Chapter 35
I made sure to set the plastic digital alarm before bed last night so I would wake up an hour earlier to catch Pops before he heads to work. I’m at the table eating a bowl of Raisin Bran—because hunger has won out over abstaining from food that tastes like gravel—when I hear Pops’ chunky boots clunk down the stairs.
“Good morning honey. You’re up early,” he says as he enters the kitchen.
“You wouldn’t happen to be going to a wedding at Coors Brewery this weekend would you?” I say setting my spoon down on the table.
“How’d you know about that?” he says.
“I saw it last night, grabbing my crossword out of your closet.” A white lie will do for now. Better to ask forgiveness than permission if I plan to get anywhere with Marigold.
He shakes his head as if my actions might divulge his hideout location to the entire family.
“You’re mom and I are planning on it,” he says, chewing a piece of bacon from a cold ziplock bag.
“Can I tag along? I’ve been wanting to see the brewery for a while now,” I say. I’m almost too hopeful sounding.
“It’s a plus-one invite only and your mom is planning on going with me. But if she backs out…” he says with a smile. I nod my head.
“How do you know the couple? They must have paid a bunch to reserve an entire brewery for the day.”
“Oh, it’s my client’s wedding. I worked on a few cases for her last year. Her fiancé’s pretty well-off,” he says.
“Why’d she invite her lawyer to a wedding?”
“Rich people like to show off their lawyers. It’s a status thing…”
Robert Schills must be an acquaintance of the groom. I wonder how many Marigold connections will be at the reception.
If I can’t be his plus-one I’d make sure to find a way to sneak in.
“What are you doing this Saturday?” Ben comes up behind me in the hallway right after our first period. He wraps his arms around my shoulders, squeezing me like a snake coiling its prey. “Let’s go on a date,” he says without waiting for me to answer.
“What was wrong with your phone last night?” I ask. “I tried calling you. It said your number was disconnected.” We continue walking down the hall as if we’re glued together, his arms falling over my shoulders.
“Oh. My mom came back from work yesterday with one of those weird rainbow wire phones and decided to switch out the phones. So I spent some time last night trying to uninstall and reinstall the phones."
“The clear phone with colored wire?” I repeat after him. My heart jumps at the mention of the familiar object. The object that landed me here in the first place. I make the connection between the phone Ben installed last night and the retired phones his grandmother gifted to Diana and Ben to play with when we were young. This phone had to be one of them.
“Yeah,” he says as if there’s nothing to be too excited about. “But about our date…what do you say to riding with me this weekend? To WonderVu.”
“When?” I was a sucker for mountain cafes. Diana and I had spent many weekends in Non-80s-Land trying to find good restaurants hidden in the mountainscape. At places like WonderVu, the taste of the food hardly mattered. We were there for the exclusive mountain dining experience. It’s the only place where you can be almost entirely surrounded by trees, deep red, brown mountain soil and have a cool mountain breeze seep through the window beside you as you eat.
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
“I can’t. I’m going to a wedding reception at that time.”
“Whose wedding?”
“Pops was invited. He is the bride’s lawyer or something like that.”
“You mean your dad? Isn’t your grandpa in Montana?”
“Uhh yeah,” I say. I’d just have to avoid “Pops” and “Grandma” in sentences from now on. It gets too complicated.
“Is your whole family going?” he asks.
“Not exactly. My dad is taking Marcie and it’s a plus-one invite only, so I’m sneaking in.” His eyebrows raise in response to my admission.
“I have to see how they pull off a wedding at Coors Brewery,” I say in defense.
“You’re really something, you know that?” Sparks hum in his eyes when he says it. “You want to weasel your way into this wedding? A wedding that probably has security. You don’t have a limit to how far you’ll go when you’re curious, do you?”
“I guess not,” I say confidently.
“Let’s go riding before the reception then. I’ll have you back before the wedding.”