So Much More (3 page)

Chapter Five

“Look, they have a number of West Indian cuisine listed. Let’s try that!” Dawn was flipping through her travel book waiting for everyone to get ready, excitement shinning bright on her face. Angie could see her mother visibly tense at the mention of unknown food. Joan Adel was not the adventurous type and especially not where food was concerned. 

“Better yet,” Dawn was all but bouncing in her seat with excitement. “Here’s a restaurant that serves ‘Caribbean, French, and Italian Cuisine’, there would be something everyone can enjoy.” Joan nodded emphatically in agreement and Angie hid a smile. Italian cuisine meant spaghetti, something Joan could make at home, therefore something she would eat.

“That sounds great Dawn.” Angie felt the need to express an interest in the place before Dawn decided to jump to another restaurant. Really it was to help keep the peace with her mother more than a desire for that particular restaurant.

“Wonderful! Then that’s where we will go. I’ll tell George.” Angie cast a glance at her mother who gave her a small smile of gratitude.

“You look lovely tonight dear, kind of like Sandra Dee in the original Gidget movie.” When she bought the dress the woman at Dillard’s called it a bubble skirt and fitted bodice, Angie called it Audrey Hepburn, so Sandra Dee could actually fit. The large floral pattern against the snow white background grabbed her and she had to have it. She also bought a red cardigan with quarter length sleeves to go with it and the whole look made her feel like a princess. There was nothing like dressing up to lift the spirit.

“Oh look, Little Bit has found her normal wardrobe.” Angie didn’t even have to turn around to know it was Dean.  He plopped down on the couch next to Joan wearing tan Dockers and a sea green Polo shirt, in other words, looking like a chocolate chip cookie right out of the oven.
Delicious.

“Your flattery is too much Dean, it’s no wonder you always have dates.” She
bared her teeth in a mock smile and moved to sit on the other side of Joan, and for once in her life hoped she would come to the rescue and defend her only child.

“Little Bit? How cute! Quite fitting isn’t it.” Joan smiled at Dean in appreciation of his nickname for her. “She has always been rather small, you
know, the kind to develop late if even at all…”

“Mother,” Angie growled a warning through her clenched jaw, embarrassment seeping from her pores. It wasn’t as if her mother ever thought of
Angie’s feeling so why would she expect her to start now. Sitting up straight Angie glanced past her mother and glared at Dean. “You laugh you die.” He just grinned, no doubt finding the whole thing really humorous.

“It’s okay to laugh Dean.” Joan
pat his knee in a gesture a well versed grandmother would make.  “I’ve always told her it is nothing to be ashamed of. God made her just the way he wanted her. And if that means she’s to look like a twelve year old for the rest of her life, then so be it. The trick is finding a man who likes small women but isn’t a pedophile.”

Did she really just say that to Dean?
Angie’s very own secret crush? The man she dreamed would someday sweep her off her feet and tell her he loved her and wanted to marry her, all the while Stella would be crying with joy and telling her she always hoped to have her as a sister someday… Okay, so she tended to go a little overboard with her day dreams at times.

Suddenly there seems to be no air in the room, her throat was closing making her feel like she were drowning on land. Angie stood abruptly, not caring how ridiculous she might appear and with as much dignity as she could muster said, “I’m going… out…” She stumbled a little in her red open toe heels and forced air into her lungs, which burnt like the first drag of a cigarette. “I’m going out for some fresh air.” She amended, hoping to come across just a little peeved but not mortified like she truly was.

She just needed to get away from her mother and the words that always seemed to spew from her mouth without even the briefest thought as to how they might sound or affect the person they were directed at.

Angie thought she looked composed and normal, but Dean’s furrowed brow as he watched her leave said otherwise. That meant she wasn’t fooling anyone but her mother. She walked out the
French doors on to the gloriously safe haven of the deserted balcony and took another deep breath, this one feeling refreshing instead of painful.

Slowly she walked out of view of the living room and sat down on the rot iron chair furthest from the French doors, hidden partially by shadow. This would be the only peaceful moment she had all evening. She needed the time to compose
herself and prepare for more barbs from her mother because the night was young and her mother was only getting started.

With her cute little sweater lying in a heap on the table and her head between her knees, she was beginning to feel a little normal again.

“Loose an earring?” She jerked upright, startled. Dean stood a few feet behind her, his hands in his pockets, feet crossed, and his back against the wall. Vaguely Angie wondered if he practiced those sexy poses in the mirror when he was alone. She shook the image of him just out of the shower wearing only a small white towel around his hips, staring at his reflection in a full length mirror from her head and stood up. She was regretting her earlier inventory of his broad shoulders because now she saw it perfectly in her mind.

“Um, my shoe wasn’t fastened right.” A lie and they both knew it. Dean looked at the strappy red sandals and smiled.

“Nice shoes, they go well with the dress.”

She grabbed her sweater off the table and shoved her arms in the sleeves. “Gee, thanks. Is that another way of saying it looks like I bought them from the kids section at PayLess?”

Dean’s smile dropped and he looked more serious than she’d ever seen him. “No, I like them. It’s a real complement. “He hesitated for a nano-second before adding, “The dress is nice too.” 

A snort, a very indelicate sound that seems to only occur when she laughed too hard or when she was so angry she could hardly think straight, reverberated around the balcony. She wasn’t laughing and she wasn’t angry, well not so angry she was out of her head with it, so the only other explanation for the snort was complete and utter embarrassment.

Note to self, don’t do anything but breathe slowly through your nose when in extremely embarrassing moments.

“Thanks Dean, but don’t pay me complements you don’t mean just because you’re trying to make up for my mother’s tendency to humiliate me.”

“I’m not trying to make you feel better, I’m being honest. You look nice. Just take it as it is, an honest complement.” He sounded harsh, frustrated even.

What does a girl say to that? Angie didn’t know and she wasn’t feeling polite enough to say thanks. So she chose to ignore it.

“Is it time to go yet? I’m famished.” She push past him, actually he wasn’t standing close enough to have to push him out of the way, she just like the way the image played out in her mind, and found herself in the center of the living room with George, and only George.

“Where is everyone?” Angie looked past him but it was obvious they were the only ones left in the house.

“You, Dean and I are driving separately. They left in the Jeep. Dawn was driving so we all promised to say a little prayer that they make it safely.” George smiled at her. “Just kidding, she is perfectly safe. Mostly.”

Angie forced a smile, something she found herself doing a lot of. “Well, I’m ready if you are. Dean?” She yelled while turning, only to find him standing directly behind her. His broad chest was eye level making her palms itches to pet him. Slowly her eyes worked their way up to his face to find a knowing smile tilting his lips up.

Please God don’t let him know I’m practically panting standing this close to him
. Angie quirked her head to the side. She smiled, attempting to appear normal and not hot and bothered. “Oh, sorry, I thought you were still outside. Ready?”

She was obviously not fooling him and hoped she wasn’t reading like a sexy chapter in a romance novel. The one that describes the girl who falls head over
heels in lust with the muscular hero… eyes dilated in desire; heat pooling between her thighs; spittle dribbling down her chin thanks to the scrumptious hero in front of her. Okay, so she wasn’t drooling, but heat was pooling, that was for sure.

Dean placed a hand at the small of her back and said, “After you Angie.”

With a silent sigh she pretended not to notice how palm to fingertip his hand was the exact span of her back, from one side of her waist to the other. If she didn’t already feel small that realization would do the trick.

“Angie you look really nice tonight.” George opened the passenger door of the small car for her to get in. “You remind me of someone… with your hair done up that way… I just can’t picture who…”

“Sandra Dee?” She provided dryly, guessing that he and her mother were from the same generation and therefore shared the same thoughts on who she resemble in that dress.

“That’s it!
Gidget!” George shut the door with a smile and walked around to the driver side of the compact car. “You know what that means don’t you? Gidget?” Before Angie could tell him she know exactly what it meant, having seen the original movie more than a dozen times, he gave her the answer. “Girl and midget, Gidget. Get it?”

She smiled weakly. “Try saying that three times fast.”

With a hearty laugh George maneuvered the car out of the drive way, obviously quite pleased with himself for comparing little old Angie with Gidget.

Dean didn’t make a sound.
Smart man.

The group in the Jeep got a table outside overlooking the ocean. A spectacular view that any person with eye sight would have branded into their memory as what paradise looked like.

Angie, George, and Dean made
their way through the touristy crowd to where Dawn stood, waving her whole arm back and forth over her head in an attempt to gain their attention. 

“
Do you think she sees us?” George asked sarcastically, shaking his head at the scene his wife was making.

David and Stella kept
their word and sat on either side of Joan. Angie smiled at them silently giving the pair a quick wave of gratitude. Before she could move to pull an available chair out, Dean, in a startlingly gentlemanly gesture, pulled it out for her.

She glanced up at him, wondering if it was a trick or he was actually pulling the seat out for himself. His eyebrows rose as he motioned to the chair waiting for her to take the seat.

“Thanks.” She mumble, not willing to admit this was the first time a guy has held a chair out for her. Still, she was cautious as she sat, thinking he might possibly jerk it out from under her at any moment. That was a brotherly thing to do, torment the sister, and Dean seemed to look upon her as a sibling so it only made sense.

“Don’t mention it.” He said dryly while pushing her seat under her before taking the seat next to her.

David, a good source of comic relief, whistled softly. “Angela you look stunning!” His hand came up dramatically to cover his heart. “ I don’t remember the last time I saw you in something other than jeans and a t-shirt. Actually, when was the last time I saw you”

Angie removed her red sweater and placed the white napkin on her lap. She was pleased to notice the snow white background of her dress was
even more brilliant than the bleached napkins. “That would be last New Year’s Eve. You, Dean, Josh, and your dates stopped by Stella’s party for about fifteen minutes before heading onto more glamorous affairs.” She smiled at him, the dazzling smile she practiced in the mirror. “Playboys like you three have to mingle, can’t spend all your time at just one party.”

David smiled back and put his arm around the back of her chair, leaning in to her ear. “So you think I’m a playboy? Should I be flattered?”

If Angie thought this were more than a minor flirtation she would have stopped immediately, but seeing that it was David, and there was no chance in France that he would be interested in her, she flirted back. “Now David, you and I both know you are.”

She fluttered her eyelashes at him, making
herself dizzy in the process. He laughed before patting her bare shoulder and removing his arm. The flirtation over, he moved on to the conversation around the table.

Two glasses of white wine, steamed lobster with fresh veggies, and numerous pieces of fresh bread later, Angie sat with everyone else in a comfortable silence. She kept thinking about this tropical vacation being
a dream come true, even if her mother was with her. She had spent a few hours on the beach, swam in the ocean, and ate lobster caught fresh that morning. It didn’t get much better than that.

“Who’s up for shopping tomorrow?” Dawn sat forward, exuding excitement. The woman seemed to be an unending fountain of energy. “My travel book says that St. Thomas has some of the best shopping.”

Angie glanced at Stella hoping to catch a vibe. Yes or no, should they stay or should they go?

Stella shrugged and said, “I say we go back to the beach or go to Blackbeard’s Castle or something. I’m not yet ready for shopping.”

Angie mentally sighed with relief. “I’d like to see the castle. We can do that in the morning and go to the beach after lunch.”