She kissed him on both cheeks and then pulled back, finally noticing Rebecca. “Hello, dear. Have we met? I think I’d remember a gorgeous thing like you working for Marlise.”
Jay put a hand to Rebecca’s back, guiding her closer, then forcing his hand to drop. He needed to maintain a professional distance, not to mention the headache it was giving him to try to reconcile their old relationship with the new non-existent one.
Rebecca put out a hand. “It’s so nice to meet you, Betty. I’m Rebecca.”
Betty shook her hand warmly. “Jay must have been talking about me if you know my name already.”
“All good things. He loves you and George.”
“Ah, that’s my sweet Jay-Jay.”
Rebecca’s smile turned a little wooden. “Yep, he sure is sweet.”
***
“Jay-Jay?” she couldn’t help whispering when Betty walked ahead into the ballroom to check it out. “What happened to, ‘I go by James now’?”
Jay blushed. “Marlise calls me James. I didn’t want you to be confused when you heard it in the office.”
“Oh, how kind of you.” She liked having the upper hand, even if she had to use sarcasm and disdain to keep it. The Jay she used to know had never put up emotional walls or used power trips on people. What happened to him?
“Oh, this will be divine!” Betty waltzed around the ballroom with an imaginary partner, humming to herself while they watched. As she made her way back to them, she grabbed up Jay, and the two of them continued to dance.
Strangely, this was the most normal thing she’d seen Jay do today so far. This was the Jay she remembered. He twirled Betty in a circle and then continued their dance, chatting with her about flowers and the butterfly release she had planned for after the ceremony.
Members of the band started filtering in, and Jay handed Betty off to Rebecca so he could direct them in setting up.
Betty was the same height as Rebecca with her tall wedges, and they awkwardly moved together, Betty with no sense of personal space and Rebecca with no idea how this had just happened. Betty’s perfume was overpowering and made it that much harder to concentrate on the steps.
“Jay says this is your first day. What do you think, dear?”
Rebecca was thinking a lot of things, none of which she wanted to share. “I’ve worked in events before, but this is … unique.”
Now that the band was warming up, Betty upped the tempo of their dance, still leading of course.
“Jay is a handsome one. Are you single?”
Rebecca shook her head. “He’s my boss, Betty.”
“Oh, poo. So was George. I was his secretary. Although, it wasn’t as scandalous as it sounds. His wife died several years before he hired me. We were friends at first. But then, kazam! One day the sparks just flew.”
“Is that George?” Rebecca asked, nodding toward an older gentleman smiling at them from the entryway.
“Oh, my Georgie!” Betty dropped Rebecca’s hands and flew across the room to her fiancé. Rebecca retreated to the wall before any more dancing was required and looked around for Jay. He was on stage, off to the side, while the band messed with the sound system. She jogged up the steps to join him, resisting the urge to cover her ears. Every beat, every note vibrated through her body as if the sound was coming from a boom box inside her chest.
“You ready for us?” Betty called out when the band finished their warm-up song. She and George posed dramatically on the dance floor, and the lead singer smiled, cueing the rest of the band. They started up Stevie Wonder’s “Sign, Sealed, Delivered,” and Betty and George moved through their routine, which was bigger on charm than technique.
Rebecca turned to see Jay’s reaction. He had a pleasant smile affixed but seemed zoned out, though his eyes followed the couple as they shimmied across the dance floor.
“What should we do now?” she asked.
He shook his head and cupped a hand around his ear, indicating he couldn’t hear her. They moved off stage together and headed for the back of the ballroom where the sound wasn’t so intense.
When she repeated the question he just shrugged. “Act interested and clap when they’re done. In the future, you’ll come down here on your own for simple things like this.”
Because he’ll have more important things to do.That’s what he was really saying.
The song ended, and Jay moved forward to congratulate Betty and George, suddenly looking genuinely excited for them. Was it all an act with him? Did he actually like these people or was he good at faking it? And when had that started? She had to make sure she never became detached from her true feelings: on the job or off.
