Page 50 of Save the Date
Cara raised one eyebrow. “Forever? Really?”
Bert nodded vigorously. “Yeah. A hundred percent. I mean, I wouldn’t want to jinx them, but if anybody can make a marriage work, it’s those two zanies.”
***
Cara was in line at the buffet, about to serve herself a pig in a blanket from the steam tray, when for some reason, a couple on the dance floor caught her eye. She had to look again.
Jack Finnerty! He wore a dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves, khaki slacks, and a straw fedora not too unlike the one the bride wore. In fact, most of the men and many of the women at the wedding wore hats. It was the new hipster thing, Bert had informed her. He himself was sporting a straw boater.
The girl Jack was with was nearly his height, with long light brown hair. She wore a strapless navy-blue sundress, and she danced effortlessly with Jack, laughing and chattering away as they moved through the crowd on the dance floor.
Bert stood beside her in the line and saw what she was watching. “Hey. Isn’t that the dognapper? Who let him in here?”
Cara shrugged. “He literally knows everybody in Savannah. I don’t know how the man has time to work, in between going to weddings every weekend.”
They found a table near the back of the room; Cara sipped a glass of pinot grigio, and Bert ate what she estimated was his weight in boiled shrimp, pigs in a blanket, and Buffalo chicken drumettes.
“How do you eat like that and never gain weight?” she asked. “I bet you’ve eaten like, twelve thousand calories, just while I’ve been sitting here.”
Her assistant was as tall and gangly as a strand of sea oats, six foot three, weighing maybe 140 on his version of a fat day. He’d died his blond hair purple in honor of his best friend’s wedding, and he wore skinny white jeans, a red shirt, and a narrow yellow tie, loosened at the neck. Bert patted the vicinity of his belly. “I don’t know. I just like food. I guess I like it as much as I used to like Scotch. So now, I eat instead of booze.”
“You’re an exoskeleton, I swear,” she countered.
They stayed until the bride and groom cut the wedding cake, which in their case was actually a huge Key lime pie, and then Cara tried to leave. She’d already stayed longer than she’d planned, lingering only because she was enjoying attending a wedding with a happy, carefree bride and groom—a rarity in her business.
“C’mon,” Bert protested. “Stay awhile. You haven’t even danced with me.”
“You dance? With women?”
He looked around the room. “Sometimes. When there are no other attractive options.”
“Am I supposed to be flattered?”
Still, she allowed him to lead her onto the dance floor, where she tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to match the rhythm of the weird technopunk song the disc jockey was playing.
“I give up,” she said finally, after the third time her sandal-clad foot had been thrashed by another dancer.
She was headed back to her table when a hand touched her elbow. “Quitter.”
Cara turned and found herself facing Jack Finnerty, who was suddenly solo.
“It’s this music,” she said. “I’m only thirty-six, but I totally don’t get it. There’s no beat, no rhythm.”
“There probably is,” he corrected her. “But I think it’s like high-pitched tones only dogs can hear. You have to be under thirty to appreciate this music.”
She gave him a rueful smile. “Your date seems to get it.”
“Date?” He looked around.
“Your dance partner? The girl you were with earlier?”
As soon as she opened her mouth she regretted it. Now he’d think she was watching him. Which she had been, of course.
“The pretty girl in the blue dress?”
“Meghan? You thought Meghan was my date?” He chuckled. “Wow. That really makes me feel like a dirty old man.”
“Aren’t you?” She was making a beeline for the table, intent on getting her handbag and going home.
