Catherine could easily imagine what was coming. “They weren’t?” she asked.
“No. I ended up out in the employees’ parking lot and the door swung closed and locked behind me.” Joyce pulled a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose.
“Well, surely someone in the kitchen must have seen you go out the wrong door.”
“That’s what I thought, so I waited, and not all that patiently mind you, when I really did need to use the restroom. Then I began to worry Shane might think I’d slipped out a side door and ditched him. I’d left my cell phone in my car, so
I couldn’t call the restaurant and tell them to let me in.”
“Were you gone that long?”
“I don’t know, five minutes, ten. Believe me, it was uncomfortably long, so I began to pound on the door, but kitchens are always so noisy that either no one heard me or no one cared. At least I had the straw hat so I wasn’t getting sunburned, but that was a slight consolation, believe me.”
“Well, you’re here now, so how did you get back to Shane?”
Joyce choked on a gulp of tea and lapsed into a coughing fit. When she recovered, she looked thoroughly dejected. “I thought I’d just walk around to the front of the restaurant and go in, but there was a high fence around the parking lot and the gate was locked.
“I wish you’d been there. You’re always so sensible, but here I was trapped alone in the parking lot. I had no idea what time the luncheon shift ended and people might begin to leave, but I doubted it would be before two, and Shane would have been gone long before then.”
“Where was Shane while you were pounding on the kitchen door? Didn’t he send a waitress to look for you in the restroom?”
Smoky wound his way around Catherine’s chair and jumped into her lap. She gave her darling cat a quick snuggle but kept a concerned glance on her friend.
Joyce waved off the question. “I’ll get to that later. Anyway, there was a small mountain of broken chairs piled against the fence beside the Dumpster, and with no other choice, I hiked up my dress, and climbed up. I thought I’d just climb over the fence, but once I was clinging to the other side, I realized I was a lot farther off the ground than I’d anticipated.”
“You scaled the fence in your pretty pink sheath?” That preposterous sight was easy enough to visualize, but Catherine still couldn’t believe Joyce had actually done it.
“By that time, my dress was the least of my worries, but things just continued to get worse.”
“How? Did you fall?”
“Right on my ass, which was not only painful but humiliating. But at least I was out in the alley where I could walk to the end of the block and get back in the restaurant. Only by that time, I was such a mess I didn’t think I could face Shane. I was trying not to cry and look even more pathetic when I slipped on an oil slick, fell again, and skinned both my knees.”
“Oh, Joyce, how awful.”
“You are so wonderfully sympathetic. That’s why I knew I could tell you what happened. There was a construction project midway down the alley, and by that time there was no way I was going to leap a ditch, so I had to go back and walk the long way around the block. The Curlicue was on that corner, so I went in, and asked Marion to call Shane to come and get me, if he were still at the restaurant, that is.”
Catherine knew without being told that the Curlicue’s patrons must have all been gaping bug-eyed at Joyce. “Well, I certainly hope that Marion was helpful.”
“Oh, she was. She showed me right to her restroom and went to call Shane. By the time I got myself pulled together enough to face him, he was there. He and his mother didn’t see me standing at the back of the shop, but I heard Marion laughing about how stupid I was not to ring the bell by the service entrance.
“Now I swear to you, there was no bell to ring, but that’s really beside the point. I’d arrived a disheveled mess, and she was laughing at me. When Shane began to chuckle right along with her, I’d had it with him.”
“Was he still at the restaurant?”
“Oh yes, he’d thought I hadn’t liked Oxnard and had just gone home. So he canceled my order and was enjoying his when he got the call from his mother. It hadn’t even occurred to him I might have become ill and he ought to send a waitress to check on me. He had just assumed I’d left without telling him good-bye. Although I’ve no idea how he thought I’d get home when my car was parked at his nursery.”
Catherine knew how much Joyce had liked Shane, and she was shocked his affection for her hadn’t been deeper. “That was a strange way for him to behave.”
“That’ s exactly what I told him, but I put it in a lot more colorful terms, which I won’t repeat, but they won’t soon forget me at the Curlicue.”
Catherine had heard Joyce fume about suppliers and clients often enough to understand the petite blonde had thrown in every curse word she knew. She thought of the dear little old lady getting the perm and winced. “Oh no.”
“Oh yes, but I don’t care. Shane apologized the whole way back to the nursery, but it was too late. If he’d rather eat lunch than investigate what might have happened to me, then he wasn’t the man I’d thought him to be.”
Catherine felt sick with disappointment for her friend. “But you really liked him.”
“No, I liked what I imagined him to be. It turned out they were two entirely different men.”