CHA PTE R 10
LET STEWART PICK ME UP on Goose Lane for the forty-minuteI drive to Providence. Only Christopher is home, and I tell him I’m going to a costume party, which in no way feels like a lie. I wait at the bottom of our walkway for my ride. The chauffeured black town car pulls in just as Mrs. Goldberg is throwing a sheet on her line, and I hop into the car before either Stewart or the driver can get out to help me.
I sit statue-still in the back next to Stewart. He says hello but is deeply involved in his phone. He doesn’t say anything about my dress or my haircut. I love my haircut, and this dress is Busy-approved. I should not be spiraling the way I am, but Stewart is just completely fucking dashing, and I don’t want to look at him. He’s in a tuxedo that was woven by angels with tiny hands to the exact specifications of his body. His black shoes have been professionally tied by the royal shoe tyer.
“Are you all right?” he asks me. I can’t worry the ends of
my hair, so my right leg is bouncing.
“Yes, fine.”
He puts his earbuds in and makes a call to someone about a problem in Dallas.
Honestly, with this level of warmth, I can see why Audrey may have sought solace elsewhere. When Stewart Whitfield is in work mode, which seems like all the time, he cannot be distracted. It should be clear that I could use a few words of
affirmation. I need confidence to walk into a swarm of millionaires and try to make small talk that will be so on point that they will all believe I am the new chosen Whitfield woman. I really wish I understood what Bitcoin is. I’m not looking for a full-out pep talk, but a compliment would be nice. I’m in a magic green dress. There’s a golden dahlia around my neck to match my handbag and shoes.Notice my gold shoes, Stewart.
“Can you at least brief me?” I ask when he’s off his call.
“Like about what I’m walking into?”
“It’s their annual cancer fundraiser. I’m being honored.”
“Why?”
“Because I gave a lot of money.”
“Ah.”
“We’ll be sitting with the head of the charity and some old friends of my parents’. All pretty low-key.”
I nod at the window.
“Dolly. You can’t screw this up. We met on bikes, you’re
in a beautiful dress. Simple.”
I grab it. “You like my dress?”
“Of course, it’s…” He raises both of his hands to suggest wow.
“Okay. Thank you. You just didn’t say.” I turn back to the window.
“We have a business arrangement. And if I told one of my employees she looked”—he stops and struggles to find a word. “How you look,” he says finally. “I would be sued.” He gives me a matter-of-fact look, but I swear his eyes linger for a nanosecond on my bare shoulder and then on my chest.
“But you’re welcome.”
I raise my hand to where my hair meets my chin. I refuse to ask for another compliment.
“Actually,” I say. “I recall a clause about touching being allowed if it’s to save my life? In that spirit, I think a compliment when I’m about to walk into a party and have a full-on heart attack is warranted.”
He laughs, and even that laugh is dashing. It’s like his tuxedo has doused him in dashing potion. “I accept your interpretation there. So, yes, you are wearing everything very well.”
“I am wearing everything very well. That is a top ten worst compliment of my life,” I say, just as we’re pulling up to the valet. “And the guy who asked me to my senior prom led with ‘I already asked Vicky Walsh and she said no, so you’re next.’ ”
Stewart’s laughing as he steps out of the car and extends his hand to me, outsizing his own dashingness. He places his hand on my elbow as we walk up the stairs and into the hotel. The perfume of flowers hits me immediately. People are milling around, sipping their cocktails, and somehow not craning their necks to see the canopy of flowers above us.
Yellow roses, daisies, and sunflowers are the only ones I can name, but the ceiling is covered with a sheet of every possible yellow flower. I want to pull out my phone and take a photo for Naomi. I want to take a selfie so I can remember my celery-green dress under it.
“Stewart, hello,” a gray-haired man says. Stewart extends a hand to him, and I notice his cuff links for the first time, gold acorns, of course.
“Paul,” Stewart says. “This is Dolly Brick.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Paul says. “You are absolutely stunning in that dress.”
“Thank you,” I say, and raise my eyes to Stewart.That’s what you were supposed to say, my eyes tell him. He rolls his eyes the tiniest bit.
A waiter comes by with a tray of champagne flutes and we each take one. Stewart and Paul are talking about an industrial property that’s for sale along the Providence waterfront, and I’m half listening and half clocking the women around me. They’re all in long dresses, many of them brightly colored florals. It’s all so joyful and whimsical. Black tie for the men, and rainbow sorbet for the women.
Everyone wants to talk to Stewart, and he is charming.
His demeanor is welcoming but regal. He knows everyone’s name and introduces me immediately, alternating between keeping a hand on my elbow and resting it stiffly on the small of my back. It’s possessive in a showy way, but that’s the whole point.
“And what do you do, Dolly?” asks a woman who’s name
I’ve already forgotten.
“I teach kindergarten in Boston.”
“Ah,” she says, resting her hand on the golf ball–sized emerald around her neck. “You two are like Charles and Diana!”
It’s a grim comparison to say the least. “Well, sort of.
Except he cheated and she’s dead,” I say, and look up at Stewart, who winces a bit. I could have just said nothing.
Nothing was the thing to say. I feel a little blush creep up my neck.
“Let’s try not to go down that path, honey,” he says, wrapping a tight arm around my shoulders. I don’t think I can dohoney.
“How did you two meet?” she asks, and I know this one! I tell her the tale of our morning bike rides and Stewart’s gallant rescue.
“That’s sweet. Which park?” she asks, and I immediately forget the name of every park in Boston. It’s as if all park- related data has been swept from my mind.
“Boston Common,” Stewart says.
“Yes, Boston Common,” I say, relieved. Of course. That’s over by him.
“You two,” she says. “Bikes are forbidden on the paths in Boston Common.”
“We found that out the hard way,” I say, nudging Stewart with my elbow like we’re frat brothers. This was actually the hardest way to find that out. “We got tickets because of it.
Not on the same day. Different days. Stewart got two. But we went back.” I do not have the power to stop. “With bikes.”
“We bike in town now,” Stewart says, and asks about their summer plans.
I need a minute. Despite my absolutely perfect dress, that was a screwup. I am entirely unprepared, and this isn’t going to get easier. There are going to be jokes and references that I’m not in on. No one here is going to get excited about my Boston parking arbitrage scheme. I need to figure out how to plaster a pleasant look on my face without saying any more words. I could be Stewart’s girlfriend as a mannequin. I excuse myself to go find the restroom.
The restroom is nicer than the dressing room at Wendell’s. It has a seating area with gilded mirrors and pale pink sofas. Two women in their twenties are seated, laughing at something on their phones. I use the bathroom without ruining my dress and emerge from my stall anticipating a round of applause. I wash my hands with a tiny trickle of water to ward off any splashing and dry my hands with an environmentally questionable paper napkin. Just as I pull my lipstick out of my gold purse, a woman in her fifties comes out of the stall behind me. Our eyes meet in the mirror, and I smile my pleasant smile. She does not smile back.
“This goddamn dress,” she says to no one. She’s holding on to the spaghetti strap of her pink chiffon gown and then lets it fall away, torn from where it should be attached at the back. She wets a paper napkin and dabs it at her neck and
forehead. “Sweating.”
“Do you need help?” I ask, tentative.
She turns to me. “All the help in the world. I have to go out there, and I knew this dress didn’t fit. The salesgirl assured me it did. And I liked the size, the number, you know.
It made me feel good. So I bought it and now I have to go out there, sweating—do I stink? I bet I do!—in a broken dress like I just crawled out of the back of someone’s car.”
“You look beautiful,” I say, because she does and because it’s what I wanted Stewart to say to me when I was nervous.
“And look what I have.” I open my gold bag and show her my CVS emergency needle-and-thread kit. “My grandmother never left the house without ChapStick, five dollars, and a sewing kit. May I?”
“Yes,” she says. She’s staring at my little red kit like it’s a miracle. “Thank you.”
“No problem. I am not a great seamstress. But I can hem things and make curtains. I can do basically anything that’s going to end up a rectangle.” I take her pink strap and stretch it to where it was previously sewn, and it’s tight. I don’t like the way it presses into her skin like she’s trapped.
“If you have five extra minutes, I can sew this one on a little looser and then let out the other strap. You might be more comfortable?”
Which is how it came to be that I spent an extra fifteen minutes in the bathroom altering a couture gown. The woman’s name is Jen and she lives in Providence. She has teenagers too and thinks they’re monsters. I tell her about the time Gus split his pants at a Little League game and I
repaired them in the car while he crouched down in the backseat in his underwear. I tell her about Maud and how she could make anything out of nothing—a dress, a biscuit, a total shift in a room’s energy.
Jen is no longer sweating, and she hugs me in thanks.
Stewart is standing outside the bathroom when we walk out.
He’s agitated, pacing a few steps and putting his hands in his pockets, pulling them out, and then adjusting his cuff links.
“There you are. It’s time to sit and I couldn’t…Jennifer.
Hello.”
Jen kisses his cheek. “Do you two know each other?” she asks.
“Yes,” he says. “This is my girlfriend, Dolly Brick. Dolly, this is Jennifer Quigley, head of the cancer center.”
“No wonder you didn’t want to look like you were climbing out the back of someone’s car,” I say.
She laughs and gives me another hug. “When I wake up tomorrow, this will be my favorite memory of tonight.” She turns to Stewart. “Well done. Much better.”
He thanks her after she’s already turned to go. “What was all that?” he asks me.
“Nothing, she was in a jam and I fixed her dress. I always carry a sewing kit.” I hold up my purse.
“Of course you do. And jumper cables.”
“Yep, though not in my bike basket.”
He places a hand on my back and starts kind of nudging me through the lobby toward the ballroom. I stop and say, “I
think you should hold my hand.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, it just feels more believable. Like if you were really my boyfriend, I’d like to be holding hands as we walk in.”
“Okay,” he says, and takes my hand. It is not a soft, melty hand-holding situation. He does not entwine our fingers, and the warmth of his palm against mine does not tug at my heart. In fact, I get no palm action at all. He grasps me by the fingers and pulls. He holds my hand like he’s holding a dog’s leash.
“This is how you hold hands?”Poor Audrey.
“What?” he asks, and then stops to introduce me to someone.
We continue to make our way through the crowd. “So we’re sitting with Jennifer, your best friend, and some people from the hospital. I have to give a quick speech before we eat.”
I stop again. “A speech? Why aren’t your hands sweaty?”
I turn his hand over in mine and inspect it for evidence of nerves. “Do you have notecards? Do you want to practice on me?” Just the thought of it is making me queasy.
I look up, and he’s giving me a full smile, dimple on display. I don’t remember his eyes ever looking this playful.
“I think we just found something I know how to do that you don’t,” he says.
I still have both of my hands around his. “You’re a lot less
scary-looking when you smile.”
“That’s why I don’t smile,” he says.
The tables are dressed in yellow with white lace overlays. There’s an endive salad waiting at each place with individual silver pitchers of dressing, like tiny gravy boats. I sit next to Stewart and introduce myself to the man to my left, who passes me a basket of hot French bread. I take a piece and breathe in the steam. The butter is disappointingly not shaped like seashells, but it’s soft in its little butter pod and it melts like liquid gold on contact. I turn to Stewart and smile with a full mouth.
The man next to me is named Howard, and he talks a lot about Nantucket while he butters his bread and then salts it.
I tell him that I’ve always wanted to see Nantucket, but what I’m really thinking is that I’d love to go back in time so I could have salted my bread too.
Jen kicks off the program and says a lot of nice things about Stewart. “Not only is he a brilliant business leader and a generous philanthropist, but Stewart Whitfield is also generous with his time. Anyone can write a check, and I hope you all do tonight.” She pauses for chuckles. “But Stewart also comes to the hospital, engages with the children, and seeks out specific unmet needs.” The screen behind her switches from the hospital’s logo to a photo of Stewart sitting on the floor in the hospital’s playroom with two little girls.
The crowd lets out a unified “Aww.” He’s in dress pants and a black sweater, and he’s not aware of the camera. I can tell because he’s making a goofy face at the Barbie he’s holding.
“The children adore him, and so do we. Please join me in welcoming Stewart Whitfield.”
He rises from his chair and places a hand on my bare shoulder. Not a Tin Man hand, but warm like a caress. It’s unfamiliar being touched like this, and I can’t help but lean my head toward it. He walks up to the podium like he’s got all day to get there and addresses the crowd. “Thank you, Jennifer. And thank you for honoring me in this way tonight.”
He turns around and looks at the giant photo again. “As I recall, Barbie was giving me a bit of a hard time that day.”
Everyone laughs. “As many of you know, pediatric cancer is an important cause to my family and me. It was a battle my sister fought and won with the help of brilliant doctors like these. And it’s critical that research continues and that the care she received is available to all families.”
I look around the room as he goes on. Is this something everyone knows? Everyone in town knows everything about the Whitfields, and I have never heard any mention of Busy having cancer as a child.
“Sometimes when I’m with my sister now, she seems almost hyper-alive,” he says. “As if what she went through as a child made her commit to sucking the last bit of joy out of each day. It’s out of gratitude for that joy that I am delighted to support this organization.”
And now I know what Busy’s laughing about all the time.
She’s beat the devil.
Everyone is on their feet as he makes his way back to the table. I try to stand but catch my heel on the hem of my dress and sit back down. When Stewart is seated and all eyes are still on him, he takes the opportunity to lean in and graze his cheek against mine, like he’s whispering to me. I feel that same fizziness in my chest, but now it lingers and wanders down my body. I am entirely unprepared to be this close, even though it’s the whole point of the night. His skin is smooth and warm as it slides over mine. I hear him take in a little breath.
He pulls away and meets my eyes. Another smile.
“You sniffed me,” I say.
“I did,” he says, and turns back to the table.
I hold my ice water to my face to cool my blush just as the waiter comes to ask if I’d prefer filet mignon or sea bass.
I can get one for free, so I choose the other. It’s served with little snap peas and a leek purée. Dessert is flourless chocolate torte with crème anglaise. I know this because Stewart tells me. It just looks like flat chocolate cake and white sauce. It’s a little dry. As we sip our coffee there’s a fundraising game of some sort. Jennifer stands at the podium and asks who will give twenty-five thousand dollars. I expect
everyone to laugh at her joke, but I feel Stewart’s hand raise from behind my chair, like it’s nothing. She steps down to fifteen thousand and a few hands go up. Ten, then five. I think of my mother as I watch the ease of it, and I wonder if the best part of having all that money is being able to eat cake while you give it away.
We’re quiet on the ride back, each looking out separate windows.
“Thank you for tonight,” he says after a while. “I think it went well.”
“You’re welcome. I’m available to eat a twenty-five- thousand-dollar steak anytime.”
He laughs just a bit. I reach up to fidget with the ends of my hair and remember it’s gone. I run the back of my hand along the straight line of my bob instead. It feels like silk.
“I’m sorry about Busy,” I say. “I didn’t know that.”
“It’s fine. I mean, it is now. We didn’t talk about it for a long time and her treatment was all in Boston, so people didn’t really know. But we want to start doing more to help, so we’re telling her story. If I can get more people into the hospital to see what they’re doing, meet the kids—it would make a difference.” He stops himself and looks back out the
window.
“Do you want kids?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says without hesitation. I knew it. I could see it
in that photo.
“How many?”
“Any number greater than zero.”
“They’re good,” I say. “I mean, I have one, I know.”
He’s looking out the window again and his face is serious.
I’m wondering if he’s thinking about his unborn heir and where it’s going to come from. He needs a thirty-year-old
woman with an appetite for shopping. If only such a person existed.
“You sniffed me,” I say. “Should we talk about that?”
“I know, sorry. I got sort of caught up and you smelled good.”
“Well, I’m great at my job,” I say. We’re quiet again and he pulls out his glasses and scrolls through emails. “So are you looking for notes? On tonight?”
“That speech wasn’t really supposed to be a big thing.”
“No, on your dating. I mean, you’ll have to get out there eventually. Especially if you want a baby.”
“I’m not the one who brought up Princess Diana’s death,” he says, still not looking up from his phone.
“I’m serious. You rock a tuxedo like no one I’ve ever seen on TMZ, but your boyfriend skills could use some help.”
“All right.” Stewart takes off his glasses and rests his hands on his knees. “Okay, I’m ready, shoot.”
“The complimenting.”
“Come on.”
“I’m serious, it matters. I’m not saying you greet your dates by telling them how beautiful they look all the time, but if there’s something you notice when you see them, just get in the habit of saying it. Blurt out the first nice thing that pops into your head, right away. It’s kind and it’s free.”
He turns toward me and says, “I like the outline of your leg in that dress. When you cross your legs like that.”
I blush, hot, and untuck my hair from behind my ear, forgetting that there’s so little of it to hide behind. “I didn’t mean me, now.” I uncross and recross my legs. “But yes, that was a nice thing to say.”
“Good for me.” He smiles and I get a glimpse of the dimple again.
“It’s good when it’s specific like that. ‘You look pretty’ isn’t as good as ‘You have pretty eyes.’ ”
He nods. “What else?”
“Don’t call anyone ‘honey.’ It gives diner waitress vibes.”
“I thought so.” He smiles and unknots his bow tie. He undoes his top button, and I find myself running my eyes down his neck again. “I knew it sounded weird the second I
said it.”
“What did you call Audrey?”
“Audrey.”
I laugh and then turn all the way toward him on the seat.
“And the hand-holding, what even was that?”
“What? You asked me to. I was trying to get you through the room.”
“That’s exactly how it felt. Like you were the UPS guy, and I was the package you were delivering to someone’s
porch.”
“I’m not a big hand-holder,” he says.
“Give me your hand.” He extends his hand to me, palm up, and I clasp just the tips of his fingers in the tips of mine.
“This is not hand-holding. Manicurists get more intimate than that. As you well know.” He smiles at this little inside joke.
“You need to hold someone’s hand like it’s precious.” I undo my seatbelt and scoot a bit closer and take his whole hand in mine so our palms touch. His hands are strong and warm, and I just sit and feel them for a bit. It’s really been an eon since I’ve held a man’s hand. “It’s the palms,” I say to our hands. “There’s a heartbeat there, or at least something happens that releases oxytocin into your system.”
He gives my hand a squeeze and then entwines our fingers, each one slowly scraping the inside of mine as it settles in close. I feel his touch on that delicate skin trickle through my body. And in that moment, I know exactly what
Stewart Whitfield would be like in bed. I have a sudden and complete understanding of what his hands would feel like on my bare back, the inside of his leg against the inside of mine.
This understanding settles low in my belly. I look up at him
and he’s watching me.
“Better?” he asks.
“Not bad,” I say, and take my hand away.
