The Spinster Sisters (10 page)

“That’s enough about me. I didn’t ask you to buy me a drink so that I could sit here letting it get warm while I talk about myself. What about you? Do you make your living putting mini marshmallows on top of sweet potato casseroles?”

“No. I make my living telling other people how to live their lives.”

“Nice. Is that a lucrative business?” he asks.

“Being bossy is surprisingly financially rewarding.”

“So, what? Do people just call you up and say, ‘Tell me how to live my life’?” he asks.

I laugh. “Only on Thursdays from noon to two.”

He looks puzzled. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“That’s a nice job, only two hours a week.”

“No, that’s not the whole job. That’s just when people call me.”

“And how do you spend the rest of your time?” he asks.

“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be coy. My work is a little complicated. I have a partnership with my younger sister, Jill. She and I write books about getting the most out of your life as a single woman. We have a call-in radio show on Thursdays on satellite radio.”

“Aha! From noon to two.”

“Exactly.”

“So you and your sister write these books and give people advice on the radio and what else?”

“We do some speaking engagements, sometimes we serve as experts on television shows. And there is some merchandising involved.”

“Sounds like a booming business.”

I’m always nervous talking about our success. I mean, for people who grew up middle class, we’re probably considered wealthy.

But we work very hard, and the business is expensive to run. We both take home good salaries, but it isn’t millions. We put a lot of money right back into the business, believing that it is far more important to pay great people at the top of the industry scale and know that they are working with us rather than suck out all the profits for our own personal gain.

“We’re doing all right,” I say.

“Good for you. Is it difficult?”

“What’s that?”

“Working with your sister.”

“That’s the easy part.”

“Really? I love my brothers and all, but we’d kill each other if we had to work together.”

“I think it’s different for me and Jill. After our folks died, we really had to stick together. We grew up relying completely on each other. We’ve always had each other’s back, and we’ve always been best friends; the company just became the logical offshoot of who we are together.”

“It must be nice. So, you lost both your parents, not just your mother.”

“Car crash.”

“How old were you?”

“I was six; Jill was four.”

He reaches over and covers my hand with his hand. It’s strong and slightly roughened. He squeezes. “I’m very, very sorry.”

For some reason, this moves me. I look him in the eye. “Thank you.”

We continue to talk, and several minutes pass before I realize he has not let go of my hand. I catch a glimpse of my watch and realize it’s after nine.

“I really should head home to make that casserole,” I say.

“I suppose I’d better let you go. But I’d really like to see you again.”

“I’d like that,” I say.

He takes out his cell phone. “J-O-D-I. What’s your number?”

“It’s 773-555-5634.”

“Your number is 555-Jodi?”

I laugh. “No one ever catches that.”

“Well, I’m not a savant. But I did just have to punch in those numbers to get your name loaded into my phone.”

“You’re a sharp one,” I say, and he smiles. His top teeth are straight, but the lower ones are crooked. I’ve seen the phenomenon before: parents without a lot of money, and with a lot of children in need of braces. Sometimes they have to do everybody’s top teeth and leave the bottom ones to nature.

“I’ll call you on Friday. See how the casserole worked out.”

“Okay. I’ll look forward to that.”

He leans over and gently kisses my cheek. “It was very nice to meet you. Have a happy Thanksgiving, Jodi Spingold.”

“It was nice to meet you, too. Happy Thanksgiving, Connor Duncan.”

My head is all swirly. I can tell my cheeks are flushed. I put on my coat and leave the bar. I get to my car, rev her up, and drive off toward home in a blissful fog. I’m pulling into the garage before I realize that I never got the damn marshmallows from him. I smack my forehead on the steering wheel. Just then, my phone rings.

“Hello?”

“You forgot your marshmallows.”

I start to laugh. “So I did.”

“Tell me where you are. I’ll bring them to you.”

I pause and think about it. He seems like a great guy. I’m certainly looking forward to talking to him again. And even looking forward to him maybe taking me out. But I’m not quite ready for him to know where I live. I think fast. “You know the Starbucks at Fullerton and California?”

“Sure.”

“It’s right in the middle between where you are and where I am. I’ll meet you there.”

“Okay.”

I click off the phone, start the car, pull back out of the garage, and head east.

 
I pick up the phone and dial downstairs to Jill’s.

“Hey,” she says, “’sup?”

“Marshmallow time.”

“Don’t start without me. I’ll be right there!” she says and hangs up the phone.

Within seconds I can hear her stomping up the stairs. My door opens, and she wails down the hallway, “Don’t do it yet, don’t do it yet!” She flies into my kitchen, breathless.

“I haven’t started. I never start without you. You know that.”

“I know, I’m just excited. How come so late? I was expecting your call ages ago.”

“I got a little caught up with the marshmallows.”

“Why?” she asks.

“I went to four different places before I found them, and once I did find them, they required a little finagling.”

“Interesting. Finagling for marshmallows. More details, please.”

“I finally found them at Dominick’s. In the hands of the sinister gentleman who was attempting to purchase the final bag. I had to use my feminine wiles to get them away from him.”

She nods. “I see, did you use whining, crying, or flirting?” she asks.

“Whining and flirting. And the dead mom guilt trip.”

“Nice,” she says. “Extra points for the combo with the guilt trip. And the gentleman was swayed, clearly.”

“Well, I also had to ply him with alcohol.”

“Really, a drink?” she asks.

“He was holding the marshmallows hostage.”

“You’re all smiley. This must’ve been a nice guy.”

“Yeah, actually he was, er, is.”

“Where did you go for a drink?”

“Quenchers.”

“I’ve always wondered about the place. Is it any good?”

“It’s small but nice. They have like a hundred different types of beer.”

“And he was nice. What’s his name?”

“Connor. Connor Duncan. Yeah, very nice. Smart, good sense of humor, cute. I liked him.”

“You going to see him again?”

“I think so.”

“How old is he?

“I think thirty-eight or thirty-nine, forty tops.”

“Aha! Right in the middle.” She laughs.

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“Well,” she says. “You already got the older guy and the younger guy; this one is in the middle.” Then she pauses and grins. “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

“Are you saying that I’m dating the Holy Trinity?”

“I’m not saying anything. But you have to admit, it kind of works.”

“Well, we had one beer. We will have to see if he calls before we add him officially to my roster. Now, let’s get these marshmallows done.”

It’s nearly eleven by the time Jill and I stop messing around in the kitchen. We grab a couple of beers out of my refrigerator and head into my living room.

“I’m glad we didn’t lose you for Thanksgiving this year,” I say. “I know you and Hunter are probably going to have to do that one year here, one year there thing, but I’m glad it hasn’t started yet.”

“Actually,” she says, “Hunter and I made a deal. Since Thanksgiving is our holiday, I get to always be here. They can always have us for Christmas. Hunter may occasionally need to go to his folks’ place for Thanksgiving, but I’m not required to go with.”

“Really? That doesn’t bother him?”

“Well, think about it, we don’t celebrate Christmas, and it’s a big deal for his family. So, actually, I think he feels like he’s getting away with something, guaranteeing our presence with his family celebrations every year at Christmas.”

“Very sneaky. Let me guess. They get Easter, and we get Passover.”

She giggles. “You betcha!”

“Very diplomatic of you. How many of these lifestyle negotiations have you guys been through?”

“Not too many,” she says. “He agreed to move in with me here for now, provided I’m willing to discuss a bigger place if we end up having more than one child. We got the holiday issue squared away. We agreed to give equal time and energy to both religions and then let the kid or kids decide what they want to be when they grow up. And we agreed that we could both do as much travel and work-related weird hours as necessary for the time being, with the understanding that once we start a family, we both have to make an equal commitment to a more rational lifestyle.”

“That sounds like about all of them. I’m glad he’s going to move in here, though. I hate to think about you not being right downstairs.”

“No more than I hate to think about you not being right upstairs. But Jodi . . .” She gets a very serious look on her face. “You and I are both going to have to be very diligent about making sure that he isn’t overwhelmed. He loves you, and he loves the aunts, but I don’t think he has a genuine concept of how casual we all are about bopping in and out of each other’s houses and lives. One too many three A.M. ‘I have to watch
Sixteen Candles
right now’ phone calls, and he might kill me.”

“Hunter doesn’t get the need to watch
Sixteen Candles
at three in the morning? Ever?” Seems suspicious to me.

“
Top Gun
, maybe. But not
Sixteen Candles
.”

“I’ll try to only do it when he’s traveling for business. How’s that?”

“Perfect,” she says.

“When is he going to move in?”

“We figure, after the first of the year. Too insane right now with all the holidays.”

“I think that’s great timing,” I say.

“I know. And then the wedding on May nineteen, the party out East the following weekend, and if the TV thing goes through, we’ll start production next summer. Holy moly. We are in for it this year, huh?” She makes a face.

“The TV thing still scares me. But I know Krista and Paige both really want us to do it.” Krista is our agent. She’s based in New York, so we rarely see her, but she’s worked very hard to ensure that if we move forward on creating a television show, that Jill and I have the protections that we need to maintain the integrity of our message. And to guarantee that we would film in Chicago.

“I know. It scares me, too, but in that good, excited way. I mean, think about it; it could be really cool.”

“Or it could be really awful.”

“Hey, I’m usually the pessimist; you’re the one who thinks we can do anything!” She looks puzzled.

“I know, I just, I know that it’s possible that some things will change. Once you’re married, I mean. I didn’t want to take for granted that you would still want to pursue the television deal.”

“I’m just getting married. I’m not moving to Stepford.”

“Very funny. I just meant that we might want to push the dates forward a bit. Give you a chance to be a newlywed for a year before we launch such a huge project.”

“Okay, what’s really bugging you? That was the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard.”

“Nothing. I just think we should talk realistically about the timing of doing a show.” I can’t help that my concerns are rising to the surface.

“Jodi, I know when you’re bullshitting. Out with it.”

“Fine. I think that we should push off the show another year.”

“Why?” Jill looks perplexed.

“Because it may very well take that long for the negative publicity to die down, and I don’t want to start our television show on the defensive. That is, if they still want to take a chance on even doing a television show with us.” So there.

“What the hell are you talking about? What negative publicity?”

I get up and thrust a folder at her. It is filled with almost nine hundred e-mails and letters. “This represents this week’s take of angry correspondence. It’s been at about that level for the past three weeks. They are pretty evenly split between the ‘You bitches are ruining the American family’ letters and the ‘Why the fuck should I stay single if you’re getting married?’ letters. The choices you make affect our business, and we can’t pretend they don’t. This is going to blow big, little sister. We’ve got Kim working on a press release, and I talked to Mike Thomas over at the
Sun-Times
, and he is going to do a feature. Hopefully, we can get some stuff out before someone else does. But don’t sit there all wide-eyed and ready to go on TV when any network exec in his right mind is going to give us a big fat ‘Thanks but no thanks’ when this hits the fan.”

Jill riffles through the pages with a clenched jaw, pausing occasionally to read something. She looks up at me. “Three weeks, you said. Kim’s working on the release, you’re talking to Mike . . . When exactly were you going to fill me in?” There is venom in her voice.

“When we got all the strategies in place.”

“Why. The fuck. Wasn’t I.
Informed?
” She is spitting the words at me. “Equal fucking partners, Jodi.
Equal!
We run this business
together
! Major decisions, minor decisions, we make them
together
! Who the hell do you think you are to go running around with our employees making proclamations and keeping me out of the fucking loop? Do you have any idea how much that undermines my authority with them? How impotent that makes me look? How
dare
you take this on without consulting me!”