by Howe, Violet
She showed me what Sandy had suggested, and we discussed the renovated barn they’d found just outside my hometown.
“Sounds like a great location. I had Mama and my sister Tanya ride out and take a look at it, and they were both impressed. They’d never heard of it.”
Maggie nodded. “Sandy said it’s relatively new. Maybe within the last year or so? Some guy from Colorado moved into the area, bought the property and it had two barns. He kept one for horses and converted the other one, I guess. It’s got heat and air, so the cold shouldn’t be a problem.”
I fed Deacon as we talked, and then I invited Maggie to come along while I took him for a walk.
“So Cabe says you’re considering asking Galen to be a bridesmaid.”
I tugged at Deacon’s leash and glanced to see Maggie’s facial expression. I assumed Galen’s mother would agree with my mother and tell me to ask her. She surprised me, though.
“Has she apologized to you yet? You or Cabe?”
I shrugged a little. “Not exactly.”
“Well, then I wouldn’t ask her.”
I looked at Maggie and back to the sidewalk ahead.
“Tyler, my daughter has many good qualities, but she is hot-tempered, outspoken, and stubborn as a mule. Much like her father in all those areas. It’s my fault, too, though. I never set boundaries for her like I should. I felt bad, you know? About her dad leaving. Not having a dad. I felt bad for them both. Responsible, I guess.”
“It must have been hard,” I said.
We paused as Deacon inspected every square inch of bark on a nearby tree.
“They each absorbed it in different ways. Cabe with anger and bitterness. Galen with longing and an insatiable need to belong. Which is why I think she’ll come to you.”
“So you don’t think I should ask her?”
“No, I don’t. Galen desperately wants to be in a family, or her preconceived notion of a family. She feels she didn’t get that, and I guess when compared to her mental concept of it, she didn’t. But the tricky thing about families is they revolve around people. Relationships. Give and take. Compromise and forgiveness. Swallowing pride and putting others first. She doesn’t get that part of it. She wants what she wants when she wants it, and to hell with everyone else.” Maggie sighed and rubbed her hands together. “She’s also very protective of her family, and she thinks that if she means well, it gives her carte blanche to do and say what she pleases. Life does not work that way, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t. Look, I understand why she was upset with me. About Cabe. I know how I would feel if I thought someone was hurting my brother or one of my sisters. But I never meant to hurt Cabe. I wasn’t doing it on purpose. I didn’t know what was happening between us.”
Maggie reached over and gave my hand a squeeze. “I know that, sweetheart. Cabe was a grown man, responsible for his own decisions. You weren’t holding him handcuffed against his will.” She shot me a sideways glance and a sneaky smile. “And if you were, I don’t want to know about it.” She laughed and it broke the tension of the conversation. “Galen overstepped her bounds, and she needs to apologize. To you, and to her brother for the position she put him in.”
She sighed and looked at me, glancing back at the sidewalk every few seconds. “She wants to be a part of this wedding. I know that for a fact. Do you think someone so driven by a desire for family is going to let her brother get married and not be a part of it? Let her come to you. Let her apologize and make things right. Then if you want her in your wedding, that’s up to you. You certainly don’t have to ask her, and no one could blame you if you didn’t. But she needs to take responsibility for her own actions. You’ll do her no favors by excusing her from that. Believe me, I know. I’m speaking from experience.”
Curiosity tickled my mind with a million questions. I didn’t want to bring up anything unpleasant, but there was so much I wanted to know.
“How’d you meet Gerry?”
She smiled a little and looked away. Perhaps a moment’s consideration of what she wanted to say, I don’t know.
“He’s a producer, you know that, of course. We met while working on a show. A limited run that didn’t end for us when the curtains closed.”
The smile lingered, and it occurred to me that this was a man she loved. Enough to risk her career and bear two children. I’d always looked at Gerry through Cabe’s eyes, as a father who walked out on his child. I’d never considered Gerry through Maggie’s eyes. A lover lost. A heart betrayed. Not once but twice.
“What attracted you to him?”
She paused, and I thought for a moment she might not answer. “Well, you’ve met his son. There’s a strong family resemblance. He was a very handsome man. Very charismatic. A charmer. He could make you feel like you were the only person in a room of thousands. He was funny. Intelligent. Easy to be around.”
She stopped talking suddenly and looked over at me amost like she’d forgotten for a moment that I was there. She cleared her throat and gave a stilted chuckle. “But all that glitters is not gold. Learned that lesson the hard way. I fear Galen will learn it, too. She’s fascinated with him now, this fantasy father she dreamed of for so many years. He’s playing into it, enjoying her adoration, but eventually, he’ll let her down, too.”
My heart ached at the pain in her voice, and I longed to comfort her somehow. I also longed to ask her more questions. How did they get together? Did she know he was married at the time? When did she find out? What happened when she learned she was pregnant? Why did he leave her and baby Cabe? Why did he come back? Why did she let him? And not only let him back, but conceive another child with him and be abandoned again? What did Bill and Peggy think about their daughter’s change in circumstances?
My brain yearned to know more. I only had fuzzy bits and pieces of the story gathered from Cabe’s childhood perspective. I wanted to know what really happened. What happened to Maggie, the woman who fell in love and gave up the life she’d planned.
I watched her as she stared straight ahead, and I weighed my own desire to get to the bottom of things against possibly upsetting Maggie or bringing her unpleasant memories.
If she’d continued talking, I would have pursued it. But she grew quiet, so I let it go. After all, this woman will be my mother-in-law. It’s not like I won’t ever have the opportunity to talk with her again.
Monday, September 22nd
Charlotte had added an appointment to my calendar for today with no name and no number. When I saw it pop up last week, I immediately went to ask her what was up.
“Charlotte, I can’t take any more appointments this month. I told you not to book anything. Why is there no name?”
“I wrote it down, but then I spilled coffee on the note and I couldn’t read her name or her number. But she said she’d met with you before and that you wouldn’t mind.”
“Who is she?”
“I dunno. Some bride of yours.”
I groaned and returned to my desk, reminding myself that it is a felony to kill people, even if they can be declared too stupid to live.
So I spent an hour this morning racking my brain to figure out who I might be meeting with and what I might need to do to prepare for the meeting.
Had the Queen of England walked through our doors, I probably would not have been more surprised than when I saw Nadine. She was dressed in almost the exact same outfit as last time we met. Her long blonde hair was fashioned into a loose braid down her back with brightly colored ribbons woven through the plaits. She wore the same layered skirts of lace and linen, but today’s were in a pale pink instead of white and ivory, all featuring multi-colored ribbons and beads. She had the same high-heeled brown boots as before, but the ribbons intertwined through the laces had been redone in shades of pink. She carried the long, black velvet shawl over one arm, a testament no doubt to the extreme heat of the day.
“Tyler!” she exclaimed as she greeted me with a hug, her vanilla and ginger scent enveloping me
as I awkwardly accepted the embrace. “He’s here. I told you the Universe was sending him! Look!” She released me and flung her left hand in my face. Her other fingers still carried the large stones and rocks I remembered from before, but her ring finger was adorned with a ginormous oval-cut diamond. We’re talking at least four carats.
“Wow. That’s beautiful. Congratulations!”
I looked from her to the man who had followed her in and who now stood with one arm around Nadine as he watched our exchange. His smile beamed, and the way he looked at her as she spoke left no doubt that he was entirely smitten with his bride-to-be.
“This is Felix. This is who I’ve been waiting for.” Nadine swept her arm toward the man as she smiled and nodded, showing me how generous the Universe had been.
“Nice to meet you, Felix.”
Felix gripped my hand like I was saving him from drowning and shook it up and down with more enthusiasm than I have probably ever felt about anything.
“Oh, it’s my pleasure. I’ve heard so much about you, and I’m just thrilled to have you accompany us on the next step in the journey.”
I nodded, unsure of what that meant or whether I wanted to take the trip.
Once they were settled in at the conference table, I went to search my file cabinet for the notes from our first meeting. I prayed the notes were there. I truly didn’t think I’d ever see Nadine again, so I wasn’t sure I’d even saved them. By a stroke of luck, I found them and quickly perused the details. Of course, at the time we discussed her wedding, she didn’t have a groom yet and had only been told by the Universe to expect his arrival. So who knew if these details would even be the same now that the magical unicorn had appeared?
They were laughing and snuggling with each other when I returned, and I cleared my throat to announce my intrusion.
“I’ve got our original notes here, but of course, I’m not sure what you may want to use now that the two of you have had a chance to talk.”
Nadine smiled at Felix and he put his arm around her and hugged her close to his side. “Whatever she planned is fine. I trust this woman implicitly.”
Nadine giggled like a schoolgirl and twirled her braid between her fingers as she gazed at Felix.
“Isn’t he just incredible?” she asked as she turned back to me, wiping a small tear from the corner of her eye. “A dream come true.”
“How did you two meet?”
“Your aura is disturbed. Are you okay, Tyler? You need sleep.”
“Oh, really? It’s our busy season right now, so I’ve been working a lot.” That was awkward. Was that a polite but quirky way of saying “you look like hell”?
She peered at me and then closed her eyes almost entirely shut as she moved her head up and down. I felt vulnerable and exposed, like she had X-ray vision or something. The whole time, Felix sat there grinning like a mule eating briers and nodding continuously. I wondered if he could channel her vision and see me too.
Her eyes flew open and her mouth split into a huge grin as she reached across the table and grasped my hand.
“Aaaah! You’re engaged. You’re in love. This is simply fantastic. Felix, she’s in love.” Felix nodded and smiled, his expression no different than before he knew my news.
Her face fell just as suddenly as it had lit up. “But you’re not well. The wedding. Oh, no. You need to rest your soul. Your light is flickering.”
Well, that’s just what everyone wants to know. My light is flickering? Like, I’m dying? I caught myself just before I asked her. Did I really want a diagnosis from Nadine, the Stevie Nicks lookalike, bride of Felix from the Universe?
“I’m fine, really. Just busy. So how did you two meet?” I know I’d already asked, but I was dying to know.
“The Universe sent him.” She smiled and patted his thigh as he kissed her cheek.
“That’s amazing,” I said. “Did it send him to your door, or how did you know?”
“We connected online in cosmic choreography, right, Felix?”
Felix nodded. “We were married twice before. Once in medieval times, where we lived in the French countryside. Then we found each other in the late 1800s, in Spain. We’ve been pulled toward each other for years this time, but the distance between our births made it difficult this time.”
I nodded. I mean, I think I nodded. It’s possible I stared straight ahead with a what the hell look on my face. But hopefully, I pulled something off that appeared to be polite.
“Thank the Universe for the internet, for it was only through that medium that we could span the distance between us and make our circle complete once more,” Nadine spoke to me but looked at Felix as she spoke.
Which was fine with me because it lessened the chance they were seeing me react with “you gotta be frickin’ kidding me.”
“Of course. I see. Now about the wedding…”
Nadine clapped her hands together and cooed. “The wedding! Yes. I’m so excited. You have the plan, right?”
I flipped through my notes.
“Sky blue…fifteen bridesmaids and fifteen groomsmen…white lillies…”
“And a chapel,” Nadine interrupted. “Did you get the chapel?”
“Yes, I have that written here.”
“It needs to be a small, stone chapel,” Felix said. “Both of our previous weddings were in a small, stone chapel.”
I almost chuckled out loud when it occurred to me how entertaining it might be to hook them up with the church lady at that small stone chapel by the Manor. She could explain how Jesus doesn’t get rented by the hour, and they could explain how this was their third wedding, but the first one in this century. I stifled the humor and poised my pen to ask questions.
“Do you have a date in mind?”
They nodded and looked at each as they spoke in unison. “March 31st.” “Our anniversary.”
I searched my notes for the date Nadine and I had originally met to discuss her wedding. We’d gotten together in April, but she said then she didn’t know who her fiancé would be. “You met March 31st?”
“No. We married March 31st. Before.”
“Ah. I see. How many guests?”
“Two hundred and fifty.”
I looked at Nadine’s previous answer of seventy to eighty and glanced up at her in surprise. “Wow! Felix must be bringing a lot of guests.”
“We’ve found we have many friends to include,” Felix said as they laughed and shared a kiss.
“You got the belly dancers, right, Tyler?”
I nodded. “Yep, and a band who can play disco.”
Nadine’s laughter rang out like tinkling bells. “Oh, yes. Felix loves to dance.”
He reached up to smooth his mustache, and I gaped at the size of the ruby on his pinkie finger. It spanned his entire finger, wide enough that the pinkie actually sat separate from the ring finger at its base.
“Now, I’m not sure about the fire-eaters,” I said. “It will depend on the fire code at the venue you choose. Some don’t allow indoor fire.”
Felix shook his hand in dismissal. “This will not be a problem. I have purchased a home here for the wedding. It has a spacious courtyard and we will be able to have the fire-eaters and belly dancers perform there. Can you get elephants?”
“Um, I can look into it.” Not a request I get every day. “So did you have a caterer in mind, or should I make some recommendations?”
Nadine turned to face Felix and they held hands and hummed in exactly the same manner she had before. In perfect unison they hummed, and at precisely the same moment they stopped.
Nadine smiled as she faced me once more. “We are fine with whomever you suggest for catering and floral. Felix has a friend from New York who will be flying in to do our photos.”
“Okay. Well, when did you want to set up meetings? The next few weeks are really crazy for us, but if you’re planning on March, we need to get started.”
Nadine shook her head. “March the year after. Not next March. No way co
uld we get our guests pulled from the four corners of the earth in six months’ time. It will take at least a year to reach all our acquaintances and let them know we’ve reconvened.”
I wondered if the guest list would be people they’d known in medieval times, or the 1800s, or here in this century.
“Okay, then we have plenty of time for planning.”
“Yes. Let’s meet after the first of the year, when your schedule permits and the stress of your own wedding has passed. It will be fine if you trust your heart.”
Her comment was disconcerting. Her perception of my situation could have been chalked up to seeing the ring on my finger and not seeing the exuberant reaction one might expect when she remarked on my engagement. But I certainly hadn’t mentioned my wedding date to her, so how did she know I’d be married by the end of the year?
Felix spoke before I could ask how she knew. “Do you prefer a check or shall I give you my American Express?”
“Either is fine. Let me get our contract paperwork for you.”
“Isn’t that Steak Lady?” Carmen asked when I requested a new client packet from her.
“Yes,” I hissed. “Sssh. She’s gonna hear you.”
“I don’t care,” Carmen said, only slighter lower in volume. “She knows she ordered a steak. It ain’t like it’s a secret.” Carmen cocked her head and gave a slight shake of attitude before handing me the packet. She was an incredibly thorough office assistant and a great friend, but mild-mannered and soft-spoken she was not. Still, I preferred her sharp tongue to Charlotte’s airheadedness any day.
When I returned to the conference room, Nadine and Felix sat with their foreheads together, humming and holding hands. I slid the paperwork across the table and left. They exited the room a few minutes later, paperwork and credit card in hand. We finished the business transaction and agreed on a date to meet in January.
As they left, Nadine hugged me again and then squeezed both my hands. “He loves you. You love him. This is what matters.”