at a dimly lit place called Memory Lane.
Lucas parked his car next to Joey’s.
Live music swirled into the parking lot. Amplified guitars twanged a monotonous rock melody while a bass guitar pounded out a throbbing, bone-deep rhythm.
“Thanks, again,” Joey said.
Memory Lane was divided into three sections. To the left, a long bar ran along the wall. In the middle, there were ten or twelve tables. To the right was a huge dance floor, with the bandstand—a raised platform—against the far wall.
The bar, the tables and the dance floor were crowded. Joey pointed to one of the tables, where two women were sitting. One of them, a plump blonde in a red dress, was watching the door. She waved at Joey. He smiled and waved back.
The women stood up as they approached the table.
Joey put his arm around the blonde and kissed her on the cheek.
“Jill, this is my friend, Lucas Murdoch.”
Jill smiled at Lucas. “Nice to meet you.”
The other woman introduced herself to Lucas, “I’m Margot Sinclair.”
Her voice was so soft the music almost obliterated it.
Jill added, “That’s Margot with a ‘t’ at the end. French Canadian.”
Margot extended her hand.
Lucas shook it.
“Hi. I promise not to pronounce the ‘t’.”
Margot smiled and whispered a polite “Thanks.”
They sat down. Joey moved his chair closer to Jill and put his arm around her waist. She didn’t seem to mind.
Margot was a slender, petite brunette with a face he would have turned to look at even if she were a stranger he saw at a restaurant or a cocktail party.
She has a beautiful mouth, beautiful eyes.
From her already weary expression, Lucas sensed she was there for the same reason that he was.
He leaned toward her so he could be heard, and asked, “Do you live in Fulton?”
“Yes. Not far from here.”
“Margot and I work together,” Jill said.
He could hear her voice easily over the music.
“What do you do?”
“We’re executive assistants at a law firm in town.”
Executive assistants. We used to call them secretaries.
Joey grabbed a waitress going by and ordered beer for the table.
“I haven’t finished the one I got,” Jill said.
Joey kissed her again. He whispered something to her. She laughed.
Lucas asked Margot, “When did you come here from Canada?”
She shook her head.
“I’m American born. My father was French Canadian.”
“Sinclair is English, isn’t it?”
“His real name was St. Claire. But he anglicized it.”
“Anglicize.” Nice word.
The beer arrived.
Joey kept nuzzling Jill as he drank his beer. Kept whispering to her.
“How long have you known Joey?” Margot asked.
“About a week.”
She seemed surprised.
Lucas explained, “I’m a substitute for the original double date. It was supposed to be a younger man.”
She looked at the dance floor, at the band, at Lucas, but not at Joey and Jill.
“I haven’t had much practice at this for a long time,” Lucas said.
“Neither have I.”
She raised her glass in a toast to him, but the gesture was more resigned than friendly, as if she were saying, “We’d both rather be somewhere else.”
He returned the gesture.
“See you later,” Joey said, and led Jill onto the dance floor.
“Are you a car salesman, too?”
“No. I’m renting a room at Joey’s house. That’s how he knows me.”
“What do you do?”
“Actually, I’m retired.”
“What did you do?”
“I worked for a big company. Did what I was told. Made a living. Left with a pension. An early retirement package.”
“And settled down in Pennington, Connecticut?”
“Why not? I was born and raised in a small town.”
“You don’t look small-town to me.”
“I guess this is what they mean by a second childhood.”
“You still haven’t told me what kind of work you did.”
“I was a salesman, but I didn’t sell cars. I traveled a lot.”
“A traveling salesman? Sounds like the set-up for a dirty joke.”
“Right.”
“You don’t like talking about yourself, do you?”
“I’m not a very interesting subject.”
She smiled and asked, “What did you sell?”
“Computer software. For business information systems. Accounts payable, inventory, et cetera.”
“How old are you?”
“Fifty-three.”
“How long have you been retired?”
“A few years.”
“What’s a few? Three? Five? Twenty?”
“More than three, less than twenty.”
That’s not exactly what I told people in Pennington. That was careless.
“Retired so young? You must have a hell of a pension.”
“Enough to pay for an apartment in Pennington. This isn’t Hilton Head.”
Margot shook her head.
“You sound like someone who’s been practicing his answers,” she said.
For a moment, Lucas was off-balance.
“I’m not sure I understand you,” he said.
She sipped her beer, gesturing toward the dance floor, where Joey was pressed tightly to Jill.
“I didn’t want to go out tonight. Knowing Jill, I could imagine the kind of guy I’d end up with. Someone like him.”
She paused, then said, “You’re not like him. So far.”
She stretched and hunched her shoulders.
“I’m tired of dating,” she said. “I never thought sex was all that great and I’m tired of the song and dance leading up to it.”
She emptied the beer glass and poured a refill.
“I was married when I was twenty. I was s-o-o-o in love. After a few years, I got tired of him. He was too predictable. I decided to go back to school and get my degree. He didn’t want me to. I was already too smart for him. He was an accountant who couldn’t pass the CPA exam. I got my degree. And he left me for a much dumber woman. Prettier, but dumber.”
“You