Nearlyweds (7 page)

Y
ou have to help me,” I begged Casey, reaching across her pet supply shop’s counter to tug the sleeve of her flannel shirt. “Please. This dog—he’s wrecking my house. The chewing, the shedding, and drool…I had to clean off the
ceiling
in the mudroom the other day!”

She flashed a totally insincere smile and handed me a flyer advertising the dog trainer who held obedience classes at the store twice a week.

I let go of her sleeve and hung my head while the dog sat by my side doing his docile
Best in Show
routine. “Listen, I get it, adopting a pet is a lifelong commitment and I can’t take him back to the shelter. And honestly, I could handle it if he was just wrecking my house. But it’s more than that. He’s wrecking my marriage!”

Her eyebrows shot up. “This dog?”

I nodded.

“This dog sitting right here is ruining your marriage?”

We both regarded the giant black mutt, who looked back at us with his tail wagging and his eyes sparkling.

“This is just an act!” I cried. “He’s not like this at home. He’s like…like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde!”

“Really.” She didn’t even bother trying to hide her disdain.

“Swear to God! He chewed half the arm off our new leather sofa. He shredded my husband’s first edition of
Great Expectations.
He ripped open all the down pillows in the linen closet. We still don’t know how he opened the door. My husband says I have to choose: him or the dog.”

“Well, may I give you some advice?”

“Please.” I craned forward, desperate for some words of wisdom.

“Choose the dog.” Then she gave me the same look that Taylor and Marissa had given me when Mark and I had announced our engagement. The look that said,
You’re a fluffy little bimbo with a bra size bigger than your IQ and I’d feel sorry for you if I didn’t hate you so much.

Well, maybe I had to take that from Taylor and Marissa, but I didn’t have to take it from Casey Keating. I put both hands on my hips and demanded, “Who the hell do you think you are?”

Her head snapped back in surprise.

“I mean it. I come in here looking for some friendly advice, and this is how you treat me? Nice customer service!”

“You didn’t come in for advice, you came in to dump your dog on me.”

“You’re desperate for any excuse to look down on me. Yes, okay, I’m new in town. And yes, I’m a little bit younger than my husband—”

“A
little
bit?” Casey muttered.

“Hey! Let me finish. If you really cared about animals, you would help me find solutions to my problems. But you don’t; you just want to feel superior and haze me because you think I’m the kind of girl you would have hated in high school.”

From the look on her face, I could tell I’d hit a nerve.

“You don’t know anything about me, and you don’t know anything about my marriage. So you just…you just
shut up
!”

She blinked. “Are you done?”

I nodded, gathering up the dog’s leash.

“Okay. First of all, I do care about animals.”

“Well, so do I,” I countered. “I love my new dog very much.”

“Whatever you say. Second, you’re right. I don’t know anything about your marriage.”

I pounded the counter. “Damn straight!”

“But when a guy asks you to decide between him and a pet, you’re almost always better off with the pet.”

I yanked on the leash as the dog inched closer to the treat display. “You’re a newlywed, right? Would you choose a dog over your husband?”

“My husband would never give me an ultimatum like that.” Her expression was suddenly unreadable. “I’m more of the ultimatum giver in our relationship.”

“But if he did,” I pressed. “If he said, ‘It’s me or the mutt that ate the sofa’? Who would you pick?”

She tucked a strand of her reddish-brown hair back behind her ear. “Ask me again on a different day.”

The bell on the door jangled as Erin Maye strolled in. “Hey! Look who’s here!” She crouched down and started loving on the dog. “Hey, buddy! How ya doing?”

“Not good,” Casey reported before I had a chance to say anything. “Her husband’s making her get rid of him.”

“Really?” Erin scrunched up her face. Her cheeks and nose were bright red from the cold. “I guess I could see that—Dr. Porter doesn’t strike me as much of an animal person.”

I nodded. “Well, if you know anyone who wants a hyper, hundred-pound puppy…”

“I’d take him, but my mother-in-law’s allergic.”

“But it’s not like your mother-in-law lives with you,” Casey said.

Erin arched one eyebrow.

“No.”
Casey gasped. “What happened?”

Erin cleared her throat to indicate that these subjects
should not be discussed in front of outsiders like me. “We’ll talk. Want to go grab dinner?”

Casey shook her head. “Can’t. Nick had to order a pizza last night.”

“So?”

“So I want to make him a real meal to make up for it tonight. We had this stupid argument…” She trailed off, staring at me.

“What?” I stared back. “You might as well go ahead and talk. So what if you had some little spat with your husband? At least he’s not making you get rid of your dog.”

Casey brightened. “True.” She turned back to Erin. “Well, we had this ridiculous fight because he replaced our shower faucet handle with a pipe wrench—don’t ask—and I ended up going to the movies by myself while he had to order a pizza. So I’m whipping up a culinary feast to patch things up. Rosemary potatoes, free-range chicken, the whole shebang.”

“You are so June Cleaver,” Erin teased. “You’re the only person I know who actually mills her own guest soaps.”

“I just like to keep a clean house,” Casey said.

“It’s a sickness, I tell you.” Erin laughed. “Drop by the office—I’ll slip you some meds. The good stuff.”

“Promises, promises.” Casey waved her off as the phone next to the register rang.

As Casey tucked the receiver between her shoulder and ear, Erin started patting the dog again. This time, she actually
bothered to make eye contact with me. “I’ll ask around the office, see if anyone’s looking for a dog. What’s his name?”

“No name yet,” I admitted.

“What should we name you?” Erin asked the dog, flapping his ears. “What’s a good name for a big, black dog? Hmm. Voodoo? No, too scary. Enzo? No, too sophisticated.”

“What about Cash?” I surprised myself by speaking up. “Like Johnny Cash. Wasn’t he supposed to be the man in black?”

Erin looked up, surprised.

“Yes, I know who the man in black is. You don’t have to be so shocked. I have three years of college, believe it or not. I’m not an idiot.”

“I never said you were.”

“But you think it,” I challenged. “You and Casey both do. You think anyone who married a man twice her age and looks the way I look has to be a dumbass.”

Erin smirked. “Who ‘looks the way you look’? And what way is that, exactly?”

“Like trophy wife material.” There was no point denying the truth.

For a second, I thought she’d go back to pretending I didn’t exist, but she threw back her head and laughed. “A trophy wife with a smart mouth.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not as ditzy as I look. That’s what my mom always says.”

“Nice mom!”

I sighed. “She means it as a compliment. I think.”

“She should have coffee with my mother-in-law. They’d have a lot to talk about.”

Our little meet-and-greet was interrupted as Casey’s voice got sharper and louder. “Nick, I said I was sorry about last night…and then I told you about…well, I wish you wouldn’t do that—I’ve already bought all the ingredients and defrosted the chicken.”

“Uh-oh,” Erin whispered. “He’s doing it again.”

“Who’s doing what?” I whispered back.

“Her husband. The man can’t commit to anything. Not law school, not an apartment lease, nothing. He goes through about five cell phone providers a year.”

“He managed to get married,” I pointed out. “’Til death do them part.”

Erin looked like she had a lot to say but wasn’t going to say it.

“…well, if that’s what you really want.” Casey glowered as she wrapped up her phone conversation with Mr. Commitment. “Do what you want. I’m not your warden…uh-huh…uh-huh…no, whatever. I’m not mad. Nope. Promise. I’m not mad. See you later. Kiss, kiss.”

She slammed down the receiver with a force that startled the dog. “Son of a bitch! I’m going to kill him!”

Erin winced. “Trouble on the western front?”

“He’s going to the Y to play basketball with his friends!” Casey could not have looked more distraught if her husband had just confessed to cheating on her with STD-riddled porn stars. “He knew I was planning a reconciliation dinner, and he blows me off to go shoot hoops with his buddies?”

“Men,” Erin said with disgust.

“But…” I furrowed my brow. “You said you weren’t mad.”

“Ix-nay on the ontradiction-cay,” Erin murmured, but she was too late.

Casey refocused all her rage in my direction. “Stella. How old are you?”

I stared at the floor. “Twenty-four.”

“I’ve got five years on you in real time, and about a billion in life experiences. I’ll let you in on a little secret to successful relationships—don’t blurt out every feeling you have the second you have it.”

The smug big-sister act was wearing really thin. I flipped my hair and mimicked her tone. “Lying? That’s your key to a happy marriage?”

“Not lying,” she corrected. “Delayed reaction. Choosing your battles. You have to decide which hills you want to defend. I myself prefer not to die on the hill of chicken and rosemary potatoes.”

“And I prefer not to die on the hill of pound puppies and half-eaten leather sofas.”

She finally cracked a smile.

“Oh, and the dog has a name now,” I told her. “Cash. As in Johnny.”

“I like it,” Erin said.

“Me, too.” Casey crossed the store and flipped the sign on the front door from Open to Closed. When she turned back toward us, her anger had been replaced with what seemed like defeat or resignation. “Listen, do either of you want to come up to the apartment and have dinner? I’ve got a lot of free-range chicken to unload.”

“…so we spend a week in Italy, have a fantastic time, and come home completely jet-lagged. I was ready to sleep for a week.” Erin paused for a sip of chilled white wine. We had gathered around Casey’s antique dining room table (“I tossed Nick’s IKEA particleboard eyesore the second we got engaged”) while she served up perfectly prepared chicken with fresh sprigs of rosemary on elegant ecru china plates (also antique). Between the intricate lace tablecloth, the white taper candles, and the subtly scented cranberry wreath hanging above the sideboard, the whole room could have been transported directly out of
Better Homes and Gardens
.

“You guys went to Italy for your honeymoon?” Casey sighed wistfully. “You are so lucky. Between paying for the wedding and renegotiating my lease for the store, we could only afford a weekend in the Adirondacks.”

“Don’t feel bad,” I consoled. “Mark and I went to a bed-and-breakfast in Vermont.”

“Yeah, but I bet it was a five-star hotel with a personal valet to run your baths and peel you grapes.”

“Uh…” She had me there. Mark had picked the Cartwell House Inn because we were both sick of the long flights to Europe and wanted to go someplace nearby to de-stress after the wedding. He and I had already been to London, Paris, Tuscany, New Zealand, and, of course, the fateful trip to Bermuda; we’d figured that we’d go low-key for the honeymoon. “There might have been a truffle or two on the pillow each night.”

“Anyway.”
Erin dinged her wineglass with her dessert spoon to reclaim our attention. “We come home from the honeymoon, utterly bedraggled after six hours crammed into those tiny airplane seats, we open the door to the house, and his mom is sitting in the living room waiting for us!”

“How’d she get in?” I asked.

“I still don’t know. David claims he never gave her a key, so either she stole his and had a copy made without his knowledge or he gave her a copy and doesn’t have the guts to admit it. I’m not sure which scenario is scarier. But she’s waiting for us in the living room, and she’s
cleaned.
The whole house. We had just moved in a week before the wedding, so we hadn’t had time to do anything. She unpacked everything—the kitchen, the bedroom,
my vibrator
—”

Casey made a face. “Oog.”

“Hang on, wait for it: she even made our bed. In the same sheets that she used when she married David’s father.”

“Ew,” I blurted out. “I thought you said his father was dead?”

“His father is dead. But apparently, she saved their marital bedding. She wanted us to consummate our marriage on the same sheets David was conceived on.”