I know for a fact that Jackie hasn’t had sex yet either; at least she hadn’t the last time we talked about it. But I don’t think it’s so much a spiritual conviction or a considered commitment to self-control as it is a lack of interest in any one person for any length of time. When we were juniors in high school, Caitlin, our fourth musketeer, confessed she had been having sex with a boyfriend who dumped her, the first time having been after she had way too much to drink at a party she wished she hadn’t attended.
I told Jackie later that would never happen to me. She said I shouldn’t be so sure about that.
“Hey, you should know by now that if I put my mind to something, I do it,” I had said, sitting on this very bed. “Anyway, it seems to me that those who practice self-control before marriage have a better chance of practicing it after marriage.”
“Probably so,” Jackie said.
“And with a little self-control,” I added, “maybe people wouldn’t louse up their perfectly lovely lives.”
“Lovely is a Kendy word,” Jackie said.
I faux glared.
She hopped right back on the subject. “Well, I’m sure you’re right—a little self-control is good for the body and soul.”
I must have glared again.
“A lot of self-control?”
This called for a smile.
“So,” she said, “do you want to go downstairs and make some nachos?”
That ridiculous question made me laugh. It still makes me laugh. It’s become a saying we use to conclude any heavy discussion: So, you want to make some nachos?
I love Jackie.
I know I should shower and get downstairs, but I decide to call Gram and check on my dress. I never, ever, call her office phone, but I can call her cell. If she’s doing something ultra important, she always switches it off.
I’m surprised when she answers. She’s surprised to hear from me this early on a Wednesday morning.
“Have you picked up my dress yet?” I ask.
“Not yet. You’ll be glad to know that I’m picking it up on my lunch hour.”
“Great!”
“I’ll call you this afternoon to assure you it’s safe in my coat closet.”
I disconnect after thanking her for taking the time to pick it up for me.
I really wish my dress had been ready before Marcus and I left on Monday. Gram said it would be her pleasure to pick it up, and she sounded like she meant it, but I’d feel better if it were hanging in my closet right now. I can’t wait for Saturday, when I get to put it on and wear it for hours. (The incredulous will be glad to know I’m equally eager to take it off.)
Gram has great taste. I’m so glad she made time to shop with me. Of course, since I interned in the Communications Department of her company last semester, she saw me most days. She actually made appointments at several boutiques, which according to her would help enormously. I would not have had the nerve to walk into a couple of the places she took me, including the shop where we discovered my dress. She told me not to worry, that she’d cover anything over what Dad was willing to pay. Of course that wasn’t necessary.
I must have tried on thirty dresses, five in the shop where I finally found the dress I wanted. It needed altering, but the minute I tried it on, we knew this was what I’d been looking for.
“Oh!” Gram said, standing in the large dressing area, staring at me in the mirror. “It’s the perfect dress, Kennedy.”
She didn’t even notice she had called me by Mother’s name. I started to say something, but it really didn’t matter. What mattered was that the dress was perfect.
Kendy
I’m sitting here in a wrought-iron swivel rocker watching the kids play their version of water volleyball. Marcus and Maisey are challenging Jackie, Heidi, and Caitlin. Luke is lying nearby on a lounger, refusing to budge until he has to grill the hamburgers. I gave up my lounger an hour back when I kept getting up to chase any ball that escaped the boundaries of the pool. Well, exercise is exercise.
Marcus said I should come be on their team and make the sides equal, but Maisey said it wasn’t necessary since Marcus was such a big guy and had the skill and determination of two.
I could hardly argue with that.
They’ve called a halt to the game to take a drink break.
Jackie and Maisey have taken orders and are coming from the kitchen with bottles of water and two diet colas.
Jackie keeps one of the colas and hands the other to me. “Let everyone else be healthy,” she says, dragging up a chair to sit beside me. When the others return to the pool, she tells me she’s going to mutiny.
“I’m sitting this one out,” she calls to them.
They return to their game, and she squeezes my hand and says in a conspiratorial tone, “What I want is time to chat with you. I’ve been missing you!”
“I’ve missed you too, sweetheart. But you’re home now, and I expect to see you more often.”
“Don’t worry. I know where my room is. It’s only on loan to Marcus. I plan to spend the night here now and then, you know.”
“I’d love it. I wish Maisey were going to live closer.”
“Hasn’t she told you? She was saying before you came out that when Marcus graduates from law school, he’s going to try to get a job in Indy.”
No, she hasn’t told me, but I don’t tell Jackie that. She may be able to detect it, however, because I can hardly process such good news. The very thought of their living nearby makes me wildly happy.
“That’s a ways off,” I finally say, “but it would be wonderful, wouldn’t it?”
“It would be great.”
Maisey is as lucky to have Jackie in her life as I am to have Paula. I’ve told Jackie that on numerous occasions.
“I have big news too,” Jackie says. “I haven’t even told Maisey.”
When she says Maisey’s name, we almost involuntarily turn toward the pool to look at her. She is looking at us as well, though I don’t think she could have heard Jackie say her name. As we watch, the beach ball lands on Maisey’s shoulder, and Marcus tells her to get her head in the game.
I turn my attention back to Jackie. I’m more than curious. “What news?” I prod. “And why haven’t you told Maisey?”
“Oh, it’s so fresh off the presses. And I don’t know what will come of it. Plus, this is Maisey’s weekend. I just feel like giving you an exclusive.”
“Well, how nice. Let’s hear it.”
“I think I’m in love.”
This revelation strikes me as stupendous. “Is that a fact?”
“I believe it is.”
“And do I by any chance know the lucky fellow?”
“As a matter of fact you do.”
“Spill it,” I say, sounding like Jackie.
“Well, you haven’t seen him for a long time. When he was in grade school, his family moved from here to Ohio. He came back to Indiana to go to college at Purdue, but we didn’t run into each other there until this year. We started dating seriously after spring break.”
“And where is he now?”
“Here! Or near here. He got a job in Indy. He’s coming to the wedding.”
“Well, that’s exciting, isn’t it?”
“Ask me why he’s coming—besides the fact that I really want him to.”
“Why is he coming?”
“He wants to see you!”
“My goodness. Who is he?”
“Okay, enough suspense. He is Sam Meyers.”
“Sam Meyers? Do I know a Sam Meyers?”
“Think kindergarten. Think a little boy saying, ‘I’m stwong!’ and tipping over the teacher’s desk to prove it. He said he just meant to lift it a little bit.”
“Sammy? Little Sammy?”
Oh yes, I remember him. And I remember it taking us a while to put that desk back together, but Sammy was one of several reasons I thoroughly enjoyed volunteering for Maisey’s kindergarten class.
“When Sam comes to th
e wedding,” Jackie says, “he wants to bring you a toy John Deere tractor.”
This makes me laugh.
When Sammy was five, he was the cutest little boy in the world, but he did have a destructive streak. The day I brought a toy John Deere tractor to class for show-and-tell, Sammy asked if he could see it, and in no time at all, he was standing before me with tears brimming in his huge blue eyes, holding the green tractor in his open hand.
I knelt to his height and said, “My goodness, what’s wrong, sweetie?”
He opened his other fist to reveal one of the tires from Luke’s tractor. This particular toy was an antique and not cheap. What had I been thinking to bring it?
“Oh dear,” I said.
“Don’t wowwy,” he said, sniffling, tears spilling over. “My dad’s a good fixer.”
I stood up, tousled his mass of blond hair, and told him not to worry because my husband was a good fixer too.
I had been teaching fourth grade again for more than a year when Maisey and Jackie and Sammy were in the second grade, and I brought cupcakes for his going-away party. Tears spilled from my eyes when I gave him a big hug and he walked out of our lives, never to return.
Until now, that is.
“Oh, Jackie, I can’t wait to see him!”
“I knew you’d love it. He’s just as sweet as he was then, Kendy, but now he can say his Rs, and he doesn’t seem to tear stuff up.”
“Jackie!” Maisey calls, floating on an air mattress with the others, except for Marcus, who seems to have disappeared. “Hellooo! This is a swim party. Get in here!”
“Your daughter can be so demanding,” Jackie says, getting out of her chair. “I’ve been telling her all morning she needs a chill pill. A thousand milligrams should do it.”
“Well, humor her. We’ll be eating before long.”
“Okay,” she says, “but remember—until the weekend is over, Sam is our secret.”
Maisey
I always make my bed. Mother ingrained that habit in me before I started school. But it’s just as well I never got it done this morning, because Caitlin and Heidi are stretched out across it. Jackie is slouched in the chair by the windows, and I’m sitting next to her on the ottoman.
We were going to do this decently and in order. Everyone was going to take her shower, and after we were cleaned up, we were going to meet here so I could give them their gifts. But running up the stairs, they persuaded me to scrap my plan. I can’t believe I’ve kept these presents from them this long. I’m eager to see the gifts again myself. I had the gold and silver bracelets with the girls’ names inscribed on them wrapped when I bought them, and I haven’t seen them since. They are beautiful. Mom and Dad gave me permission to buy them something this nice; they love my friends too.
“Hand them over,” Jackie says, nodding at the presents sticking out of the sack sitting beside me.
I make something of a production of it, pulling out one at a time, reading the label, and handing the gold-wrapped gift to each of them. “Wait,” I say when I hand the first one to Heidi. “Open them together.”
When they are all distributed, they tear into the paper, open the boxes, and stare at their bracelets. The looks on their faces tells me I have made a good choice.
“Whoa,” Jackie says.
“No kidding,” Heidi says.
Caitlin runs her finger across her name. “It’s so pretty.”
I smile, happy with their responses. “I’m so glad you like them.”
I do not expect the wave of emotion that comes over me. Tears spring to my eyes, and I find it difficult to speak. But I want to say what I’ve been planning. “You’ve been good friends all my life,” I begin, looking at each one of them. “What would I have done without you? Really? I can’t imagine. Thanks for being here for me, thanks for laughter that wouldn’t have been possible without you, and thanks for being in my wedding. I hope we’ll always be in touch, but when we are separated, look at your bracelet and know I’m somewhere in this world, loving you.”
We sit here unable to move until Heidi yells, “Group hug!”
Hugging each other, trying not to cry, communicates what we feel as much as anything else could. Leaving for separate colleges was bad enough, but I am the first to get married and change the dynamic forever. It is time for such change, of course—we know that—but we have loved our time together, and letting it go is even harder than I thought it would be.
Heidi and Caitlin put their bracelets back in their boxes and head across the landing to the guest bedroom and bath, and Jackie and I clean up in mine.
After our showers, Jackie and I stand in our underwear in front of the mirror, putting on makeup, our hair wrapped in fluffy yellow towels. After we’ve finished our makeup and before we tackle our hair, Jackie asks me to put her bracelet on her. I get it out of the box and clasp it on her wrist. She looks at it and smiles.
“So,” I say while we comb tangles from our hair, “what were you and Mother discussing for so long?”
“Just catching up,” Jackie says. “I haven’t seen her in ages.”
“She said you dropped by when you got home from school.
That’s not so long ago.”
“To get my graduation present, and for about a second!”
“What were you laughing about?”
Jackie lays her comb down, puts her hand on her hip.
“Good grief!”
“I just wondered what you were talking about; that’s all.”
“I don’t know, Maize. Life.”
“It looked important.”
“It did?”
I refuse to retreat, and Jackie finally tells me about Sam. We finish getting ready about the same time she finishes her story, and she gives me a kiss on the cheek before she heads across the landing to check on Heidi and Caitlin. This rare tenderness, a flesh-and-blood appearance of her sensitive side, almost does me in.
I don’t know why I couldn’t let it go. Jackie said she had planned to tell me about finding and falling for Sam when Marcus and I got back from our honeymoon. She told me not to say a word to anyone else about it, that this is my weekend. And I won’t. But if Mother knows about Sam, I sure should.
CHAPTER NINE
Kendy
“Don’t you look nice.”
That’s what I hear when I open my eyes and see Paula standing over me. I had almost fallen asleep behind my sunglasses, relaxing on the lounger.
“You think I look nice?” I ask.
“Well, your nails certainly do, all twenty of them.”
I hold up my hands and look at the shiny cranberry nail polish, expertly applied.
“You’re quite right. That’s thanks to Jackie. I told her all of us were getting the works Saturday, but that didn’t deter her; she said we needed to look great for the rehearsal too, so after lunch, out she came with the box of manicure supplies.”
“Like old times, huh?” Paula asks, pulling up a chair, plopping into it and using my lounger for a footstool.
“It was. When they were in grade school, I don’t think the four of them ever spent a night when we didn’t play beauty shop. I was usually the nail tech, exhausted and ready for bed after painting eighty little nails.”
“One more reason I’m glad I had boys.”
“Today they did each other’s nails while I watched. But when they were through, Jackie insisted on doing mine too.
She tested three colors on my thumbnail before she decided this one was just the thing. She’ll be glad you approve.”
“The girls about ran over me when I was coming into the house. Where were they off to?”
“They have a final fitting for their dresses. One or two of them are still too long. They’re tea length apparently, and Maisey wants to make sure they’re just right. Jackie was telling her to relax when they headed inside earlier. Her exact words were, ‘I’m getting your meds.’ ”
“They showed me their bracelets. Quite nice, I must say.”
&n
bsp; “They are, aren’t they? All three of them came out and showed them to me too. Jackie said it was a good thing they did their nails, because they’ll be holding out their hands all day long to show off their bracelets.”
“It sounds like things went well.”
“Very well. I don’t know why you’ve been so worried.”
“Oh really?”
Paula is nothing if not observant, and though we’ve talked little about it, she is borderline angry that I have not so much as seen Maisey’s wedding dress and have not been consulted about anything related to the wedding except the menu for the reception dinner and the whereabouts of our checkbook. She said one Saturday in March that it was “awfully nice” of Maisey to finally tell me that her wedding colors were black and white so I could buy a dress. We actually managed to laugh that day.
“The girls enjoyed being together so much,” I say. “And Marcus, well, he’s an angel.”
“He seems like a good guy, all right. Maisey chose well. He’s the silver lining in all this, isn’t he?”
“Pure gold, as a matter of fact. Every time Marcus comes to visit, I like him more. In fact, I love the boy already. Did I tell you I wrote his mother after they became engaged? I told her I considered Maisey blessed to be marrying her son.”
“Do you suppose I’ll get one of those letters someday?”
“You should. Your boys are a gift to the world too. As are you.”
“Since you feel that way, I’m sure you’ll agree to go to Indy with me. I need a dress for the wedding.”
“You’ve got a dress.”
“I hate it. I don’t know what I was thinking. I look downright frumpy in it. Why in the world did you let me buy it?”
“You do not look frumpy in it or anything else.”
“I do too, and I’m taking it back. I’ll embarrass you if I show up in it.”
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