by Maria Geraci
Charlie opened her fridge. “When did you stop buying milk?”
Grace ignored him and slipped into her bedroom, threw off her bathrobe, and donned her new black dress. Some lipstick, a splash of perfume, and she looked as good as she could hope to. Tonight was the January boyfriend club meeting. Afterward, instead of going to Coco’s with the girls, she was going out for a drink with Joe. She’d been at the mall, looking for something new to wear, and had found an exact replica of the little black dress Sarah had loaned her for her date with Brandon. Only this one was in Grace’s size. No tugging on the hem for her tonight.
She walked back to the living area to find Charlie digging into her hidden stash of Oreos. “Where’s the rest of the dress?”
“You like?” Grace couldn’t resist doing a twirl around.
“Farrell said the two of you hit it off pretty well the other night at dinner. Anything I should know about? Because if you’re dating him, I approve. Not of the dress. But the guy’s okay. He’s also loaded.”
“Is money all you think about?”
“I would say money is number two on my list.”
“Since we’re talking sex, anyone special in your life, Charlie?”
“You’re the one who looks like she’s got that covered. Not that I want to hear about it, but is it Farrell? And if it’s not, when do I meet him?”
The doorbell rang. Two seconds later Sarah walked in before anyone could answer, the way she always did. “Wow! That dress looks identical to the one I loaned you.”
Charlie attempted to muss Sarah’s hair but she dodged him. “You got a dress like that, squirt? How come I’ve never seen it?”
“Maybe because I’ve never been out on a date with you?”
“Not true. Your senior prom. I came home from school even though I’m sure there was something better going on. I got you an orchid for a corsage. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten? I’m heartbroken.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “That was a mercy date.”
Grace stared at the two of them, torn between wanting to laugh and kick herself at her own stupidity. Sarah and Charlie. Why had she never seen it before?
“So turn around,” Sarah ordered. Grace happily obliged. “I can’t wait to see the look on his face when you walk out in that.”
“Whose face?” Charlie asked. “Just so you know, I’m feeling very left out here, girls.”
“Good thing there’s a whole box of Oreos to console yourself with.” Grace picked up her purse and headed for the door. “If you’re going to stay to raid my refrigerator, please lock up.”
“Don’t come crying on my doorstep if you catch a cold on account of that dress!” Charlie yelled.
They were almost to the store when Grace broached the subject she’d been thinking about ever since Charlie had brought up senior prom.
“Sarah, what do you think of Charlie?”
Sarah kept her eyes on the road. “What do you mean?”
“He’s cute, isn’t he? Since he’s my brother, I can never think of him objectively in those terms, but women always seem to go for him.”
“He’s all right, I guess.”
All right? It wasn’t exactly glowing praise. Grace tried another approach.
“Okay, remember in Little Women, how everyone thinks that Jo and Laurie are a sure thing? But in the end, it’s Amy who ends up with Laurie. And there are tiny clues here and there, but you don’t see it until all of a sudden, and then it becomes obvious that Amy and Laurie were meant to be together all along.”
“What does Little Women have to do with Charlie?”
“I always thought that stupid grammar school shtick you and Charlie do was just a friendly throwback to when we were kids, but I don’t know. Tonight I was watching his face, and I could have sworn—”
“Grace, that’s never going to happen.” The quiet intensity in Sarah’s voice took Grace by surprise. If anything, she’d expected Sarah to laugh at the suggestion, not appear so adamantly against it.
“Why not?”
Sarah pulled into Grace’s private parking spot behind the store and turned in her seat to face her. “Because it just isn’t. I’m not Amy and Charlie isn’t Laurie. Life doesn’t work like that. We aren’t characters from some novel. Ellen’s got you brainwashed into believing that computer program crap of hers!”
Neither of them made a motion to get out of the car. They watched silently as car after car filed into the parking lot. How stupid and insensitive could Grace get? She knew Sarah was having a hard time with this divorce. Much as she hated to admit it, Sarah wasn’t over Craig yet.
“It looks like there’s going to be a big crowd again,” Sarah said, her voice subdued.
“I told Ellen not to put up any more flyers. I hope she listened.”
“Grace . . . why did you bring that up about Charlie and me?”
“I’m sorry, Sarah. I wasn’t thinking. But you’re my best friend, he’s my brother. You’re both single now and I thought, why not?”
“But why now? Why not five years ago?”
“I don’t know, because I’m dense?” She laughed, expecting Sarah to laugh too. Only she didn’t. “Maybe because the timing has never been right? You always had a boyfriend or Charlie was off in law school or something. And now I guess the timing is really messed up because even though you’re free, Charlie’s moving to Miami—”
“What?”
Grace sucked in a breath. She’d never broken Charlie’s confidence before, but this was Sarah and she was going to find out anyway. “That’s supposed to be a secret, but I’m sure Charlie won’t care if you know. His firm is opening up an office in Miami and they want Charlie to head it. It’s a good opportunity. But he hasn’t told Mami and Pop yet, so don’t say anything around the family.”
“When is he leaving?”
“Not till May, I think. He promised me he’ll still be here to help with Abuela when Mami and Pop go to Europe in April for their anniversary. Which I really hope he comes through on, because frankly, I’m tired of Charlie making promises he never keeps.”
Sarah pulled the key out of the ignition. “I’m getting cold,” she said. “Let’s go inside.”
Penny met them at the door. “It appears that our membership committee has been at it again,” she grumbled. “Where are we going to put them all?”
There had to be at least fifty women in the store. Some of them were browsing through the aisles, looking at the merchandise. A small crowd had gathered in front of the Mold-A-Rama machines. “Does anyone have change?” Grace heard one of the women ask.
Grace slipped her heels off and she and Sarah and Penny moved another shelf out of the way to make more room in the Hemingway corner. “Maybe we should keep one of the cash registers open, in case anyone wants to buy something,” Penny joked.
“How do we know someone isn’t going to rip off the merchandise?” Sarah asked.
“Sarah has a point. There are a lot of strangers loose in the shop,” Penny said.
Grace had never considered that before, but other than Ellen’s friends from the college, Grace didn’t know any of these women. She was going to have to put a stop to this now.
A minute later Ellen came flying down the aisles, her face flushed, her glasses on top of her head. She had two computer bags, one looped over each shoulder. “I swear I didn’t promote the club! We took down every flyer we could find.”
“Then where did all these women come from?” Grace asked.
“Word of mouth?”
“I say we toss some of ’em out the door,” Penny said.
“We can’t do that,” Ellen said, “it wouldn’t be right.”
“We’re going to have to find another place to hold the meetings,” Grace said.
“I’ll start looking first thing Monday morning. I promise.” Ellen eyed Grace’s outfit. “Wow! You look great. I guess you’re definitely going to Coco’s tonight, huh?”
“Grace has got a hot date tonight,” Penny s
aid.
“With Mr. Darcy?”
“With the dentist,” Sarah said.
“The dentist? I thought you two were keeping it casual. Just friends. Isn’t that what you said New Year’s Eve?”
“Get with the program. A lot has happened over the past week,” Sarah said. “If you’d been to lunch at Luigi’s on Wednesday, you would have heard all about Grace’s New Year’s Eve fireworks.”
“Damn faculty meeting,” Ellen muttered. She gave Grace one of her bags. “Here, give me a hand.” She began pulling out the familiar items—her laptop and her yellow legal pad. “Going out with the dentist is a waste of time, Grace. The facts all point to Brandon being your Mr. Darcy.”
She thought about what Sarah had said in the car, about Grace being brainwashed by Ellen’s computer program. It’s not that Grace believed it one hundred percent, because she didn’t. It was an empowerment tool, and mostly for fun. But still . . . Ellen had been spot-on about Felix being a Henry Crawford. Grace wondered who Joe’s literary equivalent would be.
“We’ll see,” she said humoring Ellen. “So why did you bring two computers?”
“Janine volunteered to take notes. That way I can concentrate on running the meeting.” She paused. “Unless you’d like to do it. After all, it’s your club.”
It was true. Technically the idea for the club had been Grace’s. But since Ellen was the one who knew all about the computer program, it made more sense for her to preside over the meetings. “No, you go ahead.”
The meeting flowed the same way the last one did. They went around the room and all the members introduced themselves, which took up more time because of all the extra women. Grace shuffled uneasily in her chair.
With everything going on—Joe, the holidays, worrying about the future of the store—she’d forgotten to tell Pop about the meetings. Not that Grace thought Pop would mind, but having all these people in the store after hours was suddenly making Grace uneasy. Shoplifting was one concern, but what if someone slipped and fell and hurt themselves? Could they sue Florida Charlie’s? She hadn’t thought of that before.
A group of women were passing around a bottle of wine. Hadn’t Ellen put a message up on the Yahoo! site asking women not to bring alcohol? Grace hadn’t been to the site since their first meeting, but she was certain Ellen wouldn’t have forgotten something that important.
Grace stood up to remind them of the no-liquor policy.
“Ah! Excellent!” Ellen cried. “Tell us about him, Grace.”
Forty-nine-plus sets of eyes turned to stare at her.
“Tell you about who?”
“Your new boyfriend,” Ellen said. “I asked for volunteers and you were the first one to stand up.”
“Oh, I guess I wasn’t paying attention. The reason I stood up was to make a no-alcohol announcement. I’m the manager here at Florida Charlie’s and we can’t have alcohol on the premises.”
A light scattering of boos filled the air, some good-natured, some not.
“We brought alcohol to the last meeting,” one woman said, making a hostile show of recorking her wine bottle.
“Yeah,” echoed several others.
“I know, but I’ve decided that—”
“Who are you to decide?” someone asked. “Why don’t we put it to a vote?”
The room began to buzz in agreement.
“I’m sorry, but this isn’t a democracy,” Grace said. “I’m the manager of the store and what I say goes.” She looked to Ellen for support, but Ellen was typing something into her computer.
After a few seconds, Ellen looked up, sensed that something unpleasant was going on, and plastered a smile on her face. “Whatever Grace said, she’s right.”
Whatever Grace said? Obviously Ellen had been too preoccupied putting data into her computer to follow the conversation, but her decree mollified the women into silencing their objections.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” Grace said. “It’s just that—”
“Yes, yes, we get it. Now tell us about your boyfriend. Or sit down and let someone else have a turn,” said a woman with short blond hair and glasses.
Grace stared at the woman. Of all the rude . . .
“I don’t actually have a boyfriend, not at the moment. At least, I don’t think of him as my boyfriend. We’ve just started seeing each other and—”
“Are you going to stand there and blabber all night or are you going to get to the point?” someone shouted. Grace thought she recognized the voice, although she couldn’t be sure. Where was all this sudden animosity coming from? It couldn’t all stem from her no-alcohol announcement, could it?
“All right, his name is Joe Rosenblum. He’s . . . well, he’s pretty terrific.”
This was met with disbelieving laughter.
“Grace is in what I like to refer to as the ‘honeymoon’ phase of the relationship,” Ellen explained to the crowd. “It’s normal at this point to be unrealistically infatuated.”
Unrealistically infatuated? Grace tried to keep her voice steady. “I know what you’re all thinking. But the fact is, he’s handsome, and kind, and funny, and smart and—”
“Boy, do you have it bad,” someone yelled.
“This is actually quite good,” said Ellen. “Remember, the purpose of the club isn’t to bash the men we’ve dated; it’s to provide reviews so that we can all benefit from each other’s experiences. Let’s say, a few months from now Grace and Joe are broken up and one of you decides to go out with him. It will be nice to know that he’s a decent guy. Unless of course, Grace needs to amend his file. Okay, let’s have some stats.”
“I can provide those,” came the familiar unwelcome voice. Grace recognized it now. She searched the group until she spotted the face she was looking for. It was Melanie, the Nazi receptionist from Sunshine Smiles.
“Melanie, what are you doing here?” Grace asked.
21
Vanity Working on a Weak Head Produces Every Sort of Disaster
“Joining the club, of course,” said Melanie, her Angelina Jolie lips looking moist and pouty. It had to be collagen implants. No one looked that good while they were scowling. Except maybe Angelina Jolie. Grace tried to think of a reason to refuse Melanie membership, but there wasn’t any except for the fact that Grace didn’t like her.
“May I go on?” Melanie asked.
The women all turned in their seats to hear Grace’s response.
“By all means,” Grace said. She grit her teeth and tried for a smile.
“Where was I? Joe is thirty-two, six foot two and a half, never been married, has light brown hair . . . only the brown is an illusion. When he’s outside and it catches the sun, you see all these streaks of blond that really bring out his blue eyes. And he has a beautiful smile. Did I already tell you he’s a dentist? When he smiles these absolutely gorgeous dimples pop out on his lower cheeks. He’s a fabulous sportsman. He plays rugby. I believe his position is loose head prop. Or maybe it’s tight head prop. I get those two confused.” Melanie giggled like a little girl. “I’ve seen him play several times but I have to confess I’m not too sure what goes on other than a lot of running and bashing into one other!”
Six foot two and a half? A half? What had Melanie done? Measured him? And when had Melanie seen Joe play rugby? Grace had no clue what position Joe played, let alone what a loose head prop or a tight head prop was.
“Is there anything you’d like to add to that, Grace?” Ellen asked.
“Yeah, tell us more about Mr. Perfect,” said a woman to Grace’s right. This remark produced a few snickers.
“I never said he was perfect,” Grace said. “Joe has his faults too.”
Ellen began fiddling with her computer again. “Like what?”
“Like . . . you know, he snores, stuff like that.”
Melanie gasped.
Sarah gave her a what the hell? kind of look.
Grace could only shrug helplessly.
“Snoring is more
a personal habit than a characteristic,” Ellen said, “and frankly, we’d probably have to put it down for the majority of men, so we’ll ignore that one.”
Grace had to admit to being more than just a little peeved right now. Why had she let herself be manipulated into reviewing Joe? And why had she felt the urge to one-up Melanie with the sort of detail about Joe that could only mean Grace had slept with him?
“Handsome, kind, funny, smart,” Ellen said, oblivious to anything other than collecting data for her boyfriend project. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to provide more information, Grace, because right now the man is coming out to be a mix between Brad Pitt and the Pope.”
This produced a round of laughter. Grace could feel her face go hot.
“You want more information? Okay, here goes. Joe graduated summa cum laude from dental school, then joined the Peace Corps, where he was stationed in Guatemala. After providing dental care to the poor, he spent a year traveling the world. As Melanie has already said, he’s an excellent sportsman, and, he cooked Thanksgiving dinner for his mother.” Grace wanted to shout “Top that, Herr Melanie!” Only everything Grace had just told the group except for the part about Joe cooking Thanksgiving dinner could be gotten off Dr. Fred’s letter, so it couldn’t really be deemed personal.
“Too. Good. To. Be. True.” Ellen said, typing away again. She paused, then looked up at Grace in concern. “Oh, no, it’s just as I suspected. He’s a Wickham.”
“A what?”
“He’s George Wickham, the villain from Pride and Prejudice.”
The women began murmuring in agreement.
“No, he’s not!”
If Ellen started quoting Pride and Prejudice, Grace wouldn’t be responsible for what happened next.
“Grace,” Ellen said gently, “don’t you remember telling us he tried to pick you up at the Wobbly Duck? Only to pretend that he’d never seen you before when you went to his office practically the very next day? You yourself even said he was some kind of actor. I know you don’t want to hear this, but what’s the purpose of the club if we can’t be honest? The signs are all there. On the surface, this guy seems perfect. Yet we know for a fact that he’s capable of deceit. He’s hiding something. The fact that he’s overcompensated by all his other achievements means that whatever he’s hiding is probably something pretty big.”
