Burning Down the Spouse (42 page)

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Authors: Dakota Cassidy

Tags: #Separated Women, #Greek Americans, #Humorous, #Contemporary, #Women Cooks, #General, #Romance, #Humorous Fiction, #Fiction, #Cultural Heritage, #Love Stories

BOOK: Burning Down the Spouse
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While Jasmine gave good face, Frankie knew during the brief clearing of her caterwauling and whining that her friend had come to care for Simon. She’d never admit it now, but the hurt that flashed across her face at the mention of Simon was a very real pain.
Jasmine’s lips thinned to an ugly line as she listened, with the phone pressed to her ear, to whoever was on the other end of the call. She shook her head in a distinct “no” motion. Then she bit the tip of her fingernail in thought, her features softening. With a confused, furrowed brow, Jasmine said good-bye and hung up her cell with a grimace.
“Is everything okay?” She put a hand on Jasmine’s arm.
Jasmine’s eyes narrowed, gleaming like she’d just eaten her prey alive. “It just might be, Francis. It just might be.”
Frankie frowned, hiking up her sagging drawstring flannel pajama bottoms. “Who was that?”
“Simon.”
Frankie’s stomach lurched, making those pastrami and Swiss sandwiches Gail and Mona were making much less appealing. “And you haven’t twitched once. Or spoken in tongues. I’m impressed, kemo sabe. What gives?”
“We, my friend, have a whole new ball game with Mitch and his kitchen. Get your mitt, Frankie. We have a recipe to catch.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
 
From the journal of Frankie Bennett: I have decided a career as a superspy is off the table for me. That I allowed myself to hatch a plan of diabolical thievery with a blind man, his babysitter, two crazy senior citizens, and the hottest blonde, genius mathematician ever is just shy of bungee jumping off the White Cliffs of Dover. So a potential reprisal of Jennifer Garner’s role in
Alias
is quite safe from me. Jesus. The things we do for love.
 
“You did the stupid thing, didn’t you?”
Nikos ran a hand over his hair. “What’s the stupid thing?”
Voula clucked her tongue and perched herself on the arm of his couch, letting her pudgy, sneakered foot swing. “Do you remember little Angie Staniskoppas?”
“Vaguely.”
“She lived down the road and you had big crush on her, Nikos. You used to play together all the time. Do you remember why you stopped playing together?”
He ran an impatient hand over his chin, sipping at his beer. “No, Mama. Look, what’s the point here?”
“You watch the tongue with Mama. I get to the point when I get there. Answer the question. Do you remember why you stopped playing together?”
“No.” Okay, so that wasn’t totally true. He did remember Angie and how she’d ditched him for Jason Antonetti.
“Because you did the stupid thing. You see her talking to another boy, and you don’t ask her what they are talking about, forgetting you don’t own her. Instead, you think she likes the other boy better. So you tell her she’s not your friend anymore and you make her cry.”
“Point. Please, Mama,” he said, softening his tone a bit.
“This is the point, Nikos. Angie was borrowing a pencil from the other little boy. Her mother tells me this when she calls to say Angie is crying and she doesn’t know why you are mad. I know why you are mad. Because you do the stupid thing. You do this all the time. You don’t listen. You don’t think before you open the mouth. You just see colors.”
“Red. I see red.” Damn right he’d seen red. Lots and lots of red.
“Red, blue, purple. I don’t care. You said mean things to Frankie, and I don’t care what the television says, my Frankie would never do what they say. What you say. I know there is a—a . . .” His mother frowned, unable to find the word she was looking for.
But he doubted the word she was looking for was what was needed where Frankie was concerned. “An explanation.”
Voula waved a finger in the air. “Yes. One of those. But did you listen to Frankie? Did you ask her? No. You yell at her, and you send her away. Now she is too afraid to come back, and you won’t return her calls. You did the stupid thing. But I want you to hear me, Nikos Antonakas. You will be sorry. I love you no matter what silly things you do because you are my son, but I am not afraid to tell you when you have done wrong. This time, I think you are wrong. I don’t believe Frankie played cootchie-cootchie-coo with Mitch. I don’t care if he makes piles of money with my recipe for meatloaf either. Not if it mean we lose our Frankie.”
His frustration grew, threatening to bubble over and splatter his mother. Couldn’t anyone see she was the root of this problem? How was it even Cosmos had his doubts? Cosmos, who’d all but labeled Frankie from the get-go. Since Frankie had been gone, the diner’s atmosphere had changed.
Barnabas mourned the loss of his Kooky by way of longing stares at her vacant princess bed. Voula virtually sat shiva during the hour she’d once spent each day making her meatloaf, giving him the evil eye every time he was left to do Frankie’s prep work. Adara had called him from school just to let him have it for buying into the accusations against Frankie, and then she’d hung up on him—with zeal.
Each day was heavier than the last, and no one was laughing the way they once had. They weren’t even laughing the way they’d done
before
Frankie Bennett came on to the scene. But facts were facts. “She stole from us, Mama. Am I the only person of sound mind to know that?”
Voula’s head shook in typical dramatic Voula fashion. “No. You are wrong to believe the newspapers and television. Do you believe that Jennifer Aniston has baby by aliens? No, but you believe Frankie was making kissy-face with that bad Mitch. The television is lying! But when you find this out for sure, it might be too late. If I have no grandbabies, I will blame you.” Voula kissed the top of his head, gathering her scarf and purse and heading for his front door. “You remember what Mama says. She will be right, and you will be sad again, Nikos.”
The click of the door left Nikos alone with nothing but his hot anger and the residual need for one Frankie Bennett.
 
“How does it feel, sir, to eat crow? Is it as unpleasant as everyone claims—or does it taste just like chicken?”
Simon pressed his forefinger and thumb to the bridge of his nose. “So
Hollywood Scoop
had a heavy hand in the editing process of Mitch and Frankie’s allegedly rekindled romance. Doesn’t mean she didn’t steal the recipe, Win.” Though, that nagging feeling he’d had since this had all begun nagged harder.
Win placed his arm around Simon’s shoulder, holding the disc one of Simon’s contacts at
Hollywood Scoop
had managed to get his hands on. The one with the real scoop, sans some artful editing. “Sir? Do you really believe that—or is that what’s helped you sleep at night? You
heard
just as I did. Frankie most certainly did not betray Nikos with Mitch. You added uneccessary fuel to Nikos’s fire with a stupid assumption. You were wrong, Simonides. I do believe the expression ‘own it’ applies directly to you.”
“I did own it,” he offered, hearing his defensive tone ring throughout his ridiculously large kitchen and cringing. “I called Jasmine. I told her I jumped to conclusions. I offered to help. I’ll show Nikos the disc.”
Win snorted his disapproval. Simon knew the one. It meant he had to atone bigger—harder—and faster. “And the lovely Jasmine? How do you plan to make up for forgetting to mention her ex-husband is your father? Would you just chalk it up to ‘oops, my bad’? Or are you willing to go the extra mile?”
Simon let his head sink into his hands. “First, he’s not my father. He donated some sperm. Edward Jones was my father right up until the day he died ten years ago. And I did apologize. Well, at least as often as she’d pick up the damn phone. If I hadn’t yelled Frankie’s name right out of the gate, she’d have hung up again.”
“It’s nothing less than you deserve. I told you from the start, honesty would be the only route to take with Jasmine.”
He sighed, turning his head away from Win’s open admonishment. “I was going to tell her. It just kept getting harder and harder.”
Win tapped his finger on the table Simon sat at. “Which part was the hardest, young man? The part where you planned to steal what you thought was Ashton Archway’s finest possession—his wife—like you were snatching up a Ming vase, and rub it in his face—or the part where you thought you could get away with it? Clearly, sir, you underestimated your opponent. Ashton Archway quite obviously didn’t find Jasmine as valuable as he should have—or you’ve come to. It would have been no skin off his nose, as you say. He would have just replaced her with another Ming vase. A warm, beautiful, smart woman like Jasmine is nothing but a replaceable toy to a man like your
father
.”
Simon slammed his fist down on the table. “I get it, Win!” he roared. “I get it—lay the hell off.”
“
Do not
raise your voice with me, Simonides. I’m most certainly not afraid to take you over my knee. Now, no more mewling like a newborn kitten. You did this. You shall find a way to fix it. I shall help. Pick that phone back up this instant and tell Jasmine and Frankie we’ll be right over, not only with the proof of her innocence, but with a plan.”
Win’s hand clamped down on Simon’s shoulder in that warning from days of old. “
Now, Simon
.”
Nothing had changed since Win had come into his life when he was eight years old, and Edward Jones had insisted Simon have consistency in his, up until then, reckless, resentful early youth. He’d hired Win to take care of Simon while his mother traveled with him. When his mother met and married Edward, a wealthy lawyer and part owner of a minor league baseball team, he’d changed everything in little Simon’s world.
Edward treated Simon like his own son in every sense of the word—even when Simon didn’t welcome it. Instead, he continued to love Simon without his consent and much to his aggravation. And while this new man in his life had more money to spare than God, he made Simon tow the line.
When Simon was sixteen, Edward insisted he get a job, and then smiled proudly when Simon told him it was at the local convenience store as a cashier. He patted his son on the back and took him to open his own savings account.
There were no fancy sports cars, no private schools, no expense accounts, no overindulgences on behalf of Edward. Outwardly, most wouldn’t have known Simon’s father was a multimillionaire, and that was because Edward wanted Simon to learn the value of hard work, honesty, and the ability to spot sincerity from a mile away.
What there was in return was an abundance of Edward’s love and constant support. His advice, his warm bear hugs, his infectious chuckle, his evident pride in his son Simon, and his legacy as one of the kindest, most genuine men Simon had ever known.
His father made him work through college, and he suffered the wrath if his grades didn’t meet Edward’s approval. He wouldn’t have a boy who could only catch a piece of cowhide—he saw to it Simon got his degree in finance. His father also was responsible for keeping his head on straight when he’d made it to the NFL. Edward kept his ego from exploding. He’d taught Simon to give back instead of recklessly indulging.
Edward was the man Ashton could never be—the father he could never be.
Winchester was whom Edward had entrusted Simon to all those years ago, and when Simon’s accident took his sight, Win picked up where Edward left off. Win never failed to remind him exactly who was in charge, and he wasn’t afraid to tell him he was wrong. He kept him in line.
Win had frowned upon Simon’s old childhood resentments when his mother had no choice but to tell him who his biological father was after he’d found a picture of them together.
And then Simon began to nurse his anger about Ashton’s rejection like a bottle of booze. He nursed the resentment that while he lived in a rundown trailer with his mother, Ashton Archway lived in a mansion. He nursed the tears his mother had cried when jobs were scarce, and she’d almost lost their home, forgetting that shortly after that, life had become pretty damn good with the entrance of Edward.
It burned his gut that Ashton was once a huge fan of the team Simon had played for. The man who’d spawned him, in what could only be called irony, loved the star quarterback.
Meeting Ashton wasn’t a problem. He was, after all, Simon’s biggest fan. Yet it was after that very meeting, at which Ashton let Simon know under no circumstances did he want anything to do with him and his “married into money” mother, that Simon began to cultivate a plan. His plan didn’t change when he lost his sight—it was what got him through the grueling heartbreak, the endless hours of relearning how to walk across a room without taking out a lamp. In fact, it strengthened his hell-bent plan for revenge.

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