dirty as if they were sixteen again. When someone yelled, “Long live Woodstock!” there was a roar of agreement.
Through it all, Frank kept his eyes on Terri. What he wanted most in the world was for her to find happiness. She’d been working since she could pick up a fishing pole. She’d been twelve when she first saved the life of a tourist. The guy was drunk, fell off the dock, went under and didn’t come up—and only Terri had seen him. She ran down the dock and kept running off the end into the water, legs still churning. Brody was screaming at her to stop but when she didn’t, he went in after her.
When Terri came up, she had the drunk by the collar and Brody pulled him in. Later he bawled her out and hugged her, then yelled some more, then hugged her more. But it had no effect on Terri.
All through elementary school, high school and into college, Terri had never let up on her workload and her responsibilities.
There was a time during high school when they thought Terri was going to do something besides take care of other people. There’d been a young man. To everyone’s disappointment, it hadn’t worked out.
Since then, as far as they knew, there’d been no other men.
But now there was this Nate Taggert. He and Terri laughed together, danced, passed a beer back and forth.
Throughout the night, the many guests asked questions. Where was this? Was it time for that? Where’s the bathroom? Thousands of questions. What Frank liked was that as many questions were directed at Nate as they were at Terri. It was as though people already saw Nate as belonging at the lake. Maybe even saw him as belonging to Terri. Saw them as a couple.
At the first break the band took, Frank stepped away. He wanted to move around and see what was going on.
The first thing he noticed was that Nate was spending time with little Della Kissel. Damned if he wasn’t flirting with her!
What’s he up to? Frank wondered. He and Kit Montgomery had had some long talks about his work in the diplomatic services. Kit was a great storyteller. “If it hadn’t been for Nate I would have wrung that bastard’s neck,” was something Kit had said more than once. He told how Nate was calm even in the midst of gunfire. And Nate was “so damned likable that people believed he was on their side,” Kit said.
Frank had wanted to see Nate with Terri, but as he watched the young man get drink after drink for that gossipy little woman, Frank became more interested in them.
He wants something from her, Frank thought, and he couldn’t suppress a grin. Brody kept saying that Nate was deeply in love with Stacy Hartman, but what would Della have to say about Stacy? As far as Frank knew, no one had a bad thing to say about her.
Now, Terri... There were a lot of lies told about her. And many secrets were being kept.
If Nate was plying Della with drink to find out something, did that mean he was interested in Terri?
That hope made Frank play the next set with such enthusiasm that people stopped dancing and cheered him. The oldies weren’t the only ones who were good on the strings.
* * *
When Della began weaving from too much to drink, Nate volunteered to drive her home, and helped her into his car. Her house was small and ordinary, the grounds around it neatly kept. Inside, it was packed with furniture that was part antique, part just old, and floor-to-ceiling shelves full of ornaments. It looked like Della’s hobby was haunting auction houses and estate sales. It was all clean and tidy, but the close-knit clutter of it made Nate’s skin crawl.
She was hardly in the door before she turned to him. “So what is it you want me to tell you?”
He was pleased that she knew why they were there. “I want to know about Billy Thorndyke.”
“Billy?” Della gave a sly smile. “Shouldn’t you be asking about Bob Alderson?”
“I know about him. Who I don’t know about is Thorndyke.”
“You’re like me, aren’t you? You want to know everything about everyone.”
“We all rationalize what we do,” Nate said under his breath.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. Tell me about Thorndyke.”
“Is it him or Terri you want to know about?” Again, that sly look came back.
“I guess I’ll go back to the party,” Nate said. “I’m sure you’ll be all right