The Master Plan (2009) (3 page)

After parking her car in the lot, Casey hurried into the
mall and walked toward the bridal shop. However, when she
reached the shop, she didn't go inside. Instead, Casey sat
down on a bench in front of the display window and stared at
the lovely white gowns. The thought of her actually wearing
one of those dresses and marching down the aisle to marry
Tony suddenly frightened her.

What did she know about this man she had just agreed to marry? He was rich and good-looking, but his background
was a mystery. She had tried to get information from him,
but it had become a silly game. He answered all her questions with a question of his own.

Perhaps Tony was not being totally honest with her, but
Casey was not being totally honest with him, either. Tony
had been nothing but kind and loving toward her and she had
convinced herself that she had a lot of nerve being suspicious of Tony when she was the one who was conning him.
That's why she'd finally decided to accept the ring she wore
on her left hand today. He'd already asked her several times
and her girlfriends were urging her to say yes. It was, after
all, a crucial part of the plan.

Casey closed her eyes and recalled the night three months
earlier when the plan had been conceived.

Casey Jordan, Carmen Manuso, and Cathy Willis had been
friends since high school. They were together so much that
everyone called them the three Cs.

On that fateful night, the three friends were having dinner at a new Mexican restaurant in the Crescent Hills Shopping Mall.

"I'm so tired of working," Carmen told her friends. "My
boss is an ogre." Carmen worked at an insurance agency.

"Quit," Cathy said casually. "You've got great computer
skills; you can find something else."

"I don't want to quit. I want to marry a rich man who will
support me in the manner in which I want to become accustomed."

Casey laughed. "Don't we all"

"You can say that again," Cathy agreed.

"Except girls like us don't have the social status or contacts to meet any rich guys. All the ones I meet at the insurance agency are struggling to make ends meet like I am"
Carmen shrugged her shoulders and flipped her hand through
her short blond hair.

"We need to join the country club set," Cathy said. "My
cousin, Lucy, works in the office there and says there are
lots of eligible rich men walking around."

"Can she introduce us to some of them?" Casey asked.

"No. The help is not allowed to talk to the elite members
unless they talk to her first. Well, they all know she's poor or
she wouldn't be working in the office, so they act like she's
invisible. That suits her fine. Lucy is happily married with
two teenage boys."

"It's like one of those catch-22 things," Casey said
thoughtfully. "If you're rich, you socialize with people in
your own tax bracket and usually marry someone who is also
wealthy. If you're middle income, like we are, you end up
with a middle-income mate"

I would love to have enough money to join that snooty
country club and meet some of those rich guys." Carmen
turned to Cathy, who worked at Crescent Hills Savings and
Loan. "Does your bank give loans to middle-income girls
who want to improve their social status?"

"If you have collateral."

"Does the country club run a background check to make
sure the people that join are really well-to-do?" Casey asked
her friend, the bank teller.

"I don't know."

"Can you call your cousin and find out?"

"Now?"

"Yes, right now," Casey replied.

Cathy shrugged, took out her cell phone, and dialed a
number. Her cousin answered and Cathy questioned her
about the membership requirements at the country club.

She hung up and repeated the information she had obtained to Carmen and Casey. "Lucy says there's an application you have to fill out, but no one checks to make sure the
information is accurate. If you attach a check for the membership fee and the first year's dues, you're an instant member. The membership fee is fifteen thousand dollars and the
dues are ten thousand dollars a year. Of course, that gives
you unlimited access to the golf course"

Casey nodded. "So, we'd need to come up with twentyfive thousand dollars for one of us to join the club."

Carmen and Cathy both stared at Casey. Finally Carmen
spoke. "What is going on in that devious mind of yours,
Casey?"

Casey laughed. "Forget it. It probably wouldn't work."

"Let us be the judge of that," Cathy told her.

"Okay. We pool our money and one of us joins the country club. Once she's a member she starts socializing with the
rich guys and snags herself a wealthy mate. She can also
bring her two friends to the club for some of the activities
and introduce them to her husband's rich friends"

"That's absolutely brilliant," Carmen exclaimed. "Let's
do it."

"Wait a minute," Cathy said. "Where are we going to get
$ 25,000?"

"From your bank," Carmen answered. "We'll take out a loan and after we marry the rich guys they can pay it off for
us. Only I'm not the one who is going to join the club. Casey
has to do it "

"Why me?" Casey asked. "You're both more attractive
than I am"

"If you'd wear some makeup and ditch the frumpy clothes,
you'd be gorgeous," Cathy said. "Besides, the one who joins
has to have a flexible job so she can go there during the
week."

"And," Carmen added with a triumphant smile, "the one
who joins should know how to play golf. Cathy and I don't
know which end of the stick is which."

"They're clubs, not sticks," Casey informed her.

"My point exactly," Carmen said.

Although the girls were just kidding around at first, by the
time the evening ended, they had talked it through and decided to apply for a loan, send Casey for a makeover, and
have her join the Crescent Hills Country Club.

"What if I don't meet anyone?" Casey asked.

Carmen answered the question. "Then next year at this
time, we'll be sitting here deeper in debt than we are now,
admitting that our master plan was a failure, but at least we'll
have tried."

As the memory of that fateful night faded, Casey looked
up and saw Cathy approaching.

"What are you doing here, staring off into space?" Cathy
said, sitting down next to Casey.

Casey was still wearing her gloves so Cathy had not spied
the ring. That was good because Casey wanted to tell both of
her friends at the same time.

"I was early so I sat down to wait. Let's go meet Carmen," Casey said smoothly, once again pushing the doubts
she had about Tony out of her mind.

While Casey went off to have dinner with her friends,
Dana carefully juggled a pie and a long loaf of French bread
in one hand, while she opened the door to her apartment
with the other. It was after 5 and on this cold February evening, it was already dark outside.

The apartment was on the second floor of a fourplex just
a few miles from the downtown area and the newspaper office. Dana stepped into a living room with a round alcove
of windows where her easel and painting supplies were set
up ready to use at a moment's notice.

She hurried through the small dining room and past the
tiny powder room into the kitchen. Dana deposited the bakery goods on the new granite countertop the landlord had installed a few weeks ago, put her keys back into her purse,
and carried it back to the living room.

As she walked, Dana pulled off the wool scarf that was
covering her bouncy curls and removed her gloves, stuffing
them into her coat pocket. She hung the scarf and her coat in
the closet next to the front door. Then she carried her purse
into the bedroom and prepared to change into her cooking
clothes.

Her work clothes had been a pair of black slacks with a
long-sleeved white and black blouse and sensible low-heeled
pumps. The matching outfit was new and Dana wasn't the
neatest person in the kitchen, so she quickly exchanged it for
a pair of jeans, a Chicago Bears sweatshirt, socks and tennis
shoes. She left on the delicate gold earrings that Bruno had given her for Christmas, but removed her watch and her blue
sapphire ring and put them on her dresser.

Dana's maple bedroom set with the four-poster bed, a
matching chest of drawers, and a small dresser with a mirror framed in maple filled up the room. It was the same set
she'd had when she lived at home with her parents on their
farm in southern Illinois. Being the youngest of four children and the only girl meant that Dana always had her own
room while her brothers had to share.

Her dad and her oldest brother, Paul, had moved the bedroom set from the farm when Dana's job at the newspaper
began to pay enough to allow her to move from the small
apartment she'd rented when she first came to Crescent Hills
to work at The Globe. That first apartment hadn't even had a
bedroom, only a sleeper sofa with springs that made a good
night's sleep difficult. This bedroom had a walk-in closet and
its own bathroom.

Linda and Warren Sloan still lived in the old farmhouse
that had been modernized some since their children had
moved out. Dana's three brothers still lived near her parents
and helped them run the farm in addition to the other jobs
they held in the community. Paul was a first-rate mechanic,
Kevin an architect, and Patrick a graphic designer. All three
were married and all three had children under the age of ten
that spent many happy hours at the farm with Grandma and
Grandpa. Paul had three sons, Kevin had twin girls, and
Patrick and his wife had a boy and a girl. Like Bruno, Dana's
parents and her siblings were all waiting for Dana to settle
down and raise a family.

Dana went back to the kitchen and turned on the oven.
Then she opened the refrigerator and removed the foil-lined pan of chicken that had been marinating in olive oil, lemon,
and a variety of spices since early that morning and put it in
the oven to bake for an hour.

She filled the coffeemaker with water and French roast
coffee and pushed the Brew button.

Thinking how her mom would be horrified, Dana took the
box of instant mashed potatoes from a cabinet and set it next
to the stove. Next she set the dining room table with her good
china and put long blue candles into the candlesticks. Nothing like a candlelight dinner to set the right mood.

Dana returned to the kitchen and went to work on the
salad. By the time the doorbell rang, it was mixed in a pretty
glass bowl waiting to be adorned with dressing.

"Hi," Dana said casually as Bruno came in, slapping his
gloved hands together to warm them up.

"It's freezing out there," he replied, leaning down to give
her a quick kiss.

"You should wear a hat," she told him. "My mom says
that when your head is cold, your whole body shivers."

"I hate hats," Bruno replied. "They make me look like a
roaring twenties gangster."

"You look like one anyway," Dana said with a grin. "Come
on into the kitchen and talk to me while I work on the vegetables. I've got coffee brewing."

Dana went back to the kitchen, allowing Bruno to remove
his gloves and coat and hang them in the closet. She was
smiling to herself over her last comment to Bruno.

He was tall and broad with a linebacker's physique. His
eyes were so dark they sometimes looked black, especially
if he was angry. His hair was thick, black, and curly, inviting one to lose her fingers in it.

Although his features were very attractive, like his eyes,
they could become dark and menacing when he was angry.
Dana always thought Bruno's looks were perfect for a cop,
the kind that would scare the truth out of suspects.

Bruno came in and swung his well-toned body onto a stool
at the kitchen counter. "Coffee please, miss," he said as if he
were at a restaurant.

"Coming right up, sir," Dana replied, setting a mug of
steaming coffee down in front of him.

"What's the special tonight?"

"Baked chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, salad, and
French bread."

"And what's this?" Bruno asked, nodding toward the bakery box.

"Apple pie."

Bruno shook his head and took a sip of his coffee. "Uhoh. Apple pie and candles on the table. You must want a big
favor."

Dana dumped the frozen green beans into the vegetable
steamer and turned it on. "I do not," she protested.

"Yes, you do. Ask me now and I'll think about it over
dinner."

"It's not a favor," Dana said stubbornly. "I just need a little information."

"About a who or a what?"

"A who," she said, smiling sweetly. "Actually two who's."

"Go on."

"I'm not going to ask you now when you're in such a negative frame of mind."

Bruno nodded and slipped off the stool. He approached Dana with the brilliant smile that erased the darkness from
his eyes and face. "Maybe I just need a hug."

"And that's all you're going to get," she replied, letting him
pull her into his strong arms. "I'm cooking dinner here"

Bruno held her close for several minutes, resting his chin
on the top of her curls. "Your hair smells like lemons," he
said.

I think that's the chicken," she replied. "My shampoo is
supposed to make it smell like violets. Now let go of me so
I can slice the bread"

Bruno laughed and released her. He returned to his stool
and watched as she got out the breadboard and started slicing the long loaf of bread and placing it in a wicker basket
lined with a linen napkin.

Dana poured herself a cup of coffee and drank it while
she finished preparing dinner. Bruno asked about her family and she filled him in on the phone conversation she'd
had with her brother Paul the night before.

"I wish I could have made the last trip with you," Bruno
said a little wistfully as Dana whipped milk into the instant
potato buds. "Your mom would have made me real potatoes."