Table for Seven (22 page)

There was a knock on the door. As they were all standing in the hallway, Will simply reached out and opened the door, startling Jaime and Mark who—clearly not expecting such a quick response to their knock—were standing very close. Mark had his hand on the small of Jaime’s back and her face was tipped up toward his.

“Ahem,” Will said.

Jaime and Mark started apart and turned to see Will, Fran, Coop, and Kenny standing there. “Oh, hi, everyone,” Jaime said, blushing.

“We decided to all come and greet you at the door. En masse,” Will said.

“So I see,” Jaime said.

The group shuffled around the small foyer to make room for Jaime and Mark, who were now holding hands, their fingers linked loosely together. Coop was pressed back against a narrow console table so as not to rub up against either Kenny or Fran—right now, it was debatable about which alternative would be more embarrassing—when Audrey appeared, looking nonplussed.

“Hey, everyone. Why are you all standing in the foyer?” she asked.

Coop was annoyed at the frisson of excitement that shot through him at the sight of her.

“Yes, we deserted Leland in the living room,” Fran said. “Everyone, move that way.”

As the group went into the living room, Audrey greeted the Wexlers, hugging Jaime and allowing Mark to kiss her on the cheek, and then turned to Coop—the last one left in the entryway.

“Hi,” Audrey said. She was wearing a simple black sheath dress, but instead of her usual high heels, she had on black patent flat sandals.

“Hi. For you,” Coop said, handing her the wine and brushing his lips against her cool cheek. Then, while he was close enough to not be overheard, he murmured, “Are those shoes supposed to make you shorter or to make him seem taller?”

“Thank you for the wine,” Audrey said stiffly, ignoring his crack about her shoes. “That was very thoughtful.”

“I’m a very thoughtful guy,” Coop said, winking as he passed by her, immensely pleased at her discomfort.

But his victory was short-lived. Although thankfully the group didn’t linger long over drinks and quickly moved to Audrey’s small dining room, dinner seemed to drag on interminably. Audrey was distracted and uncharacteristically disorganized, and there were long gaps in between the courses. The salad course was delicious—the mini cheese soufflés perfectly complemented the tarragon-flavored vinaigrette—but then everyone grew so hungry waiting for the lamb, that they ate too much bread and drank too much wine, and when the lamb finally appeared, they were so hungry they devoured it without stopping to savor the flavors.

Conversation was stilted, too. Jaime and Mark were being oddly lovey-dovey with each other and seemed like they’d rather be on their own than out in a group. Coop was avoiding looking at or speaking to Fran, as much as he could get away with it, fearing another weirdly charged interaction. Fran, in turn, was quiet, and not at all her usual animated self, and Will kept glancing uneasily at his wife. Audrey was flustered. Only Kenny seemed unaware of the tension, chatting easily with Leland about a cooking show they both watched, with Mark about junior tennis tournaments, and with Jaime about the dramas of toilet training. Despite his natural antipathy toward Kenny, Coop had to admit that Kenny seemed like an okay guy.

Still, Coop didn’t get the feeling that there was much of a spark between Audrey and Kenny. They chatted about the benefits of massage therapy in patients recovering from sports injuries, which was apparently Kenny’s specialty as a physical therapist. Kenny lavishly praised the rack of lamb and strawberry-rhubarb pie. Audrey smiled and said all of the correct, polite things in response. But they weren’t leaning toward each other, or finding excuses to touch, to brush against each other. In fact, Audrey seemed much more interested in Leland’s story about how two women in his garden club—both widows—were competing for his attention.

“You’re the hot stud of the garden club?” Audrey teased him.

“They keep bringing me casseroles,” Leland said in a melancholy voice.

“And that’s a bad thing?” Mark asked.

“There’s only so much tuna casserole a man can eat before it gets depressing,” Leland said.

“Maybe we should tip them off that the way to his heart
is bacon,” Audrey said, laughing. Then, when she saw Kenny’s confusion, she shook her head. “Sorry. It’s an inside dinner-party-club joke.”

At one point, when Audrey was taking a stack of dishes out to the kitchen, Coop caught Kenny looking at Audrey’s backside with frank, open admiration. Coop was seized with the sudden urge to take his fork and drive it into Kenny’s hand, but decided that might be a bit of an overreaction and wouldn’t go unnoticed by his dinner companions.

“Next month we’re meeting at Coop’s,” Fran said, putting down her fork after taking only a bite of her pie. “And I was going to suggest that after that we take off the rest of the summer and then start up again in September.”

“Why’s that?” Will asked.

“We’re going to my parents’ for two weeks in July,” Fran said.

“Oh, God,” Will said, draining the rest of his wine.

“And Mark and Jaime normally go up north in August. And I’m sure other people will be traveling, too,” Fran continued. “It’ll be hard to find one Saturday a month when we’ll all be able to attend.”

“That’s true. Emily has a bunch of tournaments this summer. We’re going to be away nearly every weekend,” Mark said.

“That sounds like fun,” Fran said to Jaime.

“Oh, I’m not going to most of them. Mark will just take Emily on his own,” Jaime said.

“You’ll come to some of the tournaments, though, right?” Mark said, touching his wife’s arm.

She smiled at him. “Of course. And when we start up in September, it will be our turn again.”

“Sounds good,” Will said. “Leland?”

“I’m going on a cruise,” Leland announced.

“You are? I didn’t know that. Where are you going?” Fran asked.

“Alaska,” Leland said. “I’ve always wanted to go.”

“And you’re going by yourself?” Jaime said. “Won’t you be lonely?”

“Haven’t you been paying attention? Leland’s been fighting the ladies off. He has his choice of the local widow pool to keep him company,” Will said.

“I like traveling alone,” Leland said.

“So do I,” Audrey said. “It’s so freeing. You can do whatever you like, whenever you like, without having to worry about whether your traveling companion is having a good time.”

“But you also don’t have anyone to share the experience with,” Jaime said.

“Maybe it’s like dog people and cat people. People who like to travel alone and people who like to travel with others,” Audrey suggested.

“I’d love to try traveling on my own sometime,” Fran said.

“I thought you hated traveling alone,” Will said, turning to his wife.

“Not at all. Why would you think that?” Fran asked.

“Probably because you’ve told me that. On several occasions.”

“You must have misunderstood me,” Fran said.

Will was looking at her oddly, as though Fran had just announced that she was taking up cannibalism.

“I’ve always wanted to go backpacking through Europe,” Fran said defensively.

“But you can’t read a map. And you get lost here, in
town,” Will said in a teasing voice. “How would you possibly navigate yourself through countries where you don’t speak the native language?”

“I can read a map!” Fran said crossly.

“Can’t a person be both a dog person and a cat person?” Kenny asked.

“No,” everyone said together.

“But I had a dog growing up. Now I have a cat.” Kenny shrugged. “I like both.”

“You can like both. But you have to prefer one to the other,” Fran explained. “If you had the choice of living with a cat or a dog—and you didn’t have to concern yourself with the details about how big your house is, or the hours that you work, or anything like that—which would you choose?”

“I don’t know,” Kenny said, shrugging. “They both have their pluses and minuses.”

“I think you’re definitely a cat person, Kenny,” Coop said.

“How can you tell?” Kenny asked.

“Oh, I can just tell these things,” Coop said. He grinned at Audrey, who shot him a sharp, warning look. “No, I can’t really. It’s just that you chose to get a cat. That must mean you prefer them.”

“I didn’t choose him. He chose me. He showed up on my doorstep one day and pretty much never left,” Kenny said. “What does that mean?”

“It means you’re a very nice man,” Audrey said. “Now, who wants another slice of strawberry-rhubarb pie?”

AUDREY KEPT HER COOL until her guests had left, including Kenny, who had seemed reluctant to leave with the others. But
she insisted that she didn’t need help with the dishes and accepted his invitation to lunch the next week, mostly because she couldn’t think of a way to say no without hurting his feelings. It didn’t escape her attention that she hadn’t had any similar problem with hurting Coop’s feelings. But Coop was different, she decided. He needed to be taken down a few pegs.

Coop
. Audrey scrubbed at the roasting pan—the meat juices were caked on the bottom, forming a substance so hard and resistant, NASA could use it to patch space shuttles—and wondered what the hell his problem had been. Okay, so maybe she wouldn’t have liked it if he had been the one to show up to the dinner party club with a date. But she couldn’t believe that her having done so would really affect him. It wasn’t like he was in love with her. If anything, his ego was probably bruised.

The phone rang. Audrey checked the caller ID, which flashed a local number without giving a name. Probably a cellphone, she thought, and considered not answering it. But then she wondered if it was someone who had been at the dinner party calling, looking for belongings accidentally left behind.

“Hello,” Audrey said.

“He’s not the guy for you,” Coop said, his voice deep and warm in her ear.

Audrey leaned back against her kitchen counter and wrapped one arm around herself.

“And how would you know that?” Audrey asked.

“He has a cat. That’s all I need to know,” Coop said.

“What is it with you and cats?”

“I don’t trust single guys with cats. It’s not normal. Do you know what sort of guys have cats?”

“Do tell.”

“The kind who buy pre-distressed jeans and call themselves metrosexuals,” Coop said.

Audrey laughed. “I thought you were going to say the kind of guy who murders his mother and buries her body under the floorboards of his house.”

“You got that kind of a vibe off Kenny, too?”

“No. I did not get the feeling that Kenny’s a sociopathic killer. He seems like a perfectly nice man.”

“And what sort of a grown man goes around being called Kenny?” Coop countered.

“He can’t help what his name is,” Audrey said.

“He could go by Ken. But Kenny? I never get when grown men want to be called Kenny, or Bobby, or Billy. Why not just have everyone call you Pee Wee and be done with it?” Coop asked.

“Pee Wee?” Audrey felt guilty laughing at this—Kenny
had
been a perfectly nice man—but couldn’t help herself. “Come on. Pee Wee is much worse than Kenny. And maybe he didn’t want people making Ken doll jokes.”

“I don’t think he’s in any danger of being confused with a Ken doll. For one thing, Ken doesn’t have ears like that,” Coop said. Then, his voice growing softer, he said, “Do you want me to come back over and help you with the dishes?”

“I’ve already done them,” Audrey said.

“Even better,” Coop murmured.

Audrey tried to ignore the physical effect these words had on her. It was what had gotten her in trouble the last time.

“No,” Audrey said. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“That’s too bad,” Coop said. “Lamb is an aphrodisiac.”

Audrey burst out laughing. “I think you’re thinking of oysters.”

“I like oysters, but red meat is much sexier. It’s much more primal.”

“I’m hanging up now,” Audrey said.

“Take it from me—real men do not own cats.”

“Good night.”

“Good night. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Are you asking me or telling me?” Audrey asked, annoyed at how pleased she was. Especially since he probably wouldn’t even call.

Coop laughed. “I was telling you. You can always screen my call if you want.”

“I just may do that,” Audrey said.

“I guess we’ll find out tomorrow,” Coop said. Audrey could tell that he was smiling, too. “The suspense is already killing me.”

“I’m hanging up now,” Audrey told him.

“You got that coming over to help you with the dishes was a euphemism for having sex, right?”

“Yes. Shockingly enough, it wasn’t that subtle.”

“Just wanted to make sure.”

“Good night.”

“Talk to you tomorrow.”

june

GREEN SALAD WITH WHITE BALSAMIC VINAIGRETTE

STEAMED LOBSTERS WITH MELTED BUTTER

POTATO SALAD

KEY LIME PIE