Spying in High Heels (22 page)

"Wedding. Mom's wedding. Riverside. Shit!" I panted, trying to get the Purple People Eater closed in the back.

Ramirez stood up and helped me with the zipper.

"Thanks."

"How late are you?" he asked, still rubbing his eyes.

"Late. Riverside-in-half-an-hour late. I am so freaking late!" I looked wildly around for my dyed purple shoes. I found one under my drawing table and hopped around looking for the other as I scooped my cell phone back into my purse.

"Okay, I'll drive."

I stopped hopping and stared.

Okay—my first thought when Mom told me she was getting married (after the initial shock that Ralph was, in fact, straight) was of the awesome act of god it would take to get Richard to come to the wedding with me. We'd only been dating four months and the Wedding Date is really more of a six months-and-up kind of event. It rates just after Meet the Parents, and just before Buying a Puppy Together. After weeks of procrastinating, and weeks more of begging, pleading and playing the we're-not-having-sex-until-you-relent game, I'd finally convinced Richard to go on the promise he could leave early if they started doing the chicken dance.

And, after one drunken night of Maddie the Horny Tear Factory, Ramirez wanted to go to the wedding with me?

I must have looked as shocked as I felt, because Ramirez grinned as he explained.

"My car has a siren. We'll be able to get through traffic."

Right. Siren. Duh.

I shook off the tiny prickle of disappointment that he wanted a quick route and not an evening of close dancing with me as I found my other shoe and made a mad dash for Ramirez's SUV.

Usually the drive from Santa Monica to Riverside is a good hour and a half—Santa Monica bordering the ocean and Riverside bordering the last known outpost of civilization before heading into the desert of doublewides between L.A. and Las Vegas. However, with Ramirez's police siren blaring down the 10, we made it in twenty-five. It was a good thing too, because as we pulled up in front of the Garden Grande Motel, Mom and Mrs. Rosenblatt were pacing up and down like two vintage kitchy Energizer bunnies.

"Where the hell have you been?" Mom shrieked at me as I catapulted myself from the car.

"Sorry, I overslept."

Mrs. Rosenblatt looked Ramirez up and down. Her gaze settled in his package region. "I can see why."

My cheeks turned bright red. Ramirez just grinned.

"You, come with me," Mrs. Rosenblatt instructed him. "I've got the perfect seat for you." Before I could protest, she grabbed Ramirez by the arm and steered him toward the back garden.

"No, he's just dropping me off, and…" I trailed off. What was the point? Mrs. Rosenblatt would probably just lecture me on the importance of sex for a healthy aura.

Ramirez just shrugged and grinned at me over his shoulder as Mrs. Rosenblatt led him away. If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought he was enjoying this.

"Where's Richard?" Mom looked from me to Ramirez's retreating form with narrowed eyes.

"Uh, well, Richard is kind of, um…"

Mom waved her hands in the air. "Never mind. It doesn't matter. You're here. I'm getting married. That's all that matters."

Mom's hands stopped waving. Her eyes got round. She visibly paled under her thick layer of foundation and startling blue eyeliner. "Oh god. I'm getting married."

And then my mother began to hyperventilate. Right there on the sidewalk in front of the Garden Grande Motel in an- empire-waist wedding dress with a two-foot-long train, Mom had the breakdown to end all breakdowns.

"Oh god. I don't think I can do this, Maddie. I mean, I want this," she went on, "But oh my god, I'm getting
married
, and I swore I would never do this again, and maybe we should wait, maybe we should do it in the church after all, what if god really does want me to be Catholic, and what if he puts a curse upon our marriage, Maddie, you know I can't take another failed marriage, I
need
god to be on my side, Mads."

My head pounded, the marching band bringing out the big cymbals. "Take a breath. Pause for a period."

Mom took another deep breath, still looking like she needed a paper bag. "What am I going to do if I blow this marriage too? I don't know if I can do this."

"Mom, if you don't want to do this, now's the time."

Am I a bad person that I almost hoped she'd change her mind and I could go home and commune with my Mr. Coffee instead of parading down the aisle in Barney on Crack for all to see?

She bit her lip, creating little red lipstick flecks on her teeth.

"I do, Mads. But it's just been the two of us for so long. And, well, Ralph's great, but everything's about to change. And I don't know if I can take it. The change. Maybe I'm just too old for change."

And I realized, as I stared at my mother's '80's blue eye shadow and lipstick-stained teeth, so was I. Maybe that was why I'd blocked out all things wedding for the past three months. I was afraid things were going to change. That I'd lose my Keds-with-floral-Muumuus Mom to Fernando's ultra-chic world.

And just as quickly I realized how ridiculous that was. There wasn't a designer in Beverly Hills strong enough to pry my mom out of her 1983 ways, and to be honest, I didn't think Ralph even wanted to try. Any man who would love Mom, blue eye shadow and all, passed muster with me.

I wasn't losing a mom. I was gaining a dad. A Faux Dad.

"Mom, do you love Ralph?"

Mom nodded without hesitation. "I do."

I gave her arm a quick squeeze. "Then let's go get married."

Mom's eyes teared up and she caught me in a hug that crushed my ribs even harder than the Purple People Eater. I held her hand as we took our places behind a boxwood hedge just as the strains of the wedding march began to play.

Chapter Fifteen

"Everybody orrthe dance floor for the chicken dance!"

Ramirez leaned in close. "Just so you know, this more than makes up for dinner at my mom's."

No kidding.

Actually Ramirez had been a pretty good sport about this whole thing, sitting all the way through the ceremony, even when my Irish-Catholic grandmother started saying her rosary halfway through the I-do's, and even when every one of my cousins, aunts, uncles, and members of my mother's Internet chat groups insisted on meeting Maddie's New Guy. All things considered, Bad Cop was turning out to be an okay date.

We were seated at one of the ten round tables in the Garden Grande's "great hall" (think Elk's lodge decor—peeling wood-tone vinyl walls and grade-school cafeteria linoleum). Molly the Breeder sat across from me with her husband, Stan. Dana and an exhausted-looking No Neck Guy were flapping their wings on the dance floor, and Ramirez was sitting on my left. Beside him sat Grandmother, back straight, lips pinched into a tight line, eyes narrow and shrewd, flicking between Ramirez's telltale stubble and my naked left finger.

"Maddison, are you going to mass tomorrow morning?" she asked, her steely blue eyes squinting up at me. (Despite my petite status, my grandmother makes me look like a giant, topping out at just under four foot eleven.)

"Of course, Grandmother." I figured this didn't really count as a lie because it was for a good cause. If my grandmother thought I didn't go to mass, she might have a heart attack and die here on the spot. So really, I was saving her life with this lie. Very noble, when you look at it that way.

"How about the new guy?" She gestured to Ramirez as if he weren't there. "Does he go to mass?"

"Uh…" I was stumped.

"My family goes to St. John Vianney," Ramirez cut in.

He was Catholic? Ohmigod. I think my grandmother might just die a happy woman. Maddie had actually brought home a good Catholic boy. Well, a Catholic boy at any rate. The jury was still out on the good part.

My grandmother's eyes narrowed like a cat's. "St. John Vianney? Do you know Father Michael?" She was testing him.

"I do. In fact I worked with him last year to establish an after-school program to keep teens away from crime. I'll tell him you've been asking after him."

Grandmother's wrinkles parted in a small smile, nodding, and I had a sneaking suspicion she was mentally booking the St. Mark's chapel for the Springer-Ramirez wedding.

Ramirez leaned in close. "I think Granny likes me." Then he winked at me and I felt his hand rest on my knee.

I jumped. I wasn't entirely sure if Ramirez was here as my ride, my date, or to keep me under surveillance in case Richard tried to contact me. Granted, I'd just spent the night drooling on his chest. And he
was
at my mother's wedding, charming the dentures off Grandmother. And, as I'd sampled last night, he'd take home the gold in the kissing Olympics.

But with the vodka slowly seeping out of my system, reality was rearing its ugly head again. And in reality, Ramirez was on a case, Richard was on the lam, and I was stuck in the middle, not sure whose side I was on.

I was pretty sure I hated Richard. It was hard not to hate a man who married a Disney character. But somehow I wasn't ready to totally write him off either. At least, not without hearing his side of the story. Even without taking into account my late factor, Richard and I had a history together. And I wasn't quite ready to throw that all away. The whole situation left me with a squishy sensation in my stomach, like that time in second grade when I'd eaten a bad burrito and done one too many flips around the monkey bars.

But I didn't move Ramirez's hand.

"Wasn't it a lovely ceremony?" Molly piped in.

Grandmother snorted. "No priest. Civilized people get married in a church with a priest, not on some lawn." She turned to Ramirez. "Molly got married at St. Mark's.
All
our girls get married at St. Mark's," she emphasized.

Ramirez gave me the raised eyebrow. I pretended to find an interesting piece of lint on the Purple People Eater.

"Our wedding was so beautiful," Molly went on. "We had the traditional white roses everywhere, and my gown was this white lace creation that had this long, lovely train that—Stan, get your son, he's climbing on the podium again. Anyway, the train went on for miles. I had to have a train bearer, can you believe it? I felt just like a princess and—Stan, get him, he's going to pull the whole thing over! What was I saying? Oh, yes, St. Mark's. Well, it was just a lovely ceremony. You have to get Father Jacobs to do your wedding, he's just the most—Stan, I swear if you feed that boy any more cake I'm going to castrate you! Get him down from there, now! Anyway, where was I?"

I stared, my jaw hanging open like a cartoon. I think I was having a terrible glimpse into my future. Like the ghost of pregnancy hormones yet to come. I grabbed my water glass and took a big gulp, trying to fend off hysteria. I made a mental note to take that test as soon as I got home.

Stan mumbled something that sounded like "four more months of this," before leaving the table to wrangle his cake-eating monsters.

"Molly has three children already," Grandmother informed Ramirez. "If you want a big family, you'll have to start soon. Maddie's not getting any younger, you know."

I choked on the water, making coughing sounds as I tried not to spew it across the table.

Ramirez looked like he was trying hard not to laugh. "We'll get right on that." He flashed Grandmother a smile that was all teeth and I felt his fingers curl around my knee.

I took another sip of water.

"I'm glad to hear that." In fact, Grandmother looked about as pleased as when Molly had promised she'd
think
about sending her oldest boy into the priesthood.

Great. My mom's bouquet not even cold and already Grandmother was trying to marry me off and convince me to have a corral full of cake-eating, podium-toppling monsters of my own. I tried to think of a tactful way of saying Ramirez was just my ride.

My ride who kept squeezing my knee under the table.

Before I could sort that one out, my cell phone rang. Grandmother gave me a stern look that obviously said cell phones were on the
War and Peace-size
list of things she didn't approve of.

"Excuse me," I said, grabbing my phone and stepping away from the table. The readout was an 818 area code I didn't recognize.

"Hello?" I answered, putting a hand over my other ear to block out the strains of the chicken dance.

"Hi. I'm returning a call from Maddie Springer?"

"This is Maddie."

"This is Andi Jameson."

My ears perked up. Mistress number two.

"Yes, thanks for calling me back. I actually wanted to ask you a couple of questions about Devon Greenway."

Andi was quiet on the other end.

"You did know him, right?"

"Yes," she said hesitantly. "Who did you say you were again?"

I decided to stick with the story I'd told Bunny. "I'm with the
OC Rag
. We're doing a piece on Mr. Greenway's tragic passing and I'm speaking to anyone who was close to him."

Andi didn't respond. But she didn't hang up either, so I plowed ahead. "From what I understand, you used to date Mr. Greenway?"

"Listen, I don't know if I feel comfortable talking about this to the press."

Shit. I bit my lip, trying to think fast. Think like a used car salesman.

"Okay, here's the deal. I'm not really with the press. I, uh, I dated Greenway too, and I was just trying to find out how many other women he screwed over by failing to mention he was married." Okay, a lie. But the anger about having a boyfriend forgetting to mention his marriage was real.

And it seemed to hit home.

"God, you too?" Andi sighed into the phone. "Would you believe I didn't even find out about it until I saw his wife's body on the news. What a cheating scum."

"No kidding." Now we were getting somewhere. I wondered just how angry Andi had been when she saw the news. Angry enough to kill someone?

"How long did you date Devon?" I asked.

"Six months. He said he was going to marry me. He said he was going to buy me a big house in the hills and we'd get married. What a load of bullshit."