Tall Tales and Wedding Veils (11 page)

“I never said that. You’re putting words in my mouth.”

“That’s right. The ones you’re thinking and not saying. But you know what? Just between you and me, your reputation could use a little screwing up.”

“What?”

“I can’t say I’m looking forward to spending the next month with an overgrown frat boy, but spending a month with me might actually do you some good.”

“Good?”

“Yeah. You might actually start to see a woman as something more than collections of body parts. It’s not likely that you will, of course. But miracles do happen.”

Heather yanked open the door and left his office, and he felt the heat of her anger trailing in her wake. She thought he was shallow? Fine. But it was his life to live the way he wanted to. He liked things easy and mindless and feel-good, with nobody telling him what to do. But for the next month, somebody else was scripting his life, and that made him uncomfortable like nothing else.

So she thought she was good for him, did she? Wrong. She was an anally retentive number-cruncher who had a family that gave the word
intrusive
an entirely new meaning. It would take months of excavation just to uncover her sense of humor, if it existed at all, and she had a superiority complex as vast as the plains of West Texas.

Tony sat fuming in his office for several minutes, and by the time he came out, Heather had collected her mother and they’d left, taking Bev with them. He slid onto a barstool and asked Lisa for a Coke, dreading the rest of the evening when he should have been looking forward to it. Not only did his employees now know he was a married man, but they would spread the news to the regular customers, too, until the whole damned world knew. And there wasn’t a thing he could do to stop it.

Heather drove toward her parents’ house with her mother in the passenger seat. She looked a little woozy after her bathroom episode, leaning her elbow on the console and resting her chin in her hand.

“I guess those Cosmos are a little more powerful than they taste, huh?”

“Yeah, Mom. A little bit.”

“Was I just awful? I bet Tony thinks I’m just awful.”

“Of course not,” Heather said. “He likes people to have a good time. That’s why he bought a bar.”

“Bev wasn’t having a good time at all.” In spite of everything, Barbara managed a shaky smile. “Too bad about that, huh? But when I asked her if she wanted to go, she couldn’t very well say no without looking like a bad sport.” After a moment, though, her smile faded into a look of concern. “Heather?”

“Yeah, Mom?”

“This is a good thing for you, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know how suspicious your father is. He says it’s not like you to do something this impulsive. He’s worried.”

“Dad was a cop. He’s suspicious about everything.”

“I know. He can’t even walk into a convenience store without thinking there are hostages tied up in the back.” She looked at Heather with an anxious frown. “Tony is the right man for you, isn’t he?”

Oh, boy. What was she supposed to say to that?
Yeah, he’s perfect. How do I know? After nine glasses of champagne, my judgment always becomes crystal clear.

“There are never any guarantees, Mom. Even when people date for a long time.” She smiled. “I guess time will tell, won’t it?”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

About a month’s worth of time, and it’ll tell more than you can possibly imagine.

“You’ve always been a smart girl, Heather. If you say this marriage is a good thing, it’s a good thing.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m just going to rest my eyes a little now, okay?”

“Okay.”

As her mother’s eyes drifted closed, Heather wondered if there was any way this situation could get any more complicated. She had hoped to become a single woman again with only a few people knowing she’d ever been married, but after what had happened tonight, that number would be increasing with every passing hour.

But she knew that as much as it bothered her, it bothered Tony more.

At the time, it had been very satisfying to tell him exactly how she felt about his taste in women, but now she wished she hadn’t pushed him quite so hard. Because now the plain, glaring truth had been spelled out for her. Tony, along with everyone at that bar, thought she wasn’t good enough for a guy like him.

She wished she could say she didn’t care. Intellectually, she didn’t. But still there was that little emotional tug, the one that told her she was somehow lacking because she wasn’t pretty enough to be seen with a man as handsome as Tony. But the truth was that while Tony was nice to look at, that was where Heather’s interest in him ended. He was the kind of man with nothing on his mind but seven hundred cable channels, cold beer, and naked women. When it came to having the qualities she wanted in a man, he didn’t even come close.

As happy hour progressed, Tony’s prediction came to pass. Word spread fast, and soon he was getting as many congratulations for his marriage as he was for buying the bar.

Just before seven o’clock, he saw a couple guys come through the door who usually showed up on the same nights Tony did for the purpose of doing three things: drinking hard, watching sports, and chasing women. Tracy was heading to their table, which meant that any moment now, they’d know everything.

Sure enough, barely thirty seconds passed before Andy turned and yelled at him. “Hey, Tony! Come here!”

Tony sighed with resignation and walked over, pasting a big smile on his face. “Hey, guys! How’s it going?”

They both stood up and shook his hand, congratulating him on being the new owner, then tossed out all kinds of smart-ass suggestions, like telling Tony he should have a free beer night, or a Jell-O wrestling event, or maybe even a
no
T-shirt contest.

After the questionable hilarity wound down, Kyle turned to Tony. “Tracy just told us something, and we want to know if it’s true.”

Tony sighed inwardly. “What’s that?”

“She said . . .” Kyle stopped, laughing a little. “Okay, I know you’re not going to believe this, but she said that over the weekend, you got
married.
”

Tony hated this.
Hated
it. It was as if he’d hopped on a freight train in Vegas that picked up more steam with every moment that passed, and there was no way off.

“Yeah. I got married.”

Andy blinked in disbelief. “You did not.”

“Yes,” Tony said. “I did.”

“So who did you marry? I don’t remember any woman you dated more than a few times.”

“You don’t know her.”

Andy shook his head. “What happened, dude? You buy a bar, which means you get your alcohol cheap, and you’re surrounded by women every night. And you go and get
married?
That’s crazy!”

“The same woman every night?” Kyle said. “I thought you liked variety.”

Tony could barely get the words out of his mouth. “Variety is overrated.”

Kyle turned to Andy with a look of disbelief. “Did he actually say that?”

“I think he did. Hell must have frozen over.” Then Andy gave Tony a sly smile. “So . . . when do we get to meet the little woman?”

“Someday soon, I’m sure. You guys drink up. I have something I need to take care of in the kitchen.”

As Tony walked away, Andy and Kyle were still muttering with disbelief. Tony didn’t blame them. He was experiencing a little disbelief of his own. Somehow he’d ended up having to deal with a surly wife, a drunk mother-in-law, an intrusive family, and the confused stares of people who wondered how he could be playing the field one day and married the next.

He repeated his mantra, one he was sure to wear out before he became a single man again:
One month. Just one month, and it’ll all be over with.

Chapter 10

I
t was almost six o’clock the next evening when Tony got out of his car and hurried into his apartment. He’d been praying all the way home that Barbara and Fred would show up on time, give them the ugly silver candlesticks or whatever, and then leave.

He saw Heather’s car out front, which meant she was already there. He’d left the bar so late last night that by the time he got home, she had gone to bed, and by the time he got up this morning, she’d already left for work. That gave him hope that after this visit from her parents, they would go their separate ways until Regina’s wedding and their annulment, and his life could get back to normal. He unlocked his door, went into his apartment, and stopped short.

What the
hell
had happened in here?

It was as if a gigantic wind had blown through and swept away every bit of clutter. The hearth was clear. He could see the top of the dining room table. A few magazines were precisely fanned out on the coffee table, making his living room look like the waiting room of a doctor’s office.

He looked down at the floor. So
that
was the color of the carpet?

The walls even looked whiter, but maybe that was just because there was nothing piled in front of them. And hanging in the air like swamp gas was the smell of bleach and ammonia and all those other products that belonged only in hospitals and public bathrooms. Tony hated the smell of disinfectant the way other people hated the smell of rotting corpses.

“Heather!”

He heard some shuffling in the kitchen, and Heather poked her head around the doorway. Her hair was pulled up to the crown of her head in one of those scrunchy things, but a few strands had pulled free and fell along her cheeks. She wore a pair of pink rubber gloves and a stubborn expression.

“I’m just about finished,” she said. “I still have to scrub the sink.”

She ducked back around the doorway. Tony strode into the kitchen, blinded by the light reflecting brightly off every surface.

“What have you
done?
”

“So it’s true. You really don’t know clean when you see it.”

The pantry door was open, and Tony peered inside. Boxes and cans were lined up according to height, like little soldiers all in a row—unhappy little soldiers who were never allowed any R and R.

“My God, what happened in here?” he said.

“Well, mostly I threw stuff out.”

He whipped around. “You threw out my stuff?”

“Only if it was moldy. But don’t panic. Your Twinkies are still there.”

He yanked open the refrigerator. “My God. There’s nothing left!”

“Sure there is. Fruit. Produce. Good food.
Fresh
food.” She gave the sink a final rinse, then pulled off the gloves. “Isn’t that nice for a switch?”

“Where did all this come from?”

“I stopped at the grocery store this afternoon on my way home. I took off a few hours early.” She gazed around with a weary sigh. “I probably should have taken off a few more. After dropping by my parents’ house to get more of my things, I didn’t have much time left.”

“I don’t suppose you got the gift when you were there,” Tony said.

“No. My mother wanted to give it to both of us in person.”

“So we’re still on for tonight.”

“They’ll be here in a few minutes.”

Great.

Then he had a horrifying thought. “You didn’t mess with the stuff in the other room, did you?”

“Only the ugly stuff. And if it was clearly trash, I threw it out.”

“What about the boxes that were in there? The magazines?”

Heather rolled her eyes. “Will you calm down? The girls are alive and well.”

“Do
not
mess with my swimsuit editions,” he said, pointing at her. “They’re
collector’s items.
”

“They’re in a box in the closet. Along with
Hot Rod
magazines that are five years old and a pair of softball trophies.” She shook her head. “You actually played on a softball team sponsored by Luigi’s Little Bit O’ Italy?”

“Hey, we beat the team from Mr. Wong’s Dry Cleaners to win the championship that year. Those guys are tough.”

“Grown men playing softball.
God.
”

“You need to stop moving my stuff.”

“Sure. Next time I’ll dust
around
the socks on top of the TV.”

“Why are you doing this?” Tony asked.

“Because clean is nice,” she said. “And because if my mother had seen me living in your apartment the way it was, she’d have had a heart attack.”

Her mother. Of course. He should have guessed that. “Can’t you just clean the part that shows?”

“No. My mother’s a real snoop. If she tells you she’s just going to the bathroom, she’s lying.” Heather brushed her hands together and swept her gaze around the apartment. “There,” she said with a smile of satisfaction. “Shipshape.”

Shipshape.
God, how Tony hated the sound of that word.

All at once there was a knock at the door.

“They’re here,” Heather said, yanking the scrunchy thing out of her hair. “Can you at least try to smile? You’re really very good at it. Just do what comes naturally.”

“There’s nothing natural about my in-laws showing up.”

With a roll of her eyes, Heather opened the door. Barbara flitted into the apartment, and Fred trudged in behind her. Heather proceeded to do the huggy-kissy thing with her mother. And now that Tony was caught in that sphere, Barbara did the huggy-kissy thing with him, too.

Fortunately, Fred was neither huggy nor kissy. He just stood there holding a large, flat package wrapped in exactly the kind of paper Tony had dreaded. Shiny silver with wedding bells and flowers.

I’m never getting married. Not for real. Never, never, never.

Heather escorted her parents to the sofa, then sat down on the love seat next to Tony.

“Oh, my!” Barbara said, her gaze traveling around the apartment. “Fred! Will you look at this? Tony keeps things so nice and neat! This is just amazing. I mean, it’s so rare these days to find a young man who knows how to keep house.”

“Why, thank you, Barbara,” Tony said. “Just because I’m a man doesn’t mean I can’t keep things shipshape, right?”

Heather gave him a subtle knock-it-off-smart-ass look, which he ignored.

“Can I get you something to drink?” Heather asked her parents.

“Your mother had more than enough to drink last night,” Fred muttered. “If she shows up again,” he said to Tony, “give her ginger ale.”

Barbara stuck her nose in the air. “I’ll drink what I want to, when I want to, Fred Montgomery. And you don’t have a thing to say about it.”

“Fine. Find somebody else to take you to get your car the next morning.”

Barbara turned to Tony. “Don’t mind Fred. His arthritis is acting up. It always makes him crabby. I had a lovely time last night. The appetizers were just a little too spicy for me, that’s all.” She waved her hands at the package. “Go ahead, you two. Open it!”

Tony dutifully scooted over and helped Heather rip the paper away. And when he saw what was behind it, he was stunned. He’d been afraid of toasters and blenders and bath towels, but this?

Courtesy of Barbara and Fred, they now had a very large, very old portrait of the ugliest woman on earth, which Tony recognized as the portrait that had been hanging over their fireplace. And now he and Heather were stuck with it?

“Oh, my God,” Heather said, staring at it dumbly. “It’s Grandma Frances!”

Barbara smiled. “I don’t know why you’re surprised. You knew one day it would be yours.”

“Well, yeah, but . . .” Heather glanced nervously at Tony. “But she’s been hanging over your mantel since you and Dad got married. You can’t give her up.”

“Nonsense. I’m supposed to give her up. That’s the way family heirlooms are. Fred’s mother passed her down to us, and now we’re passing her down to you.” She turned to Tony. “You know, she was considered quite a handsome woman in her day.”

“Yes,” Tony said. “I can see why.” Actually, he couldn’t see it at all. If this was handsome, what did the ugly women look like?

“But she stayed a spinster until the day she died,” Barbara added. “She ran the newspaper in Sorrento, Texas, for fifty-two years. She was a feminist before there were feminists. Men weren’t exactly ready for that at the time.”

“Well, I’m all for feminism,” Tony said. “I like strong women.”

Heather gave him another one of
those
looks, which he also ignored.

“And you have just the place for her.” Barbara poked Fred. “Try it out above the fireplace. Let’s see how it looks.”

No. No way. The last thing Tony wanted was sour-faced Grandma Frances staring down at him for the next month. But Barbara was smiling again, and Fred was frowning, and both of those things told him that a confrontation over the issue just might end in tears and bloodshed.

Fred picked up the portrait and rested it on the mantel. Barbara put her hand against her cheek, staring up at it with a bittersweet smile.

“She looks beautiful up there, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah,” Heather said, looking a little sick. “Beautiful.”

“Grandma Frances would be thrilled to be here.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Heather said. “It makes me feel right at home. For her to be looking down at me. You know. Like that.”

Tony thought about a horror movie he’d seen once where the eyes on a portrait followed anybody who walked by. He swore Grandma Frances’s eyes were doing a little tracking of their own.

“You’ve met a lot of our family,” Barbara said to Tony. “Will we be meeting yours anytime soon?”

Tony froze. “Uh . . . no. None of my relatives live here.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Barbara said.

“What does your old man do?” Fred asked.

“He’s a retired Navy officer. Lives in Fort Lauderdale.”

Fred gave him a curt nod. “Good career.”

Tony wasn’t surprised by Fred’s opinion. Cops and military officers were cut from the same cloth. As a matter of fact, Tony could see a lot of his father in Fred. Unsmiling. A man of few words, and what few words he did speak made Tony feel as if he was judging every move he made.

“And what about your mother?” Barbara asked brightly.

“She died when I was a kid.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry!”

Tony shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

“How old were you?”

“Ten.”

“So young,” she said, then smiled. “Any other family?”

“A few aunts and uncles on the East Coast. I don’t see them very often.”

“I’m sorry you have so little family in town. But just think. Now you have all the family you’ll ever want.”

“Yeah, Tony,” Heather said. “Isn’t that great? And maybe the rest of that great big family would just love to come see your new business.”

He slid his hand to her thigh and squeezed. “I’m sure most of them wouldn’t be interested in coming to a sports bar.”

“Fred would,” Barbara said, then turned to Fred. “There are big-screen TVs.”

“There had damn well better be if it’s a sports bar,” Fred said.

“Come on, Fred,” Barbara said. “It’s time for us to go. Tony needs to get back to the bar. Just let me go to the little girls’ room first.”

Tony shot a look at Heather, who shot one back at him:
I told you so.

While Barbara was gone, Heather talked to her father about something going on with one of their relatives. Or, rather, she talked
at
her father. As usual, Fred didn’t say much. And all the while, Tony imagined Barbara stealing glances into his bedroom, peeking inside his medicine cabinet, and lifting the toilet lid to make sure when he said “shipshape,” he meant it. She came back to the living room a few minutes later, all smiles, which meant his apartment had passed inspection.

She and Fred rose to leave. As they were walking out the door, Fred glanced back at the portrait, then leaned toward Tony and whispered, “She’s been glaring at me for the past thirty-two years.” His mouth twitched into something that looked almost like a smile. “Now she’s all yours.”

The only satisfaction Tony felt right then was the thought of it ending up back over Fred’s mantel.
Give it a month, Fred, and she’ll be glaring down at you all over again.

As soon as Tony clicked the door shut, he turned on Heather, who looked frustratingly unconcerned about any of this.

“Tell me it’s not just me,” he said. “Tell me that portrait is the creepiest thing on earth.”

“That portrait is the creepiest thing on earth. When I was a kid, I swore the eyes followed me. I’m still not so sure they don’t.”

The old woman’s face made Tony’s skin crawl. “We’ll put it in your room. Facing the wall.”

“No. If my mother drops by and doesn’t see it, she’ll be hurt. And at least it fills the space. There’s nothing there now.” She put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, my. It looks as if we’ve found one more flaw in your brilliant plan, doesn’t it?”