My cheeks warmed and I smacked him on the arm, looking up to see amusement sparkling in his eyes as he grinned.
We burst out laughing.
"There's my girl," he said, brushing the back of his hand across my cheek. "I know you're usually fearless but I know that sometimes, you forget just how precious you are. I'll have to work harder to make sure you always remember."
I arched a brow at him, still smiling that my cheeks ached. "I'm not sure you really want my ego to swell up that big. After all, we barely have enough room for yours."
He laughed. "I'm not sure that's true anymore. I've been brought down several pegs, thanks to my ever-managing wife."
"Can't see that my work's done yet," I quipped, winking. "There's a few more pegs left."
He leaned in close that our noses rubbed together. "You can do whatever you please with me, wife, but right now, I'm the one who wants something from you."
"What?"
Mischief twinkled in his eyes as he took a step back and did a formal bow. "May I have this dance with you?"
I glanced around and saw that while there was a primly-dressed band playing some indistinct tea music (should there be, in fact, ever such a thing), there was no one dancing.
"Um..." I started, glancing back at my husband. "I don't think it's that kind of party, babe."
He shrugged. "I really don't care. I’d dance with you anywhere.”
I wrinkled my nose, hesitating. “People are going to stare weirdly at us.”
He lifted his hand toward me. “It's not about any of them. It's all about us."
The adventurous gleam in his gaze was sorely tempting that I could feel myself almost literally teetering over in an attempt not to give in. "They'll think you're silly. And crazy."
"I'm pretty sure those are synonymous to being in love, which I'd happily admit to being guilty of." He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the space in front of the stage where the band was set up.
"Brand, people are looking," I murmured, holding my smile in place even as my cheeks blazed at the guests who'd turned to us in puzzlement.
Even the band paused and looked at us in question but a quick and firm nod from Brandon got them going.
"I love you," he said with a tender smile as he kissed the tip of my nose and pulled me close, guiding my arms around his neck before sliding his own around my waist.
I beamed at him, momentarily forgetting everything else. "I love you, too."
The music changed to some kind of an upbeat but romantic melody.
We were attracting a large audience now—I could tell from the corner of my eye—but Melissa stepped in after a while, dragging Tom with her and declaring that some new changes have been made to the brunch's regular program, dancing being one of them.
There were curious murmurs but a few couples soon followed the lead and danced.
Amidst the beautiful, sprawling, lush colors of the gardens and under the clear summer skies, in the company of many important and influential people—some friends, some enemies, some dubious spectators—the only thing I cared about was how ridiculously happy I felt being held in Brandon's arms.
"Do you feel like the most beautiful girl in the world right now?" he asked after a while, touching his forehead against mine.
I pondered over his question, wondering at the sudden lack of voices in the back of my head which had been crowding me earlier.
In a moment of sheer clarity, I realized that Brandon could be somewhere else doing other things right now, yet here was, dancing with me at a party where I felt a bit like a fish out of water, telling me he loved me, and showing me and everyone else that I was important enough to him he'd defy convention for me if he had to—not just today but pretty much as he had from day one, when he decided to make a bride out of a diner girl.
I nodded and smiled. "Yes, I do."
He grinned. "Good, because you are."
Chapter Twenty: The Bold, The Beautiful And The Badass
This day was probably never going to end.
At least it seemed like it because the ‘accidents’ kept happening, even after that short rendezvous I had with Brandon on the dance floor.
Someone must have been an active prankster as a child and kept a journal (or a running tally) of their best ones to use as future reference. Quantity didn’t always equate to quality but since I was the recipient of such abysmal tricks, I wouldn’t complain.
After finding worms in my tea cup earlier, I decided not to take anything from the servers anymore. I didn’t want anyone to get fired—yet. Maybe I had too soft a heart. Or maybe, I just had high tolerance because seriously, this wasn't the worse I've had in my life. These tricks were just annoying but they couldn't get under my skin—not yet.
Even though my tormentors lacked imagination, or actually had a surplus of it in kindergarten-quality, they still managed to improvise.
While in the washroom inside Clifton House, I got locked in the stall. The mechanism locked from the inside but the knob wasn’t budging and I didn’t want to break anything (or my hand trying) so I crawled on the floor under the door since the walls were too high for me to climb. A couple of older women had walked in on me on all fours, halfway out from under the stall door.
Thank God I didn't have to explain because they saw a piece of what looked like a thick wad of chewing gum that was wedged in the little gap on the fancy knob that moved from Vacant to Engaged. The gum held the catch in place that you couldn't unhook it and flick it back to Vacant from the inside.
The two women gave me sympathetic looks but didn’t say anything.
I was washing my hands when I pumped out some soap from one of the corner dispensers and found that it wasn't soap at all but some water with some kind of synthetic dye that stained my hand a dark green color.
I tried the other dispensers and saw that they had also been tampered with.
I stopped the two other women from using them when they came out of the stalls to wash their hands.
“Someone probably accidentally refilled it with the wrong thing,” I had told them with a casual shrug as I sniffed my hands, cringing at the strong scent of ammonia. “From the smell of it, it’s probably plant food or something similar. I’d always wanted a green thumb—not a pair of green hands.”
“Will you be okay?” one of them asked.
I grinned and grabbed a few sheets of paper towel and thrust them under running water. “Oh, yeah. I occasionally garden. I can handle this, don’t you worry.”
I stayed behind, scrubbing my hands raw with several damp paper towels until the stain was almost completely faded from my skin.
Once that was done, I went and opened each soap dispenser and tossed out the contaminated refillable packs that were installed in each of them. Then I proceeded to scrub the stain off the white ceramic surface of the sink, all the time contemplating the many different ways I could pay back the culprits for this trick.
On my way back to the party from the washroom, a few other things happened.
The hallways were practically empty (too empty, I decided later) since the party was out in the main gardens. There were a few members of the event and catering staff milling about every now and then and the occasional guest exploring the grounds.
The next mishap two minutes after I left the washroom was the fishline I tripped over and the dry, prickly thistles camouflaged by the busy carpet print that pricked me as I fell.
To make it worse, one end of the fishline was tied around the leg of an antique side table with a couple of hand blown vases on top of it. My weight pulled it forward when I tripped, shifting the furniture toward me. The vases slid and crashed to the floor and I rolled on to my back just in time as the table teetered forward. My arms shot upward to catch it on its descent, pushing it back on its place as I scrambled up to my feet. If it had been any heavier, it would’ve just landed on top of me.
Death by antique furniture would have headlined my obituary.
A guy in a s
erver uniform sprinted out from one end of the hallway at my startled cry and rushed toward me, asking if I was alright.
I was biting the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming my head off at whoever might have been enjoying the show they put on for me, so I just nodded and grabbed the pen sticking out of the server’s side pockets and wrote on the back of his hand, Bill me for the vases, along with my phone number.
This was really starting to get dangerous but I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of seeing that they were successfully beating me down.
Hell, you’ve been through worse than this—and that’s their weakness. They always underestimate you.
I slightly limped my way back to the party and found a sticky, slimy substance I strongly suspected was clear glue squirted over my seat when I arrived at our designated table.
Brandon was off talking to others a few tables away and probably didn't notice anything. I almost sat on it but one of the thistles that stuck to my dress fell on the seat and drew my attention to it.
I’d take any small miracle I could use to survive this day without seriously hurting myself.
The chair was ruined and I'd cornered one of the servers to swap it for me. The one she brought back probably had a couple of intentionally loosened screws because the moment I sat down, it wobbled and fell apart and I tilted back on the ground, my legs swinging upwards and my skirt sliding up to the top of my thighs.
Thank God for pretty underwear.
Brandon, with Jake on his heels, rushed over to me, but I was already picking myself up and giving everyone who turned my way a reassuring smile, saying I was okay.
I really wasn’t—not much anymore at this point.
My left ankle pinched and looked to be swelling up a little from when I tripped over the fishline, and my hips ached from falling back from the chair. There were pink scratches on my arm from the thistles too.
“Charlotte, is something going on?” Brandon asked with a frown as he plucked a thistle from my hair. “You look a little... frazzled.”
Jake was waiting for my response too and I decided that I didn’t want to distress either of them with a bunch of petty women who thought I would throw in the white towel once they’d worn me down.
“Haven’t you heard? It’s the new trend this season,” I chirped, flashing the two men a quick, broad smile. “It’s bound to be one of those mistakes that will never see a repeat in fashion history.”
“I’m hungry,” I announced, changing the subject before either of them could further interrogate me. “I’m just going to grab a few things.”
I started walking away before I paused and glanced back at Brandon who stood next to Jake. They both looked bewildered. “Oh, and Brand, you might get a bill for some pretty pricey vases I accidentally smashed. Just dock it from my shopping allowance, okay? Thanks, babe!”
With that, I strode to the dessert table instead, doing my best not to make my limp obvious.
I wanted to take off my shoes and walk barefoot—actually, I really wanted to sit down but if I stayed and asked Brandon to fetch me my food, I might alert him to my slight injury.
I also couldn’t trust not to be goofed on anymore by asking some server to do it.
I’d rather have too much sugar than sawdust in my quiche.
While scouting the selections laid out, someone bumped into me and splashed their coffee accidentally, catching me by the hem.
I stared at the dripping brown liquid at the edge of my skirt and looked up at one of the Championettes whose name I couldn't remember—which was alright because I christened her with a new fitting specimen identification tag: Clone 2AXX (because sci-fi names always sounded so random and these women were an entirely different breed).
Her bubblegum-pink lips formed the appropriate O-shape to indicate her horror but her eyes flashed with satisfaction as she quickly straightened and chirped an overly-melodious 'I'm sorry'.
"Really?" I asked her. "Did you get your instructions mixed up? Macchiato and machiavellian sound close but they're not the same thing."
She gave me a casual shrug. "I guess you should look where you're going."
I raised a brow. "I guess your eyes are on the back of your head because you practically moon-walked toward me. The Michael Jackson moves don't go with your ruffles—in case you're wondering."
She opened her mouth in automatic defense but I held a hand up to stay her and bent to grab one seam of my skirt. I took one of the spare fruit knives from the dessert table and ripped the stitch with it. Once it was far up enough that I could pull on one loose end, I sawed a little bit of the fabric until there was enough of a tear in it that it ripped off cleanly. It took a while because fruit knives were as dull-edged as infant gums.
I held up the slightly jagged, two-inch wide strip of fabric from my skirt and handed it to Clone 2AXX whose mouth had started an open-close-open-close motion like a goldfish, no sound coming out of her.
"With my regards,"I said before turning away to continue on my hunt for some food.
If anyone noticed that my skirt was a tad bit shorter than it was a few minutes ago, no one made a comment.
As I approached one end of the long table where the savory pastries were, a small group of three women—Championettes as well—moved toward it, talking and laughing merrily.
“Excuse me,” I said to them as I awkwardly tried to side-step them to get to the basket of cheddar shortbread cookies that had my mouth watering shamelessly.
One of the girls—Clone 3AXX—had her back to the edge of the table. She glanced at me and stepped to the side, her elbow cleanly sweeping the basket of cookies off the table. It fell in a wild clutter of cookies to the ground.
“Damn,” I muttered as I acted on instinct, squatting down to grab the basket and start putting the cookies back into it despite my ankle’s painful protest. The cookies were wasted at this point but I didn’t want to just leave the mess there.
“Oops, sorry,” the girl said as she took a step back and sent another platter of what looked like herbed scones tumbling to the ground, the little jam dishes for them following the dive.
Some of the jam splattered on my face and hands but I ignored it as I hastily grabbed the dip dishes to turn them up.
“Grab some napkins, will you?” I said distractedly as I picked up the large, flat platter that had held the scones before, and hefted it up over my arm so I could load it with the wasted food and the small dipping bowls. “I don’t know how you could’ve knocked over these things but they're not very salvageable—not even with the five-second rule.”
“Will you look at that? You can get the girl out of the diner but you can never get the server out of her."
I froze, the realization washing over me like a bucket of ice-cold water.
I was on my knees, holding the platter like a tray on the crook of my arm, cleaning up the food off the ground. "You don't have that expression right. If you're going to insult someone, do it correctly."
The three women stood in front of me, their arms crossed, the woman in the center with the possibly spastic hand who knocked things over, looking down on me haughtily.
This really feels like a Cinderella moment—two step-sisters and an evil stepmother. Too bad they don't know I don't need a fairy godmother to manage.
Without a word, I picked up all the food and the small dishes that I could load on the platter and slowly rose, my chin tilting up at the three witches.
"Please tell me you have a serious medical condition with your hand," I said slowly as I placed the platter back on the edge of the table. People were busy around us and didn't notice the little drama unfolding. I wanted to keep it that way so I tamped on the urge to make pumpkins out of these three women's faces. "That's the only explanation I'll accept for this little stunt."
"I always get clumsy when I'm around people I'm uncomfortable with," the woman in the center—Clone 3AXX—said with a casual shrug. "I don't usually interact with the lower breed."
She gasped in outrage and the woman to her right—Clone 4AXX—stepped forward, scowling at me.
"No one wants you here, Charlotte," she said.
I rolled my eyes. "News flash—we don't always get what we want. I'll be one of your few wishes that don't come true. Live with it."
"We're going to make your life a miserable hell," the woman to 3AXX's left—Clone 5AXX—piped in. "We're not afraid of Melissa. We've got orders from way higher up than her. We've got backing."
"Would a bed of nails do for backing?" I retorted. "It's good penance. Cleanses the soul. I heard people in the Philippines lash themselves or get nailed to the cross during Lent in fierce devotion. Yours will feel like acupuncture."
"You're shameless," 3AXX hissed at me.
"And you're a trio of box-blonde trolls," I shot right back at them.
I was at the end of my patience.
I wasn't angry—I was really just thoroughly exasperated and exhausted by the juvenile ridiculousness of the situation.
I was itching for a fight at this point but for the sake of everyone who believed in me, I had to hold it back.
In the corner of my eye, I could see Melissa in the distance, laughing with her husband and another couple. Jake was talking to one banker-looking dude, and Brandon was nowhere in sight.
Good. I don’t have to worry about anyone else getting thrown into the fray.
Just as Clone 3AXX opened her glittery mouth open in what I was certain would have been an attempt at what she’d consider as her most triumphant set-down ever delivered, I held up my pointer finger in a gesture for her to shut it.
“Listen,” I said in a low, firm voice. “I have put up with your pranks all day. In my opinion, they are a bit lackluster, but I have to consider that you’re not really brilliant villains on your own—just mostly minions. If that word isn’t pretty enough to go with your pastel-colored combat suits, let’s try bootlickers, sycophants, lackeys, toadies. Not enough? I’ve got a whole thesaurus of them. Or I could try smaller words—slaves, doormats, sidekicks, puppets. You get the idea.”
The Mischievous Mrs. Maxfield Page 50