Chapter 12
Their first turn was less graceful than Summer had imagined.
Her skirt brushed another woman’s legs, Jonah shortened his step to avoid a heel, and she found herself apologizing to someone dressed as the Red Queen who was too occupied with her own partner, a playing card, to notice.
Then they reached a clearer part of the floor.
Jonah’s hand settled more firmly at her back, and Summer stopped watching the people around them long enough to find the rhythm.
“There,” he said when she looked up. “We’ve got more room than we had beside the television.” His mouth was close to her ear, his voice private beneath the music.
“Don’t say it yet,” she said. “I’m still getting round this skirt.” He brought her around again, and she let the blue fabric follow, looking up at him when she found she could stop watching her feet.
They stayed for another song. By the end of it her face was warm beneath the mask and one of the loose strands of hair had caught against her lipstick.
Jonah freed it with his thumb, then left his hand against her cheek for a moment.
Summer could see his eyes properly through the black mask now; at home she had been too interested in its effect to notice how little it concealed when she stood close to him.
Jonah smiled at her beneath the mask. “You were right about doing this first. I was about to go and find Dad.”
“He can wait,” she said. “I need a drink.” She drew Jonah’s hand away from her cheek and kept it as they crossed the room, her bag and gray wrap looped over her wrist.
Jonah’s father found them before they reached the refreshments. He wore a dark suit and a mask pushed high on his forehead, as though he had put it there to read something and forgotten to bring it down. He kissed Summer’s cheek, then apologized for nearly catching an earring with his own mask.
“Your table settled in?” he asked. “Jonah said you got it through the back.” He looked at his son. “I was sure that turn would do for it.”
“It was the old one that gave us trouble,” Summer said.
“We had to take the door off to get it into the back room.” She remembered Jonah crouching over the hinge while she insisted there must be an angle they had not tried.
It seemed funny now that the door was back where it belonged and the table had somewhere to stand.
A man in a dark red vest stopped to ask Summer about the cake she’d made for Jonah’s parents’ anniversary. He’d argued with his wife about whether the flowers were real, he said. Jonah’s father claimed he’d known immediately.
“You asked Mom where she’d bought them,” Jonah said. He was laughing. “I was standing next to you.”
“I asked who’d chosen them.” His father smiled at Summer. “Different question.”
Summer thanked him anyway. He wanted to know whether she could make the same flavor for Christmas, and she told him to ask Lorraine before promising another dessert. He took out his phone.
Kylie appeared while he was unlocking his phone.
She stood close enough to Jonah that Summer moved her elbow to make room, then resented herself for doing it automatically.
Kylie wore her black mask over her eyes now, the dark ribbons lying against her neck, and Summer couldn’t see whether she had noticed the movement.
“Here you all are,” Kylie said. She looked at the phone in Jonah’s father’s hand. “Have I interrupted photographs?”
“Christmas food,” his father said. He put the phone away when someone called to him from the doorway. “Apparently we’ll need more chairs.”
Summer watched him go, still smiling. Kylie asked whether Lorraine had caught them for photographs yet, and Jonah said they hadn’t made it as far as the drinks.
The music changed. Kylie turned her head toward the ballroom, and something in her expression made Summer know what she would say before she said it.
“Do you remember this? That night, senior year?” Kylie asked Jonah. Her hand touched his sleeve above Summer’s. “We should dance before they put something impossible on.”
Jonah glanced toward the floor. Summer waited. The place where his hand rested at her waist had gone cold.
“We were going back out,” he said. He looked down at Summer, extending his hand. “Weren’t we?” He was already turning toward her. Summer nodded, letting out the breath she’d been holding.
“I need a moment first,” she said. She lifted one foot inside her skirt, easing the pressure against her heel. “My shoes are disagreeing with me.”
“I can wait.” Jonah’s smile was for her. “We don’t have to do every song.”
Kylie took her hand off his sleeve. Summer adjusted the bag on her wrist. Its handle had left a red line across her skin.
“Of course,” Kylie said, her voice tight. She smoothed the front of her black skirt awkwardly. “There’ll be plenty of time later.”
A woman called to her from the refreshments room, and Kylie went to see what was needed. Summer watched the place where she had been for a moment before realizing Jonah was looking at her.
Jonah found two empty chairs at the edge of the ballroom and drew one out for her. “We can stay here a bit. Lift your skirt before you put the heel down; you’re about to stand on it.”
Summer let the skirt settle over her knees. Jonah sat beside her with one leg stretched into the narrow space beyond them. Through the doorway, Kylie was talking to Lorraine, nodding as she tucked a loose strand of hair beneath a ribbon.
Summer eased one shoe off beneath the skirt, and Jonah pushed his chair back to give her room. She wished she’d left the boots on.
“I wore these round the kitchen,” Summer said. “I thought that was supposed to help. They’ve found an entirely new place to hurt.”
“You took them off every time I looked,” Jonah joked. He lifted her hem far enough to see the red mark. “I’ll ask Mom for a Band-Aid. She’s usually got half a pharmacy in her bag.”
“In a minute,” Summer said, resting her hand on his knee. “She’ll find you something to do if you ask her now.” She leaned back and stayed there while the music played, her bare heel cool against the floor.
“Shall we go out tomorrow?” she asked. “Away from all this. I don’t want to hear about another ghost tour until next year.”
“Yes,” he said. “I haven’t promised anyone anything.”
“If your mother asks, tell her we’ll be back Monday,” Summer said. “I don’t want a job to do on the way out. I don’t even want to pick anything up.”
“She can leave a message.” He leaned closer, touching his mouth to the warm place beside her mask.
Summer imagined a café where nobody expected her to know who had baked the cake. The last orders had been collected; Macy had keys. Summer would answer the messages that came in on her day off when she got back.
“Somewhere with a late breakfast,” she said, turning her hand beneath his. “I want to sleep. Then I want someone to bring me coffee.”
He kissed her, quickly because they were in a room full of people, and she followed him a fraction farther than he expected. His surprise made her smile. They stayed in the chairs through the end of the song, talking about where they might go while the hem of her gown lay across his shoe.
When they stood, his father was still near the doorway. Summer joined him with the beginnings of Sunday in her mind, pleased to have something to look forward to beyond tonight.
A woman in a feathered collar came to tell him the music was too loud near the windows, and he listened as carefully as though he had installed the speakers himself. While she talked, Summer saw Kylie approaching from the refreshment-room doorway.
“I’m going to the bar,” Kylie said. “Can I get you something?” She looked from one to the other, waiting for an order.
Summer asked for white wine, Jonah for red.
Kylie nodded and went back through the connecting doorway.
The woman with the feathers was still describing a place where she thought a speaker could be moved, and Jonah’s father beckoned him closer to hear the part about the cable.
Summer remained beside them, interested in the possibility that no one would have to act on the suggestion until the woman had finished making it.
The crowd hid the bar. Summer watched a man dressed as Prince in a purple suit maneuver through the doorway with plates, then turned back when Jonah’s father asked what time she had started work. He looked impressed when she told him five, which made her feel less tired for a moment.
Kylie returned with the two glasses. She gave Summer the white and Jonah the red, then moved aside to let the woman with the feathers reach someone else. Summer thanked her and drank, glad of the coolness.
“To getting out of the bakery,” Jonah said, raising his glass a little.
His father added something about getting Lorraine away from the ticket table, and Summer laughed before drinking again.
Kylie stood beside them with her small black bag tucked beneath her arm.
She had not brought a drink for herself.
Summer began to offer to fetch her one, then saw her looking toward Lorraine and assumed she still had work to do.
Someone called to her from the hall. She lifted a hand to show she had heard and excused herself, leaving Summer with Jonah and his father.
A moment later Lorraine appeared, looking for all three of them and saying they needed a picture.
Summer could not tell whether a photograph had always been planned or had become necessary because they had finally assembled in one place.
They stood near the window while an elderly man in a silver vest tried to fit them into the frame.
Lorraine moved Jonah’s father to her other side, then asked Summer whether she wanted the mask on or off.
Summer kept it on. She wanted a photograph of the beautiful clothes as they were meant to be worn.
The small concealment made posing less awkward than it had been at their wedding.