And with what she’d been overhearing from Robyn, the evening was not even close to over. Maybe someday they’d laugh about this. At Gracie’s wedding, maybe, they could all swap teasing stories about the night she’d brought Jake to meet Melissa, and how Gracie and Lewis had kept a table full of grown-ups waiting. The night Gracie wasn’t missing, they could call it. The stuff of family lore.
“Sorry, Jane, I have to go.” Jake was talking to her again, his voice almost a whisper. He bent low, his face touching hers, his hair against her cheek, a moment that made her eyes involuntarily close with the intimacy.
She turned to face him, her back to Robyn, and for a moment covering Jake’s hand with hers.
“Everything all right?” she murmured. Though obviously it wasn’t.
“Yeah. I’ll call you,” he said, matching her tone. “As soon as I can. Sorry to leave you with this.” He kept his hand on her shoulder, squeezed, briefly. Gently. “Whatever it is. Is the Gracie situation okay?”
“Seems like it, from what I heard Robyn say,” Jane said. “See? She’s smiling. And she’s off the phone.”
“Love you,” he whispered.
“You, too,” she said. And everything would be fine. It would. Somehow. The night Gracie wasn’t missing.
“Sorry, Robyn. Sorry, Melissa,” Jake was saying. Jane felt his hand leave her shoulder, felt him straighten up. He raised his cell phone in explanation. “Got a call from HQ. I’m going to have to miss dinner. I hope we can do it again before-”
At that moment, Melissa had nudged an elbow into Jane’s side. Jane turned to her sister, frowning. What?
Melissa rolled her eyes for a fraction of a second, an expression Jane recognized from more than thirty years of interpreting Lissa’s silent communications.
“So please give my best to Gracie and Lewis when they-” Jake continued.
Melissa shot a brief but withering glance at Robyn and her phone. Listen to this.
“They’re not coming,” Robyn said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Lewis is such an idiot.”
There’s a portrait of a happy marriage, Jake thought. He paused, his mind already out the door, knowing DeLuca and the unconscious Bobby Land waited for him at MGH but unable to think of a way to leave after Robyn’s surprising statement. If she called her husband an idiot, that meant he and Gracie weren’t in danger. Jake had handled enough family squabbles, mediated enough he said/she saids to gauge when things were going bad. From what he saw right now, this one seemed low level. A flat tire, a missed communication, an unpredictable and self-centered mother who wanted attention. He did not envy this Lewis guy, who had to live with that and a preadolescent stepdaughter about to be relocated halfway across the country. Tough for any family to handle. But even the most complicated families often worked out their own issues. And he had to get to MGH and Bobby Land.
“Everything okay?” Jake directed his question at Robyn. “I need to-”
“Yes, I suppose.” Robyn smoothed one darkened eyebrow, then gave him a weak smile, fussing with her sweater. “I’m sorry, I’m just frazzled, I don’t mean Lewis is actually an idiot-” She shrugged. “The tire’s still not fixed. They said we should just go on with dinner. Make the best of it.”
“So…” Jake took a step closer to the door. Good news, have fun, adios?
“Duty calls, Jake, I understand. Now, wine for everyone.” Robyn waggled her fingers in the air, gesturing for the waiter. “Girls’ night out.”
Jake hesitated, eyeing Jane, but she waved him away, shaking her head, then mimed for him to call her. Okay, then. He was excused.
“Bye,” he said. “Again, sorry. Call me if you need anything.” And he was outta there. Poor Jane. He was semi leaving her in the lurch, with the mercurial Robyn and the officious Melissa. Not the most successful introduction to Jane’s sister. But duty did call. And he felt guilty for welcoming it.
24
Lewis is such an idiot? Jane winced at the disrespectful and inappropriate statement. Robyn probably meant it to be funny, but it wasn’t, especially not after what she’d put them through with this on-again, off-again ordeal. It wasn’t a loving remark in any way. She wished Jake were still there, but he clearly needed to go. Was there some breaking news she was missing?
Now there were four empty places at the table, and three women who sat silent, watching the waiter pour a California red.
Robyn raised her glass, toasting. “To parenthood,” she said. “Never a dull moment. Now, where’s my menu? I’m starving.”
Ow. Melissa had kicked her under the table. Jane could see she was trying to hide her disdain as she raised her glass as well. Jane nudged her in return, sisterly solidarity.
Jane swallowed her first sip of wine. Thinking. First, Melissa had called her, somewhat upset, saying Gracie was missing. Then she wasn’t. Then she was. Then she wasn’t, she was with Lewis and the flat tire. Now she still wasn’t, although the flat was complicated by some car problem and they wouldn’t arrive for dinner. Jane scratched her cheek with one finger. What would she do in the same situation?
“So, Robyn?” Jane didn’t want to overstep any boundaries, but they were almost family. “Would you like me to go pick up Gracie and Lewis? They could leave the car, and someone could take Lewis to get it in the morning.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Melissa said. “Why should they have to wait in some bleak garage? Poor Gracie must be-”
“Oh, thank you, Jane, but they’re fine. Lewis is always making ridiculous decisions. Probably why he’s out of a job now, right?” Robyn ignored Melissa, directed her words to Jane. “In fact, he says Gracie’s scarfed down a package of Twizzlers and an orange soda, and she’s zonked out, sleeping off her sugar high on the waiting room couch. She adores Twizzlers. She’ll do anything for them.”
She laughed. “Lewis says they’re fine. He’s probably worrying now, stalling, because he knows how unhappy I’ll be.” She took another sip, bigger, and Jane saw a frown cross her face. “And he’s right. My daughter was gone for, what, four hours? Five? I was completely-well, anyway. You can imagine. Should we order?”
Jane moved her fork back and forth across the tablecloth, twisting it between two fingers. This was the woman who’d been so upset a few hours ago. Now she sipped wine while her husband and daughter ate candy in a local garage at nine at night. Probably a good thing Melissa and Daniel would soon have Gracie for part of the year. Give the kid a little normal.
One way, then the other. Jane watched the fork make disappearing grooves on the little patch of tablecloth. Robyn was holding forth about some problem Lewis was having, chatty and blithe, as if the episode of the “missing” daughter and husband never occurred.
Something was not right about all this.
The waiter arrived, interrupting Robyn’s monologue, to take their orders. The woman was a talker. As any reporter knew, sometimes that was a good thing.
“Robyn?” Jane returned the puffy leatherette menu, then smiled, attentive and oh so friendly. “How did you and Lewis meet?”
Robyn leaned forward, eyes sparkling, taking center stage. “Well,” she began, “long story short. After the divorce…”
Long story short always meant the opposite, but Jane kept a smile on her face, as with much fluffing of hair and gesturing of hands Robyn spilled her entire history as a divorcee.
“Daniel and I just fell out of love, I guess,” she said. Then a year or so of regrouping, “a single mother doesn’t have the easiest time, but we made do.” And her foray into online dating-“Can you believe it?”-ending up with the “steady and reliable” Lewis Wilhoite. Who she’d known “for years” and reconnected with online.