Bet Me (9 page)

"I just want to make sure you're not going back to her," Tony said. "My future is on the line here."

"How?" Cal said.

"Well, you'll get married first," Tony said, coming back to sit on the corner of Cal's desk. "You always do everything first. And then Roger will get married and you'll both move to the suburbs. And Roger is going to marry somebody as uptight as he is, which means I'll have to live with you, and since Cynthie never did like me, she'd be a problem to convince on that."

"So would I," Cal said. "Get off my desk."

"It wouldn't be
with
you, not in the house," Tony said. "I figure a nice apartment over the garage. It'd be convenient for you. You could come over and watch the game and get drunk and not have to drive home. And I could baby-sit the kids when you and the wife wanted to go out."

"First," Cal said, "I'm not getting married, so forget the wife. Second, if I was insane enough to get married, I wouldn't have kids. Third, if I was insane enough to get married and have kids, it would be a cold day in hell I'd let you baby-sit."

"Well, we'll both have matured by then," Tony said. "I wouldn't let me baby-sit now, either."

"I'm getting married first," Roger said.

They both turned to him, and he smiled back, big, blond, and placid in the sunlight from the big loft windows.

"I'm going to marry Bonnie," Roger said.

Cal frowned at him. "Who's Bonnie?"

"The mini-blonde he met last night," Tony said, disgust in his voice.

"Her name is Bonnie," Roger said, his voice like ice, and both Cal and Tony straightened.

"He's serious," Cal said to Tony. "What happened?"

"The redhead wanted me," Tony said. "So I went over. And Roger followed and hooked up with the mini.. . with Bonnie. And sometime between then and now he lost his mind." He shook his head at Roger.

"This is a woman you've known less than twelve hours. It took you a year to pick out a couch, but you're seriously—"

"Yes," Roger said. "She's the one."

"Maybe," Cal said, thinking,
The hell she is
. "You didn't tell her that, though. Right?"

"No," Roger said. "I thought it was too soon."

"You
think
?" Tony said. "Jesus."

"I'm going to marry her," Roger said, "so stop yelling and get used to it. She's perfect."

"No woman is perfect," Tony said. "Which is why we must keep looking. You going to see her tonight?"

"No," Roger said. "They have some Thursday night thing they do every other week. Bonnie called it their 'If Dinner.'"

"They?" Tony said.

Roger nodded. "Bonnie, Liza, and Min."

"Who's Min?" Tony said, lost again.

"The one I'm not going to sleep with," Cal said. If Bonnie was anything like Min, Roger was in big trouble.

"You seeing Bonnie on Friday?" Tony said to Roger, sticking to the basics.

Roger nodded. "She said they'll be at The Long Shot. It's not their regular hangout, but she said she'd look for me there. And she's coming to the game Saturday. And we might go to dinner Saturday night."

"She's coming to watch you coach a kid's baseball game?" Cal said. "She must love you a lot."

"Not yet," Roger said. "But she will."

"Friday," Tony said, ignoring them. "That's good. I can hit on Liza, and Cal can move on the suit."

"No," Cal said.

Roger looked sympathetic. "What happened?"

Cal went back to his computer. "She's a conservative, antigambling actuary who spent dinner bitching at me. Then I took her home, climbed fifty-eight steps to her apartment to make sure she didn't get mugged, and elbowed her in the eye. It was the worst date of my life, and I'm sure it was in her bottom five."

"You hit her?" Tony said.

"By accident," Cal said. "I'd send flowers to apologize, but she's anticharm, too. It's over. Move on."

"So you're going to give up on another one," Tony said, shaking his head.

Cal looked up at him, annoyed. "Now tell me about your deep and lasting relationships."

"Yes, but that's me," Tony said. "I'm shallow."

"Bonnie lives on the first floor of that house," Roger said, as if they hadn't spoken, "so I just had to make the first thirty-two steps. And then she felt bad for me, so she invited me in for coffee. I can get used to the steps."

"Does that mean Liza lives on the second floor?" Tony said.

"No, Liza lives over on Pennington," Roger said. "She moves every year to a new place, about the time she changes jobs. Bonnie says Liza likes change."

Cal looked at Tony. "You didn't walk her home?"

"She ditched me while I was in the
John
," Tony said. "I think she's playing hard to get."

"Sounds like Min," Cal said, going back to the computer. "Except I don't think she's playing."

"Bonnie and I walked Liza home," Roger said. "It was nice. It gave me more time with Bonnie."

"Jesus, man, pull yourself together," Tony said.

"You're serious about this?" Cal said, turning back to Roger.

"Yes."

Cal saw determination on his face. "Congratulations," he said, deciding to check Bonnie out. "Wait a month to propose. You don't want to scare her."

"That's what I thought," Roger said.

"You're both nuts," Tony said.

"We're all going to be unemployed if we don't get to work," Cal said. "Start with the Batchelder refresher."

"Bonnie says Min is great," Roger said. "She looked nice."

"Min is not nice," Cal said. "Min is mad at the world and taking it out on whatever guy is standing next to her. Now about the Batchelder refresher—"

"Are you sure David knows there's no bet?" Tony said.

"Positive," Cal said. "I'm never seeing that woman again. Now about the
Batchelder refresher
..."

At half past four that afternoon, Min walked into the ivory moire-draped fitting room of the city's best bridal emporium, well aware she was late and not caring much. Her mother was probably so absorbed in harassing Diana and the fitter that—

"You're late," Nanette Dobbs said. "The appointment was for four."

"I work." Min crossed the thick gold carpet and detoured around the dark-haired bundle of exasperation that had given birth to her, dropping her jacket on an ivory-upholstered chair. "That means the insurance company gets first dibs on my time. If you want me here on the dot, schedule this for after work."

"That's ridiculous," Nanette said. "Your dress is in the second dressing room. The fitter is with Diana and the other girls. Give me your blouse, you'll just drop it on the floor in there." She held out one imperious, French-manicured hand, and Min sighed and took off her blouse.

"Oh,
Min,"
her mother said, her voice heavy with unsurprised contempt. "Wherever did you get that bra?"

Min looked down at her underwear. Plain cotton, but perfectly respectable. "I have no idea. Why?"

"White cotton," Nanette said. "Honestly, Min, plain cotton is like plain vanilla—"

"I like plain vanilla."

"—there's no excitement there at all."

Min blinked. "I was at work. There's never any excitement."

"I'm talking about men," Nanette said. "You're thirty-three. Your prime years are past you, and you're wearing white cotton."

"I was at
work
," Min said, losing patience.

"It doesn't matter." Her mother shook out Min's blouse, checked the label, saw it was silk, and looked partly mollified. "If you're wearing white cotton lingerie, you'll feel like white cotton, and you'll act like white cotton, and white cotton cannot get a man, nor can it keep one. Always wear lace."

"You'd make a nice pimp," Min said, and headed for the dressing room.

"
Minerva
," her mother said.

"Well, I'm sorry." Min stopped and turned around. "But honestly, Mother, this conversation is getting old. I'm not even sure I want to get married, and you're critiquing my underwear because it's not good enough bait. Can't you—"

Nanette lifted her chin, and her jawline became even more taut. "This is the kind of attitude that's going to lose David."

Min took a deep breath. "About David ..."

"What?" Her mother's body tensed beneath her size four Dana Buchman suit. "What about David?"

Min smiled cheerfully. "We're no longer seeing each other."

"Oh,
Min,"
Nanette wailed, clutching Min's blouse to her bosom, the picture of despair in the middle of a lot of expensive gold and ivory decor.

"He wasn't right for me, Mother," Min said.

"Yes," Nanette said, "but couldn't you have kept him until after the wedding?"

"Evidently not," Min said. "Let's cut to the chase. What do I have to do to keep you from mentioning his name ever again?"

"Wear lace."

"That will get you off my back?"

"For a while."

Min grinned at her and headed for the dressing room door. "You are a piece of work."

"So are you, darling," Nanette said, surveying her eldest. "I'm very proud of you, you know. You have a blotch of makeup over your eye. What is that?"

"Oh, for crying out loud." Min closed the door behind her. She unzipped her skirt, let it fall to the gold carpet, and studied herself in the gold-framed mirror. "You're not that bad," she told herself, not convinced. "You just have to find a man who likes very healthy women."

She unclipped the long lavender skirt from the gold hanger and stepped into it, being careful not to rip the knife-pleated chiffon ruffle at the bottom, and sucked in her stomach to get it buttoned. Then she shrugged on the lavender chiffon blouse and buttoned the tiny buttons, stretching the fabric tightly across her bust so that her white bra showed at the corners of the low, squared bodice. She shook out the sleeves, and the chiffon fell over her hands in wide double ruffles that she would drag through everything at the reception. The blouse also erupted around her hips in more ruffles at the side. "Oh, yes," she said. "More width at the hip. Can't ever get enough of that."

Then she picked up the corset, a blue and lavender watercolor moire tied with lavender ribbons. The fabric had been so beautiful when Diana had chosen it six months before that Min had hired the seamstress to make a comforter for her bed with it, and she looked at the narrow corset now and thought,
I'm going to have to wear the comforter. This is never going to fit.
She took a deep breath and wrapped the corset around her. It shoved her breasts up to a dizzying height and then failed to meet in the middle by almost two inches.
Carbs.
She thought vicious thoughts about Cal Morrisey and Emilio's bread. Then she tried to smooth out the extra foundation without showing the bruise and went out into the dressing room to face her mother.

Instead, she found Diana, standing on the fitting platform in front of the huge, gold-framed mirror, flanked by her two lovely bridesmaids, the women Liza called Wet and Worse, while the Dixie Chicks played on Diana's portable CD player.

" 'Ready to Run,'" Min said to Diana. "And so not appropriate."

"Hmmm?" Diana said, staring into the mirror. "No, it's
Runaway Bride
."

"Right," Min said, remembering that Diana had decided to score her wedding to music from Julia Roberts's movies. Well, at least it was a plan.

"I loved that movie," Susie said. She looked blond, bilious, miserable, and, well, wet in corseted green chiffon, the loser in the bridesmaid dress lottery.

"I thought it was ridiculous," dark-haired Karen, a.k.a. Worse, said, looking sophisticated and superior in corseted blue chiffon.

Min waved her hand at Worse. "Scoot over so I can see my sister."

Worse moved, and Min got her first look at Diana. "Wow."

Diana looked like a fairy tale come to life in ivory chiffon and satin. Her dark curling hair fell from an artfully messy knot into pearl-strewn tendrils around her pale oval face and her neck rose gracefully above the perfect expanse of skin revealed by a very low, square-necked bodice identical to the one flashing Min's white bra. Her neckline had chiffon ruffles cascading over the beaded ivory corset that cinched her slim waist, and more ruffles fell from her wrists and flowed out from under the corset, parting to reveal a straight skirt flounced with more ruffles along the side like panniers and ending in a knife-pleated border that touched the toes of her satin buckled pumps. She turned on the platform to look into the mirror and Min saw the bustle of gathered chiffon at the base of her spine that erupted in more and more ruffles and pleats until the back of the dress took on a life of its own, quivering when Diana moved.

"What do you think?" Diana said, no expression at all on her face.

Ithink you look like a sex-crazed princess on heroin
, Min thought, but she said, "I think you look beautiful," because that was true, too.

"You look gorgeous," Worse said, straightening Di's skirt, which didn't need straightening.