The Boyfriend of the Month Club (44 page)

“Check,” Charlie said, mimicking Ellen. Mami and Pop had gone on their thirty-fifth-anniversary trip to Europe and Grace and Charlie were taking turns staying at the house so that Abuela wouldn’t be alone. “What are you going to do for the next couple of weeks? Lie around on the beach?” he asked.

Florida Charlie’s was getting a much-needed overhaul. New roof, new bathrooms, new floors. Which meant the store would be temporarily closed. The new billboards announcing their grand reopening celebration next month had gone up on the highway, and Pop had hired a local PR firm to produce the new orange-head commercials. Grace had gone for a costume fitting yesterday. It was . . . interesting, to say the least.

“Hardly. I have a thousand things to do. I’ll be at the store working while the renovations are in progress.”

“Don’t forget to wear a hard hat,” Charlie joked.

“So what’s going on with Phoebe?” Grace asked. “Any news on that front?”

“Phoebe’s getting transferred to the Miami office. Not her idea,” Charlie added. “And I’ve been made full partner.”

Grace squealed. “Charlie! That’s fantastic!” She stood up and hugged her brother. Everyone at the table wanted to know what was going on, and so Grace told them the good news and Sarah suggested they raise their drinks for a toast.

“Oh, and I have an announcement,” Grace said. “Since I was the one who dismantled the book club, I thought it would only be fitting if I revived it again. Only we’re changing the time and place. First meeting is at my town house, the last Sunday of the month at seven p.m.”

“What book are we going to read?” Ellen asked Grace.

“I was thinking maybe we should stay away from Austen and the Brontës for a while. How about
A Farewell to Arms
? I happen to know where we can get an excellent price on a paperback version.”

“Good idea!” Ellen flipped over the page on her legal pad and began scribbling. “What do you think about setting up a Yahoo! group? That way Penny can keep in the loop while she and Butch are on the road.”

“Maybe we’d better stay away from Yahoo!,” Penny said, catching Grace’s eye. “You can just text me the info.”

Ellen nodded. “Can I invite Janine and my other friends from the college?”

“Sure, but no flyers,” Grace warned.

“None, I swear,” Ellen said. “This is terrific. Hemingway is so
in
right now!” She paused. “Would you mind terribly if I invited Jerry? Honestly, he’ll make a great addition to the book club.”

“Why not?” Grace said. “But let me warn you, if he calls any of us fat, even once, he’s out.”

39

Joe, Such a Little Name, for Such a Person

Grace said good-bye to Marty and told him she’d see him tomorrow at the wedding. After the rehearsal dinner at Luigi’s she’d gone back to the store to take one last look. And to make sure the doors were properly locked, of course. Strange how she was picking up some of Pop’s habits.

The sign on the glass double doors read “Closed for renovations. Will reopen in three weeks.” She stood back a few feet and glanced at the store. On top of the roof, the big ten-foot pink flamingo next to the Florida Charlie’s sign flashed brightly.

“Keep an eye on the place!” she shouted.

Not that she expected the flamingo to respond. That would be too much. But still, maybe if she gave the bird a name, it might loosen her up a bit.

She rearranged Gator Claus’s bunny ears so that the right ear stuck up properly. “Sorry, I know how much you hate the Easter Bunny costume, but it’s just for a couple more weeks. Then you can start your summer wardrobe.”

Nothing.

Grace sighed. “Abuela is itching to sew you something new. I was thinking maybe a military look for Memorial Day. What do you think?”

Gator Claus stared straight ahead with the same benign look he’d had on his face for the past month and a half.

“How many times do I have to say I’m sorry? Pop has forgiven me. Why can’t you?”

The right side of the alligator’s upper snout curled up, ever so slightly. Or was it Grace’s imagination? An idea occurred to her.

“Stay there. I’ll be right back!”

She ran into the store, all the way to the back office, and picked up the orange-head costume the PR company had dropped off this afternoon and slipped on the giant head piece, adjusting the eye holes and the mouth section. She calmly walked back out to the front of the store and paraded herself in front of Gator Claus, making sure he got a good view of her from every angle. If this didn’t thaw Gator Claus out, nothing would.

“I’m Little Orange Head, and I want
you
”—she paused dramatically and pointed her finger in Gator Claus’s direction—“to stop by the one and only Florida Charlie’s!”

Gator Claus grinned his appreciation.

“I thought you’d like that. Those are my closing lines for the big commercial,” she said with a laugh.

Gator Claus was talking to her again!

Okay, not talking to her exactly. He’d never really talked to her, she knew that. But he was listening. She was sure of it.

“So, back to the new costume. What branch of the service would you like? Let’s not do the Navy because white is a terrible color to keep clean. Plus, there’s all those Village People jokes—”

“Grace?”

She froze.

Why hadn’t she heard his car?

She had to maneuver her whole head around, because in the orange-head getup she couldn’t see sideways, but there was Joe’s black Range Rover parked in the far corner of the front lot. He must have driven up while she’d been in the office getting the costume.

She turned to face him. “Hi, Joe.”

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” There was a bouquet of flowers in his hands. But they weren’t red roses. It looked like a mix of daisies and something else, something purple and pretty. Joe had never brought her flowers before . . .

Grace gulped. “Not at all. We were just deciding on a new look. Gator Claus and I.” It sounded ridiculous. But he already knew she talked to the alligator, so what the heck. “How’s business?” At the look of surprise on his face, she added, “Tanya told me what happened after the Speedway show. The one where, you know . . . all the boyfriend club stuff came out.”

“I’ve picked up a few new patients this week. They heard you on the radio.”

“That’s great!” She brushed the edge of her toe over Gator Claus’s right foot. Just for moral support. “So . . . you heard me?”

“Not live. But I’ve been listening to the best of Speedway.”

Grace cringed. Speedway had replayed their interaction every morning this week. Apparently, Grace made for good radio.

“I heard you chipped your tooth again. Let me see.” He came up to her, very closely, and gently tilted her orange-head piece back with the fingers on his free hand, the one that wasn’t holding the flowers. Grace automatically opened her mouth. “What happened this time?” he asked.

“Popcorn kernel.” Her heart was beating faster than Grace thought humanly possible. “I never told you how I chipped it the first time, did I?”

He shook his head.

“I was trying to open a shrink-wrapped tampon.”

The expression on Joe’s face was priceless. He laughed and shook his head as if to say
that could only happen to you
. “I could fix it. If you want.”

“Actually, I think I’m going to leave it the way it is. You were right. I’m really the only one who notices it.”

“It’s kind of cute, actually.”

“Joe—”

“I brought you something.” But instead of handing her the flowers, he reached inside his pocket to produce a piece of paper. “I thought about mailing it, but then I figured I might need to explain a few things in person. I’m not as good with the bullet points as you are.”

Her knees felt like rubber. She glanced down at the paper, but she was too afraid to look at it.

“Go on,” he urged. “I promise, Grace, it’s not going to hurt.”

She unfolded the paper and began to read. “Number one: Punctuality.” There was a ten written next to it. She looked up at him, confused.

“I don’t ever remember you being late for a date.” He shrugged. “Some girls are bad about that.”

“What is this?”

“It’s a girlfriend satisfaction survey. I figured I owed you one, in case you ever think about being a girlfriend again. Then you’ll know what areas you excel at, and where you need to improve.”

She cleared her throat. “Number two: Nag Factor. You gave me a
seven
,” she said incredulously. “Please explain yourself.”

“See . . . this is why I wanted to do this in person. If you look at the back of the page you’ll see I went into some specific dated examples. Nag Factor is like when I’m driving and you tell me to slow down. Or when we’re ready to go out and you tell me to go back inside and change because there’s a hole in my sneaker and it looks bad. That kind of stuff.”

“Okay . . . I suppose that’s a fair score.” She went back to reading. “Number three: Displays Affection. You gave me a 9.”

“I would have scored you a 10 except for the time we were in the movies and I wanted to make out and you said we weren’t sixteen. But other than that one time, I think you were very accommodating.”

Her face went warm. “I agree.” Her gaze skimmed through the remainder of the list, then rested on the last point, highlighted in yellow marker.

Overall Score.
There was nothing next to it.

“That one’s still in the air,” he said quietly. He handed her the flowers. “But I’d like to see if we can hit that one out of the ballpark.You know how I feel about those tens.”

“
Really?
Because . . . I have to warn you, Joe. I have this awful temper and I’m a little weird, and—”

“A little? Grace, you’re wearing a giant piece of citrus on your head and talking to a plastic alligator. You think I don’t already know that you’re weird?”

“Joe,” she said, her voice scratchy with unshed tears. “I’ve missed you so much. You were right. I was never
really
your friend. But I want to be, even though I don’t deserve it. I think I was just scared to have everything all rolled up in one person. I want door number one, Joe. And I want door number two, and God, you have
no
idea how much I’ve missed door number three.”

“I’ve missed you too, Grace. But I have
no
idea what you’re talking about. What the hell are these doors?”

She laughed. “I’ll tell you later, because right now I really just want to kiss you, Joe.”

In the end, she had to get Joe’s help to pull the orange-head piece off. (Had it been this tight earlier?) She walked into his arms, squeezed her eyes shut tight, and kissed him. Right there in front of Florida Charlie’s with the alligator looking on. She’d get Gator Claus’s opinion on that later, she was sure.

Joe wasn’t a Wickham. And he wasn’t her Mr. Knightley, or her Laurie (thank God), or even her Heathcliff. He wasn’t anybody someone else had made up in their head.

He was just Joe. And that was more than good enough for Grace.

Flan De Queso

(This is the flan my mother makes. Simply delicious!)

1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 (12 ounce) can evaporated milk
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
½ cup sugar
5 eggs
Pinch of salt
2 cups sugar (for the syrup)

Combine all the ingredients (except the 2 cups of sugar) in a blender and set aside.

In a large skillet, melt 2 cups of sugar over medium-high heat until the sugar completely melts into a syrup. Pour the syrup into a baking pan with a circle in the center (like a Bundt pan), making sure to cover as much of the pan’s surface with the syrup as possible. Let it set for a few minutes. Carefully pour the liquid egg mixture into the pan over the set syrup. Place the pan inside a larger pan filled with an inch of hot water (a
baño de Maria
) and place the whole thing in a 350 degree oven. Cook for 35 to 45 minutes until set. Let cool to room temperature and chill well. Before serving, let the chilled flan sit out on the counter for about 20 minutes (so the syrup warms up a bit), then flip it onto a plate, letting all the syrup drip over the custard.

the boyfriend of the month club

READERS GUIDE

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Discuss some of the incidents that Grace’s spiritual alter-ego,
mal genio
, gets her into. Why do you think she blames them on the spirit instead of herself? Do you think Grace is indeed inhabited by
Mal Genio
at times, or is it an easy excuse for when she gets herself into trouble?

2. Do you think
Mal Genio
has anything to do with the curse Grace believes has been cast on her love life?

3. Discuss the O’Bryan family dynamic and how it changes over the course of the book, especially with Pop as Grace’s boss.