“Nope,” he called back from the den off the kitchen. “Harvey’s not here yet.”
“Harvey’s always late,” said my mom, pulling a tray of cocktail wieners baked in crescent roll dough from the oven. “He moves so slowly, I’m convinced he was a sloth in his last life.”
I set the beer bottle on the counter unopened and rummaged around in the junk drawer for a pencil.
“Speaking of past lives,” she went on, “I did a reading for the most beautiful woman this afternoon at the store.”
“Did she think she was Cleopatra?” Women always thought they were Cleopatra.
“Yes, but she wasn’t. I’ve met the woman who was Cleopatra, and she lives in Tucson. But she was remarkably lovely, and I think she was latching onto Cleopatra because she’s lonely and looking for love. I invited her to stop by tonight.”
I stopped searching and looked at my mother. “You didn’t.”
“She’s slightly older than you, but—”
“How old?”
“Forty, but she’s a young forty.” For some reason, my mother sort of fluffed up her chest when she said this. “What are you looking for in that drawer?”
“Something to write with—found it.” I pulled out a stubby pencil with a dirty neon yellow eraser top. “I need a piece of paper too.”
She handed me the spiral pad she used for writing her grocery lists. “Here.”
I flipped past her list and quickly sketched the cipher’s substitution grid from memory—and within minutes I was decoding Felicity’s message.
I need you, she’d written.
Immediately, I remembered the night in the library when I’d almost kissed her—the note I’d passed and the promise we’d made.
“Shit,” I said.
“What’s wrong?” My mother glanced over at me as she placed the pigs in a blanket on a serving plate.
Exhaling, I gave the beer one last, longing look before sticking it back in the fridge. “I have to make a phone call.”
I went out the back door into the yard, pulling the kitchen door shut behind me, so my mother wouldn’t be tempted to eavesdrop. The air outside was warm and humid, and smelled slightly metallic, like there might be a storm coming. I slapped at a mosquito before dialing Felicity’s number.
“Hello?”
“I got the bat signal. What’s up?”
“Okay, before I tell you, will you promise to honor the deal?”
“Why do I have a bad feeling about this?”
“Do you promise?”
“Yes.”
She sighed with relief. “Thank God. Because I have to get out of this closet soon, and I can’t face Mimi again without your help.”
“What closet? Where are you?”
“I’m at the reunion,” she said, “but I’m hiding in the coat closet because I did something bad. I mean, I said something I shouldn’t have.”
“About what?”
“About you. Well, about us.”
“What did you say?”
She exhaled. “I said that we’re engaged.”
“You said what?”
“I said that we were engaged. Well, I said that I was engaged to a hot billionaire, and then when Mimi asked who, I said you. You’re the only hot billionaire I know.”
She thinks I’m hot was what registered first, and it fired up my insides a little. “Thanks. But why did you lie about being engaged in the first place?”
“I couldn’t help it, Hutton,” she said. “Mimi’s been so mean and terrible all night, first when it was just the two of us, and then in front of her friends, and I just couldn’t let her get away with it anymore. She kept bragging about her own engagement to some rich dude who hates vegetables, and making me feel bad about myself, and then she was going to look me up on Dearly Beloved, and I had to say something to stop her before she saw that awful review. So I said I was engaged to you,” she finished, sounding out of breath. “Also, there may have been some vodka involved.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“I’m sorry, Hutton. I panicked.”
“It’s okay,” I told her. “Do you need me to come pick you up?”
“No, I need you to come here and be my fake fiancé.”
My gut clenched. “Is that really necessary? Can’t you just say I’m out of town?”
“It’s sort of too late for that. I already told her you were coming.”