“Well, it’s not really me,” I replied.
“Ha! Of course it is. You’ve changed, Declan has too… Jackson most of all, I should think,” she mused as she led me into the beautiful, old-Hollywood-glamour of her living room.
“He has?” I asked sweetly, knowing that she was right. I still loved hearing it.
“You’ve made a man out of him,” she declared. “Never forget that.”
I nodded, thinking to myself that it was strange how no one really seemed to understand him but me, at all. She underestimated him if she thought he needed anyone to make him more man than he was.
“So I wanted to give you this,” she began, holding out a small parcel.
“Oh Edna, you’ve done so much already,” I breathed.
“Don’t open it here,” she cautioned. “Go and find Jackson. It’s nothing really, but I thought you should have it.”
“I don’t know what to say…”
She stepped closer to me, her eyes bright and shining.
“There’s no one else who could have this, but you, really,” she continued as though I hadn’t said anything. I felt she was babbling trivialities to conceal a stream of emotions. So like Declan, I thought.
“OK,” I said with a smile. “I will go find Jackson.”
“OK,” she agreed, her voice hoarse.
“Thank you again,” I murmured and leaned to kiss her cheek. When I pulled back, her eyes were wet and her nose was turning a sweet shade of pink.
“OK go!” she commanded me, waving in the air with her fast fingertips. “Go to your party!”
“OK, OK,” I chuckled, inordinately happy to see the emotion swell in her.
As I maneuvered back to the garden, Anneke whirled around a corner, nearly bumping into me.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “I was just looking for you!”
“Really?” I asked politely, just slightly put out to be distracted from my mission. I shifted the parcel to my other arm.
“Yes,” she nodded, blonde curls shaking all around her cherubic face. “Kevin and I must be going, but I wanted to just personally thank you--”
“Oh, no… No thanks necessary,” I averred with my hand up.
“No really, it was so sweet of you to set us up…”
“Oh! Think nothing of it!” I exclaimed as graciously as possible. I was happy for them, really. Truly. Just a little nausea. Just sometimes.
“It was a gift from heaven!” she objected. “No, you are a gift--”
“Oh gosh, Anneka, I really am just so glad to see you both happy,” I said in a rush, angling away from her. “Thank you so much for coming, bye!”
I slipped away from her with a small wave, then gave Kevin another when I saw him crossing the kitchen. How that had worked out so well, I couldn’t even guess, though I imagined Jackson had probably smoothed it over with a few well-phrased words to Anneka. In any case, more power to them.
Just before I made it out through the doors, Bridget stepped in front of me and blocked my path. I stopped in my tracks and cocked my head, waiting impatiently for whatever emergency she had manufactured.
“OK I forgive you,” she announced, leaning toward me.
“Ha!” I laughed and wiggled my eyebrows. Mission accomplished. “You like Peter well enough then?”
“Holy Christ that is the sexiest German accent I have ever heard,” she hissed in a low whisper, her eyes all wide and dramatic.
“Well, yeah… That’s because it’s Dutch,” I explained.
“I mean did you hear that?”
“I heard it.”
“It’s like sex on a cracker, Margot. It’s like fucking slippery manjuice--”
“Oh my god, stop.”
“And did you see him? He looks like the bad guy in that movie… uh…”
“Blade Runner?”
“No, the other movie.”
“I have no idea,” I admitted.
She caught her lower lip between her teeth, piercing the candy-coating of black cherry lipgloss. I had never seen her violate her own makeup before. This was serious.
“Ladyhawke!” she blurted out, pointing directly at my sternum.
“Uh… OK. I’m pretty sure Rutger Hauer is actually the hero of Ladyhawke, but whatever.”
“Whatever,” she agreed from a mental distance of about six miles. Her gaze swept the patio like a searchlight, finding Peter’s tall, broad presence just next to the wisteria trellis with Declan.
“Hey, are these bandage dresses, like, literally bandages?” I asked her distractedly. “I mean, is there a secret clasp to unravel you or whatever?”
“I am gonna climb him like a tree,” she whispered under her breath, then began walking away.