In all her rushing around, she had barely eaten anything all day either. Hopefully something was left in her refrigerator.
When they arrived at the condo, Alissa didn’t have to check the refrigerator. The minute she unlocked the door, Brad got to it before she did. “You have any special plans for these plums?” he asked.
“No. Is there anything else in there?”
“No other recognizable real food. Just yogurt, cottage cheese, celery, carrots and—just a sec.” He opened the milk carton and took a sniff before drinking right from the carton. “No more milk,” he said. “Anything in here?” He opened the freezer and found it empty except for two Weight Watchers frozen dinners she had bought earlier in the week and hadn’t had time to eat.
“Are you on a diet or something?”
Alissa felt her face blushing, and she tried to avoid his question.
“So let’s just get it out in the open. I’ll bet you were one of those beauty queens. In high school.”
“Excuse me?” Alissa leaned against her kitchen counter. She really couldn’t believe this guy.
Brad chomped off the end of a carrot. “In high school, you were so beautiful you didn’t know what to do with it so you used it to your advantage until it got you in trouble.” He snapped off another chunk of carrot. “Then you decided to kill off the beauty queen part by adding pounds. But she’s still there, you know. So here you are at what, twenty-five?”
“Twenty-six,” Alissa grudgingly offered.
“Twenty-six, and you’re still trying to find a balance between who you are on the inside and the curse you were handed at birth.”
“The curse, huh?” Alissa folded her arms across her chest.
“The beauty. You’re beautiful, you know. It can be more of a handicap than being born with a physical defect. The beautiful women never know if people, men in particular, are nice to them because of their looks or because of who they are on the inside. So the women with the beauty handicap spend their pre- to mid-life years distrusting men. That’s you.”
Alissa unfolded her arms and put her hands together, applauding Brad in jest. “Oh, thank you, great Freud. How has the world gotten along all these years without your wisdom?”
Brad shrugged and tossed the top of the carrot into the sink. “It’s a mystery, isn’t it? So, what do you want to move first? The furniture or the boxes?”
She was steaming mad. This guy had to go. “You know what? I’m going to change my clothes, and when I come out of that room, I want you to be gone.”
“See? Right there,” Brad said, opening the freezer and pulling out two of the microwave dinners. “You don’t know what to do with someone who is honest and trustworthy. You run, you push them away. Now what would be the point of my leaving? You’d have to see me again. We’re neighbors. What do you want? Chicken piccata or vegetable lasagna? Forget I asked. You can have the lasagna.”
As Brad was ripping open the boxes and tossing them into the microwave, Alissa stomped into her bedroom and slammed the door. There was nothing she could do with her anger. Everything was packed so she couldn’t find anything to throw. Plus, she had nearly thrown one chair today. How many chairs did she have to threaten this clown with to get rid of him?
Okay, calm down, Alissa. You can do this. You’re a professional. You’ve dealt with worse than his kind at work. Take a deep breath. You’ll be fine. Change your clothes, eat some vegetable lasagna, and haul some boxes over to your new home. You’ll be fine. You can do this.
She pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and wrapped her hair on top of her head, holding it in place with a silver barrette. Washing her face helped, even though all her towels were packed and she had to dry off with toilet paper. She sat on the edge of her tub, letting all her fired-up emotions burn themselves out.
Feeling calmer and more in control, she walked out the bedroom door and found her microwave dinner waiting for her on the counter. Brad was gone. And so were half the boxes she had stacked up in the living room. She had no idea how he could have hoofed it to his truck with so many boxes so fast.
Silently eating her lukewarm vegetable lasagna, Alissa decided what to do next. As long as she was going to move everything tonight, she might as well clean out the rest of the kitchen cupboards and empty the refrigerator. She still had to clean the condo to get her deposit back. But she could do that Sunday.
Going at it with all the energy she had left, Alissa filled the last four packing boxes with goods from the cupboards and then emptied the refrigerator.
When Brad walked back in her open front door, she looked up, wondering what this encounter would bring. Brad plunked a Big Gulp on the counter. “Peace offering,” he said. “Diet Coke. Okay?”
“Thanks.”
“See how nice that is?” Brad said and then drew a long slurp up the straw of his drink. “I do something nice, and you say thank you. That’s nice.”
Alissa should have kept her mouth shut, but the statement tumbled out. “I hate diet drinks. But thanks anyway.”
Brad flipped his hair behind his ear and said, “You’re kidding.”
“No. It’s the artificial sweetener. I don’t like it.”
“Well, that’s your problem. Do you know how much sugar is in a regular Coke?”
“You’re saying I have a weight problem?”
Brad’s eyes widened in disbelief. He slapped his forehead and said, “I come here, I look in the fridge. All you have are carrots and diet frozen dinners. I try to be nice so I buy you a beverage that corresponds with the contents of your refrigerator. This does not take a brain surgeon. But no, you eat diet food but don’t drink diet drinks. Okay.”
“I appreciate the thought,” Alissa said. He didn’t perk up so she added the magical, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Brad said. “What goes next? The rest of the boxes or the furniture?”
Alissa felt he had closed her off. Maybe that was a good thing. At least they wouldn’t be at each other for the rest of the night.
And they weren’t. They worked in tandem, quickly, quietly like two old jogging buddies running the track silently in sync with each other.
Just to be nice, Alissa drank about a fourth of the diet Coke. It wasn’t bad.
They delivered the last load of stuff to the duplex at twenty after midnight. She thanked him out in front of the duplex. He said, “You’re welcome” and went inside his half of their domain. Alissa entered her jumble-tumble duplex and was glad Shelly wasn’t there to see the mess.
So that’s that. I have the ideal home and roommate, but my neighbor is impossible. I’m going to plan right now to see as little of him as possible.
Alissa barely got her bed made in her new room before she fell into it and slept a dreamless sleep. She hadn’t set an alarm, so she was shocked to find it was after ten when she woke up the next morning. She had needed that rest. But now she had less than four hours to clear the house a bit, find some nice clothes, and shower and dress for the wedding.
Like a worker bee on a mission for the queen, Alissa dashed around the place, unpacking clothes, filling her drawers in the bathroom with her cosmetics, and reshuffling the boxes in the kitchen. She and Shelly hadn’t talked through which dishes to keep. Since they both had complete kitchens, Alissa was going to propose they keep their favorite things, even if they had duplicates, and store the rest or have a garage sale.
She didn’t think much about Brad as she scrambled around the house. He was going to be one of those unavoidable nuisances. Everything else about her new friends and new home was perfect. Almost too perfect. But Brad took care of that. He was the negative that balanced out the positives.
Showered and dressed in a slimming navy sundress, her hair down and curled, Alissa slid her contacts into her eyes and finished applying her makeup. She felt excited about watching Rosie come down that aisle to at last be united with her dear Chet.
Alissa grabbed her car keys and wallet and swished out the front
door. The door to the other duplex shut the same time as hers. There stood Brad, dressed in black slacks, a white shirt, and striped tie, with his hair slicked straight back and his face shaved. He obviously had a hot date.
Brad lifted his sunglasses and looked at Alissa. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she said.
They stood there awkwardly glancing at each other, and then down at their shoes and over at their cars parked on the street.
“Well, I have to go,” she said.
“Me, too,” Brad said, flipping his sunglasses back in place.
They walked down their tandem walkways and split to go to their cars. Alissa unlocked her door and said over her shoulder, “Have a nice time.”
“You, too,” he called back. “I don’t know how much fun I’m going to have.” He slipped into his truck, rolled down the window, and called out, “I’m going to a wedding.”
Chapter Eight
Alissa froze in mid-entrance to her car. She couldn’t get in until she settled the question that had arisen in her mind. Brad started his engine and was pulling away from the curb when she ran back and flagged him down. He stopped, and she went over to his rolled down window.
“This is really a ridiculous question.” She caught a whiff of his aftershave and knew that he must be going to a wedding with a date. She couldn’t imagine a guy like Brad cleaning up so nicely unless it was for a woman. Plus it was June. Lots of afternoon weddings were going on today.
“What?” Brad asked.
“By any chance is the wedding at Descanso Gardens?”
“Yeah. You want a ride somewhere?”
Alissa closed her eyes and breathed in slowly. “It’s not Chet and Rosie’s wedding, is it?”
“Yeah!” Brad lifted his sunglasses and looked her in the eye. “How did you know?”
“Because that’s where I’m going.”
“How do you know them?” Brad asked.
“I’m their travel agent. They’re going to Italy for their honeymoon.”
“That’s right,” Brad said. “You can thank me for that little bonus in your paycheck. I sent them to you.”
Alissa put her hand on her hip. “You did not.”
“Yes, I did. I met Chet at the dentist a couple of weeks ago. See? I had this filling replaced back here.” He opened his mouth and pointed to a lower molar.
“I’m not interested in your dental history!”
“That’s where I met him. He asked me where I thought he should go on his honeymoon. I told him Italy. Then I told him about Clawson Travel.”
“Wait a minute. You told Chet to go to Italy at the dentist’s office, and he made his honeymoon decision based on your opinion?”
“You find that so hard to believe? That someone actually valued my opinion?”
“Well …”
“Boy, you never let up, do you? Come on, get in. We’re going to be late. No use both driving to the same place.”
“All right, but I’ll drive. My car’s cleaner.”
“Your car’s cleaner? Who’s going to see your car? Your car is not going to the wedding. It has to wait for you in the parking lot.”
“My gift for them is in the car.”
“So? Go get it. I’ve already started my engine. Not to mention I’ve wasted a gallon of gas sitting here talking to you.”
“Well, excuse me!” Alissa said. “Drive yourself over. I don’t need a ride from you.”
“Fine,” Brad called as she walked away. “I was going to tell you the story, but never mind.”
Alissa stopped in her tracks. She decided it would be worth enduring a ride to the wedding with Brad to hear the rest of Rosie and Chet’s love story.
“Okay! Okay! Just a minute,” she yelled. She grabbed her sunglasses from the visor and the wrapped gift from the front seat, then hurried over to the passenger side of Brad’s truck. He was revving the engine as she approached the door.
“Very funny. You’re wasting gas, you know,” she said, trying to slide gracefully across the seat. The floor was one big mound of used fast food bags. The distinct scent of French fry grease rose from the abyss. “Gross! Can’t we take my car? Where am I supposed to put my feet?”
“Buckle up, baby. Brad’s at the wheel.” He squealed the tires as he rammed down the street, burning rubber at the stop sign.
“Now do you feel important and in control?” Alissa chided. She carefully planted her heels on top of a crumpled Burger King bag. “You know what it is with your kind? You never grow up. You think power is synonymous with maturity. If you can show you’re in control of something or someone, that must make you an adult.” She crossed her arms across her middle as Brad peeled through the intersection. “You need constant affirmation. You’re an eternal adolescent, trying to prove something.”
“That’s pretty good,” Brad said. “Did you get that from psychotherapeutic systems? I took that class last semester.”
Alissa could not believe this guy. “That’s all you’re going to say?”
“I think you’re right,” Brad added. “You’re very insightful. Anything else you want to add to your conclusions?”
“Yes, would you mind rolling up the window and turning on the air conditioning?”
“Sure.”
She was surprised he was so agreeable. But her goal was to return to the topic that had motivated her to come with him in the first place. “So, tell me their story. I just heard up to the part where Meg sent Chet the letter telling him Rosie was in Houston.”
Brad looked over at her. “What are you talking about?”
“Chet and Rosie’s love story.”
“Their love story? I meant the story of how I convinced him to go to Italy. As in the immortal words of Indiana Jones, ‘Ah, Venice.’ ”
Alissa stared at him in disbelief.
“Did you ever see that old movie about the couple who went to Venice on their honeymoon? I was telling Chet about it at lunch.”
“Wait a minute. I thought you met in the dentist’s office.”
“We did. Then I took him to lunch. McDonald’s for chocolate shakes. That’s all we could eat after our dental work. I told him he needed to take Rosie on a gondola ride. That’s about as romantic as it gets. Either that, or I told him to take her to St. Mark’s Square with all the pigeons. That was at the end of the movie. They ran into each other’s arms, and all the pigeons fluttered up around them. It was awesome.”
Alissa slowly turned her head, peering at Brad over the rim of her sunglasses.
“What?” he said returning her gaze, then looking back at the road.
“That’s your idea of romantic? These people are seventy years old, okay? They are not going to run into each other’s arms through a plaza of pigeon goo.”
“Pigeon goo?”
Alissa ignored him and plunged forward. “And just how romantic is it to sit in a gondola with some fat guy in a striped shirt wearing a bow on his hat looking over your shoulder?”
“Obviously you’ve never been on a gondola,” Brad said.
“And you have?”
“Not yet.”
“Not yet, huh?”
“It’s one of my goals.”
Alissa shook her head and stared out the side window again. Her idea of the romance of Venice would be whispers in a private corner of a candlelit café. Or a walk across one of the bridges, stopping in the middle for a long, lingering kiss.
Pigeons! I can just see Rosie trying to shoo a flock of pigeons out of her hair.
“So you don’t know how Chet and Rosie got together?”
“Sure I do. They met in high school.”
“I mean recently. How did they end up together recently?”
“I don’t know.” Brad drove into the Descanso Gardens parking lot. He pulled an embossed invitation from his pocket to check the wording. “Rose Garden,” he said. “Which way? Does it say on your invitation?”
“No.”
“Did you bring your invitation?”
&n
bsp; “I didn’t get one.”
“Oh, really? Are you sure you’re invited?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Let’s go find this place. We’re probably late.”
“And whose fault would that be?” Brad asked, leading the way.
“I didn’t say it was your fault. It’s nobody’s fault. Look, I think the wedding’s over there.”
They followed a winding path down to an archway covered in ivy, red roses, and baby’s breath. A minister in a black suit stood behind the arch, and several dozen chairs were set up on either side of the white runner. Beyond the arch stretched a lovely garden of roses.
Chet stood to the side, looking handsome in his black tux and deep red rose boutonniere. The photographer was snapping shots of Chet as the guests shifted in their seats.
“See?” Brad said. “They wouldn’t start without us.”
Brad and Alissa slipped into two open seats in the second row behind an older woman in a big hat covered with silk flowers. Alissa had to adjust to the side to see around her. Right after they sat down, a string quartet began to play. Chet approached the pastor solemnly, his hands folded in front and a grin the size of Miami on his face.
The music switched tempo slightly, and the thirty or so guests stood to observe the eighth wonder of the world—a woman clothed in white, coming down the wedding aisle.
Rosie looked stunning. Her hair was brushed out full in a halo of white. Crowning the top of her head was a wreath of gardenias, red rose buds, lavender statice, and delicate baby’s breath.
Her dress had lace and pearls across the bodice and down the long sheer sleeves. It gathered at her waist and flowed in delicate, airy layers to the ground. She seemed to float past them.
In her hands she held a cascading bouquet of red roses woven with white ribbons; large, white gardenias; and baby’s breath.
The instant Alissa looked at Rosie’s face, tears welled up in her eyes. She turned so Brad wouldn’t see and tease her. Never had she seen a woman look so beautiful. Rosie’s firecracker red lips were pursed together, trembling as an endless stream of tears flowed down her cheeks. She had eyes only for Chet. Nothing could stop this woman, who was so powerfully, deeply, painfully in love, from reaching that altar.
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