On Turpentine Lane(47)

After the RSVP deadline had passed, Stuart sent a reminder, asking whether I was attending and was I bringing a guest. No and no, I e-mailed. Only then did he plead his case: that he and Brooke didn’t know many people in Everton, and could I please put our differences aside and come? Nick hadn’t RSVP’d, either. Could I tell him the same thing: guests needed.

When I relayed Stuart’s message across the office, Nick said, “I have zero interest in doing Brooke the favor of making her party not a bust.”

I asked, “Do those double negatives add up to a yes or a no?”

“A no. N-O.”

“Me, too,” I said, returning to the list of names needing to be thanked for end-of-year donations. “What do I say to someone I happen to know has a summer home on Martha’s Vineyard and a ski lodge in Stowe, and donates twenty-five dollars?” I asked. Without waiting for an answer, I narrated, pretending to write, “Dear Cheapskate, Are you kidding? Twenty-five dollars? Why even bother? Homeless alums give more than you do. Sincerely yours, Faith Frankel, Director of Stewardship.”

And suddenly there was Reggie at our open door. His eavesdropping had become chronic since Nick moved to 10 Turpentine, when, conscious of appearances and without consulting each other, we’d been keeping our office door conspicuously open.

“Whoa,” Reggie said. “You can’t write that!”

“I can’t? Oh, dear. I always say that if the donation is two figures.”

“They deserve it,” Nick said. “Twenty-five lousy bucks? Who needs ’em?”

“But, but—we never call our donors cheapskates! We don’t question the amount of their contribution. No matter the size of the check, it’s good for our yield.”

I fluttered the blank notecard in the air. “Reggie? Seriously? Do you really think I’d write that? Or—just maybe—could I have been kidding?”

He walked over to my desk and pawed through a few blank notecards. I gave his hand a light slap. “Do you mind? I was joking!”

Of course, he had to say that he knew it was a joke, knew I had to be kidding. Ha, good one!

“In that case, you’ll excuse me while I get back to thanking”—glancing at the top name on my to-do list—“Tanner Rowland for his generous gift to his beloved alma mater.”

Reggie still didn’t move. “Now that there’s nothing to worry about,” I said, “you can amscray.”

He glanced Nick’s way then back to me. “You two have some kind of holiday party you’re going to? Not our department party. I mean, a private one?”

“Very private,” I said.

“Which I’m skipping,” said Nick.

“Did I hear ‘open house’? Like you can bring a guest?”

“I’m not going,” I said. “He’s not going,” pointing at Nick. “So you can hardly be a plus-one.”

“Who’s throwing it? Anyone I know? Alums?”

“No,” said Nick.

“Is it the kind of party where an invitation is transferable?”

“Doubt it,” I said.

“Whose party again?”

“You don’t know them,” said Nick.

Case closed, topic moot, I granted, “Stuart Levine and Brooke somebody.”

“Stuart and Brooke?” Reggie repeated. “I know those names.”

I pointed to the wall where the map of the continental United States once hung. “He’s the friend whose walk across the country I was tracking.”

“Friend? Aren’t you going to marry the guy?”

“Not anymore.”

Nick said, “She realized around Illinois that it wasn’t meant to be.”

“And why does the name Brooke ring a bell?” Reggie asked.

Nick shrugged. I shrugged. At this social dead end, Reggie returned to his default jock goofiness. “Your good friend here, Mr. Can’t Make a Save to Save His Life, allowed four goals last night.”

“Do I care?” said Nick. “I shouldn’t be in the net anyway.”

“C’mon. Two more games. You’re no quitter. You just need to focus.” Then, fond as he always was of his coach mode, Reggie turned back to me. “None of my business, Frankel, but here’s what I’m thinkin’: you should go to that party.”

“Really? Why is that?”

“Don’t make me say it,” said Reggie.

“Not ‘do it for the school’ so I can network there?”

He lowered his voice. “Seriously. Do you get out? Do you go to parties? Lots of people call off weddings and they move on. Would a little social life kill you? I mean, if you went to a party, you might—you know—meet someone.”

“Is that how you met the nonexistent Mrs. O’Sullivan?”

“I’m a guy. We do just fine.”

I looked over to see if Nick had heard. His face and posture registered nothing but full attention to fund-raising.

I said to Reggie, “Surely you know you’re not supposed to ask me about my personal life. And, just for the record, I go to plenty of parties. Have I missed one single reunion gala or trustees’ cocktail party?”

Reggie said, “That’s not partying. That’s work. We don’t even drink at those things.”