The Red Hat Society's Queens of Woodlawn Avenue (23 page)

“What invoices?”

I burst into fresh sobs. ‘The ones he hasn’t been paying.” I flushed with embarrassment. I hadn’t wanted any of them to know
what a miserable businesswoman I’d turned out to be, despite Jane’s tutelage.

“He still hasn’t paid you a dime?”

“Not a cent.”

“And you kept working for him?”

I let that one pass and took the opportunity to blow my nose into the wad of tissues in my hand.

“So how do you know he’s married?”

“She was there.”

“His wife was there?” She winced.

I nodded miserably.

“What did she look like?”

“Young. Elegant. French.”

“Damn.”

“You can say that again.”

Jane shot me a weak smile. “I could, but I’ll refrain.” She was quiet for a moment, obviously thinking about something. “Well,
now that he’s revealed his hand, you can become the captain.”

“What?” Either I was far more distressed than I thought or Jane had started speaking in tongues.

“In bridge, when you’re bidding back and forth with your partner, the first one to reveal the point range of her cards by
bidding a certain thing limits their hand.”

“Limits their hand?”

“It means that they’ve pretty much told everyone at the table what kind of cards they have.”

“What does that have to do with the captain thing?” I said, sniffing.

“Once your partner limits his hand, then you take charge of the bidding. Your partner has revealed all her—or his—secrets.
Since you haven’t, you take charge of the bidding process.”

“And this has what to do with Henri?” Honestly, sometimes I wondered about these women and their fanaticism for a recreational
card game.

“Look, now that you know his secret, you have the power.”

“To do what?”

“Well, for one thing, you can get him to pay those invoices.”

“What am I supposed to do? Blackmail him?”

“Exactly.”

I was speechless for a moment. “I can’t threaten to rat him out to his wife.”

“Why not?”

“Because I would never do that.” I stopped and swallowed back the knot that lodged in my throat. “I know how it feels to be
cheated on. The last thing I would want is to hear the truth from the other woman.”

“You don’t have to actually tell her. You just have to threaten to tell her.”

That brought me up short. Because I hadn’t stopped to consider that the threat alone would probably force Henri’s hand.

“Do all captains resort to blackmail?”

Jane chuckled. “Only the really good ones.”

I smiled back at her through my tears. Henri’s betrayal still hurt, even if I’d begun to pull away from our romantic involvement.
But the idea that I was in any way the same kind of woman as the despised Tiffany was even more painful. I’d been so sure
she was pure, unadulterated—or adulterated as the case might be—evil. But did I even know for sure that she’d known Jim was
married when they became involved? Jim hadn’t said, and I certainly hadn’t asked. She might be as innocent as I was. And even
if she wasn’t, Jim was the one who should have known better. He was the one with the wedding ring on his finger.

“So you think I can get Henri to write me a check?”

“If you play your cards right.”

“Captain, huh?”

“The ball’s in your court.”

“So what do I do?”

Jane stood up. “I just took a pound cake out of the oven. Let’s have a slice and draw up a plan.”

B
y the time I left Jane’s house and stumbled across the yard to my own front door, I was exhausted, even though it was barely
noon. I really wasn’t in the mood to deal with who I found sitting on my front steps. Jim. With a dozen red roses in hand
and a look of contrition in his eyes.

“Hello, Ellie.”

Honestly, I wished a hole like the police had dug in my backyard would open up and swallow me.

“Go away, Jim.” I was too tired for any measure of diplomacy. “I’m really not up to this.”

Honestly, I’d expected him to call or show up before now. I figured once Tiffany told him about our bathroom conversation
at the Green Hills Grille that he’d come by and chastise me. But as the week wore on and he didn’t show, I began to think
she hadn’t told him what had happened. And then I’d spent way too much time wondering why she hadn’t told him instead of writing
copy for Your Better Half’s Web site or calling the leads on potential clients Jane had e-mailed me.

He stood up and held out the flowers. “I brought you these.”

It had been six years since he’d given me flowers of any kind and more than a decade since I’d been presented with roses.

“I don’t want them.”

“Please. Take them.” If he’d had a hat, it would have
been in his hands. The sharply sweet scent of the roses stung my nose.

“Jim, it’s really not the time.” I tried to keep my face slightly averted. I did not want him to know I’d been crying, and
I definitely did not want any probing questions about why. The last thing I needed was Jim learning that Henri was married.
He’d never let me live that one down.

I tried to brush past him to get to the front door, but he stepped in front of me. “Ellie, stop. I’m worried about you.”

And he was. I could see it in his eyes, big and brown and full of concern. Eyes that had looked at me in just that way countless
times over the years, and always, always that look had been both my comfort and the undoing of my composure.

If I thought I’d cried all my tears at Jane’s, I was wrong.

“Shh. It’s okay.” Somehow, I wound up with my head against his chest, and I was sobbing into his shirt. He smelled like Jim—the
slightest hint of Gray Flannel mixed with antibacterial soap. His arms came around me at waist height, holding me securely
as they’d always done. We fit together perfectly, like two puzzle pieces, the result of years of practice.

I knew I shouldn’t indulge myself, but I did it anyway. I let Jim hold me and murmur reassuring, mindless words in my ear.
I sobbed against his shoulder, dampening his shirt, until the new well of tears ran dry. And then I just rested my head there
for several long moments because I didn’t have the courage to lift it up and look at him. I felt warm and safe, a different
feeling from the
excitement I’d found with Henri but one more likely to last over time.

“I have to tell you something.”

“What?” I mumbled into his shirt.

“I’m a first class jerk.”

I sighed, stepped back, wiped away the last traces of my tears, and looked at him. “This is not particularly new information.”

Now his eyes were filled with sadness. “No, I guess it’s not.”

I looked down at my feet, unsure what to do next.

“Ellie, I’ve also been a fool. An idiot. And a bunch of other names that I shouldn’t say in front of a lady.”

“You’ 11 get no argument from me.”

The whole moment had a hugely surreal quality. I half expected clocks to start slithering down walls and over pieces of furniture.

“I’ve broken it off with Tiffany.”

That caught me by surprise. I looked up. “Why?”

He grimaced. “Actually, that’s been coming on for a while. Ever since we started planning the wedding.”

I wanted to feel vindicated. I wanted to crow out in triumph and rub his nose in his admission of failure and wrongdoing.
Before that morning, I might have. But now that I was myself the “other” woman, I was feeling slightly less righteous.

“And so you think if you dump Tiffany you can just show up here with a dozen roses and all is forgiven?”

At least he had the grace to blush. “I’m stupid, but I’m not that stupid.”

“Then why are you here?” My chest was tight, but
whether it was hope or grief constricting me, I couldn’t say.

He shifted from one foot to the other. “Well, to apologize, I guess.”

“And?”

“I know you don’t want me back, but, Ellie, for old times sake, I was wondering…”

“Wondering what?”

“Would you at least let me buy you dinner sometime?”

If he’d shown up like this a month ago, I might have responded very differently. But in the last six weeks, I’d learned a
lot—some of it good and some of it not. One important thing, though, I’d come to realize was that I wouldn’t have been so
utterly destroyed when Jim left if I’d had more things in my life that were just for me.

Another thing I’d come to realize was that Jim was not the only guilty party in the situation. Yes, his had been the greater
offense. But I’d known for years that our marriage wasn’t what it had once been. We’d been complacent enough to let comfort
take the place of intimacy. Stress and children and the busyness of our lives had driven us apart long before Tiffany’s impressive
cleavage had burst onto the scene.

“There’s no going back, Jim.” Nothing said that more clearly than the fact that we were standing on the front porch of my
home. Mine alone. Not the one we had once shared.

“I know. I guess I’m just realizing exactly how bad I’ve fouled up.”

My smile was so sad it felt more like a frown. “It’s not exactly news to me.”

And yet, I could see that he was really suffering. Men’s mid-life crises might be the butt of a lot of jokes, but when it
was your man suffering through one, it really wasn’t very funny.

“So can I call you sometime? Maybe take you out to dinner?”

I paused. In the last six weeks, I’d gone on dates with a married philanderer and a young man half my age. Dinner with my
ex-husband would make the hat trick complete.

“Okay. I guess.”

And then something occurred to me. Standing in front of me was the answer to several of my current problems, as well as a
great way to tweak Roz’s nose. The Cannon Ball was a week away, and I was pretty sure Henri was no longer my escort. Plus
there was one thing I still needed to take care of.

“I tell you what, Jim.”

“What?”

“Buy me a dress for the Cannon Ball, and you can be my date.”

“A dress?” He blanched. “Ellie, you know I’m broke.”

“Jim, I know exactly what you’re worth and what you own. And it’s a whole lot more than I have.”

He stared at me like I’d grown another head. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely.”

He looked down at the roses, thought for a moment, and then lifted his eyes to me.

“Okay. I’ll do it.”

“Fine. I’ll charge it at Elliott’s.” I couldn’t resist that dig.

To my surprise, Jim smiled instead of scowled. “You’re really something, you know that?”

After a day of tears, it felt good to return his smile. “Oh, yes, honey. I’m well aware of that.”

I also knew that as risky as it might be, I could develop a liking for becoming the captain.

CH
A
PTER SE
V
ENTEEN

T
he last thing I needed to be doing on the Saturday night one week before the Cannon Ball was playing bridge. I had too many
other things on my mind. Will McFarland and his investigation. The approaching date of the Cannon Ball. My humiliation-slash-revelation
at Henri’s hands.

I had spent the rest of the day after Jim left canvassing limo services, taxi companies, and even the local school system
for buses to serve as shuttles for the ball. My attempts to find someone to handle the valet parking had fared slightly better.
I’d bribed, cajoled, and otherwise unduly influenced a handful of Connor’s friends to help me out, although they were little
more than a drop in the proverbial bucket. And though I’d blackmailed Jim into buying me a dress, I hadn’t found a spare moment
to actually shop for one.

The only bright spot had been the total silence from
Roz. I thought maybe our confrontation at Harris-Teeter had subdued her until Linda told me she was simply out of town. Roz
had gone to New York City for a final fitting for her gown for the ball. This news made me feel more than a little like a
sooty Cinderella.

One other bright spot, too, had been the FedEx envelope that arrived at my doorstep early that afternoon. It contained a nice
big check from The Triumph Group. Apparently when Henri was properly motivated, he could get the Italians in accounting to
move quite swiftly.

Despite all these complications and a preference for climbing into bed and pulling the covers up over my head, by seven o’clock
Saturday evening I found myself ringing Linda’s doorbell, a plate of still-warm-from-the-oven blondies in hand.

“Hi, Ellie.” Linda let me in and relieved me of the blondies. “We’ve got big plans for tonight.”

“Big plans?” It sounded like about the last thing I needed.

“Don’t frown. We’re just excited because we’re going to talk about slam bidding.”

“What’s that?”

“When you bid at the highest levels. Very exciting stuff.”

And it actually did turn out to be pretty exciting.

“There are two kinds of slams,” Linda explained as the four of us sat down at the table to play. “Little and grand. With a
little slam, you must take all the tricks but one.”

“And a grand slam is all thirteen?”

“Exactly.”

I was glad to have something else to concentrate on besides all my current life complications, even if the pressure at these
stratospheric levels was enough to give me a nosebleed. The ladies walked me through bidding slams in a trump suit and in
no-trump.