“CARLISLE?” PHILLIP REPEATED, peering over my shoulder at Jack.
My mind started spinning, and not just because of the exceedingly awkward situation. “Phillip! What are you doing here?”
“I came to see my fiancée,” he stated, never glancing away from Jack.
Jack raised a brow. “Fiancée?”
To say that Jack looked unhappy would be an understatement. “A dangerous fury” might be more accurate but would also be completely melodramatic, so I’ll leave it at “unhappy.”
The thought jarred me out of paralysis. For half a second I tried to figure out how to extricate myself from the mess. But I knew my moment of reckoning had finally come. And even I knew that if you can’t beat the charge you better go with it and make the best of a bad situation.
I pulled up mental fortification, then walked over and took Phillip’s arm. “Jack Blair, I would like you to meet my fiancé, Phillip Granger.”
The two men who were such complete opposites stood eyeing each other like two gunslingers at a Wild West showdown; that is, until the menacing shock on Jack’s face shifted and changed, settling into what I can only call an amused grin. Maybe even relief.
“Nice to meet you,” Jack said, extending his hand.
After a second, Phillip shook, then grimaced when he pulled away covered in chocolate.
“Sorry, man,” Jack said, not that he looked it.
“Jack was just leaving.”
“Right,” he said, but didn’t budge.
I pushed him toward the door, but just before we got there he spun back (I lurched forward) and added, “First, I really should clean up. Don’t want to get chocolate all over the Suburban.” He strode over to the sink. “So tell me, Phil.”
“It’s Phillip.”
“Sure. How did you come to be engaged to Carlisle?” The man I was beginning to think of as the King of the Underworld actually chuckled. “We’ve heard about you, of course. Sort of. But we’re a little short on details.”
I glared at him. “We don’t need to know any of this. Especially since you really need to go.”
Phillip looked confused.
Jack held up his dirty hands and gave me a menacing look. “I’m going. Just give me a second.”
I walked across the kitchen to the counter, shooting daggers at Jack the whole way, grabbed up a linen towel, and forced a smile when I turned back and handed it to my fiancé. “The chocolate,” I explained.
Phillip glanced down at his hand, only then remembering. “Oh, yes.”
With no help for it, I knew that I couldn’t delay cleaning up the chocolate, regardless of the potential disaster brewing before me. Lupe and/or my mother could walk in at any second. I didn’t need a disastrous kitchen hanging over my head as I finally came clean to my mother about my fiancé. Beyond which, I wasn’t fool enough to think that any amount of pressure, coercion, or insistence was going to get Jack Blair out of there one second before he was ready to leave.
I found an apron and tied it on, picked up the 409 from the floor, wet some paper towels, and got to work.
Phillip stared as if seeing me for the first time. “Carlisle?” he said. “I can’t believe that with all the work you’re doing here, they’re making you clean as well. What kind of employer does your mother work for?”
Jack stopped drying his hands, his head cocking. “What is this? Employer?”
“Jack, really,” I said with tight determination, “I know you have lots to do.”
“On the contrary.” He tossed the towel aside, crossed his arms on his chest, and leaned back against the counter. “I have nothing better to do than stay here and get to know your fiancé.” He glanced between me and the chocolate-covered kitchen. “Though you better get a-crackin’ on this mess before your employer arrives.” He turned back. “Hey, Phil, looks like you got a spot on your tie.”
Phillip’s head dropped (I grimaced), and sure enough, chocolate did streak what I knew was his favorite Hermès tie.
With a jerk, Phillip’s head popped up. “Who are you?” he asked Jack in continued confusion.
“Just think of me as… a friend. An old friend. So sit.” He walked over, slapped Phillip on the back, then guided my fiancé to a chair and pushed him into it.
Satan turned up the charm and it didn’t take my “old friend” long before he had Phillip revealing the highlights of our life together in Boston. I swallowed back a groan when Phillip started in on just how proud everyone should be of me given how I had pulled myself up by my bootstraps and succeeded.
“Bootstraps?” Jack said to me, repeating the word in an exaggerated use of syllables. “Aren’t you clever to go off all poor and make good. Your mother must be so proud.”
“Really, Jack, you need to go.”
“Right. Probably should get back to it.”
He stood, but before he got far the back door opened and in walked Lupe, dressed in street clothes (hand-me-downs of my mother’s in the form of a perfectly preserved, decade-old Ralph Lauren shirt dress, low-heeled Cole Haan shoes, and matching purse), groceries held in her arms, keys to the Volvo dangling in her fingers.
She stopped dead in her tracks at the sight, not of me, Jack, or even the stranger, but the chocolate-covered kitchen.
“What ees theese!” she cried. “What is theese mess you make?”
Phillip leaped up, his eyes wide. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault it isn’t cleaned up.”
“Yes,” Jack interjected happily. “As Carlisle’s employer, Mrs. Hernandez runs a tight ship here at Wainwright House.”
Lupe looked at him as if he had lost his mind. Then to make matters worse, my mother walked in.
“Carlisle? Who is here?”
Mother wore a simple housedress and low-heeled slippers, as if she had just been dragged from bed. When she saw Jack, she scowled, though her scowl turned to curiosity when she saw Phillip.
I debated whether or not I could hide.
“Mrs. Ogden,” Jack said grandly. “I’m sure you’ve met your daughter’s fiancé. Phil.”
My mother couldn’t seem to move.
Phillip extended his hand. “It is a pleasure to meet Carlisle’s mother.”
“Fiancé?” she said.
“I’m the one,” he said with solemn pride. “I managed to get your daughter to agree to be my wife.”
She glanced at me, then back. “Fiancé?” she repeated. “Of course you are,” she said carefully.
Jack got that wicked-smile thing going. “I know you’re just going to love hearing about the impressive achievements of your daughter.”
“Jack, stop.”
“Now, now, Carlisle, don’t be modest.”
He then proceeded to regale my mother with all the unfortunate details of my “fake” life.
Mother glanced from person to person, pressing her beautifully manicured hand to her chest. “Me? A humble servant?”
I groaned. After a lifetime living with my mother, I knew, as I knew my own name, what was coming next when she turned those violet-blue eyes on me.
But I was wrong.
“Carlisle, you sly puss. Aren’t you full of surprises. Such a life you haven’t boasted about.” Then her mouth turned up in a mischievous smile. “Though I’d best get back to my chores before I get fired for shoddy work.”
The stabbing pain behind my eyes resurfaced.
Lupe started to say something, but my mother cut her off. “Now, now, Mrs. Hernandez, I am here to serve, sugar. All I ask is to be given a small stipend and a bit of bread and water for my labors.”
Now this was thick. Which made me feel better since if my mother had really been upset she would have stormed to her room, slammed the door, and pulled her secret bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue out of her dressing table. Instead, she launched into her role as servant with the enthusiasm of a method actor.
I stood in shock as my mother tied an apron around her waist, then smoothed it with those perfect hands.
My mother smiled her schoolgirl’s smile. “Would you like some tea, Mr. ah…”
“Granger,” he offered.
“Mr. Granger. It has a nice ring to it.”
She set out to serve tea in the kitchen (no servant could entertain their own guest in the receiving room, she informed us) with a flourish.
“As much as I’d like to stick around for the rest of the show,” Jack said, “I’ve really got to go.” He extended his hand. “Phil, nice to meet you.”
“Yes, you too.”
Though Phillip looked more stricken than anything.
“Now, let’s sit,” my mother said, then leaned forward and added in a whisper, “Though truly I only have a second before Old Battle-ax Hernandez cracks the whip.”
Lupe started a heated diatribe, fortunately in Spanish so that Phillip hadn’t a clue what was said.
The pain increased and I was sure my head would explode.
“Mother,” I warned.
“Now, Miss Lupe, you don’t mind me having a spot of tea so I have a chance to get to know my future son-in-law. Lord have mercy, fiancé!” She looked at Phillip. “Mrs. Hernandez and I are practically family, you know.”
“Enough!” I said.
“Now, sugar, is that any way to talk to your mother?”
“Yes, Carlisle, you really shouldn’t be rude to your mother.”
Mother smirked, then coughed as she served. And not particularly well when ice-cold sweet tea sloshed over the side of the silver pitcher and into Phillip’s lap.
He leaped back, coming out of his chair. Lupe muttered in Spanish, retrieved a dish towel, and started wiping at our guest’s private parts. Phillip was too stunned to do anything at first, then finally regained his wits and took hold of her wrist. “I’m fine, Mrs. Hernandez, really.”
The kitchen went still, Mother barely holding back laughter, Lupe’s face beet red in a way I never would have dreamed possible.
“Mother, stop this game right now.”
“What game, dear?” she asked, straightening with the silver tea server still held in her hand. “I’m just being kind to this lovely man who has come all the way from Boston to surprise you. And you can imagine how proud I am of my daughter for having risen from her poor, humble roots to become a top lawyer in her field.” She smiled wickedly at me. “You can imagine how that would make any mother feel.”
Given Phillip’s expertise as a man of the law, he seemed surprisingly oblivious to my mother’s charade. He took her smiles at face value, her sweet words as the truth, the apron as something she wore every day.
“Phillip, there is something I need to tell you.”
This time Lupe groaned. “Et was just geeting good.”
My mother scoffed.
I glared at them both, then reluctantly turned back to Phillip.
“My mother is not a maid.”
She sighed, disappointed that the game was over. “But I think I did a magnificent job of pretending to be one. Don’t you think, Lupe?”
Lupe rolled her eyes and muttered.
“Like you did much better as the lady of the house? Good Lord, you felt the man up.”
“Wha?”
“You heard what I said!”
“Stop, you two,” I demanded, then turned back to my fiancé who watched in stupefied shock as my mother and her maid went at it. “Phillip, I am not poor.” Just like that.
His brow furrowed.
“My mother isn’t really the maid.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Good God,” my mother interjected, “what’s there not to understand? She is not poor. I am not poor, and Lupe here is really the maid. I am the lady of the house, and Carlisle is my daughter.”
Phillip’s head swung back and forth between us.
“Is this true? You aren’t poor?”
I cringed. “Yes.”
“You’re rich?”
“Well, rich is relative.”
“You are a Wainwright of the Wainwright family?”
“Yes. But in my defense, I never said I was poor.”
He sputtered over words that made no sense.
“I just never clarified the misconception,” I hurried on.
My mother sniffed. “As if that makes it better. I can’t believe you were up there with all those Yankees pretending to be poor. What were you thinking, Carlisle?”
“Yes, Carlisle, what were you thinking?” Phillip’s tone was ominous.
I cringed. “Would you buy: I wasn’t thinking?”
No one liked my answer.
Phillip stared at me, his mouth opening and closing, no words coming out.
Finally he said, “I’m sorry, but I really have to go.”
He looked at me one last time, shook his head, and disappeared through the swinging door.