Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
FRANKIE
I threw my pen at Danny but what I really wanted to do was say, “Yes, please, fuck me now, as hard and fast as you can, so I don’t have to think about my mother and her five hundred possible locations.”
But that would wake up Nate and Shelby. If we did it right.
I missed being in Danny’s bed last night. But I also enjoyed hanging with my sister. I realize we haven’t seen that much of each other in the six years since I left home. Ironic that we were watching Gilmore Girls , where Lorelai is forced to reconnect with parents she’s been estranged from for years. And although it’s a feel-good show, it doesn’t make the family reunion look like sweetness and light. Maybe this is a message for me? A higher being is teaching me life lessons via the medium of a critically acclaimed comedy-drama? Maybe I do have my mother’s woo-woo powers? Or possibly I just need a break. And food.
Shelby comes downstairs and into the kitchen just as Danny’s dishing me up eggs. He’s been paying attention and they are scrambled and well-cooked. The toast is buttered but not too heavily. He’s made coffee, too, but does not offer it to me again because he knows that if he does, I really will injure him.
“Danny!” Shelby’s hair is all mussed, like she had a rough night’s sleep. “You figured out the coffee maker!”
“Yes, he uttered the correct incantation to unlock its arcane secrets,” I say.
Danny grins at me. “The demon inside it escaped,” he adds, “but that was a price I was willing to pay.”
“Don’t tease, I’m exhausted.” Shelby lowers herself carefully into a chair, holding her bump. “The baby was thrashing about for hours last night. It was like I’d swallowed a disco ball and the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever .”
Danny, who’s had at least three cups of coffee, suddenly launches into the falsetto chorus from “Staying Alive”.
“Jesus.” Nate’s here, and not looking any more well rested than Shelby. “We could sell you to the army as a sonic weapon. The dogs are howling outside the back door and I don’t think it’s because they’re hungry.”
“Can you feed them, sweetie? I can’t move,” Shelby says. “Well, I can but I don’t want to.”
“I’ll do it,” says Danny.
The dogs used to sleep inside at night but Nate put his foot down when he moved in, saying that sharing a bedroom with four cats was enough. To appease Shelby, he paid Cam to make a luxury kennel for them, so now they have the most comfortable sleeping quarters in the whole vineyard. And having been rigorously trained by Cam and Doug, they’re well behaved enough to be allowed to roam around the property at will. These three are the latest in a succession of rescue mutts that have ended up here. I like dogs well enough but never bonded with any of them the way I did with Ham and Luke. Those guys and I have a real understanding. If my neighbors wouldn’t complain and it didn’t breach a bunch of bylaws, I’d have them in my own back yard in a shot.
Danny, however, obviously thinks the dogs are great. He’s left the back door open, and I can hear him chatting away to them as he dumps kibble in their bowls and freshens their water. The conversation’s pretty one-sided and limited to variations on the theme of “who’s a good boy, yes, you’re a good boy”, but it’s sweet. Dogs know who’s kind and who’s not. They’re smart like that.
I wasn’t aware of having a fond, gooey smile on my face, until Shelby says, softly, “You really like him, don’t you?”
Nate’s rattling around fixing breakfast, so only I hear her.
“I do.” My reply is short and businesslike because I hate being caught out. “But it’s still very early days.”
Shelby smiles but she knows better than to push. Danny comes inside and shuts the back door.
“I should get a dog,” he says. “They’re awesome.”
“Take one of those,” says Nate. “Take all of them.”
“Ignore him,” says Shelby. “He’s sleep-deprived.”
“Well, that’s not going to get any better once baby’s in the world, is it?” says Danny, cheerfully.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be? Such as anywhere else but here?” Nate’s clutching his coffee mug with both hands like it’s a life preserver.
“Nope!” Danny pulls up a chair next to me. “I’m gonna help Frankie track down her mom.”
Shelby looks guilty. “I’d help, too, but I’m not sure it’ll be good for my blood pressure.”
“Won’t be good for mine, either,” I say. “But sooner we get onto it, sooner it’s done.”
“How’s your Spanish?” Danny asks me. “Mine’s got better living in L.A. but I’m definitely not fluent.”
“Won’t be reading Don Quixote in the original any time soon,” I reply. “But I’ve googled ‘Do you have Mrs. Lee Armstrong as a guest?’, ‘Thank you’, and ‘Goodbye’, and with luck, that’ll be all I need.”
“How many places do you have to contact?” says Nate.
“ Muchos ,” says Danny. “That’s Spanish for?—”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“Spain is nine hours ahead, so we’d better get started,” I say. “How about I do Pamplona and you take Burgos? I’ll send you the list.”
“ Bueno .” Danny scans his email. “Okay, then.” He starts pressing numbers on his phone. “ ?En sus marcas, listos, fuera! Or as you monoglots know it: on your marks, get set, go!”
“It’s not a race,” I protest, but Danny holds up his finger for quiet. “ Buenas tardes ,” he begins.
Okay, so it’s a race.
Shelby and Nate retreat and leave us to it.
Two hours later, I’m about to run outside and yeet my phone into the vines, when I hear Danny say, “ Si, si. Se?ora Armstrong! A message for her, si ?—”
He covers his phone, and hisses, “What is the message?”
“Call Shelby ASAP,” I say.
“Er, teléfono Shelby, su hija , her daughter, por favor, ” says Danny. “And … er, los antes posible ? As soon as she can? Si. Muchas gracias. Adiós. ”
“You did it!” I say once he’s hung up. “You actually did it!”
Danny stands up and takes a bow. Then he flops back down into the chair. “Oof,” he says. “And I’m used to making a shitload of calls.”
I resist an urge to lay my head on the table and close my eyes.
“It’s only mid-morning,” I say. “Feels like it should be beer o’clock.”
He grins at me. “How about we take the day off? Do something on your list? Like vintage clothes shopping.”
I perk right up. “I’ve earned it, haven’t I?”
“Or…” Danny’s grin is now accompanied by an eyebrow raise. “We could go back to my bijou accommodation for some more ‘dance lessons’.”
We could. I did miss being with him last night. I’m also cautious about things moving too fast. Then again, I’m tired of constantly overthinking things. Sex with Danny is fun and it doesn’t mean we’re committed to each other. Why don’t you pick what you want to do, Frankie, not what you think you ought to, otherwise known as the safest options.
Thing is, though, Danny’s already uttered the magic words that trump all others.
“We’re going vintage clothes shopping,” I say.
“That’s your choice?” Danny sounds more amused than put out.
“I don’t see this as an ‘either/or’ situation,” I elaborate. “More ‘now this and later that’.”
“How much later?”
“Depends,” I say, truthfully if annoyingly. “On what the shops have in stock.”
Danny makes a rueful face. “I’m going to spend a lot of time sitting outside changing rooms, aren’t I?”
“And in them,” I reply, with a grin and an eyebrow raise of my own. “I’ll be choosing some outfits for you, too, don’t you worry.”
“Not matching?” says Danny, dubiously.
“Hell, no,” I assure him. “That was humiliating. We looked like novelty salt and pepper shakers.”
“My car or yours?” he asks.
“Mine, of course,” I say. “If we’re going retro for the day, may as well go the whole hog.”
“Can I drive?”
“Absolutely not.” I get up and wince. Chair’s hard and my butt is soft, which is why it’s aching. “I’m going to freshen up. See you back here in ten. Don’t forget your wallet.”
“Wait—?” Danny calls after me. “Am I paying?”
Of course he isn’t, I’m a modern woman. But it’s fun to wind him up.
That said, the guy did make thirty-nine grand yesterday afternoon. I think I can be old-fashioned enough to let him buy me lunch, at least.