Here Comes the Bride, page 24
He shrugged. “Some candy.”
She thought he would hand it over, but he hung on to it for dear life.
“Okay, well, why don’t you go sit on the carpet with the rest of the kids? We’re going to sing some songs in a little while.”
He took his bag of candy with him.
She greeted a scarecrow, a black and white cow, and a rock star. Her favorite costume came from the twins in her class, Hannah and Sydney Colbert. They came dressed as telephone poles and had a wire separating the two of them. Fake pigeons sat on the wire, and a little sign reading “Joey loves Melissa” was written in black marker over Hannah’s stomach. Sydney had a missing-dog flyer across her chest. They were adorable.
A few hours later, she noticed George still holding the bag of chocolates. In fact, he didn’t even put it down to eat a sprinkled sugar cookie. He simply moved it to his left hand while he ate with his right.
“So George, what’s the bag for?” she asked.
Instead of answering, he untied the fancy string that held it closed, reached a grubby little hand inside, then handed Cate a gourmet dark chocolate truffle with white chocolate drizzled over the top. It was a strange contribution to a kindergarten party.
“Thanks,” she said. “Are they for everyone else too?”
He shook his head. Then she looked at the bag and realized it probably only held about five chocolates. There wouldn’t be enough for everyone anyway.
“All right then.”
She could already feel a headache from all the sugar she’d consumed, so she set the truffle on her desk for later. At two o’clock she passed out all their Halloween drawings that had been hanging on their classroom walls and sent them home with sugar highs. She noticed George’s bag of chocolates dangling from his hand when he walked away.
Ethan was using his new nail gun when she got home. The blast it made was deafening when he pulled the trigger and plugged a nail into the baseboard on their floor. Oscar ran to her with a piece of silver wrapping paper dangling from his mouth. “Hello,” she shouted over his gun.
“Oh, hey.” He set down his gun, then pulled goggles away from his face.
She pulled the paper from between Oscar’s teeth. “Did we get another wedding gift?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
She thought it was kind of strange that he’d opened it without her. “Who was it from?”
He paused before answering and pulled his goggles back over his eyes. “Janet.”
“What? She was here?” She pointed to the floor. “She stopped by here today?” A million thoughts raced through her mind, and she wanted answers. However, the phone rang. She almost didn’t answer, but she remembered that she was waiting to hear from Peg Migillicuddy about wedding plans.
“Hello.” Her voice was sharp with irritation.
“Oh um, is this Miss Padgett?”
Only two kinds of people referred to her as Miss Padgett. Her students, and her students’ parents. “Uh, yes,” she said, trying to sound chipper. “This is Cate. I mean, er, Miss Padgett.”
“Oh hi, Miss Padgett. This is Jane Franklin. George Franklin’s mom?”
“Oh! Hi, Jane. Yes, yes. How are you?” Why was George’s mom calling? The only time parents ever called was if they had some gripe about how their genius child wasn’t getting enough stimulation or attention. Translated, My child is completely spoiled and should feel like the center of the universe all the time, including in your classroom—even when you have nineteen other kids to deal with.
“Anyway, I’m calling because there was a little misunderstanding . . .”
Oh here it goes. George was somehow left out, or mistreated.
“. . . well, I’m actually calling to apologize.”
“You are?” Cate asked, trying to conceal her surprise.
“George was a little confused. You see, I sent a bag of chocolates with him.”
“Uh-huh?” Cate quickly remembered the bag, the way his sweaty little hand had crinkled the wrap.
“Anyway, he was supposed to give you the whole bag, as a Halloween gift for being his teacher. And instead, he just gave you one. I found the rest of the bag in his lunch bag.”
“Oh. Well, that’s okay.” Despite her mood, she managed to laugh.
“Anyway, I just wanted to tell you so you know when he brings it back on Monday.”
“That’s so nice of you. I rarely get Halloween gifts.”
“George just loves you. My husband and I think he has a crush on you.”
“Oh, that’s very sweet.” She would’ve never guessed, and she wanted to melt.
She chatted with Mrs. Franklin for a few more minutes before saying good-bye. Ethan was measuring a baseboard when she returned.
“So what did she get us?” Cate asked.
“A table saw.”
“We didn’t register for a table saw, Ethan. We didn’t even register at Home Depot.” And what the hell was Cate going to do with a table saw? The gift wasn’t for them. It was for him, and clearly another attempt to get his attention.
“Ethan, she’s not even invited to the wedding.”
He was silent, before looking at his feet.
“Ethan? Did you invite her to the wedding?”
“No . . . not really. It’s just . . . I mean . . . she came over here with the gift, and what was I going to do? I had to give her the option. I didn’t really invite her. I just said she’s welcome to come.”
She couldn’t help but laugh at what he’d just said. “What’s the difference?”
“Well, it’s not like I formally gave her an invitation. I just made it really casual.”
“Ethan, she is so manipulative. Don’t you see that it’s her last-minute desperate attempt to schmooze you before you tie the knot? She can’t let go of you. You guys broke up years ago, and now she just pops back into your life bearing expensive gifts.”
“Listen to yourself,” he said. “She gave us a gift for our wedding.”
“That gift’s not for us. What the hell am I going to do with a table saw?”
For this, he had no answer. “Well what the hell was I supposed to do when she came over with a two-hundred-dollar gift out of the blue?”
“Tell her that you can’t take it. Thank her for the generosity, but send her home with the table saw.”
His face was long. “Look, I’m sorry. What do you want me to do?” “I don’t know. I really don’t know, Ethan. But you better figure out a way to give that saw back.”
“I already used it to cut the baseboards.”
She walked to her bedroom and slammed the door.
• 30 •
Caught Red-Handed
Vacation was a funny word to use for the two weeks of work she was taking off. She needed the week before the wedding to tie up all the loose ends, and of course she’d be taking a week off after the wedding for their honeymoon in Kauai. The list of things she had to do before the wedding was long and endless, and time away from work hardly seemed like a vacation. Her first day off was the Friday before her bachelorette weekend, and she spent the first portion of the morning at the mall, picking out her bridesmaids gifts. She was going to give them all pashminas, a different color to fit each of her friends.
After she returned she began packing for her bachelorette party. Her bridesmaids had booked a hotel room at the Marriott in the Gaslamp Quarter. They were scheduled to check in the following morning so they could head downtown and have the whole day to relax by the sprawling pool before going to dinner and barhopping. The Santa Ana weather had made the November air warm and dry, and they had to take advantage of getting a tan when they had the chance.
Also in the Gaslamp Quarter, Ethan would be staying at the St. James with his friends. They’d be ordering pizzas and playing poker all weekend. Chuck had been dumped by Tatiana as soon as she met a guy who cast her as an extra in a Snoop Dogg video. He’d been depressed ever since the breakup, and Cate wondered if he would hire strippers. A raunchy bachelor party wasn’t Ethan’s style though, and she hoped Chuck figured this out before he went to all the effort.
The whole issue of Janet had been a gray area ever since their fight. He’d already unpacked and used the saw, so he couldn’t give it back to her. Though it had been discussed, he’d never been clear on exactly how he was going to disinvite her to the wedding. Part of Cate wanted to save him the embarrassment and just have Janet come to the wedding. The other part of her shuddered every time she thought of seeing her annoying face on their wedding day. Every time Cate thought about her stopping by when she knew Cate was at work, and delivering gifts after several years of not speaking to him, she felt her blood boil.
While packing for the weekend she realized she was out of film and sunscreen, and decided a trip to Wal-Mart was in order. Right before she left she remembered that she still hadn’t developed the film from their trip to Playa del Carmen. It seemed like decades ago that they’d been in Mexico. It wasn’t that she’d forgotten about the film. It was just that every time she thought about getting the pictures developed a wedding task had taken priority over it. She grabbed the three rolls of film and decided to drop them off while she shopped.
She bought a couple tubes of sunscreen and some travel-sized shampoo and conditioner. She decided to stock up for her trip to Kauai and added a mini deodorant and toothpaste to her stash. After she was finished shopping, she picked up the photos and tried to quickly flip through them while waiting for her receipt. She’d give them a thorough look later when she could sit down.
When she returned home Oscar had somehow managed to pull their bed skirt into his crate and had ripped the entire left half of the ruffle into a million pieces. He almost knocked her over when she let him out. The dog was a beast, only he didn’t realize this. In his mind, he was still the tiny little pup who’d slept in Grease’s cage. He had the legs of a Great Dane and plowed into people and furniture as if they didn’t exist. Beth called while she was cleaning up the dust ruffle.
“Are you excited?” She asked. “It’s going to be so fun! We have so much stuff planned for the weekend.”
“Just please don’t make me wear anything too embarrassing.”
“Oh we will.” Her laugh was slightly evil. “Anyway, I’m calling because I wanted to know if you’ve heard from Denise. I’m just trying to figure out the final head count for my car. Parking is so expensive down there so I sent out an e-mail to all the girls saying that they could ride with me. I don’t know if I should take my car or Ike’s Suburban.”
“She never e-mailed you back?” Cate remembered the e-mail going out over a week ago.
“No. Haven’t heard a word from her.”
“Well, I think she mentioned something about driving herself because she had to leave later than everyone else. I wouldn’t count on her. Sorry, she’s been so flaky.” Cate felt a little embarrassed that Denise had been so unreliable throughout all the planning. According to Emily and Beth, who were heading up the bachelorette committee, she’d been terrible about RSVPing, and returning e-mails. She was the only one who hadn’t offered any help whatsoever. “I know what it’s like when you’re trying to plan something and you can’t get a simple answer or commitment from people. I’m so sorry she’s acting that way.”
“Oh, it’s not your fault. Don’t even worry.”
They chatted for several more minutes about the weekend before they said good-bye. After she hung up she realized it had been a long time since she’d seen Oscar. Leaving him alone was like leaving a glass casserole dish on top of a hot burner. It would only take minutes for it to explode. She ran around the house and found him in the office, a lavender pashmina dangling from his mouth.
The obscenities that flew from her mouth would’ve made hardened criminals blush. She looked at the Nordstrom bag, ripped in two, and the pile of shawls resting next to Ethan’s desk. Thank God he hadn’t gotten his teeth on all of them. However, a hundred dollars’ worth of fine cashmere hung from between his teeth. She lunged toward him, but he bolted, taking a trail of lavender with him.
“Oscar! Get back here!” She chased him into a corner. She pulled the pashmina from his mouth. He may as well have taken a hundred-dollar bill and ripped it to shreds.
Ethan had left a night early for his bachelor weekend. He took Oscar with him so he could drop him off at his parents’ house on the way to the Gaslamp. She had the house to herself. She spent the evening wrapping the remaining bridesmaids’ gifts and writing cards to each individual friend, thanking them for being in the wedding and throwing her shower and bachelorette party. When it came time to write Denise’s card she imagined writing, Dear Denise, I don’t know what to say. You’ve been an asshole ever since I got engaged. Sincerely, Cate.
She ended up writing something polite and generic. She took a hot bath and sipped on a glass of Pinot Grigio before enjoying a sound night of Oscar-free sleep. In the morning she drove to Beth’s in Pacific Beach to meet the rest of the girls.
“Does anyone have a mint?” Jill asked when they were in the Suburban.
“I think I do.” Cate opened her purse. “Oh, I have pictures. I forgot all about them.” She still hadn’t even had a chance to look them over. She handed them to Jill. “Here, you can look at these while I dig in my purse. They’re our trip to Playa Del Carmen.”
“Cool,” Jill said. She flipped through the photos, occasionally asking questions, while Cate searched for a mint in the disaster zone known as her handbag.
“Who’s this?” She held out a photo.
“That’s the bride’s parents. They were so funny.” She’d practically forgotten about Cash and Honey.
“Look how pretty the ocean is,” she said, passing a photo to Val. “It was just right off the pool like that?”
“It was. I tried to capture the view from the pool.”
“Is that Janet?” Val asked.
“Where?” Cate wanted to know. She didn’t remember taking any pictures of her. “Right over there, next to that tree by the pool bar? And who’s that freakish creature she’s talking to?”
“Let me see.” Cate took the photo. She had to look closely, but there, in the middle of scattered lounge chairs and tourists, stood Janet, talking to Leotard Creature Man. The same guy who’d sent her running into Ethan’s arms. “What the . . .” Cate said as she held it closer to her eyes. “It is her. Pull over,” she said.
“What?” Beth asked.
“I can’t believe this!” Cate said. “She’s handing him something.”
“Handing who what?” Jill asked. “Let me see.”
Emily turned around in the passenger seat. “What is going on?”
“Oh my God! I think Janet may have slipped Leotard Man money! I have to get this picture cropped. We need to go to a photo lab—now!”
They all looked at her like she was insane. She told them the story about the creature man by the pool sneaking up on Janet and how she’d jumped into Ethan’s arms and kissed him on the cheek. “I never thought anything of it, except that she was a brazen whore for kissing my boyfriend, but now I seriously think she paid the guy to sneak up on her. I think she’s giving him money in the picture.” She pointed to the picture. “She wanted to look like a victim in front of Ethan. I’m not kidding. She is crazy.” She laughed. “And I’m not. All this time I wondered if I was overreacting, but I wasn’t. She is after him!”
“Let me see that,” Jill yanked the picture from her hand. She held the picture up to her face. “It does look like she’s handing him something. But it’s hard to tell what it is. She’s so small. I wouldn’t have even noticed them in the picture.”
“I can have the picture enlarged and cropped to zoom in on them. We have to find out.”
Emily gave Cate the same expression her mother would’ve used if Cate had said she was going drinking until two a.m. “Cate, do you really want to do that? It’s your bachelorette party. I don’t think you should waste one minute thinking about her. You should be having fun. Why do you want to run around with a magnifying glass, looking for a photo lab to do detective work for you?”
Everyone was quiet, and for a moment Cate thought they all agreed with her. Maybe she should just wait until the weekend was over. They’d gone to a lot of trouble to plan everything, and her sister was probably right. Janet was just interfering with her last opportunity to drink fruity cocktails by the pool before the wedding. But if she didn’t find out, she’d be wondering about the photo all weekend.
Leslie reached for her purse. “I have a magnifying glass.”
Of course she had a magnifying glass. Cate remembered the way she’d studied her ring at the engagement party.
“I would want to know,” Beth said.
“If she is handing that freak money, I would go find her and stuff that photo down her throat,” Val added.
“Let’s just stop real quick at a photo lab downtown, and see if they can crop it while we wait,” Jill suggested.
Emily shrugged. “If that’s what Cate really wants.”
Cate raised the magnifying glass to her eye and studied the photo. “It definitely looks like money to me.”
They passed the photo and Leslie’s magnifying glass around, and all agreed it looked like she was paying Leotard Man. Cate wanted to race over to the St. James Hotel and show the photo to Ethan. She wanted him to know what a nutcase Janet was. It hadn’t all been Cate’s imagination. Then she realized that she couldn’t interrupt his party to show him this. She couldn’t show up with a magnifying glass and the photo in the middle of his poker game. It would wreck all his fun and she would look like the psycho. She’d have to wait until the weekend was over.
“What are you going to do?” Sarah asked.
Cate shook her head. “What can I do now? Probably nothing for the time being. I don’t want to show this to Ethan while he’s at his bachelor party, and I don’t think I’ll bother getting the photo cropped. It’s pretty obvious if you study it.” Jill passed the photo back to her. “Whatever you guys do, don’t mention anything to Denise. If she or Janet found out about it, they’d probably both burn the photo and negatives.”
