Page 11 of The Hampton Beach Café 2
It was like all the blood in her body rushed to her head at once, then immediately dropped into her stomach. No, she didn't want more info...
To Hayley:uh...yes, please?
She turned to Clarkson, but she didn't know what to say––it didn't matter. He was already talking.
“It won't be a huge night, just a nice get-together at a beautiful house with a nice sunset and some excellent food––what do you think?”
She thought it was a terrible idea to go on even a casual date with someone who had pursued her intently in high school to no avail and was now deeply involved with her business life whether she wanted to or not.
Did she want to, though? Frances paused, busying herself with cleaning up the machine. He was handsome. There was no denying it. He was a little full of himself, but that had hardly stopped her from dating Malcolm. It might be a nice distraction from...
Ping!
From Hayley:Her name is Kelly Adams. She's some big-shot businesswoman down here, apparently. I wasn't sure when I was at the event, but these were published a couple of days later.
The message came with a series of photos––Hayley had taken pictures of a magazine. Frances zoomed in on the writing, The Dallas Social Gazette. The photograph showed Malcolm and Kelly dressed in formal evening wear. She faced him with her hand resting on his chest––his hand was placed lightly on the small of her back. She swallowed hard.
“Are you ok?” Clarkson asked. “There's no pressure for this date. I mean, it's completely fine if it's too soon.”
“No!” she said quickly. “It's not too soon. I think I needed the push.”
She locked the screen and turned her attention to Clarkson. He was grinning ear to ear. Lifting the coffee mug to his face, he winked at her over the rim.
Frances smiled and sipped her own coffee. When Clarkson became distracted by whatever was on his own phone, she turned her gaze to the ceiling.
Are you kidding me right now?she thought.Kelly Adams, really?
SEVEN
Lucinda was fussing with the strap that held the ridiculous dress she had chosen for Frances in place. “I just don't understand why you are so mad about this woman. Like, the way you talk about it, you'd only be five out of ten furious if it was anyone else.”
She took a deep breath, she really didn't want to talk about it, and yet she kept bringing it up. Maybe it was the strangeness of getting ready for a date of all things in someone else's house––a random person's house, to be precise. The house was lovely, Clarkson had been right, but it was still odd to be primping and preening in some random guest bedroom. Or...maybe it had something to do with the fact that she was trying to forget that she was going on a date with anyone at all––let alone the prom king sports star that was basically in love with her in high school. It was too weird. They had driven down altogether and would drive home that way too.
“Thanks for doing this,” she said to Lucinda. “I feel much better about the whole thing knowing that he knows I've set some boundaries.”
Lucinda nodded. “Sure, sure, I get it. With me and Vince in tow––even if we weren’t invited to this fancy shindig up on the roof––he's less likely to push his luck. I just think…”
“I know what you think,” she said, quoting verbatim. “If I think he needs to be put off pushing his luck, I shouldn't go out with him at all.”
A yank on the strap that was a little harder than necessary told Frances that Lucinda was genuinely annoyed with her.
“Kelly Adams...” she started, “…is his ex-girlfriend.”
Lucinda broke off her fiddling while Frances felt her voice break.
“Ex-girlfriend as in....cheated on you and broke it off? Or...”
“You know, at this point, I might actually prefer that,” Frances said. “No, as in she was his girlfriend when he went to college. They were high school sweethearts, and his family had big plans with her family. Dallas old money can be quite...cutthroat. Then he met me in our senior year, and we...Well, he went home for the weekend unavailable, and he came back single and immediately asked me to go out with him. After graduation, we got married, and now ten minutes after divorcing me, he's off with her at society parties.”
“Ah.”
Frances rolled her eyes, equally at herself for being so upset and at Lucinda for being so uncharacteristically succinct.
The tugging and pinning of her hair were gentler now, and she figured that Lucinda's curiosity had been satisfied.
“Well…” she said, making deliberate eye contact with Frances in the mirror, “…you look amazing. She looks fine. He looks like a tired old man, and Clarkson looks like a tall glass of water.”
“I have not heard that since I was watching Westerns with my mom as a kid,” she retorted.
