Chose the Wrong Guy, Gave Him the Wrong Finger (3 page)

“Why are you telling me all this now, Frank? Why now?”

“Because you need to know before you go in there and marry the wrong guy.”

She sank down next to the curb again, her own private rise and fall of service, and hugged her knees closer to her, her feet stinging against the hot pavement of the gutter.

There was a steady drumbeat of,
This isn’t true, this isn’t true, this isn’t true, this isn’t true
, thrumming in her head.

But she didn’t buy it.

“But why now? Why at the last possible minute?” She met his eyes. “Why not, I don’t know, yesterday? Last week? Last month? Just how long have you known all this was going on?”

“I’ve known it all along. I thought you knew—I mean, how could you
miss
it?—but I guess you didn’t want to know. It wasn’t until today that I realized maybe you really didn’t get it. You missed every hint.”

“Hint?”

“There were a million of them. Hell,
I
gave you a million of them!”

“Jesus, Frank, you might have a million thoughts in your head, but if you throw me a balloon, all I’m going to catch is the balloon!” She threw her hands in the air and came perilously close to hitting him in the face. Which she wouldn’t have been sorry for at all. “Who wants to leap to conclusions only to have their heart broken?”

“I understand
,
” he said, in an infuriatingly calm voice. “But sometimes you need to be realistic.”

“I thought I was,
Frank.
” She practically spit his name. “Right up until this moment, I thought I was. Because no one gave me the benefit of, apparently, the facts.”

“But you knew them, Quinn. Come on. Deep down, you must have known.”

Had she? Her stomach tightened at the thought. Had the occasional worry or moment of mistrust been significant, or just paranoia? Didn’t everyone have doubts in a relationship now and then? Didn’t
everyone
occasionally think the person they loved might be … attracted to other people?

“I think you’re mad at the wrong person
,
” Frank concluded.

“No, I’m not! I’m mad at all the
right
people. I’m mad at you, I’m mad at that sonofabitch in there”
—
she gestured toward the church—“and I’m mad at myself most of all. Myself and you. And him.” God, she hated everyone.

He gave a soft laugh. “I guess that about covers it.” He looked as if he wanted to reach for her, to comfort her, but thought better of it. “I’ve known you a long time, Quinn. In fact…” He held a breath for a moment, pent up, then expelled it. “I … well, I kept hoping you’d see what was going on. The truth. I would never treat you like this.”

She looked at him incredulously. “You are not seriously making a pass at me.”

“Quinn, I want you to be treated the way you should be treated. You know me, you know who I am. There’s no need to sell myself to you, I’m not right either, I’m sure, or you would have seen it a long time ago. That’s not what this is about. I told you what my conscience said I had to tell you. What you do with it is up to you.” He stood up and dusted off his pants. “I’m going in now. I’ll let them know you’re on your way, no matter what you decide to do once you’re in there.” He shrugged. “And, Quinn, I’m really sorry to have done this … this way. Or at all. I just didn’t know what else to do at this point. I couldn’t sit on it without giving you a straight shot.”

Then he went into the church, his gait certain, if not confident. And why wouldn’t it be?
He
wasn’t the one whose life was just shattered.
He’d
be okay no matter what. Obviously he’d made something of a confession to her, but it was equally obvious that his life—his heart, his sanity, his well-being—didn’t
depend
on what
she
did.

She didn’t know how long she stood there, staring at the carved wooden door after he’d gone through it. It felt like forever. She was completely numb. Part of her wanted to never move again. To never have to do anything again. Her world had been shattered, and she wanted to just collapse into a million little pieces on the ground, the million little puzzle pieces she would otherwise have to put together in order to make sense of this.

Then she heard her mother’s voice calling to her. “Quinn! Come on! Come in here! Everyone’s waiting!”

And that was duty’s call.

Mechanically, she got up and started to walk toward the door, aware that her veil was askew, that she’d sweated her makeup into something of a blur, but unaware of the gum she’d sat on that was now sticking to her dress, and marched to the internal beat in her head, morbidly in tempo with the “Wedding March.”

It can’t be true, it can’t be true, it can’t be truuuue, it can’t be true.

That beat carried her all the way up to the altar. She was aware of eyes on her, but she met no one’s gaze. Not even Burke’s, though she knew—she could just
feel
—it was questioning.

What’s wrong? What’s going on?

No clear answer formed in her head. She didn’t know what was going on, exactly. She was dazed, being carried on a rickety raft by an ocean of adrenaline.

She didn’t know what she was going to do until she was right there by his side.

That’s when it all came clear.

She drew her hand back and slapped him with all the power of every unacknowledged hurt he’d ever inflicted on her.

Then she turned and ran back down the aisle, out of the church, followed, not by the undoubtedly stunned Burke, but by his best man. His brother.

Frank.

*   *   *

Five hours later, as the night crept over town, Quinn sat alone in her shop—she had refused her friends’ well-intended offers of help and support, half ready to strangle the next person who offered either—opening presents, writing awkward
thank you anyway
’s for them, and repackaging them to ship back to the sender.

And all the while, her anger grew stronger and stronger, like hoofbeats from an oncoming calvary.

She couldn’t believe she’d put so much trust in Burke. Couldn’t believe it. Everything seemed so clear now.

Yet, as clear as it was, she still worried about how she’d struggle when her current anger dissolved tomorrow, or the next day, into sadness.

She put her pen down and cracked her knuckles. Her hand was
killing
her from all this writing. If it were thanks for wedding gifts it would have been a lot more fun. But this? Explaining. Apologizing. Wondering which recipients would understand and which would be angrily tucking into their returned gifts, wondering if she’d opened them and made toast with them first.

And why did
she
need to do the explaining anyway? Apart from the million things he should have done to prevent this catastrophe to begin with,
he
should have gone straight to the pulpit and done the one gentlemanly thing there was left for him to do: tell the guests that the wedding was off, it was entirely his fault, and … whatever. Offered them cake to go or something. Gotten Ziploc bags and plastic forks and let everyone have at it at one of the many traffic lights along Route 7 on the way home.

And maybe assured them right then and there that their gifts would be returned
by him
, so she wouldn’t have to be sitting here wondering which guests thought she was the kind of inconsiderate runaway bride who thought the damn Vitamix was her right just for letting them sit their butts on the pew for an uncomfortable forty-five minutes while she dithered about whether or not she actually
wanted
to have the party she had invited them all to.

How many of them thought she was a flake who just had second thoughts for no good reason?

Now she’d have to spend the whole damn night packing stuff up for UPS to get the next day.

When she was
supposed
to be in Jamaica!

Middleburg, Virginia, was most definitely not Jamaica. It was just the same old scenery she’d been looking past for twenty-one years.

She’d
wanted
more. She’d wanted to broaden her horizons, open her world, grow with him. With Burke. The man she’d loved since he was a boy of sixteen and she was a girl of fourteen.

That was laughable now, given the truth.

How many other people had known the truth before she’d even put on the blue silk garter?

What were they thinking about her now?

What would
she
be thinking about her now?

An uncharitable part of her saw that she would be shaking her head and clucking her tongue at the dumb girl who’d ignored every sign that had been offered to her on a silver platter because she was so damn eager to wear a gorgeous dress and saunter down the aisle to a gorgeous man who was waiting there to take her hand in marriage.

Oh, the sucker
, she’d think to myself,
she sold her soul to the devil, then tried to marry him in God’s house.
Actually, no, she wasn’t that religious. Or that kind.
Stupid bitch
, she’d more likely scoff.
Um, hello! It’s not just about the
hand
in marriage on the
one
party day, it’s about a whole lot of stuff, a
lifetime
of stuff, including “keep thee only unto her.” Look at her crying like she’s really surprised by all this! She wanted the nice sheep so badly she didn’t care that she could see his wolf fangs behind the mask.

Well. Maybe Metaphorical Mean Quinn was right.

She looked around at the wedding announcements—
Joanne and Bernard Barton proudly announce the loving union of their daughter, Quinn Morgan Barton …
—and the clouds of white satin and tulle that filled Talk of the Gown, her family’s bridal shop, where she had spent the past
six months
lovingly sewing her dream wedding gown, which now had dried mascara tears down the front of it and fucking
gum
on the back from when she was sitting on the curb outside the church, trying to figure out her life.

That’s how all great decisions are made, right? Winston Churchill probably ground his coattails into three hundred years’ worth of grime on a Downing Street corner and questioned,
Should we just give up and have some bratwurst? Ja or nein?

But, actually, she didn’t even have her own last-minute thoughts and hesitations. She couldn’t even hang her hat on that small an accomplishment.

Her decision was handed to her by someone else instead. Well, not her
decision
—even though she was essentially left with only the one possibility, it was her own. But her options were certainly presented to her by the wrong person, in the wrong way, at the worst possible time. There she was,
literally
on her way to the altar, and her options were practically hand-engraved and sealed in an envelope that read
Pride
—clearly marked so she could take it or leave it forever.

As long as she lived, she would never forget the way it felt when Frank said she should stop while she still could. She’d thought it was a joke at first, yet she’d known—in that horrible gut way you sometimes know things—that it wasn’t.

And now here she was, writing note after note after note, the same nine words; her only explanation to the two hundred guests who had come to see the fairy-tale wedding she’d dreamed about for years:

Chose the wrong guy, gave him the wrong finger.

She stopped. With maybe twelve more notes to go, she just stopped. And she went to the phone and dialed the number that was more familiar than her own.

It rang twice before there was an answer.

“Hi,” she said, out of habit more than salutation. “It’s me. I hate how everything happened today. And I totally hate how I feel now. I don’t think I can get through this going back to my house and going to sleep and picking up my life like…” Her voice wavered and faded. She closed her eyes tight for a moment before taking a steadying breath. “Can you come to the shop and pick me up? I need to get out of here. Just get in the car and drive as far away as possible. Let’s go to Vegas.”

She only had to wait a moment for his answer.

“Yes.”

“Good,” she said, and swallowed hard over the lump in her throat, looking at the work she’d done and knowing she was going to just pick up and go and leave it for her mother to clean up. Right now she just didn’t care. She couldn’t. “I’ll see you out front.”

She hung up the phone and picked up a few pieces of silvery wedding gift wrapping and tossed them in the general direction of the trash can. Some fell by the side, but she didn’t pick them up.

Instead, she took a length of receipt paper from the cash register, pulled it out, and wrote a note to her mother on the back:

Gone away for a few days. Don’t worry, seriously. I’m okay. I’ll be back. Sorry to leave the paper all over.

Then she set it down on the counter and went out front to wait for Frank.

Chapter 2

Present Day, Ten Years Later

“Misssss Quinn!”

I’d know that voice anywhere. Dorothy Morrison—grandmother of Burke and Frank Morrison—the biggest, brightest character in town. Everyone’s Auntie Mame. She had more energy than a toddler, and I didn’t think there was a person in Middleburg—or in the world—who didn’t love her.

But I hadn’t seen her for a while. Actually, I’d wondered what she was up to. “Misssss Dottie,” I said, in her same tone.

She bustled over to the counter, behind which I was sorting threads, and leaned down on her elbows. Which, actually, wasn’t such a far
lean
, since she was five feet tall, tops.

“I have got news,” she said. “
Big
news.”

I set down the threads I was sorting, careful to keep the greens in order—Kelly, mossy, sea. “Do you?”

Now, Dottie
always
had something to say, so a declaration like this didn’t necessarily prepare one for a bombshell. On more than one occasion she’d circled the town with pronouncements about saving a robin that had fallen from its nest or finding a “bone” she was sure was a relic from the Civil War, despite the fact that it looked a lot more like a Meaty Bone dog treat to the rest of the world.