Welcome to Temptation/Bet Me

by Jennifer Crusie

  Worse raised her eyebrows, but Wet escaped into the dressing rooms gladly, and when Min folded her arms and stared, Worse gave up and left, too.

  “What’s going on?” Min asked Diana, as the Dixie Chicks finished and Martina McBride began to sing the impossibly chipper “I Love You.”

  “Nothing,” Diana said, watching herself in the mirror. “Well, the cake, we’re having problems with the cake, but everything else is perfect.”

  “Is it Greg?” Min said, thinking, I wouldn’t want to marry a wimp no matter how cute and rich he was. If she ever got married, it’d be to somebody with edge, somebody who’d be tricky and fast and interesting forever—

  “Greg is perfect,” Diana said, fluffing the ruffles that somehow made her hips looks slimmer.

  “Oh, good,” Min said. “What about the cake?”

  “The cake . . .” Diana cleared her throat. “The cake didn’t get ordered in time.”

  “I thought Greg knew this great baker,” Min said.

  “He does,” Diana said. “But he . . . forgot, and now it’s too late, so I have to find a new baker.”

  “Who can do a huge art cake for three weeks from now?”

  “It’s not Greg’s fault,” Diana said. “You know men. They’re not dependable on stuff like that. It was my fault for not checking.”

  “Not all men are undependable,” Min said. “I met a real beast last night, but he’d have gotten that cake.”

  “Well, Greg isn’t a beast,” Diana said. “I’d rather have a good man who forgets cakes than a beast who remembers them.”

  “Good point,” Min said. “Look, I’ll find you a cake. It’s the least I can do to make up for my screwups.”

  Diana gave up on her ruffles and turned around. “What’s wrong? You’re not a screwup. What’s the matter?”

  “I lost David, and I’m too fat for this corset thing,” Min said, holding up the ribbon ends.

  “You’re not fat,” Diana said, but she stepped down off the platform. “They probably sent the wrong size. Let me see.”

  Min untied the corset and handed it over and then watched as Diana flipped it inside out with expert hands.

  “What happened with David?” Diana said as she frowned at the tag.

  “I wouldn’t sleep with him so he left.”

  “What a dumbass.” Diana looked up, mystified. “You know, this is an eight, it should fit.”

  “In what universe?” Min said, outraged. “I wasn’t an eight at birth. Who ordered this thing?”

  “I did,” Nanette said from behind her. “I assumed you’d be losing weight for your sister’s wedding. You’re still on your diet, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Min said, biting the word off as she turned to face her mother. “But let’s be realistic here. You bought a blouse that fit.” She looked down to where the tiny buttons stood at attention as they crossed her bustline. “Sort of. Why not—”

  “You’ve had a year,” her mother said, clutching a lot of lace from the lingerie department. “I thought the corset could cinch you in if you missed your target by a few pounds, but you’ve had plenty of time to lose that weight.”

  Min took a deep breath and popped the button on her skirt. “Look, Mother, I am never going to be thin. I’m Norwegian. If you wanted a thin daughter, you should not have married a man whose female ancestors carried cows home from the pasture.”

  “You’re half Norwegian,” Nanette said, “which is no excuse at all because there are plenty of slim Nordic beauties. You’re just eating to rebel against me.”

  “Mother, sometimes it’s not about you,” Min snapped as she held her skirt together. “Sometimes it’s genetics.”

  “Not your loud voice, dear,” her mother said, and turned to Diana as she held up the corset. “We’ll just have to tie it tighter.”

  “Good idea,” Min said. “Then when I pass out at the altar, you can point out how slim and Nordic I am.”

  “Minerva, this is your sister’s wedding,” Nanette said. “You can sacrifice a little.”

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Diana said, holding out her hands. “There’s time to have one made in Min’s size. Everything will be fine.”

  “Oh, good.” Min stepped up on the platform to look at herself in the trifold mirror. She looked like the blowsy barmaid who worked in the inn behind the castle, the one who’d trash-picked one of the princess’s castoffs. “This is so not me.”

  “It’s a great color for you, Min,” Diana said softly as she came to stand behind her on the platform, and Min leaned back so their shoulders touched.

  “You’re going to be the most amazing bride,” she told Diana. “People are going to gasp when they see you.”

  “You, too,” Diana said, and squeezed Min’s shoulder.

  Yeah, when my corset explodes and my breasts hit the minister.

  “What happened to your eye?” Diana said in Min’s ear, low enough so that Nanette couldn’t hear.

  “The beast hit me last night,” Min said, and then when Diana straightened she added, “I walked into his elbow. Not his fault.”

  “That’s the wrong bra for that dress,” Nanette said from behind them.

  “You’re not by any chance my stepmother, are you?” Min said to her mother’s reflection. “Because that would explain so much.”

  “Here, darling,” Nanette said and handed her five different colored lace bras. “Go in there and put one of these on and bring me that cotton thing. I’m going to burn it.”

  “What cotton thing?” Diana said.

  “I’m wearing a plain white bra,” Min told her as she stepped off the platform, her hands full of lace.

  Diana widened her eyes and looked prim. “Well, you’re going to hell.”

  “Diana,” Nanette said.

  “I know,” Min said as she headed for the dressing room. “That’s where all the best men are.”

  “Minerva,” Nanette said. “Where are you going?”

  “It’s Thursday,” Min said, over her shoulder. “I’m meeting Liza and Bonnie for dinner, and I don’t want to talk about my underwear anymore.” She stopped in the doorway to the dressing room. “Order the bigger corset—much bigger, Mother—and we’ll try this again when it comes in.”

  “No carbs,” her mother called after her as she went into the dressing room. “And no butter”

  “I know you stole me from my real parents,” Min called back. “They’d let me eat butter.” Then she shut the door behind her before Nanette could tell her to avoid sugar, too.

  Chapter Four

  When Cal got home from work, he flipped on the white overhead light, kicked off his shoes, and went into the white galley kitchen behind the white breakfast bar to pour himself a Glenlivet. Even as he poured, Elvis Costello blared out in the next apartment, reverberating “She” through the wall.

  “Oh, Christ,” Cal said, and put his glass on his forehead. Shanna’s rocky romance must have crashed. He tossed back the drink and went to pound on her door.

  When Shanna opened the door, her pretty face was tear-stained under her tangled mop of soft kinky hair. “Hi, Cal,” she said and sniffed. “Come on in.”

  He followed her into the Technicolor version of his apartment, wincing until she’d turned Elvis down to a reasonable volume. “Tell me about it.”

  “It was awful,” she said, going to her bright red bookcase and moving aside a madly colored tiki god doll to get the bottle of Glenlivet she kept for him.

  “I just had one,” he said, warding her off.

  “I thought this was it.” Shanna put the tiki back and changed course to the big old couch she’d covered with a purple Indian bedspread. “I thought it was forever.”

  “You always think it’s forever.” Cal sat down beside her and put his arm around her. “Who was it this time? I lost track.”

  “Megan,” Shanna said, her face crumpling again.

  “Right.” Cal put his feet on the ancient trunk she used for a coffee table. “
Megan the bitch. You know, maybe you should try dating for fun instead. Or take a break, that’s what I—”

  “Megan was fun,” Shanna said.

  “Megan was a humorless pain in the ass,” Cal said. “Why you always fall for women who make you feel guilty is beyond me. That kind makes me run.”

  Shanna looked at him with watery contempt. “All kinds make you run.”

  “This is not about me,” Cal said as Elvis finished with a last big, “She!” and began again; Shanna had put him on replay. “You have to get a new breakup song.”

  “I love this song,” Shanna said.

  “I used to like it,” Cal said. “But that was many months ago before you bashed me over the head with it every time your latest disaster left. You’re ruining Elvis Costello.”

  “Nobody can ruin Elvis. Elvis is a god,” Shanna said.

  “Isn’t Megan the one who hated Elvis?” Cal said.

  “No, that was Anne,” Shanna said. “Although Megan wasn’t a fan, either.”

  “Well, there it is,” Cal said. “Play Elvis on the first date, and if she doesn’t like him, get rid of her before you get attached.”

  “Is that what you do?” Shanna let her head fall back on his arm. “Is that how you go through all those women unscathed?”

  “This is not about me,” Cal said. “This is about you. Stop dating people you think you should like and spend time with somebody who’s fun to be with.”

  “There are people like that?” Shanna said.

  “They all are in the beginning,” Cal said, and then remembered Min. “Well, except for the woman I had dinner with last night. She was pretty much a pain in the butt from the start.”

  “Of course you picked up a woman last night.” Shanna rolled her head to look at him. “They could drop you in the middle of a guys’ locker room and you’d come out with a woman. How do you do it?”

  Cal grinned at her. “My natural charm.” He could almost see the actuary rolling her eyes as he said it.

  Shanna rolled her head away. “And the sad thing is, that’s true. I have no natural charm.”

  “Yes, you do,” Cal said. “You just don’t use it.”

  Shanna looked back at him. “I do?”

  “When you’re not worried about impressing some snobby twit, you’re great,” Cal said. “You’re smart and funny and a good time.”

  “I am?”

  “I hang out with you, don’t I?”

  “Well, yeah, but you’re just being nice.”

  “I’m not nice,” Cal said. “I’m selfish as all hell. And since you’ve made it clear you’ll never sleep with me, I must be spending time with you because you’re fun, right? Not counting these wet Elvis nights.”

  “Right,” Shanna said, brightening some.

  “Well, my standards of fun are very high,” Cal said. “So you must be great. You just date the biggest bitches I’ve ever met in my life.”

  “Oh, and the women you date are all sweethearts.” Shanna got up and moved away from him.

  “This is not about me,” Cal said. “The reason you keep crashing and burning is that you have no confidence and you keep picking women who like that about you.”

  “I know.” Shanna sat down on the red barstool next to her breakfast bar and shoved back the yellow curtain she’d draped in the opening to reach for her Betty Boop cookie jar.

  “So you should pick somebody who makes you feel good.”

  Shanna opened the cookie jar and took out an Oreo. “I know.”

  “How many times have we had this talk?”

  “A thousand.” Shanna bit savagely into her cookie.

  “And every time, you abuse Elvis. That was a good song and you ran it into the ground. Sooner or later, you’re going to pay for that.”

  “I know,” Shanna said around her Oreo.

  “Pick something that has some fight to it,” Cal said. “There must be a pissed-off breakup song.”

  “I’ve always liked ‘I Will Survive,’ ” Shanna said, cheering up a little.

  “Oh, Christ.” Cal stood up. Behind him, Elvis began to sing “She” again. “Set him free, will you?”

  Shanna crossed to the bookcase and turned Elvis off. “They’re not mean when I meet them, you know.”

  “Remember your first date with Megan?” Cal said. “You introduced us in the hall?” Shanna nodded. “She apologized for your clothes. I would have bitch-slapped her then but she looked like she could take me.”

  “She had very high standards.”

  “She was a bitter, controlling snob,” Cal said. “You should have cut your losses after the first date.”

  “Is that what you did last night?” Shanna said.

  “Hell, yes,” Cal said.

  “Well, I can’t do that,” Shanna said, going back to her cookie jar. “I’m not like you. I have to give it a fair shot.”

  Cal sighed. “All right. Why did she leave?”

  Shanna’s face crumpled again. “She said I was too much of a doormat.”

  “Well, she wiped her feet on you often enough to know,” Cal said. Shanna burst into tears, and he went to her and put his arms around her. “Get mad at her, Shan. She was not a nice person.”

  “But I loved her!” Shanna wailed into his chest, spitting Oreo crumbs on his shirt.

  “No, you didn’t,” Cal said, holding her tighter. “You wanted to love her. It’s not the same thing. You only knew her a couple of weeks.”

  “It can happen like that.” Shanna looked up into his face. “You can just know.”

  “No,” Cal said. “You do not look at somebody, hear Elvis Costello singing ‘She’ on the soundtrack in your head, and fall in love. It takes time.”

  “Like you’d know.” Shanna pulled away and picked up her cookie jar. “Have you ever stayed with anybody long enough to love her?”

  “Hey,” Cal said, insulted.

  “That’s no answer,” Shanna said, retreating to her couch with her cookies. “Is that why you keep walking away so fast? Because at least I try.”

  “This is not about me,” Cal said.

  “I know, I know,” Shanna said, fishing out another Oreo. “God, I’m a mess. Want a cookie?”

  “No,” Cal said. “Get your act together and try again tomorrow. If you swing by the office, I’ll take you to lunch before you go to work.”

  “That would be nice,” Shanna said. “You’re a good person, Cal. Sometimes I wish you were a woman—”

  “Thank you,” Cal said doubtfully.

  “—and then I remember you have that commitment phobia and I’m glad you’re a guy. I have enough problems.”

  “This is true.” Cal put his hand on the doorknob. “Can I go home now?”

  “Sure,” Shanna said. “Take me someplace expensive tomorrow.”

  “I’ll take you to Emilio’s,” Cal said. “He needs the business and you like the pesto.”

  While Cal was trying to prop up Shanna, Min stopped by Emilio’s to pick up salad and bread.

  “Ah, the lovely Min!” he said when she tracked him down in his kitchen.

  “Emilio, my darling,” Min said. “I need salad and bread for three right now and a kickass wedding cake for two hundred three weeks from Sunday.”

  “Oh.” Emilio leaned against the counter. “My grandmother makes wedding cakes. They taste like . . .” He shut his eyes. “. . . heaven. Light as a feather.” He opened his eyes. “But they’re good, old-fashioned cakes, they don’t have marzipan birds or fondant icing.”

  “Could she make a cake and decorate it with fresh flowers?” Min said. “I can get some real pearls. Maybe if the cake is covered with real things instead of sugar imitations, people will be impressed.”

  “I don’t know,” Emilio said. “But what matters is how it tastes, and it will taste—”

  “Emilio, that’s sweet,” Min said, imagining Nanette’s reaction to that one. “Unfortunately, in this case, what matters is how it looks.”

  “How about
this,” Emilio said. “I’ll see if she’ll do the cake. If she says yes, she’ll ice it plain, and you can put the flowers and the pearls on it.”

  “Me,” Min said doubtfully. “Well, not me, but Bonnie can do it, she has fabulous taste. It’s a deal. Call your grandma.”

  Emilio picked up the phone. “So you taking Cal to this wedding?”

  “I’m never seeing Cal again,” Min said.

  “God, you guys are dumb,” Emilio said as he punched the numbers into the phone. In a moment, his face brightened. “Norma?” he said and began to talk in Italian. The only word Min recognized was “Cal” which was worrying, but when Emilio hung up, he was smiling.

  “It’s all set,” he said. “I told her you were Cal’s girlfriend. She loves Cal.”

  “All women do.” Min kissed him on the cheek. “You are my hero.”

  “That’s the food,” Emilio said, and packed up bread and salad for three for her. Then she went home and walked up thirty-two steps to Bonnie’s apartment on the first floor.

  “So,” Liza said when she answered Bonnie’s door. “You want to explain last night?”

  “Can I come in first?” Min said, and slid past Liza into Bonnie’s bright, warm apartment.

  Bonnie had set her mission table with her Royal Doulton Tennyson china and a cut glass vase of grocery roses. It looked so pretty that Min thought, Okay, my apartment will never look this good, but I could set a better table. I could even cook. I could get my grandmother’s kitchen things out of the basement. It would be nice to do kitchen stuff like her grandmother had. Maybe bake cookies.

  That she couldn’t eat.

  Min sighed and put the Styrofoam boxes down on Bonnie’s table.

  “What’s that?” Bonnie said, poking at the Styrofoam.

  “The best salad you’ll ever eat, and even better bread,” Min said, and Bonnie went to get serving bowls.

  “Bread?” Liza said to Min. “You’re going to eat bread?”

  “No,” Min said. “I ate bread last night and then paid for it today. You’re going to eat bread, and I’m going to live vicariously.”

  Liza made a face as she pulled out one of Bonnie’s tall dining room chairs. “Like dessert. Stats, you—”