“You can’t embarrass me during my own party,” he said, trying to deflect.
“You should never be embarrassed by love, brother.”
“That’s older brother to you, and I swear I am talking to Father about your reading habits, Louisa. It’s made you soft in the head.”
“My head’s fine. It’s yours that needs examining. You might be older, but you’re hardly wiser. Why don’t you just marry her and spend the honeymoon traveling?”
“I’m not in love with May. We’re not getting married.”
“Sure you’re not. I just hope she’ll wait around for a wet blanket like you. She’s so popular, you know.”
“Everything you know about love you’ve read in those novels. Jane Austen was a spinster.” Ambrose signaled to a passing waiter for a drink.
She flushed, and Ambrose realized his harshness too late. She was addicted to those books, to the entire notion of romance, really, and she wasn’t even out yet.
Ambrose tried to think of something kind to say, glad for the waiter with his tray of new drinks. Loulou also took a stem, raising her eyebrows at him over the rim, daring him to stop her. And because he didn’t want to be harsh twice, he didn’t.
Ethan and May parted at the end of the song. Ethan silenced the orchestra with a wave, and then cupped his hands around his mouth, announcing loudly to all, “Shoe dance.” He picked up a willow laundry basket he’d stashed next to the band’s dais for just this purpose.
Tittering girls removed one dancing slipper and put it in Ethan’s basket, while the wallflowers waited for him to come by with his cajoling before they gave up a shoe.
Loulou leaned her drink on Ambrose’s arm and slipped her foot out of one kidskin slipper, watching her brother’s face to see if he’d object.
“Lou, I didn’t mean . . .”
“Save it,” she said. “You always could be a jerk.”
Chastened, Ambrose was silent.
“But I love you anyway,” she said lightly, dropping her shoe in Ethan’s basket as he gave her a wink. Fondness for their little sister was one of the few pure things the brothers agreed on unobstructed by competition or self-protection. That alone was simple.
“Probably because you’re a romantic,” she continued. “More so than you think. The true definition of one, actually.”
“Now, Prince Charmings,” Ethan called. “No elbows and no pushing.” The orchestra started up a drumroll. “Wait until I say, ‘Go,’ please, before you find your Cinderella.” He dumped the shoes in the middle of the dance floor in an untidy heap and stepped back gingerly, as if from dynamite.
Ambrose spotted May’s gold T-strap with the curved Louis heel and started to edge toward the side of the dance floor nearest to his target.
At Ethan’s “Go!” Dicky Cavanaugh skidded headfirst into the pile with a flourish. May’s shoe landed at Ethan’s feet. But Ambrose sped up and snatched the shoe by the beaded strap at the last minute. Ethan looked his brother in the eye and then put his hands in his pockets. “You’re leaving soon.”
Men huddled around the dance floor flourishing shoes on bended knee, or enacting exaggerated tug-of-wars over particularly delicate prizes. Dicky pretended to faint from the smell of a satin pump, much to the red-faced humiliation of Gretchen Van Horn, who stormed across the grass, slightly limping on one stockinged foot.
Ambrose found May chatting with a group of friends at a distance from the hilarity. He swung her shoe by the strap.
“Have you tried that on others?” she asked, barely turning from the group. “Are you sure it’s mine?”
“Course it’s yours,” he said, kneeling down and balancing her calf as he helped her slip her foot in, indeed the match. May bent down to adjust the buckle.
“You make a handsome retriever. Good dog.” She patted the top of his head before he’d had a chance to straighten himself, then she turned back to her friends.
“That means you dance with me,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Dance card’s full,” she said, flourishing the little tasseled book with a drawing of a pagoda on the cover that hung from her wrist. He removed it by its thin silken cord and briefly scanned it, noting the many crossing outs and overwritings of men’s names.
“What dance card?” he asked, tucking it into his back pocket next to his hip flask. “It’s my party, isn’t it? And I want to dance,” he said, leading her to the dance floor. “With you.”
She felt lavish in his arms as he brought her close in the afternoon heat.
“You’re a luxury,” he said, overwhelmed by the realness of her. Her pale white dress hinted at paler delights beneath. “An extravagance. Anyone ever tell you that?”
She socked his arm. “I’d rather be a necessity.”
The band leader launched into the popular song they’d been dancing to all summer, “Down by the Ohio.” She smelled of the violets at her neck.
“Don’t give me the absent treatment.” He jostled her elbow. “I’ve rescued your shoe. Shouldn’t you be trying to captivate me?” They rounded the edge of the dance floor.
“Capture you?” she said, mishearing him. “You’re leaving. Why would I waste my time?” He could feel her hand on the back of his neck, palm facing out, waving to a friend across the dance floor.
After they’d made one full circuit without speaking, she finally said, “Maybe if I were a necessity, you wouldn’t be leaving.” She tugged at his collar.
He pulled her closer yet. He’d put off his dreams once for his father. He wouldn’t do it again. “Come with me,” he breathed in her hair. This was his familiar line in their drama.
May nodded to a couple dancing next to them, smiling. “You know I can’t. Don’t tease me.” Indeed, he’d asked before. Each time, she’d refused. Each time, he hadn’t expected her to say yes.
“Just come.” Ambrose had stopped them now. They stood still on the dance floor. “With me.” He understood he was being outrageous. All the other times they’d discussed this had felt hypothetical. He’d used it to tease her, to create distance before their separation. But in this moment, he felt the primacy of the truth that had been there each time. He wanted her with him. He could see her hesitate this time, could feel it in his arms.
“I’m supposed to travel overseas alone with you for months at a time, and then just come back and what?”