Keeping Secrets in Seattle (11 page)

“Oh, please. Tell him to get a real job so you don’t have to work anymore, and then I’ll consider him a
real man.”

I bit the insides of my cheeks. That last comment sounded like Alicia.

“Anyway.” Shawn’s voice was pointedly irritated now. “When we get married, we are going to go to Bulgaria, where his family lives. We are going to fly my family there and have a traditional Bulgarian ceremony, complete with breaking of the bread and everything.”

“Ooh, a destination wedding,” Rose squealed. “Ask me to be one of your bridesmaids.”

“Where the hell is Bulgaria, anyway?” Kate demanded.

I pulled on the dress and turned from side to side, looking at my reflection in the mirror. It was the tea-length gown from the picture she’d shown me, but with a satin rosette on the waist to match the color of the bridesmaid dresses. It was lovely and fit my curves to a “
t
”, despite the fact that it was heartbreakingly understated.

“What it really needs,” I muttered to myself as I smoothed down the skirt, “are my red knee-high Dr. Martens. That would
make
this outfit.”

“Hey, Violet? How’s that dress fitting?” Alicia called over the chatter of the bridesmaids.

I emerged from the dressing room and stood in front of the group. “It fits just fine.”

Juanita approached me despite my glare and began tugging and pulling on the fabric. “Eet fitz juzt like eet iz.”

Alicia’s mouth dropped. “I can’t believe it. That’s straight off the rack.”

I suppressed my grin.
Take that, skinny bitch.

“You mean she doesn’t need alterations?” Kate looked at me as if I’d rolled in dung.

Juanita shook her head. “No.”

Shawn caught my eye and gave me a discreet “thumbs up” sign, but Rose just flared her nostrils. “Look at her boobs. It’s not fair.”

My eyes wandered back to where Alicia was sitting on the couch and caught her icy glare. As soon as I realized I was looking at her, her demeanor snapped back into her old, sweet-as-pie persona. “You’re a lucky girl.” She beamed. “You won’t have to do any more fittings.”

“Great.” I backed out of the room. “I’ll just go change, then.”

“You do that,” she said stiffly.

“Hey, wait, Violet,” Shawn called after me.

I stopped. “Yeah?”

“What kind of wedding would you want?”

I looked around. Could it be that Shawn was being nice to me? “Actually, my dream wedding is kind of cool. I’m not going to make it ugly and wear purple or anything.”

Marissa cast me a dirty look.

“Just kidding.” I took a deep breath, imagining the wedding I’d dreamt of having since I was a little girl. “Actually, I want to have my wedding in October. Around Halloween. We’ll have a tent in my mother’s backyard that is draped with orange, black, and purple fabric. There will be pumpkins everywhere, and tiny smoking cauldrons on all the tables. I’ll wear a big black ball gown and a headpiece with orange flowers. My bridal party will be dressed as witches and vampires, and the guests will all dress in their favorite costumes…as long as they aren’t gory.”

Alicia’s eyes widened. “Oh, right. Because that would be tacky.”

“Right.” My cheeks heated, and I shuffled toward the dressing rooms.

“I’ve never hear of anything so hideous in my life,” Marissa snickered as soon as I rounded the corner.

“Who would go to a Halloween wedding?” Kate cackled. “Hello, gauche.”

“Why did you ask her that, Shawn?” Rose asked.

“I just wanted to make her feel like she was part of the group.” Shawn sounded embarrassed.

“Well, she’s not.”

“Did you see her in that dress? Good gracious.”

The other girls all tittered obediently.

“Shhh, you guys, she can hear you,” Shawn’s soft voice warned them. “She looked better than the rest of us did.”

My eyes welled up with grateful tears as I tore myself out of the dress. It had taken me many years to come to terms with the fact that I would never be a skinny woman. I worked out a few days a week to ensure that my stomach stayed flat and my behind didn’t get astronomical, but other than that, I’d come to enjoy my body for what it was.

Well, that is, until Gabe decided to marry a stick figure.

“So, Alicia…” Marissa giggled. “When are you and Gabe going to start having babies?”

I tripped on the hem of my skirt and banged into the wall. The last thing I would be able to tolerate was overhearing a conversation on Gabe and Alicia’s procreation plans.

“Ugh,” Alicia said. “Never, if I have anything to say about it.”

I froze, one leg in my skirt, the other in midair. Alicia didn’t want kids? That was peculiar, because Gabe had always wanted a whole slew of offspring. He’d always said that he wanted enough kids to form either a baseball team or a family band. Now he was marrying someone who didn’t
ever
want kids?

“Why not?” Shawn asked.

“My modeling career is really starting to take off,” Alicia explained. “The last thing I need is to get stretch marks.”

The bridesmaids giggled, then Kate spoke up. “You could adopt a kid from another country. Foreign kids are all the rage, you know. Look at Angelina Jolie.”

I regained my balance and slid my skirt up around my waist. It would just figure if Gabe and Alicia adopted a gorgeous baby from some exotic country. As if they weren’t cute enough. Throw a beautiful baby into the mix, and…

“No way,” Alicia’s voice rang out. “Kids are messy, noisy, and demanding. I would rather die.”

“Fair enough,” Rose added haughtily. “Leave the child-bearing to people with hips like Violet’s.”

Swallowing back my tears, I pulled my clothes back on, hiked my purse over my shoulder, and emerged from the dressing room with my head held high. There was no way I was going to let those skinny cows get away with this kind of garbage. I wasn’t exactly one for keeping my mouth shut.

The entire group went silent as I stalked past them with the gown in hand. “Alicia,” I began, “I have to run, but thank you so much for inviting me. I’ll just go pay for the gown and be on my way.” When I noticed Rose staring at my chest again, I smiled down at her proudly. “This is how someone looks when they
eat
. If you all put a little bit of cheese on your eggs once in a while, you, too, can look
this
hot.”

She clenched her teeth. “No, thank you.”

I pointed at a nearby salesgirl. “What’s your name?”

“Mine? Um, Delia.” She pointed to her nametag awkwardly.

“Wrap this up, Delia; I’ll take it. The bride did a fine job picking out my dress. I’ll look fabulous.” My eyes fixed on Alicia’s.

Turning on my heel, I stalked to the front counter and slapped my credit card down with a
snap
.

Alicia was right on my heels. “Listen, Violet, can we talk?”

I didn’t look at her. If I looked at her, I was going to punch her. So I just pretended to search my purse for something instead. “Sure. What?”

She took a breath and glanced over her bony shoulder at the girls who were watching us with unabashed curiosity, then dropped her voice to a whisper. “Listen, about the dress. I, um, haven’t exactly told Gabriel all of the details.”

I glared at her. Why in the hell was she telling me this? “Isn’t the bridal gown supposed to be a surprise?”

“Well, yes,” she said quickly. “But, he doesn’t know that it’s being worked on in Europe, and…” She chewed on her lip.

“What?” I prompted.

“Gabriel doesn’t know that I’ve had three dresses combined into one.” She looked at me with wide eyes.

I saw a city bus lumber past the shop windows. Great. Now I would have to wait for the next one. “So?”

Alicia’s cheeks pinked beautifully, and she shifted between her feet. “So he doesn’t know that I bought three dresses. The cost is going to be a bit high, and I haven’t had the chance to discuss it with him yet.”

Oh, now I saw where this was going. Alicia needed me to keep my mouth shut so that she didn’t get in trouble for dropping enough money on a dress that a normal person would have used for a down payment on a condo. What a greedy little cow. Well…calf.

“You want me to keep our conversation to myself, right?”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes. Exactly.”

“You know, he’s working really hard to pay for all of this.” I watched as the clerk carefully wrapped my dress in tissue paper.

A muscle in Alicia’s jaw twitched. “I realize that.”

“And you don’t think Gabe needs to know this, since he’s the one who’ll have to come up with the money for three wedding dresses?” I asked with a smirk.

“No.” She pressed her lips together as the clerk behind the counter took my card and swiped it.

I felt incredibly justified in my hatred of Miss Von Longorial. “And how long do you plan on keeping it a secret?”

Alicia’s eyes flashed. “Not long.”

“Because he really needs to know how much of his money you’re spending on this dress. He’s already having to work extra hours to pay for this extravaganza.” I signed the receipt and returned my card to my wallet.

Alicia’s eyes narrowed. “I know that.”

Dropping my wallet back into my purse, I turned to face her head on. “Then I guess you’d better tell him soon, so that I won’t be compelled to do it.”

I waved gaily at the girls, who all stared at me like I was an alien, then pushed the glass door open without another glance at Alicia. I had to get to Gabe’s house and didn’t want to miss my bus.

All’s fair in love and wedding planning. This. Was. War.

Chapter Twelve

September 10, 2003

His lips were every bit as soft as I always thought they would be. And though he simply nipped at my lower lip, just a nibble, it made all of the air escape from my lungs. When I sighed and tried to deepen our kiss, Gabe jerked his head back half an inch and looked at me with a satisfied grin. He didn’t say a word. His thrilled expression said it all. Our first official date started off so perfect. Who knew what a disaster the night would turn into…

“Holy crap. Is that
bulgogi
?” Gabe held open his apartment door.

“And
bindaeddeok
.” I held up another box as I breezed through the door. “Isn’t Alicia home from the fitting yet?”

He shut the door behind me. “No, she and Marissa had to take the ferry to Whidbey Island to talk to some guy about his string quartet to play at our rehearsal dinner. She’ll be gone for the rest of the day.”

I smirked and hurried around the corner into the kitchen before he could see. “A string quartet? Fancy. If that’s what we’re in store for at the rehearsal dinner, then I can’t wait to get to the reception.”

“Tell me about it.” Gabe plucked some chopsticks from my armload and grabbed a box. “This fiasco is taking over my life. And bank account.” He popped a piece of meat into his mouth. “Thanks for the food. You always know what I like.”

“You still planning a wedding to rival Will’s and Kate’s?” I pried open my own box of food and started poking around in it.

He shrugged and leaned against the kitchen counter. “Alicia is.”

I bit back all of the less-than-savory things I wanted to say about his fiancée and popped a giant bite of kimchi into my mouth. I’d always felt like Alicia’s friendliness toward me wasn’t exactly genuine, but now I knew it. Those icy glares she shot at me when she thought I wasn’t looking confirmed that fact. And lest I not forget the things Shawn told me about her. I needed to get to the bottom of this. Did she really love Gabe, or was there something else she was after?

“What did you get?” He looked over at my box. I showed him, and he shuddered. “I don’t know how you can eat that stuff. It smells like feet.”

I accepted his effort to change the subject. “Oh, this from the guy who eats pork rinds? Those things are repulsive, and they smell like farts. Are you kidding me?”

“Pork rinds have nothing on kimchi.”

“Oh, please. You just say that because you’re too chicken to try it.”

His forehead wrinkled. “I am not. I just don’t like eating things that smell like gym shoes.”

I scooped out a giant spoonful of the fermented cabbage. “Whatever, dude. You can’t eat hot stuff. You’ve got no tolerance for hot food, but you play it off like you don’t like it, to appear more manly.”

“Whatever, Vi.”

“It’s true! You can’t eat your mother’s enchiladas, either.”

He wiped his face on a napkin, then tossed it in my direction. “You think you’ve got me so figured out. I’m plenty manly.”

“Are you? Then take a big ol’ manly bite of kimchi to prove it.”

He glared at me, the corners of his full lips twitching. “You’re such a jerk.”

I held the spoon underneath his mouth. “Whatever. Take a bite, and prove me wrong.”

He snatched the spoon from me and savagely jammed the blob of kimchi into his mouth. Within seconds, his eyes began watering and his cheeks turned bright red. I sat there snickering as Gabe chewed and tried to swallow, retching slightly every time he attempted. A thin line of sweat beaded at his hairline. After three or four attempts at choking the bite down, he spat it into the sink and flicked on the garbage disposal.

I smirked. “Ha. I told you.”

He cast a fake glare over his shoulder and sauntered out of the kitchen. “Nobody likes a sore winner.”

I looked around the rest of Gabe’s apartment. “What are you working on?”

His dining room table was littered with poster boards covered in brightly covered slogans and different versions of the same black-and-white photograph of an eagle taking flight. His laptop was running with several windows open on its screen, and there were a few dozen crumpled pieces of paper scattered around the floor. From the corner of my eye, I saw that there were several more crumpled papers on the shelf where the framed snapshot of Cameron was. My stomach twisted around itself. I was starting to have nightmares about that night again.

“I have a presentation on Monday that I’m totally behind on.” Gabe cast a frustrated glance at the mess. “I think I made a breakthrough this morning, though, so I should be able to pull something together soon. It’s a big account, and I need to win them over. I need my bonus more than ever right now.”

I looked at him through the corner of my eye. His brow was furrowed, and he was clenching his jaw. “If it helps, I paid the same amount for a dress this morning as a 1985 Honda would cost.”

Gabe’s eyes widened. “How much did you pay? I told Alicia not to pick out something unreasonable.”

I loved that he was looking out for me, but the mention of his fiancée’s name made me nauseated. “Don’t worry about it. It looks awesome on me.”

One corner of his mouth perked upward. “That I don’t doubt.”

“Have you guys picked out tuxes yet?” I asked, looking at some of the discarded papers on the table.

“Yeah.” He scruffed his hand across the back of his neck.

I elbowed him. “Well?”

“Well, what?” Gabe laughed.

“What do they look like?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. They were black with silver ties. Very fancy. Very manly.”

Smirking, I went back to the papers on the table. “Manly? This from the guy who just choked on a small bite of kimchi.”

Gabe grabbed my arm and pulled me against his chest, his pursed lips tugging up in the corner. “Oh, I can be manly.”

“That so?” My knees started shaking.

He grinned smugly, his face inches from mine. “Your breath smells like feet.”

I shoved him. “Shut up. Go get a towel and chair. We need to cut your hair, Marlboro man.”

He turned and strutted down the hallway toward his bathroom, and I unpacked my bag, carefully laying the scissors, razors, and combs on the granite-top counters. When Gabe sauntered back into the kitchen with a towel thrown over his shoulder, I pulled a dining room chair into the middle of the kitchen floor and patted it. “Sit.”

Gabe raised his T-shirt over his head and peeled it off, exposing his splendidly cut chest and abs, all covered in the most radiant brown skin I’d ever seen. Drawing a sharp breath, I pretended to cough when Gabe looked at me curiously. I begged God for the strength not to purr while running my hands down his stomach—which was, of course, my first instinct.

I put my palms on his shoulders the way I usually did with my clients but instantly jerked them up to the back of the chair.

Gabe looked up at me with a grin. “Do you want me to put my shirt back on?”

“No.” My reply came out loudly, and I cringed. “What I mean is, I don’t have an apron, so you’ll probably get hair under your collar, and it will get all scratchy.”

Plus, if you put your shirt back on, I won’t be able to stare at your bodacious body
.

I grabbed my scissors. “So, are we doing the usual cut?”

He settled into the chair and closed his eyes. “Work your magic, Vi.”

I’d googled Alicia Von Longorial—aka Alicia Long—on the bus ride over to Gabe’s apartment, but other than a couple of local advertisements bearing her pale face and rail-like body, I’d come up empty-handed. It was time to do some subtle interrogation.

“If Alicia is a model, why are you the one paying for everything?” I asked, clipping the hair close to his ear.

“She’s still starting out, and her job at the restaurant only pays minimum wage,” he said. “Besides, we’re getting married. My income is
our
income now.”

Not yet
, I thought bitterly. “And her family isn’t paying for a thing?”

Gabe shook his head. “They’re paying for the flowers and part of the catering. But Alicia’s dad is really big on self-sufficiency. So we’re trying to take care of it ourselves.”

“Huh.” I ran a brush through his hair. “Where are her parents from?”

“Portland. Alicia went to South Summit High.”

“And they’re wealthy?” I pressed.

Gabe looked up at me and grinned. “They do all right. I haven’t asked her dad for a bank statement or anything.”

I decided to push the subject further. “Well are their cars nice? What about their house? Is it huge?”

“I…actually, I don’t know. I’m assuming so, based on what Alicia’s told me.” Gabe took another bite.

I scrunched up my face. “Why don’t you know?”

He seemed oblivious to my concern while I gripped my clippers with white knuckles. “The times I’ve met them, they’ve come to Seattle to visit us. We’ve gone to nice restaurants, though.”

“Who paid?”

Gabe let one of his shoulders rise, then drop. “I dunno. I did, I guess.”

An overwhelming protectiveness came over me, and I had to fight the urge to growl like a mother tiger. He explained how he once imagined himself getting married in his parents’ backyard, with twinkling lights strung along the fence and his father working the grill on their back porch. I made a face when Gabe bemoaned how the intimate affair he’d envisioned had grown into the over-the-top gala Alicia was planning. He described how she’d always dreamt of a fairy tale wedding, and how he didn’t have the heart not to give it to her.

“Have you talked to her about scaling things down a bit?” I was careful not to sound bitter.

“Yeah, but she just cries. She says I guilt trip her for wanting her one special day. And I hate seeing her cry.”

“That’s nice of you.” I tried not to gag and folded down the cuff of his ear so I could trim around it carefully. “But, you’re going to be paying off this wedding for ten years. Do you realize that? Does Alicia really want to start off your marriage with a ton of debt?”

“I haven’t told her how much debt we’ve acquired just yet.”

I groaned. “At this rate, you could be on a second mortgage by the big day.”

Gabe glanced up at me. “The things a guy will do for the woman he loves, right?”

I bit my lip. He might as well have punched me in the gut.

There was an awkward pause.

“Enough about that. Did you girls have fun trying on dresses and stuff?” he asked.

Swallowing my compulsion to blurt out everything I’d heard Alicia say, I said, “Sure. What did Alicia say about it?”

“Well, we haven’t seen each other yet today, since she had so much wedding stuff to do. But when she called, she said that everyone had been fitted and that the dresses were all picked out.” He looked up at me with a worried expression. “Did something go wrong?”

“No, not exactly.”

“What’s up?” Gabe asked.

“Nothing’s up.” My voice was high-pitched, and I cleared my throat again.

“You’re being cryptic. What gives?”

“Everything went fine. I just think that some of the girls…left with slightly smaller egos than they may have had before.”

Gabe’s laughter filled the kitchen. “Well, that might be a good thing. Since some of Alicia’s friends are…”

“Snobby bitches?” I bent to trim the hair at his neckline.

“Be nice.”

I tapped his shoulder. “You started it. But honestly, they are a snooty group.”

“Yeah,” he said. “But Alicia’s known some of them for a long time, and she can’t help how her friends are.”

Gabe was still under the impression that Alicia wasn’t nearly as pretentious as her friends. How she managed to keep such a dominant personality trait a secret from the man she was in love with, sleeping with, and engaged to marry was beyond me. She deserved an Academy Award.

“It’s a good thing Alicia is different then, huh?” I pulled the towel from his shoulders, scattering his dark hair all over the kitchen floor. “You’re all done. Go look in the mirror and make sure it looks all right.”

When Gabe stood up, it revealed his cut chest again, so I immediately turned to the sink and began rinsing off my scissors. Oh, Lord, he’d been working out more than usual. I washed hair off my scissor blades furiously. If sexual tension were soap, my cutting equipment would be the most sanitary tools on the face of the earth.

“Looks fine,” Gabe called from the bathroom. “Hey, I thought we should finish the conversation we started a while back. You know, since we’re alone, and all.”

My stomach hardened, then sank to the bottom of my feet like a stone. I drew a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “You know, you’re pushing your luck. A free haircut…Korean food…what’s next? Am I going to have to wash your car?”

He reached out and cupped my face. “Thank you for the haircut. I appreciate it. And for the Korean food, too. You’re amazing, Vi.”

“All right.” I shoved my hands into my jeans pockets so he wouldn’t see that they were trembling.

“Come on—let’s go in the living room.” He sauntered past me, pulling a shirt over his head, and I imagined a sexy guitar riff punctuating his steps. Leave it to me to put a soundtrack to Gabe
walking
.

He sat down on his couch, and I sat down at the opposite end. “What did you want to tell me about that night with Cameron?”

My lead stomach returned. It was time. “I need to clarify some things.”

Gabe turned toward me so that our faces were now just a foot apart. “All right.”

I closed my eyes. “I flirted with him. And everyone saw me doing it. That’s why everyone was talking about it at school on Monday. But I didn’t do it because I liked him. I hated him.”

He frowned. “Why did you do it, then?”

“I wanted to get him back for being so awful to me. I became so full of myself that year.”

Gabe nodded. “Yeah. When we went back to school after you lost all that weight, you did get sort of…”

“Bitchy?” I finished for him.

He pressed his lips together. “I was going to say snobby.”

My eyes swam. “During those first few weeks of our junior year, I became my mother. For the first time in my life, I was turning heads. The other girls at school hated me because their boyfriends stared at me in the hallways and, most of all, because I had the attention of the two most popular boys in school.” When Gabe’s face wrinkled up, I added, “You and Cameron Hakes.”