Then He Kissed Me

by Maria Geraci

  Lauren tightened her grip on the doggy bag. But it was a poor substitute for Ted Ferguson’s neck. No wonder the valets had snickered! Her face went hot. Her pulse began to race. She was about to throw the mother of all hissy fits when she saw the look on Ted’s face. Yep. He knew she’d seen the bumper sticker, all right. He immediately went into action.

  “It’s getting cold, let’s get in the car,” he said, with the same kind of smile Pat Sajak would use to tell someone they’d just solved the puzzle and were tonight’s big winner.

  “You’re kidding, right?” She pointed to the sticker. “Please tell me I didn’t drive here with that thing on the car.”

  His smile wobbled. “Ah, honey, I know it’s a little sophomoric, but it’s just a joke.”

  “Then why aren’t I laughing? And I’m not your honey.”

  The valets looked at one another nervously. Ted must have sensed a scene in the making, because he said, “All right, I admit, the sticker’s probably not in the best of taste, but it was a gift from a friend. I couldn’t not put it on my car.”

  “Doesn’t sound like much of a friend to me,” Lauren said.

  A restaurant patron came out and handed the tall valet his ticket. The valet, obviously enjoying the show between Ted and Lauren, reluctantly tore himself away to get the car.

  Ted led her off to the side so that their conversation wouldn’t be overheard. “I get it. I’m sorry. It was dumb of me to put it on the car. But it’s there now and it’s dark. Your house is less than three miles from here. No one’s going to see it.”

  “People have already seen it. I’ve seen it. And I’m not getting in the car until you take it off.”

  “Seriously?” he hissed.

  She glanced at her watch. It was almost ten, not late enough that she’d really disturb anyone on a Saturday night, but she wasn’t about to call her parents. Tom was out of town, and her closest friend, Mimi Grant, was running for mayor of Whispering Bay. She was in the middle of a close race with the town’s incumbent, Bruce Bailey. Lauren knew if she called, Mimi would come pick her up, no questions asked, but a small crowd of curious onlookers had begun to gather in the parking lot and she didn’t want Mimi exposed to any potential bad publicity. “Look, no worries. I can take a taxi home.”

  “There are actual cabs in this excuse for a town?”

  Lauren thought about whacking Ted over the head with her purse. The bumper sticker was bad enough, but now he’d insulted Whispering Bay. No matter how “eligible” a bachelor Momma thought he was, even she would be fed up at this point.

  The valet who’d brought out the car shrugged apologetically. “We can call you a cab, ma’am, but it will probably take at least thirty minutes or more to get one to come over from Panama City. If one’s available, that is.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, I’ll just take the damn thing off.” Ted squatted down and attempted to strip off the bumper sticker, but it wouldn’t budge. “What the hell’s on this thing? Super glue?” He tried to force it off by grabbing onto the sticker’s edge but it held strong. After a few minutes of struggling, he used his nail and managed to peel off a tiny section of the corner. He bent his head to further examine the bumper. “Fuck! I’ve scratched the damn thing.” He turned, eyes blazing at Lauren.

  “Don’t look at me. I didn’t tell you to try to take it off. I just said I wasn’t getting back in the car if it was still on.”

  Ted stood, his face red. He glanced at the gathering crowd, then lowered his voice “Get in the car.”

  “I already told you, I’m not getting in the car.”

  “We can give Lauren a ride home,” came a deep quiet voice from behind. Lauren spun around to find Nate Miller standing in front of her.

  Nate looked at her with an expression Lauren remembered all too well. The few times they’d spoken in high school she’d found Nate a bit…disconcerting. He had a way of maintaining eye contact that made her nervous. Not in the creepy serial-killer kind of way. But Nate Miller could ask you for your chemistry notes with the same face he’d use to tell you that your cat had just gotten run over. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking, but at the same time Lauren had always gotten the impression that he was the one person in their entire class who saw through her bubbly blonde cheerleader persona. Which was ridiculous, because how could he see something that even her closest friends hadn’t?

  Jessica stood next to him, looking confused.

  “Oh, um, that’s really nice of you, but I would hate to impose,” Lauren said.

  “It’s not a problem.” Nate glanced Ted’s way. “I assume that’s all right with you.”

  “Sure, it’s perfectly fine with me,” Ted said, sounding relieved. He gave Lauren a hard stare then plucked the keys from the valet’s hands and took off in his Ferrari, going way faster than he should have. Now that the show was over, the crowd dispersed.

  “I really appreciate your offer, but I can call a cab,” Lauren said.

  Nate glanced down at her with those unreadable eyes of his. “It doesn’t seem practical to call a cab when we can give you a lift.”

  “But—”

  “We’d be happy to give you a ride,” Jessica said, her eyes narrowing. “How do you two know each other?”

  “High school,” Nate said.

  Jessica raised a brow. Maybe Lauren should feel guilty for not telling her in the bathroom that she knew Nate. But the acquaintance was so superficial, she hardly thought it mattered.

  “I wouldn’t want to interrupt anything,” Lauren said, feeling like she should give them some space as a couple.

  “Like I said, it’s not a problem,” Nate repeated in a no-nonsense tone that made Lauren feel foolish. He didn’t seem the type to offer unless he meant it. Maybe they didn’t want to be alone right now. As awkward as it would be accepting a ride from Nate, she couldn’t imagine how awkward the ride between Jessica and Nate would be by themselves.

  “All right, thanks. Um, we haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Lauren Donalan,” she said, extending her hand to Jessica.

  “Jessica Hart. Nice to meet you,” she said, putting an uncomfortable emphasis on the word meet. Her handshake was dry and firm. Perfect for a corporate attorney.

  The valet brought around Nate’s car, a modest looking SUV. Jessica got in the front, while Lauren climbed into the back seat. “Where do you live?” Nate asked, putting the car in gear.

  “Barcelona Court, right near Seville.”

  Nate met her gaze in the rearview mirror. “I live on Seville.”

  “Oh, really? Well, I’m renting for now. It’s a great old neighborhood.”

  “If you have money to fix things up,” Jessica said in an overly bright voice. “I prefer something more modern. Brand new, to be exact.” She turned in her seat to face Lauren. “So you went to high school with Nate? What was he like?”

  Lauren noticed Nate’s hands tighten around the steering wheel. “I’m afraid we didn’t really know each other that well,” she said.

  “What? In a town this size? I bet everyone knows everyone, right? Oh, c’mon, tell me a story about him. I’d love to hear anything you can remember.”

  Lauren racked her brain for any little anecdote that would put Nate in a good light. “Well, he was really smart. And he won the science award our senior year.”

  Jessica giggled. “Tell me something I don’t know. What about girlfriends? As in, did he have any? He says he didn’t, but I wouldn’t put it past him to have had a crush on someone.”

  “Lauren had better things to do in high school than keep tabs on me,” Nate said, looking straight ahead at the road.

  “Oh, phooey! You’re no fun.” Jessica turned back in her seat. The rest of the drive was blessedly quiet.

  Nate turned onto her street and Lauren showed him which house was hers. He pulled into the driveway. Lauren gathered her things. “Thank you again for the ride. I really appreciate it. And…it was nice meeting you, Jessica.”

  Je
ssica gave her a look she couldn’t interpret, except to say that it was definitely not the friendly face she’d shown her earlier tonight in the bathroom. Nate waited while Lauren opened her front door. She waved goodbye then he pulled out of the driveway and took off.

  “Thank God, that’s over with.” She put away her leftovers, then kicked off her heels and made her way to the bedroom, zipped herself out of the dress and carefully hung it back up. Within a few minutes she was in her comfiest set of pjs, sitting back in front of the T.V. It felt weird not eating popcorn while watching her favorite movie, but she’d eaten so much tonight she could barely move. It occurred to her that tonight had been her first date since the divorce and her first “first” date in over twelve years.

  What kind of man put a bumper sticker on his car that read MY OTHER TOY HAS TITS? No, thank you. If that’s what was available out there, she’d stick to Jimmy Stewart and her black-and-white DVD collection.

  Her cell phone buzzed. It was her mother. Lauren put the movie on hold. “Hey, Momma.”

  “Why are you picking up your phone? Aren’t you still on your date?”

  “If you thought I was still on the date, then why did you call?” Momma didn’t have an answer for that, so Lauren continued, “My date was over a half-hour ago.” Actually, her date had been over almost the minute it had begun.

  “Well? So, how was it?” Momma’s voice nearly shook with anticipated glee. Lauren hadn’t heard her this enthusiastic in a long time. She tried to put herself in her mother’s shoes. Her husband of almost forty years had Alzheimer’s and, according to the specialists they’d seen, the disease was only going to progress. Her only daughter was divorced with no prospects on the horizon, and now her ex-son-in-law was happily engaged to someone else, which meant he was moving on and said only daughter wasn’t. In Maureen Handy’s world, things couldn’t get much worse. Lauren couldn’t tell her mother what had really gone down tonight. She just couldn’t.

  “He was…nice, Momma, but I don’t think we have much in common. Thanks for trying, though.”

  “Oh,” Momma’s voice drooped, but quickly perked up again. “You’re right, Ted is definitely not your type. But don’t worry, sweetie, I’ll find you someone better next time.”

  Next time? Lauren wanted to tell Momma, please, no next time necessary, but it seemed to mean so much to her. And if it kept her mind off Daddy’s troubles then it was a small price to pay.

  “All right, well, I’m counting on you,” Lauren said.

  “You are? Oh, baby girl, I’m so happy you’ve decided to let me help you with this. You’ll see, by the end of the year, you’ll be engaged, too!”

  Lauren grit her teeth. Not if she could help it. But it was a cause Momma seemed all too ready to put her energy into. “I love you, Momma,” Lauren said.

  “I love you, too, sweetie!”

  Lauren put the movie back on play. Had she really just agreed to let her mother set her up again? In the short span of less than three hours her day had deteriorated from a three into a six, into a solid seven point nine. The movie credits began to roll, but Lauren had a hard time concentrating. As disastrous as her evening had turned out, she supposed it could be worse. Look at Nate Miller’s evening, for example. She wondered what number Nate would have rated today.

  *~*~

  “I wish this wasn’t goodbye.” Jessica let out a long sigh and glanced out the car window, leaving Nate to wonder if he was supposed to respond. He never knew what to say in these kinds of situations. Usually, whenever he and Jessica argued, he listened, making sure to nod his head occasionally, and then the whole thing would eventually blow over. They weren’t actually arguing, though. Last night, he’d proposed. She said no. And then when they got back to his place, she told him she wanted to break up. Saying goodbye permanently was her idea, not his.

  She glanced back at him, her brown eyes moist.

  He cleared his throat. “Is the heat on too high?” He adjusted the car’s heater from medium to low. The temperature had dropped into the forties overnight. Jessica always complained how much colder it could get in north Florida compared to Miami, so he’d tried to be considerate by warming up the car for the ride to the airport. “It looks like your contacts might be dry. I have some saline drops in the glove compartment. Help yourself.”

  “Saline drops? Nate, is there a heart inside your chest?”

  Ah, sarcasm. No point in answering that. This was still fallout from last night’s botched proposal. “I don’t understand, Jessica. You said you wanted a big gesture. So I made a big gesture.”

  He’d asked Bianca, one of the nurses in the office, how to go about a proposal. She’d suggested he get ideas from one of those websites where people posted their proposal stories. Some of them had been pretty elaborate. One guy had even proposed while he and his girlfriend parachuted out a plane. Even if Jessica hadn’t been afraid of heights that was way too iffy in Nate’s mind. What if he dropped the ring? It was the equivalent of two months’ salary, which, according to another website, was the universally agreed upon amount to spend. He’d been frugal with the money he’d earned in his residency and had even saved most of the money Doc had given him to relocate back to Whispering Bay, so he’d paid for the ring in cash. Good thing he kept the receipt (not that he would have ever considered tossing it).

  After spending a good month researching various ways to propose, he’d decided to go the traditional route. He thought she’d appreciate the expensive restaurant. The violinist. The roses. The champagne. But she hadn’t appreciated any of it. He just wished he could get her to stop talking about it.

  “You knew what I meant by a big gesture. How many doctors get an opportunity to do a surgical fellowship at Miami General? I don’t understand you, baby. You could be helping so many people, but instead you want to waste away your talent.”

  He gripped the steering wheel and counted to ten. Jessica’s IQ was an impressive one hundred and thirty-eight, yet he had to constantly repeat the same facts over and over. “I told you when we first started dating that I was obligated to return home to practice. Dr. Morrison paid for all my medical school expenses. We made a contract.”

  “Oh, Nate, only you would be so gullible. But, trust me, Dr. Morrison doesn’t expect you to actually honor that contract. Not if it means turning down an opportunity at Miami General. Does he even know you were offered the fellowship?”

  “Since I don’t plan on taking it, then it wasn’t necessary to tell him.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Then why did you apply in the first place?”

  “I’ve already apologized for that, Jessica. I thought they’d reject me. I should have never given you the impression that I would have taken it. Frankly, I only applied to stop your constant nagging.”

  Her jaw quivered. “You’re punishing me, aren’t you? Because I refuse to give up my career for yours. Even your friend agreed with me last night.”

  “What friend?”

  “You know, Blondie from the restaurant? The one you went to high school with?”

  “You mean Lauren Handy?” No, she wasn’t Lauren Handy anymore. She’d been Lauren Donalan for a long time. Except now she was divorced. He supposed it made sense that she’d keep her married name. She had a son…what was his name? Henry. That was it. Nate had seen his file at the office. He’d come in recently for a sports physical. But he’d seen Ellen, the nurse practitioner for that. Nate had signed off on his chart, though.

  “Whoever she is, I told her the whole story in the bathroom and she agreed you were being unreasonable.”

  “Then I won’t ask her to marry me, either.” He smiled at his own joke. Which meant he couldn’t be too broken up about Jessica’s refusal.

  Initially, though, he’d been stunned. But he was beginning to wonder if that had been the result of expecting one outcome, only to encounter the exact opposite one. He’d woken up this morning feeling pretty much the same way he did every other morning. He’d gotten up at six, do
ne a ten mile run on the beach, then made a pot of coffee. He’d even done the Sunday crossword puzzle. No deviation from his regular routine. Interesting. He’d have to organize his thoughts on that and see what he came up with.

  Jessica readjusted her seat belt. “Did you say her last name was Handy? I thought she said it was Donalan. Yes, I’m positive. She introduced herself as Lauren Donalan.”

  “If you knew her name then why did you pretend you didn’t remember it?” Nate asked.

  “It’s just a…oh, never mind. So which is it, Handy or Donalan?”

  “Her maiden name was Handy. She’s now Lauren Donalan,” he explained, although why they were discussing Lauren Donalan, he had no idea.

  “Well, I hope she’s not married to that creepy old guy she had dinner with. He had to be at least forty. And that bumper sticker! Oh my God. I don’t blame her for not getting in the car.”

  Nate didn’t either. “Lauren is divorced.”

  “Really? So young?” Jessica watched him out of the corner of her eye like a lioness ready to pounce on dinner. “She’s pretty, don’t you think?”

  “Yes.”

  He saw the sign for the Fort Walton Beach Area airport. Ten more miles and he’d be putting Jessica on a plane back to Miami.

  “Yes you think she’s pretty, or yes she’s really divorced?”

  “Yes to both questions.”

  “Well, I don’t think she’s that attractive. I mean, I guess she’s pretty in a quirky kind of way. She’s more sexy than pretty, really, but then any woman would be if they had their boobs practically hanging out. I mean, that dress! C’mon. It’s obvious she likes attention.”

  “I thought her dress was nice.”

  Jessica seemed dumbfounded. “Of course you did! You’re a man, aren’t you? What, were you staring at her boobs all night?”

  “No, if you recall, I was too busy asking you to marry me.”

  That shut her up for a couple of minutes. Nate catalogued it in the back of his brain to use again if necessary.