Revenge is a dish best served cold.
So is ice cream.
AUNT FRANCESCA
I spent most of the afternoon in Eliza’s office, using her computer to research Mr. Matthew Monroe. He wasn’t hard to find. He was the award-winning architect who’d done the renovation project on the row of Victorians down by the river, including the one he lived in. If the photographs of him online had not been enough, the photos of his home would have been. I knew it well. It was where I’d done the horizontal mambo with him only days ago. The vertical mambo, too, if I took into account what we’d done in the kitchen. And in the shower. I’d basically mamboed all over the place in that house.
The pictures of him wearing a tux and attending different galas got me. He wasn’t a poor musician. He was glamorous and wealthy and had a different beautiful girl on his arm in every photo.
“Did you find anything to connect him to Anderson Solutions?” asked Eliza.
“It doesn’t matter. We saw him with them. He’s designing the parking garage.”
Eliza frowned. “But it says he’s famous for restoration work . . .”
Bitterness rose in my chest. “He goes where the money is and doesn’t care who gets hurt in the process.” Thoughts of my mom and Rosie at Pamela’s Diner and poor, dear Sally almost brought a wave of hot, heavy tears. I quashed those tears with my anger. It was stronger than my hurt right now.
Eliza glanced at her watch. “I have to get going.”
I stood up. “I’m so sorry. I’ve tied you up for hours.”
She shook her head. “I keep my schedule open the day after summer solstice. I never know how tired I’ll be.”
“Thank you, Eliza.” As I walked toward the door, Eliza stopped me with a hand on my arm.
“He’s innocent until proven guilty, Fiona. Remember that.”
I pursed my lips. “The proof was in front of my own eyes.”
It was almost dinnertime when I got back to the café. Scott sat outside, waiting for me. He hadn’t brought roses this time, a wise decision.
He frowned at the expression on my face and gathered me into a warm hug. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
Big and solid, he looked and smelled so nice, but I didn’t love him, and I knew I never would. It made me want to scream in frustration. I found the man I’d always wanted and then found a way to mess it up. Maybe I was more like my mother and Aunt Francesca than I realized.
Scott reached into his pocket to hand me one of the handkerchiefs embroidered with his initials, but I wasn’t crying. Not anymore. My heart felt like a cold, black rock in my chest.
He shoved his handkerchief back into his pocket, confused. “I stopped by last night, but you were having a private party.”
Blushing, I thought about the very private party Matthew and I enjoyed behind the rhododendron. “We need to talk, Scott.”
We went into the garden and sat near the fountain in a set of wrought-iron chairs. Mom said the chairs reminded her of spring in Paris. Scott turned his chair to face me. We sat so close our knees touched. He reached for my hand and held it in his. “Do you love me, Fiona? Even a little?”
I took a shaky breath. Part of me wanted to lie to him, but I couldn’t. My lower lip trembled. “I should love you, Scott. You’re perfect for me.” The fountain made a strange sound, almost like a hiccup.
Scott didn’t seem to notice. “But you don’t.” He cleared his throat. “So why exactly did you date me?”
“I thought liking you was enough.”
“After Brittany, I didn’t think I’d ever be able to love someone again, but I do. I love you.” His voice shook as he spoke. “Maybe you can learn to love me too.”
He leaned closer, about to kiss me, when the fountain made a louder sound. A burping sort of sound. This time it got Scott’s attention too. “Did you hear something?”
“Yes,” I said. “I think it was the fountain.”
He looked concerned. “Is it going to spit at me again?”
I couldn’t make any promises at this point. “I’m not sure.”
Scott stood up and pulled me to my feet. “I’m going to prove myself to you, Fiona. I’ll make you love me.”
He kissed me, his lips firm and warm against mine, and he was determined. Very determined. He wanted to elicit some sort of emotional reaction from me but failed. I felt nothing. Nothing at all.
Scott jumped away from me like he’d been stung. “What the . . .”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I tried. I honestly did.”
It took me a second to realize he wasn’t referring to my lack of ardor. He stared down at his feet, feet now resting in the middle of what looked like a small stream. The water came from the fountain and covered his shoes. I stood right next to him, but my feet stayed dry.
“There must be a leak,” I said. “Which would explain those weird sounds.”
Scott stomped away, furious, and sat down on a bench far from the fountain. “It’s a menace,” he said as he took off first one shoe and then the other, dumping out a significant amount of water. “These are my custom-made Johnson and Murphy’s. I lost one pair the night we had dinner with Harrison and Mindy, which is ridiculous. Who loses shoes? I think they were stolen. And now these are ruined. Five-hundred-dollar shoes. Do you realize that?”
I had on a pair of flip-flops I’d gotten for free at a block party last year. It didn’t seem fair he’d been the one to suffer the wrath of the fountain.
I shook my head. The wrath of the fountain? The fountain was an inanimate object, a lump of stone and rusted pipes. It did not feel wrath, and it didn’t target Scott, although it felt that way, especially to him.
“This whole place is a dump. An accident about to happen. I can’t believe your stupid mother won’t sell this shack to Anderson and move on. She’s a complete and total idiot.”
He attempted to dry his $500 shoes with his expensive, embroidered handkerchief. I stared at him, unable to hold myself back any longer. “She isn’t an idiot, and this isn’t a dump.”
He snorted. “I beg to differ. The proof is right in front of you, but you’re too blind to see it.”
“You’re the blind one, Scott.”
He frowned, glancing up at me. “What do you mean?”
“My mother is amazing. And this place might be in disrepair, but it’s still beautiful.”
He looked around the garden and studied the back of the house. “Which part? The dilapidated fountain or the house about to fall down around your ears? You both need to wise up and accept the offer before it’s too late.”
“Too late for what?”
He froze for a second and then went back to cleaning his shoes. “Before they rescind it. Most of the people on the block have finally woken up, but not you and your mother. Oh no. You have to be difficult and hang onto a place that is literally falling apart.”
He wrung out his handkerchief, now dripping with water, and glared at me. Suddenly he didn’t look quite as perfect and handsome. He looked more like a spoiled, nasty little boy.
“I didn’t want to hurt you, Scott, but you’ve given me no choice. I tried to be nice. I tried to be gentle. Now you need to listen. Carefully. I don’t want you to come here ever again.”
He shook his head. “You’re angry. You’ll come to your senses eventually.”
“I already did, and I fell in love with someone else.” I didn’t bother adding Matthew had broken my heart. Scott didn’t need to know that part.
He looked like he’d been slapped. “No.”
“It’s true. And karma might punish me for saying this because I know I hurt you, but I’m not even sorry about it.” I blurted out the words. I couldn’t help it.
He pulled on his shoes with quick, angry movements. His socks were soaked, which gave me great pleasure. I hoped he would get a blister.
“This makes things so much easier for me. To think I felt guilty . . .” He shook his head and laughed. Not a pleasant sound. “Goodbye, Fiona, and good riddance.”
He turned on his heel and stomped away, although the effect wasn’t as dramatic as he’d hoped. His shoes squeaked with every step, and I thought I heard water sloshing. I would have laughed except the whole situation felt so tragic.
I sat outside and stared at the fountain a long time. It had stopped leaking as soon as Scott left. Weird.
The sun was setting when I walked into the shop. I thought I’d reached my low point, but things got worse when I found Mom sitting in the kitchen with Auntie Mags, Sally, and Madame Lucinda. She had a piece of paper clenched in her hands.
“Fiona. You’re back.”
I looked around, trying to figure out what was going on. No one would meet my eyes, which made me worried. “What happened?”
Mom handed me the paper. I read it twice to make sure I understood. It was a citation for noise pollution and disruptive behavior due to the pagan festival in our garden last night. Our final warning. The café was going to be closed. Permanently. They gave us until the council meeting to tie things up. I stared around the shop in dismay. We had only a few days left and no way to fight back. Anderson had won.
“I’m done.” Mom cried softly as Sally put a reassuring arm around her shoulders and handed her a tissue.
I read the paper again, trying to wrap my head around the fact that it was over. “Not to make things even worse, but I have some bad news too.” I told them about how Matthew secretly worked for Anderson. Mom stared at me in disbelief. It felt like we were hit from all sides.
“Oh, Fiona. I’m so sorry.”
Sally looked a bit shell-shocked. “I can’t believe it. Matthew is such a nice boy.”
Madame Lucinda agreed. “Nothing in the cards predicted this. Is there any way you could be mistaken?”
“I saw him with the people from Anderson. And there’s more.” I grabbed my laptop and showed them what I’d found online.
Auntie Mags stared at the photos with a wrinkled frown. “He looks so familiar.”
“You probably saw him here. He hung around often enough.”
Mom looked at the pictures sadly. “Why would Frankie recommend him to me? How did Matthew even know Frankie?”
“I have no idea, but he lied to us, and he lied to me.” I closed my laptop and folded my hands on top of it.
“And you loved him,” said Auntie Mags. “You opened your heart to him, and he failed you.”
“A good lesson. I won’t make the same mistake again.”
Auntie Mags looked like she was about to say something else when our lawyer, Janet Kilpatrick, rushed into the room. Janet, small with short with dark hair and delicate features, was always a ball of energy, but today she seemed so wound up she nearly vibrated. Eliza had come with her. They both wore their work clothes.
“Where’s the citation?” asked Eliza, and I handed it to her. Her gaze skimmed the page, and she handed it to Janet. Janet read it over too.
“Bullshit.” Janet might look like a pixie, but she had the language of a longshoreman. She’d grown up on the South Side, like me, and her father owned Paddy’s Pub down the street.
“Who told them about the festival last night?” asked Eliza. “The only people here were our fellow Wiccans and Kate.”
My eyes met my mom’s. “And Matthew,” I said.
Eliza sank into a chair. “The one you saw with the Anderson people?”
“He walked in on the naked yoga class too. And he may have overheard me talking to Mom about what was in her tea. I asked him if he had called the department of health on us and he denied it. All lies. He used me to get the dirt on us.”
I stood next to Sally, and she pulled me into her arms so I could rest my head on her broad shoulder. She might be a former linebacker dressed in vintage pink Oscar de la Renta and wearing a jaunty little pillbox hat, but Sally was the kindest and most nurturing person I knew. She was currently on a Jackie Kennedy kick and adored clothes from the sixties. Finding them in her size was another matter altogether.
“Poor, poor poppet,” said Sally.
Mom shook her head. “He wasn’t using you. Even if he does work for Anderson, even if he did lie to you, I know for a fact he loved you, Fiona. I saw it on his face every single time he looked at you.”
“I hate to say this, but I never liked Scott,” said Sally, and the others murmured in agreement. Sally never said a negative thing about anyone, so this was a big deal. “But I did like Matthew. I don’t understand how he could do this to us.”
Janet pulled some files out of her briefcase and scanned the contents. Her dark head bent over the pages.
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
She frowned. “This is documentation from Anderson about your many ‘infractions.’ When you mentioned the yoga class, I remembered a note inside one of these files. It was about who called in the information. The name was something odd. I can’t remember what it was, but I don’t think it was Monroe.”
“Who was it?” I had no false hopes Matthew was innocent but wondered if someone else was involved.
Janet closed the files with a groan. “I got this stuff today, and it’s a total mess. This is another trick they play because they know I’m on my own. I need to sort through it. I’ll let you know as soon as I find something.”
Mom patted her hand. “Thank you, Janet, but I don’t know how much more we can afford for you to do . . .”
Janet’s cheeks got pink. “I’m not charging you for this, Ms. Campbell. I had to charge you court fees since those were incurred during office hours. I’m doing this on my own.”
My mom’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want to take advantage of your kindness or generosity. Are you sure, Janet?”
Janet nodded. “We’re in this together.”
“All of us,” said Eliza.
Sally stood up and raised her glass in the air. “All for one and one for all,” she said, chugging what was left in her glass. The other ladies giggled and did the same.
I looked around at our odd little group, a Wiccan priestess, a lawyer, a reiki therapist, a tarot card reader, a transgender shop owner, a former hippie, and me. Suddenly I didn’t feel so hopeless or alone anymore. Scott had disappointed me, and Matthew betrayed me, but I still had a lot of people on my side.
Janet pulled me aside. “I heard you’re going to speak at the town meeting.”
“They asked me to help.”
She smiled. “You’re the perfect person for it. Once you decide what you want to say, I can look over it for you.”
“Wonderful. Thank you.”
Janet yawned, exhausted. “It’s the least I can do. Do you know once when I was little my dad got sick? Your mom and Auntie Mags and one of their friends, I think her name was Anna, helped out at the pub for months until he got better and could work again. They saved his business. I don’t know what we would have done without them, and they expected nothing in return.”
Janet gave me a wobbly smile, and I put an arm around her shoulders. I felt like a giant standing next to her. This must be how Sally felt next to everyone.
“I’m sure they were glad to help.”
“They were, and they did the same for more people than you can count. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to get the word out that your mom is in trouble. If nothing else, I think it’ll mean a lot to her to see her friends at the meeting.”
“If you think it will help.”
“I do. And one last thing, avoid confronting Matthew. I know it is a lot to ask, but it might work to our advantage if they don’t realize we’re onto them.”
I felt a little sick to my stomach. “I can’t pretend to feel the same way about him.”
“Could you make up another reason for being upset?”
I nodded. I could think of lots of reasons for being upset with him at the moment.
Later, after helping my mom clean up, I sat with her by the fountain, drinking a glass of red. The wine was so good; it had to have been expensive, but I didn’t care. The fountain seemed quiet and peaceful, different from how it had been when the Wiccans held their party. Or from how it had acted with Scott only a few hours ago.
“I don’t think the fountain likes Scott.” I explained to her what had happened. “Do you think it’s broken?”
She shook her head. “I think it’s an excellent judge of character.”
“How did you make the water shoot up into the air during the Wiccan party?”
“Pagan magic.” I gave her a steady look, and she giggled. “Okay. I found a lever in the basement years ago. I only do it during summer solstice because it’s so old and rusted I’m afraid it might break, and we could end up flooding our garden.”
“It didn’t flood the garden today, but it flooded Scott’s five-hundred-dollar shoes. Thank you, fountain.”
She clinked her glass with mine. “Here’s to his shoes.”
I took a drink. “I hope he gets trench rot from those wet socks. And a blister.”
“Shhh, Fiona. Karma.”
I rolled my eyes. If karma rewarded me with a blister of my own, it would be worth it if Scott suffered too.
“You never told me about the lever in the basement.”
“I have my secrets.” She winked at me and took a sip of wine. “And I didn’t allow you to attend the Wiccan festivals when you were younger for obvious reasons. They aren’t for virgins or skeptics.”
“I’ll always be a skeptic. Now more than ever.”
She let out a sigh. “I’m sorry Matthew hurt you, but would you have traded those moments with him, even if you had known the outcome?”
“I don’t know.” When things had been good with Matthew, they had been very good. “What about you? With my dad?”
She sipped the last bit of wine from her glass and turned to me. “I would not have traded one moment, not even one second with your father, and the time we spent together wasn’t perfect. We argued, and sometimes we hurt each other, but we truly loved each other. A powerful and magnificent thing.”
She got up and carried the glasses inside, and I sat by myself a few minutes longer. Matthew hurt me, but if he hadn’t shown up, I probably would have married Scott and ended up totally miserable.
I sighed and put my fingers in the cool water. I knew Matthew worked for Anderson, and he’d done something unforgivable by spying on us. I knew I should hate him, but I couldn’t. I was a complete fool.
I didn’t believe it was magic, but there was one thing I could wish for, and I spoke the words softly into the night wind.
“I wish I could be wrong about him.”