Kitabı oku: «Loose Screws»

KAREN TEMPLETON

spent her twentysomething years in New York City, which provided some of the fodder for Ginger’s experiences in Loose Screws. Before that, she grew up in Baltimore, then attended North Carolina School of the Arts as a theater major. The RITA^® Award-nominated author of more than ten novels, she now lives with her husband, a pair of eccentric cats and four of their five sons in Albuquerque, where she spends an inordinate amount of time picking up stray socks and mourning the loss of long, aimless walks in the rain. Visit her Web site at www.karentempleton.com.

Loose Screws
Karen Templeton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is dedicated to all the crazy, courageous, unsinkable, wonderful people who live in a city that still feels like home even after many years away

and to a certain lovely, pushy editor who insisted I had this book in me.

Thanks, Gail.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Epilogue

One

First off, let me just state for the record that I didn’t fall for Greg Munson because he was successful, or handsome—even though I sure didn’t mind the dirty how-did-you-get-him? glances whenever we went out—or even to piss my mother off. I swear, his being the son of a Republican congressman was pure serendipity.

No. I fell in love with the guy because he gave me every indication that he was normal. And, since the odds of finding such a creature in this town are roughly a quadrillion to one, when he proposed, I pounced. I may not be proud of that, but hey. We’re talking survival of the species here.

And I have no doubt we might have had a very nice life together if he’d bothered to show up for the wedding.

Now, granted, it’s only been four hours since I smushed twenty-five yards of tulle into a taxi and hauled my sorry self back to my apartment from the hotel, so it’s not as if I’ve had a lot of time to figure any of this out. Not that I expect to.

For one thing, I’m not some infantile twit blinded by infatuation, a condition to which I’ve never been prone in any case. I’m thirty-one, have lived my entire life in Manhattan and endured a childhood that, trust me, taught me early on how to spot a jerk. Greg and I didn’t even date until a good two months after I first schlepped carpet and wallpaper samples up to his new Scarsdale house, didn’t sleep together for another couple months after that. I was careful. I didn’t cling. Never brought up marriage. Never demanded any more of his time than he was willing to give. If anything, he was one who seemed hot to take things to The Final Plateau.

So, nope. No clues there. Not even a crumb.

We held up the ceremony as long as we could. But I knew it was all over when, like a pair of priests being called to give last rites, my mother and grandmother appeared in the hallway outside the hotel ballroom to hold vigil with me and my two bridesmaids: my cousin Shelby (Jewish, terminally married, bubbly) and best friend Terrie (black, twice divorced, cynical). Yet, ever optimistic, I persisted in covering Greg’s butt. Not to mention my own.

“Traffic on the parkway must be horrendous this time of day,” I said brightly, ten minutes past the point where the pair of ice swans, not to mention some of the more elderly guests, were beginning to melt in the late May heat that had managed to override the hotel’s cooling system. When Terrie pointed out to me that Greg’s cell phone was like a fifth—or in his case, sixth—appendage, I averred, with only the barest hint of hysteria in my voice, that his battery must have gone dead, of course, that had to be it, because, after all, he’d helped me pick out the lousy flowers, for God’s sake, not to mention the cake and the invitations, so why wouldn’t he show up for his own goddamn wedding?

“Maybe he’sa dead?”

We all looked at my grandmother, calmly plucking at her underpants through the skirt of her new pink dress, who, being basically deaf as a post, had delivered this line loud enough to reach the Bronx.

I shot a don’t-say-it look at my mother, resplendent in some schmata straight from The Lion King. Although, frankly, as the guests began to filter out in embarrassed silence, as the judge—flanked by Phyllis and Bob Munson, Greg’s parents—mumbled his condolences, as I bleakly surveyed the lavishly decorated, now-empty ballroom, I have to admit Kill the bastard had shot to the top of my To Do list.

There’s no need for your mother to pay for the wedding, Greg had said. Between us, we can foot the expenses, right?

Considering what we were doing when he laid that proposal on the table—which, come to think of it, pretty much describes our activity at the time—he could have probably suggested just about anything and I would have agreed. But even once again clothed and in my right mind, I still thought, well…sure. We both had solid careers— Greg had made partner in his midtown law firm before thirty, and my growing client base meant I hadn’t had to furtively paw through a markdown rack in years. Although, since Greg thought we should go halfsies, it meant dipping into my savings. Okay, annihilating them. We weren’t talking city hall and a reception at Schrafft’s. But, hey, Greg Munson was the pot of gold I’d inadvertently tripped over at the end of the rainbow. It was worth it, right?

Do you have any idea how much a Vera Wang wedding dress costs?

Do you have any idea, Shelby had said, appalled, when I’d weakly insisted, my eyes locked on my enchanted reflection in the dressing room mirror, I’d be just as happy with the ivory silk shantung Ellen Tracy suit I’d tried on three days ago in Bergdorf’s, how much you’d regret blowing this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to look like a princess?

Do you have any idea, my mother had said, equally appalled, when I dragged her and Nonna into the Madison Avenue showroom to model the gown (Shelby’s princess comment having effectively annihilated my sticker shock), how many homeless people you could feed for what you just threw away on a dress you’re only going to wear once?

Damn, girl, Terrie had said, hands parked on rounded hips that have seen action in two marriages and any number of skirmishes, you actually look like you’ve got tits in that dress.

Could somebody hand me a tissue?

My mother tried to convince me to ride back uptown with her and my grandmother, spend the night with them in my mother’s Columbia University-owned apartment. Since I’d basically rather put out my own eye, I declined. Which may seem extremely disrespectful to those of you who have someone other than Nedra Cohen Petrocelli as your mother.

Okay, I suppose I’m being just the teensiest bit unfair. Nedra means well, she really does. It’s just that she tends to suck the life force out of anyone unfortunate enough to find himself or herself within a city block of her.

Sometimes, when I look at a photo of my mother when she was younger and skinnier, I swear to God it’s like looking into a mirror. The same black springy hair, dark eyes, high cheekbones, long limbs, a wide mouth that often gets us into trouble. Personality-wise, though…well, let’s just say genetics took a dive into the deep end of the pool there. While Nedra literally goes limp if she’s deprived of human company for longer than two hours, I need solitude in order to recharge. Her reaction to tragedy or stress is to invite a dozen chums over for dinner. Mine is to clutch my mortification—and in this case, a bottle of very expensive champagne—to my flat little chest (genetics played a nasty little trick on me there, too) and retreat to my lair.

A lair that, though miniscule and un-air-conditioned, I am now exceedingly glad I did not give up, even though I’d moved most of my clothes and stuff to the Scarsdale house last week (note to self: new clothes?). So. Here I sit, in a frothy heap in the center of the pseudo-Turkish rug I bought three years ago at one of those Fifth Avenue emporiums that’s been going out of business since 1973, swigging the bubbly like it’s diet Coke and entertaining myself by counting how many times my answering machine has beeped. Since I’m sure at least half the calls are from my (disgustingly stereotypical) mother, I have no interest in hearing who they’re from. Not even if one of them’s from Greg.

Especially if one of them’s from Greg.

I should really get out of the dress. It itches like hell, for one thing. But I can’t. Not yet. I know, it’s stupid. And it’s not as if I think that Greg’s suddenly going to show up, all smiles and profuse apologies, and we’ll just zip right back to the hotel and get married as if none of this ever happened. Which we couldn’t do anyway because the guests are long gone and the caterers already took away all the food and the judge had another wedding later this afternoon and I’ll never get my hair back the way Alphonse had it—

You know what really fries my clams? (I stare at the bottle as I think about this, finding a certain comfort in the predictability of the oscillating table fan’s intermittent, albeit ineffectual breeze.) Before I met Greg, I was perfectly happy. Didn’t feel like anything was missing from my life, you know? Oh, sure, I suppose I assumed I’d get married one day, since most people do, especially if they want kids. Which I do. I mean, hell, even my mother had gotten married—to my father, conveniently enough—and this is a woman who redefines the term “free radical.” But I hadn’t been stumbling around, desperately searching for my other “half” and crying in my latte because I’d reached the ripe old age of thirty without finding him. Dating has never been goal-oriented for me. No, I swear. I went out on the odd occasion, had sex on even odder ones, but you know, there’s something to be said for being able to rent any damn video you want, watching it when you want, wearing whatever you want, eating whatever you want without getting grief from whoever else is in the room with you. And if I’ve never exactly been the type to make men salivate…so what? I have a flourishing career, this fabulous East Side studio I’ve been illegally subletting for five years, and a hairdresser who hadn’t gasped in horror when I’d removed my hat that first time.

So things were fine. Before Greg, I mean. Then he goes and does this, leaving me with that fresh roadkill feeling.

But why should I feel this way? Am I any less whole than I was before four o’clock this afternoon? Is my sense of self-worth any less diminished because some idiot has seen fit to screw up my life for the foreseeable future? Is my hair kinkier, my nose bigger, my chest smaller?

I look down to check; reassured, I take another swig of champagne, right from the bottle. No muss, no fuss, no bubbles in the nose.

Hmm. I seem to have lost all feeling below my knees.

Oh, hell…there must be a hole in the screen, ’cause there’s a pissed off mosquito in here somewhere…no, wait. That’s my intercom buzzer. Which means either I ordered Chinese and don’t remember, which is very possible, or somebody—most likely my mother, which is a depressing thought—has come to bear witness to my degradation.

I hoist myself upright, willing sensation back into my feet, after which the dress and I float over to the intercom. After only three or four tries, I manage to poke the little button and grunt, “Go ’way.”

But wait. The buzzer is still buzzing. I finish off the champagne—I feel the need to interject at this point that I am not a drinker, that in fact this is the first serious alcohol to pass my lips since my cousin Shelby’s wedding in 1996, which is probably why I am seeing multiples of everything right now—on the off chance that it will clear my head. I was wrong. I also realize that the pissed-off mosquito is not trapped inside my intercom but is, in point of fact, hovering outside the front door to my apartment.

I burp delicately, gather up as much of the dress as I can catch, and embark on a zigzag course toward where I last saw the door. I possess just enough…something to peer through the keyhole. “Whoozit?”

“Ginger Petrocelli?”

I steal a moment to wonder, as I do from time to time, what on earth possessed my parents to name me Ginger, before clunking my forehead against the door and peering through the peephole, which affords me a distorted glimpse of a vaguely familiar clefted chin, hooded blue eyes and a very male hand with neatly trimmed nails clutching an official-looking ID. The guy says his own name, I think, but a fire truck chooses that moment to blast its horn eight stories below my open window, so I don’t hear it. I also almost wet my pants, which, considering the amount of champagne I have consumed, could have been disastrous.

So, I try to read the ID. Only there is no way I can focus enough to see the name, let alone the face beyond it. But I sure as hell catch the N.Y.P.D. part.

My stomach lurches. Until, always one to see the bright side to things, I console myself with the thought that at least it’s not my mother.

Ohmigod. My mother.

Images of a taxi door slamming shut on my mother’s Lion King tent and dragging her for ten blocks through midtown traffic spur me to fumble with the first of the three locks I’d bothered with when I came in—

Waaaaitaminnit.

“How do I know…” I brace one hand against the wall. When the dizziness passes, I say, “How do I know you’re really the police?”

Through the three-inch-thick door, I hear what sounds like a very patient sigh. “Dammit, Ginger—did you bother looking through the peephole? It’s Nick Wojowodski. Open up.”

With a gasp, I undo the rest of the locks and swing open the door. A hand darts out to catch me as I stumble out into the hallway, tripping over a foil-covered something on the floor and straight back to June 16, 1992. “Holy crap,” I breathe, snared in a pair of eyes the color of the New York sky that one day in October it’s actually blue.

Nicky tries valiantly not to wince from the fumes while I, equally valiantly, try not to wince from the memories.

My father’s cousin’s daughter Paula’s wedding to Nicky’s older brother Frank. I was one of twelve bridesmaids. The gowns were hideous and I was in serious vengeful mode. And old Nicky here was the best man.

Well, he sure as hell was the best man I’d ever had, up to that point. I didn’t stand a chance, not against those lethal eyes and all the champagne I’d lairped up (do we see a pattern here?) and a hundred-eighty pounds of solid, uncomplicated maleness with an equally solid, uncomplicated erection the size of Cincinnati plastered against me when we danced. Especially in light of the fact that my boyfriend…Jesus, what was his name? Doesn’t matter, I forget now, but he’d just ditched me in favor of some female Visigoth from Hunter College with serious bazongas and even more serious mutilation issues, and I was feeling lonely and horny and boring and Nicky was all too willing to do what he could to bolster my sagging self-esteem. Not to mention relieving me of my virginity, which was beginning to get a little frayed around the edges anyway.

Which he did, all righty, in a storage room about twenty paces behind the altar.

“I’ll call you,” he’d said. Only he hadn’t.

I don’t think I’ve seen Paula more than two or three times since then. We were never really close, anyway; she just asked me to be a bridesmaid to make an even dozen. Besides, she lives in Brooklyn. We do, however, touch base from time to time whenever there’s a family crisis or something, since her grandfather and my grandfather were brothers. So I know Nicky lives on the third floor of the Greenpoint house Frank’s and his grandmother left to the guys a couple years ago, that he went through the police academy, eventually became a detective. What I didn’t know was that he was assigned to the 19th Precinct. Which would be mine.

Trying to work up a good head of anger, I watch as Nicky squats down to pick up the foil-wrapped whatever, which I’m gathering is something homebaked from Ted and Randall across the hall. There’s a black satin ribbon tied around it.

Nicky straightens, frowning at the ribbon for a second before he hands me the package. I shift the empty bottle, which I can’t seem to let go of, to take it. A comforting, lemony smell drifts upward. Wow. Ted must’ve gone straight into the kitchen the minute he got home from the wedding.

“Hey, Ginger,” Nick says in this gruff-gentle voice, and the anger just goes poof along with the fear that my mother’s body parts are scattered all over 57th Street. I mean, really, like I’ve got the energy to be ticked about something that happened ten years ago when I’ve got a much juicier, more recent affront to my pride to deal with.

My eyes narrow. “Why are you here, Nicky?”

Nicky plants his hands on his hips—ever notice the interesting places men’s jeans tend to fade?—his eyes like blue flames under thick, dark blond hair, his mouth turned slightly down at the corners, and I think, is it me, or is this weird? That I’m standing here in a wedding dress my husband will not be tearing off my body tonight, holding consolatory, still-warm baked goods from my gay neighbors, whilst strolling down memory lane about a quickie in a church closet?

That I’m staring up at the iron jaw of the man who ten years ago annihilated a pair of brand-new, twenty-dollar Dior bikinis and who, it pains me to admit, I would probably allow the same privilege today? That is, if I were not of the current opinion that all men should be shot.

“Look,” the Virginator says, “this is sort of…unofficial. I’m not even on duty, in fact, but…” He grimaces. “Mind if I come in?”

I wobble out of the way, let him pass.

All available air in the apartment has just been effectively displaced. Nicky doesn’t seem to notice, probably because he’s too busy taking in my crushed-moth look, my frizzled hair, the fact that I am slightly swaying, as though to music only I can hear. He then crosses his arms and dons a troubled expression, which I decide he practices in front of his mirror at night. I also decide we are both going to pretend ten years ago didn’t happen.

“I’m really sorry,” he says, “but I gotta ask you this…the guy you were gonna marry, Greg Munson? When’d you last see him?”

I hug the bottle, tears cresting on my lower lashes. Oh, God, no. Please don’t tell me I’m a maudlin drunk. “Th-thursday night.”

“You sure about that?”

“I’m d-drunk,” I say, indignantly, still swaying, still clutching the empty bottle to my stomach. “Not lobotomized. Of course I’m sure about that.”

Nicky gently removes the bottle from my grasp, as if it’s a loaded gun, and glowers at it. “Christ. You drink this whole thing by yourself?”

“Every stinkin’ d-drop.” He suddenly tilts off to one sside, just before I feel him clasp my shoulders and turn me around, steering me toward my sofa.

“Sit,” he says when we get there.

Not that he has to ask. I drop like a stone, the dress whooshing up around me. I also feel like giggling, which, since a policeman is questioning me about my fiancé’s whereabouts, is probably an inappropriate reaction. I look up to see Nicky and his twin doing that glowering thing again, his—their—arms crossed. I will a sober expression—as it were—to my face.

“Seems nobody else has seen Munson since then, either,” he says. “His parents just filed a missing persons report. Tried to, anyway.”

I feel my eyebrows try to take flight. “Already?”

“I know, it’s premature. And probably a huge waste of time, since instinct tells me—excuse me for saying this—nothin’s happened to this guy except he got cold feet. But people like Bob Munson are very good at making waves.” Nicky glances around the studio apartment, which takes maybe three seconds. “So how come, if you were gettin’ married, all your stuff’s still here?” He looks back at me, eyes narrowed. “You don’t expect me to believe your husband was gonna move into this hamster cage with you?”

I ignore the derision in Nicky’s voice. Okay, so between all my books, my plants, the full-size drafting table, the computer and all its attendant crap, the TV and stereo, a sofa bed, two chairs, my exercise bike, a coffee table, a bistro set, and five pieces of matching, packed Lands’ End luggage, things might seem, to the uneducated eye, a little cramped.

“I decided to hang on to it, in case I needed to stay over in the city from time to time. Most of my clothes are out at our new house, howev—” My jaw drops. “You mean they think I have something to do with Greg’s disappearance?”

I’m usually a little quicker on the draw. I swear.

At that, Nicky perches on the edge of my Pier One coffee table (and if you breathe a word to my clients that my apartment is done in mass-market kitsch, you’re dead meat) and looks me straight in the eye. “What I think doesn’t matter here. God knows, it wasn’t me that came up with this asinine theory. And that’s all it is, believe me. In any case—” he digs around in his coat pocket for a scrawny little notepad and a Bic pen “—nobody’s accusin’ you of anything, okay? It’s just that, well, seeing’s as he stood you up, you do have a motive. I mean, should…”

He stops.

I grip the edge of my sofa bed (Pottery Barn, cranberry velvet, three years old) and make myself focus on Nicky until there’s only one of him. “Hey. I went ballistic back there,” I say, swatting in the general direction of midtown. “That wasn’t faked. I can’t fake anything,” I add, which gets a quick hitch of the pair of eyebrows across from me. “Besides, even I know you can’t have a murder without a bo—” I burp “—dy.”

Tell me that didn’t sound as blasé as I think it did.

Nicky is looking at me as if he’s not sure. But then he says, “Nobody’s sayin’ anything about murder, Ginger. I’m just tryin’ to fit the pieces together. All anybody wants is to find this guy and get his frickin’ father off our case.”

“Well, why point a finger at me?” Sober, I can do high dudgeon with the best of ’em. However, considering the definite possibility that my speech is slurred, I’m probably not pulling it off as well as I might have hoped. Nicky’s long, dark, silky eyelashes sidetrack me for a second, then I say, “Sure…now, I have a motive. After he stands me up. I didn’t before this afternoon. I mean, come on…why would I want to do in the man who gave me my first multiple orgasm?”

I try clamping my hand over my mouth, only I miss and smack myself in the chin.

Nicky puts his pad and pen away. And in those crystalline eyes, I see…awe. Respect. A pinch of what I’m afraid to identify as challenge. And I find myself thinking, damn, there’s all this hot, sizzling testosterone in the room, and I’m feeling really sorry for myself, which is closely followed by my wondering what might have happened if he had called me, all those years ago. Only then I remember that Nicky is a cop, for one thing, and that his family is even crazier than mine—which is going some—and that I have already had all the craziness I can stand for one lifetime. Oh, and that, according to Paula, her brother-in-law apparently has a penchant for giggly, jiggly twenty-year-olds.

And that, had events unfolded as planned, I’d be—I glance at the clock over my stove—less than fifteen hours away from my initiation into the Mile High Club.

I’d been really, really looking forward to that.

Venice, too.

“So,” Nicky says, all back-to-business. “You got an alibi for after when you last saw Munson?”

I think, a task that doesn’t usually strain me this much. “I was here, alone, most of that time. Packing and stuff.”

“Anybody see you coming in or going out?”

Again, I think. Again, I draw a blank. “I don’t think so. Sorry.”

Then the thought jumps up in my face and screams, What if Greg is dead?

I look at Nicky, feel my skin go clammy. My stomach rebels. I guess I turn green or something, because with one swift move, he grabs me and pushes me into my bathroom, where I puke out the champagne into the toilet. Which seems aptly symbolic, somehow. Afterward, Nicky hands me a cup of water to rinse my mouth, a damp cloth for my face.

I sip, mop, feel a single tear track down my cheek, undoubtedly dragging mascara behind it. Silently, Nicky steers me back out into the living room. I look at all the packed luggage and heave a great, sour-tasting sigh.

“Here,” he says behind me.

I turn, take the business card imprinted with the precinct address and phone number. “Be sure to let us know if he contacts you. Otherwise, well…just…stick around, okay?”

I languidly rustle to the door in his wake, sniffing occasionally, feeling pretty much like something freshly regurgitated myself. One slightly dented, recycled single woman, vomited back into the system to start over again. Once in the hall, Nicky turns, his heavy eyebrows knotted.

“What?” I say when the silence drags on too long.

“You gonna be okay? I mean, here by yourself?” he says, and I think, Aw…how sweet, only then he adds, “Maybe you should get your mother to come spend the night or something—”

I frown.

“—or not.”

The woman is legendary. Even after more than thirty years, my father’s family, according to Paula, still talks about my mother in hushed tones.

“My wife walked out on me three years ago,” he now says. “It sucks.”

Wife? What wife? Paula never said anything about a wife.

“Why?” I ask, because I really want to know.

Still not facing me, he shrugs, like it doesn’t matter anymore. Only his jaw is clenched. “She couldn’t deal with me bein’ a cop. Said it scared her too much. We split after less than six months.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

He nods, then says, “She’s okay, though. Got married again last year. To an accountant.” He finally turns back, for a couple seconds looking at me the way a man does when he wants to touch you but knows to do so would shorten his life expectancy. Then he says, very quietly, “I should’ve called you. After Paula’s wedding, I mean.”

Then he turns and walks down the hall. I watch him for a minute, until he gets on the elevator, after which I go back into my apartment and lean against the closed door, suddenly possessed with an inexplicable urge to sing “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina.”

Two

“You shouldn’t trek up there by yourself,” Nedra says on the other end of the line, a scant week after my aborted nuptials. “I’m going with you.”

“Up there” is Scarsdale, where I’m about to go to pick up at least some of my clothes, as per Greg’s—who is very much alive, by the way; more on that in a minute—suggestion. Although Nedra and I have talked on the phone several times since Sunday, I haven’t yet seen her live and in person. A state of affairs that I intend to continue as long as I possibly can. Hey—I’m having enough trouble finding my own snatches of air to breathe; competing with my mother for them could be fatal. Still, for a moment, I am tempted to give in to the suggestion that I do not have the strength or enthusiasm requisite to argue. Especially since it’s my own dumb fault for telling her my plans.

Then my survival instinct saves the day with, “Over my dead body.”

This declaration, however, does not bother a woman whose idea of a hot date was being bodily dragged from the scene of a political protest. If anything, I can feel her cranking up to the challenge. I cut her off at the pass.

“This is something I have to do myself,” I say, thinking, Hmm…not bad. I pour myself a glass of orange juice, take my Pill even though I obviously don’t—and won’t—need birth control for the forseeable future. But the thought of dealing with heavy periods and cramps again, after ten years without, gives me the willies. After I swallow I say, “I’m all grown up now. Don’t need my mommy to hold my hand.”

“Did I say that? But how are you planning on lugging everything back on the train by yourself?”

So I hadn’t thought that part through. But there are times when self-preservation outweighs logic.

“I’ll manage.”

“You shouldn’t have to face That Woman alone.”

Why Nedra detests Phyllis Munson so much, I have no idea. Greg’s mother has always been gracious to mine, the few times they’ve met. But then, Phyllis is gracious to everybody. While my mother was burning bras and flags in the sixties, Greg’s mother was kissing up to pageant judges. She even made it to Atlantic City as Miss New York one year, I forget which. Something tells me she’s never gotten over not making the top ten. But my point is, I don’t think Phyllis knows how not to smile. Although you do have to wonder if all those years of just being so gosh-darn nice don’t take their toll.

In any case, things are liable to be just a bit on the tense side between Phyllis and me, since her son skipped out on our wedding and we’re both going to feel weird and not know what to say and all. Adding my mother to the mix would be like pouring hot sauce over Szechuan chicken. Besides, the last thing I need is for my mother to see how terrified I am of venturing out into the real world.

So I muster every scrap of conviction I can and say, “I’m going alone, and that’s that,” and my mother gives one of those long-suffering sighs that daughters the world over dread, then says, “Okay, fine, fine…” which of course means it isn’t fine, but she’ll deal with it. For a moment I savor the small, exquisitely precious victory. Only then she says, “You know, it’s not as if I’m going to embarrass you or anything.”

If I had the energy, I’d laugh.

“So,” she says, as if my not refuting her comment doesn’t matter, “when are you leaving?”

I hedge. “Elevenish.” My heart starts thundering in my chest. I open the freezer, find three Healthy Choice dinners, a half-filled ice cube tray, and one lone Häagen-Dazs bar. With nuts. “Maybe.” I rip off the paper, sighing at the sensation of creamy chocolate exploding in my mouth. Yes, I know it’s barely 9:00 a.m. So? “I’m not sure.” Which of course is a bold-faced lie, since if Phyllis is meeting me, obviously I can’t just mosey on up there whenever the mood strikes.

“Call me when you get back,” Nedra says, and I say “Sure,” although we both know I won’t.

I hang up and sigh, relieved to have my thoughts to myself again, hating having my thoughts to myself again. God, this is so creepy, this walking-a-tightrope-over-Niagara-Falls-in-a-dense-fog feeling. I keep thinking, if I just keep still, don’t rush things, the real Ginger will come back to play. The real Ginger will come back to life.

I’ve turned into an absolute slug. I’ve spent most of the past week on the sofa in my pj’s, scarfing down Cheetos and Häagen-Dazs and cherry Cokes whilst staring zombie-fashion at the soaps. And then there’s Sally Jesse, and Oprah, and all those morbidly fascinating court TV shows. Criminy, where do they get these people? From a cold storage locker in Area 51?

Munching away on the ice cream bar, I gaze at the wedding dress, still lolling in the middle of the floor like a wilted magnolia. I have no idea what to do with it. I can’t exactly throw it out, I certainly can’t see packing it away as a keepsake, or giving something with this much bad karma to someone else. So there it sits. With any luck the silk will eventually biodegrade, leaving behind a small, neat pile of satin-covered buttons I can just bury or something.

The tulle snags on my leg stubble as I shuffle through the dress on my way to the sofa. Guess I should shave.

Guess I should bathe.

I sink onto the sofa—my only concession to “cleaning” has been to push the bed back into the sofa sometime during the day—my mouth full of melting chocolate and ice cream. I am one miserable chick, lemme tell ya. What’s weird though, is that I actually felt better a few days ago than I do now. There was a period there—

Okay, wait. Let’s back up and I’ll fill you in.

The day after the wedding is a total loss. Whoever said champagne doesn’t give you a hangover lied. By the following day, however, I had recovered enough to face my kitchen, as well as my phone, which, when I finally got up the nerve to check, was up to twenty-five messages. A new world’s record. (I’d turned my cell ringer off, too. I figured the world could do without me for a couple days.) Gathering the tatters of my courage—and Ted’s fabulous lemon poppyseed bundt cake—I plopped my fanny up on my bar stool and pressed the play button.

The first thirteen messages, as I’d suspected, were all basically variations on the “Are you okay? Call me” theme from my mother. Then:

“Hey, Ginger, it’s Nick. Just checkin’ in, see if you heard anything. Let me know.”

“Nick.” Not “Nicky.” Got it. I also got something else, a genuine concern that wasn’t at all sexual in nature. No, really. He was family, after all, in a peripheral kind of way. And once sober, I realized my reaction to him had been due to nothing more than booze and shock. Besides, the last time I talked to Paula, she told me Nicky—Nick—had a new girlfriend, she’d met her once, she was okay but for God’s sake this was like the sixth one this year and God knew she thought the world of her brother-in-law, but when the hell was he planning on growing up, already?

Another three messages from my mother, then:

“Girl, pick up the damn phone!” Terrie. “Come on, come on…damn. I know you’re in there, probably cryin’ your eyes out, which is a shame ’cause the sorry skank ain’t worth it….”

One thing I’ll say for Terrie—there won’t be any “there are other fish in the sea” pep talks from that quarter, since as far as she’s concerned, the only thing that happens when you take fish out of the water is they start to stink.

“Okay, I guess this means you’re either sittin’ there not answering or you’ve turned off your ringer. I don’t suppose I blame you. But you just remember, if you hear this anytime in the next decade, that this is NOT your fault. Okay, baby—you give me a call when you return to the land of the living, we’ll go out and par-tay.”

Uh-huh. At that moment I’d been feeling a strong affinity with Mrs. Krupcek in 5-B who, legend has it, got stuck in the elevator for two hours one day back in the eighties when the building lost electricity and consequently peed all over herself. Nobody’s seen her leave the building since.

I haven’t called her back yet. Terrie, I mean, not Mrs. Krupcek. But Terrie will understand. I hope.

“Uh, yeah?” the next message started. “It’s Tony from Blockbuster?” At the time, I wondered which he wasn’t sure about, that his name was Tony or that he was from Blockbuster. “I’m just calling to let you know that Death in Venice is five days overdue? Okay, ’bye.”

First thought: Who the hell rented Death in Venice?

Second thought: There’s a video in here somewhere?

“Hi, honey, it’s Shelby. Are you there? Okay, I guess not. Anyway, Mark and I thought maybe you might like to come over for dinner one night this week? The kids have been asking about you. Well, okay. Love you. ’Bye.”

To answer your question, no, I didn’t accept her invitation. Although I did eventually call her back and thank her. But God knows the last thing I need right now is to spend an evening with Ozzie and Harriet Bernstein. Maybe next month. Or something.

I shoveled another bite of cake into my mouth, then:

“Hey, Ginge—”

The fork went flying as I grabbed for the phone at the sound of Greg’s voice, totally forgetting it was a message, stupid.

“…I heard via the grapevine that my father went off the deep end and called in the authorities, so I figured I’d better let everybody know I’m okay. I just couldn’t…” I heard him sigh. “Damn, there’s no easy way to do this…”

Now you have to remember that, up to this point, I had convinced myself the guy was either dead, kidnapped, or had an otherwise perfectly reasonable explanation for his vanishing act. When it was immediately obvious the first option was moot, and the second was highly doubtful—this was not someone who sounded as if a gun was being held to his head—that left me with Door Number Three. Which wasn’t looking promising, either.

“…I know you’re probably angry—okay, extremely angry.”

Yeah, okay, I’d been that a time or two in the past forty-eight hours.

“…and you have every right to be. What I did was unforgivable, and if I live to be a hundred, I’ll never completely understand why I bolted like that. No, no…that’s not entirely true. I guess I…um…panicked. About us, about getting married, about the way you’d set me up on some sort of pedestal—”

I choke on my cake.

“—and I realized I hadn’t taken the time I needed to think this through…”

By that point, my ire was beginning to perk quite nicely. I mean, hey—there was some reason why he couldn’t have arrived at this conclusion before I spent my entire life’s savings on food that nobody ever got to eat?

And what is this I set him up on some sort of pedestal crap?

“…I mean, I really didn’t see this coming, so I don’t want you to think this was all a game or anything like that. But…God, Ginge, I’m slime.”

No argument there.

“…my main regret is that I didn’t realize how I felt until I was getting ready to leave the house on Saturday. I guess I’d just gotten so caught up in…everything, I didn’t take five minutes to ask myself if I was really ready for this…”

The man is thirty-five frickin’ years old, for God’s sake. When did he think he would be ready?

“…I mean, the sex was great, wasn’t it?”

I looked over at my coffee table and sighed.

“…and who knew my parents would file a missing person’s report, for chrissake? I mean, I hope that didn’t cause you any more distress…”

Oh, no. Not at all.

“…and I hope maybe one day, we can be friends again, although I’ll completely understand if you hate my guts.”

You think?

“…anyway, I’ll settle up with Blockbuster sometime this week—”

Which answered that question. Still haven’t found that sucker, by the way.

“—if you wouldn’t mind dropping off the flick when you’re out? And I guess maybe we should arrange for you to get your things, whenever it’s convenient? Maybe you could call Mom. I mean, that would probably be easier, don’t you think?”

Hence the Scarsdale pilgrimage.

“Oh, and listen…” I heard what could pass for a heartfelt sigh. “I didn’t mean for you to get saddled with all the bills, I swear. Please, send them on to the office, okay? I promise I’ll take care of them. Well.” Throat clearing sounds. “I guess…well. ’Bye. And, Ginge?”

“What?” I snapped at the hapless machine.

“This has nothing to do with you, okay? I mean it. You’re really terrific. God, I’m sorry.”

You got that right.

After fast forwarding through the rest of the messages, all from my mother, I glanced down at the cake to discover I’d somehow eaten half of it. Not that this was really any big deal since—don’t hate me—I can eat anything I want and never gain weight (although I have a sneaking suspicion all those calories are lying around my body like a bunch of microscopic air mattresses set to inflate on my fortieth birthday). But it was all sitting at the base of my throat when I started to cry—a sobbing-so-hard-I-can’t-catch-my-breath jag that, combined with the cake residue in my mouth, made me choke so badly I thought my brain was going to explode.

Five minutes later, reduced to a limp, shuddering, sweating rag, I came to the disheartening conclusion that although eviceration with a dull knife would have been preferable to what I was feeling at that moment, I still loved the scumbag. Nearly a week later, I still feel that way. I mean, why else would I have put away a dozen bags of Cheetos? I should hate him, I know that, but I’ve never been in love before, not really, and I find it’s not something I can just turn off like a faucet. Which either makes me very loyal or very stupid. Yes, I’m hurt and furious and want to inflict serious bodily damage, but when I played back the message (oh, and like you wouldn’t?), he just sounded so upset….

Well. Anyway. I sat, still shoveling in cake and letting my emotions buffet me when the phone rang, making me jump out of my skin because I’d pushed the ringer too high. Too stunned to remember I wasn’t supposed to be answering, I picked up.

“Hey, Ginger? It’s Nick.”

Bet you saw that coming, didn’t you?

I, however, didn’t. And I thought, oh, yeah, like this is really going to make me feel better. I rammed my hand through my hair, only my engagement ring got caught in a snarl, which made me wince, which launched me into another coughing fit.

Nick asked if I was okay, but of course I couldn’t reply because I was choking to death. “Hang on,” I croaked into the phone, then lurched toward the sink, gulped down a half glass of tepid water since I’d run out of bottled. Yech.

A minute later, I picked up the phone and got out, “Guess who I just heard from?”

“I know,” Nick said. “I just got word. Munson’s fine.”

He almost sounded disappointed.

Bet Nick wouldn’t just walk away like that, I thought, only to remember that’s exactly what he’d done.

My gaze drifted to my left hand and the engagement ring the size of Queens I’d worn proudly since Valentine’s Day. Two carats, emerald cut, platinum setting. Hell, for this puppy, I’d even let my nails grow out.

I haven’t decided what to do with that, either.

But back to the phone call.

“Yeah,” I said. “Great news, huh?”

“Damn,” Nick said softly. Like it wasn’t a swear word, somehow. “What happened?”

Much to my chagrin, tears again stung my eyes. “He left a message on my answering machine. My answering machine.”

“You’re kidding me? Man, that is so lame,” Nick said, and anger tried to suck me back in. And it would have felt good, I suppose, to have just gone with the flow for a minute. But then I reminded myself of the conscious choice I made as a child, not to let my emotions control me, to make decisions based on reason and logic, not on passion and impulse.

That I am not my mother.

And at that moment tranquility rippled through me. Or it might have been a breeze from the open kitchen window. But for just a few seconds there, I felt that everything was going to be okay, that maybe the storm had tipped my boat, but it was completely within my power to right it again.

I stretched, popping the knotted-up muscles at the base of my neck. “He was very apologetic, though.” My voice seemed eerily level, even to my own ears. “I mean, he’s not sticking me with the rest of the bills or anything.”

“Jesus.”

“What?”

“You’re scaring me.”

“Scaring you? Why?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be incoherent and breaking things right about now?”

I wasn’t sure whether to be dumbfounded or indignant. “That would be like me saying all men sit around every Sunday afternoon, watching sports and stuffing their faces with nachos and pork rinds.”

“Yeah. So?”

I huffed a little sigh. “Greg didn’t.”

“No, all he did was go AWOL on your wedding day.”

I frowned. Just a tiny one, though. “But he said—”

“I don’t give a shit what he said. Guy doesn’t even have the balls to tell you in person. He treated you like dirt, Ginger. Like I should’ve called you after…you know. Paula’s wedding. But I didn’t. And even though I was only twenty-one and still functioning on half a brain, that still makes me scum, which I can live with. But what that guy did to you…dammit! Why aren’t you more pissed?”

“Because anger is counterproductive—”

“That’s bull. And holding it in isn’t healthy.”

“Then you must not be paying attention in those anger management classes they make you take,” I said, feeling my face redden. What the hell was this guy trying to do to me?

“Managing it isn’t the same as stifling it.”

“Speaking of stifling it—”

“I bet you’re even still wearing his ring.”

“That’s none of your bus—”

“Take it off, Ginger. Now.”

That’s when, in the process of swiping my hand across the face, I scraped my nose with one of the prongs (something I’d managed to do at least once a day since I put the damn thing on, if you want to know the truth), which was just enough to send me over the edge. So I yanked off the ring and hurled it against the counter backsplash. The clatter was surprisingly loud. And satisfying.

“Is it off?” Nick said.

“I hope you’re alone,” I said, suppressing the urge to paw through my cookbooks before the roaches carted it off (yeah, we got ’em on the East Side, but they’ve got little Louis Vuitton gold initials all over them), “because do you have any idea how your end of the conversation sounds—”

“Is…it…off?”

“You know, you’ve got a real problem with patience—”

“Goddammit, Ginger—”

“Yes, Nick. The ring is off. Happy?”

“Delirious. Did you throw it?”

I shoved my hair out of my face. “Yeah. As a matter of fact, I did—”

“Hard?”

With a weighty sigh, I hauled myself off the stool, leaned over to squint at the backsplash. Sure enough, there was a tiny scratch. Which I will swear was there when I moved in. Since I was in already in the neighborhood, I picked up the ring, then I sat back down with a grunt, twiddling the bauble between my thumb and index finger. “Hard enough.”

“Good,” Nick said, with a note of my-work-here-is-done accomplishment in his voice. “Anyway. Just wanted to touch base. Let you officially know you’re in the clear.”

“Oh. Yeah. Thanks.”

Silence strained across the line.

“So. You take care, okay? And, Ginger?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t put the ring back on.”

After he hung up, I sat and listened to the dial tone for several seconds, my body humming like I’d just had insta-sex.

So now that you’ve been treated to Day 3 of How Ginger Spent Her Honeymoon, we can skip ahead to the equally fun-filled present, where I’m doing the catatonic number in front of the tube. Nick hasn’t called since. Not that there’s any reason he should.

And the ring is safely snoozing in its little Tiffany box, tucked underneath my undies.

And, as you may have guessed, the I’m-gonna-right-this-boat feeling passed. I might have ridden the crest for a moment or two, but then the wave took me under again. I hadn’t fully realized how much I’d loathed dating until I no longer had to. The gruesome prospect of having to start over is more than I can bear thinking about.

Credits roll on the screen in front of me, which means it’s later than I thought, which means I have to face the music, or in this case the shower, and fix myself up at least enough so I don’t frighten little children when I step outside. Last time I caught my reflection, I looked like an electrocuted poodle. And I really should take the cake plate back to Ted and Randall. Maybe I’ll look sad enough that they will take pity on me and fill it up again. I’m thinking maybe chocolate-chip-macadamia-oatmeal cookies. Or brownies would be good, too…

My phone rings again. I hesitate, then answer.

“Cara?”

My heart stops. It’s my grandmother.

Who never, ever, ever makes phone calls.

“Nonna, what’s—?”

“Your mother, she is onna her way to your place. Inna taxi. But you never heard it from me.”

For about ten seconds after Nonna hangs up, I contemplate the fortuity of Greg’s not being dead and my consequent removal from the N.Y.P.D.’s suspect list because now it will take them longer to connect me to my mother’s murder. Of course, if and when they finally did, maybe Nick would have to come back and question me again—which held a definite appeal, over and above being rid of my mother—only I don’t think I could stand the look of disappointment in his eyes when he found out I dunnit. So I guess I’ll let my mother live.

And please don’t take my ramblings seriously. I can’t even set a mouse trap.

In any case, while I’ve been standing here plotting my mother’s demise, the clock has been quietly ticking away. Now I quickly calculate how long it will take a taxi to get here from Riverside Drive and 116th Street and realize I can either clean me or clean the apartment, but not both, which provokes a spate of agitated swearing. Not that my mother’s a neat freak, believe me—until Nonna came to live with us after my grandfather died when I was ten, I didn’t even know you could make a bed—but one look at this place, and she’s going to know I’m not exactly in control.

Not an option.

Naturally, every single muscle immediately seizes, a condition in which I might have remained indefinitely had not the doorbell rung. I let out a single, one-size-fits-all expletive and force myself to the door. Tell me Nedra got the one cabbie in all of Manhattan who actually knew where he was going.

I peer through the keyhole, practically letting out a whoop of joy. When I yank open the door, Verdi engulfs me from the open door across the hall as Alyssa, my neighbor Ted’s twelve-year-old daughter, grins up at me, all legs and braces and silky honey-colored hair and big green eyes. I am so grateful it’s not my mother that I don’t even care about my fried poodle head or that the melted chocolate splotch on my jammies right between my booblets calls attention to the fact that I’m not wearing a bra. Not that Ted would care, although I’m not sure I’m setting a good example for Alyssa.

In spite of my panic, I grin back, although I can feel it tremble around the edges. Alyssa’s my buddy; I’ve sat for her more times than I can count since Ted won custody of her four years ago, no mean feat for a gay man, even today. In the last year, she’s begun to notice boys, which I gather is about the same time her father did. But you know how it is, always easier to talk to someone outside the family about these things….

I notice her hands are clamped around a plate of cookies. Oh, yeah—things are definitely looking up.

“We got concerned when we didn’t hear you leave the apartment,” her father now says, looming behind his daughter. I get a glimpse of a faded navy T stretched across a solid torso, and bare, hairy legs protruding from the bottoms of worn drawstring shorts—the freelance writer’s summer chained-to-the-computer ensemble. Underneath silver-splintered, dark brown hair as curly as mine, worry lurks in hazel eyes as he takes in my less-than-reputable appearance. “I hope you didn’t spend longer than ten minutes to get that look, honey, because, trust me, it isn’t you.”

My attention really, really wants to drift back to the cookies, but I suddenly remember the peril I’m in. “Oh, God. My mother’s on her way. In a taxi.”

Ted looks at me, glances over my shoulder into my apartment. I swear he blanches. He, too, has met my mother. “Got it. We’ll be right there.”

“Oh, no, you don’t have to—”

Ted throws me a glance that brooks no argument, then says, “Al, go back inside and get the box of trash bags. And grab Randall while you’re at it.”

Knowing the cavalry is coming shakes me from my stupor enough to send me back into my apartment, where I once again freak out. Where did all this crap come from? Do I really subscribe to this many magazines? Why do I have so many dishes? And where am I going to stash it all?

I grab the wedding dress, then stand there doing this bizarre, twitching dance with the thing—there’s no way this puppy is gonna fit in any of my closets and the only door behind which I could conceivably hide it leads to the bathroom. Where I need to be right now—

Randall, Ted’s lover, slips his bold, buff, black, bald self in through the open door, lets out a deep bark of laughter. He’s in High-Wasp casual mode—Dockers, blue Oxford, striped tie, penny loafers. And a diamond earring. “Lord, woman—you have a consolation orgy in here or what?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ted and Alyssa return. To my immense relief, she still has the cookies, which she sets on the counter. A synapse or two misfires.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I mean, no. I mean, I don’t know how it got this way. Are those for me?” I finish with a bright smile for Alyssa.

“Uh-huh,” the kid says. “Dad taught me how to make them this morning.” She peels back the Saran and carries the plate over to me. Randall pries the crushed dress from my hands before I salivate all over it. I take a cookie, watching him stride out the door. It is a bittersweet moment.

“The place got this way, honey,” Ted says, deftly picking up the thread of the conversation, “because you’re a pack rat living in a shoebox. Okay, Al,” he says to his daughter, attacking the corner where the desk used to be, “the object is not to clean, but to make it look clean.”

“You mean, like when Mom comes over?”

“You got it.”

I stand there munching as the child calmly opens a closet, begins shoving things inside like a pro, while her father straightens and stacks and fluffs. “You know,” he says, “a cousin of mine just got a three bedroom in Hoboken for probably half what you’re paying for this dump.”

That’s enough to make me stop chewing. “But it’s in Jersey.”

Ted considers this for a moment. “Good point.”

Randall returns, sans dress.

“What did you do with it?” I ask.

“Do you really care?”

“I—no, actually.”

It might be my imagination, but I think I see something akin to relief in his dark eyes. I don’t think either Ted or Randall cared much for Greg, although they never said anything. Then a grin stretches across Randall’s molasses-colored face, popping out a set of truly adorable dimples, before he says something about hiding a wedding dress being a damn sight easier than hiding Ted when Randall’s mother pops in for a visit. So I grab another cookie, since they’re sitting right there on the coffee table, and start in about how, since Randall’s well into his thirties and not married, his parents might have a few suspicions, when Ted straightens and says, “Hello, Miss Chatterbox? I’m busting my butt here while you’re standing here dispensing advice about honesty issues?”

When I jump and head toward the kitchen, he snags me with one long arm, whipping me around and flinging me toward the bathroom door. “We do this. You do you. And burn that…thing you’re wearing.”

Seconds later I step into the shower and imagine I hear Shelby’s perky little voice saying, “Now, think positive, honey. Things really will turn out for the best,” followed immediately by Terrie’s, “You don’t need that sorry piece of dog doo in your life, girl, and you know it.” And between that and the sugar high, I think, You know, they’re right. I have terrific friends and hot water when I actually need it and a new client to see on Monday and a brand-new bottle of shampoo to try out and my period isn’t due for two more weeks. So I was supposed to be on my honeymoon right now. So my heart is broken. I will heal, life will go on, because I am woman and I am invincible and no man is gonna get me down when I live in a city where I can get Kung-Pao chicken delivered to my door twenty-four/seven.

Now if I could just convince this permanent lump in the center of my chest to go away, I’d be cookin’ with gas.

When I emerge, ten minutes and one hairless body later—my mother equates shaving with kowtowing to male standards of beauty; my take on it is I prefer not to look as though I’ve missed several rungs on the evolutionary ladder—my apartment once again looks like someone reasonably civilized lives here and Ted and Randall and Alyssa are nowhere in sight. The Blockbuster box, however, is. Which means, yes, the movie’s now so late, I’m surprised they haven’t sent their goons after me. On that cheery note, I grab another cookie (huh—looks like they took a few back with them) and I think how much I love this silly little place, with its Barbie kitchen and high ceiling and two big windows looking east across Second Avenue to the apartment directly across from mine.

Five years ago, I sublet it from a costume designer named Annie Murphy for six months while she went out to L.A. to do a movie. Only, she kept getting work out there and never came back. And over the years, her sister from Hoboken would come to cart off Annie’s furniture—with Annie’s blessings—and I’d replace it. The place was truly mine now, in every sense but the lease.