Happily Never After

I DON’T KNOW what I expected when I knocked on the door, but it wasn’t this.

“Who are you?” A tiny white-haired woman in a flowered dress—holding two cats—stood inside the door, the door that had only been opened a crack. Big eyes stared up at me suspiciously from behind a pair of round-framed glasses, and she said, “Sophie doesn’t date, so I find it hard to believe that she invited you over.”

“We aren’t dating,” I said. “We’re friends.”

“Well you’re wearing a lot of cologne for a ‘friend,’ ” she said, and the woman actually did air quotes with her bony fingers.

“Is, um, is your granddaughter here?” I asked, trying to see past the lady.

“For fuck’s sake, Soph isn’t my granddaughter,” she said, rolling her eyes and scratching the black cat’s head. “Just because I have white hair doesn’t mean every goddamn person under the age of fifty is my grandchild.”

“Who’s there?” a second voice yelled, but it wasn’t Sophie, either.

It sounded like another . . . senior.

What the hell?

“What’s your name?” the woman asked, then added, “Is it Julian? You look like a Julian.”

“No,” I said, unsure if Julian was a compliment or an insult. “I’m Max.”

She rolled her eyes again and shouted, “Someone named Max.”

I heard footsteps and then the door was yanked open.

Yep—another senior, only this one was male and wearing skinny jeans with a Green Day T-shirt.

“Hi, I’m Larry.” He crossed his arms, nodded his head at the other one, and said, “This is Rose. What’s your business with Soph?”

“We’re friends and she’s going with me to a wedding,” I said, feeling somehow persecuted as the two elders glared at me. “Is she here?”

“That depends,” Rose said, still peering at me as if I resembled a serial killer.

And . . . that was it. She just glared and waited.

So I said, “On . . . ?”

To which she replied, “On . . . ?”

What the hell is she doing? I was raised to respect my elders, but these two were really something.

Larry unhelpfully added, “On . . . ?”

Oh, dear Lord.

The sound of a door opening preceded the sight of Sophie, putting in an earring and walking toward us as she fumbled with the back. She was looking down as she said, “You guys, I’m going out tonight but I—”

Her words stopped when she looked up and saw me.

Us.

“Hey,” she said to me, eyes narrowed in confusion, and then she said to the seniors, “What are you guys doing?”

She bent her knees and kissed each of the cats on the head.

“Just screening your callers,” Rose said, still glaring at me with her duo of cats. “This Julian says he’s your friend.”

“Does he now?” Sophie asked, her red-lipsticked mouth sliding into a smart-ass half grin, and she was unbelievably gorgeous. She’d been a beautiful bride and a hot businesswoman, but the plaid shirt, jeans, and boots?

Yeah, that shit worked for her.

It somehow complemented her don’t-fuck-with-me vibe in a really nice way.

“Quit looking at her like that,” Larry muttered, scowling at me.

“Like what?” Sophie said, her brown eyes twinkling mischievously as she scratched the gray cat before sliding into a jean jacket. “How exactly is my friend Max looking at me?”

“Like he’s Rhett Butler watching Scarlett O’Hara from the bottom of the staircase.”

“No,” I said, feeling like a naughty child all of a sudden. “I wasn’t.”

“Ooh, Rhett,” Rose swooned, fanning herself and smiling. “Fucking hottie.”

“Well, that may be so, but I wasn’t—”

“Right?” Larry said to Rose, his grumpy face transforming into sunshine as he ignored me and reminisced about Clark Gable. “When he’s hiding in the study while she confesses her love to Ashley? I die every time.”

“We have to go,” Sophie said. God bless her. “The wedding starts at four.”

“But you hate weddings,” Rose said, giving Sophie a weird look. “I thought you’d made a resolution to decline every single invitation.”

“Not every invitation.” Sophie glanced at me with a sheepish grin, then said to the two as she grabbed her bag, “I shouldn’t be out late, but you’re on your own for dinner.”

“Have fun,” Rose said breezily, as if she hadn’t been openly hostile to me.

“Drive safe,” Larry said, then added just as the door was closing, “Rhett Butler.”

Sophie didn’t say a word, didn’t even look at me, as we walked to the elevator. I waited, and just as we stepped in and she pressed the lobby button, she said, “I suppose you’re wondering what the deal is with those two.”

“Fraternity siblings?” I guessed.

“Ha ha,” she said, looking at the floor numbers above the door instead of at me.

“Court-appointed guardians?”

“Hilarious.”

“Is this a catfishing situation, where you thought you were online connecting with your dream man and instead landed two elderly besties?”

“There are no dream men,” she said. “And they are my roommates.”

“Waaaait.” I turned toward her, so she had to look at me. “Is this like a Freaky Friday, magical realism thing, where your roommates were turned into the elderly? Are there twenty-seven-year-olds inside those midcentury bodies?”

She finally looked up at me, giving in to a full grin that had the power to knock a guy on his ass.

“Do you want to know the whole story or not?”

“Tell me,” I said as the doors opened and we exited into the lobby.

“So my grandmother—who is a manipulative delight—called me one afternoon, all upset because her widowed best friend was going to have to move to a nursing home because her kids wouldn’t let her live alone. She tells me all about this sweet lady who should not be forced to live in an institution, right? I mean, I’ve got tears in my eyes as she talks about this woman who is smart, fully mobile, and sharp, but is being sent away simply because she’s single.”

“Oh, God, she knows you well,” I said, which was odd because I didn’t really know her, yet I knew I was right. I held the door as we walked outside, and I pointed in the direction of where my truck was parked.

Sophie put her hands in her pockets and said, “She moves on and is like, ‘How are you doing with the expensive apartment and only one income?’ Because she knows that I kept Stuart’s apartment out of spite even though I totally can’t afford it. My apartment costs more than I make, but I’d rather die than let Stu win. I know it’s dumb, but I don’t care.”

I didn’t say anything, which made her glance over at me.

When I still didn’t say anything, she gave a nod, like she appreciated the lack of a lecture, and said, “So Nana Puppet Master waited a day, then called me with the brilliant idea that her life insurance–rich buddy who loves cooking and cleaning could move in with me as a roommate, pay half of my rent, and quietly stay in their room without making any noise.”

I had to laugh at that. “Which one is the quiet one?”

She gave me a look. “Obviously neither, but this was Rose.”

“So how did Larry come into the picture?” I asked, genuinely curious now. I hit the unlock button on my truck and we got in.

“Larry drives Rose to bunco, and when he dropped her off and saw the place, he wanted to live there, too.”

“Of course he did.” I had a strong suspicion that Sophie tried to be a hard-ass but was actually pretty soft in the middle.

“Now,” she said, turning toward me in her seat as she buckled up. “Tell me everything I need to know about objecting.”

“Well, for starters,” I said, starting the truck and putting it into gear. “Take a deep breath and chill. It’s just a low-key thing where you say a couple sentences—that’s it.”

“Yeah, chill isn’t really my thing,” she said. “But I’ll try.”

—

“Do you think I should put the stress on the word cheating or the phrase the entire time?”

I groaned. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.” I’d been driving for twenty minutes and Sophie had been practicing, over and over again, since the minute we’d pulled away from her apartment. I could tell she was nervous, but memorizing it like a speech seemed like a bad idea to me. “It’s specifying whether the main issue is the fact that she cheated or that she never stopped cheating.”

“If it were me,” I said, “I’d just calmly blurt it out and move on. Because TJ knows it’s coming.”

“Show me,” was her reply. “Say it as if you were doing it.”

I sighed. “Fine. Lead me in.”

She cleared her throat. “If anyone here knows of any reason these two should not be married—”

“I do,” I interrupted. “I know for a fact that Callie has been cheating with Ronnie from day one and has never stopped, and I think TJ here deserves to know that.”

“That’s bullshit!” Sophie said with a terrible southern drawl. “She’s lyin’.”

“Then give TJ your phone. Open your Ring doorbell app and let TJ watch the footage of Ronnie coming and going when he’s teaching school. The whole town knows it’s been going on.”

“Who the hell are you?” she said, her feigned accent almost sounding Scottish. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I care about TJ and don’t want to see him end up trapped in a bad marriage.”

“You make it seem so easy,” Sophie said, looking like she was impressed. “When you do it, I feel like everything’s going to be okay.”

“That’s because it will,” I reassured her, trying not to think about the way TJ had described his fiancée. Angry, feisty, firecracker, volatile. “I’ll make sure of it.”

“Good,” she said, still sounding nervous. “Thank you.”

“Are you a good drinker?”

“Pardon?”

“Can you function with a buzz?”

“Hell, yes, I can,” she said, sounding downright cocky. “Why?”

“Because you’re going to reach into the back seat, grab the bottle of Jack out of the Target bag, and do a shot. Maybe two.” I glanced over, and she didn’t look like she had a problem with that. “It takes the edge off so you’re not so tense.”

“Is that what you did for my wedding?” she asked as she reached into the back seat and pulled out the plastic grocery bag. I could see her in my peripheral vision, and I was mildly surprised by how casually she took out the bottle, uncapped it, and lifted it to her lips. “A couple pregame shots?”

“Nah,” I said, thinking back to that cold winter day. “As soon as I heard your fiancé’s name was Stuart, I knew I was good.”

I glanced over as she tipped back the bottle and took a swig.

All I saw were her red, red lips.