"You sick?" Ma asked. "You always were prone to stomach issues. It's the acid. You got the reflux. You should see a doctor."
Mel walked up. "Saved by the Mel," I said. "Thank you. How's Nick?"
She sat down, and took off her sunglasses to rub her eyes. They were swollen and puffy again. "He's fine, just a bump on his head. Matches his eye perfectly."
"You've been crying," I said, grabbing her hand. "Are you okay?"
She shook her head, then put her glasses back on. "I'm fine, really. Is Fran here?"
I released her hand and sat up straight. "Yup, and she is going to apologize to you for what happened too, aren't you Ma?"
"She doesn't need to apologize, Nick's fine." She frowned. "I guess that's a good thing."
I nodded. "It may not feel like it, but it is, at least for the kids."
She agreed. "So what happened?"
I played a verbal tennis match, carrying my mother's part of the conversation between her and Mel. We decided it was time to make a plan, and be more organized in getting what Mel wanted for the divorce. It was obvious we weren't detectives because other than following him, all we could think to do was have my mother spy on him and report back.
"I think it's time we tell Jake what's going on," I said.
"Yeah, I think so," Mel agreed. "He texted the other day and asked why we hadn't gotten together in a while."
"Jake texted you? You must be special. I can barely get him to text me back, let alone text me first."
She laughed. "No not me, Nick. I read his texts."
"Ah. So what did Nick say?"
She shrugged. "Last I saw he hadn't responded."
"What a tool. They're supposed to be friends."
"Yup."
"Tool," Ma said. "I like that word. I'm gonna use that."
I ignored her.
Mel placed her elbows on the table and rested her head in her hands. Her hair, normally smoothed straight and shiny, looked frizzy and dull. She'd lost weight and the dark circles under her eyes were showing behind her sunglasses. "Have you been eating?"
"Some," she said and took a sip of her frappe. "I don't have much of an appetite lately.
"I can imagine, but you need to eat." The grease sat like lead in my stomach but for Mel, I could toss a bagel in there, too. "How about a bagel? We could go to that New York bagel place that just opened."
"No thanks. The thought of food makes me nauseous. I'm going to run by Nick's office. He got a white Taurus from the rental car place, and I want to see if he went to work or to the ho's."
"Okay, I'm going with you. We'll take my car. Sooner or later he's going to see you out there." I texted Jake and said that I'd be home later.
"I'm comin', too," Ma said.
"Ma's coming, too."
"Great. Maybe she can give him another bump on the head."
"Don't give her any ideas."
They both laughed, and I pressed my palm to my forehead again, hoping to stop my headache from getting worse.
***
Mel pointed at a white Taurus. "That's his rental."
"So he's here. That's good."
"It's a little late for anything he does to be considered good," she said.
"I know, I just meant it's good that he's here, and we don't have to go to Carrie's house."
"Don't count on that," Ma said.
I rubbed the back of my neck. I knew I'd regret asking, but I did anyway. "Why not?"
"'Cause he ain't at work."
"What's she saying?" Mel asked.
"Ma says he's not here."
She straightened her shoulders. "I'm going up there."
"What? Why? He's gone."
"To find out where they went."
"Don't you think that's a little odd, going to his office? You never go there."
She shook her head. "I'm checking on him. He just got in a car accident and refused to stay home and rest. I want to make sure he's okay. He could have blood on the brain or something and not know it. Plus, he's my husband, and I can visit him at work any time I damn well please." She opened the car door and left.
"Ma, can you go with her, please?"
"You betcha."
I leaned my head back on the headrest and prayed that Mel wouldn't do something she'd regret. She was reaching her tipping point and it was going to get ugly.
Five minutes later she still hadn't returned. I busied myself reading status updates on Facebook to pass the time. What took so long? She went in and asked for Nick. They said he wasn't there, so she asked for Carrie. They said she was gone, too, so she asked where they went. They said to her house to have sex, so she became that crazy Asian woman who destroyed the office, but got out before anyone stopped her. Based on my time estimate, she should have been back two minutes ago.
"Well that was close," Ma said.
I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding in. "What took so long? I've been going crazy out here."
Just then Mel opened her door. "She's twelve!" She screamed. "She looks like a freaking twelve year-old." She sat in the passenger’s seat and slammed the door with a bang. "Nick wasn't there, and Carrie was in the bathroom, throwing up. I know because I was in there pulling myself together before I went into the office, and heard her yacking. I figured it was her because when she came out of the stall and saw me her eyes got all bulgy, and she rushed out without checking her make up."
"She puked and didn't check her make up?"
Mel nodded. "Didn't even look in the mirror and see if she had puke on her face. Nick has a family picture on his desk, so I'm sure she recognized me." Her hands were shaking, and she made a growling sound, but her mouth stayed closed.
That wasn't a good sign.
"So did you go into the office or what?"
She nodded. "I went to the reception desk and asked to see Nick. She said he was out at a meeting with his boss, which is probably why his car is here. Then I asked to see Carrie, so she called her up." She let out a quick snort. "She could barely hold it together when she saw me—that ho."
"Girl was shakin' like a leaf on a tree if you ask me," Ma said.
"So what did you say to her?" I asked.
I told her I was checking on my husband because my husband had been in an accident and his family, you know, his kids and his wife, me...were worried about him."
"Oh boy."
"Yah, that's what I said, too," Ma said.
"And then what happened?"
"She mumbled something about leaving him a note, and then skirted away with her slutty tail between her legs."
I grimaced.
"She is so screwin' my husband, and now she knows I know it, too." Mel said.
"Wow...just, wow."
"And guess what?" She smacked my arm. "You're gonna love this."
Ma agreed. "Oh yah, this is good."
I tilted my head. "Okay?"
"The ho is Asian."
"You're shitting me."
"If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'," she said.
"He's a tool," Ma said.
I tried not to snicker.
"Again, wow...just, wow."
"Let's go," Mel said. "I gotta get outta here."
I turned the key in the ignition. "Where to? Back to your car?"
She shook her head. "No, I wanna eat."
I closed my eyes and nodded. "Good. How about a sandwich or something from the bread and soup place?"
"No, I want an Obnoxious One," she said.
An Obnoxious One is a cupcake from a local cupcake specialty shop by the mall. They make the most incredible, albeit expensive, cupcakes ever. They're creamy and moist and the size of a five-pound bowling ball. The Obnoxious One was the best cupcake-gasm this side of the Mason-Dixon Line, if not in the whole country. It was the big guns, and I knew Mel was suffering through some serious emotional turmoil to want that.
I pulled out of the parking lot and headed to the shop. "I'm getting Key Lime Pie and Red Velvet," I said.
"I'm gett
ing two. It'll be a double cupcake-gasm."
Oh boy.
"Ah Madone, what I would give for a cupcake, and an orgasm. If only I knew when I was alive, what I know now," Ma said.
I shook my head. Sometimes my mother dropped bombs full of information I just didn't need.
"You're shaking your head," Mel said.
"If Fran were your mother, you would too."
"Hey! I can hear you, ya know." Ma yelped.
I waved my hand. "I know, Ma. I know."
Mel didn't even ask what my mother said, she just laughed.
We sat in the car and ate our cupcakes, sipped on Diet Cokes—I know, ironic, and tried to come up with ways to catch Nick. Ma was helpful, but hadn't yet been able to get the kind of hard evidence Mel wanted. "We need to watch more crime dramas," Mel said.
"Probably would help," I said, the cupcake in my mouth muffling my words.
"I'm all for a few little harmless incidents here and there, but I need something that unequivocally proves he's having an affair." She shifted her head toward the backseat. "Not that I don't appreciate what you're doing, Fran, because I do."
"Tell her I know, will ya? And tell her I'm working on it," Ma said.
I took a bite of my Red Velvet cupcake. "Masaysyougottabepatient." Cupcake spit out of my mouth and landed on Mel.
"Seriously?" She wiped her shirt. "Stop talking with your mouth full. Who taught you manners?"
"Hey!" Ma screamed. "That's rude. You tell her I taught you all kinds of manners. It ain't my fault you don't remember them. You tell her it ain't polite to talk about how I raised you when she can't hear me defend myself."
I held my finger up, and chewed the bite of orgasmic delight. "Ma said you're a bitch."
Mel spit pieces of the Obnoxious One onto my lap. I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about eating them.
"That's not what I meant!" Mel said. She eyed the back seat again. "I'm so sorry."
I laughed. "Ma's gonna haunt the crap outta you for that one." No one ever tells an Italian woman she didn't raise her kids right. I picked off a piece of cupcake and stuffed it into my mouth. "Good luck," I said, but kept the cupcake from flying out that time.
"Don't give her such a hard time. For cryin' out loud, her husband's gone and knocked up another woman, and you gotta give her a hard time like that?"
I dropped the rest of my cupcake into my lap.
"Oh, crap. I didn't mean to say that. Pretend you didn't hear it. So, how 'bout that Michael Jordan? I bet he's still got it after all these years, huh?"
Ma dropped the nuclear bomb of Mel's lifetime, and I wasn't sure what to do. I eyed my cupcake, sitting icing side down on my lap. Mel nudged me. "Dude. Don't just leave it there like that."
My eyes darted to Mel's face, and I quickly looked away. My stomach did a flip flop and I was no longer hungry. I grabbed the cupcake and put it back in its plastic container. "I can't eat this," I said. "I feel sick all of a sudden."
Mel nodded. "Me, too." She put her cupcake back too. "But that's pretty much how I feel all of the time lately."
She had no idea how much worse it would get.
"Anyway, back to catching the cheating rat bastard. Anymore ideas?" she asked.
Catching cheating husbands wasn't my area of expertise, and I really wasn't sure I wanted to be too involved without Jake knowing. "We really need to talk to Jake. He helped our friend Neil when he went through his divorce, so I'm sure he'll know what to do."
I called Jake and told him Mel and I had some stuff to talk to him about and would be there shortly. We drove back to Starbucks so Mel could get her car, and she followed me home.
If Ma was in the car then, she didn't say anything, and I wasn't about to bring up the bomb she'd dropped earlier. I needed to let that one sink in first.
CHAPTER NINE
THE KITCHEN SMELLED OF FRESHLY BREWED COFFEE, and Jake was standing near the pot, smiling. "You made coffee? For us?" I asked.
Ma whined. "Ah Madone, the torture. I just want one cup. One stinkin' cup."
"Ma's mad."
"Why?" Jake asked.
"Can't have coffee. Can't smell coffee. Can't live as a ghost—I mean a celestial being—apparently, without coffee. Must really suck to be a ghost."
"Well, that's rude," Ma said.
"It must," Jake said. "Popping in and out of everywhere whenever you want, not having any bills to pay, no responsibilities. Yeah, it must suck. Seeing anyone you want naked."
I shook my head. Jake was a professional at redirecting conversations to sex.
"I got responsibilities," Ma said. "I gotta take care a all a you. And with the trouble you got all of the time, that's a big responsibility."
"And we greatly appreciate it," I said, ignoring her comment about our constant trouble. Just then Mel walked in through the garage door. I grabbed a cup from the cabinet and handed it to Jake. "Here, pour yourself some. You're gonna need it."
He raised his eyebrows at me. "Great." He poured himself a cup, and then grabbed cups for Mel and me, too. He even poured Ma a cup, and sat it at the fourth seat at the kitchen table. "For you, Fran. Even if you can't have it, you can at least look at it."
"Aw, he's such a nice son in-law. How come you never pour me cups of coffee like that?"
Mel sat at the table and said, "Jake, have you talked to Nick lately?"
"Yeah, actually, just this morning. Said we needed to get together, but he said he's been busy, and a lot of things have been happening. He told me about the accident, but said it wasn't anything serious."
"Too bad, too." Mel said.
Jake rubbed his chin and shot me a look.
"Nick's having an affair," I said.
"Nick? Having an affair?" He leaned back in his chair, and shook his head. "No way, not Nick. He swore he'd never do that again."
My mouth dropped, and I was about to say something, but Mel yelled, "That bastard. I knew it."
I shot my husband my look of death. He glanced at me, and then dropped his head and stared into his coffee cup. We had a no secrets policy, and he'd just been busted.
"Mel," Jake said. "He said you knew—that you'd talked it out and made a decision to stay together. He said he made a mistake, and he wouldn't let it happen again." He shook his head. "And I thought he meant it."
"Well he lied to us both then, because he's banging his little Asian assistant, probably as we speak," Mel said.
"How do you know?" he asked.
Mel filled Jake in on what she knew, and then I told him what Ma saw. He wasn't happy.
"I'm not sure having Fran pulling little ghostly pranks is a good idea." He drank some of his coffee.
I stiffened. "She's not pulling ghostly pranks, she's helping Mel." I guzzled my lukewarm coffee, got up and poured myself another cup, and sat back down. I chilled out a bit and continued. "I told Mel about how you helped Neil. Do you think you could tell her about it?"
Mel took a notepad and pen from her purse. "I know Georgia is a no-fault state, but I want to make sure I do everything I can to not get screwed in court," she said.
He nodded. "Are you sure that's what you want to do? Divorce him?"
"I deserve better, Jake," she said.
He nodded. "Okay, but be prepared. Neil's divorce got ugly, and that could happen to you too."
She nodded. "It probably will, because I'll make it that way."
Jake spit out a list of things Mel needed to get: bank statements, emails, phone bills, itemized call logs, photos of his phone with text messages to name a few. He told Mel he would help her in any way he could, and I knew he'd decided his relationship with Nick was done.
An hour later I walked Mel out to her car and promised her we'd get what she needed. “You'll probably have Nick's testicles hanging from your rearview mirror, too." I said.
She smiled a half smile. "Thanks."
"Ma, you here?"
"Yuppers," she said.
I walked back inside, and glared at my husband
. "I'm going to talk to my mother for a minute, and then I wanna know why you didn't tell me what you knew about Mel and Nick."
He nodded but kept quiet. Probably smart of him, too.
I walked outside to the deck. "Are you here?"
"Boo."
"Tell me you made that up before, please." I said, throwing myself onto a deck chair.
"Made what up?" she asked.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head back. "What you said in the car earlier, about Carrie being pregnant. Please tell me you made it up."
"Okay, so I made it up."
I sat up. "Seriously?"
"No, but that's what you wanted me to say, so I said it."
I rubbed the back of my neck. "Ma, no jokes now, please. This is serious."
"Yah, I know. I'm sorry."
"How do you know? I mean, you can't see into her uterus or anything, can you?"
"Of course I can't see into her uterus, but I'm gonna check on that 'cause that'd be one super celestial power to have, don't ya think?"
I sighed.
"I saw her take the test, and I snuck a peek at the stick. The rabbit died, Ang. That girl's having Nick's baby."
"Criminy." I stood and paced the deck.
"Are you sure it's Nick's?"
"If you're asking if I saw it happen, no I didn't, but my ghostly juju says it's his and I haven't been wrong yet. Kinda like when I was alive, too. I was never wrong."
I ignored that. "Does Nick know? Were you there when she told him? What'd he say?" I rubbed my forehead. "Good God, don't tell me he said he's gonna marry her. That'll kill Mel."
"Don't get your undies all up in a bunch. I don't think she's told him yet. I haven't heard them talking about it, and she's actin' all kinds of nervous around him. She's gonna have to soon though. It's been over a month already, and that girl's tiny, she's gonna be showing in no time."
I stopped pacing. "Wait. You've known this for over a month?" I didn't need to be a rocket scientist to understand. "So you knew this before I could hear you, and you're just telling me now?"
"I was waitin' for the right time, is all."
"When did you think that would be? Her baby shower?" I shook my head. "I've gotta tell Mel."
"I wouldn't do that if I were you. She's about ready to blow a gasket now. You telling her that is just gonna make it worse."
Unbreakable Bonds (An Angela Panther Mystery Book 2) Page 14
