The Boyfriend of the Month Club

by Maria Geraci

  “But I thought your dad said we should close the store until the roof gets fixed.”

  “I know what he said, but every day we’re closed is a drop in revenue. Don’t worry, I’ll handle Pop. I’m going to put up the alligator tooth display right where he wants it. He’ll be so happy he won’t care what I do.”

  Penny looked doubtful, but she went back to looking up numbers in her BlackBerry. Grace walked Sarah and Ellen out to their cars. Ellen handed her the takeout boxes with their lunch.

  “Thanks for rushing over here,” Grace said.

  “Of course,” Sarah said. “I love Florida Charlie’s.”

  Ellen nodded in agreement. “This place is special. It would be terrible if anything happened to the store.”

  Grace stood under the porch area and watched as they drove off. It was still raining, although it appeared to be letting up some, so maybe things wouldn’t be so bad after all. Grace repositioned the Santa hat back on Gator Claus’s head.

  “The roses don’t mean anything, you know,” she said, strategically laying the pom-pom to land next to Gator Claus’s jawline. Somehow it made him look jollier this way. Less . . . reptilelike.

  “He probably has an account at Benson’s the same way he has an account at Chez Louis. He probably gets roses on discount, he buys so many. Besides, it doesn’t matter. Nothing in this world is going to change my mind about Brandon Farrell, so he might as well be dead to me.”

  Gator Claus’s expression turned smug.

  “Don’t look at me like that or I might let Abuela have her way with you. You don’t know it, but you’re just a few yards of green felt away from becoming an elf.”

  The smug look immediately disappeared.

  Thursday at Florida Charlie’s was business as usual. Which meant it was slow in the morning, picked up around lunchtime, and then died down by late afternoon. The rain stopped and two roofing companies came out to give estimates. Both agreed nothing short of a new roof would fix the problem. One company offered to do a quick patch up job at a reasonable price, but they couldn’t guarantee how long it would last. Grace decided to consult Charlie before doing anything.

  “Did Pop okay this?” Charlie asked, inspecting the makeshift rope-off job Grace had done around the Hemingway corner. Although it wasn’t raining anymore, she didn’t want to take a chance it would start up again.

  “Have you had a chance to look over the store’s finances?” she countered.

  “So Pop didn’t okay it. I hope you know what you’re doing. And no, I haven’t had a chance to look over the numbers yet. Work has been a bitch.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “You don’t have to work here, you know. Pop would understand.”

  “Right.”

  Charlie had the grace to look embarrassed. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his tan trench coat. Underneath he wore a fancy looking gray wool suit. He looked every inch the successful attorney that he was, and Grace was proud of him. But at the same time, she couldn’t help but be envious. Charlie had had no problem telling their father that a career at Florida Charlie’s hadn’t been for him. So it had been up to Grace to come through. Felix was wrong when he’d said Grace hated working for her father. She didn’t hate it. She just didn’t love it. But if she didn’t work at Florida Charlie’s, what would she do?

  “I’ll look over the figures tonight,” Charlie said.

  “How’s the Phoebe situation?”

  “There is no situation. I told you, it was no big deal. We talked. She was cool.”

  Grace remembered the look on Phoebe’s face during dinner. If Charlie had been dessert, Phoebe would have gobbled him up in one bite.

  “So what should I do about the roof?”

  “Off the top of my head, I’d say get the quick patch-up done, then we’ll worry about getting a new roof later. I’ll look into the insurance policy but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t cover normal wear and tear.”

  “Okay, that’s what I was thinking.”

  As soon as Charlie left, Grace took off for her Thursday evening Zumba class.

  Sarah met her at the entrance to the gym. “What are you going to do when you see Brandon?” she asked.

  “Absolutely nothing. Just because Brandon Farrell sent me roses from Benson’s doesn’t mean anything.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes.

  “Okay, so maybe I’m a little nervous,” Grace admitted. But it was only because of the awkwardness of the situation.

  In the end, her worrying was for nothing. Brandon never showed up to Zumba class, which only confirmed Grace’s opinion of him as a wuss. He could spend a hundred bucks on roses, but he was too much of a coward to face her in person.

  It was better this way. Now she could go to Zumba class and not have to worry about what he might say to her or what she might say to him. Daytona Beach wasn’t a large city, but it was big enough that she could likely avoid him if she wanted to. Probably forever.

  7

  Hopelessly Attractive Men

  It was the first official meeting of the boyfriend club. Besides the four of them, Ellen’s friend Janine was present, along with five other women who worked at the college, making a total of ten members. Ellen passed around her legal pad to get the new members’ e-mail addresses. They were meeting in the Hemingway corner, like they normally did. In the past, when the club had focused on books, the Hemingway corner had seemed inspirational. Strangely, even although the focus of the club was now men, it still seemed appropriate.

  A roofing company had come out yesterday and done a patch-up job, so Grace wasn’t worried about the roof leaking if it should happen to rain again. Yesterday, as predicted, a cold front rolled in, dipping temperatures into the forties. For the first time this season, the heat was on in the store. Grace wore a leather skirt that fell to mid-thigh with her knee-length high-heeled boots and a black turtleneck. She’d pulled her hair back into a high ponytail, giving her a fun sort of retro sixties look. She hadn’t realized until she’d started getting dressed for the evening how much she was looking forward to tonight.

  “I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome all of you,” Grace began. “The purpose of this club is to educate and empower one another. Between us, we’ve probably dated a lot of eligible men here in town—”

  “And some ineligible ones too!” a woman with curly red hair blurted.

  Everyone laughed politely.

  “Exactly,” Grace said. “For practical purposes, I think we should limit our discussions to one boyfriend per meeting. Two, if we have time. And afterward, we can go to Coco’s for drinks, because this should also be fun! Now, I suggest that we begin by going around the room and introducing ourselves.”

  After they’d made their introductions, Ellen stood, her trusty legal pad in hand. “I’ll start with a recap from last week. I’ve already made a file for our first two reviews. Those members who join tonight can access them online once they accept the invitation I send out.” She cleared her throat and swept her gaze over the little group causing everyone to still. Grace had to admit, Ellen was good at working a room. “Our first review was Felix Barberi, aka Peter Pan.”

  “Cheating Peter Pan,” Grace clarified.

  At the confused looks on the new members’ faces, Ellen went on to explain the classification system.

  Several of the women mumbled their appreciation.

  “That’s so clever!” Janine said.

  “I thought of that,” Grace said, feeling quite proud of herself. “Although we’re pretty sure Peter Pan isn’t a true literary comparison for Felix Barberi. We’re still working out the kinks in the system.”

  “I won’t go over everything we said last week, because you can read the reviews for yourselves, but I can tell you it isn’t pretty,” Ellen said. “Who would like to begin tonight’s discussion?”

  Stacey, the woman with the curly red hair, raised her hand. “I’d like to talk about my ex—Chris Sullivan.” She paused. “Does anyone kno
w him?”

  Penny shifted in her seat. “It’s not the Chris Sullivan who works at Bob’s Automotive Parts, is it?” At the questioning look on Grace’s face, Penny said, “He’s friends with Butch.”

  “That’s him,” Stacey said. “I dated him for almost two months. Then I found out he was married.”

  Everyone moaned.

  “Maybe he’s more of a work acquaintance than a friend, really,” Penny rushed to add.

  “It all started back in June when I took my Volvo in for an overhaul,” Stacey explained. “She’s fifteen years old and very delicate. Volvos are solid cars but they need an expert touch. Chris was the only mechanic who knew how to work on her. He understood her. He was . . . well, he was wonderful. He had her engine running so smoothly she almost purred.”

  Ellen began scribbling like a fiend.

  Grace checked out the expressions on the other women’s faces. No one seemed to read anything strange in Stacey’s comments. Get your mind out of the gutter, Grace!

  Stacey’s voice began to quiver. “He was so handsome that I nearly swooned every time I looked at him. At first, I resisted the attraction. But he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring and I thought maybe it was time to take the initiative in my love life, so I did something very unlike me. I asked him out.”

  “He was going Hando Commando,” Ellen said, shaking her head in disgust.

  “Married men who don’t wear their wedding rings are despicable! How is a girl supposed to know who’s been caught and tagged?” Janine said.

  “Maybe he has an allergy. Or maybe he doesn’t wear it because he’s a mechanic and he gets grease all over his hands?” Penny suggested, but no one paid her any attention.

  “After that first date, I sensed something mysterious about him, and after a couple of weeks, I was convinced he was definitely hiding something. But by then it was too late. I was already head over heels in love. Then one day, out of the blue, he told me he was married and going back to his wife.”

  “I think Chris and his wife were legally separated for a while,” Penny said. One of the women turned to glare at her. “Not that it’s an excuse for not telling Stacey the whole truth!” she added defensively.

  “That was six months ago, and now I have major trust issues.” Stacey reached inside her purse to get a Kleenex to wipe at her sniffles.

  “Have you tried therapy?” Sarah asked.

  “Why should I go to therapy? He’s the one who needs therapy!”

  “ ‘I had not intended to love him,’ ” Ellen recited dramatically.

  “What?” Stacey asked, looking confused.

  “It’s a quote. From Charlotte Brontë’s classic, Jane Eyre. Don’t you see, Stacey? You were duped, just like poor Jane. This is a classic case of a Mr. Rochester if ever I saw one,” Ellen said.

  Stacey nodded. “Exactly!”

  “I love that book,” one of the women said.

  “Yes, it’s a wonderful story, to be sure.” Ellen pushed her reading glasses up her nose. “Although not as brilliant as her sister Emily’s Wuthering Heights. Nothing can compare to that.”

  Penny leaned over and whispered to Grace, “I hope she doesn’t start in on Heathcliff. We’ll never make it to Coco’s before it closes if Ellen starts expounding on the most romantic hero of all time.”

  But blessedly, Ellen kept to the program. She went on to describe other similarities between Stacey and Chris’s doomed relationship and that of Jane and Mr. Rochester. Occasionally, other members would make a comment, but since no one knew the book as well as Ellen, no one could really add much of value. Grace had wanted to point out that, in the end, Mr. Rochester and Jane did eventually get together, but since Grace hadn’t read the book and was strictly going off the cable movie adaption, she was afraid maybe the Hollywood version had fudged the literary ending and she didn’t want to incur Ellen’s wrath. By the time Ellen was through dissecting Jane Eyre, it was almost eleven.

  “I think that about wraps it up for tonight,” Grace said, bringing the meeting to a close. “How about we set up a standard date for the first Saturday of each month?”

  The group unanimously approved. Grace and Penny locked up the store, and the ten of them headed to Coco’s, an upscale bar located on the beach. The place was crowded so it was standing-room only, but one of the servers was a student of Ellen’s and she managed to get them a table. They’d just ordered their drinks, when another server came over with two chilled bottles of Dom Perignon.

  Sarah stared at the bottles wistfully. “You have the wrong table.”

  The server pointed to the bar area. “Compliments of the gentleman.”

  They all craned their heads to get a look. Grace nearly fell out of her seat when she recognized who the “gentleman” was. Brandon Farrell stood with his back to her, talking to another man. To Grace’s relief, his friend Doug didn’t appear to be with him.

  “We don’t want it,” Grace said. “Take it back.”

  “The hell we don’t!” Ellen reached for a bottle. “We’ll need ten glasses, please.”

  “We’re not accepting the champagne,” Grace repeated.

  “But I’ve never had Dom Perignon,” Penny said.

  The server looked torn. “The guy said if you take the bottles, he’ll give me a fifty dollar tip.”

  “That settles it. We don’t want him to lose his tip, do we, Grace?” Ellen said.

  The rest of the table looked at the bottles with lust in their eyes. There was no way she could send back the champagne without seeming like a huge party pooper.

  “We’ll take the bottles. But I’m not going to have any,” Grace declared.

  He uncorked the champagne and poured them each a glass. Grace wished she had the willpower to resist, but like Penny, she’d never tasted Dom Perignon.

  “Maybe I’ll try a tiny sip. But I’m not going to like it.”

  The champagne was delicious. All bubbly and smooth as it trickled down her throat. She drained her glass. All right, so maybe she liked it a little.

  “How much do you think this cost?” Penny asked.

  “Too much.”

  “Isn’t someone going to go over and thank him?” Stacey asked.

  “Nope.”

  “He must really like you,” Sarah said. “First the roses from Benson’s, now this. Maybe you should give him another chance, Grace.”

  Some expensive roses and overpriced champagne and he had her friends eating out of the palm of his hand. Grace should have added “diabolical” to the list of qualities on his boyfriend review. She should get Ellen to add it to his file on the Yahoo! site.

  After they finished the champagne, the waiter brought them their original drink orders. The lime in the rum and coke mixture of Grace’s Cuba Libre tasted too tart after the smooth Dom. Grace tried to hold it in as long as possible, but her bladder felt ready to burst. Unfortunately the only way to the restroom was to walk by the bar.

  She stood and smoothed out her skirt.

  “I’ll go with you,” Sarah said, sensing Grace’s discomfort. “There’s safety in numbers.”

  Grace managed to elude Brandon on her way to the bathroom, but he was waiting for her the second she stepped back out of the door.

  “Hello, Grace,” he said, sounding nervous. Well, good. He should be nervous! He smiled at Sarah and she smiled back at him.

  “Did you follow me here?” Grace asked.

  “Of course I did. I was hoping we could talk.”

  “I know you followed me to the bathroom; I meant did you follow me here to Coco’s?”

  He looked amused. “If you mean, am I stalking you? The answer is no. It was just luck that you walked in the door.”

  “I think I’ll let you two talk in private,” Sarah said, making quick tracks back to their table. Grace reached out to stop her but Sarah was too quick.

  “So who are your friends?” he asked. “Did they like the champagne?”

  “It’s my . . . book club. And of course they liked
it. They friggin’ loved it. I’m sure they’d like to canonize you about now.”

  He looked pleased with himself. “Did you get the flowers?”

  “You shouldn’t have done that either.”

  He didn’t look so pleased anymore. “Damn it, Grace, what do I have to do to make it up to you? Would you feel better if I let you pour a bottle of the Dom over my head?”

  “The beer was an accident. But I wouldn’t mind draining a bottle of Dom over your head.”

  “Wait right here.” Brandon went over to the bar and said something to the bartender.

  Did he think she was an idiot? No way was he coming back with a bottle of hundred-dollar-plus champagne just so she could waste it by pouring it over his skull.

  But that’s exactly what he did.

  “Here you go,” he said handing her an opened bottle of the champagne. “Not to be a snob or anything, but if a woman is going to dump alcohol on me, I’d prefer it be something I actually like to drink. The beer at the Duck leaves a lot to be desired.”

  She playfully raised the bottle above his head. “I’m going to do it,” she said, which of course she wasn’t. But it was interesting to see how far he’d let this little charade go on.

  “Go for it,” he shot back. He stood there, grinning at her.

  “Is this a trick to get me arrested?”

  “Why would I want to get you arrested?”

  “I don’t know. Payback for the Wobbly Duck?”

  “I’m trying to get you to go out with me again, not get you thrown in the slammer.”

  She couldn’t help herself. She smiled.

  Hopelessly attracted to hopelessly attractive men . . .

  Wait a minute.

  What was wrong with her? He’d stood her up. He’d let his friends make fun of her parents’ store and then basically gone Neanderthal. She lowered the bottle. The old Grace might have given in. The old Grace might have swooned at the flowers and the champagne and his pretty face. But this was the new Grace. The empowered Grace! And she wasn’t going to fall for any of it.