The F-Word

“Ah. Violet. A charming girl who’s made an excellent catch.” Mrs. Simms winks. “But you’ve made the better catch. Our Matty here might as well be called the Bachelor of the Year.”

“Oh,” Bailey says quickly, “Matthew isn’t…I mean, Matthew and I…”

“We work together,” I say. Bailey flinches. “What I mean is, we’re friends.” Another flinch. What the hell, I go for broke. “Very good friends.”

Mrs. Simms laughs. I’m not trying to be cruel when I say her laugh has always reminded me of a horse’s whinny. In the past I found that kind of amusing. Right now, nothing is amusing. I can absolutely, positively, no-doubt-about-it see where this is heading.

“An understatement,” she says. “I can’t believe your mother didn’t tell me!”

“Tell you…?”

“You know, Matty. That you were seeing somebody. She must be thrilled! Every mother wants to see her son find the right girl and settle down.”

Bailey casts me a pleading look, but I can’t come up with anything that will dig us out of this.

“I thought I’d spotted you. And right then, Chester and his lovely bride came by our table to say hello and I asked if I was right and my dear friend’s son, Matthew O’Malley, was a guest tonight and the bride said yes, he was, he was here with his fiancée…”

I lose the thread of conversation for a couple of seconds as I contemplate how you’d manage strangling someone discreetly when you’re in a room with a couple of hundred people.

“You know,” Mrs. Simms says with a sly smile, “while I was watching you two, I wondered how often it must happen.”

“How often what must happen?” I croak.

“You know, Matty. A young couple in love goes to a wedding and, wallah, before you know it they’re planning a wedding of their own.”

She just said wallah when what she meant was voila. I’ve heard other people do that. Normally, it drives me whacko—my mom’s DNA at work—but right now I’m whacko enough without worrying about Jessica Simms fucking up French.

“That’s the thing,” I say. “See, Bailey and I aren’t—”

“You aren’t ready to talk about it yet. I understand. I’ll be our little secret.”

Meaning the inhabitants of Drury Drive for two miles in an ever-expanding circumference will hear news of the impending nuptials of Matthew O’Malley and Bailey Abrams by tomorrow lunchtime, the latest.

I want to protest, but what would I say? The truth, a little voice in my head whispers, but the truth is complicated and involved and…

And—and I can’t do that.

The truth is too messy. It would hurt Bailey, and hurting her is the last thing I’d ever want to do.

We get through another few minutes. Bailey and I are silent while Jessica Simms berates the Beef Wellington for being half raw and the Chicken Divan for being overcooked. At last, mercifully, she gets to her feet. We rise too, and she hugs us both, wishes us well, gives that whinny of a laugh as she prepares to gallop off to another pasture. She says she can’t wait to talk to my mother and tell her how happy she is that someone’s finally caught me.

She leaves. Bailey and I sit down. I run my hand through my hair. “Wow,” I say. “Who’d have expected…”

“Yes,” Bailey says. “Who’d have expected.”

Bailey’s voice is low. Her face is pale. She looks the way I feel.

“Hey,” I say softly. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

She’s not. I can tell. And, idiot that I am, I figure I can improve things by making light of what just happened.

“Well,” I say brightly, “I’m in for an interesting phone call from my mother.”

Bailey swallows hard. I know because I can see her throat constrict as she reaches for her purse.

“It’s late,” she says. “I’d like to leave.”