Evvie Drake Starts Over(59)

She went back into the bathroom and took out her little makeup bag. Foundation would be too much; she’d look made-up. She wasn’t sure Dean had ever seen her in a whole made-up face before; what if he thought it was weird? She was pretty sure this was a sex date; what if something got on the pillow? How old was this bottle, anyway? No, no, just a little powder and a little blush, and a little mascara. Oh lord, how old was this mascara? She probably shouldn’t use it, because she had definitely not bought mascara since her husband died (a handy but grim way to date her perishables), but she dabbed it on anyway and promised internally that she would buy new eye makeup before the next time she had sex.

“I’m an adult woman,” she said to herself in the mirror. “This is stupid.”

She wandered downstairs and into the living room, where she plunked down on her sofa and pulled the Sports Illustrated out of the pile of magazines next to her. She noticed that, up in the corner, there was a little square of the photo of Dean and Marco chest-bumping, and a headline across the top that said, “Not So Fast: Is There Life in Baseball’s Exiled ‘Head Case’?”

   She found the little article inside, which included a shot of Dean sitting in the dugout three years earlier. His elbow rested on his knee, his cap was in his hand, there was a little bit of sweat on his forehead. She leaned down close to it to look at his eyes. The piece referred to him as “troubled” and “once-brilliant” and “dynamic.” Searching his face, having known him for all these months, Eveleth could think only about how hot he was.

Oh, boy, he was hot. He was…he was smart, and he was sharp and funny, and he’d been so kind to her, and he was a good tenant, and he was a good ballplayer, and he was good with Andy’s kids and Andy’s mom and Eveleth’s dad. He was supportive of the town, and he had helped Evvie’s neighbors shovel their driveways once when it snowed a foot and a half overnight in January. He made good French toast (his new specialty) and a solid grilled cheese, and he was…well, he was getting better at pinball. But God almighty, he was hot. When he’d kissed her the other day, it was like everything between her chest and her knees made that noise she’d made when he showed her his tattoo: that noise, buuuuuuuh.

She went into the kitchen and took down a bottle of wine that she’d picked up the day before while driving back from Catherine’s (which she’d been calling Catherine’s House of Presentable Brassieres in her head for the last twenty-four hours). She peeled away the foil and dug out her corkscrew. It took a little wiggling, but she got it open and glugged a little into a glass. She was leaning on the sink, the glass to her mouth, when she heard the key in the side door. It swung open and he stepped in with a duffel on his shoulder.

“Hey,” he said with a grin. “You look cute. Ready to go?”



* * *



—

They drove about an hour and a half, until they pulled up in front of the Stafford Hotel, tucked into one of the high-end coastal pockets of wealth nestled in between the working marinas and former factory towns. Inside, the hotel restaurant was quiet and dark, but not stuffy, and they slid into a dark-leather booth. “This is nice,” Evvie said. “Who hooked you up with this place?”

   “You know how I hate the Internet?”

Evvie nodded. “I know it well, yes.”

“It’s pretty good at restaurants.”

A waitress dropped off menus. “I have to ask you,” Evvie said, “whether it’s a coincidence that this restaurant is in a hotel.”

Dean squinted at her for a minute. “I have no idea what you’re implying.”

There was bread on the table, and some kind of acoustic indie music hanging in the cozy and mostly empty dining room. And as she dipped a hunk of bread in olive oil, he poured her a glass of red wine from the bottle he’d asked for. “So school’s almost over,” she said. “Are you sad it’s ending?”

“Very,” he said. “Did I tell you that Krista Cassidy is going to Purdue on a track scholarship? I ran into her the other day and asked her how she was, and she lays this on me. I never liked high school kids when I was one, but I’m going to miss these guys.”

“Well, they’ll get to tell everyone they know you, which I have a feeling is going to become a pretty good perk.”

Dean raised his glass. “Okay. To…all the great things we’re going to do.”

Her glass dinged against his and they drank. “And to the fact that if modern technology helped you find dinner, it can’t be all bad. Maybe you’ll invent a restaurant-finding app for people who don’t want to run into anyone they know.”

“God, please punch me if I ever tell you I want to build an app. Punch me if I tell you I want to give somebody else money for an app. Or a start-up of any kind. My dad made me promise I wouldn’t give any more money to anybody in a hoodie.”

“Why?”

“I used to be a real sucker for guys who were going to make the world better. No-carbon-footprint vegan chicken tenders, recycling plastic bottles into raincoats, just…you name a guy whose fuckin’ tech idea has a green logo or whose business plan says he can turn shit into not-shit, and I probably gave him money.”

   “Why?”

“It beat buying cars. It was a different time, I guess.”