Bait and Switch Read online

  “Is she the one you’ve been raving about for days?”

  “I might have mentioned her in passing.” It wasn’t like I’d spent all my free time singing Cassie’s praises.

  “Liv, you’ve brought her up at least once every time we’ve talked in the last week. I know more about this girl than I do my own family. I could buy her the perfect birthday present, and I’ve never met her. That’s how much you’ve told me about her.” Perhaps I’d been less restrained when it came to Cassie than I thought. “I think you should go to the party,” Patsy advised. “She obviously likes you, and it’s clear the feeling is mutual.”

  “There is a slight complication.”

  “Which is?”

  “Aside from me being almost three times as old as the birthday girl, I know her mother.”

  “Oh my god, did you sleep with this kid’s mom?”

  “Gross,” I shrieked, unsettled by the thought. “Not in a million years.”

  “You don’t need to get so defensive. The way you get around, it’s a wonder you haven’t seduced more mothers.”

  “You’re hilarious,” I said. “And one to talk. Wreck any homes lately?” I knew she wouldn’t be upset by my comment. She didn’t quibble about little things like marital status when she considered sleeping with someone. It wasn’t her fault if someone ignored his (or her) wedding vows. While I couldn’t so easily facilitate adultery, I could see her point. They weren’t her vows to uphold.

  “The weekend is still young,” she laughed. “What’s the problem with Cassie’s mother?”

  “She’s Mira Butler.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  That said it all, I thought as I watched my lunch spinning and bubbling in the microwave. “How can the coolest kid I’ve ever met come from the worst person I’ve ever known?”

  “Oh, shit,” Patsy said again, unable or unwilling to move past her shock.

  “What should I do?” I whined.

  “I can’t decide for you, but I think you should go.”

  “Really?” I didn’t know which answer I thought I’d get from her, but I had expected her to take at least a minute to ponder my dilemma.

  “After all she’s put you through, she owes you at least a piece of birthday cake.”

  “You’re not really helping, you know.” The microwave beeped, but I ignored my food, my appetite suddenly gone. “If you think I’m willingly going to subject myself to Mira Butler’s brand of evil in exchange for some baked goods, you have lost your mind.”

  “In all seriousness, I think you should go.”

  “Why?” I sounded petulant to my own ears.

  “You’ve obviously had an impact on this girl which, if I’m not mistaken, was what you set out to do when you dreamed up this class. It would be a shame to deprive Cassie of your mentorship just because her mother is a world-class asshole.”

  As usual, Patsy had hit the mark. It made her a great school counselor and perpetual sounding board. It would be irritating, if not for the fact that I so regularly needed her input.

  “What about Mira?”

  “Avoid her.”

  “That’ll be easy at her daughter’s birthday party.”

  “Just ask to sit at the kids’ table. The conversation will probably be more interesting, and you won’t have to worry about your deplorable table manners.”

  “That’s very helpful. Thank you for your input.” I knew I was being whiny and ungrateful, but I couldn’t help it.

  “The way you’re acting now, you’ll fit right in.” I deserved that, but before I could apologize for being so bratty, she moved on. “What do you do when a guy hits on you?”

  “On the rare occasion when that happens, I come out, but Mira already knows I’m gay. And unless you consider fabricating a tale of felony sexual assault a positive thing, she didn’t react well to that news. I don’t want to go down that road again.”

  “You know, she’ll probably be too busy hosting the party to harass you. Just go and make the best of it.”

  “You’re right,” I said, not at all convinced that I could make the best of it or that I was even willing to try.

  Chapter Three

  I let most of the week pass before I made a decision about Cassie’s birthday party. In part I could blame my foot dragging on work. Construction on a new wing where we planned to house a series of special exhibits had fallen behind schedule. While construction delays were nothing new, these setbacks stretched our already thin budget even further and treated everyone to an extra helping of stress. Though fundraising and finances didn’t typically fall under an aquarist’s regular responsibilities, my boss Roman Singh (under immense pressure from the board) decided to take an “all hands on deck” approach to this particular crisis.

  He wanted all of us acting as rainmakers in order to cover the deficit. I couldn’t have been less qualified for a task if he’d asked me to molt or spontaneously combust. What could I even do? Host a fundraiser with my one friend in attendance? My contributions to this cause seemed hopeless, so every morning, I met his expectant grin with a frown and a dispirited shake of my head. I avoided him all day long and ended each day wanting nothing more than to drink a beer, shut off my brain and fall into bed. Planning my social calendar and calling Mira to RSVP seemed like too much effort.

  That’s the excuse I allowed myself anyway, but it was only half the story. In my more honest moments, I could admit that, really, I just didn’t want to deal with it.

  Even though I knew Patsy was right (and not just because she reminded me of that fact daily), I couldn’t bring myself to call Mira and commit to attending Cassie’s party. Whenever I reached for the phone, I froze. I was well aware how ridiculous I was being. It would take under three minutes to tell Mira I’d be there. It wouldn’t even amount to a conversation, but still I hesitated.

  Patsy had issued no fewer than five reminders to call Mira, and when she invited me to lunch at our favorite restaurant on Thursday, I knew I should have been suspicious of her motives. But the promise of a meal that didn’t come from a can was too much to pass up. Almost as soon as the hostess seated us, Patsy (who always ordered either a cheeseburger or meatloaf and had no need to consult the menu) pointed out how rude I was being to my would-be hostess, as if I remained somehow unaware. She was unrelenting in her insistence that I commit to Cassie’s party. I ignored her—or tried to—as I hid behind the menu deciding between chicken and pasta. The fact that Mira was on the receiving end of my bad manners did nothing to discourage Patsy’s nagging. It also did nothing to make me feel better about throwing common courtesy overboard, especially when Patsy pointed out how unfair I was being to Cassie.

  “She’s expecting an answer, Liv.”

  “I know,” I sighed, fiddling with my water glass and offering the least possible response to her habitual harassment. Acknowledging her opinion didn’t slow her down at all.

  “It’s hardly fair to toy with a little girl’s emotions like this, especially since she had no part in what happened to you.”

  “I know,” I said again, feeling even worse about myself than before.

  She wouldn’t even let me back out after I told her that the party was in Highland Park—hardly a convenient location for a city girl without a car. Unless I wanted to spend half of my day on public transportation (I didn’t) or ride my bike twenty miles each way, cultivating a force field of b.o. along the way, I had no way to get there.

  “Take my car.”

  “Have you lost your mind?” She’d saved up for the better part of a year to buy her car, even though it would have been faster and easier to ask her dad to buy it for her. She cared for her car better than most people cared for their homes. “I can’t do that.”

  “Sure you can. Just bring me a piece of cake and we’ll call it even.”

  “Patsy, you love your car, and I don’t drive.”

  “You know how, don’t you?”

  “In theory,” I said, trying to remember the last time
I’d been behind the wheel. I was pretty sure we’d had a different president.

  “Just be careful. I trust you.”

  Though I found it odd that she was so invested in me attending Cassie’s party, I quit arguing. I had no hope of winning when she was feeling determined.

  “I’ll bring you two pieces of cake.”

  “Deal,” she said. Now all that was left was to call Mira when I got home.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon giving myself intermittent pep talks whenever I thought of chatting with my enemy, and after a couple of false starts, I finally made the call. When Mira didn’t immediately answer, I grew hopeful I’d get her voicemail, but she picked up right before my dreams came true. She sounded distracted, like I’d caught her in the middle of something (putting together a thirteen-year-old’s birthday party maybe?), so I grew optimistic about my chances of making this a quick call.

  “Mira, hi. It’s Liv. Cucinelli. From the aquarium.” I suppose I could have said from college, but if I had to have a relationship with her, no matter how fleeting and inconsequential, I’d prefer to assign it a more agreeable genesis than my former painful humiliation.

  “Are you calling about the party? I hope you can make it. Cassie has been asking if you’ll be coming, and I didn’t know what to tell her.”

  No pressure, I thought, glad I wasn’t calling to decline the invitation. “I’ll be there,” I told her.

  “Wonderful!” Her enthusiasm was almost palpable. “I can’t wait to share the good news with Cassie. She’ll be so excited to see you. We both will, actually. We can spend some time catching up.”

  “Great,” I replied, already wondering how I would evade Mira in her own home. “That sounds just great.”

  Chapter Four

  I sat in Patsy’s car for ten minutes, my heart filling with dread, my soul dying as I stared at the sprawling mansion Mira called home. The longer I sat there gaping at this monument to affluence and prosperity, the larger it became and the more out of place I knew I’d be. I just couldn’t seem to make myself get out of the car and head into the party, even though I was already forty-five minutes late.

  It wasn’t that I was stalling. If anything, I wanted this over with, and I would have been on time, probably even early, if not for Patsy’s GPS. It decided to take me on a tour of every wealthy neighborhood and suburb between her apartment and the party. It was like watching a parade of things I’d never be able to afford in this life or the next, culminating in the Midwest’s answer to the Taj Mahal. If not for my strong desire to get out of the car I’d been trapped in for the last ninety minutes, I’m not sure anything would have motivated me to approach the palace looming before me and ring the bell.

  It shouldn’t have surprised me when a maid (in an honest-to-god maid uniform, frilly white apron and all) greeted me at the door, but I stood for another minute or two staring at this poor woman and wondering how the hell I was going to make it through the next few hours. It felt like we stood in Mira’s foyer for an hour. In actuality it was probably less than a minute, still more than enough time for me to feel even more out of place. The entryway to her palatial estate, with its polished marble floor and gleaming wood trim, was larger than my bedroom. I was pretty sure a troop of Girl Scouts could have held a meeting in her foyer with room left over for a pep rally.

  Almost as soon as I left the privacy of the foyer and entered her living room, I knew coming to the party was a mistake. A quick glance around the room (chilly and not just from the air conditioning) told me I’d been a fool to think I wouldn’t know anyone but Cassie and Mira. Of course the trio of backbiters who’d followed Mira’s every move in college were sitting there, wearing the same fake smiles they’d have if their parents had photographed them on forced prom dates with their cousins. I don’t know why I hadn’t realized they’d be there (each one with a brood of genetically superior children in tow, no doubt). Mira had been their queen in college, and there was no reason to suspect things would be different now.

  Still flustered from my drive and dreading the day’s events, I walked into the Lion’s Den—the opulent but impersonal living room where Mira’s friends had gathered to criticize the poor and downtrodden, no doubt. The room—a veritable paean to beige and earth tones—lacked any warmth or human touches. Part of that was probably the dearth of children playing and having fun at what was supposed to be a child’s birthday party, but the space also seemed like it was meant to be admired, not enjoyed. I got the impression that even the adults in the room were under harsh scrutiny and would be punished if anything was out of place when they left.

  “Sorry I’m so late,” I said, hating the good manners that forced me to apologize to Mira.

  “Don’t worry about it.” She waved her hand in the air as if physically brushing aside my apology, making me feel oddly worse, like I owed her for excusing my lack of direction. “You remember Sarah, Megan and Tiffany.” She breezed through the unnecessary introductions.

  “How could I forget?” I said, sounding about as happy to see them as they appeared to be to see me. Ignoring the icy block of fear and dread settling in my stomach, I forced myself to smile instead of turning around and running back to the car.

  For their part, they retained their unpleasantly surprised expressions and made no attempt at small talk. Either they’d been stunned into silence, or they were calculating the limits of outward rudeness they could show to their friend’s guest. I was calculating how long they’d last before one of them brought up the past. On the plus side, none of them called me Ollie. Yet.

  “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Please.” I jumped at Mira’s offer, though I held out little hope that alcohol would be available at a kid’s party, not that I should indulge before my circuitous trek back to the city anyway.

  Grateful for an escape, I followed her from the living room through the equally lavish dining room that could easily have held half my apartment. As we walked I mentally catalogued every item we passed that sat well outside my price range. Antique furniture. Boring but probably expensive artwork. Several pieces of ornate and delicate china. The pristine oak floors were adorned with gorgeous rugs, each of which looked like it would cost me a month’s pay. I counted four on our walk from the living room to the kitchen.

  I was way out of my league here. The only real exposure I’d ever had to wealth came from a handful of meals with Patsy’s family, which was infinitely better off than mine. My mom raised me alone with zero help from my dad, who bailed the second the stick turned pink. But not even Patsy’s family had money like this.

  The part of my brain not calculating Mira’s interior decorating allowance (and wondering what she did for a living that she could live so handsomely) was focused in part on the irony of Mira Butler being my savior. The thought that I might cling to her for the rest of the afternoon chilled me to the bone.

  She chatted happily as we made our way from one end of her estate to the other. Apparently she hadn’t been joking about wanting to catch up with me.

  “How long have you been at the aquarium?”

  “Twelve years.” I sounded churlish to my own ears, and I knew I needed to shape up and act at least a little pleasant for Cassie’s sake.

  “You must like it,” Mira said, unaffected by my terse response. “Five years is the longest I’ve managed to stay in any place, and I’m pushing that with my job now.”

  “What do you do?” I tried to deflect her interest and satisfy my curiosity at the same time.

  “I’m the cosmetics manager at a department store.”

  Stunned, I took in my surroundings once more. While I wasn’t surprised to learn she had a career dedicated to convincing women their natural beauty wasn’t enough, there was no way a cosmetics manager could afford the home I was standing in. The idea that she’d married well occurred to me (not for the first time), but I couldn’t figure out why a rich housewife would work at all, let alone shoot for the stars of cosmetics man
agement.

  “That sounds…” I struggled to find an inoffensive adjective.

  “I think ‘boring’ is the word you’re searching for.”

  “That’s about right,” I said. “Superficial” was really what I’d been thinking, but I didn’t need to be rude.

  “You don’t really seem like the cosmetics type.”

  “Never have been.”

  She eyed me critically and smiled. “I don’t think makeup would work for you.”

  “Was that supposed to be a compliment?”

  She laughed and wrinkled her nose. “That didn’t come out right. I meant you don’t need any makeup. You look good without it.”

  Well, I certainly hadn’t expected anything close to praise from her. This was turning out to be an interesting party after all.

  “Are you married?” She resumed her interrogation, and as the questions grew more personal, I second-guessed my decision to follow her rather than take my chances in the living room.

  “Not so far.”

  “Does that mean there’s hope for the future?”

  How big was this house anyway? For as far as we’d walked, we should have made it to the state line by now. “I’m about as much the marrying type as I am the cosmetics type.”

  “It’s not for everyone,” she said as we finally, blessedly crossed the threshold of her state-of-the-art kitchen. I got the impression the comment was more for her benefit than mine. I was pretty sure that if her marriage had been the source of her wealth, it wasn’t the source of her happiness.

  I was almost feeling bad for her and wondering what one says to one’s downtrodden enemy when Cassie burst into the room, saving me from any sort of bonding or awkward attempt at comforting Mira. She was followed closely by a prim, pinched-faced woman with heavily sprayed hair and an outfit that suggested she had no concept of summer, children or birthday parties.

  “Cassandra,” the pursed woman barked, apparently unaware of Cassie’s deafness. “Slow down. This isn’t a gymnasium.” She barely paused before turning her attentions on Cassie’s mother. “Mira, the caterers are roaming around the yard aimlessly. Your party is going to be an embarrassing disaster if you leave them to their own devices, and I shudder at the thought of the broken English conversation with the landscapers to undo the mess these fools are sure to leave behind. Honestly, I don’t know why you expect laypeople to show any initiative.”