Because I Can (Montgomery Manor)

by Tamara Morgan

  But she didn’t. Hanging out with her boyfriend wasn’t part of the plan. Hobnobbing was the plan.

  “Sorry,” she said, knowing the apology sounded wooden. It was wooden. “I have to go. I already promised.”

  Predictably, Monty wasn’t pleased with her answer. “That’s great. Enjoy your meal and my sister’s company. I swear, Georgia, it’s like I’m not even here half the time.”

  “No. You’re not here half the time.” She sat up, struggling into her shirt. “You’re here all the time. That’s the problem.”

  He recoiled, all the blood draining out of his face, leaving a marbled statue forever stuck in an image of agony.

  “Oh, shit. That’s not what I meant.” She leaped off the bed to try and touch him—desperate for one of those crazy good hugs that made everything okay—but he stepped back.

  “I told you there are hundreds of hotels where I can stay instead. I’ll be out of here in an hour.”

  “I don’t want you to leave,” she cried, but it was a lie. She did want him to leave. She wanted him to go back home where he belonged, where he wouldn’t be wasting his talents and his passions on a woman who didn’t deserve them. She reached out again, and again failed to make contact. “Don’t you think it’s time you made up with your family, Monty? I’m not kicking you out of here—I’m not—but you can’t spend the rest of your life pretending this is enough for you.”

  Pretending I’m enough for you.

  “What was Jenna’s real motive in taking you out today?” he asked, his voice quiet, his face still carved of stone. “She should have gone back overseas the second I moved out.”

  Georgia’s first impulse was to lie, but she was tired of playing by the Montgomery rules. They had stupid rules—and this was coming from a woman whose family defined stupidity. If only Mr. Montgomery would come out and tell Monty how much he needed him. If only Jenna would tell Monty the same thing she’d told Georgia—that they loved him, worried about him, wanted him to be happy. Everything was all so mixed up.

  “She’s teaching me to fit better in your world.”

  “You already do fit, Georgia. You fit perfectly.”

  “Not this world.” She shook her head, marveling at how light her head felt. How not her. “The other world. The one you have to go back to, even though you’re too proud to admit it.”

  “It’s not pride keeping me away.”

  “I know.” She felt an inexpressible sadness settle over her shoulders, heavy and somehow comforting at the same time. “It’s me. I’m what’s keeping you away.”

  He didn’t argue, because he couldn’t. It was true.

  “Your sister can be overbearing sometimes, but she’s just trying to help me fit in. I figure I’m halfway there already. I have new hair and new shoelaces and a new charity project to get underway. I’m the whole package now.”

  “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

  If it was, she didn’t feel compelled to laugh. “They’re planning on unveiling me at some wedding next weekend. I think it’s the same one your dad was trying to set you up on dates for. Will you come with me?”

  He went from marble to brimstone in less than ten seconds.

  “You did invite me in the first place,” she pointed out uneasily. “So it’s not too terrible for me to crash, right? Your dad will be there, and I think your brother Jake is driving in, and Jenna’s been making me sit with her tailor for hours to refit one of her old dresses.”

  “It always comes back to that stupid wedding.” He swore, a fuck falling from his lips with an ease she almost admired. “I can’t believe they would do this. No—I can. I can believe it. That’s the problem.”

  This was her chance. She took a step forward, but he made no move to touch her. “All they want is for you to come home, Monty. They miss you.”

  “They don’t miss me. They miss the amount of work I took off their plates.” His words were bitter, cold. “And all you’re doing is feeding their delusions by playing into it. You can’t go.”

  “I have to.”

  “You’ll be miserable—I’m not kidding. You don’t understand what those events are like. Everyone there is petty and vain and materialistic, and they’ll know you’re only there as a way for my dad to prove I’m not still hung up on my ex-girlfriend.”

  “So come with me.”

  He didn’t move.

  “You want something to keep yourself busy? You want to help me out for a change? Here’s your opportunity. Be my date. Promise you’ll come. Don’t abandon me to those terrible people.”

  Not even his own words, echoed back in desperation, moved him. “It’s not your kind of event, Georgia. You don’t belong there.”

  “I know I don’t.” Of course she knew. She’d known her entire life. For twenty-nine years, she’d been an outsider looking in—not only at the magnificence of Montgomery Manor, but at life in general. This time with Monty might have given her a chance to walk through the walls—to where it was warm and she was cared for and she wasn’t as deplorable a woman as she’d always thought—but she’d never been deluded enough to believe she could stay on a permanent basis. “I’m not stupid. I know none of this is real. I know none of this can last.”

  His only response was to stare. Intent and familiar, that stare said so much more than his words ever could.

  Of course it couldn’t last. The Bore and the Beast had always been the wrong story anyway.

  * * *

  Monty moved out that night.

  His entire life was packed up and returned to that single suitcase in a matter of minutes. He spent a little longer—almost half an hour—bidding farewell to Danny and her mother, thanking them for their hospitality like he was some gentleman traveler stopped in for a spell. Her own goodbye lasted seconds, if that. A peck on the cheek, one last jaw-ticking entreaty not to entangle herself with his family, and that was it.

  He didn’t even look back as he made his way down the steps and to his car, looking so incongruously expensive parked next to her work truck that they’d actually had neighbors call and ask if they’d either won the lottery or taken up a life of crime.

  Georgia told herself it was silly to worry about him, that the amount of money in his bank account precluded starvation on the streets or any other kind of material deprivation, but material deprivation wasn’t what scared her. What Monty needed more than wealth was a home—not the four walls a good construction crew could put up in a few weekends, but the feeling of love and acceptance that could be found within them.

  What Monty needed was the love and acceptance that existed for him at Montgomery Manor. His family cared enough about him to make over an awkward handywoman and accept her in their ranks. If that wasn’t a sign of their true regard, she didn’t know what was.

  She called Jenna the second Monty’s taillights disappeared into the night. She told herself that she was calling out of a sense of obligation, that Jenna deserved all the facts, but she mostly needed to hear a friendly voice right now. A Montgomery voice. “I thought I should warn you that Monty and I had a fight. He moved out, and I don’t think he has any intention of going home.”

  “Oh, Gigi. What did you do?”

  She chomped on her lip to keep from wailing. “I’m sorry, Jenna, but I told him what we were doing. I told him about the plan to take me to the wedding next week. He practically forbade me from going—I don’t think he wants me touching that part of his life.”

  The silence on the other end of the phone was so loud Georgia almost needed earplugs.

  “Not that I blame him,” she said. Looking down, she noticed blood rising from four crescents on the palm of her hand. “It was foolish to agree to all this in the first place.”

  “Nonsense.” Jenna made a quick recovery. “We still have our lunch date tomorrow, and you need to
take those new shoelaces out for a spin. I want to see how they look on.”

  That right there was proof of how wrong Monty was about his family. Tactful and kind and elegant, Jenna was everything Georgia could never dream of being.

  “I can hear you trying to think of an excuse, but it won’t work,” Jenna said. “If you think my brother is determined when it comes to this sort of thing, then you’re in for a nasty surprise. I’ve never taken no for an answer before, and I don’t intend to start now.”

  “No,” Georgia said, hoping that would be the end of it.

  Jenna just laughed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “The fourth one in is the shrimp fork.” Jenna brandished a tiny three-pronged instrument Georgia was pretty sure she’d seen in one of those fake alien autopsy videos.

  “But we’re not eating shrimp.” She examined the contents of her plate more carefully, wondering if maybe there were crustaceans hiding inside her teepee of asparagus. “And don’t most people just pick shrimp up with their fingers anyway?”

  “Only people who are eating shrimp at an all-you-can-eat-buffet.” Jenna shook her head, but the smile that had been playing on her lips all morning didn’t abate in the slightest. If she really disliked country clubs as much as Monty said, it didn’t show. She seemed to be lapping this up—the tables full of well-dressed men and women, the water served in wineglasses, the fact that before she’d allowed either of them to sit down, she’d forced Georgia into the bathroom to exchange outfits.

  So far from loving the new shoelaces, Jenna had accused Georgia of antagonizing her on purpose, and then proceeded to wrangle her into a pair of flowing linen pants and shoes that looked like torture devices from the Middle Ages.

  Georgia hadn’t even fought her after the first feeble protest. Pants were pants, whether they came from Target or a boutique with a French name. And she liked the pain the shoes were inflicting, the slowly slicing band across the top that would work its way through to her bone by the time the dessert course rolled around. That pain was the only thing preventing her from breaking down as Jenna worked her way through the silverware, carefully explaining the purpose of each tine.

  “There’s no point in all this,” Georgia said, shifting her feet so the band sliced harder. She wouldn’t give in to the sensation of drowning, of feeling like her lungs were awash with suppressed tears. “I’m never going to be called upon to eat shrimp with a fork anyway. This was a silly plan when Monty and I were together, and now...”

  “I don’t know why it’s called a shrimp fork, to be honest.” Jenna ignored her with a toss of her hair. “I mostly use it for crab legs and lobster, or the occasional oyster. It’s long enough so you can dig inside the claw to extract all the meat. What, Gigi? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  Even though there wasn’t any shellfish on her plate, Georgia picked up one of the pieces of bread from the center of the table and ripped it in half. She dug her fingers into the softest part of the roll and tugged out a handful of spongy dough.

  “Ta-da. I’ve extracted the meat.” She spoke without flourish. “It’s a wonder more of you don’t starve.”

  Jenna laughed, the sound so much like Monty’s Georgia felt a pang in her chest not unlike a shrimp fork being stabbed straight through it. “Fine. You win. We’ll sell you as an eccentric who can’t be bothered to adhere to societal norms. We can even Diane Keaton your wardrobe if we have to.”

  Georgia had no idea what that meant, but she didn’t have the strength to argue. This is it, then. The day she could no longer hoist her own toolbox. The day she gave up and started sewing shit with hooked needles.

  “It certainly sounds like you girls are having fun.”

  To avoid having to offer a response to the large, matronly woman topped with some kind of decorative purple turban, Georgia shoved the fistful of bread in her mouth. Jenna saw her and sighed before rising smoothly to her feet. She made Georgia’s new Target khakis look downright elegant. “Coco, it’s so lovely to see you again.”

  She put such an emphasis on the repetitive, vowel-heavy nickname Georgia almost choked on her mouth of bread innards.

  “I haven’t heard this much laughter inside these four walls since the day Matilda’s hairpiece got caught in the chandelier—and most of it was coming from me.” Without waiting for an invitation, Coco fell to the chair opposite Georgia, sending wafts of floral-scented air her way. “What’s the grand joke?”

  “I was just telling my friend Gigi here that she could become the newest club eccentric, but that was before I realized you were still alive.” Jenna executed her own seat much more gracefully. “How have you managed to hold on all these years? You were ancient when I was a kid. You must be mummified by now.”

  Coco cackled, the inelegant sound offset when she raised one finger and somehow managed to translate that to a waiter appearing with an enormous Bloody Mary. “I’m pickled from the inside out. I’ll never die. It’s Gigi, is it? Take my advice and cultivate an air of mystery instead of eccentricity. Eccentricity is all fine and good when you’re old, but it’s mystery that will land you the most men.”

  “But I don’t want any men.” The words were out of Georgia’s mouth before she could help it. She flushed and shoved the rest of the bread inside to prevent further mishap. She was not discussing the wasteland of her love life with these two women. She’d discuss it later with a fifth of whisky. Only whisky understood how lonely it was inside her apartment now that Monty was gone.

  It wasn’t fair. She’d been just fine on her own in there before, if sexually unsated. But what was it Monty had said? That she didn’t understand how sex could be bad and still be good?

  She understood now. She understood it all. Imperfect sex with a man you loved wasn’t just good. It was the best thing in the world.

  Jenna, never perturbed, just laughed. “I don’t think I introduced her properly. Coco, this is my brother’s girlfriend, Georgia Lennox. Gigi, this is Coco Carrington, who can get you all the hair you could possibly want.”

  “But I’m not Monty’s—”

  Jenna cut her off with a murderous glare. “Gigi is a philanthropist, and she wants hair.”

  “Don’t we all.” Coco patted her turban wistfully. “Am I allowed to ask what she wants the hair for?”

  “Children with cancer.”

  “Oh, thank the stars. That’s so much better than where my imagination took me. Let me think...we should probably recruit Rachel and Keiko, and you can’t do anything in this town without running it by Bunny first.” She offered Georgia one of her olives from the end of a toothpick. She didn’t want to touch it with her fingers—this was no all-you-can-eat-buffet—so she picked up her shrimp fork and gave it a stab. Coco didn’t even blink. “How much hair do you need?”

  Georgia wasn’t sure how to respond. She had a mouth full of bread, an olive on a fork and a broken heart. There was no point in setting her up as some kind of Lady Bountiful, since Monty wanted nothing to do with her anymore, but it seemed like a terrible waste to let this woman walk away without hearing her out.

  Throwing herself into volunteer projects had always been Georgia’s way of casting her worries aside to take on the burden of someone else’s, her chance to lose her sense of self, if only for a few hours.

  Right now, she couldn’t think of anything she’d rather do than get rid of the Georgia Lennox sobbing inside her head.

  She swallowed. “As much as I can get my hands on. I was thinking we should get a few salons involved—maybe offering free cuts to people if they donate their hair, or discounted trimmings for maintenance and stuff.”

  Coco crunched her stalk of celery thoughtfully. “That’s not a bad idea. You’ve got a good head for this kind of thing.” She laughed out loud. “See what I did there? A good head? Mercy me, what I would give to have thick curls like your
s again.”

  For the rest of the meal—plate after plate of food transformed into teepees and pyramids and other leaning towers—they discussed the logistics of doing a drive to raise awareness and funds. Coco was alarmingly well-informed on the subject, even after her third Bloody Mary, and Georgia felt herself relaxing more and more as the afternoon went on.

  Maybe this isn’t so terrible. Maybe I am capable of this kind of life. She wasn’t just hobnobbing. She was successfully hobnobbing. Wouldn’t Monty be surprised to see her accepting help from one of his peers?

  “Well, my dear. I’ll say this for you—you’re an original.” Coco struggled to rise, and only managed once Georgia gripped her by the elbow and hoisted her out of the chair. “Most women take years to find their feet in this set, but you seem to be planted rather firmly on yours. Though those shoes are all wrong for you. Flats are an eccentric’s best friend. Flats and shawls. Remember that.”

  “I will,” Georgia promised.

  “And bring that boyfriend of yours to come see me one of these days. He should get out more. If he’s not careful, he’s going to end up exactly like his father.”

  Georgia opened her mouth to protest again, and was once again silenced by Jenna’s thunderously dark blue stare.

  Georgia waited until Coco was out of earshot to pounce. “Why did you let that poor, sweet old woman think I’m still with Monty? What if she tells all those other women?”

  “Then she tells all those other women.”

  “Jenna.” Georgia wanted to sound firm enough to knock some common sense into the other woman’s head, but she was afraid she mostly ended up sounding frantic. “I’m going to theoretically be working with her for the next few months. This will just make things awkward.”

  “Only if you let it.”