by Linda Seed
Rose returned from the back room with three bottles in her hands. She smiled at him, but the smile seemed to end at the curve of her mouth. It didn’t reach her eyes—didn’t reach her heart, he imagined.
“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked.
“Water would be good,” he said. She poured it and put it in front of him in a De-Vine wineglass.
He knew he should just pay for his wine and go, but something made him stay on the barstool.
“So.” He took a sip of water and cleared his throat. “How have you been?”
“Why?” She looked at him sharply. “What have you heard?”
“I … uh … nothing. I was just … you know. Making small talk.” Apparently he’d stepped in something, and he didn’t know what it was.
“Oh.” Her shoulders dropped, and he could see that she was relieved.
“What would I have heard, if I’d heard something?” The level at which he was intimidated by her was slightly outweighed by the level of his curiosity, so he decided to stay with it and see where it led.
She grabbed a small white towel and started wiping the bar, even though, to his eye, the surface looked spotless already. She scrubbed vigorously at a spot he couldn’t see. That didn’t mean it wasn’t there, he supposed.
“Oh, nothing,” she said, rubbing at the spot. “Nothing. Not a thing. Except … there might have been some yelling at customers. And some seafood throwing. Maybe.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You threw seafood at customers?”
“No. I yelled at the customers. I threw seafood at my boyfriend. Try to keep up.”
Ah, now they were getting somewhere.
“So, you’re having boyfriend problems.”
“No,” she replied in an airy voice. “No, no. Because I don’t have a boyfriend anymore, now that I’ve thrown seafood at him.”
“Well, that would do it,” Will replied.
She scowled at him. “We didn’t break up because I threw the seafood. I threw the seafood because we broke up.”
“Ah.”
“What does that mean?” she demanded. “What does ‘ah’ mean?”
He shifted on his stool. “It means I’m not sure what to say. It means I want to be helpful, but I don’t really know what you’re talking about.”
She stopped wiping the bar and looked at him.
“You really didn’t hear about it.”
“Um … no.”
“I just thought … you know, you’re Jackson’s friend. And Ryan’s. And I told Kate and Gen, and so I just assumed …”
“Yes, well. Guys don’t gossip the way women do.”
“You’re missing out.”
“I’m beginning to get that impression.”
They were quiet for a moment, and Will wondered what he should say. He didn’t feel that he could simply walk away, having opened the door to something that was clearly bothering her. Tentatively, he said, “So … are you okay?” It seemed to him that she wasn’t, but he wasn’t sure it was any of his business.
“Me?” She shrugged. “Oh, you know. Nothing a good hit man couldn’t fix. You wouldn’t happen to know anyone, would you?”
He couldn’t help grinning at her. She was hurt, that was obvious, but her sense of humor made her seem tough, and he liked that.
“Well, for what it’s worth, you’re not the only one with relationship troubles. This wine I’m picking up? It’s for Christopher Mills and his new girlfriend.”
“So?”
“So, his girlfriend also happens to be my ex. And he doesn’t know.”
“Oh, shit.” She looked at him with wide eyes, apparently impressed with the awful potential of that situation. “Are you going to tell him?”
“I don’t know. She asked me not to.”
“But whether you do or you don’t, you’re going to have your friend-slash-employer and your ex doing the nasty right under your nose. So to speak. Not literally, I’m assuming.”
“That about sums it up.”
“God.” She leaned forward and propped her elbows on the bar. “You sure you don’t want something stronger than water?”
He checked his watch. “It’s ten fifteen a.m.”
“Your point?” She raised one eyebrow at him.
He laughed. “I guess I don’t have one. Set me up.”
She turned and grabbed a bottle from a rack behind her. “This one’s good. It’s a Paso Robles chardonnay. Nice. Oaky, kind of light, with apple flavor notes.”
She put the glass in front of him, and he took a sip and regarded her. “So why did you and the ex break up?” he asked. “Since it wasn’t the seafood-throwing.”
“Ah, shit.” She ran a hand through her galaxy-colored hair and looked at the floor, as though she might find answers there. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I’ll bet it does.”
“Nah.” She shook her head. “Not really. He was a class-A dickhead. He didn’t seem like one at first, but then … it turned out he was a stealth dickhead. I’m better off without him.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” Will offered. “But it probably doesn’t feel that way.”
“Sometimes it does.” She went to the little sink set into the bar and began washing a couple of glasses from the last tasting she’d done. “And then other times it feels … Ah, shit.” She turned away, dried her hands on a towel, and wiped at her eyes with her fingertips, and Will was horrified to realize that she was crying.
“Ah … I … Kate’s just down the street. Gen and Lacy, too. Do you want me to … ”
“No.” She dabbed at her eyes in a way that wouldn’t smear her eyeliner, then took a deep breath, let it out, and changed the subject. “What about you? Why did you and Christopher Mills’s new girlfriend break up?”
He thought about that and decided there was no easy answer. He wanted to give her some kind of answer, though. He considered it, then gave her his best shot.
“Have you ever gone out with someone and felt like it should have been right, but it just wasn’t? You’re doing all these things together, and you think it’s pretty much perfect, and it should be fun. But somehow, you realize you’re playing a part. You’re just acting, and there’s really no connection between you. There’s just this overall impression that you’d make a really great couple, if only you weren’t bored to tears.”
“Ouch.” She cocked her head at him. The way she was leaning forward on the bar gave him an excellent view of her cleavage, though he tried to be a gentleman and not look. Being gentlemanly was a challenge at times.
“You’ve got to tell Mills, though,” she said. “I mean, if you two are friends. It’s going to be a shit show if you don’t and he finds out on his own.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, but she asked me not to tell him, and I figure it’s her story to tell, not mine.”
“So what do you do?” She looked at him, her elbow on the bar and her chin propped on the heel of her hand. “Just keep your mouth shut and hope the shit show doesn’t happen?”
He took a sip of his wine—a very good wine—and put the glass carefully back on the bar. “I guess that’s all I can do,” he said.
She tilted her head and looked at him from under bangs colored deep blues and purples, the hues of peacocks and spring pansies. “That’s a bold position to take, considering the fact that if it all goes wrong, you might lose your job and your home.”
He rubbed at his forehead with his fingertips. “Now that you put it that way, I’m beginning to think I’m in trouble.”
“Here, you’d better have some more wine,” Rose said.
Chapter Four
Talking to Will had cheered Rose up some, though she couldn’t say exactly why. Maybe it was the fact that his own love life was just as dysfunctional as hers. If he could survive and still be funny and cute and pretty much intact, she figured she could, as well.
At least, she thought so until she got home after a long work day and got a phone call from her mother.<
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Rose was just starting to relax—she’d just changed from her work clothes into sweatpants and an old Ramones T-shirt, had started a fire in her funky cast iron fireplace, and was getting ready to read a book she’d been wanting to get to for some time—when her cell phone rang.
She picked it up from the coffee table and saw the name on the display: The She-Dragon. A hard knot of tension immediately formed in her stomach.
Shit.
To pick up or not to pick up? If she did, she’d face judgment, scorn, ridicule, and a whole list of demands. If she didn’t, she’d still face all of those things, except that they’d come in the form of a voice mail message. Of course she could delete the damn thing, but then her mom would just keep calling.
If she ignored the call, she could delay the pain, but she still couldn’t avoid it. If she picked up, she could get the misery over with and move on.
She picked up.
“Mom,” she said.
“Hello, Rosemary.” Pamela Watkins’s voice sounded pinched and tense, but then, it always did.
“What can I do for you?” Rose tilted her head back and closed her eyes, willing this to be over soon.
“Well, Rosemary, you can tell me why, exactly, I had to read online that Ryan Delaney would be marrying one of your closest friends. I assume you’ll be in the wedding?”
“I … uh … yes. I’m a bridesmaid.” This was what her mother had called about?
“Why in the world didn’t you tell me? Good lord, my own daughter, and I have to find out about it from Perez Hilton!”
“Perez Hilton knows about Gen’s wedding? Why does Perez Hilton care?” None of this made any sense to Rose, but she supposed that if she waited a minute or two, her mother would explain it as though she were giving fingerpainting instructions to a preschooler.
“Because, Rosemary.” Pamela was using her longsuffering, patient tone, the one that said she was using every ounce of her personal strength not to leap through the phone and throttle Rose. “Ryan Delaney is a member of the Delaney family. The Delaney family is one of the wealthiest families on the West Coast. And Ryan Delaney, who I might add is quite handsome, was considered one of California’s most eligible bachelors. Until now. And that, Rosemary, is why Perez Hilton cares.”
“Okay.” Rose plopped down onto her sofa. “Well, he’s off the market now. And, yeah, I’m going to be standing at the front of the church in taffeta, probably with a big bow on my ass. I don’t see why you’re angry with me about it.”
“Language, Rosemary.”
“Ass, Mother. Ass, ass, ass.”
The momentary silence on the other end of the line was ample reward for Rose’s immaturity. She waited for her mother’s inevitable lecture about her profanity.
But it didn’t come.
“Rosemary, I’m angry about it because you didn’t tell me yourself. I don’t see why I had to learn such news from an outside source.”
If Pamela wasn’t going to rant about the ass thing, then this really was important to her.
Rose rubbed at her forehead, trying to stave off the headache that had to be coming.
“Mom, again, I don’t see—”
“It’s the Delaneys, Rosemary, for goodness sake. Didn’t you think I’d want to know that you would be involved in one of the biggest society weddings of the year? Didn’t you think I’d be interested? Didn’t you think I’d want to be invited?”
Oh. Oh, Jesus. She wanted to come?
“Mom. First of all, it’s not going to be a big society wedding. Ryan’s a pretty simple guy. It’s going to be a fairly basic wedding at the lodge here in Cambria. So I don’t know what you’re picturing, but it’s not going to be that. It’s not going to be … oh, hell, I don’t know … five hundred people, with Bill Gates sitting in the front row.”
“I’m well aware that Bill Gates won’t be in attendance,” Pamela said. “Though, I’d think that wouldn’t be out of the question.”
Yep, here was the headache. Just a wisp of it now, just a ghost of an ache. But that would change.
“And you weren’t invited because Ryan and Gen barely know you.”
“Well, that would be easy enough to change,” Pamela said. “And I’m the mother of a bridesmaid. I should think that would entitle me to a certain amount of consideration.”
“Oh, God, Mom. Do not make me ask Gen to invite you to the wedding. I swear, if you—”
“I won’t make you do any such thing,” Pamela assured her.
“Good. Because I—”
“I’m perfectly capable of calling Genevieve’s mother myself.”
“What? You can’t … I don’t—”
“If you’d be so kind as to give me her number, Rosemary.”
The knot of tension had turned into a boulder, sitting hot and heavy in her stomach. Rose went into her little kitchen, found a bottle of Maalox in the cabinet over the sink, and swigged some from the bottle.
“No.”
“And why not?”
“Gen’s mother isn’t even planning the wedding.”
“Then who is?” Pamela sounded impatient. She’d be yelling soon, and Rose wanted to avoid that eventuality if possible.
“Gen. Along with Ryan’s mother. And if you knew Ryan’s mother, you’d know that she’s not going to plan some outrageous—”
“Thank you,” Pamela said, then hung up.
“Mom? Mom?” Rose looked at the screen of her phone and saw that the call had been disconnected.
Oh, shit. Oh, Jesus.
She immediately dialed Gen, who picked up on the first ring.
“Hey, Rose. I’m glad you called. I wanted to ask you about the—”
“Do not invite my mother to the wedding,” Rose said, cutting her off.
“What?”
“My mother. The wedding. Be Nancy Reagan. Just say no.” She was pacing the room now, stomping back and forth in bare feet from one end of the little cottage to the other.
“Okay. But … why would I invite her in the first place? I barely even know your mother.”
“You won’t invite her. Obviously. But if you did, it would be because she’s about to call to ask for an invitation.”
“She is? But why ?” Gen sounded mystified. Rose could understand that. Pamela was mystifying to anyone who didn’t know her.
“Because it’s going to be the West Coast social event of the year!” Rose waved her free arm for emphasis.
“No, it’s not.”
“I know!”
“Then what—”
“My mother believes it’s going to be the West Coast social event of the year. And since I’ll be there, she sees it as her opportunity to stick her size six Prada pump in the door and force her way in!” Rose urged herself to calm down, because she was afraid she was in danger of hyperventilating.
“Oh. Okay. Well, she’s not invited. I’ve met her, what, once?”
“That doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that she’s not invited. It doesn’t matter that you’ve met her once. She’s determined to come. She told me she plans to call and wheedle her way into an invitation.”
“Honey, calm down.” Gen’s voice was gentle and soothing, though Rose had to think that if Gen knew Pamela, she’d be hyperventilating as well. “If she calls me, I’ll just tell her, gently but firmly, that our guest list is full.”
“Okay, good. That’s good. But she’s not going to call you. She’s going to call Sandra Delaney.”
“All right. I’ll call Sandra and tell her to make an excuse.”
“Thank you. Gen? Really. Thank you.” It would be okay. Sandra would tell her to piss off, and that would be that. There was nothing to worry about. It would be fine.
“You’re welcome. And, Rose?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Gen asked tentatively. “I know you have a rough relationship with your mother. If you need someone to listen …”
“Thank you, but right now I need you to g
et off the phone with me and get on the phone with your future mother-in-law.”
“But it might help if you—”
“Go! Go now!” Rose disconnected the call and tossed her phone onto the sofa. She grabbed fistfuls of hair in both hands and stared at the ceiling, taking deep, calming breaths.
Gen would call Sandra, and Sandra—a woman who didn’t take shit from anybody—would dispense with the Pamela problem. This wasn’t a crisis. Of course it wasn’t. This was just a minor incident that would not become a major one.
Fifteen minutes later, Rose’s phone rang again. She braced herself for another call from Pamela, but it was Gen.
“Well? Did you tell her?” Rose prompted.
“I—”
“Is Sandra going to tell her no?”
“Oh, Rose, I—”
“Oh, God. Do not tell me.”
“I was too late,” Gen said.
Rose let herself drop onto the sofa. She didn’t even answer. She was too horrified to say anything.
“I tried. I called right after I got off the phone with you, but Sandra’s line was busy. I kept calling until I got hold of her, but by then …”
“She’d already invited her,” Rose finished for her.
“Apparently. She said your mother called with this story about how it just so happened that she was going to be visiting you in June, and her visit was going to coincide with the wedding, and you really wanted her to come but you were too shy to ask her to change the guest list.”
“I really wanted her to come?” Rose asked, incredulous. “I’m too shy ?”
“Well … Sandra doesn’t know you well enough to know how ridiculous that sounds,” Gen said apologetically. “Oh, Rose … don’t blame Sandra. She was just trying to help.”
“I know. I get that.”
“Oh, honey,” Gen said. “Is she that bad?”
“Wait and see,” Rose said. “She’ll be at your wedding, apparently. Just wait, and you’ll see.”
Once Rose got off the phone with Gen, she went into the kitchen, found a bottle of Tylenol, and took two. Then she poured herself a glass of a Central Coast Malbec. Even good wine couldn’t salvage this evening, but it was worth a try.
