Friends & Fortune Cookies: A Sudden Falls Romance (6 page)

Before I could thank her for giving me something new to worry about, the room curtain whipped open and a stunning older blond woman appeared with a dramatic flourish. “Hello, I am Irena.” She had a thick Eastern European accent and determined stare.

Katie stood and crossed the room to shake Irena’s hand.

“So good to see you again. I understand you brought your sisters?” They both turned to us.

Irena gave Inky and me each a long visual inspection. I felt like squirming toward the end of it. “There is much to be done, no?” she said to Katie.

Ouch.

Katie had the good grace not to respond.

After a short conference between them that Inky and I couldn’t overhear, Irena clapped her hands together. A hoard of stylists, estheticians, makeup artists, and who-knows-who-else descended upon us.

It started with a “before” picture, and then I was measured, and clothes were selected and ordered from a department store via tablet computer.

For four hours I was exfoliated, plucked, and made up, and my hair was foiled, colored, cut, and styled. I was not allowed to pass a mirror “so I could appreciate the full impact of my transformation.”

Fortunately, I trusted Katie.

Unfortunately, when we were all done and met back for our big reveals, I could see what they’d done to Inky, and I was a little concerned for myself. Not that she didn’t look… great. She did! She just didn’t look like Inky anymore.

In the best of situations, Inky was... well,
awkward
seemed to be the best (if not kindest) description. Not actually short — in fact, she’s about my height — but slender-bordering-on-bony, which gives the impression she’s petite. She’s always been a lot more comfortable in her brain than in her body. She’s possibly the least athletic human being in the history of mankind, mostly because she’s more likely to fall over her feet than to have them get her anywhere quickly.

Generally, she pulls her hair back in a ponytail. Like mine, it has a tendency to curl into a wooly mess in the humidity. Unlike me, however, she’s never actually discovered the benefits of anti-frizz potions and liberal applications of conditioner to counteract the weather and genetics. Not that she didn’t know that they worked or how they worked... she just doesn’t care.

Which is kind of how she chooses her clothes… with an eye toward comfort and function, not style. And somehow, for her, “comfort and function” leaves her looking like an extra-nerdy cast hopeful for
The Big Bang Theory
.

The hair stylist had gone for
big
. I’m not talking “regular” big, but more like “I’d like to thank the Academy of Country Music” big, which was surprisingly flattering. The makeup artist, while doing a spectacular and creative job, had left her looking like a really inventive ad for a goth club. As Inky pulled at the edges of a black lace corset, which admittedly did make her look like she had some curves, and tried to smooth the black leather of her pants, she looked... even more awkward. Especially when she tripped in her heeled boots as she came fully into the room.

“Wow, Inky! You said you wanted something different!” Katie said. “You look great!”

Inky was the first to get to see herself in the mirror, and she kind of squeaked when she saw her reflection.

At first, she looked shocked as she took in the changes, and then her face fell. “I definitely look different. But this so isn’t me.”

I smiled and tried to be supportive. “It’s probably not an everyday look,” I said. “But it’s a fun change, no?”

She shrugged.

Then it was my turn.

“Wow.”

Which made Katie—who always looked like an “after” photo and after four hours of pampering and beautifying looked like the most polished version of her usual, polished self—grin. “You look great, Grace!”

I looked... well, better than I ever remember looking! My hair had been lightly highlighted so that it almost shimmered with the light. The cut, while not sacrificing much in the way of length, embraced my soft curls. My gray eyes, which I’d never considered to be my best feature, had been dusted in silvers and grays and lined subtly and had suddenly became the focal point of my face. My lips were left nearly nude with only a gloss so as not to compete.

I couldn’t help but grin. The last four hours had been so worth it. And then a thought popped into my head which I couldn’t seem to dislodge.

I wonder what Joe will think?

Chapter 10 — Joe

“How you doin’ there, cuz?” Alex asked as I scraped the last of the 1970s linoleum from the floor of the upstairs bathroom.

Taking a final swipe with the scraper, I looked up at his smiling face and repressed an intense urge to make him hurt as badly as I did. “Couldn’t you at least pretend to be human?” I winced as someone downstairs took a sledgehammer to old plaster and lath.

“Nope.”

The day at the job site had been a productive one though that didn’t do much to make me feel any better, either about the way I’d acted the night before or the raging headache that would not let up.

I rarely drank for two reasons. First, both of my parents were out-of-control drunks. My father succumbed to cirrhosis a number of years ago, and my mom finally got straight shortly thereafter. Second, I can’t hold my alcohol worth shit. Three to four beers, and I need someone to cart me out on a dolly and then wake up feeling like that kitchen wall with crap all over it. And that’s without the cold medicine I’d taken yesterday.

So now I was enjoying the double-whammy of both a cold and a hangover. Brilliant.

“Talk to Grace this morning?” Alex asked.

I slowly shook my head. “No. Not yet.” I needed to apologize to her. However, I hadn’t yet summoned the stones to pick up the phone.

Alex had fetched me from Zen last night, laughing his ass off, for which I still wanted to punch him in the head. Apparently, I had confessed everything.

“What did she say when you drunk-dialed her last night?”

My headache intensified by about double. “What?!” I studied Alex’s face. “Are you pullin’ my chain?” I asked.

“Nope.”

The part of my brain devoted to figuring out whether or not he was lying quickly reallocated itself to dread over what I might have said to Gracie.

“What did I say?”

Alex shrugged with a grin. “I left after trying to talk you out of it.”

How could I not remember that? I was never going to drink again.

I picked up my phone and checked the recent-calls log. I did dial her, but the call only lasted for six seconds, so I must have changed my mind.
Thank God.

“You ready to hang the cabinets yet?”

I looked around the upstairs guest bathroom—the only room in the house that didn’t need any major structural changes. Earlier in the morning, we’d pulled out the cheap plastic counter and sink, chipped commode, and plastic shower liner and tub. Now they were all taking up space at the bottom of a dumpster in the driveway. The old cabinets had been clinging to the plaster wall out of habit and for no other structural reason. But at least the plaster-and-lath wall was still in good shape and didn’t need to be replaced.

“Give me half an hour?” I had to rid myself of this blasted headache before I could even consider hanging cabinets. It felt like an entire high-school drum corps was in there. But at least I didn’t need to figure out if I said something to Gracie couldn’t be explained away by Sudafed and fermented hops.

I wandered out to my truck to nurse my aching head with three aspirin, a moment of silence, and a cup of coffee that made up in caffeine what it lacked in taste. I skipped the cold pills. I’d rather cough and sniff.

Resting my head against the seat, I willed my head to stop pounding
.

I checked my watch. Time to head back in. I signaled to Alex as I passed him consulting on the demolition in the kitchen. He nodded and followed me.

Fortunately, hanging cabinets was a task Alex and I had done together a hundred times in our youth. Even after all the time that had passed, we intrinsically knew the other’s next move. While Alex screwed the cabinets to the wall, I held them steady against the two-by-four brace beneath them and tried not to think of Gracie or about my raging hangover.

“What’s with you today?” Alex asked after a while.

“Frickin’ headache.”

“Still?”

I nodded.

Alex whistled through his teeth. “You are such a lightweight.”

We lifted the next cabinet onto the brace, and I pressed my palms against the wood to stabilize it. “Yup.”

Alex’s screwdriver whirred, and the first screw sunk through oak backing, plaster, and lath. “When are you gonna see Grace again?” He was such a hen.

“Soon.” I wasn’t committing to a date yet.

Using my level and pencil, I drew a straight line along the wall at the correct height, while Alex unscrewed the brace from the cabinets we’d just hung.

“What do you think she’ll say?”

I motioned to the wall. “Screw the brace in.”

Alex’s electric screwdriver whirred in response.

“Who knows?” I finally answered.

Alex rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Joe.” He set the last screw into the cabinet. “We all know you want her. Put us out of our misery. Take her by the hair, drag her back to your cave, and make a bunch of little Joeys and Gracies.”

Sadly, I’d spent way too much time recently imagining a boy with my light strawberry-blond hair and Gracie’s stormy gray eyes and a girl with her dark curls. I shook my head then winced at the pain the brisk movement caused. “Dragging a woman to a cave by her hair is hardly my style.”

The problem was I wasn’t sure of the better method, especially when I wasn’t even going to be in town for long. Clearly it was
not
drinking too much and making an awkward pass. The only thing I knew for certain was the last year had been the worst of my life. While my previous tours in Iraq and Afghanistan hadn’t been a picnic, knowing that I could shoot off an email to Gracie and get one back pretty quickly made it at least bearable. Knowing there would be no email waiting for me in the morning made it hard to even hit the sack at night.

Alex stuck his hand in his leather tool belt but came up empty. “You got anymore screws on ya?”

I reached into my own tool belt and handed Alex a box of cabinet screws.

“The one time we were ever more than friends… let’s just say it didn’t take.”

I frowned at the memory. That night eight years ago hadn’t been my finest hour. Worse, it had resulted in a six-month separation from Gracie that had damn near destroyed our friendship. Wish I’d thought of that last night before I’d tilted back that second beer.

As the day wore on, my headache finally lost its grip, and I came to realize I needed to cart my ass over to Gracie’s and apologize in person. The longer I waited, the worse it would be. That fact should have occurred to me about a year ago when I left after our argument about her fiancé. A decision that continued to haunt me.

Alex and I called it a day at five-thirty By that time, the bathroom resembled a bathroom once again, and the progress convinced me we might be able to get this house done well and on time. It took an extra forty-five minutes to swing by the apartment for a quick shower, but they were a necessary forty-five minutes.

I arrived at Gracie’s at six-fifteen, ready to throw myself on her mercy. Unfortunately, when she opened the door, I completely lost my ability to speak. Instead of the cute, “girl-next-door” who normally occupied Gracie’s apartment, I found a hot tamale.

Her hair was extra glossy and curled softly around her face. I wasn’t sure what she’d done to her eyes, but they seemed to bore their way into my soul. And the clothes she wore were slightly more form-fitting than what Gracie normally appeared in. They weren’t tight but definitely displayed her soft curves to their maximum advantage and made me want to trace them first with the palms of my hands and then my mouth.

“
Vavava-voom,” I said as soon as I gained control of my tongue.

That elicited the giggle I was going for. She opened the door all the way to invite me in. “Do you really think so?”

“You’re going to have to start beating your dates off with a stick.” I tried like hell not to let any of my resentment come through.

“I wanted to talk to you about that,” she said.

“Oh?”

“Inky got me thinking about something today, and I have a proposition for you.”

I felt certain that whatever her proposition was that she wasn’t about to “proposition” me, as I was hoping.

“How would you like to accompany me on my dates?”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t mean that you’d sit next to me. I was thinking that maybe I could meet them at a coffee shop or something. You’d be there in case any of them were...
you know
... creepy or dangerous.”

Safe to say Gracie hadn’t taken my pass the night before seriously. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have suggested this.

“Yeah, I can do that.” I was nothing but a glutton for punishment.

Chapter 11 — Grace

“First dates are God’s punishment for being single
.
”
~ Luddite in Love: A Cautionary Tale of Dating in the Modern Age,
Grace Mendoza

The evening of my first Internet date arrived more quickly than I could have imagined. The response my match.com ad had generated had been surprisingly robust. One of my fears
What happens if I put an ad out there and no one responded?
had been put to rest, at least. Some of the responders had even been… actual possibilities. The rest? Well, let’s just say, I wasn’t getting an “I’m looking for a permanent relationship” vibe from them.

I also found that it was a good way to meet men who I hadn’t known since elementary school, and who didn’t know me or about my year of public humiliation.

On Thursday, Joe arrived to pick me up for my date and found me waiting in front of my apartment building. He hurried around the front of the car to get the door for me, as he usually did.