Jessy leaned in and asked, “Are you back with Jerry?”
“Not really.”
“Would I be out of line saying, ‘Good’?”
“Not at all.”
“Okay, then. Good. He was really a jerk to Josh.”
“How so?”
“Well, he congratulated Josh on being the most boring, backward ass in the class. Was he trying to sound like a poet? Rhyming ‘ass’ and ‘class’?”
“Dunno.”
And Jerry wasn’t completely wrong about Josh, but insulting him at an event like this, in front of the guy’s wife, who organized the reunion... well. She drank some beer.
“Omigod, look.” Jessy’s eyes were on the entry between the party room and the outer brewpub. Sixpence None the Richer, with its girl singer, was doing “There She Goes,” the old La’s song.
Astrid Lund.
Pausing there as the world stopped around her. Tall, blonde... but then so was Krista. Attractive in her Nordic way... but then so was Krista.
But not like this. Not quite platinum hair stopping at her shoulders, classic blunt bangs. Wide-set ice-blue eyes. High cheekbones. Perfectly formed nose with a slight upward tilt. Mouth on loan from Charlize Theron. Slender with a narrow waist.
And the clothes!
Krista may have spent most of her time in uniform, but she had always loved fashion, getting lost in the chichi magazines. She consoled herself with the notion that fashion would be bad for her law enforcement image. Not that, in real life, she could afford anything that wasn’t a knockoff or a T.J. Maxx castoff.
Apparently Astrid could afford it.
She was in a Burberry tan-and-black plaid shirtdress — knee-length with quarter-length sleeves and a sash belt. On her small, no doubt perfect feet were Burberry booties, the front half brown leather, the back half plaid cloth, wraparound leather strap, gold buckle. Casually from one shoulder hung a Louis Vuitton bag — brown-and-tan hobo with signature LV. Krista guessed that maybe her classmate had figured going all Burberry would have been a bit much.
The watch riding Astrid’s wrist was an oversize Rolex. Her bare legs were bronze — product, tanning bed, or island vacation? Who could say? But all her exposed skin, face included (making that blonde hair pop), was that same bronze.
Krista was considering going up to her, but to welcome her, since everyone else was as frozen as the kids staring at Astrid playing Stupefyin’ Jones in Mr. Hope’s sophomore-year production of Li’l Abner.
What made Krista hesitate was thinking that if only that red sweater of hers had been cashmere, and not cotton...
But before Krista could get past that, Jerry ran up to Astrid like a lost puppy catching sight of its master. Or mistress. She took both his hands in hers and kissed him, briefly, on the mouth. And then they began to talk, Jerry fairly animatedly, and Astrid listening politely, making the occasional comment, as the rest of the party room thawed itself and got back to their conversations.
When Astrid and Jerry moved deeper into the room, Krista found her moment. She slipped out and headed home.
It wasn’t much of a walk.
Seven
Keith was sleeping on the couch in the den when he heard Krista come in. He didn’t remember stretching out, but at some point he obviously had — the last he remembered, he was in the middle of Two Mules for Sister Sara on the Starz western channel and now something with James Stewart and Audie Murphy was on the screen. He’d seen it before, but didn’t remember the title. The TV was muted, which he must have done before flopping on the couch.
He sat up, quickly awake, running his tongue over his teeth in a not entirely successful effort to get rid of the sleep taste. The French doors were open and he could see Krista hanging up her fur-collared bomber jacket in the closet opposite the front door she’d just come in.
He checked his watch — not even eleven yet. What was she doing home so early? And what was he doing falling asleep like an old man in front of the television? Had he really slept through a car pulling up just outside his window, doors closing and good-night conversation included?
He wandered into the living room and he and his daughter met halfway.
“Wasn’t expecting you yet, honey,” he said.
She smiled a little. “Does that disappoint you?”
She sat on the sofa, which was one of Karen’s favorite pieces. It had taken his wife some real convincing to get the antique leather cushions restuffed to make them as comfortable as they were now. That had been twenty years ago.
He sat next to his daughter, somewhat sideways, studying her. She was clearly upset, though not on the verge of tears. Like any father might, he hoped her unsettled condition meant she had finally dumped that louse Jerry. Never occurred to him that a Jerry might dump a Krista.
His daughter, in her red sweater, had looked very young before she went out tonight. Now she looked twenty-eight, and nothing wrong with that. Such a pretty thing. The Danish coloring and hair and eye color were all courtesy of his genes; the shape of her face and its beauty were her mother’s Irish doing.
“This,” he said, “is where a more sensitive father might ask, ‘Do you want to talk about it?’”
“... Nothing’s wrong, Pop.” She smiled but it was little pitiful, though not self-pitying. “It’s just... I finally ended it for good with Jerry.”
“Much drama?”
“No.” She told him how Jerry had been boorish at the brewery, and had gone running up to Astrid Lund to make a fuss over the very girl who’d come between them, a hundred years ago.
He said, “Jerry doesn’t sound very sensitive either.”
“No kidding.”
She shared the way he’d treated Josh and how that had irritated Jessy.
“The frustrating thing,” she said, “is I agree with Jerry about Josh’s stupid homophobic opinions. But Jessy’s my friend, and they saved seats for us, and... let’s just say I didn’t think much of Jerry’s social skills.”
Keith knew that his daughter and her friend Jessica were on the opposite side of the political fence on some issues. Jessy was a conservative Republican and Krista was a very middle-of-the-road Democrat. He had voted straight Republican ticket all his life, till some of the choices offered him had made him sit out the last couple of national elections.
But Keith knew that Krista steered clear of certain topics with her friend — gay marriage and reproductive rights, for example. Jessy was a devout Catholic, and her husband was, too, Catholic anyway — Keith didn’t figure Josh was devout about anything except maybe selling popcorn and fudge to tourists.
Krista was saying, “I kind of had a rude awakening.”
“How so, honey?”
“Well.” She sighed. “Do you know just how long Jerry was, uh...”
“Your houseguest?”
She nodded, smiled awkwardly. “I have a feeling you think him living here was a pretty recent thing.”
“I guess I did.”
“He lived here six months, Pop. I put up with that self-righteous, self-centered SOB for six months!”
That did surprise him. Almost shocked him. And hurt him a little, too, because it meant his daughter had been keeping something significant from him all this time. Not lying to him, but... not being honest either.
Of course he hadn’t bothered once to drive the twenty or so minutes across the river to see his daughter during that same six months. There was plenty of mea culpa to go around.
She reached for his hand and squeezed. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”
She rarely called him that.
He said, “You’re a big girl, honey. You can make your own decisions.”
“Jerry was a bad decision. I can’t explain myself, really...”