Vote Then Read: Volume III

by Aleatha Romig

  It makes my ovaries not only leap out of my body and do jumping jacks, I’m pretty sure they’re desperately searching for a baby registry right now.

  “I can’t believe you stole my dog, Andrew!” Terry bellows. The salt shaker on the table quivers.

  “I did not steal your dog.”

  “Don’t lie.”

  “I’m not lying. I did not steal your dog.”

  Terry’s nostrils flare. “Fine. Your chauffeur stole my dog.”

  Andrew says nothing, but his eye roll is epic.

  “You had your chauffeur slip Mr. Wiffles’ trainer a fifty and you stole her! She’s a very nervous type and can’t handle this.”

  Mr. Wiffles wags her tail and licks Terry. She looks about as nervous as Marie is discreet.

  “Wait. Mr. Wiffles is a she?” I ask.

  Andrew makes a noise of disgust. “Don’t ask.”

  I look at Terry. He shrugs.

  “Terry has a transgendered dog,” Andrew intones, nodding slowly, like that explains everything.

  “That is not funny!” Terry booms. The sound is like a shockwave that ripples through the restaurant. I think he messed up some hairdos and may have given three women orgasms.

  “Then why does she have a male name?” I ask, assuming it’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask.

  Terry glares at Andrew like it’s his fault Mr. Wiffles’ name doesn’t match the, er, parts.

  “Mr. Wiffles was bred in Amish country,” he says with a sigh, as if the sentence were self-explanatory. A familiar sense of confusion rolls over me.

  Talking to Terry is just a little too similar to talking to Marie sometimes.

  “And...?” I ask, my voice rising as I draw out the word.

  “And, apparently, the man who bred her had his young daughter name her. The daughter was too shy to look at the parts and just decided Mr. Wiffles was a he.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” I say.

  Andrew gives Terry a look that only an impish little brother can shoot the oldest in a family. “Yeah. I know. We have all said that. Even Mr. Wiffles’ trainer.”

  “I am not traumatizing my poor dog by changing her name now,” Terry hisses. Is he actually covering the dog’s ears so she can’t hear this? “It’s bad enough you stole her, but now you’re making her feel bad, and if her self-esteem is harmed, you’re in trouble.”

  I’ve been on enough DoggieDate dates to realize that Terry’s behavior, though loony as hell in the general population, is actually well within the bounds of normal for the ultra-dog-loving dating pool I’m in.

  That said, Terry’s lips twitch on that final statement. I think some legs are being pulled.

  Andrew’s jaw clenches. “You can have her now.”

  “Why did you steal her?” Terry looks at me as if he’s noticing me for the first time. Which he is. “Oh. Hi, Amanda. Did you change your hair?”

  I reach up and realize I’ve gone auburn. Yet another hair-coloring shop, this one with temporary dye. “Yes.”

  “You two having a business meeting?” I can tell from his tone that he has no idea Andrew and I have been...whatevering we’ve been doing for a while now. Hmm. Tuck that away for later.

  “No. Date,” I say, trying to seem casual.

  “You needed Mr. Wiffles for a date?” He gives Andrew a scandalized look, then holds up a palm the size of a catcher’s mitt. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. I just—”

  Andrew frowns and interrupts Terry. “How in the hell did you know where to find me?”

  Terry smirks. “You gave the trainer a fifty. I gave her a hundred. As you like to say all the time, money makes people talk.”

  I watch them like I’ve been drop-shipped into Burma and don’t understand a thing.

  “You bribed the person I bribed?” Andrew says with outrage.

  “And I did it better, bro.” Terry tries to high-five Mr. Wiffles, but the dog just wags her tail and licks his hand.

  “I’m firing that trainer,” Andrew mutters.

  Terry bends down, his hand constantly petting Mr. Wiffles. “You can’t fire her. I’m the one who hired her.”

  Andrew’s eyes narrow. Hah.

  Out-alpha’d by a guy who is now kissing a female dog named Mr. Wiffles.

  “I am taking Mr. Wiffles now,” Terry declares. He gives Andrew a look only a much-older brother can give. “You steal her again and I’ll tell Dad about your limo-elimination plan.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  Terry adjusts Mr. Wiffles’ bow. “Try me.” And with that, he’s off, happy dog in arms.

  I take a long drink of my iced tea and say, “My last date pretended he had a dog he never had, but he didn’t resort to actual theft of a dog to go out with me.”

  “I didn’t steal her. She’s part of the family.”

  “I am honored that you’d go to such extremes just to spend time with me. But you don’t have to resort to canine crime.”

  “Except when you’re dating other men.”

  “Which you now know I’m not.”

  “Right.”

  The air between us is so thick with tension. We’re on shaky ground, and every move, each sigh, all the breaths and sips and looks add up to uncertainty. The stable, steady sense of togetherness that we had just begun to develop feels like an illusion, as if we created it for a specific need in the past and it floated off on the wind, gone to seed.

  The waiter arrives. Andrew orders for us both and I let him. Not because of a power struggle or from a place of submission, but because what he orders sounds damn good. Water glasses filled, iced tea in hand, and a pitcher of sangria delivered and poured, we’re ready to talk sans Mr. Wiffles.

  And, maybe, sans pretense.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about the dates? How many did you go on?”

  “I can’t talk about this.”

  “Why not?”

  “Non-disclosure agreement. I sign NDAs for my work with Anterdec, and I sign them with other clients.”

  His brow lowers. “You take your work very seriously.”

  “I do.”

  “It’s one of the many qualities I admire in you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Though your mouth is your best feature.”

  I nearly spray him with a mouthful of iced tea.

  “You always know the right things to say,” he elaborates, though he suppresses a smile.

  I feel like I can’t string a sentence together. Like I can’t take syllables from my mind and connect them to form words any more. What once was easy with Andrew—though hard won—is now back to that topsy-turvy state where he’s joking, and I’m bantering, and we’re in that will-he-won’t-he-will-she-won’t-she place that I am, frankly, tired of being in.

  We were supposed to be past this quite some time ago. The spiral backwards feels as if we’re losing ground.

  And yet I can’t walk away. I can’t even hope to do anything other than smile at this man who is willing to steal a dog to come and see me.

  “I’ve missed you,” he says softly. “And I forgive you.”

  I sit up sharply. “You what?”

  “I forgive you. You obviously take your promises very seriously, and any woman who keeps her word like this is someone I value.”

  Damn. I was all worked up over that forgiveness comment, because I have nothing to ask forgiveness for, and then he neutralizes it with a compliment.

  Well played, Andrew. Well played.

  “I also know you’re still processing everything you learned that day after Fenway Park.”

  The waiter delivers salads, giving me a chance to take a shaky breath and try to calm the unending loop of questions that runs through me.

  Andrew ignores his food.

  “And I want to help.”

  He reaches in his suit jacket pocket and slides a half-size manila envelope across the table.

  “What’s this?”

  His face wears a sad smile. “Open it.”
r />   Spritzy whines. I dig through my purse and find the zippered baggie with doggie treats in it. Satisfied with two, he resumes his pretend sleep.

  My fingers fumble on the back of the envelope, but I get it open.

  To find a fairly familiar packet of paperwork. At the top there is a name:

  Leo Rossi Warrick.

  “Jesus, Andrew,” I gasp. “You had my father tracked down.”

  This is the part where I’m supposed to look up at him from across the table with adoration and gratitude. In Andrew’s mind, I’m sure, he’s performed a wonderful act of compassion. A gesture of caring. Finding my father is supposed to help me to heal. To absorb and integrate and process and find a place for the maelstrom of emotions that don’t know where to rest.

  All I feel is fury.

  “It was remarkably easy,” he says in a voice that doesn’t boast. He isn’t proud. He’s just here, looking at me with eyes that say he’s giving me what he thinks I need, and that ask me to accept what he’s offering as a bridge to some new place we can be together.

  Except I’m about to set fire to that bridge.

  I can’t help it. I spontaneously combust so quickly there isn’t time to contain it.

  “I don’t want this,” I snap, shoving it back at him. The papers fall in erratic patterns, one landing in his salad, one scraping across Spritzy’s head. The dog begins to whine.

  “What? I don’t understand.” He’s sitting back, the papers scattered across the table. He leans forward, his suit jacket open, his waist pressing into the table’s edge.

  “I said I don’t want it,” I repeat through clenched teeth, my voice vibrating with anger. I can only imagine what my face looks like based on the way he frowns.

  “I thought you’d want to know.”

  “You think I didn’t already know where he is? I research these issues for a living! I’ve known where Leo is for years.” I swallow, my saliva bitter with the tangy taste of disappointment. I’m not sure who I’m more disappointed in, though. “Vehicular homicide. He has three more years to go.” Mom’s story was a gut punch in more ways than one. While he didn’t, obviously, kill me twenty-two years ago, he went on to kill someone else. Two someones, while driving drunk in Iowa.

  “You...” He flinches, as if my words were blows.

  “I tried to visit him. Once. The prison authorities told me he refused.”

  I’m looking down on Andrew from a standing position I don’t recall moving into. His face is tipped up, dark brows covering eyes that seem to fight inside, his pupils dilating then constricting, his face a flickering field of light and shadow.

  “Amanda, I thought I was being helpful.” His voice wavers between bewilderment and a cold control that turns up the fury flame inside me. “And I am so sorry,” he says, his voice softening slightly. “Sorry that he would refuse you.”

  “You could have asked, first. Before you went snooping.” Shame pours over my skin like lighter fluid, the tiny hairs on my arms standing as gooseflesh ripples across the space between us. Why would he find out the truth about my father? What possible purpose would that serve?

  “You’re right. I see I made a mistake.” The balance between his bewilderment and control is shifting, his voice going tight.

  Our eyes lock, and as seconds pass we don’t look away. The intensity that flows between us feels like a shockwave that shatters everything fragile for miles.

  And then it hits me.

  “Is that what this is about?” I continue. “Is this why you don’t want to be seen in public with me?”

  “What?” Incredulity clears up any ambiguity in his expression. “Where the hell did that come from?”

  Gloves are off.

  “The evidence is pretty clear, Andrew. We’ve only ever had dates in private places. You only see me at night. You wouldn’t go for a walk with me when I really needed you at the Fenway. You told me you were worried about photographers. You still haven’t introduced me as your girlfriend to your dad or, obviously, to Terry. He was just here and had no clue! And now you dug up the truth about my father—a truth I knew a long time ago—and what else am I supposed to think?”

  I am dying inside. A familiar shower of shame rolls over my skin, like I’m bathed in the flow of every naked-in-public dream I’ve experienced for twenty years, all rolled into one.

  Right here. Right now.

  With the one man who is supposed to be safe.

  For the briefest of moments, I swear I catch a glimpse of untempered vulnerability in his eyes as he looks at me, then at the papers strewn across the table. He frowns, his breathing quickening.

  Andrew stands.

  His hands stay at his sides.

  “You think that? You think that of me? That I am ashamed of you?” His back is straight, his eyes fixed on me, blinking with a slow, hypnotic constancy that triggers something primal in me. My breath comes in short spurts and I realize I have to flee.

  “What other conclusion am I supposed to draw? Hell, Andrew, you won’t even sit on your balcony for morning coffee outside with me where someone might see!”

  I am completely illogical now. I know I am. The fear that he’s avoiding being seen in public with me is one that’s been brewing beneath the surface for a while, but I haven’t articulated it before. Not even to Shannon. It is flimsy. I might be wrong. I hope I’m wrong. But the alternative is to be truly open and raw and to stop trying to fix everything and let the world spin without my efforts—and that?

  That’s worse than being naked in public.

  Spritzy begins to whine, so I take the convenient way out and reach for him, clasping him in my arms like a football I have to protect as I make my way through a crowd and avoid being tackled.

  Andrew’s on my heels as I reach the door of the restaurant. He blocks my way, his arm going up above me, braced against a support post.

  “Don’t,” I beg. Fire burns behind my tongue. I will turn him into a crisp if he doesn’t move.

  “Amanda.” The way he says my name makes me cringe, because this feels unfixable. I feel unfixable. In the space of a handful of minutes I’ve ruined everything and all I can do is escape. Run away.

  Leave.

  “I am not, and never have been, ashamed of you.” He reaches out to touch me, then stops himself. A coiled anger seeps out of his eyes as he looks at me in a way that makes it clear I do not have permission to look away.

  “I—”

  “I’m a busy man. I’m taking over for my father, who is embroiled in medical appointments and business transitions and this damned wedding and if I am not as available as you would like, when you want access to me at the exact moments you prefer, then I apologize.”

  The ice in his voice physically hurts.

  And yet I don’t quite buy what he’s saying.

  “Your father’s prison record has no bearing on how I feel about you.” He moves his arm. “I had my security team seek him out so you would have some answers.”

  “That’s a remarkable spin on violating my privacy.”

  “His whereabouts is public record.” The more Andrew speaks, the colder I become.

  “Just because you can learn something about a person doesn’t mean you should.”

  “And just because someone isn’t where you want them to be doesn’t mean they’ve abandoned you.”

  I race out the doors, a shaking Spritzy in Mom’s purse bag, my vision blurred. I drove into the city so I have to find the garage I used and walk down two flights of stairs to the underground level where I parked.

  Coming face to face with my piece of...car doesn’t help either. Two college students walk past me. One of them holds his nose and the other guffaws, grabbing his phone to take a picture of the Turdmobile. I can’t really see their faces, because my eyes are reflective lenses filled with pooled tears that beg for release.

  I open the back door, put Spritzy in her secured little dog crate, click her seat belt, then climb in the front.

  And
cry through smoke and ashes until all that’s left is nobody.

  A long time ago, just as Shannon was moving in with Declan, she told me that in a true emergency I could drive right up to their building and a valet would take care of my car.

  If anything qualifies as an emergency, it’s this.

  I take Spritzy out of his crate and hand my Turdmobile over to the smirking valet parking dude, who is already on his phone, probably live-tweeting his experience.

  The elevator feels like a coffin.

  I walk into their apartment and Shannon runs to me with a big hug.

  “You.” I point at Declan. “Plug your ears.”

  He ignores me and starts tapping on his phone. He stops, then walks into the bedroom. Half a minute later, he interrupts me and Shannon as I furiously whisper all the details to her. Declan’s carrying a gym bag.

  “I’ll be back in a few hours,” he says, leaning in to give her a kiss.

  “Where are you going?” she asks, clearly surprised.

  “Workout with Andrew.”

  I give him my death glare. It doesn’t quite work, because he stays alive.

  “Why?”

  “So I can learn the truth.” He gives me an unsmiling look that only a suave, sophisticated billionaire can give a woman, and he’s out the door, off to the little nook to wait for the elevator.

  “The truth!” I sputter. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Don’t try to dissect it,” Shannon says reassuringly. “It’s like trying to understand why the Kardashians get any news coverage. You’ll just drive yourself nuts.”

  “I’ll tell you the truth,” I fume. “The truth is that Andrew stole Terry’s dog and appeared on my DoggieDate and he researched and found out my father’s in prison and now everything is ruined.”

  “That’s a lot of truth.”

  “I know!” I wail, picking through their fridge. Now that Shannon lives with Declan she eats paleo, and that means there are hardly any carbs here. How in the hell do you have an asshole-boyfriend talk without carbs?

  “He really found your dad?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you already know where he is.”

  “I know. Andrew didn’t know that.”