The Arrangement Read online

  “We haven’t pulled it off yet,” Ben cautioned. “First, we have to break up. It should be something public so the word gets back to your parents, and they really believe we are done.” He met her eyes directly. “Then you’ll have to start dating again.”

  Evie backed away until she held him at arm’s length. Did he realize how close he stood to falling into her parents’ plan? They would be thrilled to see her going out with someone. “But I don’t want to see anyone else,” she whined.

  “I know. The idea of you going out with some other guy drives me nuts. But they won’t believe you are actually trying if you don’t go out with someone else. And it can’t be just anyone else. You have to go out with someone they choose.”

  For the first time since she entered his apartment, Evie’s mind slid back to the vision of Eli sitting comfortably at her feet on the end of the porch swing. She could not tell Ben she already had the guy. It seemed wrong to be so ready to jump into the arms of another man. She would give their plan time and then tell him who she had decided to date.

  Evie gave a reluctant nod.

  “Okay, so about this break-up…,” Ben began.

  They decided the break-up had to happen that night. Her parents would be waiting for a quick response. Most of the girls in her sorority would be headed back in right before supper, so they were sure to have an audience. Her sorority’s dining room was the only one on campus large enough to seat all 175 members. And most of the girls made a point to be there for Sunday night dinner. Having a large audience would ensure that her parents and everyone else believed their story.

  Evie’s stomach twisted as she pulled into sorority row. A crowd of pretty girls lugged clean laundry and sagging backpacks into the stately buildings around her. She gunned her BMW into the parking lot of Gamma Ray house before screeching to a stop. Ben parked his Honda right behind her, blocking her into her space. She jumped from her car and slammed the door.

  “Get out of here,” she screamed at him. From the corner of her eye she watched her sorority sisters pause to stare at the scene. Her hands shook, and she hoped everyone would read it as a sign of anger, not nervousness.

  “So I’m not good enough for Daddy’s little girl.” Ben sneered, his eyes clouded with anger Evie was almost certain was real.

  If she hadn’t known he was acting, his tone would have genuinely scared her. “Go away,” she yelled in return. “I told you I don’t want to see you anymore. You don’t fit in…don’t you get that?”

  Pain shot through her as he flinched at her last words. She forced herself to focus on the plan and ignore her strong urge to assure him she did not mean the hateful things she said. Evie pushed him away and opened her trunk to yank out her bag of clean laundry and backpack filled with unfinished homework.

  Ben grabbed her bag of laundry from her. “Maybe I’m just good enough to carry your highness’s dirty clothes,” he yelled.

  Evie tried to wrestle it from his grasp. “I told you to leave me alone!”

  He turned the bag upside down and dumped her clean clothes into a heap in the dusty parking lot. She jerked her head toward him. You didn’t have to go that far, she wanted to hiss, but fear of being overheard tied her tongue to the roof of her mouth. Her heart skipped a beat as the head of the sorority rushed from the front door and almost ran to the parking lot where Ben and Evie faced off. The plan was working better than she had imagined.

  “What’s going on here?” The woman in her early thirties considered all the girls her daughters and had no problem interrupting fights with boyfriends.

  “Nothing. He’s leaving.” Evie scowled at Ben, hoping he took his cue to leave before the woman called the campus police. Evie tried to wipe her sweating palms on her now dirty towels as she rescued them from the ground.

  “So that’s it? It’s over, just like that?” Ben threw the laundry bag onto the ground.

  “Yeah.” Evie allowed tears to fall from each eye and drip onto her cheeks. She started to stuff her laundry bag, averting her eyes from the image of the man she loved barking at her.

  “Fine. I’ll be by later to get my stuff,” he informed her, his tone as rough as the gravel mixed with her clothes.

  “What stuff?” She jerked her head to look at him again. “You never gave me anything worth getting back.”

  Evie realized she might have gone too far, but she couldn’t take it back now. Although she knew the break-up was only for show, agony pierced her as he drove away.

  “Come on inside, Evie.” The head of the sorority wrapped one arm around the sobbing girl and picked up her laundry bag with the other arm.

  Once inside Evie hugged the woman and said in a shaking voice, “I really want to lie down.”

  The older woman nodded and handed Evie her bag. Evie kept her eyes downcast as she walked with slow, deliberate steps up to her third floor room. Other girls stared and some whispered as she passed by them. News of her public, nasty break-up would fly quickly across campus. The plan had worked. Now all she had to do was mourn the relationship for a few days.

  When Evie reached her room, she left a crack in the door to make sure the girls heard her sobbing. She threw her bags on the floor and flopped onto the bed, burying her head in her pillow. She peeked from her pose to check out the desks of her roommates Tess and Jessa. Both were missing their backpacks and day-planners—a sure sign neither girl had returned from her weekend home. Evie gulped in air to steady her hands. She trusted her sisters to inform her roommates of the situation so she would not have to relive the whole ordeal and risk missing any details.

  “Evie?” a tiny female voice called from the doorway.

  Evie rubbed her eyes to make sure they were red before turning over to face her first visitor. “Molly,” she responded to the tall brunette whose tiny voice in no way matched her physical appearance.

  Molly entered the room, her light brown eyes wide with fear or surprise…Evie wasn’t exactly sure which. “Are you okay? I-I saw what happened. Do you want to talk?”

  Evie forced a tight-lipped smile at her friend. “There’s not much to tell.” Her voice was hoarse from yelling at Ben in the parking lot. Molly sat on the edge of the bed and waited for Evie to continue. “My parents and I talked this weekend, and I realized Ben doesn’t fit into our world.”

  Molly nodded. “I always wondered what you and Ben had in common,” she confessed. “Did your fight have anything to do with these?” Molly pointed to a large bouquet of yellow and white roses sitting on Evie’s desk.

  Evie frowned, confused. Flowers were not a part of the plan. She had been so busy making sure people saw her anger that she had not noticed the arrangement. “I-I didn’t see them,” she stuttered. The soft yellows glowed next to the stark whites. Together, the arrangement captivated Evie’s senses.

  Molly smiled, her eyes shimmering with mystery. “Read the card,” she instructed Evie as she picked up the bouquet and carried it to the bed where Evie still lay.

  Evie took the card from the envelope in the middle of the flowers. She read the card to herself:

  I’m sorry about Friday night. I hope we can be friends. The yellow roses are for friendship, and the white ones are for a truce. Call me sometime. I’d love to talk politics again. Eli.

  His phone number followed his signature.

  “Yeah, I guess it did have something to do with this,” Evie told her friend, trying to figure out exactly how to spin the Friday evening dinner.

  Eli had no idea about hers and Ben’s spur-of-the-moment plan, but he played right into it. Now people, including her parents, would believe their scheme worked. She swallowed a certain amount of excitement with a reminder to herself to act devastated. She allowed her thumb to rub the wrong way over a stray thorn. The prick brought little blood but succeeded in misting her eyes with tears again.

  “My parents think Eli would be a better match. They invited him to dinner, but I was so upset about Ben, I was totall
y rude to him.”

  “So, is he cute?” Molly cut through the polite chatter most girls would have given to ask the most important question.

  “Yeah,” she admitted. “He’s tall and has this curly black hair that looks wet all the time.” Evie stared at her friend, who grinned back at her. “What?” she asked, afraid she had missed something.

  “You like him!” Molly squealed. “Your parents fixed you up, and you like him!”

  The idea at first irritated Evie, but she could not show that to Molly. She would let Molly believe what she wanted. Soon enough news of her break-up with Ben and the appearance of a mystery man would make its way across campus. She only hoped she had enough time to explain it to Ben before he heard it from someone else. She had planned to give her break-up with Ben some time before she contacted Eli, but with the flowers, the opportunity landed in her lap.

  She glanced at the clock. Ben had given her his cell phone to call him that night until they could get Evie a burner cell. Only she and Ben would know the number, and it would be in his name so her parents could not trace it.

  “So call him,” Molly said eagerly. Smiling, she sat perfectly still on the edge of the bed, her hands clasped in her lap.

  Evie stared at her friend. Inside Molly beat a romantic heart. She loved to hear the stories of other girls in the sorority. She would stay up late and wait for them to return from first dates so she could hear all the juicy details. Molly experienced plenty of romance of her own as well. She’d met her fiancé during her sophomore year, and they were engaged the next summer. He currently served with the U.S. Air Force in Germany. Molly spent the summer studying there to be near him and had hours of stories to tell about their travels when she returned. He would be home for a week during Christmas, but until then she survived on calls, emails, and, of course, stories from her sorority sisters.

  “Can I have some privacy, please?” Evie asked, hoping her eyes gave away her teasing instead of annoyance. She liked Molly, but she did not want an audience for this call.

  “Oops, sorry.” Molly giggled as she hurried from the room, careful to close the door firmly behind her.

  Evie looked again at the number on the card. “Here goes nothing,” she muttered as she dialed. She exhaled slowly as the phone rang.

  “Hello?” a deeply resonant male voice answered.

  Evie’s mind went blank. What would she tell him? Why had she called? Her eyes reverted to the flowers, and words sprang from her mouth before she could stop them. “Eli? It’s Evie. I got your flowers.”

  “I hope you liked them,” he replied. She could hear the smile in his voice.

  “They are beautiful.” Evie paused, not sure where to go from here. “I wanted to say thank you and agree to your truce.”

  Eli laughed. “Good. I hate to think I’ve made a bad impression on a pretty girl.”

  Friendship? Evie thought. Friends do not call each other pretty. She stifled a gag. “I’m the one who made a bad impression,” she confessed, adopting a sugary sweet tone. “I was so angry with my parents, I took it out on you. You were innocent in the whole thing. In fact, you were as ambushed as I was. You came over to talk business and ended up baby-sitting your clients’ daughter.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it baby-sitting.” His tone was teasing. “But I did notice your dad kept turning the conversation back to you. I hope we didn’t bore you with all the political talk.”

  “No way,” she countered. “I’m a poly-sci major, remember. I live on political discussion.”

  “Yeah?” Interest crept into his voice. “Maybe we could get together sometime for coffee and discuss this year’s state elections. I know some promising candidates who could use a strong woman on their campaign teams.”

  “Sounds like fun,” she said happily, even though the idea made her stomach weak. She wanted to work on a state campaign, but not this year, not right now. She had her plate full working with the sorority’s new pledges and keeping up with her schoolwork. Besides, she didn’t know him well enough to drop his name to get a job.

  “Of course, you can bring your boyfriend if you’d like,” Eli offered.

  Evie stiffened at the thought of Ben and Eli sitting at the same table. Ben hated politics. He only wanted someone truthful and smart to run the government and resented the spin politicians put on everything. He didn’t want to think about the money and agreements and decisions the politicians had to make. He wanted a good job available to him and good pay but didn’t think about or understand how large of a role politics played in that availability. Most of their political discussion had ended in arguments.

  “Oh, Ben’s not really into politics,” Evie said, brushing off his comment. She toyed with the idea of telling him about the break-up.

  “Okay, then the next time I’m in town for work or a game, I’ll call you,” Eli promised.

  “Don’t you need my number for that?” she asked.

  “I found out where to send the flowers, didn’t I?” he teased her.

  Taken off guard, Evie could only laugh. “Well, I better go. It’s supper time here.”

  “Yeah, I’m headed to church, so I better go, too.”

  They said their good-byes. Part two of the plan was now rolling into action. Maybe pretending to break up with Ben and date Eli would not be as difficult as she first thought. She checked her texts and emails. Messages from her friends saying they had seen or heard about her break-up with Ben already bombarded her. Most wanted the details, a few offered their support, and others made suggestions about who she should invite to the homecoming game.

  Evie ignored the messages and decided to text her parents instead. Fire burned in her stomach. She could almost see the satisfaction spread across their faces. Once again they were in total control of their little girl. How long would it take to get out from under their rule? She decided to begin simply:

  You are right about Ben and me. I love him, but it would be unfair to try to mold him into the man people expect me to marry. I told him that tonight. He was extremely hurt but better a little hurt now than a lifetime of hurt later. I broke off the relationship like you asked. I hope you are happy.

  Evie reread her text. She wanted to yell at them and tell them how unfair and prejudiced they were. But was she any better? She might not be accepting their demands, but she wasn’t standing up to them, either. She had made her choice not to live in poverty like so much of the world, and now she paid the price for it. Was money really more important to her than love?

  Then her mind slipped back to her conversation with Ben. She had offered to give up this world of luxury, but he had convinced her to stick it out a little longer. Maybe they could eventually have each other and her parents’ support. She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. No, this was the way it had to be. She sent the text just as Molly stuck her head in to remind her about dinner.

  Hours later, Evie lay on her bed listening to the quiet sounds of the house on a Sunday night. Her roommates stopped by after dinner, but neither mentioned the break-up. Tess had a study group in the library’s coffee shop, and Jessa left to see her boyfriend.

  Maybe they both knew Evie needed some time alone to mope, or maybe they didn’t want their shoulders wet with her tears. Either way, Evie found herself alone in her three-person room for most of the night. At last she dug Ben’s cell out of her backpack and dialed his apartment. She held her breath and hoped he would answer instead of his roommates.

  “Hello?” he whispered into the phone after the first ring.

  “It’s me,” she whispered in return, careful not to use his name.

  “How did it go?”

  “Better than we could have imagined,” she replied. Silence hung between them for a minute. “You know I didn’t mean the things I said, right?”

  “Yeah,” he answered, voice husky.

  She waited for him to say more, but when he didn’t, she decided she had to tell him about Eli
. “I think I left out something when we talked this afternoon….”

  Ben grunted on the other end of the line.

  “Friday night Mom and Dad invited their new lawyer over for dinner, or so they said. It was a set-up.”

  “What do you mean?” Ben growled.

  “Evidently they think he’s better suited for me,” she explained, hoping to calm him a little.

  “Oh, so he has more money and his family is more important,” Ben retorted.

  “Don’t get so offended. You know I don’t feel that way,” Evie pleaded. “Besides, you’re the one who said I should see someone my parents would like.”

  “You’re going to see him?” Ben’s voice rose.

  “I wasn’t going to bring it up yet. I planned to give us some time to get our plan together, but when I got to my room, he had sent me flowers,” Evie confessed.

  “He what?” Ben almost yelled at her this time. “Did you conveniently forget to tell him about your boyfriend?”

  “Calm down,” she hissed. “Do you want your roommates to hear you?” She waited until she heard his breathing slow. “Of course I told him. And I told him he was only a piece in my parents’ scheme. He sent the flowers as an apology. So I called him.”

  “You what?” Ben whispered his yell this time.

  Evie rushed her explanation. “Well, he left his number, and it was only polite to thank him for the flowers.” She pushed away the thought of how kind and gentle Eli’s voice was and instead listened as Ben’s breathing grew heavier again. “Hey, remember, you are the one who suggested I date someone else.”

  “You’re going to date this guy?”

  “Not right away. He’s going to call sometime when he’s in town.”

  Dating Eli, being nice to him and stroking his ego, would come easy. Evie had endured enough blind dates and wrong dates to be able to handle that part of the plan. But she would have to be careful what she told Ben about him. If he thought she really cared for Eli at all, it could mean the end of her relationship with Ben. A relationship, she reminded herself, for which I offered to give up everything else in my life.