Page 5 of Enemies in Earnest

I thought for sure he was about to make some kind of snarky comment. He just… turned around! He left the fifty on the bar, turned around, and walked back toward the table without another word. The nerve.

“Can you believe that?” I huffed in Asher’s direction.

“That you castrated his pride right in front of his cousin? I am a bit surprised, yes.”

Not the supportive commentary I expected from my octogenarian side kick.

“Or that I tried to be nice and give him a free bottle of champagne for their celebration and he pretty much gave me the finger? That’s what it looked like from where I’m standing.”

Asher set the clipboard down on the bar as if it were a sleeping infant he’d just rocked to sleep after hours of colic. He cast a look toward Edwin’s table while apparently considering what to say. I followed his gaze, watching the banter between Edwin and his cousin. Klaus apparently had said something that had Edwin in stitches, covering his eyes as his whole body curled with laughter.

With the members of the Christmas Society beginning to roll in, the ambient noise had increased significantly. I couldn’t hear a word of their conversation. Watching Edwin in side-grabbing hysterics, though, was a sight I’d never seen from the old sourpuss.

“You spent the last thirty minutes needling him, and then graciously comp his drinks. It’s either pity or charity to make yourself look good to others. Either way, not a good look for you, dear.”

ChapterFive

Even though Klausand Felicity had planned to visit well before the incident with my boat, there couldn’t have been a more perfect time for them to come.

“Do you remember Astrid Schneider?” Klaus knocked his shoulder against mine while we listened to the Christmas planning committee drone on about the upcoming festivities.

“Name rings a bell,” I rubbed my forehead trying to knock the dusty filing cabinets in my brain around to find where that name existed.

“She went to school with Leo and I,” Klaus prodded. “You were her date to Rosenball. It was the year Leo’s friend, Charlie, pilfered some Gluhwein, and we spent the evening on the gym mats in the community center supply closet.”

He raised his eyebrows at me as if that detail alone should bring this whole memory careening back to my consciousness.

“Those details don’t matter. She’s in New York now. Felicity and I recently ran into her at this charity thing. She’s a newscaster.”

“Are we talking about Astrid?” Felicity joined in, smiling at Klaus. “She was the one who taught Klaus how to umm…”

Felicity blushed as pink as the t-shirt she wore. She looked over her shoulder at my mom, who was intently listening to the discussion of the upcoming boat parade. When she was sure my mom wasn’t looking at her, she spread two of her fingers wide and stuck her tongue between them in the universal signal for licking the kitty.

I damn near spit my drink out in a glorious shower of cheap champagne.

“Of all the things I expected to witness from your fiancé this week,thatwas not one of them.”

I tried valiantly to keep my hysterics to myself. Not wanting to disrupt the meeting in progress or draw the attention of the sassy mouth in the punny t-shirt tending the bar. I already had enough beef with her to make a week’s worth of lunches.

“She still remembers you fondly,” Klaus continued, attempting to hold back his own laughter.

“I guess you’re really great at following directions.” Felicity giggled around a sip of champagne. “Some may even say, exceptional.”

“I should send her a thank you basket.” I continued, only adding fuel to the hysterics pile. “Complaint free for twenty-three.”

I raised my glass in mock toast, hardly expecting the pair to actually toast me. Which had us splintering into more laughter. There were enough people in the bar that it was loud enough for our table talk to barely register over the chatter. Add to it the microphone from my mom’s planning committee and the ambient noise dialed up to ear splitting.

“Actually!” My mom raised her hand and stood, trying to signal Wanelda. “I think my nephew, Klaus, should be this year’s Santa. Look at him! He’d have all the ladies drooling!”

Dozens of details converged simultaneously. None of them less important than any other, but my mother whoring out my beefcake cousin tomake the ladies droolwas not something I would have expected from my frail, always cold, nearly eighty-year old mother. In front of his fiancé no less.

“Um, mom. Did you forget thatI’mSanta for the boat parade?” I asked, honestly stunned that I would be pushed out of the way with little preamble. Even if Klaus was my cousin. Thesexy Santacommentary hadn’t escaped my notice, either. Still. Since old man Withersby stepped down five years ago, I was the town Santa.

“You don’t even have a boat right now, Eddie,” she said. “And besides, a little eye candy will help keep the tourists here for a little longer. And that is good for all of us.”

Eye candy. From my mother’s mouth. My nearly eighty-year-old mother was slinging sex to draw in tourists. Clearly that crash with Mr. Big Boat rattled my brain or hit me clear into an alternate universe. My sweet mother, the one who knits blankets for Harlow’s strays and buys season tickets to the playhouse she rarely attends, had been replaced by one winking and licking her finger, pressing it against her hip while she made sizzling noises. The bleating hens of her group egged her on further by clapping and hooting. Jesus, I needed a drink. Bearing witness to all of this was causing a rip in the space/time continuum. Any minute I expected to be yanked out of the bar and dropped into my actual reality.

“I’d like a beer, please. Hefeweizen if you have it. If not, whatever wheat ale you have.”

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