When she pulled up fifteen minutes later, I was sitting on the front steps, dry-eyed in the dark. Connor hadn’t come looking for me. But Nell Ford must’ve been watching from the window. As I walked down the driveway, the front door flew open, and she rushed past me, bearing down on my poor grandmother.
“Jean Parker, I need a word with you.”
Grandma Jean got out of the car and met her with shoulders squared. They had it out right there on the front lawn, loud enough to wake the neighbors. Grandma Jean stood up for me, and told Mrs. Ford to look after her grandchildren, who everybody knew ran wild all over town. It was hardly a fair fight. The next day, I was let go from the club. Grandma Jean got an official reprimand in her file for inappropriate conduct toward a member. Later that year, when layoffs came, the blot on her record gave them an excuse to fire her. As for Connor, he called the next day to apologize. When I wouldn’t come to the phone, he kept calling, until he gave up and wrote me a letter. When I didn’t answer that, he wrote again. I burned the letters unopened. Eventually, he stopped writing.
I didn’t see him again until he walked into the Baldwin Grill on Memorial Day weekend, thirteen years later.
6
Tabitha
Memorial Day weekend, present day
Those eyes.
I felt dizzy. I had to grab the back of the empty chair across from him to steady myself. I took a breath. Connor looked shocked. Then he looked transported. His cheeks flushed, his eyes widened, he shook his head slightly. He broke into a huge grin. That sparkling, ravishing smile that I’d never managed to forget, hard as I tried.
“Tabby. It’s you, right? How incredible to find you here,” he said, and laughed out loud.
Connor’s smile was as beautiful and carefree as I remembered—white teeth, crinkles around the eyes, a dimple in his cheek. He had the sort of smile that makes a young girl fall in love. Or a grown woman. All I know is, my stomach fluttered the way it had the very first time I saw him. Which scared me. Every time I saw his picture online, it threw me for days. What would a real-life encounter do to me?
I was speechless, and my silence confused him.
“Wait, you do remember me?” he said, looking worried.
“I’m just—shocked.”
“You scared me there for a minute. I thought maybe you forgot.”
“Never.”
The silence lengthened as we gazed at each other.
“You look amazing,” he said.
“You look even better. Marriage agrees with you, I guess.”
“You know about that?”
“The whole world knows, Connor. You’re famous.”
“She’s famous. I’m just Mr. Nina Levitt.”
I nodded at the empty seat across the table from his. “Would you prefer to wait for her to place your drink order?”
“Huh?”
Only then did his gaze take in my white shirt and black pants—the typical waitstaff uniform—and the pitcher of water in my hand.
“You work here.”
“I do,” I said, in as cool a tone as I could muster.
My cheeks felt hot as I filled his water glass. We’d never been equals. But now the gap between us was wider than ever.
“Can I start you with a cocktail? Or, would you prefer to wait for your wife?”
It was his turn to flush. “She’s not coming. This is a solo trip.”
“All right, then. What can I get you to drink?”
“Uh, Hendrick’s and tonic?”
“Certainly.”
“Hey, no, wait. Can we start over? Please, sit down for a few minutes. I’d love to catch up.”
“I’m sorry, that’s not possible when I’m working.”
“Quickly, then—give me the basics.”
He touched the empty spot on my left ring finger where my hand clutched the chair back.
“You’re not married, I see,” he said.
The way my body reacted to his touch—that unnerved me. I took a step back.
“I was. I’m divorced.”
“Children?”
“No.”
“Me, neither. It’s funny, whenever I think about you—”
He paused. My heart skipped a beat.
“You think about me?”
“I envision you with a minivan full of kids. You always wanted a big family.”
“I was an only, remember? I wanted what I never had. Your family seemed so jolly.”
“Jolly, no. We were crazy.”
“Hah, you said it, not me. Still, I was jealous. I remember you wanted kids, too.”
We’d talked about that, once, lying in the grass out on the golf course under a sky full of stars. Not how many kids we each wanted, but how many we would have together. Boys, girls, what we’d name them.
“I’m so glad you’re still here at Baldwin Lake,”he said.
“That makes one of us.”
“But otherwise, I never would have found you.”
He gazed up at me intently. The moment seemed to stretch out in time. Back to the past, off to the future, like we were picking up where we’d left off. But that wasn’t possible.
“I, um. I have tables waiting. I’ll be back with your cocktail.”
I turned and walked away, hurrying to the bar where my friend Matt was on duty.
Matt looked like a biker, with a shaved head, a bushy beard, and sleeve tattoos, but he was the kindest soul I knew. He noticed me and came over.
“It’s crazy out there tonight. Holding up okay?” he asked.
“Ugh. An ex showed up and knocked the wind out of me.”
“Not Derek?” Matt asked, looking alarmed. “I thought you said he moved to Florida.”
Derek was my ex-husband.
“He did, thank God. No, this is someone I dated years ago.”
“Is he bothering you?”
“Just making me sad. I was crazy about him, and it didn’t end well. Now he’s rich as God, and I’m old and pathetic.”
“Old? What are you, like, twenty-two?” he said.
I noticed he didn’t dispute the second half of my statement.
Matt slapped a shot glass down in front of me and poured out a finger of expensive tequila. “This is good for what ails you.”
I wasn’t a big drinker, but if I didn’t take the edge off my feelings, I wouldn’t get through the night. I knocked the shot back.
“Another.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You sure?”
“This guy broke my heart, Matt.”
He refilled the glass. The second shot did the trick. A comforting layer of gauze dropped over the room. I placed the drink order and went off to the kitchen to collect waiting entrees.
By the time I got around to delivering Connor’s drink, I was surprised to see that a woman had joined him at his table. She was pretty, with shiny dark hair, wearing a flowy dress. They leaned toward one another, talking intently. She definitely was not his wife, whose picture I’d seen many times. Nina Levitt was older than this woman and had famously red hair. The flame-haired Nina Levitt, or “Titian-haired,” they said in the press. Titian was an artist who liked to paint pictures of women with red hair. I knew this because I’d looked it up. He was before Nina’s time or else I’m sure he would’ve painted her.