Driving in Neutral

by Sandra Antonelli

  Justine said, her voice breathy, “Did I mention my sixteen-year-old niece has a shirt similar to yours, Olivia? She’s a dancer and the chimp on hers is dancing. Shouldn’t your monkey be driving a racing car?”

  “I only ever found this one riding a motorcycle.”

  “Hmph. Well, it suits you…and all that dirt you’ve accessorized it with.” If cotton candy had a sound, it would have spun out exactly like Justine’s titter.

  The blonde turned her attention from the diamond, her blue eyes passing over Olivia. “Oh. Hi. I’m Addie,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Sorry I won’t shake hands. You’ve got crap all over you.”

  Olivia looked down at her hands. She’d washed them before she put out the food and they weren’t dirty. She crossed to the gilt mirror above the fireplace and had a look at herself. Face flushed and shiny with sweat, her hair had come out of her ponytail to cling to her hot, damp neck. Potting mix was smudged on her chin. Dark patches of wet pink made crescent moons beneath her breasts, just above the biker monkey on her shirt, and she smelled like an odd mixture of perspiration, lavender, and the insecticide she’d used to murder a nest of ants on the terrace.

  Young Addie had that Cover Girl advertisement appeal. Suzanne and Justine looked like fresh-picked summer bouquets. Even fretful Ella was still radiant with bride-to-be anticipation. Right then, Olivia felt every inch of her grime and there was a part of her that wanted to saunter over to Justine, grab her face and shove her nose into a sweaty armpit, just to shake up her flawlessness with some coarse slumber party behavior. She wished she could belch or fart on demand because that would have really upped the ante on crass. Instead, she sighed, took a breath and said, “I just wanted to let you know the boys are waiting and lunch is ready.”

  “Oh, thank God!” Suzanne said, screwing the top on the nail polish and tossing the bottle on the bed.

  “Just go on down and start.” Olivia pulled a dry leaf from her hair. “Don’t wait for me. I’ve got to wash up.”

  “Good idea,” Justine sighed. “Make sure you scrub off that pink bubblegum stuck near your mouth.”

  Ella inhaled sharply. “Jesus Christ, Justine!”

  Suzanne shook her head. “Oh, Justy…”

  “What?” Addie was fascinated. “What is it? What did I miss?”

  “Uh-oh, my bad.” Justine held a hand over her mouth to conceal the catty smile everyone had already seen. “I am sorry,” she said, the words all airy and light. “That’s the thing isn’t it, the cut you got from when you jumped through the window, when you ran away from—”

  The pitch of Ella’s voice began low and slid to high. “Justinnne! You are not going to spoil this weekend. I will not have it, do yew understand?”

  Shifting her jaw, rolling her eyes like a surly teenager, Justine nodded.

  “You jumped through a window?” Addie, her perfect eyebrows arched, stared at Olivia.

  “No.” Olivia snorted. “Actually, I walked into it.”

  “Well, that was stupid.”

  Ella turned toward Addie, slowly, teeth set, the twine slipping off her barely-bound control monster. “Listen, yew, I don’t know yew, but you keep your fu—”

  “Ella! Lunch is waiting and the boys are hungry.” Olivia pulled the band from her ponytail. “Addie, please give Ella back her ring.” She ran fingers through her sweaty hair and waited for the women to move. “Well, go on before the guys eat all the best sandwiches.” She waved her hands about to shoo them.

  After a moment of awkward glances and hesitation, the women began to giggle like nervous thirteen-year-old girls. Then they floated out of the room, a vapor of mixed perfumes in their wake. Olivia passed through the lingering scented cloud as she crossed into the hallway. The upstairs grandfather clock Westminster-chimed one o’clock, slightly off key. She walked by it and went around the corner to the room that had been meant for Jason.

  Craig had placed her blue suitcase on a folding rack beside the lowboy. Her small red bag sat at the foot of a double bed. Olivia set the little case on top of the bed, opened it and took out a square, paisley cosmetics bag. She pulled off her dirty clothes. Naked, she padded across a blue and white rug, taking the cosmetics bag along with her to the bathroom.

  She rapped on the door once, waiting until she was sure the lavatory was empty before she went inside to shower. It was hard to miss the masculine-looking green canvas toiletry bag sitting inside the tiled ledge of the half-opened sash window.

  Martin-the-sleaze had already settled in.

  Yep, she’d be sharing the bathroom with him and Addie.

  Oh, suck it up. Olivia sighed. In three minutes, she soaped up with a chamomile and lavender moisturizing body wash, shampooed her hair and patted her skin dry. After combing out her damp hair and applying a bit of mascara, she went back into the bedroom, wrapped in a green towel that matched the walls.

  She swore the second she opened the blue suitcase on the luggage rack.

  Instead of the pale pink linen bag full of panties and bras she’d packed on top, she was looking at black soles on a pair of men’s shoes and a multicolored row of rolled up, cotton jersey boxer briefs.

  Craig had mixed up her suitcase with Martin’s.

  Olivia zipped the bag shut. She dragged it across the room, pushed the bathroom door open with her hip, hauled the suitcase over the tiles into Martin’s room, and hoisted the bag over the threshold.

  “Hello.”

  Startled, Olivia froze, half hunched, holding the suitcase with both hands. She expected Martin’s leering face, but it was Maxwell who was crouched down beside the French Empire bed next to the dark green marble fireplace.

  She exhaled through her nose and set down the suitcase. “What are you doing in here? Your room wasn’t big enough to soothe your phobia you had to check out Martin’s?”

  Emerson waved a black cord in his hand. He plugged in the charger for his phone and straightened, trying to tame the grin quivering on his face. Olivia looked so…so…enchanting in a bath towel. “I think you’ve got my suitcase,” he pointed to the bed, “and I must have yours.” A bag, identical to the one near her feet, was open on the bed, the pink lingerie bag untied. A lilac balconet bra and blue bikinis stuck out of the top.

  “Did you have to rifle through my underwear to ascertain that data?”

  “I thought I might be able to figure out whose bag it was if I—”

  “Checked to see if a name was written in the waistband of a pair of panties?”

  “I thought the size would tell me.”

  “Funny. Normal people would have asked—”

  “Like you did? You just barged right in. I could have been naked over here instead of…”

  Her hands went to her hips, her head tipped to one side. “Instead of what?”

  Lifting the bag she left near the bathroom door, he let his eyes wander over her. “Instead of wearing a towel.”

  She tugged up the towel and snorted. “Wait a second. Did you say that’s your suitcase?”

  “Unlike your underwear, it has my name on it.” He set the case on the bed beside hers. He showed her the green tag on the handle. “See?”

  “Is that your stuff in the bathroom too?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did you do, trade rooms with Martin?”

  “No. This is where Craig put me because Martin brought a date. Did you meet her? Her name’s Addie.”

  “So you and I are sharing the bathroom.”

  “Sure looks that way,” Emerson said, without bothering to contain his amusement or even pretend he wasn’t looking at her breasts smooshed together in the bath towel.

  “Fabulous.”

  He rolled his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger. “Hey, don’t worry. I know how to put down the toilet seat.”

  The lunchtime chatter ceased the instant Olivia arrived on the patio. The abrupt end of the conversation so obviously meant Maxwell had been recounting the bag and room mix up. The guys grinned like
Cheshire cats, and Justine, sitting to Maxwell’s left, flashed a phony little smile that did nothing to cover the you bitch look beneath it. The only one at the table who didn’t appear amused was Kim.

  Olivia took the last seat left at the table. It was opposite Maxwell. The man munched on celery sticks he’d dipped in a spinach and feta cheese dip. There was a greenish blob of the stuff stuck at the corner of his mouth. It made him look like a five-year-old—an adorable five-year-old who needed a good spanking.

  Spanking? For God’s sake, Olivia, you’re practically doing donuts around the guy!

  She reached for a pitcher of liquid full of sliced lemons and limes and poured too much of it into the glass on her placemat.

  Emerson cleared his throat. “I was wondering,” he said, flicking a glance at Olivia and the lemonade she’d spilled on the table, “if anyone wants to change rooms? It seems I’m sharing a bathroom with Olivia.”

  A snicker dominoed around the table.

  “So let me get this straight,” Martin said. “You’re asking if Addie and I want to share a bathroom with you?”

  “That’s right.”

  Martin puttered like a horse. “No thanks.”

  Justine leaned into Emerson, a hand curling around his arm. Alabaster, grapefruit-sized orbs came together to form really magnificent cleavage he couldn’t avoid. He was a man. His eyes were drawn to the display of female flesh. “Surely Emerson,” she said, smiling sweetly, “you could give Olivia a bit of extra time to do her hair, couldn’t you? I mean let the poor girl dry her hair next time so she doesn’t wind up with the damp frizz she has now.”

  Maxwell reached for a celery stick. “I’ll let you have all the time you want in the bathroom if you switch rooms, Justine.”

  “Oh.” Justine touched one flawlessly groomed black eyebrow. “I’ve already unpacked.”

  “Well, does anyone want to trade?” Emerson said. “There’s a pretty nice balcony and a view of the lake. Anyone? Pete? Jason?”

  Jason glanced at Craig and Ella before he took another bite of ham and cheese sandwich. “I’ve got uh, allergies, you know,” he said with his mouth full. “There are some trees…a cottonwood…” his eyes flicked to Ella again, “no, an olive and uh, I have hay fever. That’s why I had to move. My nose…” he paused to swallow,”I sneeze a lot and that could, you know bug Ella…and I, we don’t want to do that.”

  With an exaggerated repentant sigh, Emerson spread his hands and shrugged. “Sorry, Olivia. I tried.”

  Olivia watched his hands move and then she stared at the blob of greenish cheese still on five-year-old Maxwell’s mouth. He ate like a big kid, which was probably why he got on so well with Owen.

  Pete had mentioned Maxwell liked women and had a lot of girlfriends, but there was something so off with that ladies-man image, even with Justine hanging off him. He was damnably attractive; attractive, buffoonish, boyish, and surly all at the same time. It was such a curious combination. Clearly, judging by the way Justine kept touching his arm, other women thought so, too.

  So how was it he didn’t have a family of his own?

  As she looked at him with creamy goo stuck at the edge of his mouth she wondered if Maxwell’s fear of enclosed spaces was a telling analogy for how he probably found relationships.

  Craig pushed back and his chair screeched as it scraped against the terrace flagstones. He rose with a bottle of beer in his hand. He cleared his throat and waited until all eyes were on him. “I know this speech thing is supposed to take place at the reception, but I want you all to know having you here today means a great deal to Ella and me. We wanted you to play a part in this wonderful weekend, and if any one of you weren’t here it wouldn’t seem as special. I know a couple of you may not know each other very well and some of you have never met before. Tex, it’s a real pleasure to finally meet you and Mimi and thank you for that sand painting. I’m sure we’ll all get to know each other this weekend and maybe come to treasure one another the same way Ella and I treasure you. Ella, you wanted to say something?” Craig turned to his fiancée.

  Ella unfolded the sheaf of papers she had beside her lunch. “Olivia put one of these schedules in your rooms. Read them. Carry them with you if you have to. This is not a joke. I am very serious about these requests and I thank you in advance for your cooperation so we won’t have a repeat of Emerson’s phone mishap.” She glared at him and narrowed her eyes for dramatic effect. “Meanwhile, I hope you’ve all met Vivian.” Ella lifted a hand to direct everyone’s attention to the housekeeper who stood in the doorway. “Vivian can help you with any questions about how the house and kitchen work, or you can ask Olivia. She’s the official wedding coordinator. Everything’s been planned to the last detail, so please don’t stray from the time schedule. We,” she said, suddenly sounding like Queen Victoria, “have these things set in stone and they will not be changed. Am I clear?”

  Olivia glanced around the table, observing the expressions of amusement and befuddled incredulity on Tex and Jason.

  Al had his nose in a book and hadn’t seemed to take any notice, but Justine’s “Anything you want, sugar,” was laced with sarcasm. Suzanne, scarcely finished with her sandwich, worked on a fresh piece of gum like little Violet Beauregard in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Mimi played with one of the jangling charms on her bracelet, Craig looked self-conscious, and Martin had his hand on Addie’s sleek upper arm, his long pinky fondling the edge of her breast.

  Maxwell nibbled a celery stick and met her gaze, looking back at her as if the stalk of greenery was merely a substitute for her ear. Then he winked. Olivia would have sworn long black eyelashes tickled the shell of her ear. She looked away, reaching for her lemonade.

  Shit on a shingle. I winked again. Emerson savaged the crunchy vegetable between his teeth. All through lunch he watched Olivia, unable to figure out why she had such an effect on him. Well, he knew why. She’d kissed him, but so what. Lots of women had kissed him, except for some reason with Olivia his brain ceased to function with any discretion. Whenever she was around the dumbest shit just tumbled from his mouth. And the suitcase, yeah, he’d known it wasn’t his. He knew that with just one look, but his automatic response was to hoist it onto the bed and open it just to prove a hunch. The clothes inside were wrapped in tissue paper so as to avoid wrinkling. A soft pink bag with drawstrings was the first item he’d picked up and he was delighted to find it contained women’s underwear. There’d been no doubt in his mind the things belonged to Olivia. A tickling thrill had shimmied through him as he fingered a purplish bra. His hands had moved to a pair of panties and the sudden awareness he was being creepy replaced his enchantment. He’d swallowed, shoved the things back into the bag, and went to recharge his cell phone.

  Then she had burst into the room wearing nothing but a towel and he froze, wondering if he was imagining things.

  Now, in between bites of his chicken salad sandwich, he wondered if he’d imagined that she’d been watching him while he ate lunch. She’d glanced away so quickly and had taken a long drink of lemonade when he met her gaze.

  And her expression wasn’t the usual you are the king of dipshits one he’d gotten used to.

  Chapter 10

  Nathan Osterman was a photographer Olivia knew from a national sports magazine and she’d called in a favor to have him take the photos for the Thomas-Fulton wedding. When Nathan arrived, in the middle of lunch, he began snapping candid pictures. Ella liked the idea of having an album of wedding photos that spanned the entire weekend and included shots of wedding party members. Unobtrusive, Nathan wandered around in the background of the Hutton Estate. He snapped a few photos of the bridal party exploring the area around the boathouse. A few minutes later he took hilarious action shots as they struggled to launch a sailboat.

  Although she’d known him for years, photographers still left a bad taste in her mouth. Olivia gave Nathan a wide berth. A series of small tasks kept her out of camera range as the group went about relaxi
ng and having fun after lunch. After she’d finished setting up the bar on the terrace for evening cocktails, she got ready to make the run into Lake Forest to pick up the engraved gold pocket watch Ella had chosen to give to Craig as a wedding present. Halfway up the back staircase to fetch the keys to the Aston Martin, she remembered she’d given them to Craig when he’d moved her car and brought in her suitcase. A minute’s search around her room made it clear he hadn’t left car keys behind when he’d dropped off her luggage.

  Odds were he still had them in his pocket, but maybe he’d given them to Vivian or put them with the house keys in the pantry. She went down the back stairs to the kitchen and into the walk-in butler’s pantry, and sorted through the key rack beside the door. There were keys to Suzanne’s Pontiac, keys for a Mercedes, a BMW, a Volkswagen, as well as round-labeled exterior house keys, color-coded property keys, a twin red-tasseled spare for the pantry door, as well as ancient-looking skeleton duplicates for every door inside the house.

  Stymied, she stepped out of the pantry and closed the door. There was one more place the keys could be: Maxwell’s room. She stood there for a moment, contemplating how her next action would be hypocritical, but then realized hypocrisy was unnecessary. The unmistakable rumble of Maxwell’s voice came from somewhere outside, which was a surprise, yet a fortunate one. It meant she wouldn’t have to go into his room, or rifle through his things the way he’d rifled through hers.

  She followed the sound of his grumbling. She’d assumed he was down at the boathouse with everyone else yet the sonorous tone of his bellyaching explained why he wasn’t. He was on his phone, verbally clawing Timmons, Josh or that bony kid who wore bright orange Converse high tops. As she crossed through the kitchen and breakfast nook to the terrace that stretched along the entire rear portion of the house, she tried to remember Orange High Tops’ name.

  Maxwell’s voice kept changing in volume, going softer and louder as she approached the open French doors. The reason for the fluctuating sound became evident. He was pacing, taking long strides as he swore into his cell phone. The moment she stepped outside, he changed the direction of his caged zoo animal movement and thumped into her solidly. She stumbled backward. His hand shot out to steady her. The touch of his cool fingers on her skin charred the flesh near her wristwatch with unanticipated voltage. She caught a stirring whiff of his nutmeg and autumn afternoon scent.