Love in a Nutshell - Janet Evanovich [29]
They rounded food tables packed with the kind of calories a sensible woman would avoid, but which Kate considered staples. She looked away from the temptation, but suddenly the evening’s danger factor rose. Matt stood at the beer table, and something way hotter than hunger for ham casserole rippled through Kate.
“Hi, Matt!” Ella called.
Matt very slowly turned his attention from Kate. This was a first, since usually when Ella called, guys hopped to.
“He’s into you,” Ella said to Kate in a low voice.
Kate shook off the moment. “Punch sounds good. Really good.” She moved on to the table directly to the left of Matt.
Ella lined up with Matt, got a cup of beer, and chatted a little with Clete Erikson.
Kate investigated the punch. Clearly, this was the grandma drink, complete with the obligatory island of orange sherbet slowly melting in a sea of bright pink liquid studded with chunks of melon and strawberry. Not her beverage of choice, but still about ten thousand spots ahead of beer. She ladled herself a big plastic cup, trying to avoid the fruit. If anyone was going to have the bad luck to create a scene with a public fruit-choking incident, Kate knew she’d be that person. To make up for the fruit, she added a little more punch, plus some of the orange stuff.
She glanced over and caught Matt watching her, a broad smile on his face.
“You sure you want to drink that?” he asked.
“Not really, but I’m going to give it a try, anyway.”
“Note the people lining up for the beer and note the continuing absence of people at your table. What does that tell you?”
“That Keene’s Harbor is a haven for beer snobs?”
He grinned. “Live and learn.”
She raised her cup of sludge in a sketchy toast. “That’s my general plan.”
Ella, who’d been watching, fought back a laugh. Kate glanced into her cup again. It wasn’t the prettiest stuff she’d ever seen, but it couldn’t be that bad.
“We need to get moving,” Ella said. “We’ll catch you later, Matt.”
With that, she snagged Kate by the wrist and began hauling her and her foaming punch back past the sirenlike lure of the casseroles.
“You still sing, right?” Ella asked.
The summer they were sixteen, they had nothing better to do than drive around town and sing along to the radio. Kate had a shiny new driver’s license and a less shiny hand-me-down car. And when they’d needed money for more gasoline, Ella had played the guitar and Kate had sung on the street corner until they had change for a few gallons or the police told them to close up shop.
“Not even in the shower. I keep the water temperature set too low to carry a tune,” Kate replied.
They passed through what was obviously a silent auction area. Kate halted at a collection of old vinyl albums up for bid. Her parents had stuck their ancient stereo at The Nutshell. There was nothing Kate would like more than to mix a little retro Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin in with the Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand already in residence.
Ella nudged her along. “No time to window-shop. You’ve got music of your own to make.”
Kate noticed the small stage at the back of the long hall. About a half dozen people were in a line to the stage’s left, and Marcie Landon was onstage aligning a microphone stand behind a monitor of some sort. She seemed to be giving the arrangement the same OCD level of scrutiny she gave the shelves at her market.
As they came closer to the group, Kate started picking out the particulars. Junior Greinwold, with his trusty blue cooler at his feet, was flipping through an aged three-ring binder while a guy and another woman Kate didn’t recognize were peering at it from either side of him. A liquor-tinged memory of a party in someone’s basement and a lot of really bad versions of “Pour Some Sugar on Me” came back to her.
Kate stopped dead. “Karaoke? No way!” Ella settled a hand on Kate’s arm and drew her to the edge of the room. “You wanted to know how to become part of the town again, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then rule in karaoke.”
“You’re kidding. I thought the only place you could still find