AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Look, I’m sorry, I’m not trying to ruin your day?—”
“Somebody tried to kill me last night, Lisa Livia,” Agnes snapped. “Ancient boarding school news is not likely to ruin my day today.”
“—I’m just trying to explain why finding a nice guy is not in the cards for you,” Lisa Livia finished. “What the hell are you going to do with a nice guy?”
“I can be nice,” Agnes said.
“Why would you want to be?” Lisa Livia said.
Agnes stopped, dumbfounded.
“Agnes, you’re furious and fascinating and wonderful. You should probably not stab anybody with a meat fork again, but why be nice when you can be Cranky Agnes?” Lisa Livia pointed her fork at the red glasses logo on Agnes’s apron. “You think you’re syndicated in a hundred newspapers because you’re nice? You think you’d be in any newspaper if you wrote a column called ‘Nice Agnes’?”
“I’m talking about my personal life?—”
Lisa Livia slapped her hand on the table. “I’m talkin’ about you. Stop pretending you’re normal. You’re insane. Make that work for you. That Dr. Garvin shit where you step on yourself all the time, that’s not good. Forking people isn’t good, either, but jeez, Agnes, you talk about finding some normal guy—hell, that’s how you ended up with Taylor, remember? You talked about nice he was, how normal he was, how easygoing he was. You went out and found the most white-bread guy in America, and he turned out to be a jackal. Maybe that’s not a good plan for you, Agnes.”
“Well, hell, Lisa Livia,” Agnes said mildly. “Maybe a hitman isn’t a good plan, either.”
Lisa Livia picked up her fork again. “Well, he sure put a smile on your face this morning.”
“That’s just sex,” Agnes said, and thought, That’s a lie, and then Rhett woke up and barked, and Agnes realized somebody was standing on her back porch looking at her through the screen door. “Hello?”
“I knocked,” the woman said, her drawl more of a chirp. “I truly did, but you all didn’t hear. I’m Kristy. From Wesley’s Wonderful Wedding Memories.”
Lisa Livia rolled her eyes.
“Come on in, Kristy,” Agnes said. “This is Lisa Livia, the mother of the bride, and I’m Agnes.”
Kristy opened the screen door and came in, cute as a bug with her pixie face, short dark hair, and tight little body strung with cameras and bags and a lot of other stuff that looked professional but could have been garbage for all Agnes knew. Rhett looked at her and barked again, and Agnes shushed him, so he sighed and went back to sleep as Kristy smiled at Lisa Livia.
“You can’t possibly be the mother of the bride,” Kristy said to her. “You must be her sister.”
“Right,” Lisa Livia said, and kept eating omelet.
“Have you had breakfast?” Agnes said to Kristy, looking at her cheese omelet with longing, but ready to give it up for hospitality’s sake.
“No, ma’am, but thank you for the offer,” Kristy said, and Agnes liked her better.
“Well, feel free to look around,” Agnes said. “The wedding is going to be in the gazebo and the reception is in the barn, which you’ll find if you follow the flagstone path off to the right of the porch there. Anything you need to know?”
“I’ll just wander around taking some trial shots,” Kristy said, batting her big blue eyes. “Any of the wedding party present besides Mrs. Fortunato?” She nodded to Lisa Livia.
“Miss. Never married.” Lisa Livia picked up her toast.
Kristy nodded again, having evidently given up on bonding.
“Nope,” Agnes said. “Unless you count the flamingos.”
Kristy nodded, smiled, and escaped through the back door.
“I’m just saying,” Lisa Livia said when she was gone, “you have a lot more in common with Shane than with some normal guy. Taylor freaked when you attacked him with a meat fork. Shane took it away from you and made you come your brains out. I think that’s significant.”
“He kills people,” Agnes said. “Lucky for you,” Lisa Livia said.
Agnes picked up her omelet and took it to the table and sat down across from Lisa Livia. “I’m definitely not going to have sex with him again.”
Lisa Livia nodded. “I’m definitely going to sleep with Carpenter.” Agnes sighed.
