“Oh, no. I’m sorry, I forgot she was coming to make me a birthday breakfast.” I cover my mouth with my hand, trying not to laugh while Friday makes a beeline for a very frightened looking Callan.
“What’s gotten into you two fools,” she demands, swatting at me with her parasol. “You can’t be fornicatin’ like that out on the front doorstep for the whole world to see. And on a Saturday, too, so close to the damn Sabbath. I swear, I ought to wring both of your necks.” She smiles in that grumpy way of hers, though, and I know she’s not really upset.
“Sorry, Mrs. Beauchamp. We were hardly fornicating, though,” Callan says.
“Looked like it from where I was standing. And don’t be calling me Mrs. Beauchamp, neither. I ain’t never been married. Have you got cotton candy for brains, boy? Call me Friday or nothin’ at all.”
This is hardly the first time Callan’s met Friday—they live across the street from one another, and in a town like Port Royal, that almost makes you family—but this is obviously the first time he’s been busted kissing a girl by her. He’s not handling it very well.
“Sorry, Friday. I—I should probably get going.”
“I should think so.” Friday places one hand on an ample hip, scowling at him. When he doesn’t actually move, she makes a disgruntled growling sound and bustles past me into the house, toting her parasol in one hand and a net bag of groceries in the other. “Make sure you ain’t out there long, Miss,” she tells me. Calling Algie after her, she disappears.
Once she’s gone, Callan starts laughing. “Damn. That wasn’t really how I’d planned that.”
“I know. She’s…something else.”
“Mm hmm.” Callan sighs, taking a step toward me. He takes hold of my hand, squeezing it lightly. “I really do have to go. I’ll see you later for dinner?” I nod, and he kisses me ever so gently on my forehead, right between my eyes. “Happy birthday, bluebird.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CORALIE
Surrender
NOW
I try to call Ben but the line is busy. Who the hell is he talking to at ten-thirty on a Tuesday night? Ben’s mother calls him late sometimes, but only ever on a Wednesday and a Saturday, and even she can’t talk for more than an hour before she runs out of things to say. When I try him again at midnight, the line is still engaged.
I pace restlessly around my hotel room, my blood boiling over like a simmering pot. Callan really has no right to talk that way to me. We’re not close anymore. We haven’t been close for such a long time. Even if we’d remained in touch and still spoke every once in a while, it would still be highly inappropriate for him to say that the only man I should ever marry is him. I mean, what the fuck was he thinking? And to just spit it out like that in front of everyone? That was madness. Sheer, absolute fucking madness.
I call down to the front desk and order a bottle of Pinot Grigio. The woman on the desk tells me she’ll have one sent right up, but that the hotel’s license ends at twelve am sharp so I won’t be able to place any further orders. I amend my order and ask for two bottles of Pinot Grigio instead. She doesn’t sound happy, but tells me they’ll be right up. When the chilled bottles arrive, I sit on the floor of the bathroom with the shower running next to me, and I drink. I drink until one of the bottles is empty and I’m struggling to open the screw cap on the second. Classy.
My cell phone rings at one in the morning. Ben’s voice sounds tight and stressed. “Hey, Cora. What’s been going on? I’ve been trying to reach you for—two days. I’vebeenworriedsick.”
“Sorry. I’ve just been having a god-awful time back here. There’s been so much to do, and I’ve had to deal with…people.” I’ve mastered the art of appearing sober, even when I’m not. I sound perfectly normal as I talk into the receiver. The same, however, can’t be said for Ben.
“Great. I—can’t—d’you need me—metodoanything?” He always runs his words together when he’s been drinking. Weird that he’s awake and this drunk on a weeknight, though. He always polices my alcohol intake to two glasses of wine with dinner when we both have to be up for work the next morning.
“No, there’s nothing you can do,” I tell him. “Have you been drinking?”
“Mmm, just a couple of beers…with the guys after work.”
He never goes drinking with the guys from work. He’s told me repeatedly that they’re all drunken morons, and why the hell would he want to hang out with them after office hours? Suspicion itches at the back of my mind, but I choose to ignore it.
“Great. Maybe you should get yourself to bed, then. You know how bad your hangovers are if you don’t sleep.” My own hangover is bound to be epic, but I don’t have anything to do tomorrow, besides hand in those papers at the morgue.
“Yeah, you’re right. G’night, Cora. Love you.”