Just A Small Town Girl: A New Adult Romantic Comedy (21 page)

 “...and a bunch of grandmas screaming along with ‘Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me’...”

 The rose in her hair was starting to wilt around the edges. I leaned down to kiss her and her left breast started to ring.

 “Shit,” she said, and took her phone out of her bra.

 She covered her ear and listened for a moment. We’d been doing so well so far – no tears, no fevers, no missing coins, diarrhea, ear-aches or bad attacks of the barfs.

 “Rita?” I asked.

 She shook her head. “Courtney. Voicemail.”

 “Is she okay?” She’d been doing better. After a year in a residential rehab for eating disorders she’d baled on her modeling career and was taking her Masters in Psychology. We still got cards from her folks at Christmas.

 “She says she sorry she couldn’t make it and wants to know if we’re having a good time,” said Lacie, waggling her eyebrows like Groucho Marx. “And apparently
Erik
says hi too.”

 “Erik?”

 “The Viking. The big Swede who broke her ribs at the gym.”

 “Oh,” I said. “You think that’s a thing?”

 “I think it could be a thing,” she said. “If he’s still around. I guess nothing says ‘I love you’ like CPR. And...you know. He knows.”

 “Knows what?”

 “Her damage, dummy.”

 The phone bleeped again and this time she scurried off the dance floor. One of Steve’s elderly aunts asked me if she could ‘cut in’ and so I finished out the dance with her.

 “
That
was Rita,” said Lacie, when I caught up with her. “And we officially have a tantrum on our hands.”

 “Oh shit.” Figured. It was just late enough for us to start enjoying ourselves and just time for her to get cranky. “She hasn’t even hit the terrible twos yet.”

 “She’s very advanced for her age,” said Lacie.

 “You think so?”

 “Of course I do. The alternative is realizing that I gave birth to the kid from
The Omen
.”

 “She’s not that bad.”

 “She
is
that bad. When it’s bedtime.” Lacie sighed. “Oh God. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to cut this short...”

 Cassandra, misery-magnet that she was, spotted our expressions and came over. “Trouble?”

 “Tantrums. Rita’s up against it.”

 “Oh dear,” said Cassandra, and waved her brother over. “Gus, are you sticking around for much longer?”

 He wasn’t. That was the great thing about Lacie’s Dad – he was never too tired or too busy to do grandparent duty. “I’ll pick her up,” he said. “Try and settle her down.”

 “Thanks, Dad,” said Lacie, and started going through the list of instructions. It’s a common joke that babies don’t come with an instruction manual, and there’s a reason for that – they write their own. Walk her up and down the hallway five times and if that doesn’t work then sing
Itsy Bitsy Spider
, but you have to do it in the right tone of voice and if she doesn’t have the purple binky she won’t go down. Also she has to have the blanket with the bunnies on the corner and it has to be fleecy side up because of allergies, and don’t give her juice at night even if she begs because she turns into a sugar gremlin...

 And so it goes on. My eyes had just about finished glazing over when a brunette sidled up to me and gave me that kind of shy ‘Do I know you, do I not know you’ look.

 “Hi...?” I said, slowly, then I saw Bog lurking behind her.

 “Gerald!” I said.

 “Gerald?” said Lacie, turning away from her Dad.

 “Lacie, this is Gerald. We met in a...in a...”

 “Titty bar,” said Gerald. “I used to dance.”

 “Used to?” said Lacie. She hadn’t quite gone psychotic. Yet. Oh dear.

 “I have mild to moderate OCD,” said Gerald. “The pole just fucking skeeved me out...pardon my French. Also I got a back injury. What about you? What do you do?”

 “Me?” said Lacie. “I write things. I’m a writer.”

 “Oh my God. Cool,” said Gerald. “Anything I’ve heard of?”

 “Probably not yet. I’ve only got one book out there at the moment but I was busy – had my daughter.”

 “No, seriously – text me the name, so I won’t forget. I love to read.”

 Bog lurched over and grinned. “So?” he said. “What do you think?”

 I thought Lacie was doing really well. She was showing Gerald Willow’s baby pictures on her phone. “Of what?”

 “My girl.”

 “Gerald? You’re with Gerald?”

 Bog frowned. “Dude, her name’s Veronica.”

 “Veronica,” I said. “Right. Of course it is. Goddamn it, Bog – you kept that quiet.”

 Bog shrugged. “Discreet. I’m discreet. It’s the better part of valor.”

 “Yeah – well. You know. It’d be nice to be kept in the loop. When did that start?”

 “A while ago,” said Bog.

 “He told me he was a direct line descendant of Genghis Khan,” said Veronica. “I’ve got this thing about nomadic tribes in history. Scythians, Huns – that kind of thing. And the Mongols were the biggest badasses of the lot.”

 “Wait,” I said. “I told you that. About the Genghis Khan thing.”

 “So you did,” said Veronica. “Huh. You’re quite a matchmaker.”

 
Brown Eyed Girl
started playing. “Hey – they’re playing our song!” said Bog, and led Gerald (she would always be Gerald to me) onto the dance floor.

 “A nomad groupie,” said Lacie. “Unusual.”

 “Do you think she’s just into him for his DNA?”

 “Nah.”

 “You were very civilized,” I said, heart in my mouth. “About the whole...titty bar thing.”

 “It doesn’t bother me,” she said. “I’ve got your DNA now anyway. Nobody can take that away from me.”

  “True.”

 We watched Bog and Gerald get down. Her dancing was pretty sexy; his was not.

 “I love this song,” I said.

 “Do you?”

 “Why isn’t this our song? You have brown eyes.”

 “Because when Steve asked me what was our song to play at the reception, this wasn’t the one I chose.”

 “So what did you choose?”

 “Wait and see.”

 “It’s not
Down With the Sickness
, is it?”

 “No.”

 “Good.”

 I handed her another glass of champagne. “Wanna dance?”

 “Sure. You can finish telling me I look beautiful.”

 “Done.”

 We danced and drank until we were sloppy drunk and needed to get home, so we left the happy couple and got a cab.

 The light was on in the workshop when we got back, which was weird. As Lacie said, Gus never left the light on. The light went off when he left and that was that.

 “Maybe we’re being robbed,” she said. She walked maybe three or four steps, realized her heels were making a noise and wobbled on one foot to take them off.

 “Here, hold these,” she said, shoving her shoes into my arms.

 “Lacie...wait.”

 “What?”

 “If we’re being robbed...”

 “Yeah – well. They’d better stop robbing us. Like, now.” It was the first time she’d had a real drink in two years. It was as much as she could do to walk in a straight line.

 “You can’t just go running in there,” I said. “I’m sorry. I know I don’t think like you. I know I’m not brave like you...”

 She laughed. “Excuse me? You talk back to my
aunt
.”

 And she was off down the alley before I could stop her. I hurried after her. She’d stopped stock still in the dark, just beyond where the light from the workshop ended. Gus was sitting in a rocking chair, Willow on his lap. I couldn’t see her face. Lacie didn’t like to cut her hair, which was as curly as her own but as red as mine had been when I was a kid.

 “Shh,” said Lacie. “Listen.”

 I caught little snatches of Gus’s voice. He wasn’t singing
Itsy Bitsy Spider
, but his tone was the same night-night, go-to-sleep trailing off one we used when singing to Will. “...if there’s no chimney then he finds some other magic way into the house. He never misses anyone...”

 Lacie sniffed a couple of times and went inside. “Hey.” She brushed the hair back from Willow’s face. Will’s eyelashes fluttered, but her face was flushed and she looked like she was finally out for the count. “Was she terrible?”

 “Nah. She just missed her Mommy.”

 “Yeah, well - I think after all this time Mommy deserves to get her drink on.”

 “I’ll take her up,” said Gus. “Lock up when you’re done.”

 “Thanks.” She leaned back against a paneled door and yawned. “Oh my God – I’m going to know about this in the morning.”

 “No, you’re right,” I said. “You deserve it. Okay, so you’re not pulling down J.K. Rowling’s kind of money, but you finished the damn book – and had a baby.”

 “I guess,” she said, and sighed. “Oh, dammit.”

 “What?”

 “We left too early. You never heard the song I picked for you.”

 “Tell me,” I said, putting an arm around her waist. “Better yet, sing it.” At that moment I really hoped it wasn’t
Down With The Sickness
.

 “Me? Sing? Are you sure?”

 “Sure I’m sure. We’re both drunk. This is the natural state for singing to occur.”

 “Fine,” she said, and swayed into my arms. She hummed a little, and then she began to sing, off-key but with feeling – “If I were a carpenter, and you were a lady...”

 Asked and answered.

If you've enjoyed this book (or even if you haven't!), please consider leaving a review for the benefit of other readers.

All feedback is gratefully received.

For news of new releases, giveaways and promotions, subscribe to my newsletter at 
Jessica Pine Updates
.

Thank you so much for reading!