Lovesick (13 page)

For Paige, a majestic wedding is only the beginning. In Paige’s fantasy, we’ll barbecue chicken every Fourth of July in Alexander Park. Next door is the Community Center where we’ll decorate the Crockett Christmas tree. Our daughter will attend Rodeo Hills Elementary. Our son will pitch in at the Boy Scout Fish Fry. I’ll be on the Chamber of Commerce. Paige will join the Lions Club. On weekends, we’ll go antiquing and attend local car shows, art exhibits, and yes, even that ridiculous psychic fair where Tarot card readers, palmists, and healers gather from all over the Bay Area. The Altman family will trek across the Al Zampa Bridge every summer for Second Sunday Stroll. And every fall, we’ll play competitive bocce ball on one of those teams with cutesy names like “The High Rollers” or “The Be-Occe Ballers.” When we’re empty nesters, too old and gray to lawn bowl, we’ll retire to the rolling hills of the Carquinez Vista Manor. If it were up to Paige, we’d spend the rest of our lives together in Crockett.

“Wait,” he tells me. Does Gregory think this marriage is too sudden? Surely he wouldn’t have us live together first. Living together is a “cop-out”—just ask your buddy Sid.
I should call Gregory back and invoke Sid’s advice.

I whip out my cell phone, toggle over to my outgoing calls list, and redial Gregory. The call connects instantly.

“Hello,” he says.

I hang up.

Gregory doesn’t have caller ID. Gregory may have caller ID. I don’t know if Gregory has caller ID.

He knew it was me. He has my number. If he thinks something’s wrong, he’ll call back. I wait for the phone to ring, but it
doesn’t. I try to imagine what he’s doing. I envision him playing computer solitaire. He’s reading a World War II thriller. He’s reheating leftovers from the party. He has no reason to suspect that I just called or that we still need to talk. In his mind, we made a deal: I’m waiting.
But should I?

I prop my feet up on the dining room table, pry off my sneaks, and slip off my socks. What I wouldn’t do right now to have Mac Daddy here to help me.

What if I ask now? Claws for cons. Toes for pros.

The toes have it over the fingers, six to three. There’s no resisting simple math: I’ve got twice as many reasons to ask than to wait.

I swing by the car and grab our Scrabble set. When I walk in the room, Paige is adjusting the strap on her black cocktail dress. A few loose strands of hair hang like bangs. I shake the familiar scarlet game box in her direction.

“Yes!” she says jerking her fist down as if she’s just scored a goal.

CHEZ Canard is located about twenty minutes north of the Thistle Dew in Healdsburg, the quaintest of Sonoma towns. I selected the four-star restaurant not so much for its soft lighting, vaulted ceilings, or subdued atmosphere, but for the Parisian cuisine.
Tonight I will finally deliver on the pledge I made to myself more than a decade ago: order a complete meal for Paige in French. I downloaded the menu off the Internet last night, but very little of it was actually in French (or English for that matter). I’m still not sure what Kaffi Lime, Saffron Nage, or Salt-cured Torchon with Rhubarb is. Still, I did my best to translate the menu from Chinese to English to French.

“The lady will start with the
hairy cot-verts aveck pasteek et Bookerone,”
I say, butchering Paige’s appetizer.

The garçon nods his head confidently, but nothing’s registering.

I give him a hint by pointing to the Green Beans with Watermelon and Anchovies on the menu.

He tells me that I’ve made an excellent choice, but neither Paige nor Frenchy can stand much more. Halfway through ordering her entrée, the two of them beg me to surrender like Napoleon at Waterloo.

I rush us through the most expensive dinner of my life so we can get back, and get started. As we coast past Sonoma’s tree-lined plaza packed with small shops, restaurants, and historical buildings, Paige can’t help herself.

“Let’s walk dinner off,” she implores. “It’ll be romantic.”

“We can do that when it’s light out. Let’s go back to the room. It’ll be plenty romantic there,” I assure her. “I brought red wine. We’ll flip on a fire.”

Before she can answer, I’m turning into the rock driveway of the Thistle Dew Inn. I pull the emergency brake, pop the car in neutral, and turn off the ignition. The car slowly winds down. The crickets chirp loudly.

Then the first tremors strike. This is the real thing: something on the order of a magnitude 5.0 earthquake.

“Did you feel that?” I cry.

“Feel what?”

“There it is again.”

“I think my cell phone’s vibrating,” she realizes, digging through her purse.

She’s right. The muffled hum is emanating from her purse. My
heart is thumping. I’m cracking up. Gregory is calling so he can spoil everything.

“Let the call go,” I suggest calmly. “We’re on vacation.”

I place my hand on her bare thigh and strangle the pleather steering wheel with the other. She produces the phone. The tiny green cell phone light illuminates the cabin like kryptonite.

“Hmm, it’s Lara,” she says, studying it.

Lara knows! Paige looks at me. The phone vibrates again.
Please don’t answer it
, I plead with my eyes. I kiss her on the lips. The phone buzzes. I kiss her neck until the phone stops. Thirty seconds later, the device alerts Paige that she has a voice message.

“How about we Jacuzzi before ‘The Sex’?” Paige asks.

“Why not,” I tell her. A dip in the hot tub and a couple of glasses of wine might smooth things out.

The whirlpool is a sliver of paradise. A crescent moon pokes through a fortress of cedars and oaks. We have the tub to ourselves and we cook in silence. Arms resting on the ledge, eyes closed, bubbles frothing, jet streams pounding, I am convinced that everything is going to be all right. I often feel this way in Jacuzzis. Maybe this inn
will do
, after all.

I’m about to become someone’s husband.
Have you met my wife?

When I open my eyes, I’m staring face-to-face with the innkeeper.

“Evenin’, sailor,” she greets me in wire rim glasses, a floral button-down blouse, khaki shorts, and ratty gray hair. She knows exactly why we’re here.

Please go away
, I think.

“Warm enough for you?” the woman asks.

Suddenly, with striking speed and force, she submerges her hand into the hot tub only inches from my rear. A second later she pulls out a stringed thermometer.

“One-oh-three,” she says, inspecting it carefully. “Perfect soup!”

“Perfect,” Paige kindly repeats with the same inflection. “Thank you so much.” Paige is always thanking everyone for everything.

“Goodnight,” I tell Chatty Cathy.

“Nighty-night,” Cathy chirps back.

It’s time.

Back in the room, while Paige is busy setting up the Scrabble board, I subtly drag my duffel bag into the bathroom and fish out the rings, jamming one in each back pocket. Then I grab the California Syrah by its neck, pinching two plastic cups between my fingers.
Does it get any more romantic than this?
Paige is just about done flipping over the tiles when I return. I take a seat across from her on the floor and begin picking my letters.

“You get seven, not eight,” I remind her.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Ready?” she asks.

I am: in my back pockets, both rings, and in my front pocket, the seven letters that I’ve been carrying around all day.

After four plays each, the board starts opening up. I still haven’t quite figured out how I’m going to get the crucial letters from my pocket to this rack without getting caught.

“You’re peeking at my letters,” I complain.

“Are you mental? How am I looking at your letters from over here?”

“Cheaters never prosper,” I remind her.

I grab my rack of letters, crawl over to the bed, and pull down one of the large crocheted pillows with my free hand. Retaking my seat across from her, I reposition the pillow so it shields my tiles from the board. I lean forward and give Paige a big smile, readjusting the ring box poking my left buttocks cheek.

“You’ve completely lost your mind,” she determines.

It’s Paige’s turn, but I see my window of opportunity—the “E” in “LEFTY.” My heart begins to race. At all costs, I must prevent her from playing that “E.”

“If you don’t use the ‘Y,’ then I will,” I threaten her.

“Hold your horses.” She’s trying to concentrate.

“The ‘Y’ is four points plus the double-word score …”

“I know. I know,” she says with a hint of anxiety. “But I don’t have anything.”

“Take your time,” I encourage her.

While Paige contemplates the “Y,” I slide all the letters on my
rack into one hand and casually drop them behind my back. Then, from behind the pillow, I slowly reach into my front pocket, and pull out the replacements.

“I think you’ve learned your lesson,” I say, tossing the down pillow aside and moving my rack closer to the board. “Whose turn is it?”

“Fine!” she says. “I’ll go!”

“Good!” I say theatrically.

“Fine!”

Paige uses the “Y” and plays “YAWN” for twenty points. Not bad for someone who said she had nothing. I score it. I always keep score.

“My turn,” I say, steadying my hands. Using the “E,” I lay out my letters—

I begin tallying up my score.

“Ramyr-me?” she asks. “Is that a word?”

“Two, five, ten, fourteen, plus a double-word score,” I whisper to myself.

“Use it in a sentence,” she demands.

“That’s twenty-eight points,” I say, adding the figure to my column. It was all fun and games until I wrote “28” on the official score sheet. Now Paige is irritated.

“Ramyr-me is not a word, Andy.”

“Are you challenging?”

“How can I challenge? We have no dictionary. Just tell me what it means.”

“Oh wait,” I say as if it’s only just occurred to me. I slide my tiles around on the board, rearranging them to read “ARMMY RE” and then finally “MARRY ME.” I let the words sink in. The blank expression on her face is priceless.

“You’re not allowed to play two words,” she says softly.

“Can we make an exception?”

“This isn’t a game,” she says.

And yet it is.

“Can I be your husband?” I say tenderly. “Will you be my wife?”

I suspect that this is at least the second member of the Day family whom I’ve made cry in the last two hours.

“Of course, definitely, absolutely! Did I say yes?”

She moves toward me on her knees, crossing the board and losing her balance as she slips on one of the tiles. We tumble backward and that’s when she notices the letters discarded behind me.

“And
I’m
the cheater?”

“But all I have is this,” I say, pulling out a Red Rocket candy ring from my right pocket. I tear open the packaging with my teeth and beckon her left hand. The red candy jewelry clumsily slips down her tan ring finger.

“It’s lovely,” she says, holding it high, batting her eyelashes. Then she brings her hand to her face and pops the candy in her mouth.

“Don’t eat it!” I exclaim. “Fine, eat that one, but don’t eat this one,” I say, pulling out a small red jewelry box etched in gold fabric.

Her eyes widen. The candy ring makes the perfect popping sound when she removes it. Paige hesitantly opens the red jewelry box, the Red Rocket still awkwardly hanging from her left hand. She stares at it. Staring back at her is a one-carat, virtually flawless white diamond with a small diamond baguette on either side in a sparkling platinum setting. Indeed, Igor Petrov sold me the most beautiful stone.

RAMYR ME for JAGUAR, seven letters for six … plus six weeks’ salary.

“Of course I’ll ramyr-you,” she says.

I pull off the Red Rocket and slip the diamond ring in its place. It’s two sizes too large for her.

Hugging me tightly, she rests her head on my shoulder, and lifts up her hand to study the sparkler.

“My father is going to be so happy,” she whispers across my nape.

THE engagement bliss lasted six minutes. Then Paige started ripping the room apart for her cell phone. I’m willing to bet she doesn’t look for it powered down and stowed away in a sock at the bottom of my duffel bag. I couldn’t risk Gregory interrupting the deed or Paige playing back Lara’s voice message.