Chapter 1
PETAL
Three months later…
My mother accosts me with her two-kiss cheek thing, something she picked up on a recent vacation to France.
“It’s about time, Petal,” she hisses in my ear while maintaining her radiant smile.
She’s a consummate performer, especially when all eyes are on her, which they are because this is her big event, her charity fundraiser for the city’s beleaguered Cable Car Museum, a B-list tourist attraction that gets little attention and even less funding from the city government.
It’s been a constant struggle for the tiny place to stay open, and my mother loves nothing more than an underdog.
It’s given new purpose to her days. After her last divorce, she glommed onto the sad museum like some people take in an abandoned cat or dog, immediately pouring all her energy into saving this obscure piece of San Francisco history.
I try to catch my breath, having run from the sidewalk through the enormous halls of the Palace Hotel, to the giant ballroom where Mom’s hosting today’s event. “Sorry, Mom. Lost track of time.”
She beams but I can see in her eyes she really wants to strangle me. I get that from her a lot, we’re so different from one another.
I don’t like attention. She craves the spotlight.
I am late a lot. She’s always early.
I’m neat and she’s a slob. No word of a lie, when I was growing up, I was the one who had to tell her to clean her room.
With Mom at my elbow, she maneuvers us both through the crowd, smiling, nodding, and shaking hands with all her friends who, I am sure, are thinking of nothing but the debacle that was my thwarted wedding only a few months ago.
“Hold your head up, honey,” Mom whispers into my ear. “Don’t give these people anything else to talk about.”
Yeah, right. Like I can actually stop the flow of gossip that exploded in all nooks and crannies of San Francisco when I did the unthinkable—left my fiancé, one of the city’s ‘most eligible bachelors,’ at the altar.
The follow up stories were epic. Spoiled heiress leaves good guy at the altar.
That sort of thing.
Maybe if I’d done it with more dignity, I might not have provided the same level of fodder for the city’s magpies, but who am I kidding? What’s juicier than wedding drama?
Especially when the bride swats the groom upside the head with a bouquet, then tosses it to the ‘other woman,’ who catches it like she’s waiting for it.
The cherry on top, which sealed my fate as the topic of conversation for months to follow, was calling her a cunty bitch before leaving the congregation in total silence.
Actually, I screamed it.
It felt good for about sixty seconds, then I fell to pieces in the limo that I demanded drive me home.
Navigating the room, I hold my head up just like Mom suggests, and I’m glad I’m wearing the sassy but sexy Betsey Johnson dress she gave me for the occasion.
In her words, there’s no better revenge than looking good.
I always thought it was living well, but then my mother and I have different perspectives.
I take the last empty seat at a table of my mother’s friends.
They stare at me with sympathy, and Mom hustles off for the stage, where she’s about to do what she does best—make the case that the forgotten and overlooked Cable Car Museum is worthy of both her dedication and the large donations everyone in the audience is sure to make.
I pick up my auction paddle, which cleverly has a history of the Cable Car Museum on one side and a list of auction items on the other.
I glance over at the table where the donated items are on display and set my sights on a huge spa-type basket, full of soaps and candles and loofas, and instantly know what I’m going to bid on.
Scented candles are my jam. Can’t get enough of them.
“You still hiding out in the guest house?” Mom’s BFF Fran Bender whispers in my ear.
No fucking privacy. None at all.
“Hi, Mrs. Bender. Yes, I’m still staying up in Sonoma. It’s been a good break for me,” I say, turning my attention to Mom at the podium, hopefully signaling a strong I don’t want to talk.
She doesn’t take the hint. “I don’t blame you, honey. After what you’ve been through—”
She drones on, stage whispering so everyone at the table will credit her with comforting me ‘at this difficult time,’ as so many of Mom’s friends have put it.
I smile at her because, one, I have to be polite no matter what sort of stupid things my mother’s friends say, and two, because I figure she really is well-intentioned. At least, that’s what I want to believe.
The fast-talking auctioneer is soliciting bids for a night at the ballet—or is it the opera?—when something out of the corner of my eye distracts me.
Then I hear it buzz next to my ear.
A bug. A flying bug. I hate bugs.
I wave my hand to scare off whatever it is to make sure it doesn’t enter my ear canal and lay a hundred eggs for its little babies.
The bug is not deterred, so I pick up my paddle to use as a swatter.
My first swing is unsuccessful, but I’m pretty sure my second one meets the offending pest. I look around to see whether I smashed it or not, and it buzzes above my head once again.
Fucker.
I reach up and this time make contact, auction paddle vs. fly. Victory! Its little black body tumbles out of the sky and right into Mrs. Bender’s water glass.
“Oops. Sorry,” I say to her, grabbing a spoon to fish it out.
That’s when I realize everyone at the table is looking at me. With a quick glance around, I realize everyone in the entire ballroom is looking at me.
Applause starts.
Wow. Is everyone that impressed I killed a fly? Seems a little over the top, but at least people are not talking about my wedding for a change.
“And the winner is, my very own daughter, Petal Parker,” Mom booms from the stage.
Winner? Of what? They haven’t gotten to the scented candle basket yet.
“Come on up, honey, and claim your prize.”
She’s holding a big fancy envelope, like the kind that contains something important and upscale.
Cool. I must have won the romantic weekend in San Luis Obispo.
I’ll take Lucy and Gilly, and we’ll have a great time road tripping to the Central Coast, wine tasting and maybe even visiting Hearst Castle.
God knows I could use a getaway and I haven’t been to the castle since a middle school field trip.
I jog up to the stage amidst loud applause and take the envelope from Mom, who’s beaming like I won a gazillion-dollar lottery. She throws an arm around my shoulder and points to the photographer, raising my arm so the pretty envelope is in the photo. The camera flashes several times.
“Congrats to my daughter,” she squeals. “There are a lot of ladies who would have loved to win this date with Rake Hanson, the San Francisco Aftershocks’ star hockey player, but Petal has dug deep into her pockets like I know the rest of you will to support the museum, as well.”
Wait, what? I won a date? With who? How did that happen?
I giggle nervously, aware that five hundred sets of eyes are trained on me. “Isn’t this the weekend away?” I ask her. “I didn’t bid on a guy.”
The mic picks up my words and the room gets quiet.
A dark cloud passes over Mom’s face, her universal signal to shut it.
She stays focused on the audience. Her people. Her subjects. “Petal, honey, you are hilarious. You raised your paddle, silly girl, and spent two thousand dollars for a date with Rake Hanson.”
No the fuck I didn’t.
First off, I don’t know who Rake Hanson is. Second, I did not bid on him. And third, two thousand dollars? Is she fucking kidding?
She knows I’d never do something so frivolous.
I’m a thrifty girl. I hunt bargains and buy everything on sale. It doesn’t matter that I have a massive trust fund. I don’t believe in wasting money.
I chuckle for the audience, then turn to Mom, who’s still wearing her ‘watch it’ expression. I don’t care. I want this straightened out, and now.
I lean toward the microphone. “Sorry, everyone. I was just swatting a fly. Got him, too. Just look in Mrs. Bender’s water.”
A titter runs through the audience, and I’m pleased I could be entertaining. I consider making some sort of joke that she should be happy the fly didn’t end up in her soup, but Mom cuts me off.
“Oh my. Petal has no idea how lucky she is to have won a date with Rake. Isn’t she, Rake?”
I follow her gaze to the corner of the room, where there’s a giant man surrounded by what looks to be a minion or two.
He’s nice looking and all, buff as hell, and with the kind of red hair I’ve loved on a guy since Prince Harry came on the scene.
But he’s scowling like someone pissed in his Cheerios.
Like big time, world class-level scowling.
He throws a two-fingered wave my mother’s way, I think because the short man next to him nudged him and told him to.
I put the envelope back on the podium and turn to leave the stage.
They’ll have to auction that item again. For cripe’s sake, wasn’t it obvious I was killing a fly?
Mom’s eyes burn my backside as I hustle back to my table, and as soon as I’m seated, I realize I may not be getting out of this one.
“Let’s hear a round of applause for my daughter Petal, who at the moment holds the record for the highest bid so far today.”
As if I hadn’t said a thing, as if I hadn’t just explained I was only killing a bug, she throws the audience a challenge. “Let’s see who can beat Petal’s generosity. Next up is a weekend in San Luis Obispo. Shall we open the bid at five hundred dollars…”
Well, shit.
That weekend away could have been mine. In fact, I’d take any other item on offer besides that stupid date, but Mom’s not letting me out of it. I’ll talk to her later and explain myself again. She’ll understand I’m not interested in the guy from the Earthquakes or whatever his hockey team is.
Hell, I wasn’t even aware we had a hockey team.
“Well done, honey,” Mrs. Bender whispers in my ear. “And would you look at that man. What a hunk. If I were your age, I’d climb him like a tree…”
Ew.
I sneak a glance across the ballroom at Mrs. Bender’s ‘hunk.’ Sure, he’s tall with impossibly broad shoulders and perfect bone structure, but he also looks like the most stuck-up pickle puss I’ve ever seen, clearly not any more excited about a date with me than I am with him.
Puck Head.