I interrupt her commiseration with a question. “When is the tasting?” News of my car accident had sidetracked our conversation.
“It’s this Saturday. Can you make it?” She wants me to join her and my mother at the bakery they have chosen to make the wedding cake. They are to sample different flavor combinations. Normally, I’d be all over free cake. But since the wedding planning began, being with my sister and mother is as close as I’ll ever come to being in a war zone, I hope. Of course, Jonathan, my soon-to-be brother-in-law, can’t make it. He’s working again, trying to make partner at his law firm. They met in law school. Laura is a lawyer, as well, but she works in real estate law where she is actually able to get weekends off. Trying to build law careers and plan a wedding at the same time are not making for a blissful nuptial planning period.
“Are you going to make every attempt to avoid antagonizing her?” I ask.
“I don’t do anything. She’s the one who makes me crazy--quilting me into going with her to make all these decisions. She asks me what I want, and when I tell her she disagrees and just does what she wants anyway. There’s no point in my even being there, especially when she makes me take time off during the week to go through this ridiculous charade.”
“Well, thanks for the full disclosure,” I say. “You couldn’t pay me to go with you on Saturday.”
“Come on, Andy. I need you there as a buffer. Please?”
“Fine,” I agree, rolling my eyes even though she can’t see me. Eating cake for an hour in the afternoon does add some incentive to my acceptance.
“Thank you. Maybe it will even be fun with you there.”
“Yeah, sure. What time is fun?” I ask.
“Not anytime soon.” Laura laughs.
Laura is my junior by four years. She’s an attorney and she’s engaged, but I still think of her as my little sister. What she has never learned is that it’s simply easier to agree with everything Mom says when you’re in her presence. Tell her what she wants to hear, and then go ahead and do whatever you like. There is no point in arguing with her. She has superhuman stamina for arguments. She thinks I am a most agreeable daughter. But what she doesn’t know can’t hurt me.
I sign off after making arrangements to meet them at the bakery on Saturday. The next telephone call is to Mr. Frameless Glasses. I look at his neat block writing on the business card and dial. After four rings, his voicemail answers. “You’ve reached Jason,” his smooth, deep voice begins, “Leave a message.” Beeeeep.
I take a breath and try to speak in a calm and casual voice. “Hi, Jason. This is Andrea. We met at Café Blue the other night. You had the waiter give me your card.” And this is when Tiger decides to come barreling at me and the stack of papers I’ve collected on my lap. He flies at the stack, hitting it head-on and sending papers flying. He lands on my lap while continuing to bat at the airborne sheets. “Dammit Tiger,” I mutter, as the phone falls from my shoulder where I’ve been balancing it. I grab it up quickly. “Umm,” I continue into the telephone, trying to remember what I was saying. “I was sorry we didn’t have more time to chat, too. You can reach me back at…” I leave the number to my cell phone and hang up, wondering if his voicemail caught the brief commotion. I had planned to say something clever about his disappearing act, but Tiger threw me off, and I figured brief was better.
“Well, Tiger,” I say looking down at him. He has rolled onto his back, offering his tummy up for a rub. “I’d say you got the drop on those papers, my friend. They never saw you coming.”
four
The nice gentleman at the Honda collision office knows me by name. This is certainly not a good thing. “Back again, Ms. Whitman,” he says, stepping out of the garage into the bright morning sun. I can’t recall his name, but he is an older man dressed in the same beige polyester pants and Red Sox T-shirt he’s worn the last two times I’ve seen him.
“It’s not too bad,” I say leading him around to the back of the car.
He puts his hands on his hips as he bends down to peer at the