it to be true. Men in wingtips were not compatible with Mary Trace.
She opened her eyes, ignored his coldly befuddled assessment of her behavior and flipped up one side of the tablecloth. Mary let out a gusting breath of relief. There they were, size-twelve glossy ocher wingtips, recently polished. Thank God. Now she didn’t have to worry about whether or not she was doing the right thing when she carefully folded her napkin and set it aside. The wingtips were a clear sign from the heavens that it was time for Mary to get the hell out of Dodge.
Still obviously befuddled, John stood when she did. The only point in his favor so far.
“Thank you for meeting me,” Mary said and meant it. The jerk could have stood her up, but he hadn’t. “But this is not going to work out.”
His eyebrows aggressively furrowed, changing his face from that judgmental smirk for the first time since she’d sat down. Now he just looked plain old mean. She paused for a moment, expecting him to say something. Anything. But nada, zilch, goose egg. His lips just pressed into a thin line as he glared at her.
“Have a nice night.” She reached for her purse.
“You’re just leaving,” he said flatly, his eyebrows still in that aggressive V over his cold eyes.
She straightened her purse over her shoulder.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he murmured, animating for the first time by tossing his large hands in the air. “What a freaking waste of time.”
A waste of time because she wasn’t going to sleep with him? Apparently, he’d gotten all dolled up, schlepped his way across town, and now he expected a cookie. Her cookie, to be exact. After he’d straight-up called her old.
She sucked in a deep breath and stepped closer to him, not wanting to cause a scene by raising her voice. He stiffened and pulled back from her as if age were contagious.
She didn’t want to be rude, but she’d stopped allowing herself to be bullied about a decade ago. Social niceties be damned. Mary tossed her hair back over her shoulders. “I’m not going to say anything to Estrella about this, don’t worry. But she was wrong. You are not a nice boy.”
John blinked at her, his face quirking up into an expression that told Mary that he thought she was a prize idiot.
She wasn’t an idiot, but she had learned a lesson. This was the last time she was letting a mother set her up with a son. Even if she was one of the best local artisans Mary stocked at Fresh.
She turned on her heel and sailed out of the restaurant.
Mary was just unlocking the door to her apartment when the worst part of what had just happened really hit her. It wasn’t the cruel and unnecessary commentary on her—apparently geriatric—age. It wasn’t the sneer of the mean-faced man as he’d eyed her across the table or the way he’d looked at the waitress.
No. The worst part of it was right now. This very moment, standing in her own doorway, when she couldn’t call Cora. Her best friend of all time. Whom Mary had only had ten short years with before Cora had been killed in a car accident. And that had been five years ago.
For the most part, Mary had found her peace. She’d done the requisite universe cursing, the wondering why something so useless and pointless and painful could possibly have happened. She’d had the drunken, teary nights with the other people who’d loved Cora. She’d cried the tears.
And most of the time, she was okay. But not tonight. Not tonight when she wanted to call her best friend so freaking badly. When she wanted nothing more than to hear Cora’s rude, snarky, biting tone over the phone. Cora would have hidden in the bathroom so her son couldn’t overhear her say something like “Give me that loser’s phone number. I’m going to tell him to sit on it sideways. I’m going to tell him that he just screwed up the best opportunity that he ever had. He had a date with Mary Freaking Trace and he screwed it up in the first sentence! What a moron. Don’t give him another thought, Mare, unless it’s to pity the fool.”
But was it even the mean-faced blind date that Mary wanted Cora to tell off? No. Because, really, Mary had done a good enough job of that on her own. She’d left the restaurant, hadn’t she? Wasn’t it