“I’ve seen you at the post office,” remarked the stage actress who, without makeup, looked plain. I did her face when theater connections came to visit, but in all else Devon, she preferred to go without. Noting my lack of reaction to Edward’s arrival, she shot me a curious glance.
“I already know him,” I explained. “He’s my boss.”
“Huh. Of course.”
“Am I interrupting?” Edward asked them.
“Absolutely not.”
“We were just talking about, well, hacking and all.”
“And it’s not gossip,” said the actress, almost in warning to the rest of us, lest we forget that Edward was not only Grace’s boss but an outsider. “We love Grace. She’s is one of us.”
“Hel-lo,” came a singsong voice and another proffered hand. “Ned Cooper? Finally. I’m Nina Evans. I’m glad you came.”
She looked wonderful, thank you, Maggie Reid. Since the Town Manager was also the Town Meeting moderator, she had visited me at three to have her confidence applied. While I worked, she asked about Edward, and when I had little to say, she dove into Liam. She knew he was my brother. Now she wanted to know how old he was, where he had trained, whether there were other siblings, where we grew up, if my parents were still there. I would rather have talked about the night’s agenda, but Nina had never asked personal questions before, and, given that nothing about Connecticut or the name Reid would betray Mackenzie Cooper, I couldn’t think of a good reason not to answer, especially since I had stonewalled on the subject of Edward.
Tonight, her own sweater and slacks were professional, her wool Etro scarf powerfully New York, and her skin glowing.
Edward shook her hand, repeated her name as if he’d never heard it before, and smiled politely. He did nothing to suggest they had ever talked, and while he was gracious, I saw no particular interest in those silver-blue eyes.
Perversely, I was pleased.
That said, when Nina took his arm and insisted on introducing him around, I felt relief.
As soon as he was gone, our huddle shifted. The husband left, two other women arrived, and even from those who hadn’t met Edward directly, there was a flurry of He’s awesome, and Would you believe those eyes, and Grace should be here just to see him.
“She has seen him,” I said. “Remember where she works?”
“Will he fire her?”
“No.”
“Then he doesn’t blame her for compromising the Spa network?”
“She didn’t. Her son is the one who’s charged.” Not quite able to use the name Ned, I hitched my head after Edward. “He knows that,” I added and quickly wished I hadn’t. Anyone listening could tell that he and I had talked about Grace, which we would never have done unless we were friends, or so it seemed to me.
The good news? No one noticed. The bad? We seemed to have rounded a corner, and the tone shifted. I wanted to say it was an offshoot of curiosity, and, okay, I was supersensitive to criticism in situations like this. But the innocent Where is she? became the darker Where was she? And once aired, like the flu, it was contagious. This was on people’s minds, just as I’d known it would be. It was human nature to want to explain things, even to blame. The people here might be one step above, but they were human.
I excused myself to talk with friends from the pottery store, then a coven of writers. But I couldn’t escape it. Grace always returned. Where was she while her son was hacking into other people’s computers? Where was she when he was alone in his room? Didn’t she know what he did with his free time? Didn’t she ask?
We were eating by then, at times seated at long tables, at other times standing with plates in our hands. At least I didn’t have to worry about Liam. Or maybe I did. He was surrounded not only by people wanting seconds of his roll-ups but by more than one available sweet thing, and he was loving it. No way would he be leaving town after this.
Nor, I feared, would my ex. The new head of the Inn was an important figure in town, and Edward—think Ned, Maggie, think Ned—was a beacon. People sought him out, curious about his vision for the Inn, the town, even the house he had bought. He could have easily stayed off on his own with plenty of company.