The Substitute

by Denise Grover Swank

  She forced a smile. “I can’t break it off. I don’t have your number.” How could that be? How could she have experienced so much with this man and still not have his cell phone number? Maybe because they had spent nearly every minute together.

  “Give me your phone.”

  She dug it out of her purse and turned it on, entering her passcode before she handed it to him.

  He entered his number and gave the phone back to her. “See you at our wedding.”

  She reached for the door handle, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back, kissing her as though he was never going to see her again. “Josh, you’re scaring me.”

  “Maybe that’s because I’m scared, Meggie.”

  “Tell me what Blair’s going to tell me.”

  He shook his head. “I want you to decide for yourself.”

  She got out and walked to the house, checking her phone before she walked through the door—there were multiple missed calls and voice mails from her mother, as well as calls, texts, and messages from Blair, Libby, and her brother. And there was one text from Jay.

  Call me.

  She pressed delete. She never wanted to hear from that asshole again.

  The front door opened before her hand could reach the knob.

  “Where have you been?” Her mother’s voice was icy. “I’ve been worried sick about you. I was about to call the police.”

  “The police? Why would you call the police?”

  “Josh punched his brother in the face, then dragged you to off to God knows where. I was frightened for you, Megan…” Her mother’s voice broke.

  Oh, God. She really had been worried.

  Megan pushed her shock aside and wrapped her mother in a hug. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m fine. We both just needed to get away. I was getting cold feet, and Josh knew I needed some time alone with him to sort everything out.” She shut the door behind her, then hastened her mother into the living room, where Gram sat munching from a box of fiber cereal.

  They’d only just walked in when Kevin stalked in from the kitchen, a coffee cup in his hand. He set it down on the end table next to the sofa. “Did he threaten you?” he demanded of her, the veins on his neck bulging.

  Megan released her hold on her mother and turned to look at Kevin. “What? No!”

  “I don’t see what all the fuss is about,” Gram said, still crunching on her cereal. “So Megan wanted to have one last night as a single woman.” She grabbed another handful. “You can’t blame her for wanting wild, single sex.”

  Knickers’ face turned beet-red. “Mother!”

  “Gram,” Megan laughed. “I don’t think it counts if you’re having wild, single sex with the man you’re marrying.”

  Kevin looked even angrier. “I do not want to hear about my little sister’s wild sex. Especially with that violent asshole.”

  She shook her head. “Josh would never hurt me. His brother did something related to their business that he saw as a betrayal.”

  “Their business?” he asked, incredulous. “I thought he was an investment banker. Does he own the freaking bank?”

  Oh, crap.

  Gram continued, oblivious to the change in topic. “I heard something on the news about how all you kids are into BS stuff because of that Fifty Shades of Steele book. I read it, you know.” She lifted her eyebrows at Megan, grabbing another handful of cereal. “Are you and Josh into whips and colored rooms?”

  “Mother!” Knickers gasped in shock.

  Megan began to laugh, despite her horror. She cast a glance at Kevin, who looked close to losing his breakfast. “It’s BDSM, not BS, although some people might call it that too.” She tried to get serious. “You really don’t expect me to discuss my sex life with Josh in front of my mother, do you?”

  Gram shoved some of the cereal in her mouth. “It might loosen her up. Maybe she and your father should try it.”

  “Gram!” Kevin shouted.

  She shrugged, reaching into the box again. “I’m just saying a little spice in the bedroom might loosen her up. Or she could put some of those contraptions in the basement. There’s room for a dungeon down there.”

  Megan burst into laughter.

  “Although I’m worried Bart might get carpal tunnel if he uses a whip.” Gram lifted up her hand and began to flick her wrist, mimicking the motion.

  “Mother!” Knickers shouted.

  Gram gave one last wave of her hand and cereal went flying across the room, a piece of it hitting Knickers in the face.

  “Oww!” she screamed, covering her face. “My eye.”

  “Mom,” Megan groaned. “Don’t be so dramatic. It was a piece of cereal.”

  “It was a piece of cereal that hit my eye.” She staggered past a chair as tears streamed down her cheek. “I need to wash it out.” But as she stumbled across the floor, her foot slid on a piece of loose cereal on the wood slats, and she knocked her shoulder into the kitchen doorjamb. Releasing a loud cry, she started to fall.

  Kevin hurried over to her to keep her on her feet, but she cried out again.

  “Mom?” Megan asked, running over to her. “Are you okay?”

  But as soon as she reached her, she knew she wasn’t okay. Her shoulder was sticking out at a weird angle. “Dad!” she shouted, then looked up at Kevin. “Where’s Dad?

  Kevin’s eyes bugged out and his face turned pale. “I…I…”

  Megan groaned. “Don’t you wimp out on me and pass out, Kevin. I haven’t forgotten what happened when we were kids and I needed stitches in my hand.”

  “If you pass out, fall that way,” Gram said, waving her hand to show him where to fall. More cereal spread across the floor. “It would be better if your head hits the overstuffed chair than the coffee table.”

  “Put that cereal away!” Kevin shouted, probably in an attempt to take attention off himself. “It’s a deadly weapon!”

  “Nobody’s passing out,” Knickers said through gritted teeth. “And your father’s at the store getting me a pair of pantyhose.”

  “No one wears pantyhose anymore, Mom,” Megan said as she led her mother to a chair.

  “I wear pantyhose.”

  “I rest my case. Kevin,” she said, turning to look at him once their mother was settled. “Call Dad. We have to take her to the hospital. I’d do it, but Josh has my car.”

  Kevin looked livid. “You gave him your car?”

  “He has to get to the church somehow. Besides, in ten hours or so, it’ll be his car too.”

  Kevin scowled at the reminder, then glanced at his mother and turned a shade of pale gray.

  Megan’s mother tried to wave her hand and cried out in pain. She glanced up at Megan with one eye. The other was bright red and squinted shut. “No one is going to the hospital.”

  “Mom! Your shoulder looks like a Barbie doll part popped out of it socket. You have to go to the hospital.”

  “I don’t have time for that. There’s too much to do.”

  Megan glared at Kevin. “Call Dad!”

  He stood next to the front door, peering through the side window and looking like he was preparing to bolt. “I don’t have to. His car just pulled up.”

  Moments later, the front door opened and Megan’s father stood in the doorway, his gaze landing on the group. “What happened?”

  “Mom dislocated her shoulder. She needs to go the hospital.”

  Her mother shook her head, gritting her teeth. “I don’t have time to go to the hospital.”

  Bart took one look at his wife’s shoulder and his face turned ashen.

  “You can’t pass out, Dad!”

  Her mother narrowed her one good eye. Leave it to her to make a one-eyed squint look intimidating. “The women are the strong ones in the Vandemeer family.”

  Her father took a deep breath. “I’m okay.”

  Taking in his pale complexion, Megan wasn’t so sure. “We have to get her to the hospital.”

  “I’m not—” Megan’s mom started to say.


  “Yes, you are!” Megan shouted. “Now shut up and come out to the car with us.”

  Her mother looked shocked, as did everyone else in the room. No one spoke to Nicole Vandemeer that way.

  “Now is not the time to be stubborn! If you try to go to the wedding like this, you’ll gross everyone out. If you go to the hospital now, you’ll probably be there in time to help me get dressed.”

  “I…okay.”

  Megan blinked, sure she’d heard her mother wrong, but decided to trust her hallucination. “Okay, then. Dad and Kevin, get her to the car. Mom, what else needs to be done for the wedding?”

  As her father and brother lifted the unwilling invalid out of her chair and led her to the door, Megan walked beside them.

  Knickers grimaced as she hobbled along with their support. “We need to make sure the cake gets delivered and that the orchestra sets up on the west side and not the east. The staff at the gardens can handle both of those things. Just make sure everything goes according to plan.”

  “I can do that.”

  “You need to be at the church two and a half hours early. It’s in the itinerary, but I know you didn’t read it.”

  For once, Megan wished she had.

  “The hairdresser will be there at one.” They led her out the door and down the sidewalk. “Be sure to eat, Megan. You’ll probably be too excited and nervous to eat, but otherwise you’ll get lightheaded standing up there so long for the ceremony.”

  “Okay, Mom.”

  As Bart sprinted around the car to climb into the driver’s seat, Kevin helped Megan’s mom get settled in the passenger’s seat. She gripped Megan’s hand. “I’m so sorry, honey. I wanted this day to be perfect for you, but I’ve ruined everything.”

  Megan squatted next to her. “You didn’t ruin anything, Mom. It is going to be perfect. I promise.”

  She nodded, tears now streaming from her good eye too.

  Megan gave her a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

  Kevin and Megan watched the car drive away, both in shock.

  “Did what I think just happened really happen?” Kevin asked.

  “Which part?”

  “The whole convoluted mess.”

  “Yep.” She grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the house. “Come on, we have work to do.”

  “We?”

  “You don’t think I can do everything by myself, do you?”

  “So you’re really going to marry this guy?”

  She stopped on the front porch, a step up from him, putting him at eye level. “I know you’re looking out for me, and you have no idea how wonderful that makes me feel, but Josh isn’t the man you think he is. Take everything you knew about Jay Connors from all my insinuations and unsaid truths and toss them out the window. Josh is not that man.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Why not?”

  “I hope to explain it to you later, but for now you’ll have to trust me.” She took a deep breath, then poked her finger into his chest. “I’m marrying Josh this afternoon, so let this evil plot to stop my wedding end now.”

  “Damn straight,” Gram said from the sofa through the open front door.

  Megan leaned toward him and whispered, “And you’re in charge of making sure Gram wears clothes to the wedding.”

  “Eww!”

  “And it has to be that pink suit Mom picked out. I need a shower.” She headed for the staircase as he continued his protests and shut herself in her room, feeling better about herself than she had in a long time. While she was in the shower, washing her hair and reliving the shower she’d taken with Josh, a new thought occurred to her. If she was actually going to go through with this wedding, she should wear the dress she wanted…no matter how much of her heard-earned money she had to spend on it. When she finished, she toweled off and pulled up the bridal shop’s number on her cell phone.

  “Hi,” she said when the salesperson answered. “This is Megan Vandemeer. I came in a couple of times this week to try on my dress and get alterations.”

  “Oh, yeah, I remember you. Your mother is the dragon lady.”

  Megan hesitated. She understood why the woman felt that way, but after seeing a more human side to her mother, she felt indignant on her behalf. “Yeah,” she finally said. “That’s her… Anyway, my mother changed my original dress order.”

  “Oh, I know.”

  “Okaaay…” Megan took a deep breath. “Do you know if it’s still there? I’d like to buy it.”

  “But you already have a dress. I was assured you picked it up yesterday.”

  “I know, but I want to know if you have the other one. I realize I can’t exchange it. I just want to buy it.”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Vandemeer,” the salesperson said, her voice thick with regret. “We sold it.”

  Megan let the words sink in. “Are you sure? I just tried it on yesterday.”

  “Oh, yes. That dress is pretty famous here. It was sold this morning.”

  This morning? Why hadn’t she thought to buy it yesterday? But all the regret in the world wouldn’t change the fact the dress was gone. “Okay. Well…thank you.”

  “Have a good day,” the salesperson said before she hung up.

  Megan sat down on the edge of her bed. Sold. It was such a final word, but she told herself not get upset. She was determined to make this the best fake wedding ever. It sure was expensive enough to qualify.

  Blair continued to call her multiple times. She knew avoiding the calls wasn’t the best idea, but she was terrified to hear what her friend had to say and wanted to put off the conversation for as long as possible.

  Megan fed them all sandwiches that her mother had prepared and stored in the refrigerator, then she and Kevin loaded his car with her wedding dress, shoes, and a change of clothes for after the reception. She wondered if she’d forgotten anything and suddenly wished her mother were around to oversee it all. The thought shocked her enough that she fumbled with the door handle as she put Gram in the front passenger seat.

  Megan was squished into the back seat next to the monstrous dress bag, which inevitably made her think of her mother. Her dad had called not long ago to tell them her mother hadn’t even been seen by a doctor yet, and now Megan was worried her parents wouldn’t make the wedding at all.

  They rode in silence all the way to the gardens, even Gram staying remarkably quiet. When they pulled into the back parking lot, Kevin helped Gram out as Megan gathered her things. As soon as she had everything, she started toward the bridal changing room.

  “Megs, wait up,” a gruff voice called out from behind her.

  Butterflies flapped in her stomach. “I don’t want to fight with you anymore, Kevin.”

  He shook his head. “No more fighting.”

  “Really?”

  “Well,” a teasing grin lit up his face. “Not all fighting.”

  She grinned back. “Good.”

  “I just wanted you to know that I’ve thought about what you said, and I’ve decided to respect your decision. If you want to marry that asshat, I’ll let you.”

  “There are so many things wrong with what you just said.” She laughed. “But I’ll take it.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks.”

  She took off for the dressing room, one of the rooms in the walk-out basement under the chapel, grateful to discover she was the first to arrive. After her morning, she needed a few moments to herself.

  The room was furnished with a sofa and several wingback chairs that faced a wall of windows overlooking the flowering gardens. A full-length mirror stood in one corner, and Megan knew the door across the room led to a bathroom. She sat in one of the wingback chairs and stared out a window, trying to let the peaceful setting settle her unrest.

  “Megan?”

  She turned around to see Gram standing in the doorway. She looked older than usual in the Pepto-Bismol suit Knickers had chosen.

  “Can I come in?”

  Megan hopped out of her seat and cross
ed the room. “Gram. Of course. I’m glad you’re here.” She helped the older woman into the chair next to hers and they sat together, taking in the view.

  “It’s a beautiful day for your wedding,” Gram finally said.

  “Isn’t it?” Megan sighed. The sun shone bright in the sky, and the temperature was comfortable in the shade, which would be perfect for the outdoor reception later. She almost wished it were for real.

  Gram released a sigh. “I’m sorry I ruined everything for you. Your mother…”

  Megan hugged her grandmother’s arm and leaned her head on her shoulder. “Good heavens, Gram, you didn’t ruin anything. Think of the stories we’ll tell.”

  Gram chuckled. “Your mother will never let me live it down.”

  “True,” Megan laughed. “And it will be awesome.”

  “I know you two have your differences, but a girl should have her mother with her on her wedding day.”

  “She’ll get here in time. I know it.”

  The older woman fingered her pearls, then smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from her skirt. “There’s a reason your mother acts this way, you know.” Megan sat up and turned to face the older woman, who patted her hand. “I kept hoping she’d tell you herself one day, but she never did. She can hardly admit it to herself.” She swung her gaze to the gardens. “You wonder why you never saw your Aunt Heather again... I know your mother told you some ridiculous story about a fight over toilet paper.” Her mouth lifted into a weak smile.

  Megan took her grandmother’s hand in her own, sensing what she had to tell her would be bigger than she ever anticipated.

  “It wasn’t true, of course. Heather was always interested in your father, but he only had eyes for your mother. I hoped Heather would get over her infatuation, and I honestly thought it had died down. But one day when you were eleven, your mother came home and found your father and Heather together.”