Chose the Wrong Guy, Gave Him the Wrong Finger

by Beth Harbison

  I didn’t have an immediate answer for that. It didn’t mean I agreed, only that I heard him. Something in what he said made sense. Not the betrayal against me, of course, but I had to admit that I’d never really stopped to think about what Burke—and Frank—had experienced growing up. They had to be aware of a big sense of rejection from their mother, even if that wasn’t what she’d meant to project.

  It would be hard to trust women from there. Burke should have, of course. He knew me well, and from a young age, so I still wasn’t willing to cut him a break, but this was stuff that mattered more than, say, being grounded and kept home from the prom in tenth grade.

  And, really, if you were going to dive into the psychological implications, you could see how Frank had landed where he did too: he was the older one, thrust into the role of “parent” even from a young age when their mother left. Even if he wasn’t aware of it, that had to be annoying for him as a kid, and for a long time; he didn’t ever have the freedom to be wild and immature and irresponsible, because his brother and his mother took on that role.

  For him to add on to that would have meant utter chaos. His grandparents couldn’t have handled it. Even I remembered times in high school when Frank had handled Burke’s antics himself, rather than turning them over to the adults.

  Actually, the shakedown of this conversation was that I felt worse for Frank than I did for Burke.

  “Am I wrong?” Glenn demanded.

  I returned my thoughts to his point. That Burke had probably had some psychological jumbling going on, thanks to the way he was raised, his parents’ terrible marriage, and so on.

  But as much as I would have liked to let myself off the hook by letting him off the hook, I kept returning to the same point. “He lied to me. Repeatedly. In a lot of ways.”

  Glenn looked at me for a moment in silence, then threw up his hands. “Okay, that’s who you want him to be. And who you want you to be. I’m not getting the feeling I’m going to be able to talk you out of that tonight, so, I don’t know. Just promise me this. Promise me you’ll think about what I said.”

  “Okay,” I agreed. And it was easy enough, because I knew I’d be thinking of little else besides Burke for the time being, and that would include every possible way of looking at it until, finally, I would be close to madness.

  * * *

  Which I was sure wasn’t what Dottie had in mind, having me come over to the farm to check her hip measurements, since she was sure she’d put on “enough to confuse my ass with a donkey” after attending parties in celebration of the golden anniversary of the Curry Comb Hunt Club.

  “Three-quarters of an inch,” I said, after doing the measurement for the third time. “And, honestly, that could be water weight, sluggish digestion, anything. The dress won’t need alteration.”

  “But, by my measurements, it’s a difference of three and a half inches.” With that she took out her carpenter’s tape measure and started pulling the metal sheeting tape out to wrangle it around her waist.

  “Dottie, there’s no way you can measure accurately with that.” I put a hand out to stop her, and cut my finger on the tape.

  “Oh, dear, are you okay?” she asked, gesticulating with the now-dangerous-seeming tool.

  “Yeah, it’s nothing. It just startled me.” I pushed my thumb against my finger to stop the tiny drop of blood that was forming from getting bigger.

  “Are you sure?” Anxiety rang in her voice, and she nervously unwrapped her third amaretto cookie. When I was a kid I could remember we’d make the wrappers into a cylinder, make a wish, and light them on fire—if the wrapper flew up toward the ceiling, your wish would come true.

  I have no idea why my parents allowed this activity.

  Anyway, the cookies weren’t quite Oreos, but if she kept scarfing them down in her fret about her weight, she really could put on a couple of pounds. But her dress wasn’t a fitted pencil skirt for a twenty-year-old body, so I had no doubt that it would be fine.

  “I’m really sure,” I told her. “And as for your hips, you’re fine! This sounds like a case of prewedding nerves, nothing more.”

  “I am having some nerve trouble,” she agreed. “Burke’s been hinting around that he doesn’t approve of this marriage.”

  Darn it. “Oh, I’m sure you’re imagining that.”

  She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “I don’t think so. I get a distinct feeling he’s thinking I’m an old fool.”

  “No way,” I said vehemently. If only he knew what his skepticism was doing. He wouldn’t want Dottie to feel this way! I was sure of it. “If anything, I bet he’s just feeling funny about life changing and you moving away and selling the farm. He is a creature of habit, you know. He likes things the way he likes them.”

  “That’s so.”

  I nodded. “I’m sure that’s all you’re picking up on.”

  “Everything all right?”

  I turned to see Frank striding into the room, looking seriously dapper in his business clothes, dark gray pants, and a simple crisp white button-down that was so well tailored I bet it cost more than many people made in a month.

  “Dottie was just saying—”

  “Everything’s fine!” she trilled, and shot me a quick look. She was obviously embarrassed, and here I’d been about to announce her worries to anyone who walked in the room and asked what was going on.

  Shamed, I tried to cover up. “We were just talking about how excited we are about the wedding.”

  Frank came to his grandmother, concern etched in his handsome face. “Gran, is something wrong?”

  “No, no, I’m doing great. Just”—she gestured with the tape measure again and I saw it catch on his shirt, though she didn’t—“hoping my darn foot will be good as new on time to walk down the aisle instead of hobble.”

  “You’ve been doing great,” he said, shifting his arm so she wouldn’t see the tear she’d just put in his shirt and freak out about that too. “I’ve barely seen a limp lately.”

  “It is better,” she confessed.

  I eyed the tear when he moved and noticed it was on the seam. Good. I could fix that in just a couple of minutes.

  “Why don’t you go up and get some rest?” Frank suggested to her. “You’ve been wearing yourself thin lately, and that’s no good before a big event like a wedding.”

  “I am not a doddering old woman who needs to have an afternoon nap!” she snapped.

  “You’re a bride-to-be, though,” I said. “And that is very high on the list of life stresses.”

  “All right, all right, I’ll go up. But I’m going to pack for the honeymoon, not fall onto my fainting sofa.”

  We both laughed.

  “I’m going to work from here,” Frank said. “But I’ll be back Friday. We’ll knock out the packing in the tenant house pretty quickly. Let me know if you need anything in the meantime.”

  She laid a papery white hand to his cheek. “You’re such a good boy.”

  Always had been.

  As soon as she was gone, I said, “I can fix that. Take off your shirt.”

  “I don’t want to put you to work for me.” He looked at the damage, then added, “But I don’t have much choice, I don’t have time to go get another one.”

  He took off the shirt and handed it to me, leaving his tanned body looking pretty damn hot in those nice trousers and a tank top.

  I went into my purse and took out my travel sewing kit.

  He laughed. “Just happen to have needles and thread on you, huh?”

  “Always.”

  “So what was really going on?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. She’d stopped me from telling him once, it wasn’t my place to tell him now. No point in adding drama to what would hopefully just be a happy day with no glitches. “We really were talking about the wedding.” True.

  He didn’t believe me, though. He made a noise of uncertainty and sat down in the old wing chair a few feet from me.

&
nbsp; It just happened to place him in exactly the perfect position for me to take in his entire form even in my peripheral vision while I sewed.

  “So what will you do after the house is packed up and the wedding’s over?” I asked.

  “Breathe a huge sigh of relief, drink a scotch, and welcome normality back.”

  I nodded, watching my stiches carefully so there would be nothing askew. “I guess this has been kind of a pain, having to come do so much work here every time you have a free second.”

  “It’s not the work,” he said. “It really is sad. More so than I thought it would be.”

  “Yeah?” I looked up and met his eyes.

  He looked embarrassed. “I’m not supposed to be the emotional one.”

  I smiled. “Wouldn’t do to have anyone know you’re human, huh?”

  He kept his gaze fastened on mine and shook his head.

  “I’ll never tell.”

  A fraction of a moment passed. “You’re the only one who could,” he said softly.

  “Could…?”

  “Tell. That I ever had any emotion at all.”

  It was true, the thing everyone said about Frank Morrison was that he was steely, unflappable. I knew better. No one is completely unflappable.

  But maybe especially not Frank. He had a bigger heart than anyone, under there.

  That was probably why he kept it so well hidden.

  “I never thanked you for that,” he said. “I mean for being someone I could trust like that when the rest of the world expected me to be something else.”

  I slowed my stitching. “Did I ever thank you for risking your family relations and putting your life on hold to drive me thousands of weepy miles just to try and make me feel better?”

  “Actually, you did. Profusely. Repeatedly. To the point where I had to tell you to shut up a few times, as I recall.”

  “That’s an exaggeration.”

  “Hardly. You didn’t need to thank me at all, Quinn. It shook my world up a little too. In a good way.”

  I knotted the stitch and handed the shirt back to him, though I found myself curiously reluctant to. There was something so nice, so companionable about having this quiet moment with him in that old room, the only punctuation being the ticking clock.

  But the tear was mended.

  And the moment was over.

  “Thanks,” he said, then gave a quick laugh. “For everything. That and”—he gestured with his shirt—“this.” He put it on and buttoned himself into perfect form again.

  “No problem,” I said. “And … no problem.”

  We looked at each other for a moment, and warmth tingled down my core.

  Then, weirdly, neither of us said another word. He just left and I just watched him go.

  * * *

  Which was the note that led me, the next morning, to Day Drunk Day. The ubiquitous red envelope was fastened to the top of one of two red velvet bottle bags, and the instructions read:

  Half and half. Have one glass immediately and one more within the hour. Have at least two per hour until five. Refills are already in the fridge in your back storeroom. Make sure you eat. That’s there too. XOXO.

  I pulled the velvet off the first bottle.

  Champagne.

  The second bottle was orange juice.

  He wanted me to drink mimosas all day long.

  Apart from a slowly sipped glass or two of wine when we were having cheese nights, I really rarely drank, and certainly never drank like this. Which, of course, Glenn knew. Ergo, this was definitely not like me to do.

  I wasn’t sure I’d follow it to the letter, but, given the night I’d had with Glenn, and the sleepless hours that had followed, I have to admit, a little breakfast cocktail didn’t seem like that bad an idea.

  “Good morning!” Becca’s voice rang a few minutes later as she came in the door. I had just popped the cork and was pouring the bubbly into a chilled crystal flute Glenn had thoughtfully provided in the fridge, along with another bottle of champagne and an assortment of fruit and cheese, which I now had sitting on the counter.

  “Morning,” I said. “Care for a cocktail?”

  “No?” She came over to me curiously. “But thank you. What are we celebrating?”

  “I’m not sure. Freedom?” I was generous with the champagne. Three-quarters of a glass of champagne to one-quarter of a glass of orange juice. I took a sip. It was delicious. Champagne was always delicious. Orange juice was too, come to think of it, though I tended to avoid it since I’d gotten older and more diet-conscious. “Anyway I’m just shaking things up today, doing things a little differently.”

  “Oh, that makes sense.” She nodded with more understanding than I was expecting. “You could probably use that.”

  “What do you mean?” Did everyone know I was a mess? Should I just wear my high school cheerleader uniform every day and get it over with?

  Becca looked chagrined. “I didn’t mean anything bad,” she hastened to say. “Only that, you know, you come in here every day and work such long hours, day after day.” She looked at me with genuine concern, which was more crushing than if she’d rolled her eyes at me and called me fat. “You’re young, you should be living.”

  I drank. Then said, “You’re young too. Why am I the only one without a life?” The words could have sounded petulant or defensive, but I thought she heard them for what they were, a genuine question as to where I was going wrong.

  “For one thing,” she said, “I’m about fifteen years older than you, as you well know. And for another, I have kids. Obligations that cannot be shifted. If you got a wild hair and decided to go to Jamaica, you could easily get me to cover for you here. Then off you go. But when you have people depending on you for sustenance day after day, hour after hour, you can’t even go to the grocery store without making sure you know where everyone is, what they’re doing, and where they’ll be when you get back. I’m not complaining, I love it, but those are the ties that bind. I’m not sure what’s binding someone as young and beautiful as you to this life without ever taking a little break.”

  “I take breaks.” I refilled the glass quickly. Seven-eighths champagne, one-eighth orange juice. It was already going to my head. “I was breaking just last night.”

  “Okay.” Becca was never one to argue or impose her point of view on anyone too strongly. She’d probably only said as much as she did because she was feeling trapped in some way that she wasn’t saying. Maybe a fight with her husband, or the still-chill nights of late spring were getting to her and she wanted to be in the tropics. “I’m a bit queasy this morning, but it still seems like fun to start the day with mimosas for no reason, so enjoy yourself!”

  “Thanks.” I drained the glass and felt pleasantly dizzy. “Want one?”

  She looked doubtful. “I’d better not.”

  Fine. All the more for me. “You here all day?” I confirmed. She was here all day every Thursday, but I was just hoping there wasn’t some kid thing going on … at least that she knew about now.

  “All day,” she said, and went into the back room, as usual, to look at the notes and see what needed stitching, packing, shipping, etc.

  She was right. In theory, I could have gone across the world for two weeks and left the shop in her capable hands, and it would have been none the worse for it when I returned.

  Apparently, in fact, my absence had little effect on anyone or anything. Witness Burke. He’d walked out of our wedding and right into another one. It hadn’t worked out, granted, but he’d done it. Married some jerk with a boy’s name and then divorced her. If it hadn’t been her he divorced, would it have been me? Was he just bad at being married? What was the truth behind that anyway? Who’d divorced whom?

  I took out a pad and jotted, Ask who did who, on it to remind me later. Then added, whom?

  By noon, I was through the first bottle of champagne and was trying to pace myself by drinking flutefuls of water, alternating with the already-opened second bottle.<
br />
  My pad, however, had gotten quite an extensive list:

  Ask who did whom was joined by:

  Who was btter in bed me or slut girl, been long time cn tell me now, right???

  Get tambour lace for Trander drss

  Did he KISS her?!

  Hw old was wife?

  Does he stll have ring from that wdding? Ugh!!

  Steak/Cheese sub lttc, tom, mayo, onions with pepprs on side and swiss chese [Suddenly Puccio’s Deli seemed like a good idea.]

  Why is Glenn so high n mighty? Hes not with anyone! Ask! This could be bad idea to trst his plan!

  703-555-6266 [number for the local beer and wine, which delivers]

  Frank—remember That Thing he does. So hot.

  Needless to say, it was a long morning. Probably more so for Becca than for me.

  And for poor Linda Hyatt, who was in for her last fitting.

  Linda had dated her fiancé for years before he’d finally proposed, patiently waiting through his dithering about commitment. When she’d come in to order her dress, it was after waiting a couple of months after his proposal, just to make sure he didn’t change his mind “again” and cancel on her. Apparently that had happened more than once, always with excuses that made noise about the seriousness of the commitment and how he didn’t want to hurt her and blah blah blah. So finally he’d gone an entire eight weeks or so without backing out and she had determined that to be enough time to finally believe him.

  She was so excited that I had never had the heart to say anything about how much better she deserved than that. It wasn’t my place anyway; I was hired to do my job, not be her counselor. A lot of ill-fated brides-to-be came into the shop, and it was my job to give them a beautiful dress—sometimes one I hoped they’d save and use for a future wedding, but I never knew most of the outcomes because that wasn’t really any of my business.

  Which meant that my current condition and the fact that Linda was tearfully explaining evidence of her fiancé’s recent emotional detachment combined to make the perfect storm of sorts.