CHAPTER 1
“Will you marry me?”
“God, no.”
“Ah, for the—I give up. What’d I do wrong this time?”
“Everything.” Closeted in the private salon of her shop with the nightmare boy-next-door from her youth who had tormented her from diapers to senior prom, and who was now her inept client, Dianna West engaged in a staring contest of clashing wills with Lenny Daschowitz. No way, she vowed, was he going to make her lose her poise. Because if he did, she feared she would—and much too cheerfully—strangle him.
Lenny stood in front of her, no taller than five-feet-seven and almost as round. Dressed all in black, he bore an unfortunate resemblance to a total eclipse. A stubborn pout claimed his full-moon face. “Oh, I did everything wrong? Like what? I spoke in hieroglyphics or something?”
Dianna ignored that. “You’re supposed to be down on one knee when you propose.”
“Says who?”
“I do.” … you whiny little shit. Though her smile was bright, she offered it through gritted teeth. “And so does tradition. You said you wanted tradition.”
With a flick of his wrist, Lenny waved this away. “Tradition, schmadition. Besides, you just said ‘I do.’ So that’s a ‘yes,’ and we’re done here.”
God, he will never get this right. But if he didn’t, Dianna vowed it wouldn’t be for lack of trying on her part. She pointed to the carpeted floor. “Bended knee, Lenny. Now.”
He grumbled and muttered, but Dianna held to her resolve, punctuating it with an avenging-genie stance … arms folded together, eyes narrowed in warning. Still, she hated how being around Lenny brought out the worst in her. But he’d messed with her so much when they were kids. Stupid things. Throwing water balloons, pushing her down, following her everywhere, taking her lunch money, tattling on her, hitting her, obnoxious things like that. The memories and resentments remained, and they were enough to make her teeth itch just being in the same room with him.
But childhood irritations, she reminded herself, were not the point here. Instead, the points were these: She and Lenny were now grown-ups; she was a successful business owner; and Lenny was an idiot. But a paying idiot. So, she should be nice to him, if for no other reason than that. However, there was a better reason. One word: Mom. That sweet, oblivious, little traitor. This was all her idea. “Now, you help Lenny, honey,” she’d said. “It would be a nice thing to do.” There was no human way to say no to the woman’s gray-haired, apple-cheeked appeal.
Bottom line? If Dianna were mean to Lenny, he would tell his mother. And then that impossible woman would run next door to Dianna’s mother and tattle on her. Next scene? Her mother on the phone to her, dealing out guilt. See? Complete and total hell to pay and for years to come.
Dianna forced her attention back to Lenny. Surprise! Though his bottom lip still poked out sulkily, he was actually complying with her on-bended-knee command. Basking in her victory, Dianna magnanimously offered him encouragement as he awkwardly eased himself down to the carpet. “Careful now. Take it easy.” Going one huge step farther, she gave his icky Lenny-shoulder a congratulatory pat. “Good, Lenny. Like that. So, are you comfortable?”
“Do I look comfortable?” The man’s cranky tone of voice underscored his question, which he went on to answer. “No, I’m not comfortable. It hurts like hell.”
Exasperation ate at the edges of her patience. “Why does it hurt, Lenny? What’s wrong?”
“I had surgery on this knee.”
Dianna’s heart nearly stopped. “Surgery? Why didn’t you say so? Get up, you”—she struggled for control of her tongue—“big silly man, you.” Grabbing his arm, she pulled upward on him. But gravity proved stronger. She could not levitate him one inch. “When did you have surgery? I don’t remember that.”
“Five years ago.”
“Five years ago?” Dianna let go of Lenny with a vengeance. “Lenny, I could just—five years ago?”
“Is there an echo in here or what? I keep hearing ‘five years ago,’ ‘five years ago.’”
Stepping back, fists punched to her waist, Dianna glared at the man and inhaled deeply … slowly … very calmly … held her breath a therapeutic length of time … and then gently exhaled. Relaxation technique, followed by thinking good thoughts. Okay, good thoughts. It’s Friday; it’s springtime in Baltimore, trees are in bloom, the air is sweet; and my time with Lenny won’t last forever because I am not stuck with him for all of eternity in the ninth ring of Dante’s vision of Hell.
Feeling much refreshed now, Dianna forced a helpful note into her voice. “Okay, look, can you get down on your other knee, maybe? I don’t want you to do it if you really can’t. But it is more romantic for the guy to be on bended knee when he pops the question.”
“So I keep paying to hear you say. But if it’s what I gotta do to get you off my back, then I’m gonna do it.” Having said that, Lenny set about switching knees. Overweight and graceless, he rolled about, much like an off-balance sumo wrestler.
Dianna’s eyes widened. Maybe this on-bended-knee thing was a bad idea after all. She made a feint in Lenny’s direction to steady him—but stopped just as suddenly. Holding her in place was the realization that to help Lenny at this point might shame him. And she really didn’t want to do that. Great. Now I’m a nice person, and Lenny really isn’t all that bad; is that it? Maybe. And maybe she didn’t even dislike him all that much. Fine. This left her with no other choice than to stand there and hope for the best.
Alas, hope died a quick, hard death. Lenny fell. Yelping his shock, he landed heavily on all fours … and glared at Dianna. She stood frozen in place, her hands clapped over her mouth. Lenny sent her a look that signaled this was clearly her fault. “What are you doing just standing there? You can’t see I need help getting up, or what?”
“Right.” Dianna jumped into the fray—it was all right now; she had his permission—struggling right along with him and his ungainly bulk. Many moments of teeth-gritting effort followed until she finally—finally!—got him into an acceptable marriage-proposal position. “There. Whew.” She backed away, again planting her hands at her waist and offering encouragement. “Say, you look pretty good down there, Lenny.”
“Ha. Tell me that when I’m at Tamborello’s Ristorante Italiano tonight”—the man’s voice was a grating sneer—“and can’t get back up. I’ll be a living fat joke. Everyone will be laughing, and I’ll have to crawl out on all fours.”
“Oh, stop that, Lenny. We’re trying to get you happily on the road to marriage, remember? So, come on, try it again. Ask me.”
Lenny muttered a particularly pungent curse word that had Dianna widening her eyes. Though impressed with his eloquence, she pressed on with her own point. “Remember, we need heartfelt here. Make me feel it.”
“The only thing I feel is excruciating pain in my good kneecap now.”
Life would be so much better, Dianna decided, if she could just pummel Lenny silly. Without repercussions, of course. Instead, she smiled. “There’s one way to get it to quit hurting, and that’s to actually propose so you can get up.”
Lenny poked out his thick bottom lip. “Who knew it would be this hard?”
“Me, Lenny. I knew it would be this hard because I knew you’d make it hard. Now, ask me to marry you, dammit, and quit stalling around.”
Down on his good knee, looking pained and with his chubby thigh straining against his slacks, curly-haired mama’s boy Lenny Daschowitz simulated holding up a diamond engagement ring. He gazed into Dianna’s eyes and tried again. “Will you marry me?”
“No, Lenny, I will not. I mean, come on—am I the only one here? Have you not heard anything I’ve said? Heart. Love. Feelings. Where are they? This is a big moment, Lenny. The-rest-of-your-life big.”
Dianna paused, rubbing absently at her temple as she stared at Lenny and tried to come up with another way to get through to him. “Look, here’s the thing: Tonight is the only time when you’re in control of the whole ‘getting married’ experience. Once you pop the question, Lenny, it’s out of your hands. Your bride-to-be, her mother, and your mother take over from there. Trust me, the little guy on top of the wedding cake will have more say than you do after tonight. So you have to play it for all it’s worth.”
“I will. But, jeez, Dianna, you’re busting my balls here.”
Dianna looked deeply, threateningly, into Lenny’s eyes and spoke very slowly. “That can be arranged, my friend, so don’t give me any ideas.” When Lenny’s eyes widened satisfactorily, she pointedly checked her wristwatch. Yes. Nearly three o’clock. Joy that her allotted hour with Lenny was nearly up brought a bright smile to Dianna’s face. “We don’t have much time left. We’ll have to hurry.”
Lenny puckered his mouth into a pout. “Too late. My foot’s gone to sleep, and I’m about to fall over like a beached whale.”
Well, he’d forced that unflattering image onto her consciousness, now hadn’t he? Lenny’s pale body washed up in the surf; a water brigade tossing little Styrofoam cups of sea water on him; the crowd exhorting him to live. No more than he deserved. “Anyway, and before that happens, Lenny, one last try. Heart and soul. Give it all you’ve got.”
“Maybe I could if you’d help me get in the mood. Maybe if you did something romantic. Like French-kiss me.”
“Sure,” Dianna sang cheerfully. “When the headlines read ‘Pigs Fly Out of a Frozen Hell.’ That’s the very same day I’ll French-kiss you, Lenny. Look forward to it.”
This was lost on Lenny. A Little Boy Naughty expression on his face, he brought himself ever nearer the brink of disaster. “Then maybe you could sit on my lap, and we could talk about the first thing that pops up. Get it? Pop up?”
“You’re the one who’s going to get it.” Dianna shook a scolding finger at him. “Do not provoke me into being physical, Lenny. If I have to smack you, I will. And I will still send you a bill. Don’t think I won’t.”
He shrugged as if that were of no consequence to him. “It was worth a try. After all, I’ll be a married man soon. I need to sow my wild oats while I can.”
“Wild oats. Right. You have less than five minutes left, Lenny, and then I have another client coming in.”
Without any warning, Lenny’s entire demeanor changed to pathetic, his heart in his eyes. “It’s no use pretending. I can’t do this, Dianna.”
Daunted by this show of a real, live, human emotion on Lenny’s part, Dianna proceeded with caution. “Sure you can.”
His face reddening, beads of sweat dewing his upper lip, Lenny shook his head. “No, I can’t. I never, you know, sowed oats in my whole life. I don’t know what to do … after the wedding, I mean. Well, I know what to do. I just don’t know how to do it. I mean, how to do it right, so it’s good for—”
“Aaah! Stop! Enough said, I get it, I get it, shut up!” Dianna had her hands clapped over her ears until she felt certain Lenny understood he was not to say one single word more. Only then did she sit down heavily on the padded seat of the white wrought-iron chair that was, luckily, right behind her. “Lenny, look at me. We—you and I—cannot have this conversation. If you don’t know what to do, you get that information like other guys do. And I mean from dirty videos and magazines. You got that?”
His expression very hangdog, very pathetic, Lenny nodded that he did.
“Good.” Crossing her arms atop her knees, Dianna leaned in toward the distraught man. He might be exasperating as hell, but apparently she did care a tiny, little bit about his feelings. “Are you telling me you don’t want to get married, Lenny? Because if that’s true, then why are we putting ourselves through all this?”
She accompanied her words with a sweeping gesture that included her shop and implied her time, the cost, the musician with the violin, the flowers, the rented tux, reservations at Tamborello’s restaurant … everything that she’d arranged to make this night special for Lenny and his intended. “Did you actually read the sign out front? It says POPPING THE QUESTION. See, we help guys like you come up with romantic scenarios so you can ask your girlfriends, in unforgettable ways, to marry you. You knew that when you came in here.”
Like a scolded little boy, though he was thirty years old, Lenny lowered his gaze and picked at his bitten-off fingernails.
Dianna stared in total dismay at the top of the man’s curly-haired head. Yes, he was a mess, and yes, she could sympathize with him. But, on another level, she simply could not believe that it was Lenny Daschowitz, of all people, who might ruin her business’s perfect score. After one year of being open, she and her associates owned a one-hundred-percent track record. Meaning that every client who’d come to them seeking their help had received a yes from his or her—mostly his—sweetheart. Sweet success. And a totally killer advertising campaign, already in the works, would soon debut around that very fact. That, and a lot of publicity. Television. Newspapers. Magazines.
Now, wouldn’t she look foolish and have a lot of explaining to do if that statistic were no longer true by the time the ad spots aired? Okay, so it wouldn’t be the end of the world. But her business could lose credibility. And that could mean the end of her business. Which, in turn, could be the end of the world because her elderly parents had loaned her their entire life’s savings to get Popping the Question up and running. They believed in her. And she had yet to repay them. So no freakin’ way was Lenny Daschowitz going to be the spoiler for her and her family. No. Just wasn’t going to happen. Lenny would marry Olivia if it was the last thing she, Dianna Joan West, ever did. End of discussion.
Thus resolved, Dianna tucked her hair behind her ears and poked a finger at Lenny’s shoulder. “So talk to me. What are you doing here if you don’t want to get married?”
Lenny sighed heavily. “I have to get married.”
Dianna smacked his arm. “Oh, shut up. You do not. You just said you haven’t ever—”
“And I haven’t,” he whined, rubbing his arm where Dianna had cuffed him. “I didn’t mean like that. I meant Mother said I have to. She said it’s time, and she’s paying for everything. She wants grandchildren.”
Fear seized Dianna. Little Daschowitzes everywhere? No. Please. Then she thought of Lenny’s girlfriend. Sweet, timid Olivia Goldman, who was going to be surprised and swept off her feet—if there was a God—by Lenny tonight. The woman had been waiting years for this moment, and Dianna was determined that it would come to pass. “And what about Olivia? She deserves better than this, don’t you think? She deserves a man who wants her and loves her.”
Looking defeated, with actual tears standing in his eyes, Lenny nodded. “I shouldn’t have said all that because I do love Olivia, and I do want to marry her.”
Here we go. How many times in the past year, in her professional capacity as a proposal planner, Dianna wondered, had she—though only twenty-six herself—turned into counselor and surrogate mother? “All right, Lenny, this is good. If you love her, it will be all right. I mean that. You both deserve happiness.”
His expression remained woeful. “We’re going to live with Mother.”
Alarmed, Dianna clutched at Lenny’s arm and shook it as she spoke. “No. Do you hear me, Lenny? No. Do not do that. Run. Grab up Olivia and skip town. Get your own apartment. Or live in a refrigerator box under a bridge. Anything but with your mother.” Who lives next door to mine, so I’d have to see you and your X-File offspring every time I visit. Yikes. Dianna’s next thought, though, had her releasing his arm and sitting up straight. “Wait. Why aren’t you moving into Olivia’s place?”
“Her lease is up, and the landlord raised the rent. We can’t afford it now. And Mother won’t give me the money for it. Then Olivia’s employer moved his business out of state to the Sun Belt, and she didn’t want to go. So she doesn’t have a job now. And Mother has never let me work.”
“I know. That’s what makes you special, Lenny.” Dianna stared at the man and rubbed absently at her temples. Nutshell conclusion? The wheels were coming off this whole affair. “So … Lenny, your mother. The three of you. Together. Does she at least get along with Olivia? I mean, well enough for them to be in the same room together. You know, like in the winter and without physical violence. That kind of thing.”
Again, Lenny shrugged. “I guess. She’s a nice girl. Olivia, I mean. Not Mother. Well, I guess she was, too, at one time. My poor departed father had to have seen something in her.”
“No doubt.” Dianna knew that story. Lenny’s poor father wasn’t departed in the conventional sense. No, the man had apparently, one sunny day, decided he’d had enough of his wealthy but shrewish and penny-pinching wife. So off to the store he’d gone, never to return. No one was surprised. Dianna stood, assuming a brisk but cheery businesslike manner. “All right, you love Olivia and your mother can’t live forever—Oh, sorry, no offense meant. Anyway, this could still have a happy ending. So let’s do this, Lenny. Take my hand, pretend you have the ring, and ask me to marry you.”
Lenny fidgeted about. “My whole leg is asleep now.”
“Then hurry. And use Olivia’s name, not mine.”
Though still a bit crestfallen, Lenny took Dianna’s offered hand and breathed in noisily through his nose, while with his free hand he made big loops in the air, as if gathering to him the moment and the ambience. “So we’ve got violin music. A darkened restaurant. Flowers. Et cetera. Very romantic. A couple of drinks. The ring. I can feel it now … and here it is.” His expression dramatically earnest, Lenny turned his doe’s eyes up to Dianna. “Olivia, I love you. And you would make me the happiest man alive if you would be my wife. Will you marry me?”
Elation filled Dianna and spilled over into her grinning expression. “Very good, Lenny. Exactly like that. Olivia will be so happy. And so will your mother.”
Lenny’s grip on Dianna’s hand tightened painfully. “Oh, God, a cramp in my leg. I can’t get up. Help me.”
The joy fled Dianna’s heart. She extricated her hand from his grip, gamely clutched him under his doughy arm, and pushed up with all her strength. So did Lenny. Bracing his hand against Dianna’s just-vacated chair, using it for leverage, he grunted and shoved upward. Not one blessed thing happened. Embarrassed for him, Dianna once again stepped back, planting her hands at her waist. “Maybe you should try it on your own. Maybe I’m in the way.”
“It’s my good knee. It’s locked.”
“Then how good can it be, Lenny?”
His eyes widened suddenly. “I think something just popped.” Panic claimed his expression. “Don’t just stand there. Get me some help!”
Dianna started, then stopped, then cried out, “What kind of help? You mean like 911?”
“No,” Lenny yelled back. “Just get someone with some meat on his bones. Anyone stronger than you, Spaghetti Arms.”
Okay, now that particular taunt of his from their childhood did nothing but make Dianna want to smack him one. “You know what, Lenny? Insulting me right now is probably not what you want to do. Wait here.” Lenny’s sarcastic ha-ha look made her hear her own words. “Oh. Of course you’ll wait here. You’re stuck. Just hold on—I’m going for help.”
Lenny’s face reddened in earnest. “Then how about you shut up and go do it, huh?”
Good point. Dianna wheeled around and ran out of the salon, hurrying down the long hall to the front of her gracefully cluttered shop and calling out as she went. “Paula? Melanie? Mrs. Windhorst? Can you help me here a second?”
Much as if the two-story, renovated Victorian house that held the offices of Popping the Question were a child’s pop-up book, and Dianna had just turned the page, three women zipped out of their offices, appearing to have sprung magically into the hall. They faced her, their questioning expressions, no doubt, in answer to the note of disaster in their boss’s voice.
In the forefront, closest to Dianna, was Paula. As always, she was eating. This time it was the tag end of the day’s doughnuts. It was amazing. The woman weighed about as much as a bird—a small bird who dressed retro, sported very short red hair, and wore funky blue, narrow-framed eyeglasses. A pencil was stuck behind one ear that boasted multiple piercings. “So. What’s up, boss?”
Dianna leaned in toward her ace proposal consultant and whispered, “Lenny’s stuck in the position.”
This left Paula unmoved. “Lenny, huh? Good. Leave him there, the nasty little creep.”
“My sentiments exactly. Only that would mean he would be here forever. With us, Paula. And nobody wants that.”
“Gotcha. So what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to help me get him up.”
Licking her fingers, Paula roved her placid gaze over Dianna’s face. “You’re serious, aren’t you? No. Sorry. No way. I could tear something vital loose, like my pancreas, trying to get him up.”
Dianna tsked. “You couldn’t even point to your pancreas if you had to.” She then turned, motioning to Melanie, her diametrically-opposed-to-Paula other proposal consultant, and Mrs. Windhorst, her post–middle-aged and tidily efficient receptionist and secretary. “Come here, please.” Both women scurried to her. Her voice still lowered discreetly, Dianna said, “Mr. Daschowitz is stuck down on one knee, and I need your help getting him up.”
To her surprise, immediate dissension in the ranks ensued. Employees backing up, shaking their heads, looking around for the quickest avenue of escape. Dismayed, Dianna advanced on them. “Oh, come on, help me. I can’t leave him in there, and he can’t get up by himself.”
As if to prove what she’d said, a muted cry of “Help!” came from the salon. Her employees stopped. Dianna raised her eyebrows at them while jerking her thumb back in the direction of the plaintive bleat. “See? And I have another client due at any minute.”
Mrs. Windhorst, God love her, adopted a brave face of helpfulness. She valiantly stuck her pen into her gray bouffant hairdo. “Why things like this always happen on Friday afternoons—and payday, to boot, when I’m at my most busy time of the week—I’ll never know. However, Ms. West, your three o’clock isn’t here yet, but all the same, count me in.”
Relief coursed through Dianna. “Oh, good. Thank you.”
Patting the secretary’s arm, Melanie said, “You poor thing, Mrs. Windhorst. Always so busy. You work too hard, honey.” She turned to Dianna. “I’ll come with you, too, Di. Poor Mr. Daschowitz. He can’t help it.”
Dianna beamed at her sentimentally maudlin, rich-as-Godiva-chocolate employee who worked only because she wanted to. “You are a blessing, Melanie.”
The three united women—Dianna, Melanie, and Mrs. Windhorst—turned as one to the lone holdout … Paula. She raised her chin stubbornly, tried to stare them down, couldn’t do it, and finally gave in, slouching where she stood. “Well, lovely. Just freakin’—”
“We’ve talked about this before, Ms. Capland.” Mrs. Windhorst glared disapprovingly at Paula. “Young ladies—even those like yourself, twice-divorced and nearing thirty—do not use vulgarity at the office. I will not be subjected to such language. It creates an atmosphere of stress that I find—”
“Hey, easy there, Madam PC.” Paula held up a placating hand, palm outward. All five of her slender fingers were adorned with silver rings. “Don’t get your girdle in a wad.”
“Paula, really,” Dianna said, feeling it was her duty, as the boss, to intercede at this point. “And you, too, Mrs. Windhorst. Both of you should make more of an effort—”
“Hello? Excuse me?” This muted but irritable cry came, again, from the salon. “Has everybody left or what? Can I get some help in here? I gotta go to the bathroom.”
Dianna’s eyes widened. “No, no, no. That is new carpet in there.” She whirled around, her employees close on her heels, and tore for the salon. “You better cross your legs, Lenny Daschowitz.”
“If I could cross my legs,” he yelled irritably, “I wouldn’t be needing any help, would I? And you better hurry, Spaghetti Arms. I don’t think I can hold it for long.”
* * *
Standing on the white-painted, wraparound porch with the overhanging eave, Chris Adams eyed Popping the Question’s closed front door. According to the stickers attached to its glass, they took MasterCard and Visa and most other major credit cards. So, anyway, it was a nice door, as doors go. And it probably didn’t warrant this much scrutiny, but he was in no hurry to go inside. What was the rush? Wow. Popping the question. A big step. One giant leap for mankind. Hence, this study of the wooden door with its inlaid oval of glass. Inside, the glass was curtained with a lacy sheer held tight at both ends and caught up in the middle by some sort of satiny tieback thing. It resembled a woman’s waist but more accurately described how his guts felt, Chris decided.
Yet he had no one to blame but himself. After all, he’d purposely driven all the way across Baltimore to get here, hadn’t he? And he’d parked his car out front, right? He pivoted to check. Yep. There it was in the business’s small, private lot. A self-deprecating chuckle escaped Chris. As if the big Beemer were his mother and this was the first day of kindergarten and he feared it would leave him the moment his back was turned. But it hadn’t, so that was good. Still trying to screw up his courage, Chris reminded himself that he had, uncoerced, exited his car and walked, under his own power, up the flower-lined walkway.
Then he’d climbed (trudged heavily, if he was being honest) up the five broad, wooden steps that led to this porch. Sure, he’d mounted the steps much as if, at the top, an extremely close shave with a guillotine awaited him. But no such luck. So the upshot of all that deliberate action of his now found him standing here among the forest of wicker furniture and hanging baskets stuffed with green and leafy plants. Something totally masculine inside Chris made him wince. It was like he had shrunk, and this was a dollhouse. A Barbie dollhouse, and he was Ken.
He’d never really liked Ken. Never thought the guy was all that masculine, to tell the truth—
Knock it off. Stalling. Big time. Man, it’s just another business appointment. Right. But not until three o’clock. He looked at his watch. Dismay filled him. This can’t be right. Damn thing says it’s three o’clock already. Chris tapped the crystal and waited. Still three o’clock. Then it was true: He needed a new watch. Desperate now, Chris turned, stepped to the porch’s edge and searched the wide street that ran in front of the business. No brigade of buddies anywhere on the horizon come to save him. Chris narrowed his eyes. Apparently I need new friends, too.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to get married—Chris continued to argue with himself as he returned to the front door—and it wasn’t that he didn’t want to ask Veronica in some spectacular way to marry him. It was just that, well, he had to go inside and admit to these women that he didn’t have the first clue about how to pull off something like this on a grand scale. But what guy did, right? Hence, the existence of Popping the Question. Okay, so he wasn’t alone, not by a long shot, in being romantically challenged. That brought to his mind Rick Hampton’s grinning face. Chris spared a big, fat, insincere Thanks, pal for his newlywed friend. He’d used these ladies’ services, was now happily married, and had insisted that Chris come here.
So here I am. What the hell. Just go inside.
Squaring his shoulders, he depressed the antique-brass lever that served as a handle, stepped over the threshold, and into a small, tiled square of foyer. An air-conditioned breeze kissed his face as he closed the door behind him and looked around. On his left was a closed door. To his right, a grand archway revealed a room furnished like an old-time parlor. A delicately carved wooden desk of ladylike proportions dominated the middle of the carpeted room. Plenty of overstuffed, unoccupied chairs sat around with nothing to do. Atop a few low tables, many magazines waited in vain to be read. And a big bulletin board crammed full of pictures of happy couples held court on one wall. Obviously the reception area.
But no real, live people, other than himself, seemed to be around. To Chris, this was adequate proof that there is indeed a benevolent god of second thoughts. He could just leave, and no one would be the wiser. Except Rick Hampton. Chris could already hear the teasing and the name-calling, all of which would end in “butt” or “head.” Determination firmed Chris’s jaw. No way. He was here, and he was toughing this out.
So, what do I do now? he wondered. Just call out? Maybe there was a little bell on the desk he was supposed to ding-ding to raise someone. He looked. Didn’t see one. Well, maybe there was a bell pull somewhere for the butler. Wouldn’t surprise him—not in this house. He peered harder into the office, but from where he was, he couldn’t see a tasseled candidate. He wasn’t about to go in there to look for one, either. No, he meant to stay exactly where he was. The foyer was now home base. King’s X. Couldn’t be tagged while he stood there.
Smug now, hands in his pants pockets, Chris rocked back on his heels, deciding this place was like going back a hundred years in time. Big, heavy, antique furniture. Lace curtains. Cherubs everywhere. Lots of feather accents and dried flowers. Big oversized vases sitting on the wood floor. Gilt-edged frames holding pastoral scenes of picnics and such.
Definitely not his taste. But he could see where they were going. It created a mood: Victorian, romantic … totally unlike him. Which explained why he was here. Popping the Question. That whole “one giant leap for mankind” feeling all over again. Yeah, leap right out over the abyss that was married hell.
“Damn. If that’s how I feel…” Chris jerked around, aiming for the closed front door to the marriage-proposal business. But then he heard them. The voices.