Good-looking couple. Good-looking kids. Happy family. Pretty didn’t have to mean fake. It just did where I was concerned. My family had been pretty, and bickery. I knew full well how something could look pretty on the outside and be wasp-nasty on the inside. After my parents’ divorce, the energy my mother had put into bickering with my father was channeled toward me, and making sure I was always on top of my game. Stage mother, not technically. But pushy, yes. Determined, yes. She never remarried, she never even dated, and bitter she became. It didn’t happen overnight, but it happened.
And a life with Charles would have become a Day in the Life of the Bickersons. Oh, not right away. First would be the pretty. I saw my life line up in front of my eyes as if it had already happened. Marriage to Charles would give me everything I’d been brought up to want. A handsome husband. A beautiful home. A new car every two years. A membership to the right country club. A position on all the correct social committees. Three children spaced exactly two years apart. Then the obligatory “mommy job” where I went in for my tummy tuck and boob lift to keep everything exactly the way it was “supposed” to be. With vacations every summer, Christmas, and spring break, who could ask for anything more?
But I wanted less. I wanted so very much less. And while there were tiny bubbles of “is this what you really want?” all along, I was in denial about it until about forty-five minutes ago. Pretty led to bicker, bicker led to divorce, and divorce led to bitter. I didn’t want pretty, then separated. I didn’t want bitter; I wanted forever. I wanted swoony, sparky, maddening, sexy love. And if we were going to fight, we’d fight, not bicker. Bickering’s the worst.
My phone rang again. Charles. I stood up, dusted myself off, walked down to the water’s edge, and heaved my phone as far into the Pacific as I could.
Then I got back in my car and drove to my father’s house.
When my parents divorced, I was a freshman in college. I was old enough that I didn’t have to pick a side. But in the small ways, which become bigger over time, I unofficially picked my father. Easygoing, nonpushy, quick to bear hug and even quicker to laugh—when I was with my dad, I was a different daughter. Stop slouching, stand up straight, don’t you think the fruit cup is a better option—those were all statements my mother would murmur without a thought. With Dad I was more likely to hear: you looked great up there, you’ll get ’em next time, tiger; you can eat prunes when you’re old—go ahead and get that Big Mac now.
My dad loved me—and that was it. So in the middle of a breakdown and in need of a safe haven? Where else would I go?
He wasn’t home when I arrived, so I pulled my car around back, then curled up in the hammock on the back porch, keeping my mind away from anything too major. I heard his car pull into the driveway, stopping short at the sight of my car.
He walked toward the porch with a concerned look on his face. And after taking in the nightgown and the sand still clinging to my bare feet, he quickly understood more than even I knew at that point.
“Oh, Chloe,” he said quietly.
“Yeah,” I answered, then gave a kick to get the hammock moving again.
He stood there for a moment, watching me swing. “Okay,” he finally said, and took out his phone. I listened as he told my mother that yes, he’d found me, yes, I was fine, and no, I wasn’t getting married that day. And that he’d bring me home when I was ready. And no, she couldn’t come over right now. When I heard her screech about sending Charles over to collect me, he told her exactly what he thought about that idea. It may have involved an ass and a kick. Then he disappeared into the house, came back with two beers, and we sat next to each other in silence.
And they weren’t even light beers. I seemed determined to ingest every calorie in California in one twenty-four-hour period.
Sounded pretty fudging great to me.
chapter two
As a general rule, my family avoids conflict. I’m not talking about squabbling over the remote every night when our family unit was still intact but about the big stuff. The giant problems, the huge glaring mistakes human beings make, the actual issues behind the remote control—we avoid those conversations like the plague. If we ignore them, or if we only talk quietly about the “incident in question” for the shortest amount of time possible, maybe we can avoid anything unpleasant.
So when I saw my mother barreling up the driveway, I knew she was prepared to go to a very civilized war.
Having thrown my phone into the ocean, I was incommunicado. So my father’s phones were ringing off the hook like command central. When he finally unplugged the house phone and turned off the ringer on his cell phone, it was only a matter of time. My mother pulled into the driveway just as I finished my second beer.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” she whisper-yelled, ever aware of the neighbors.
“I am just beginning to understand what I’ve done, Mother. How about you?” I replied, reaching down to the cooler at my feet. “Beer?” I offered, holding up a dripping bottle.
My father coughed. My mother? Quietly burned.
She looked around the yard, making sure our dysfunctional family unit was in fact alone, then lowered herself to the patio steps. Arranging herself in an elegantly casual way, she sat with her legs crossed at the ankle, hands nestled in her lap. She looked like she was sitting for a portrait at Olan Mills. I chanced a look at my father, who was struggling to contain his amusement.
“Okay, let’s talk this out, since rational thought has clearly left the building,” she began, making sure to glance in my father’s direction when speaking of the lack of rational thought.
“I feel pretty rational,” I explained, my nightgown perhaps giving away a small slice of credibility. “But I agree, we should talk about what’s happened.” Her face lit up in triumph, and I held up my hand. “But I’m not marrying Charles Preston Sappington. Not today. Not any—”
“Oh, would you stop saying that!” she snapped, finally showing some emotion. “You mind telling me why exactly you’re feeling so dramatic about all of this?”
I unscrewed the cap on my third beer and took a long swallow. “I don’t have the foggiest idea why I walked out on my wedding. Maybe I’ll know why tomorrow. But today? I don’t have any answers. Except what I’ve been saying all day. Do you really want me to say it again?”
“Well, I’d like to hear it.”
Charles was here. Standing in the driveway. Cool, calm, collected, handsome.
My beer shattered as I threw it to the ground, then I stood up quickly and headed for the house.
“Chloe. Baby. Let’s talk this out, shall we?” I heard over my shoulder as I struggled to get the sliding door open. My hands were slippery from the cold beer, and I couldn’t get purchase on the handle. As I fumbled, I could hear my mother speaking to Charles under her breath, prompting him. Oh for fudge’s sake, this door!
“Marjorie, I told you not to bring him over here. She obviously needs some space today. Don’t you think that—”
“You stay out of this, Thomas. Is it any coincidence that she came here, of all places? She knew you’d coddle her. She knew you’d—”
“Coddle her? She knew I’d listen, for Christ’s sake! When all you can do is—”
“Oh, please, like you’ll know how to get her back on track after this? She doesn’t know what she’s doing, and your helping her isn’t going to—”
Charles’s voice broke through the fray. “Chloe, baby, come on. Let’s go talk this out, okay? We can still make this happen today—you know you want to, don’t you? You know it’s the right thing—”
All of these conversations were happening at the same time while I was pawing at the glass door like a cat trying to get out of a window. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, why won’t this door open!”
Silence. Total silence. Even the birds had stopped chirping. My mother and father were frozen in their all-too-familiar antagonistic pose, while Charles stood in the driveway with his hands raised, looking
like Jesus at the Last Supper.
The latch finally clicked, and the door slid open.
“I’m going inside. No one is following me. I’ll talk about this tomorrow.” I started to go in, when I caught Charles’s eye. And saw his expression. Frustration, yes. Irritation, the beginnings of it, yes. Deep, profound anguish that the love of his life had just told him she wasn’t marrying him? Not even the slightest hint. Still . . .
“I really am very sorry,” I said, to him and only to him. And then I went inside.
And threw up donuts and beer.
I thought there was no way I’d sleep that night, but I slept like a baby. And when I woke up and saw a note from my father on the nightstand that he’d gone on a bagel run, I smiled, rolled over, and went back to sleep. And when I heard my dad whistling as he made coffee a half hour later, I got up and went downstairs with a smile on my face.
Which fell as soon as I saw a brand-new iPhone sitting at my place at the table. “What’s this?” I asked, slumping into my chair.
“What does it look like?” he promptly replied from behind his newspaper.
“Dad. Come on, seriously.”
“I stopped by the store this morning, got you a new phone. Is that what you’re referring to?” The newspaper rustled.
I looked down at the phone, thinking hard. “But I threw my old one in—”
“—the ocean, I know. Try not to do that again, would you, kiddo? You have any idea how expensive these phones are?”
I pushed the phone, and my place mat, away. But then tugged it back to get to the orange juice. The newspaper rustled.
“I didn’t want to talk to anybody . . .” I mumbled, and my father finally appeared from behind the paper.
“I realize that, but you made a decision yesterday that affects a lot of people. And you need to explain it, specifically to some of those people.”
“But I thought you understood . . .” I began, my eyes filling with tears for the first time since I’d bolted yesterday.
“I understood that you didn’t want to get married, and no way was I going to force you into that. But I don’t understand why, and neither does your mother,” he said, laying down his paper and looking at me over the top of his glasses. “And neither does Charles.”
I winced.
“You don’t have to marry him, but you do need to explain your actions yesterday. You owe them both that much.”
And with a rustle of paper, the voice of reason disappeared once more behind the financial section. Call Charles. Hmm. I could do this. I could do this. I picked up the phone, then put it down. Yikes. What was I going to say? What could I say? How could I tell him why, when I wasn’t 100 percent sure myself? I picked up the phone again, then put it down again.
The third time I reached for it, the voice behind the paper said, “For goodness’ sake, Chloe, I think you can have breakfast before you explain yourself. Go get a bagel and stop fidgeting.”
Reprieved. I exhaled gratefully and headed for the toaster oven. I knew couldn’t dodge those two much longer. But did you know that if you pick off every single sesame seed and every single garlic crispy thingie from an everything bagel before you eat it, it can take over an hour? Especially if you count the poppy seeds too . . .
By noon, I’d listened to all the messages that had poured in yesterday. Starting with the first, “Chloe, you turn right around and come back here, young lady,” to “Now you listen to me, and listen good. I didn’t spend the last two months killing myself on designing the perfect wedding for you, only to have you and your cold feet ruin everything,” to, “Where in the world are you? Oh, I just can’t believe you would do this to me, Chloe! Think of what everyone’s going to say when they find out! We can still make it to the church on time; just tell me where you are and I’ll come get you. We can still make this happen and no one will ever know,” to finally, “I’ve called Charles. Maybe he can talk some sense into you.”
Doubtful. I stalled for some more time by heading into my dad’s office and jumping onto his home computer. I’d just check my email, clear it out before making those phone calls. One poppy seed, two poppy seeds . . .
Emails from two of my bridesmaids, wondering what in the world was going on in my head. I’m sure they were wondering—who ever walked away from the brass ring? I wonder if they’d be so interested in his brass if they knew how small his . . . Don’t go there.
No. Actually, do go there.
Confession time. I’d only ever “been with” Charles, in the biblical sense. So technically, I had no basis for comparison on actual length and girth. But while I was technically a virgin, it’s not like I hadn’t been privy to a man’s private bits before. I’d rounded a few bases (read handies in a dark backseat) with guys I’d dated in college (read two guys dated, so two peens seen). I had a computer. I had the Internet. I had girl talk. And it would seem to me, as peni went, that Charles was . . . less than average. But I was in love (read pretty sure I was in love) and ready to throw away my V card (read sooooo ready), and so BAM we had the sex a few weeks into dating. And BAM I saw the penis. And bam it was all up in there. And by all up in there, I mean . . . I thought this was supposed to hurt the first time?
Truth be told, our sex life was satisfactory. I had orgasms. He certainly had orgasms. Little tiny peashooter orgasms. Jesus, what an asshole I am. I was going to marry this guy yesterday, and now all I can do is disparage his manhood.
I thought, okay, this is how it is. And if I was on top, I could eke out something pretty good there. But there was no screaming, there was no shrieking, there was no “Holy Mary mother of God!” But that was okay, right?
Except twenty-four hours had given me the gift of clarity. What I could see now was that nothing about our relationship was “Holy Mary mother of God.” It was smooth and beautiful and covered in swirls of yummy on the outside, but the inside was fat free and full of air and nothing. And if I was going to have a life of air and nothing, I’d at least like a big fat dick to bounce on.
Chloe! my crass meter chided, sounding frighteningly like my mother.
I blushed at my naughty thoughts and finally picked up the phone to call Charles, when an email from Lou Fiorello caught my eye. Buried by wedding nonsense, it’d been sitting in my in-box for several days.
Part of being named Miss Golden State—just one step behind Miss California, a title I’d literally worked my entire pageant career for—was being heavily involved in my charity of choice. Since I’d always loved animals, my charitable platform was an organization that worked with therapy dogs, Paws for the Cause. Taking those dogs into nursing homes, working with special-needs children, and sitting with patients suffering from Alzheimer’s, was wonderful. There was nothing I wanted to do more; it was a program I’d love to work with long after I put my crowns on a shelf and retired my butt glue.
SO THAT MY BATHING SUIT NEVER RODE UP.
But then one day I met Lou Fiorello, who pointed me in a different direction. A potential option. Working at a nursing home one day with a gorgeous golden retriever named Sparkle, I saw a man and a dog come out of a patient’s room. The man was in his midfifties with long gray hair and a longer gray beard, wearing a tie dyed T-shirt and beat-up camouflage pants. Tattered sneakers completed the aging hippie vibe, and when I looked at the dog next to him, he had a similar tattered look: a black pit bull wearing a red bandana and missing an ear. The two approached, and I held Sparkle’s leash a bit tighter.
I’d seen the news reports; I’d heard the terrible stories. Even working with animals as long as I had, and knowing that it’s usually the owner’s behavior that dictates the dog’s, I was still myself wary as the two walked toward us.
He stopped, taking notice of the tiara, the sash, the heels. During official appearances as Miss Golden State, the crown and the sash were required. He looked down at Sparkle, who was sniffing the other dog unconcernedly. The pit’s tail wagged happily, the red bandana giving him a jaunty look.
; “Therapy dog?” the man asked, nodding at Sparkle.
“Yes, we’re here to spend some time with the patients; they really love it. You should see their eyes—”
“Light up? Yep, I know. Joe here’s a therapy dog too, aren’t you, boy?” he said, looking down at the pit bull. Joe looked up at Lou and his mouth split into a wide grin, tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth.
“He’s a therapy dog?” I asked, surprise evident in my voice. Flushing a little, I bit back the obvious “but he’s a pit bull” comment, although it was implied.
Lou let out a huff. “You know much about pit bulls, princess?”
“Just what I see on the news,” I admitted, resisting the urge to straighten my crown.
“Mm-hmm. So nothing, really?” he asked.
“No?” I offered, and he grinned.
“Take Joe here. When I got him he was eight months old, and had never lived a day off a chain in the backyard. Starved half to death. Mixed it up with some other dogs, that’s how I assume he lost the ear. But within three months of coming to stay with me? He was like the poster dog for Our Gang, weren’t you, big guy?”
Tail wagged enthusiastically.
“Our Gang?” I asked, kneeling down to pet Joe. With one look at that big grin, I was in love. And as Lou told me more and more about his organization, I became more and more sure that it was something I wanted to become involved in. He operated a shelter in Long Beach for rescued and abandoned pit bulls. Think Cesar Millan, with less sssssht. Some of the dogs were rescued from fighting rings, and the more he told me, the more my heart broke. He used the name Our Gang to remind people that the dog from The Little Rascals was a pit bull. The breed’s more recent history is all anyone ever remembered, either forgetting or never knowing that they were even used as baby-sitters a hundred years ago—something that I admit blew my mind.
I spent the next hour asking Lou everything I could think of about Our Gang, while Sparkle and Joe napped peacefully at our ankles. And I went straight home that night to tell my mother all about the new charity I wanted to support.