Ramsey Rules

by Jo Goodman

  Kay nodded absently, but her head remained tilted toward Ramsey. “Of course. I’m sure we will speak later, but if there’s no occasion, I hope you will enjoy yourself.”

  Sullivan was already seizing on the opening provided by his uncle and moving sideways to greet him. Ramsey felt the pressure of his fingertips at her back as he gently encouraged her to join him.

  Mark Dobbs, although a full head taller than his wife, still had to raise his face to take in his nephew, and in turn, to take in Ramsey. No scrutiny here, Ramsey thought, just genuine interest captured in a pleasantly featured face, highlighted just now with an absurdly wide smile and amused brown eyes. Ramsey liked him immediately, and she could see that the affection between uncle and nephew was mutual. She also witnessed the subtle what-can-you-do shrug that Mark used to communicate an apology on his wife’s behalf. She liked him all the more because he directed that apology to Sullivan. There was a brief exchange, promises they would catch up later, and then Sullivan and Ramsey moved along.

  The groom’s mother and father were next in line. Sullivan made introductions, but even before he finished, Donald Kellough, Clifton’s distinguished silver-haired public defender, recognized Ramsey from listening to her testimony in court.

  “Well,” he said, looking from Sullivan to Ramsey and back again. “I bet I know how you two met.” He held up a hand to forestall Ramsey as she opened her mouth to object. “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe.”

  Nancy Kellough, tall and slim, without a single silver thread in her boy-cut black hair, fiddled with one of her diamond studs. She leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, “Did you arrest her, Sullivan? Is that what Don’s talking about?”

  Before Sullivan could answer, Ramsey said, “Yes. Yes, he did. It was really very shabby of him.”

  That set Mrs. Kellough back on her heels. She straightened and almost dropped her earring when her hands fell to her sides. “He did? Surely not. I was teasing.”

  Straight-faced, Sullivan shrugged, supporting Ramsey’s lie with his silence.

  Don winked at Ramsey out of his wife’s line of sight and smoothly carried on. “Now you see where that gets you, Nancy?”

  Ramsey said, “I had a very good attorney.” Her eyes slid sideways to Don so there would be no question in Nancy’s mind about whom she was speaking.

  Nancy Kellough’s dark eyes widened momentarily, then the penny dropped and she shrewdly regarded each of them in turn. “All right. You’re having me on. I choose not to be offended, but you’ll dance with me, Sullivan, won’t you? To make up for it. Don doesn’t dance.”

  Sullivan promised that he would, and Ramsey and Don pronounced themselves satisfied with the arrangement.

  They moved on.

  The bride did not demonstrate any of the reserve of her mother as Sullivan came to stand in front of her. She did not wait for best wishes or congratulations or a peck on the cheek. Linda Kellough, nee Dobbs, launched herself at Sullivan with such enthusiasm that she made him stagger backward to catch his balance.

  “Oh, I’m so pleased you came,” she said. “Thank you.”

  Ramsey noticed that Sullivan did not try to pry her loose from what looked to be a rib-cracking hug. He let it run its course and set her away from him when she was ready, not a moment before.

  “You’re radiant,” he told her, holding her hands and looking her over. “Could you be happier?”

  “I don’t see how.” She smiled, pleased, and without giving up Sullivan’s hands, looked at Ramsey. “Isn’t he the best?” Beside her, Linda’s husband gently cleared his throat. “Yes, Tug, the best after you.” She rolled her eyes, but her wide, beatific smile said it was the truth. “And you’re Ramsey,” she said, dropping one of Sullivan’s hands. “Thank you for coming. Sullivan would have put in for a shift rather than come on his own.”

  “Really?” Ramsey did not know if she was directing her question to Linda or Sullivan, but they both answered at the same time.

  “Really.” Linda held up a hand to swear to it.

  “It’s a lie,” said Sullivan.

  Linda regarded him doubtfully then brightened. “It doesn’t matter. You’re here. She’s here. And it’s a party.”

  “Right.”

  The bride released her hold on Sullivan entirely and looped an arm through her husband’s. She made introductions for Ramsey’s benefit. “This is my dearest Tug. Douglas by birth, but Tug by affection.”

  After an exchange of pleasantries, Sullivan and Ramsey moved along the line quickly. She observed that Sullivan had at least a passing acquaintance with almost everyone in the wedding party. If he didn’t know the bridesmaid, he knew her escort, or vice versa. It surprised her some because the bride and groom were four or five years younger than he was and their attendants were similarly aged. When they found their seats at one of the large patio tables, she asked him about it.

  “Older brothers or sisters,” he said. “I went to high school with them. I don’t know Linda’s college friends. Same as I don’t know Tug’s.”

  “What does Tug do?”

  “He’s an attorney. Works for a firm in Pittsburgh.”

  “Not with his father, then.”

  “No. Don was a name partner in a law practice for years before he joined the public defender’s office. That’s a small enterprise here in Clifton. If you ask him, he’ll tell you he made enough money that he could finally afford to practice his passion.”

  “Practice his passion? He defends thieves.”

  “And addicts, abusers, the occasional murderer. And probably less often, he defends someone who is actually innocent. That’s the passion.”

  Ramsey thought about that. “All right. I’ve always thought he’s one of the good guys.”

  “Tug is too.”

  She nodded. “Linda was over the moon to see you. Fess up. Was she right about you not coming alone?”

  Sullivan shrugged and eyed the bar over her shoulder. “Would you like a drink?”

  “Yes, a beer. Yuengling if they have it. Rolling Rock if they don’t. And the question will still be here when you get back.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, getting to his feet. “But maybe I’ll have an answer by then.”

  She laughed under her breath and waved him away, then settled back in her chair to watch Kay Dobbs order the wedding photographer around with all the subtlety of a drill sergeant.

  Without conscious thought, Ramsey pressed her fingertips to the side of her head and winced.

  8

  “I hope a bottle is okay,” said Sullivan, setting the Yuengling in front of Ramsey.

  “It’s fine. I prefer it.”

  Instead of sitting down, Sullivan walked the circumference of the table examining the place cards of the guests who had not yet found their way to their seats. “It won’t be too bad. I know Will and Yvonne Packard. Will and I were in the same class in high school. His younger brother is one of the groomsmen. That’s the redhead with as many freckles as there are stars. His wife’s a home health nurse.” The sudden lump in his throat caught him off guard as his thoughts rolled back to his mother. His voice caught as he said, “Yvonne was a frequent visitor to the house.” He swallowed, shook it off. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to get…”

  “I never saw the sense in apologizing for a real emotion.”

  “Mm.” He raised his beer and drank. She was studying him, her expression not so much sympathetic as it was solemn. It made it easy for him to move on. “His parents are with us too. I saw Mr. Packard hustling martinis at the bar. Mrs. Packard was fussing over Andy.”

  “The freckled groomsman.”

  “Yes.” He waved his beer bottle over the last two place cards. “Ian and Sarah Bode. Don’t know them so I can’t say if they’re here already.” Sullivan slipped into the seat beside her and regarded her in profile. “You okay?”

  Ramsey nodded. “Yes, why?”

  He shrugged. “I thought I saw something when I came back with the beers. You looked�
�I don’t know…lost in thought. You had your fingers at your temple. Is it a headache?”

  “No. No, nothing like that.” She turned her head, gave him a lopsided self-conscious smile. “You’re first impression was the right one. Lost in thought.”

  “Want to share?”

  She touched her bottle to his. “I don’t know you that well.”

  “Ah.” He drank, she drank. “C’mon. Are you up for a little walk? We can pretend we’re circulating and never speak to a soul.”

  “I’d like that.” She started to rise, sat back down again.

  “What is it?”

  “If we do speak to a soul, I’d rather we didn’t talk about what I do. I mean, it’s all right to say I work at Southridge, but I’d like to say I’m a cashier or that I work in the office. Anything at all except what I do.”

  “I get it. Sure, that’s fine. If I did undercover work, I wouldn’t want people to know either.”

  She laughed a little at that. “Undercover. I suppose it is.”

  Sullivan stood when she did and pointed in the direction of the grills and smokers. “You want to see what’s cooking? Linda and Tug wanted a spit for roast pig. Looks like Kay had her way in at least one thing. I don’t see a spit.”

  Ramsey sniffed the air. “They’re grilling shrimp and salmon.”

  “Forget that. I smell barbeque and beans.”

  Laughing, Ramsey fell into step beside him as they made straight for the banquet table, in this case a long line of rectangular picnic tables covered in white linens. The amount of food was very nearly obscene, and Ramsey said so, but Sullivan looked around at the guests milling about and pronounced them up to the task of clearing the platters. Each table had a watermelon basket of mixed summer fruit and two large salad bowls, neither of which contained a single leaf of iceberg lettuce. There was a traditional tiered wedding cake with delicate lace roses made from spun sugar. The cake topper was a pair of side-by-side miniature forest green Adirondack chairs. A woman in a bikini lounged in one; a man wearing a pair of swim trunks stretched out in the other.

  Sullivan didn’t notice the topper until Ramsey pointed it out. He had been staring at the rows of cupcakes circling the cake trying to decide if they were bigger or smaller than his fist. It was a narrow thing. His eyes went to the cake just as Ramsey began to call his attention to it a second time.

  “I see it,” he said, indeed, wondering how he hadn’t from the first. Right, the cupcakes. “Linda’s always been a little quirky.”

  “It’s fun.” Ramsey looked around. “Everything she and Tug have planned is meant to be fun. The only stuffed things here are the mushroom caps.”

  “And Aunt Kay.”

  “Maybe. You have to allow she’s putting on a brave face. And don’t tell me it’s the Botox.”

  “All right. I won’t.”

  Ramsey indicated the cake topper again. “Do you suppose they’re going camping on their honeymoon?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

  “Well, I think they are. Those aren’t beach chairs the bride and groom are sitting in. Where did you go on your honeymoon?”

  “Jamaica. Montego—” Sullivan stopped. His eyes shifted from the cake to Ramsey. She did not look smug as though she’d caught him in a lie; she merely looked interested. “I’m not married.”

  “I believe you. You were, though.”

  He nodded. “Let’s keep walking.” Sullivan noticed she did not hesitate to fall into step beside him again. “How did you know? Not many people do.”

  “No one told me, if that’s what you’re thinking. I watched your face during the ceremony, and it crossed my mind that you had been married. Listening to Linda and Tug exchange vows you seemed…I don’t know…serious. More than that, maybe. Grave.”

  “It’s a serious business, those vows.”

  “I think so.”

  Sullivan veered in the direction of the large dressing tent and then passed it by in favor of a path into the trees. “You don’t mind if we go this way?”

  “Not at all.”

  He liked it that she didn’t pepper him with questions, that she let him sort it out before he spoke. “I met Diane when we were students at Tennessee. She was a diver. I swam. We were never what you would call friends. We just knew each other. We fell into dating our senior year and things just rolled along. I qualified for the Olympic trials. She missed the qualifying cut by a tenth of a point. It all seemed so important then. I guess I felt bad for her because I think that’s why I asked her to marry me.”

  Beside him, Sullivan felt Ramsey’s small start as a hesitation in her step. “Yeah, I know. It was stupid, but I didn’t understand that then. I came in fourth in the hundred free and qualified for the relay. Missed the games altogether because I banged my knee pretty good on the ten meter platform while I was showing off for Diane. More stupid. Maybe Diane felt bad for me and that’s why she said yes.”

  “So then it was a divorce? I mean, she didn’t—”

  “Die?” He gave a harsh, back-of-the-throat laugh. “No, she didn’t die. God, but that would have made it worse. By the time we were married, I already knew I didn’t love her. It was just that the train was moving fast in that direction and neither one of us knew how to stop it and we were too scared to jump. At least I was scared. She might have just been stubborn.

  “We were married in Philadelphia. That’s where she was from, and she had a teaching position waiting for her and family all around. My degree was in sociology with a criminal justice concentration so I looked for a job in probation and detention. I thought I’d work with kids, but the job wasn’t there. I applied with the city police and was lucky to fall into something I liked.” He shrugged. “Diane felt differently about what I was doing. Small disagreements stayed unresolved. There was tension. Conflict. It wasn’t all that long before I was taking overtime when it was offered. She was staying later at school. Her first grade classroom was in perpetual need of organization, or so she said.”

  “There was someone else?” Ramsey asked quietly.

  “For me? No. Well, maybe the job. For Diane it was the phys ed teacher in her building.”

  “Male? Female?”

  “Female? Going for the stereotype, are you?”

  “I guess I did. So? What’s the answer?”

  “As it happens, he’s male. Mr. Scott.” He surrendered a wry chuckle. “Diane is a dedicated heterosexual and a serial monogamist. After Mr. Scott it was Principal Howard. He was in the middle school. Then it was the high school football coach. She married him, and as far as I know, they’re still married. We don’t keep in touch. In hindsight, I know there were others. I guess I didn’t care enough to prove it.”

  “Who initiated the divorce?”

  “Mutual decision. We made it over breakfast coffee. It was civil, but I suspect that’s because we were exhausted by then. I let her file because the grounds I had were ugly.”

  “What did she use?”

  “The usual. Irreconcilable differences. But what she was accusing me of was indifference. She wasn’t wrong.” He stopped, made sure Ramsey negotiated a fallen tree in their path before he went on. “So, yeah, I took the vows I made seriously, but I’m not blameless.”

  “You’re hard on yourself.”

  “You think so?”

  “Mm. Maybe. How long has it been?”

  “Since the divorce was final? Three years and a bit. It didn’t take long. We rented so there was no house to fight over. No kids, pets, or antiques. I gave her the boat and she let me keep my truck and the Harley.”

  “Shrewd.”

  “Hey, I got what I wanted. The boat was a pain. And I love my truck.” He smiled when she chuckled. He took a deep breath; the air felt fresher than it had earlier, but he conceded that it might be because they had walked a good distance from the smokers. “You want to head back? Getting hungry?”

  She nodded. “I’m building my plate as we speak.”

  9


  As it happened, they were the last ones to be seated at their table. Sullivan made introductions as they sat and when he came around to Ian and Sarah Bode, he stopped, grinned widely, and announced that he and Sarah had gone steady for three weeks in middle school.

  “Whatever going steady meant back then,” he added. “Sarah Hawthorne. What a nice surprise. Ian, I assume you know your wife is a brainiac. I might have used her to pass earth and space science.”

  “You did use me,” Sarah said without rancor. Her green eyes were bright with quiet laughter as she gave her blonde curls a toss. “But I used you too.”

  “You did?”

  “Uh-huh.” She jabbed her fork in his direction. “To get back at Judy Knowles. She was the queen of mean, and she wanted you in the worst way. Those three weeks I spent with you sucked the air from her lungs, and from then on I had status and she could only speak in a whisper in my presence.”

  Everyone chuckled except Sullivan. “Jeez. I didn’t know. You should have said something. We could have gone steady longer. Judy Knowles terrified me.” He looked around quickly. “She’s not here, is she?”

  “You’re safe,” Sarah said. She set her fork on the edge of her plate and used her hand to indicate her husband. “Ian’s a brainiac too.”

  Ian said modestly, “We favor the more generic term ‘geek’.”

  Sullivan liked him immediately. “Seems I recall Sarah went to MIT. Did you meet there?”

  “We did. We’re up from Florida to see family. She’s with NASA. I’m with the DOD.”

  Ramsey’s eyes widened. “That’s real geek work.” She scanned the rest of the table. “What about the rest of you? Do you speak geek?”

  Mr. Packard shook his head. “Financial advisor.”

  His wife, a stunning redhead with nary a freckle, leaned in as though revealing a confidence. “That means he is fluent in NASDAQ. My advice is don’t encourage him.”

  Will said, “I teach at the alternative learning center. The language I know from there I can’t repeat.”

  Yvonne nodded firmly. “He’s right. I’m home health so I speak medical jargon.”