by Maria Geraci
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 - The Ghost of Boyfriends Past
Chapter 2 - Beware of Bars Named After Drunken Birds
Chapter 3 - Does Talking to a Plastic Alligator Mean You’re Crazy?
Chapter 4 - La Lechuga y el Tomate
Chapter 5 - Dr. Joe
Chapter 6 - My Good Opinion, Once Lost, Is Probably Lost Forever
Chapter 7 - Hopelessly Attractive Men
Chapter 8 - Lettuce Is a Simple Vegetable
Chapter 9 - Just Joe
Chapter 10 - Badly Done, Grace
Chapter 11 - The Way to a Man’s Heart Is Through Flan
Chapter 12 - I’ll Take What’s Behind Door Number One, Please
Chapter 13 - Bad Karma JuJu
Chapter 14 - The Most Dangerous Kind of Man Is One Who Actually Listens to You
Chapter 15 - Players, Like Rakes, Amuse More in Literature Than They Do in Real Life
Chapter 16 - In Vain Have I Struggled, My Feelings Will Not Be Denied
Chapter 17 - I Haven’t the Least Idea of Loving Him, Or Anyone Else for That Matter
Chapter 18 - The Way to a Woman’s Heart Is Through Her Stuffed Alligator
Chapter 19 - What Are Men to Champagne and Chocolate?
Chapter 20 - Clueless Is Not Just the Name of a Movie
Chapter 21 - Vanity Working on a Weak Head Produces Every Sort of Disaster
Chapter 22 - My Good Opinion Is Restored
Chapter 23 - It’s Raining Men
Chapter 24 - Lies, Sex, and Jane Austen
Chapter 25 - Busted
Chapter 26 - A Tangled Web
Chapter 27 - The Curse Strikes Again
Chapter 28 - Overbooked, Overwhelmed, and So, So Over It
Chapter 29 - Be Careful What You Ask St. Anthony For
Chapter 30 - I Bet Jane Austen Was Fat
Chapter 31 - Sometimes the Tomato Just Wants to Be Alone
Chapter 32 - The Official Kiss-Off
Chapter 33 - Reconciliation Is the New Confession
Chapter 34 - Bless Me, Father, for I Have Sinned
Chapter 35 - Real Men Do Zumba
Chapter 36 - Chipping Away at the Curse
Chapter 37 - What Goes Around, Comes Around
Chapter 38 - Reader, It All Worked Out the Way It Was Supposed To
Chapter 39 - Joe, Such a Little Name, for Such a Person
Flan De Queso
the boyfriend of the month club
Better than chocolate-covered marshmallows . . .
“Ellen, tell us who you’ve been having mediocre sex with, so I can cross him off my potential boyfriend list.”
Sarah and Penny started giggling.
Grace smiled. “You didn’t think I was going to let that comment slide, did you? I love chocolate-covered marshmallows as much as the next girl, but better than sex? I don’t think so.”
Of the four of them, Ellen was the most secretive about her love life, but she now looked resigned to the fact that she was going to have to talk.
“You remember I told you about the IT guy who was revamping all the computers on campus? I went out with him a few times.”
“Ellen, I’m shocked!” Sarah said. “A few times? And you gave it up that easily? What happened to your ten-date rule?”
“The ten-date rule is only good if you actually go out ten times. I haven’t had more than four consecutive dates with the same guy in almost three years.”
“That’s because you’re not giving it up fast enough,” Penny said.
“Was it that bad?” Sarah asked.
Ellen reached for another marshmallow. “He was all right. But he certainly wasn’t—”
“Heathcliff!” the three of them shouted.
“Honestly, Ellen,” Grace said, “if you’re going to have a crush on a fantasy hero, why him?”
“I have to agree with Grace,” said Sarah. “What’s the fascination? Because I don’t get it. He’s, like . . . sadistic.”
“I know Heathcliff isn’t perfect,” Ellen said. “But nobody is, not even Mr. Darcy, which Grace would know all about since she has her own live version of him.”
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2010 by Maria Geraci
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PRINTING HISTORY
Berkly trade paperback edition / December 2010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Geraci, Maria.
eISBN : 978-1-101-47802-8
1. Single women—Fiction. 2. Female friendship—Fiction. 3. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. 4. Daytona Beach (Fla.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3607.E7256B69 2010
813’.6—dc22
2010013512
http://us.penguingroup.com
For my sister Carmen.
Thank you for being the Lettuce.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are so many people I need to thank for this one. There’s my parents, Carmen and Fernando Palacios, whose love and support I can always count on. My sister Carmen, who’s not just a fantastic sister, but a wonderful friend as well. My husband, Mike, whose patience knows no bounds. And of course my kids, Stephanie, Kevin and Megan. I hope you know how much I appreciate the sacrifices you all make when I’m writing on a deadline and don’t have the time or energy to do the things I want and should do.
Thank you, Deidre Knight, for always believing in me. You’re a super agent and super friend!
I’d like to also especially thank my wonderful editor, Wendy Mc-Curdy, her editorial assistant, Katherine Pelz, and my publicist, Erin Galloway, as well as the fantastic folks in the art department at Berkley. Thanks for the awesome cover!
Thank you to all the wonderful friends who inspire me to keep writing. To my early readers, Lissa McConnell and Lisa Wallace. The Tallah
assee Bunco Broads, and Pari and the rest of the nurses in labor and delivery at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, who cheer me on and keep me motivated. A special wink to Amy Ruscher for coming up with the Céline Dion bit. Much better than Barry Manilow! And last but not least, to Melissa Francis, my critique partner extraordinaire, who listens to every plot point and twist, countless times over and over until I get it just right. Where would I be without you?
1
The Ghost of Boyfriends Past
Grace O’Bryan didn’t believe in ghosts. She also didn’t believe in witches, vampires, love at first sight, that there was anything real about reality TV, or the ridiculous claim that you could lose ten pounds on the three-day cabbage soup diet (she’d tried it twice). If you couldn’t see it, feel it, touch it, or taste it, then in all likelihood it didn’t exist. Which made for some very practical thinking on Grace’s part. Except for the one ripple in the otherwise smooth seas of her personal logic. Like her abuela Graciela—the Cuban grandmother Grace was named after—what she did believe in was curses.
How else could you explain tonight?
She had waited a whopping two months for Brandon Farrell to ask her out, only to wake up this morning on her period. Not that that in itself was a problem. She wasn’t a have-sex-on-the-first-date kind of girl. Nor did she suffer from bad cramps. But she’d also woken up five pounds heavier than she’d been last night (maybe she should have given the cabbage soup diet one more try). So instead of the outfit she’d planned on wearing, she’d ended up borrowing her best friend Sarah’s little black dress. Sarah had excellent taste in clothes—the dress was a winning combination of elegant yet discreetly sexy. Sarah was also a size larger than Grace, and the dress had fit perfectly. At least it had fit perfectly back at Grace’s town house. It wasn’t until Grace had folded herself into her tiny red VW Bug that she’d noticed the dress was a tad too short.
And now, thanks to some heavier than average Saturday evening Daytona Beach traffic, she was late for her date. She tugged on the hem of Sarah’s dress and opened the door to the city’s newest, most exclusive restaurant, Chez Louis, only to find herself nose to aquiline nose with Felix Barberi.
Grace sucked in a breath. It was a Dickensian nightmare. Too bad the man standing in front of her was one hundred percent real. Grace might not subscribe to love at first sight, but substitute lust for love, and in Felix’s case she’d been a firm believer.
At first, Felix had been incredibly charming, despite his annoying habit of wanting to make out to Céline Dion’s number one hit “My Heart Will Go On.” But Felix worked in the restaurant business and the brutal hours had strained their relationship and tarnished his charm. The ultimate strain had come when Grace had returned early from a business trip to surprise Felix on Valentine’s Day. She’d gone to his apartment with a bottle of red wine and a pepperoni and anchovy pizza, only to catch Felix going at it with a dancer from the Topless-a-Go-Go.
Grace didn’t know which was worse: the fact that Felix had cheated, or that the someone he had cheated with had a rack that must have cost six months’ worth of lap dances. The incident had confirmed, however, that the St. Valentine’s Day Curse was alive and well.
The St. Valentine’s Day Curse was a long-standing joke among Grace and her friends. Its roots went all the way back to third grade at St. Bernadette’s Catholic School when Grace’s first boyfriend, Richard Kasamati, broke up with her on the playground on Valentine’s Day. The uncanny thing was that over the years, no matter how serious a relationship she seemed to be in, Grace always ended up alone on that day. If Grace began dating a guy in March, the relationship might last a whopping eleven months, and yet she would still find herself flying solo by the first week in February.
But joke or not, finding Felix in flagrante delicto with his topless dancer had been no laughing matter. Grace had driven back to her town house, packed up what few things Felix kept there (including his Céline Dion greatest hits CD), and unceremoniously dumped them on his doorstep.
That was nine months ago and she hadn’t seen Felix since. Although she had to admit the sight of Felix in a tux still made her mouth water. It was Grace’s one fatal flaw. She was hopelessly attracted to hopelessly attractive men.
Felix cleared his throat and straightened to his full height, and since Grace was wearing four-inch heels, it put them at the exact same level. Felix wasn’t short, but neither was Grace.
“Grace, you look ...” He paused, taking in the dress, the hair, the makeup. “You look fantastic!”
Felix’s eyes didn’t say fantastic. Felix’s eyes said hot.
Grace felt a moment’s vindication, but then her instinct for survival shifted into overdrive. Felix didn’t hand out compliments without an ulterior motive.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the Versailles rip-off gilt-framed mirror behind the reservation desk. Grace had never thought of herself as beautiful. Her older brother, Charlie, had hogged all the beautiful genes. A better word to describe her was interesting. She’d inherited her mother’s big brown eyes (a plus) and her father’s Irish complexion (a negative—there wasn’t enough sunscreen in the world to keep her from freckling). Her shoulder-length dark hair, usually an asset, wasn’t cooperating tonight. Her upsweep with the sideswept bangs was supposed to be going for Julianna Margulies in The Good Wife. But the humidity outside made her look more like Julianna Margulies in ER. She had to admit, though, Sarah was right. Too short or not, the dress did look good on her. Maybe Felix’s compliment was genuine.
“Thanks,” Grace said. “You don’t look too shabby yourself.”
It suddenly occurred to Grace that she’d never worn anything like Sarah’s little black dress when she was dating Felix. She’d always been more of a jeans and sneakers kind of girl. Maybe if she’d dressed sexier, Felix wouldn’t have been tempted to cheat.
Wrong.
It shouldn’t have mattered if she wore granny panties or tiny silk thongs. Cheating was about the cheater, not the person who had been cheated on. How many times had she consoled Sarah with that same platitude?
“So, how long have you been working here?” she asked Felix.
Was she really making small talk with Felix Barberi?
“I was hired to open the restaurant. I’m the general manager.” He gave her a funny look.
“Congratulations, Felix. That’s great.” She meant it too. Why should she be a shit just because Felix was one?
“There was a big article in the paper when the restaurant opened last month. Lots of corporate types from all over Florida gunning for the job. My picture was on the front page of the local section. You sure you didn’t see it?”
Grace shook her head. What was she supposed to say to that? Polite small talk was one thing. It meant she was an adult and that she’d moved on. But she wasn’t about to throw her arms around Felix and give him a congratulatory hug.
“How’s your job going?” he asked. “Still working at that tourist shop?”
“Florida Charlie’s is a family business. Of course I still work there.”
“I saw a billboard the other day on I-95 claiming you now have the world’s largest alligator tooth on display.”
The alligator tooth display had been her father’s idea. Grace had found it tacky but she wasn’t about to divulge that to Felix. “It’s pretty cool, actually. You should come by and see it sometime.” Who knows, maybe it belongs to a relative of yours.
Felix came in close. So close she could smell the starch radiating from his crisp white shirt and the expensive Acqua Di Gio cologne he always wore. A vision of writhing naked body parts (his and hers) made Grace’s pulse race. Then she remembered more writhing naked body parts (his and not hers) and her pulse raced again—this time in anger. She hated to admit it, but a part of her was still reeling from Felix’s infidelity. She thought she’d moved on, but seeing him again was like pulling the Band-Aid off an old cut only to find that you’d accidentally ripped the scab off too.
&nb
sp; “Grace,” he said in a low, intimate voice. “It’s me, remember? You don’t have to put on an act. I know how much you hate working for your father.” He placed his hand on her bare elbow. “Baby, you’re better than that. You have to break free. Be all you can be.”
Career advice from Felix Barberi? This was too much. She’d like to break free all right. Free enough to clobber him over the head.
Patience, Grace thought, trying to squelch Mal Genio—which more or less meant “Bad-Tempered One” in Spanish. Her brother had christened her with the nickname at age five when Grace had kicked him in the shin after he’d told her there was no Santa Claus. The temperamental alter ego had proven convenient over the years. Whenever Grace did something she didn’t want to own up to, she’d say, “Mal Genio did it!” It didn’t get her out of any punishments, but psychologically it made her feel better to know she had an inner demon that she couldn’t completely control.
She regretted that she’d confided her job woes to Felix, but she couldn’t let Felix mess with her head. Not before her big date with Brandon. She stepped back to reclaim some of her personal space.
“Felix, I never said I hated working for my father.”
The heavy scent of butter and garlic and freshly baked bread floated through the air. It smelled even better than Felix and his Acqua Di Gio. Grace felt herself sway. Five-pound weight gain or not, she should have eaten today.
“I wish I’d known you were stopping by,” Felix continued. “I’m filling in for Pierre, the maître d’, so I really can’t take a break right now. But maybe in another thirty minutes?”
Stopping by? Did Felix think she’d come here to see him?
“I’m meeting a date,” Grace said. “Maybe you’ve heard of him? Brandon Farrell? He’s been named Daytona Beach’s most eligible bachelor two years in a row by Central Florida Magazine . He’s my new boyfriend.”
Felix raised a brow.
Okay, so maybe that was a little over the top. Since this was their first date, technically Brandon wasn’t her boyfriend. Not yet anyway. But the petty side of her liked rubbing it in Felix’s face. See? I’ve moved on. With a mature man who knows what he wants!