The Good Girl's Guide to Bad Men

by Jessica Brody

  "What's the matter?" I asked, tossing him a strange look while discreetly trying to pull my hand away.

  But Jamie maintained his grip and continued to stare questioningly at my fingers. "Where's your engagement ring?" he finally said.

  I didn't have to look into a mirror to know that my face had turned a ghostly shade of white. The force I had been using to try to pull my hand away from his tightly clenched fingers was instantly sucked out of me, and my entire arm fell limply against his leg.

  My mind started racing back through the steps of my day.

  I had taken it off before I pulled up to the valet station at work and placed it in the same inside pocket of my bag. My eyes darted toward the dining room and landed on my Louis Vuitton briefcase, which had been tossed onto one of the chairs during my exhausted return home earlier that evening.

  Shit, shit, shit!

  That phone call with Willa Cruz on the way home had completely thrown me off. I always put my ring back on after I parked in the garage. But I guess in the distress and horror that followed our conversation about the venue, I had simply forgotten.

  "Um," I began shakily, pointing toward the next room. "It's in my briefcase." Then I pulled myself onto my knees and prepared to stand. "I'll get it!"

  But Jamie's hand landed firmly on my upper arm, and I got the feeling that I was supposed to stay put. "Why is it in your briefcase and not on your finger?"

  I scrambled to find the right way to say what I was about to say. But there really wasn't a right way to say it. "Because I took it off . . . at work."

  A hush fell over the room. The only sound was Howie Mandel asking some overweight contestant if he wanted to make a deal or not. But after a round of applause and screaming from the studio audience, Jamie eventually picked up the remote and muted the TV.

  Now the room was completely silent. Unnervingly so. And I was pretty sure I preferred Howie.

  After a long pause, Jamie asked, "And why did you take it off at work?"

  I swallowed hard, feeling my heart start to beat hard and heavy. I knew I had to come clean about the ring. I couldn't lie to him. Not again.

  "Well," I began carefully, "I didn't think it would be appropriate to wear at work because of what I do. You know, with the fidelity inspections and everything. So I've been taking the ring off when I get to work and then putting it back on as soon as I get home."

  "Obviously not as soon as you get home," he added somewhat coldly as he nodded toward my empty left hand.

  "Yes," I admitted willingly. "Today I seem to have forgotten, but that's only because I had such a hellish day. I was working really hard to get the charges against Shawna dropped, and then I got this totally unnerving phone call on my way home about—"

  "Yeah, Willa Cruz told me that you hung up on her."

  What? I could feel the disgust spreading across my face.

  Willa Cruz told him that I hung up on her? Did she report back to him at the end of every day or something?

  It took me a minute to gather my thoughts before I replied, "First of all, I didn't hang up on her, I just told her I didn't want the venue she had suggested, and then I told her I had to go. And second of all, why is she calling you after she talks to me, like you're my boss or something?"

  Jamie shrugged but continued to face forward, his rigid body language clearly affirming his discontent. "She was just confused as to why on earth you would turn down such a perfect venue without even hearing what it was first."

  There was that word again. Perfect. The perfect venue. The perfect wedding. She even had Jamie saying it now. There was nothing perfect about a venue that became available because of a fidelity inspection performed by my agency. And even though I couldn't very well explain this to Willa, I was just about to enlighten Jamie to the fact when he said, "She also told me you haven't faxed in your wedding questionnaire yet."

  "It's ten pages long!" I shot back with frustration. "I have a business to run that's currently minus one full-time employee and another I've been trying to keep out of jail, so I don't exactly have the time to write a ten-page description of my ideal wedding."

  "You didn't even fill out one question in her office," he pointed out rudely. "I saw your clipboard."

  I felt trapped and helpless, and that usually puts me on the defense. Today was apparently going to be no exception. "I'm sorry if I haven't been planning my perfect wedding since I was twelve years old. I'm sorry I don't automatically just know without a shadow of a doubt that I want a freaking vegetable garden for my theme! I don't know about these things. I wasn't born knowing what kind of cake I want. And I've been trying to find a free minute to sit down and give it some honest thought, but I've been totally swamped this week!"

  "This week or every week?"

  I turned and looked at him. "What do you mean by that?"

  Jamie shrugged again. But this one was jam-packed with passive-aggressiveness. "I just mean that I'm not sure you want to plan a wedding . . . at all."

  His comment stung—and not to mention rendered me speechless. I didn't know how to respond to that. Or even if I was supposed to dignify it with a response. "That . . . what . . . you're . . . that's crazy!" I finally spat out. "I don't fill out a questionnaire for one week and suddenly I don't want to get married?"

  Jamie sighed audibly and finally turned to face me. But his eyes didn't reveal the same compassionate, understanding patience they usually did. Right now they just looked tired and frustrated. "It's not just the questionnaire, Jen."

  "Then what else is it?" I asked, unable to imagine what on earth could have prompted this line of attack.

  He shook his head slowly. "It's everything. It's the wedding planner. It's the ring . . ." He nodded toward my empty left hand, and I quickly tried to hide my bare finger between my legs. "And more importantly," he continued gravely, "it's . . . you."

  "Me?" I shot back. "What about me?"

  Jamie looked at me as if I were crazy. As if he couldn't believe I didn't know exactly what he was referring to. "Your little . . . meltdown the other night when we were about to have sex."

  I lowered my head. "Oh, that."

  "Yes, that," he replied indignantly. "Something changed in you when you went to Vegas. I don't know what it is. But you've been different since the day you got back."

  I closed my eyes. Who was I to think I could fool him? Who was I to think I could pull this off? Hide the truth from the only man I've ever loved. That's crazy. And absolutely ridiculous.

  But as much as I ached to tell him what really happened that night in Vegas, my mouth remained clamped shut.

  So Jamie kept talking. But this time, his voice was significantly softer and gentler. "Look, my Realtor told me that an offer on my loft came through today. But before I accept it and go into escrow, I need to make sure that this is what you really want. And honestly, I'm a little worried. I think you may have some commitment issues."

  And now my once clamped mouth was hanging wide open. "What?" I finally gasped, feeling this intolerable desire to defend myself. "I do not have commitment issues! Trust me, I had commitment issues. I know what it feels like. If I still had commitment issues, believe me, you wouldn't even be here."

  And suddenly, Jamie's gentle demeanor was back. The patience on his face seemed to indicate that he actually felt sorry for me right now. He reached and took both of my hands in his. "It's okay, Jen," he said gently. "You've been through a lot. I don't expect you to be perfect. With your parents and your father and—"

  "Why are you bringing up my father?" I snapped. "How did he suddenly find his way into this conversation?"

  But Jamie just tilted his head and studied my face, clearly not believing me for a second. "So then, you've called him and told him about the engagement? And you've asked for the two of us to meet him and his new wife like we talked about?"

  And just like that, he had trapped me. Like a small, helpless, ensnared rabbit, I was stuck.

  But fortunately, I knew exactly wh
at it was going to take to get out of it. Because his words were more than just a form of entrapment; they were an irrefutable challenge. He was daring me to pick up the phone and prove him wrong. And if that was what it was going to take to make Jamie believe me, then I was willing to accept that challenge.

  "Is that what this is about?" I asked, scrambling to my feet. "Calling my dad? Fine, I'll call him right now. I'll invite him and his third wife to dinner. The four of us will go. It'll be a double date."

  I stomped my way into the kitchen and grabbed the cordless phone from its charger. Then I marched back into the living room and stood before Jamie, phone in hand, my eyes glaring at him as if we were about to participate in some kind of telephonic face-off.

  Jamie hoisted himself over the arm of the couch and looked up at me but said nothing. He simply continued to study me with curiosity. The way a scientist might study a bubbling beaker, trying to determine whether or not the liquid inside would eventually explode.

  "Right," I said, clearing my throat. "So here I go." I pressed the "Talk" button and checked for a dial tone, half hoping that maybe the phone line would be dead. Because I forgot to pay the latest bill or because there was a sudden outage in the area.

  "There's a dial tone," I announced to Jamie, as if I were required to give him step-by-step directions of how to use a phone. He continued to watch me, but I couldn't tell if his expression was one of disbelief or just plain old-fashioned concern. The kind of look you offer a recovering alcoholic who just walked into a cocktail party to discover they've run out of soda water.

  I started punching in the numbers. I was aware that I was moving at a snail's pace, but I played it off, pretending to rack my brain for the right digits.

  With my finger positioned on the final key, I looked down at Jamie again. His eyes bored into me, and I could feel my fingertips get sweaty. Just press the freaking number, I instructed myself. Just press it!

  I flashed Jamie a weak smile. "I think it's 2127. But it could be 2128. For some reason my mind is blanking."

  I'm not sure why I said that. I knew the last number was a 7. After all, I had gone through a similar difficulty-of-dialing routine just last week when I tried to call my dad the first time. But I guess I kind of hoped that during my prolonged hesitation, Jamie would suddenly shrug and say, "No biggie, you can just call him tomorrow," and then unmute the TV and go on with our night as though nothing had happened.

  But he didn't. He just kept staring at me.

  "Definitely a seven," I said with a nervous giggle as I pressed the key and listened to the corresponding tone that went with it.

  I slowly brought the phone to my ear and waited. "It's ringing," I announced after a few moments.

  Then I heard my dad's voice on the line. "Hello?"

  "Hi, Dad," I said brightly. "It's Jen."

  "Jenny! How are you?"

  I glanced over at Jamie. "I'm fine. Just fine. Everything's good. I was just calling to see if you and . . . and . . ."

  Oh God. Suddenly I was completely blanking on the third wife's name. It was something with an S. Suzanne? Susan? Summer? It wasn't as though I used the name on a regular basis. I generally tried to avoid her name altogether, substituting the generic title of "the new wife."

  "Simone?" my dad offered.

  Simone! Yes! At least I was right about the S part. That had to have awarded me some points on whatever rating system was used to judge this kind of thing. "Yes, Simone," I repeated indignantly, as if I really didn't need to be reminded of her name and was actually offended that my dad would just assume I had forgotten it. "I was thinking that maybe you, me, Jamie, and Simone could all go out for dinner sometime soon. You know, whenever you're free, no hurry or anything. Next month would probably work for . . ."

  I looked down to see Jamie's face start to break into a frown. "I mean, next week," I clarified quickly. "Can you two have dinner next week?"

  "Really?" my dad asked with genuine surprise. "You want the four of us to have dinner?"

  "Yes!" I replied with forced enthusiasm. "Of course! I mean, I've never met her and you've never met Jamie. So I think it's about time the four of us all got together. Don't you?"

  "Yes, I know, but . . ." my dad started to say. But whatever protest he was about to make was decidedly dropped, and he finished quickly with, "No, you're right. We should get together. Let me just ask her. She's the keeper of the schedule." He threw in a laugh for good measure, and I tried to reciprocate, but it came out sounding completely fake and remarkably like a dying chicken.

  There was silence on the phone, and I translated the latest to Jamie. "He's asking the new wife . . . I mean, Simone."

  Jamie simply nodded in response.

  My dad got back on the phone. "She says Tuesday night would work."

  "Great!" I exclaimed. "Tuesday it is, then."

  My mind was already calculating how many days of agonizing I would have to endure before then. Four, if you didn't count today. But who was I kidding? It's not like I would be able to hang up and not think about this until tomorrow.

  I didn't bother checking with Jamie about the date. I just wanted to get off the phone. If he was going to be so insistent that we all get together, he would have to rearrange his schedule accordingly.

  As soon as I hung up, I felt a huge knot already starting to form in my stomach. What on earth did I just agree to? Was I crazy? Had I lost my mind? My dad and my fiancé in the same room, for the first time ever. And if that wasn't terrifying enough, he was bringing his new wife! I couldn't even bear to hear my dad talk about her over a plate of fried calamari, what made me think I could actually meet her in person?

  "There you go," I said triumphantly as I plopped back down on the couch next to Jamie and placed the phone on the coffee table. "Who's got issues now?"

  But Jamie didn't really respond to that. He just sort of laughed weakly, shook his head, and unmuted the TV.

  As the voice of Howie Mandel flooded back into the living room, filling the awkward silence between us, Jamie reached down and grabbed my left hand again and brought it to his lips.

  This time he did kiss it. But the magic was gone.

  16

  brand-new body style

  I've often heard that women tend to be attracted to men who remind them of their fathers. It's inherent in our biological makeup or something. Sigmund Freud even went so far as to give it a complex. The female gender equivalent of an Oedipus complex, or as Carl Jung later termed it, an "Electra complex," after the Greek myth of Electra, who killed her mother to avenge the death of her father. That all seems really messed up and complicated to me, but one thing I do know is that Freud wouldn't find one ounce of Electra in any bone of my body. I'm definitely one of the few women who can say with certainty that when I meet a man who reminds me of my father, I run the other way.

  Actually, that's not entirely true. Most of the men Eve met who have reminded me of my father were ones I encountered on one of my fidelity inspections. So I had to stay put because I was being paid to.

  But I think it's safe to say that what I fell in love with about Jamie was the fact that he was nothing like my father.

  My relationship with my dad is a complicated one. He cheated on my mother for as long as I can remember, and Ed only just made amends with it and learned to forgive him about a year ago. That's not to say that we're now magically superclose and share our innermost thoughts and feelings. We don't. We don't really share much of anything. We have dinner, make polite conversation, hug, and say good-bye. And that's it. But that's more than we did two years ago. It's a relationship in progress, to say the least.

  But now that my father was about to meet Jamie for the first time, and I was about to meet my new stepmother for the first time and break the news that I was getting married, it was confirmed: This "relationship in progress" was about to be put on permanent fast-forward.

  The restaurant where we had arranged to meet was called Wilshire, after the street on which it w
as located. I found the title incredibly unoriginal, but I hardly had any energy left to dwell on it because I was too busy dwelling on the forthcoming dinner that I had so foolishly agreed to participate in.

  I arrived at the restaurant ten minutes early. The entire drive here, I had been listening to a meditation CD I had bought at one of those overpriced bohemian-chic stores on Montana Avenue earlier that afternoon, hoping that the soft, soothing sounds of reeds and ocean waves would rub off on me and help me get through this night in one piece. I usually prefer not to leave restaurants in a stretcher.

  "Hunter, party of four?" the hostess confirmed after I gave her my name.

  I nodded politely, even though my mind was still trying to digest the implication of her statement. Party of four. Not two . . . but four. Tonight it would not be just me and my father. Tonight there would be four of us. Because Jamie was coming and she was coming. The third wife. The one who had replaced my mother three and a half years after their divorce. Although I'd be willing to bet money that given my father's established reputation with respect to relationships, this woman had replaced my mother a long time before that.

  The hostess showed me to our table, and I ordered a glass of Chardonnay and attempted to browse the menu. Although I was far too nervous to absorb any of the entrees I was reading about.

  My mother had been my dad's second wife. And he had cheated on the one before her, too. Apparently, my father had a hard time with commitment. No, actually, that's not true. He committed just fine. After all, he'd managed to walk down the aisle three different times. It's honoring that commitment that seemed to be the problem.

  What I couldn't understand, though, is why any woman would want to marry someone like that. She has to know. How could she not know? Jane Seymour, the third wife of Henry VIII, knew exactly what had happened to the two before that. The first one was divorced and left to rot in solitude until she died, and the other was beheaded. Yet she was still more than happy to become the next Mrs. Henry VIII. And look what happened to her. She died of something called puerperal fever a year later. Clearly, she was cursed to begin with.