by Maria Geraci
Penny had tears in her eyes. “I’m going to follow Butch and see if I can clear this up.”
“I’m coming with you,” Grace said.
“No,” Penny said, wiping away her sniffles. Penny, crying twice in the same year. This was really something. “First, get the store cleared out and locked up. By the way, we had a record-breaking sales day today.”
Well, there was some consolation in that, Grace supposed.
“Okay, you’re right. You go be with Butch. I’ll be down at police headquarters just as soon as I deal with a couple of things. Like breaking Ellen’s laptop.” Despite the gravity of the situation, Penny smiled. Grace gave her a hug and waved her off.
There were a few stragglers left in the store. Luckily, Phoebe wasn’t one of them. She must have slithered out the door when Grace wasn’t paying attention, which was good because Grace was afraid if she saw her again she might strangle her. Grace shooed off the rest of the women and locked up so no one else could get inside. Marty had already righted the collapsed rack of T-shirts and Ellen and Sarah were putting the shelves back in order.
“Grace, I’m so sorry,” Ellen said. “I can’t believe what happened here tonight. I never never meant for it to go down like this!”
Grace sighed. “I know you didn’t mean for all this to happen, Ellen, but now Butch is in jail and there’s some crazy Shania person who wants to write an article on us. Have you ever heard of a blog called What’s Up, Daytona Beach?”
“Heard of it? Grace, Shania’s blog gets thousands of hits a day! Isn’t it awesome? She’s a little snarky but totally sympathetic to the female cause. Trust me, whatever she writes about us, it’ll be favorable.”
“Favorable for who?”
“What about this woman who slandered Charlie tonight?” Sarah demanded. “Are we going to let her get away with that?”
“Well, I hope you know I’m not going to write that review up for the files,” Ellen said.
“Write it up for the files?” Sarah repeated in stunned disbelief. “Is that all you’ve got to say? Clearly the woman is missing brain cells!”
“Or in need of some strong medication,” Ellen agreed quickly. “I never once believed her. Of course, Charlie is innocent!”
“I have to warn Charlie about her,” Grace said. “Before any of this gets back to his firm.” Or to Mami and Pop. Grace put her arm around Sarah and gave her a fast hug. “By the way, you were a real tiger tonight. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were Charlie’s sister, the way you came to his defense. Thank you.” She handed Sarah the keys to the store. “I need a favor. Can you and Ellen help Marty clean up this mess? I’d stay, but I have to go to police headquarters and help spring Butch.”
“Don’t worry,” Sarah said, giving Ellen the stink eye. “Neither of us is leaving until this place is spic-and-span clean.”
The police didn’t release Butch until after one a.m. No charges were filed against him but it still seemed to Grace to be a very severe case of police bullying. And Colonel Brandon, aka Matt, had seemed so nice at first! The only good thing that had come out of tonight was that Butch had gone back with Penny to her apartment, and from the way the two of them had been making goo-goo eyes at each other, Grace would say that the Penny/ Butch estrangement had definitely come to an end. Penny had gotten what she’d wanted. Butch had made the Grand Gesture, and Grace was truly happy for them.
She rolled her car into her empty driveway. No sign of Joe. He said he’d come over tonight, but that was before their one-on-one on the dock. She should call him, but it was late and she was exhausted and she didn’t want to say anything she might later regret. But she did call Charlie. He needed to know the crap Phoebe was spewing about him. But Charlie didn’t pick up, so Grace left him a message to call her back ASAP.
29
Be Careful What You Ask St. Anthony For
The next morning Grace woke up to find a text message on her cell phone from Charlie. Call me no matter what time you get this. He must have heard about Phoebe and her little “announcement” last night. What else could be that urgent?
She called but his cell went directly to voice mail, irritating Grace to no end. It was just like Charlie to leave a cryptic message and then not be available. Nor was he at church, like he should have been.
No one seemed to think it was strange that Charlie was missing from Mass, but Mami was the first to comment on Grace’s appearance. “Grace, honey, are you sick?” she asked on their way out of church.
“Is it pinkeye?” Pop asked. “That’s contagious, Tomato. Might want to see the doctor first thing in the morning.”
“Have you been crying?” Leave it to Abuela not to beat about the bush.
“I need to talk to you, Pop. You too, Mami and Abuela.” It wasn’t going to be easy to tell them about last night’s brouhaha at the store. Pop would be angry, which wouldn’t be good for his blood pressure. But the fact that the cops had been called to handle a disturbance at Florida Charlie’s wasn’t something she could keep from him.
“What’s going on?” Pop said. “First Charlie, now you.”
“First Charlie what?” Grace said.
“Your brother called us this morning,” Mami said. “He’s going to miss Mass and supper, but he’ll be at the house later this evening. He said he had something very important to tell us. As a family.”
Great. The Miami thing. Charlie had finally decided to break the news that he was moving, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time. Pop would be mad about the incident at the store and Mami and Abuela would be sad over Charlie leaving town. A good time would be had by all.
“Does this something you have to tell us involve your new boyfriend?” Pop asked, winking at Grace. “He’s coming over today for supper,” he informed Mami and Abuela.
Shit. She’d forgotten she’d told Pop she’d invite Joe over.
Before Mami and Abuela could get too excited, Grace had to nip things in the bud. “Um, things are a little complicated.”
“Complicated? How? In my day, if you went off for the weekend with someone you were practically engaged.”
Grace could feel a trickle of sweat run down her back. She was thirty years old, damn it. “Times have changed, Pop.”
“Obviously,” he grumbled.
“Maybe he can come over some other time,” Mami said diplomatically.
Grace threw her a grateful smile.
She was in the process of getting the dishes out of the cupboard when Abuela intercepted her. “You never answered my question, Gracielita. Why have you been crying?”
Half a bottle of eye drops and thirty minutes of cold cucumber compresses hadn’t been enough to keep her eyes from looking like she’d spent ten minutes in an alley with Mike Tyson. She wished she could spare Abuela this latest romantic heartache, but the truth was Grace needed to talk to someone about Joe. She’d almost called Sarah this morning, but under the circumstances it seemed too tactless to boo-hoo on Sarah’s shoulder, especially after the news Grace had dropped on her last night. And she certainly didn’t want to interrupt Penny and Butch’s reunion. As for Ellen? Grace was still so mad at her she wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep from punching her in the nose the next time she saw her.
“It’s the St. Valentine’s Day Curse, Abuela. I think it’s happened again.”
“Lo siento, mi amor.” Abuela laid her palm against Grace’s cheek. “But all couples fight. It will be all right. Remember, I saw it in my dream.”
Grace tried for a smile because she didn’t want to bring Abuela any unhappiness. No use telling her that the man she saw in her dream wasn’t the man she was talking about.
Just as they were sitting down to supper, Grace’s cell phone rang.
“Hey,” said Joe.
“Hey, yourself.”
“Was everything all right at the store?”
“Things got a little . . . crazy.” Mami called Grace to the table. “Look, Joe, can I call you later?” She wanted to
ask him how things went between his aunt and Phillip, but it seemed like a subject better brought up in person.
“Sure,” he said, sounding disappointed. Which Grace took as a positive sign. At least Joe wanted to talk about the problem. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as she thought. Maybe they could still salvage their relationship, whatever that was.
Pop was full of nervous energy. He gave Grace the lowdown on the yoga class that Jim, the manly therapist, had suggested he take to relieve the anxiety Pop hadn’t even known he had. Hearing Pop talk about things like the lotus position and chanting a mantra made Grace laugh out loud, which was good, because Grace needed to laugh right now. Pop knew how to tell a story, that was for sure. Too bad Charlie wasn’t here. He would love listening to this. But this was the way it was going to be from now on, just the four of them, with Charlie down in Miami. It was depressing to think how much she’d miss her brother.
After supper, she helped Mami clean the dishes. Pop was getting impatient. What was keeping Charlie? he asked. And then he started dropping not-so-subtle hints that whatever it was Grace needed to say, she might as well have at it.
Grace had wanted Charlie to be present when she told Pop about the boyfriend meeting. He needed to know what Pheobe was saying about him, plus Grace really needed some sibling moral support. But it was after five already, and Grace had only gotten three hours’ sleep last night. She was exhausted. And Pop wasn’t going to wait a second longer.
She waited till they were gathered in the living room to begin.
“I know you don’t like talking about the store on Sundays, Pop, but what I have to say can’t wait until tomorrow. Plus, this involves the whole family too, including Charlie. I wanted to wait until he was here, but I’m beginning to wonder if he’s even going to show up, so I might as well get this off my chest.”
Grace was met with three serious-looking faces. “So . . . you know how Sarah and Penny and Ellen and I had a book club that met at the store after hours?”
“Sure, you met in the Hemingway corner. Damn appropriate, if you ask me,” said Pop.
“Don’t cuss, Charlie,” Mami admonished. “It’s bad for your blood pressure.”
“Damn it, Ana, can you think of something that isn’t bad for my blood pressure? Because if you can, I’d sure as hell like to know what it is!”
Mami’s jaw dropped and Abuela’s eyes got big. Grace had heard her parents argue before, but she’d never seen Pop lose his cool over something so minor.
“Ever since I had my heart attack I’ve listened to you tell me what I can eat, what I can’t eat, what time I should go to bed, when I should get up in the morning. Hell, if you could tell my bowels when to move, I’m sure you’d take charge of them too!” He gave Abuela an apologetic shrug. “Perdóname, Graciela,” Pop said, apologizing to Abuela in perfect Spanish, “but I have to get this off my chest.”
Abuela waved him on.
“I’m fifty-eight years old. I’m not a child and I sure as hell am not an old man. I appreciate the fact that you’re looking out for me and I love you for it. But you’re my wife, not my mother. So start acting like it.”
Mami was still speechless. Abuela was now smiling. And Grace stood there, unsure what to do or say. One thing was certain: Jim the manly therapist had made quite an impression on Pop.
“All right,” Mami said a minute or so later. “It’s your life. Live it or not the way you want.”
Pop got up from his chair, walked over to Mami, cupped her chin in his hand and gave her a big kiss on the lips. Mami’s cheeks went red. “Glad we got that settled,” Pop said. “Okay, Grace, so what about the book club?”
“Um . . .” She cleared her throat and tried to hide the smile witnessing Pop’s kiss had produced. “A few months ago—back in November, to be exact—we decided to change things up. Instead of a book club, we made it a boyfriend club.”
“A boyfriend club?” Mami said. “What’s that?”
“It’s similar to a book club, but instead of discussing and critiquing books, we . . . well, we did the same thing with men.”
“You invited men to join your book club?” Pop asked, confused.
“No . . . we didn’t invite men. We critiqued them. Like you would a book. You know? Thumbs-up, thumbs-down. Only . . . we were a little more creative than that.”
Pop blinked.
“How clever!” Abuela said, clapping her hands together. “That must have been your idea, Gracielita.”
“As a matter of fact, it was.” Only Grace wasn’t so sure how clever Pop was going to find it. “The first meeting was fine. It was just the four of us, plus a few friends of Ellen’s from the college. But by December, membership had grown to about thirty—”
“You fit thirty women in the Hemingway corner?” Mami said. “I didn’t think it could be done.”
“We moved the bookshelves out of the way,” Grace said.
Pop’s right eyelid began to twitch. “Go on.”
“And, well, some of the women brought alcohol with them.”
Mami’s head snapped up. “There was drinking in the store?”
“Just wine! For the most part . . . like you’d have at a book club meeting. And nobody actually got drunk.” Not that I ever found out about. “Anyway, after that December meeting I told Ellen we couldn’t have any more members. I was very firm with her on that. And no more alcohol. She promised she’d put a message about it on Yahoo!—it’s an Internet site,” Grace explained to Abuela. “That’s where we posted the reviews.”
“I know what Yahoo! is,” Abuela said proudly. “I know what Google is too.”
“Grace, why didn’t you tell me about this before?” Pop asked.
“I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. And I didn’t want to burden you with something I could take care of myself. Especially with—you know . . .” She trailed lamely. She was going to make a reference to his high blood pressure, but then thought better of it.
Pop’s mouth thinned, like he knew what Grace had been about to say.
“But somehow it all got messed up, and last month we had a ton more women show up and I told Ellen that was it, that we had to move the club meetings somewhere else. So she arranged for a room at The Continental, that new hotel in town, only there wasn’t a room available and the meeting ended up at Florida Charlie’s last night.”
Pop was mad; he was trying not to show it, but he was. And she hadn’t even told him the bad part yet.
She went on to tell them about last night’s meeting. About all the women in the shop and about Shania Brown and her What’s Up, Daytona Beach? blog. And even though Abuela knew what Yahoo! and Google were, she’d never heard of a blog, so Grace had to stop and explain it to her. She also explained how even though the Monday morning post was supposed to focus on the club, Grace was afraid that maybe, just maybe, Shania might mention the store, since the cops had been called.
Pop started to pace the living room floor. “Penny’s boyfriend was hauled off to jail from my store?” Before Mami could say anything, he turned to her. “If I want to have a heart attack over this, Ana, then I’m going to bloody well have a heart attack!”
“Be my guest,” Mami said. “I’ll join you.”
Grace cringed. “And something really bad happened last night.”
“Worse than the police coming?” Pop roared.
“Phoebe was at last night’s meeting. The girl who works with Charlie? The one who showed up at Mass and had supper with us a few months ago?”
“The pretty redhead,” Mami said. “She was very nice.”
Abuela nodded in agreement. “The one who liked my tostones.”
“Yeah, well . . . she accused Charlie of sexually harassing her. She said that—” Grace gulped, because this next part was going to be really hard to say, “She said that Charlie told her if she didn’t sleep with him, then he was going to get her fired.”
“That lying bitch!” Mami said. “She said this about my Charlie? And in public
?”
“We’re going to sue the pants off her!” Pop said. “Or rather, Charlie is.”
“I don’t think we should use the words ‘Charlie’ and ‘pants off her’ in the same sentence, Pop.”
“Does Charlie know all this?” Mami asked.
“Not yet. I’ve tried calling him, but his cell phone goes directly to his voice mail.”
The front door opened and Charlie walked into the living room with a grin on his face the likes of which Grace had never seen.
“Um, I can pretty much guarantee that Charlie is clueless about this,” Grace said.
“Did you know that some woman at your law firm is claiming you sexually harassed her?” Pop yelled.
“I knew that Phoebe was up to no good,” Abuela said. “Everyone knows my tostones are only mediocre and it’s my plátanos maduros that are my specialty dish!”
“I know all about Phoebe and the lies she’s been spreading,” Charlie said, way too calmly. “I’m not worried.”
“But Charlie,” Mami said, “she could make trouble for you at the office!”
“Like I said, I’m not worried. I haven’t done anything wrong.” Charlie gave Mami a reassuring squeeze on her shoulder. “I don’t want to talk about Phoebe anymore.” He glanced around the room “Now, isn’t anyone going to ask me where I’ve been?”
“At the office, working as usual?” Grace said.
“Nope.”
He seemed so boyishly happy, like a little kid who’d just come home with a straight A report card and was dying to show it off to the proud family. Grace noticed that instead of his usual weekend wear of shorts or jeans, Charlie wore tan dress pants and a white button-down shirt. He also had on a black blazer. The shirt looked rumpled and he was tieless.
“Did you sleep in that outfit, by any chance?” Grace asked.
He smiled at her like she’d just stumbled on to a clue.
“What is it, Charlie? What did you want to tell us?” Mami asked.
