The Marriage Intervention (27 page)

The best and the worst thing about best friends is that they hold you accountable. Josie should have expected—no, scratch that—she should have
known
Summer and Delaney would begin keeping tabs on her at some point as she and Summer had done to Delaney during The Dating Intervention.
 

Even after the stressful, embarrassing, horrifying evening she’d had after her appointment with Dr. Strasser, Josie felt her lips twist into a smile as she lay in bed alone (again), remembering The Dating Intervention and what they’d put Delaney through. For her own good, of course.
 

One night when Delaney was still tending bar at Rowdy’s, Josie and Summer sat in the darkest corner of the saloon and spied on her as she flirted with a depressed, drunk, floppy-haired loser. When the two girls realized the inevitability of Delaney taking him home, Summer had raced to Delaney’s house and intercepted them, forcing Delaney to put him in a taxi and send him on his way.
 

Another evening, they followed her and a different guy, another obvious mismatch, through town, ending up at the Golden Lantern to call Delaney on her inability to follow their Rules and stop dating the wrong guys.

Delaney must have felt terrorized. She did, if Josie remembered right. To the point of insanity. Josie followed Delaney into the bathroom and found her talking to the serene Chinese woman in the painting on the wall.
 

Now, tonight, it was Josie’s turn.
 

After Paul left Dr. Strasser’s parking lot to run his errands, Josie decided to go for a drive. She turned the air conditioner on full blast, and headed for Copper Mine Road. While she drove, she used voice- to-text to send Delaney and Summer a text message.
 

“Had kind of a breakthrough today with Dr. S. Planning dinner with Paul at six, unless he flakes. I mean, unless he gets called in.”
 

Looking back, she wasn’t sure why she felt the need to text them. It’s not like they needed to know her minute-by-minute plans.
 

Summer responded first:
Sounds great! Keep us posted.
 

And then Delaney:
Good luck, and yes, keep us posted.
 

“Will do,” Josie said to her phone.
 

***

Despite Paul’s warning, Josie’s hopes were crushed when he texted her just before six to tell her he had to go into work after all. Disappointment hit her like a bucket of ice cold water being thrown over her head, traveling from her shoulders to the pit of her stomach where it sat, freezing.
 

During her appointment with Dr. Strasser, she felt ready to accept almost full responsibility for their marriage problems. And then this. Couldn’t he turn down a call-out? Couldn’t he choose their marriage over his work, this one night?
 

Apparently not. He didn’t even spare a moment to call.
 

She received his message while she was driving back down Copper Mine Road and this time, Josie didn’t resist the urge to throw her phone. It hit the passenger door with a loud cracking sound, and then tumbled onto the floor. She reached for it and almost ran off the road. Despite the loud sound the phone made when it hit the door, the screen wasn’t cracked and the case was still intact.

Then she made a decision. She didn’t know why she made the choice she did. Maybe it was to get back at Paul for going into work after they’d planned dinner. So what if he’d warned her. Maybe it was because she was lonely and wanted company. Maybe it was because she had her heart set on Mexican food and didn’t want to eat alone.
 

There’s a reason they say hindsight is twenty-twenty, she’d think later as she drifted off to sleep on waves of uneasiness.
 

But when she dialed Scott Smith’s number, she wasn’t using hindsight.
 

He answered on the first ring. She picked him up ten minutes later, and just seven minutes after that, they sat at The Blue Fish in a two-person booth with a window looking out onto downtown.

“Best guacamole in town,” Josie said to Scott, scooping a creamy bite of it onto a tortilla chip.
 

He nodded, and in a move so intimate it curled her toes, gave her chills and made her want to run home to Paul (if he had been there), he wiped a bit of that guacamole off the corner of her lip and inserted his finger in her mouth.
 

In what she’d later call reflex, she sucked the guacamole off his finger.
 

Josie’s “usual” hadn’t changed since she and Scott dated, and he ordered for both of them so casually the waiter referred to her as “La Señora” for the rest of the meal.
 

They both giggled every time the phrase rolled off his tongue.
 

So what if Josie downed three margaritas within an hour? So what if she touched Scott’s arm or his hand so frequently it became obvious she was doing it on purpose?
 

She was having a good time. Isn’t that what really mattered?
 

Her two very best friends didn’t think so. This is where hindsight would have come in handy.

***

After Josie finished that third margarita, she made a trip to the ladies’. She pulled up short when Summer emerged from the center stall. Her mouth dropped open when Delaney, too, emerged from the center stall.
 

“Oh. Um, hi, guys,” Josie said.
 

“Hey, Josie,” Summer said. “How’s your date with Paul going?”
 

Josie’s mind scanned her friends’ respective calendars. Monday night. Summer should be delivering Sarah to archery lessons and Delaney should be home with Jake doing wedding planning stuff.
 

“It’s fine. But who has Sarah? And aren’t you and Jake picking out your centerpieces tonight?”

“‘It’s fine’? Really?” Delaney said. “Because I didn’t see Paul when I came in. What happened? Did he get called to work? Or was your text earlier just an elaborate cover-up to throw us off your devious trail?”
 

Josie’s mind flashed to the view from the front door of the restaurant. Colorful tiles on the walls, huge pots on strategically placed shelves. The back of Josie’s head in that window booth … and undoubtedly, Scott Smith’s face staring adoringly at her.

Josie sighed.
 

“Caught,” she said. She smiled in a self-deprecating way she hoped they’d find humorous.
 

From the identical looks of disgust on their faces, though, she knew they weren’t amused. Not even slightly.

***

“Ohmygosh I just have to say,” Summer said, clapping her hands together in front of her chest and laughing a bit wildly, “I feel like I should be drumming my fingers together and saying, in a witchy voice, ‘Well, well, well, what do we have here?’”
 

“It’s the thrill of the hunt, is it?” Josie said. She could feel the heat of humiliation making its way up the back of her neck.

Delaney giggled and Summer answered, still in a witchy voice, “No, no, no, my dear girl! It’s the thrill of the
capture
!”
 

Josie closed her eyes, wishing she could disappear.
 

“What are you guys doing here?”
 

“Spying on you, of course,” Delaney said. “You didn’t think you’d get away with doing The Marriage Intervention without us infringing on your privacy at least once, did you?”
 

“You don’t trust me,” Josie said.

“Should we?” Summer and Delaney said.
 

“This would never stand up in police work.”
 

“Good thing we’re not police,” Summer said.
 

Delaney interrupted her: “But we are very good investigators. We got that photo evidence you wanted. You can thank us later.”
 

Josie opened her mouth to ask how they’d gotten the evidence, and what the photos were of, but Summer held up a hand. “We’re your best friends, Josie,” she said. “Which also means we can tell you to go out there, right now, and tell Scott Smith to go home.”
 

“What will I tell him?”
 

“Oh, I suppose it doesn’t matter,” Delaney said. “He saw us come in. He’ll know.”
 

Josie felt her whole body droop.
 

“And if you must tell him something, stick with your old standby,” Summer said.
 

“Just tell him you have a yeast infection,” both girls said, their voices rising in hilarity.

I can’t believe I told Delaney to use that as an emergency escape plan on awful dates. I hate myself. I should have known it would come back to bite me.
 

Josie knew better than to stall or argue. If the girls had any communication with Scott, she risked exposing the whole personal training issue.

“You guys are having way too much fun with this,” Josie said. She pushed open the bathroom door and went to tell Scott the date was over.
 

***

Unlike Paul, Scott did not insist on paying for dinner. Josie couldn’t tell whether he was hurt or angry or both, but when she walked back into the dining room and told him she had to cut the evening short, he put his napkin on the bench seat next to him and left without saying another word … and without throwing down a couple of bills.
 

While Summer and Delaney waited in the car, Josie paid for the meal. They’d come out of the bathroom as soon as Scott left, and Josie figured they probably followed him to the parking lot to make sure he was actually leaving. They had the audacity to follow her home and right into the house, she assumed because they wanted to run interference if she’d made a secret plan to meet Scott there. Her dinner date with Scott had shown poor judgment, but she wasn’t
that
foolish.
 

“We think you need to get a puppy,” Delaney said the moment Josie shut the door behind them. Josie had planned to bring up the photographic evidence of Blair and Scott, but Delaney’s announcement brought her up short.

“What?”
 

“We think you need to get a puppy,” Summer said.
 

“I heard. I just don’t know what that has to do with anything,” Josie said. She put her keys in the bowl on the entry table, and walked into the kitchen with the girls trailing behind her.
 

She poured herself a glass of wine, not that she needed another beverage after the Margarita binge during dinner. Automatically, she gestured to the bottle to ask if Summer or Delaney wanted a glass, then laughed, not kindly, when she remembered they were both pregnant.
 

“You guys are going to have new babies soon. What do I need a puppy for? I can just increase my auntie responsibilities. I’ll have to babysit while you and Jake honeymoon, Delaney.”

Summer shook her head. “You need supervision. And a puppy is the best answer. Thursday, instead of going to Rowdy’s for Happy Hour, we’re going to the shelter. It’s final. Now, shall we watch a movie?”
 

Josie shook her head. “Fine,” she said. “But first tell me about the photo evidence you collected.”
 

Delaney practically squealed. She clapped her hands together. “You would be so impressed with our spying skills,” she said.
 

“You would,” Summer said. “Definitely.”
 

“Well, don’t hold out on me!”
 

“So,” Summer said. “We went into the school just before the kids’ lunch time. You know how the office ladies are never in there just before lunch?”
 

Josie nodded and made a “hurry up” motion with her hand.
 

Delaney picked up where Summer left off. “So we went in, really quietly, and we saw them! That snotty woman was in Scott’s office, and they were totally making out.”
 

“This happened on your first try?” Josie said. This was the kind of luck that made her suspicious.

“Oh, no,” Delaney said. “That was, like, our third or fourth trip in there.”

“Anyway,” Summer said, “I pretended to be waiting for the office ladies while Delaney stood behind me and pretended to text people. But really, she was taking photos through the window.”
 

“Well, text them to me!” Josie said, although she didn’t really want to see them.
 

“Not to worry,” Delaney said. “It’s already been taken care of. I don’t think Blair Upton will bother you again. Now, as Summer said, shall we watch a movie?”
 

“Wait. What did you do?” Josie asked.
 

“So, it was kind of infantile,” Summer said. “But it was Delaney’s idea.”
 

Delaney shrugged. “It was. So remember in junior high, people would write those chain letters and they’d cut words out of magazines and paste them on the paper so no one would recognize their handwriting?”
 

When Josie nodded, Delaney said, “Well I did that!”
 

She looked so proud of herself Josie chuckled.
 

“What?” Delaney said. “It was genius. I cut out a bunch of words and letters and glued them onto a piece of paper. ‘
You’ve been spotted, and you’ve been warned. Hypocrisy doesn’t look good on you. Neither does jealousy. Neither does the shade of pink you’re wearing in these photos. Bring up Scott’s relationship with Josie and these pictures go viral.
’”
 

“That should do it,” Josie said.
 

Delaney nodded. All three of them dissolved into laughter. They doubled over, giggling like teenagers.
 

When they finally gained control of themselves, Josie said, “You guys are better than a strawberry shake.”
 

The analogy had been born after Delaney suffered through massive humiliation in junior high when her crush told their entire class she’d asked him out—and then pronounced that there was no way he’d ever go out with her. Summer had insisted on going out for shakes, and Delaney wondered aloud what was wrong with her. “You’re better than a strawberry shake,” Summer told her.