Losing Mr. Right

by Natalie Charles

  “Yes, I took care of everything with the police. Officer Spinelli admits to his mistake.”

  “Isn’t that nice,” Mindy said sharply. “Tell me, Vaughan, how did you manage to convince him to leave so quickly?”

  Vaughan tilted her head to one side. “Mindy, why don’t you just tell me what you’re accusing me of? I prefer direct communication.”

  “Fine. Let’s be honest. I think the rumors are true and that you’re a madam. And I think you just set me up.” She paused. “I don’t know which I’m more upset about, frankly.”

  “Whoa.” I stepped between the two women as they faced off. “Emotions are running a little high right now. Maybe you should talk in the morning—”

  “No, no,” Vaughan said. “It’s fine. Disappointing, but fine.” She sighed and looked down at the carpets. “Mindy. You interviewed me. You allowed me to rent this inn. I gave you all of my references. You told me I was your first choice.”

  A growl erupted from Mindy’s throat. “Yes! Based on your years of experience, which I suspect were actually years of experience running brothels!” Her gaze sharpened. “Look, I don’t care what kind of business you run. But I don’t want you running it here.”

  “Keep your voice down,” Vaughan hissed. “In case you haven’t noticed, I run a legitimate business. I have guests, and we’re all lucky they weren’t here to listen to you screaming!”

  “You have a legitimate business. But only because that allows you to launder your dirty money,” Mindy spat.

  “Hey now.” I set a hand on Mindy’s shoulder and tried to pull her back. The tension in that hall was palpable. Vaughan was glaring at Mindy and Mindy was shooting daggers at Vaughan and I was stuck in the middle, which seemed like a dangerous place to be. “Okay,” I said, trying to make my voice sound easy. “Why don’t we all talk later?”

  “No,” said Mindy.

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” Vaughn said simultaneously.

  Great, they were both strongheaded. I released a breath. We were right back to where we had started.

  “Vaughan, you need to take your business elsewhere,” Mindy said. “Not my grandparents’ inn. It upsets my grandmother, and I won’t allow that.”

  I waited for sparks to fly. I waited for more shouting and braced myself for the worst. A physical assault. Name-calling. It could have gone any of a number of ways, and I was prepared for all of them. But what I wasn’t prepared for was for Vaughan to smile in that strangely cold way she had of smiling. And I wasn’t prepared for her to say, “You go ahead and do whatever you feel you need to do, sweetie. But I have a lot of work to do tonight to prepare for tomorrow morning.”

  Mindy and I stood silently as Vaughan turned her back to us and walked toward the staircase at the other end of the hall. When she was gone, I said to Mindy, “Come on. I’ll walk you home.”

  CHAPTER 7

  MINDY

  ON FRIDAY MORNING, I woke on the couch to find Beau staring at me from the bare shelf of the built-in bookcase. I tugged the yellow knit blanket up higher, covering my exposed neck. “Hello, Beau.” He blinked his golden eyes, flicked the tip of his tail once, and looked away.

  Brett hadn’t stayed long the night before. Things between us were a little bit awkward now that he knew I was associated with a brothel, and he had all of these annoying questions about my role in the sting. Things like, What did you do that made Officer Spinelli think you were a prostitute? and What were you thinking, playing along with someone you thought was a john? And then he took care to point out that I wasn’t an undercover detective, and that I could have ruined my own life trying to play one. So while I was grateful that Brett had intervened while I was handcuffed, I was also irritated that he appeared to believe that I might somehow be to blame for the misunderstanding. Stupid Brett and his stupid victim blaming.

  I was feeling hostile. I have a tendency to lash out sometimes, to go on the offense when someone tells me that I’m wrong. Brett was absolutely right. I shouldn’t have played along with Spinelli. That had been a terrible idea. But I didn’t take kindly to people pointing out my mistakes. I also didn’t take kindly to betrayal, and Nana and I were alike in that way. Cross Nana? She’d ice you out. Well, Vaughan had just crossed me in a big way. She’d set me up to be humiliated. I was going to make her pay. Somehow.

  I pulled the blanket up to my ears and rolled onto my side. The entire evening had been a pile of wet garbage. My wrists were bruised from the handcuffs, and Vaughan was so evil to have made me go through a sting. Beau was evil, too. And so were Chase and Jackie. And Brett. “I hate everyone,” I muttered, and reached for my cell phone. I texted Sorelle.

  Hey. U up? I sent a few texts reminding her where I was in case she returned from wherever she was. Which I hoped she did, because she was fun and I missed her.

  Everything ok? she texted back.

  Hardly, but this was too complicated a mess for texting.

  Your cat is thinking of smothering me.

  Lol. Give him a bath. He loves those.

  No thx, I need my hands.

  Heading to yoga. BBL.

  TTYL.

  I set my phone aside. It was almost eight o’clock, and it was about time for me to start earning my keep.

  I pulled on some old jeans, tennis shoes, and a T-shirt from a school team-building event and headed to the shed at the far side of the property. All the while, I kept a lookout for Vaughan so I could give her the stink eye. But I reached the shed without incident and unlocked it.

  The lawn mower was a rider, thank heavens! I strolled through the shed, which was a decent size and had multiple windows. A selection of rakes leaned against one corner, and they were organized from smallest to largest. Nana had hung a pegboard on the wall to display a variety of tools: hammers, shears, and little shovels. There were stakes tied up neatly in a bundle, a ball of twine for God-only-knows-what, and a half-empty bag of cedar mulch, the top rolled down and secured with tape. And in the far corner, there was a vacuum, a broom, and a feather duster, and I just knew that Nana kept them there for the sole purpose of keeping the shed clean. She was obsessive that way.

  It took me a few tries to get the hang of the lawn mower, but it was a newer model, with a motor that purred. I drove up and down the lawn, riding a wave of competence that felt pretty good. Actually, between the hum of the motor and the monotony of the work—up and down, around the mulch bed, up and down—my mind started to release some of its anxiety. I began plotting.

  Vaughan had to go. I was certain she was running a brothel, and that she had a connection at the police department who’d told her about the sting. There were simply too many coincidences. First, that all of her girls were gone, so they couldn’t be arrested. Second, that I had been at the desk, and I was most certainly not involved in the sex trade. All right, I had to admit that Vaughan couldn’t have anticipated that I’d royally screw up my task and get myself arrested. Still, I blamed her. She’d set it all up and I didn’t appreciate that.

  As I wound the lawn mower around a bed of petunias, I recalled that my nana had mentioned that Vaughan had actually pushed her off the ladder. It had seemed absurd until that moment last night when I’d seen a glint in Vaughan’s eyes. Nana had been right about Vaughan’s business, so maybe she was correct in believing that Vaughan was dangerous. Maybe. More than anything, I didn’t like Vaughan anymore.

  I was on the front lawn now. I gave a friendly wave to a silver-haired couple as they strolled out of the inn, arm in arm. They smiled and waved back before proceeding down the sidewalk toward the water. A couple of Vaughan’s legitimate guests, I assumed.

  Then Bree exited through one of the side doors. She was dressed in short denim cutoffs and a white tank, both of which showed off her amazing curves. I’d always struggled to add muscle—I mean, when I made any effort at all—and I was envious. As I passed her on the silver beast of a lawn mower, Bree slid her sunglasses over her eyes, turned her head to me, and smiled. I wave
d like nothing was wrong, then pulled up the lawn mower and turned it off. “Nice morning,” I said.

  “I wish I could hit the beach,” Bree said. “Vaughan has me running errands.”

  This intrigued me. I wasn’t exactly sure how this business worked, but I was curious. “So you’re going … where?”

  “To the bank, then to get some groceries, then I’m picking up dry cleaning.” Bree traced a triangle in the air with her finger. “Not too bad.” Her phone chirped. “Hold on,” she said as she pulled it out of her pocket to check the screen. “It’s a client. This is Bree,” she purred before turning away. “Yeah, baby, I can do that.”

  I sighed. So much for getting some inside information.

  I started the lawn mower again, but it didn’t take long to finish. After returning the mower to the shed and locking up, I vowed to make the best of a beautiful day no matter how upsetting the previous night had been. I showered, put on a gold lamé bikini, and grabbed a box of Frosted Wheatie O’s and my cell phone. Then I parked myself in the white Adirondack chair outside the cottage and called Lettie. She answered on the third ring. “Lettie’s house of porn. What’s your pleasure?”

  “What are you doing today?”

  “I’m writing. Eric’s going to work.” Eric was in the administration at River Junction Middle School, so, unlike me and Lettie, he worked year-round. “How are you?”

  “Meh.” I set the box of cereal between my knees and attempted to break the seal with one hand. “I don’t think I should talk about it on the phone. Want to come over?”

  She laughed weakly. “You’re not asking me to hide a body, are you? I mean, I have some thoughts, but I wouldn’t say I’m confident—”

  “Lettie. Please. I’m serious.”

  “Sorry. Look, I’d come by, but I’m supposed to be picking out a bridesmaid dress with James.”

  James Abbington is Lettie’s gay ex-fiancé. They’d broken up right before their wedding, and then James had become engaged to some musician. Now Lettie was going to be a bridesmaid in his wedding. “You’re a bigger person than I am, Lettie,” I said, just as I managed to tug apart the interior plastic cereal bag. “If Chase asked me to be in his wedding, I’d probably set something on fire.”

  There was an awkward pause during which I regretted mentioning Chase. “Obviously it’s different,” I added. “Chase and I were never engaged. Or dating, even. That’s my point, that you’re a much better person.”

  “I went to a lot of therapy to be a better person,” she said. “But honestly, James is driving me nuts with this wedding. He took zero interest in ours, right? But this one! He has to find the perfect shade of peach for me to wear. Peach. Because they’re getting married at sunset and everything has to match.”

  I paused, wrist-deep in Frosted Wheatie O’s. “He’s matching your dress to the sunset?”

  “You have no idea.”

  “Now I feel really bad for you.”

  Lettie sighed into the phone. “And when I complain, James whips out his theoretical-physicist crap. I complain about the dress, and he tells me that there’s a fifty-fifty chance that what we experience as reality is actually an alien computer game. So he doesn’t care that peach is terrible for my complexion.”

  “You can’t win that fight.”

  “Seriously.” Lettie paused. “But look, I can be there with you. I’ll cancel with James and he can go alone. If you need me—”

  I waved my hand even though she couldn’t see me through the phone. “No, go with James.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I insist. Find your peach dress that matches the sunset. James is like the smartest person in the world. I’ll bet whatever he has in mind will be stunning.”

  “Well, I guess if we’re all computer simulations then nothing matters anyway.”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  “And you’ll be okay?”

  I slipped a few pieces of cereal into my mouth. Lettie was one of my very best friends and my partner in crime, but I didn’t want to burden her with my problems. She had her own life and God knows, Lettie had her own issues. I mean, James was going to make her wear a peach dress. “I’ll be completely fine,” I said. “I just— My nana is hard to handle sometimes, you know? And I wanted to talk about some strategies. We’ll need to schedule a coffee date soon.”

  “Yes, absolutely,” Lettie said.

  We finished up our phone call and disconnected. I sat for a while in the Adirondack chair, eating cereal in my bikini. The morning was cloudless and the sun was already hot, and my sunglasses were sliding off my nose. I moved the chair so I was partially in the shade, and when I looked up I saw a very familiar figure ambling in my direction. My stomach sparked even though my first thought was, Stupid Brett. He looked really hot in a tight gray T-shirt and khaki shorts, and I was smiling before I remembered that I was supposed to be mad at him for (rightfully) judging me the night before. All I could think about was that kiss.

  He grinned this sexy, lopsided smile and said, “Hey you.”

  “Hey.” I shook the box of cereal. “Breakfast?”

  Right then, I felt really happy to see him. I couldn’t explain it.

  BRETT

  I’D COME to West Portsmouth to escape complications. I was looking for a simpler life in a simpler town where no one knew anything about me. I’d had these plans to live alone in the guesthouse, walk with people, and heal. No expectations, no stress. No “everything reminds me of everything I’ve lost.” But things weren’t going according to plan, and I blamed Mindy.

  She was driving me to distraction. The first time I’d seen her—that night she thought I was homeless and offered me pocket change and a frozen pizza—I’d thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. It was obvious she’d built a fortress around herself, but I didn’t care. I wanted to understand her better. I was good at getting to know people, right? Everything about her felt different. I’d had crushes before, but I’d never felt what I felt with Mindy: the need to be near her, to keep an eye on her, to protect her from herself. The kiss—man, it was everything I’d hoped for. All the chemistry was there. But it was wrong. It shouldn’t have happened, and maybe she didn’t want to kiss me after all. I felt bad about it.

  Maybe that’s why I kind of lost it when I walked her home last night. I swear, I’d planned to be a gentleman. But the more I thought about it—what had she been thinking? “So let me get this straight,” I’d said as we walked down the brick path that led away from the inn. “You thought that guy—the one who turned out to be an undercover police officer—was looking to hire someone for a good time. And so you played along?”

  The moonlight had gleamed off her bare shoulders as she shrugged them. “I wanted to see if what my nana said was true. You have to admit, it wasn’t a bad idea.”

  I grabbed my own hair in my fists. “Mindy. It was a bad idea. It was terrible!”

  I was angry—at myself, at her, at the situation. She spun to face me, her mouth open in apparent surprise at my response. “It’s only terrible because he was a cop!”

  “Oh, so if he’d really been looking for a companion, that would’ve been fine?”

  I mean, what the hell? Where was her head? Didn’t she realize she could’ve ruined her life? It made me feel crazy, and that wasn’t how I’d planned to feel when I moved to West Portsmouth. “You could’ve lost your job, Mindy. You could’ve lost everything.”

  She’d set her jaw before spinning away and continuing down the path. “That wouldn’t have happened. It would’ve been cleared up. Eventually.” She’d said it with conviction and lifted her nose in the air. “I didn’t ask you for a lecture.”

  “Dammit, Mindy.”

  I’d fired off the words and then shut my mouth before I said anything more. Man, did she bring something out in me. Some kind of growling, possessive thing that couldn’t be controlled—like her fake dog. I’d stuffed my hands in my pockets, clenching my fists tightly. “I guess
the important thing is that you’re not in jail.”

  She’d glanced over her shoulder just long enough to roll her eyes. “Yeah. Okay.” She’d unlocked the door and slipped inside, pausing only to say, “You can put that walk on my tab.” Then she’d shut the door in my face.

  The things I put up with.

  The next morning I started my day as usual. Breakfast, shower, shave. I trimmed my beard and wondered whether Mindy would like it short. Ridiculous, but I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Then when I’d walked around my kitchen, straightening up and washing the dishes I’d left in the sink the day before, the place had seemed empty. That was your plan, to live in an empty house. But it wasn’t the quiet that was the problem. It was the feeling of isolation that got to me.

  Get a dog. Dogs are simple. Maybe I would.

  The thing about being a person who walks with people is that your legs start to crave movement. I didn’t have clients that morning, but I was restless. I walked outside and down to the beach. The tide was out, but every step I took caused the sand to ooze cold water. It was like stepping on a sponge. The morning was brilliant and warm and for a brief flash of a moment, I felt joy. It hit me suddenly, and I followed it like one follows an odd piece of string, tracing it to see where it originated. I’d been under a dark cloud for months. What had made me feel suddenly happy? But the feeling vanished and I was back to normal again.

  I picked up a seashell and washed it off in the water. It was scalloped and white with a pearl inside. David was the one who’d collected seashells when we went to the beach, bucketfuls of them. I’d never seen the point. I was the one who divided objects according to their usefulness. What does one do with seashells, even perfect ones? I turned it over in my fingers and tossed it back into the water. Let it become sand.

  I stood in the cold water for a while, waiting to recapture that feeling of happiness again, even if only for another flash of a second. That had felt really good.

  There was a jogger on the beach and a few couples walking. Every now and then someone climbed down a set of cement stairs from the road to the sand, lugging a beach umbrella and a cooler. I watched these beachgoers while trying not to stare, but walking with strangers had made me nosy. Everyone had a story, a rich life that they didn’t think was interesting. That was what David understood. People were interesting. Even the so-called boring ones.