by Becky Monson
“Shhhh,” Ashley scolds. It’s probably the fiftieth time she’s said that. I was not meant to be a spy – there’s too much quiet time. Not that anyone could hear us. We are in a bush for hell’s sake.
“Here she comes,” Ashley gets the camera ready on her phone.
Serene comes out of the door, long legs taking the stairs of the brownstone with the grace of a gazelle. I hate her stupid long legs.
Ashley curses. “She’s alone,” she stage whispers.
“See,” I say, echoing the stage whisper. “I knew this would be a waste of time.”
“Shhhh,” she says, putting a hand over my mouth. She nods her head toward the door Serene just came out of. It opens again, and out comes a man dressed in a gray suit. His hair is black like Serene’s and slicked back with what is most likely a lot of product.
“It’s him,” I whisper. It’s the guy from the café that time I caught them sucking face. I’m sure of it. He’s wearing a different suit today, but the greased back hair is the same.
He walks down the stairs to meet Serene, his arm going immediately around her. He kisses her lightly on the lips. It’s not an overly romantic kiss, but it’s clearly not a kiss between friends.
Kissing friends . . . that makes me miss Ian. And instantly, my heart feels like the life has been sucked out of it. It does that every time I think of him.
“Start taking pictures,” Ashley demands, pulling me out of my quick jump into melancholy.
I start snapping pictures with my phone, grabbing whatever I can. I missed the kiss, but maybe Ashley got it.
Serene and mystery man start to walk arm in arm down the street.
“Are we going to follow them?” I say, feeling like I don’t have enough evidence.
“Of course,” Ashley says, still concentrating on taking pictures with her phone.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” I say, grabbing her arm.
“Bridgette, we need them to get a little ways away, don’t you think?” She looks at me, eyebrows pinched, obviously frustrated by my lack of spying skills. I can’t be blamed. This is my first time, after all.
“Right,” I say, nodding my head quickly.
“Okay,” she says when she’s decided that they’re a sufficient distance away.
We exit the bush, pulling leaves and twigs out of each other’s hair, and start to trail Serene and the mystery man. Only as we start to follow, they stop abruptly, which makes Ashley stop short with her arm out to block me from going forward. Before we are able to assess the situation, like good spies, Serene’s lover—I guess that’s what he is, after all—whistles at a taxi, which pulls over and they get in.
“Well, I guess that’s over,” I say, feeling slightly relieved and slightly disappointed at the same time.
“Doesn’t matter,” Ashley declares. “We have proof.” She holds up her phone, waggling her eyebrows, grin on her face. She’s enjoying this.
“Let’s go back to Gram’s and assess,” I say, tucking my phone in my pocket.
I feel adrenaline pumping through me because of what we just did, but also for the fact that I can now help Carla and Frank. I just hope it works.
~*~
“How is this possible?” Ashley asks, looking at her phone, infuriated.
“I don’t know,” I say, scanning and rescanning the pictures on my phone. All of them are complete crap. Apparently, phone cameras are not suitable for surveillance. Who knew? And since this was my first, and probably last, jaunt into a career as a spy, this piece of news is pretty useless.
There’s only one picture that might possibly work, and even though it doesn’t show Serene doing anything wrong, it might put questions in Adam’s head. I attach it to a text and send it to Carla. No way am I sending it to Adam.
“Do you think it will work?” Ashley asks, after I hit send.
“Who knows?” I shrug. “But at least I tried, right?
“If you ask me, I think you’re only confirming what Adam accused you of last time you tried to bring this up,” Gram says.
No one asked her.
It’s true; I stalked Serene and took pictures of her. That puts me well into the crazy category. But I had a good reason, didn’t I? I thought Carla was a little over-the-top when it came to her concerns about Serene, but it’s pretty obvious her motherly intuition was right on. I’m merely trying to confirm that. She’s definitely not marrying Adam for love. If she is, she has a sick way of showing it.
“Well, I had to do something, didn’t I?” I say to Gram, trying to defend myself. “Clearly, there’s something going on. I can’t sit back and let her get her talons into the Dubois family without some sort of fight.”
Gram shrugs. I know she’s only looking out for me. After all, the last time I tried to intrude, it didn’t go so well. But my intentions are genuine. There was a time when I would have done just about anything to get Adam back, but not anymore. Now, more than anything, I want to protect his family.
After Ashley leaves, I sit down in my normal spot on the couch. Gram is watching The Young and the Restless, and I’m trying not to get sucked into it but having a hard time. On today’s episode, Heather is telling Ian to pick her, that Jessica is all wrong for him, even though Ian is already officially engaged to Jessica. Holy hell, I’ve got to convince Gram to find another show to obsess over.
With Ashley gone and the remnants of adrenaline taking its last jaunt through my veins, I’m starting to come down from the high. And when I don’t have anything else to keep my brain occupied, that’s when Ian comes back into my mind. I’m better than I was two weeks ago, I think. Actually, I’m probably not. But I’m better at finding things to get my mind off him.
“Thinking about Ian?” Gram asks. The music that comes at the end of the show starts to play, and so she can now put her attention on me.
“How did you know?” I asked, pulling my eyebrows in.
“Because you sighed.”
“I did?” I didn’t even realize I had.
“Yes, you’ve been doing a lot of that lately,” she says, her elbow perched on the armrest, her chin leaning into her hand.
“Sorry,” I say, not truly sorry. I’ve been saying that a lot lately without really meaning it.
“What’s the hardest part?” she asks.
“What do you mean?” I scrunch my face again.
“What’s the hardest part of all of this?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I say and sigh. She gives me a quick eyebrow raise, noting the sigh. “I guess the hardest part is that it all feels so wrong. Now that I’ve had Ian in my life, I can’t be without him. I don’t want to be without him.”
“Did you ever tell him that?” Gram asks.
“No,” I say flatly.
“Well, then how did you expect him to change his mind if he didn’t even hear the truth from you?”
I slump back into the couch. I totally pulled an Ian. I kept my feelings to myself, mostly because of fear: fear of rejection, fear of embarrassment, fear that he wouldn’t pick me, fear that I would break up him and Maureen, fear of being that girl. And now it’s too late.
CHAPTER 39
“Carla, you need to relax. No one is going to see you fraternizing with the enemy,” I say, trying for the fiftieth time to reassure Carla that she won’t get caught with me. We are in the darkest restaurant I’ve ever been in, seated in the very back. I’m not so sure we’d be found even if there were some sort of catastrophic event and people were actually searching for us.
“Well, you can never be too sure,” she says, looking around suspiciously, yet one more time. Funny how Serene never worries about being seen. She just prances around the town with her lover, not thinking, or maybe not caring, that anyone sees her.
“Anyway, you have something you wanted to talk to me about?” I ask, trying to get her to relax, and honestly, her neurosis is starting to wear off on me. I’m starting to feel paranoid, although I will not be admitting that out loud.
“Oh . . . well . . .,” I stammer, “I . . . uh . . .,” I gulp down some water to gather myself. “Uh, Justin sent it to me. He . . . uh . . . saw her.” I stumble, or rather lie. I nibble my bottom lip, grateful Carla doesn’t know that little tic of mine.
“Oh, well, that’s good.” She looks slightly relieved and even slightly relaxed. “Although it doesn’t matter where you got it. Adam doesn’t buy any of it. Doesn’t think it was even her.” She sniffs and shakes her head.
I almost tell her that I know it was Serene and why I know, but she seems relieved to know (or think) it wasn’t me who took the picture. Telling her the truth might only prove Adam’s theory that I’m crazy and still in love with him, which is not the case. I have a flimsy defense, though, so best not to go there.
“Anyway,” she goes on, “we had a huge argument, and for a while I was uninvited to the wedding, which is ridiculous because Frank and I are the ones paying for it. We worked it all out, though.” She looks off in the distance, contemplative.
Crap. I didn’t think that would happen. That was not one of the scenarios I had envisioned. Him not believing was certainly one (the main one), but kicking his mom out of the wedding was not a possibility in my head. It seems more likely than not, these days. Adam is clearly under some sort of spell, which, yet again, confirms Serene’s witch status.
Carla sighs dramatically, her shoulders slumping.
“I’m sorry, Carla,” I say, knowing where the sigh is coming from.
“Yes, me too.” She looks so tired, so drained. I hope we’ve been wrong about Serene. Maybe when they get married she’ll realize she’s happier with Adam and ditch the other guy, for Carla’s sake, if for nothing else. I would hate to see Serene be exactly who she appears to be. This family can’t be ripped apart like that. They are good people. They don’t deserve it.
“Well, it’s not long until the wedding,” I say. “Maybe the truth will come out somehow.”
“Two and a half weeks. That’s all we’ve got,” she says, “and I hope so. Desperately.”
I feel so awful and useless right now.
“One good thing has come of it, I guess,” she says, her frown dissipating a bit.
“What’s that?”
“Well, F.J. has really stepped up,” she says, staring at her wine as she swirls it around in her glass.
“How so?” I ask, intrigued.
“He’s just been very supportive of me and helpful with the business. It’s been nice, actually.” Her lips curl up into a closed-mouth smile. “He offered to hire a private investigator to look more into Serene. Says he knows people.” Her eyes convey an emotion that I’ve never seen from Carla in regards to F.J.: pride.
“He did?” I say, wondering why this hadn’t occurred to me. Of course! A PI could be the answer to it all.
“Yes. But after the whole picture thing blew up in my face, I think it would be best not to.” The smile disappears as quickly as it had shown up. “I’m just going to have to hope now. That’s all I’ve got.”
“Sure. I understand.” I bobble my head a few times, understanding. Or trying to, at least.
“Tell me about you,” she says, still swirling her wine around in her cup. “I need to not think about all this right now.”
“Well, I got a promotion at work,” I say, shrugging. It seems so miniscule compared to the things Carla’s going through. I highly doubt it can help her get her mind off her life right now.
“Isn’t that wonderful,” she says. Her voice has little inflection. “You’ve been working for that for a long time.”
“I have,” I nod. “It’s been a little more stressful than I thought it would be, but I think I’m getting the hang of things.”
That’s actually true. The past few events have gone fairly smoothly, smoothly enough, in fact, that Ursula is letting me do my own event soon. The thought makes me feel all kinds of sick in my stomach, but I have to prove I can do it so I can keep this promotion. I also want to prove it to myself.
“I remember my first job. It was for a little boutique in Queens. I had the biggest crush on the owner . . .” and just like that, Carla’s back. Well, sort of. It’s more of a shadow of Carla, but I’ll take it. At least she can tell me stories to get her mind off everything, and I’ll be here for her, as long as she needs me to be.
That’s what you do for family.
CHAPTER 40
I will kill him. Actually I will cut him first and watch him bleed out. That sounds fair enough. All I know is Justin must die.
He finally sent his play over. I had to pester him about it, and he still seemed unsure, as did Ashley. But he sent it. And now that I’ve read it, I can’t honestly believe he sent it to me. If the roles had been reversed, I wouldn’t have had the nerve, but he did. I’m not so sure it was his smartest move.
It’s a one-act play, and under normal circumstances, I would probably find it funny. Instead, I find it insulting and, well, basically rude. It starts out innocently enough. The scene opens with a family seated around a dinner table. Everything is calm, and they’re making small talk while forks and knives clank on plates.
But when the dialogue truly begins, that’s when I started to recognize this play for what it actually is: a complete reenactment of the dinner with the Dubois family, the one where Adam proposed to Serene.
I’m going to kill him.
He didn’t word it verbatim, but it’s close enough. Obviously, he was recording the whole scene with his mind. I thought I was taking lazy, old Justin with me to dinner, the gamer or comic book reader Justin, not the playwright Justin. Had I known . . . but I couldn’t have known, could I?
It would be one thing if I were written as this heroine who sweeps in and deals with what’s being dealt to her in stride, but instead I’m written as a whiny, love-sick moron, who can’t seem to grasp what’s going on in front of her. And I’m not like that. Well, not like that anymore, at least.
And, of course, it’s getting rave reviews. How could it not? It’s full of drama and ridiculousness, and I know because I lived it. I lived the whole damn thing.
I pick up my phone and text Justin.
You are dead to me.
I click send and wait for his response. If he’s smart, he won’t even try to stick up for himself.
My phone beeps.
Bridge, it’s not personal.
I roll my eyes, even though I know he can’t see me. What a guy thing to say.
I didn’t need this today. It was a long morning already. I was over at the office with Ursula asking (actually begging) her to change the schedule. But Ursula was not having it, and why would she? She has no idea what’s been transpiring the last few months of my life. Even if I tried to explain it, I doubt she would care. She’s a practical woman. Trivial things like managing the catering for your ex-boyfriend’s rehearsal dinner wouldn’t matter to someone like The Sea Witch.
My first event, by myself, is Ian’s rehearsal dinner. I asked weeks ago to have it off because I want no part of it. Call me shallow, I don’t care. Apparently, other scheduling conflicts left me as the only option to run it.
I could cry. Actually, I have. And now I can add Justin’s play to my list of reasons to cry.
“Do I warn him?” I ask from my normal perch on the couch. Gram is in her chair, Kindle in her lap. I’ve explained the whole Ian-rehearsal-dinner situation to her, but I’ve left out the Justin story. I’ll save that for later. Knowing Gram, she’ll most likely say it sounds fabulous and ask when she can go see it.
“I guess you probably should,” Gram says.
“I told him last time I saw him that I would ask for it off,” I say, closing my eyes, remembering his face the last time I saw it. It’s not hard to recollect—he’ll probably haunt my mind forever.
“What did he say?” she asks, closing her Kindle cover. She must have assumed that I’
m not letting her get back to her stories quite yet.
“He said we were adults and we could be in the same room, or something like that.” I lean my head back on the couch and move my forearm up and cover my eyes. Oh, woe is me.
“So then, can’t you?” she asks, although her attention has moved back to her Kindle.
“I guess,” I say, semi-pouting. I don’t want to be okay with it. I don’t want to be an adult. But I guess I’m going to have to put my big girl pants on and do it. I have no choice.
~*~
“So, what did Carla say about the picture?” Ashley asks as we walk down Fifth Avenue a few days later. I needed some mindless shopping to help me stop thinking about, well, everything. Luckily, Ashley was available to join me in my shopping stupor.
“Nothing good,” I say, and then let out a long, defeated exhale.
“Really?” Ashley asks, a need-more-information look on her face.
“She said Adam didn’t believe it, and he temporarily uninvited her to the wedding,” I say, feeling useless and downtrodden by the whole thing. I probably should let it go. It’s going to happen. There’s nothing I can do about it.
“Oh, wow. I wasn’t expecting that,” Ashley says, looking down at the sidewalk as we continue walking through the crowds in the noonday sun.
“Yes,” I say, “unexpected things will happen until you stop meddling. Well, I’m done with the meddling business.”
“Yeah,” Ashley concedes with her tone. “I guess you’re right. He hasn’t believed you so far. Probably nothing will make him believe you, anyway. He’s really whipped, isn’t he?”
“You could say that,” I say. “Can we talk about something else?” I’m sick of thinking about it.
“Have you heard from Ian?” she asks, a small smirk on her face.
“Seriously?” I eye her with irritation, and she laughs.
“Okay,” she says, slowly. “What about Justin? Have you forgiven him?”