Chose the Wrong Guy, Gave Him the Wrong Finger (6 page)

“No, you’re
not
.” Wendy hurried over to her and put her arms around her. “You are
so beautiful
. Do we really need to go over this again? You were the homecoming queen two years in a row, which you
know
never happens, you won Junior Miss Virginia a year younger than anyone ever did before, and then your boss, who
everyone
thought was so handsome, fell for
you
and took you out of the office and gave you that gorgeous ring!” She lifted Mindy’s limp left hand—which must have taken some muscle, given the size of the rock on it—and tipped it so the facets dazzled under the light. “You have a charmed life.”

Mindy looked at her friend with big, liquid blue eyes, her lip trembling ever so slightly. “You’re just saying that. He’s going to realize I’m a fatty and dump me.”

I hoped he’d realize she was a manipulator and dump her, but both eventualities seemed to have the same zero likelihood.

“Do we need to let the waistline out some?” I asked helpfully.

Her response was predictable. She turned a sharp eye on me (actually her friend did too; she had a better fiancé
and
a better best friend than she might have deserved) and said, “No, I don’t need you to let it out. It fits fine. For now. But I’m just worried about what’s going to happen.” She looked down at the floor and I wondered if she used Latisse or something like that to make her lashes so long and dark.

Honestly, she knew all her angles, knew just how to look her most fetchingly attractive no matter what she was griping about and who was viewing her.

I wanted to tell her I could elasticize the waist, but she knew I was on to her, and that would have been unprofessionally obnoxious, so I held back.

Business had been somewhat rough lately and I couldn’t afford to alienate
any
customers, not even ones who popped in to buy a single pair of silk stockings.

Talk of the Gown was the only job I’d ever had, and all of my money was tied up in it. If it failed … well, I didn’t know what I’d do. I couldn’t bear to think of it.

The bells over the door tinkled, and we all looked at the tall, dark, slightly funny-looking man who walked in. I mean, I’m sorry to say it, but it was true. His lips were a little too bubble-ish for a man, and his nose seemed like it was placed slightly too far to the left.

But his bank account was, I imagine, a very beautiful thing to behold. He walked with the swagger of a man who’d never had to care much how he looked.

“Oh, thank goodness Lee’s here,” Wendy cooed.

“No!” Mindy shrieked. “He can’t see me in my dress! Close your eyes, Lee!”

He stopped and made a show of putting his hand over his eyes.

Becca took a shawl over to Mindy and she covered herself with it, at least enough so that he couldn’t see more than a peek of satin at the bottom, and there was no giveaway in that, almost anyone expects a wedding dress to be made of fabric something like that.

“Can I look?” he boomed.

“Yes, but not too closely,” Mindy cooed.

He took his hand off his eyes and Wendy immediately said, “Lee, please tell Mindy she’s not fat!”

Lee furrowed his brow. “Fat? That’s crazy.”

“Quinn just said she should let the waist of my dress out some.” Mindy gestured limply toward me, but didn’t look in my direction. She didn’t need to. She, like I, felt all eyes land on me like bugs.

You’re welcome for the shawl, Whinestein
, I thought.

“What I said”—I met Lee’s eyes, because I knew, no matter what a snot she was going to be to me, Mindy flipping
loved
that dress, knew it looked amazing on her, and wasn’t going to take a chance on having to find another one three weeks from the wedding—“was that if the dress was uncomfortable in any way, as she was saying, we could make alterations to accommodate her no matter what.”

Understanding came into his eyes and he turned to his bride. “Mindy, honey? Are you thinking you look anything less than stunning in your dress?”

She pressed her lips together for a moment, then said, slowly blinking her dewy eyes, “I just don’t want to disappoint you.”

“You could never disappoint me,” he said, moving in and putting his big bear paw around her, patting her awkwardly as he did so.

She began to weep delicately. Tearlessly.

With dry sniffles.

Wendy looked fretful and gnawed on her thumbnail. I’d actually noticed she did that a lot when she got uncomfortable.

This was not the first time I’d seen it.

“Stop this now,” Lee said, exchanging a quick panicked glance with Wendy. “Honey? Min, listen, how about you go over to Calloway’s and pick out something so sparkly you won’t be able to see or think about anything else?”

Calloway’s was the town jeweler. It had been here for eighty-some years, and people came from the entire metro area to get their jewelry designed and reset by Dick Calloway, now the third-generation owner, because he’d taken the little place and put it on the map with mentions in
Vogue
,
People
, and
Vanity Fair
.

Calloway’s was an excellent cure for whatever ailed any spoiled rich woman.

Mindy was no exception. I saw the smallest shift in her posture. A straightening he probably didn’t notice or perceived as cuddling in. But that wasn’t what it was. It was triumph.

It was clear in her still-dry eyes when she looked at him. “Are you sure?”

“Am I— of
course
I’m sure!”

She gave what I was sure was meant to look—and
did
to him and Wendy, I was certain—like a brave little smile. “Ohhh, you are so good to me.”

He gave an indulgent chuckle. “I hope you’re still saying that when we’re in the poorhouse.”

She didn’t answer. Of course she didn’t answer. She was not accompanying
anyone
to the poorhouse. If things started to look like they were heading in that direction, she would turn her Christian Louboutins in a new direction and keep walking, without looking back, until she’d found a new mark.

Lee took a black card out of his wallet and handed it to her.

She looked at it, poked her bottom lip out a little farther, and asked, “When am I getting the one with
my
name on it?” The nontears threatened again.

Talk about an artist!

“As soon as you have your new name,” he answered, begging the question of whether or not he knew the deal he was making as well as she did. There was no way to tell for sure. He gave her a final squeeze and came over to me.

She didn’t even watch him go, but, instead, looked down at the card, then shared a smile with Wendy, though I honestly think, where Mindy’s smile looked calculating, Wendy’s just showed relief that her “poor, sweet friend” was feeling better now.

Lee indicated I should follow him to the door, and when we got there, he asked, very quietly, “
Does
the dress need alterations?”

“Of course not.” I couldn’t believe he’d actually fallen for that for even a moment. Didn’t he see her body in the buff every night? I felt like that was part of the price she’d be paying for this marriage.

At least until it was over.

But maybe he didn’t. Maybe the promise of it was the prize he was expecting for marrying her.

“If that need should arise,” he said, so quietly I almost had to move in to hear him, though I didn’t want to get any closer than I had to, thanks to his mildewy breath, “I want you to tell her it’s loose and you need to take it
in
, not out.”

“If the dress gets too tight, she’s not going to believe me if I say it’s too loose.”

“Then tell her you did something wrong. Cut it wrong or something. Made it two sizes smaller than it’s supposed to be. Whatever it takes. I don’t want her upset about
anything
before her big day.”

Which told me, right there, she was probably going to be “upset” about a great many things before her big day.

“I’ll do my best,” I told him.

“See that you do and I’ll make it well worth your while.” He gave me a look like we were sharing a secret, then, before I could object—because I do object to idiotic bribery—he gave a conspiratorial nod and called, over me, “Get on over there before it closes, babe.”

“I will,” Mindy said, then, for good measure, sniffled.

Lee gave me a wink and went out into the night, just as my friend Glenn Ryland came out of the door of his shop next door—a cheese shop called the Mouse Trap—and headed for mine, holding a bottle of wine and, as usual, a platter of cheese.

I held the door open for him and he came in.

“We’d better hurry,” Mindy was saying urgently to Wendy, all of her meekness gone. Wendy was apparently taking too long to unzip the dress. “Come on, come
on.
”

“Got it.” Wendy pulled the small zipper down and the dress fell from Mindy’s perfect body and pooled on the floor at her feet. She didn’t even care that Glenn, a complete stranger and a man to boot, was here, she was just determined to get to the jewelry store before it closed. “Pick that up for me?”

“Sure!” Wendy scurried to do her friend’s bidding.

I guess all these people got a charge out of pleasing Mindy, maybe because it was so hard to do that it felt like an accomplishment for them every time.

At that point, Mindy went into the dressing room and got her street clothes on so quickly it seemed like a magic trick. Her maid of honor put the dress back on its hanger and carefully hung it up, gently tugging it so it wouldn’t wrinkle. For a moment, the gesture was so soft and loving that I was struck by what felt, or at least looked, like raw longing.

But the moment was over quickly when Mindy bolted from the dressing room and grabbed her friend’s arm. “Let’s go, this is going to be
so
much fun! Thanks, Quinn,” she singsonged, then, spotting the platter Glenn had brought, “Oh, yum, cheese! Can I have a bite? I’m absolutely
famished
.”

So much for her supposed weight concerns.

“Go right ahead,” Glenn said.

I’d tell him the story later.

I was pretty sure he’d regret having given Mindy the free cheese then. He didn’t have much patience for ninnies.

Both of the women took little handfuls of cheese and left, all traces of accusation and misery blown away by the wind of commerce that would carry them down the block and around the corner to the land of diamonds and platinum.

Chapter 4

Thirty minutes later, after Becca had left for the night in a frenzy, shouting, “Find the ipecac and make him puke it up, the little idiot!” into her phone, I’d locked the door and was halfway into my second glass of wine, beginning to unwind. “Oh, my god, this is
amazing
! What
is
it?”

This was how I began almost all of my deep conversations with Glenn, because after closing—my shop, and his next door—he always brought over either the leftover samples he’d had out during the day or something new I’d never tried before.

“Fromager d’Affinois.” He put a smear of it on a little square piece of toast and handed it to me.

“So, it’s like Brie?”

“It’s Brie on steroids.”

He was right. It was Brie-times-twenty in the “creamy” department. I was sure it was worse than drinking melted butter, but it tasted
amazing
and I needed a little distraction. Culinary distraction was all the better.

“Have you heard,” he jumped right in, “about the dry cleaner across the street?”

A dry cleaner had gone into a space that had been empty for
years
about two months ago. I’d hoped our businesses could be complementary, but the owner was a real jerk. Truth be told, I’d expected them to have gone out of business as quickly as they’d gone in, but for some reason they had a lot of traffic in and out.

“What, are they a front for the Mafia?” I asked, only half kidding. There had to be a reason such a sour man could stay in business.

“
No
, they have a
seamstress
in there who is making knockoffs of celebrity dresses!”

This didn’t compute. “What?”

“You know, like Stella McCartney’s Colorblock dress, everything Kate Middleton ever wore,
including
her wedding dress…” He raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, my god, they’re taking my clients?”

He nodded. “Bringing people in from far and wide for a cheap version of an expensive designer gown. You should look at the reviews on Yelp.” He shook his head. “We’ve got to shut them down.”

“But … I make
personalized
one-of-a-kind dresses. I’ve built my reputation on figuring out the perfect look for every special occasion. I was in
Southern Living
, for Pete’s sake.…” I was arguing, but there was no argument. A dress shop with high overhead and stock probably couldn’t have come in across the street to compete with me, but a tiny hole-in-the-wall dry cleaner with an underpaid seamstress?

Maybe that was the reason my revenues were going down.

How had I missed that?

“Her name is Taney,” Glenn said. “We need to run her out of town.”

“Stop,” I said, but laughed. “I consider this a call to action. I’ve got to do better than my best. If I up my game, cheap knockoffs can’t possibly compete.”

He nodded. “They shouldn’t. But I’ll keep a baseball bat around just in case you want me to go for her kneecaps. Or, better still, her knuckles.”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary. That reminds me. You will never guess who came in today
for a wedding dress
.”

He looked immediately intrigued, his brow furrowed slightly over his piercing dark eyes. He was hot in a way so classic that most womens’ gaydars didn’t even blip. “Is it worth even trying to guess?”

“No.”

He laughed. “Tell me.”

“Dottie Morrison.”

“Dottie Morrison?” He looked blank. “What’s the punch line?”

“No punch line.” I smiled and shook my head. “I’m being completely serious.”

“
Who
is she marrying?”