She throws back some more wine just as a man in a white undershirt and a pair of tight gray suit pants takes the stool to her left. He signals the bartender, orders a Cisco Whale’s Tale, and only then seems to notice Amy.
“Oops, this seat taken?”
Amy shakes her head. She’s happy that there’s someone in this bar who doesn’t think she’s a leper, even if he’s not one of the gorgeous sailing men. Amy didn’t get a good look at the guy and she’s afraid to turn her head lest she seem too obvious, though she does notice blood on his knuckles.
She’s had so much to drink that she thinks nothing of grabbing the guy’s wrist. “Did you hurt yourself? Or…were you in a fight?”
“Fight,” the guy says. His beer arrives and he stands up and throws back the whole thing in one long gulp. This gives Amy a chance to look at him; when he finishes, he takes a long look at her.
“Oh,” he says. “Hey, Amy.”
“Dennis!” she says. Her voice sounds enthusiastic, which is strange because she doesn’t know Dennis very well. He was Vivi’s boyfriend, although Amy heard from JP that apparently Vivi and Dennis had broken up or were breaking up in stages.
Amy owes Dennis a debt of gratitude. Last June, at Willa and Rip’s wedding, JP and Vivi had danced together to the first song along with Willa and Rip and Mr. and Mrs. Bonham. It was at the top of Amy’s Worst Moments of the Relationship. Vivi fit right into JP’s arms and they danced so fluidly （hadn’t JP told Amy the very first summer that Vivi couldn’t dance?） and they were laughing and so visibly joyful that Amy thought, What am I even doing here? She might have left the Field and Oar Club altogether had Dennis not come over to her with a fresh drink, had he not rested his hand lightly on her back and clinked a cheers and whispered a joke in her ear that she hadn’t been able to hear over the music but laughed at anyway.
“I’ll have another,” Dennis says to the bartender now.
“So, wait, you were at the memorial service, right? And the reception?”
Dennis nods.
If he’s here at Cru then the reception must be over. Amy wonders if JP has called. She wonders if he missed her, if she did the right thing by staying away. She wants to know if anyone asked where she was. She is hopelessly self-centered, she realizes. Today has nothing to do with her. Today is about Vivi and the people she loved and the people who loved her. Which leaves Amy out.
Poor Dennis. Amy tries to imagine how he must feel. Vivi broke up with him and then died. It’s two completely different kinds of pain, one layered on top of the other.
“How are you doing?” Amy asks.
Dennis shrugs.
“How are the kids?”
“I didn’t talk to the kids. They were up front with Savannah and your boyfriend.”
“Oh, Savannah,” Amy says. “She must be really upset.”
“She is. She gave one hell of a speech at the church.”
Amy wishes she’d been there to hear it; she has always been slightly obsessed with Savannah. Savannah Hamilton has that elusive thing known as class; it’s visible from every angle. It’s her hair, her clothes, her manner of speaking, her graciousness, her taste, her effortlessness in the world. Why has she never married? Amy asked JP this once and he said, “Her standards are too high.” She dated Michael DelRay, a bigwig at JPMorgan, for a while, Amy knew, but broke up with him because he was too mercenary. Savannah is a do-gooder. She took her family money and started a nonprofit that feeds and educates children in places like Niger and Bangladesh. Even if Amy wanted to hate her, she couldn’t.
“So did you get into a fight at the funeral?” Amy asks.
“The reception.”
“You got into a fistfight at the Field and Oar Club?” Amy is titillated by the mere thought. The club intimidates her. JP always talked about how Vivi used to flout the club rules, so every time Amy sets foot in the place she feels the stifling need to behave. Amy doesn’t belong there any more than Vivi did. Amy hails from Potter, Alabama. People know Montgomery and Mobile, but no one has ever heard of Potter. It’s as country as catfish.
“I did.”
“Did they throw you out?”
“They did.”
“Who’d you fight with?”
Dennis brings his second beer to his mouth and drains half in one swallow. “Who do you think?”
Amy stares at the puddle of pink wine left in her lipstick-smudged glass. “JP?”
“Yep.”