Chapter Three

Being finished with men was especially problematic when one of your best friends was immersed in wedding plans. Rose tried to be supportive, helpful, and enthusiastic as she, Kate, and Lacy sat around a table at Jitters, the coffee bar where Lacy worked as a barista, listening to Gen go on about cake flavors and centerpieces.

“The good thing about this cake design is it’s got four tiers, and then the smaller cakes surrounding the base, so we can get eight flavors in there. Something for everybody,” Gen said, showing them a photo on her iPad.

“Isn’t it a little busy?” Lacy inquired.

“Maybe.” Gen peered at the cake on her screen. “But, eight flavors!”

“And it’s buttercream instead of fondant,” Kate put in. “Nobody likes fondant. I mean, it’s pretty, but have you ever tasted it?” She grimaced.

“Rose? What do you think?” Gen said.

Ah, God. She’d been hoping Gen wouldn’t ask. But now that she had asked, Rose had to be chipper. She wasn’t sure if she could pull off chipper.

“Huh. … Flavors are good,” Rose managed. She propped her chin on her hand on tried not to sigh.

“Or we could just break out a bag of Oreos,” Gen said.

“Really?” Rose said.

“No, not really.” Gen snatched up one of the bridal magazines she had stacked on the table and smacked Rose on the top of the head with it. “I need to pick a cake! I need to pick the perfect cake! Show some enthusiasm!”

“Sorry,” Rose said glumly.

Gen put down the iPad. “I kind of suck, right? Making you think about wedding plans when you’ve just had a breakup? I’m a crappy friend.”

“You’re not a crappy friend,” Rose assured her. “It’s just … the whole ‘I’m done with men’ thing is hard to sustain while you’re talking about tiers and fondant and … and … God. Cake toppers.”

“I thought you didn’t even like Jeremy that much,” Lacy said.

“I … kind of lied about that.”

“Oh.”

The dread in that one word, that oh, told Rose what her friends were thinking. That Jeremy wasn’t worth the brooding, the sadness, the moping. The guy was an asshole. But Rose wasn’t the first woman to have fallen for an asshole, and she surely would not be the last.

“It’s not just Jeremy,” Rose said.

“Then what else is it?” Lacy leaned forward, her face full of concern.

“It’s the cumulative effect of … what? … some twelve-odd years of dating and breakups and recovery from the breakups, and then having to find someone new to date. And Gen is done! Kate, too. You guys are done, and I … God. I’m pathetic.”

“I’m not done,” Lacy said. “We can suffer together.”

“No.” Rose shook her head. “No, because I’m done, too. No more men. I’m finished. Because men suck. I’ll have books, and wine, and long walks, and … and … I’ll probably have to get a cat, because that’s what women do when they’re done with men. It’ll just be me and the cat. And you guys can visit.”

“Oh, honey. Men don’t suck,” Kate said, her eyes brimming with sympathy.

“Your man doesn’t suck. And, okay, Ryan. But the rest of them do.”

“I think there might be a few others who are okay,” Lacy said.

“Well, I’m crap at finding them.”

“Me too,” Lacy admitted.

“Hey, hey, hey.” Gen waved her arms in the air in front of her. “We’re picking out my wedding cake! We cannot simultaneously bash men while feeling the level of happy optimism that’s required for picking out a really kick-ass wedding cake! So if we could just, you know … stick a pin in the angst. Just for right now.”

“You’re right.” Rose nodded, determined to try for Gen’s sake. “I’m sorry. Let me see those magazines.”

“Thank you. Really.” Gen shoved Brides and Martha Stewart Weddings in front of Rose. “And, honey, you’re not done.”

“Oh, I’m done,” Rose assured her. She flipped through the top magazine. “Jeez, you gotta love Martha Stewart. How do they get icing to do that?”

 

Will just about had everything ready for Chris’s arrival. He’d arranged for Cooper House to be cleaned; the pool guy had come and the water was a sparkling blue; the landscaping looked perfect, the hedges crisply trimmed and the flowers dewy and fresh; and the kitchen was stocked with groceries, including Chris’s favorite craft beer and the brand of bottled water his new girlfriend wanted. Everything was so perfect, in fact, that Will couldn’t think of any further excuse to avoid the snowy plover.

He was just about to get out there again—he was packing his field notes and his equipment into the back of his car—when his phone pinged with a text message from his ex-girlfriend.

I need to talk to you.

Will looked grimly at the phone and wondered how long he could simply ignore the message without being an ass.

On the other hand, this might be an excellent way to put off his research. He decided to yank off the Band-Aid and answer her.

What about?

Call me, she wrote.

Will was standing in the driveway, his car trunk open. He shoved the phone into his back pocket, then paced on the gravel driveway for a while, his sneakers crunching with each step. He looked at the blindingly blue sky, then took a deep breath, ran both hands through his sandy blond hair, and reached for the phone again.

“Melinda?” he said when she answered.

“Hi, Will.”

“What did you need?” He sounded angry, sounded stiff and short with her, and he didn’t mean to. But an ex was an ex for a reason.

Melinda let out a puff of air. “I wanted to let you know that I’ve started seeing someone.”

Will propped one hand on his hip while the other held the phone to his ear. He paced some more because it gave him something to do other than thinking about Melinda.

“Well … that’s great, Melinda, but why are you telling me? Why is it any of my business?”

“Because the man I’m seeing … It’s Christopher. I’m dating Christopher.”

“Oh.” He massaged his forehead with one hand. “But … he’s coming out to Cambria this weekend, and he said he’s bringing someone.”

“Yes. He’s bringing me. I wanted to let you know, instead of just showing up there and surprising you.”

Will suddenly felt very heavy, and he sat down hard on the back bumper of his car.

“Ah … I see.”

“I hope this won’t be too awkward,” Melinda said.

“Well, I feel pretty safe saying it will be.” It would have been awkward seeing Melinda again under any circumstances. But when you added the fact that she was dating his friend, and added to that the fact that she’d be staying on the property where Will lived, you had a triple layer cake of awkwardness. “Chris didn’t tell me it was you.”

“He doesn’t know you and I dated. I didn’t tell him. And I don’t see any reason to tell him now.”

Well, that added a new layer to the cake.

“Ah, God. Melinda—”

“Look.” Her voice was firm. “You and I dated, and then we broke up, and then I met Christopher. I didn’t tell him that I knew you because, at first, it just didn’t seem necessary. Then, by the time it was necessary, it was too late to do it without seeming like I was hiding something.”

“You are hiding something.”

“But nothing important.”

Ouch.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she added. “I just meant—”

“I know what you meant.” He rubbed at his eyes, hard, with one hand.

“Can we just not tell him?” Melinda said. “Can we just … not ?”

Will sighed. The sky was so bright he had to squint against its brilliance. “You’re going to have to tell him if you two get serious.”

“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.”

By then, it’s going to be a pretty shaky bridge.

 

Will was just about to get out there and face the snowy plover when Chris texted him one last thing that he wanted Will to get ready for him before his arrival. Melinda liked a particular Central Coast sparkling wine, and Chris wanted Will to buy a few bottles and put them in the wine cellar.

On one hand, the amount of crap Chris wanted Will to do for him before a typical visit bordered on the absurd. Why couldn’t the guy buy his own wine? On the other hand, Will was asked to do very little during the periods between visits—and those periods could stretch for months. In the mean time, he had free living quarters most people would kill for.

So, he sucked it up and thought about where he could get the wine.

The winery that made it was more than an hour’s drive from Cooper House, so Will got on the phone with some of the local wine shops to see who might carry it closer to home. On his third call, he found out that De-Vine had a few bottles. Grateful to put off his bird-watching, he got into his car—a 2002 Volvo that was starting to show a little rust due to the constant exposure to ocean air—and drove into town.

 

Will knew Rose Watkins a little. She was Kate and Gen’s friend, and Kate and Gen were involved with Will’s friends, so they showed up at the same get-togethers now and then. Of course, beyond that, he’d seen her around. She was hard to miss, with her brightly colored plumage. But they’d never really talked, other than superficial pleasantries. He was a little scared of her, to be honest.

She was on duty at De-Vine when he walked into the store late on a Thursday morning, the day before Chris and Melinda were scheduled to arrive at Cooper House. Her hair, which changed colors a lot, he’d noticed, was a fascinating blend of hot pink, blue, and purple. She had a little silver barbell piercing her left eyebrow, and a delicate silver hoop, so thin that it was barely noticeable, adorned her right nostril. Her makeup was bold—all dark eyeliner, thick mascara, and dark red lipstick—and her skirt was so short that for a moment after he walked into the shop, he forgot why he’d come.

“Hey, Will.” She greeted him from where she was straightening a selection of wineglasses, corkscrews, bottle stoppers, and other random items on sale for the tourists. “The Laetitia Brut Cuvée, right? I set aside some bottles for you.”

“Ah … thanks.”

“Why don’t you have a seat at the bar while I go into the back and get them?” She sounded friendly, but there was something underneath the friendliness, something darker. He wondered what it was.

He perched on a barstool and settled in while she went to get the wine. The store was empty, not surprising at this time of day. Sun streamed in through the big windows that faced onto the street. Every surface was crowded with a dazzling array of wine bottles, wine-related signs (WINE—HOW CLASSY PEOPLE GET WASTED), little jars of gourmet food items, decanters, picnic baskets, De-Vine T-shirts, and other items so numerous and varied Will couldn’t even name the purpose of them all.

Rose returned from the back room with three bottles in her hands. She smiled at him, but the smile seemed to end at the curve of her mouth. It didn’t reach her eyes—didn’t reach her heart, he imagined.

“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked.

“Water would be good,” he said. She poured it and put it in front of him in a De-Vine wineglass.

He knew he should just pay for his wine and go, but something made him stay on the barstool.

“So.” He took a sip of water and cleared his throat. “How have you been?”

“Why?” She looked at him sharply. “What have you heard?”

“I … uh … nothing. I was just … you know. Making small talk.” Apparently he’d stepped in something, and he didn’t know what it was.

“Oh.” Her shoulders dropped, and he could see that she was relieved.

“What would I have heard, if I’d heard something?” The level at which he was intimidated by her was slightly outweighed by the level of his curiosity, so he decided to stay with it and see where it led.

She grabbed a small white towel and started wiping the bar, even though, to his eye, the surface looked spotless already. She scrubbed vigorously at a spot he couldn’t see. That didn’t mean it wasn’t there, he supposed.

“Oh, nothing,” she said, rubbing at the spot. “Nothing. Not a thing. Except … there might have been some yelling at customers. And some seafood throwing. Maybe.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You threw seafood at customers?”

“No. I yelled at the customers. I threw seafood at my boyfriend. Try to keep up.”

Ah, now they were getting somewhere.

“So, you’re having boyfriend problems.”

“No,” she replied in an airy voice. “No, no. Because I don’t have a boyfriend anymore, now that I’ve thrown seafood at him.”

“Well, that would do it,” Will replied.

She scowled at him. “We didn’t break up because I threw the seafood. I threw the seafood because we broke up.”

“Ah.”

“What does that mean?” she demanded. “What does ‘ah’ mean?”

He shifted on his stool. “It means I’m not sure what to say. It means I want to be helpful, but I don’t really know what you’re talking about.”

She stopped wiping the bar and looked at him.

“You really didn’t hear about it.”

“Um … no.”

“I just thought … you know, you’re Jackson’s friend. And Ryan’s. And I told Kate and Gen, and so I just assumed …”

“Yes, well. Guys don’t gossip the way women do.”

“You’re missing out.”

“I’m beginning to get that impression.”

They were quiet for a moment, and Will wondered what he should say. He didn’t feel that he could simply walk away, having opened the door to something that was clearly bothering her. Tentatively, he said, “So ... are you okay?” It seemed to him that she wasn’t, but he wasn’t sure it was any of his business.

“Me?” She shrugged. “Oh, you know. Nothing a good hit man couldn’t fix. You wouldn’t happen to know anyone, would you?”

He couldn’t help grinning at her. She was hurt, that was obvious, but her sense of humor made her seem tough, and he liked that.

“Well, for what it’s worth, you’re not the only one with relationship troubles. This wine I’m picking up? It’s for Christopher Mills and his new girlfriend.”

“So?”

“So, his girlfriend also happens to be my ex. And he doesn't know.”

“Oh, shit.” She looked at him with wide eyes, apparently impressed with the awful potential of that situation. “Are you going to tell him?”

“I don’t know. She asked me not to.”

“But whether you do or you don’t, you’re going to have your friend-slash-employer and your ex doing the nasty right under your nose. So to speak. Not literally, I’m assuming.”

“That about sums it up.”

“God.” She leaned forward and propped her elbows on the bar. “You sure you don’t want something stronger than water?”

He checked his watch. “It’s ten fifteen a.m.”

“Your point?” She raised one eyebrow at him.

He laughed. “I guess I don’t have one. Set me up.”

She turned and grabbed a bottle from a rack behind her. “This one’s good. It’s a Paso Robles chardonnay. Nice. Oaky, kind of light, with apple flavor notes.”

She put the glass in front of him, and he took a sip and regarded her. “So why did you and the ex break up?” he asked. “Since it wasn’t the seafood-throwing.”

“Ah, shit.” She ran a hand through her galaxy-colored hair and looked at the floor, as though she might find answers there. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I’ll bet it does.”

“Nah.” She shook her head. “Not really. He was a class-A dickhead. He didn’t seem like one at first, but then ... it turned out he was a stealth dickhead. I’m better off without him.”

“I’m sure that’s true,” Will offered. “But it probably doesn’t feel that way.”

“Sometimes it does.” She went to the little sink set into the bar and began washing a couple of glasses from the last tasting she’d done. “And then other times it feels … Ah, shit.” She turned away, dried her hands on a towel, and wiped at her eyes with her fingertips, and Will was horrified to realize that she was crying.

“Ah … I … Kate’s just down the street. Gen and Lacy, too. Do you want me to … ”

“No.” She dabbed at her eyes in a way that wouldn’t smear her eyeliner, then took a deep breath, let it out, and changed the subject. “What about you? Why did you and Christopher Mills’s new girlfriend break up?”

He thought about that and decided there was no easy answer. He wanted to give her some kind of answer, though. He considered it, then gave her his best shot.

“Have you ever gone out with someone and felt like it should have been right, but it just wasn't? You’re doing all these things together, and you think it’s pretty much perfect, and it should be fun. But somehow, you realize you’re playing a part. You’re just acting, and there’s really no connection between you. There’s just this overall impression that you’d make a really great couple, if only you weren’t bored to tears.”

“Ouch.” She cocked her head at him. The way she was leaning forward on the bar gave him an excellent view of her cleavage, though he tried to be a gentleman and not look. Being gentlemanly was a challenge at times.

“You’ve got to tell Mills, though,” she said. “I mean, if you two are friends. It’s going to be a shit show if you don’t and he finds out on his own.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, but she asked me not to tell him, and I figure it’s her story to tell, not mine.”

“So what do you do?” She looked at him, her elbow on the bar and her chin propped on the heel of her hand. “Just keep your mouth shut and hope the shit show doesn’t happen?”

He took a sip of his wine—a very good wine—and put the glass carefully back on the bar. “I guess that’s all I can do,” he said.

She tilted her head and looked at him from under bangs colored deep blues and purples, the hues of peacocks and spring pansies. “That’s a bold position to take, considering the fact that if it all goes wrong, you might lose your job and your home.”

He rubbed at his forehead with his fingertips. “Now that you put it that way, I’m beginning to think I’m in trouble.”

“Here, you’d better have some more wine,” Rose said.