Misery Loves Cabernet (31 page)

Liam smiles. “Deal.”

The next hour flies by. We talk all throughout dinner about anything and everything. Then we head to the bar for a nightcap.

I am so drunk as we walk through the restaurant and into the bar that I fall into Liam. He caught me, and I definitely feel a spark between us as he puts his arm around me, and leads me to a couch near the fireplace.

“Are you sure you want another drink?” Liam asks. “I think maybe you’ve had enough.”

“I’m not driving,” I say. Then I rethink this. “But if you need to call it a night, we can go.”

“No, no.” Liam says, sounding sober to me. “I’m up for a brandy.”

The waitress takes our orders, and we sit on the couch. I lean into Liam, and he puts his arm around me.

“See,” Liam says, turning his face to me, “I’m not so intimidating.”

I lean toward him as though I plan to kiss him. I won’t actually do it, but I’m hoping he’ll take the hint. “Oh, you are,” I insist softly. “But you’re worth it.”

Liam smiles, he leans in slightly, we look deep into each other’s eyes . . .

And my phone rings.

Damn it! I begrudgingly pull away from Liam and pull my iPhone from my purse. I check the caller ID, then answer. “Hello, Drew.”

“Hey. Quick question: What constitutes kidnapping?”

I don’t answer at first. I mean, it’s Drew. The question could mean he’s losing at a game of beer pong. “Is there a woman involved?” I ask him.

“Yes.”

“Are you holding her against her will?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Is she over the age of twenty-one?”

“Of course.”

“Is she incarcerated, running from the law, or mentally unstable in any way?”

“Can any woman really claim to be mentally stable?” Drew counters.

“You’re fine. Go to bed.”

“Wait!” Drew says. “You sound drunk. Have you done the deed yet?”

“Good night, Drew.”

“Oh, fine,” he pouts. “Good night.”

And he hangs up.

I put the phone down next to my purse, just in case he calls back. Then I turn my attention back to Liam, who leans back against the couch, blissfully listening to the piano in the background. “Don’t you love the piano?” he asks, smiling contentedly. “Everything played sounds so romantic.”

“It’s very nice,” I agree nervously.

He stands up. “Dance with me?”

I look at him, mildly horrified. “What? Here?”

“Yes, here.”

I glance around the room. “But there’s no dance floor. No one else is dancing.”

Liam rolls his eyes, then pulls me up and into his arms, and we begin slow dancing.

I wish I could write advice for my future great-grandson. Besides writing the obvious:

Learn to do laundry properly. Pink underwear looks silly on men
.

I would write:

If you want to meet women, take a dance class. This will also help if you want to land a bridesmaid for the night (just remember to call her the next day)
.

Being in Liam’s arms just feels so delicious. It makes me want time to stand still.

The song ends, a few people clap for the pianist, and we sit again. This time, Liam doesn’t put his arm around me, but he still sits very close to me.

Oh, to hell with it. I’m going for broke. I intentionally lean back against the couch, subliminally coaxing him into leaning into me.

Liam relaxes his whole body, leaning in toward me, and gives me that “I’m about to kiss you for the first time” smile.

And then my phone rings again. I look at the caller ID, then pick up. “Yes, Drew?”

“What about aiding and abetting? Or being an accessory to a crime? What constitutes that?”

Now I’m getting miffed. “Was there a crime committed?”

He responds as though I’ve asked a bizarre question. “I don’t think so.”

“Drew, you can’t ‘aid and abet’ a criminal if there’s no crime,” I say, exasperated. “Nor can you act as an accessory to anything. Are the police at your house?”

“No.”

“Do you think the police will be coming to your house anytime soon?”

“I don’t see why they would.”

“Have you hurt anyone in any way?”

“Of course not.”

“Then you’re fine. Go to bed.”

“Okay,” Drew says. “Speaking of bed, have you . . . ?”

“Good night, Drew,” I say firmly, then hang up.

I put my phone down and turn to Liam, who once again is leaning back in his seat, totally relaxed. “Everything all right?” he asks.

“Fine,” I say.

I take a sip of cognac, lean back, and try to recapture the moment.

And the phone rings again.

“What?!” I hiss into the phone.

It’s my mother on the other end, and she sounds like she’s been crying. “It appears your Mawv has committed suicide,” she tells me through her tears.

I bolt upright in my seat. “Oh my God. When? What happened?”

Mom sniffles back tears and tells me, “Well, Andy announced her pregnancy to my family a few days ago, and when Mawv heard, she insisted she wanted to spend the holidays here, where she could be near her new great-great-grandchild. Well, your grandmother would have none of it, and they’ve been fighting ever since. Then one of the nurses went to check on Mawv in her room at the home, and all they found was a suicide note. It said, ‘Dear Rose, I can’t take another Thanksgiving in this God-forsaken place. I’ve gone with Jesus. Don’t be mad. Love, Bernice.’ ”

I am stunned. Absolutely stunned.

“It’s ‘Hay-
Seuss
’,” I angrily say to my mother.

“What?”

“She hasn’t gone with ‘GEE-zuss’, she’s gone with ‘Hay-SEUSS.’ Drew’s part-time bodyguard, Jesus. I can’t believe Drew . . . I’m going to fucking kill him.”

“Sweetie,” Mom says sympathetically, “the first stage of grief is disbelief—”

“Mom, didn’t anyone find it the least bit odd that they found a note, and not a body? Isn’t it usually the other way around?”

I quickly fill her in on my theory, then hang up to call Drew.

He answers immediately. “Hello.”

“Did you kidnap my great-grandmother?” I yell/ask, even though I damn well know the answer.

“Of course I didn’t kidnap your great-grandmother,” Drew says, highly offended. “She wanted to leave.”

With Liam looking on, I rub my eyes with my thumb and forefinger. “Jesus Christ, Drew. When did you and my Mawv even become friends?”

“After your wedding,” Drew tells me. “We talk almost every day. She’s like the grandmother I never had.”

“
Both
of your grandmothers are still alive!” I remind him angrily.

“Yeah, but one’s a judgmental alcoholic, and the other one keeps gambling away the money I give her. They don’t count.”

“Drew, you can’t just steal an old lady from an old folk’s home!”

“I didn’t steal her! She specifically told me the place was like a minimum security prison, and she was free to walk away at any time.”

My iPhone beeps a call coming in from Jesus Gonzalez. “That’s Jesus now. Let me call you back.”

For the first time in my life, I hang up on Drew, and answer the other line. “Hello.”

“Don’t you dare get mad at that nice boy for springing me,” Mawv says haughtily.

I sigh. “Mawv, where are you? Grandma and Mom are worried sick.”

“I’m on my way to California. Andrew invited me to stay with him at his home over the holidays, and I have accepted. Andrew sent his security guard to escort me from the home. Gorgeous boy. I could bounce a quarter off his ass.”

“Mawv—”

“Seriously, if I were sixty years younger . . . eh, he still wouldn’t give me the time of day. But he sure is pretty to look at.”

“Mawv, where are you specifically? Are you still in St. Louis?”

“No, no. Andrew rented me a private jet so that I could land without being hounded by the paparazzi.”

I’m confused. “Why would you be hounded by the paparazzi?”

“I’m not sure. But Andrew insisted that I didn’t want to fly on a commercial plane, because the moment I landed, the paps would be snapping away, and the photos are never flattering.”

I’m getting a headache.

I spend the next half hour harriedly on the phone with half of my family explaining what happened, then tracking down a helicopter to take me back to the city so that I can meet Mawv at Drew’s house when she lands.

Ten minutes after that, I am packed, checked out, and in front of the hotel waiting for a cab to take me to the heliport.

“Are you sure you don’t mind driving home by yourself tomorrow?” I ask Liam as the cabbie puts my bag in the trunk.

“Not at all,” Liam says soothingly, adjusting my coat collar so my neck stays warm. “Have snow chains, will travel.”

“I really had a great time tonight,” I say apologetically. “I’m sorry I ruined it.”

“You didn’t ruin it,” he assures me. “Your boss, Mister Me Bollocks, ruined it. Story of my life for the next month.”

“Story of my life for the rest of my life,” I joke.

We stare at each other, each wondering the proper way to end the night. A little kiss good-bye? A big kiss good-bye? A hug?”

We continue to look into each other’s eyes for a few moments.

After what seems like an eternity of a staring contest, I tilt my head and ask him coquettishly, “What?”

Liam breaks into a grin as he shrugs. “I just wanted to thank you for a truly perfect evening. I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun. It was like a perfect third date.”

I smile, and turn my eyes away. “Thank you,” I say, almost embarrassed by my obvious feelings for him. “I had fun, too.”

“And you know the best part?” Liam asks me.

I shake my head.

“Because we’re not really dating, you won’t even hate me in the morning.”

On that note, he kisses me on the nose, then helps me into the cab.

And as I am driven away, I think of my next bit of advice to write:

Frequently we have to control our impulses. And that sucks
.

All good things must someday end. Fortunately, this is also true of bad things
.

“I quit,” I say to Drew when he answers his door a few hours later.

“What are you talking about?” Drew asks, as I push past him and yell, “Mawv?! Mawv?!”

“In here, dear,” Mawv yells from Drew’s kitchen.

I walk into the kitchen to see my ninety-five-year-old great-grandmother, wearing nothing but a lace camisole and panties, playing strip poker with a shirtless Jesus, who’s all of twenty-three. She has a cigarette dangling from her mouth, and a large glass of whiskey at her side.

I think seeing dogs play poker would have been less jolting.

“Hey, Charlie,” Jesus says, smiling brightly at me.

I ignore his shirtless physique to ask the obvious question: “Jesus, do you mind telling me why you kidnapped my great-grandmother?”

“I wasn’t commissioned to kidnap her,” Jesus calmly enlightens me. “My services were enlisted to bring her safely home. And I did that.” He looks up at Mawv. “Did you feel your life was in danger at any time that I was with you?”

“Well, not until now,” Mawv says, eyeing me suspiciously.

“Raise you twenty,” Jesus says, throwing in a red chip.

“I have a cab waiting outside,” I tell Mawv purposefully.

“Now, what is twenty worth again?” she asks Jesus.

“Each hundred is worth one piece of clothing,” he answers.

“You’re coming home with me tonight,” I continue. “And then Mom is going to bring you back to St. Louis tomorrow. Where are your things?”

Mawv takes a puff of her cigarette. “Don’t you use that tone with me, young lady.” She looks at Jesus. “I think you’re bluffing. I’ll see your twenty, and raise you fifty.”

She throws a blue chip and a red chip onto a pile of chips on the counter as Drew walks in. “I paid the cabbie, and sent him on his way.”

I turn to Drew. “You what?!”

“I said I paid the cabbie—”

I interrupt Drew by slapping him dead in the face.

“Ow!” Drew grabs his cheek. “You hit me.”

“I’m going to do a lot more than that in about two seconds. Mawv, get your goddamned stuff! Jesus, since Drew got rid of my ride, I need you to drive us to my house.”

“Can’t do that, Charlie,” Jesus warns me apologetically. “And, if you try to remove her from the residence, I’m going to have to call the police and have you arrested for trespassing, assault and battery, and kidnapping.” He looks up at my Mawv, and throws down a blue chip. “I call.”

My jaw drops as I look at Jesus. He shrugs. “I’m sorry. But there’s no court order saying she’s a danger to herself or anyone else. She legally had the right to leave St. Louis, and she legally has the right to be with Drew.”

Drew’s face lights up. “Jesus, my man! That’s brilliant! What’s assault and battery?”

“What Charlie’s doing to you now,” Jesus says. “Hitting is assault. The yelling at you is battery.” He puts down his cards, then says to Mawv, “Full house. Tens high.”

“Excellent!” Drew says, smiling.

I raise my hand to hit him again, and he flinches.

As Mawv puts down a straight flush to Jesus’ full house, I put down my hand, and try to soften my voice. “Seriously, Mawv, everyone is worried about you. You need to be in a place where people can give you your medication, and watch out for your safety.”

“There are people here who can do that,” Mawv counters as she pulls the pot of multicolored chips toward her. “Your boss has a bigger staff than the White House.” She holds up her drink. “And this Gladys person who works for him makes the best drinks in the state.”

I look at Mawv’s highball glass of whiskey. “Isn’t that just three shots of Canadian Club over crushed ice?’

“What’s your point?” Mawv asks.

Drew looks at me. “Can I have Gladys whip up a little something for you?”

“Nooooo!” I yell.

“Seriously, because you reek of wine. I’ll bet that’s why you’re so angry, you’re drunk. Maybe a little pot to mellow you out?”

“I reek of wine because I was splitting bottles of the stuff—bottles!—with Liam before I got pulled away from a romantic dinner in the middle of the snowed-in mountains so I could fly home and deal with yet another one of your screwups!”