“There’s just that one more long flat box of favors still upstairs, Missy, if you’d please get it for me,” Chessie said as she headed for her office and the ringing phone. Elizabeth was in the dressing room with their first client of the morning, and Marylou was already at the bride’s house to direct the photographer and videographer, and they had to be set up for the Youngston-Duncan wedding by noon, plus she had to meet the bakery delivery guy at the reception hall in forty-five minutes and the florist right after that. What a morning!
“Already got it, Chessie. All the favors are in the back of your SUV.”
“Great. Then how about you grab the plastic fountain in the hall closet. And don’t forget the blue food coloring we need for the water. Oh, damn,” she said as the phone kept ringing. It was time to face facts: they needed another employee, especially with the wedding-planner part of the business beginning to take off and Elizabeth going on maternity leave next week. “I’m coming, I’m coming— Hello? I mean, Second Chance Bridal and Wedding Planners, may I help you?”
“Chessie? That is you, isn’t it?”
Chessie closed her eyes as she sagged against the edge of the desk. Why hadn’t she looked at the caller-identification screen before she’d picked up? But it had been so long since he’d called, she’d thought for sure that he’d given up. Why hadn’t he given up?”
“Hello, Rick,” she said dully. “Yes, it’s me. I. Never mind. How…um, how are you?”
“Fine, I guess. But wondering why you haven’t called me back. I’ve left about a dozen messages in the past couple of weeks.”
“You have?” Chessie made a mental note to roast Marylou over an open fire. Why hadn’t she warned her that Rick was still calling? “Well, gee. I’m, you know, pretty busy?”
“Busy avoiding me—not that I blame you. You know I’m back in Allentown for good? Uh, Diana and me? It didn’t work out, Chess.”
Chessie rolled her eyes. “Gosh. I’m so sorry to hear that. I mean, with the two of you so obviously well suited to each other.” Both of you backstabbing, rotten, no-good sons-of— Leave it alone, Chessie, leave it alone! You’re over it! “Look, Rick, I’m really busy right now, so—”
“I want to see you, Chess,” Rick said, which was just what she’d thought he was going to say and she was trying to avoid having to hear. “We’ve got some unfinished business, don’t you think?”
“No. I think it’s pretty finished. I don’t think it gets more finished than walking out on somebody the day of the wedding.”
“I’m not the same person I was six years ago, Chess. I’ve changed.”
“Good for you. Really, I mean that. Sincerely. But I really have to—”
“Let me apologize, Chessie. I know I’m asking a lot, but I need to do this. I’m not going to make any demands on you, or even ask for your forgiveness. I don’t deserve forgiveness for what I did to you. I just need to apologize. Face-to-face. We could meet for dinner tonight. I could pick you up at the salon. I’ve driven past it a couple of times, but I didn’t want to just walk in on you. Please, Chess.”
Missy stuck her head into the office, her lower jaw moving and her bubble gum popping. “All set. You ready to leave? It’s almost ten-thirty.”
Chessie nodded, shooing the teenager with her hand. “Rick, I really have to go now. I’ve got a noon wedding to pull off and a time schedule to keep. Maybe some other—”
“I won’t hang up until you say yes, Chessie. I can pick you up at seven. I’ll make reservations at our—that is, at Lily’s.”
“Lily’s went out of business three years ago, Rick,” she told him. He’d been about to say “at our restaurant.” Where he’d taken her on their first date. Where he’d proposed. Where they’d had their rehearsal dinner and he’d kissed her good-night in Lily’s parking lot while Diana watched and then the two of them had gone flying off to Mexico, leaving her in the lurch, for crying out loud. She didn’t know whether to scream at him or to cry. What she should do was hang up on him.
“Really? Well, maybe that’s a good thing. It was stupid of me to even suggest it. We’ll go somewhere else, someplace new I’ve never even heard about. Look, Chess, I know you don’t owe me anything, but I’m staying here in Allentown, and we’re going to run into each other at some point. That could be really awkward. I think it would be best for both of us if we get this first meeting out of the way.”
“Chessie? Can I start the car? I’ve got my Junior License now, you know. Just last week.”
Chessie glared at Missy, who was once again leaning her head inside the office. “All right. No—not you, Missy, I didn’t mean you!” she corrected hurriedly as Missy grinned and turned to run to the car. Could her morning get any worse? “Sorry, Rick. But I guess you’ve made your point. Seven o’clock tonight. I’ll see you then. Goodbye.”
She put down the phone and picked up her purse, took a frustrating ten seconds to locate her file on the Youngston-Duncan wedding and headed for the back door via the new addition.
And stopped dead when she saw Jace standing in the still-uncompleted space, his tape measure out as he measured an already-built shelf attached to the center island. He was dressed in a navy blue T-shirt and khaki shorts and sneakers, wore no tool belt, looked good enough to eat with a spoon, and if he thought he was fooling her into thinking he was here to work then he should probably give some serious thought to acting lessons.
“It’s Saturday. What are you doing here? And let’s save time here. You’re not working.”
“True. I was just thinking maybe we could go to lunch later, but Missy already told me you’ve got a wedding today.”
“I told you that yesterday, when we were having dinner,” she reminded him. They were back to meeting in public places where, as he’d originally said, it was safer. They’d talked all through dinner, and for an hour afterward, strolling together in the park. He’d held her hand, and only kissed her good-night when he’d walked her to her car. He was being so good since the incident in the shower that her teeth were beginning to hurt.
“Was that before or after we decided who should run for president?”
Why did she let him get to her? He always got to her, just like her brother Sean had always been able to get to their mother, just by grinning at her. She always got into trouble and tried to argue her way out, but not Sean. He’d just grin and say, “I love you, Mom,” and the next thing anyone knew, he was off scot-free and out playing with his friends again. He was still pulling the same stunt in Arizona, where he lived with his wife, Jill, and their three kids. Jill complained about it all the time, and kept falling for the same trick. It must be a boy thing, which grew into a man thing. Women just didn’t stand a chance.
“Don’t grin at me,” she told Jace now, trying to be stern. “And it was before we decided who should run for president, and after we’d agreed that limited use of instant replay is good for baseball.”
He grinned again.
Damn him…
“Oh, right, I remember now. How about we change it to dinner, instead? What time do you get back from the wedding?”
“It’s only a small reception immediately following the— Never mind. I can’t, Jace. I already have dinner plans.”
“Another of Marylou’s setups? Chess, maybe it’s time you told her we’re seeing each other. It might take a little of the pressure off you. Unless you like blind dates? Oh, and if I sound jealous, please pretend you didn’t notice. I’m just being a man.”
She didn’t answer him directly. It was safer that way. Besides, this was going to be a once and done thing with Rick, a necessary evil to get them both beyond the past and moving into the future. Separately.
“I’ll think about it,” she said, addressing only his second question. “But if I do that, get ready for the third degree from Marylou about your intentions. Are you ready for that? Because I’m not sure if we’re ready for that yet.”
Jace stepped closer to her and lifted her chin, pressed a quick, hard kiss against her mouth before stepping back. “I don’t know, Chess. I look into those big blue eyes, and I have a lot of trouble remembering why we began putting ourselves through this whole thing in the first place. I think I know how I feel.”
Chessie wanted to weep. He’d said just the right thing, and exactly what she’d been thinking. But he’d said it at exactly the wrong time. Which, coincidentally, also wasn’t the right time to tell him she was having dinner with Rick tonight.
“Chessie?”
Chessie turned about to look at Elizabeth, who was standing in the doorway. Shipwrecked sailors didn’t look at their rescuers with any more hope in their eyes.
“Yeah, Elizabeth? Is something wrong?”
“You could say that. Marylou just called. It seems when she picked up the tuxedos yesterday she forgot to double-check the order. She’s frantic, apologizing like crazy, poor thing. Anyway, the groom’s tux is still at the shop. You’re to run by and pick it up on your way to the church because Marylou can’t leave the bride.”
“No, she can’t. The rental shop is only a couple of blocks out of my way. All right, call her and tell her I’ve got it under control.” Chessie turned back to Jace, who looked so good, so wonderful. She wanted to tell him the same thing he’d just told her. “Jace—”
“I know, you’ve got to go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
She nodded, looked over her shoulder to see that Elizabeth was still standing in the doorway and looking at Jace curiously, as if trying to come to some sort of decision.
“Pretend I just kissed you goodbye, okay?” she whispered to Jace.
“I’ll pretend you just kissed me twice,” he answered, pulling her car keys from his back pocket and dangling them in front of her. “I intercepted Missy on her way out the back door.”
“Thank you,” Chessie said fervently, wondering why she didn’t just say to hell with it and throw her arms around him, and forget all this stuff about looking and leaping.
She also wondered who she was kidding, pretending she didn’t know that this was the man for her, the one man who made her feel alive, and cherished, and most important, understood. He knew what it was like to be hurt, to feel responsible, to need to feel certain that the time and the person and the reasons were all right. He knew how she felt about her business, because he felt the same way about his. He understood her drive to succeed. He knew how lonely that success could be without someone to share it with.
But then she remembered Rick, and how it probably would be a good idea to see him first in a controlled setting, rather than just running into him somewhere, which would be even more awkward. Old business, she needed to take care of old business. Then it would be on to new business. On to Jace and what they could have together. Jace might not understand that sort of reasoning. It was better he never knew. Easier.
She grabbed the keys and took off for the SUV at a run.
And she kept running for the next eight hours, she and Marylou both. Arranging the favors on the tables at the reception hall. Arranging the fresh greens around the cake. Racing to the church with the groom’s tuxedo, and then deftly snatching the bottle of Scotch from the already half-lit best man who was a basket case about having to give the toast and promising him she’d put it in the stretch limo for after the ceremony.
She’d bribed the flower girl with a five-dollar bill that convinced the little blond cherub that it would be all right to toss the rose petals in her basket as she went down the aisle, where her mommy would be waiting for her with the money. It might not be good child psychology, but it usually worked.
She fluffed the veil and gown train, repositioned flowers the bridesmaids were holding as if they were basketballs and posed the wedding party for photographs. She bustled the bride’s gown once the receiving line was completed, and chased down the groom’s godparents, who had somehow gotten lost in the three miles between the church and the reception hall.
She’d arranged the gifts, watched the money cards like a hawk without looking as if she was, and wiped the bride’s chin after her new husband got a little too energetic about feeding his new wife a bite of wedding cake.
She’d draped a cloth napkin over the best man’s head as he drooped his head on his arms at the head table and began snoring, happily inebriated, halfway through the dancing.
And then it was over and she and Marylou stayed behind to gather up the pillars and dividers for the wedding cake that had been made up of two hundred cupcakes, to return the equipment to the bakery on Monday morning. She disassembled the fountain, checked under skirted tables and collected two pairs of ladies’ shoes, one bow tie and a rather lovely silver charm bracelet somebody was going to start missing sooner or later.
“What do we do about him?” Marylou asked, as the best man was still under cover, and still snoring. “I think they forgot him.”
Happily, one of the groomsmen appeared at that point and the best man was soon on his way to his hotel and his Sunday morning hangover, leaving the two women with the feeling of another job well-done and the two cupcakes they’d earlier stashed behind the bar along with two cans of soda.
Marylou took a bite of cupcake, closing her eyes in appreciation of the deep chocolate flavor and creamy white icing. “Yummy. We have to use this bakeshop again, definitely. So, how much did we net?”
“So glad you asked that question, Marylou,” Chessie told her, slipping off her high-heel sandals and resting her bare feet on a pulled-out chair. She quoted her partner a figure, and then added, “I think we can safely say we’re at the point where we can afford to hire some help. Unless you enjoy spending all your Saturdays doing this, because I need to be at the shop at least two Saturdays a month. It’s one of our biggest sell days.”
“She starts Monday,” Marylou told her. “Carl says she’s been complaining about an empty nest for three years, and she’s got a retail background. See? And you think I don’t notice things.”
“Clearly I don’t. Who’s Carl? Oh, wait—do you mean Carl the carpenter? The one who works with—that is, one of the men building the addition?”
“One and the same. Her name’s Mildred but she prefers Millie, and she got positively giddy when I told her she’d be working with brides. Turns out she’s a real wedding junkie, watches all those shows on TV about brides and gowns and all that stuff. Oh, and she does crafts and scrapbooking, and thinks fussing with bows and glue guns is fun, if you can believe that.”
Chessie was dumbfounded, which she knew she shouldn’t be. Marylou was always doing something like this, finding just the right person for just the right spot. Still, she had to ask: “How do you do it?”
“I talk to people, Chessie,” Marylou answered reasonably. “I listen to them, and then I help them. Carl was on his cell phone one day last week when I went outside to look at the new siding—which matches perfectly, if you haven’t noticed it yet, Jace is a genius—and he seemed upset when he ended the call, so I asked him what was wrong. Carl, that is, not Jace.”
“Uh-huh. Go on, this is fascinating.”
“Yes, I know. Anyway, he—Carl, not Jace, because Jace isn’t married—said his wife is always asking him when he’s coming home because she’s alone all day now that the kids are grown, yadda yadda, and he wished she’d find something to do because she’s really too young to just sit around waiting for him, and she loves her grand-kids but she raised her kids and she’s not too hot on doing the diaper thing again, and— Do I really have to go on here?”
“No, never mind,” Chessie told her, slipping her feet into her heels once more. She bent and gave Marylou a kiss on the cheek. “You’re one of a kind, Marylou, and I love you. Other than that, I should just learn to stop asking questions. Are you ready to go?”
“Hmm, yes,” her friend said, looking at her diamond-studded wristwatch. “Wow, almost six-thirty already? I’m meeting Ted at the club for drinks and a late dinner. How about you? Do you want to come along?”
Chessie turned to head for the parking lot; it was safer lying to Marylou if her friend couldn’t see her. “No thanks, I’m beat. I’m just going to go home, let the water jets unkink my back muscles and eat a sandwich in front of the TV.”
“You live such a glamorous life. Don’t forget the dinner party next week, kiddo. One way or another, we’re going to save you from yourself.”
Marylou’s parting shot kept replaying in Chessie’s head as she drove back to the salon, arriving with only ten minutes to spare before Rick showed up. Which was probably a good thing, because racing through brushing her teeth and freshening her makeup kept her from getting too nervous about what it would be like to see her ex-fiancé for the first time in six years.
In fact, she had no time at all, because the doorbell was ringing while she was still pulling a comb through her hair. She physically flinched, dropped the comb and went racing for the stairs, practically sliding across the reception-area floor so that he wouldn’t have to ring again and wonder if she’d decided to stand him up, which would be—just what he deserved, she thought as she turned on her heel and headed toward her office. Where she stood, trying to control her breathing, until he’d rung the bell a second time.
Some people, she knew, might call her petty for doing such a thing. But she’d bet none of those some people were women.
“Hi,” she said as she opened the door, standing back to allow Rick to enter her space. Because it was her space. She’d built it, she’d grown it; this was hers.
“Hi, yourself. You look great, haven’t changed a bit,” he said, and then he bent and kissed her on the cheek.
Which she certainly hadn’t been expecting.
“You, too,” Chessie said weakly, looking at him but trying hard to not appear as if she was taking some sort of inventory.
He still wore his dark blond hair in the same carefully shaggy style—she’d have to try to remember to get a good look at the back of his head at some point. His eyes were still the same mix of blue and green with hints of gold— he’d always had fascinating eyes; they were what had first drawn her to him. He was still a good six inches taller than her. Duh, Chessie, did you think he’d shrink?
He still wore the watch she’d given him their first Christmas together. If he’d worn it during his marriage, no wonder he and Diana had parted ways; she’d been shopping with Chessie when she’d bought the thing. So, no. He’d probably dug it out of a drawer just for tonight, which was really tacky.
“So this is your place,” Rick said, taking a slow walk around the reception area. “My mother told me about it.”
Your mother told me it was all my fault that you jumped ship, that her precious baby wouldn’t have done something so terrible if I hadn’t forced you into it. The old bat. Only thing good about the whole mess was not getting her as my mother-in-law. “Really? How is your mother?”
Rick smiled at her. “You know my mother. The same as always, just more so. She sends her love, by the way.”
I’ll just bet she does. “How nice. Tell her I said hello. So—ready to go?”
Rick escorted her to his car, which looked eerily the same as Toby Nieth’s, and held the door open as she got in, fastened her seat belt.
“Fasten your seat belt, Rick,” she told him out of old habit as he slid in behind the driver’s seat. He never wore his seat belt, had sixteen different arguments as to why it was safer to not wear a seat belt. They’re argued about that more than once. Strange how it was easier to recall the bad times than the good ones.
“We’re only going a couple of miles, Chess,” he said with the same reasonableness that had caused the arguments.
But that was six years ago. Now was now. She simply shrugged. “Your funeral. Where are we going?”
“I made reservations at an Italian place my mother told me about. It’s in a shopping center, but she says the food is very authentic.”
Adele Peters was of German and Irish descent and all her best recipes had either potatoes or dumplings as one of the top ingredients. “Well,” Chessie said cheerfully, “she should know.”
Things didn’t get a whole lot better when they arrived at the restaurant and Rick ordered for her without asking her first. A white wine on the rocks. She hadn’t had white wine in three years, having discovered a preference for blush wine. And not on the rocks.
She watched him as he ordered his own drink, and then their appetizers and entrées, again, without asking her. That he’d ordered her favorites did nothing to make her feel in charity with him. Instead of going all gooey that he’d remembered her preferences from six years ago, as he might hope, she was tempted to ask him if he thought she couldn’t think for herself.
Still, remembering back over their time together, she realized she had let him take charge, had rather enjoyed the way he’d treated her as his girl; he’d made her feel safe, and cosseted. Now she felt stifled, as if he was trying to treat her as his possession. The feeling gave her the creeps.
Six years was a long time, and she wasn’t the same girl he’d left behind. She was all grown up, she owned her own business, she could even walk and chew gum at the same time.
“So, tell me what you’ve been doing,” she said once the waiter had left the table. If he remembered her as she’d been, she remembered him as he’d been, and she saw that memory through her more mature eyes: ask Rick about himself and he could do a solid fifteen minutes without taking a breather.
While they dipped freshly baked bread in flavored olive oil, and while they ate their salads, Rick spoke about his years in Ohio, how he’d climbed the ladder pretty fast but then decided it wasn’t the ladder he really wanted to climb. Chessie nodded and said, “Oh” and “Wow” and “Really?” in all the right places, all while silently asking herself: What did I love about him? What did I see in him that I’m not seeing now? Why didn’t I see what a phony he is? Where the hell is the main course so I can eat and get out of here? Maybe it isn’t too late to call Jace and tell him I got home early and he could come over and we could break our own rules again?
She came back to attention when Rick reached across the table, took her hand in his, squeezed it. “Chess, I meant what I said on the phone earlier. I don’t expect you to forgive me for what Diana and I did to you. It was stupid, cowardly, childish, and I can only say we both paid a heavy price for what we’d done to you. It poisoned our entire marriage.”
“I wasn’t doing a bunch of backflips myself,” Chessie said, and then wished she’d bitten her tongue and kept quiet. She didn’t want Rick to think she had been hurt all that badly. “Still, I have to tell you, Rick, I’ve never been happier. I really enjoy my life the way it is now.”
“I know you think you do,” he said, and she sat back against the leather booth, pulling her hand away from his. “No, don’t do that. I didn’t mean it that way. Okay, so I did. You loved me, Chess. I loved you.”
Snorting was probably not ladylike, so Chessie just nodded. “And?”
“And I did a terrible thing. I’m not going to blame Diana. It wasn’t like she held a gun to my head and said, hey, come with me tonight to Mexico or I shoot. I was young, scared. Marriage is a big step, you know?”
“You took it with Diana,” Chessie pointed out, waving away the plate of spaghetti the waiter was about to set in front of her. “We’ve had a phone call,” she told the waiter. “Granny took a turn for the worse and we have to leave. Could you please just box up our dinners for us and get our check ready? Thank you.”
The waiter offered his condolences and withdrew.
“Chess? What are you doing?”
Chessie put both hands on the edge of the table, holding on to her composure, and said, “Look, Rick, this isn’t working. I accept your apology, but don’t ask me to swallow a bunch of—a bunch of horse hooey about why you did what you did. Because, you know, it turns out I really don’t care why you did it. You did it. It’s over. I’ve moved on. Period.”
“But I haven’t, Chess,” he said, those gorgeous eyes of his looking lost and wounded. “It didn’t work with Diana because all I could think about was you. What I’d done to you, how I’d misled you. How the very last thing you ever said to me was that you loved me and couldn’t wait to be my wife. I love you, Chessie, I’ve never stopped.”
Tears stung at the back of Chessie’s eyes. She’d spent a year, maybe longer, dreaming that Rick would realize his mistake, recognize Diana for the duplicitous, bloodsucking bitch she was, going after her best friend’s fiancé. It had been the worst, most heartbreaking, soul-crushing, empty time in her life.
Any lingering traces of the hurt, the anger, the resentment she hadn’t realized she’d still been harboring, drained out of her. This man sitting across from her was a stranger, someone she realized she’d never really known. “I’m sorry, Rick,” she said softly. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“There’s someone else?”
Chessie wasn’t about to tell him about Jace. If she said yes, there was someone else, then Rick might think he still had a chance, that all he had to do was convince her that he was the better man. She wanted this to end here. It had been over for a long time, and now it had to end.
“No, Rick. No one. I just stopped loving you. I don’t hate you, I’m not angry with you. I forgive you. But I don’t love you. I don’t feel anything for you except to wish you a happy life. Please, take me home.”
He only nodded, perhaps not trusting his voice, and they were silent for a long time, until they were only two blocks away from the salon.
“Chessie?”
Oh, please, just get me home. Don’t talk—no more talking. “Yes?”
“Chess, look at me,” Rick said as he turned the corner. “Please. Just look at me while I say this. I need to say this before we get back to the—”
Chessie had reluctantly turned to look at him halfway through whatever it was he seemed so intent on saying to her. That’s why she saw the large red SUV hurtling toward them, about to hit them broadside. Rick hadn’t stopped at the stop sign.
“Rick! Look out!”
But she knew her warning had come too late.
“Oh, my God!”
Chessie got to her feet in the Emergency Room, holding out her hands, hoping to stop Marylou from throwing her arms around her.
“Easy, Marylou. I’m a little sore in spots,” she said, backing up, trying to smile.
“A little sore? You’re covered in blood! Ted, look at her, she’s covered in blood! Why are you sitting out here? Find a doctor, Ted, find six doctors. You donate to this hospital, pull some strings.”
“Marylou, honey, I’m fine, and all checked out. Okay, the bruises, they’re not so fine. But this isn’t blood,” she said with a wave of her hand indicating the red stains on her clothing. “It’s just spaghetti sauce. I was holding two takeout packages of spaghetti and meatballs in my lap when we were hit.”
Marylou tried to squint disbelievingly at her, which didn’t work, and then touched a fingertip to one of the larger splotches on Chessie’s blouse before putting it to her own mouth. She tried to wrinkle her nose, which worked better than her attempt at squinting, but not by much. “Too much basil,” she announced, and then collapsed onto one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs found in Emergency Rooms all across the country. “Oh, Chess, I was so scared.”
Ted offered to go to the cafeteria, get them all coffee, and Marylou kissed the hand he’d rested on her shoulder.
“He’s my rock. He told me over and over again, all the way here, if you were able to call me then you couldn’t be dying. Chess, I don’t know what I’d do if anything ever happened to you.” She pulled out a linen handkerchief and dabbed at her tear-wet eyes. “You’re the sister I never had.”
Chessie sat down, put an arm around Marylou’s shoulders. “I thought you said you were old enough to be my mother.”
Marylou replaced the handkerchief in her purse and snapped it shut. “Must you remember everything I say to you in weak moments? Now, who hit you? And where were you going? You told me you were going straight home to shower and watch television.”
“You! What have you done to my Ricky?”
“Oh, boy,” Chessie grumbled as Adele Peters stormed through the automatic doors and into the Emergency Room, pointing a finger straight at her. She was just as Chessie remembered her except, as Rick had said, being more so. Adele had always intimidated Chessie. But that was then, and this was now. “All we need now are some clowns and a dancing bear.”
She got to her feet. “Hi, Adele. You’ll want to go back and be with Rick before they take him to surgery.”
“Surgery!” Adele clasped her hands to her chest. “This is all your fault.”
“Yup, all my fault Rick refuses to wear a seat belt. All my fault he didn’t look left-right-left before heading into the intersection. I take full responsibility, seeing as how I was in the passenger seat and not behind the wheel. Look, Adele, he has a compound fracture of his left arm, a broken right wrist and a concussion, which could have been worse. After bouncing off the window, his head landed pretty much on the takeout containers. He’ll be all right. Let me take you to the nurse and she’ll buzz you back there to see him.”
Adele looked as if she had something else to say, but then simply nodded and followed Chessie, who turned her over to one of the women working behind a desk just outside the closed double doors.
That hadn’t been so bad; Adele seemed to respond to a clear voice of command. Now came the hard part. Returning to where Marylou waited for her, her mouth still pretty much open in shock.
“I can explain,” Chessie said weakly as she sat down once more.
“And you’re going to,” Marylou told her, folding her arms across her chest. “Boy, are you going to explain.”
Because it had been a long day, and something told her it was also going to be a pretty long night, Chessie first tried redirecting her friend. “Did you know, Marylou, that when you’re in an accident going only thirty miles an hour, it’s like you just fell headfirst from a three-story building? Oh, and if you’re not wearing your seatbelt and it’s a front-end collision and the air bags deploy, it’s like colliding with something going two hundred miles an hour? Unbelievable, huh? The doctor explained it all to me. Luckily for Rick, it was a side impact and his air bag didn’t, you know, deploy. Otherwise, he might be wearing his nose behind his ears right now. Marylou, stop looking at me like that. You’re making me nervous.”
“Ms. Burton?”
Saved by the bell. Well, the nurse.
“Yes?” Chessie said, getting to her feet, only wincing a little with the movement. She’d been very lucky, that’s what the doctor had told her. A couple of mild painkillers, a nice hot shower, and she should be fine.
“Your fiancé wishes to see you before he goes to surgery.”
Chessie heard the sharp intake of breath behind her.
“Thank you. I’ll be right there.” Then she turned to Marylou. “It’s not what you’re thinking. I couldn’t have gone back there with Rick, or learned about his condition so I could call Adele, not as just a friend. Saying I was his fiancée got me in.”
“Fine. Devious, but I understand devious. But now his mommy is here to hold his hand, so why are you going back there again?”
Chessie looked toward the doors, where the nurse was waiting for her. It was a good question. Why was she going back there? “He’s going into surgery, Marylou. He asked to see me, probably to make sure I’m all right. After all, the accident was his fault. I’ll only be a minute, I promise. And then you can yell at me all the way home, okay?”
“Just answer this one question, Chess. How long have you been seeing Rick without telling me?”
“Tonight. Just tonight. And I won’t be seeing him again.”
“Only tonight? All right, I believe you. You’re a lousy liar.” Marylou smiled. “Maybe I’ll only yell at you half of the way home.”