woman he couldn’t have. I cried myself to sleep, because I knew.”
“No wonder we hated each other,” March says. She reaches across the table and takes Susie’s hand.
“All I can say is, I’m glad my mother never found out.” Susie squeezes March’s hand, then withdraws it so she can get a Kleenex out of her purse. “I’ve really tried not to be angry at him, but I don’t think I could have been so generous if my mother had known.”
“Have you ever talked to him about it?”
“Him? My father?” Susie wipes her eyes, then blows her nose. “Are you crazy? You don’t talk to my father, you listen.”
Regina brings over desserts-on the house: chocolate mousse with sugar cookies wedged in along the side of the bowl, and a helping of plum pudding, in honor of the Founder. Regina sits down with them for a minute to talk about old times and discuss her pet project-the Harvest Fair down at Town Hall. Somehow, before Regina goes back to work, March finds herself announcing that she would consider running a booth that will raise funds for the children’s section of the library.
“Why did you do that?” Susie asks, when they’ve gotten their coats and paid their bill-with a thirty percent tip for Regina. They’ve left behind half-portions of everything they ordered, and are stuffed all the same. “You won’t still be here for the Harvest Fair. If you want my opinion, you should go home right now.”
“Well, thanks,” March says as they go outside.
The wind has died down a bit, but it’s still a raw night.
“When you come back to a town like this, people think you’re staying,” Susie says.
March wraps her scarf around her throat. “I don’t care what people think.”
“Okay, forget people. How about Richard?”
“Who?” March teases.
“You’re deranged.” Susie links her arm through March’s. “You’d better get serious.”
“I’ve been serious for so long I can’t stand it.” If she hadn’t been so serious, would she have agreed to come back to him, even though she was in the seventh month of her pregnancy? By then, she’d already lined up a baby-
