“Oh. Really.” Statement, not a question.
“Mm-hmm, my friends Roxie and Natalie are coming up for dinner. Any recommendations?”
“Everything is excellent,” he replied, once more that sense of pride creeping over his face.
“Really? So all those TripAdvisor and Yelp reviews I’ve been reading were wrong? I guess we’ll find out since one of my dinner dates is a professional chef, and I’m sure she’ll have lots to say about how excellent everything is.”
The pride was gone, irritation was back, and I decided it was time for me to head out on that hike.
Chapter 6
When I’d booked my original reservation, they’d informed me that while breakfast and lunch were casual, guests dressed for dinner. Men were required to wear a jacket and tie, women were expected to appear in business casual or “resort wear.” Knowing this, I’d packed my suitcase full of fun swingy dresses and kicky heels. For my first official Bryant Mountain House dinner I’d chosen a deep-pink wrap dress that was sprinkled with darling little cherries. Pairing it with red pumps, a liberal application of cherry-red lipstick and a sleeked-back ’do for my blond bob, I looked every inch the retro dynamo. If I did say so myself.
And I did say so myself.
Dressing for dinner, what a lovely and, at times forgotten, concept. Too often my meals consisted of takeout on the couch in front of the TV, which was not going to happen here if Archie had anything to do with it, so I relished the opportunity to dress up a bit. I was excited to see my friends; it’d been a while since all my girls were together, and I was happy to finally be seeing the famous Bryant Mountain House dining room.
I was downstairs promptly at six fifteen and could hear my girls before I could see them. Per usual.
“This is it, I swear, Rox, this is where you and Leo should tie the knot.”
“I don’t know, it’s so formal. I always saw us getting married somewhere a little less showy, something a little more homegrown.”
“A little less showy? You mean than Maxwell Farms, with its enormous mansion and barn made out of marble?”
“The barn is not made out of marble, don’t be ridiculous.”
“Is there or is there not a marble cornerstone that was laid down by the former governor of New York?”
“The president.”
“The president of New York?”
“No, the actual president, like of the country. Apparently he was a friend of Leo’s great-great-great-grandfather.”
“I literally can’t even talk to you anymore, I’m not fancy enough for this conversation. And this is coming from a woman wearing next season’s Louboutins.”
I shook my head in amazement and peeked around the staircase to see both of my friends shrugging out of their coats and scarves and drawing looks from every male over fourteen and under eighty in the vicinity. Roxie was all girl-next-door, with curly brown hair and sparkling eyes that just radiated good health and happiness. Most of the happiness these days came from her smoking-hot boyfriend, Leo Maxwell, the local farmer with the old blue-blood New York family name, whom she’d wrapped around her finger, and then wrapped around his torso, to his absolute delight.
If Roxie was the girl next door then Natalie was the devil across the street, the one you hope your husband never sees when she comes out in her T-shirt in the morning to pick up her newspaper.
Stunningly beautiful, with ivory skin and strawberry-blond hair, she had a head full of Manhattan and a mouth full of Bronx. She was all curves, all the time, and woe to any man who thought he stood a chance before the force of nature that was Natalie. So it made sense that the man who did stand a chance was an equal force of nature—an incredible-looking, football-playing, cow-milking, butter-churning ridiculous hunk, and I mean hunk of man, Oscar Mendoza, the dairy farmer she’d been plowing for months now.
My girls shared the details whenever we were all together, and over the phone when we weren’t, and it seemed obvious that they were convinced that the next plowing that’d be taking place would be in my field.
But wait, speaking of field . . .
“Did I miss something? Are you getting married?” I asked, coming down the last few stairs and interrupting their bicker.
“Girl, get your ass over here,” Natalie shouted, surprising more than a few guests and delighting at least one. “Good goddamn, you look fantastic.”
“Watch your mouth, Grayson,” I shot back, launching myself at them both and letting them hug me tight. Where they were tall, I was tiny, and it was nice to be in our sandwich again. “Seriously, what’s with the wedding talk?”
“She’s engaged,” Natalie said, and I turned to squeal.
“She is not engaged,” Roxie corrected, holding up the still-naked third finger on her left hand, but then switching it out for another finger. “Quit saying that.”
“Why is she saying that?” I asked, confused.
“Ask her where she went last weekend. Go on, ask her,” Natalie instructed. Before I opened my mouth, however, she answered her own question. “She went into the city, my city, without telling me, and looked at motherfucking engagement rings at motherfucking VC&A.”
“VC&A?” I whispered to Roxie.
“Van Cleef & Arpels.” She blushed.
“Who calls it that?” I whispered back.
Natalie finally realized she’d lost her audience and brought us back by pinching us both on our cheeks. “Anyone who has a house account calls it that, which the Maxwell family does, for fuck’s sake.”
“But wait, wait, hold on, let me see your hand,” I said, rolling my eyes at Natalie’s chatter. “I don’t see a ring.”
“That’s because for all this nitwit is going on about, I’m not actually engaged. We merely . . . looked.”
“At giant diamonds,” Natalie interjected.
“Yes, at giant diamonds,” Roxie answered, a bashful smile creeping in. “Which I made him stop looking at, honestly, how does he expect me to cook with an ice cube sitting on top of my finger?”
“Call Leo right now, tell him I’ll take the ice cube. I will take the ice cube!” Natalie made to get out her phone, but I placed a calming hand on her shoulder.
“How about we wait for Oscar to do that, huh? And in the meantime, we’ll eat dinner, sound like a plan?” I asked.
“Yes. Done. Let’s eat,” Natalie said, nodding her head. “But while we eat I’m going to make her draw you a picture on her napkin of what this ring looks like.”
“You really think they have paper napkins at Bryant Mountain House? This place is all linen, all the time, right, Clara?” Roxie asked, and I smiled.
“Whatever, I’ll find some scratch paper so you can draw that ring. Huge. Huge! And I’m with Oscar, so you know I know huge.”