My Favorite Mistake

by Beth Kendrick

  A dubious victory.

  18

  It was a total fiasco. We should both be awarded purple hearts for making it through the weekend.” I scowled up at the overhead lights in the Cannon Falls Stop & Shop.

  “Don’t you think you’re being a little melodramatic?” Leah asked, unloading her grocery cart onto the conveyor belt.

  “No. If anything, I’m understating. He was all over me on Saturday night, he was standoffish on Sunday, and by this morning he was repulsed. We’re right back where we were ten years ago.”

  “Oh, come on.” She wedged a jug of milk in between a box of cereal and a jar of applesauce. “You were nervous, you had a little too much to drink, you got sick, and you brought him coffee this morning. So what?”

  My cheeks burned with shame. “He barely said a word to me this morning, just stared at me like I was his shiv-packing cellmate. He’s definitely pissed.”

  “Let me get this straight. You guys are now sleeping together without having sex.”

  I nodded. “Yes. And apparently, we’re not speaking, either.”

  “It’s like you skipped the courtship and went straight to marriage.” She grinned. “Don’t worry, this will all blow over. Just give it a few days.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.” I cleared my throat. “I may have left out a few minor details.”

  “Like what?”

  I considered telling her about the frantic five A.M. airport run, then decided that the rest of this story made me look bad enough. So I just stuck to the part about my drunken treatise on Italian architecture and my prima donna mattress complaints.

  “…And then, after I started in with the mattress, he said, all sultry, ‘Well, my side is dry, why don’t you come over here?’ ”

  “Ooh.” She leaned over the handle of her shopping cart. “This is getting good. Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “Because nothing happened! I wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be some kind of sexual overture or what, so I rolled over and we just lay there, an inch apart, all night.”

  “You weren’t sure if that was supposed to be an opening? What were you waiting for? A burning bush in the desert?”

  “I swear to God, at the time it felt ambiguous.”

  “You are beyond help.” She tilted her head. “But if he was offering to share his side of the mattress last night, why is he mad at you this morning?”

  “Well…because of all the things I just told you.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense. None of that was really that bad. Are you sure you haven’t left anything out?”

  Like trumpeting my commitment problems from the rooftops?

  Like fleeing to the airport at the crack of dawn and then lying about it?

  Like behaving like a bipolar eighteen-year-old instead of a well-rounded woman who’s changed her ways?

  “Nope, that’s it.”

  “Uh-huh,” Leah said. And then she gave me the same suspicious look I’d gotten from Flynn five hours ago.

  “All right! All right! I confess! I left a few things out.” As we wheeled the cart out to the parking lot, I recounted the whole sordid tale of my aborted attempt to escape via Northwest Airlines. “He doesn’t know where I went, but he knows I left this morning. So now he thinks I haven’t matured at all since the first time things got rough and I fled the scene.”

  “Why on earth did you go to the airport?” Leah asked.

  “I was ashamed of myself and scared to face him this morning. So I freaked out and made everything worse.” I rummaged through a brown paper grocery bag until I happened upon a bag of M&M’s. “He’s obviously disgusted with me, and I don’t blame him. I’m horrible at being close to people. Just ask the ticket agents at Northwest.” I ripped open the candy wrapper and crammed a handful into my mouth.

  “At least you returned to the scene of the crime,” she ventured. “The last time you ran off, you just kept on running.”

  “I don’t think he’s putting that positive spin on it.” I helped her load groceries into the trunk of the Camry. “But you know, I’m not the only one bringing something to the table of dysfunction. That man has some major trust issues.”

  “Well. You did break his heart.”

  “When we were teenagers! And he broke mine! After a fascist marriage proposal!” I flung an M&M across the parking lot in exasperation. “Why doesn’t anyone focus on that part of the story?” I threw up my hands and turned to Rachel, who was trying to tug her white sunbonnet off. “It’s all over. We had our chance, we screwed it up six ways from Sunday, and that’s just the way it goes. One less thing to worry about when I get back to L.A.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Leah said dryly. “You know, your worst flaw is not commitment problems. Your problem is that you sabotage yourself.”

  My jaw dropped. “I…you…that’s…I do not!”

  “You do.” She nodded sagely. “Speaking of which, what are your plans, Faith? How much longer will you be out here?”

  “I’ll be here until we get the bar sorted out,” I hedged. “Maybe two more weeks. I think the Roof Rat is going to be okay, actually. Profits are up, we refinanced the mortgage to free up cash flow, and I worked out a new payment plan with our vendors. Now I just need to hire a new manager who won’t rob Skye blind.”

  I closed the trunk while she strapped Rachel into her car seat.

  Leah looked at me. I looked back at her.

  “Well,” she said, starting the car and heading for Lindbrook. “At least you learned a valuable lesson from all this.”

  “And that would be…?”

  “Don’t ever let Skye do your laundry again.”

  We arrived at the Roof Rat and I was hauling my grocery bag out of the trunk when I heard Skye’s voice from across the street.

  “Faithie! You’re back!” She waved, all breezy and blond in a gauzy pink minidress, then paused at the curb, craning her neck to study my state of hung-over exhaustion. “So? What happened? How did the rest of the weekend go?”

  “Think hell. Then double it.”

  “Oh, no! Tell me everything.” She darted out between two parked cars and made a beeline for Leah’s Camry.

  I heard, rather than saw, the collision. One second I was watching the flutter of her pink skirt as she raced into the street, and the next second I caught a flash of blue motion out of the corner of my eye and started screaming at her to stop.

  Which she did, smack-dab in the middle of Main Street.

  And Sally Hutchins’s bright blue Mazda Miata plowed right into her.

  Skye lay there for a moment, a still life in pastels on the cracked gray asphalt. I stared at her, frozen, praying for her to start breathing.

  And then she started screaming like a banshee. My circulatory system resumed operations.

  She rocked into a sitting position, cradling her right shoulder and hand with her left arm, looking for all the world like a toddler who’d been shoved down on the playground.

  Sally wormed away from the Miata’s airbag, stumbled out into the middle of the street, and joined Skye in the upper-octave caterwauling. Her expression was equal parts mortified and murderous.

  Doors popped open up and down Main Street.

  Skye stopped her ear-splitting aria long enough to holler “You reckless bitch!” at Sally. Then she burst into tears.

  “Stop being such a drama queen!” Sally hollered back. “It was an accident! It’s not like anybody’s dead!”

  I threw down my grocery bags and started toward Sally, balling up my fists.

  Leah materialized at my side, clamping a restraining hand on my shoulder. “Faith, honey, calm down. It was an accident.”

  Sally managed to look snotty and supercilious despite her pained expression. “Ow. I think the airbag broke my wrist.”

  “Quit your whining!” Skye yelled. “You broke my whole body!”

  “Well, you’re the one who came busting out into the middle of the road.”

  “Well,
you’re the one who can’t drive for shit!”

  We were attracting an audience. The lunch crowd at Cherry’s Café spilled out onto the sidewalk to witness the bloodbath.

  Still shaking, I walked out and knelt down next to my sister, blocking her from the stares.

  “Okay. You’re okay,” I said to myself as much as to her. “How do you feel? Does your head hurt? Does your back?”

  Sally interrupted us. “I’m sorry, all right?” She did look as contrite as a hinterland debutante could possibly condescend to look. “It was an accident. But I was trying to find you anyway, Skye. I have to tell you something.”

  Skye tossed her curls and winced, clutching her shoulder. “Well, you found me. What?”

  Sally lowered her voice, perhaps in deference to the fact that half the population of Lindbrook was either trying to listen in or already on the phone with the town sheriff to report the accident. She crouched down, still cradling her wrist in her left hand. “You know Ian Hammond?”

  My sister tossed her hair, quite self-assured for someone recently laid low by a Miata. “Yes, I do, as a matter of fact. I’m his girlfriend.”

  “Well, so am I,” said Sally.

  There was a thirty-second break in the conversation while we took turns staring at each other. The hot asphalt was digging into my knees, but I put my arm around Skye and waited.

  Finally, she smoothed her skirt and straightened her one good shoulder. “What?”

  Sally gave a quick, irritated sigh. “Open your ears. I said I’m his girlfriend, too.”

  “I heard you,” Skye snapped. “But that’s impossible.”

  “Excuse me, I think I know who I’m sleeping with,” Sally hissed, glancing around to make sure no one overheard. “Ian and I have been seeing each other for two months.”

  Which would trump Skye’s two weeks. She glared at Sally. “But I just spent all yesterday with him at Flatbush Lake.”

  “This makes no sense,” I pointed out.

  Sally winced and cradled her wrist. “Of course it makes sense. The man’s a pathological liar.”

  “You’re nuts,” my sister declared. “If you were his girlfriend or whatever, why is he dating me?”

  “Are you sure he’s really dating you?” Sally sniped.

  “I think I know who I’m sleeping with,” Skye shot back.

  I put my hands over my ears. “Please. No more. Ladies, can we continue this in a more appropriate place, like a doctor’s office? Leah, can you drive us to the hospital?”

  “Sure. But I think we have to call the police and report this first.” She dialed her cell phone.

  “Well, I just do not get this,” Skye fumed. “There must be some mistake. How would I not know if you and Ian were dating?”

  Sally rolled her eyes. “Because he wanted to keep it secret. And so did I. My mother would go nuclear if she knew I was dating someone older than my dad. And it’s not like we were exclusive.” She narrowed her eyes. “Especially once you came along. I can’t believe you didn’t figure it out. Honestly, how stupid are you?”

  “Hey! Don’t call her stupid!” I warned.

  “That’s why you ran me down like a dog in the street?” Skye asked. “You were coming to tell me about you and Ian?”

  “No. I was coming to tell you that his wife just showed up. He’s married! Can you believe it?”

  Skye blanched. “Married?”

  “His wife just showed up from London. She’s this old British hag named Portia. I met her downtown this morning.”

  I sat down hard next to Skye.

  This was my doing. I had practically forced my only sibling to take up with an unprincipled, over-read chamomile junkie.

  “No way!” Skye raged. “He’s married?”

  “For twenty-five years!” Sally said.

  “Are you sure she’s not, like, his ex-wife?”

  “Do ex-wives wear big diamond rings on their left hands?”

  I tried to round up the wounded. “That’s enough. We’re going to the emergency room at the clinic. Leah’s driving. Get in the car, pronto.”

  Sally curled her lip at me, but she started toward the Camry.

  I put my arm around Skye’s waist and tried to haul her up into a standing position. “Okay, let’s move it. We’ve got to get that shoulder checked out.” But she was segueing into hysterics. It was long overdue at this point.

  “Wait! We can’t go yet!”

  “Sweetie, you can’t just sit here in the middle of the street all day.”

  Big round tears were forming in the corners of her eyes. There was no way to head this hissy-fit off at the pass.

  “I can’t go to the hospital like this! I have to talk to Ian first. Why would he do this to me, Faithie? Why? This has to be a mistake.”

  I leaned my forehead against hers, trying to take on some of her anguish via osmosis. “We’ll get it all sorted out. After you go see a doctor.”

  “No! I want to talk to him now.” She felt so thin and breakable in my hands. There was so little padding protecting her fragile spots. “Sally’s lying,” she insisted. “I need to talk to Ian.”

  “You are going to the hospital. Right now. I will drag you there myself if I have to.” And it looked as if it might come to that.

  But she was going. She was all I had. She was the only person I had ever been able to take care of, the only person who counted on me. And I had thrown her to a Beowulf in sheep’s clothing.

  “Don’t make me beg,” I begged. Due to the uncertain nature of her injuries, I could not simply sling her over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes and throw her into the car. I grabbed her hand. “Come on.”

  She shook her head again and started to cry in earnest.

  I could see Sally pouting through the windshield of the Camry. Leah was stationed in the driver’s seat, keys in hand. Rachel was gurgling in the backseat. And the Geary sisters were causing a scene at high noon in the middle of Main Street. How could I possibly take action without making matters worse?

  Skye was squirming around like a garter snake on amphetamines when a shadow fell over us. A tall shadow with broad shoulders.

  “I’ll take it from here,” said a deep male voice. I turned around and smiled, ready to welcome Flynn into the melee.

  But it wasn’t Flynn. It was Lars. Immense and impassive, he scooped my sister up without jarring her shoulder or heeding her vehement protests.

  He nodded at Leah. “I’ll meet you at the clinic.”

  Skye took a deep breath and batted spiky wet eyelashes at him. “Hi. Listen, I really appreciate this and all, but I really can’t leave yet. I have to go find—”

  “Faith will go. Then she’ll meet us at the clinic.” He turned his gaze from her to me.

  “Forget it. I’ll stay put until the cops get here, but then I’m going straight to the clinic,” I said. “Who cares about Ian when you could be—”

  “Come on, Faithie!” my sister pleaded. “Go talk to him. Please! Go talk to him and then come tell me what he says. Bring him with, if you can.”

  And since she was so agitated, I found myself agreeing. This calmed her down sufficiently to allow Lars to bundle her into his truck. I waved to my sister and smiled grimly.

  Go get him. Finally, an idea with merit.

  19

  Finding Ian’s house was almost too easy. All I had to do was dash up to Skye’s apartment, call our old next-door neighbor and ask for directions.

  “That old English guy?” Mrs. Dupree, my mother’s close friend and the one-woman Page Six of Lindbrook Minnesota, paused to take a drag on her cigarette. “He lives over on Hilgard Avenue, right next to Maggie Polk. Big white house with green trim.”

  “Great,” I said. “Thanks a lot, Mrs. Dupree.”

  “Now what’s this I hear about you and your sister starting a brawl in the middle of Main Street?”

  “No time to talk. Thanks! Bye!”

  As I headed out the front door, I noticed the answering machine.
I’d had to buy a new one after Skye’s unfortunate trial-by-toilet debacle. The little red light was winking away, and the digital display announced three new messages.

  Flynn.

  Except wait. What if it wasn’t Flynn? Odds were good that he was never going to call me again.

  This was no time to get sucked into the will-he-or-won’t-he-call-me quagmire. How selfish could I get? The smart move here would be to revert to my original position, i.e., I don’t give a rat’s ass, and take care of business.

  So I left the machine light blinking and ran out the door. Right now I had to focus all my energy on my sister.

  And, of course, on the double-crossing professor.

  The house was just as Mrs. Dupree described it—big, white and boxy, with green trim. There was a huge porch with spindly railings and lots of sun-dappled shade from the tree branches arching over the roof. I half expected Ward and June Cleaver to come traipsing out the front door.

  I rang the bell.

  A hulking, honey-colored retriever lumbered down the hall, barking all the way. He planted himself on the other side of the screen door and bared his teeth.

  “Roland, no. Quiet.” A tall, maternal-looking woman appeared behind the growling guardian of the threshold and repeated “quiet” in a clipped, British accent. She had a wedding band on the appropriate finger.

  Portia, no doubt.

  This woman bore very little resemblance to the “old hag” of Sally’s description. Though perhaps guilty of having achieved middle age, she was by no means old. Rosy and round, with thick dark hair pulled back into a French twist, she wore a crisp yellow sundress and a knotted silk scarf that I knew she hadn’t bought in Lindbrook.

  She nodded at me through the screen but didn’t smile.

  All my plans for self-righteous ranting and merciless revenge went right out the window. “Uh, hi. Are you Portia Hammond?”

  “I’m Mrs. Hammond, yes.” She maintained eye contact through the screen but did not open the door.

  “I’m Faith Geary…” I trailed off.

  She looked unimpressed. “How do you do, Faith.”

  “Not so well, actually. I need to…is your husband at home?”