your trip.”
“Oh,” said Jo, feeling her cheeks heat up. “Well. Things happen.” She waved her hand at the ballroom’s glitter and grandeur. “Shelley had to get ready for all of this!”
Leo shook his head, his expression chagrined. “My Shelley. She could have anything. I wanted to give her the world.”
Jo was aware that Dave was standing by her side, watching and hearing everything. “I guess this is what she wanted.”
“Denny’s a good boy,” said Leo, brightening. He patted his small, plump hands together. “So a honeymoon, for now! And later, maybe, before the grandkids come . . .” He pronounced the word grendkits. “Your adventure. You and my Shelley, off to see the pyramids, and the whatdoyoucallems, the ashvams . . .”
“Ashrams.” Jo’s throat felt chokey.
Leo stood on his tiptoes, in his shiny formal shoes, kissed Jo’s cheek again and danced off in search of his wife. Dave collected Jo’s hands.
“Adventure, huh?”
“That’s right,” said Jo.
Dave spun her away from him and reeled her back, easing her into a showy dip before pulling her upright. The band began to play “I’ll Be There,” and Dave snapped in time to the music. His hair had been tamed with some kind of pomade that smelled faintly sweet when Jo let her head rest on his shoulder. “So tell me the truth. Are you a magician?” he asked. One hand was on the small of her back. His touch felt calming, almost as if she were a baby he was trying to soothe to sleep.
“No. Why?”
“Because every time I look at you, everyone else disappears.”
Jo rolled her eyes. “That’s awful.”
He shrugged, smiled, and said, “If I could rearrange the alphabet, I’d put U and I together.”
“That’s worse.”
Dave made his face go comically sad before rubbing the lapel of his tuxedo between two fingers. “Know what this is?” Jo shook her head.
“Boyfriend material.”
“Oh, God,” Jo groaned, as she felt her lips quirk upward. Dave raised his hands in triumph.
“You smiled!”
Jo nodded wearily, as she remembered Denny and Shelley’s triumphant arm-lift, how happy they’d looked as they’d come down the aisle, and the truth of the day came crashing back down on her. Shelley was gone forever; and Jo was alone, broke, and back in Detroit, in her mother’s house, in her old bedroom. “Go on,” she said, stepping away from him, intending to return to the table, and her drink. “Go collect your winnings.”
“Oh, but this song’s my favorite!” The band was playing “The Twist.” Dave put his hands on his hips and began a sinuous wiggle, one that would have been sexy if his expression hadn’t been so comical. “C’mon let’s twist again, like we did last summer,” the singer crooned from the bandstand, as the three colored girls in pastel dresses behind him ooh’ed and aah’ed the harmonies. Jo looked at Dave, who was graceful and handsome and light on his feet, and wondered, briefly, if he was like her; if he was no more interested in girls than she was in boys. There were, she had read, arrangements like that, marriages where a man and woman would keep up appearances, leading an outwardly normal life, even having children, while pursuing other interests on the side. Was Dave that way?
Jo decided that he wasn’t. When he took her by the waist his hands were possessive, and when he looked at her, his gaze was frank and appreciative. It felt good. So did Shelley’s shocked, frozen expression when Shelley noticed Jo dancing with Dave, and it gave Jo a mean little thrill. Your fault, Jo thought, settling her arm a little more securely around Dave’s waist. You could have chosen me.
“Hey, you’re good,” Dave said, releasing his hold on her, dancing a few steps away, coming in close to twist, round and round and up and down. “We’re good together. We should go out. Want to give me your number? We’ll go into Detroit. We’ll hit a jazz club, get a steak dinner.”
“Maybe,” Jo said. She let him lead her back to the table, let him hold out her chair, let him get her a drink from the bar: club soda, instead of the sloe gin fizz she’d been planning on. She listened as he dissected the band’s song choices, remarking that they didn’t seem to have learned anything after 1963, wondering if the Finkelbeins had expressly asked them to skip any kind of protest music. “Then again, I’ve got nothing against Phil Ochs, but it’s not like you can really dance to his