She hurried upstairs again, looked in the mirror in her bathroom, combed her hair, pulled it back and tied it with a white satin ribbon, and then she slipped on a white lace Mexican dress she and Steven had bought on a trip to Acapulco. It was pretty and feminine and easy to wear, and hid the tiny bulge that didn't show but made it difficult to wear slacks or jeans now. But it still didn't show in her dresses. She put on silver sandals and big dangly silver earrings. She hesitated for just a moment before she went back downstairs. What if they all had dates, or if she didn't know anyone at all? But even if he had a date, at least she knew Bill Thigpen, and he was always easygoing and friendly. She went downstairs then, and a moment later, she was hovering at the edge of the crowd near one of the big picnic tables where the food was laid out. There were groups of people clustered everywhere, laughing and chatting and telling stories, some were sitting near the pool, with their plates on their laps, or drinking wine, or just relaxing and enjoying the party. Everyone looked as though they were having a good time, and standing at the barbecue in a red-and-white-striped shirt and white pants and a blue apron over them was Bill Thigpen.
Adrian hesitated, watching him, he was handing out steaks with a professional air, and chatting with everyone as they came and went, but he seemed to be alone, not that it really mattered. And she realized then that she didn't even know if he had a girlfriend, not that it really made any difference. But somehow she had assumed that he wasn't involved with anyone. He had always seemed so unencumbered. She walked slowly over to him, and his face broke into a broad smile as he saw her. He took it all in, the white lace dress, the shiny dark hair, her big blue eyes, she looked beautiful, and he was thrilled to see her. He felt like a kid, with a crush on a neighborhood girl. You didn't see her for weeks, and then suddenly you turn a corner, and there she is, looking gorgeous and you feel like a fool, stumbling all over yourself, and then she's gone again, and your whole world is over, until you meet again. Lately, he'd been beginning to feel as though his whole life, or the only worthwhile part of it, was just a series of chance meetings.
“Hi, there!” He blushed, and hoped she thought it was the heat of the barbecue. He wasn't sure why, but she was the first married woman he'd ever had a serious crush on. And it wasn't just that he liked looking at her. He liked talking to her too. The worst of it was that he liked everything about her. “Did you bring your friends?”
“They called at the last minute and said they couldn't make it.” She told the lie with ease, and looked up at him happily as he watched her.
“I'm glad … I mean …yeah, actually, I am glad.” And then he pointed to the meat he was cooking. “What can I do for you? Hot dog, hamburger, steak? I recommend the steaks myself.” He tried to cover what he felt with ordinary pastimes, like cooking dinner. He really did feel like a kid every time he saw her. But so did she. And the funny thing was, all she wanted to do was talk to him. He was always so easy to be with and to talk to.
She had been dying for a hamburger a few minutes ago, but suddenly the steaks looked terrific. “I'll have a steak please. Rare.”
“Coming right up. There's lots of other stuff over there on the table. Fourteen different kinds of salad, some kind of cold soufflé, cheese, Nova Scotia salmon, I don't do anything with that stuff. I'm the barbecue specialist, but go take a look and by the time you get back, I'll have your steak for you.” She did, and he noticed that she had piled her plate with the salads and shrimp and other things she had found at the buffet table. She had a healthy appetite, which was surprising, given how thin she was. She was obviously very athletic.
He put the steak on her plate, offered her some wine, which she declined, and she went to sit near the pool, and he hoped she'd still be there by the time he finished cooking. It was half an hour later when he finally decided he'd done his bit, everyone had been served, and most of the guests had had seconds. Another man, from a condo near his, offered to take over for him, and Bill gladly accepted and went to find Adrian, happily polishing off dessert, as she sat quietly by herself, listening to the people chatting around her.
“How was it? It couldn't have been too bad.” The steak had disappeared, along with everything else she'd had on her plate. She looked embarrassed and laughed self-consciously.
“It was delicious. And I was starving.”
“Good. I hate to cook for people who don't eat. Do you like to cook?” He was curious about her, what she was like, what she did, how happy she was with her husband. It shouldn't have mattered to him, but it did.He could hear alarm bells go off in his head, and he was telling himself to stop, but another, stronger, voice told him not to.
“Sometimes. I'm not very good. I don't have much time to cook.” And no one to cook for. Now, at least. But Steven wasn't much of an eater anyway. He had always preferred just making a salad.
“Not if you do both shows on the evening news. Do you come home between shows?” He wanted to know everything about her.
“Most of the time. Unless there's something really dramatic going on and I can't get out between shows. But generally I come home around seven and go back around ten or ten-thirty. Then I'm home again around midnight.”
“I know.” He smiled. That was usually when they ran into each other in the Safeway.
“You must keep pretty long hours too.” She smiled. She was toying with the apple pie on her plate, embarrassed to devour it while he watched her.
“I do. Some nights I just sleep on the couch at the office.” It made him great company, as any number of women would have been happy to tell her. “Our scripts change so fast sometimes, it shifts everyone's position in the show. It's kind of a ripple effect, and sometimes it's difficult to keep up with. But it's fun too. You ought to see the show sometime.” It sounded like fun to her and they talked about the show for a while, how it had started in New York ten years ago, and eventually he had moved it to California. “The hardest thing about coming out here was leaving my boys,” he said quietly. “They're such great kids. And I really miss them.” He had talked about them before, but there was still a lot about them she didn't know, just as there was about their father.