Chose the Wrong Guy, Gave Him the Wrong Finger (30 page)

She laid a papery white hand to his cheek. “You’re such a good boy.”

Always had been.

As soon as she was gone, I said, “I can fix that. Take off your shirt.”

“I don’t want to put you to work for me.” He looked at the damage, then added, “But I don’t have much choice, I don’t have time to go get another one.”

He took off the shirt and handed it to me, leaving his tanned body looking pretty damn hot in those nice trousers and a tank top.

I went into my purse and took out my travel sewing kit.

He laughed. “Just happen to have needles and thread on you, huh?”

“Always.”

“So what was really going on?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said. She’d stopped me from telling him once, it wasn’t my place to tell him now. No point in adding drama to what would hopefully just be a happy day with no glitches. “We really were talking about the wedding.” True.

He didn’t believe me, though. He made a noise of uncertainty and sat down in the old wing chair a few feet from me.

It just happened to place him in exactly the perfect position for me to take in his entire form even in my peripheral vision while I sewed.

“So what will you do after the house is packed up and the wedding’s over?” I asked.

“Breathe a huge sigh of relief, drink a scotch, and welcome normality back.”

I nodded, watching my stiches carefully so there would be nothing askew. “I guess this has been kind of a pain, having to come do so much work here every time you have a free second.”

“It’s not the work,” he said. “It really is sad. More so than I thought it would be.”

“Yeah?” I looked up and met his eyes.

He looked embarrassed. “I’m not supposed to be the emotional one.”

I smiled. “Wouldn’t do to have anyone know you’re human, huh?”

He kept his gaze fastened on mine and shook his head.

“I’ll never tell.”

A fraction of a moment passed. “You’re the only one who could,” he said softly.

“Could…?”

“Tell. That I ever had any emotion at all.”

It was true, the thing everyone said about Frank Morrison was that he was steely, unflappable. I knew better.
No one
is completely unflappable.

But maybe especially not Frank. He had a bigger heart than anyone, under there.

That was probably why he kept it so well hidden.

“I never thanked you for that,” he said. “I mean for being someone I could trust like that when the rest of the world expected me to be something else.”

I slowed my stitching. “Did I ever thank you for risking your family relations and putting your life on hold to drive me thousands of weepy miles just to try and make me feel better?”

“Actually, you did. Profusely. Repeatedly. To the point where I had to tell you to shut up a few times, as I recall.”

“That’s an exaggeration.”

“Hardly. You didn’t need to thank me at all, Quinn. It shook my world up a little too. In a good way.”

I knotted the stitch and handed the shirt back to him, though I found myself curiously reluctant to. There was something so nice, so companionable about having this quiet moment with him in that old room, the only punctuation being the ticking clock.

But the tear was mended.

And the moment was over.

“Thanks,” he said, then gave a quick laugh. “For everything. That and”—he gestured with his shirt—“this.” He put it on and buttoned himself into perfect form again.

“No problem,” I said. “And … no problem.”

We looked at each other for a moment, and warmth tingled down my core.

Then, weirdly, neither of us said another word. He just left and I just watched him go.

*   *   *

Which was the note that led me, the next morning, to Day Drunk Day. The ubiquitous red envelope was fastened to the top of one of two red velvet bottle bags, and the instructions read:

Half and half. Have one glass immediately and one more within the hour. Have at least two per hour until five. Refills are already in the fridge in your back storeroom. Make sure you eat. That’s there too. XOXO.

I pulled the velvet off the first bottle.

Champagne.

The second bottle was orange juice.

He wanted me to drink mimosas all day long.

Apart from a slowly sipped glass or two of wine when we were having cheese nights, I really rarely drank, and certainly never drank like this. Which, of course, Glenn knew. Ergo, this was definitely not like me to do.

I wasn’t sure I’d follow it to the letter, but, given the night I’d had with Glenn, and the sleepless hours that had followed, I have to admit, a little breakfast cocktail didn’t seem like that bad an idea.

“Good morning!” Becca’s voice rang a few minutes later as she came in the door. I had just popped the cork and was pouring the bubbly into a chilled crystal flute Glenn had thoughtfully provided in the fridge, along with another bottle of champagne and an assortment of fruit and cheese, which I now had sitting on the counter.

“Morning,” I said. “Care for a cocktail?”

“No?” She came over to me curiously. “But thank you. What are we celebrating?”

“I’m not sure. Freedom?” I was generous with the champagne. Three-quarters of a glass of champagne to one-quarter of a glass of orange juice. I took a sip. It was delicious. Champagne was always delicious. Orange juice was too, come to think of it, though I tended to avoid it since I’d gotten older and more diet-conscious. “Anyway I’m just shaking things up today, doing things a little differently.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” She nodded with more understanding than I was expecting. “You could probably use that.”

“What do you mean?” Did
everyone
know I was a mess? Should I just wear my high school cheerleader uniform every day and get it over with?

Becca looked chagrined. “I didn’t mean anything bad,” she hastened to say. “Only that, you know, you come in here every day and work such long hours, day after day.” She looked at me with genuine concern, which was more crushing than if she’d rolled her eyes at me and called me fat. “You’re young, you should be
living
.”

I drank. Then said, “You’re young too. Why am I the only one without a life?” The words could have sounded petulant or defensive, but I thought she heard them for what they were, a genuine question as to where I was going wrong.

“For one thing,” she said, “I’m about fifteen years older than you, as you well know. And for another, I have kids. Obligations that cannot be shifted. If you got a wild hair and decided to go to Jamaica, you could easily get me to cover for you here. Then off you go. But when you have people depending on you for sustenance day after day, hour after hour, you can’t even go to the grocery store without making sure you know where everyone is, what they’re doing, and where they’ll be when you get back. I’m not complaining, I love it, but those are the ties that bind. I’m not sure what’s binding someone as young and beautiful as you to this life without ever taking a little break.”

“I take breaks.” I refilled the glass quickly. Seven-eighths champagne, one-eighth orange juice. It was already going to my head. “I was breaking just last night.”

“Okay.” Becca was never one to argue or impose her point of view on anyone too strongly. She’d probably only said as much as she did because she was feeling trapped in some way that she wasn’t saying. Maybe a fight with her husband, or the still-chill nights of late spring were getting to her and she wanted to be in the tropics. “I’m a bit queasy this morning, but it still seems like fun to start the day with mimosas for no reason, so enjoy yourself!”

“Thanks.” I drained the glass and felt pleasantly dizzy. “Want one?”

She looked doubtful. “I’d better not.”

Fine. All the more for me. “You here all day?” I confirmed. She was here all day every Thursday, but I was just hoping there wasn’t some kid thing going on … at least that she knew about now.

“All day,” she said, and went into the back room, as usual, to look at the notes and see what needed stitching, packing, shipping, etc.

She was right. In theory, I could have gone across the world for two weeks and left the shop in her capable hands, and it would have been none the worse for it when I returned.

Apparently, in fact, my absence had little effect on anyone or anything. Witness Burke. He’d walked out of our wedding and right into another one. It hadn’t worked out, granted, but he’d done it. Married some jerk with a boy’s name and then divorced her. If it hadn’t been her he divorced, would it have been me? Was he just bad at being married? What was the truth behind that anyway? Who’d divorced whom?

I took out a pad and jotted,
Ask who did who
, on it to remind me later. Then added,
whom
?

By noon, I was through the first bottle of champagne and was trying to pace myself by drinking flutefuls of water, alternating with the already-opened second bottle.

My pad, however, had gotten quite an extensive list:

Ask who did whom
was joined by:

Who was btter in bed me or slut girl, been long time cn tell me now, right???

Get tambour lace for Trander drss

Did he KISS her?!

Hw old was wife?

Does he stll have ring from that wdding? Ugh!!

Steak/Cheese sub lttc, tom, mayo, onions with pepprs on side and swiss chese
[Suddenly Puccio’s Deli seemed like a good idea.]

Why is Glenn so high n mighty? Hes not with anyone! Ask! This could be bad idea to trst his plan!

703-555-6266
[number for the local beer and wine, which delivers]

Frank—remember That Thing he does. So hot.

Needless to say, it was a long morning. Probably more so for Becca than for me.

And for poor Linda Hyatt, who was in for her last fitting.

Linda had dated her fiancé for
years
before he’d finally proposed, patiently waiting through his dithering about commitment. When she’d come in to order her dress, it was after waiting a couple of
months
after his proposal, just to make sure he didn’t change his mind “again” and cancel on her. Apparently that had happened more than once, always with excuses that made noise about the seriousness of the commitment and how he didn’t want to hurt her and blah blah blah. So finally he’d gone an entire eight weeks or so without backing out and she had determined that to be enough time to finally believe him.

She was so excited that I had never had the heart to say anything about how much better she deserved than that. It wasn’t my place anyway; I was hired to do my job, not be her counselor. A lot of ill-fated brides-to-be came into the shop, and it was my job to give them a beautiful dress—sometimes one I hoped they’d save and use for a
future
wedding, but I never knew most of the outcomes because that wasn’t really any of my business.

Which meant that my current condition and the fact that Linda was tearfully explaining evidence of her fiancé’s recent emotional detachment combined to make the perfect storm of sorts.

“… He’s just not always answering my texts,” she said, looking to Becca with a tiny glimmer of what I recognized as tenuous hope in her eyes.

“He’s probably busy getting ready for the wedding too,” Becca soothed. “It’s only a week and a half away.”

“Yes…” Linda looked doubtful. “But … and I don’t want to make him sound like a bad guy … but he’s also not returning my calls. He says things like, ‘It didn’t sound like you needed an answer’ or whatever, but, seriously, if I call at all, that means I want to talk to him, isn’t that clear?”

From my vantage point, leaning on the door frame to the storeroom, I definitely saw the irritation cross Becca’s face.

But her voice was measured and calm. “You’d think so and I’d think so, but maybe there’s a good reason for him to seem so … short … with you. It might be a really good idea to talk to him so that you can go forward on your special day without a care in the world.”

“Do you
really
think there could be a good reason for this?” Linda asked, the uncertainty ringing clear in her voice.

“
Absolutely
. You never know what’s going on with other people, even the ones you’re closest to, unless you ask.”

I felt my grip tighten on the champagne flute I was holding. “That’s for sure,” I heard my own voice chirp. Somewhere along the way, my brain decided to take a break. “For example, he could be cheating on you, and if you don’t
specifically ask him
he might not think it’s something you’d, you know,
want to know
.”

Chapter 23

Both sets of eyes turned to me, both alarmed, both for different reasons.

“You think he’s
cheating
?” Linda asked, and I actually
saw
the blood draining from her face. “Have you
heard
something?”

“Oh, she’s
kidding
,” Becca soothed, shooting me a look that told me to shut the fuck up.

I took a couple of steps forward and set my glass down on the counter. “No, I’m not. It happened to me. It’s happened to millions of women. Just watch daytime television. You think you’re in love, you think you can trust him, you think your life is going to be wonderful, and then—
boom!
—you find out you’ve been living a lie.”

“Am I living a lie?” Linda asked Becca.

“No!” Becca looked back at me, and I clearly remember the sharp question in her eyes. “Quinn’s not … herself right now.”

I gave a short laugh. “No kidding. I haven’t been myself for years.
He
took that away from me.” I pointed a finger at Linda. “I’m just saying be careful, don’t let that happen to you.”

“Weren’t you sorting invoices?” Becca asked in a hard voice. “For the IRS? You ought to go back and finish that.”

I looked at my empty glass. “Yes, I’ll go back to my
sorting
.” I picked it up. “But I’m just saying, Linda, be careful. Ask every question you can think of and listen to your gut.” I gestured at her with my glass. “There’s nothing worse than finding out when it’s too late.” I went back into the storeroom, possibly with a misstep or two along the way, and closed the door most of the way.