Always the Last to Know(76)

Then she straightened up. “Got a minute?”

“You betcha!” I said. Sometimes my mother’s Minnesotan accent just popped out of me.

Gillian was dressed in a red pencil skirt, a pretty white peasant blouse and a brown suede jacket I wanted to marry. I was dressed in yesterday’s jeans and a shirt I swiped from Oliver. She had that walk that some women have . . . the swaying, the grace, the somewhat arrogant stride that said, “Yes, I’m really this pretty.”

“My house is under construction, so it’s probably best if we sit out here. Um, hang on, I’ll grab a chair.”

I only had one, so I graciously gave it to her, then leaned tentatively against my decrepit railing, hoping it would hold me. It did. “Uh . . . that dinner party the other night . . . I hope it wasn’t too horrible.”

“Oh, it was,” she said. “Your mother is wonderful, though. Such an impressive woman. I don’t think she remembered Noah and I were . . . together once. It’s fine.”

“Mickey’s pretty great, though, don’t you think?” I asked. “I love her. Breast is best for baby, right? Funny that both you and I probably once thought we . . . Mickey, though, huh? She’s so open and fun and . . .” My hands flailed for something. “Yeah. Just great. Sense of humor. She’s very honest.” Stop talking. Stop talking.

Gillian stared at me. She took a breath, then exhaled through her nostrils in a very evil-Disney-villain kind of way. “I don’t know if I should tell you this, but my therapist recommended it.”

Fuck. I had been discussed in therapy. That was never a good sign. “Okay. Fire away.”

“I obviously have . . . feelings . . . regarding you, since Noah . . . well. That’s neither here nor there.”

Since Noah what? “Mm-hm.” Traitorous Pepper put her head on Gillian’s lap and gazed at her adoringly.

“So. I’m going to tell you this only because I feel it’s the right thing to do. Not because I’m trying to make trouble or because I’m jealous of you. I have a very strong working relationship with your mother and the entire board of selectmen, and I don’t want that to jeopardize—”

“Just spit it out, Gillian. It’s fine. Go ahead.”

Another breath. “You’re dating Alexander Mitchum, correct?”

“Yep.”

“Your mother told me you’d been seeing each other a couple of years.”

“Correct.”

“I mentioned at the dinner party that he and I had met last spring at a yacht christening.”

I suddenly had a bad feeling about this. “Uh-huh.”

She looked at me, her red-painted lips tight. “He made a pretty hard pass at me.”

“Oh.” My eyelids seemed to be blinking too fast. “Uh . . . are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Last . . . last spring.”

“Yes. May seventeenth. I checked my planner.”

“And by ‘hard pass,’ what are we talking about? Because he’s nice to everyone, and you know, schmoozing is part of his—”

“He pressed me against a wall, kissed my neck and asked me if I wanted to spend the night at the Madison Beach Hotel with him.”

Oh, the fuckery.

“That is a pass. Okay. Yep. You’re right.” I felt a little dizzy.

“And when I said no, he told me I didn’t know what I was missing. He gave me his room key and told me I should change my mind so he could rock my world.”

“Dick move.” I swallowed.

“I thought so.”

My legs felt weak, so I sat down, my knees wobbling like a newborn foal’s. My breathing sounded funny. Too loud.

Rock your world. He’d said that to me on more than one occasion. Want to come back to my place so I can rock your world? I thought he meant it to be funny, and I always laughed.

And last May—I remembered it was May because of the lilacs—he’d called me and told me to take the train up to Madison. Spur of the moment, he said, because it had been late in the day on Saturday. We’d have fun. And I did, and we did, and I’d been his second choice. At least his second choice, because who knows if he’d made that offer to someone else at the yacht christening party?

“Look,” Gillian said, and her voice was gentler now. “I’m sorry to tell you this. I know it must seem like I’m trying to get revenge because of Noah, but I’m not. I just thought I’d want to know if my boyfriend made a pass at someone else.”

“No, I appreciate it,” I whispered.

“Do you want a glass of water?”

“No, thanks.” Pepper left Gillian and came over to me and tried to sit on my lap.

“Do you want to call someone, maybe? Your sister? Mom?”

I blinked. Put my chin on Pepper’s head, getting my ear licked as thanks. “I’m okay, Gillian. I . . . I appreciate you telling me this.”

She stood up, smoothed her skirt and walked past me on the steps. “I love your jacket,” I whispered.

She put her hand on my shoulder. “In another world, we’d probably be friends.”

Would we? “Drive safely. Bye.”

She strode to her car, hips swaying the perfect amount, got in and gave me a little finger wave.