by Shirley Jump
Apparently Delia had forgiven him. Many times over, Kenny was happy to report, which explained the bags under his friend's eyes this morning.
"Doesn't matter anyway," Larry said. "I already got my money shot."
"What do you mean?"
"Hey I didn't get to be a vice president by being an idiot," Larry said, tapping at his peachy wig. "I set up a photographer inside the control room."
The control room sat above everything and oversaw the testing room. It had the one window into the room that wasn't a one-way mirror. "You did what?"
"I took a few photos." Larry leaned forward, his grin now a leer. 'That girl's a looker. Especially when you're looking down at her, if you know what I mean."
"Larry, you're an asshole."
He wagged the spork at him. "Careful, this asshole's your boss."
Travis laid his cup on the counter. "You know, I really don't give a shit. You have stooped to a new low here. I can't believe you'd do this."
"You're just jealous that you didn't think of it."
"I'm not that much of a jerk."
"Oh yeah? I've seen you and Kenny running out of here for the bar of the day and the woman of the night. You guys are the jerks, not me."
Travis looked at Larry, his paunch extending over his black leather belt and his tan permanent press pants. His bare left hand gripped the "Watch Out: Hot Stuff" mug and his right hand clenched in a fist, as if he had to hammer his point home.
Travis knew who was the jealous one in the eight-by-four break room.
He bit his temper back. Larry couldn't do anything with the pictures. "It's against the law to use her image without her permission," Travis said.
Larry draped his right arm over Travis's shoulders. It felt a lot like he imagined an octopus would if it grabbed him in the ocean and tried to drag him to the depths for an appetizer. "That's where you come in. You're going to convince her to sign off on the pictures of her dunking cookies and drinking No-Moo."
"No. I won't do it."
"Oh, you will. Because I have a trump card."
"You have nothing on me."
"Not on you." Larry let the words hang there until Travis connected the dots.
"My brother."
"Who I hear is getting married soon and needs his job." Larry removed his arm and went back to stirring his coffee. "He's applying for a mortgage, did you know that? I'd hate to see him get fired right when he's trying to buy a house for the little lady."
And then there was Kenny, who'd asked Travis not to mess things up at work because he needed the money, too. To pay for a marriage gone bad, instead of one to come.
Two people counting on him. When had this come about? Travis, the man who prided himself on never maintaining a commitment, suddenly had them springing up like weeds.
He looked at Larry, circling that "Watch Out: Hot Stuff" mug with the spork, a contented cat-who-had-the-mouse-in-a-corner grin on his face and decided this wasn't the end of the story. Larry might have the upper hand now, but he wouldn't maintain it.
Travis might suck at commitment but he was damned good at his job. And he had a plan.
Meredith's All-Hell's-Breaking-Loose Lobster Fra Diablo
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 lobster
1/4 teaspoon flour
6 cloves garlic, chopped
14-ounce can plum tomatoes
1/4 cup white wine
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
8 ounces linguine, cooked and drained
Just when you think you've got things under control, along comes a hearse and a tape measure to tell you that you don't. You have two options: run like hell or have some lobster. Me, I opt for the second one. It's easier to make decisions on a full stomach.
Start by heating the olive oil in a large saucepan. Split the lobster lengthwise, cut off the claws and remove the roe. Dust the lobster meat with flour, then put the claws and lobster, meat side down, into the hot oil. Mmm ... Can you smell the temptation already? Oh yeah, this is the way to solve your problems.
Cook on each side for three minutes or so, then add the garlic and sauté for a minute or two. Keep going, you've got more to put in the mix—the more the merrier, right? At least, that's what your mother thinks.
Next add the tomatoes, wine and red pepper. Let all these simmer, covered, until the flavors are blended and you've managed to bring land and sea together (it's a lot easier than getting your family to agree with you). Add the seasonings, give it a stir, then serve on a bed of linguine, being sure to arrange the lobster nicely.
Because if you can't get a dead lobster to cooperate, how do you expect to take control with those people who keep showing up to ruin your life?
Chapter Eighteen
The hearse slowed to a stop in front of Gift Baskets to Die For. It was just after lunch on Friday and Candace had already left, bound for Vegas and wedded bliss, leaving the shop in Maria and Meredith's hands.
Dread sunk to the pit of Meredith's stomach. He was here, like the Grim Reaper himself, to kill any hope she had of a new life.
"Is that—" Maria began to ask.
"Yes," Meredith answered. They were standing in the front part of the shop, cleaning up after a tasting meeting with a potential new client.
Maria leaned forward, shielding her eyes against the bright sun streaming in through the shop's windows. "Who's that with him?"
When the passenger's side door opened, Meredith saw her new life head for the Port-O-Potty in the sky.
Her mother had arrived. Riding shotgun with Meredith's ex-fiancé all the way from Indiana to Massachusetts.
"Hey, it's Momma," Vernon said from the doorway. He and Ray Jr. had taken the T and shown up there shortly before noon, saying they were only there for the cookies and promising not to interfere if Travis came by. Meredith had threatened them with a cold-turkey sugar cutoff if they came near Travis with anything from a hardware store.
She needn't have bothered. Travis still hadn't come by or called. She refused to make the first move— again. She'd debased herself enough by whipping off her shirt and bra and practically prostrating herself at his feet to beg him to make love to her, only to be rebuffed in the end.
That wasn't the behavior of a city girl. Well, it was—but the kind of girl who maintained her office hours on a street corner.
Her entire plan had gone to hell. And now, looking out the window, she saw it was about to get a lot worse.
"Finally, we'll get a decent meal," Ray Jr. said. "I've missed Momma's cooking. 'Specially her pork-n-beans."
"Yeah. Aunt Gloria can't cook nothing." Vernon scowled. "Momma was right. The only thing her sister is the master of is the can opener."
The little bell over the door jingled a warning as the front door opened and Momma entered the shop, wearing a red floral print turtleneck and a long denim jumper—Momma's I-mean-business uniform.
From the neck down at least, the woman entering Gift Baskets looked like Martha Shordon. Above the neckline, she wore a surgical mask a la Michael Jackson.
"That smog out there would kill a cockroach." Once the door had shut behind her, Martha lowered the mask. "Here, I brought you one, too." She dug in her St. John's Bay tote bag and handed Meredith a second one. "Don't you walk around this cancer trap of a city without one. I swear, there's no fresh air here. Not like at home."
"Actually, Indiana has one of the highest smog rates in the country."
Her mother waved a hand of dismissal. "I don't believe that. Why this whole place is gray. Every building is gray. It's like they've got cancer."
"Uh, that's concrete, Momma."
"Just another word for permanent cancer. I know about dirty air. I saw that special on Three Mile Island on the Discovery Channel." She hoisted her mask back into place, muffling her words. "One breath of that and you might as well suck in a carton of Marlboros."
<
br /> Meredith let out a sigh and laid the surgical mask on the counter without bothering to correct her mother's geography or her facts. Despite her mother's warnings of an impending long and painful death, she wasn't going to go outside looking like Dr. Kevorkian. Clearly, a change of subject was in order. "I can't believe you drove all this way. And with Caleb, too."
Changing subjects to Caleb probably wasn't the best of choices. If he was here, it was for one of two things: a dead body or her.
Since she didn't see any of the former lying around, she was willing to bet the next five winning Megabucks tickets that he was here to get her back.
At the mention of his name, Caleb, starched and stiff in a dark suit, came striding into the store. In one arm, he held a white Styrofoam vase with a spray of crimson roses.
Meredith recognized the type of container, the artful fanned arrangement of the red blooms.
Leftovers. Eww.
"We've come to take you back, Meredith," Caleb said.
"You can't play forever, honey," Momma chimed in. "It's time to face the music and be Miss Holstein, like you promised."
Maria stood against the counter, one eyebrow arched like a question mark. "Miss Holstein?" she mouthed.
Meredith gave her a look that said she'd explain later, then turned to face her ex-fiancé and her expectant mother. "I'm not going back. Rebecca needs me."
"I see a helper here," Momma said, gesturing to Maria. "I'm sure they can get by without you. Besides, your cousin didn't say you had to come. She told me you volunteered."
Oh, damn. Momma had gotten to Rebecca. She didn't blame Rebecca for caving. Her cousin was, after all, eight months pregnant and at an emotional disadvantage. "I did volunteer," Meredith said. "But I'm not ditching her now."
"You have an obligation, dear. J.C. needs you."
"And so do I," Caleb said. He raised the flowers in a hopeful gesture.
"And we need to get back to Momma's cooking." Vernon nodded. Ray Jr. elbowed him and told him to shush.
"I'm not leaving." Meredith crossed her arms over her chest. She knew if she gave in now, she'd never have another opportunity like this. It would be too easy to get sucked back into the world she'd left. Before she knew it, she'd end up married to Caleb with two kids and a casket for a coffee table. And no life outside of a three-bedroom ranch and baking pies for the spring church picnic.
Momma took a step forward, her eyes seeming as big as pie plates above the white oval of the mask. "But if you don't go home, who's going to ride Big Green?"
"I really don't care."
Silence descended over the shop, heavy and thick as beef stew. Vernon and Ray Jr. shrunk back against the front door, as if they were afraid Momma might lash out at them for substandard kidnapping. Caleb's roses drooped, lowering along with his jaw.
But Momma ...
Momma just stood there, not making a sound or a move for several long seconds. Meredith wished she could pluck the words out of the air and stuff them back down her throat, but knew if she did she'd end up right back in the same place she'd been before she'd left Heavendale.
"Well, you're not the daughter I thought you were," Momma said finally. Then she turned on her espadrilles and walked out of the shop. Like tin soldiers, the men followed behind, piling into the hearse.
After the long black car had pulled away from the curb, Maria draped an arm over Meredith's shoulders and drew her toward the kitchen. "Do you want to talk about it? Or see what we have in the fridge to ease the pain?"
Meredith laughed. "I think I just want to get back to work."
Maria tsk-tsked her. "Girlfriend, there are only three ways to deal with problems. You shop, eat or have sex until you forget what was bothering you."
Meredith pulled a tray of miniature cakes they'd made that morning out of the refrigerator, then grabbed a bag of chocolate buttercream icing. She busied herself with piping frosting onto each little chocolate circle. Her star tip stumbled and she created more of a mess than a delicate treat. "I can't do any of those things. My Visa is maxed out, my appetite is shot and sex is the one thing I can't seem to get no matter how hard I try."
"Whoa. Did you just say what I thought you said? What about Travis?"
"He won't do it."
"Is he dead?"
Meredith laughed and the frosting shivered on the end of the metal tip. "No. He's very much alive. But all of a sudden he has these morals and feels like we should wait."
"Wait? For what? The end of the world?"
"He wants my first time to be ... special. With someone I love." Meredith piped another cake, the dark chocolate icing creating a perfect celestial shape on the top.
Maria hesitated in putting the next sheet of cakes in front of Meredith. "Did you say 'first time'?"
"Yeah." She cringed. God, why did saying that sound like the equivalent of announcing she had a bad case of leprosy?
"What about Caleb? I thought he used to be your fiancé. Didn't you two ever ... ?"
"He wanted to, but in the hearse." Meredith shuddered. That had been the last straw.
"In the hearse?" Maria shuddered. "With or without an audience?"
"I never asked. I've known Caleb all my life and I thought I loved him, but when it came down to it, I just... couldn't. In a hearse or not, it didn't matter."
"He didn't ring your bells, huh?"
Meredith snorted. "He didn't even know where they were."
Maria laughed, a hearty, deep sound that came from far within her. "What about Travis?"
"Oh, he knows where the bells are," Meredith said with a sigh. She laid the piping bag down on the counter. "If I could only get him naked and onto a flat surface, I'd be all set."
Maria pushed the second tray over to Meredith. "What if. . .just for chuckles, you tried it his way?"
"What do you mean?"
"Fall in love." Maria wagged her left hand, showing Meredith the diamond engagement ring from Dante.
"I'm only here for a few weeks." A knot twisted itself around and around in her stomach.
"Sometimes it doesn't take long." A small, secret smile stole over Maria's face, as if she knew something special only to her.
As the shimmer of emotions washed over Maria's features, a stab of envy rushed through Meredith and for a fleeting second, she wondered if maybe she was wrong. Had Maria and Dante found that elusive feeling Meredith had read about in books but never believed really existed?
The same kind of love she had told herself she didn't need—or want. Because to Meredith, having it meant ending up in the exact prison she'd just escaped. The one that came with a ranch house and someone else's expectations, always waiting for her.
"Falling in love isn't as bad as it looks," Maria said, as if she'd read Meredith's mind.
Meredith turned away, reaching for the piping bag and busying herself with creating perfect stars instead of thinking about how happy Maria looked and how she'd never had that feeling herself, not in the three years she'd dated Caleb or any of the years before or the months since. Looking for it with Travis was ridiculous anyway. He'd made it abundantly clear he was a man who had zero interest in a long-term commitment.
Which was exactly why she wanted him.
“I’m not here to fall in love," she repeated.
"Then what are you here for?" Maria asked gently.
"Change. I want my life to be different than what it was all planned out to be from the minute I was born. I want... more."
"Nothing makes everything change more than love. And it's a good kind of change, Meredith. It only adds, it doesn't take away."
Meredith went on piping, ignoring Maria's words. Falling in love wasn't in her plans. If anything, it would ruin everything and send her right back to where she'd been before—engaged, tied down and headed for a life of ant-ridden town picnics and bean-dish-recipe exchanges on the church steps, and everyone telling her how to act, dress and behave.
If Travis wasn't going to keep his promise, then she'd find
another man who would.
With that thought, the star beneath her tip crumbled into a sad mess of blotchy chocolate frosting.
Momma's Home-Is-Only-a-Moo-Away Tuna Melt
2 6-ounce cans tuna, drained
2 tablespoons onion, chopped
2 tablespoons celery, chopped
1/2 cup mayonnaise
Salt and pepper
4 slices American cheese
8 slices good-old white bread, toasted
2 tablespoons butter
All you need is one of Momma's tuna melts and before you know it, you'll be back where you belong. Mix up the tuna, mayo, onion, celery and a little salt and pepper in a bowl. Spread on one slice of bread, top with the cheese and finish your sandwich with the other slice.
You can put these in a fancy toaster oven to brown them up if you want, but Momma does it the home-cooked way, with a little butter in a pan.
A tuna melt has everything you need in one place, same as home does. No need to go halfway around the country looking for anything more. Remember that, and you'll be just fine.
Chapter Nineteen
On Monday morning, Momma was back, a determined set to her face—what Meredith could see of it—and no hint of their earlier argument in her eyes.
That meant trouble. When Momma ignored an argument instead of offering her hundred-dollar lecture, that meant she'd decided to utilize guerrilla tactics and would try to outflank her daughter with a surprise maneuver.
Momma gave Meredith's floral A-line skirt and red flutter-sleeve top a passing—but clearly disapproving—glance, then reached in her purse for a small metal object. There was a metal vrrp sound and suddenly Meredith found herself surrounded by numbers. "What—Hey! No! Stop measuring me!"
"I just want to make sure it's going to fit."
Oh no. Momma had gone to real extremes now. It explained Caleb's presence, and the hearse.