11

Wait, wait, stop right there. So he kissed you or he didn’t kiss you?” Skye sat crosslegged atop the kitchen counter, eating a Pop-Tart while she quizzed me.

“Yeah, you can’t gloss over these parts.” Leah cuddled the baby sleeping in her lap and glanced at Rex, who was studying Skye’s back issues of People. In lieu of coffee cake, I had placated him with toaster pastries and a Popsicle.

“I told you already.” I fished three ibuprofen out of the bottle. “Technically, yes, he kissed me. And then Sally practically ran me down like a dog in the street.”

“And then?” my sister demanded.

“I don’t know. I left.”

“Playing hard to get.” She saluted me with her Pop-Tart. “Good idea!”

“I’m not playing hard to get. Let’s be crystal clear on this: I cannot get involved with him again. I have to go back to California soon, and breaking up with him again will kill me. Or he’ll kill me himself. One way or another, I’ll be dead.”

“So what are you going to do?” Leah asked.

I sighed. “The very first thing I’m going to do is head over to the clinic. I have to see someone today.” I winced. “Something is definitely wrong.”

“Don’t leave us in suspense—tell us the rest of your mini-drama,” Leah said.

“There’s nothing to tell,” I insisted.

Leah and Skye exchanged a pointed look.

I scowled. “I told you, he hasn’t forgiven me…and even if he has, I can’t get involved. And anyway, since our little tête-àtête was so rudely interrupted by Sally Hutchins, that’s the end of that story.”

Leah shook her head. “That girl always was insufferable. God’s gift to the Rice County Country Club. Is she still throwing herself at him?”

“She has a thing for hockey players. And have you seen the hair color?” Skye huffed. “I could do better with some Easter egg dye and both hands tied behind my back.”

“I don’t know how to break it to him that I have to go back to L.A. soon.” I put the last mug into the dishwasher and slammed the door.

“Why do you have to go back to L.A.?” Skye asked. She didn’t make eye contact, as if she expected me to start yelling.

“Yeah, that seems kind of abrupt,” Leah said.

“Well…” I frowned. Why wouldn’t I go back? Now that we’d sorted out Skye’s “pregnancy,” there was nothing keeping me from returning to my real life. Sure, I’d intended to help with the bar, but Flynn wasn’t exactly oozing enthusiasm about that. In fact, I reasoned, I had a better chance of recouping my investment if I left him alone to run things his way. He wouldn’t have to sell it to escape me.

I could leave tonight, actually. If I wanted to.

“Well…my editor wants me to do an article out here. So I’ll be around until that’s done,” I finally said. “But then I have to go back.”

“But can’t you be a writer anywhere?” Leah asked.

I changed the subject entirely. “Men are so vexing. Why does everything have to be so damn hard?”

“Because you are unfortunate enough to have those little things called feelings,” Leah said, cradling Rachel in one arm as she struggled to her feet. “Eli—excuse me, Rex—are you ready to go, bunny?”

He was deeply engrossed in a layout of paparazzi shots from the Venice Film Festival. “Can I bring this home with me?”

After we said good-bye to the Goldberg family, I prepared to make my exit. “I can’t waste the afternoon wringing my hands over some stupid man. I’m going to the doctor. And then I have to get to work.”

“Oh, yeah, work.” Skye’s face lit up. “That reminds me—get ready to be so proud of me!”

“Why?” I demanded warily.

“I landed us another promotional event thing. A real one! It’s a wine and cheese party for Ian and the arts and humanities faculty at his college. They do it every summer. He’s the department chair this year, and he said the Roof Rat could host it. On Saturday. Wine! Cheese! Isn’t this exciting?”

“Very exciting. Except, um, we don’t have any wine.”

“So we’ll get some! I’m going to wear my new gold lamé minidress. It is so classy.” She closed her eyes and sighed in rapture. “I’m thinking like, a harpist, and a violinist, and waiters in tuxes passing cute little silver trays…”

“Will you settle for some Rachmaninoff on the jukebox and clean T-shirts?”

“Okay!” She grabbed an issue of Us on the coffee table and started writing all over a photo of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. “Let’s start planning! I’ll make a list!”

I smiled. “You do that. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Okay. Hurry up and recover, because I have oodles of ideas!”

 

There were two sure signs of impending doom at the clinic. One, “Muskrat Love” drifting out of the examination room speakers while the doctor diagnosed my bladder infection. Two, Sally Hutchins sitting directly across from me while I waited for the nurse to bring out my antibiotic prescription.

Sally’s mood had not improved since our little roadside contretemps that morning. She perched primly in a mauve armchair, crossing and uncrossing her legs. At regular thirty-second intervals, she heaved a mighty sigh and rolled her eyes. I tried to ignore her and focus on the waiting room’s year-old copy of Marie Claire.

Just as I was starting to lose myself in an article on moisturizing lotion lifespans, she flipped her hair and demanded, “What are you doing here?”

I put down the magazine and turned both palms toward her. “I’m just here for the drugs. What are you in for?”

“None of your business.” She leaned over and snatched the Marie Claire, leaving me with a dog-eared issue of Log Cabin Living. Muttering under my breath, I resigned myself to juicy exposès on Canadian pine tree construction and chandeliers made entirely of antlers.

The nurse finally bustled in with a cheerful smile and roughly fifteen clipboards, none of which seemed to be in order.

“Okey-dokey now…” She frowned at the sheaves of paper in her hand. “You two are…?”

“Geary.”

“Hutchins.”

She shuffled through the paperwork, pushed her glasses higher up on her nose, and turned to me. “Faith, we’re giving you a three-day course of Bactrim for the urinary tract infection…”

So much for patient confidentiality.

“And Sally, hon, your doctor is giving you Septra for your urinary infection. That won’t interfere with the antidepressants you’re taking. Any questions, girls?”

Both of us just gaped at her, open-mouthed.

“Okey-dokey, then! And don’t forget to drink your cranberry juice. Bye-bye!”

I watched her head back to the reception area. “Oh my God.”

Sally was practically frothing at the mouth. “I’m suing. Do you hear me? I am going to go straight to my father’s office, and I am suing!”

I gave up on Log Cabin Living and got to my feet. “Oh, simmer down. It’s just a bladder infection. So what? I’ve got one, too.”

She glared at me through slitted green eyes.

“And spare me the ice queen routine, okay? I’m not going to tell anyone about your precious urinary tract.”

She slapped Marie Claire back onto the table. “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

I stared at her for a long moment before bringing up the unbring-uppable. “You’re worried about the antidepressants?”

She flinched. “Keep your voice down!”

“Fine, but I don’t see what you’re freaking out about. I live in Southern California now. Half the population’s on Prozac.”

“Well, this isn’t Los Angeles. This is Lindbrook, and it’s not okay to be”—she glanced furtively around the empty room—“popping pills.”

“Paranoid much? I’m not going to say anything, and even if I did, no one would care.”

She still looked petulant and litigious.

“No one would believe me, anyway,” I soothed. “I’m sure no one thinks you’ve got anything to be depressed about.”

She snorted. “You must be joking.”

“No, really.” I sat back down, getting more annoyed by the minute. “You have everything you could possibly want. You have the perfect small-town life, and instead of appreciating it, you act like Cruella De Vil in J. Crew.”

She stared at the stains on the flecked gray carpet. “I do not.”

But I was on a roll. This little throwdown was ten years overdue.

“For God’s sake, woman, you just stole my waiting-room copy of Marie Claire. I rest my case. Some people get the elevator, and some people just get the shaft. You were lucky enough to get the whole penthouse, and you lord it over everybody else, so I don’t see why you need antidepressants.”

“That’s because you’ve never met my mother,” she snapped.

“This is true.” I nodded.

“You wouldn’t understand.” She shook out her stoplight-red hair. “I am not some witchy little princess. I happen to be very misunderstood around here.”

“Don’t cry for me, Argentina,” I scoffed. But I was starting to think that I’d actually hurt her feelings.

“And I don’t see why you’re bitching about Marie Claire when your entire life is like a fashion magazine.”

I blinked. “What, now?”

“You get to live in Beverly Hills and travel all over the world and date movie stars…”

I threw back my head and laughed. “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but you’ve been grossly misinformed.”

“…And I’m still stuck in Lindbrook, Minnesota. Living with my parents and working as my father’s secretary and spending all day listening to my mother criticize my hair and tell me I should be married by now. Like it wasn’t enough that I had to pledge her snobby sorority house at the University of Minnesota.”

Time out. “You went to the U?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Well, did you ever see Flynn while you were there?” Read: Did you ever date Flynn while you were there? This is what I had been reduced to. Pumping my arch-enemy for information about my ex-boyfriend.

“Sure.” Sally played with her pearl pendant. “I saw him at every hockey game.”

“You did?” Tell me, tell me, tell me.

“Of course. He was the star player for three years.”

“And? What happened?”

“A knee injury, I think. At the beginning of senior year. I don’t know all the details, but the girl he was dating said that he had like, five surgeries on his knee, and none of them worked. He couldn’t play any more after that.”

I began the cross-examination. “Well, who was this chick who was dating him?”

“One of my sorority sisters. Sondra Cutler. Her father was a vice president of Honeywell, and she married—”

“Hold it. Flynn dated sorority girls?” I tried to reorient my world, which had just turned upside down.

“Not just sorority girls. Sigma Psi girls. The cream of the crop.” She crossed her ankles and tilted her chin up.

“You’re kidding. Did he date a lot of them?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. He wasn’t really into the groupies the way the rest of the hockey team was.” She looked a little disappointed about this. “But he had some really bad break-ups.”

“He, uh, he did?”

“Yes, he did, hel-lo, starting with you.” She picked up Marie Claire and resumed flipping through it.

“Put that down. I’m not done with you yet.” I paused. “You knew about our break-up?”

“About how you ran off with that drummer and broke his heart?” She gave me an unctuous smile. “This is Lindbrook. Everybody knew about it. He walked around the U. looking all rebellious and tortured for a year, and then he got on with his life.”

“It was a bass player.” I gritted my teeth. “So what happened with Sondra?”

“Well!” I watched the struggle on Sally’s face as her Sigma Psi loyalty warred with her primal urge to gossip. “She kept wanting to get married, but he wouldn’t.”

I sat down next to her. “What? That doesn’t sound like Flynn.”

She sneered at me. “I guess you ruined him for everyone else. She kept hinting for a ring, and he kept saying he didn’t want to talk about it—”

“Now, that sounds like Flynn.”

“—But I told her not to feel bad because it was all your fault for scarring him for life. So she went to this psychic on Hennepin Avenue and put a hex on you.”

“A hex? You’re serious? But she’d never even met me.”

“Yeah, but she wanted to get engaged and it was all your fault he wouldn’t, so she paid the psychic to put a spell on you. To curse your love life with madmen and criminals.”

I had to admit, this explained a lot about my dating history.

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe he didn’t want to marry her because she was a narcissist who dabbled in the dark arts?”

She ignored this. “Anyway, Sondra finally got over it and ended up marrying Mark Churchill, but then he turned out to have major mother issues—”

“But what happened to Flynn?”

Her eyes wandered back to the magazine. “I don’t know. He graduated and went off to work. I haven’t seen him much since then, except when you’re around.”

“I thought he was at the Roof Rat every night?”

“Not until last week. He’s been in Lindbrook a lot more since you showed up.”

I tucked this tidbit away for later analysis. “Really.”

“Yes. Look, I have to get back to the office. Daddy needs me to pour coffee and type memos.” She made a face as she folded her prescription into her purse. “And I haven’t decided about suing, but if you tell anybody about the antidepressants, I’ll name you in the lawsuit.”

“Uh-huh. So glad we had this little chat.” I watched her stalk out the sliding glass doors, all flaming hair, tasteful twill, and Sigma Psi suburban rage. And then I trailed after her, even more confused about Flynn and wondering if Leah or Skye knew how to reverse hexes.

Tuesday night at the Roof Rat boiled down to me, Flynn and Ian, who had struck up something of a courtship with Skye after I talked her into rebuffing Lars. Nary a single customer. At nine o’clock, torn between abject boredom and panic over lost profits, my sister decided we needed a distraction. She ran up to the apartment to unearth, from the bottom of a closet, a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle.

Ian excused himself to go retrieve his pipe and tobacco from his car, whereupon Skye dumped all 500 pieces on the table and announced, “Flynn, I have some excellent news. I told Ian that his college department group thing could have their annual wine and cheese party here next week. Isn’t that exciting?” She squared her shoulders, trying to look brisk and businesslike. “I’m doing it all myself! I am totally becoming a burned-out career woman.”

“You sure are,” he agreed. “But what about my big event? We’re supposed to be prepping for that.”

“Don’t worry, we can do both,” she assured him.

I jerked my head up. “What exactly is ‘your big event’ anyway?”

“Just a little get-together for the hockey team.” He turned a puzzle piece over and over in his hand. “A little get-together with a lot of alcohol.”

“Yeah, we might even hire a band,” Skye said.

“With a bass player and everything.” He smirked at me. “You’ll love it.”

My sister looked horrified. “Can’t you two just be happy for once?”

“I don’t know. Can we?” He turned to me, and I knew he was thinking about my abrupt departure from Main Street after he’d kissed me.

“I don’t know,” I muttered.

There was a moment of silence you could have cut with a knife and served in slices on little doilies.

Then Ian clattered back through the door, gazing with adoration at Skye. “Always so lovely, my lamb.”

She puckered up and gave Ian a tiny, non-lipstick-smearing kiss on the cheek. “Oh, how sweet!”

As I looked around for a place to vomit, I risked a moment of eye contact with Flynn, who was laughing. But he stopped when I caught his eye and I realized that one little kiss in the rain today didn’t erase the big kiss-off ten years ago.