Shopping for a CEO's Fiancee (26 page)

“Oh, no,” I grouse. “The embarrassing part is happening right now.”

“Telling the story?” Shannon asks.

“Riding in this piece of shit.”

Declan snickers. “Thanks. We’re testing out a new logo—notice the Grind It Fresh! wrap on it?”

“All I see is a pile of metal excrement.”

“This was my car for nearly two years!” Amanda says, patting the door’s armrest like it’s a cat. “Nothing wrong with it.” She frowns. “Now that I think about it, you never rode in it with me.”

Coincidence.

“You are so status conscious!”

Amanda says that like it’s a bad thing.

I hunch down as Declan merges into traffic. No one says a word, though Shannon and Declan are giving each other looks like they are stars in a Mexican telenovela performed by mimes.

We cross the Lexington line. Getting closer.

“We need gas. Shannon, can you find us a gas station?”

She pulls out her smartphone and uses an app, programming the GPS to re-route.

“Can’t it wait?” I ask. This car is a tin can.

“No. The car’s on empty and we need to stop.”

Three minutes later, he’s pulling off the highway and into a gas station bay.

“No full serve,” Declan says with a sigh.

Shannon opens her door.

“Why are
you
getting out?” Amanda asks.

“Because Declan doesn’t know how to pump gas.”

Amanda snorts. “What?”

“Why is that funny?” I ask.

Dec cocks an eyebrow and gives Shannon a pointed look. “See?”

“You can’t pump gas, either?” Shannon asks me, incredulous.

“It’s not that I can’t. It’s just—why would I? That’s what Gerald and Lance are for. They keep the gas tanks full on all our cars. And now I have a Tesla.” 

“This is what I have to look forward to?” Amanda mutters, opening her car door with a sigh. “I’ll help Shannon.”

“It takes two people to fill a gas tank?” I whisper to Declan.

He shrugs. “Guess so. I don’t know how it works. Once, I was in the limo when Gerald had to stop and refill it at a regular gas station and not at the Anterdec pump in the building garage. He did it alone.” 

“But he’s a professional. It’s his job. I guess Shannon needs help.” 

We shrug.

Declan twists in his seat and shakes his head, obviously enjoying my predicament. “What happened back there? Were you about to propose?”

I jolt. “How’d you guess?”

“Andrew, why the hell else would you be dressed like something out of a Masterpiece Theatre presentation?”

“Fine. Yes.”

“And?”

Damn. Better to get it out now while the women aren’t here.

“Don’t say anything to Amanda.”

“She said no?”

“I couldn’t ask her.”

“Lost your nerve?”

“No. Lost the ring and my key fob.”

“You
what
?” His eyes comb over me. “Holy shit. You re-created the pond scene from
Pride and Prejudice
? Complete with the Mr. Darcy swimming scene?”

“How do you know that?”

“You’re getting my backseat all wet, and because I’ve seen that stupid miniseries about ten times since Shannon and I got together. It’s on the Top 10 Period Weekend movie list.” He snorts. “You lost the ring?
Lost
it? Thank God you didn’t have Mom’s engagement ring after all.”

“Dec, you set the bar for proposals in this family pretty damn low. I have to thank you for that. I may have lost my car keys and my engagement ring in Walden Pond, but my woman didn’t end up in the Emergency Room.”

“Yet.”

“You’re such an optimist.”

“Realist.”

“Pessimist.”

“CEO.”

“So am I.”

He looks at my crotch and frowns. “Is something bad going on in your pants?”

“You’re stooping to penis jokes?” But he has a point. Walking has become increasingly painful. Sitting in this backseat is even worse. Professor Kensley-Wentingham’s warning dings in the back of my mind. Something about the pants being made in such a way that they should never, ever get wet.

Tears fill my eyes and I flinch as some short and curlies get caught in a seam while I try to get comfortable in this shitmobile.

“Dealing with some shrinkage?”

I give him a sharp look.

“I meant the fabric. It looks like it’s molding to your body. You’re a human papier-mâché.”

“Let me borrow your phone.” I don’t give him a choice, snatching it off the dash. “What’s Gina’s number?” I snap.

“How the hell would I know your admin’s—”

“Never mind.” One tap and Grace answers.

“Grace! Can you connect me to Gina?”

“Mr. McCormick? This is Denesh, from the temp agency. I am sorry, but Grace has left me with firm instructions that I am never to contact her for any reason, even if you offer me five-figure bribes.”

“Connect me to Gina San Giotti. She’s Andrew McCormick’s admin.” I’m talking about myself in the third person. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

“Yes, sir.”

One minute later.

“Yes?”

“Gina, it’s Andrew.”

“Yes, Mr. McCormick?”

“Get the theater professor on the phone for me.”

“Professor Kensley-Wentingham?”

“Yes.”

“May I ask the reason?”

“He’s about to lose reproductive abilities,” Declan calls out.

If I could stretch forward, I’d hit him, but self-preservation is a stronger instinct than anger. 

So far.

“I’m experiencing a wardrobe malfunction,” I explain. 

“Wardrobe malfunction? Like Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl?” Gina gasps. 

“
Exactly
like that.”

“Are you with Justin Timberlake?” she squeals. “Can you get me his autograph? You meet lots of famous people, don’t you? Could you get him to sign my *NSYNC poster from when I was a kid?”

Gina can be a touch too literal.

“No. Get the professor on the phone.”

“Yes, sir?” She sounds like she’s about to cry.

Silence, then:

“Andrew!” Professor Kensley-Wentingham chirps. “How is your marriage proposal?”

“I have a problem. The pants got wet.”

She clears her throat softly, twice, in rapid-fire succession, like a ’57 Chevy revving the engine. “Oh, dear. Well, it happens to every man some time. Don’t believe the ones who say it doesn’t. You get overly excited, and when sexually aroused, the cannon can fire a bit early—”

“Not
that
!” I shout in horror. “Water. I went swimming in the costume. In a pond.”

“WHAT? Why on earth would you ruin my beautiful costume with such an atrocious, impulsive act?”

“
My
costume. I paid for it. And I can’t feel my legs. The button holes have shrunk to the point where I cannot unbutton the front flap. I am trapped in my own breeches.”

“Circulation will be an issue,” she says tersely. “You need to take the breeches off.”

“Take them
off
?”

Declan’s booming laugh is so close to Terry’s that I jump.

“Immediately. As the fibers shrink, you will find yourself in an increasingly uncomfortable situation.”

I look at the car. “Already happened.”

“If you are able, remove the breeches. Where are you? I am happy to come to your location and help.”

I’ll bet you are.

“No, thank you. I’m perfectly capable of taking my own pants off, Professor.”

Amanda climbs in the car and whirls on me. “Who are you talking to?”

“The costumer.”

“But Andrew, you have been
sewn into
the pants, remember? You wanted authenticity,” Professor Kensley-Wentingham declares.

Sniff.

“At this point, screw authenticity. I’d like to hold onto some surviving sperm. I want children someday.”

I hang up on her.

And with that, I reach behind me and rip the seam.

“Thank God,” Amanda and I say in unison, for completely different reasons. The seam in the back was a long one, so the pants are completely useless. The cold feel of cheap vinyl is a relief as I peel the front panel of the breeches off me, wincing.

“It’s like you’re getting a free waxing,” Amanda marvels.

Dec won’t stop laughing.

Tap tap tap.

I look up and out my window to see a uniformed police officer looking right back at me.

Then at my hands in my undressed lap. I scurry to pull my shirttails over my open pants.

“This just gets better and better,” Declan gasps.

“Excuse me, sir? Please roll down the window slowly.” The cop is wearing a hat and I can’t see his eyes.

“Officer? Is there a problem?”

“Your junk is resting on my backseat, Andrew. Of course there’s a problem,” Declan hisses. “You’re paying to steam clean the car when this is over.”

“Shut up, Declan!”

“I need you to roll down the window, sir. We had a series of reports about a man and woman in period costume harassing people at Walden Pond, and you fit the description. Did you throw a rock at a red convertible on Route 126?”

“Oh, God.”

“I’m going to have to ask you to step out of the car, sir.”

Amanda’s mouth is open, eyes the size of globes, and she lets out a shaky breath.

“Dec?” I ask, pinching the bridge of my nose as I prepare for the inevitable.

“Yeah?”

“Get Grace to call the family lawyer.”

“Will do.”

“Sir.” The cop’s voice has gone firm. “You need to step out here.”

“I can’t.”

“You
can’t
?” I can hear the felony charge in his voice.

“I’m not wearing any pants.”

He frowns. “You realize I could charge you with public indecency if that’s true.”

Dec is holding back laughter so hard he’s crying.

“Technically, I have pants on. But I had to rip them off.”

“Rip them off?”

“I was losing circulation to my stones.” When confronted with possible arrest, my Scottish roots emerge.

“Stones?”

Amanda leans over my lap, looks up, and says, “Al?”

“Amanda?”

“You set this up?” I sit up in shock so fast my head bangs against the car ceiling.

“No! This is a true coincidence!” she says to me. “Hey, Al! Sorry to cause trouble. We were just doing a re-enactment of parts of
Pride and Prejudice
. You know, Jane Austen?”

“You two are into that?”

Amanda gives him a sweet smile that goes all the way to double dimples. “You know.”

His eyes go to my lap, then her face. “Right. But the pants...?”

“These old costumes.” She plants a possessive hand on my thigh, moving the cloth just enough that I really am in danger of public indecency. Her hand right
there
is like pouring Miracle-Gro on a tomato plant. “They tear. Andrew was in the middle of a sword battle when they split.”

“Sword battle!” Al’s estimation of me goes up while his eyes remain glued to her hand. “Good for you.”

“I learned from the best,” I say. “My brother’s really good at digging in the knife.”

Al slaps the car once. “Well, then, if it’s just you two playing around, you’re good to go. I’d recommend a spare set of pants, though, for you there, uh...”

“Andrew.”

“Right. Andrew.”

Dec turns on the car.

“Are we free to go?” Shannon asks nicely.

“Sure.”

Amanda waves to Al as Declan pulls back onto the road and follows the GPS.

“That did not happen,” I grunt. “You tell Dad, I will kill you.”

“I won’t tell Dad.”

“I mean it, Dec.”

“Jessica Coffin already has pictures of you two on her Twitter stream,” Shannon says sadly. She holds up her phone and hands it to Amanda.

“‘Andrew McCormick takes his zombies seriously,’” she reads. “What does that even mean?”

“See?” I grumble, holding my junk carefully. The shocks on this piece-of-shit car are terrible, and my boys are pretty blue. “She’s losing her touch.”

“Wait a minute,” Amanda says, tapping the screen. “Her account—just now! Where’d it go?”

“Where’d it go?” Shannon repeats. “What do you mean? It’s right there.”

“I hit refresh. It’s gone.”

“Gone?” Shannon’s face lifts with a triumphant smile. “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

My project has been fulfilled. I just unplugged Jessica Coffin’s influence.

At least something went right today.

Chapter Nineteen

Saturdays like this are rare in Massachusetts. The wide, open sky is a shade of blue you only find in a jeweler’s shop, and the light wind is a relief from the sweltering late-summer air. After a string of muggy days where breathing feels like drowning, the change is welcome.

And today is a day for nothing but change.

The path away from the giant patch of grass where the town has carved out fifteen regulation-sized soccer fields is well marked, but my eyes can’t seem to find it. The sign is right there: “Honeysuckle Path,” with the piece of wood carved into the shape of an arrow, the words burned into the wood in a quaint, quasi-colonial font designed to add prestige to the town, one of the oldest in the state. I read the words, but my brain doesn’t process them, and then—like a bird of prey with telescopic sight—it all clicks.

I take my first step on the bare-dirt line in the center of wild weeds. This park land was set aside for families and school children to use as a nature preserve, for sports, for picnics and hikes.

And this is where my mother died.

Her grave is not here. Elena Montgomery McCormick’s final resting place is in a cemetery a few towns away. But this is where she took her last breath.

A breath I never saw.

I come here when I want to torture myself. Always at night, and always in the cooler seasons. Cross-country skiers burrow tracks in the winter and I follow them, head down, always pausing right by the bridge where she died.

Where I almost died.

Where, for years, I wished I’d died.

Declan’s never been back here, as far as I know, and I can’t blame him.

Knowing what I know now from Terry about Dad’s treatment of Declan, I need to come here. After she died, Grace set up therapists for Declan and me, but the sessions were short. We were fine. Trauma? What trauma? It was a freak accident.