Turns out my cousin Vito is a mall cop and was nearly blinded by the sight of Aunt Marie’s tatas. He still calls her Aunt Antiviagra. She thinks he’s speaking an Italian endearment.
“Don’t flash the cameras,” Amanda hisses as we walk in. She really does know me too well.
“I won’t.”
Grabbing my arm, Amanda pauses in the foyer. “You okay?” The way she peers intently into my eyes makes me realize she’s really asking whether I’ve recovered from the bee stings. From the enormity of everything with Declan.
“Yes.”
“You came back to work kind of fast.”
“I needed to. You ever been bed-ridden with my mom taking care of you?”
“I thought Declan came by every day!”
“He did.” I smile at the thought. Mom was practically feeding me chewed-up food from her own mouth and giving me water from an eyedropper. That whole “Oh, my poor baby almost died” stuff required a rescuer. Declan had fit the bill. Except for his time in New Zealand on that business trip, he’d been by my side each day.
And then he’d swooped in on my dinner with Steve and taught me how much fun helicopters can be. I shiver with the memory.
“True love means having your boyfriend watch the The Sapphires and The Heat three nights in a row with you,” Amanda says with a sigh.
True love means being made love to above the city lights, I think, but of course I can’t say that. Or in his apartment, which smells like fine cologne, pine, and a special soap. Someone in a suit steps through the doors and ignores us. Then I realize what Amanda just said.
“What boyfriend?” I ask.
She looks confused. “Declan. What other boyfriend do you have other than that electronic bedside-table monstrosity you call Edward Cullen?” Her face scrunches up. “And it’s about as old as him, too.”
I grab her hand and lace my fingers through hers. “You’re the only boyfriend I need, sweetie.” Standing on tiptoes, I kiss her cheek.
She jumps back like I’ve poked her with a cattle prodder. “Greg better give us a bonus for this one.”
“He has to come with Josh and do the male-male shop, so I don’t think there will be any bonuses.”
“Poor Josh. They’ll look like a bear and a twink.”
My turn to jump like I’ve been electro-shocked. “Huh? What’s that mean?”
The receptionist is giving us nervous looks. Amanda nudges me. “Never mind. You really don’t watch enough cable television.”
“What does that have to do with—”
She puts her arm around me and pushes us both through the main door into the cool, marble-floored bank, the scent of money filling the air. “Let’s get this done and over with.”
“I agree. I can’t be married to you longer than one hour.”
Within ten minutes we’re ushered into a glass-walled room with no real door, filled with dark oak furniture, brightly patterned carpeting floors, and a no-nonsense balding man who looks like he eats entire rolls of antacids for fun.
Jim Purlman is the senior mortgage officer for the credit union and asks us how we met.
Amanda and I exchange confused looks. “You mean, like, how we were in the same class in third grade?” she blurts out.
Jim looks like he’s half Irish and half something else, with a beet-red nose and eyebrows that haven’t been tamed since 1977. The skin under his eyes is paper thin and baggy, and what hair he has is grey, grown in a combover style I haven’t seen anywhere other than in old square photographs from the 1960s in my mom’s photo albums. The physical kind that smell like old cigarette smoke and liver spot cream.
But he breaks out into a kind grin and says, “What a wonderful love story. Sweethearts since you were little. Found your soul mate young. You two have kids?” He leans his forearms against the glass-topped desk and waits in anticipation for our answer.
I’m struck mute. We’d been told this set of evaluations came at the request of the credit union’s board, a reaction to complaints. Jim’s response is absolutely not what we were expecting.
Amanda saves the day, reaching for my hand and stroking my wrist with her thumb. A tingling shoots through my body, and it’s not the last remnants of the EpiPen’s contents. Her eyes meet mine and holy smokes, ladies and gentlemen, we have some acting.
At least, I hope it’s acting. Because I am completely into Declan.
“Fate brought us together on the playground and we’re hoping it will be kind to us in the kids department.” She smiles so sweetly at me that my pulse races and my cheeks flush. There’s a settled passion in the way she carries herself, and Jim hunches slightly in his chair, as if relaxing from approval.
“I’m sure you’ll find the right man—” He shakes his head slightly. “Er, sorry. The right path to have the family you deserve.”
Amanda lets go of my hand and puts hers on my knee. Thoughts of Declan set my core on fire. Being touched at all like this, in a partner kind of way, seems to set my screwy wiring into ablaze mode.
“You look like you’re about to cry,” Jim says.
I reach up and wipe a watery eye. “We’re still overjoyed we were allowed to be married,” I answer.
“When was that?”
“Two weeks ago, at our town’s courthouse.”
“So you have a marriage certificate?” he asks.
“Do you need to see it?” To Jim, Amanda’s shift in personality can’t be noticed, but I get what she’s doing now. Legally married heterosexual couples don’t need to show a marriage certificate to apply for joint income mortgages, so if he asks, we must note it on the evaluation.
“Oh, no!” he exclaims. “I just meant it must be great to know you can be married and have all those legal protections.”
And just then, someone taps on the glass. I turn toward the sound and my entire body goes cold, frozen like a popsicle.
Standing before me is Monica Raleigh.
Steve’s mother.
“Shannon!” she exclaims. Thankfully, I’ve used my real first name on the application here for the mystery shop. But I absolutely cannot break my disguise, and therefore Monica can’t know we’re here on an evaluation. Absolutely not. No failed shop for this one.
Even if it kills me.
Chapter Thirteen
I stand on shaky legs and she gives me a half-hug, the kind where you can’t tell whether the other person has a pulse or not. A cloud of Cinnabar perfume fills my nose and the back of my throat, the taste like rancid cinnamon.