What's Life Without the Sprinkles - By Misty Simon Page 0,39
about how he looked and what his reception would be like.
“Come on, Claudia, put a rush on it. We need to go!”
More banging, and Claudia wanted to bang her head against the wall. “I’m coming. Hold your freaking horses.” She satisfied her need to bang by slamming her bedroom door open and stalking down the hall. “You wanted me to take the time to look fabulous, and now all of a sudden you’re trying to rush me out of the house. What gives? Mom and Dad aren’t picking up Justin from church for another half an hour, and lunch doesn’t even start until at least one. What’s the rush?”
Zoe flicked her hair over her shoulder and looked over Claudia’s shoulder at the wedding picture that had hung on the wall since their mother and father had originally lived here twenty years ago.
“Zoe, I’m over here.” Claudia snapped her fingers.
“Yep. Ready to go?”
Claudia planted herself in front of her sister. “No, I’m ready to hear what’s going on that you won’t look at me.”
The phone chose that moment to ring.
“Okay, let’s get a move on. We don’t want to be late for the lunch. That would be horribly rude, wouldn’t it? To be late? So, we should go. Right now. Right. Now.” Zoe pushed and prodded, but Claudia leaned back against her as best she could in her three-inch heels.
The answering machine kicked on a second before Claudia snatched the cordless phone off the end table. She stood with the phone in her hand while their message played. Then she cut her eyes over to Zoe when a man started talking.
“Zoe? Did we have a bad connection or another malfunction? I’m waiting for your answer regarding dinner. You have my card, please call back. And let your business partners know all the paperwork will be ready in a few weeks. Perhaps we could have that champagne toast to celebrate. I’ll look forward to hearing from you and hopefully seeing you again soon.”
The machine beeped and the message light flickered. Claudia took her time turning toward Zoe. She placed a hand on her hip and used the other hand to point the phone at her sister. “And who might that be?”
“That might be Grandma.” Zoe shrugged and continued to avoid all eye contact.
“Try again. Grandma didn’t start taking testosterone in the last three days since I talked to her.”
“That might be Justin’s principal calling to see if you want a parent-teacher meeting.”
“Didn’t sound like it to me.” Claudia dropped the phone on the couch.
Zoe heaved a sigh. “That might be our lawyer, who won’t take no for an answer.”
“And why would our lawyer be calling you about champagne celebrations?”
“We really should get going.” Zoe headed out the door with Claudia close on her heels.
“But I want to talk about Mr. Zegray,” Claudia said in a sing-song voice as they walked down the outside staircase. “Or is it Dexter? The Dex-Man. Is he ambi-Dex-trous?”
Color shot into Zoe’s face. “It’s Dex.” She opened the car door and practically threw herself into the driver’s seat.
“Ooh, Dex. And is Dex a total paper-bag wearer? Is he a doggie? Was he thwacked by the ugly stick? Need extra deodorant? A candidate for the Darwin Award? I thought he made you hot to trot.”
Cranking the key too hard, Zoe whipped around and faced Claudia. “No, all right? No, he’s not a doggie. He’s actually extremely cute and pretty damn sexy, too. But he’s a total Dog with a capital D.”
“Oh, sorry.” Claudia clipped her seatbelt and smoothed her dress over her thighs. She let the silence hang in the air for a few blocks while Zoe drove with her eyes straight forward. “So, really cute?”
Zoe sighed, and her shoulders slumped. “Extremely cute.”
“Irrefutable proof he’s a capital-D Dog?”
Another sigh. “I don’t know how else you can explain five bouquets to five different women in as many weeks.”
“Oh.” Yeah, that didn’t look good, and even though Claudia might want her sister to get out and actually find someone who would make her heart sing, she also didn’t want her to get crushed before she even made it out the door. A womanizer was a sure way to get stomped.
“Yeah, sucks.” Zoe made the left onto May’s street.
“But Uncle Al likes him.”
“Just because he could be a good lawyer doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a good human being.”
And didn’t that just about sum it up? Peter had been a good person but a miserable father-to-be for the few months he’d stuck around.