Bet Me (11 page)

"Of course you picked up a woman last night." Shanna rolled her head to look at him. "They could drop you in the middle of a guy's locker room and you'd come out with a woman. How do you do it?"

Cal grinned at her. "My natural charm." He could almost see the actuary rolling her eyes as he said it.

Shanna rolled her head away. "And the sad thing is, that's true. I have no natural charm."

"Yes, you do," Cal said. "You just don't use it."

Shanna looked back at him. "I do?"

"When you're not worried about impressing some snobby twit, you're great," Cal said. "You're smart and funny and a good time."

"I am?"

"I hang out with you, don't I?"

"Well, yeah, but you're just being nice."

"I'm not nice," Cal said. "I'm selfish as all hell. And since you've made it clear you'll never sleep with me, I must be spending time with you because you're fun, right? Not counting these wet Elvis nights."

"Right," Shanna said, brightening some.

"Well, my standards of fun are very high," Cal said. "So you must be great. You just date the biggest bitches I've ever met in my life."

"Oh, and the women you date are all sweethearts." Shanna got up and moved away from him.

"This is not about me," Cal said. "The reason you keep crashing and burning is that you have no confidence and you keep picking women who like that about you."

"I know." Shanna sat down on the red barstool next to her breakfast bar and shoved back the yellow curtain she'd draped in the opening to reach for her Betty Boop cookie jar.

"So you should pick somebody who makes you feel good."

Shanna opened the cookie jar and took out an Oreo. "I know."

"How many times have we had this talk?"

"A thousand." Shanna bit savagely into her cookie.

"And every time, you abuse Elvis. That was a good song and you ran it into the ground. Sooner or later, you're going to pay for that."

"I know," Shanna said around her Oreo.

"Pick something that has some fight to it," Cal said. "There must be a pissed-off breakup song."

"I've always liked 'I Will Survive,'" Shanna said, cheering up a little.

"Oh, Christ." Cal stood up. Behind him, Elvis began to sing "She" again. "Set him free, will you?"

Shanna crossed to the bookcase and turned Elvis off. "They're not mean when I meet them, you know."

"Remember your first date with Megan?" Cal said. "You introduced us in the hall?" Shanna nodded. "She apologized for your clothes. I would have bitch-slapped her then but she looked like she could take me."

"She had very high standards."

"She was a bitter, controlling snob," Cal said. "You should have cut your losses after the first date."

"Is that what you did last night?" Shanna said.

"Hell, yes," Cal said.

"Well, I can't do that," Shanna said, going back to her cookie jar. "I'm not like you. I have to give it a fair shot."

Cal sighed. "All right. Why did she leave?"

Shanna's face crumpled again. "She said I was too much of a doormat."

"Well, she wiped her feet on you often enough to know," Cal said. Shanna burst into tears, and he went to her and put his arms around her. "Get mad at her, Shan. She was not a nice person."

"But I loved her!" Shanna wailed into his chest, spitting Oreo crumbs on his shirt.

"No, you didn't," Cal said, holding her tighter. "You wanted to love her. It's not the same thing. You only knew her a couple of weeks."

"It can happen like that." Shanna looked up into his face. "You can just know."

"No," Cal said. "You do not look at somebody, hear Elvis Costello singing 'She' on the soundtrack in your head, and fall in love. It takes time."

"Like you'd know." Shanna pulled away and picked up her cookie jar. "Have you ever stayed with anybody long enough to love her?"

"Hey," Cal said, insulted.

"That's no answer," Shanna said, retreating to her couch with her cookies. "Is that why you keep walking away so fast? Because at least I
try
."

"This is not about me," Cal said.

"I know, I know," Shanna said, fishing out another Oreo. "God, I'm a mess. Want a cookie?"

"No," Cal said. "Get your act together and try again tomorrow. If you swing by the office, I'll take you to lunch before you go to work."

"That would be nice," Shanna said. "You're a good person, Cal. Sometimes I wish you were a woman—"

"T
hank
you," Cal said doubtfully.

"—and then I remember you have that commitment phobia and I'm glad you're a guy. I have enough problems."

"This is true." Cal put his hand on the doorknob. "Can I go home now?"

"Sure," Shanna said. "Take me someplace expensive tomorrow."

"I'll take you to Emilio's," Cal said. "He needs the business and you like the pesto."

While Cal was trying to prop up Shanna, Min stopped by Emilio's to pick up salad and bread.

"Ah, the lovely Min!" he said when she tracked him down in his kitchen.

"Emilio, my darling," Min said. "I need salad and bread for three right now and a kickass wedding cake for two hundred three weeks from Sunday."

"Oh." Emilio leaned against the counter. "My grandmother makes wedding cakes. They taste like ..." He shut his eyes. "... heaven. Light as a feather." He opened his eyes. "But they're good, old-fashioned cakes, they don't have marzipan birds or fondant icing."

"Could she make a cake and decorate it with fresh flowers?" Min said. "I can get some real pearls. Maybe if the cake is covered with real things instead of sugar imitations, people will be impressed."

"I don't know," Emilio said. "But what matters is how it tastes, and it will taste—"

"Emilio, that's sweet," Min said, imagining Nanette's reaction to that one. "Unfortunately, in this case, what matters is how it looks."

"How about this," Emilio said. "I'll see if she'll do the cake. If she says yes, she'll ice it plain, and you can put the flowers and the pearls on it."

"Me," Min said doubtfully. "Well, not me, but Bonnie can do it, she has fabulous taste. It's a deal. Call your grandma."

Emilio picked up the phone. "So you taking Cal to this wedding?"

"I'm never seeing Cal again," Min said.

"God, you guys are dumb," Emilio said as he punched the numbers into the phone. In a moment, his face brightened. "Nonna?" he said and began to talk in Italian. The only word Min recognized was "Cal" which was worrying, but when Emilio hung up, he was smiling.

"It's all set," he said. "I told her you were Cal's girlfriend. She loves Cal."

"All women do." Min kissed him on the cheek. "You are my hero."

"That's the food," Emilio said, and packed up bread and salad for three for her. Then she went home and walked up thirty-two steps to Bonnie's apartment on the first floor.

"So," Liza said when she answered Bonnie's door. "You want to explain last night?"

"Can I come in first?" Min said, and slid past Liza into Bonnie's bright, warm apartment.

Bonnie had set her mission table with her Royal Doulton Tennyson china and a cut glass vase of grocery roses. It looked so pretty that Min thought,
Okay, my apartment will never look this good, but I could set a bet-ter table. I could even cook. I could get my grandmother's kitchen things out of the basement
. It would be nice to do kitchen stuff like her grandmother had. Maybe bake cookies.

That she couldn't eat.

Min sighed and put the Styrofoam boxes down on Bonnie's table.

"What's that?" Bonnie said, poking at the Styrofoam.

"The best salad you'll ever eat, and even better bread," Min said, and Bonnie went to get serving bowls.

"Bread?" Liza said to Min. "You're going to eat bread?"

"No," Min said. "I ate bread last night and then paid for it today. You're going to eat bread, and I'm going to live vicariously."

Liza made a face as she pulled out one of Bonnie's tall dining room chairs. "Like dessert. Stats, you—"

"What did you bring?" Min said, dreading the answer.

"Raspberry Swirl Dove Bars," Liza said, as she sat down.

"Rot in hell," Min said, pulling out her own chair. "Why can't you ever bring fruit?"

"Because fruit is not dessert," Liza said. "Now explain to us why you left the bar with Calvin Morrisey last night."

Min shoved the bread box Liza's way. "David bet him ten bucks he couldn't get me into bed in a month." She watched them freeze in place, Bonnie with a platter of chicken and vegetables in her hands, Liza opening the bread.

"You are
kidding me"
Liza said, her face dangerous with anger.

"I let him pick me up because I had a plan to get a date to the wedding, and then I realized I couldn't put up with that smarmy charm for three weeks, so I ate an excellent dinner and left."

Bonnie's face crumpled. "Oh, honey, that's awful."

"No," Min said. "Let's forget Cal Morrisey and eat. I want to talk about Diana. She's not happy."

"Wet and Worse." Liza gave Min a look that said they'd be talking about Cal again soon. "They'd bring anybody down."

Min closed her eyes. "Do not call them that. I almost called Susie Wet this afternoon at the fitting. She looked like she was about to sob through the whole thing."

"Well, that's understandable," Bonnie said, sympathy in her voice. She put the platter in the middle of the table and sat down, too.

Liza dumped the bread into a bowl. "Maybe Di shouldn't have asked Wet to be a bridesmaid. That's almost cruel."

"It would be worse not to be asked," Bonnie said. "Is that why she's upset, Min?"

"I think it's Greg," Min said, starting on her salad, "but she won't admit it. He's the one who forgot to order the wedding cake."

"Whoa," Liza said. "This is a man who's resisting his own wedding. And let's face it, your mother and Diana railroaded him into it."

"He proposed on his own," Bonnie said.

"I think he wanted a longer engagement," Min said. "But he said yes when they set the date. He's not incapable of speech. He could have said 'No.'"

"To Nanette and Diana?" Liza said as she started on her salad. "Fat chance. Worse will do a kind deed before Greg will grow a spine. Now you talk about Calvin Morrisey and this damn bet. We want to know
everything."

Half an hour later, the salad was gone, the leftover chicken was in the refrigerator, and Bonnie was unwrapping a Dove Bar as Min finished her recap of the evening.

"At least he walked you home," Bonnie said. "That was nice." She sounded doubtful.

"Yes. And then he hit me in the head, said, 'Have a nice life,' and left me," Min said. "I didn't like him, you guys don't like him, and he didn't like me. I think that's a perfect score."

"I think that whole good-bye thing is a trick," Liza said around a mouthful of Dove Bar. "I think he's putting you off guard, and he'll be back. If you're not careful, he'll charm you into bed and break your heart."

Min frowned at her in exasperation. "How naive do I look? I know about the bet. Anyway, I have a new plan."

"Oh, good," Liza said. "Because you don't have enough plans."

Min ignored her. "I was listening to Elvis singing 'Love Me Tender' last night, and it occurred to me that if he'd been reincarnated, he'd be about twenty-seven now, and I'm open to younger men. Statistically, the most successful marriages are those in which the woman is eight years older than the man. So I've decided to wait for Elvis to find me."

"You'd only be six years older," Bonnie said.

"Yes, but it would be Elvis, so I'd try harder," Min said.

"Why Elvis?" Liza said.

"Because he always tells the truth when he sings. Elvis is the only man in my life I can trust."

"So let me get this straight," Lisa said, pointing with her half-eaten Dove Bar. "Bonnie is waiting for a fairy tale character to make her life complete, and you're holding out for the reincarnation of a guy who ate fried banana sandwiches."

"Yep," Min said, and Liza shook her head.

"I might have found my prince," Bonnie said. "Roger's good."

"Roger?" Min asked, trying not to watch Liza consume her Dove Bar.

"We picked up the beast's friends last night," Liza said around her ice cream. "Bonnie got the one that walks upright."

"Roger is a sweetheart," Bonnie said. "I'm thinking of breaking my date Saturday night and going out with him instead. I'll wait and see how Friday night with him works out."

"He asked you out?" Min said, relieved to be off the subject of Cal. "Tell all."

"He asked her out for every night for the rest of her life," Liza said. "He's blind for her."

"That's nice." Min picked a last salad leaf out of her bowl to compensate for her lack of sugar. "So he has potential, Bon?"