When I finally pulled up to the front gates around the house, it was to see that every exterior light outside was lit. Madelaine was finally home. I pressed the unlock button on the remote attached to the visor and the gates slid open to allow me entry. I drove up the winding, gravel driveway and around the side of the house to the garage where I parked my car
I walked stiffly to the front door. My dress was sticking to me in the worst way and my thighs were sticky where they touched. The door was already unlocked, as I had expected. When it swung open, I was greeted by the scent of rich chocolate hanging in the air. I breathed in deeply and something inside me relaxed profoundly. Chocolate had that effect.
I followed the scent through the opulent entryway and to the kitchen. Maddie was standing behind the stove, her wild red hair pulled into a messy bun and a black apron covering her black clothes. A stainless-steel pot was on the stove and she was stirring its contents, which I assumed was chocolate.
She looked up when I walked in and dropped my purse on the large marble island separating us.
“I’m making Guillaume’s famous chocolate sauce,” she announced. I know she meant it ironically, but her family’s chocolate sauce was famous. Her father was known as the French Willy Wonka of chocolate and her family had been in the business of chocolate since the 1800s.
“I’ve missed you. I would hug you but…” I trailed off and waved down at the front of my dress.
Maddie looked at my dress and hummed thoughtfully.
“I assume that’s an accident and not a fashion statement?”
“Correct.”
“Clumsy moment?” She asked. She showed no reaction, she hardly ever did. Until she got angry, and then her icy glare of death would have had Hitler quivering in his boots.
“I wish. This wasn’t my doing. Some guy spilled coffee all over me at Target, and then saw my underwear!”
Maddie raised an eyebrow infinitesimally—finally, a reaction. I realized what I had said and how it must have sounded to her.
“Those two things are not directly related,” I clarified.
“I sure hope not. It was bad enough with the coffee. Imagine having to deal with a sexual predator, too.”
I snorted and raised a hand to massage the back of my neck.
“Have I mentioned that I missed you? How was your trip?”
I was a sticky mess, but I decided a shower could wait. I wanted to stay here and talk to my best friend, commiserate with her about the shitty day I’d had. Maddie had been visiting her mother in New York, who was a renowned actress and was currently performing on Broadway.
Maddie waved her hand. “Loud. Too many people. Too many cars. Mama demanded that I go back to Paris with her after the show is over.”
I dropped my hand, cold dread seizing me. Since Maddie had permanently moved to San Diego four years ago, she had gone back to Paris only during the holidays. Her parents made it a point to be at home and celebrate the holidays as a family. I couldn’t imagine Maddie not being here. It wasn’t even the fact that I would have to find a new place to live if she moved since this was her house. I was going to miss her terribly.
“Are you considering it?” I asked.
She shook her head, a wayward curl falling out of her bun and bouncing onto her forehead.
“For what reason? You and the Golden Girls are here. And Jack may love Paris, but he’s never going to live there.”
The Golden Girls was us plus five of our closest girlfriends. We had all grown up without the comfort of true female friendship and watching reruns of the Golden Girls to feel true bonds of friendship. I was not even sure when we started calling ourselves the Golden Girls, probably sometime when Maddie suggested we all move into this house after we retire. This offer was met with great enthusiasm.
The mention of Jack made me roll my eyes. He was Maddie’s bestest friend. I was her best friend, but he had known Maddie since they were both ten years old. He was the Bucky Barnes to her Steve Rogers. Ironically enough, it was Jack who had introduced me to Maddie.
Normally, I was confident about my appearance but when I had seen her, my confidence had faltered and crumbled. Madelaine Guillaume was known as one of the most beautiful women in the world and a talented and versatile actress of this generation. Imagine being eighteen and meeting a girl whose movie you once snuck out of the house to see.
“I’m happy you’re not moving. The girls and I would have missed you.”
Maddie nodded in acknowledgment. “I would have missed you a lot, too. Now, enough about me. Tell me everything about this.” She stopped and waved her free hand towards my dress. “And whether that’s the only reason you look as if someone told you the world was running out of chocolate.”
I sighed, remembering the incredibly shitty day I’d had even before the coffee spill.
“I’m going to take a shower before I get into all of that,” I said.
“Hurry back. I made stuffed shell pasta for dinner.”
My stomach growled, and my mouth watered.
“I’ll be quick.”
I took the fastest shower I had ever taken, applying a generous helping of orange blossom soap to get rid of the scent of coffee. Even though I had put my dress in the hamper, I was unsure if anything could save it. Eugenia, the housekeeper, would take it to the dry cleaner’s, and hopefully, they would be able to salvage it.
As I dried off, for a brief moment, I wondered what the good coffee spilling doctor was doing right now. I wondered if there was a wife or girlfriend or boyfriend, waiting for him at home. I wondered if he was thinking about me. The mere thought made me scoff in disbelief. I was growing soft in my old age. I met strangers every day, rarely did I wonder what they thought about me or if they thought about me in the privacy of their homes.
I pulled on blue pajama shorts and an orange tank top before going down and joining Maddie in the backyard. I took a moment to take in the oasis. The sound of water as it rushed over the rocks and into the large pool. The scent of rose bushes, the brightness of the hibiscus and hydrangea plants. And beyond it all, the vast and still darkness of the Pacific Ocean, the full moon casting its perfect reflection on the water.
“The Food Network spot fell through,” I said, turning to look at Maddie.
Her eyes met mine. She had the innate ability to hide everything she was thinking. There were no ticks, no reactions to even give a hint of what was going on in her mind. This ability, and her general lack of enthusiasm around people, made everyone think she was cold. That she was every bit the self-centered diva the magazines made her out to be.
“What happened?” She asked.
With a sigh, I pulled out the chair across from hers and watched as she poured me a generous glass of wine.
“Did you know there’s a woman who makes cakes based on horror movies? They dropped me and called her for the guest spot.”
I was supposed to be a guest judge on a baking show. It was only my third stint on TV and I didn’t enjoy it. Television was so different than making YouTube videos in the safety of my parent’s kitchen. I was relieved it fell through and disappointed at the same time. It was bad enough that I felt I was blocked, that I no longer had the energy to do the one thing I had always wanted to do. Bake. And it all began with that damned article for Home & Garden magazine which made me the Cupcake Queen of San Diego and the go-to for all sorts of baked goods.
Who would have thought that my business’s success was the very thing that was going to make me lose it all?
I picked up my wineglass and swallowed about two-thirds of it in one gulp.
“You have a natural talent,” Maddie said. Her tone was flat and dry. She could have been complimenting me or reciting a recipe, her tone wouldn’t have changed. I knew she was angry because normally, her accent was French with a mixture of British, but when she was angry, the French came out stronger. “If Phillipe Guillaume deemed you a success, you are going to be a success.”
“I think your dad w
as just being nice when he said that,” I said, self-deprecatingly.
Maddie gave me a dry look to match her dry tone. “My father is not nice for the sake of niceness. Do you want him to talk with these people?”
“No! No, that’s not necessary.”
It was the last thing I wanted. I wanted my success on my merit, not because a world-renowned pastry chef had sung my praises. If he happened to mention it to people in a casual setting, that was fine. That was more than fine. But to take advantage of his fame, even if his daughter offered it? No.
“And what about the man who saw your underwear?” Maddie asked.
I picked up my fork and dug into the pasta she had plated for me. It was warm, the cheese gooey, the shells soft, flavor exploded in my mouth. I moaned, closing my eyes and taking a moment to enjoy my bite.
“I’m in the chips aisle, and I’m wondering what kind of chips to get because there are so many flavors. I pick two cans of Pringles, turn around and bam, he’s right there, standing like a wall. In fact, for a moment, I thought he was a wall. When he ran into me, his coffee spilled all over me.”
I humphed. Then in great detail, I told her all about what happened afterward. It was as I had expected, she didn’t believe he was a doctor either. She was quite certain that he was a crazy stalker and I needed to be more careful from now on. Did I need her to send her bodyguard with me? I denied it. The man was only going to get bored standing in the kitchen, watching me bake.
“There’s always the option of killing him,” Maddie said.
I snorted. “You’re far too recognizable to assist in burying a body.”
“I would not do the burying myself. I have people to do that kind of thing.” She shrugged casually, lifting her water glass and sipping delicately.
I didn’t want to think about her people and when they may have assisted her in burying a dead body.
“I can’t talk about this anymore,” I said. “Did you know you’re dating Drew Rhodes?”
“Who?” She asked blankly. She didn’t seem the least bit distressed.
I picked up my phone and showed her the photo which was circulating on the internet. Maddie with a gorgeous, blonde man outside the Guggenheim in Manhattan.
“Oh, him.” She rolled her eyes. “He’s a vapid man who’s more interested in the reflection in the mirror than anything else.”
I looked down at my phone and zoomed in on a smiling Drew.
“I liked him until you told me that,” I said sadly.
“Not everyone is as modest as me, you know.”
Maddie tilted her head back and looked at me down her nose, sniffing like she smelled something terrible.
I laughed, putting all my worries on the back burner for tonight. I had tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, to deal with all the worries of the world.
Chapter 3 - Daniel
Dating had always been hard for me. I was fairly competent when it came to relationships. None of my girlfriends ever had any complaints about me as a boyfriend. It was only the start of the relationship, the initial dating stage that made me feel utterly incompetent. It made me wonder how I had ever gotten a girlfriend to begin with.
“Her name is Megan. Meg-an,” my sister said on the phone. “Do you think you can remember that?”
I resisted the urge to hang up on her. She had called me for a pre-date pep-talk and so far, had managed to list all the ways I had messed up in the dates she had set-up before this one.
“It’s quite difficult, but I think I can manage,” I said. “Michaela, was it?”
“I hope you’re this happy when you’re sixty and still single.”
“Frankly, I’ll be thrilled because I won’t have to continue this torture anymore.”
“What about sex?”
“Can we not talk about sex? It makes me really uncomfortable.”
Emily humphed loudly, causing me to roll my eyes. There was no such thing as boundaries within my family. We knew everything about everyone and if we didn’t, we didn’t hesitate to ask or stick our nose in it. The latter was never necessary because we also loved to overshare every detail.
“You’re not in Chicago anymore, Daniel. It’s time you remembered what it’s like to be surrounded by your family all the time.”
“Oh, trust me, I can never forget. I have to go now.”
The last thing Em got out was my date’s name before I hung up on her. I sighed. Ever since I moved back to California, she’d been bugging me about the fact that I chose to live in San Diego, instead of going back to Los Angeles and the fact that I needed to ‘move on’ and ‘get back in the game’.
She’d managed to set me up on five dates so far, none of which had worked out. The last one, I admit, was my fault because I kept forgetting her name. This fact was still making me feel guilty a week and a half later.
Regardless of whether I remembered her name or not, I knew it wasn’t going to work out with any of them. I told Emily that, and she redoubled her efforts to find me a girlfriend. She had a problem letting go of things. My problem was, she was setting these dates up with women I had nothing in common with. Opposites might attract, but if you have nothing to talk about, there couldn’t be a relationship.
Megan wasn’t going to be ‘the one’. I knew that already and I hadn’t even spoken to the woman. Emily had sent me a link to Megan’s Instagram account, so I could see for myself what I was getting into. I had yet to open the link. I didn’t want her posed photos to cloud my judgment of the real woman.
Also, I wasn’t looking for ‘the one’.
Emily kept accusing me of being difficult. I wasn’t trying to be. Nobody blind dated in this day and age, so usually, I talked to the women Em set me up with. In texts, they all seemed interesting, in person, they were all different people. How hard was it to just be yourself? That should be the easiest thing to be. I wasn’t expecting perfection, I wasn’t a snob and I didn’t have that high of an opinion of myself. I just wanted good, old honesty.
I had ten minutes to spare. I hated being late and was usually always early. I had suggested to Megan that I could pick her up from her house and she had declined, for which I was secretly grateful. I would rather not go to someone’s house if I didn’t know them.
I pulled up to the restaurant and a valet immediately appeared next to my door. I decided to wait outside instead of going into the restaurant. Then I thought, does it look like I’m too eager? Maybe I should have just stayed in the car. What if she thought I was just waiting in the car to make sure she was my ‘type’ before I approached her?
Fuck, why was this hard? Had dating always been this hard and I’d just never noticed? Was it too late to cancel? I was thirty-three, how had I let my baby sister talk me into this?
“Daniel?”
I turned around. Behind me stood a woman in a navy dress, shoulder-length brown hair teased into waves and wearing bright red lipstick. Dark eyes looked up at me as she waited for me to respond. She was beautiful.
“Yes. You must be Megan,” I said, offering her a hand. I was never sure how to greet a date and a handshake seemed the lesser of all evils.
Megan laughed and placed her hand in mine. You could tell a lot about a person from their handshake and hers was firm, her grip strong. It lasted less than a moment, which was the perfect amount of time to hold a literal stranger’s hand.
“So glad we could finally arrange a time to meet,” she said.
“The life of a doctor. If I have time to sleep and shower, that’s a good day,” I said. My father would always say the same thing when I would question him about his career choice. He cut back his hours after we kids were born. Still, a doctor was a doctor and there were days we would wake up for school and he wouldn’t be there because he had been called in for an emergency.
“Should we go in?” I asked. At her nod, I opened the door and as she walked in, I caught a hint of sandalwood off her.
I had spent an entire afternoon searching for restaurants,
only to have Emily berate me about my choices. In the end, she had suggested that I let her take care of the reservations. That way, I just had to “look pretty” and show up.
“Have you been here before?” Megan asked while we waited for the hostess to return to her stand.
“No, it’s my first time.”
“I’ve been wanting to come here since it opened about a year ago. But it’s booked out completely. I’m surprised you managed to book us a table.”
Okay, moment of truth. Do I tell her that I didn’t book a table or do I tell her I did and take all the credit? Did I want to take the credit, knowing she was impressed? If, and this was a big if, this worked out, then this could be a funny story we tell our children. If it doesn’t work out, which is the most likely outcome, would it because I took credit for something I didn’t do?
Shut up, you idiot!
“Hi! Do you have a reservation?”
Once again, I was so lost in my thoughts that I completely missed the hostess coming back to her stand.
“Yes, it’s under Reid,” I supplied.
She scrolled through her tablet and smiled brightly when she located my name.
“Great, right this way Mr. Reid.”
The hostess showed us to a table and left, declaring our server should be along shortly. I pulled out Megan’s chair and once she was situated, I sat down myself. Okay, so far so good.
The restaurant was pretty good. The last one I’d gone to had a stuffy vibe, whereas this one was more relaxed, open, and inviting.
“The food could be terrible,” Megan said as if reading my thoughts.
I laughed. “I was thinking something similar.”
Megan smiled, her brown eyes warm. In all aspects, she was the sort of woman I should have wanted to date. She was beautiful, smart, and successful. Emily had told me that Megan owned a yoga studio here, and had recently opened one in Los Angeles. Looking at Megan, I felt nothing. Where was the attraction? The idea that I needed to know everything about this woman? That I wouldn’t mind doing this again?
“So, Emily told me that you used to live in Chicago?” Megan said, leaning forward towards me.
Not My Type : Golden Girls 1 Page 2