Cancelled (25 page)

“No. You never mentioned it before. And who is this woman that will be stepmother to my baby? Don't I have a right to meet her?”

He was taken aback. Her baby? Before it was all about their child, and suddenly Kellie was back to making him feel not good enough.

“Wait a minute. I never told you who to date or marry or whatever.”

“You want to know how many dates I've been on since becoming pregnant with your child? None. Not one. Closest thing I've had to a date is getting a damn...a damn slushy with you.” Kellie's sobs pierced his heart.

“I don't know what to say, but I'm in love with Alexis. And she's going to make a great stepmother, I wouldn't be with someone who wouldn't.”

Kellie nodded at Johnathan and opened the car door. Her fast movements to get out of the car were severely hampered by her larger size. Johnathan hopped out of the car and raced around to help her, but she pushed his arm away. She waddled up to the front door and slammed it shut.

Johnathan drove over to Anna's house with very little thought about going home. He turned off the car lights revealing a completely darkened house. He dreaded walking up to the door. Anna had called him a number of times over the last few weeks, and every time, he ignored the call. It had been four days since she last tried.

The dark house was an ominous sign to Johnathan. He knocked on the door and tried the bell. When there was no answer, he used his key. Anna's car was in the driveway, so he knew she was here.

“Hello!” He announced his presence in the house loud and clear, just in case there was another 'Buck' present. Hearing the low buzzing of an electronic screen, he walked into the living room to see Anna passed out in front of a snowy television set. Her antique liquor cabinet looked considerably bare behind the glass since the last time he was here.

“Hey, Anna? Mom? Come on, wake up.” He gently roused her small frame curled up in his father's recliner.

“Johnathan? Did you come home?” a groggy Anna asked.

“Anna, I don't live here anymore. Come on, you need to go upstairs.” As he lifted her to her feet, the sight of scummy pajamas shocked him. Anna was one of those women who touched up her lipstick without anyone ever noticing. She would never wear dirty pajamas over again.

“There's pizza rolls in the freezer if you're hungry.”

Johnathan rolled his eyes. She was too drunk to even realize he was all grown up.

About halfway up the stairs, Anna stiffened and stopped. Her eyes open wide, she turned to Johnathan and began crying. “I'm so, so sorry. I know it was so very wrong what I let Daniel do. I was weak, I should have been strong enough to let him go.”

“Sssh, sssh.” Johnathan pulled his stepmother into a hug. “I was angry and didn't return your phone calls, but I've had time to think. If you had divorced Dad, where would that have left me?”

“But it was so wrong. Daniel and Nancy could have remarried. I interfered. I stayed in the way.” Johnathan laughed. He couldn't help it. This made Anna lean back. “This isn't funny!”

“Dad hated my mother until the day he died. H-a-t-e-d her. If you two had divorced, he probably would have crawled back into the bottle and never given a damn about me or Jenn.”

“Don't say that. That's not right. To talk about the dead.”

Johnathan gave a sour look to Anna, almost expecting her to make the sign for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit right there. He turned and started back down the steps.

“Where are you going?”

“To get us both a drink. Of water. You should go shower, or at least change,” he said, over his shoulder.

Rummaging around in the kitchen, Johnathan made Anna a sandwich and poured her a glass of water. He wasn't convinced she had eaten much in the last few weeks. When Anna reappeared, she looked ten times better than the drunk old woman he woke up a half-hour ago.

“Hungry?” He set the plate down in front of her.

“This isn't right. You shouldn't be taking care of me.”

“I already ate, don't worry.” He joined her at the table with his own glass of water, trying to encourage her to replenish her fluids.

Picking at the table cloth, he apologized for not answering her phone calls.

“I knew you were okay, Alex shed a little light on how you were doing as we planned the engagement dinner,” she said.

“I didn't know you talked to her.”

“Are you kidding? You know how much I love art deco. Wait until you see the decorations, we're going to all feel like we're hiding from the law.”

Johnathan tried to smile, but he still hated the idea of a themed party for his engagement dinner. But it was far too late for him to make his real desires known, not when the two most important women in his life had gone to so much trouble.

“Speaking of Alex, I better get home before she releases the hounds.”

“She doesn't know you're here?” Anna sounded amused and slightly concerned.

Johnathan kissed his stepmother on the cheek. “Are you going to be alright?”

“Certainly, I was just missing your father a little. That's all.”

“I ran to Kellie's appointment straight from work, then came by here after. So no, she doesn't.”

With a quick squeeze of Anna's shoulders as she sat down, Johnathan left his stepmother half confident she'd be okay. He hadn't kept track of the time and presumed a very pissed-off fiancée was waiting for him at home.

“That was the longest doctor's appointment I've ever seen.” Alex's cold voice announced her displeasure as soon as Johnathan walked in the door. Softly, he closed the door behind him.

“I wasn't with Kellie. I stopped at Anna's.”

“And you couldn't call me to give a heads up?”

“You're right, I should have called. I was wrapped up in helping her. She doesn't look good.” Johnathan moved further inside and sat down next to Alex. He tried to lean in for a kiss, but she stood up. He was surprised by her aloofness after he explained he was visiting with Anna.

“Boxes came for you. I put them up in the spare bedroom.” Alex walked into the kitchen and began cleaning. She loudly banged pots and pans against the sink and slammed the trash can lid with every closing. Like an idiot, Johnathan didn't consider her cooking dinner for him. He followed her into the kitchen to lend a hand.

After taking out the trash to the curb, he came back to a nearly spotless kitchen.

“Don't you want to know what happened at work?”

He had almost forgotten about the issue with the chips. “Sure.”

“Eric called the vendor. They'll take the chips back and only charge a 20% restocking fee. In exchange for waiving a rush order fee, Eric promised to use their chips on the upcoming Neimer project. He said if you guys work weekends, the deadline was still possible.”

“He's right. Assuming the chips arrive next week.”

Alex finished cleaning the counters, and rinsed out the wash cloth. She laid it across the center beam of the sink and poured herself a new glass of wine.

“I guess Eric is really coming around so there's no reason to vote him out of the company.”

Alexis stopped in the doorway between the dining room and kitchen. “What?”

“Buying him out. I saw the papers upstairs when you were out of town.”

“You snooped in my file cabinet?”

Johnathan crossed his arms in front of him. “I wasn't aware that was your private filing cabinet, it's in our office.”

“But it was locked. And you had to get the key out of my dresser. You don't think that's an invasion of privacy?”

“No, not when the files are concerning our company.”

“So I can take a look at the files on your laptop?”

“They're password protected. You'd have to hack the password.”

“You mean like a locked filing cabinet?”

Johnathan closed his eyes and took a breath. “I didn't break into the lock, I used the key. And it doesn't change the fact you went behind
my
back to write up papers to kick Eric out of the company. It takes two votes. You won't get mine.” He glared at her, waiting for the fit.

Instead, she smiled at him. “Those papers aren't for anyone, it was just an exercise to see what the draft might look like, in case anyone in the company ever needed it.”

He was shocked. Just last week, this would have been a major blow up between the two of them. He gave her a nod to show he understood she only drafted the papers as a mock-up. To the engineering side of his brain, keeping rough drafts of important documents made sense.

“I have wedding invitations for you to look at.” She motioned towards a three-ring binder that had to be four inches thick.

“What are all of the sticky notes on the pages?” At least two dozen neon colored tabs stuck out from the edge of the book throughout the thickness of pages.

“The ones I like.”

Daunted, Johnathan began flipping the pages. One page was nothing but white cards he swore were identical. The next page was full of ivory invitations with the same problem. He noticed a sticky note on the top right invitation of the tenth page. The invitation was ivory, with a horizontal bronze bar for the names.

“That one.”

“You didn't even look at the rest. You just picked the first one I liked.”

“That's true, but I don't need to see anymore. I like that one. It's simple and modern. That's all I need.” He pulled the invitation out of the flap and moved it in the light. The metallic bronze bar shimmered as he moved it in the light.

Alexis laughed. “You just picked out the most expensive one that I liked.”

Johnathan's smile faltered, but he held firm to his decision. He looked back at the book the invitation came out of, reading the description on the page. Linen paper, response card, tissue paper insert. And a small number in the right hand corner. $5.25.

“Oh, they're only $5.25 a box. How many are in a box?”

A fit of giggles overtook Alexis, one of her manic laughing fits. “No... not $5.25 per box.” She gasped for breath and slowed down her laughter. “They're $5.25 each.”

“Each?” Johnathan looked again at the invitation in his hand. This flimsy little paper was over five bucks?

“How many invitations are we sending out?”

“200.”

Johnathan crunched the numbers effortlessly in his mind. “We're spending $1,100 on paper?”

Alexis shook her head. “It'll be closer to $2,000."

"$2,000! How do you figure?"

"We also have to buy the envelope, the response card, the response envelope and postage. I have to pay extra postage for each invitation, plus place a regular stamp on the response card," she rattled off.

Johnathan groaned. Weddings were such a racket. Everyone had email, why not just make an attractive graphic invitation and send it out with a push of the button? However, the last time he suggested that, both Anna and Alex read him the riot act about proper decorum.

“Who's going to help you write all of these invitations out?” he asked, suspiciously. He hoped his chicken scrawl protected him from the task.

“That's why I wanted to order them now so they're here in time for when Tiffany visits in September to go dress shopping with me. It's okay if she stays here?”

“Will she mind the baby being here? I figured we'd put her crib in the guest room.”

Alexis raised her eyebrow. Johnathan expected her to push against the crib idea once again. “The baby will only be a few weeks old, will she be able to do overnights away from her mother yet?”

Johnathan nodded. “Kellie bought a breast pump.”

“But she'll be feeding a lot, right?”

Unsure where this was going, Johnathan nodded. Alexis packed up the wedding invitations and placed them at the end of the table with all of her other wedding materials. “It'd probably be better for her to sleep in our room then for the first few weeks.”

“Like in a bassinet?”

“If that's what they're called.”

Johnathan nodded and grinned. They weren't fighting anymore and Alexis wanted the baby to sleep in their room. Finally, all of the pieces of his life were falling perfectly into place.

“I think that's a smart idea. Now, would the future Mrs. Michaels care to join Mr. Michaels upstairs?” Johnathan gallantly held out his arm to escort his lovely bride upstairs. She smiled and accepted his arm, leaning her head on his shoulder. Unfortunately, the staircase was a little too narrow for both of them, so Alexis released his arm, pinched his butt, and then dashed up the steps. Johnathan was milliseconds behind her as they both fell into bed and their lips found each other.

16

B
y the weekend of the engagement dinner, both Eric and Johnathan were exhausted. They were still so behind, Eric found Johnathan at work at seven am that Sunday morning.

“Aren't your in-laws in town?”

Johnathan nodded, still testing various electrical points with a meter on Claw 6. Every prototype had different bugs and issues, driving the two of them up the wall. Claw 3 was stripped down for parts and reformed technically as Claw 11.

Eric picked up the paperwork for Claw 4 to review its status.

“I got here at five, but I'm leaving by eight to make brunch with them.”

It seemed like a different lifetime that he and Eric were excited about the Hedis project, playing around with designs, each one more outlandish than the other. That was only a year ago.

The two worked in mostly silence punctured by the occasional expletive until Johnathan had to leave.

Thankfully, most of the awkwardness of the brunch was lifted by Alex and her mother Carla talking non-stop. Anna also contributed to the conversation, as it mostly covered topics about the wedding neither he nor Mr. Rodriguez cared about. To be polite, he invited Alex's father Marco to a round of golf before the party, but he declined claiming he forgot his clubs. Another day, Johnathan would have felt the snub, but instead he felt relieved it opened up his afternoon to go back to work.

Just to be safe, Johnathan brought his suit for the evening with him to the office. With the women going to Anna's favorite spa in D.C., he was free to just take the train back to Georgetown. He was relieved to see Eric still there.