Somewhere in an A/U. Characters belong to Janet Evanovich; I'm just playing, not making any money on this project (sadly).
Babe story; HEA; smut alert and graphic language ahead, so be warned. This chapter isn't kind to Joe Morelli, so if that bothers you, be warned.
Chapter 52
My first indication that things were not going to go as they usually did at Chez Plum tonight was the fact that neither my mother nor my grandmother was standing watch at the door when I pulled up in front of the immaculately kept 2-story Colonial on Bridge Street, where I'd grown up. This was highly unusual, in that my maternal relatives seemed to have an uncanny, almost-supernatural sense of when I would be arriving at the house, even if my visit was completely unexpected. Which this one certainly wasn't.
I checked my watch. Nope, it wasn't 6pm or later. Dinner wasn't on the table yet. I'd been mindful of my promise to my mother to arrive early so that I that could have a few words with my father and grandmother in what would be, I was sure, a vain attempt to broker a lasting peace between the warring parties. My mother knew I was coming, and coming early. My POS car was anything but silent, and I'd scored a parking spot directly in front of the house. So what the hell was keeping them from their usual vigil?
Warily, I climbed out and looked around, expecting God only knows what. My spidey sense, as I called it, was on the alert. Danger, danger, Will Robinson! I steeled myself for the unexpected, and moved slowly up the walkway as if I were creeping into Enemy territory. Which, in a way, I suppose I was. Especially tonight, given the unwelcome news I was determined to announce to my mother.
Giving a brief knock, I opened the door, revealing my presence with a call of hello. There was no answer. OK, then! Where was everyone?
Pausing in the foyer, I heard a voice coming from the formal living room to my right. I didn't recognize it--or, should I say, there was something whirling around on the tip of my brain (so to speak), but I couldn't for the life of me name that tune. If you follow my mixed metaphors. Most people can't. But, to make it more plain: I kinda sorta thought that maybe I should know the voice, but I couldn't actually put a name to it to save my life.
Rounding the corner to the living room, I stood speechless as I took in the scene before me: my gleeful grandmother was clearly pinching some stranger's ass as my mother looked on in open horror, and my father ignored the show in favor of a car-chase film on his new flat-screen TV! The ass looked kind of familiar to me too, to tell the truth. But as I couldn't see the guy's face, I was going to have to fail miserably as a contestant in the Name That Ass contest. I needed more of a hint. So, call me slow!
As my grandmother landed her pinch, the ass jumped about 2 feet and pulled away, foiling my sex-crazed grandmother's determined attempt to get yet another squeeze in.
That's when my mother, sensing my presence--or, more likely, hearing my open gasp of disbelief--whirled around. Unfortunately, I was spotted before I could follow my perfectly-natural inclination to back away from all of the madness and run the hell home to my apartment, where I could be 100% certain that Rex would never mortify me as Grandma Mazur was, it seemed, determined to do tonight.
"Stephanie! Thank God!" my mother greeted me in relief, "You're here!"
DUH. Of course I was here. That much seemed obvious, even to me. What wasn't as obvious to me was why exactly I was here. This wasn't going to be a fun visit even before I walked in on my grandmother pinching some stranger's ass. It was going to be even less fun now.
Meanwhile, the stranger had turned around when my Mom called my name. He looked relieved to see me, and took the opportunity to get as far away as possible from my grandmother's dangerous vicinity. "Hey, Cupcake! Long time, no see!"
Oh shit. Joe Morelli! Of all the people I wasn't in the mood to play nice with tonight, it was the guy who'd taken my virginity on the floor of the Tasty Pastry when I was 16--and then felt the need to write about it on the wall of Mario's Sub Shop! The last time I'd seen Morelli--fabled to have the 'best ass in Trenton'--was when I ran over him in my Uncle Sandor's Buick, Big Blue, when I was 18 and Morelli was just back from the Navy. I'd broken one of Morelli's legs then--and I was mad enough at him that he was just damned good and lucky that I hadn't backed up and tried to break the other one. Or some other appendage. If you catch my drift. I was most definitely not in the mood for Morelli, tonight or any other night.
"Don't call me Cupcake," I glared at him in annoyance.
He grinned back, clearly enjoying my discomfiture. His eyes did a slow and open assessment of my body. "You look good, Steph."
Now the polite answer would have been, "So do you." And he did: Morelli had always been a good-looking guy. Which was the damned reason I'd been on my back on the floor of the Tasty Pastry in the first place. Watching the best ass in Trenton pull up his tightly fitting blue jeans and move on after I'd given him my virginity behind the éclair case. Ass. Figuratively, I mean, not literally. "What are you doing here?"
"Stephanie, is that any way to talk to our dinner guest?" My mother sent me an unhappy glare, which I matched and sent right back her way.
"Dinner guest? You invited Joe Morelli to join us for dinner?" I was not a happy camper. Especially since I was hearing this little 'oh no, she didn't' voice in my ear.
As if to confirm what my almost-unerring spidey sense had begun to suspect, my mother lowered her eyes and shifted guiltily. Oh yes, indeed she had……
Ellen Plum, Matchmaker Extraordinaire! I was 26 (a week from 27, in fact) and not married anymore--and therefore I was 'on the market' as far as my mother was concerned. Why me? Lorna Cypowitz' daughters are all married. I could almost hear her whiney voice in my ear, like an annoying mosquito I desperately wanted to swat.
And I suddenly began to put 2 and 2 together to get a very unwelcome 4: Morelli had handled the case over the weekend when my grandmother had shot my father's gun at the neighbor's handyman, thinking he was a burglar. Morelli had convinced the handyman not to press charges, and he'd let my grandmother off with a stern warning. He'd allowed my mother to avoid the indignity of having her own flesh and blood hauled into court yet again. That alone had elevated him to hero status, in Ellen Plum's book. The fact that he was--or so I strongly suspected--single and available had sealed the deal: he was immediately promoted to the top of the official 'Ellen Plum Available Candidates For My Daughter's Husband' list.
I now began to suspect that all of her urgent, 'Come home as soon as possible' messages this weekend--all 314 of them, it seemed like--were, in fact, her opening salvos aimed at matching me with Morelli. He was Burg all the way. He was a Trenton cop. His mother and grandmother shopped at the same grocery store that my mother did. His family had lived in the Burg as long as the Plums had. They were Catholic. Both the Morellis and the Plums attended St. Stephen's church. He was Italian. And my mother, I knew, remembered all too well that I'd had a big thing for Morelli back when I was in high school.
Crapity, crap, crap. Did I say tonight was not going to be fun? Scratch that: it was going to be a train wreck!
You know how sometimes your brain has a moment when it totally short-circuits or something, and you find yourself opening up your big mouth and just blurting out some things when you least expect to? Things that if you put even a second's worth of thought into, you would never in a million years actually say? Or say like that, without some kind of warm-up or something. OK, so maybe that's just me who does that. A lot.
But the point was, I did it again. Right then and there. It wasn't really my fault, though: I was taken completely by surprise by Morelli's unexpected appearance. And I wanted to stop what was, I was certain, going to be the non-stop sales pitch my mother was going to make of me to Morelli over the usual Tuesday evening pot roast.
"I'm engaged!" I held up my left hand, waving it frantically at the assemblage of now completely silent people in the living room.
Even my father looked up from the TV without waiting for a commercial. Everyone, Morelli included, looked dumb-founded.
Yep, he was soooooooooooo there to check me out for a future hook-up! I saw him give my mother a quick look, as if to say, 'Why am I here, then?'
My mother was, for once, left totally and completely speechless. Which I could perfectly well understand. I mean, think about it: the whole point of getting Morelli over for dinner in the first place was to start the ball rolling to get me to the altar. And, wonder of wonders, here I was, the unsuspecting fly walking right into the over-bearing spider's parlor with the long-desired engagement ring already on my finger--albeit with no guy on my arm--saying, 'Congratulations, Ellen Plum! You've just won the matrimonial sweepstakes!' Or saying something like that. You know what I mean. I'm sure you do.
"Lemme see that there ring!" My grandmother had my hand in hers in less than a minute, and she was squinting at the ring in confusion. "This here ain't no diamond! What kind of an engagement ring is it, anyway? Are you sure the fella means business, not just funny business?"
"Pumpkin? I didn't know you were seeing anyone," my father rose from his armchair and headed over to take a look at the ring himself.
"Actually, I just met him this Friday night. Saturday afternoon, I mean," I corrected myself quickly, remembering my sanitized 'how we met' cover story. "I danced with him on Saturday. At Stella's wedding. Which was on Saturday. Like I said," I blurted out, before I realized that I sounded completely deranged. "His name is Carlos Manoso. Ricardo Carlos Manoso. He's a Captain in the Army. We're in love and we're getting married in June, 2010. You're all invited." I looked around, realizing that I'd managed to make a complete mess of the announcement.
So much for being Wonder Woman! Maybe I should have twirled around outside the front door and tried for the costume, after all?
"What do you mean, you met him on Saturday and now you're getting married? Who is this man? And where is he?" my mother looked around the room, as if she expected me to produce Carlos out of my hip pocket.
I ignored Morelli's amused smirk, and reached inside my handbag for the dozen or so photos of Carlos--minus the shirtless hunk pose--that I'd brought with me as Exhibit B. Exhibit A was shimmering on my left hand ring finger, and I felt compelled to defend it as I handed my mother the photos. "Technically it's a 'promise' ring, but since Carlos proposed after he gave it to me, I suppose it's also my engagement ring."
"You suppose it's your engagement ring?" My mother's horrified voice rose two octaves. "You don't even know if you're engaged?" She sorted through the photos dismissively. "Why me? Dolores Trejakowski's daughter doesn't meet a man on Saturday away from home and come back 3 nights later engaged to him!"
"That's because Karen Trejakowski is a lesbian, mother. And of course I know I'm engaged. He asked me and I said yes."
Morelli was openly laughing now, and my father was just standing there looking confused.
My grandmother had grabbed the photos next and was giving them a slow and careful examination. "Is he a Negro? I always wondered if it was true what they say about their packages--"
My mother crossed herself, and my father muttered, "Crazy old bat!" under his breath. This was so not going well!
I took a deep breath, "No, Grandma, he's not a Negro. Carlos is Cuban-American." I wisely avoided a discussion about the size of his package.
"Why didn't you bring him to dinner tonight?" my mother asked, suspiciously.
I guess she suspected I'd invented our engagement out of thin air, just to foil her plans to start the ball rolling to make me Mrs. Joseph Morelli. I surreptitiously checked the ring finger of his left hand. Yep. As I suspected. It was empty.
"Carlos has gone overseas on a tour of duty," I watched as another look of unhappiness flew across my mother's all-too-expressive face. "He shipped out yesterday morning for 18 months."
"Army, huh?" my father was slowly and carefully processing the information as he took his turn examining the photos. "He's not a Negro? You sure about that? He's awful dark-looking." My father, God love him, was not exactly the most fair-minded of people.
I sighed deeply, "Yes, Daddy, I'm sure: Carlos is Cuban-American. And yes--he's a Captain in the Army."
"An officer, huh? Good man. He ever been married before?" he looked at me, then down at the photos again.
"No, never. He's 26 and he's Catholic," I added, seeing that my mother was at least happy with those answers. "He's got a big family, too. Mother and father and grandmother. And an older brother and five sisters. And tons of nieces and nephews. We're planning a huge wedding. In June of 2010. Like I said. You're all invited." I glared at Morelli, who'd reached out for the photos. "Except for you, that is."
"Stephanie! Joseph is our guest!" My mother was mortified. It just wasn't done in the Burg to be rude to a guest! "Mind your manners!"
At this Wonder Woman bristled, and began to show signs of life again. I gave my mother my all-knowing-all-seeing look. "I know exactly why you invited him tonight, Mom. And it isn't going to work."
Morelli and my mother shared a guilty look. Oh, I was sooooo right about their ulterior motives!
"I'm not interested," I said, taking the opportunity to snatch the photos out of Morelli's hands and stuff them back into the safety of my handbag. "I'm officially off the market! Carlos and I are in love and we're getting married when he gets back from his tour of duty. And nothing anybody says is going to change my mind! So just save your energy, Mom. I don't care if Esther Roskewitz' daughter never got engaged to a guy she just met a few days before. Or if Georgette Klosperini's daughter wouldn't meet a guy and get engaged without introducing him to her family. I don't care. I love Carlos. Carlos loves me. And I'm getting married. To Carlos. In June 2010. And I'm planning the wedding--all of it. I'm paying. I'm deciding. It's my life. That's final. End of story."
My mother's mouth opened and I could see her getting ready for a protest. I held up my hand to silence her.
For once, miracle of miracles, it worked: Wonder Woman was on a roll now!
"I'm 26 years old, almost 27. I'm an intelligent woman who knows her own mind and heart. I'm not a lovesick teenager. And it's not just sex. I love Carlos with all of my heart. He's IT for me. And I'm IT for him. We spent almost the whole weekend together, and we did a lot of serious talking. I know exactly what I'm getting into. I'm aware that you think I'm out of my mind. But you haven't met Carlos. When you do, you'll realize he's a wonderful man that any family would be proud to welcome into theirs. I hope you respect my decision. But regardless, I intend to marry him."
My father gave me a measured look. "I trust your judgment, Pumpkin. You love this guy, then I'm going to give you my blessing."
I smiled happily. My Dad was the best!
"Now can we eat? I'm hungry!" he made tracks for the table without even looking at the clock, and I realized to my amazement that it was exactly 6pm on the dot! You really could set your watch by my father's stomach.
My mother blinked, then her hands flew to her cheeks in distress. "The pot roast! I hope I didn't burn it!" She raced into the kitchen and I was left in the living room with my grandmother and Morelli. She made another move towards him, and he lit out of her way like a scalded cat.
"That woman is fuckin' dangerous!" he hissed as he got the hell out of her way.
I grinned at my grandmother, who'd managed to put the fear of God into one of Trenton's finest with just 2 fingers of her right hand. Registered sex offender indeed!
Later that evening, I reported the news by phone to Mary Lou, who'd been delighted to accept my invitation to become my Matron of Honor. "So, anyway, there we sit over dinner. My mother, still fuming because I made it totally and completely clear to her that I was in the driving seat regarding all of the wedding arrangements."
"Steph, I still can't believe she invited Joe Morelli, of all people, over to dinner! You really think that was why she was calling you all weekend and telling you that there was an emergency and you had to get home?"
"Oh, totally," I nodded, convinced. "She was so pissed I passed on dinner last night, I should have known something was up. And my grandmother told me Mom'd originally had Morelli scheduled for dinner last night, but then she cancelled the invite when she found out I wasn't going to be there until tonight."
"Unbelievable! So do you think she finally got the message about you and Carlos?"
"Well, God knows, I delivered it clearly enough. And often enough. But this is Ellen Plum we're talking about here, Lou--so who the hell knows what sunk in?"
"How'd she take the news about your new job?"
"You had to see her face! There are no words to describe it. None. She's convinced I'm insane or something. It was bad enough that I work as a lingerie buyer, instead of at the button factory or the personal products plant, like 'normal people's daughters do'. That's a direct quote by the way. Apparently having a daughter who fingers panties and bras all day is an embarrassment to her. Which I've always suspected, by the way. But she came right out and said it this time, Lou."
"She didn't!"
"She did! I don't know what was more upsetting to her: the fact that I'm taking a job having no real experience in the design field, or the fact that I'm going to be designing said embarrassing bras and panties instead of just ordering them! She's too much. Like I said: there are no words. By the time we got to dessert, I was ready to give up and run screaming into the night, swearing we weren't related!"
"And your father? How did he handle it?"
"Daddy didn't say too much. He never does. You know how he is. All he asked was if the guy had a good rep on the streets. And once I told him Books Designs is almost 40 years old, and I was getting everything in writing and having it reviewed by a lawyer, Daddy was fine with it."
"What about your grandmother?"
"She wanted to know if she could score some hot samples of the lingerie. And barring that, could she get a Senior Citizen discount? And she kept trying to grope Morelli under the table."
"That must have been fun."
"Actually, it kind of was the best part of the evening," I grinned, tossing Rex a grape. "At least it wiped that smug look off his face."
"He always did think he was God's gift to women," Mary Lou reminded me. "And for a certain girl I knew, he was."
"I'm completely over him," I said airily. And I was. If I'd had any doubt at all that Carlos had made me a one-man woman--and I hadn't, really--that last doubt had been erased by this evening's let's-invite-Joseph-for-dinner exercise in futility. I wasn't as angry at him as I had been when I'd run over him with the Buick almost 9 years ago. But I also wasn't even a bit interested in ever meeting him again. Let alone starting a relationship with him. Which he'd made perfectly clear he would be quite open to, as he'd walked me out to my car when I made my escape from dinner.
"He actually asked you out to dinner? After you told him you were engaged?"
"You remember how he always was: very self-confident. And I suspect that I'm a challenge to him now that I'm with another guy. You know: can he get in my pants again 10 years later, or not? I turned him down flat, naturally."
"Naturally," Lou agreed.
"I told him that if he was really all that interested in dating, I could always hook him up with Grandma Mazur," I giggled.
"You didn't!"
"I did! The guy couldn't get to his car fast enough."
"Girl, your life puts mine to shame. The biggest thing on my schedule these days is Michelle's ballet lessons."
"And you think she'd like to be a flower girl?"
"Steph, she'd love to! It'll be something exciting for her to look forward to. Besides, you know she adores you!"
"The feeling is mutual! I'm going to call Valerie tomorrow and ask her if her girls Angie and Mary Alice want to be flower girls, too. Tina suggested that we can have them each sprinkle a different color of rose petal down the aisle! Red, white and blue. I was looking online--doing research, you know--and they actually do have blue roses now!"
"Omigod! I totally love it! I'm going to get on the net later tonight after Michelle goes to bed and start looking for the most fabulous gowns I can find! Maybe we can go out to the Mall Saturday afternoon and get a look at what's out there? It's just so exciting!"
"I know, I have all these bridal magazines in front of me, and I'm sketching what I'm looking for. No frou-frou princess gown this time! I want something form-fitting and strapless. Elegant yet sexy. I'll know it when I see it. And there's plenty of time to look!"
"Good, remember, Tina and I are taking you out Saturday night for your birthday dinner. We can just make a full day of it and hit the bridal salons so you can try gowns on--"
"Yes, yes! I can't wait! I'm going to have you and Tina as my Matron and Maid of Honor, and I've already invited Amanda, Melinda and Kelly to be bridesmaids. I'll invite Stella when she comes back from her honeymoon. And I guess I should invite Valerie to be one too, huh?"
"She's your sister," Mary Lou sighed, "You know her best, Steph. Do you think she's going to say yes?"
"Depends on her mood." It was true. My sister was very emotional these days, almost manic one moment and then deep in despair the next. I'd thought at first that she was pregnant again, but she'd snapped my head off when I suggested it. Then she'd hung up on me.
"Do you think she's having marriage problems with Steve?"
"That would be my guess, Lou. I know she thought he'd cheated on her in the past, although he denied it at the time. That could be what's going on now. It would definitely have her on the edge emotionally."
"You know, I always had this feeling about him," Mary Lou revealed. "I just think he's icky, even though he's always been very polite to me."
"It's not just you," I confessed, "I get this hinky feeling around him too. Almost like I want to take a bath after being in the same room with him."
"Like your cousin Vinnie the pervert!"
"Not quite that bad," I laughed, "But yeah, kinda. To a different degree. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't trust Steve as far as I can throw him, Lou. But I have no proof he isn't an OK guy, so I just keep my mouth shut. And I thank God I'm not married to him."
"Well, maybe Valerie will open up to you this time? If you invite her to be a bridesmaid, maybe you two can grow closer than you've been of late, and she'll actually tell you what's going on?"
"Not likely. Valerie is too into playing her perfect little role as an attorney's wife. She's all about Steve says this, Steve says that. The only way I even found out that she thought he was having an affair last year was because Grandma told me that she'd overheard Mom counseling her to try to be more sexy so as not to give him an excuse to go roaming around."
"Oh dear God: not the same advice she gave you concerning Dickie?"
"You got it. God forbid the Burg find out she has two daughters who can't hold onto a husband! You know my mother: it's all about what the neighbors will say! 'Poor Ellen Plum, what did she do wrong raising her daughters?'"
"I'm sure Valerie's done her best to make it work, especially for the girls' sake. But there comes a time when enough is enough, Steph. If I ever found out for certain Lenny was cheating on me, that would be it! And nothing on God's Green Earth that my mother or his could say about it would keep me married to the bastard."
"I hear ya: especially these days with AIDS and other STDs. Anyway, I don't know for sure what the deal is with her, Lou. But I'll ask her if she wants to be in the bridal party. And the girls, too. I think Angie and Mary Alice will be excited, but as for what excites Valerie…who the hell knows?"
We chatted a bit more, and the discussion turned to my new job at Books Designs. I promised Mary Lou I'd call her the moment I got home from Rosa's tomorrow evening, and then we called it a night.
Tomorrow was going to be a very important evening for me. And I couldn't wait to get the ball rolling!
True to plan, the last face I saw before I fell asleep was Carlos'. I held the framed photo of his smiling face in my hands, and my mind went back to thoughts of him. I said a few prayers that he was safe and told him that I loved him.
Then I crawled into bed and had the most deliciously sensual dreams of my future husband.
The countdown to April 6th, 2010 continued!
