Bonus Story
“Maybe you should take my earphones,” Aidan says, holding them out to me in our living room. “In case the singing gets too loud.” He pauses. “Actually, you both probably need them. And what about Mrs. Rosa and Roger?” he adds as if they weren’t standing right across from him. “That’s a lot of earphones.”
“I think we’ll be okay, buddy.” Jace ruffles his hair, and Aidan gives him a hug. My heart is probably going to burst, or maybe my ovaries. Is this what it feels like to have an ovarian cyst?
No, surely not. This is the good kind of pain, the pain that comes from loving.
Roger chuckles. “Son, I can barely hear as it is. The last thing I need is a pair of earphones.”
“You are deaf,” Mrs. Rosa agrees emphatically. “Yesterday we had a conversation about pecan pie for ten minutes before you revealed you thought I was talking about my pear tart.”
“Well, tarnation, woman, you don’t enunciate properly.”
Goodness. Jace’s neighbors could bicker about anything.
Jace and I exchange an amused look, both of us probably thinking about the lengthy conversation Roger and Mrs. Rosa had about the merits of the Broadway show Grease versus the movie version after we invited them to join us for the play tonight.
I was tempted to warn them that the show would almost certainly diverge from their expectations—according to Nicole, her husband, Damien, is introducing a “new back story” for Danny Zuko and adding several monologues—but Jace suggested that we leave it a surprise.
I’m not a fan of surprises, typically, but he had a mischievous look in his eyes when he said that, and I am a fan of that look.
“Are you sure you want to wear those outfits?” Aidan asks me skeptically. “Roger and Mrs. Rosa are dressed normally.”
He has good reason to be skeptical. Jace and I have on the ’50’s clothes we wore to Nicole and Damien’s wedding, although they’ve been laundered—twice—by me to banish any lingering germs.
“No,” I say, “but we’re going to the play to support my friend Nicole, whose husband is is the star, and she asked me really nicely.”
Jace gives a huff of laughter, and I can’t blame him because (a) he knows “nice” is not an adjective any thinking person would use for Nicole, (b) Nicole would likely bristle at my liberal use of the word friend, and (c) he’s aware he got the better end of the bargain. While I’m wearing a blouse and a poodle skirt—a poodle skirt, for goodness’ sake!—he’s wearing black leather, his golden brown hair swept back from his forehead.
Actually, I’m not complaining.
“So why isn’t Nicole here?” Aidan asks, his brow furrowed. “Isn’t she going to be there?”
“Yes,” I say with a sigh. Because this is another source of concern. “She says she’ll meet us there. Apparently, she has a surprise planned for the show.”
“Should we have brought a celebration cake?” Mrs. Rosa asks, her brow crinkling. “They did just get married. I could always go back to the apartment and grab one before we head to the theater.”
Mrs. Rosa always has at least one flavor of cake on hand, given she runs an illegal bakery out of her apartment. I’ve tried to talk her into getting her kitchen certified—on three separate occasions, actually—but so far she’s turned me down.
Maybe the fourth time will be the charm.
“No, Mrs. Rosa,” Jace says with a small smile at me. “I have a feeling this isn’t a cake kind of surprise. It’s probably more of a let’s traumatize people surprise.”
“Son, there isn’t an event in the world this woman doesn’t have a cake for.” Roger says fondly, and Mrs. Rosa just gives a half-nod, half-shrug.
“Devil’s food cake,” she says resolutely. “Spiced chocolate frosting.”
Dottie bustles into the room from the kitchen, where she’s been sequestered for the last fifteen minutes. I’m slightly suspicious about what she’s doing in there, given she “accidentally” sedated my ex-husband a few weeks ago, but she’s promised not to experiment on Aidan in any capacity tonight.
I believe her. Mostly. And not just because Aidan decided to skip the play, which will be loud and raucous, and my sisters aren’t available to babysit tonight. Dottie Hendrickson has no reason to care about me, really—she’s always been more my sister Maisie’s friend than mine—but she’s the kind of person who doesn’t need a reason to care, which makes her that much more precious.
So long as she keeps her herbs at home.
“Now, don’t you worry about a thing,” Dottie says, rolling her hair into a twist. We dyed it lilac at my divorce party earlier this month, and it suits her perfectly. “Aidan and I have a lovely evening planned.”
I feel a lurch in my stomach and, as if by habit, several what ifs dance into the corners of my mind. There’s the obvious fear—an accidental poisoning—but what if my imagination is too small for Dottie?
For all I know, she could summon a ghost to our house. Although I don’t believe in ghosts, she surely does, and if anyone could make it happen, it’s Dottie Hendrickson.
“Actually,” she says, taking my arm. “Can I speak with you in the kitchen, dear?”
I throw a somewhat worried glance at Jace, but his eyes are warm and understanding, and one look is all it takes to send those pesky what ifs packing. Because, really, we handled the situation with my ex just fine. What else can the universe throw at me?
Plenty, I suppose. But I’m not alone, and it’s stunning what a big difference that makes.
As I follow Dottie into the kitchen, I catch a snatch of Roger and Mrs. Rosa’s conversation—an argument about VCRs, which baffles me given I don’t own one—and notice Aidan leading Jace over to inspect the model his grandparents got him for Christmas. I offered to build it with him last night, but he insisted he needs to do it with Jace, because he always builds his models with Jace. They’ve only built two together, but I didn’t feel the need to point that out.
When Dottie and I get into the kitchen, she sits me down at the table and surprises me with a stern look.
“What is it?” I ask, my voice suddenly quavering.
Oh God. Is she about to share bad news? Does she have an inoperable disease? Or maybe—
“I don’t like to be difficult, dear, but did you tell your sisters that you think I should start dating again?”
Oh. Well, yes, I guess I did.
On Christmas, I noticed that Cal’s father, Bear, seemed interested in Dottie, and I asked Molly about it a few days later, when Aidan and I came over to her new house for breakfast and to help put up the curtains. Cal was there, and he pitched in that he’d also noticed something of the sort. We had managed to surprise Molly, a very infrequent event. She dropped her coffee, and the mug shattered all over the brand new wood floor in their restored Victorian. Cal was too excited to have actually surprised her to take much notice, but I hurried to clean it up. After all, Jace had helped put that floor in.
The whole thing seemed to go over Aidan’s head, because Cal had made him an Ankylosaurus chair for Christmas and allowed him to paint it.
Molly has taken a keen interest in the possible pairing of Dottie and Bear ever since, and she’s sent Maisie and me several texts urging us to help her throw them together. We’ll do it as often as it takes, she said just yesterday. If we keep throwing them at each other, it’s only a matter of time.
I replied that I wasn’t so sure that was true—that it could very well put them off each other—but she hasn’t stopped.
So far her scheming has been composed of (a) heavily complimenting Bear’s baking every time we’re within Dottie’s hearing, even though Dottie already buys his baked goods for the tea shop, (b) downloading dating apps on Dottie’s phone (she’ll realize he’s special when she figures out there’s literally no one else out there, according to Molly), and (c) arranging several accidental meetings for the two of them. There will undoubtedly be more machinations, however she just left for a lengthy writer’s conference in Vermont that will keep her secluded (i.e. away from both cell phones and internet) for a full month while she finishes polishing her novel. She’s apparently allowed to bring a boyfriend, however, and Cal is going to take a week off work to visit her.
Maisie is fully supportive of her efforts, although she’s less invested in Dottie making a go of it with Bear, specifically. Bear’s bakery, Bear’s Buns, is opening in the building next to Dottie’s shop, Tea of Fortune, in a few months, and she pointed out they’ll be seeing a lot of each other, which will make things awkward if it doesn’t work out.
Molly, of course, pointed out that the same had been true for Maisie and her husband—they’d started seeing each other even though they were in a wedding party together.
And—
“Dear,” Dottie says, sounding a little annoyed. “Have you been plotting with your sisters?”
“Um. Yes,” I say lamely, because I don’t want to lie to her. “We think you should consider dating again.”
And we’re pretty sure Bear Reynolds is interested in you, I silently add.
Dottie’s already shaking her head. “No, Mary. No. I told you, my great love is behind me. When Beau died, I knew there would be no one else. I’d much rather spend the rest of my days enjoying my family and the tea shop. Although I appreciate where you’re coming from”—she pats her chest, over her heart—“this is quite unnecessary. Unnecessary and unwanted. I have every single thing I need.”
She seems a little off-kilter, though, in a way that suggests the situation is more complex than she’s letting on.
“Is something bothering you?” I ask.
She rubs her forehead, pulling a few lilac strands loose. “Oh, it’s just…I was at the bead shop earlier, and some rose quartz fell on my head.”
She averts her gaze, and I notice a series of five Tea of Fortune-branded teacups arranged on the counter. There’s something that looks suspiciously like an herb kit next to them.
I knew she was in here for a long time.
“Dottie, I asked you not to experiment on Aidan. He has food allergies, remember? I’d like you to promise me you’re not going to ask him to drink anything.”
She heaves a sigh and tucks the loose strands of hair into her bun. “Those are all for me, dear.”
Five teacups?
That’s a little worrisome. Is she going senile? Planning to experiment on herself while she takes care of Aidan? I have to admit I don’t love either idea.
But I don’t have much time to dwell on what ifs because she says, “I’ve been seeing some strange things in my leaves lately.”
“Like what?”
“It’s nothing,” she says, studying her nails. “I’m sure I’ve been reading them wrong.”
Huh. That doesn’t sound like Dottie. I’m quite sure that all a person can see in a cup of tea is wet leaves, but that’s not what she believes, and I don’t think she’s ever admitted to reading someone’s leaves wrong. According to Maisie, one time she told a sixty-two-year-old woman she was going to have triplets within a year.
When questioned about it, she claimed they were metaphorical triplets.
“What have you seen?”
“I’d rather not say. But I’d appreciate it if you’d have a talk with Molly, dear. I’m very happy with things as they are.”
I’m tempted to object, but I don’t want to upset her. Yet. The truth is, Molly isn’t the kind of person who can be called off that easily, and frankly, Maisie and I aren’t inclined to stand in her way. We all want to see Dottie happy, and while I don’t think a person needs romantic love to be happy, my current state of bliss makes me want Dottie to find the same.
If anyone deserves to find love again, it’s this woman, who devotes so much of her time to other people.
“Okay,” I say. “I won’t interfere.”
“Yes, let’s all keep our interfering for Tina, the dear girl.” She clucks her tongue. “She’s the one who needs us.”
Tina, Molly’s former roommate, is the newest member of Nicole’s Bad Luck Club. Well, our Bad Luck Club. Although I’ve technically graduated, Nicole asked me to stick around to help her new recruit. Dottie, being Dottie, has also volunteered her time. She says she has a soft spot for Tina, who works at Tea of Fortune, but truthfully there are only about a five people Dottie doesn’t have a soft spot for. If Dottie doesn’t like someone, there’s no question they’ve done something to deserve her ire.
I know Dottie’s trying to change the subject, but I’m not inclined to call her on it. Besides, we do need a strategy for helping Tina.
“You don’t really think she’s cursed, do you?” I ask.
Tina’s big issue. She believes the grandmother of her ex-boyfriend cursed her to live out the tropes in romance novels but never get the happily ever after. I’m pretty sure that she has an overactive imagination, paired with admittedly bad luck, but Nicole sort of believes her. Dottie hasn’t expressed her opinion one way or another, which is peculiar in and of itself because she isn’t usually shy about such things.
The three of us have challenged Tina to seek out a situation that fits a romantic trope. My thought is that she can forcibly take control of the narrative, thereby proving to herself that she’s not actually cursed. Nicole, I think, just wants to see what happens. Dottie…well, again, she’s been uncharacteristically silent.
She opens her mouth to say something, but Aidan calls out, “Mom, it’s six forty two. It’ll take you eleven and a half minutes to get to the theater, and then you need to meet up with Nicole before you go to your seats. You’d better leave.”
I don’t need to glance at the clock on the wall. Aidan’s never wrong about this sort of thing.
“We’ll talk about this later,” I say, patting Dottie’s hand.
She turns it over and squeezes mine. “I sense something beautiful is right around the corner for our dear Tina. We just have to give her a little push in the right direction.”
Funny, but I feel the same way about Dottie.
I give her a tight smile and leave the kitchen. Aidan’s a little agitated—probably at the thought of us being late, even though he’s not coming—and it sounds like Roger and Mrs. Rosa are still fully invested in the random VCR conversation.
Jace is holding my coat, and I feel a little swell of emotion as he lifts it up for me, like he did that day outside of Tea of Fortune a month and a half ago, and helps me put it on. Such gestures aren’t unusual for him, but I’ll never take them for granted. I’ll never take him for granted. He stoops to kiss the back of my neck as he finishes putting my coat on, and warmth swells through me like I just swallowed all five cups of Dottie’s tea.
I turn to remind Aidan of the rules, but he’s already run off into the kitchen to join Dottie.
“Remember, no experimentation!” I call to Dottie, who waves and smiles.
“You all have fun,” she says, just as Aidan says, “Mom, Dottie’s an adult. If she says I can do something, I can.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” I call back. But he’s focused on something, his gaze intent, and he doesn’t look up.
“Don’t you worry about a thing,” Dottie says, emerging from the kitchen. “I brought a cookie-decorating kit Bear Reynolds plans on carrying in his new bakery. He brought it over just last week and asked me to test it out in the shop.”
Interesting.
To be honest, I kind of agree with Molly about the whole Bear thing, but I think Dottie needs time to come around to it. I glance back at Jace, soaking him in.
I can understand where Dottie’s coming from—I needed time too.
“All right,” I say in Dottie’s direction. “We’ll see you later. Call me or text me if anything happens.”
“Oh, not to worry,” Dottie repeats. “If that awful man tries to come back, Nicole gave me some pictures that will send him running.”
She’s obviously referring to my ex-husband and the incriminating photos Nicole took of him, and given I definitely don’t want to see them, I just nod, tell Aidan again that I love him, which Jace echoes—“love you, buddy”—and head for the door. We all leave, Roger and Mrs. Rosa filing out last, and we load into Mrs. Rosa’s old station wagon. Jace drove her car over instead of his truck because there’s more space for passengers.
He gives me a look as we prepare to climb into the old interior, which smells pleasantly of sugar and vanilla, as if I’ve never seen worn upholstery. Someday Jace will understand that I don’t care about worn things, only dirty ones, but it hasn’t happened yet.
“We can take your car,” he suggests, even though we’re already getting in.
“Aidan’s booster’s in mine,” I say. “Dottie might need it if there’s an emergency. Besides, I like your car, Mrs. Rosa. It smells like the inside of a bakery.”
She preens and then climbs into the backseat. Roger does the same. Neither of them listened to my objections that they should ride up front.
We spend the ride discussing Lester Montague, who’s in some hot water after the meeting Jace and I had with the state attorney general. Although I suspect he’ll avoid a prison sentence—men like him so often do, whatever their misdeeds—his days of tyranny are numbered. He’ll have to make enough payouts that I’m sure his business’s days are numbered too. It’s not justice, but it’s as close as we’re going to get.
That’s okay, though, because we got what we needed out of the whole situation.
Jace’s nephew, Ben, is back in his life, and he visited Asheville last weekend. He met Roger and Mrs. Rosa, but the person he liked best was Aidan, primarily because they played Minecraft for two hours with a minimal amount of talking.
I feel a prickle of nerves as Jace pulls in behind the theater and parks the car.
We exchange a look, and he smiles and takes my hand. Squeezes it.
“You’re worried about what Nicole and Damien have planned,” he surmises.
“Yes! Aren’t you? Actually, I feel nervous for the director, and I’ve never even met him.”
“At least it won’t be boring,” he says with a quirk of his mouth.
“Good,” Roger says. “I can’t abide sitting through something boring.”
Mrs. Rosa huffs a laugh. “When was the last time you attended anything? You spend so much time sitting on your couch, there’s an impression on the cushion.”
“There are impressions on everyone’s cushions, woman,” he gripes.
We get out of the car and head toward the theater, Jace and I walking hand in hand with Mrs. Rosa and Roger beside us. Our outfits attract a few looks from other people heading toward the front, and a dark-haired woman asks if we’re part of the cast.
“Nope,” Jace responds, shooting me another of his mischievous looks, “we’re just big Grease enthusiasts. We like to cosplay.”
She accepts this in stride. “Do you have any idea what Damien has planned this time?” He always has something wild planned for opening night. At the end of Hair, he sprayed the audience with silly string. And when he played the boyfriend in Mama Mia, he added a ten-minute soliloquy about fishing trips. It’s why people keep coming back. They want to see what he’ll do next.”
Goodness.
It doesn’t matter to me if the play is a train wreck, but the uncertainty is slightly unsettling. And yet, layered beneath my nerves, like caramel oozing beneath a hard chocolate shell, is excitement—the feeling that there are endless possibilities, and maybe we’ll end up getting a good one. Jace squeezes my hand, and that nervous shell cracks, letting the caramel goodness ooze through.
“No,” Jace tells her. “But we’re ready for anything.”
More of that caramel oozes through, because I genuinely feel that way too.
Mrs. Rosa and Roger exchange a look, and I’m fairly sure I hear Roger muttering something about millennial nonsense, and then we’re heading into the theater.
“Where did Nicole tell you to meet her?” Jace asks, and I nod toward the corner, between two framed, wall-mounted posters of Damien—one of him holding a skull in his hand beneath the headline Modern Hamlet and another of him mid-dance move beneath Hair—because Nicole is already standing there, dressed completely normally. Well, normally for her. She’s wearing a black mini skirt, leggings, and a silky red shirt, her pink hair boldly mis-matched in a way that somehow looks cool.
I’m suddenly livid. She asked us to dress in these ’50’s outfits, but she didn’t do it herself?
Actually, yes, that tracks with her usual behavior.
I hear Jace chuckling next to me as I stalk up to her, pulling him with me.
“Nicole, why aren’t you dressed up?” I growl.
“I don’t need to be,” she says, stroking Damien’s bicep in the Modern Hamlet poster. There’s a satisfied look on her face, like the cat who got the cream.
“So why do we need to be?”
She shifts her gaze to me, and I’m not nearly as fond of the mischievous expression in her eyes as I am of Jace’s expression of mischief.
“Because two of the backup dancers came down with food poisoning, and you’re stepping in for them.”
Behind me, I hear Mrs. Rosa say, “See, I knew I should have brought a celebration cake.” Jace gives my hand another squeeze, but all those other inputs are dulled by the ringing in my ears.
“What?”
“You heard me,” Nicole says defiantly. “It’s your challenge.”
“But I graduated the Bad Luck Club. I don’t have to do challenges anymore.”
She makes a face. “Okay, fine, you might not have to, but you’d be setting a good example for Tina. Maybe she’ll stop dragging her heels if she knows you did a challenge when you didn’t even have to. Besides, you love dancing, and…”
She seems stuck, so I offer, “And you want to embarrass me?”
“No.” She scuffs at the ground with one boot.
“I think she’s trying to ask you for a favor,” Jace says in an undertone.
Nicole rolls her eyes, then shrugs. “The Magic Orgasm Man has a point. Damien really wants today to go well. He practiced his soliloquies for hours in the car to and from Northern Virginia.”
She obviously threw in that last part to remind me that she recently did me an enormous favor, implying that, ipso facto, I should do her one. She’s not wrong, exactly, but I’m done with transactional relationships. Really, she has no one but herself to blame for my new willingness to stand up for myself.
I open my mouth to tell her just that, when Jace says, “We should do it, Mary.”
I turn to him in shock. “Are you being sarcastic?”
But he doesn’t look sarcastic. He’s grinning at me without a trace of self-consciousness. “Why not? We had fun at that dance-a-thon on New Year’s, and you’re an amazing dancer. Besides, Nicole’s your friend. We’d be doing her a favor.”
She gives a beleaguered sigh, but she doesn’t say anything to dispute it.
“But what about Roger and Mrs. Rosa?” I say, turning to them. They’re standing directly behind us, and Roger has somehow acquired a bag of popcorn.
“Oh, you’re a dear girl to think of us.” Mrs. Rosa pats my arm. “But Roger and I would like nothing better than to see the two of you twirling around on the stage. It would make us feel younger.”
Roger says, “Can’t think of a better way to start the year. And Mrs. Rosa will get the whole thing on tape.”
I flinch. “But copyright law—”
“No need to worry about that, Dudley Do Right,” Nicole chimes in. “It’s mostly new material. And your friends will have front row seats. The best in the house.”
“But we don’t know any of the steps for the dances,” I ask, certain this objection will get more traction.
“None of the group dance sequences are choreographed for this production of Grease,” Nicole counters. “Not anymore.”
“Where’s the director, anyway?” I ask, looking around wildly. There are several other people in the lobby, and a few of them are watching us with keen interest. Is it because they recognize Nicole as Damien’s partner?
“He quit,” Nicole says flippantly. “I’m stepping in until they can find a new one.”
I swallow the what? and instead ask, “I’m guessing he didn’t like Damien’s changes?”
“Not everyone recognizes genius.” She pouts. “Unfortunately, this means I can no longer storm the stage in the third act to steal Danny from Sandra Dee.”
All of this is insane. Leaving aside the whole Nicole isn’t a director thing, I haven’t performed in front of an audience since I was eighteen years old, and Jace probably hasn’t ever done so in his life.
The no is at the edge of my tongue. But haven’t I spent most of my life saying no? No is the logical choice—it’s definitely the comfortable one—and yet…suddenly I feel the rest of that chocolate shell crack off, and I find myself nodding.
Looking at Jace, taking in the warm ocean of his gaze, I say, “We’ll do it.”
Before I know it, Jace and I are backstage, watching the show through the curtain—at a safe distance (the cloth is red and splotchy and probably unlaundered).
The play hasn’t gotten much further than Damien’s five-minute opening monologue introducing Danny’s new backstory—he grew up with a learning disability, mocked by his father, and only feels free when he’s dancing or working on cars. It’s a bit weird, honestly, and I think Damien is giving the Danny character too much credit, but I have to admit Damien is a fantastic actor. He’s compelling to watch.
“Is this crazy?” I ask Jace in an undertone.
What am I saying? It’s definitely crazy. I left dance in high school because I didn’t think I was good enough, and now, almost two decades later, I’m about to perform in a community theater production of Grease on a whim, and…
Jace puts an arm around my waist, bringing me back against him. “It’s not,” he whispers in my ear. “From the first moment I saw you dancing, I knew it was something you should share with the world.” I feel his smile instead of seeing it, just like I feel the familiar lines and angles of his body. “And that’s what you’re going to do tonight. You know, Nicole has a funny way of getting you to do things.”
I relax into him. “She does, doesn’t she?” Turning, I look at him, staying close. I don’t want any distance between us, especially not now. “That’s why I agreed to it, I guess. Without her, I might never have been brave enough to take a chance with you.”
I can’t help it. I reach up on my toes and kiss him. We’ve picked a spot away from the other ensemble dancers, but it’s still a more public place than I would’ve been willing to kiss someone, or even touch them, up until I met him.
He buries a hand in my hair to bring me closer, his lips melding to mine. He’s silently telling me that I can do it. That I’m strong. That I’m capable. That I’m also sexy as hell, and he can’t wait to get me home and tear that poodle skirt off me.
When we part I’m panting, and his eyes shine with pleasure.
Somewhere on stage, Damien is talking about the joy of meeting someone who finally accepts him for who he is. Someone who makes him feel whole.
I’ll bet Nicole has her vibrating panties on, and he’s working the remote.
Then the first strains of “Summer Nights” start to filter onto the stage, and Jace holds out a hand to me. “Are you ready?”
And because it’s him, and because I am, after all, a graduate of the Bad Luck Club, I am ready.
I take his hand, and we go out onto the stage together, and we dance.