by Talley, Liz
Prada wasn’t stupid. She knew a determined, fluffy golden retriever when she saw one, so she jetted between Janie’s legs. Janie grabbed the lace runner, pulling it and the tiered cake off the buffet. Prada turned for a microsecond toward the smashed cake and no doubt the delicious scent of buttercream before realizing cake didn’t matter when death was breathing down her neck. She took off again, and then Poppy collided with the horrified Janie. Melanie’s friend went down like a sack of stone, missing the Yorkie and landing right on the ruined cake. Janie’s landing provided enough of a roadblock that Melanie was able to catch Poppy by the collar. Prada took off toward the kitchen with a panicked erp, erp, erp sound that could peel the wallpaper from the walls.
Everyone had stopped chatting and moved to observe the aftermath in the dining room . . . which was pretty spectacular with exposed breasts, a middle-aged woman squirming in frosting, and a dog scrabbling against the hardwood. The scent of buttercream and bourbon would forever be imprinted on Melanie’s brain, as would the color Tennyson turned before she tugged up the bodice of her dress.
“Stop it,” Melanie demanded of Poppy, who had taken to lunging repeatedly and chuffing toward the direction of the kitchen.
Luckily Kit showed up—about time—and grabbed Poppy, dragging her through the living room toward the laundry room.
Melanie straightened and then rushed over to Janie, who was in the process of shaking frosting from her hands. “Oh, Janie, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
Janie tried to rise but slipped and fell back. Her face was pale, and at that moment she looked older and frailer than her sixty-some-odd years dictated. Melanie reached down and took her elbow. “Here, let me help you.”
Ed thankfully scrambled over and helped her get Janie off the floor. As the older woman rose, Melanie tried to discreetly brush away the clumps of cake while simultaneously shooting her daughter a look that said distract.
Emma had been staring slack jawed but snapped to it when she caught Melanie’s imperative gaze. “Okay, everyone, come on in here and let me tell you about how Andrew proposed. Y’all won’t believe how romantic it all was.”
Like lemmings, the crowd of their friends and family turned and followed her daughter back to the living room, leaving Melanie with Ed, Janie, and Tennyson. Melanie noticed her mother hadn’t been a spectator. The woman had taken her seriously about staying away from Tennyson. Speaking of which, Tennyson had pulled herself together and clacked into the kitchen, probably looking for the now-silent dog.
“Oh my. I can’t believe this,” Janie said, wiping her hands down her sides, smearing her pink dress with white icing. A clump of cake fell with a splat onto her shoe.
“I’m so sorry, Janie. Are you okay? Not hurt?”
Ed helped steady Janie. “Yeah, you okay?”
“Well, my pride is hurt. That’s for certain. But all my parts seem to be working. The dress”—she glanced down at her ruined dress—“well, it’s pretty much destroyed. Did anyone happen to get it on video? I’m dying to go viral and embarrass my grandchildren.”
“Oh, Janie, you have way too good of a sense of humor about this,” Melanie said, giving her a rueful smile. Everything was such a mess, and Janie could have seriously been hurt. “Please don’t sue me.”
Janie swiped a finger through the frosting on her lapel and sucked it into her mouth. “The cake is good, and, honey, I wouldn’t sue you. You have a wedding to pay for.”
Melanie managed a rueful smile. “Come on, let’s go to my bathroom and get you cleaned up. You’re smaller than I am, but surely I can find something I can’t fit into any longer for you to change into. I’ll pay for the dress, of course.”
Kit appeared again, handed Ed a fresh bourbon, and gave Janie an apologetic look. “Don’t worry, Janie. Poppy is put away, and she will get no dog treats for at least a month.”
“Oh, it’s not her fault. She was doing what dogs do,” Janie said, following Melanie through the kitchen, where Prada cowered under the bar at the end of the kitchen island. “I mean, look at that poor puppy. Where did she come from, anyway?”
Melanie stifled the sudden anger.
This was Tennyson’s fault. Service animal, her ass!
Who did something like bring a puppy to an event . . . outside of some brainless Hollywood celebrity? And Melanie knew very well that Tennyson was anything but dumb. She was, however, good at playing parts. Tennyson may not have wanted to expose herself in front of everyone, but she sure had wanted the attention.
Wish granted, bitch.
Five minutes later, after having found Janie a dress that pretty much swamped her petite figure, Melanie slid out of the bedroom to address the mess in the dining room. She was met with apologetic smiles and a couple of pats from friends and family. Emma and Andrew had done an admirable job of distracting everyone from the disaster. When Melanie finally rounded the corner into the dining room, she found Charlotte and her neighbor Coco, a most unlikely duo, cleaning up the cake and spilled bourbon. Thankfully, neither of the glasses had shattered and sent splinters of glass careening.
“Such a shame because it really was a pretty cake,” Coco said. The woman wore a miniskirt and stilettos, but her blouse fully covered her enhanced breasts. Small wonder.
“Thank you, ladies,” Melanie said, giving Coco’s arm a squeeze. She was surprised to find her older neighbor’s arms were pretty well defined. More so than her own. Which was kind of sad since Coco was a good twenty-five years older than Melanie. God, she needed to start working out.
“You’re welcome. I’m always happy to help. Goodness, I’m like family to Kit, anyway,” Charlotte said, wiping up the last of the frosting and tossing it in the white kitchen trash bag. Kit came into the dining room with more towels and a bottle of kitchen cleaner. He handed it to Charlotte wordlessly.
“Teeny’s dog peed in the kitchen,” he said, matter of factly.
“Where is that woman?” Melanie asked, looking around for Tennyson.
“It’s okay, Mel,” Kit said, pressing his hands toward her in the manner she hated. She despised when he tried to tell her how to think and feel. Like he was the voice of reason.
“It’s not okay. It’s our children’s celebration. This is not the occasion for a dog in a purse, for heaven’s sake. She should know better.”
“You just said the important words—it’s our children’s celebration. Let it go. No one was hurt, and who needs cake, anyway?” he said, trying to smile and lighten the mood.
“I never eat cake,” Charlotte said, drawing the bag’s ties together.
“Of course you don’t,” Melanie said, turning on her heel so she didn’t say or do something she regretted. She needed a moment. She needed a drink. Or Xanax. She wondered if she had any left from the root canal. Or was that some other drug they’d given her to relax? Whatever. She felt tight as a snare drum.
She moved through the kitchen, where the staff had gathered to replenish hors d’oeuvres, and then snuck onto the small back patio that seemed to have no real purpose since it wasn’t attached to the larger one. One of her friends had suggested it was specifically for a kitchen garden, so she, with the help of Hillary, had dutifully installed oregano, mint, and basil in containers. No one came out here, so it was the perfect place for her to escape when she needed something more than a glass of wine.
Lifting the ceramic frog Noah and Emma had given her for Mother’s Day ten years ago, she fished out the Ziploc bag containing her contraband pack of smokes and a lighter. She tapped one out, stuck it in her mouth, lit it, and sucked in the sweet nicotine that would soothe her jagged nerves.
“I’ll have one of those,” Tennyson said from the darkness, startling her.
“You can go to hell,” Melanie said, shoving the plastic bag back up the frog’s ass.
Tennyson’s smile split the darkness. “You first.”
CHAPTER SIX
Tennyson had been hiding from Melanie’s wrath on the small screened porch righ
t off the kitchen. She’d first gone to the powder room to pin her straps, then she’d come back and scooped up her troublesome puppy on the way out. She had every intention of returning to clean up the piddle Prada had delivered to Melanie’s kitchen rug, but over the past week she’d learned Prada often did her business back to back. When she’d picked up the terrified puppy, Prada had clamored up her bodice, making the torn dress sag again. Thankfully, it did not pull it down to give her boobs an encore performance. The pup had immediately tried to hide beneath Tennyson’s chin, which turned her irritation at the dog to sympathy. Poor Prada. Golden retrievers were usually friendly, but then again, Tennyson had seen Cujo.
Eventually, Prada calmed and struggled to be free of Tennyson’s grasp. Independent little cuss. Tennyson set her on the brick pavers and opened the screened door. Prada waddled out and proceeded to take a dump on the pristine lawn. Great. Something else Tennyson would have to clean up. Seemed almost prophetic. Things had gone to shit fast.
Tennyson sank onto an abandoned gardening stool in the corner so she could keep an eye on Prada. She’d seen an article about small dogs being scooped up by owls and coyotes, so she never left the puppy alone. She was so focused on watching the hunched-over dog, she nearly screamed when the back door opened.
In the full moon, she could see it was Melanie, who looked super stressed.
Tennyson knew she should say something to alert the woman, but she didn’t feel like dealing with the fussing she’d get over the buttercream, bourbon, and dog pee all over Melanie’s floor. Mel would probably suck in a breath, square her shoulders, and go back to deal with things the way she always had. Her former friend was the queen of dealing.
But then Mel did something that made Tennyson raise her eyebrows. Or kind of raise them. She’d had Botox on Thursday.
Mrs. Goody Two-shoes pulled a baggie from beneath a frog statue and filched a ciggie.
When she and Melanie had been juniors in high school, they’d taken up smoking. They figured it would make them look cooler to smoke while they drank their Miller Lite ponies out in the Ferriers’ field. It was tradition after every Friday night football game to drive out and circle their cars and trucks around a bonfire. So one Monday, Tennyson bought a pack of cigarettes from an obscure grocery store owned by a small Chinese man who spoke little English and didn’t realize she was underage. She and Melanie practiced all week so they wouldn’t cough or struggle to light the cigarettes. Tennyson didn’t really like smoking that much, but surprisingly Melanie was brilliant at smoking and looking cool doing it. From then on, Mel liked a cig when she drank.
“I’ll have one of those,” Tennyson said, standing and walking over.
“You can go to hell,” Melanie said with a glower after shoving the baggie back up the frog’s ass.
“You first,” Tennyson said, latching on to the old joke they had made after watching James Bond movies on TBS when they were girls. Melanie had made fun of how there was always a funny line delivered before 007 offed the villain. Ah, silly jokes between friends. How they came back to you when you least expected them.
Melanie’s lips twitched, and she didn’t protest when Tennyson pulled the baggie out, tapped out a lung dart, and lit it.
Tennyson took a drag and exhaled the smoke. “That was a real shit show.”
“Yeah, thank you so much for bringing your dog to the engagement party. I didn’t know they offered so much emotional support. Can I borrow her?” Melanie drawled, heavy on the sarcasm. Then she jabbed a finger at where Prada still hunched on her lawn. “And you’re cleaning that up, too.”
“She’s been constipated for days.”
“Try changing her food. It helped with Poppy,” Melanie said.
“I am sorry for what happened. I shouldn’t have brought her.” Tennyson knew this was true. Thing was, she’d sort of fallen in love with the little dog. Never before had she wanted a pet. Growing up in a large family, she’d been surrounded by too many animals. As the youngest child, the walking and feeding always seemed to fall to her. After a while, she got tired of manning the pooper-scooper and cleaning the litter box. It had put her off animals, and since she’d traveled so much over the past fifteen or so years, she hadn’t wanted to feel tied down. But she had forgotten how nice it was to have their weight on her lap or the snuggly goodness of their affection. Prada’s little doggy kisses and adorable excitement at seeing her when she entered the room had done a lot to lessen Tennyson’s irritation over the ruined rug in her living room.
Prada was at least a partial cure for her loneliness.
Of course, she wasn’t really lonely. She didn’t miss her ex-husband much. Robert had been gone on business a lot, anyway. Once Andrew had graduated and taken himself off to the University of Arkansas, she’d had plenty of luncheons and other engagements to fill her time when her husband was traveling (and doing his secretary). She visited Andrew in Fayetteville, gamely trying to hike with him and enjoy the wonders of nature. Try was the key word. She didn’t get the obsession he had with kayaking the Buffalo River or scaling cliffs at the various state parks. So when Emma came along and was more interested in shopping and lunching, she marked herself lucky to gain an ally against mosquitos and ugly hiking boots. Her life had felt very full. But then after the divorce was final, and she was truly alone and newly single in Manhattan, she’d felt like an imposter trying to reclaim a life she wasn’t sure she wanted anymore.
So maybe that was why she was here—a place where she had once felt very real. Once upon a time she’d belonged here. Once upon a time she’d been young, confident, and ready to take the world by storm. Tennyson had been a girl who had dreams, goals, and a safe place to rest her head each night. Maybe she wanted that part of herself back, the one that believed she still had something to give the world. Just what that was she wasn’t certain, but she was willing to figure it out as she went.
Or maybe deep down beneath the expensive breast implants and Botox, she wanted to fix what was really broken. The one mistake she hadn’t been able to fix, cover up, or atone for.
She’d broken a promise and hurt Melanie. In the moment, she hadn’t cared. Maybe she still didn’t. Or did. She wasn’t sure about anything when it came to her old friend.
Melanie didn’t speak. Instead she sucked on the cancer stick and blew out hazy clouds against the brilliance of the night sky.
“Did you hear me?” Tennyson asked.
“I did. I don’t know whether to say okay or just gripe some more because that feels better.”
Tennyson laughed because she didn’t know what else to do. Things were definitely awkward between them, but that was to be expected. After all, Melanie had stolen Kit, and then Tennyson had gotten a little drunk at their stupid wedding and lit a fire that had burned their friendship to the ground. Afterward, there weren’t even embers. Just ashes.
“Why are you laughing? None of this is funny,” Melanie said.
Tennyson knew Melanie wasn’t talking about the disaster of the cake and dogs. She meant the whole engagement thing. She’d sensed Melanie’s displeasure when they’d met for the graduation dinner. She wasn’t sure if it was because Andrew and Emma were so young or if it was because they would now be attached to one another forever . . . or however long the marriage lasted. Tennyson had learned to doubt “till death do you part.”
But Melanie’s anger wasn’t fair to Emma and Andrew. After all, their children didn’t know about what had happened between her and Melanie. Or at least she hadn’t told them. When Tennyson had discovered Emma was Kit and Melanie’s daughter, she’d been very careful to say they’d once been friends but had lost touch as people did before the internet and smartphones. She didn’t say it was intentional, of course.
Perhaps the truth would have been better, but she didn’t want to malign Melanie to her daughter. How was she supposed to tell Emma that Melanie had stolen Kit and that she’d been so angry about it that she had told a secret she’d promised not to tell . . . to
everyone.
It was her circus, but she wasn’t feeding that monkey.
On a not so emotional level, Tennyson understood what had happened between Melanie and Kit when they went off to college together. Disassociation was an acting technique she’d often applied to study the actions and emotions of characters. Applying that, she knew the following:
Fact one: Kit was Kit—wholly gorgeous with charm and an aw-shucks attitude that drew people like hummingbirds to a hibiscus.
Fact two: Melanie had always had a thing for Kit. Tennyson had always known this and couldn’t fault her friend because Kit was easy to love, and half the teen girls in three parishes had the hots for him.
Fact three: Tennyson had broken up with Kit and left Shreveport. She’d chosen her potential career over love.
Fact four: Kit and Melanie had been lonely. And drunk. And . . . well, she knew what happened when one mixed loneliness and alcohol.
The only thing was—Tennyson had truly believed she was special to Kit and that he would choose her over Melanie every day of the week.
She’d been wrong. In her newly turned nineteen-year-old head, she believed she could leave Shreveport, catch her star, and bring a still-besotted-with-her Kit to NYC. Once he arrived, he’d propose to her with a giant diamond, and they would go on to live their most fabulous lives, basking in her fame and success. Made total sense back then. But the truth was nineteen-year-old girls could never imagine their life going any other way than what they’d envisioned. They could never foresee double lines on a pregnancy test or hearing no from every casting agent from Broadway to community theatre in Jersey. They couldn’t imagine not getting the happily ever after they thought they deserved.