“You want me to seat you near the kitchen?” she questioned with a slight grimace as she looked at a row of unoccupied tables before us.
Why yes, I would like to sit by the noisy kitchen instead of in a quiet, secluded area, because naturally I’m a raving loon.
“I’m sure that sounds funny, but I’m really hungry, so that way it won’t take long for my food to arrive.”
It sounded stupid even to me, but she just shrugged and took me to the area I had indicated. I settled into my chair and thought that it might not be so bad, until a waiter quickly emerged from the kitchen and nearly hit me with the door. Adjusting myself a little, I lifted the menu and peered over it. Mr. Cal was leaning forward and lifting his eyebrows as he spoke, which appeared to be a good sign.
Feeling more comfortable with the knowledge that Rosalie was most likely not with a serial killer, I perused the menu and tried to relax. A buzz against my thigh made that effort pointless, startling me a bit. Believing it was Cole calling to check on me, I fished my phone out of my purse in my lap and held it up against my ear.
“Hey, handsome.”
“That’s new – I’m used to you calling me Lex.” My purse slid off my lap and my lip gloss went skittering across the textured carpet, rolling to a stop just inches from the heel of a stranger’s brown cowboy boot about ten feet away. Kneeling and performing a slight crab-walk, I stretched to retrieve it and hold the phone aloft at the same time. When the owner of the boot glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, I held the lip gloss up and attempted to smile, telling myself that I didn’t look as ridiculous as I felt.
It was probably a lie, but sometimes a girl needs to keep her dignity intact.
“Lex, I’m sorry. I thought you were Cole.”
“That’s a relief,” he exhaled slowly. “I was afraid we turned some weird corner in our working relationship.”
“Very funny,” I said, collecting myself and sitting on my chair once again. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“Well, I’m wondering if I need to deploy a whole publicity team for you,” he stated drily.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Were you planning to tell me that you’re pregnant?”
“What?” I hissed, remembering a few seconds too late that I was supposed to be an incognito presence. The cowboy boot owner and his lady friend both glanced at me that time, and I slouched down in my seat a bit. “How did you know about that?”
“Your friend Tracy, the blogger.”
“Tracy, from Uncovering Oliver?” I clarified, the bafflement about his statement clouding my brain. I was picturing Tracy in my mind, her long, straight brown hair cascading over her shoulder as she pushed her glasses farther up on her nose from her vantage point hiding behind one of the forsythia bushes in our front yard.
Of course my biggest fan would wind up being completely insane. There’s the drawback to giving up the pen name – now Tracy doesn’t have to ramble around Mount Vernon asking random people if they saw someone writing. She has my name and (shudder) my address.
“I knew she would turn stalker eventually,” I whispered.
“She had a picture of you on her blog with your obstetrician.”
“Dr. McCavin?!”
Ick, it’s even worse than knowing my address. She has been following me around like a bona fide serial killer. Lurking in the doctor’s office, though? That is beyond weird. The woman needs a straightjacket.
“It looked like it originated from the profile page of someone named Anna McCavin.”
“Anna McCavin?”
“Anna’s post said, ‘Guess who Craig had in his office today? The one and only Camdyn Taylor! My favorite author!’”
The truth slid over me the same way my brother Charlie’s fingers used to trail down my hair when he pretended to break an egg on my head – heavy-handed and just uncomfortable enough to cause me to shiver.
Dr. McCavin’s words came back to me, “Can we get a picture so my wife will believe you were really here?”
“That doctor buttered me up and stabbed me in the back,” I blurted a little too loudly, earning a new couple’s attention in addition to the cowboy and his lady.
Lex cleared his throat. “I’m sure Tracy looked to see who they were, and put two and two together.”
“This feels like a pretty clear patient privacy violation.” I placed my palm against my forehead and tried to think clearly. A call to Dr. McCavin’s office would be warranted, but it seemed it was too late to make a difference. “Well, maybe it won’t be so bad. I’ll just contact Tracy – after all, we met on The Tilly Show, so we’re practically friends.”
“Are you crazy?” Lex chided, using clipped tones that I hadn’t heard from him in a while. “Have you been hiding under a rock, Camdyn? The press is clamoring for details about you – and Jamie Price... He brings you up almost every night in some sort of joke, and keeps saying he wants you on the show again. He’s already planning on running with the pregnancy info – I had an inside source at the show confirm that this afternoon.”
“Then we need to confront it head on,” I suggested.
“What are you going to do, threaten to karate chop him like you did that guy at the theatre?”
Karate chop? Where did that come from?
“The Vandersnoot Smackdown,” I whispered, allowing my eyes to bore into the empty chair across from me. “How do you know about that?”
“Hello? You really have been living under a rock, haven’t you? Jamie Price debuted the video of that last week, from some charity theatre performance in Pennsylvania. You lecturing a guy, smacking him, apologizing to Alice in Wonderland…”
“Oh my word,” I muttered. The waiter walked towards me, but I waved him away. I was too busy contemplating my rapid descent through the ranks of celebrity to the dustbin of shaving my head and marrying my cousin.
Ugh, I think I even made a joke about marrying my cousin on the Jamie Price show, didn’t I? I am so blindly, unbelievably naïve.
“They’re making fun of me,” I whispered into the phone. “The whole thing was just an elaborate scheme to turn me into a laughingstock. Of course! Why didn’t I think of this before? That’s why they had the proposal videos so readily available when I was with Jamie Price. Unbelievable. Were you in on it, too?”
“What?” he gasped. “Of course I wouldn’t do something like that. I’m your friend, remember? Anyway, this is my job we’re talking about here.”
“Are you my friend, Lex Luthor? Sometimes I’m not really sure.”
“Don’t go into one of your absurd diatribes,” he ordered. “I don’t think my nerves can take a full-blown Camdyn meltdown right now. Frankly, I don’t feel like putting out any more fires, either. What do you propose we do?”
What do I propose we do?
“For starters, you could eliminate the word ‘propose’ when you’re talking to me.”
“My vocabulary is going to be extremely limited if I can’t mention any embarrassing words,” he chuckled halfheartedly. “Propose, theatre, vomit…”
“I get the point,” I stated as the waiter walked up again. Glancing down at the menu, I realized I hadn’t even looked, and he was beginning to seem impatient. “Hang on, Lex.”
“Decided?” he asked, giving me a penetrating stare. He was probably irritated at my rudeness at using the phone in the restaurant, and I didn’t blame him.
“Chicken parmigiana.”
“Salad?”
“Caesar.”
“Drink?”
“Water.”
“You order dinner like a general giving directions for battle,” Lex stated as the waiter removed my menu from the table and disappeared behind me.
“Well, I’m feeling a bit besieged at the moment,” I complained, glancing over at Rosalie and Mr. Cal. They were still in the midst of a conversation, but he suddenly caught my eye, staring at me in a most uncomfortable way. I glanced toward the wall as I felt a flush creep
across my face, forcing a deep breath into my lungs. “Tell me what to do, Lex.”
“I think you’re right,” he said simply. “We need to confront it head on. So, we’ll grant his request. I think you could probably handle it from Memphis or Nashville, if I get him to agree. You were charming last time, and I have no doubt you could appear calm and collected. I’ve witnessed it, miraculously enough.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Almost Midnight with Jamie Price.”
The air escaped the confines of my chest cavity as I sank further into the chair like a deflating balloon. My publishing partner-in-crime must have sensed my feelings, because he groaned into the phone.
“What if I say no?” I asked hesitantly.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” he stated matter-of-factly.
“Have a great evening, Lex,” I added, ending the conversation. Holding my fist to my forehead for a second, I squinted my eyes closed and thought about Dr. McCavin and Tracy, wondering if giving up the pen name would eventually be the death of me, too.
Sighing loudly, I pulled my arm down to drop my phone on the table. Apparently I had slumped a little too far during my pouty conversation, because the swinging door to the kitchen connected with my elbow, shooting it forward and launching my phone into the air. I watched in horror as it bounced in nearly the exact same spot where my lip gloss had ended up moments before, near the boot of that cowboy, the back separated and resting a few inches away while the battery sat propped against the leg of the man’s chair. His lady friend gave me a look of exasperation, and I mouthed the word “sorry” as I rose and retrieved the pieces one by one.
As I moved back to the chair, I couldn’t help but notice Mr. Cal’s eyes looking in my direction. Rather than continue to look their way and risk detection, though, I simply concentrated on putting the pieces of my phone back together and testing it to make sure I hadn’t done any permanent damage. Still, I glanced over every moment or so, just checking on them. Rosalie had asked me to do so, after all, so I wasn’t being strange or voyeuristic.
Right about the time the waiter delivered my salad, Rosalie rose from the table and began walking to the back, presumably toward the restroom. When she turned toward me, she gave me a very noticeable pleading lift of the eyebrows, and I got her message loud and clear.
Do not embarrass me.
Not to worry, because I was the absolute picture of sophistication at the moment. I’m pretty sure Mr. Cal noticed as well, because as soon as Rosalie was away from the table, he chanced another look in my direction. Quickly I returned my gaze to my salad, but couldn’t help but notice when he rose from the table and began walking himself. For a split second I believed he might be traveling in my direction, but instead he moved a few tables away, where he placed his hand on the back of a pretty young woman with shoulder-length auburn hair. As he leaned down to quietly talk to her, the hair on the back of my neck rose. Rosalie was gone for all of ten seconds, and he had already moved on to flirt with someone half her age. Thinking quickly, I pulled up my phone and dared to snap a shot of him, since I was looking at their backs and had nothing to lose by doing so.
Well, nothing other than earning a derisive glare from the cowboy’s lady, who by that point clearly did not appreciate my presence.
Mr. Cal made it back to the table before Rosalie, and he peered over at me for a second, but I refused to make eye contact with him. In fact, I assumed a pretty solid gaze at my food for the rest of the meal. Even after I was finished eating, trapped at the table due to the fact that Rosalie and her date were having an in-depth conversation, I focused on looking at my phone and determining the depth of the whole Tracy/Dr. McCavin drama. Things seemed to be pretty much exactly as Lex had described, so I set the phone aside with a sigh.
Eventually the two I was employed to spy upon paid for their meal and rose from the table. I waited until they were out of sight, and then I began rifling through my purse for my wallet.
“Excuse me!” I called to the waiter. “Can I get my check, please?”
“Your check?” he wondered. “The gentleman who had been at the table over there already paid for your meal, ma’am.”
What? Mr. Cal paid for my meal?
Standing up abruptly, I gathered my belongings and prepared to head for the door and inform Rosalie that, not only was her date flirting with another woman while she was in the restroom, but he also had the audacity to pay for my meal.
What a cad!
Storming out the front door, I nearly flattened myself out when I fully ran into the man in question. Cal265, standing right outside the door, presumably waiting for me. My brain wanted to let him have it, but I was startled enough that I couldn’t convince my mouth to form any words.
“Hi,” he said politely, holding out his hand. “I’m Elliott Calvin.” When I didn’t answer or make a move to accept his friendly gesture, he pulled his hand back and shoved it in his pocket. “It seemed like we should meet face to face, so the whole situation wouldn’t be so awkward.”
Flirting old goat! How did Rosalie get sucked in by this guy?
“What are you talking about?” I managed to blurt, hugging my purse against my body protectively.
He laughed and shoved his other hand in his pocket as he rocked back on his heels. “Well, I consider myself a pretty good catch, but I can’t rightly think of any reason a beautiful young woman with a wedding ring on her hand would be keeping such a close eye on me. Not that I wouldn’t be flattered, but I’m not stupid.”
Oh.
“I felt a little sorry for you sitting by yourself, but when I went over to my daughter and asked if she wanted to see if you would join her, she was pretty appalled by the idea.”
“Your daughter?”
“Yeah.” He gave an embarrassed laugh. “I’m new to this whole dating scene, so she was keeping an eye on me.”
“That makes sense,” I muttered, feeling a blush creep into my cheeks.
“You’re Rosalie’s daughter?”
“I’m married to her nephew, actually,” I said, shaking myself out of a stupor. “Camdyn Parker.” This time I held out my hand, and he pulled his out of his pocket long enough to grasp my fingers firmly.
“It’s nice to meet you,” he added with a twinkle in his eye. “I hope I met with your approval. I should go, though, because my daughter’s waiting on me.”
“It was nice to meet you,” I interjected as he walked away.
I consider myself a good catch, but…
Perhaps I should have done some introspection, because I certainly seemed to be jumping to the conclusion that a lot of men were flirting with me lately. For a split second I felt rather guilty about what I said to Jake a couple weeks before, when I believed he was quoting the song lyrics. Releasing a long breath, I rounded the side of the restaurant and began the walk to the back where the car was parked. Rosalie was waiting patiently inside, and when I swung open the car door, she turned to me expectantly.
“Well?” she asked, smiling happily.
“He seems great, honestly,” I informed her while I shoved the key in the ignition. “Don’t ever ask me to do that again, though.”
“Why not?”
“Because you embarrassed me,” I complained. “You kids and your crazy love lives. Next time, leave me out of it.”
Chapter Eleven
It was nearly two weeks later when I found myself sitting in a dressing room in New York City, awaiting my second appearance on Almost Midnight with Jamie Price. Despite Lex’s assurances that he would attempt to appease Jamie with a satellite appearance from Memphis, he caved like the bottom of a wet paper bag. Cole wouldn’t agree to travel with me, either, because he was in the middle of some intense baseball something or other. (The honeymoon phase had either worn off, or he was just too obsessed with baseball to care one way or the other. I had a sneaking suspicion it was the latter, but I didn’t want to hear that it was the former, so I would have never asked
.) The only consolation was that I had managed to finagle two extra tickets in the negotiations, and I had my two pregnant compadres by my side.
Much to my delight, I was firmly out of the first trimester. The bad news, however, was that my toothbrush situation had not rectified itself. Even though the nausea had subsided quite a bit, I was still having trouble with that most basic of hygiene procedures, and it was driving me a bit berserk.
To add insult to injury, Sara actually looked pregnant. Really, noticeably pregnant. Rachel looked fairly pregnant, too – just enough that it would make a person hesitate to ask, but they would probably whisper it to their friend.
Me? I looked like I was slightly bloated from a bad burrito or something. I had to make the move to wearing my pants unbuttoned with a rubber band holding them together, but otherwise, nothing had changed. I was a pregnancy fraud.
“Don’t you think you should change?” Sara wanted to know, crossing her legs and leaning back in her cushy chair. (Jamie’s staff had given me a nicer dressing room this time – go figure.)
“Not until I’m almost ready to go out,” I answered matter-of-factly. “That way, the chances for something to happen are greatly reduced.”
“The makeup girl told me Vin Diesel is here,” Rachel interrupted, beaming from her little corner of the room. She traced her finger across the gold-leafed frame of a movie poster on the wall beside her, but her mischievous gaze never left my face. “Do you think he’s in the next room?”
“I don’t know, and don’t you go humiliating me,” I commanded. Instantly the thought that I might have never said those words to another human being flooded me, although I had heard the words plenty of times myself.
“You seem a little uptight,” Sara remarked, rising from her chair and crossing the room to take a closer look at a photo of Jamie Price with Tom Hanks.
“I’m about to become a laughingstock on national television,” I clarified. “I can’t imagine what there would be to feel uptight about.”
For No Reason (The Camdyn Series Book 4) Page 14