My One and Only(99)
For a long time, I stared at the ceiling, wondering what to do and how to do it. Finally, with a sigh, I rolled onto my stomach and pulled the pillow over my head. Time to sleep. Surely, morning would be better.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
MORNING WAS NOT BETTER.
I rolled out of bed early, sunlight streaming through the windows, let Coco out and started some coffee. Dennis was still sleeping and would be for some time, judging from the number of beers he’d had last night. I cringed at the thought of our upcoming talk, guilt choking me like a forty-foot python. It was 6:45 a.m.; Dennis probably would sleep for another couple of hours. Call me a coward, but I wasn’t going to burst in there and wake him with the news that I didn’t want to get married after all.
Time to make muffins. Dennis loved muffins, and muffins he would get. If I was going to dump him, at least he could have muffins. I got out a seldom-used cookbook—The Big Book of Texas Cookin’, a gift from BeverLee, of course, containing recipes for quantities of food that would feed entire football teams and should thus hold Dennis for at least round one of breakfast—and got to work. I never baked. My mom and I used to bake a lot—cookies, mostly, which we’d eat watching some age-inappropriate movie. Bev liked cooking better—the best present I ever got her was a Fry Daddy, last Christmas. She’d been so happy, you’d have thought it was a month’s vacation in the Greek isles. Then again, Bev had always been easy to please.
When the muffins were baking, I checked my newly charged phone. Yep, nine messages from Kim, trying to warn me about the surprise at the airport. One from Willa, saying only that she’d hoped to catch me. None from BeverLee, though I’d left a message for her while waiting at Logan yesterday. And none from Nick.
I’d have given an awful lot to have heard his voice right about now, and the realization caused an odd stabbing in my chest. Maybe all the heart-strangling food I’d eaten in the past week was catching up with me and my arteries were choked with Swiss cheese. Or maybe I was afraid Nick had already given up on me. That seemed more likely (and also more horrible) than the heart attack theory.
Maybe, though, Nick had sent me an email. I had, after all, left all my contact info, email, work, etc., on his counter in New York, as a sign that I did indeed want us to have further communication. I jumped over to my laptop and waited, my fingers drumming, for it to start.
Nope. As the emails appeared on the list, I saw there was nothing from Nick. The disappointment was a little shocking. As I turned away from the screen, though, something caught my eye.
Huh. It was a message from my credit card company about a recent purchase. United Airlines, $529. Yesterday.
That…that didn’t seem to bode very well.
Before the thought was fully formulated, a car pulled into the driveway. I looked out the window with dread…yep. There was Willa, getting out of a cab, eyes swollen and red, blond hair matted and dull.
No sign of Chris.
“Willa!” I exclaimed, lurching into action and running out the door. My sister flung herself into my arms.
“Harper, I’m such an ass,” she wept. “You were right! I never should’ve gotten married in the first place!”
Forty-five minutes later, my sister was showered, dressed in a pair of my shorts and a Sharky’s T-shirt, an untouched cup of coffee at her elbow.
“You want something to eat?” I offered. “Muffin? Toast? Eggs? Ben & Jerry’s?”
“No. I couldn’t eat.” Her face was wan.
“So what happened, honey?” I asked, gnawing on my beleaguered cuticle before putting my hand in my lap.
“Well,” she said, forcing a smile, “I should’ve listened to you. I’m going to tattoo that on my forehead. ‘Listen to Harper, because you’re an idiot.’ Maybe then, I’ll learn.”
“You’re not an idiot,” I said. “But obviously something happened.” I paused. “Did he…fall off the wagon?”
She gave me a glance. “You found out about that, huh?”
I winced, then nodded.
“No. He’s still sober. At least, he was when I left.” She welled up again, picked up her cup, then set it down without drinking.
“So what was it, then, Wills?” I asked.
She looked at me, mouth wobbling. “Harper…he wants us to live in Montana, and he thinks I should find a job so I can support him while he, in his words, ‘focuses’ on his inventions and gets the Thumbie going.”
I bit my lip. Honestly, the Thumbie was perhaps the dumbest name for a product I’d ever heard in my life.
“I mean, seriously,” Willa continued, wiping her eyes with a napkin. “What am I supposed to do out there? Wait tables? Become a cowboy? So he can stay home and play with his parts? I want to have a baby, not go back to work.”
“Um…You’ve only been married a week, Willa,” I pointed out.
“I know, Harper,” she said tightly. “Look, please don’t lecture me right now. You were right. Christopher isn’t good enough for me—”
“I’m quite sure those words never actually came out of my mouth.”
“Whatever. You told me not to marry him, and I didn’t listen.”
I chewed on my lip. “So where’s Chris right now?”
“Montana, I guess. That’s where I left him.” Tears spilled out of her pretty blue eyes. “Harper, I don’t know what went wrong. Everything was so great before…then it just went to hell in a handbasket! I mean, our honeymoon sucked, can I just say that? Mosquitoes like something out of Jurassic Park during the day, freezing cold at night. And Chris can’t cook to save his life—”