Downhome Darlin' & The Best Man Switch (34 page)

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Authors: Victoria Pade

BOOK: Downhome Darlin' & The Best Man Switch
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“Excuse me,” Mitzi said, unable to hold back any longer. The whole situation was too beautiful. This girl and Ted were from warring tribes, personality-wise. She swiveled toward Joy. “Did I hear you mention Grant Whiting?”
Joy's thick-lashed blue eyes widened in curiosity. “Do you know him?”
She nodded, putting on her most sorrowful expression. “I guess you could say we were practically an item for several months not too long after his wife left him.”
“What happened?”
“I made a terrible mistake with Grant. I kept him hanging. I was afraid of commitment.”
“Oh!” Joy the psychology major blinked in astonishment. “I know all about that. Usually it's men who are afraid to commit.”
“Not Grant,” Mitzi said gravely. “He's one of those men who are just meant to be married. Someone just needs to come along and snatch him, some lucky girl who would like to be married to a total dreamboat.”
As Joy stared at Mitzi, her stylist grabbed the younger woman by her slack jaws and faced her forward, forcing her and Mitzi to communicate through mirrors. “But that's such a coincidence.
I
want to get married to a dreamboat!”
“Wow,” Mitzi mouthed. “That
is
a stroke of luck. But I hope you don't make the same mistakes that I made.”
The girl was practically quivering in anticipation. “Do you think you could help me? I'm shy around strangers. It would be great if you could tell me a little about what Grant likes and what to talk about.”
Yeah, right...the tongue-tied type. “The first thing you should insist upon—absolutely insist upon—is going out in Grant's boat,” Mitzi counseled. “The man loves his boat.”
“I love boats,” Joy exclaimed. “I was Kappa Kappa Gamma's water-ski champion my last spring break at Fort Lauderdale. Not that I like to brag, or anything.”
“Get him to take you out on that boat, the farther away the better. Tell him you've always wanted to see the Atlantic Ocean, if you have to,” Mitzi instructed. “Once you've dropped anchor, and the moonlight is shining on all that water, you can tell him about the real Joy Moreland—water-ski champ, shopper extraordinaire—and all about your aspirations for a home and a great big family.”
Five minutes later, Joy practically had tears in her eyes as she thanked Mitzi for the advice. “Do you really think he'll like me? I really want this to work.” She looked down at her silver poncho shyly. “See, I've had several bad experiences with men since leaving college.”
At the sound of that last sentence, Mitzi knew she shouldn't have looked into Joy's mirror, because what she saw in those Sandra Dee blinkers, unbelievably, was the disappointed gaze of a fellow traveler on the bumpy road of singlehood. And Joy would just be starting out. Every protective instinct in Mitzi told her to put a stop to the ruse, to tell little Joy to run, flee, to go right out and buy herself a puppy, anything!
But she had to remember the short-term objective of getting the Morelands out of the Whitings' hair. She couldn't think of a better way. She forced a smile. “Like you? Honey, he'll eat you up.”
9
“I
N AND OUT,” Grant assured Mitzi, squeezing her hand. “All we'll do is say hello to everyone and run.”
Huddled against the light summer rain, they stood side by side staring at the brass cherub knocker on Mona's door. Mitzi couldn't wait to get this over with and begin their last-night wingding. It was going to be a bittersweet sensual feast.
As she watched him, Grant's forehead slowly creased with worry, and his eyes took on a vaguely familiar faraway look. “I hope our Joy ploy worked. If Moreland is still set on buying...”
Mitzi glanced at him nervously.
Please don't let me lose this one to his work tonight.
“Don't forget, there's champagne chilling at home, and steaks marinating, and a jasmine-scented bubble bath awaiting us.”
His eyes darkened with anticipation and an expression of sexual possessiveness. Heat pooled in her. Immediately she wanted to skip the party, the steaks, everything, and just stay in bed until her plane took off the next day.
The next day! It wasn't nearly enough time. “Oh. Grant.”
He looked as if he might bend down and kiss her, but in the next moment, the door was flung open with a dramatic flourish.
“Everything's a disaster!”
Grant and Mitzi sprang apart and gaped at Mona almost guiltily. Not that Grant's stepmother noticed. Aside from being flawlessly coiffed and groomed, the woman looked frazzled and desperate and jittery. But the most disturbing thing about the woman's appearance was that she was dressed in the same lime-green taffeta dress that Mitzi had on beneath her raincoat. Mitzi could hardly believe it. One person buying that dress was misguided but amusing. Two was a fashion cataclysm.
Grant and Mitzi exchanged nervous glances.
“Half my people have arrived and there's still no sign of the guest of honor!” Mona raved. She spoke of her people—her party guests—much as Evita Perón might have referred to the people of Argentina. As an afterthought, she glanced at Mitzi, who was huddled in the hallway in a long white rain slicker. “My, what a lovely thing,” Mona said, her curling lip indicating disdain for the raincoat. “Would you like to take it off?”
“No, thank you,” Mitzi answered politely, thinking the woman didn't appear emotionally strong enough to see the dress yet.
Mona shrugged her shoulders, then took her stepson's arm and fluttered dramatically toward the back stairs. “Oh, dear Grant! You just don't know what I've been through today! All my best-laid plans have gone awry!” Tears actually sprang to her eyes.
“What happened?” Grant asked as they went into Mona's bedroom suite. The two rooms and bath resembled a set from one of those old thirties art deco musicals—a suite done in gilt furniture, satin upholstery and thick white plush carpet that Ginger Rogers might have been at home in. “Did you say something to Mr. Moreland?”
“Me?” Mona sank onto a settee, her eyes widening in shock that he would even suggest such a ridiculous thing. “I said absolutely nothing! The odious man simply called me out of the blue this morning, shouting at the top of his lungs about how his daughter was missing. How should I know where some spoiled little brat is?”
As she whipped out a long silk handkerchief to wipe her eyes, Grant and Mitzi gaped at each other. Ted hadn't shown up at work this morning, which hadn't seemed too unusual since he'd probably spent a terrible night with the Moreland woman. But having both of them missing painted a different picture entirely.
Mitzi grabbed Grant's arm and pulled him aside. “You don't think they killed each other, do you?”
Mona straightened from her swoon. “What are you two whispering about over there?” she asked sharply.
Grant pivoted. “Oh, we were just talking about Ted.”
“Ted?” Mona repeated as if she had bigger fish to fry. “Never mind Ted, dear. Where is that tedious little Joy person? You must have taken her home last night.”
“Actually, Mona, there's something I need to tell you.”
Mona's black eyebrows rose like inky question marks on her forehead.
“It's about Ted.”
“Ted? What has Ted got to do with any of this?” Grant was about to answer, when Mona flicked a distracted glance at Mitzi. “My dear, I don't know who you are, but I do wish you would take off that silly raincoat you have on. You look like a hobo, and besides, you're dripping on my carpet.”
Mitzi looked anxiously down at herself, then stammered, “Oh, well, all right.” With a long, grim glance at Grant, she pulled the coat off quickly and stood before Mona in her lime-green bridesmaid's dress—the same dress, in the same nauseating color, that Mona was wearing.
Grant's stepmother shot off the settee with a shriek, with the result that the two women stood side by side, as alike as lime-green Twinkies. Mona covered her eyes.
The effect was a little blinding.
“Where did you get that dress?” Mona still couldn't bear to look.
“A friend of mine ordered it, from a catalog, I think. She picked it as a bridesmaid's dress.”
“A bridesmaid's dress!” Mona let out a choked sob, as if Mitzi had just added insult to injury.
“Well, I was maid of honor,” Mitzi put in, hoping the elevated rank would appeal to Mona's sense of status.
It didn't. Mona shook a fist at the heavens or, rather, at the gaudy chandelier that hung down from her fifteen-foot ceiling. “Ruined, everything's ruined!”
Grant attempted to calm his stepmother. “There, there,” he told her, sitting her back down. “You can put on another dress. You have so many beautiful clothes...”
Mona sniffed, still looking at Mitzi accusingly. “I bought this one especially,” she said in the tone of a petulant child. Then she slapped her bejeweled hand against her knee. “Oh, that Horace Moreland,” she exclaimed, as if Moreland and the dress had conspired to ruin her party. “What a horrid, horrid man.”
Though Mona's words were music to his ears, Grant knew that Horace didn't deserve the brunt of her anger. “The thing I was going to tell you, Mona, was that I didn't see Joy Moreland last night,” he confessed. “Ted did.”
“Ted,” Mona exclaimed. “But last Sunday you promised that you would take her out.”
“Actually, that was Ted who promised.”
Mona looked as if she was losing control of her mind as well as her party. “Oh, good grief! Ted had no business going out with that Moreland girl. The way he treats women? It's like throwing chum to a shark.”
“I know,” Grant admitted, feeling just the tiniest bit ashamed of himself.
“Oh, Grant! How could you do this to me? You know how I so wanted to impress that odious Horace Moreland.” She shuddered, then straightened rigidly. “Of course, now I don't care. Not one itty-bitty bit I don't. If you could have heard the way he spoke to me!”
Suddenly, below them, the floor thumped from sounds of a small band playing on the floor below. “Oh, good, the musicians are here,” Mona said, then, not missing a beat, she lit a cigarette, stepped out of her shoes and padded across the pristine white carpet to her enormous walk-in closet, which almost constituted another room. She disappeared, but like a burrowing mole tossing dirt out its den, she sent outfits of every shape and color flying toward the bed. “In fact,” she yelled out at them as a silver lamé arced toward Grant, “I think it was from a Moreland's catalog that I bought this detestable green thing. Yes, I'm positive it was.”
Grant strode across the room to the phone next to Mona's bed. He got thwacked with a scarf, but brushed it aside. He needed to find Ted. He picked up the white Princess phone and dialed his brother's home number. There was no answer. “Do you think I should call the police?” he asked Mitzi.
“Maybe they had a boating accident,” she said. “Maybe they're stuck in the hospital emergency room.”
“For twenty-four hours?” Grant worried more that they were both permanent residents of the hospital. But that didn't make sense. Ted was a responsible citizen, at least on the water. He didn't fool around with his boat, unless he'd dropped anchor for the night somewhere. But surely he wouldn't have dropped anchor with Joy last night!
Just as he was about to dial the first hospital, Uncle Truman stormed into the room, followed by Horace Moreland himself. The two red-faced, white-haired old men in suits looked as if they might be on the verge of coming to blows.
Truman caught sight of Grant and breathed an audible sigh of relief. “Grant! Thank heavens you're here!” He began pointing frantically at Mr. Moreland. “Will you please tell this lunatic that you didn't run off with his daughter?”
Grant looked up from the phone to Mr. Moreland and said politely and truthfully, “I didn't run off with your daughter.”
“There!” Truman shouted. “You see? It's like I've been telling you.”
“Ted ran off with your daughter.”
The two men turned to him in unison. “Ted?”
Truman looked grave. “How could that be? You said you were going out with her.”
Mona marched out of the closet with her hands on her hips. She glared up at Mr. Moreland, and seemed to dare anyone in the room to so much as utter a peep about her and Mitzi's matching outfits. “That was Ted who told us that, Truman.”
Truman looked down his hawk nose through his spectacles in confusion. “Well then, Ted told us Grant was going out with her.”
“But he didn't. Ted did,” Mona explained.
Bewildered, Truman hunched in thought, but Horace sprang forward. “Are you telling me that you don't even know which brother is out with my daughter?”
“Ted is,” Mitzi finally put in. “Or was. We're not sure where he is, either. I've been worried sick!”
“I don't understand,” Truman muttered, still in a daze.
“I can sympathize with your confusion,” Mitzi told him.
“Who is she?” Moreland asked, pointing to Mitzi.
Truman squinted at her. “Heck if I know.”
“I'll tell you who she is,” Mona said, marching forward in her lime-green dress, the skirt of which she held out accusingly.
The number to the hospital was ringing interminably, and Grant held the handset away from his ear as the confrontation centered closer to Mitzi.
Mona stopped inches away from Horace. “That poor woman, like myself, is one of your retail victims!”
“Come again?” Horace asked.
“She ordered this dress from your catalog!” she said, poking her finger in his chest.
Horace looked dumbfounded. “I don't see what all this has to do with—”
Mona, in a fury, cut him off. “It has to do with the fact that if I had bought a dress at Whiting's for my party, one of the salesladies there would have been able to tell me exactly how many of these dresses had been sold and to whom, so that my guests would not show up at my house looking like their hostess!”
“Your dress is not my problem,” Mr. Moreland answered back.
It was exactly the wrong thing to say. Mona looked as if she might throw a conniption fit, but to Grant's surprise, she didn't shriek or yell, but replied with icy calm. “You bet it's not your problem, buster. Because I will never, never, buy a dress from Moreland's again. Nor will I buy from your catalog. I will boycott Moreland's!”
Truman nearly choked. “Well now! Let's not speak in anger.” He chuckled nervously. “Once we find out what happened to Ted and Jane, I'm sure we'll all feel much more rational.”
“Her name is Joy,” Moreland said, steaming. “And you'd better pray your nephew hasn't gotten them into a wreck somewhere. But even if they both come back safe and sound, I have serious reservations about doing business with this family. You're all a bunch of nuts! I should have packed my bags the night I had dinner with Grant, who seemed about as stable as a jack-in-the-box. Or the moment I saw that store's staff—doormen in cutoffs! Perfume-counter clerks in Birkenstocks! The United States Marines couldn't whip those hooligans into shape!”
The door banged open and a streak of white and blond shot across the room.
“Daddy!”
The next one through the door was Ted, smiling sheepishly. Grant, relieved the manhunt was over, hung up the phone.
“Oh, Joy, honey! My poor baby!” Moreland gave his daughter a heartfelt hug and sent a stern glare Ted's way. “If that ruffian did anything to you...”
Joy tossed back her head, laughing, and walked backward until she was almost sandwiched between Ted and her father. “Guess what, Daddy? Grant Whiting and I just got married!”
Grant jumped up from the bed in shock. In fact, the whole room was staring at Joy as if she'd lost her mind.

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