Georgie, All Along (34)

And that meant being friendly.

Not fluctuating-water-level, soft-bottom conditions fragile. By the time Micah and I had gotten spanner boards into our second frame, I’d decided on a plan: Apologize to Georgie and even things out with a dinner of my own. I’d told Micah we were stopping early, then I’d rounded up Hank—who’d been off and on trying to dig holes all day, even though he knows he’s not allowed—and gone to Nickel’s for groceries, attempting to act normal when Ernie took eight bucks off my bill.

So now I’m in it, the first part of my plan done, and that had gone all right after a bit of a rocky start. Part two is riskier. I’m a good cook, so that’s not the problem, but the citronella candle I lit on the outdoor table is giving me fits. I can’t take eating another meal in the warm closeness of that dining room, but the problem with outside is, the bug control we need makes the situation look more romantic than I intended. Plus, I can make the dinner, but then having it means more conversation, and obviously that’s where things went wrong last time.

Friendly, I tell myself. Not fragile.

While Georgie’s washing up, I make a couple of trips from the kitchen out to the back, laying out ingredients and getting Paul’s grill going. Back in the kitchen, I finish rolling out the dough I’ve made, shaping it the way I want. Georgie’s got good timing, coming back into the kitchen when I’m ready to transfer it outside, and I’m grateful to have cooking to focus on, because I still don’t feel all that friendly once I get a good look at her. She’s put her hair up high, but the pieces that are too short to stay up trail along her neck, which is circled with three thin gold necklaces of varying lengths, delicate overlays to the decoration already provided by her freckles. I was too nervous to notice what she was wearing when she got home, but I know it wasn’t this: a pair of faded, cropped jeans with holes in the knees and a thin, loose-fitting tank top that almost makes me swallow my own tongue. There’s nothing fancy about any of it, but that’s the problem. Around here, Georgie’s in her family home, comfortable and casual and soft, and it makes me hungry and desperate, a dog left out in a thunderstorm.

“Whatcha making?” she says, looking down at the trays I’m holding.

“Uh,” I say, dropping my eyes to remind myself, since my brain got wiped clean by her reappearance. “Pizza. On the grill.”

“Pizza on the grill!” It’s as though this is the most exciting thing she’s ever heard. I picture her out there in Los Angeles, surrounded by movie people, eating at the sorts of trendy restaurants I’ve never seen.

“Can I help with anything?”

I shake my head. “I’m all set, I think. You could get the door?” She leads the way back out, Hank beside her, and when she settles into one of the chairs, she makes a groaning noise of relief that reminds me of my own at the end of a workday, at least when I’m alone.

“Tough day?” I ask, checking the temperature of the grill.

It takes her a beat longer than I expect to answer, and my nerves kick at me. But I shouldn’t expect that she’d go right back to the way she was before because I’ve made a minor effort.

“Unplanned antiquing,” she finally says. “My friend found a hope chest that she wanted, and I had to do some heavy lifting.”

“She didn’t help?”

Georgie smiles. “Pregnant, remember?” She makes a gesture with her hand, a big, round belly gesture.

Now why am I thinking about Georgie pregnant? That’s not right. I turn back toward the grill.

“You might know her,” Georgie says, sparing me from having to think of a follow-up. “Annabel Reston? Well, Annabel Reston-Yoon, now. She grew up here, too.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh. Well, she and her husband bought a house over along Little Bay.”

I may not know the person, but I probably know the house. Little Bay’s a recent development in Darentville, a small number of large builds that made a big mess along the shore, hemmed in by a long retaining wall that’s got no kind of care for the plant and wildlife around here. I get calls every once in a while to come out for estimates on dock builds, but I’ve turned them all away, same as Carlos would have.

“I know the area,” is all I say.

“Honestly, I’m still pretty surprised by it,” she continues, as I set the dough on the grill, moving quickly to close the cover. “She and her husband both worked on the Hill for years; they had super-intense jobs. But, you know . . .” She stops, blows out a big, gusty sigh. “Reinvention! It’s the thing to do nowadays.”

I should say something, but I am suddenly acutely aware of the two minutes and thirty seconds I have before I need to flip the dough over. My dinner plan should have included opportunities for constant activity, to avoid this sort of thing. Suddenly Georgie’s mess-making seems more strategy than chaos.

“That what you’re doing?” I finally say.

She looks up at me, blinking those big brown eyes, and for a fleeting few seconds there’s a look on her face unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and that’s including the time I walked in on her in her underwear. She looks confused and lost and maybe a little afraid. I’d like to stick my head inside that grill at the sight of it.

“Moving back here, I mean,” I add, because I’m trying to make it smaller, more specific. I’m trying to get that look off her face.