You Dropped a Blonde on Me (10 page)
Not that Lacey ever gave up when she wanted something. Like, for instance,
someone else’s husband.
someone else’s husband.
With a clench of her teeth, she yanked the phone to her ear and spat, “Belle’s Will Be Ringing. This is Lenore Erickson. How can I help you?”
“Oh, stop, Len. It’s Lacey and you darn well know it,” Lacey grated with her whirring whine.
“Lacey, Lacey, Lacey. Hmmmm . . .” She let her voice wander as though she was puzzled by who exactly Lacey was. Then she smacked her lips. “Wait! Is this Lacey Gleason? The one who’s marrying that slimy prick Finley Cambridge before he’s even paid the blood money to his attorneys for a divorce from my best friend Maxine—you know, his
wife
? Is that the Lacey I’m talking to?”
wife
? Is that the Lacey I’m talking to?”
A hiss of irritated air swirled from the other end of the line. “It’s not like that, Len.”
Her eyebrow rose in disdain. “Reeeally? So you mean you’re not planning a wedding to a man who’s not even divorced yet? Wow. Guess you’re back in my will. You know what that means? You, yes,
you
, the Lacey who’s no longer an adulteress, get the gravy boat shaped like a pig. Festive, right? And pink. Very pink.” Len didn’t even attempt to hide her fury with her baby sister—her pampered, overindulged, lazy, husband-stealing sister. Each time she thought of the pain Lacey had caused, it made her gut clench into a hard knot.
you
, the Lacey who’s no longer an adulteress, get the gravy boat shaped like a pig. Festive, right? And pink. Very pink.” Len didn’t even attempt to hide her fury with her baby sister—her pampered, overindulged, lazy, husband-stealing sister. Each time she thought of the pain Lacey had caused, it made her gut clench into a hard knot.
Lacey sniffed, resorting to tear tactics. “Please, Lenore. Can’t we try and get past this? What’s done is done.”
Len scoffed in response. Loud. “Done? Is that old mule that’s almost three times your age divorced yet? No. No, I don’t think he is. Done implies that all those nagging loose ends like marriage vows have been tied up. Severed, I believe is what they call it these days. And last I checked, Lace, my best friend Maxine was still married to your rich fiancé, all while she lives in a retirement village with her mother and can’t even afford a gallon of milk because her husband—your
fiancé
—is a cheap fuck and won’t throw her a bone. So as far as I’m concerned, nothing’s done, lamb chop. I haven’t heard the fat lady sing. Not one note.”
fiancé
—is a cheap fuck and won’t throw her a bone. So as far as I’m concerned, nothing’s done, lamb chop. I haven’t heard the fat lady sing. Not one note.”
“I swear I didn’t mean for it to happen the way it did, Lenore! If Mason hadn’t screwed up—”
“Mason? You’re blaming Mason? Please. Stop. It was you who wrote that engagement announcement, wasn’t it?” That Lacey still didn’t get the kind of damage she’d created, the kind of pain she’d inflicted, meant she had no conscience as far as Len was concerned.
Lenore braced herself for her sister’s defense by gripping the edge of her walnut-stained desk with a white-knuckled hand. The defense that had absolutely no personal accountability and a whole bunch of pathetic justifications for some truly despicable bad behavior.
“Yes, but I told him—”
“Right,” she snarled, cutting her off again. “You told Mason not to print it for a month, and because it ended up in the wrong pile, or whatever the hell happens at a newspaper when glitches like this go down, and instead ended up in the society pages a month early,
he
screwed up?” Lenore gave the earpiece a hard knock with her knuckle. “Hey in there, brainiac! You should have never, ever written it to begin with, Lacey! Don’t you think it was just a little premature, dare I say, presumptuous, to do something like that, seeing as Finley hadn’t even told Maxine he wanted a divorce yet? Did you know that the man you’re engaged to, that teenybopper airhead dabbler, called the paper and almost had Mason fired? He’s our cousin, a cousin with two kids and a wife and no sugar daddy with a blanket of cash to cover up with if he loses his job.” Spittle had formed at the corner of her mouth. She wiped it away with an angry thumb.
he
screwed up?” Lenore gave the earpiece a hard knock with her knuckle. “Hey in there, brainiac! You should have never, ever written it to begin with, Lacey! Don’t you think it was just a little premature, dare I say, presumptuous, to do something like that, seeing as Finley hadn’t even told Maxine he wanted a divorce yet? Did you know that the man you’re engaged to, that teenybopper airhead dabbler, called the paper and almost had Mason fired? He’s our cousin, a cousin with two kids and a wife and no sugar daddy with a blanket of cash to cover up with if he loses his job.” Spittle had formed at the corner of her mouth. She wiped it away with an angry thumb.
“But he didn’t lose his job,” Lacey cried in protest, her voice holding that familiar plea, the one that was supposed to bring the house down. “I made sure Finley took care of it.”
“That was real sporting of you, Lace. But you forgot to ask him to take care of his kid—who read that announcement right along with Maxine—in a
newspaper
. What do you suppose it felt like to find out your husband and the father of your child was leaving you for the friggin’ receptionist at an automobile dealership?”
newspaper
. What do you suppose it felt like to find out your husband and the father of your child was leaving you for the friggin’ receptionist at an automobile dealership?”
“If you would just listen to me!”
The sobbing.
Lacey was a whiz at sobbing, with big, wide, tear-filled blue eyes while she wrung her dainty hands, all put-upon. Lenore’s own eyes rolled upward as her fingers flipped through swatches of tablecloth samples. “Listen to what? Listen to you tell me how your panties just fell off your pert backside when you hopped into bed with another woman’s husband? If that’s what I’m listening to, I’d rather listen to oh, I dunno, someone’s skin being peeled from their living body. So save it.”
Not an inch. She refused to give Lacey an inch. All of her short life she’d been treated like someone had stamped “Fragile” on her forehead. If Lacey’s lower lip trembled in displeasure even a little, their parents were assholes and elbows to rectify and pacify. When Lacey wanted something, no matter the cost financially or emotionally, their parents provided. Lacey never went without.
Well, not this time. Maybe, had she not been so spoiled, had she been required to pay even the slightest consequence, she’d have thought twice before she wonked Lenore’s best friend’s husband. Like maybe a whole two minutes after said best friend had kindly secured a job for Lacey at Finley’s dealership. The job Lenore had begged Maxine to give her sister who had no purpose and no plans for the future other than to hook up with geriatrics that had fat bank accounts and belonged to someone else.
How she hadn’t seen the dalliance coming could officially be filed under the Seven Wonders of the World. Never would she have thought Lacey would cross a boundary so un-crossable—so sacred. Her sister’d done some shady things in her time. She’d weaseled, manipulated, used her beauty and body to garner whatever it was that she wanted at the time, but this, in Lenore’s mind, was unforgivable.
So unforgivable Lenore had finally put her foot down and refused to help with a single wedding plan, thus creating the biggest family brawl at Sunday dinner six months ago, making World War Two look like nothing but a wee spat.
“Lenore, you’re my sister. How could you not be involved in my wedding?” Her tone took on that of a petulant child, which wasn’t any huge surprise. Lacey was almost twenty-two years younger. A surprise gift from God, as her parents had put it. It was as though her parents had forgotten how to parent when Lacey came along, or maybe they were just too tired to put the kind of effort into disciplining her that was required to teach a child the entire world didn’t tip on its axis just because you made the “pouty face.”
“You plan weddings for a living. What’ll it look like if you don’t plan mine?”
Ah. She was busting out the familial card. Nice. Len scowled. “It’ll look just like what it is. It’ll look like I think what you’ve done to Maxine and her son is disgusting. It’ll look like I just can’t support planning a wedding before a divorce has even happened. It’ll look like I’m ashamed that my own sister would slink off with a pig of a man while my best friend and her kid are penniless!”
The raspy sigh of Lacey’s aggravation that the not quite ex-wife of the man she was marrying had the audacity to inconvenience her plans grated in Len’s ear. “God, I’m so sick of hearing about Maxine and how broke she is. She’s not your sister. I am! And if she needs money, why doesn’t she just get a job?”
“That’s a good question, Lace. One you might ask yourself. But you don’t apply for jobs, do you? At least not the ones that require you do much more than spread those firm thighs, right?” Slamming the phone down, Lenore had to lean forward and clutch her belly with both hands to keep from projectile hurling.
Fury on Maxine’s behalf rippled along her spine in waves of heat. Grief that her sister was making the biggest mistake of her life while trashing someone else’s, with their parents’ support, jabbed her like a hot poker in the gut. Nothing else had gotten through Lacey’s thick skull; maybe being as crude as possible, laying it all on the line, would get the message across.
Tears of her own stung Len’s eyes. She’d been so relieved when Maxine had finally left Fin—when she’d finally seen the light about his cheating.
When she’d found out it was her sister he was leaving Maxine for, the guilt she’d experienced that she’d had a hand in his infidelity, even if it was only by relation, made Len sick. Maxine was never anything but good to Lacey when she’d talked Fin into giving her the job at the dealership. In return, she’d had that kindness thrown right in her face.
Letting her head drop to her hands, she put her elbows on her desk, ignoring the calls from frantic bridezillas, shoving the pictures of ridiculously overdone wedding cakes to the far side of her work space. It was days like this, times like this when she missed Gerald so much that a hollow ache, one that came and went in painful fits and starts, sprouted deep in her soul.
Gerald would have understood. He would have had her back when her parents had taken Lacey’s side in this fiasco. He would have listened to Len rant when she’d concluded that Lacey’s marrying Finley meant her parents could breathe a sigh of relief because their beautiful but helpless daughter would have someone to take care of her instead of making her take care of herself.
And Lacey would end up just like Maxine if Fin managed to live another twenty years. She’d devote her life to him just like Maxine had, and he’d leave her with nothing for her efforts. Clearly, it was going to take a two-by-four to her head before she realized it.
Lenore’s finger traced the heavy silver picture frame on her desk that housed a smiling Gerald, making her smile back at him. She did it often, as though he could still see the warmth her eyes held, feel the comfort and love just his presence in a room once brought her. Though that smile turned to sad longing when she remembered everything Gerald had purposely left behind.
Her.
Their life.
Their world.
Whoa. Stopping now, she chided herself. Pity was a bottomless vat she had no time to indulge even a quick swim in.
There were brides who needed her. Floral arrangements to approve. Doves to find.
Shaking off her anger with Lacey, she swung around in her office chair to look out the window. The view of Saint Ignatius across the street from her basement business always soothed her.
However, the tall man looking directly at her, a fine specimen of bomb diggity doing his best to be covert while under cover of a tree trunk, was anything but soothing.
CHAPTER FIVE
Note from Maxine Cambridge to all ex-trophy wives who are struggling through the painful process of sucking it up: Look, cash is cash. If in your forced independence you find you must participate in events that bring heightened color to your cheeks, creating the urge to crawl under a table and curl into the fetal position while you rock yourself into a forgetful state, remember this. Be brave, she-warrior. Do note you’re fighting the good fight on behalf of all ex-trophy wives everywhere who are struggling to assert their right to be in the workplace! Hold your head high when humiliation rears its ugly head. And should you doubt this noble cause, I reiterate: Cash is cash. That means sometimes, into everyone’s life, a little troll-tossing must fall.
“That you, kiddo?”
From the kitchen entryway, Campbell poked his head around the corner of his father’s small, musty garage. “None other than.”
Garner Barker tinkered with a battered toaster oven sitting under a small tabletop lamp on his workbench. He pushed his glasses up to give Campbell a gruff smile. “How’d it go at Mona’s? She can be pretty testy. Sharp tongue, that woman.”
Sharp daughter, that woman. He fought a smile and a fond memory of Max half-dressed in Mona’s bathroom. A memory that might have brought him to full arousal if not for the watchful eye his father had on him. “Mona’s fine. No trouble at all.” He came to stand by Garner, placing a hand on his shoulder. “It’s hot in here, Pop, too hot for you to be tinkering with some old toaster oven when we can just as easily buy you a new one.”
Garner waved a screwdriver at him with a deep chuckle. “No need to waste good money. Even when you got plenty of it, Richie Rich,” he teased.
Campbell shoved his thumbs under his armpits, rocking back on his heels. “You won’t be wasting any money if you don’t listen to what Dr. Klein said, because you’ll be too dead to waste anything. As I recall, he said you were supposed to take it easy, especially in this heat. So why don’t you hand over that screwdriver before things get ugly and I have to dirty my lily-white hands by taking you out.” Campbell shoved his palm under his father’s nose with a warm smile.
Garner sighed, slapping the tool into his palm with irritated reluctance. “That bloody doctor and all his rules. He’s like the gestapo with a stethoscope. I like to tinker. I miss tinkering. What’s the world coming to if a man can’t tinker in his own damned garage?”
Slapping his dad on the back, Campbell chuckled. “Not an unsightly, heatstroke-induced end, at least not for you. Not on my watch anyway. Now c’mon. Don’t you wanna watch
Wheel of Fortune
?”
Wheel of Fortune
?”
“That Vanna, she’s just not as cute as she used to be.” He clucked his tongue at the shame of it all.
Other books
Life Guards in the Hamptons by Celia Jerome
And Yesterday Is Gone by Dolores Durando
Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain by Barbara Strauch
Little Black Break (Little Black Book #2) by Tabatha Vargo, Melissa Andrea
South of Haunted Dreams by Eddy L. Harris
The Riddle of Alabaster Royal by Patricia Veryan
Aeon Legion: Labyrinth by Beaubien, J.P.
This Book Does Not Exist by Schneider, Mike
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi, Curt Gentry
Haley's Man by Daniel, Sara
