Bentley Little - Dominion

Dion smiled softly at her. "I wouldn't care if they were lesbians," he said. "But if I thought you were a lesbian, I wouldn't be here."

Now it was her turn to blush.

Both of them were silent for a moment. Dion's hands were sweaty, and he wiped them surreptitiously on his pants. He had said it. He had taken the plunge. He had spoken aloud what he had been thinking, and now she knew for sure that he was interested. He licked his lips. What would she say? How would she react? How would she respond? The silence dragged on, and he was suddenly certain that he had made a mistake, that he had tipped his hand too early.

Her response was no response. She chose to ignore his remark. "Are you thirsty?" she asked finally. Her voice was gentler than it had been, filled with an emotion he couldn't quite place but which for some reason made him feel good. She motioned him up the porch steps, refusing to look at him. "We have some juice in the refrigerator."

Part of him was disappointed, part of him relieved. If he hadn't been accepted, at least he hadn't been shot down. He was still in the running, and that was good enough for now. He nodded. "Sounds great," he said.

They walked inside.

The interior of the house was less impressive than the outside. Rather than the museum's worth of untouchable antiques he had been expecting, he saw a hodgepodge of furnishings and decorating styles, most of them contemporary, none which fit with the grandiose promise of the exterior.

The house was comfortable, though, the rooms warm and inviting. In a family room dominated by a large-screen TV, the day's newspaper was scattered over a low wood and white tile coffee table. On the armrest of the couch was an opened paperback, a Danielle Steele novel. Next to the doorway were two pairs of women's shoes.

Dion felt less intimidated than he had before. Penelope's family might be rich, but they lived the same way as everyone else.

"Kitchen's through here!"

He followed Penelope into the kitchen, where a middle aged woman wearing faded jeans and a plain white blouse was chopping bell peppers on a freestanding butcher block. The woman turned toward them as they entered. She exchanged a quick glance with Penelope, then beamed at Dion. "Hello," she said.

Dion smiled, nodded. "Hello."

"Dion, this is my mother. Mother, this is my friend Dion."

Penelope's mother looked nothing like her. She was small-boned and dark, whereas her daughter was tall and blond. Her features were plain and nondescript in contrast to Penelope's stunning good looks. She was also older and more careworn than he would have expected. The one thing mother and daughter did seem to have in common was an innate shyness, a natural reserve, although Penelope's mother appeared to be more deferential, less strong willed.

"Would you two like something to drink?"

"Yes," Penelope said. "Juice?"

"We have grape. Fresh squeezed today."

"That'll be fine."

Mother Felice opened the white refrigerator door and drew out a large glass pitcher filled to the brim with grape juice. She maneuvered carefully over to the counter, holding the pitcher with two hands in order to keep from spilling any on the floor. "Where are you from?" she asked as she put the pitcher down and took two glasses from the cupboard. "I know you're not from around here."

"Arizona," Dion said.

"Really? Whereabouts?"

"Mesa. It's near Phoenix."

"I know where Mesa is. I used to have a friend from Scottsdale, a girl I

went to high school with."

Penelope smiled as her mother handed her a glass of juice. Mother Felice had always been able to put people at ease, to make them feel comfortable. Of all of her mothers, she was the kindest, the most solicitous of the feelings of others, and it was she who was always chosen to soothe the waters after Mother Margeaux had bulldozed her way over someone. Penelope was glad to see that Dion seemed to like her mother, and that her mother seemed to like Dion.

The door banged open and Mother Janine stepped loudly into the kitchen, bumping against the frame as she pulled work gloves off her hands.

"Who's--" she began. She stopped in mid-sentence, saw Dion, and smiled.

"Hello," she said.

"This is Dion," Mother Felice explained. "A friend of Penelope's."

"Dion?" Mother Janine's smile broadened. She reached out, took his hand, shook it gently. "I am very happy to meet you.

Very happy. I'm ... Penelope's aunt, Janine."

"How do you do?" he replied.

Penelope saw her mothers exchanging surreptitious glances, smiling in approval. She reddened, but she did not look away. She was embarrassed but also proud. She had never before invited a boy to see where she lived, and she felt good that the first one she had chosen was Dion, someone of whom her mothers would obviously approve, a boy who was nice, intelligent, good-looking, and respectful.

"Would you like to go on a little tour of the winery?" Mother Janine asked. "I'd love to--"

"We have to study," Penelope said.

"We could study afterward," Dion suggested.

"We have to study," she repeated firmly.

He nodded. "Right," he agreed. "Right." He handed the empty glass to Penelope's mother. 'Thanks," he said.

There was silence for a moment. Dion was awkwardly aware that everyone was staring at him: Penelope, her mother, her aunt. He didn't know what to say and was about to make some sort of generic remark when Penelope saved him and suggested that they go out to the Garden.

"Study in a garden?" Dion said.

She laughed. "I'll show you. Come on."

He said good-bye to the two women and followed Penelope out of the kitchen. Though nothing had happened, nothing he noticed, he got the feeling that he had passed some sort of test. He thought of Penelope's mother and her aunt, and he was not sure if he liked that or not.

He followed Penelope through the library as she opened the sliding glass doors and stepped outside.

Frank Douglas had been a bartender for a long time, for thirty-three of his fifty-six years, and while he might not have had the academic credentials of a sociologist, he had learned a little about reading people in his time behind the counter. Individuals and crowds. He could be pouring drinks, wiping up, engaging in superficial chitchat with {

the more talkative regulars, but at the same time his senses were always open, his antennae out, working, measuring, gauging, sizing up.

And this crowd was weird.

He poured himself a mineral water and downed half of it in a single swallow. The night crowds had all been weird lately. Or at least weird for this bar. The Pioneer usually attracted a steady, stable clientele of after-work drinkers and evening socializers, a solid blue-collar beer crowd. But in the past few weeks the makeup of the bar had gradually shifted. No, not the makeup. The personality. For the people were still the same, and, individually, they seemed no different than they had before. They wore the same clothes, drove the same cars, came and left at the same times. But the configuration of the crowd when these people were together had changed completely, and that had changed the whole tenor of the bar. Gone were the endless public rehashes of the weekend's sporting events, the petty domestic complaints, the boring shop talk.

Conversations now were quiet, less public, more intimate, more personal, usually between two people. Usually between a man and a woman.

And these days most of his customers were drinking wine instead of beer.

A lot of wine.

Frank finished his mineral water, washed out the glass.

His gaze wandered to the back wall, where the once empty booths were all full, populated with people who sat very close together in the darkness.

That was the strangest thing of all. Many of these people had known one another for years, had been friends or acquaintances, bar buddies, but had always looked elsewhere for love. Now they suddenly seemed to have discovered each other, and they were behaving like high school students in heat.