Driving in Neutral (22 page)

“Dude, whatever.”

“I think Ella’s much more beautiful than the barmaid,” Craig sighed happily, “and I don’t see the appeal of a twenty-seven-year-old. Okay, I can see she is very pretty and yes, she’s hot. I can appreciate that on a primitive level, but come on, where’s the character? Where’s the substance that really makes you notice her as a woman, not a girl?”

“I hear ya partner. Boy howdy, I hear ya.
Womanly
, that’s the word.” Tex nodded, reaching up with one finger to poke back the hat he wasn’t wearing.

Emerson nodded too, somewhat absently, watching Al’s precise process of lining up on the small arrows painted on the wooden bowling lane. “Womanly is so much sexier and Olivia is a sexy woman.”

“You think Olivia the playground supervisor is sexy?” Martin’s well-groomed eyebrows rose and he blew a dismissive puff of air from his lips.

“What’s wrong with Olivia?” Craig asked, shooting a look at Pete. “She’s very attractive.”

“Oh sure, if you like that no make-up, ice queen, riot police officer thing she’s got going on.”

“What are you talking about? The woman is sexy as hell.” Emerson stood up. “Did you make a pass at her once and she shot you down, or is it that you’re intimidated by assertive women, Mart? Is that why you date them so much younger?”

Martin waved his hand dismissively. “Please. Don’t delude yourself, Emerson. I’ve seen you looking at her, but Officer Olivia is never going to give you the chance to see the frigid little panties she’s got on under her police uniform.”

Pete burst out with a loud laugh. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

“You want to bet on it Pete?” Martin held out his hand for Pete to shake. “Twenty bucks.”

Pete caught Emerson’s expression of irritation and said, “I don’t think that’s really the kind of bet I’d be comfortable making about a friend of mine.” Quickly, he glanced at Craig and cut his eyes to Emerson.

Emerson caught the non-verbal exchange between Pete and his cousin. The wry smile Craig tried to bite was enough to convey he knew the particulars about Olivia and the incident in the elevator.

Well, shit
.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Martin went on, “you
know
she’s probably the type who gives directions in bed, but wait a minute. Why would Olivia even think of getting in the sack with him? He pisses her off too much.”

“Boys, boys,” Tex stepped in. “This here’s a friendly night.”

“We all know he pisses her off. We’ve all heard him and I’m sure she likes knowing you think she’s a bitch.”

“I don’t think she’s a bitch. You got that part of our conversation entirely out of context.” Instead of letting Martin rile him, which would have happened in the past, Emerson stood, moved toward the high table between two sets of orange plastic seats and reached for a slice of pizza. A sliver of pepperoni dropped onto his pale green shirt. He picked it off and said rather matter-of-factly, “My point is, Olivia’s far more womanly and sexier than your skinny little Addie, Mart.”

“Yeah and sex with a woman is so much better.” Al grinned broadly and rolled his black ball down the lane. “Isn’t it, Tex?”

“Yee-ha, it sure is.”

Al turned around, a smug little smirk on his face. “Put that little x in the box. I got a strike, boys. That’s all ten pins down. I’ve been rolling strikes all weekend.”

Craig burst out laughing. “Just what are you saying about you and Suzanne, Al?”

The grin never left his face. “My wife,” he beamed, “is
all
woman.”

“Still waters do run deep and spoken like a man who’s spent the weekend having sex.” Jason put his hand out with a flourish. “Gentlemen, if you please, a round of applause for our bookish friend, Al.”

Tex
yee-ha-ed
again and clinked his beer bottle against Al’s. “Say, isn’t this ‘bout the time we’re supposed to start sangin’ like they do in
Top Gun
?”

“Dude, my brother’s getting married, not shooting down bogies at ten o’clock,” Jason hooted.

Tex didn’t care, he launched into a Righteous Brothers tune. “Ohhh, my luv, my darlin’…”

Emerson snorted, but joined as the others began screeching
Unchained Melody
from the ultimate chick flick,
Ghost
.

Olivia went about things alone, business as usual. Addie and the three useless bridesmaids hovered outside the sunroom, drinking peach daiquiris. They were supposed to be setting up the room for tomorrow’s breakfast, only they were more interested in getting sloshed than working.

“Why isn’t Olivia wearing the same dress we are? How come she doesn’t have to wear pearls like us?” Justine tossed her black curls over her left shoulder, sipped from the wide glass in her hand, and turned to Mimi. “I mean they suit her, better than they do
me
because she’s got that…old-fashioned sense of…style, but I look so much better in something less, you know, retro.”

“She’s the maid of honor,” Suzanne hiccupped. Gum nearly fell out of her mouth. “She’s allowed to be distinctive.”

“Okay, she’s Ella’s little maid, but really, who do you think would want to honor her? Hey,
maid
of honor, we need more ice!” Justine tittered and shook the silver ice bucket she’d scraped across a wrought iron table.

Ella’s Confederate temper had dissipated considerably throughout the day and the daiquiris had assisted even more in setting her on an even keel, but in a flash she channeled Stonewall Jackson. “Ah’ve had just about enough of yew, Jus-teen. When I get back, you’re goin’ to ‘pologize to Olivia. And if yew
dare
wear anythin’ but pearls tomorrow, Ah will never speak to yew again!” She snatched the ice bucket from wide-eyed Justine’s hands and whirled out of the room.

Olivia went on setting the table for the bride’s breakfast. It wasn’t that she missed the catty remarks cast in her direction, or that she was acting like the automaton Ella had made her out to be. It wasn’t even that she believed Justine felt intimidated by her, as Maxwell had suggested. It was simply that she realized Justine’s barbs were a lot like Karl’s button-pushing teasing—and neither of them mattered. What she cared about was this wedding.

The pretty glassed-in sunroom was a lovely spot for tomorrow’s breakfast. The Victorian inspired room was an indoor garden full of greenery. Breakfast would sit in dappled shade and soft rays of morning sunlight. Everything was ready. Yesterday’s rehearsal and dinner had gone smoothly and this evening’s bachelor party had been well under way for a few hours. This sunroom was prepared for breakfast, the rose garden was primed for chair set up, the garland and lights were strung outside the boathouse, and the tables down there would go out three hours before the ceremony. Ella’s dress was laid out and waiting. The cake would be here by eleven-thirty, the hairdresser, the photographer and florist by two. Mr. & Mrs. Thomas were driving in from town with Craig’s dad at three.

She looked around the sunroom, at the sniggering, giggling bridesmaids. They were sloshed and she was finished, every task complete. Except…she had a creeping, irritating, itchy feeling that there was something she’d missed, that she’d made a mistake somewhere, that there was something wrong.

She walked about the room and looked outside to the terrace and garden and boathouse. She went through the mental checklist for the wedding and ticked off every box. And then did it again. Bar bringing the thank you gifts down from Ella’s room and placing them around the table, there wasn’t anything left to do. Nothing had been overlooked, nothing had been misplaced, and nothing had unraveled. There was nothing for her to tend to.

Nothing.

And in the next instant that nothing, that weightless vacancy of her now idle hands somehow weighed a thousand pounds. She lurched toward the dining table and gripped the edge of it as her knees began to buckle, the load of emptiness nearly crushing her.

She tried to take a breath but couldn’t. Her lungs would not inflate.

She tried to swallow but saliva simply trickled from the corner of her mouth.

The beat of her heart droned in her ears. Blinded by what seemed like smoke, but felt like burning coal-filled tears, Olivia with perfect clarity, understood. She knew why she’d taken over coordinating Ella’s wedding. In some kind of compensation for the successful marriages she never managed to have, she’d projected her own images onto Ella’s wedding.

This had become her wedding, not her best friend’s.

Olivia couldn’t breathe. At all.

What the hell? Am I losing it?

No, I’m not
.

Yes, I am. I’m having an anxiety attack
.

No, I’m not. I don’t do anxiety
,
that’s Julia. Julia’s the anxious one in the family. I know the signs of an anxiety attack and thi—

The signs? You mean the overwhelming sensation of impending doom, feeling faint, the difficulty breathing, the ridiculous sensation life is suddenly and inexorably careering out of control and toward a very large wall?

No, no, no! I don’t fucking do anxiety!

Well, it sure looks like you do now!

She had no fire suit, no helmet, no nose cone to absorb the energy of a smash and protect her. She was so losing it.

Wait… Wait…there’s the safety harness. You’ve got a safety harness!

Okay. Okay. She wasn’t losing anything. Finally, she took a deep breath. And then another and another. This was only a moment of debris on the track. The yellow flag came out to indicate caution. She’d been driven up against a barricade, and scraped along it hard, but she was still on the course, still in her seat, still behind the wheel.

Pete. The job with Pete. She had the job with Pete.

Her heart rate slowed, her rubbery legs felt less like collapsing and she stood still, breathing in and out at regular intervals, staring at the pale green vine and pink floral pattern on the English bone china on the table.

She heard Addie and Mimi near the entrance to the sunroom, tipsy and giggling. Mimi said something about how an uncircumcised penis looked like a zucchini.

“Zupeenie!” Suzanne squealed.

She glanced up as Justine tittered and sloshed peach slush on the floral patterned rug. She blinked when Ella flounced into the room with the ice bucket full of brilliant, diamond-like cubes. Olivia took another deep breath as the bride asked, “What’s so funny?”

“Uncircumcised penises,” Addie sniggered. “Mimi said they look like zucchinis.”

Ella’s lips pursed for a moment. “I’d say they look more like sea anemones.”

“Anemopeens!” Suzanne shouted.

Laughing, Ella put the ice bucket on table beside Olivia. She stopped laughing as she gazed over the table setting and the way the room had been decorated. A hand flew to her cheek. “Oh, Olivia, this is lovely! When you’re done workin’ for Pete you should start a wedding planning business.”

“Zupeenies!” Suzanne squealed again.

And the air Olivia expelled from her lungs came out in a loud “
Ha
!” A smoldering lump rose in her throat as she struggled once more to take another breath. Understanding her reaction was irrational didn’t matter. Logic made no difference, trying to breathe was not an option because she was screwed.

The job for Pete was only temporary.

I am so screwed
.

“Well, what do circumcised ones look like, mushrooms?” Justine twittered, spilling more daiquiri onto the rug. “Oops. Hey,
maid
of honor, you gonna clean this up?”

Ella spun, angry. “Justine!”

“Justpeen!” Suzanne shrieked.

Suffocating, Olivia moved with as much speed as she could, tripping over the curled edge of the Persian rug, which of course drew laughter from the inebriated bridesmaids. She stumbled out of the sunroom, hurried through the large lounge room and out into the main hall, nearly making it to the front staircase when a moan forced its way out. With one foot on the bottom step, she clamped a hand over her mouth to try to stifle the rasping noise in her throat. She started up the steps and stopped dead.

The bachelor party had finished early. Tex and Martin stood at the top of the upstairs landing, tumblers of amber alcohol in their hands, and they barred the way to her room.

Fuck. Oh, fuck
.

The remaining voice of reason in her head reminded her that crying would solve nothing nor change a single item from her past, but the urge to bawl was shouting louder than that rational voice. She executed a hasty right turn and hurried through the hallway, forgetting there was a soundproof telephone alcove under the steps. Instead, she rushed past to the back of the house, aiming for the rear service staircase in the kitchen. A single recessed light above the stove illuminated a small circle on the kitchen tiles. She got as far as the front of the narrow, walk-in butler’s pantry and knew there was no way she’d make it upstairs.

She yanked open the pantry door, her hand grinding her lips into her teeth, her body shuddering as she tried to regulate her breathing, to regain composure, to keep herself together. She knocked against the old key rack before she closed the door and faced a dark wall of shelves stacked with glasses, condiments, and folded table linens. In an attempt to find some shred of inner peace, she squeezed her eyes shut, keeping in the tears while she gasped and choked on every breath she counted.

Small pot in his hand, Emerson rose from the low cupboard as a figure darted into the walk-in and pulled the door shut. Curious, he set the pot next to the carton of milk he’d left on the countertop and moved to the little storeroom. He turned the knob, opening the door. Olivia, a hand at her throat, stood in the near dark, trying to gulp in air. She looked at him, eyes wide with…panic?

Emerson hesitated, inspecting the narrow room for a moment. He moved into the pantry, taking care to ensure the door remained opened. Faint light painted the space in a dull glow. “Olivia, are you choking?” He grabbed her arm to turn her, preparing to deliver a few sharp blows between her shoulder blades.

Teeth together, she sucked in a breath. “Go away,” she warbled. “Please.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked, which was a mistake because it seemed to cue the waterworks. She went still for the barest moment and then her tears tumbled out copiously and hotly. Emerson stared at her in surprise as she crumbled. She gripped the edge of a shelf, her fingernails bending slightly on the white painted wood. He touched her shoulder. “Hey, uhh…it’s okay. Yeah, it’s okay,” he said, patting her upper arm. “Whatever it is, you’ll…uh…you’ll be…um…fine.”