You Don't Know Jack (Page 42)

“Jamie!” Beckwith spotted her and waved both hands. “Don’t leave, I have to talk to you.”

“Who cares?” Allison got in the cab. “Come on, Jamie. Tell him to call you later. Like next year.”

But Jamie didn’t like the look of concern on Beckwith’s face. Even his lip liner couldn’t keep his mouth from turning down in a pinched frown. “What’s wrong, Beckwith?”

The cab driver yelled out the window, “You going to stand there, lady, or get in the car? I don’t have all day.”

“We can get another cab,” Jamie said to Allison, feeling a little guilty, but needing to see what Beckwith wanted. She couldn’t just blow him off without spending the whole night worrying about him.

Allison sighed and opened her purse. She handed the driver a ten. “Here. Give her five minutes.”

“Five minutes. No more,” came the gruff, staccato reply.

Allison rolled her eyes. “Listen to this guy, Jamie,” she said out the window. “He sounds just like a Speak-N-Spell. It’s amazing.”

But Beckwith was now in front of her, thick hand resting on his heaving chest. “Girlfriend, I ran three blocks in these heels. Nearly broke my fucking ankle six times. And now I have sweat stains. Do you know when sweat dries on rayon you can still see the circle? This is a new dress, too.”

“Did you need something, Beckwith? I’m on my way to Caroline’s rehearsal dinner.”

“You need to stop this wedding.”

“What? Why? I can’t do that.”

“He’s going to hurt her, sugar. I mean, rip her heart out and feed it to the fishies.” Beckwith wiped the dew off his upper lip.

Jamie believed him, and was sorry for it. It made her ache for Caroline, but she also knew Caro was not the type to believe a cross-dresser’s vague warning, even if his predictions for Mandy and herself had come true. Well, hers had been only partially accurate. Man of her dreams might have been a stretch.

“I can’t stop the wedding. Caroline has to want to stop it, and trust me, that’s not going to happen.”

Beckwith grabbed her arms, shook her just a little. “Then you have to be there for her when the ax falls.”

“Okay. Okay. Of course.” Jamie bit her lip. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” He let go of her. “Oh, and sweetie, I was right about Darth Vader, wasn’t I? But this isn’t about your father, remember that.”

“What is it about?” she asked, frustrated. “Knowing my destiny is a bad idea, Beck, because I just feel like I’m spinning in circles trying to decide what it is.”

“Well, stop it!” Beckwith said, squinting against the sun. “Stop thinking! Just listen to your heart.” He grabbed at his chest, clasping his faux breast.

If he broke out into a love song, she suspected she was going to be embarrassed.

“Just trust me, sweetie.”

Jamie jumped when the cabbie blared his horn. “Your time is up. Get out of the car.”

“I will not,” Allison declared, but she did lean out the door and call to Jamie. “Come on, we’re going to be late.”

“I have to go…”

Beckwith squeezed her hand. “Don’t let him drive at first. He’ll take wrong turns.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Be happy, precious.”

Then he turned and walked down the street, limping as if his open-toe sandals were pinching his feet.

Jamie slid into the cab. She didn’t even have the door half closed before the car ripped away from the curb and merged into traffic.

Beckwith’s words rang through her head. How could Beckwith be so sure when she was so confused?

The cards were wrong. They had to be.

Jack was from a different world than she was. She had only scratched the surface of knowing and understanding him.

“We are going to be so late.”

“I never told you this…but Beckwith said Jack is the one he saw in the cards.” Jamie turned to Allison, wanting to accept her destiny, terrified she’d make a false move and get hurt.

“You have a big red lip print on your forehead.” Allison reached out and rubbed it off. Then her brown eyes softened. “Maybe Beckwith isn’t so crazy after all. I’ve never seen you like this over a guy.”

“It could never work, Allison, you know that.”

“I don’t know that.” Allison was wearing a plum-colored sheath dress, her dark hair pulled back from her face, chandelier earrings swinging as she shook her head. “It can work if you want it to. Jonathon doesn’t need fixing like your other guys. He’s in move-in condition.”

“He’s attracted to me because I’m different than his usual type.”

That was her real fear. That he would dump her when the novelty wore off and go on with the rest of his life. Just the thought of it had fear clawing up into her throat. She wasn’t afraid of a lot of things, not even spiders or dogs over seventy pounds, but the thought of giving Jack her heart and having him reject it made her feel downright sick.

Part of why she dated the men she did was because she knew there was no permanency there. She knew the relationships wouldn’t work, and when they split, and he went off to a better life, like Scratch had, she’d felt happy, not sad.

But it wouldn’t be that way with Jack. It would be like losing her father all over again.

“What makes you think he would walk away?”

Plucking at her skirt, she shrugged. “When you strip away the lust and the fascination, what is there? What do we have in common? Nothing.” She stared out at the piles of garbage lining Bleecker Street. “I wish you hadn’t talked me into wearing this dress. I feel ridiculous.”

Jamie rolled her shoulders in the floral dress in agitation. Instead of being long and loose like the dresses she normally wore, it was short, with a high waist. It was a fun, flirty, summer look, and now she just knew it would send the wrong message to Jack.

Like, Look at me, I’m a silly goofball.

Black would have been better.

“My legs look like cracker barrels in this dress.”

Allison’s eyebrows rose. “What is a cracker barrel? Never mind. I don’t want to know. And stop pulling on the neckline. The dress looks great. You look great. You look sophisticated. Tall.”

It was easy for Allison to look sophisticated at five-foot-ten with long, straight, dark hair. Jamie had to work at it.