Chose the Wrong Guy, Gave Him the Wrong Finger

by Beth Harbison

  “Quinn just said she should let the waist of my dress out some.” Mindy gestured limply toward me, but didn’t look in my direction. She didn’t need to. She, like I, felt all eyes land on me like bugs.

  You’re welcome for the shawl, Whinestein, I thought.

  “What I said”—I met Lee’s eyes, because I knew, no matter what a snot she was going to be to me, Mindy flipping loved that dress, knew it looked amazing on her, and wasn’t going to take a chance on having to find another one three weeks from the wedding—“was that if the dress was uncomfortable in any way, as she was saying, we could make alterations to accommodate her no matter what.”

  Understanding came into his eyes and he turned to his bride. “Mindy, honey? Are you thinking you look anything less than stunning in your dress?”

  She pressed her lips together for a moment, then said, slowly blinking her dewy eyes, “I just don’t want to disappoint you.”

  “You could never disappoint me,” he said, moving in and putting his big bear paw around her, patting her awkwardly as he did so.

  She began to weep delicately. Tearlessly.

  With dry sniffles.

  Wendy looked fretful and gnawed on her thumbnail. I’d actually noticed she did that a lot when she got uncomfortable.

  This was not the first time I’d seen it.

  “Stop this now,” Lee said, exchanging a quick panicked glance with Wendy. “Honey? Min, listen, how about you go over to Calloway’s and pick out something so sparkly you won’t be able to see or think about anything else?”

  Calloway’s was the town jeweler. It had been here for eighty-some years, and people came from the entire metro area to get their jewelry designed and reset by Dick Calloway, now the third-generation owner, because he’d taken the little place and put it on the map with mentions in Vogue, People, and Vanity Fair.

  Calloway’s was an excellent cure for whatever ailed any spoiled rich woman.

  Mindy was no exception. I saw the smallest shift in her posture. A straightening he probably didn’t notice or perceived as cuddling in. But that wasn’t what it was. It was triumph.

  It was clear in her still-dry eyes when she looked at him. “Are you sure?”

  “Am I— of course I’m sure!”

  She gave what I was sure was meant to look—and did to him and Wendy, I was certain—like a brave little smile. “Ohhh, you are so good to me.”

  He gave an indulgent chuckle. “I hope you’re still saying that when we’re in the poorhouse.”

  She didn’t answer. Of course she didn’t answer. She was not accompanying anyone to the poorhouse. If things started to look like they were heading in that direction, she would turn her Christian Louboutins in a new direction and keep walking, without looking back, until she’d found a new mark.

  Lee took a black card out of his wallet and handed it to her.

  She looked at it, poked her bottom lip out a little farther, and asked, “When am I getting the one with my name on it?” The nontears threatened again.

  Talk about an artist!

  “As soon as you have your new name,” he answered, begging the question of whether or not he knew the deal he was making as well as she did. There was no way to tell for sure. He gave her a final squeeze and came over to me.

  She didn’t even watch him go, but, instead, looked down at the card, then shared a smile with Wendy, though I honestly think, where Mindy’s smile looked calculating, Wendy’s just showed relief that her “poor, sweet friend” was feeling better now.

  Lee indicated I should follow him to the door, and when we got there, he asked, very quietly, “Does the dress need alterations?”

  “Of course not.” I couldn’t believe he’d actually fallen for that for even a moment. Didn’t he see her body in the buff every night? I felt like that was part of the price she’d be paying for this marriage.

  At least until it was over.

  But maybe he didn’t. Maybe the promise of it was the prize he was expecting for marrying her.

  “If that need should arise,” he said, so quietly I almost had to move in to hear him, though I didn’t want to get any closer than I had to, thanks to his mildewy breath, “I want you to tell her it’s loose and you need to take it in, not out.”

  “If the dress gets too tight, she’s not going to believe me if I say it’s too loose.”

  “Then tell her you did something wrong. Cut it wrong or something. Made it two sizes smaller than it’s supposed to be. Whatever it takes. I don’t want her upset about anything before her big day.”

  Which told me, right there, she was probably going to be “upset” about a great many things before her big day.

  “I’ll do my best,” I told him.

  “See that you do and I’ll make it well worth your while.” He gave me a look like we were sharing a secret, then, before I could object—because I do object to idiotic bribery—he gave a conspiratorial nod and called, over me, “Get on over there before it closes, babe.”

  “I will,” Mindy said, then, for good measure, sniffled.

  Lee gave me a wink and went out into the night, just as my friend Glenn Ryland came out of the door of his shop next door—a cheese shop called the Mouse Trap—and headed for mine, holding a bottle of wine and, as usual, a platter of cheese.

  I held the door open for him and he came in.

  “We’d better hurry,” Mindy was saying urgently to Wendy, all of her meekness gone. Wendy was apparently taking too long to unzip the dress. “Come on, come on.”

  “Got it.” Wendy pulled the small zipper down and the dress fell from Mindy’s perfect body and pooled on the floor at her feet. She didn’t even care that Glenn, a complete stranger and a man to boot, was here, she was just determined to get to the jewelry store before it closed. “Pick that up for me?”

  “Sure!” Wendy scurried to do her friend’s bidding.

  I guess all these people got a charge out of pleasing Mindy, maybe because it was so hard to do that it felt like an accomplishment for them every time.

  At that point, Mindy went into the dressing room and got her street clothes on so quickly it seemed like a magic trick. Her maid of honor put the dress back on its hanger and carefully hung it up, gently tugging it so it wouldn’t wrinkle. For a moment, the gesture was so soft and loving that I was struck by what felt, or at least looked, like raw longing.

  But the moment was over quickly when Mindy bolted from the dressing room and grabbed her friend’s arm. “Let’s go, this is going to be so much fun! Thanks, Quinn,” she singsonged, then, spotting the platter Glenn had brought, “Oh, yum, cheese! Can I have a bite? I’m absolutely famished.”

  So much for her supposed weight concerns.

  “Go right ahead,” Glenn said.

  I’d tell him the story later.

  I was pretty sure he’d regret having given Mindy the free cheese then. He didn’t have much patience for ninnies.

  Both of the women took little handfuls of cheese and left, all traces of accusation and misery blown away by the wind of commerce that would carry them down the block and around the corner to the land of diamonds and platinum.

  Chapter 4

  Thirty minutes later, after Becca had left for the night in a frenzy, shouting, “Find the ipecac and make him puke it up, the little idiot!” into her phone, I’d locked the door and was halfway into my second glass of wine, beginning to unwind. “Oh, my god, this is amazing! What is it?”

  This was how I began almost all of my deep conversations with Glenn, because after closing—my shop, and his next door—he always brought over either the leftover samples he’d had out during the day or something new I’d never tried before.

  “Fromager d’Affinois.” He put a smear of it on a little square piece of toast and handed it to me.

  “So, it’s like Brie?”

  “It’s Brie on steroids.”

  He was right. It was Brie-times-twenty in the “creamy” department. I was sure it was worse than drinking
melted butter, but it tasted amazing and I needed a little distraction. Culinary distraction was all the better.

  “Have you heard,” he jumped right in, “about the dry cleaner across the street?”

  A dry cleaner had gone into a space that had been empty for years about two months ago. I’d hoped our businesses could be complementary, but the owner was a real jerk. Truth be told, I’d expected them to have gone out of business as quickly as they’d gone in, but for some reason they had a lot of traffic in and out.

  “What, are they a front for the Mafia?” I asked, only half kidding. There had to be a reason such a sour man could stay in business.

  “No, they have a seamstress in there who is making knockoffs of celebrity dresses!”

  This didn’t compute. “What?”

  “You know, like Stella McCartney’s Colorblock dress, everything Kate Middleton ever wore, including her wedding dress…” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh, my god, they’re taking my clients?”

  He nodded. “Bringing people in from far and wide for a cheap version of an expensive designer gown. You should look at the reviews on Yelp.” He shook his head. “We’ve got to shut them down.”

  “But … I make personalized one-of-a-kind dresses. I’ve built my reputation on figuring out the perfect look for every special occasion. I was in Southern Living, for Pete’s sake.…” I was arguing, but there was no argument. A dress shop with high overhead and stock probably couldn’t have come in across the street to compete with me, but a tiny hole-in-the-wall dry cleaner with an underpaid seamstress?

  Maybe that was the reason my revenues were going down.

  How had I missed that?

  “Her name is Taney,” Glenn said. “We need to run her out of town.”

  “Stop,” I said, but laughed. “I consider this a call to action. I’ve got to do better than my best. If I up my game, cheap knockoffs can’t possibly compete.”

  He nodded. “They shouldn’t. But I’ll keep a baseball bat around just in case you want me to go for her kneecaps. Or, better still, her knuckles.”

  “I don’t think that’ll be necessary. That reminds me. You will never guess who came in today for a wedding dress.”

  He looked immediately intrigued, his brow furrowed slightly over his piercing dark eyes. He was hot in a way so classic that most womens’ gaydars didn’t even blip. “Is it worth even trying to guess?”

  “No.”

  He laughed. “Tell me.”

  “Dottie Morrison.”

  “Dottie Morrison?” He looked blank. “What’s the punch line?”

  “No punch line.” I smiled and shook my head. “I’m being completely serious.”

  “Who is she marrying?”

  “That’s the best part! Some younger guy, claims he’s independently wealthy and an artist and blah blah blah.” I had more cheese. I was going to gain ten pounds tonight alone unless the inner trembling that had begun when Dottie told me about the farm burned it all off. “I mean, I don’t know, maybe he’s totally on the up and up. There was something I kind of liked about his face, and she’s certainly charming.… There’s no reason a handsome younger man wouldn’t be interested in her.” I shrugged. “But of course it has all the hallmarks of a Very Special Golden Girls episode, doesn’t it?”

  “Or a 48 Hours mystery. ‘She was the town character in a town full of characters, but two weeks after she married Juan deHotti, she vanished, leaving nothing behind but a broken bottle of illegal absinthe and questions.…’”

  “Absinthe?”

  He nodded. “Dottie Morrison would never do anything in an ordinary way.”

  “So there would have to be a hallucinogenic involved?”

  “Obviously.” Another smear on another toast, another inch on my hips when he handed it to me. “So this begs the obvious question. Are you going to the wedding, whereupon you will finally see your Achilles’ heels again?”

  No point in pretending I didn’t know who or what he was talking about. “No. Well, probably.”

  “And that’s why there’s this subtle little shadow in your eyes tonight?”

  Leave it to a gay man to be so perfectly attentive. “Yes, but it’s not just that. She’s selling the farm”—I felt an unexpected catch in my throat as I said the words—“and they’re going to be here for the next month or so cleaning it out.”

  He held up a finger. “Hang on. This is going to require wine.” He looked at what remained of the cheese. “And Stilton. None of this wimpy stuff. I’ll be right back.” He got up from where we were sitting cross-legged on the floor of my shop and slipped out the front door, leaving the bells to tinkle emptily after him.

  And I felt alone.

  Sometimes it would come over me. Not often, but sometimes the Monster Thought I tried to avoid would sneak up on me and roar to life when I was just sitting there minding my own business, thinking about something else entirely.

  I was alone. Not just at this moment, but in my life. Yes, it had been a choice. A decision I’d made after the Burke-Frank fiasco. Yes, I’d had dates along the way, I wasn’t a nun, but I never got too close to anyone. Truth be told, I was never even tempted. Maybe in some small space deep inside I wanted to be tempted. I couldn’t imagine myself being the kind of woman who, faced with the perfect man who could offer a lifetime of fun and companionship, would put her hands up and say, Whoa, no way. I am not interested in being happy.

  But I didn’t know. Because at thirty-one I still hadn’t met someone who came close. And I knew thirty-one wasn’t old, even though crossing the line of thirty had felt significant to me, and I knew it wasn’t too late, it’s never too late, Dottie was proving that right now. I knew all the things I’d say to a friend who was saying the same things I was right now, but here, in the dim quiet of the shop, I was very aware that I might spend my whole life just exactly like this. Seasons passing predictably. Perfect fall days, icy winter nights, muggy summer mornings, I’d see a million of them. I’d already seen a million of them. Some of them brought good things, some bad, most meh. But years could slip away like that.

  When I was growing up, the only thing I ever really wanted—my only dream, if you will—was to be just like my mom. To get married and have children and shop for back-to-school clothes, and bake Christmas cookies, and dye Easter eggs, and plan birthday parties, and have peaceful nights and sitcom neighbors. I thought I’d have a husband I could count on as a partner, the way my mom could my dad, someone to watch TV with, play tennis badly with, read in bed with before switching out the lights and sleeping the sleep of the contented with.

  And, of course, work in the shop during the day. Very often my mother would take her handwork home and do it while watching Survivor or The Amazing Race with my dad, but there never seemed to be a lot of stress or friction in her life. She lived exactly the way you’d imagine the perfect woman in a detergent commercial lived—simple, easily satisfied, always wise, rarely disappointed.

  They still lived like that now, though they’d moved to a suburb of Tampa four and a half years ago, leaving me to take over the shop. Now Mom puttered around the house, making projects of repurposing objects and turning them into shabby chic works of art. She got ideas from magazines and HGTV, and from the many overpriced shops that sold those kinds of things all along the wealthy corridors of beachside towns of Florida’s Gulf Coast.

  I’d given up the dream of having the same idyllically domestic life a long time ago, but I’d never really replaced it with a new dream. I carried on day to day, and I was doing fine, but there were no huge ups.

  I wanted a few huge ups.

  Yet I was never an Eat Pray Love kind of girl. My adventurous spirit had its only roots in digging around old “haunted” houses in the neighborhood as a kid and taking the occasional weekend in New York or Atlantic City or Rehoboth Beach now. I wasn’t a soul-searcher.

  I was boring. I wasn’t dead, of course, but I wasn’t really living either.

  The b
ells over the door chimed and Glenn came in with a large bottle of white wine; two glasses; and a tray of cheese, crackers, and cured meats that looked like it had been put together by Martha Stewart herself.

  “I need to go to an ashram,” I told him as he sat down in front of me.

  He scoffed. “You wouldn’t even make it out of Chhatrapati Shivaji.”

  “Huh?”

  “The airport in Mumbai.” Glenn didn’t often flaunt his worldliness, but he’d been all over the place and he’d seen and done more in his thirty-two years than most people did in a lifetime. Every once in a while, after a couple of drinks, he’d tell a story of something that had happened to him or someone he’d met that would be so outrageous there was no way to not believe it.

  Me, on the other hand … say “Mumbai” to me and I think Hey Mambo. He was right, there was no way I was ever going to be any sort of adventuress, when I couldn’t even book a flight knowledgeably.

  He pointed to a blue cheese and added, “Try this with the fig jam.”

  I did. It was fantastic. Of course.

  “You know what you never talk about?” Glenn was assembling little samples of cheese, condiments, and crackers and pushing them in front of me.

  “Charpi Shivaji?”

  “Chhatrapati Shivaji, and yes, but no. You never talk about Frank Morrison. Or Burke. What the hell really happened there?”

  Glenn had grown up here and gone to high school with all of us, he’d even been on the football team with Burke, but he’d gone to college abroad and spent a couple of additional years living in Manhattan before moving back and opening the Mouse Trap. We hadn’t really been that close in high school, but we’d been the best of pals since his return, so it was hard to remember sometimes that he hadn’t been here for it all. That he didn’t already know it.

  “You know what happened. I was on my way to marry Burke when Frank told me he’d been cheating on me and I couldn’t trust him. Called off the wedding, had a brief, ill-advised relationship with Frank, and, boom, end of Morrisons. End of story.”

  “There.” He pointed at me. “That right there. Elaborate on this brief, ill-advised relationship with Frank.”