She’d thank me later.
“Really, Luke, you’d be doing me a favor. Those gift cards expire at the end of the week. It’d be a shame to let them go to waste. So, if you don’t mind coming downtown and bringing your portfolio, the three of us can meet at the restaurant.
The glazed look cleared from Grace’s eyes. “Wait. The three of us?”
“I’ll need your decorating advice.”
Grace let out a disbelieving laugh. “You’re kidding, right? You’ve seen my condo. It’s one step up from a refugee camp.”
I turned to Luke. “She’s being modest. Grace has terrific taste.”
“Monica, I don’t—”
I placed my heel onto Grace’s toe and pressed down, just hard enough so she’d get the message: If you can’t back me up here, at least shut up and go with it. Grace clamped her lips shut. Then I played my trump card. I told her about the restaurant, the chef, the menu, and the oysters. By the time I was finished, she was practically salivating. I swear I could hear her stomach growl.
“Really? I never knew there were that many varieties of oysters. I’ve only ever had them once before—too expensive and not exactly standard menu fare if you grow up in Minnesota—but they were so, so good. Okay, count me in.”
I looked at Luke.
“Sure,” he said. “Me too. Sounds like fun. Saturday?”
I was about to tell him that would be fine when I remembered Grace. She knows I never go out on Saturday. I shook my head.
“The restaurant is always crazy on Saturday night. How about Sunday?”
“Sunday works.” Luke looked at Grace. “Is that good for you?”
“Well, I was going to clean out the lint trap on the dryer, but you know”—she shrugged—“I guess I can reschedule.”
Grace is usually pretty shy around new people. The fact that she was trying to joke around, even if the joke was pretty lame, felt like a good sign.
“What a relief,” Luke said with a smile, showing off his snaggletooth.
That felt like another good sign. In fact, I was feeling very good about life in general. That is, until Alex put down his phone and pulled out his earbuds.
“Hey,” he said, in his usual sarcastic snarl. “You wanna wrap it up here? Zoe texted me. Desmond got into the lasagna and is yakking all over the carpet.”
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. The headache I’d been predicting ever since reading last week’s weather forecast had finally arrived.
I hate my life.
When I opened my eyes and saw Luke staring at me, I said, “Zoe is my stepdaughter. Desmond is our dog, a Newfoundland. He weighs one hundred forty pounds, has a delicate stomach, and no moral compass. Sorry to cut this short, but I have to go.”
I jumped up from the table, ticked off and with my head pounding, and yelled toward the kitchen so that Ben, my sous-chef, would know I’d be back before the dinner crowd showed up, then hissed something at Alex, who hissed something back, and walked toward the door. Grace fell into step behind me.
“Sorry,” she said. “I have to go too.”
“Oh, sure. No problem,” Luke said, sounding accommodating but also a little confused by the abrupt exodus. “Umm . . . But should I? I mean, do you want me to—”
Grace, always so polite, turned around to face him.
“Yes, absolutely. Meeting us at the restaurant will be perfect,” she said, backing out the door. “See you on Sunday. Six o’clock.”
It was devious. I admit it. So was what I did later—convincing Grace that I was interested in Luke but too nervous to go on a date alone. And then, when she started to waver, texting her photos of dishes from The Fish House website that pretty much amounted to food porn.
But it wasn’t half as devious as what I was about to do.
First, I called The Fish House and talked to Andrew, the manager, explaining what was going on, that there could be no check presented at the end of the meal and that the bill, however large, should be charged to my credit card.
Next, I started composing my text, salving the twinges of guilt by reminding myself that this was for Grace’s own good and that everything I was saying wasn’t a total lie. I really did feel a headache coming on and could tell already that it was going to be a doozy, a headache the size of a tumor.
No, I thought, deleting the tumor reference. Grace always made fun of my ailments. But people did get tumors, didn’t they? And weren’t raging headaches one of the symptoms? My head was just killing me.
I typed the words “brain tumor” and “headache” and “symptoms” into my phone. A bunch of pretty scary articles came up. The third one made up my mind for me—I was definitely going by Urgent Care after work.
I attached the article, hit Send, and sat there for a minute, imagining the look on Grace’s face after she read my message.
She’d thank me. Later.
Chapter 4
Grace
Luke was sitting alone and drinking a glass of red wine when I arrived.
“I am so sorry!” I exclaimed. “I had a jewelry emergency. And the traffic was a nightmare. And I couldn’t find a parking spot.”
He pulled out my chair. “Take a breath. Monica’s not here yet. Do you want a drink?”
I ordered a glass of chardonnay and sat down, feeling awful. He’d probably thought he’d been stood up, and by two women at the same time. In his shoes, I would have been mortified, certain that everybody was staring at me. But Luke didn’t seem the least bit perturbed. Unless he was the only one who didn’t know this was a date?
No. Not possible. Monica was so obvious. Luke had to know what was going on. A big brown scrapbook that I guessed was his portfolio was lying on one of
