The Starter Boyfriend

by Tina Ferraro

  “You’re sweet,” I said, however odd that sounded. “But really, the best you can do for me is to forget about them and just have a good time. And call me tomorrow and tell me everything.”

  “You got it, babycakes.”

  With towel-dried hair and some dabs of blush standing in for makeup minutes later, I scooted in between my dad and Jennifer at the kitchen table. To find a cup of black tea, a slice of wheat toast, an open jar of apricot jelly, and a hard-boiled egg before me. Denny’s Grand Slam breakfast it was not. But it was warm, it was homemade, and it was real. It was a major start.

  “Thanks, Dad,” I said and dug on in.

  “I did good?”

  “You did great,” I said, then shot Jennifer a grin.

  Which somehow she missed. Because instead of returning one of her radiant dazzlers, she just looked on past me. Or basically through me. How could I blame her for spacing out? It was “T minus seven” on the wedding, plus she might still be quaking from post-mannequin shock.

  Following some slurps, swallows and breaking the news that my Homecoming Dance date was off, my dad helped me carry Tux to the parking garage. We wedged the mannequin limbs into my passenger seat for what was definitely his last ride.

  “You’re sure you don’t want me to come with you, Courtney?”

  “Thanks, but how about we say I’ll call you if I need you?”

  “Before they sling on the cuffs, if you don’t mind.”

  I forced a laugh.

  Backing out, my dad and Jennifer flashed into my rearview mirror, their arms around each other’s waists, and my dad’s hand raised to me. Reminding me that while just about everything else in my life sucked dishwater, I was still pretty darned lucky.

  * * *

  Whizzing past Tux Everlasting for a turn into the back lot, I drew in a sharp breath. The sign on the door was turned to “We’re Open.” But it was the Caller ID on my ringing phone that told me Phillip didn’t necessarily need his Saturday morning coffee to be alert and observant.

  I pulled into a space and caught the call just before it went to voice mail.

  “Courtney,” Phillip huffed. “Do you have any idea what happened to the mannequin? There was no sign of a break-in, but it’s gone.”

  “Yeah,” I said, my nervous voice going all yellow brick road Munchkin-like. “I have it.”

  “You what? Where?”

  “In my car. Actually, I—I’m in the back lot right now. I just pulled in.”

  “You’re here with it? I’ll be right out.”

  I disconnected and moved around to open the passenger door, riding a hang ten worthy wave of utter nausea. Looking up, I saw Phillip pounding across the lot.

  I was so screwed.

  “I can explain,” I squeaked out when he got within earshot.

  He stopped at the hood of the car, folding his beefy arms across his chest, and eyeing me evenly. “Good.”

  I shifted my weight in hopes of blocking his view of Tux’s face. At least for now.

  “Well, see, my bonfire date last night turned out pretty badly.” I decided to skip over the fact I’d basically changed guys mid-evening, which sounded borderline slutty. “And I ended up coming over here to sit with, you know, the mannequin. Because sometimes being with him—I mean, it—well, makes me feel better.”

  Phillip’s eyes glinted like hard gems, not making this confession any easier. I reminded myself of my decision to tell it like it was in the hope (against hope) that he found it in his heart to forgive me.

  “Then I realized I’d left my phone on the beach,” I continued. “And since my dad made me swear I’d never drive alone after midnight, I had this bright idea to put the mannequin in my passenger seat. You know,” I said and paused to play what I hoped was my ace card, “for my own safety.”

  For a long moment, he just stared at me. “You planned to return it before I got in this morning, and I’d never be the wiser, right?”

  I felt a frown puff up my cheeks. “Something like that.”

  “How many times have you done this before?”

  “Never!” I held up a palm, as if taking an oath. “Not once. I’ve only been in the shop without you on Saturday mornings when I came in to start the coffee.”

  “And to play with the mannequin.”

  I shrugged. He had me there.

  “Okay, so why didn’t you cover your tracks? Why are you just showing up now?”

  “It got complicated,” I said and let out a hurricane-force sigh. “See, the mannequin sort of got lost last night.”

  “Lost?”

  “Well, stolen.”

  “Stolen?”

  I nodded. “And I went through this whole thing to get him back, getting my dad and my surfer guy friend and even the school principal involved.”

  Phillip squinted with understandable confusion.

  “We finally found him—it—on the principal’s lawn. And we were about to drive, but then we had an accident.”

  “I see,” he said, although his facetious tone told me that clearly, he didn’t. “A car accident now, too?”

  “Oh, no, an accident inside the car.”

  “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard in my life!”

  I grimaced.

  “If I hadn’t worked with you all these months, if I didn’t know your character, I would not believe a word of this.”

  I took a decent breath, knowing at least he was giving me the benefit of the doubt. Of course, he didn’t know the half of it yet. “Yeah, well, the story’s not really over. Because that accident? It was the mannequin’s face hitting the ceiling. Hard.” I stepped back to clear his view of Tux. “The nose...” I said, letting my words drift off.

  Phillip moved around to the passenger side. “Is gone.” He spun back toward me. “The nose is gone. Where, may I ask, is it?”

  “In tiny pieces inside my dad’s car. But the tuxedo is still in tip-top shape!”

  He looked at Tux, then back at me, disgust darkening his features. Clearly, the good news about the tux did not trump the bad. “I don’t know what to say here, Courtney. You snuck into my shop, took my mannequin, and now it’s ruined.”

  “Maybe it’s not ruined. I thought we could call the company and see how much it would cost to fix the nose? Or even buy a new one? I’d totally pay!”

  “These things are not cheap.”

  I felt a wave of hope. He hadn’t sent me packing. Yet. “I can afford it.”

  “What about college?”

  Oh, yeah. That was an easy one to set straight. “My dad’s cool about money and college. I’m really okay there.”

  He just stared at me.

  “I want to take care of this, Phillip. It’s only right that I pay.”

  “Did your dad’s work situation change?”

  “No,” I managed, really, really (really) hoping we weren’t wasting time on the college thing when I felt so close to a breakthrough that might maybe, maybe (maybe) let me keep my job. “He’s had a pretty successful dental practice my whole life.”

  “At your job interview, you told me you needed this job.”

  “I do need it. Just not for the money.”

  “For what, then?” he said, the veins in his neck suddenly making an appearance. “To play house with the mannequin?”

  “No, see, it’s my softball teammates—”

  He dismissed my words with a wave of his hand. Then turned his back on me and started tugging Tux from the car. Which I knew wasn’t easy, but the desperate and pathetic tears filling my eyes made it hard to watch and even harder to speak.

  “Forget about compensating me,” he said, pulling Tux out and balancing him flat in his arms. “We’ll chalk it up to a learning experience. To never give an employee a key again.”

  I felt like I could neither breathe nor swallow. It couldn’t end like this; it couldn’t. I wasn’t an awful person. I wasn’t! Was I?

  I pulled the key ring from my pocket and tugged Phillip’s key loo
se. In the back of my head, I felt sure I had something meaningful or touching or at least clever to say to extend this conversation, to make Phillip give me one more minute, if not one more chance. When he palmed the key and mumbled something about mailing my final paycheck, very little of anything was left inside my brain.

  Except a very soft “I’m sorry.”

  Chapter 22

  It could have been worse, I tried to tell myself as I steered out onto the boulevard. Phillip could have called me horrible names—or called the police. And I had gone in expecting to be fired. All things considered, I got off pretty light. Then why did I feel like I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders?

  Slowing for a red light, the sound of a car horn behind me drew my gaze to the rearview mirror. A head of sun-kissed blond hair sat behind sunglasses and a station wagon’s steering wheel, a hand thumbing toward the nearby supermarket parking lot.

  I had no idea what Adam was doing around here, but I cut across traffic and slipped into an open space, hoping for answers.

  He parked a couple rows over and strolled toward me in his board shorts and sandals, in his signature slow, comfortable way, like he didn’t have a care in the world.

  “Back from the beach already?” I said, meeting him in front of the cart return carousel.

  He slid his shades up to the crest of his head. Blue eyes searched mine. “I didn’t go this morning.”

  That was a first.

  “For some reason today my give-a-damn was busted.” He scooted his butt up on the carousel railing, letting his feet dangle toward the pavement. “Actually, after racing around last night, I was too tired. Plus, it won’t hurt for Cody and those guys to sweat it out a little, think I’m not there because I’m peeved about what they did to you.”

  I nodded a thank-you.

  “It also gave me a chance this morning to hunt you down.”

  I carefully hid my surprise. Guys like Adam weren’t supposed to admit to overly calculated efforts. They were supposed to just appear in the right places at the right times like time travelers and superheroes. And I was pretty sure he knew that.

  I almost grinned. Until he went all buzz kill by asking how it had gone with Phillip.

  “Ugh,” I said and rolled my eyes.

  “That bad, huh?”

  I nodded.

  “Sacked?”

  Another nod.

  “Sorry.” His fingers did a sympathetic dance on my sleeve. “What about the mannequin? What’s going to happen there?”

  “I don’t know if he’ll fix him or trash him or whatever.” I rolled a shoulder. Nothing I could do about that now.

  “I hope Phillip at least gave you visitation rights?”

  Then he laughed. I didn’t; I couldn’t.

  Suddenly he was off the railing, his gaze peering into mine. “Hey, don’t take that wrong. I know Tux meant something to you.”

  I got busy examining the scuffed toe of my sneaker. “Yeah.”

  “My sister still brings a stuffed pink flamingo to college. Her friends gave it to her for her sweet sixteenth, and I swear, she thinks it’s her best friend.”

  I slid a look his way. Suggesting I thought of Tux like a teddy bear was sweet. About as off-track as my dad thinking I was using Tux to get guys to notice me—and just as embarrassing—but I gave him points for trying.

  “Thanks,” I managed. And because I really, really, (really!) did not want to talk about Tux anymore, I went with what I hoped was a smooth subject change. “Anyway, we agreed last night that we should talk today.”

  “Yeah, to get our stories straight for Hioki. I was thinking of just going with that someone stole your mannequin, and how I got word of where to find it. And that’s why we were at his house.”

  “Sure, but we can leave out how I took the thing from the shop without permission?”

  “And I’m going to leave out Cody’s name, too. Deal?” he asked, holding up his bent fist.

  I went in for a knuckle bump. “And Adam, if I didn’t say thanks last night, I want you to know—”

  “We’re good. No worries. So hey, am I going to see you tonight? At what, the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ dance or some crap like that?”

  “Yeah. But no, Randy’s taking Jacy.”

  “For sure now?”

  I nodded.

  His gaze zigzagged around my face. “Maybe you could get another date.”

  “A little late,” I said with a wrinkle of my nose.

  “Cody might be free.” His eyes sparkled. “Or you could go with Saffron and me?”

  “The three of us? Could you imagine her reaction if you showed up with me at her door? Nothing short of a nuclear explosion.”

  “It’s almost worth doing it just to find out.”

  “You’re awful!”

  His mouth twitched, but he didn’t crack a smile. “So, hey I’ll see you Monday in the hot seat, then.”

  “Hioki’s office. Yeah. And have...fun tonight.”

  Stepping away, he angled a look back my way. “Fun,” he repeated. “Like that’s going to happen.”

  I pushed out laugh and caught myself wanting to tease him about Saffron again, like to say maybe it wasn’t too late to fit him for that tuxedo to make her Homecoming dreams come true. Then I realized, yeah, it was too late. For that joke and a lot of things that had once seemed like simple, ridiculous fun.

  I sighed and headed back to my car.

  Time to move on. To what, of course, remained the question. I’d never find another job like I had at Tux Everlasting. And no way I could ask Phillip for a recommendation.

  I had to pretty much accept failure there, no matter how hard and how bad it felt.

  * * *

  My day’s “work” done, I headed home.

  Dragging myself up the front steps, I realized there was no place I’d rather be, anyway. Especially since the heart-to-heart with my dad. I had this vision of him wearing a path in our living room carpet while I’d been gone, really, really caring how it went.

  I felt completely unprepared when I opened the door to stillness and nothingness. And even less prepared to eventually locate him in his recliner, rocking furiously, his eyes squinty, his jaw tight.

  “What’s wrong?” spilled instantly from my mouth. Although I was more than a little tempted to put my hands over my ears and chant a loud “La la la” to keep from hearing his reply. There was only so much a girl could take. “Did Jennifer,” I forced myself to say, “call off the wedding again?”

  “No.”

  Okay, okay, at least we had that.

  “But,” he added, “I think I did.”

  I bit back a scream.

  “At least, it’s on hold. After you left, we had a fight. A pretty bad one.”

  Obviously.

  “She said some things I’m not sure I can get past.”

  My whole body collapsed on the sofa, luckily landing butt-down, head-up. And even though the rules of my relationship with my dad were definitely changing, I morphed back into the comfortable role of Little Miss Take-Charge.

  “Dad,” I said, using my patient tone. “All relationships have struggles. You and Jennifer love each other, and have what it takes to make a marriage work.”

  “You don’t have to talk to me about marriage. Mine may have failed, but there were plenty of good times before your mom’s drinking took over.”

  Having been there for fourteen years of it, I was pretty sure they both were at fault. That wasn’t important now. Especially since my brain was busy wrapping itself around the fact he’d mentioned my mother again—twice in twelve hours—and in a not-so-horrific-way.

  What if I woke one morning to find my mom back where Jennifer should be? “And now that Mom is sober? Does that change things?”

  His eyes came into sudden focus. “This has nothing to do with her.”

  Memo to lungs: resume normal activity.

  “Or even,” he said, a distinct sadness hovering in his eyes, “abo
ut Jennifer or me, really. It’s about you.”

  Wait, what? “Me?”

  He nodded. “Jennifer’s always said I give you too much responsibility and too much freedom. I thought she’d be happy to hear how things went last night, how you came to me and we worked together. But for some reason, all she could hear was the bad stuff. How you’d snuck into the shop, how you’d taken mannequin, then left it to be stolen.”

  I felt the blood draining from my face. What had gotten into my Number One fan?

  Plus, after how hard I’d tried to make sure this wedding happened, to have it crash and burn as my fault...

  “I know I did some stupid stuff last night, Dad. And Phillip did fire me just now,” I added, as if to somehow support the claim, redeem myself, or even just to make him stop this rain of pain.

  He slowed his rocking. “I’m sorry about that. Anyway, she thinks you’re being sneaky. And I just don’t think I can be married to someone who does not trust my daughter.”

  My heart stopped—then started again with a pounding in my ears. “Sneaky? What did she say exactly?”

  “Well, for one, that tuxedos have to be pre-ordered. You couldn’t have just gone to the shop last night to get one.”

  I flinched. “She’s right. If you remember, it was Adam who said that.”

  “You didn’t correct him.”

  “It was too embarrassing. See, we’d been making out in his car,” I said and paused to let that sink in. Yep, his daughter and his partner’s son. “And then he stopped, saying it was a mistake. And I was so upset that I went back to the shop to sit by the mannequin. Because lately, when my life has felt out of control, that’s where I’ve found peace.”

  His brow wrinkled. I knew it was a lot to take in. I wished there was something else I could contribute, could do or say. All I came up with was listening to the blood thrum in my ears.

  “Then there’s some made-up slang you told her?”

  I reluctantly nodded.

  “Apparently she Googled it and couldn’t find it. She felt like you told her that to make fun of her.”

  I winced. That may have started with Adam, but I was a willing participant. It had seemed harmless—and a way to have a secret with him. Just like when I backed his story about why I’d gone back to the shop.