“Let me take you to Fenway and we’ll lay a bet on that.”
Jordan dropped her teasing. “I can’t go to dinner or a game; I’m working. Three rolls of film; I’ll be up till midnight.” She liked bantering with him, liked that there didn’t seem to be signs of a girlfriend in the apartment upstairs . . . but she wasn’t throwing work aside for a date. The photo-essay had to get finished; there was so much to do and summer was slipping by so fast.
He didn’t argue. “What about tomorrow?”
“Saturday movie night with Anna and the cricket here, then Sunday lunch the next day. Weekly tradition.” Sunday was the day they all missed Dan McBride the most.
“Monday?”
“Working then too, sorry. I’m going to a ballet studio to get pictures of the dancers.” She outlined her Boston-at-work idea. “You helped give me the idea, you know—something you said about my father looking like the quintessential antiques dealer.”
“So that’s what that was,” Tony said. “That time you waltzed out of the shop with Clark Kent after giving me the biggest smile I’ve ever gotten in my life from a girl who was still vertical. I kept wondering what I’d done to prompt it.”
“Mr. Rodomovsky!” Jordan said, pretending to be shocked. “Keep your mind out of the gutter if you please.” She tried to keep a stern expression, but Tony quirked an eyebrow, and she burst out laughing.
He grinned. “Let me accompany you to the studio Monday. I’ll carry your bag, hand you film. Don’t you want a minion? I thought all photographers had assistants.”
“Famous ones.”
“I’ve seen your work. You’re on your way.”
He was flattering her, Jordan knew that. But warmth still spread in her stomach at the praise.
A cab finally pulled up. Tony opened the door, handing Ruth in with a flourish, and Jordan gave in to temptation. “Meet me at the studio,” she said, giving him the address.
“I’ll be there.” He didn’t try to squeeze her hand or touch her arm in farewell, just stood there hands in his pockets, smiling. Something a notch up from his automatic you’re-so-pretty smile, something faintly, frankly wicked. Jordan was somewhat amused to feel a flutter in her stomach in response. He doesn’t mean anything by it, she thought. You could take a picture of charm spilling out of him like coins from a slot machine and title it A Charmer at Work!
Well, so what? She had half a summer left here, and she was free to enjoy it with any charmer she pleased. “I’ll see you Monday,” Jordan said, and she made sure she didn’t look over her shoulder as the cab rolled away.
“YOU’RE IN THE CLOUDS tonight,” Anneliese said that evening after supper. “That’s the second time I’ve asked for a dish towel.”
“Sorry.” Jordan passed it over, then reached into the sink of soapy water for another plate.
Anneliese studied her. “You look like you’re thinking about a man.”
Jordan bit back a smile.
“I knew it!” Anneliese laughed, sunlight from the kitchen window gleaming on her dark hair and her navy-blue dress. “Did he ask you on a date?”
“Yes.” Jordan hesitated, plate in hand. “You don’t think it’s too fast, do you? For me to be thinking about someone new, when things just ended between Garrett and me . . .”
“And who ended them?” Anneliese asked. “Which one of you actually said the words?”
“Well, he did.” Jordan hadn’t told her the details before, merely that it was over. “I asked if we really loved each other or not, and Garrett asked for his ring back.”
“So, he ended it. If your heart isn’t smashed in pieces—and I’m glad it isn’t—then why shouldn’t you move on to someone new if you feel like it?”
“People call names if a girl gets around too quickly after breaking an engagement.” Jordan knew exactly what those names were. She couldn’t help thinking them herself this afternoon after leaving Tony’s company, even as she told herself she was free now to see whom she liked. As much as Jordan wanted to be a woman of the world, it was hard to shake off the strictures of the Good Girl. “I don’t want people thinking I’m a—”
“They won’t think that of Garrett Byrne if he decides to get over you by dating every girl in Boston,” Anneliese pointed out.
“Things are different for men, and you know it.” Jordan added more soap to the dishwater. “Surely it was just the same in Austria when you were growing up.”
“Yes.” Anneliese leaned against the sink, thoughtful. “Perhaps your father wouldn’t approve of you going out again so soon after ending a five-year engagement, but . . .”
“What about you? What do you think?” Please don’t disapprove, Jordan thought. She hadn’t realized just how much she valued Anneliese’s good opinion.
Anneliese smiled, looking downright impish. “I think that if the end of a five-year engagement isn’t the time for a frothy summer romance, then what is?”
Jordan laughed, relief and delight warming her cheeks. “You are wicked sometimes, Anna.”
“And you’re a grown woman of twenty-two who should enjoy her freedom. Sensibly,” Anneliese added, lifting a rinsed-off saucer out of the dishwater. “I’m enough of a mother to ask that your frothy summer romance be conducted without throwing every caution to the winds.”
Jordan sincerely hoped Anneliese wasn’t going to initiate a chat about the facts of life—there were some things you did not want to discuss with your stepmother, no matter how marvelous and faintly wicked she might be—but Anneliese just dried the saucer and asked, “So this new young man who asked you on a date. Is he handsome like a movie star?”
Jordan thought of Tony’s lean, cheerful face. “Not exactly.”
“Tall?”
“No, my height.”
“Did he save you heroically from being hit by a car or eaten by a dragon?”
“No, we met over a pie.”
Another laugh. “He must have something special. Not just pie!”
Jordan considered. “He knows how to look. Really look, when a woman is talking.”
“Ah.” Her stepmother sighed. “Some men ogle, some men look. The first makes us bristle, and the second makes us melt, and men are at an utter loss knowing the difference. But we do, and we know it at once.”
“Exactly.” Jordan handed her a plate to dry. “Did Dad know how to look?”
“It was the first thing I noticed about him. He could admire a lady as though he were admiring a beautiful porcelain vase, without making her feel he was affixing a price tag.”
“That’s nice.” As silent as Anneliese was about her early life, she would always talk about Jordan’s father. It eased the hurt of missing him.
“Well, I wondered if it might be our new clerk with the black eyes who was making you dreamy, but surely you didn’t meet him over pie.” Anneliese turned to put away the gravy boat, missing Jordan’s suppressed smile. “Just as well—that new clerk is Polish, isn’t he? Poles are hard workers, but they’re so emotional and untrustworthy in some ways.”
Just when she seems like a woman of the world, Jordan thought, she turns into Mr. Avery on the corner, warning everyone that Wops are slippery and Micks are lazy. Jordan had always bit her tongue when it came to such comments from Anneliese, because her father chided, It’s rude to contradict your stepmother even if you disagree with her. But he wasn’t here anymore, and Jordan said tartly, “Anna, that opinion is ridiculous.”
But Anneliese had already changed the subject, reaching for more soap and looking pensive. “I don’t suppose your mystery admirer is English, is he? Mr. Kolb telephoned me about an Englishman who had asked him some questions . . . I wondered if you’d seen someone like that hanging about.”
Jordan supposed it must have been Ian Graham dropping in to catch Tony at work—she’d offered to give him directions to the shop for Ruth’s lesson, and he’d said he’d been before. “I’m not going on a date with any Englishmen. At least not that I know of!” Making a joke of it to dispense with the subject of Mr. Graham, considering she’d just hired him behind Anneliese’s back.
“Well, perhaps Mr. Kolb was being needlessly fearful. Or,” Anneliese added dryly, “drunk again.”
“I’ve smelled his breath in the mornings,” Jordan admitted. “I didn’t want to say anything, considering it doesn’t affect his work.”
“He had a bad war. It makes some people drink, and it makes others see trouble where there isn’t any.” Anneliese dried her hands on her apron, still thoughtful. “Do let me know, though, if anyone comes about asking questions. If Mr. Kolb is in some kind of trouble, I’d like to know.”
Jordan blinked. “What kind of trouble would he be in?”
“A man who drinks can always find trouble.”
Anneliese still looked pensive, warm kitchen light bathing her dark hair and dark dress. The shot distracted Jordan. “Stay like that and let me take your picture.”
“You know I hate that!”
“Please let me snap you for my series. The essential you at work—”