I'm Glad About You(26)

“You look fantastic,” she said.

“Well, you look like a scared rabbit,” he told her, with a superior glint in his eye. He kissed her on the cheek, lingering just a second too long.

“I don’t know what you mean by that.”

“What do I mean by ‘scared rabbit’? I mean ‘delicious,’ Alison; you look good enough to eat. The boots are a terrific touch and they make you nice and tall. Well done. Now, let’s get this over with.” He put his arm around her shoulder and steered her straight into the heart of the crowd.

“Do you think I could take my coat off and get a drink, Dennis?” Alison laughed. Her heart was literally pounding; she could hear the blood in her ears.

“Absolutely, give me that, and what would you like?” He peeled her coat deftly off her shoulders and draped it over his arm. “Van, you have to meet Alison! Alison Moore, this is Van. Evangeline Wallace, she’s Kyle’s wife, and she took Kyle’s name, isn’t that right, Van? Sorry, Evangeline.” Alison stared. She had had no idea, honestly, that the interloper wife was standing there, right in front of her.

“You can call me Van,” Van laughed. She had a perfect laugh, silvery, delightful.

“Yes, but why would you, if the real thing is Evangeline! Isn’t it fantastic, Al, someone in Illinois actually named their kid Evangeline.”

“Well, I wasn’t born in Illinois! We’re really transplanted Southerners,” Evangeline declared cheerfully. “My mother is from Louisiana.” She reached out and shook Alison’s hand. Alison shook it back, nodded politely, and hoped that her smile was coming off better than it felt like. She couldn’t believe it. Evangeline, or Van, or whatever her name was, was no taller than five foot one, and she had a perfect little peach of a figure. Her skin was a creamy kind of pink, and she had startling blue eyes, a blue so dark it looked like a lake in the mountains in the winter. Her mouth was wide and delicate with a crazy fullness in the middle where the upper lip parted from the lower with an unconsciously lovely lift. This chick was a total blonde cupcake. Alison knew that’s what men wanted, how could you not know, just growing up in America, that every boy out there innately just wanted some sweet little blonde thing to smile up at him, but Kyle? That’s what Kyle wanted, too?

“I’ve really been looking forward to meeting you,” Alison told her, with what she hoped sounded like sincerity. “I’m an old friend of Kyle’s.”

“Of course I know who you are!” Van smiled. “I’ve heard all about you!”

“Nothing too bad, I hope!”

“Not at all. Everyone was so excited when you were on that television show. That must have been so exciting for you.”

“It was nerve-wracking, but fun.”

“Well, everyone in Cincinnati was talking about it, it seemed like. We were so sorry to miss it. We were having dinner with Kyle’s parents and his mom was worried it might be too violent. And who can blame her! It’s awful, some of the things they put on television, just ridiculous anymore.”

Alison blinked. This last zinger was clearly an uncalled-for dig, although who was kidding who? They both were expected to hate each other on sight, and they most certainly did. She was just stunned that a total stranger would feel free to haul out big moralistic guns about what Alison was doing for a living within the first thirty seconds of conversation. Dennis, watching the whole thing, was practically licking his chops.

“Where is Kyle?” he asked. “I thought he was here a second ago.”

“Oh, he went to get me a club soda,” Van explained.

“A club soda? You’re not drinking?” Dennis raised that eyebrow again. It was starting to look like he practiced it, in the mirror.

“No, I’m not.”

“It’s a Christmas party, you don’t want even a glass of wine?”

“No thanks.” Her tone was deliberately blank, as if she were landing the words without intent.

“Why, Van, you sly puss.” Dennis focused his attention on her with a sudden glee.

“What is that supposed to mean, Dennis?” she countered. “You are always acting like you know some big secret.”

“Do you have a big secret?”

“If I did, I certainly would not tell you.”

“I’ll just get it out of Kyle.”

“You will not, because maybe Kyle doesn’t know.”

“Then there is a big secret.”

“There’s always a big secret.”

“Not this big.”

“Stop it, Dennis. You’re terrible. Where is Kyle?” Van arched her neck toward the light, as she looked around with eager delight, trying to spot Kyle in the crowd. Alison knew the whole performance was for her benefit, and in a swift moment of clarity she found it terrifically unfair, that they both thought it so clever to torture her this way. She had never done anything to Dennis worse than refuse to hook up with him while she was in love with the boy he proclaimed was his best friend. And this Van, Kyle’s new wife? Alison had never done anything to her at all. Yet here they were, performing an excruciating opera—which centered on the pain they must be causing her—solely for their own amusement.

“I’m sorry,” she said, suddenly and completely at the end of her emotional rope. “I’m going to go get myself a drink.”