by Sandra Hill
“Nice apartment,” he commented.
“Yes, I like it. I’ve worked hard over the years to collect the antiques and get the colors of the walls and carpets just right.” Who am I kidding? “I’ve put the place up for sale.”
Instead of asking her why or being surprised, Frank just nodded. “Jake already sold his.”
Whaaat? “Why?”
“I’ll let him tell you—next time you see him.”
If there is a next time. “Okay. Let’s cut to the bone. Why are you here?”
Frank continued to pet the purring cat with long sweeping strokes over its back. Finally, he looked directly at her with eyes she suddenly realized were the same honey color as her own. “I love you.”
That was the last thing she’d expected him to say, and it threw her off guard. Why tell me now? What can I say to that? “It’s too late”? “Thanks”?
Because she remained speechless, he continued, “I know I’ve acted like a jackass over the years, and I’m sorry for that.”
“Please. Don’t rehash old stuff.”
“I have to. I need to explain. I did love your grandmother, and I had intended to go to law school with her, but at heart I always was a little bit wild. When I was handed all that inheritance, it gave me the opportunity to be wild in a respectable way, if that makes sense.”
Like Jake?
“Well, it sure didn’t make sense to Lillian. I honest-to-God thought she would give in and come with me. I was wrong. I especially thought she would come back once she found herself pregnant.”
She hated that this proud man was humbling himself. She wished he would stop and be his old obnoxious self. That, she could deal with. This . . . this stranger wanted something from her she wasn’t sure she could give.
“After that, things went downhill like a greased pig on a sliding board. She wouldn’t come to me. I wouldn’t go to her. She never notified me when Joey was born. I went to court to make sure my name was on the birth certificate. She started calling him by her maiden name. I went to court to fight for joint custody. She promised to give him the Jinkowsky name if I would drop my legal fights.” He looked at her through soulful eyes. “For years after that, I said to hell with her! Pretended I didn’t care, probably didn’t care half the time. Booze can numb the heart as well as the brain. By the time Flossie came along and straightened me out, the damage had already been done with Joey. He screamed every time I tried to bring him here to visit. So, I gave up. Isn’t that sad? That I would give up so easily with my own son?”
This was all beginning to make a warped kind of logic. “That’s why you tried so hard with me. Well, tried so hard in a way that frightened me.”
“Yep. I wasn’t used to kids. Never had any brothers or sisters. Every time you were forced to come here for a visit by that court order I finally got, I bumbled around and made one mistake after another.”
“Why didn’t you ever say, well, what you said before?”
“That I love you?”
She nodded.
“It’s hard for me to say those words, even to Floss. Don’t know why. Maybe because I grew up in a family where they tended to assume those things and never say them out loud. You know what the second hardest words are for me? And they were for my father, too. In fact, I never heard him say them.”
She cocked her head for him to continue.
“I’m sorry.”
Veronica began to weep.
Frank set the cat on the floor and opened his arms for her. And, hard as it was to believe, she, a thirty-two-year-old woman, sat on her grandfather’s lap, where they hugged each other and wept for all the lost years. Veronica had grown up in a house without physical affection, but she never, ever realized that there was this hole in her life that only a grandparent, Frank, in particular, could fill.
It wasn’t a happily ever after, but it was a start.
Until she called Jake in Brigantine that night. She was going to ask him to meet with her, to talk about a possible relationship, to say that she loved him and was too miserable without him.
The phone picked up on the first ring.
It was a woman.
“Who is this?” Veronica asked.
“Trish Dangel. Who is this?”
Veronica stared wordlessly, in shock, at the telephone. Then she hung up.
Jake had done it again. The minute they had a disagreement, he left and took up with another woman. True, she had been the one to leave this time, but the dust hadn’t settled before he was hooked up with another woman.
The phone continued to ring after that until she took it off the hook. Jake had probably star-sixty-nined her.
When will I ever learn? Am I a glutton for punishment? There were no tears this time, just utter devastating disappointment.
It was over.
Laissez les bon temps rouler—let the good times roll . . .
John LeDeux walked into the ballroom of the Franklin Hotel in Perth Amboy, where banners announced “Class of 1992—St. Mark’s High School Reunion.”
He looked damn sexy, if he could say so himself, in a brand-new, dark blue Boss suit, a light blue shirt, and a navy tie sporting little red peppers, the main ingredient in Tabasco, or Cajun Lightning. It was his own hidden message for tonight. These Northerners didn’t know how to have a good time. He intended to show them.
On his arm was a woman who was naturally beautiful. He was in his element here, playing the lover to a beautiful lady, and he was loving it.
“Shoulders up, babe,” he advised Brenda. “Show off that cleavage.”
“Behave, you jerk. I want people to believe you’re my date, not my gigolo.”
“Tsk-tsk! Not nice to call your lover names, unless it’s ‘Oh, baby! Do me one more time.’”
She pinched his arm.
He pinched her butt.
Brenda shot him a dirty look, but not too dirty. She knew he was prepping her for their upcoming “performance.”
“You look great, chère.” And she did. Her blonde curls were piled on top of her head, with loose strands dangling down in a sexy, bed-tossed way. She wore a low-cut red halter sheath dress, matching stiletto heels, and red screw-me-silly lipstick.
They walked into the crowded room where a band was playing nineties music, in this case, Marky Mark’s “Good Vibrations.” Oh, yeah. There was going to be some vibrating tonight, if he had any say. Some couples were dancing; but mostly people stood around, cocktails in hand, reminiscing about old times.
“Oh, God! There he is.”
Emerging from a circle of people, Lance Caslow walked toward them. If John were female, he would probably think Caslow was handsome in a blond I’m-a-sexy-race-car-driver sort of way. John was a long-time fan, but he was not intimidated by the guy’s celebrity status.
John wrapped an arm around Brenda’s bare shoulders and tugged her closer. She smelled good, like vanilla or something sweet.
“Brenda,” Caslow said when he was directly in front of them. He didn’t look happy. Especially when his eyes latched onto John’s fingers making little circles on Brenda’s shoulder.
“Lance.” Brenda leaned her head onto John’s shoulder, causing Caslow’s jaw to clench.
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
“When?” She batted her highly mascaraed eyelashes just the way he’d shown her how.
“For the last two friggin’ years, that’s when. Every time I come to pick up Patti, you disappear into the woodwork. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re afraid.”
Well, by golly! Do I sense a little hostility here?
“Why would I be afraid of you?”
“Not of me. Of yourself. I’m thinkin’ you’re still in love with me.”
“Of all the egotistical . . .” Brenda glanced around and said, “Where’s Barbie?”
“Barbie who?”
“Oh, I don’t know, the Barbie of the Month, I guess. You know, the bimbo with the big boobs who sat on your lap in the ’03 NASCAR
race picture that ran in, oh, let’s say, every newspaper in the world.”
“Are you still pissed over that? Shiiit! I didn’t even know her name.”
“You knew her well enough to have her ass in your lap and your hands propping up her breasts.”
Caslow shook his head sadly. “Arguing with you is like drag racing over a cliff.”
John coughed, “Ahem,” figuring it was time to liven up this party.
“Who are you?”
John made a slow sweep of Brenda’s arm with his palm, wrist to shoulder and back again, just to see Caslow’s reaction. John assumed that hissing sound he made was not approval. “I’m John LeDeux. Brenda’s date. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“As a NASCAR driver?”
“Well, yeah, but also from Brenda.”
Caslow let out a short hoot of laughter. “What? Is she still telling the small-dick jokes?”
“Only the truth, sweetheart,” Brenda said with an exaggerated smile on her face.
“I, on the other hand, am amply endowed,” John said, just to needle the guy.
Caslow’s eyes about bugged out. “For chrissake, how old are you?”
“Old enough!”
“You have some nerve questioning the age of my date when jailbait is your norm,” Brenda spat.
“Dammit, Brenda! Cut it out. I came here to see you, not to fight.” He inhaled and exhaled several times to calm himself down. “Do you want a drink?”
“Yeah, we’ll both have gin and tonics, light on the gin for my honey here,” John said.
Caslow looked as if he’d like to make roadkill of him with a race car. “Are you sure you’re legal?” he muttered as he went off to the bar.
“Well, that was fun,” John said to Brenda once her ex was gone.
“I’m so nervous I’m shaking.”
“You two have it bad.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s obvious that he still loves you. His eyes devour you. And you, come on, admit it. He still rings your bell.”
“Rings my . . . my . . . ,” she stuttered.
“Let’s dance,” he said. “Time for step two of ‘Annoy the Hell out of Lance.’” It was Right Said Fred’s “I’m too Sexy.” Very appropriate song, in John’s opinion.
Dancing came naturally to Cajun men—well, at least the LeDeux men. And John, with all modesty, knew he was the best. Not in a flamboyant way, but slow and sexy; that was the trick.
By the time that song ended and the DJ turned on “Jump,” he and Brenda had their moves down pat. She was shimmying. He was coming up behind her, both their knees bent, hips undulating, doing a Cajun version of dirty dancing. People started to stop and watch them, even Caslow, who stood on the edge of the crowd, staring at them with dismay.
The next song was a slow one, that hokey “How Am I Supposed to Live without You?” by Michael Bolton. By then he took pity on Caslow, who’d ditched the drinks and stood frozen like a lovesick puppy. With a jerk of his head, he motioned Caslow to make his move.
Brenda didn’t have a chance to protest when Caslow came up and took her in his arms and began to dance. At first, she was stiff as a board, throwing eye-daggers at John and mouthing “traitor,” but then she relaxed. John felt a sort of satisfaction watching her link her arms around her ex’s neck and laying her face in the crook of his neck, with Caslow tugging her even closer. Both of their eyes were closed. He figured he must have inherited a bit of Tante Lulu’s matchmaking genes.
Walking off the dance floor, he picked up one of the three gin and tonics Caslow had gotten for them. As he sipped, he surveyed the room. Oh, yeah. Twelve noon, straight ahead. Blonde with bedroom eyes scoping me out.
With a grin, John put his drink down and sauntered over. In his best Southern drawl, he said, “Hey, darlin’.”
One party crasher, two party crasher, three party crasher . . .
“I can’t believe I’m going to crash a high school reunion. This has got to be a new low in my pitiful life.”
Veronica was speaking to Adam and Caleb, who flanked her as they walked into a hotel ballroom where Brenda’s class get-together was being held. It was nine o’clock, and the event had to be half over.
“Nothing pitiful about it,” Adam asserted. “We’re here to offer moral support to Brenda.”
“Yeah. She was probably too embarrassed to ask for our help,” Caleb observed. “That’s why she invited that young pup LeDeux as her date.”
Veronica gazed with amusement at the two men, who were looking very spiffy. Adam wore a dark suit with a red and yellow striped tie, and Caleb was in a navy blazer and khakis with a dark tie sporting a bunch of tiny images of the Navy SEAL budweiser. Hey, she didn’t look too shabby herself, even though she had been given only a half hour to get dressed when Adam and Caleb showed up unexpectedly at her Boston apartment late this afternoon. She wore a short black, silk, sleeveless sheath dress. She recalled having worn it once when vacationing in the South of France, when Jake . . . well, never mind. Anyhow, she’d dressed hurriedly and pulled her hair off her face with pearl and diamond clips to match her pearl earrings; her only other adornment was her rhinestone-studded black high heels. It had taken them four hours to get here, even speeding in Adam’s brand-new Lexus.
“Uh-oh! Looks like we’re too late,” Adam said.
They all turned to the crowd in the middle of the ballroom.
Brenda was dancing with what must be her ex-husband, a blond god in an expensive brown suit. So much for her making him eat his heart out with jealousy. John was dancing, too, with a blonde bombshell . . . what else? And they all appeared half crocked.
“Nah, not too late. Looks like we arrived just in time,” Caleb said. “But first, I think we all need a drink after Famosa’s driving.”
“What? You think I drive too fast?” Adam asked, actually surprised by Caleb’s comment.
“No, Sherlock. You don’t drive too fast; you fly too fast. For chrissake, you were doing ninety half the time.”
“Yeah, but I was doing forty in traffic the rest of the time. So, it all equaled out.”
Veronica rolled her eyes.
Once they had drinks in hand—her, white wine; Adam, scotch on the rocks; and Caleb, a beer—they watched the dancers. When the song ended and Brenda and John spotted them, the four joined them at a large, round table.
“Hi, I’m Lance Caslow, Brenda’s ex-husband,” the blond god said, offering handshakes to them all. A personable fellow, despite all the things said about him by Brenda, whose face was pink with embarrassment at having been caught with her ex.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Veronica, Adam, and Caleb said in unison.
“Needle dick, right?” Lance said with a laugh, shaking his head at Brenda.
“Well, it is,” Brenda said.
“Not,” he said.
“Don’t be thinking that I’m getting back together with Mr. I’m too Full of Myself,” Brenda told everyone at the table.
Lance waggled his eyebrows.
“We’re not.” She spoke directly to Lance. “I was just being nice so you wouldn’t be embarrassed in public if I tossed you in the punch bowl.”
Lance laughed. “You could try. And as long as you’re being nice, how about you and me . . . ?” He said something so explicit then that everyone’s jaws dropped.
Brenda’s eyes narrowed with fury.
Lance continued to laugh, which infuriated Brenda more. She took a long swallow of her drink, and said, “Did I ever tell you guys about the first time Lance and I made love? If you think his driving is faster than the speed of sound, boy, you should have—”
“Well, this is pleasant,” John interrupted. “Guys, I’d like you to meet Sonia Reeder, who probably thinks we’re all nuts. Sonia, this is Brenda, Lance, Ronnie, Caleb, and Adam. Brenda and Lance, you must know Sonia from high school.” John and Sonia, who wore a red, skin-tight latex short-sleeved dress and chandelier rhinestone earrings, smiled at them all
, sat down on the two empty chairs and picked up drinks they must have left there.
“Sonia Reeder?” Brenda’s brow was furrowed. “Is that your maiden name?”
“Nope,” Sonia said, grinning.
Now Lance’s brow was furrowed. “You look familiar.”
“Oh,” Lance and Brenda said at the same time. “Steve Reeder.”
John choked on his drink, and Caleb had to clap him on the back. Everyone was laughing, including Sonia. Before he had a chance to check himself, John blurted out, “I put my tongue in a man’s mouth. Eeew!”
“You weren’t saying ‘eew’ at the time, sweetie,” Sonia said sweetly.
“You just met her—him—and you were French kissing?” Veronica shook her head with incredulity.
“Hey, I’m a fast mover,” John said.
“I can attest to that.” Sonia batted her false eyelashes at John.
John groaned.
“I told you he was a dumb Southern boy,” Adam told Caleb. “Did you hear about the cracker whose dog couldn’t learn tricks?”
John just grinned, not at all offended.
“You have to be smarter than the dog to teach it stuff,” Adam finished.
“Not bad,” John said. “But do you know how a Yankee man is different than a hot fudge sundae? No? Well, a hot fudge sundae always satisfies a woman.”
“I like hot fudge sundaes,” Sonia said, licking her lips and staring at John like he was a sweet treat.
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I’m not gay,” John told Sonia.
“Good, because I’m not a man—anymore,” Sonia replied, a teasing twinkle in his—her—eyes.
“Help!” John appealed to the rest of them.
After that, the party went downhill, or uphill, depending on who was talking. Alcohol played a big part. Since the dinner was over and it was a cash bar, no one cared about the party crashers. Or that there was one more late party crasher.
Jake.
The things a guy will do for love . . . !
This had to be the most half-baked, half-assed thing he’d ever done in all his life, but Frank had insisted that he drive up to Perth Amboy for Brenda Caslow’s high school reunion if he ever wanted to get Ronnie back.