By Design

by Denker, Jayne

  “You still think Kyle’s a doof?”

  “Don’t you? And don’t change the subject.”

  Emmie slouched, rested her chin on the back of the desk chair, and turned doe eyes up to her friend. “Scared.”

  “Don’t be. Think of this as an opportunity to strut your stuff. And to bake ten dozen cookies.”

  “What!”

  Trish laughed. “Missed that part, did you? What do you think a cookie party is, anyway?”

  “You go to somebody’s house and sit around eating cookies?”

  “Obviously you’re not a housewife and a member of a neighborhood committee, like moi. You bake ten dozen holiday-type cookies and everyone takes a few of each kind home. Oh—and you have to print a bunch of copies of the recipe, too, to share with everyone.”

  “You are so wise, O Mistress of Hearth and Home.”

  “Nice flattery, but I will not help you bake ten dozen cookies.”

  Emmie smiled. “Yeah, you will.”

  Trish grimaced. “Probably. God knows you can’t be trusted alone with an electric mixer.”

  Emmie snaked her Honda through one of the mazelike housing tracts on the edge of town; she snuck a glance at her map from time to time, trying to decipher Rabbit Run from Rabbit Way from Bunny Bounce or whatever other repetitive street names peppered this particular development. The road was deserted; only a few pellets of snow drifted down from the overcast sky this gloomy Saturday. The snow swirled in her car’s wake, dancing over the gray pavement without sticking.

  “Two seventeen . . . two seventeen . . .” she muttered, slowing to a crawl and peering at the numbers on the mailboxes by the road. “Hah,” she breathed, finally spotting Juliet’s house. She pulled into the driveway, where a Subaru and a Land Rover were parked. Only two cars? She must be early, she thought, and wondered if she should drive around for a while, until other people arrived. But she was here now. Might as well get it over with.

  When she climbed out of the car, she shivered as the cold air hit the bare part of her legs between the tops of her high-heeled boots and the bottom of her dress. She wondered if she was overdoing it, wearing a cable-knit sweater dress and stylish boots instead of more casual clothes. Was she overcompensating? Maybe she should go home and change? But she forced herself to stay.

  She reached into the backseat and hauled out two giant rectangular Tupperware containers that Trish had lent her. They barely held all the cookies that were the price of admission for this shindig. She tottered up the concrete step to the front door with her elbows askew, trying to keep the plastic containers stable and her purse on her shoulder. Juliet’s place was standard-issue modern tract home, with a bright red door flanked by prism sidelights, the shingles a carefully weathered gray. But it definitely wasn’t the McMansion she expected. A giant light fixture hung over her head like a glass bell. She got the feeling that if she stood there too long, it would come rushing down and trap her like an entomological specimen. She inched to one side.

  Emmie shifted the balance of the tubs to her right arm and, wobbling in her high-heeled boots, snaked her left hand out to give the doorbell a jab. As she stood there, listening to the doorbell echo in what she was sure was a tile-floored foyer with a double-height ceiling, Emmie went over her routine for the party. Up-and-coming partner at the premiere interior design firm in town . . . in a long-term relationship with an entrepreneur in the automotive industry . . . She figured she could get away with the first bit, as it was mostly true—at least the “premiere interior design firm” part—but she didn’t think she was going to be able to get out that fiction about Kyle with a straight face. For a second, she considered making Realistic Hottie her boyfriend; she could make up plenty of stories to share about how they’d met and how fabulously they got along.

  Nobody was coming to the door. Emmie was attempting to poke the doorbell again when the red lacquered door swung inward, and there, in all her blond-haired, blue-eyed glory, was the legend that was Juliet Winslow. Emmie immediately realized that Juliet hadn’t cheated on Circle-O by using an old photo for her profile picture; she looked exactly like the picture on the site—her hair was still long and curly, her blue eyes as round and astonished-looking as a doll’s, her figure still trim. (Even after more than fifteen years and two children? Emmie was really, really ready to hate her.) Emmie knew it wouldn’t be long before she’d be exclaiming, “You haven’t changed a bit! ”—and completely sincerely. She doubted that Juliet would be able to say the same of her.

  She put on as bright a smile as she could manage as Juliet opened the glass storm door a crack and said politely, “Yes?”

  “Hi!” she squeaked, immediately hating the sound of her voice. “Emmie Brewster, from high school?” She desperately wished her inner teenager would stop turning? Everything she said? Into a question? As Juliet frowned delicately, Emmie added, “I’m here for the cookie party?”

  Juliet’s delicate features cleared, and her wide blue eyes got wider. “Oh! I’m so sorry! The cookie party got rescheduled for Thursday night! Didn’t you get the update on Circle-O?”

  Emmie felt her stomach plummet into her stylish boots. “Oh—”

  And then, both embarrassed, they started yammering over one another, each desperate to be more obsequious than the other.

  Emmie exclaimed, “Oh—no—I’m sorry! I didn’t get the—”

  And Juliet cried, “It’s my fault—I sent it too late—”

  Emmie lied, “No, I never check my e-mail often enough—”

  Juliet: “And you came all this way?”

  Emmie: “Oh, it’s really not—”

  And finally Juliet won the protesting game by pushing the storm door wide and saying, “Oh, and here I am leaving you out in the cold with all those cookies! Please come in!”

  As Emmie hesitantly stepped into the foyer, she said, “I don’t want to bother you—I really should—”

  Juliet shut the door, struck an open pose, and cut her off with, “Emmie Brewster! It’s been such a long time!”

  And then both of them said, at the same time, “You haven’t changed a bit!”

  The petite woman looked her up and down. “Gosh, I remember you so well!”

  “Really!” Emmie said, surprised.

  Juliet hesitated for a moment. “Actually, no, not really.” She winced. “I’m sorry—I’m afraid I don’t remember you at all.” And Emmie’s newly formed happy bubble popped. “But,” Juliet rushed to add, “that means we can start fresh. Let me take those—”

  As Juliet reached for the plastic containers, Emmie saw a movement out of the corner of her eye, down the hall that she assumed led to the kitchen. Someone passed the doorway, stopped, did a double take, then emerged from the shadows. And she nearly dropped her load right onto the tile floor.

  There he was—the man she had been looking for, waiting for, for weeks. Looking even better than she remembered.

  With a quizzical half smile, he said, “I know you.”

  Emmie couldn’t speak. Not when her gaze was captured by a pair of too-familiar blue eyes. She heard someone speaking, but because of the roaring in her ears, she only heard a noise like the teacher in the Charlie Brown specials. Wah wah wah . . . Emmie shook her head and focused. Juliet was saying, in a rapid, high-pitched, almost nervous tone, “. . . Emmie Brewster, an old friend from high school. She—she didn’t get the notice that the cookie party was rescheduled. I feel so bad about that! Emmie, er, this is, um, Graham—”

  Oh, now he has a name, Emmie thought—an actual name instead of the variety of manly yet romantic names she had given him in her wayward fantasies. And “Graham” fit him better than anything she’d come up with.

  “Oh, we’ve met,” he said to Juliet, in an amused, warm tone, and Emmie blushed to the roots of her hair. He remembered who she was (good); he remembered her because she had acted like a moron and had had a paper clip stuck to the side of her face (bad).

  Emmie dropped her gaze to the floor. S
he noticed his feet: socks, no shoes. Someone sure felt at home . . . Oh my God. Home. Her mind ricocheted from thought to thought in an instant. Realistic Hottie . . . in Juliet’s house . . . Oh my God. His home? She looked up again, from him to Juliet, looking for a connection but dreading finding it.

  “Oh?” Juliet prompted with a wavering smile.

  “Yes,” he said, and Emmie found herself reveling in the sound of his rich baritone, even as she realized he was snuffing out the candles she had lit for him with every word, every breath, every comfortable, intimate look at Juliet. “At that interior design place in town. I was trying to find the owner. But—Emmie, is it?” She nodded once. “Emmie greeted me instead.”

  “Really?” Juliet prompted again. She stepped forward and took the plastic containers. “Emmie, come into the kitchen—”

  Emmie had the distinct feeling that the last thing Juliet wanted was to catch up on the last fifteen years over a cup of coffee . . . and now neither did she. So she pushed up the sleeve of her coat and looked at her wrist—no watch, but oh well—she was beyond any further embarrassment at this point. “Actually, I can’t. I—I have to go. I just realized I have to be—to go . . .” She had nowhere to be, but it didn’t matter. “I’ve gotta go. Excuse me,” she said breathlessly, and pulled open the front door. “Please, keep the cookies for Thursday. I’m . . . sorry.” She didn’t know what she was saying she was sorry for, and she didn’t stay to figure it out. “It was nice seeing you again,” she said to Juliet. “Nice to meet you.” She nodded at Graham.

  Then she was out the door, down the walk, in her car, and, after fumbling with her keys for a moment, tearing down the driveway and out into the street.

  And that was the end of that. No more limitless potential with Realistic Hottie. She mentally gathered up all the little fantasies she’d so lovingly sculpted with her fertile imagination and dumped them into a trash bin. No, she corrected her mental image—a toilet, so she could send them down the tubes with a decisive, depressing flush.

  Chapter 5

  “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!”

  Emmie banged her head on the steering wheel with each utterance. She hadn’t gotten far from Juliet’s house before she had to pull over and wail for a few minutes. Even though Juliet had no idea why Emmie felt so humiliated, it didn’t lessen her embarrassment. The way Realistic Hottie—no, Graham—looked at her, it was like he already knew she’d been lusting after him for weeks. And now that she’d found out he was—what? Juliet’s boyfriend? Juliet’s husband?—it was so inappropriate.

  She couldn’t go through this alone. She just couldn’t. She fumbled in her purse for her phone. When Trish answered, Emmie blurted out the briefest of communications.

  “Busy?”

  “Not really.”

  “Carl’s. Now. Meet me?”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be at a cookie party?”

  “Alcohol first, explanations after.”

  “You bailed in the first ten minutes?”

  “You in or not?”

  A heavy sigh crackled in her ear. “If you get me drunk on a Saturday afternoon . . .”

  “No, I’m going to get drunk; you’re going to mop me up and drive me home. Savvy?”

  “You sweet-talker, you. How can I refuse?” A pause. “How bad was it? Should I make sure the menfolk have pizza money for dinner?”

  “Mario’s has a two-for-one deal if you order before six o’clock.”

  “Done and done. See you in a few.”

  Emmie hardly ever made a habit of frequenting Carl’s—or any bar—on a Saturday afternoon. In fact, she didn’t usually go to Carl’s at all without Kyle—it was more his place than hers—but if she was going to relive this experience by relating it to Trish, she was going to need a good stiff drink (no, definitely more than one), and it was the first place that came to mind.

  She pulled into the gravel parking lot five minutes later and instantly regretted her choice. Carl’s was pretty run down, with a bad shingle job, a hand-lettered sign, a speakeasy-type metal door with a small, scratched Plexiglas window, and a perma-smell of beer that seemed to seep out of the very membrane of the place and hover, mistlike, over the parking lot. All that was easy to ignore when she was going out with friends at night, but in broad daylight, and alone, it was just . . . depressing. But it matched her mood, so she decided to stay and wait for Trish to arrive.

  She craned her neck to look at the smattering of cars around her in the parking lot. She didn’t see the Mom-Mobile, Trish’s minivan, anywhere—just pickup trucks and other manly modes of transportation. It looked like the bar was going to be sparsely populated with dedicated drinkers. What great company to keep. Go me, she thought, whapping her head on the steering wheel once more for good measure.

  This was the way Trish found her; Emmie heard the bip of a truncated honk and looked up to see her friend peering at her from the Mom-Mobile. Trish mouthed, “What the hell?” Emmie stuck out her lower lip in an exaggerated pout, pointed toward the bar’s entrance, and tipped up an invisible glass. She was pretty sure she was miming a shot, and she didn’t really care that it wasn’t even two thirty in the afternoon.

  Three shots and several beers later, Emmie rested her cheek on her hand, her elbow on the bar beside the glasses and bottles. Trish was more composed; she was still nursing her first and evidently what was going to be her only bottle of beer as she sat primly on her stool and studied her friend with concern.

  “She’s got my life,” Emmie muttered, not for the first time since she’d started bending her elbow.

  “Why do you keep saying that?”

  “Because she does,” Emmie answered matter-of-factly, as if that explained everything. Trish just looked at her, so she was forced to elucidate. “She’s got this . . . whole life . . . and it should be mine. It should!”

  “Inside voice, Emmaline,” Trish reminded her, also leaning her arm on the bar.

  Emmie continued, more quietly, “She’s got . . . everything.”

  “Nothing you want.”

  “Yuh-huh! She’s got this perfect life. Big house, her own business ‘Coming soon!’ . . . kids . . . and she’s got my man,” she pouted. “Mine. My perfect, gorgeous, nice, hot, perfect . . .” she trailed off.

  “You said perfect twice.”

  “Because he’s extra perfect.”

  “You don’t even know this guy.”

  “Don’t you get all logical with me, Patricia Ann Campo. I’ll have none of that today.” And she waved Carl over for another drink.

  Trish sighed. “I’m going to get all logical with you, Emmaline Helen Brewster, because that’s my job as your best friend.”

  “Foo.”

  “Let’s review, shall we? We’ll skip the guy thing for now—”

  “Thank you.”

  “But we are going to come back to it.”

  Emmie gave her a loud raspberry and flipped up a rude finger.

  “You certainly lose some of your charm when you drink too much,” Trish said, grinning.

  “But you still love me sooooo.”

  “Yes, and you’re lucky I do. Now, according to you, Juliet Winslow—”

  “Princess Perfect.”

  “—has a perfect life.”

  “Right.”

  “And that consists of a house—”

  “Perfect house.”

  “—that you wouldn’t live in in a million years.”

  “It’s a fancy-schmancy house.”

  “And when you’re sober, you’ll admit you don’t really like it.”

  Another raspberry.

  “Next, her own business. ‘Coming soon!’” Trish added, knowing Emmie would tack that on every time it was uttered, and she did. “I told you that you could have your own business, but you never listen to me.”

  Emmie flopped her hand around in a dismissive gesture.

  “Next, kids. Since when do you want kids?”

  “I never said I didn’t,” she said defensive
ly. “I want kids. Why wouldn’t I want kids?”

  “I constantly offer to give you mine, but you won’t take them. And finally, this perfect man.”

  Emmie sighed and drew a circle by dragging her finger through a droplet of water on the bar. “He’s so perfect.”

  “You don’t know anything about him.”

  “I know he’s perfect,” Emmie offered, as if it made all the sense in the world.

  Trish studied her in silence for a moment. “You’re really smitten with this guy, aren’t you?”

  “Smitten as a mitten.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Emmie started to laugh. “I have no idea.” Trish snickered into her beer, and Emmie stood up, a bit unsteadily. “Must powder my nose. No, no”—she waved off Trish as her friend moved to help—“I can do it.” She stood there for a moment. Trish turned her in the right direction. “I knew that,” Emmie muttered, and crossed the room, stepping carefully, as though the floor were littered with land mines. Of course, in her state, even the chipped corner of a square of linoleum could very well have tripped her up. But she managed to remain upright, if listing a little to one side, all the way across the room.

  Emmie lurched into the ladies’ room and, after a quick stop in the stall, checked her reflection in the speckled mirror over the sink. Above the stickers for motorcycle brands and tattoo parlors, and to the right of several lipstick kisses left over from the night before (Emmie wondered how many different diseases that girl contracted from her brief love affair with the bathroom mirror), she found a clear spot to get a look at herself.

  “Oh, God,” she muttered. Her mascara and eyeliner were smeared, she was pale from the great deal of alcohol she had imbibed in a short period of time, and her hair was a marvelous tangle, likely from her vigorous headbanging on the steering wheel. Emmie ran her thumb under her eyes and got rid of most of the smeared makeup, dragged her fingers through her hair, rummaged around in her bag looking for her lipstick, failed, and gave up. She was doing some serious drinking, and for that, she didn’t need to look good; she just needed her lifting arm to work.