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“Fine, I suppose.” She stopped there, peach-glossed mouth pursing slightly. “That is, he’s just going on with his life, pretending like nothing happened. I’m not sure that’s the best way to handle things, but since we haven’t heard anything else from whoever sent the letter, it seems like it must have been a mean joke and nothing else.”
Part of me wanted to ask what they would do if they received another letter, but I decided that wouldn’t be very tactful. No reason to borrow trouble when it looked — for now, at least — that the letter-writer had decided it was enough to give Archie that one poke and then run away.
“And he’s still not going to have a bachelor party?” I asked next, figuring it was probably better to change the subject, especially since Hazel had shifted on the dais and could now see and hear us a little more clearly.
That question earned me two lifted brows. “What do you think?”
I thought Archie would probably prefer getting sent back into a cat’s body than have to suffer the indignity of being seen at a “gentleman’s club.” “Okay, stupid question,” I replied with a grin. “I just wanted to check because Calvin asked me last night. He said he and Chuck would be fine with just going out for a drink or something, nothing too crazy. I mean, we girls are all having a spa day together next week. It seems like the guys should do something to celebrate, too.”
For a moment, Victoria didn’t reply, and I worried maybe she was going to shoot down something as innocent as having a drink or two at the bar in the Gold Dust, the casino the San Ramon tribe operated just past the eastern edge of Globe. But then she gave a very small lift of her shoulders and said, “I’ll ask him. He might be willing to do something like that.”
I didn’t exactly let out a sigh of relief, but I was glad to hear Archie might be open to the idea of doing at least a little something to celebrate his last few days as a single man. For him, the idea of being married must carry a special significance. Not just because he’d spent so many years as a cat, but because for most of his adult life, he hadn’t experienced physical attraction to anyone and had thought he must be asexual.
It turned out that he was actually demisexual, a person who was attracted to one special individual and no one else, and it had taken all those decades in a cat body to bring him to the time when he’d finally met Victoria and fallen immediately in love. For a man who’d spent most of his life thinking he would always be alone, realizing that he was going to be married in less than ten days had to hold some massive significance.
“Good,” I said. “Just have him call Calvin when he decides, and then Calvin can set something up.”
By “setting something up,” I meant Calvin could probably get the casino’s private VIP room for the evening, so the guys could have their drinks in comfort without having to worry about having their little party intruded on by drunken tourists, or whatever. It wasn’t as if I thought my husband would hire a few strippers for the night, something that would probably make Chuck laugh but would embarrass Archie for all eternity.
“I will,” Victoria promised.
Hazel’s gown required a lot fewer alterations than mine had, so Thora finished up with her right then, telling both of us we could get back into our street clothes, but to be careful about the pins in our bodices. We retreated into separate dressing rooms, extricated ourselves, and got back into the outfits we’d been wearing when we arrived at the bridal salon.
“Want to go grab a snack?” Hazel suggested once we’d all reconvened by the salon’s front door.
“Wish I could,” Victoria said. “But my client sent over some change orders right as I was leaving to meet you here, so I need to go back to the studio and make some notes.”
The expression Hazel wore then was more resigned than anything else, as if she’d already been expecting that kind of response. She and Victoria got along well enough, but Victoria was way more Type A and driven than Hazel, and I knew sometimes she had a hard time relating to the way Victoria always put work first.
“But I’m down for some tacos,” I said quickly. “Calvin’s working until nine today, so I would have been on my own for dinner, anyway.”
“You two have fun,” Victoria told us. “Eat a taco for me.”
“Better not,” I replied with a grin. “I can’t gain too much weight between now and next Saturday, or Thora will kill me.”
Victoria chuckled, as I’d hoped she would, then promised again that she’d have Archie reach out to Calvin once he’d decided what he wanted to do about his guys’ night out.
Because our favorite Mexican restaurant, Olamendi’s, was walking distance from the salon, Hazel and I headed over there on foot.
“Just one taco for me,” she said after we were seated at a table. “I’ve got some stew in the crock pot at home.”
“Look at you, being all domestic and stuff,” I replied with a smile.
She only shook her head. “Well, it didn’t seem fair to have Chuck cook all the time, so I’ve taught myself a few things. I’m never going to be Ms. Cordon Bleu like you are.”
I didn’t bother to protest that description, because I really loved to cook and enjoyed coming up with new dishes to tempt Calvin’s palate. Now all I had to do was hope our baby wouldn’t grow up to be one of those kids who subsisted solely on chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese, and nothing else.
“Well, thanks for keeping me company while I chow down on tacos,” I said. “I could’ve heated something up, I suppose, but this is a lot more fun.”
Hazel shrugged. “Hey, it was my suggestion. And Chuck and I won’t be eating until after seven, so I’ll have time to process my one taco.”
And chips, I thought, as Rosa, one of the restaurant’s owners, set a basket of tortilla chips and a little bowl of salsa down on the table. She took our orders, said she’d be out with some water shortly, and then headed back into the kitchen.
“So, you had a good first day with Melanie?” Hazel asked.
“Yes, it all went great,” I replied. “Thanks again for letting her stay at your Airbnb until she can find something more permanent.”
Hazel reached for a chip, dunked it in some salsa, and took a bite. “Hey, you’re doing me a favor,” she said after she was done chewing. “Otherwise, the place would’ve been sitting empty for almost a month.”
