6. Devil’s Advocate
Arriving late to work was never a good idea. On days when Paolo was on the warpath, the only thing I could do was duck for cover.
“Where the hell have you been?” he bellowed, the second he laid eyes on me.
“I’m sorry I’m late.”
“Not as sorry as you’re going to be,” ribbed Taylor.
I’d met Taylor only once before. She was the girl standing at the podium near the door on the day I’d weaselled my way in to the job. And she looked just as frazzled and run off her feet as she had that day.
“Why?” I asked, following her through the kitchen door.
Paolo called after her. “Taylor, make sure she gets her costume.”
What costume? Surely the drab black pants and white blouse we wore were punishment enough.
I followed Taylor into the staff cloakroom and closed the door behind us. I said nothing as she rummaged through the large plastic bag hanging on one of the hooks. I still said nothing when she threw a stiff white tunic at me. But when she dumped a white fluffy marabou halo on my head, I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer.
“What is this about?” I asked.
“’Tis the season and all that junk,” she quipped. “Paolo makes us dress up every year at Christmas.”
I’m not sure what was more disturbing: the fact that Paolo wanted us in costume or that Taylor had worked at Nellie’s long enough to know it was an annual event.
“No way,” I protested, thrusting the musty-smelling dress at her. “Christmas is three weeks away.”
“You’re getting off lightly. You’re the angel this year. I’m one of Santa’s gnomes.” She dipped in to the bag again, dragging out a pair of red and white striped tights, making me laugh.
“An elf, Taylor. I don’t think Santa had gnomes.”
“Whatever.” She shrugged. “You’re the angel. Be happy.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Nope.” She pulled open the door and breezed out as quickly as she’d come in, leaving me holding the angel dress and halo.
We managed to stay costume-free for most of the morning. Paolo started rushing around, ordering everybody to suit up before the lunchtime rush. I held out.
“Right now!” he ordered, clapping his hands as he approached me. “I want to see a Christmas angel, right now!”
“I’m allergic to taffeta,” I protested.
“And I’m allergic to insubordinates. Wear it or walk out the door.”
“I’ll make a deal with you, Paolo.”
Instantly he stopped walking and turned back to face me. I knew I’d piqued his curiosity.
“I’ll wear your dumb costume under one condition. You get me a new name badge… with my real name on it.”
Paolo deliberated for a moment before throwing his head back in a quick bray of laughter. “Fine. Whatever. It’s a deal.” He waved his hands in the air as he walked away.
“Do you even know my real name?” I asked, as he got to the door.
“Email it to me,” he replied, disappearing into the kitchen.
I couldn’t help laughing. Taylor the Christmas gnome jingled her way past me a few seconds later and I laughed even harder. It was going to be a long day.
I didn’t usually work the lunchtime shift. Working just a few hours in the morning suited me perfectly. It left the rest of the day free for exploring my adopted city.
Breakfast at Nellie’s was usually busy, but nothing compared to lunch. The build-up of people at the door was growing and tables were turning over much slower than usual.
Since my morning shift the day before, Nellie’s restaurant had undergone changes. Every spare surface had been decorated. A huge pine wreath hung from the balustrade; a herd of gold Papier Mache reindeers took pride of place near the foot of the stairs and pine garlands hung from the ceiling. The crisp white table linen had been replaced with bottle green tablecloths and red napkins.
I had to admit it looked festive. It just meant nothing to me. I was too far from home and the people I loved to even consider getting into the Christmas spirit.
Waitressing was a lot like being a fly on the wall. Moseying around the dining room allowed me to catch snippets of all sorts of conversations. Travelling under the radar and eavesdropping wasn’t going to happen today. I was expected to go about my work looking like an obese Kewpie doll with a drinking problem. The taffeta dress was far too big and I had to keep hitching it back onto my shoulders. Adding to my troubles was the halo. I just couldn’t keep it on straight – proving something I’d known for years. I was never meant to wear a halo.
“You look wonderful,” praised Paolo, clapping his hands together loudly.
“Err, thanks.”
Grabbing a fistful of my puffy sleeve, he pulled me to one side. “I’m giving you one table. It’s a party of six. Do you think you can handle it?”
“I’ll manage,” I told him, shrugging free. “What do you want me to do until then?”
His wily grin made me uncomfortable. “Mingle. It’s Christmas.”
I had no intention of mingling. My table wasn’t due in until two. I had an hour to kill and no desire to be seen in my angel suit, so I retreated up to the mezzanine floor to hide. Every now and then I’d peek over the balustrade. It was busier than I’d ever seen it.
I was still spying from the top floor when Taylor, the Christmas gnome, started seating people at my table. A well-dressed woman and an elderly lady took their seats and Paolo rushed over to them. I could tell by his over-the-top gestures that he was going out of his way to welcome them. That should have been the moment that I headed down the stairs to tend to them. I could see Paolo swinging his head from left to right, looking for me. He gave up searching when his focus shifted to another couple coming through the door. My heart began thumping. The couple on the receiving end of Paolo’s royal welcome were Adam and the brunette. I hadn’t seen him since the disastrous day outside his apartment building weeks ago. And that was how it was supposed to be.
The decision to stay put came quickly. Self-preservation was more important than keeping my job. I pulled out a chair and sat down.
I couldn’t help staring at them, studying their every move. Adam politely pulled out a chair and brunette girl swept down the back of her black knee-length dress before sitting down.
I thought brunette girl was pretty. Not outstandingly beautiful like Phoebe or Gabrielle, but pretty nonetheless. She clearly adored Adam. She was constantly glancing across and smiling at him. Part of me was glad that he was happy. Another part of me wanted to pick up a saltshaker and drill it at brunette girl’s head.
Another woman soon joined the table, but from the get-go she seemed on the outer. After greeting her, no one seemed to pay her any more attention. The out-of-place woman with short platinum blonde hair spent the next few minutes talking into her phone.
The sight of Elvis walking through the door was a welcome distraction. I wondered why he was in for lunch rather than breakfast. It became painfully clear a few seconds later when he walked to Adam’s table, kissed the platinum blonde on the cheek and sat down.
My head exploded with information. No wonder I’d felt such a kinship to Elvis. There had always been a familiarity about him. The reason why was now screaming at me. He was a darker, broodier, older version of Adam – his brother.
Elvis was Ryan Décarie.
Putting two and two together, I quickly identified the rest of the party. The smartly dressed lady was their mother – whom I should have recognised from the pictures Adam had once shown me. I wondered where their father was. It seemed unfair that I didn’t get to scope him out too. I couldn’t place the older woman, but the platinum blonde was Elvis’s girlfriend of the day.
I contemplated making a run for it, convinced that I could make it down the stairs and out the door so quickly that the only thing they’d see would be a blur of white taffeta and marabou. But that wasn’t to be.
Elvis… Ryan looked up and spotted me, nodded his head to the side, and motioned for me to come down. I shook my head and he frowned quizzically. The silent standoff continued for a few seconds before he excused himself from the table and climbed the stairs. I pushed my chair back from the edge of the balustrade, out of the view of the ground floor.
“Why are you hiding up here?” he asked, pulling a chair over. “I wanted you to meet my family. They’re excellent tippers.” He winked at me.
“I’d rather stay up here, thanks all the same.”
He leaned forward to catch a glimpse of his family below. “Can’t say I blame you. I’d rather hang out up here too.”
“Don’t you get along with them?”
“We get along fine.”
“Who’s the blonde?” I nodded my head in her direction.
Ryan pulled a face at me and I couldn’t help smiling. “Her name is Aubrey.”
“Why do you have so many women, Elvis? Can’t you just find one you like and stick with her?”
He groaned as if the idea was absurd. “I get so bored. And I can’t stand whining. ‘You’re late picking me up. Blah, blah, blah. Do I look fat in this dress? Blah, blah, blah. You slept with my sister. Blah, blah, blah.’ It gets old very quickly.”
I laughed. “So why did you choose Aubrey today?”
“Because my mother can’t stand her. It spices things up.”
“Don’t you want more than that? Don’t you think there’s a girl out there who has a sister you don’t want to sleep with?”
“And end up as dull as them?” He pointed down to Adam and the brunette. “I don’t think so.”
“Maybe they’re good together.” I had no idea why I felt the need to defend brunette girl.
“They’re a train wreck,” he scoffed. “Her name is Whitney. Her friends call her Whit, which is ironic considering she has none.”
Of course her name was Whitney. I would’ve also accepted Britney and Courtney as suitable names for the girl who’d stolen my happy ever after.
“How long have they been together?”
He shrugged. “Three or four years – give or take.”
Ryan had unwittingly just driven the final nail in to my coffin of good Adam memories. His words burned to my very core as I drew a horrible conclusion. None of it had been real. I’d fallen in love with a boy who’d never belonged to me in the first place.
“That’s a long time,” I croaked.
Ryan squinted at me suspiciously. “Why are you so interested in my brother? I can take you down there and introduce you if you’d like. I’d love to see dim Whit squirm a little.”
I vehemently shook my head. “No, I’m just curious. Why don’t you like her?”
“Well, she’s a dimwit. He almost came to his senses and cut her loose a couple of summers ago. We have a cousin that lives in some backwater town in Tasmania, of all places.” He screwed up his nose as if Pipers Cove was the worst place on earth. There was a time that I might have agreed with him. “Adam decided he’d visit her at the last minute. He and Whitney were supposed to be spending the summer in Europe with a group of their friends.”
“But Adam backed out?” I guessed, trying to piece the story together to match up with the version I already knew.
“Yeah, at the very last minute. They were waiting for their connection at Heathrow when he bailed and jumped on the next plane to Australia.”
“Why did he do that?”
Cross-examining Adam’s brother weighed on my conscience a little but I figured none of it mattered any more.
“Who knows? It was a spur of the moment thing. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to hang out with cousin Gabrielle for two months. She’s the stuff of nightmares.” He shuddered, feigning horror, and I smiled. Anyone would think he was referring to a demon. There was a time I would have agreed with him.
“He ended up meeting some small town hick girl and it was all downhill from there. He fell in love with her and she stole his soul,” he said, theatrically. “The Adam who left New York bound for Spain was nothing like the Adam who returned from Australia two months later.”
“Why?”
Ryan frowned at me again. Embarrassed, I looked away.
“What’s with the twenty questions, Priscilla? Seriously.”
“I’m just buying time. I’d much rather hear your story than go downstairs and wait tables.”
“Fine.” He continued his tale. “She ended up cutting him loose and he came home sad and empty, which probably explained why he went straight back to dim Whit. She’s void as well.”
“Did Whitney ever find out about the other girl?”
He shook his head. “She has no clue. I told you, she’s dim. To this day, Adam is pathetically in love with small-town-hick-girl and Whitney doesn’t even know it. They’ll probably marry eventually and rear dull little children. It’s dismal really. So I’m going to stick with the Aubreys of this world. It allows a much happier frame of mind.”
“You might be right,” I falsely agreed.
“Well,” he said, lightening the conversation by slapping his hands on his knees. “Now that you know some of my family dynamics, can we go downstairs?”
I shook my head. “I’m not going down there. Paolo can fire me.”
“Paolo won’t fire you.” He spoke with absolute certainty.
“You don’t know Paolo.”
“Priscilla, not waiting on your table is a drop in the ocean compared to other things you’ve done. You haven’t been fired so far.”
The sinking feeling that overtook me when things weren’t quite adding up set in. “Yes. Why is that?”
A grin swept his face and his eyes drifted. “See that gorgeous old lady sitting down there?” he asked proudly, pointing at his family’s table. “That’s my grandmother, Nellie. I named the restaurant after her.”
“Oh my God.” I buried my face in my hands.
It was going from bad to worse. No wonder he ate there almost every morning. He owned the restaurant. And it was a sheer miracle that I was seeing Adam there for the first time. It also explained the rock star welcome from Paolo. What it didn’t explain was why Ryan hadn’t fired me in the first week. He knew every one of my criminal misdeeds. He’d even been my accomplice in a few.
I lifted my head, peeking at him through the gap in my fingers. “Why haven’t you fired me?”
“I like you, Priscilla.”
“You know my name’s not, Priscilla, right?”
He reached across, pulling my hands free of my face. “From the second I met you. Your faux nom doesn’t suit you well.”
I winced at the blatant reminder of who this man was. Fluency in the French language was not something the Décarie brothers had to practise. It was the primary language spoken in their home, even by their mother who was English.
“Elvis doesn’t suit you either. As far as I’m aware, Elvises aren’t French.”
“How do you know I’m French?”
“I know a lot of things about you,” I grumbled.
Smiling slightly, he launched in to a long, foreign monologue. I remained completely stone-faced.
“Well?” he asked, awaiting my verdict.
“You can take the boy out of Marseille, but you can’t take Marseille out of the boy,” I muttered.
“How do you know I’m from Marseille?”
I shrugged, adding to my illusion of apathy. “Lucky guess.”
“A hell of a guess.”
“Translate what you said,” I demanded.
“I said you look absolutely ridiculous in that costume and your halo’s not straight.” Ryan leaned across and attempted to straighten my headband, smiling as crookedly as my halo.
“I know who you are, Ryan,” I said gravely.
He abruptly withdrew his hands and leaned away from me.
I couldn’t expect him to have any clue what was going on. I took in a deep breath, having no choice but to try explaining it to him.
It was the longest story I’d ever told anyone and I kept my eyes locked on his the whole time. Ryan’s expression didn’t waver as he tried to process the information.
“So you’re small-town-hick-girl?” he asked finally.
“The one and only,” I confirmed.
“You’re Charlotte?”
“Charli, yes,” I corrected, unwilling to give him licence to use my full spidery name.
“And you came all the way to New York for him?” I nodded. “And Gabrielle ponied up her apartment so you could stay?” I continued nodding as he whittled down the story I’d just told him. “And seeing dim Whit with him changed your mind?”
“Adam is doing just fine without me. He’s moved on.”
“Is that what you think?” he asked.
“Yes. What do you think?”
Ryan laughed hard, once. “I think I’m glad I didn’t sleep with you.”
“Be serious, please,” I whined.
“I’m totally serious. That could’ve been really awkward.”
I shot him a poisonous glare. “I’m not talking to you about this any more.”
“Look, if it’s sensitivity you’re after, you’re talking to the wrong brother. Go down and talk to the right one,” he suggested, pointing to the ground floor.
I refused to give him the satisfaction of looking at Adam. “It won’t change anything.”
“Don’t you think you should let Adam decide that, Charlotte?” He said my name painfully slowly as if it was a difficult word to pronounce. “You could be the girl who saves me from having to endure dull little nieces and nephews in the future. If you stick with him, I could eventually be the uncle to a small pack of criminal masterminds. They’d be cute little weapons of mass destruction.”
“Are you done?”
He grabbed my hand. “Not quite,” he replied, thrusting me forward to the balustrade.
I tried to step back, but Ryan stood behind me, mercilessly blocking my path. Not content with having me on show, he called his brother’s name. Adam tilted his head upward, chasing Ryan’s voice. From that moment on, I focused only on his face.
Even from a distance, I swear I saw the colour blanch from his cheeks. Adam rose as if I was pulling him by an invisible string. He began weaving between other tables to get to the stairs, and I was thankful the restaurant was packed to capacity. It hindered him long enough for me to deal with the self-appointed devil’s advocate standing behind me.
“You have no idea what you’ve just done,” I said bitterly.
A tiny hint of remorse flashed across Ryan’s face. “He’d want to know you’re here.”
“That wasn’t for you to decide.”
For some reason, Ryan suddenly had a change of heart. He stepped away, allowing me to move. “There are service stairs at the back, if you want to leave.”
I didn’t waste a second, bundling my dress in my hands and making a run for it like a cracked-out Cinderella.
The back stairs on the mezzanine led to the kitchen. Paolo collared me before I’d even made the bottom. “Your table has been seated for half an hour!”
“I know,” I replied, pulling the ridiculous dress over my head. “I’m sorry, Paolo. I know the timing’s not great, but I quit. Tell Ryan I quit.” I threw the dress at him, grabbed my coat from the cloakroom and bolted.