Chose the Wrong Guy, Gave Him the Wrong Finger

by Beth Harbison

  That was one thing she could always count on him for. He’d always catch her when she fell.

  Wouldn’t he?

  She stood up and slipped her feet into her grandmother’s satin wedding shoes. They were a tiny bit too tight, but still wearable, and they were so perfect with her dress that she figured she could make the short walk up the aisle and stand for pictures in them, then switch to the more comfortable, if ordinary, satin pumps she’d gotten from the Payless at the mall.

  Everyone hushed and looked at her.

  “Honey, you look beautiful,” her mother said to her.

  “You do!” Rami said. “I’ve been in the room with you for an hour, but suddenly you have bloomed into…”

  “A bride!” Karen finished.

  Everyone agreed.

  Quinn took a steadying breath. “That’s the idea.”

  There was a knock at the door and Karen went to answer it while Quinn took one last look in the mirror. A little bit of CoverGirl pink Lipslicks and she was ready.

  It was time.

  Good-bye, Quinn Barton.

  Hello, Quinn Morrison.

  “Quinn?”

  She smiled in the mirror. Quinn Morrison. It was really happening. Dreams really could come true.

  “Quinn!”

  Karen’s voice brought her back to the moment.

  “What?”

  Karen’s forehead was creased with worry. “Um. Frank’s outside the door. And, um, he’s acting weird. Not that I think anything’s wrong or anything—”

  Panic surged in Quinn’s chest like a wave that had been building and was finally crashing on the shore.

  “But,” Karen went on, making—and failing at—a clear effort to sound casual and calm, as if this were par for the course. “He says he needs to talk to you. Now.”

  Chapter 27

  Present

  Well, I’m sorry, but my first thought when Sukie said Burke was at the door was, Oh, fuck!

  This happily anticipated wedding, which should have gone so smoothly, was going to be stopped.

  Or at least paused.

  How had I hoped for anything else? Could a wedding within three miles of Burke Morrison ever work out?

  It was odd that he’d be the one stopping it this time, but, at the same time, it made perfect sense. This was a perfect demonstration of the lack of regard he had for marriage.

  Dottie began to get up to go to the door and I heard myself saying to her, “I think I know what this is about. Let me talk to him for a moment, Dottie.”

  Now, of course I know that I had failed in talking to Burke just an hour or so earlier, so there was no great reason for optimism, but with him at the door I was very clear on the fact that I was the only barrier between Dottie and him, which made me, perhaps, the only barrier between Dottie’s happiness today and, at the very least, a great deal of stress.

  Lord, believe me, I knew at the very least he’d be able to put a big damper on her day, so she could end up schlumping down the aisle after feeling pummeled, and I could not bear to let that happen.

  I went to the door and opened it just enough to get through to the other side, which was a good thing, because he started to enter the minute it creaked an inch in my direction.

  “Stop!” I rasped. “Don’t go in there.”

  He looked impatient. “I have to talk to her.”

  “She’s not dressed,” I improvised. “If you go in there you’re going to cause a much bigger—and much weirder—scene than you mean to.”

  That gave him pause. “How long will she be?”

  “She’s got a million buttons and nothing but arthritic hands to fasten them, so it’s going to be a while. Come outside and talk to me.” I took his arm.

  He didn’t move. “This has nothing to do with you. Stop trying to insert yourself in the middle of everything.”

  “I’m only trying to get you away from your grandmother’s changing room before people start thinking you’re a weirdo.”

  “There’s nothing weird about me waiting right here to talk to her before the wedding.”

  I sighed. “Burke, you’re in a church. Do you have respect for anyone or anything?”

  “Of course! I just want to talk to my grandmother.”

  “Holy shit, Burke, stop being such a jerk.” My stage whisper was not quiet enough. A few heads turned.

  He kept his voice lower than mine. “You know damn well what I’m doing, I’m stopping my grandmother from making a huge and costly mistake.”

  “Have you considered what this is going to do to her, to this very special day for her, in the very likely event that she ignores your warning again and goes on with the wedding? You’re just going to ruin her day! Is that what you want? To leave your mark in any way possible?”

  At this point there was no question what the expression on his face was. Pure fury. “That’s who you think I am? You think I just want to ruin her day at any cost? If it’s not a warning to protect her assets, then maybe I’d just go on up and put a bag of dog shit on the altar and light it on fire?”

  “You might as well!”

  “What the hell is going on here?” a very welcome familiar voice asked. I didn’t even have to turn around. I felt his energy right behind me and saw his identification reflected in Burke’s eyes when they shifted to a spot over my shoulder and back to me.

  “Did you call him?” Burke asked me.

  I had to laugh. “When would I have?”

  “Burke, what are you doing?” Frank asked, and I heard measured caution in his voice. He wasn’t the hothead he used to be. He apparently wasn’t even the hothead I was.

  “Gran’s not marrying a gold digger on my watch,” Burke said simply, and gave a bold look to Frank. “How about on yours?”

  “Lyle?” Frank asked incredulously. “A gold digger?” He straight-up laughed.

  “I don’t think it’s funny.”

  “It’s hilarious,” Frank said. “Come on, have you talked to the guy? Even for five minutes? He’s an idiot! He couldn’t dig dirt out of the field, he’s not digging gold from Gran!”

  It was true, but even I felt a little prickle of discomfort at the label.

  “Maybe that’s his act. It wouldn’t be a bad one, would it? Make everyone think he’s just a moron who’s incapable of anything?”

  “There is no way that man has the cunning to execute a plan like that. What the fuck, Burke, don’t you think Gran’s worth marrying for herself? Any man would be lucky to have her!”

  “I know,” Burke said, softening only slightly. “But that doesn’t mean that just any man knows that. Everything in me says that this guy is an opportunist. You can’t make me believe that someone his age, who looks like him, would pick an older woman with a lot of hard years under her belt unless it was for some other gain.”

  “I can believe it,” Frank said.

  “I can too,” I chimed quickly.

  Burke looked at us in disbelief, then settled his gaze on Frank. “Why don’t you care about this? You didn’t have any trouble stopping my wedding on some principle you’d decided on.”

  “Because you’re wrong,” Frank said. “Both times.”

  I agreed, but it wasn’t my place to say. I didn’t have a horse in the race this time, so I had no right to speak too freely. I took a step back so the brothers were face-to-face, without me standing—foolishly and symbolically—between them.

  “What if I’m right?” Burke asked.

  Frank shifted his weight from one foot to the other, a gesture of boredom. “What if you are?”

  “I’m trying to protect her property.”

  “But it’s hers,” Frank said, and now the boredom was being replaced by ire. The edge to his voice was subtle, but I heard it clearly. “Look, Burke, I made this same mistake myself once. I’m not proud of it. This—the eleventh hour—is never the time to interrupt someone’s life. The ramifications echo on much longer than you think.” He glanced at me but didn’t make eye conta
ct. “I regret it. Do you really want to do this to Gran?”

  “Burke,” I said, more gently. “Men and women are different, so maybe you can’t imagine what this is like, but a woman looks at her wedding day almost like the whole caterpillar-into-butterfly moment. Except she knows it’s happening, and she looks forward to it and plans it. And every moment leading up to it is the slow part of the roller coaster, climbing up the hill to that ultimate thrill. Dottie’s over the top now. She’s already on the way down, sixty miles an hour on a wooden track. You can’t change her mind, you can’t, I swear it. All you can do is hurt her.”

  His determination began to wobble, I could see it. “I don’t know…”

  I looked into his eyes, imploring. I’d never willed someone to understand with so much intensity in my life. “Please believe me. You weren’t in that room watching her get ready. She is happier than I’ve ever seen her.”

  “Leave it alone,” Frank said, though his tone too had softened. “No matter how right or wrong I was last time, it was a mistake. Learn from that mistake.”

  I didn’t look at Frank and he didn’t touch me, but I could feel him as surely as if his hands were on me. “That should have been between you and me, Burke. And this is between Dottie and Lyle. You know that.”

  Burke pressed his lips together and looked down. Then, slowly, he nodded. “Okay. Okay.” He put his hands up, the time-honored signal of surrender. “I think you’re both wrong, but I hope you’re right.”

  “You won’t say anything to her?” I asked, trying to exact a specific vow from him.

  He met my eyes. “I won’t.”

  I smiled. “That’s the right decision. I swear that’s the right decision, Burke.”

  He shrugged. “So I’ll go in and keep my mouth shut. I’m sure you two have a few words for each other.” He gave a humorless spike of a laugh and nodded in the direction of the dressing room. “Scene of the crime and all.”

  Frank said nothing, but watched him with angry eyes.

  “Thank you,” I said, trying to soften the blows we’d both just leveled on him. “It’s the right choice, I swear it.”

  He shrugged and went in.

  Only then did I turn to Frank and face him directly. “I can’t believe this. What happened to him? How could he have this stuff brewing and then just blow up? And now, of all times?” I shook my head. “What is with you guys?”

  “Whoa, don’t lump me into this!”

  I looked at him.

  He frowned. “The situation with you was completely different. I thought you knew and were ignoring it. I was sure you knew. I couldn’t understand why you’d be okay with it, but I tried to butt out. It wasn’t until the very last second that I realized maybe you didn’t know, and you needed to, Quinn, you really did. You can’t deny it. Look at the way things went down then. Are you sorry you’re not married to him?”

  I didn’t even have to think about it. “No.”

  “Wouldn’t it have been harder to go through with the wedding, then find out and have to go through the mess of a divorce?”

  “Okay, yes, obviously.”

  “There you go. Completely different situation.”

  “Fine.”

  “I did it because I loved you.”

  I met his eyes. “You kind of wanted to stick it to Burke.”

  “No,” he said earnestly. “It was only because I loved you. I always loved you.”

  I sighed. “Then why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  “Because, Quinn, everyone knows that’s not how the story goes. That’s how the movie goes, the guy makes the big admission of love at the last minute and the girl cries tears of joy and they’re off into the sunset together, via whatever mode of transportation is appropriate to the time period. But the real story never goes that way.”

  I liked that story. I wanted that story to be true. “How does the real story go, then?”

  “In the real story, the bad guy gets his comeuppance eventually, and the sweet, beautiful girl gets hurt anyway. The prize for her virtue and faithfulness is zero at best, and pain at worst.”

  “What about the hero? The guy who saves her. What happens to him in real life?”

  “In real life everyone thinks he’s a jealous dick and judges him for that, and he walks away, trying to tell himself he did the right thing and the rest doesn’t matter.” He cocked his head and looked into my eyes. “He tries to forget the girl and hopes she finds a better man.”

  I smiled. “But who’s a better man than the best man?”

  He looked confused for a moment, then realization came into his eyes. “You mean me?”

  “Yes.” I nodded. “I think I do.”

  He gave a sad smile. “You can do a lot better than me too, Quinn. It’s time for you to get your whole fairy tale, not settle for the cranky, unromantic businessman who hasn’t even thought about love or marriage in a decade.”

  “Seriously. You’re out of the game.”

  “I was never even in the running. I’m not flowers and chocolates, I’m pragmatic. I could never make you happy. Find a good guy who has nothing to do with this messed-up family so you can be happy, Quinn.”

  I looked at him for a long moment. He was serious. He was utterly and completely serious. He would give me up at his own expense, in addition to mine, and tell himself he was doing it for me. That it was in my best interest.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Using both my hands, I shoved him. He nearly lost his footing from the unexpectedness, but steadied before going down. “You’d let me go, no, you wouldn’t even give us a chance, all because you’re so sure I should be off with some, I don’t know, poetry-spouting lute player?” I shoved him again. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  He grabbed my hands. “Stop it. No, I’m not fucking kidding you. I’m trying to do the right thing.”

  “Then you’re a fucking moron! What the f—” I shook my head. I had to avoid screaming fuck inside of the church. It was bound to carry over the organ music that was beginning to swell, like some discordant performance art of melody and vitriol.

  “I’m sorry!” He was apparently unconcerned about the act we were accidentally putting on. “I was trying to do the right thing. Give me a break, I’m not good at this, as I just told you. If you want to give it a shot, I’m more than willing to give it a shot.”

  “Define a shot.”

  “Not a shot,” he said, and paused. “A cannon. The whole thing, all the way. Marry me.”

  I stopped. “What?”

  He stopped too, in front of me, and knelt before me. “I don’t have a ring, obviously”—he took my left hand and kissed my ring finger—“but if you’ll marry me, I’ll spend the rest of my life doing whatever it takes to make you happy.”

  The idea thrilled me. No two ways about it. Thrilled. Deep inside, I knew this was the right choice. It always had been. “Okay. Fine!” I said, my voice contentious but my heart filled. “Whatever you say, apparently you’re always the one who knows best.”

  He smiled. I loved his smile. “I am this time.” He stood up and took me in his arms and kissed me. And it was as if all vestiges of Burke and the past had disappeared. Like a haunting smudged away.

  “You better be,” I said with a smile.

  “I did do one thing I think you’ll like, though,” he said, a little too casually.

  I looked at him, but he wasn’t looking at me. “What’s that?”

  “Bought the farm.”

  I frowned.

  He glanced at me. “Literally. Grace Farms.”

  I stopped again and gaped. “How?”

  He’d bought the farm. He owned the farm. He wanted to marry me. I wanted to marry him. I was going to have the life I’d dreamed of after all.

  “Come on,” he said, with that smile I knew and loved so well. “The ‘Wedding March’ is starting.”

  Goes to show, you never know. As Dottie would say, we’d worked out our demons. Not quite in the way I would have
expected, and I’ll never know if it was the way she expected, but she didn’t look all that surprised when we made our announcement a week later.

  Her wedding was perfect, by the way. Went off without a hitch. True to his word, for once, Burke kept his mouth shut.

  The reception was beautiful too. Glenn and his staff did a great job, not surprisingly.

  But the best moment of the reception, for me, came at the end when Frank and I were leaving together and went to say good-bye to Glenn.

  He handed me a small red envelope and said, “Your final task.”

  “Oh, no.” I laughed. “How embarrassing is it going to be?”

  He smiled. “I think you can handle it.” He winked.

  On our way out, Frank asked, “What was that about?”

  I shrugged. “Let’s see.” I stopped and opened the envelope, then took out the familiar little red card. It said:

  Quinn,

  You did it. You tried every one of my assignments and did a great job with most of them (though there were a few notable exceptions). And I can see your life has changed. Maybe not in the direction we both thought it might originally but you’re definitely moving forward now, in a way you’ve needed to for a long time.

  So your final assignment is a simple one but it’s going to take forever: be happy. No matter what it takes. No matter how embarrassing it might be sometimes, no matter who or what you might have to forgive, no matter how hideous the color of the hat that makes you smile, be happy.

  I’ll be watching you and giving you a boatload of shit if you fail. And next time, Day Drunk Day will seem like a cakewalk compared to what I’ll have you do.

  Love always,

  Glenn

  P.S. Marry the guy, would you? The right one this time. And soon! These old fogies aren’t going to eat even half the food I prepared! Besides, you suck at being single and bitter …

  Also by Beth Harbison

  Shoe Addicts Anonymous

  Secrets of a Shoe Addict

  Hope in a Jar

  Thin, Rich, Pretty

  Always Something There to Remind Me

  When in Doubt, Add Butter