embarrassing was going to happen to someone, chances are it was going to happen to me. Murphy’s Law and I were well acquainted.
Scarlet pulled a fork out of her fur coat, and sat down on the settee opposite me. She opened the cake box and dug in.
“What’s the matter with you?” Scarlet asked, licking icing off her lips. “And don’t give me any crap about the baby. Women shoot out babies every day. Is it the hormones? I’ve heard they can make you crazy. I knew a woman who found out she was pregnant and ended up feeding her husband rat poison and then shaving her own head.”
“That sounds like a bigger problem than hormones to me,” I said. “Nick isn’t in danger. I just feel out of sorts. Like I’m in someone else’s body.”
“I think your boobs are from someone else’s body,” Scarlet said. “They’re huge.”
“I kind of like that part,” I said, looking down my shirt. “It’s hard to explain. I’ve married the man of my dreams. We live in a nice house, and we have anything we could want, plus a baby on the way. But I’m…bored. Maybe that’s not the right word.”
“I don’t think you’re supposed to say you’re bored until at least a year of marriage,” Rosemarie said. “At least that’s how it worked for me. But I’m probably not the gold standard when it comes to such things.”
“I don’t know,” Scarlet said. “I’ve been married a bunch of times, and I got bored of a couple of them real quick. But I was never very good at picking husbands. I had a penchant for bad boys. And sometimes bad boys aren’t the good kind of bad. Sometimes they’re just bad.”
“Isn’t that the truth,” Rosemarie said. “I learned the hard way that marriage isn’t for everyone. And it’s especially not for people who can’t keep their peckers out of the whores down on River Oaks Road. Roger gave them so much money he had to send out 1099s at the end of the year.”
“Any person who sticks anything into a whore on River Oaks Road needs a shot of penicillin and an exorcism,” Scarlet said. “But you’re right about one thing, they don’t make bad money.”
Rosemarie sighed. “I wish you had been my mother,” she said to Scarlet. “I needed that kind of wisdom in my youth.”
Rosemarie was working like a maniac while we were talking, comparing swatches of lace and pairing them with place settings and centerpieces.
She finished what she was doing and then came over to look inside my pastry box. I might have growled at her, but I decided to be polite. “Do you want that cinnamon twist?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I saw you lick the sugar off the outside five minutes ago.”
Oh, yeah. I’d forgotten. “I’m eating for two,” I said, picking up the cinnamon twist to finish it off.
“You’re eating for thirty-two. That was a big box of pastries.”
“I’ve got low blood sugar, and I’ve been a little down lately,” I said. “Besides, it’s Suzanne’s fault. She gave me all the leftovers from the front case. She would’ve thrown them out anyway. That’s just wasteful.”
“That’s true,” Rosemarie said. “Waste not, want not is what I always say. Sometimes I’ll go in just before closing and see if she’s got any sample cakes she didn’t use for tastings. Then I’ll go home, sit naked on my couch, watch the Bachelor, and eat cake. If that doesn’t make you feel American, I don’t know what does.”
“God bless America,” I said.
Chapter Three
The front door opened and the cold and drizzle rushed in. A whirlwind of color moved into the room, and a coat of crimson swung around legs almost as long as my whole body. Her lips and nails were painted the same scarlet as the coat. Suzanne could stop a crowd no matter where she went.
“Good morning, divas,” Suzanne said dramatically, doing a catwalk turn around the room before unbuttoning her coat and letting it shrug off her shoulders and onto an empty chair. She was dressed in a tight leather skirt and a sheer black long-sleeved top that was covered by a leather corset vest. Her size twelve stilettos were studded and sported red soles. It wasn’t the outfit I would’ve chosen to wear in almost freezing temperatures, but Suzanne could get away with anything.
“I’ve got that same outfit,” Scarlet said. She’d finished her cake and was lying full out on the settee, still covered up in