Right Place, Wrong Time (19 page)

“Damn it, I
am
having second thoughts. What do you want me to say, Ramona? I made a mistake? Okay. Here
I am, admitting it. I made a mistake. And I’m not asking you to forgive me or take me back. I don’t know if that would be the best thing for us right now. All I’m saying is, I’m allowed to care about what happens to you. If this guy, this Nick dude, sees you as a way to kiss up to your father, I’m allowed to care that you might get hurt in the process.” He let out a tired breath and pivoted toward the hall. “All right. That’s it. I’ve got to get back to work.” Before Ramona could show him to the door, he was gone.

Silence descended upon the kitchen, similar to the silence left in the wake of an ambulance after it’s raced away and its siren is no longer audible. At first the atmosphere was tense, and then, gradually, Gina eyed Ramona and realized that, ambulance or no ambulance, disaster or no disaster, they’d both survived.

Ramona gave Gina a faint smile. “That was interesting,” she said.

“More interesting than going to the mall.”

“Don’t even think about it.” Ramona set her glass in the sink, then crossed the table and seized Gina’s glass. “We need the mall now more than ever. I can hear my Visa card crying for release.” She placed Gina’s glass beside hers in the sink, then grabbed her keys and purse from the counter. “Get your jacket and let’s go. There’s an appropriate dress with your name on it in one of those stores.”

C
ONNECTICUT WAS
…pretty.

She’d found a window seat on the train and, ignoring the paperback novel she’d tossed into her purse to keep her occupied during the trip, she gazed out at the scenery on the other side of the glass. The towers and tenements of New York City had receded behind her forty-five
minutes ago, replaced first by row houses and the occasional factory or warehouse, and then by brittle, straw-dry grass and trees, evergreens dense with dark green needles and deciduous trees clinging to a few final, brown leaves. The sky was a crisp blue, dotted with a few fluffy white clouds. It wasn’t exactly rural, but it was pretty—in an unsettling way.

Gina shifted her folding bag on the empty seat beside her. Actually, it wasn’t her bag. She’d borrowed it from Carole because her dress would have gotten wrinkled beyond repair in her duffel. Carole had also taken her shopping for earrings. “You can’t wear double hoops to a thing like this,” Carole had said, and since she was from the Midwest, Gina assumed her to be an expert in appropriateness. “What you need is little gold posts in the upper holes and something elegant and dangly in the lower holes. Diamond posts would be even better than gold. Do you have any?”

“Me? Diamonds?” Gina had laughed.

“Then buy some.”

She’d bought new gold posts, instead. The diamond posts she’d checked out, even the tiny ones that didn’t sparkle much, had sported outrageously high prices. If only she’d known, when she’d been in St. Thomas, that in a few months’ time she’d be expected to dress appropriately for a snooty fund-raising party, she could have bought some diamond earrings there. Kim Hamilton would have helped her pick out the right stones. She’d owned that book on the buying diamonds. No doubt she was an expert in appropriateness, too.

Ethan could have invited Kim to be his date for this gala. Perhaps he had, back when they were still almost-engaged. But now he was stuck with Gina, the inappropriate New Yorker. His choice, she reminded herself. He
wouldn’t have asked her if he hadn’t wanted her to accompany him. She’d wear her appropriate dress and her appropriate earrings—both posts and elegant, dangly ones—and she’d be as courteous while Ethan’s colleagues discussed spotted owls and snail darters as he was while her colleagues discussed open toes and arch support.

He was waiting for her on the platform when the train chugged to a stop at the Arlington station. In the brisk breeze, his hair was windblown, and he’d turned up the collar on his jacket—which, she noted with some satisfaction, was leather. Brown leather, but still. And he was wearing blue jeans. They weren’t terribly broken in, but at least they didn’t have creases pressed into them. She’d never seen him in jeans before, and the sight reassured her.

Spotting her as she stepped onto the platform, he raced over. His hug reassured her even more. He seemed genuinely thrilled that she was there. In Connecticut. In his home territory.

“How was your trip?” he asked, lifting the suitcase out of her hand and leading her down the platform steps to the parking lot.

The air smelled different here. It smelled…empty. The other passengers who’d disembarked in Arlington were climbing into cars and starting their engines, but there was a hollowness to the sounds, a lack of reverberation. And the colors—grays and browns and lingering greens, fallen leaves swirling along the edges of the parking lot, the peaked roof of the station…Ethan had told her Arlington was a city. Not in her book, it wasn’t. Cities weren’t this quiet.

“The trip was fine,” she remembered to answer.

He led her to a Volvo sedan and tossed her bag into
the trunk. Then he opened her door for her. She sank onto the leather seat and recalled the last time she’d been a passenger in a car he was driving. That time, she’d shared her seat belt with Alicia and Ethan had driven on the wrong side of the road.

She’d loved the tranquillity of St. Thomas. Why didn’t she love the tranquillity of Connecticut?

Maybe because St. Thomas was a vacation. It wasn’t
real
. It wasn’t Ethan’s home.

“You seem nervous,” Ethan remarked as he steered out of the parking lot.

Much as she loved the honesty in their relationship, she wished he’d been a little less honest about how obvious her tension was. She sighed. “I guess I am.”

“Why?”

“Well, this party, this fund-raiser—Ethan, that’s just not my scene. I keep thinking I’m going to say the wrong thing, or use the wrong fork.”

“No one cares which fork you use, as long as you don’t use it to stab anyone. And I can’t imagine what wrong thing you’d say.”

“Oh, you know—something like, ‘Hey, I grew up in the Bronx. How about you?”’

“No one cares where you grew up, either. They’re going to think you’re the epitome of glamour, Gina.”

“Glamour?” She snorted. “My dress isn’t glamorous. It’s…appropriate.”

“You’re glamorous because you work in the fashion industry. Most of the guests are businesspeople and professionals. They’re boring. Compared with them, you’re going to glow.”

“You think so?”

He glanced toward her, then turned back to the road. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re always glowing.”

She hoped that comment was more of his honesty. She wanted to glow for him.

He drove them to a comfortable colonial-style house in a serene neighborhood. As he pulled into the attached garage, she conceded that she would like having a garage—and a car. How convenient it would be on a rainy day if she were loaded with bags of groceries. Or purchases from the mall, she thought with a private smile.

Inside, his house was what she’d expected. Just like him, it was tasteful, unobtrusive, the walls white and the den’s carpet a tan color awfully close to khaki. The artwork on his walls consisted mostly of framed photographs of nature scenes. The furniture was large and solid-looking—big overstuffed chairs and sofas, and occasional tables you could kick your feet up on without causing damage. His kitchen had less clutter in it than her much smaller kitchen. On the counter, a wooden bowl filled with apples imparted a tart fragrance to the air.

He led her from room to room, saying little more than, “This is the kitchen,” and “This is the den.” Apparently, he wanted her to convey her impressions of his home, and she did: “That dishwasher is really nice, Ethan,” and “Wow, what a huge TV. What size screen is that?” The TV in his den, angled between a wall of books and a brick fireplace, was as wide as her bathtub. Her TV was a tiny box perched on a shelf. Fortunately, she didn’t watch much, so the size had never bothered her.

He laughed, although he didn’t sound happy. “You’re still nervous.”

“I’m not glowing?” She turned to him and smiled, all too aware that her smile couldn’t hide her apprehension. It sat inside her like a living thing, a stir-crazy
monster, larger than his damn TV. “I want to love Connecticut,” she confessed. “I really do.”

He clearly heard what she wasn’t saying:
I want to, but I don’t
. As her smile waned, his widened. He eased her coat off her shoulders and down her arms and tossed it onto one of those massive chairs. “Come here,” he murmured, drawing her into an hug. “You don’t have to love Connecticut. You just have to relax a little.”

Fifteen minutes later, lying naked with him on that nondescript tan carpet, feeling rug burn on her bare butt and struggling to catch her breath, she felt a bit more relaxed and significantly fonder of Connecticut. The groan Ethan had emitted when he came had sounded better than the cacophony of New York’s streets, and the heat of his hand still moving lazily over her belly felt better than New York’s giddy, raucous embrace. She thought vaguely about unpacking her appropriate dress so any wrinkles caused by the suitcase would shake out, but that didn’t seem as important as nestling against Ethan’s hard, hot body, sandwiching one of his legs between hers and reminding herself of what really mattered:
this
. Not Connecticut, but
them
.

“Maybe we could skip the fund-raiser tonight,” she suggested hopefully as she twirled her fingers through his hair.

He chuckled. “We’re going to the fund-raiser, Gina. I’ve got to make a speech.”

“Tonight? You have to make a speech?”

He lifted his head to peer at her. His eyes were slightly glazed, his smile weary. She noticed a faint red mark on his neck—a love bite. She hoped it would fade before the party, or his shirt’s collar would conceal it. If he had to make a speech in front of all those wealthy benefactors and they all saw a hickey on his throat…

“Gina,” he said, his tone solemn in spite of his smile. “I have to be there. I’m the head honcho. They’ve donated money to my organization. It’s part of my job.”

“I know, Ethan—”

He brushed his fingers over her lips to silence her. “I
want
to be there. I love my job. Fund-raising isn’t my favorite part of it, but I’m grateful to these people who make it possible for the Gage Foundation to protect the environment. I want to thank them, and celebrate our accomplishments with them.”

Of course he did. Of course she recognized the importance of this night to him. Gazing up into his eyes, however, she understood what he was really trying to tell her: this was his world. This was what mattered to him. If she cared about him, she had to accept the truth about him. Connecticut, fund-raising parties and Ethan giving speeches, with or without a hickey on his neck—this was who he was.

“We’ll have fun tonight,” she vowed, trying to convince herself. “Not as much fun as we had just now—” she raised her head off the floor to kiss his cheek “—but it’ll be cool.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, allowing himself a genuine laugh. “Real cool. Trust me, Gina—” he kissed her back, on the mouth, a much longer, deeper kiss “—you’ll be the coolest thing about it.”

G
INA WAS DEFINITELY
the coolest person in the room.

Her dress was more conservative than he would have expected—a simple thing in midnight blue, with long, slender sleeves, a seductively scooped neckline and a lace-trimmed hem that fell midway between her knees and her ankles. Her hair was pinned back from her face, held in a velvet clip the same dark blue as her dress. The hairdo exposed her long graceful throat and her ears, from which dangled remarkably sexy gold earrings. Her makeup was light, her muted-red lipstick matching her muted-red nail polish.

And then there were her shoes. An elaborate puzzle of straps set atop a thick heel, they shimmered, an iridescent combination of silver and turquoise. Her fish shoes, he realized, recalling Alicia’s description of them. They had to be some version of those shoes Gina had been designing, inspired by the fish she’d seen while snorkeling in St. Thomas.

He wished he could be snorkeling with her right now. As spectacular as she looked, she’d looked ten times better in a swimsuit, her body sleek and wet and her eyes wide with awe at the sight of all that magnificent underwater scenery. But instead of snorkeling, he had to spend the evening fishing—for money, for contacts, for praise.

Actually, he didn’t mind these fund-raising galas. He
was grateful for the generosity of the Gage Foundation’s supporters. And he had to admit that making small talk with insurance company presidents and nationally renowned cardiologists was more stimulating than debating the merits of extreme snowboarding with three multi-braided, multipierced slackers at some unlit basement club Gina dragged him to in the East Village, where the music was so heavily amplified it swallowed half the conversation. The music at this party, located in the banquet room of the Arlington Inn, a charming hotel nearly two hundred years old and lovingly restored, was provided by a trio—harp, flute and cello. No one had to shout.

The room’s appointments were luxurious. Heavy cream-colored linens draped the tables, and crystal and silver winked in the light shed by several colonial-style brass chandeliers. Waiters meandered among the milling guests, carrying trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres. Gina stood within arm’s reach of Ethan, although she was involved in a conversation with two silver-haired women while Ethan entertained the husband of one them. Melvin Reinhardt was the president of a supermarket chain and a longtime supporter of the Gage Foundation. Ethan owed him his full attention, but he could give at most ninety percent. The other ten percent belonged to Gina.

What was she discussing with Agnes Reinhardt and her friend? Organic carrots? Hiking the Appalachian Trail? The Reinhardts had backpacked their way from one end of the trail to the other—over a thousand miles of wilderness—more than once, and Ethan realized Agnes was doing all the talking. Gina listened and occasionally nodded. When a waiter skirted near them, she grabbed a glass of champagne.

He had to stop worrying about her. She could cope with a discussion about the Appalachian Trail if she had to. She was a grown-up.

After a few minutes, Melvin released Ethan. “I’m sure you’ve got lots of other guests to greet,” he said, gesturing toward the double doors. Every time Ethan checked them, he saw more people entering. The foundation had sold a record number of tickets to this dinner, and it looked as if everyone who’d bought a ticket was using it.

Ethan shook Melvin’s hand and inched over to Gina. He waited until Melvin escorted Agnes and the other silver-haired woman away before whispering, “How are you doing?”

“This place is so
fifties
,” she whispered back.

He frowned. “What does that mean?”

“Like the 1950s. When people behaved and everyone knew their place.” The way she’d said
behaved
implied that she considered the word distasteful. “All these people have New England accents.”

“There are some New Yorkers here,” he assured her.

“I bet even they have New England accents.”

“You’re gorgeous,” he murmured, in part because he suspected that her critical stance was a ploy to hide her insecurities, but mostly because it was true.

A surprised smile crossed her lips. Then her insecurities slipped back into place. “How many glasses of champagne will it take to get me drunk?” she asked.

“Let’s not find out.” A couple approached them, the man, like Ethan, dressed in a classic tuxedo and the woman in an elaborate beaded dress that did not strike Ethan as
fifties
. Gina’s eyebrows rose slightly, then settled back into place as Ethan introduced her to the Eldridges, both professors at Yale.

For all her attitude, Gina performed as smoothly here as he did at her wingdings in New York. He’d never actually doubted that she’d be able to handle this party, but
she’d
doubted it, and her doubt had seeped into him, making him wonder just how difficult it would be for her to mix and mingle with the elite who attended benefit dinners like this. Maybe it was difficult for her, but she was pulling off the act with panache. She seemed particularly excited by the Eldridges, pumping Madelyn Eldridge for information on where she’d gotten her dress and who had designed it. When Madelyn confessed she’d purchased it at a consignment shop, Gina looked blissful. “I’m in the fashion business,” she confided, “and I shop consignment all the time. Not this thing,” she added, waving dismissively at the beautiful blue dress she had on. “My sister made me buy this at the mall in Westchester County. She’s got more class than me. She wouldn’t even let me buy something on sale for this dinner.”

“I always say, the more money a person can save by buying a bargain dress, the more she’s got to donate to worthy causes,” said Madelyn.

Ethan relaxed. Gina had a friend at the party now. Everything would be fine.

They bantered, Ethan laughed and Gina smiled at a joke Rick Eldridge told poorly, they talked soberly about some research going on at Yale that the Gage Foundation was funding, and then the Eldridges moved on. It was like a square dance, couples drifting around the room in a smooth choreography. Gina seemed to pick up the steps easily enough. “Is it possible to get another kind of drink?” she asked as she set her empty glass down on a passing waiter’s tray. “Do they have beer or mixed drinks?”

“Champagne before dinner, and wine with,” he told her. “If you had as much class as your sister, you’d know that.”

She shot him an angry look, then softened when she realized he was teasing her. “My sister’s got so much class you should have asked her to be your date tonight, instead of me. She’s available.”

“I thought you told me her husband is trying to get back into her good graces.” Gina had mentioned something about that the last time he’d been in New York City.

“He’s trying,” Gina muttered. Then added, “He’s
very
trying.”

“How’s Alicia dealing with it?”

“She’s not real clear on what’s going on,” Gina said. “She loves her daddy. She loves her mommy. She loves you, too. She talks about you constantly. I told her we’d figure a time when she could see you. I hope you don’t mind.”

Ethan didn’t mind, although getting together with Alicia implied something he wasn’t sure he was ready for. Granted, seeing Alicia wouldn’t be the same thing as, for example, meeting Gina’s parents. After all, he already knew Alicia; he’d shared living quarters with her for a week. Meeting parents was a much more significant step, one he wasn’t about to rush into with Gina. He’d learned his lesson with Kim, whom he’d convinced himself he loved when it had simply been a matter of convenience and great sex.

That wasn’t what was going on with Gina, he assured himself. The sex was great, but no one could call their long-distance arrangement convenient. And the fact that he was even thinking about meeting her parents indicated something. He wasn’t going to define what that
something was, though, not tonight. Tonight was for backslapping and glad-handing, doing his job as the head of the foundation.

“I’ve got to find the ladies’ room,” Gina murmured, patting his arm and wandering off. Ten minutes ago, he might have helped her to locate it, but at this point he had faith in her ability to navigate through the party and the hotel lobby without his assistance. She could hold her own in this crowd, just as he’d expected.

He continued working the room in her absence, thanking benefactors, meeting their spouses, plunging into an intense discussion with a local congressman about the prospects of an environmental bill currently in committee, plunging into an equally arcane dialogue about whale migrations with a researcher from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod. Whenever he had a spare moment he scanned the room, searching for Gina, but as more and more people filtered in, he couldn’t find her. Not that he was worried, but…well, it would be nice if she could see him shooting the breeze with such esteemed individuals. He didn’t have to knock himself out to impress her, but…it would be nice.

The woman from Woods Hole finished her oration on endangered whale populations and Ethan moved on. Once again he searched the room—and spotted an astonishingly beautiful blond woman entering the room on the arm of a tall, thin, nondescript young man.

What the hell was Kim Hamilton doing here?

He vaguely remembered that back in July, just before they’d left for St. Thomas, she had arranged for her company to buy an entire table for the dinner. The table seated ten. Surely she hadn’t had to be among the ten.

Yet here she was.

The good news was, she’d brought a date. At least,
Ethan hoped the man whose elbow she’d hooked her hand around was an actual date and not a colleague from the company, doing his part to fill the table they’d sponsored. He hoped the man was passionately in love with Kim, and Kim—well, he couldn’t imagine her passionately in love with anybody, but she could be deeply in
like
with him. Maybe she was engaged to him. He hoped she was wearing a big, fat diamond ring on her left hand, and her life had developed exactly the way she’d wanted it to. He hoped she was happy.

He also hoped he could find Gina before Kim did, just to alert her. Gina could handle Kim—she’d handled her better than Ethan himself had when they were all together in St. Thomas. But still…a little warning wouldn’t hurt.

O
KAY
, G
INA THOUGHT
. T
WO
glasses aren’t enough. Three could be too many, but since she’d already had that many, she figured she might as well go on to four.

In the bathroom, she’d come upon two extremely prissy women applying powder to their noses with precise dabs while they gossiped about someone’s au pair, who came from the Hebrides and swore she was speaking English although no one could understand a word she said. “Aren’t people from the Hebrides Scottish or something?” one of the women asked as she fussed with her blindingly bejeweled earrings.

“Well, you know Scottish accents. They’re even thicker than New York accents.”

Gina had considered opening her mouth at that point, and really amping her Bronx accent, but she’d opted for discretion and dried her hands without speaking a word. Poor, benighted souls, she thought as she sauntered out
of the rest room. If they couldn’t handle New York accents, they were obviously too provincial.

Ethan was barely visible when she returned to the banquet room. She glimpsed him surrounded by a knot of people, all of them blathering at him, and she grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and observed him from afar. He was so debonair in his tuxedo. A lot of guys looked goofy in formal attire, but the tux suited him. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, but given the situation, she saw no reason not to ogle him.

At one point, the cluster of people around him loosened slightly, and he glanced her way. Even from all the way across the room, she detected a glimmer of concern in his eyes.

She smiled and raised her champagne flute in a toast, then sipped. She didn’t want to interfere. Let him make nice with his guests. Playing the proper host was his job, his purpose for being here. She could take care of herself and pretend she knew what the hell she was doing.

Her gaze broke from his and she drank a little more champagne. The multiple conversations around her blurred into a pleasant, indecipherable hum, underlined by the wistful strains of the musicians plucking and tooting on their instruments in their corner of the room. People promenaded elegantly back and forth, looking patrician and confident. She wondered whether they were all pretending, too, or whether they actually had a better idea than she did of how to behave correctly at a party like this.

Anyone having any doubts about proper behavior ought to drink some champagne, she thought. The tart bubbles refreshed her palate, and the alcohol acted like a muffler, softening the world’s edges. She spotted that Yale professor in the beaded dress, Something Eldridge,
who was chattering with a man in a pretentious green brocade dinner jacket, and the woman who’d hiked the Appalachian Trail, who was pondering the canapé pinched between her fingers. Gina ought to grab something to eat, but the waiters who ventured near her were all serving only drinks, no food.

She spotted a vivid splash of blond hair contrasting with all the dark outfits in another small knot of people. That blond was a great color; Gina tried to guess if it was natural. This probably wasn’t the sort of gathering where she could ask the woman what hair products she used—although Professor Eldridge hadn’t seemed to mind Gina’s comments about her dress, all of which Gina had intended as compliments. Maybe the blond woman standing with all those folks in classic black would be flattered if Gina complimented her hair color.

She moved around a table, approaching the blond woman, who abruptly turned around. Gina nearly dropped her glass.

“Kim?” she asked the beautiful woman in the black silk.

“Gina?” Kim asked back.

They stood several feet apart, staring at each other. Gina supposed she shouldn’t have been shocked, and maybe if she’d stopped at three champagnes she would have been able to process more efficiently the information that Kim Hamilton, Ethan’s former lover, was at this party. Kim lived in Connecticut; apparently, she supported the work of the Gage Foundation; ergo, she’d chosen to attend the fund-raiser.