Driving in Neutral

by Sandra Antonelli

  “You mean we really have to make our own breakfast?” Mimi crossed her arms and her charm bracelet chimed metallically. “Look Olivia, I’ll help you, but I need to take Tex into town for a hearty breakfast, don’t I?”

  “I need my nourishment to keep up with you darlin’.”

  Mimi pulled Tex toward the hallway, her silver ching-ching-chinging.

  After her fit of pent-up laughter had subsided, and she was alone again, Olivia continued filling the little net bags, pausing every so often to rub the kink in her neck. She knew the stiffness came from sleeping the night curled in a leather armchair. Maxwell had left her asleep in the study without rousing her to move upstairs when he did. When she woke at a quarter to five, she felt like a pretzel—with milk-coated teeth.

  She rubbed at the crick in her neck and filled another circle with birdseed. Suzanne and Justine stumbled into the kitchen arguing and jostling each other for the coffee pot.

  “I know Al is quiet,” Suzanne said, “but you didn’t have to say my husband was a bore.”

  “I didn’t say he was boring!”

  “You did so!”

  “No. I said he’d bore me if I was married to him.”

  “That’s the same thing as saying he’s boring!”

  “Oh, Sooze, would you just have some coffee and get over your menopause!”

  “It’s not menopause! I just need caffeine!”

  “No, you just need to get laid.”

  “Don’t tell me I need to get laid. I get laid plenty, unlike you. I’m married, remember? I have a regular reliable partner I don’t have to try to impress.”

  “And just what is that supposed to mean?”

  “Well you can’t be thirty-five forever, Justy. People aren’t going to buy that anymore.”

  “I look great for my age!”

  “Thanks to Botox and collagen.”

  The pair continued to quarrel like a couple of schoolgirls and helped themselves to the bowl of summer fruit on the other side of the coffee maker. If they’d noticed Olivia in the breakfast nook they didn’t acknowledge it.

  “Hey, I don’t tell everybody I’m not afraid of aging and then hide my frown lines with bangs!”

  “Oh, now I know you’re menopausal!”

  “I am not!”

  “You are too!” Suzanne shook a banana in Justine’s face.

  Justine narrowed her eyes to slits. “Are you going to eat that banana or just use it for training purposes until you can figure out how to properly satisfy your husband?”

  “At least I have a husband.”

  “Cow.”

  “Shrew.”

  “Cow with a boring husband.”

  “Gray roots with no man.”

  Without a word, Olivia watched the exchange and wondered who was going to take a swing at whom. She’d put money on Justine to win, simply because it seemed like she’d be the one to swing below the belt, but the pair never came to blows. The rude verbal jousting was like a bit of morning calisthenics for them and they moved out of the kitchen, cups of coffee in hand, without ever glancing at her or the basket of birdseed pouches.

  Sixty-three tulle beribboned parcels of birdseed sat stacked in a large wicker basket. The sixty-fourth was in Olivia’s hand when Vivian flew into the kitchen. “Olivia, I think you’d better come.”

  Olivia glanced up from the birdseed pouch she held and slid her chair away from the table. “What is it?”

  “The world, as Ms. Thomas knows it, is ending.”

  “Well, at least today’s crisis started earlier than yesterday’s.” Tossing the pouch in the basket, Olivia hurried out of the kitchen after Vivian, just as Ella’s War Between the States voice set off like cannon fire.

  Chapter 15

  Ella stood beside the round table in the foyer. She gripped the carved, wooden edge. Her gaze bounced between a bemused-looking, shaggy-haired teenager with acne and a large bakery box in the center of the table. “What sort of biz’ness do you people run?”

  The kid scratched his head and shrugged. “Hey, hey! I only deliver these things and my paperwork says this is the date and place.”

  Ella shrieked, “You’ve ruined, ruined mah wedding!”

  “Ooookay.” Olivia stepped into the middle of the fray. “What seems to be the trouble here?” she asked.

  “They’ve ruined mah wedding, that’s what the trouble is! Look!” Ella pointed to the table. “Look what Finucci’s did!” A titter ripped from her throat. She slapped both hands over her mouth to stop it.

  Olivia went to the front of the table and lifted the half-opened lid of the box. Inside, a Barbie, with arms raised in a triumphant pose, stuck out of the center of a domed cake that doubled as her skirt. Citrus green flowers dotted thick, hot pink icing. Two vividly pink blossoms with green centers strategically covered the generous, eternally pert breasts. An iridescent, pink tulle veil skimmed the doll’s chin.

  “See? See?” Ella screeched, sounding very much like a hawk. “Does that look like a Siena cake to you? Where’s the white fondant icing? Where are the fresh roses?”

  Olivia turned to the skinny kid wearing the Finucci’s Bakery apron. “Clearly,” she said, “there’s been some mistake.”

  “’Fraid not,” the kid muttered and pulled a pen and a pink receipt from the pocket of his smock. He handed the receipt to Olivia.

  Perplexed, she quickly scanned the paperwork while Ella raged like Dolly Parton on speed. “What did we pay y’people foah in advance if y’goin’ to spoil a woman’s weddin’ day? How can y’be so stupid, so crooked, so shifty? Ahm a lawyer and ahm goin’ to nail y’skinny, sorry ass to the wall for this. Ahm goin’ ta sue yew…

  “Wait here,” Olivia said above Ella’s Tennessee tirade and tore upstairs. Seconds later she returned, receipt in hand. Ella now sat in a straight-backed chair beside the foyer grandfather clock, and wailed into her hands.

  Craig stood beside her, helpless and clueless, wearing the most hideous pants Olivia had ever seen. “Where’d the bakery guy go?” she asked.

  When Craig indicated the door with a dismayed wave, she darted outside, clutching the receipt, stopping at the rear of the Finucci’s delivery van. The kid swallowed when he saw her. “Hi, again,” she said, giving him a gentle, no-one-is-going-to-bite-you smile.

  After another swallow, the kid blinked rapidly and shook his head. “I’m the delivery guy. I didn’t need to stand in there and listen to that. I don’t care how upset she is. No one can sue me. She said she wanted to hang me. I’m just the delivery guy, for shit’s sake! Everyone knows you don’t shoot the messenger, right? But I’m always the one who gets all the shit!”

  “Yeah, I bet you do.” Olivia nodded and kept on smiling. “I’m sorry about all that. You know how brides are. I want to thank you for coming at eleven thirty. Punctuality is rare these days.”

  “That’s what that lady Vivian said. We come here a lot. There are a lot of weddings out here. This place is on today’s run and eleven thirty was the scheduled delivery time. It says so on the receipt.”

  “I understand that and eleven thirty was the exact time you were supposed to be here, but you have to understand, not only did the bakery get the date wrong, this really isn’t the cake we ordered.”

  “Y-yes it is.”

  She felt pity for the poor guy. “I can assure you we did not order a Gay Mardi Gras Barbie doll with a frosted bunt-cake hoop dress for seventy-five guests. I think your boss might have mixed up a few more things than just the date. Look at this. The name on the top of the receipt you gave us is Fulton, Thomas. Fulton, comma Thomas. I have my copy of the receipt and the name on it says Fulton-Thomas. See, it’s hyphenated.”

  “What?”

  “That cake inside is for someone named Thomas Fulton.” Olivia held up the yellow paper to the frazzled young man and he took it, poring over the printing.

  “Oh. Oh, uh…uh…oh, no. The computer must have screwed this up and I didn’t notice. I just took the first… O
h, damn…oh… I’m sorry. Even the item number is different. I’m very sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

  “How about, ‘See you again tomorrow with the right cake’?”

  The kid nodded and climbed into the van.

  Olivia allowed the vehicle to pass by and stepped off the gravel driveway. Her heel sank into the spongy edge of the recently watered grass that bordered the curved drive. The sudden shift in weight threw her off balance. She went down on her right side. Laughing, she sat up, just as Maxwell hurried toward her from Pete’s Jeep, a golf putter in his hand. She began to wipe bits of damp grass from her palms.

  He crouched beside her, laughing too. “Are you hurt?” he said.

  “Mortally wounded,” she giggled. “Look at my shoe.” She held up her foot. The heel had broken off cleanly and was embedded in the grass. The other part was still on her foot, held on by the skinny leather band across her toes.

  He dropped the putter, grabbed her hand and hauled her up. “Flat on your ass and you’re still unflustered. Ella’s inside teetering on the brink of insanity, Craig’s jittery, but you’ve got it all under control. You just get it together instantly. If this was my wedding, I would have been pretty pissed off if my cake got mixed up with someone else’s. You know what I’m like. I just bark and expect results, but you buy into that more flies with honey thing, huh? Sort of makes me think I’d pay good money to see you lose it.”

  “It never pays to panic.” She shook her head with a smile. “Crash landings would just be crashes if pilots panicked. Panic later if you want to, never whe—”

  Olivia’s smile faded and Emerson watched her eyes widen as they flicked to the right. He followed her line of sight to the tall, lean blond man approaching.

  “Wo tut es weh, Katzchen?”

  Emerson didn’t understand what the guy was saying, but he heard Olivia mumble, “Maybe you’d better get out your wallet, Maxwell.”

  The man slipped an arm around her waist, pulled her against his broad chest, and gave her a big screen kiss. With tongue.

  Emerson found it pretty strange to stand beside a woman and hold her hand while another man kissed her with such gusto. Odder still, Olivia’s eyes were open, her gaze askance while she patiently rode out a storm of passion.

  Olivia thought Karl’s tongue tasted of brown mustard, the kind he used to put on his knackwurst. He slipped his tongue over the ridge of her bottom teeth and she thought it was funny how she still knew his moves.

  In another second, he’s going to exhale through his nose and make a small satisfied half-moan and fondle my left breast.

  She kept still, knowing better than to try to pull away because that was Karl’s cue to tighten his grasp and deepen his kiss, which was now something akin to a watery, mustardy cloth wiping over her molars.

  How had she ever enjoyed Karl’s sloppy wetness? Maxwell’s kiss in the elevator made her toes curl inside her shoes. Karl’s matinee idol smooch made her want to gag. He kept on kissing her and Maxwell watched.

  She couldn’t tell if he was amused, annoyed, turned on or something else, but he stood there and held her hand. She felt the vibrant warmth of his fingers not letting go. Her ex-husband played dentist with his tongue, Maxwell held onto her hand, and she wondered…no, actually she cared what he thought about this weird display. It surprised her that she cared about what he thought, but she held his hand too, and focused on the pressure of his thumb over hers, rather than wasting any energy on Karl.

  This was not going to turn into a spectacle. She would not give Karl the satisfaction, or any sort of response to his ardor, despite how repulsive she now found him, because that was what he was after. A reaction was always what he was after. Not that he ever really got one from her, but he’d spent half their marriage trying to get a rise out of her. He’d drop ice cubes down her back or say she had a spider on her shoulder and wait for her to squirm. She never understood why he seemed to think that kind of teasing was funny, and when she first found out about his extra-marital dalliances she’d thought they stemmed from his desire to push her buttons.

  With Maxwell’s hand clasping hers, she looked up at the blue summer sky and breathed through her nose. One more molar sweep followed by a lower lip nibble, a bit more fondling, and Karl would be through. The best way to drive Karl, to drive the unwanted thoughts for Maxwell, was to stay in neutral, to coast along.

  The blond man slid his hand over Olivia’s breast and Emerson didn’t like it. He’d had enough. It took a good bit of self control not to haul off and deck the guy—or grab him by the throat and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze, which was a gesture he was pretty sure Olivia wouldn’t appreciate.

  At last, the fair man released Olivia, stepped back, and Emerson got a very obvious sizing up. The man’s mouth quirked when he took notice that their hands were linked together. An eyebrow rose above his amazingly blue eyes, and his mocking, skeptical gaze moved back to Olivia.

  Other than the sheen of wetness left behind by the ardent lip-lock, Olivia’s face remained utterly blank.

  “Ah!” A smile lit up Alpine good looks and the foreign man extended a hand to Emerson. “Bitte, entschuldigung…apologies. Hallo. I think you Olifia’s…friend are?”

  “Yes, Emerson Maxwell. And you’re…?” He made no move to shake the man’s hand and tightened his fingers around Olivia’s. He waited for her to let go, but she stayed exactly where she was.

  “Karl Abenteuer.”

  Karl, as in Karl the philandering ex-husband? Emerson clamped his teeth together and nodded, glancing at Olivia. Her nostrils flared occasionally, yet her face was still devoid of expression. She breathed in and out in regularly timed intervals, exactly like she tried to get him to do the day they got stuck in the elevator. He could measure her breaths, counting as she inhaled and exhaled in perfect control.

  For some reason, it made him smile.

  “Was machts du hier, Karl?” she asked.

  “I come to have Geschenk, a present fur Ella today.”

  “You skipped the race at Monza to bring a wedding present—”

  “Did you not hear I had injury und kann nicht fahren?”

  “Well I’m sorry you can’t drive. Give me your present and I’ll give it to Ella and tell her you stopped by with good wishes.”

  “Ja, schön. The Geschenk ist in meinem Auto.”

  “Then get the present out of your car.”

  “Nein, Katzchen. I vant to say hallo to Ella—”

  “I’m not your Katzchen, Karl.”

  “You are hiss?” Karl jerked his chin at Emerson and sniffed.

  At that point, Olivia dropped his hand. She stepped forward, took Karl’s arm and launched into what Emerson knew was German. He didn’t think their exchange was heated, but it was obvious Karl was insulted by whatever Olivia said and switched back into his mix of half German and English.

  “I was eingeladen to here!” he protested.

  “You weren’t on any guest list I saw, so who invited you Karl?”

  “Erhielt ich eine Einladung in der Post.”

  “I know you got it in the mail, but who sent you the invitation?”

  “The bride und groom.”

  “I find that very surprising.”

  “Ja I was auch Überberrascht.” Karl smiled broadly. “Also, hier bin ich, Katzchen.”

  “Yes, here you are,” she said dryly.

  Karl glanced at Emerson, sniffed dismissively and smiled at Olivia. “Ist there somesing I can do fur you?” Somesing I can…better make?” Even with his accent and funny grammar, his proposition was clear, and he licked his lips.

  “You could leave.” Olivia took Emerson’s hand again.

  “Anything to make you happy, Katzchen. Ich will bring mien Geschenk inside und see you at the wedding. Tomorrow.” With a slight nod of his head and, Emerson imagined, a click of his heels, Karl left them and went to a polar blue Mercedes parked a little back from Olivia’s Aston Martin.

  Amused and very curiou
s, Emerson watched her track her ex-husband’s movements. “Why does he call you Katherine?” he asked. “Is that your middle name?”

  She exhaled very slowly. “He doesn’t call me Katherine.”

  “It sounded like Katherine.”

  “It’s Katzchen.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Little kitten.”

  “Kitten?”

  She pulled her hand from his and looked up at him with a level squint. “Yes, a pet name for a once pet wife.” On uneven feet, she trod back into the grass and pulled the broken heel of her shoe from the spongy turf.

  Ten minutes later, Olivia sat on the edge of her bed with a broken shoe in her hand. She yearned for a meditative long soak in the tub in Jason’s bathroom, but she had to settle for controlled breathing to clear her head.

  After a few minutes, she tossed the shoe across the room, sinking a perfect shot into a wicker wastebasket near the door. She changed her clothes, ridding herself of the grass stained shorts Justine would have commented on, and slipped into a floral halter dress.

  As she stood before a mirror near the French doors and applied fresh mascara, she started laughing. She was still laughing when Ella flung open the door and froze on the threshold, looking like she’d stepped out of a Joan Crawford potboiler from the ’40s. Her arms stretched out, her hands planted against the frame, her uplifted bosom heaved in a sleeveless rose-pink wrap dress.

  Olivia stopped laughing. She set down the mascara and cleared her throat. “So what sort of gift did Karl give you?”

  “Oh, God, I’m sorry!” Ella crossed the room, her chin quivering. Emotion made her voice deeper and she sounded like Foghorn Leghorn as she dropped to her knees, clutched at Olivia’s hands and squeezed them. “Ah am so sorry. Ah don’t know what happened. Ah’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure this out. All Ah can think is there were so many invitations to address. Mommy and Ah kept arguing over if the addresses were supposed to be Mr. and Mrs. John Jones or John and Jane Jones. Ah got so upset she suggested we do half one way and half the other. She took A through L of the address book and Ah took M through Z. Ah think Mommy must have sent one to your old address, when Ah had you listed under Abenteuer. Ahm so sorry. Ah you all right?”