Farewell, Dorothy Parker (18 page)

“Precisely.”

The doorbell rang, and Violet panicked. “Shit. He’s early.”

“So what?” asked Mrs. Parker.

“I’m not ready!”

“He’ll wait. Finish what you’re doing.”

Violet took a deep breath. “You’re right,” she said, smoothing out her dress. She slipped on her sweater and took one last look in the mirror. Dorothy Parker was right about the outfit. It was perfect. She put on her earrings and brushed her hair.

“All done?” Mrs. Parker asked.

“Except for one thing,” Violet said, as she approached the guest book on her dresser.

“Oh, come, now,” said her guest.

Violet shrugged. “Sorry,” she said, and slammed the book. Then she dashed downstairs, where Woollcott was already stationed by the door, barking and yipping and running around in quick circles. He wasn’t usually this hyper when guests arrived, and it made her laugh.

“I know exactly how you feel,” Violet said, and gave him a pet.

She took a deep breath and told herself there was nothing to be nervous about. She was just going to a play with a group of friends, and Michael happened to be taking her. It wasn’t even a real date, was it?

Okay, so maybe it was. And maybe it was all right to let the giddiness dancing around her belly come right to the surface. It was real. She was going out with Michael Jessee.

Violet opened the door, trying to temper her ridiculous smile into an even sort of expression. But almost instantly the effort became moot.

Confused, Violet blinked…and blinked again.

“Delaney?”

Violet looked past her niece and saw Malcolm’s salsa-red RAV4 at the curb. Sandra was next to him in the passenger seat. They waved, smiling. Violet struggled to get her bearings.

“What are you doing here?” she asked her niece.

“Can I stay here tonight, Aunt V?” Delaney said. “Please? The old farts are going to a fiftieth-anniversary party for some cousins of Sir Tansalot and won’t let me stay home alone. I’ve been begging and pleading for the past two hours, and they finally agreed that I could stay here if it was okay. Please say yes, Aunt V.
Please.
I can’t do this. I can’t go to a party with a bunch of creepy old people trying to be cool.”

“How come no one told me about this?”

“They just sprang it on me. They thought I’d
want
to go. Seriously. The grandfather unit said, ‘There will be dancing, Del,’ like that would convince me. Dancing, Aunt V! Old people
dancing.
I think I’d rather die.”

“I wish I’d known.”

“Please say yes. You have to. Don’t make me go to this thing.”

Violet almost choked on her own disappointment, but she tried to resign herself. After all, maybe this was meant to be. Maybe this was the universe’s way of telling her she was aiming too high. She put her arms around her niece.

“Of course you can stay with me,” she said.

“Thank you!” Delaney said, and waved to her grandparents. “I’m staying here!” she shouted, and the Webers drove off.

Delaney bent to pick up Woollcott, who was frantic with delight. “You look hot,” she said to her aunt when she rose. “Did you have a date or something?”

“Or something,” Violet said. “But it’s okay. I’ll call his cell phone and cancel.” She swallowed against a lump in her throat and smiled. Mentally, she was already taking off her lovely dress and hanging it in the closet, changing to sweats, and curling up on the sofa with Delaney. This is exactly what it means to be a parent, she thought. The child comes first. The child always comes first. She put her arm around her niece.

“Is that him?” Delaney said, pointing to a shiny white SUV pulling up by the curb.

Violet sighed. “It is.”

Michael got out of the car and slammed the door.

“Holy shit,” Delaney said, taking him in. “No wonder you broke up with Vincent van Loser.” She put the dog down. “You should keep your date with him. I’ll stay here with Woollcott. I’m old enough. I really am. All my friends stay home alone.”

All your friends didn’t lose their parents a year ago and then get ripped from their home, Violet thought.

“Don’t be silly,” Violet said. “I’d rather stay here with you. I can go out with him another night.”

When Michael approached, Violet introduced him to Delaney and explained what had happened.

“I hope you understand,” she said.

“Of course,” he said. “I would have done the same thing.”

“Sorry I didn’t call you to cancel, but this only happened moments ago.”

“Did you see that red RAV4 pulling away?” Delaney said. “That was them. It’s my grandfather’s midlife crisis car. He actually thinks it’s sexy.”

“Well, I only saw the rear,” Michael said. “But it sure was smokin’.”

Violet laughed. “Michael likes corny jokes,” she explained to her niece.

“That’s only because I have an
ear
for them,” he said.

Delaney groaned, and Michael smiled at the reaction.

“Now I bet you’re sorry you didn’t go to that party with your grandparents,” he said.

“No way!” Delaney said. “A hundred bad jokes are still better than watching old people shake their booties.” She shuddered.

“In that case,” he said to the girl, “I have an idea. How do you feel about edgy Off-Off-Broadway shows?”

“You want to take me with you?”

“What do you think?” he said to Violet.

“I think…I think it’s great, but what about tickets?”

“Mariana told me they’re not even close to sold out. In fact, I can think of another person who might want to join us.”

And that’s how Violet, Delaney, Michael, and his lively daughter, Kara, wound up settling into seats at the Little Harlequin Theater on
the West Side of Manhattan. It was a compromise that Violet thought was the best of all worlds. She got to spend time with her niece doing something that was a real treat, while getting to know Michael and his chatty daughter, who brought quite a bit of energy to their small group. Violet was delighted by how well the girls hit it off. Then something happened that changed Violet’s mood entirely.

The curtain rose.

Mariana, as the main character, Laci Harper, was in a bed, stage right, sleeping. The lighting was dim, to indicate that it was nighttime. There was a loud noise that woke her, and she sat up, holding a blanket over her body. A spotlight shone on her as the noise happened again. This time, she jumped out of bed.

Naked.

Facing the audience.

Bathed in light.

Violet looked at Michael. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I had no idea.” He looked back at the stage. “Oh, God.”

The audience gasped as the source of the noise revealed itself. There was a man hiding in the shadows of Laci’s bedroom.

He, too, was naked.

Violet looked over at the girls, whose faces went from shock to uncontrollable giggles. They collapsed into each other.

“Maybe we should go,” Michael whispered to Violet.

“Right now?” she said. “One minute into the show?” Violet cringed at the thought of making a scene and pushing their way past everyone to leave the theater. But how on earth could Delaney handle this when she was horrified at the thought of fully dressed old people on a dance floor? She tapped her niece.

“Are you okay?” Violet whispered. “Do you want to leave?”

“Are you kidding? This is the best thing that ever happened to me
in my life.
”

Violet sighed. “I guess we’ll wait until intermission,” she said to Michael.

But at intermission the girls begged to stay, making a very good argument that they had already seen everything there was to see, so what point was there to leaving?

And so they went back inside. Afterward, while the rest of the kung fu class went out for drinks with Mariana and some of the other cast members, Michael and Violet took the girls out for ice cream. The youngsters huddled together as they texted their friends about the adventure, and laughed as they showed each other the responses. In between, they scraped at their ice-cream scoops—chocolate-chip cookie dough for Delaney and mint chocolate chip for Kara—with tiny plastic spoons. Violet didn’t think it was possible for any two kids to be happier than those girls were at that moment, and it filled her up.

“They’re certainly bonding,” she said to Michael.

It continued throughout the car ride home, with lots of whispering and giggles. Violet and Michael talked about the play and parenting and how he came to own the kung fu studio. It was clear there were topics they both skirted because of the backseat passengers, as “We’ll talk about that another time” became a familiar refrain whenever they came close to discussing Violet’s custody of Delaney or Michael’s relationship with Kara’s mother.

But there was another issue Violet knew wouldn’t be addressed that evening—the good-night kiss. With the girls in tow, they would have to shake hands like business acquaintances, or perhaps steal a chaste peck on the cheek.

Violet tried to convince herself it was for the best, but sitting that close to Michael—smelling his aftershave and watching his strong hands as he drove—made her ache for contact.

As they turned into Violet’s neighborhood and got close to the
house, the whispering in the backseat intensified and then stopped. Delaney cleared her throat.

“We’re going to walk the dog together,” she announced. “Me and Kara-bon.”

Violet knew just what they were up to. Clearly, the girls were conspiring to give the grown-ups some time alone.

“ ‘Kara-bon’?” she asked. Violet didn’t always understand how her niece came up with her nicknames.

“She’s practically a Kara-bon copy of her father,” Delaney explained.

Michael laughed, delighted. The pun was right up his alley. “I might need to steal that,” he said.

“Be my guest, Groucho.”

“Groucho?” he said.

Violet blushed. “I might have said something to her about your Marx Brothers posters.”

When they got to the house, Violet and Michael stayed by the door as the girls went inside to fetch the dog. They watched as the youngsters walked off, being pulled along by the leash.

“See you later,” Delaney said.

“Just around the block!” Violet called. “It’s late.”

“They’ll be okay,” Michael assured her.

“Aren’t kids amazing?” she said. “It’s like they’ve been best friends forever.”

“Delaney really took me by surprise,” he said. “I didn’t expect her to be so…together.”

“She’s come a long way.”

“That must have been a hard road for both of you.”

“There were times,” she began, and stopped, remembering those early months when it seemed impossible that Delaney would ever be pulled from her grief. In the hospital, she had been catatonic. At home,
she didn’t want to do anything but stay in her room and cry. And then there were the days when she decided she needed to break everything in sight. Just getting her into the car to visit her therapist sometimes took hours. Violet had wanted to break a few things herself.

She shook her head. It was too much to even talk about.

“Yes,” she simply said. “It was hard.”

“You moved mountains,” he said, and she felt her throat constrict. It was true—she
had
moved mountains.

“Thanks,” she choked out, and wanted to change the subject. She didn’t want to talk about death or grief or anything else that pushed them from the romantic mood they had been approaching just moments ago.

She wanted him to kiss her.

“I guess we should talk about something else,” he said.

She laughed. “You read my mind.”

He moved a piece of hair from her face. Yes, she thought. Now. Kiss me now.

“What should we talk about?” he asked.

“I think I might be out of words.” It was the perfect thing to say. Surely he’d take the hint and move in for contact.

He smiled. “I think we should do this again.”

Violet was getting dizzy waiting for that kiss. Why was he still talking?

“Only next time,” he continued, “just the two of us.”

“I’d like that.”

“I think those smart little girls are conspirators,” he said, taking a step closer.

“Partners in crime,” she agreed. “They wanted to be sure we had some time alone together.”

He smirked. “I wonder why.”

She got it. He was teasing her, prolonging the moment, making
the tension mount. And it was working.
If you don’t kiss me now,
she tried to transmit,
I’m going to collapse into a quivering heap.

“They’ll be back any second,” she said, “so you can ask them yourself.”

He looked amused. She had just shown him her hand, revealing her impatience. Damn it, she thought. Now I’m as naked as Mariana was on that stage.

Violet heard the girls’ voices and knew they were on their way back. A few more seconds and it would be too late.

“I hear them,” he said.

Defeat. He had stalled too long. There would be no kiss after all. Now there was nothing left but to wait for him to leave so she could go up to her room and wallow in self-pity.

Then he did it. And the surprise worked. Violet turned into liquid in his arms, lips to lips, body to body, locked in a kiss that could have gone on forever if it weren’t for a couple of young teenagers making more than enough noise to announce their arrival.

Chapter 20

“Of course,” Dorothy Parker said, when Violet explained what had happened at the end of the date. “I knew he’d be a sublime kisser.”