Could she leave yet?
Would anyone notice?
Her hand was shaking as she lit up a cigarette. A grateful nation.
“We’ve got to stop meeting this way,” a voice said.
Frankie turned quickly, almost stumbled into the man who stood beside her.
He caught her.
“Henry Acevedo,” she said, looking up at him.
His hair had changed: he still wore it long and layered, but the night’s humidity had given it volume. He had obviously shaved for the party; there was no five o’clock shadow darkening his jawline. Long sideburns narrowed his face.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, easing a step back, trying to steady herself. “This is hardly your crowd.”
“Your mother and her Junior League friends spearheaded a fundraising effort for the hospital’s new therapeutic drug and alcohol treatment center. She invited several of us board members tonight.” He shrugged, smiled.
“You don’t look like a board member of anything. And that’s a compliment.”
“It was either this party or my sister’s out-of-control family in the suburbs.”
“I would have chosen the suburbs.”
Henry smiled. “You’ve clearly spent no time in the suburbs.”
Frankie heard the distinctive whine of a mortar rocket and the crash of its explosion.
She screamed, “Incoming!,” and dropped to the ground.
Silence.
Frankie blinked.
She was sprawled in the grass in her parents’ backyard. What the hell? She crawled to her knees, feeling weak.
Someone had set off a firecracker. A bottle rocket, probably.
And she’d hit the ground. What was wrong with her? She knew the difference between a firecracker and a mortar round.
Oh my God.
Henry knelt down beside her, touched her shoulder with a gentleness that made her want to cry.
“Go away,” she said, humiliated. This hadn’t happened since the country club, years ago.
“I’ve got you,” he said.
She let him help her to her feet but couldn’t look at him.
“Those idiots who get their firecrackers and bottle rockets from Mexico should be in jail,” he said.
Was he saying it was normal to hear that and hit the ground?
“Will you take me home?” she said. She heard the words and knew they sounded like an invitation, which wasn’t what she meant. She didn’t want him.
Or maybe she did.
She didn’t want to be alone right now.
He slipped an arm around her waist to steady her. “My car—”
“We can walk.”
She led him to the gate, opened it.
Ocean Boulevard was a madhouse of traffic and tourists. The wide swath of sand was crowded with families, kids, students, Navy personnel. All mingling together. Dogs barking. Kids laughing. Tired parents trying to keep their broods close. Soon they’d start setting off more of the fireworks they had bought just across the border in Mexico. Bottle rockets. M-80s. The sky would look and sound like they were under attack.
On the sidewalk, Frankie kept close to Henry, realizing at some point that she had forgotten to put her sandals on when she left the house tonight. She had walked here in her bare feet.
Frankie didn’t know what to say to this man beside her, who kept his hand on her waist, a steadying pressure, as they walked the few blocks to her house.
There, she came to a stop.
The bungalow looked silver in the falling night. The shiny red door, the white-painted brick wishing well. All at once, she saw it for what it was: a home from another era, for a different kind of life. Kids. Dogs. Bikes.
It scoured her with sorrow, that realization.
“I’ll bet you played on Coronado Beach when you were a kid, probably rode your bike on Ocean Boulevard with cards clothespinned to the spokes. What a childhood.”
“With my brother,” she said quietly. She turned, looked up at Henry. “Thank you.”
He gave a dramatic bow. “At your service, milady.”
Frankie felt a surprising spark of desire. The first in years. A desire to be touched, held. Not alone. “Are you married?”
“No. My wife—Susannah—died of breast cancer seven years ago.”
She saw the sadness he’d been through with his wife, an understanding of loss that eased her loneliness, or shared it. “How old are you?” she asked, although right now she didn’t care.
“Thirty-eight. And you?”
“Twenty-six.”
He had nothing to say to that, and she was glad. This—they—weren’t a thing that needed words. Words meant something; she wanted this—them—to mean nothing. “Come inside?” she said quietly.