Chapter 109
WHEN THE SIXTH FLEET BAND took the stage after dinner, there were lots of hoots and hollers, and people started shouting requests from their seats. “We’re going to kick things off tonight with something that will get you all out of your chairs,” said a guy holding a trombone.
As soon as they played the opening chords of Benny Goodman’s “Sing, Sing, Sing,” Laura let out a little yelp. “I love this song,” she said, pulling Bobby toward the dance floor.
Laura and Bobby knew how to swing dance, and they were so good that everyone else on the dance floor stopped what they were doing to watch.
Bobby was executing all these complicated twists and turns, and Laura was following along, and when he pulled her through his legs, the whole room went wild.
Both of them were beaming, eating up all the attention, and I was happy for them—in spite of the shitty remark Laura had made to me earlier.
I watched them for several more minutes, but when the band started to play “Lovin’ You,” I went looking for Paul out on the veranda. Instead, I found Mary Lou. She was staring out at the water, smoking a cigarette, and I did an about-face, hoping she hadn’t seen me, but she had.
“Eileen,” she called, and I stopped in my tracks. “Come chat.”
I approached cautiously, like she was a dog that might bite, but then she offered me a cigarette and my defenses came crashing down.
“I lost my lighter,” she said, apologetically, as she handed me a pack of matches with the hotel logo printed on the flap. I spent a minute trying to get the cigarette lit, and when I finally had it, I handed the matches back to her and blew a clean line of smoke in the direction of the stars.
“I had a nice chat with Paul earlier tonight,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“He’s charming.”
“He is,” I said, because he could be.
We stood there for a moment in companionable silence, smoking our cigarettes. Then she continued, “I asked him about the trip.”
“Trip?”
“Your parents’ trip,” she said quietly. “To California.”
I blinked.
“Obviously, Paul had no idea what I was talking about. Made some joke about how it’s impossible to get your dad to cross the Ashley River.”
“Mary Lou—” I started to say, but she cut me off.
“I do not like being taken for a fool,” she said, then ashed her cigarette over a potted geranium.
“I didn’t—”
“Don’t.”
I was panicked, trying to figure out what Mary Lou knew, or at least what she thought she knew.
Clearly she’d decided I’d been calling someone local at Bar Sanna, but did she suspect I’d called Teo?
Or that I had been calling him about the Chartridge?
That seemed unlikely, but I was still trying to work it all out when it occurred to me that, if Mary Lou and I were standing here having this conversation, she had not outed me to Paul.
If she had, he’d have found me right away, yanked me out of the ballroom, and demanded to know why in the hell I was lying about something so stupid. “You didn’t tell him?” I whispered.
She looked right at me. “I did not.”
“What did you say?”
“That I was an idiot and must have gotten you confused with one of the other wives.”
“And he believed you?”
“That I was an idiot?” She practically snorted. “Sadly, I find that men are usually all too ready to believe that.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I started with the most obvious thing. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
“As I think I’ve mentioned, we’ve had an absolutely terrible time filling positions on the CAWS executive board. And now, with Laura stepping up to serve as vice president, I’m going to once again need a new treasurer.”
I almost laughed with relief. Mary Lou was blackmailing me—we both knew it—but what she was asking for was such an easy lift that it barely felt like she was asking for anything at all.
“I know you said you’re bad with numbers.”
“You know,” I said slowly, “I probably don’t give myself enough credit.”
She gave me an almost amused look. “Of that, Eileen Archer, I am certain.”