Page 50 of Kiss My Glass
“How would you two feel if I took over the organization of the crush party?”
Hello? News to me. Was this what was preoccupying Frankie on the drive from Ted’s?
Jordan gives Chiara a worried look. “Babe, when Ava said she’d help, I was going to ask you whether I could bow out. I just have notime.”
Chiara taps her fingernails on the tabletop. “It is a big commitment,” she says. “And a potential conflict of interest. If Shelby goes into labor that day, I won’t be leaving the hospital until we break out the cigars.”
“How about you and Ava organize it, Frankie?” says Jordan. “Although isn’t she supposed to still be taking it easy?”
Frankie’s attention’s now on me, and suddenly, I think I get it.
“How about us two do it?” I suggest. “It’ll take the heat off everyone else. And it’s not like the baby’s going to turn into a pumpkin at midnight if it does come the same day. It’ll still be a tiny red wrinkled thing the next morning.”
“Sounds good,” says Frankie, with a quick smile.
“So, who’s going to break it to Ava?” Chiara’s smile lasts longer and is ten times more evil.
I’m still pumped full of deal-fueled confidence, so of course I say, “I’ll do it.”
“Burgers up,” Brendan calls from the bar. His tone implies that you better grab them right now or you’ll never get takeout in this joint again. I swig the last of my beer and slide out of the booth. Frankie follows suit.
“Nice to see you, Jordan,” I say, with a smile. Chiara gets a nod because I’m not a big fat liar.
“Nice to seeyou,” says Jordan. “Shelby’s so happy you two are here, and she’s thrilledthat you’re together. Such a cute couple!”
I glance at Frankie but she’s walking towards the bar. Probably checking Brendan hasn’t rescinded our order.
When I catch up to her, I touch her elbow and she jumps a little, but then smiles at me.
“Care to join us in aGilmore Girlsbinge?” she says.
“Tempting,” I reply. “But I’ve got sales admin to complete. My accountant gets shitty if I don’t keep my records up to date.”
“Your accountant, huh,” says Frankie.
I can’t quite read her tone, but Brendan’s holding out the takeout bags, so I’d better not keep him waiting.
“Thanks,” I say, after taking the bags. He nods, which I suppose is a step up from overt hostility. Maybe Jordan’s presence has mellowed him. Chiara certainly knows how to win friends and influence people, though “manipulation” might be a more accurate choice of words.
Frankie’s already out the door, so I follow. There’s still something on her mind, I can tell. My worry is that she’s re-thinking how she feels about being with me. I liked the thought of us as a cute couple, “together”, but though I had some luck today, I don’t want to push it by asking her outright. Better to go with the flow and hope it doesn’t carry me over a waterfall.
ChapterTwenty-Seven
FRANKIE
There’s nothing I hate more than feeling like I’ve been played. I’ve got no evidence, only vibes, but my instincts have been sharpened by my time in court and I’d swear that Ted just manipulated me into agreeing to organize the crush. My guess is that he’s convinced it’s vital to the community that an Armstrong family member runs the event, and the only Armstrong family member who’s present and not pregnant is me.
Chiara may also have hinted to him that I would prefer to see the baby once it had been cleaned of birth goo and swaddled in a fresh cotton wrap. That isn’t entirelyuntrue. Mostly, I’d prefer to avoid listening to my sister in pain and worrying whether everything is going to be okay with her and the baby. If I’m running the crush celebrations, I’ll be too busy to settle into full worry mode. I’ll be able to reduce it to a mild background anxiety. As I said, I don’t really know Ted but I do know he reads people well. And with Chiara feeding him intel behind the scenes, he’d be perfectly placed to play me like a Hammond organ.
Okay, so Ted couldn’t have known for sure that I’d accompany Danny, but maybe he had enough Chiara-intel to assume it was likely that I would. Maybe he even contrived the sale of that Rolls Royce to lure Danny into coming, so that I’d come with him? Now, that’s clutching at straws but it’s not entirely impossible. Ted might not even have an “acquaintance”. It might be his car and he might have five others, one in each of the other garages, so he could happily part with one. He distracted Danny and charmed me with tiny cakes, and I fell right into his genteel trap, curse him.
Ugh. No point in keeping up this line of thought because it’s done now. Ted got his wish – I’ve taken on the organization of the crush. I’ve roped Danny in, too, and now we’re both committed. No doubt Chiara will have texted Ted the instant Danny and I left the bar, so we can’t back out. Curse them both.
But to be honest, my irritation at being used isn’t my biggest concern. This afternoon, I got a proper glimpse into Danny’s world, where money is plentiful and huge numbers change hands with barely a blink. All right, Danny was astounded by what happened, but it wasn’t completelyforeign to him, was it? When I inherited fifty grand from my late aunt, I thought it was a fortune. It allowed me to put a deposit on a house, which I didn’t think I’d be able to do for at least another decade. Yet Danny made close to that amount in a single afternoon, and given what he told me about his business, a quick calculation tells me he could earn well over five times my annual salary. And who knows what kind of trust-fund income might be coming his way?
It’s hard to tell how much money the Durants have, because having got to know the family a little better, my conclusion is they’re what I call conservative rich. They think expensive cars and designer-label clothes are vulgar. They’d never own yachts or helicopters, and they certainly would not have gold taps in the bathrooms. They ensure any philanthropic work they do flies under the radar, no names on buildings or charitable foundations. God forbid that their photographs everappear in the society pages.
But even if they’re not the kind to flash the cash around, my guess is they still have, in Danny’s words, a load of moolah. And today, I got to see how people like that operate, which is a stratosphere above anything I’ve experienced. I can guess why it shook me up so much. Danny and I might find we’re perfectly compatible in every way, but I’m not sure I could ever feel comfortable in his world.
