Free Losing Charlotte by Heather Clay Page B

tainted and foolish because Jeb had claimed it first, because he couldn’t imagine it ever being returned, because he sat in a tuxedo, implicated in the mindless party that jumped all around them.
    “That’s okay,” Bruce said, sounding more forceful than he’d meant to. “I changed my mind.”
    “He wants a Dewar’s and water for himself and one for me,” Jeb said. “Christ, you’re a work of art.”
    The girl ignored him.
    “I just work for the caterer,” she said to Bruce. “So you’ll have to go to the bar yourself. Sorry.” She shifted her posture; Bruce perceived a mild bovine cast, a heaviness, in her lower body that only seemed to underscore her … grace. Grace was what it was.
    “No problem,” Bruce said. “I’m sorry we bothered you.”
    “We’ll pay you,” Jeb said. “I’ll pay you whatever you want.”
    “You didn’t really bother me,” she said. “We’re about to set up coffee over there, if you’re interested in that. Maybe your friend could use some.”
    “Okay.”
    “Hello. Over here . What color underwear are you wearing?” Jeb said.
    The girl kept her eyes trained on Bruce, and smiled. She took her time with the smile, letting it spread over her face in degrees.Bruce felt himself smiling back. She knows, he thought. She knows what kind of effect she has. She likes it. Well, good for her.
    “Bye,” she said, and walked away. Her walk was heavy but sure. Bruce noticed that her long feet, in their flat, lace-up shoes, toed in a bit.
    “That’s all right, baby,” Jeb said. “Your ass is a little too full figure for my taste anyway, now that I’ve seen it up close.”
    Bruce sighed. “She can’t hear you.”
    Jeb said nothing. He picked up a cloth napkin and wiped at his forehead with it, letting his eyes close.
    They watched the dancers for a few minutes. Bruce drummed his fingers on the tablecloth through the whole of “Proud Mary.” As he watched the waitress setting out mugs next to a huge silver urn at the other end of the ballroom, he realized that a small happiness was taking hold somewhere within his chest, maybe his rib cage. It was opening, like a tiny flower.
    “I’m sorry,” Jeb said during a pause between songs. “I drink too much.”
    Bruce looked at him. It seemed unbelievable that he had forgotten Jeb’s presence for even a second.
    “Champagne and Scotch—plus a couple beers before the ceremony. Bad combination. The champagne at these things always gets me.”
    “Yes,” Bruce said.
    Jeb watched him. His lashes, almost transparently blond, seemed to reflect light. The sheen of sweat on his face tinted his skin a pale, lambent green, and Bruce could see the pocks in his complexion up close, as if they’d been magnified. He fought to hold Jeb’s gaze.
    “Do you ever talk to Toby Van Wyck?” Bruce asked suddenly.
    “Naw,” Jeb said. “I lost touch with him.”
    Bruce nodded.
    “I do think about him, though,” Jeb said.
    “Me too.”
    “He still in Florida?”
    “No idea.”
    “I remember all that happening,” Jeb said. He leaned forward. “I remember the memorial service. We had those rubber bands that we were playing with and nobody minded.”
    “Yeah.”
    “They found her, you probably heard that. I’m sure you heard that.”
    “I did.”
    “Incredible,” Jeb said.
    Stories, shared, could inspire love, Bruce thought after. Jeb Jackman, prematurely middle-aged, doughy, pickled, he was all right.
    (When Bruce first told Charlotte Toby’s story, the parts he knew, he kept details to a minimum, and refused to fuel her pity with too many observations of his own, because by that time he knew that her pity, while extravagant at times, could be fleeting, that she could be distracted from it. The facts he included were as stark as he could make them: Toby’s mom had gone missing, there had been publicity, his father had remarried quickly, Toby had moved to Naples with his father and stepmother, though they occasionally returned to