Tall Tales and Wedding Veils (12 page)

He glared at her, then turned his expression of disgust back to the portrait, imagining what it was going to be like to come home to it every day. Yep. Excruciating. But since this whole experience was excruciating, did it really matter?

“Okay, Franny,” he said with resignation. “You’ve got a home for a month.”

“Frances,”
Heather said. “She hated being called Franny. Have respect for the dead.”

“Granny Franny.”

“She’d have castrated you for that.”

“A battle-ax swinging a battle-ax. Doesn’t get much badder than that.”

“Texas is a community-property state,” Heather said. “You’re entitled to fight me for her when we split up.”

“Nope. She’s all yours.”

“Maybe we could divide her down the middle. Then she’d only be half as ugly. Oh! I know. If you agree to take her, I’ll throw in my grandfather’s collection of magnets from all fifty states.”

“As tempting as that is,” Tony said, “I think I’ll pass.”

“Tell me what awful things you have from your family. Maybe we can trade.”

“Nothing, actually. Like I told your parents, my family’s pretty small.” He checked his watch, then grabbed his keys. “I have to get back to the bar.” Halfway to the door, he turned back around and pointed at Heather. “And
don’t
clean anything while I’m gone.”

Heather just folded her arms and gave him that sweet smile again, which meant he’d probably walk back through his door later to find she’d scrubbed the bathroom grout with a Q-tip and sterilized his TV remote.

Good God. Three days ago, he’d been a nice, normal bachelor with his underwear on the floor and nothing in his fridge but beer and day-old pizza. Now he had terrifying wall décor and a wife with a cleaning fetish, along with a terrible feeling that the weirdness was just getting started.

Chapter 11

T
he next Saturday evening, Heather was drinking martinis with Alison at Chantal’s, which was down the block from McMillan’s. It was a loud, hard-edged club with lots of chrome and glass and yuppies on the prowl. Pretension hung in the air, as thick and choking as tear gas. Regina went there a lot, which was a really good reason for Heather to stay away, but since she’d told Alison that McMillan’s was off-limits for now and maybe forever, they had to drink somewhere.

“This place sucks,” Alison grumbled. “The men are creepy, and the waitresses are conceited bitches. And paying ten bucks for a martini is stupid.”

Heather didn’t much like that herself, but she wasn’t going to McMillan’s, and that was that. Still fresh in her mind was the way the waitresses had looked at her, then at Tony, their expressions practically shouting,
Her? You gotta be kidding me.
The truth was that they were all hopelessly shallow people who cared more about looks than what was inside a person, so why should she subject herself to that?

Then she realized that sounded like one of the nauseatingly uplifting e-mails her friend Kathy forwarded to her all the time, the ones with smiley faces and baby animals and animated images that told her what a special and unique person she was. Heather was getting a little tired of being the kind of person who other people thought needed pick-me-ups like that.

Alison peered out the window. “There sure is a big crowd at McMillan’s tonight. Looks like fun.”

Heather knew Alison could see McMillan’s from their booth, which was why Heather had declined to sit on that side of the table. Now, though, she was beginning to wish she hadn’t. It was too hard to steal glances when Alison wasn’t looking.

“Business must be good,” Alison said.

Heather shrugged and took another two-dollar sip of gin.

“I mean, look at all the cars in the parking lot.”

“There are more people here.”

“Yeah. Horny men and slutty women.”

“There are plenty of those at McMillan’s, too.”

“The difference is that these horny men and slutty women think they’re high class.” Alison tapped her fingertips on the table. “Speaking of horny men, how’s your husband?”

“If you don’t stop referring to him as my husband—”

“Okay. Then how’s that horny man you’re cohabitating with?”

Heather looked down at her drink. “I wouldn’t know.”

Alison eyed her carefully. “This is nuts. First you insist we come to this neon meat market, and now you’re pretending not to care about Tony even though you’ve looked over your shoulder at McMillan’s so many times your neck is going to cramp.”

“I’m just wondering if things are running smoothly since he bought the place. That’s all.”

“If we go over there, we can find out. Why don’t we?”

“Things are going to be a whole lot easier if Tony and I stay as far away from each other as possible.”

“But you’re living with him. How far away from him could you possibly stay?”

“We don’t see much of each other. He doesn’t get home until late every night, and I’m up early to go to work.”

“So stay up late one night and seduce him.”

“Alison, will you
stop?
”

“I bet it wouldn’t take much, considering he’s stuck without sex for a month.”

“I don’t sleep with men because they’re horny and I’m handy. I don’t like being used.”

Alison turned her gaze heavenward. “Please, God, just once in my life, let a guy like Tony want to use me.”

“That’s demeaning.”

Alison folded her arms on the table and looked at Heather. “You know what your problem is?”

Heather had plenty of problems. She just wasn’t sure which one Alison was going to point out.

“You don’t recognize opportunity when you see it. It’s like you’re standing in front of a great big wall-to-wall buffet, and you decide you’re not going to eat.”

“No buffet references,” Heather said, glaring at the scant pile of field greens, tomatoes, shredded carrots, and low-fat dressing in front of her that wasn’t worth one-tenth of the fourteen dollars she’d paid for it. “I still have to drop a size by the end of the month.”

“Heather.
Focus.
”

“I am focused. I’m focused on what an idiot I was to go along with Tony’s plan in the first place.”

“You weren’t an idiot. You get to go to your snotty cousin’s wedding with a really hot guy.”

Heather started to tell herself it wasn’t worth it, only to think about Regina’s snarky face and realize that maybe it was.

Their waitress came to their table, balancing a tray full of drinks on her fingertips. She wore the house uniform—a black catsuit cut halfway to her navel that fit condom-tight, a heavy silver chain around her hips, and a pair of black spike heels. She looked like Catwoman with a sadomasochism fetish. She gave them a look of sheer boredom she’d stolen from Paris Hilton and asked if they wanted another martini.

“No, thanks,” Alison said, glaring at her glass. “One more drink at these prices and I won’t be able to pay my rent.”

The waitress lifted her chin and looked straight down her nose. “You could go down the street to McMillan’s. I hear it’s two-dollar beer night.”

Alison turned to Heather. “See, I told you we should have gone there.”

“Just the check,” Heather told the waitress, who dismissed them with a not-so-subtle roll of her eyes as she slinked to the next table, where she gave three guys in power suits the drinks on her tray while they stared at her breasts and conjured up their favorite dominatrix fantasy.

“Yet one more reason I hate this place,” Alison muttered. “I wish we could go back to . . . whoa. What’s going on there?”

Alison had shifted her gaze to the window. Heather swiveled around and looked down the street to McMillan’s. She saw an ambulance pulling up to the front door, its red lights swirling in the darkness, and a feeling of dread swooped through her.

“I don’t know,” Heather said.

“Let’s go find out.”

Heather paused only a few seconds before tossing money on the table to cover the check and grabbing her purse.

As they left Chantal’s and approached McMillan’s parking lot, Heather saw people standing around like people do when there’s an emergency, talking among themselves, speculating about things they know nothing about, and generally getting in the way. Then the door opened, and the EMTs brought out a woman on a stretcher. Heather peered over somebody’s shoulder.

It was Jamie, Tony’s very pregnant assistant manager. She was wide awake, and since there was no blood and no screaming, Heather figured it couldn’t be too bad. But there was the baby to think about. About a thousand things could go wrong there.

Tony followed the EMT guys out the door. He gave Jamie’s hand a quick pat and said something to her as they loaded her into the ambulance. Then they closed the doors and took off. The sirens weren’t blaring, so Heather took that as a good sign, too. But when Tony put his hand to his forehead, squeezing his eyes closed as if he had a monumental headache, she took that as a bad one.

She squirmed through the crowd and caught him before he went back inside. “Tony? What’s wrong? What’s happening?”

“Heather? What are you doing here?”

“We were having drinks down the street at Chantal’s and saw the commotion.”

“Chantal’s?” he said with a look of disgust. “What were you doing there?”

“That’s what I asked her,” Alison said. “The men are slimy, the waitresses are bitchy, and ten bucks for a martini? Are they kidding?”

“Tony, this is my friend Alison, who’s going to shut up now. What’s wrong with Jamie?”

“She’s okay. She just went into labor and couldn’t get hold of her husband. She’s six weeks early, and I didn’t want to take any chances. So I called nine-one-one.”

“That was a smart thing to do.”

“Oh, yeah. It was great. There hasn’t been enough chaos around here this evening, so I thought, Hey, why don’t I call an ambulance and bring on a little more?”

Heather drew back. “What are you talking about?”

“Sorry. Can’t stay and chat. See, I have a business falling apart inside, and I’d like to say good-bye to it. Or maybe I’ll just burn the place to the ground and collect the insurance money. If you ladies will excuse me?”

The crowd parted and Tony went back inside. Alison turned to Heather. “What’s up with him?”

Heather didn’t know, but sarcastic defeatism wasn’t his style. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

They went inside, and Heather was stunned. Every table was full, and the bar was standing room only. The place was buzzing with conversation and swirling with energy. People were eating, meeting, laughing, and drinking. Right now this bar and grill screamed
profit,
and Tony should have been over the moon about that.

Why wasn’t he?

Tony pulled baskets of burgers out from under the warming lights, cringing at how dry they looked from sitting there too long. He packed them on trays for the waitresses to deliver. Assuming, of course, that the waitresses he had left hadn’t thrown in their aprons and run screaming from the premises.

As an adult, he really hadn’t known what stress felt like. He’d engineered his life for just the opposite, honing his surroundings, handpicking the people he associated with and the jobs he took, then smoothing out the edges into the kind of existence where he could sit back, relax, and live it up. No real pressure, no big demands. He thought that was what he was getting when he bought this place, with the added benefit of being his own boss and making a really nice profit. How deluded must he have been?

“Tony. What’s going on?”

He spun around to see Heather standing behind him, and it wasn’t a welcome sight. First she’d been at Chantal’s, patronizing his competition, and now she was here to bug him, which would help ensure he was no competition at all. And if his waitresses or any of the regulars saw her, the speculation about his marriage would begin all over again.

“I can’t talk right now,” he told her. “I’m busy.”

“Yeah. That’s obvious. What’s the problem?”

“The
problem,
” he said, “is that I have too many customers and not enough employees.”

“Why? Jamie’s gone, but what else?”

He stopped and took a deep breath, but he still felt manic. “If you must know, Tracy called in sick at the last minute. I hired a new waitress who started today, and she’s falling apart. Kayla and Danielle are here, but that’s it. I was barely making it tonight before Jamie went into labor. The band who’s supposed to play here tonight is pretty popular, which means a lot of people turned out; only now I can’t handle the crowd.”

“Get the band to start early. Take people’s mind off the food and drink.”

“Good plan, except when the drummer got here twenty minutes ago, he was too stoned to sit up, so they’re not going on. The other guys are making calls to see if they can get a quick replacement, but it probably won’t happen. This crowd came to see them, and they’re going to get a little testy if they don’t.”

“Can you call in another waitress or two?”

“I can’t get a hold of anybody else.”

“You need more help.”

“Yeah? You think? I haven’t got the time for this, Heather. Go home.”

He turned back to his task, every nerve in his body strung so tight it nearly paralyzed him. Suddenly everything seemed blurry and otherworldly. The glaring kitchen lights. Chuck and Emilio, flipping burgers in slow motion. Steam rising from the grill. Heather standing beside him, watching a guy who’d never done a damned thing worthwhile in his life reaching for something big and failing. In a daze of helplessness, Tony reached back under the warming lights and grabbed for a basket of fries. He fumbled it, tried to catch it, but succeeded only in turning it upside down and scattering fries everywhere.

“Damn it! Where’s the broom?” He looked left and right, finally spying it leaning against the wall. Heather grabbed his arm.

“Tony—stop.”

“Go away, Heather.”

“I said
stop.
” She gave his arm a hard squeeze, accompanied by a no-nonsense stare. “You’re going nuts. That’s not going to help. What you need is a plan.”

“I had a plan when I had a staff. Now I have a floor full of French fries and a bar full of pissed-off customers.”

“Then it’s time to go to plan B.”

“I don’t have a plan B!”

“Then listen up, because I do.”

“Heather—”

“
Listen
to me.” She slowly released the grip on his arm. “First of all, you get behind the bar and help Lisa until you’re sure the drink orders are caught up. If you keep alcohol in front of people, they tend to lose track of time and won’t realize it’s been too long on their food.”

“Don’t you understand? It’s already been too long for most of them. Hungry people are angry people.”

“Give every table free chips and salsa. Something to munch on until their order comes out. I’ll get Alison to do that so your waitresses don’t have to.”