She swiped to a photo of Mama, sitting at a booth, smiling over pancakes. It struck Alex that others should know Stella Irene so intimately, be privy to details and memories completely foreign to her, as her daughter. Alex didn’t remember that she liked pancakes.
“Every day Miss Stella ate her breakfast at the same table. See that right there?” Isabel pointed to something white leaning against the carafe of maple syrup. “Miss Stella brought a picture of Mr. Elias and set it close to her so they could eat together like they used to.”
Alex recognized the diner’s old seats, the advanced lines on her mother’s face, the corner date—2014. Just after Daddy died. A dull ache bloomed near her heart.
“I thought I heard voices down here.” Jonah’s deep voice penetrated the same spot, like a thumb pressed to a bruise. Dressed in jeans and clean-shaven, he looked as if he had been up for hours. He shot Alex an apologetic look and mouthed I’m sorry. “I didn’t know they’d dropped her off yet.”
Alex gave a cursory smile. She was still across from her mother in the diner booth.
“Dad, tell her the story of Miss Stella and the bird.”
Jonah’s eyes shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know, Ibby. Might make her sad.”
“I already asked,” said Isabel confidently.
“Maybe she’s just being polite. You come on strong, baby girl.” Jonah hugged Isabel and kissed the top of her braids.
Alex felt like a voyeur, unworthy to witness such a personal exchange.
“Besides, I can’t rub two sentences together until I have my coffee. You tell the story.” Jonah was already headed toward the kitchen when he paused. “Want some?”
His smile hit her like a balm to the ache already burdening her chest. Her dream flooded back. All she could do was nod.
“One day, Miss Stella saw a bird outside the diner window. A male cardinal. Those are the red ones. Did you know northern cardinals mate for life?”
“Story, Ibby,” came Jonah’s voice from the kitchen.
“For two days after, the bird came. Miss Stella said it was Mr. Elias, come to eat his breakfast with her, like always. Taffy says she even smiled. But on the fourth day, the bird didn’t come. Probably the rain, but Miss Stella was so sad that Dad went out every morning after that, right before Miss Stella showed up, and spread sunflower seeds—cardinals’ favorite—so that Mr. Elias would come back.”
“Did it work?”
Isabel nodded. “For almost a year. When Dad stopped working there, he found others to do it. Taffy, mostly. I tried it once, but I had to spread the seeds before school, too early for Mr. Elias. The other birds beat him to his breakfast.”
The ache spread, threaded her ribs until each breath felt like a rush of hot needles. A year. Jesus, Alex could barely remember to call home on the anniversary of the day Daddy had passed, important to Mama but a date best forgotten to Alex, never marked in the calendar pages of her journal. They were comrades in grief, each with a loss within months of each other, Jonah needing conversation, Mama needing that reassurance he provided. Her father’s thorn in life—Let that boy alone, Alexandra—her father’s greatest advocate in death.
Her cell rang, its tone familiar, jarring.
Alex scooped her heart off the floor and scavenged for her phone near her bag. When she turned over the screen, she saw the image of Michael in sunglasses and white shorts—ones she’d christened his smuggled fruit shorts—on a catamaran in Key West. Three bleats in, she didn’t want to wait until she reached the hallway to answer.
“Michael?”
“Why are you whispering?”
Head bowed, she slipped on light feet into the foyer. “I have a headache.” She leaned on a half-truth, so not the reason. Her two puzzles were thousands of miles apart, not cohabitating in the same room.
“I need to see you, Alex. Some things have happened. Are you any closer to coming home?”
Was she? Twelve hours ago, she was in the bawling chair, opening her airline app because what good remained in her life was unraveling. Now she was trying on the metaphoric Saturday morning robe of another woman. She couldn’t be here; she couldn’t do this.
“I’m catching a flight today.”
Michael exhaled. An audible no-holding-back exhale, it’s note dangerously close to relief.
Alex’s chest tightened. “What’s wrong? Is it Bear?”
“No. No, he’s fine. I mean, he’s not doing well, but he’s okay.”
“I have to see you.” He sounded like the barren Michael, the shipwrecked Michael who had lost his first election, the Michael who’d taken a red-eye to Paris without a change of clothes to propose. “Can we meet at the nook, seven o’clock?”
The nook. She pressed a hand to the flutter in her stomach. Hancock Tower’s architectural alcove, running the vertical length of the building, was where Michael had towed her inside to escape the wind and kissed her for the first time and every time after when they passed it. Somewhat of an inside joke that had staled about year nine of their marriage.
“We’ll grab a bite nearby,” he said.
“I’ll be there.”
She thought he might hang up, never the patience for pleasantries. “Alex?”
“Yeah?”
“I miss you.”
The flutter expanded to a full-blown flapping of wings. Michael hung up the call before she could answer. Words would have been impossible, anyway. How long had she waited to hear he’d missed her? The foyer surrounding her, with its straw sun hat and painted plaques that said things like friends gather here and The Dufort Family, established 2001, and a mirror that offered no reflection as to what she was doing in Jonah’s house, was the surest sign Boston was best. Until she turned to find Jonah standing, a mug of coffee in each hand, his expression flat.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t listening. I thought you might be awhile and want your coffee.”
“I have to go. Back home.”
“Yeah, no. Of course.
“The work thing. And some other stuff I need to take care of.” She couldn’t say why she was explaining herself.
“Anything I can do?”
After a refresher course in small-town kindness, a year of spreading sunflower seeds to lessen a widow’s grief, Alex didn’t doubt he meant it. That he really would do anything for her. But her best answer was the one she couldn’t give: stay in the past.
“Just keep moving forward with the renovations.”
“Need a ride to Jackson?”
“I’m good, thanks.” Alex returned to the sofa, gathered her journal and pen from where they had fallen in sleep, slipped on her heels. Without the blanket, she felt Isabel’s scrutiny of her clothes—yesterday’s attire, wrinkled, nothing resembling what Katherine would have worn to a Saturday morning snuggle with her daughter.
“You look like Sophia Loren,” said Isabel.
If she ever did the walk of shame, kid. Still, it made her chuckle. “Thank you.”
“I wasn’t listening, either, but take pictures in Boston.”
Alex wondered precisely when Isabel had stopped being a painful reminder of what could have been. She was grateful for the child’s ease of spirit, her inquisitiveness, her willingness to embrace faults. “I promise.”
Jonah walked Alex out. His porch was chilly. The north breeze stirred the swing hanging from one end, littered with pillows, a woman’s touch. Alex wanted him to stay in the house. It was in the lingering that her thoughts circled, around and around and around.
“March into that boardroom and tell them they can’t survive without you.” He hugged her then, probably as natural to him as breathing given the affection he showed Isabel, given the plaques and pillows and hallmarks of comfort.
Alex tried not to sink into his arms and failed. For one inhale, she allowed her eyes to close, to gather in his showered scent—different from years ago, no less devastating—before she freed herself. Never had she told him she’d lost her job.
&nb
sp; Had she?
Remembering the previous night’s events felt like an attempt to gather fog into mason jars. Afterwards, as she boarded the plane back to Boston, she worried what else she had told Jonah.
Somewhere over Tennessee, she found the photo Isabel had slipped into her journal: a black-and-white copy of the one she had called her new favorite. This time, Alex saw the bird first.
14
Charlotte
With Alex gone to Boston, Charlotte was grateful to have Freesia forego her escapades into the countryside in Daddy’s truck to stick close to the shop. Freesia never said where she went; Charlotte never asked. She figured there should be some sanctity inside the space of so many conflicting emotions. Morning coffee time, Freesia answered the shop phone. The call had her deer-in-the-headlights inside of a minute.
Nash had the same expression anytime Charlotte sent him to the corner mart to pick up feminine hygiene products.
Freesia put the caller on hold.
“This maid-of-honor wants a refund for her dress because the wedding is canceled.”
Charlotte’s heart always dropped at love gone awry. “Well, shoot. Which wedding?”
“Mason-Yastrzhembsky.” Freesia fumbled hard on that mouthful.
“Maybe that Mason girl is just having cold feet because no one will ever be able to spell her new last name.”
“She says the bride doesn’t know yet.”
Charlotte got a rotten taste in her mouth and a frown to match. Mr. Yastrzhembsky just went from an unfortunate surname to an untenable son of a bitch. She commandeered the phone, extracted the index card box from the bottom shelf, and flipped to the particulars for bride Mason.
“I understand you wish to make a return?”
“That’s right,” said the woman on the other end of the line.
“Certainly within our policy. May I ask the date of purchase?”
Charlotte had the information on the card in front of her. She asked other unnecessary questions she already knew the answers to so the woman would regurgitate the seven months of plans and measurements that had gone into the wayward nuptials. Maybe feel a twinge of guilt along the way.
“Appears everything is in order. I’ll just need written confirmation from the bride or groom—a Mr. Yesurbuttinsky—that the wedding is, indeed, canceled.”
The woman didn’t bother correcting her. She hung up.
“That was inspired,” Freesia said.
Charlotte gave her a pshaw and a wave of her hand.
“I mean it, Charlotte. Not just about knowing that brand X runs small in the bust or that some bride who has her eyes on a three-thousand dollar out-of-budget dress would look equally great in a similar gown that’s only five hundred or the incredible knack you have for going immediately to the right dress that often takes brides dozens of wrongs to find. You really care about the women who come through here. You’re what makes this place special, and it’s past time you stand up to Alex the way you did to You’re-an-ass-key’s fling.”
Charlotte grinned. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re getting the hang of your Devon moxie. Mississippi women are polite as the day is long until someone does us wrong. Then we get creative.”
“I’m serious, Charlotte. You need to stand up for yourself more with those closest to you. Starting with your sister.”
“Alex means well. She just has a strong personality.”
“You’re stronger than you think. You just haven’t been given the opportunity to prove it. Your mom had final say here. Now Alex is the self-proclaimed leader.”
“Our roles were cast long ago. Alex was always the achiever, class valedictorian, study abroad. I was the one who stayed behind, had kids young, took care of everyone, picked up the pieces when things fell apart.”
Freesia went back to her beading. “Sounds like the hardest job of all.”
“In some ways, maybe. In others, not so much. Alex looks at family like long helium balloons tied to her wrist. Can’t always see them out in front, but the strings are always there, getting in the way sometimes, sometimes helping you soar.”
“And what about you?”
“I guess I’m the one patching her knee when the ground gets too rough.”
A sewing needle bit between her teeth, Freesia snipped a garment thread. “Is there something you’ve always wanted to do that you’ve denied yourself?”
“Nothing as adventurous as what you’ve done, I assure you.”
“It doesn’t have to be adventurous to be cathartic.”
Most women, Charlotte guessed, would go for a cabana boy in Fiji or one hour of uninterrupted bath time. Not her. “You’ll laugh.”
“About affronted sorority girls and philandering grooms, yes. About this, no.”
Freesia had a face you wanted to look at for days, confess something for longer than that. Warm eyes, skin like an oracle. Charlotte had never told another living soul about her secret wish. Her stomach was already spinning a burnout.
“Nash and I have nearly two hundred acres of land and six dozen heads of something counting on us each day: chickens, five dogs, an unruly ostrich named Tibbs. Between that and three kids and helping Mama here, there’s never much time left for anything outside Devon.”
“What are you saying, Charlotte?”
“Now, mind you, I love this town…”
“Out with it, Charlotte.”
Eyes closed, her insides jiggling like the weightless moment at the top of a Ferris wheel when the bucket begins its descent, she said, “I imagine driving past the city limit sign.”
The bridal shop was silent. Freesia’s needle dropping from her teeth would have been a welcome cacophony.
Charlotte opened her eyes. From Freesia’s dud-sparkler expression, Charlotte’s firecrackers hadn’t lit her imagination.
“That’s it?” Freesia said.
“Now don’t judge. You promised.”
“I said no laughing. Nothing about judgment.” She winked then, teasing, before she puckered up her lips in thought. “You’ve never been past the city limit sign?”
“Well, not never. For goodness sake, I’m not a withering magnolia. It’s just been awhile.”
“Awhile months?”
“Awhile years…” Charlotte stretched out the words with the sibilance of a snake—ssss.
Freesia popped out of her chair like a Roman candle, set down her beaded handiwork, and grabbed both of their purses on her way to the door.
“Come on.”
“Wha…wha no, we can’t leave the store.”
Freesia flipped the sign to closed.
“But our customers…”
“Are invisible, Charlotte. And I don’t think any woman who comes along in the next twenty minutes will change her mind about getting married.”
Freesia coaxed her to Daddy’s Ford parked out front and handed her the keys. Reluctantly, Charlotte settled behind the wheel. “We’re not going to Vegas, are we?”
“Do you want to go to Vegas?”
“Heavens, no. Nash’d be fit to be tied.”
“What Nash doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
Charlotte reflected on the flaw in that old wisdom. Mama called them blind spots in a marriage, told her to steer good and clear.
“The city limit sign won’t spout legs and walk here, Charlotte.”
She had created a beast of a sarcastic Mississippi woman in the span of three weeks. Charlotte turned the key in the ignition. The engine roared to life and vibrated through her. Freesia gave her a smile and a nod of encouragement, then focused on finding the right radio music to accompany Charlotte’s liberation. Whereas Charlotte might have selected a classic Reba anthem, Freesia opened up the speakers on a bouncy tune—a little about not needing permission and a whole lot about putting a ring on it—that had both of them wiggling against the vinyl bench seat before long.
At the town square, Freesia cracked her window. Yvonne Sutherland stopped her shuffling, her mouth a per
fect black hole surrounded by dentures. Earl Frizeal tipped his hat. The rest of Devon, all the way out to the highway, yawned.
“Charlotte?” Freesia shouted over the cool, gusty current of air racing through the cab.
“Yeah?”
“Punch it.”
Charlotte mashed the gas pedal like it was a water bug set loose on a room full of girly-girls. The answering whaummmm of the engine dumped a current of tingly adrenaline through her system. She may have white-knuckled the wheel, but the rest of her was as loose as a flag hitched to the trailer ball. As the sign came into view, Freesia’s laughter reminded her to breathe.
Boy did she ever.
Whoa-uh-oh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh-oh.
In fact, she was smiling and shimmying her shoulders, nothing sweeter than that first gulp of air after laughter that produced no sound at all. She was puttin’ a ring on that bitch of a fantasy right about the time the town welcome sign shot past the truck…
And Nash drove by the other way, coming out of the feed store parking lot.
Yvonne Sutherland had nothing on her husband’s expression.
Charlotte braked right around the time the county’s finest lit her up with red and blue lights.
15
Alex
“Come in, Alex.”
Robert stood and walked around his desk. He had spotted her through the glass, loitering in the hall, second-guessing every word she had rehearsed in the rideshare from the airport. Her gaze tracked beyond his slight frame, to the skyline—the Hancock, One International Place, the Fed, rising up as the sun stumbled back into the harbor.
“I know it’s late,” she said. “You probably want to get home.”
He motioned for her to sit. In past conversations, he might have said always time for you or we’ll get some Pad Thai and make it a work session. Today, it was a curt, “No problem.”
Alex settled into one of two orange upholstered chairs facing his desk. Once, she had sat in this precise spot for her interview. The dark hue reminded her of a flesh wound; the chrome arms were cold, dotted with the fingerprints of others. Beneath enormous black-and-white framed photos, too overblown for a downtown office of its size, Robert posed with the indigenous people of Central America. Their stares pressed against her.
Our Bridal Shop: Match Made in Devon Bridal Shop Book One Page 12