First Date - [Bridesmaid's Chronicles 01]

by Karen Kendall

  Alex stared straight ahead, giving no indication that he'd heard her.

  "Listen," she said. "There are trained staff you can bring into the home. Or there are adult day-care centersshe could go from nine to five, and then come home for the night. And then there are assisted living centers until it gets really bad."

  Alex turned into the Motor Inn's parking lot. "Thank you for the information," he said in clipped, polite tones. "But I think we'll pass."

  "But"

  "My father does not want a stranger in his house taking care of the woman he loves. And there is no way in hell, not over our dead bodies , that we will ever put her away."

  "Alex, it doesn't have to be a stranger, and I never said anything about putting her 'away.' That's an awful term. For now, you could have friends come in to be with her, and that buys you time to find someone really good, someone from around here that you can trust."

  "No, Sydney. You think Dad will let her friends see her when she's acting crazy? When she might go after them with a barbecue fork or the electric beaters, for God's sake? Yeah, that's a great idea! Let's have the garden club over to watch her whip off her bra. Let's turn her into a freak show for all the local gossips! Thelma Lynn Grafton'll have a ball."

  "You know what? Her true friends won't care. They'll just love her anyway. And I'm telling you, there are times comingand not far in the future that you will not know how to handle. You froze back there even today. You are going to need help."

  "I didn't freeze. I'm not going to lie to you, Sydney: I'm glad you were there. I do thank you, and my father thanks you, for your help. But it doesn't make you the expert around here. And it certainly doesn't qualify you to make decisions regarding my family. Is that clear?"

  Every bone in his face jutted toward her aggressively and his brown eyes snapped, hot and angry.

  She could have shrunk from him and run inside. Or she could have gotten offended and snapped back. She could have told him that his rage wasn't directed at her, but at the situation and the helplessness he felt and the decisions he did not want to have to make.

  But she shut her mouth and swallowed her hurt. "Crystal." She looked at him for a few moments. He turned away and stared out the window. She reached out a hand and gently touched his cheek. Then she kissed it. "I had a wonderful time last night, Alex. Thank you."

  She slid over to the door, opened it and swung down. "Goodbye," she said. She walked in Kiki's boots and Julia's clothes to the smoked brown glass of the door. But she held her head high: It was her own grace underneath it all.

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty

  Alex stared after Sydney, her kiss still lingering on his cheek. He felt like a complete dickhead. Yet he'd had every right to say what he'd said. Her experience with her grandmother did not qualify her to step in and take the reins of his runaway life. She had gall, she really did, to give him advice after knowing him for what, a week?

  Christ Almighty . He put the truck into reverse and got the hell off Marv Spinelli's ugly-ass property and away from his maddening, mouthy, sexy daughter walking contradiction that she was.

  A prim redhead. A bossy little numbers geek who was confident enough to order people around and interfere in their lives, but vulnerable and full of self-doubt. A girl who'd run from a kiss and then show up for a date without a stitch of underwear.

  What in the hell did you do with a woman like that?

  Marry her.

  Alex almost drove through the red light at Milam and Main. Only a honk from another car crossing Main stopped him. Where in the Sam Hill had such an idea come from?

  Mama. It was just Mama's little fantasy that he and "Nell" were joined at the hip and busy procreating. Poor crazy Mama and he was her son. There wasn't a whole lot of conclusive information out there about Alzheimer's yet, but besides the curious fact that traces of aluminum were found in most patients, medicine's best guess had to do with genetics.

  As he headed out North Milam to 965, Alex couldn't help wondering if he'd go barking mad in his fifties, too. Would they find him on the Riverwalk one day, puffing a cigar in his skivvies? Lost on South Lincoln in plaid and stripes? Urinating in somebody's garden?

  If so, he didn't want a humiliated, heartbroken wife running after him, trying desperately to keep him corralled and out of mischief. He didn't want a pack of mortified children watching as he slowly lost all the qualities that made him human. He didn't want them all hovering over him as he lapsed into a vegetative state and did nothing but blink and drool.

  I'm not subjecting anyone to that. No way in hell . Jake could get married to every stripper in Dallas before Alex would walk down the aisle.

  He hadn't been paying any attention to his speed.

  The flashing red lights behind him told him that had been a mistake. He pulled over and waited for the state trooper to get out of his squad car and write him a ticket for going ninety-five in a sixty-five mph zone.

  Crunch, crunch . The state issue black boots approached and Alex grimaced, wondering how much his auto insurance was going to shoot up.

  "Sir, do you know what rate of speed you were traveling at?" asked a familiar voice. Then, "Aw, shit. It's you, you dumb bastard." Wesley Taunton, a high school buddy, grinned down at him.

  "Hey, Wes. Just give me the damn ticket."

  "Could you at least whine a little? Tell me how you're racing to the hospital because your sister's havin' a baby?"

  "You know I don't have a sister. And I don't whine."

  "You are no fun at all. I want to flex some muscle here, feel my power. C'mon, beg a little, and I might let you off."

  Alex smirked and shot him the finger. "Flex this."

  "Oh, fine. Be that way. Tell you what, some woman just called in with emu splattered all over her windshield. There's been another jailbreak."

  Great . "Is she okay?"

  "She's fine. Pissed off and shaken up, but fine." Wesley snapped his gum and squinted at Alex.

  "You get the hell over to your Uncle Ted's, help clear the hundred Big Birds off Highway 290 and we'll call it even. I ain't goin'. Those birds stink."

  "Goddamn giant chickens," Alex said. He sighed. "It's a deal. You want a few steaks from the one we scrape off the windshield?"

  "Hell, no. I'm not earin' no mutant ostrich." Wes stumped back to his squad car. Alex laughed. Then he banged his head on the steering wheel.

  Sydney stood with her back to the wall in the Motor Inn foyer and craned her neck for any sign of Julia. So far, so good. The last thing she needed right now was for her sister to see her creeping in at eleven a.m. in last night's clothes with all her makeup eaten and/or showered off. She put a hand up to her face, slick with Emulsion, and prayed the stuff would work fast to fade Alex's whisker burn.

  She slunk down the hallway to the stairwell. Two flights, fifty feet down another hallway to room 239, and she was safe. Syd stuck her head around the corner. The coast was clear. She made a run for it, taking the brown-carpeted stairs two at a time and rounding the landing like a jackrabbit.

  "Good morning!" Julia sang, her eyes bright with cheerful malice. She sat cross-legged at the top of the stairs, doing paperwork on a clipboard.

  Ugh . "Good morning."

  "I waited up for you last night, so that I could hear all about your hot date, but around three a.m. I finally had to turn in."

  "Oh, sorry." Syd tucked her hair behind her ears. "Alex got a flat tire. Must have run over a broken bottle or something in the parking lot."

  "What bad luck. But he's got a spare in the bed of the truck, doesn't he?" Julia's gaze raked her from top to toes and honed in like a laser on her face.

  "Uhhhhh. Yes. Yes, he does, but he didn't happen to have a jack with him. So we just ended up staying the night in Gruene."

  "Did you. Gosh, Syd, that rash of yours is back. You've really got to stop using that cleanser you told me about. Funny how you had some in your evening bag last night."

  Shit . "Yeah. Can you recommend
a dermatologist around here?" She yawned and sidled past her younger sister. "I am so tired. I'll see you later, okay?"

  "Nice try, Sydney. I'll just bet you're tired. Because you've been up all night doing dirty deeds with Alex Kimball! That is the worst case of whisker burn I've ever seen in my life, and you are a very, very bad liar."

  Sydney hunched her shoulders, honed in on door 239 and tried to make a run for it, but Julia hopped right out of her Manolo slides and raced after her.

  Syd tried to shut the door in her face, but Jules got the clipboard between it and the jamb and muscled her way insidein spite of the fact that her sister had a good twenty pounds on her.

  "You're shameless. Leave me alone," moaned Sydney.

  Julia put her hands on her hips. " I'm shameless? I'm shameless? I didn't just slither inside after a one-night stand, Miss Morality!"

  "I never said I was Miss Morality. Go away." Syd collapsed facedown onto the bed, smearing Emulsion onto the brown and mustard bedspread.

  Julia plopped down right beside her. "No, you just acted like I was a loose dimwit for sleeping with Roman. My fiance ."

  "The issue was not sleeping with him. The issue was unplanned pregnancy; the reliability of the pill, maybe using a" Sydney shut her mouth. Yeah, one of those. One of those things you forgot to use in the heat of the moment, until he reminded you. Wanna start a South River chapter of Hypocrites R Us ?

  "And are you on the pill, Sydney?"

  Oh, boy . "N-no."

  "Oh, really? Then you must have used a condom."

  "Y-yes."

  "Gosh, I think I detected a little pause there. A little hesitation. Where's the phone book? Those drugstore test kits aren't always accurate, so we need to make an appointment for you at the women's clinic, right away! You should get a pregnancy test.

  And if Thelma Lynn Grafton should happen to be driving by as you leave, you can just tell her it was immaculate conception."

  Sydney heard the nightstand drawer open and close, and then the riffle of pages, the rattle of the telephone receiver being picked up. "What are you doing?" She bolted upright.

  "I'm calling the women's clinic, Syd. I wouldn't be a good sister if I didn't make you an appointment so we're sure you aren't pregnant. What if you had to turn around and marry Alex without thinking things through? My God, you don't even know the guy"

  Syd bounced across the mattress and ripped the phone out of Julia's hand. "Okay, okay. Point taken." She dropped the receiver back into the cradle.

  "Point taken? That's all you're going to say? How about an apology? An admission that you were wrong? That Roman is a wonderful guy, and I'm marrying him because I love him, and for no other reason?"

  So wonderful that he gave you a fake engagement ring . Sydney glanced at it and felt her anger kick up all over again. He would be back from his little business jaunt today, and she was going to give him a piece of her mind.

  "Julia, I don't know what to say. I still think you're making a mistake to rush into this whole thing. Roman might not be who you think he is. You just don't know a lot about him."

  Julia's perfect chin jutted and trembled at the same time. Her lovely eyes went stormy and her no-need-for-Botox lips flattened. "You just can't be happy for me, can you? And it's because you're jealous ."

  Syd's mouth dropped open. "What? That is so untrue!"

  "Oh, it's true, all right."

  It took a sickening lurch in her stomach for Sydney to realize her sister was right. What wouldn't she give for Julia's looks? To have Julia's choices in men? To inspire the kind of devotion in them that she did? To have them running after her, begging for her heart? How many of Julia's boyfriends had proposed to her? Five? Six?

  "You and Marv and everyone elseyou all think I'm just a dizzy blonde. That I have a dim perception of the world and no depth of feeling."

  "No! I always defend you to Marv" Oh, shut up, Syd. You just admitted that Marv insults her intelligence, even though he adores her .

  "You're jealous, and you had to fly down here and treat me like a child and question my decisions and make me take a pregnancy test. And I put up with it! That's the part I can't believe."

  "So why did you put up with it, Julia?" Because the more I think about it, I have to admit that I wouldn't have . Her nausea grew with her awareness.

  "Because you're intimidating. You've always been the older sister, the one who knew there was no Santa and despised me for crying when you told me.

  "You've always known better than me, and I just fell into the same old pattern'Sydney must be right.' Even when you're wrong, like in this case, you're still somebody I have to prove things to. Miss Good Grades, Miss Together, Miss Know-It-All, the one Marv trusts with his precious business books!"

  Sydney would have laughed at this last statement if she hadn't felt so sick to her stomach, and hadn't been so horrified that Julia was right. She had been unable to be happy for her. What kind of person couldn't be happy for her own sister?

  "Just once," Julia continued. "Just once! I would love for Marv to look at me the way he looks at you: with respect ."

  Syd swallowed. Happy-go-lucky Julia envied her ? She tried to absorb the information, tried to bend her mind around it.

  "But that'll never happen. So forget it. Roman, however, respects me. He loves me, and I love him, heart and soul. Our engagement has nothing to do with impulsiveness or flakiness, got that? I'd marry him no matter what. I'd marry him if he was a crook. I'd marry him with a ring made out of tinfoil. Who cares about this rock that you seem so fixated on that you just had to have cleaned!"

  Sydney closed her eyes. Oh, God. 1 should tell her .

  Her, not Roman. But how in the hell can I possibly bring up the issue now ?

  "Julia," she said slowly. "I'm so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. II guess, deep down inside, I was jealous. Everybody loves you. You're beautiful and friendly and bubbly you look like you just stepped out of In Style magazine. You've always had guys after you. They always want to marry you. And I've always had to work work so hard to get attention. Hey, check out my straight A's. See my Phi Beta Kappa membership? Be impressed by how competent I am. Just don't, for God's sake, notice my nose or tell me how I look nothing like my adorable sister."

  "Oh, Sydney. That's ridicu"

  "No, let me finish. Last night I pretended that I was more like you. I had a chance to go out with this incredible-looking, funny, sweet guy. And he made me feel beautiful and sexy." She smiled. "He made me feel like I was some amazing gift that he got to unwrap" Her smile faded. "But you're right, it was a one-night stand. Because I'm not you. And the Alex Kimballs of the world don't fall in love with the Sydney Spinellis. It just doesn't work that way." She lapsed into silence.

  No, we fall in love with them. And they don't even notice.

  Julia scooted over and put her arms around Sydney. She started to speak, but Syd interrupted her, and surprised herself, with a loud, anguished honk and a minirainstorm. "He told me he loved my nose," she bawled.

  "Oh, Sydney." Julia tightened her hug. "He's right. It's a great nose you're beautiful you just won't see it."

  "And he said I have a ch-ch-charming ch-chin. And he's so sweet with his parents, and he was impressed that I could calculate a 19.3 percent tip in eight seconds" She gasped for air.

  "But he won't ask me out again, and anyway, I live in Princeton even if he did and I, oh God, I think I love him." Horrified that she'd thought it, much less said it out loud, she lifted her head from Julia's shoulder, wiped her nose with the back of her hand and stared at her. "I take that back."

  "Oh, sweetie, I don't think you can."

  "I can." Syd nodded vigorously.

  "Okay" But Julia drew her brows together and sighed.

  "I'm not going to see him again. I've got to go back to New Jersey in the next couple of days." Syd got up and searched for a Kleenex box, but there was none.

  "Marv's too cheap to put tissue in the rooms," said Julia matter-of-factly.<
br />
  Syd shook her head in disgust and went for the toilet paper roll. She blew her nose and then eyed her sister. "By the way, don't ever envy the fact that

  Marv turns to me for accounting help. He cooks his damn books."

  Julia's jaw dropped.

  "Yeah, and he wants me to be head chef. I won't do it. I've combed through and found all the traces of Betty Lou's sticky fingers, but I'm retiring as soon as I confess that I know she took his thirty thousand to Vegas and lost every dime."

  Julia winced.

  "Yeah, you want me to have that conversation on speakerphone, so you can share in the joy?"

  "I think I'll pass."

  "Julia," Syd said. "I love you. So much. Always have."

  "I love you, too, Sydney."

  "I'm really sorry about Santa."

  Julia's lips twitched. "That was so mean, but I guess I'm over it now. After lots of therapy." She winked.

  Sydney wanted to tell her that she was happy for her. But, knowing what she did, the words stuck in her throat. So she said instead, "I love you in spite of the fact that I sometimes want to shove fried food down your throat while you're sleeping. And maybe draw a black mustache on you with a permanent marker."

  "Sydney!" But Julia convulsed into giggles.

  Syd grinned at her and shrugged. "Hey, at least I'm honest, right?" Yet she wasn't being entirely honestat least, not about that damn ring. What was she going to do?

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Sydney kicked off Kiki's boots, peeled off the Cavalli jeans and ditched the Pucci halter. As she showered she looked forward to the comfort of her own baggy clothes: an actual pair of panties, Levi's that were a size, too big and a nice cotton T-shirt.

  Every part of her ached from her night with Alex, but she refused to think about him further. He'd made it quite clear that she should butt out of his life. It still hurt, even though he'd had every right to say it.