“At least we got dessert,” she said, and began to clear the table.
The rest of the afternoon was excruciatingly boring for Aaron. Rachel’s guests milled about the living room, some staring at a muted football game, the kid in black trying to play a game with the kids (but from the sound of it, they were constantly correcting his understanding of the game), and Chantal lounged on the couch after trooping over to the neighbor’s house to right his deer.
The Professor tried to make small talk with Aaron, but he was too bored with the man to make conversation, and answered his silly questions (“Are you a history fan, too?” “Rachel is going to make a great professor, don’t you think?” “I like the St. Louis Cardinals . . . oh, when did they move to Arizona?”) with one-or two-syllable answers.
Aaron tried to watch football, but he couldn’t help noticing that Rachel seemed terribly distracted, kept walking to the window and peering out, then disappearing into the kitchen again.
There was no one more grateful than Aaron when at last everyone began to leave, trickling out until there was no one left but The Professor, Dagne, and Rachel.
The Professor was the first to take his leave. “Okay! I better get going. I have to work tomorrow.” He glanced nervously at Aaron, then went and kissed Rachel on the cheek. “Thanks for the meal.”
“Sure,” she said, looking at her feet. “By the way . . . did you bring my phone?”
The ass winced, snapped his fingers. “I knew I was forgetting something,” he said. “I’ll bring it tomorrow. I’ve got a couple of things I want to give you.”
Aaron could only imagine what they were. As The Professor slunk out the door, Dagne gathered her things. “Nice meeting you, Mr. Lear.”
“You, too, Dagne. Now don’t get yourself in trouble with that witchcraft,” he said with a wink.
Dagne sighed, shook her head. “It’s too late for that,” she said, and looked at Rachel. “Remember that thing we did the other day? I think we screwed it up.”
“Okay, well listen, I’ll call you later,” Rachel quickly interrupted, ushering her friend to the door. They stepped outside; Aaron could hear a rather heated discussion taking place, and then finally, Rachel called good-bye and came back in, looking more distressed than before.
“Something wrong?”
“No,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “It’s just—” The telephone interrupted whatever she was going to say, and she practically dove for the thing. “Just a minute, Dad,” she said, grabbing up the receiver. “Hello?” she answered breathlessly, but instantly, her face fell. “Oh. Yes, hi, Mike . . . I’m sorry, I’m just sort of rattled. I had a lot of people over today,” she said, and turned from Aaron, walked into the kitchen.
A guy. That’s what all the nervousness was about. Aaron hadn’t raised three daughters and not learned all the signs of guy anxiety. But hey, it wasn’t that idiot professor, so he was happy.
Actually, he was pretty damn happy in general. Rachel was a-okay in his book. A little on the weird side, but nevertheless, he was beginning to appreciate how special she was.
Yep, he thought he’d stay overnight and have a nice chat with his daughter. And listen. He could not forget that part or Bonnie would kill him.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Aaron might have been happy, but Rachel was one step away from a nervous breakdown, no thanks to Dagne, who had very heatedly insisted in a whisper, on the porch while they froze, that she’d worked through it over the course of the afternoon and figured out that they had cursed themselves the night they had cast their goddess moon spell.
“Think about it, Rachel. No moon to shine, no fire . . . we did everything the opposite of what the spell said, and now we are getting just the opposite of what we wanted. Haven’t you noticed that everything is haywire?” she insisted with a punch to Rachel’s shoulder. “Glenn has dumped me, Flynn’s dumped you, the meal was awful . . .”
Rachel didn’t really hear the rest of the list, because yes, thank you, she’d noticed that everything was upside down and inside out today, most notably in the Flynn category. And now there was the Mike factor. How in the hell could she have possibly forgotten the astounding fact that she had another date with a different guy? But she had forgotten, until the very moment she picked up the phone, and holy shit, there was her Friday night date, sounding very cheerful on his drive back from the shore.
After the usual exchange of Thanksgiving pleasantries, he asked, “Want me to pick you up tomorrow?”
Oh nononono. “How about we meet at Fratangelo’s?” she asked, trying her damnedest to sound enthusiastic.
“Seven-thirty? I was hoping we could catch the Freemason Mothers,” he said. “They’re playing down the street.”
She had no idea what a Freemason Mother was, but agreed nonetheless.