Chapter 7
Jonah’s reply arrived while Summer was filling a piping bag: Yes. I thought you’d never want to do that after dealing with Halloween at the shop. She read it with icing on her cuff and wondered whether he had been waiting for her to ask.
That evening she found him on the sitting-room floor, sorting a box of cables.
He had pulled the television away from the wall and brought the lamp down beside him, its shade giving his work an importance the tangled wires did not seem to deserve.
She’d washed and changed upstairs, and she came down without bringing laundry or an empty mug.
“It was working last night,” Summer said. She tucked one foot beneath her on the sofa, leaving her other foot on the floor near his. They’d both fallen asleep before the end of the program; she’d have liked to finish it tonight.
“The television’s fine. I’m trying to connect the speaker.” He held up a cable, examined both ends, and put it back in the box. “This one might belong to a camera we don’t have.”
“Were you going to ask me about the party?” Summer asked. She picked up the remote, then realized the screen was dark because he’d unplugged it. “Before I said anything, I mean.”
He sat back on his heels. “I mentioned it when Mom sent the information. You said you’d be dead by seven.” He watched her expression and added, “I took that as a fairly firm answer.”
She remembered saying it. She had been counting boxes for Halloween orders, working out whether she could stack another flour delivery in the bakery without blocking the back door.
He had been talking about supper and dancing, and she had pictured being asked to stand for four more hours in shoes that pinched.
“I’d like to try,” she said. “Macy keeps telling me she can close without me. Kylie showed me pictures today, and it looks lovely.” She put the useless remote back on the cushion.
“She came in?” he asked, abandoning the cables. Summer described the meeting and the shampoo, leaving out the possible work in Florence; she wasn’t sure Kylie wanted that passed on. Jonah came to sit beside her when she reached the part about the database.
“She’ll hate the waiting,” he said. “She always thinks she could have answered some interview question better afterward.” He rested his arm along the back of the sofa. “What pictures did she show you?”
“You in a coat. Very dramatic. Apparently you were stealing things.” She watched his face as he recognized it, and saw embarrassment arrive before amusement. It was unexpectedly endearing. She had thought he would remember the evening with the easy confidence he had worn in the photograph.
“That coat.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t raise my arms. It was made for somebody who’d never had to reach a shelf.” He demonstrated, lifting his elbows a few inches from his sides, and Summer laughed because she could see precisely what he meant.
“You were managing quite a gesture.” She lifted her own hand to imitate the pose, doing it badly enough that he took her wrist and moved it higher. “You remember the photograph, then.”
“My mother had asked us to stand there while she found someone else to take it. I was inviting the next person in line to have a go.” He let go of her wrist but left his fingers against hers. “We’d been there for ages. I think Kylie was laughing because I’d stopped pretending to be polite.”
Summer could picture his mother blocking the staircase until everyone stood where she wanted them. She had wanted more wedding photographs too, although Summer had been pale with nausea by the last one.
“Did you hate going?” Summer asked. “Kylie made it sound as if she had to drag you there. I don’t want you saying yes now and wishing you hadn’t when I start buying things.”
“I hated that coat. It had already been collected when I tried it on.” He considered, then smiled a little. “I probably complained more than was necessary. But no, I don’t hate the party. It depends who I spend it with.”
“I’ll lose you to somebody’s broken window,” Summer said. She drew her feet up beside her. “Or your father will find you a job.”
“He left me with a man who had three surveys of his property in his pocket.” Jonah rubbed his face. “By the second one, Dad had gone. I didn’t notice until I turned to ask him something.”
Summer laughed. She could picture his father escaping across the room, his own drink still full.
“Then we should dance,” she said. “Before anyone finds you.” She sat up, warming to the idea. If they went straight to the floor, they might get through a song before anyone asked him to help.
“We can do that.” He glanced toward the speaker on the floor. “Assuming I can make this work without asking it to update something.” He stood and took the cable he had already rejected from the box, turning it around as though it might have improved while they were talking.
Summer let him work. A strip of skin showed where his shirt had pulled free, and she stretched out her foot to touch it. He caught her ankle without turning around and kept examining the socket.
“I think I want a dress,” she said. “Something entirely unsuitable for sitting on this sofa.” He looked back at her with surprise.
He held the cable near the socket without plugging it in. “What sort? Have you seen one?”
“I don’t know yet. A poofy skirt. Something frivolous. Something I haven’t worn before.” She stopped, aware of how close that sounded to complaint for the clothes she had worn to marry him. “Don’t get me wrong, I liked my wedding things.”
“So did I.” He pushed the plug into place and came back to the sofa. “You kept putting your hands in the pockets when people tried to give you hugs. I thought it was very effective.” He settled close enough that she could feel his knee against her leg.
Summer remembered finding a tissue in each pocket before they left the house. Her mother had kept giving them to her, worried that she would cry, and by the time they reached the clerk’s office she had enough to supply the guests.
“What will you wear?” she asked. She had been imagining him in a dark coat beside her gown and realized she was in danger of selecting it before he had expressed an opinion.
“I’ve got the tuxedo jacket. A mask would probably count.” He considered her face, then added, “Unless you want us to be something together.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Summer said. “Do you want to? It might be nice, as long as we can find something we both like.”
“I wouldn’t mind matching you,” he said. “As long as I don’t spend the evening explaining what I’m supposed to be. And nothing cheesy.” Summer began to protest, and he laughed. “Let me get my objections in now. You might find something you like.”
Summer smoothed the front of his shirt, imagining the vest over it. “I’ll show you before I buy anything. You can choose yours.”
“Good.” He reached for his phone to put on music, and the speaker answered so loudly that Summer jumped. He reduced the volume, laughing at her expression, then held out his hand. She took it and kicked the empty cable box beneath the chair as he pulled her up.
There wasn’t enough space to dance properly.
The television still stood away from the wall and she had to shorten her steps near the chair, but Jonah kept one hand steady at her back while she tried to stop anticipating which way he meant to move.
He was better at it than she remembered.
Or perhaps the other times she had been thinking too much about being watched.
Here she could look at him, and when he turned her too near the lamp, she caught his sleeve and brought them both up short, laughing against his shoulder.
“Leave that there,” she said when he bent to move it. The shade threw their shadows across the bookcase and left the rest of the room pleasantly indistinct. “We can avoid it.” She drew him back before he could improve the arrangement, and for the length of another song they managed.
On Saturday the new table arrived at ten, while Summer was still in the clothes she had worn for two early hours at the bakery.
Macy had taken over at eight, after a handover Summer had kept mercifully short.
At home she had found Jonah clearing the passage.
His father and another society volunteer were moving the portraits that morning, he told her, and she had said she hoped they had enough blankets, then gone to help him shift the old table.
By eleven the round table stood in the kitchen, the old one had been fitted beneath the back-room window, and the extension leaf lay wrapped under the sitting-room sofa.
Summer had swept a surprising amount of dirt from places she’d thought were already clean.
Jonah had tried all four chairs in the same position before admitting he liked being able to sit with his legs straight in front of him.
They ate pieces of an apple at the new table, then changed for their one o’clock reservation.
The restaurant overlooked the water. Their table was ready, and Summer let Jonah take her coat while she looked out at a woman trying to photograph a dog dressed as a pumpkin.
They ordered fish and a dish of fries to share. When Jonah told her the delivery men had been betting she would ask them to move the old table again, Summer wanted to protest. She’d gone into the back room twice since they’d left, wondering whether it should stand against the other wall.
“We’d taken the door off by then,” he said. “All three of us waited for you to come back and tell us it had to go somewhere else.”
Summer laughed. “It looks good there,” she said. “I won’t move it.”
“I’ll remind you.” He reached for the lemon, then looked at her. “What?”
“I turned down that house cake,” she said. “I keep thinking about what I’d have charged for it.” Her knife rested against the fish. “It’s stupid. I’d still be at the bakery now.”
Jonah left the lemon beside his plate. “Do you want me to tell you you did the right thing? Because I will, but I wanted you here.”
“I want to be here,” Summer said. “I’d just hope she’ll ask again with more notice.” Outside, the dog ran at its crouching owner, who dropped her phone into the grass. Summer laughed so suddenly that Jonah turned to the window.
They ordered two desserts and exchanged them halfway through.
While Summer was trying to decide whether the pear tart needed more sharpness, Jonah’s phone rang with his mother’s name on the screen.
He answered, listened, then looked at Summer.
“Mom’s at the historical society tomorrow afternoon.
She’s asking if we want to come by and get the tickets.
” He held the phone away from his mouth. “You could see the house in daylight.”
Summer thought of the staircase behind Kylie’s red dress.
She would like to see what stood outside the photograph, where they would arrive and where they might dance.
“Yes,” she said. “After three, when I’m finished.
” Jonah relayed that, then listened to something else before telling his mother they would see her tomorrow.
“Mom’s pleased we’re going,” he said, reaching for the pear tart. Summer handed him her fork, and let him take a bite.