28. English Rose
I wasn’t sure how I felt about attending the grand opening of Crystal’s restaurant. The crappy choice of name was sure to be a bad omen. Maybe that’s why a kaleidoscope of butterflies had set up home in my stomach.
“Adam, what if no one shows up tonight?” I asked, looking at him through the bathroom mirror.
He continued fussing with his tie. “Ryan will cry.”
“Are your parents going to be there?”
“Yes. I think it’s safe to say they will definitely show.”
The raging butterflies suddenly multiplied. Just the thought of seeing Fiona Décarie was pressure in my day. I hadn’t seen Jean-Luc since Christmas, and that suited me just fine. For all I knew, he loathed me just as much as the queen did.
Not only was I going to have to deal with the king and queen, Parker and his minions also made the guest list. I couldn’t even whine about it. They were Adam’s friends – the very same friends who couldn’t stand the sight of me. The feeling was mutual, but as far as Adam knew we were all getting along just fine. The tangled web I’d woven was beginning to strangle me.
Getting out of the confined space of the bathroom, I headed back to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. Adam followed, crouching in front of me. “Is something bothering you, Charli?”
I hate your fake friends! I despise your scheming mother! And I’m tired of pretending otherwise. Those were the words I wanted to scream, but my actual reply was more polite. “Other than the name of the restaurant, no.”
He reached over to his dinner jacket that was laid out on the bed, and retrieved his phone from the pocket.
“I was going to leave it as a surprise, but I’ll show you now.” He tapped the screen a few times and handed it to me. “I got this message from Ryan this afternoon.”
It was a picture of the outside of the new restaurant. In big brass letters was the name.
“Billet-doux,” I marvelled.
Adam smiled brightly at me. “Ryan’s idea. You managed to inspire the uninspirable.”
“Maybe there’s hope for him yet.”
***
The gala opening of Billet-doux the grandest event I’d ever attended. It was also the first time I’d seen the chandelier lit up at night. It filled the entire restaurant with a warm glow that bounced off every surface. Soft classical music filtered through the room, and extraordinarily well-dressed people milled around, chatting, laughing and eating little canapés that looked too perfect to be real.
Ryan’s proud glow was almost as bright as the chandelier. I spotted him the instant we walked in, but that was as close as I got to him.
A middle-aged woman wearing a red velvet dress and the biggest ruby necklace I had ever seen collared Adam at the door. “Your mother is positively beaming with pride tonight, young man. You’ve done her extremely proud.”
I quickly scanned the room, but couldn’t see her anywhere. It was annoying that she’d rated a mention. Fiona had had nothing to do with Billet-doux.
“Thank you,” replied Adam politely. “Ryan did most of the work. Mrs Scholl, have you met my wife, Charlotte?”
She extended her hand. “What an absolute pleasure,” she said, dragging out the words.
Adam excused us both and we edged into the restaurant. We had the same false conversation a hundred times. Curiously, everyone seemed to know about me. I knew no one – until we stumbled upon the poison ivy league sitting at a table in the far corner.
Until Bente arrived, hanging out with them would have to do. Kinsey was thrilled to see Adam. Presumably, having one of the guests of honour at her table would elevate her status colossally. “Come, sit,” she ordered, kissing his cheek without actually making contact. Although uninvited, I sat too.
“You look gorgeous, Charli,” complimented Sera, leaning across to whisper the words. “I love your dress.”
I loved my dress too. Ivy had worked her magic again, knocking out a pretty A-line black satin dress in just an hour and a half. Having my own dressmaker at the ready had its advantages. It also meant that my shiny black credit card still had a home in the kitchen drawer. Proudly, I’d never once had to use it.
“Thank you; your dress is nice too.” One thing those girls never lacked was style. It was only charm and good manners that seemed to escape them.
Adam appeared to have found his place for the evening. He did his absolute best to include me in the conversation but I wasn’t clued up on a lot of the subject matter. Not only were the purple circle mean and self-absorbed, they were an incredibly boring bunch of people. I had no clue what Adam saw in any of them. From my seat in the corner, I kept an eye on the door, silently cursing Bente for being late. Finally she arrived, wearing a pretty Ivy creation in blue organza. I excused myself and rushed to meet her, practically dragging her to the first empty table I found. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,” I said, forgiving her tardiness instantly.
“Fear not, Kemosabe. I’m here now. Where’s your frog?” I motioned toward Adam with an upward nod. “Oh, he’s with his little friends.”
“Can we be nice, please? You’ll undo all my good work.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve been making an effort.”
“When in Rome, do as the Romans do, right?”
“You’re such a good wife, Charlotte.”
“Will you come over there with me?”
Bente giggled. “You’ve got to be kidding. Not a chance.”
I looked back at the purple circle, catching Adam’s eye immediately. He smiled suggestively at me and I responded with a let’s-get-out-here smile of my own. Both of us knew it wasn’t going to happen. We were stuck there for the night.
I turned my attention back to Bente. “Well, do you know anyone else here?” I asked, grasping for an alternative.
“Where’s Ryan?”
I looked around. “No idea. He was here a second ago.”
“Well, if we can’t torment the host, we’ll drink his wine and stuff our handbags with as many hors d'oeuvres as we can carry. Let’s go to the bar.”
I giggled at her absurd plan. “I’m pretty sure it’s all free tonight, Bente.”
From the bar we had a perfect view of the mezzanine area that Ryan had elected to keep closed for the evening. Tragically, we also had a perfect view of the mystery blonde woman he was up there fooling around with.
I didn’t think Bente had seen, until she let out a disgusted grunt, put her glass of wine on the bar and stormed off. Following her seemed like the right thing to do.
“Bente, wait,” I called, grabbing her arm to slow her walk.
“Charli, it’s fine,” she insisted, shrugging free of my grip. “I just need a minute.”
We ended up in the bathroom.
“I’m sorry.” I had no idea what else to say.
“Don’t be. I’m not.”
I didn’t believe her for a second. Bente was crazy about Ryan. I was certain the feeling was mutual, but for some stupid reason Ryan just couldn’t follow through.
“I know how he feels about you. He’s just afraid.”
“He’s just a douche bag,” she replied, beginning to cry. “He always has been.”
I searched my tiny clutch bag for tissues, then remembered we were in a bathroom. I swiped the entire box of tissues off the vanity and handed them to her.
“I’ll talk to him.”
“And tell him what?” she sniffled. “This isn’t high school, Charli. He’s not going to change, and it’s about time I stop expecting him to.”
I nodded. “Well, let’s just go back out there and pretend we didn’t see anything.”
Bente honked into a handful of tissues. “No. I’m going home. I’m not going to pretend anything, Charli. That’s your forté, not mine.”
Her comment stung more than I let on. Pretending everything was fine was my specialty of late. And I was close to living a complete lie because of it.
“Okay,” I offered, “I’ll sneak a bottle of wine from the bar and we’ll stay in here all night.”
“Deal,” she replied, laughing through her tears.
I ordered her to stay put and headed back to the party, making it as far as the bar.
“Can I help you with something, Mrs Décarie?”
I spun around, expecting to see the queen standing behind me before realising the barman was talking to me. “Oh, um, yes. A bottle of merlot, please.”
“A whole bottle?”
Foolishly, I amended my order. “Two, actually.”
Wisely deciding against questioning me any further, he placed two bottles of wine on the bar. I snatched them, thanked him and bolted back to the bathroom.
Bente had given in to the misery by then. She was sitting on the floor with her back against the wall, smoking a cigarette. I set the wine down beside her and started waving my arms around, trying to clear the smoke. “You can’t smoke in here,” I chided.
“I’m pretty sure I can do anything I want to.”
Setting off the smoke alarms and clearing the building probably would have brought her a little joy at that point. I was usually the first one to err on the side of wickedness, but for once I hesitated. Ryan was an ass, but he didn’t deserve to have his party shut down.
I sat beside her, took the cigarette out of her hand and handed her a bottle of wine. She couldn’t burn the place down with merlot.
My track record for being a good friend wasn’t exactly stellar. I was happy to be there in Bente’s hour of need – right up until the bathroom door opened and I was caught red-handed by the queen.
Considering the height of our heels and the short length of our dresses, Bente and I scrambled to our feet remarkably quickly. I ran to the sink and extinguished the cigarette under the running water.
Fiona looked aghast. “You trashy little minx!”
“It’s not what you think, Mrs Décarie,” Bente exclaimed. “Charli has done nothing wrong.”
Fiona stepped into the room, furiously wagging her finger. There was a fair chance I wasn’t going to get out alive.
“Everything this girl does is wrong,” she growled. “Just who do you think you are? You’re married to my son. Do you understand what that means?”
“I’m beginning to,” I muttered.
“You’re a disgrace, Charlotte,” barked Fiona. “If you think for one second I’m going to sit back and accept this vile situation, you’re sadly mistaken.”
“Mrs Décarie, please,” said Bente. “Just stop.”
The brunt of her anger was reserved entirely for me. The queen didn’t pay Bente an ounce of attention, which was unfortunate. If she had, she might have realised that Bente’s pleading had something to do with the fact that two women now stood in the doorway behind her, hanging on every word.
“I rue the day Adam met you,” she declared, doing her very best to menace me. “You’re nothing more than an unrefined little bitch.”
A collective gasp from her audience of two alerted her that they were there. She glanced at them before spinning back to face me, looking one part mortified, one part trapped rat.
“Pull yourself together and find Adam. Do not leave his side for the rest of the evening,” she ordered, leaning forward to whisper her command.
“Let’s go, Charli,” mumbled Bente, nudging me toward the door.
My grip on Bente’s arm as we wove toward Adam was vice-like. “Say nothing to Adam about this,” I warned.
“Would you rather he heard about it from his mother?” she hissed.
“She won’t breathe a word.” I was almost certain of it. Past history told me Fiona wasn’t likely to squeal.
“Why do you let her treat you like that, Charli?” I had no answer. My reasons for keeping quiet were becoming hazier by the day. “Adam needs to know his mother’s a bitch.”
“Not tonight,” I replied, demanding she keep quiet.
Adam was pleased to see me; blissfully unaware of anything that had just happened.
“Sorry,” apologised Bente, thrusting me toward him. “I stole her away.”
“Understandable,” said Adam, reaching for my hand. “She is gorgeous.”
From then on, minutes ticked by like hours. The only person having a worse evening than me was Bente. I wasn’t surprised when she left early. If I thought I could have, I would’ve escaped with her. Things went from bad to worse when Adam suggested we go and chat with his parents. I agreed, unable to come up with a plausible reason not to. I looked across at the Décaries. Fiona was doing all the talking. Jean-Luc nodded occasionally. I knew exactly what she was telling him.
My eyes were firmly on the queen as we approached. Her lips moved a mile a minute as she whispered to her husband, probably trying desperately to get the whole story out before we got there.
“Darling,” she crooned, pulling herself together the instant Adam was near.
He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “How are you, Mom?”
The witch answered him in French. The frown Adam flashed me proved she’d said nothing good.
It was Jean-Luc who moved quickly to smooth things over. “Your pictures are fascinating, Charli,” he said, gazing at my prints on the wall behind me.
“Thank you.”
“You have an outstanding eye for detail.”
“Thank you.”
“They complement the décor beautifully.”
“Thank you.”
Understandably, Jean-Luc gave up making small talk. I was barely concentrating. All my focus was on Fiona and the unusually cross look on her youngest son’s face. I could only imagine what she’d told him. The bigger worry was why she’d opted to tell him anything. Her usual modus operandi was to say nothing at all and torment me later.
“Charli and I are going home,” Adam announced bleakly, after a minute.
His mother lurched forward, kissing both of his cheeks. Jean-Luc did the same to me, probably so she wouldn’t have to. For the first time ever, Adam didn’t reach for my hand. I was glad. If he had, I would’ve resembled a child being led out of the room in disgrace.
It didn’t take a genius to work out that he was unhappy with me. I waited until we were home before questioning him about his conversation with his mother. Amazingly, Fiona had stuck reasonably close to the facts – leaving out only the horrid name-calling and threats made on her part.
“What were you thinking?” he asked, loosening his tie and dragging it off his neck.
I kicked off my heels and followed him down to the bedroom, explaining how Ryan’s bad behaviour had sent Bente to the brink. “She was really upset about it.”
“So you thought smoking cigarettes and downing wine straight from the bottle in the bathroom would cheer her up?”
“No, of course not.” I continued struggling to reach the zip on the back of my dress. Adam shrugged off his jacket and dropped it on the bed. “I was just trying to be a good friend.”
He threw his arms up in exasperation. “What a grand situation for my wife to be in,” he announced scathingly. “It’s no wonder people get the wrong impression of you.”
“Let me tell you something, Adam,” I said, pointing at him. “I don’t care what people think of me.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed, rested his elbows on his knees and ran his hands through his hair. “You should care.”
“Well, I don’t,” I insisted, making one final grab for the zip on my dress. He finally stood up, spun me around by the shoulders and unzipped it.
“Did you happen to notice who my mother was with when she sprung you?”
I shrugged, let my dress drop to the floor and stepped out of it. “There were two women I didn’t know either of them.”
Adam turned me around to face him. “One of them was Antonia Roberge. Her daughter Tilly was at the party too.”
I had no idea why he was telling me the ins and outs of the guest list. “So?”
“So, Tilly writes a tasteless little online blog. It has a ridiculously large following considering it’s nothing but tabloid garbage.” I stared blankly at him, still clueless. “You don’t get it, do you? Antonia would’ve been champing at the bit to tell Tilly all about the wayward new Décarie wife.”
For a man who claimed not to care about what others thought of his decisions of late, he was taking things awfully seriously. What was the worst that could happen? Tilly Roberge could pound me in her blog by telling the whole world what an unsavoury redneck I was. Fiona would be vindicated and I’d still be in the land of not-giving-a-damn.
“Adam, why did Fiona tell you about it? I mean, you would’ve found out soon enough anyway. As soon as that girl updates her blog, my name is mud.”
“She wants me to try and stop that from happening,” he explained wanly. “She doesn’t want you to be embarrassed.”
His answer made absolutely no sense. Fiona would jump at the chance to see me publically humiliated. I drew in a long breath, trying to figure it out.
The real reason for her concern finally hit me. Tilly’s mother hadn’t seen the merlot and cigarette debacle. All she’d seen was the queen bombarding me with insults. Her inability to control herself when it came to chewing me out had backfired. She’d made the mistake of doing it in front of an audience.
If Tilly Roberge’s blog ever saw the light of day, Queen Fiona might not come out smelling much like an English rose.