Paradise (Second Opportunities 1)

Meredith didn't always remember, and she was, moreover, becoming increasingly aware that Matt was getting angry.

Matt wasn't getting angry, he was already coldly furious. For three quarters of an hour he'd been forced to listen to Reynolds relating cute tales about himself and Meredith, designed to point out to Matt that he was, hopelessly and irrevocably, Meredith's and Reynolds's social inferior, no matter how much money he had. Included among them was a story about the time Meredith broke her tennis racquet in a doubles tournament she played with him at the country club when she was a teenager... another about some damned dance given by some ritzy private school where she'd dropped her necklace ... and yet another about a polo game he'd recently taken her to.

When he started talking about a charity auction they'd worked on together, Meredith stood up quickly. "I'm going to the ladies' room," she said, deliberately interrupting Parker. Lisa stood up too. "I'll go with you."

As soon as they reached the ladies' room, Meredith walked over to the sink, bracing her hands on the tiled counter in a posture of complete misery. "I can't stand much more of this," she told Lisa. "I never imagined tonight would be as bad as this."

"Should I pretend I'm sick and make them take us home?" Lisa said, grinning as she leaned forward to reapply her lipstick. "Remember when you did that for me that time we double-dated when we were at Bensonhurst?"

"Parker wouldn't care if we both passed out at his feet tonight," Meredith said irritably. "He's too busy doing everything he can to provoke Matt into an argument."

The tube of lipstick in Lisa's hand stilled, and she shot Meredith an irate sideways glance. "Matt is goading him!"

"He isn't saying a word!"

"That is how he's goading him. Matt is leaning back in his chair, watching Parker like he's a performing clown! Parker isn't used to losing, and he's lost you. And Matt is sitting there, silently gloating because he knows he's going to win."

"I cannot believe you!" Meredith burst out in a low, angry voice. "For years you've criticized Parker when he was right. Now he's wrong and he's drunk, and you're taking his side! Furthermore, Matt hasn't won anything. And he is not gloating. He may be trying to look bored and amused by Parker's antics, but he isn't! Believe me, he's angry—really angry because Parker is making him look like a—a social outcast."

"That's the way you see it," Lisa said with such fierce indignation that Meredith stepped back in astonishment. It turned to guilt as Lisa added, "I don't know how you could have considered marrying a man for whom you haven't the least bit of sympathy!"

The waiter had just told Matt that his table was ready, and over his shoulder Matt saw Lisa and Meredith emerge from the ladies' room and wend their way through the crowded lounge.

Parker had stopped talking about the things he and Meredith had done and was now thoroughly antagonizing Matt by questioning him about his background and sneering at Matt's answers. "Tell me, Farrell," he said in a loud, slurred voice that made several people at neighboring tables turn around, "where did you go to college? I've forgotten."

"IndianaState," Matt bit out, watching Lisa and Meredith.

"I went to Princeton."

"So what!"

"I was just curious. What about sports? Did you play any?"

"No," he clipped, sliding back his chair and standing up so that the four of them could go to their table in the dining room as soon as the women arrived.

"What did you do with your free time?" Parker persisted, sliding back his chair and standing up, too, a little unsteadily.

"I worked."

"Where?"

"In the steel mills and as a mechanic."

"I played some polo, boxed a little bit And," he added with a disdainful look down Matt's entire length, "I gave Meredith her first kiss."

"I took her virginity," Matt snapped back, baited past endurance, but his eyes were on Meredith and Lisa, who were less than ten feet away.

"You son of a bitch!" Parker hissed, and, drawing back his arm, he aimed a punch at Matt.

Matt barely saw it coming in time to avoid it. Reacting instinctively, he threw up his left arm and swung hard with his right. Pandemonium erupted; women screamed, men jumped out of their chairs, Parker crashed to the floor, and white lights exploded in the background. Lisa called him a bastard, Matt looked toward her, and a small fist connected with his eye at the same instant Meredith bent down to help Parker off the floor. Matt instinctively drew back his fist to return the blow, realized it was Lisa who'd hit him, and checked the motion, but his elbow connected with something hard behind him and Meredith cried out. Joe was hurtling forward, plowing through the fleeing diners, and Matt caught Lisa's wrists to stop the hellcat from punching him again while photographers appeared out of nowhere, crowding in for more shots. With his free hand Matt yanked Meredith away from Parker's prone body and thrust her at Joe. "Get her out of here!" he yelled, trying to block her from view of the cameras with his own body. "Take her home!"

Suddenly Meredith felt herself being half lifted off her feet and shoved through the shouting crowd toward the kitchen's swinging doors. "There's a back way out," Joe panted, dragging her in his wake past startled cooks hovering over steaming pots and gaping waiters with loaded dinner trays. He threw his shoulder at the back door, sending it flying open and crashing against the back of the brick building, and they plunged into the frigid night air and into the rear parking lot, ignoring the parking lot attendant. Jerking the door of the limo open, Joe shoved her into the back of it and down onto the floor. "Stay down," he shouted, already slamming her door and running for the driver's door.

In a blur of unreality, Meredith stared at the fuzzy threads of the dark blue carpet a half inch from her wide eyes, unable to believe this was happening! Refusing t cower on the floor, she shoved herself upward, trying to crawl into the seat just as the car engine roared to life. The Cadillac blasted out of the parking lot, tires screaming, careening around the corner on two wheels, dumping Meredith back onto the floor in an ignominious heap. Streetlights flew by the windows in a white blur as the car raced crazily down one street and up another, and it belatedy occurred to her that they weren't circling and going back to the restaurant for Lisa.

Gingerly, she crawled up into the seat that faced the rear of the car, so that she could order Matt's maniac chauffeur to slow down and go back. "Excuse me—Joe," she called, but he was either too busy breaking the speed limit and traffic laws to hear her, or the blaring horns from irate motorists they were cutting off had drowned out her voice. With an angry sigh Meredith got up onto her knees, leaned her chest against the seat back, and poked her head through the connecting window. "Joe," she said, her voice breaking with fear as they swerved onto the right shoulder and passed a semi truck with only inches between them. "Please! You're scaring me!"