"Sign here and here," Judge Harriman said, turning the papers around. "Get those across the hall and have Magda stamp them before 4:00, son!"
"On it," Evan said, handing the documents to his assistant who slid them into the time stamper, recording for history and prosperity the marriage of Leta Feldman and Evan Eaton. The forms were added to the safe and sealed for the weekend. The time seal on the safe made it impossible to open again before eight on Monday morning, leaving husband and wife to head home. "Honey, I'll ride with you to the house, then in the morning, I'll show you around town."
"Sounds like a plan," Leta said with a smile, waving farewell to Magda and shaking the Judge's hand once more. Evan held her elbow as he guided his blushing new bride down the stairs to the rental. He too waved at onlookers who gawked at the attractive African American woman as he closed the passenger door and trotted around the front of the vehicle to the driver's side. He gave the horn a few toots, started the car, and drove around the corner, making way for the pass while exhaling softly.
"Well, wife," he said, looking over at Leta, "there is so much I want to say and forgive me for being unable to find the gentle words needed, so I'm just going to come right out and ask."
"Ask me anything, husband," Leta said, holding up her hand to admire the simple gold wedding band. Only one question came to mind for Evan Eaton as he looked at his very content wife. He centered his breathing, careful not to let the words come out too fast.
Evan wasn't smiling as he asked, "Who the hell are you?"
Chapter Two - Affability
Leta heard the question, but her mind focused on the verdant landscape of lush green trees meandering over rolling hills with Lake Winnisquam nestled in the background as a canvas for beautiful art. He drove through the narrow dirt pathways of Swain Road, coming to a rusty, slightly green gate where the chips of paint held on for dear life, wanting to remain a part of the palette. A warm sensation emanated from her middle as Evan pressed the circular button on a New England Patriots key chain to open the gate. She didn't appear to be in any hurry to answer his question, and he vacillated between being angry and confused but, moreover, concerned.
The three-bedroom cabin, which in the photo he’d sent, made the home appear smaller based on the angle from which it was taken. To Leta, the house was perfect, but in need of a bit of landscaping, delicate drapes, and a woman's touch. The master bedroom, as he had said in the letters, had a queen-sized bed and the second bedroom held a twin. The third bedroom he used as an office for his photography. The furnishings, as she could recollect, were Spartan at best, serving just as function versus comfort. It wasn't her way to take over another person's way of thinking or life, but support was a necessity. The furniture didn’t seem very comfortable from the images she’d seen.
Evan parked the rental in the soft dirt driveway, which Leta imagined the ground over half the year got covered in snow, but the idea of white pea gravel to stop the erosion of the soil as well as spruce the place up a bit held merit. She made a mental note to discuss the matter with her husband later. Men didn't think about those sorts of things, but if she were going to host the quilting guild or book club at her home, esthetic issues such as gravel would need to be taken care of toot sweet.
"I love this cabin," she said, almost jumping out of the car before it stopped.
"Lady. Leta, can you please answer my question?" he said, cutting the engine and stepping out of the car. "You're not Claudia Tackett, and you're black."
"Oh, you noticed that much," she said, opening the trunk to take out her suitcases.
"Yes! I noticed. I mainly noticed, and forgive me for being picky about such things, but you're not the woman I selected to be my mail-order bride," Evan exclaimed, taking the other two suitcases out of the car. He carried the cases up the five front steps, sitting each down by the door while fumbling with his keys.
Leta had joined him on the porch, holding the last case and clutching her purse. The wide grin covered her expression, nearly warming the cold straps restraining the emotion called happy in Evan’s rapidly thudding heart. Facing away from her new husband, Leta saw that the small porch wasn't large enough to hold two chairs or two rockers and would need expansion. However, the view of the lake nearly took her breath away. Her father would fall head over heels in love with the lake once he got a gander at the water. She made a second mental note to address widening the porch to accommodate their chairs to enjoy sunsets over the lake with warm mugs of cocoa or steaming hot apple cider in the upcoming months.
"This is the most amazing view, and to think I get to wake up to this every day," she said with a romantic sigh. "I can only imagine what it's like in the winter, blanketed with a layer of snow."
"Yeah. It's great," he said, frowning at Leta. He opened the front door, trying to drag the cases inside.
"The wheels are omnidirectional so that they will roll," she said, waiting outside on the porch for him to return.
"What are you doing? Aren't you coming inside so we can have a discussion and get to the bottom of all of this?" Evan wanted to know.
"I'm waiting for you to carry me across the threshold. Hello! New bride. New husband. New home."
"Oh for the hair on Harry's neck," Evan muttered. Stepping outside the door, one arm around her waist, he lifted her just enough to raise her feet from the porch, stepping through the opening and setting her down. "Now, would you be so kind as to explain to me what happened to my brunette, brown-eyed bride Claudia? Who are you? Why are you here, and... shit, we're married!"
Leta shrugged her shoulders, setting her purse on the roughly crafted coffee table with an additional deep sigh. "Claudia left yesterday headed to Cabo for a weeklong getaway with Kevin," she answered.
"Who the hell is Kevin?"
"Kevin is her on-again, off-again boyfriend," Leta volunteered. "For the past three months, he's been off. Then Claudia told Kevin about her plan to get married and move to New Hampshire, and he was back on."
"Wait, stop. Claudia has been seeing a boyfriend, although she signed the contract to come and marry me?"
"Yeah, pretty much," she said. "She kept whining about not being sure if she wanted to live in a place that is so cold six months of the year. Claudia said it was bad for her skin."
"Okay," he said frowning. Evan shook his head as if to remove the idea that his fiancé was in Mexico with her boyfriend. "No, it's not okay. That doesn't explain you! Why are you here?"
Leta wandered down the hallway, peering into the rooms. The cabin wasn't huge, but the wooden floors shone like new pennies. Rugs were definitely needed, and she was happy her furniture and vehicle would arrive next week. Circling back to the kitchen, she peered into the cupboards to find only the primary two plates, two cups, and two saucers.
"Evan, two weeks ago, I asked Claudia to call you, let you know she was having doubts about giving you time to find a replacement," Leta said. "She promised me that she would. A week later, she lied, pretending she'd made the call. Out of concern, knowing your situation, I checked her phone, which I normally don't do, only to realize she didn't call you. There was no 603-area code in her outgoing call log."
"No, we only spoke on the phone twice," he reminisced.
"A week ago, I figured you were out of time and had no prospects here, so... I dunno," Leta said. "If you had prospects for a wife in Meredith, you wouldn't have gone through the service. Finding a suitable spouse is difficult, and I live in a metro area of five point nine million people. What Claudia was planning to do to you was unfair."
"So, you decided to pack up everything you owned and move to another state to marry a man you didn't know?" Evan asked with wide eyes.
"Why not? You were about to marry a woman you didn't know, provided you took a computerized test that showed a common core of interest. That test also gave you an outline of Claudia's representative of who she wanted to be in an ideal situation," Leta said. "The person whom she actually is finds herself currently sipping marga
ritas in Cabo with Kevin."
"Lady, this is nuts! You flew across the country to marry a white man, who may not even like black women, and you brought all of your little things to come and share a life with me," he said. "What if I don't want you?"
"If that were the case, you wouldn't be wearing that gold ring or have taken the time to kiss me as your wife," she said. "On top of that, I'm waiting for a thank you."
"Thank you? You’re lucky I don’t call the police," he exclaimed.
"Yes, you're welcome," Leta said, checking the closets for the room to house a proper winter wardrobe.
"It wasn't a statement but a question," Evan said. "This doesn't make any damned sense. A random woman just shows up to marry me out of the goodness of her heart. You want my money, don't you? That's it. You're after my money."
"You don't have any money because if you did, Claudia would definitely be here and not in Cabo with Kevin," she offered. "I need some water. Can I drink it straight out of the tap, or do you have bottled water or a filtration system?"
"Please, for the love of all that is holy, explain your logic in coming here to marry me," he said, feeling defeated.
"Claudia and I have been friends since the fifth grade. All of her life she's gotten everything she's ever wanted and leaves the scraps and discarded carcasses on the side of the road," she said. "Her failure to show up and marry you before the deadline today at four o'clock meant you would have lost your land and this home. She would return from Cabo, all tan and relaxed, and you'd be ass out with your nut sack flapping in the wind. I'm here because you didn't deserve that. I came because she shared your letters with me, hoping to make me jealous."
"Were you jealous?" he asked with one eyebrow arched in a thin line between amusement and genuine concern that he was locked in his own home with a bag of assorted crazy.
"In a word, yes," Leta said. "I was jealous that a man, who actually wanted to be married, who had a decent job and wanted a family, would be left in her path of destruction. Tomorrow, she will start her day again soaking up the sun, and if I didn't show up, you'd be planning on how to save everything your family built in this town over the past 250 years."
"What's in this for you? I mean, you know I have no money. All I have is this land," Evan said, feeling overwhelmed. It was bad enough to have to get married and have a kid, and now this. He knew beyond any reasonable doubt that she was an insane woman who would drive him absolutely bat shit crazy and now he was stuck with her as his wife. Uneasiness bubbled up in his stomach and he tried with a concerted effort to not gag. "You came all of this way, leaving your life behind to marry a man you don't even know, which scares the living breath out of me. Oh God. Oh God."
Leta understood Evan's expression of the mental and emotional setback. The down-turned eyes and sunken lips sitting atop a sorrowful look of being let down yet again by a person whom you placed your trust in was familiar to her. The forlorn gaze of wondering what to do next to pick up the shattered pieces and present a face to the world that you weren't beaten, that your soul still had a spark, and that the Claudia's of the world could not and would not leave a shattered remnant of your better self—she knew like the back of her hand.
"He hasn't forsaken you," Leta said, placing her fingers over the hand, which visibly shook in anxiety. "I'm here, Evan, because for once in our lives, the bad guys don't get to win. To keep you from losing everything, I came instead of Claudia."
"We don't know anything about each other," he protested, "The agency has rigorous screening. Tests. Health screenings. Lady, I can't trust this."
"You have to trust this because it's all we've got. I sold my townhouse, shipped everything I owned this way and have a job interview in two weeks in Manchester," she told him.
"How do you think this is going to work, or if I want a black woman as my wife, or to raise bi-racial children, or to deal with the weight of everything that comes with small-minded people living in a homogenous community?" he asked, running his fingers through his hair.
"I took the chance...in your letters, you came across as a man who didn't care what other people thought, and if the first thing really sitting on your brain is the color of my skin and the color of our children, then maybe I did get it all wrong," Leta said. "In the morning, I'll pack up my car and roll out."
The odd thing was, he didn't want Leta to leave. Kissing her felt natural. Sitting beside her on the couch was easy. The conversation was genuine. At the end of the day, when he'd needed help the most, she had shown up, and that counted for more than any Claudia, any test, or any agency screenings.
"Evan, would you like the good news?" Leta asked with a slight smile.
"Sure, why the hell not?" He said, trying desperately to calm the shaking of his hands.
"Since Claudia reneged on the contract, you can get your money back from the agency," she said. "That ten grand we can use to build an additional room to the house, expand the home office, turn the master bedroom to an ensuite and extend the front porch. I really want to extend the front porch so in the autumn we can sit outside sipping cocoa and watching the sunset. How do you feel about the second bedroom becoming a nursery, and the third one, well, can be a guest room?"
"Nursery? Guest room?"
"I have parents who will want to come when their grandchild arrives and so will yours, I imagine," she said with a smile. "I have a brother as well, and he doesn't like the cold, but he does like to fish."
Evan started to laugh. All of it was so ridiculous that it practically made sense. She was right. He had to produce an heir to keep the land and not lose everything to the city of Meredith. He was the last male Eaton and the only one who could save the property his family had cared for the past 250 years. Him and his black wife. The idea of strolling through the Saturday market in the morning with Leta on his arm brought a tiny smile to the corner of his mouth. It grew wider when he imagined the holiday races, festivals, and activities in the city which he as the Town Clerk officiated, causing him to laugh.
In one motion, he was on his feet. The steaks had marinated all day, and he planned to cook them for dinner with a side salad and grilled corn on the cob. He’d also purchased a bottle of wine, which was set aside to complement the meal and loosen up his new wife. He had no idea how it was going to work, but she was here and willing. She was, in fact, all he had.
"I hope steaks are okay for dinner," Evan said, pulling out his phone to call Coraline Newair in New York at The Perfect Match agency. Leta nodded, wanting to move, yet not sure if she should. Evan opened his phone and punched a contact name. She could hear the phone ringing in the background. He spoke to his wife as he waited for an answer on the other end of the line, "I need to work on getting my refund and it was fifteen thousand, not ten. I'm going to need all of that if we're going to get the addition started and sealed in before the first snowfall. As for the kids, I'd like a boy, but with your coloring, I think a little girl would be lovely."
Leta's cheeks warmed as she listened to him give the woman on the other line his spiel. Evan was firm, direct, and to the point without being crass or rude. As he spoke, his eyes traveled back to Leta. His wife possessed a certain affability which he found to be sweet. She showed up and to him, that counted for a great deal.
It would be the starting point.
Chapter Three- Personalness
She got in the pool on the shallow end as a starting point. Claudia Tacket lazed on a pink inflatable floaty in the turquoise blue waters of an infinity pool at the beachside resort nestled in a cove in Cabo San Lucas. Long red-lacquered acrylic nails skimmed the waters, creating just enough ripples to inch the float along, but not at any hurried pace. Oversized designer glasses covered most of the face, which a few years ago was model ready. The last few years of hard-core partying, late nights with Kevin, and too little sleep had taken its toll. If she didn’t get married soon, time would be up on her looks before needing to have collagen and Botox injections. Kevin liked the way she looked, for th
e most part.
The glasses were lowered as she spotted the man of the hour in a black speedo coming to the diving board. All the women sitting around the pool watched with interest as the tall, perfectly chiseled body climbed onto the low board, bounced twice, and then sliced the water with a clear entry. Claudia squeezed her thighs together, remembering his clear, precise entry last night into hot, steamy lovemaking. Long powerful arms rose and fell like sharpened knife blades, cutting through the turquoise water, smoothly, meticulously, without creating waves. His body, lithe and muscular, symbolized everything she wanted in a man, but she wanted a powerful man, with money, influence, and a line a credit that wouldn’t be harmed by an afternoon of shopping once a week. He did possess a certain personalness about him that went well with a mixed crowd that she genuinely respected. A girl could do worse than Kevin as a mate.
Kevin Sordin slid through the water, his body snaking through the pool and slithering up beside the pink floaty. His hand slapped the water, splashing the resting diva to remind her that he was close by.
“Dude!” Claudia yelled. “You’re going to get my hair all wet.”
“Isn’t that the point of being in the pool, to get wet, cool off, and chill?”
“Chill yes; ruin my hair is a negative,” she said, using her hand to push away from him. The clock chimed four, and she swallowed hard. It was at 4 o’clock in New Hampshire. The strict timeline Evan Eaton had put them on had been missed. Technically, she had been due in Meredith three days ago, but that wasn’t her life. Evan wasn’t the man for her.
“Hey, Claudia, what happened to that guy you were supposed to marry?” Kevin asked, bobbing the water and observing her face.
“We were supposed to be married by this time today,” she said, looking about for the waiter. “I’m in Cabo with you, so does that answer your question?”
“Not really. I mean, that dude must be hurt,” Kevin said. “Did he take it hard when you called and said you weren’t coming?’
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