If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Now (31 page)

“We’ll never know.”

Maria went off to check on her silent auction bids and I was on my own again, which allowed me to discover my martini limit.
One sip past two and suddenly things were getting a little
too
out of focus. I put down my drink.

The food had finally started coming out of the catering truck a little more quickly and I nabbed a slider as it went by. I
took a bite. It was greasy and not hot enough. That, I thought, was what happened when you hired someone’s cousin to do the
food. I dropped the rest of it on a tall table. A couple was standing at the other side of the table eating, and just as I
was turning away the man said tentatively, “Uh, Rickie? Rickie Allen?”

I turned back.

“It
is
you!” He put down his fork and came around the table. “How are you, my dear?” It was Mr. Greene, my tenth-grade English teacher.
He had a bit more gray in his thinning hair, but otherwise he looked pretty much the same: bushy beard, glasses, double chin.
At school he had worn a lot of plaid shirts and jeans and kind of reminded me of a lumberjack, but the tuxedo he was wearing
that evening lent him an air of old-fashioned and vaguely rumpled professorial elegance.

He gave me a quick hug. “I haven’t seen you in ages! How are things going?”

“They’re good.” I had sat in the front row of his class and argued passionately about how Hester Prynne was a big wimp. It
seemed like a lifetime ago. “How about with you?”

“Good, good,” he said. “Still teaching at the upper school. My daughter graduates next year—I can’t believe it. She’s a bit
frantic about the whole college thing. But I assume we’ll survive it. You remember my wife, Judy?” He gestured back toward
the middle-aged woman behind him, who nodded at me with a pleasant smile. I didn’t remember her and I doubted she remembered
me, but I waved back. Mr. Greene said, “You went to Berkeley, right? That’s Arielle’s first choice. Did you like it there?”

Did he know I was only there for one year? I couldn’t tell. “Yeah,” I said. “It was great.”

“I hope you majored in English. I still remember that paper you wrote on
Romeo and Juliet.
It was about the girl he’s in love with at the beginning.”

I remembered that paper. I had been proud of it. “ ‘The Trouble with Rosaline,’ ” I said.

“Brilliant. Just brilliant. So what are you up to now?” He peered at me curiously. Kindly. Expectantly. Maybe he didn’t know
the whole Rickie Allen story. Maybe he’d forgotten it for the moment. Maybe he just wanted to let me tell the story my own
way.

I didn’t know, but it suddenly felt hard to swallow. I jerked my chin up, trying to open up my throat. “Not much. Living with
my parents. Trying to figure stuff out. You know.”

“Ah,” he said. He waited another moment. I looked down at the floor and didn’t add anything.

I had nothing to add.

He patted me gently on the shoulder. “Well, if you find any answers, let me know. I’m still figuring it all out myself.”

I forced a short laugh and said, “Excuse me. I should—” Should what? “My parents are probably looking for me.” Lame.

“Of course, of course,” he said. “Don’t let me detain you. You look lovely, Rickie. And it’s wonderful to see you.”

I said good-bye to him and his wife and slunk away.

I
was halfway across the room when I spotted my mother and father standing at another one of the tall cocktail tables talking
to a guy who I knew was on the board of trustees with Mom. He was some big real estate mogul, but I couldn’t remember his
name. I also saw Melanie and Gabriel walking from one casino table to another, hip against hip, his arm tight across her shoulder.
I got a warm and happy feeling seeing them together and thought how nice it would be if you could change the past with a simple
wish. If a genie gave me that power, I’d use it for them, I thought. Not for me.

I was idly and slightly drunkenly watching the roulette wheel spin when I felt something touch my shoulder. Startled, I whipped
around. The guy who had just run his fingers down my bare skin looked only vaguely familiar. His thinning hair was too long
and he was wearing a skinny black necktie with his tux, which I thought looked weird.

“Hey, there,” he said enthusiastically, like we were old friends. “Remember me?”

“I’m working on it.”
And wondering why you felt you had the right to stroke my arm without asking.

“We met at the basketball party. I’m Pammy’s dad. Dane Miller.”

Okay, now I did remember him. But not fondly. “Oh, right.”

He extended his right hand (first transferring a half-empty martini glass to his left) and I reluctantly shook it.

He held on to my fingers too long, and I had to tug my hand away. “You look amazing tonight,” he said, his eyes running up
and down the length of my body. “I had to tell you. Of all the women here, you’re channeling the whole theme like no one else.
You look like a brunette Grace Kelly.”

“Okay, that one I haven’t heard.”

“I mean it. You have her delicate bone structure. My father worked with her in the fifties, you know.” I had no idea who his
father was, but I didn’t really care. “Your dress”—he gestured—“she would have worn something like that.”

“Yeah?” Plenty of people had told me I looked nice that night. What good did that do me? I was still alone, surrounded by
couples. The only man paying me any attention was
this
guy and I just wanted him to go away.

He wasn’t done with the personal comments. “Where’s the nose ring tonight? I miss it.”

“It didn’t go with the dress.”
And it was a stud, not a ring
.

“I don’t know why that kind of thing is so sexy, but it is. Not,” he said gallantly, “that you aren’t sexy without it.”

“Thanks,” I said flatly.

“It’s the good-girl-gone-bad vibe,” he continued. “Guys can’t resist it and you have it in spades. Hey, can you act? Are you
interested in acting at all?”

“Not really.”

“You have the right look for this project I’m working on. A feature. If you wanted to come in one day—”

I was tipsy and tired and depressed and rapidly losing patience. “How dumb do you think I am?” I said.

“I’m serious.”

“Sure you are.”

“I am. You have that
It
quality. You know what I mean? You have
It
.”

“The doctor told me antibiotics would take care of that.”

He touched my arm again. “You like to joke around, don’t you?”

I recoiled—and stepped back onto the toes of Andrew Fulton, who was standing behind me. Where had he come from? And how long
had he been there? “Sorry,” I said, hopping off of him.

“No worries,” he said. “Hi.” He nodded to Dane Miller. “Dane.”

I wondered how much he’d overheard. I decided to fill him in, courtesy of the vodka I’d drunk: “Hi, Coach. Pammy’s dad misses
my nose stud but thinks I’m still sexy without it and also that I have the It factor and should come give him a private audition
on his casting couch one day.”

Andrew processed that, his eyes flickering back and forth between us.

Dane hastily said, “We were just joking around. This young lady is very funny.”

“I’m a riot,” I agreed.

“I need to talk to you,” Andrew said to me. “Excuse us, Dane.” He took me by the arm and propelled me across the gym floor.
We didn’t say anything until we reached the far wall, where he let go of my arm. “There. Got you away. Sorry about that guy.”

I absently rubbed my arm where Andrew had been holding it. It didn’t hurt but I could still feel the impression of his fingers
there. Or imagined I could. “What’s up with him? Does that stuff actually work on anyone?”

“I don’t know. I doubt it. His wife is here, so I don’t know what he was thinking.”

“He’s a dick,” I said. “Dicks don’t think.”

“Well put.”

“Speaking of wives,” I said and stopped rubbing my arm, “where’s Gracie the Beautiful?”

“She’s not my wife,” he said. “But she’s over there.” He nodded toward the center of the gym. I looked. Gracie was very animatedly
talking to Marley Addison and James Foster. Marley was smiling at her with polite detachment, but James was yawning and glancing
around the room.

“Does she know them?”

“Of course not. Not personally.” Andrew scowled. “Never date a PR person, Noah’s mom. They so much as smell a celebrity and
they’re like dogs on a bone. She probably has some event she wants them to come to, so she pounced.” He shook his head irritably.
“God, I hate this! It’s bad enough when we’re out around town and she spots some famous person, but here, at school, where
I work… And, you know, Louis Wilson sees all. And he does not like celebrity parents being targeted like that.”

I tried not to let him see how delighted I was that he was annoyed at his girlfriend. “Want me to get her away from them?”
I said. “I could tell her that her car’s on fire or something.”

“She’d let it burn,” he said grimly. “Just keep me company, will you?”

“Sure.”

There was a pause. He shuffled his feet restlessly, glancing
quickly and unhappily at Gracie and the celebs again. “I can’t watch this anymore. I’ve got to get out of this room. Will
you come with me?”

“Sure,” I said again.

He led me out the side door of the gym, swiping a couple of glasses of champagne off of a waiter’s tray on the way, and then
down the hallway to his office. “Here, take this.” He handed me one of the champagne glasses so he could reach into his hip
pocket.

“Won’t she be mad that you left?”

He pulled out a bunch of keys, selected one, and unlocked the door. “She’s already mad at me. What’s one more item on a long
list?” He opened the door and gestured for me to go in. It was dark, and after I stepped inside I just stood there, enjoying
the quiet after the chaos and noise of the casino room. Then Andrew flicked on the light and the spell was broken.

He closed the door behind us with a hospitable gesture toward the extra chair. I sat down and took a sip of the champagne
before remembering I had had enough to drink already. I carefully put the glass on the edge of the desk as Andrew circled
around it and sat in his chair. Now it felt like we were about to have another meeting about Noah, except the coach was in
a tuxedo and I was in a satin dress.

A very formal meeting.

But I didn’t want to talk about Noah tonight. So I said, “Why’s Gracie already mad at you?”

Andrew put down his champagne glass and leaned forward, yanking at his hair in a comic gesture of despair. “Well, today’s
big grievance is that I’ve ‘ruined her weekends’ by agreeing to coach T-ball. She likes being free to go away and now we’re
stuck here for the season.”

“Are you sorry you said you’d do it?”

“Are you kidding? I love it. Especially with Noah and Joshua on the team—those two crack me up. I love watching them get better
every week. And there are some other great kids too.” He waved his hand. “And by the way I really don’t
need
more nights spent at some dusty bed-and-breakfast in Cambria or some twee place like that, visiting precious little antique
stores and eating too much French toast. Don’t need them, don’t want them, can’t afford them.”

“Did you tell her that?”

“Yes. Pretty much word for word.”

“And?”

“Well, first she pointed out that if I had stayed on my original career track, I would be able to afford it, no problem. So
then
I
pointed out that even if I had, I still wouldn’t
want
to go to those places.”

“And then?”

He slumped back in his seat. “Oh, you know… She said I only care about what I want, not about what she wants. Which I guess
is basically true.”

I said slowly, “There’s the Noah thing on Sundays too. She must hate that.”

“I’ve canceled it when she’s asked me to.”

“But she
does
hate it?”

He looked down at his hands. “Yeah, she hates it. It ‘ruins our Sundays’ the same way that coaching ‘ruins our Saturdays.’
” He glanced up. “And, by the way, this thing tonight? It ‘ruined our Saturday night.’ ” He laughed shortly. “Or at least
it did until Marley Addison showed up. I guess I should thank her for making this whole event worth going to for Gracie.”
There was a pause. When neither of us was talking, you could hear the noise from the casino room but no distinct voices. Andrew
said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be complaining like this.”

“You don’t have to help Noah on Sundays anymore,” I said. “I mean, he sees you on Saturdays now. And if you didn’t have to
come to our house, you guys could still get away for at least part of the weekend.”

He thought about that for a moment then shook his head. “I don’t really want to.” He fidgeted, looked away, then looked at
me again. “Let’s talk about something else.” There was a pause. He said abruptly, “I like your dress.”

“Can we please not talk about this stupid dress?” I flicked at the skirt, which lay over my knees in satin folds. “I can’t
tell you how many people have made some comment about how I look tonight. Am I normally such a slob that my wearing a dress
is some huge topic of conversation? Don’t answer that.”

“I won’t,” he said. “But yes.”

“I’m more than happy to discuss your tux. You look good in it.”

He glanced down at himself. “Gracie picked it out. I don’t know anything about this stuff.”

“She has good taste.”

“Yes, yes, she does.” Another pause. He said, “So we have our first game next week. Is Noah excited?”

“I guess so. I’m terrified.”

“Why?”

“All that pressure. Like when he’s at bat. And he’s probably not going to do well. And I don’t know if you can hear them,
but there are these dads who sit there and criticize—”

“Those dads are dicks,” he said. “To borrow a term.”

“Are you sure you’re allowed to say that in public?”

“We’re not in public.” He took a sip from his champagne glass and put it down a little too hard so it clanged on the desk.
“God, I hate those guys. They work against everything I’m trying to accomplish with these kids. You know, I actually
have the right to ban them from games—I’m just waiting for them to say something bad enough for me to justify it to the head
of the rec center.”