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“Thanks.”
CHAPTER28
Andy
I stepped into the laundromat,checking my phone for the time. 4:30. With another half hour to Franklin Notch, plus twenty minutes to drive to Len’s, I would definitely be late.
“Andy,” Mr. Harris tipped his glasses down. “You’re just in time. I was about to close up.”
I smiled, pushing aside the slight thrum of frustration for letting myself get lost in the spreadsheets and new hires while I’d been at the gym when I’d promised Nora I’d meet her at her brother’s house at five.
“Glad I made it. How have you been?”
“Fine,” the elderly man shuffled to the rack of plastic-coated clothing, flipping through the pieces until he found mine. “Just fine. I heard congratulations are in order. Nora McDonaghue, as I live and breathe. I didn’t think I’d ever see a marriage between the Stewarts and the McDonaghues.”
“No one else did either,” I admitted.
“How’d your mother enjoy the wedding?”
“Fine,” I lied.
If I told the truth, Mr. Harris would tell Mrs. Harris, who’d tell the country club crowd, and slowly, word would filter back to my mom, which would culminate in a terse phone call where she’d accuse me of humiliating her in front of people she’d never see again. Besides, after our last phone call, I’d come to enjoy her silence while she vacationed in Europe.
“How is she, anyway? She should have stopped by the country club. It’s like she just disappeared after your father died.” Mr. Harris inelegantly prodded for more information.
I shrugged. “The wedding was a bit of a whirlwind. I wouldn’t take it personally.”
“Well, as a piece of marital advice, you don’t want to let lipstick stains set into white clothing.”
I tilted my head. “Excuse me?”
“Lipstick. It’s been marinating there for a while. I had to send the shirt through twice just to salvage it. There’s still some damage on the cover stitch. I couldn’t get that out, but you’ll have it tucked in, so you shouldn’t notice. Want me to point it out?”
I nodded, and he pushed back the plastic as he laid the shirt onto the counter. My body turned icy at the realization of where that stain came from. And worse, who might have seen it.
“I cleaned the stain on the collar. Thankfully, you’ve been keeping that starched. Here though.” He pointed to a red stain. “It’s ground into the thread. I tried manual abrasion, but no helping it.”
“How?” My voice faltered. “How noticeable was it?”
Mr. Harris cocked his head, bushy gray eyebrows furrowed. “I caught it straight away. Maybe your wife—” I grimaced at the word “wife,” and Mr. Harris paled. “Lady, then.”
An uncomfortable silence settled over the room. Now, two of us knew that wasn’t Nora’s lipstick. Maybe even three.
“Well, I’ll tell Nora to take it easy on my whites. Thanks again for fitting me in at the last minute. Have a good night.”
I pulled the plastic back over the shirt and hustled out of the business, dropping far too much cash on the counter in my race to escape.
Damn it.I swore, my breathing ragged and my skin tacky. She didn’t know, right? Of course not. She would have said something.
The conversation at breakfast came back to me all at once. Nora’s insistence that I tell the truth. Had I been dating anyone? I hadn’t, of course, but then what did the lipstick look like? I threw the clothing into the backseat of my car, not bothering to hang the dry cleaning bags in my race to Len’s place up on the mountain.
Traffic in the White Mountains never amounted to much. With the first solid freeze the night before, I made slow work on my trip into Franklin Notch. I took the extra time to workshop an explanation, each more pathetic than the last.
“Hey Nora, my good friend, a rich socialite, threw herself at me, thinking that this fake marriage provided cover for us to date. Funny, right?”
“I kissed someone after we married. Or rather, she kissed me.”
No. Nora would ask why I hadn’t mentioned the kiss when she’d specifically asked about former relationships. I had no excuse for that either.
