Ellen brushed past her and went straight to the parlor. Though things on the main floor had been made party-ready, Ellen took no notice. She dropped onto the settee, and Charity realized this was a place her mother felt safe. There on the ancient crushed velvet, beneath the warm sunshine, where it pooled and heated one corner of the seat. Ellen, hugging herself, moved into the shower of sunshine, and that’s when Charity saw the dark circles beneath her eyes.
“Mom, what happened?”
“Leonard wants me out of the house. I’ve been discarded, Charity. Just like yesterday’s trash.”
Charity knelt at her feet. “Mom, are you sure you’re not overreacting?”
The wounded look on Ellen’s face hinted at the depths of her despair. “I wouldn’t have expected you to understand.” Ellen stood and pushed past Charity.
Though the words rang with bitterness, Charity chose to ignore them. “Mom, did he tell you to leave?”
“Yes. Charity. He told me to leave. Must I spell it out? He doesn’t want me. I raised his girls, horrible little monsters that they are, and now he’s done with me.”
Still, Charity was having a hard time finding where the reality of the situation ended, and the drama began. There would certainly be an element of drama in it. She just didn’t know how much. “Did you two have a fight?”
She laughed without humor and faced the bookcase. “No. Actually, we didn’t. I was going to go above and beyond and help him pack for his fishing trip and realized that all his gear was still in the garage. When I asked him about it, he said he wasn’t going fishing. He was taking a woman to Cabo.”
Charity gasped. Pain and anger shot from her heart down. No matter how she’d been feeling about her mother, no one deserved treatment like that. “He’s having an affair? Is he in love with this woman?” She didn’t know why it mattered—it didn’t, in fact—but her mind just wasn’t firing enough to make sense of it.
“Barely knows her. Met her two months ago, and as a joke they discussed running away to Cabo together. Then, a few weeks ago, he decided it wasn’t a joke. It was a trip he desperately wanted to take. He actually told me all this with a smile on his face. Like I’d be happy for him.”
Charity’s eyes closed. How could anyone be so callous? She stepped closer to her mother. “Mom, you’re his wife. He can’t just order you out of the house.”
Ellen wrung a paper napkin in her hands. It was stained with makeup. “Actually, he can. We never married.”
Wait a minute. What? “You told me the two of you married on a beach in Barbados.”
“He told me he was scared to marry again so soon after his wife. So, we offered each other rings and performed a mock ceremony. I believed him.”
Charity shook her head. “Mom, there are laws. You’ve been with him for years. What about common law marriage?”
“New York stopped honoring common law marriage back in 1938. I checked.” Ellen tried to spread the napkin, but it had been reduced to shreds. She tossed it on the settee. “Look at me, Charity. I’m old and pudgier than I’ve ever been. My skin is starting to sag. How am I supposed to attract a man now?”
Charity bit down on her back teeth. Her mother was already planning to find another man. She went to Ellen and gripped her arms. “You don’t need a man, Mom.”
Fire filled Ellen’s eyes, and she shoved away from Charity, her words spitting venom. “You don’t know anything.”
Caught off guard, Charity toppled backward, her arm connecting with a protruding corner of the bookshelf where she’d placed the three work-of-art vases she’d worked so hard to complete for the ball. Motion slowed to a crawl as the shelf absorbed the impact of her body. The vases tipped, then toppled to the floor, crashing around Charity’s feet.
She held her arm where the pain shot like fire, intensified by her anger over her mother’s words, the situation, all of it. Her gaze landed on her mother just as she was about to scream at her to get out.
Ellen blinked, face morphing from utter fury to complete anguish. She dropped to her knees and started picking up the pieces of the broken pottery. She paused only to sob. “Life’s always come so easily for you, Charity. Sometimes I despised you for that.”
Her mother had never used the word despised where she was concerned, but Charity would be lying if she said she hadn’t felt it. “From the moment you were born, Mom and Dad adored you. In their eyes, you could do no wrong. And I could do no right.”
Charity bit back the emotions. She’d never thought about how her close relationship with Gram and Gramps might have made her mother feel. At the same time, Ellen Marie, self-proclaimed Marilyn Monroe for a new generation, wasn’t without blame. But Charity hated her own part in making her mother’s life worse.
“Everything is so easy for you. For heaven’s sake, you’ve got a hot piece of man-candy right next door, and you can’t even figure out what to do with him. Why do you deserve to have such an easy life?” The lines of mascara made her mother’s face look haunted. Swollen, bloodshot, she resembled a drunk who’d passed the point of recovery.
Charity’s life wasn’t easy. She’d lived in the shadow of Ellen Marie Baxter until she was old enough to move out. She’d lost the two people who’d loved her most, but kept on. She didn’t shut people out. She didn’t let hate rob her soul. But she wouldn’t waste her words on a woman with no ears. “You can stay here, Mom. Until you decide what you want to do.” Charity stood, leaving the pottery where it lay. “But I won’t allow you to blame others for your own shortcomings. Including me.” She held her wounded arm where it throbbed with each beat of her heart. Already, she could feel the bruise setting in. “You think my life is easy because you haven’t walked in my shoes. Presume that of me again, and I will kick you out. There’s a broom in the kitchen. Clean up your mess. We have a party here in a few hours.”
Charity left the room feeling a new sensation spreading through her system. It was effervescent, like freedom after a long insurrection. Though parts of her heart were undoubtedly wounded from the skirmish with her mother, other parts were rising from the ashes of the fight. A wave of confidence shot through her. She glanced into the mirror on the far wall and gave her best mean-mug. For the first time in her life, Charity felt strong. As she passed the chandelier, on her way upstairs, she noticed something. No cobwebs. No cobs at all.
At one forty-five, Charity was pacing the kitchen floor. The caterer was supposed to have been there over an hour ago.
Daisy stared at the list. “Should I call his phone again?”
Charity shook her head. “We’ve left multiple messages. Call the salon and cancel my appointment.”
The disappointment registered on Daisy’s face. When she dialed Studio Gaslamp and told them she wanted to cancel both their appointments, Charity tried to stop her. “There’s no reason you can’t go.”
Daisy waved her off and focused on the phone call. “Yes, ma’am. I’m sure she’ll understand. I’ll have her call you tomorrow after the ball.” She hung up. “They’ll have to charge us half of the cost. Said it was policy.”
“Daisy, why did you cancel yours?”
The teen shrugged. They were both in the sweat clothes they’d planned to wear to the salon. “You’re going to need me.”
Need her for what? Charity herself didn’t even know what to do. “I guess I better call Jeanna Rudd. Explain about the caterer.”
But just as she was lifting the phone to her ear, they heard the van pull in. Both women rushed to the door to greet him. “François, we are so glad to see you.”
He rushed past them and into the kitchen, arms loaded and throwing a barrage of instructions in their direction—all in French. When they continued to stare at him, he barked, “There’s more in the van.” Fifteen minutes later, and with Charity and Daisy standing there, mouths agape and still holding the last few bags and containers of food, François rushed back out to his van and left.
Charity turned to find her mother on the bottom step
of the staircase, one hand on the dancing bear’s head, one hand on the lion’s as if she were commanding the entire circus.
“What was he saying?” Daisy muttered, eyes landing on Charity.
Ellen spoke up. “A doomed and tragic love affair, sounds like. You know the French.”
Daisy and Charity both stared at her waiting for more explanation. “In essence, he wants the two of you to cover for him for a few hours. He’s off to the skyway bridge to stop his jilted lover from jumping.”
“Oh my gosh! Should we call the police?” Daisy said.
“I don’t think so.” Ellen dropped onto the marble floor. “He said she’s waiting for him to propose. If he doesn’t, she’s leaping.”
Charity grabbed her head with both hands. “Why on God’s green earth would he take the time to come here, first?”
“He was muttering about needing the job now that he’ll have a fiancée. That’s also why he wants you to do his work for him. He doesn’t want the ladies league to know about this.”
Charity huffed. “This is it. My worst nightmare come true.”
Ellen grabbed the paper François had shoved into Charity’s hands and studied it. “Oh, stop being so dramatic, Charity Monroe.”
For all the anger Charity felt in this moment, she had to admit, her mom looked better than she had an hour ago. Dressed in a deep-red three-quarter sleeve sweater and designer jeans, her mom had washed the gunk from her face and pulled her hair into a ponytail at the back of her neck. Something about her looked more beautiful, more genuine, than Charity had seen her look in years. Memories took her back. Christmas morning had always been Charity’s favorite because it was the one day Ellen would allow Charity to wake her early. She’d don a robe and wash her face, comb her hair, and tie it back with a ribbon or clasp and there, sitting beside the Christmas tree, they’d sip hot chocolate and open the presents Gram and Gramps had sent.
It was when her mother was most beautiful. And this moment mirrored all those.
“Nothing too difficult here,” Ellen surmised. “Make a choice, Charity.”
Her eyes cut into Charity’s soul. “What?”
“Either call the women on the committee and rat this guy out or decide to pitch in. If we hit a roadblock on the cooking, I can call Sonia for advice. But most of this is typical cocktail food. Nothing we can’t handle.”
Now it was all starting to fall into place. Ellen had learned culinary skills from Sonia, her French housekeeper. She’d apparently learned more than a bit of the language as well, since she’d made sense of the half-English, half-French François had spoken.
“Daisy? You think we can do this?” It was an honest question, and she’d found Daisy to be a solid voice of reason in times of panic.
In answer, Daisy mean-mugged.
Charity laughed. “OK, what do we do first?”
Charity swiped the sweat from her brow as Harold and Louise entered the kitchen. It was four o’clock and Charity believed they were actually going to pull this off.
Louise already had her hair and makeup done but was wearing white pants and a button-up blouse, not yet in her ball gown. Her gaze flittered around the busy kitchen. “Oh dear. I thought you girls had salon appointments.”
Ellen had been barking orders at them for the last two hours, and though they were both tired and sweaty, things were coming together. Ellen gave an abridged version of the story just as Dalton came in through the sleeping porch.
“What can we do to help?” Harold said.
Dalton took one look around and went straight to the sink to wash the pans that filled one side.
“Shall I put the white wine in the fridge?” Louise asked.
“Oh no. François didn’t leave ice or coolers. The fridge is full.” Charity stared at the case of wine.
“I’m on it.” Harold grabbed the wall phone. He called a local fisherman and explained the situation. He requested use of two of his coolers and then he asked if the man could bring ice on his way over with them. “Thanks, Mack. Sure, I’ll let her know.”
When he’d hung up, he pointed to Charity. “You’ve made some friends here on the island, Lil’ Bit.”
She brushed the sticky hair from her brow. “What?”
“His momma is the widow Williamson. You made her a looking glass. She sees her husband in it, and Mack said she’s happier than she’s been in years. He’d do anything you requested.”
Charity stopped for a moment. How many people had been touched by special orders? The result of being a vessel for the orders settled in. Because she made the pottery, she was bestowed with the credit. All she did was make what folks asked for. The almost empty bag of special ingredient niggled at the back of her mind.
“What is all this talk of special orders? It’s only pottery,” Ellen said, lifting a pot of boiling shrimp from the stove and dumping it into a colander in the open side of the sink. She thrust the colander into a large bowl half-filled with ice.
“Yes. And the weeping tree is just a tree,” Daisy added, and a few snickers bounced around the room.
Ellen cut them with her eyes. Apparently, she wasn’t fond of being the outsider to an inside joke.
The six of them worked for the next hour and a half. “OK,” Ellen said, marking the last thing off the list. “Everything is done. The serving team will be here in about thirty minutes, and I think all of you who plan to attend this little soirée should go get ready.”
Charity glanced around the kitchen at the rows of silver trays ready to be placed on the dining table. “We couldn’t have done it without you, Mom.”
“Of course you couldn’t have. You used to burn even the simplest of recipes.”
“Mom, I have an extra gown if you’d like to come to the party.” Of course, it wouldn’t fit her the same as Charity. Ellen was curvaceous everywhere Charity was thin and bony. But the gown was a stretchy cotton and spandex that would look divine on her mother.
“No, thanks.” She held her hands up. “I’m going to have a long smoke on the front porch, then go to my room. I’ve had all the party I can take for one day.”
She started to leave the kitchen but stopped in the doorway. “Knock on my door after you’ve showered, Charity. I’ll do your makeup and hair.”
Charity opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Thank you, thank you, thank you was floating around in her head, but the words wouldn’t join together and leave her mind.
“You, too, Daisy.”
“Really?” Daisy perked up. “Thanks!”
Louise, still looking lovely, sat down at the kitchen counter. “I’ll wait for the service team. You two girls go on upstairs.”
Harold sat beside her and took her hand. “When they get here, we’ll fill them in, and I’ll run Louise home to change.”
Charity smiled at her family. “Thank you all.”
In exchange for makeup and hair, Charity had promised her mother she would make an entrance. Not used to being in the limelight, she’d expected to step out to the banister that overlooked the entryway and dance floor beyond and say, “Welcome. Thank you all for coming.” Then she’d float down the stairs like Scarlet O’Hara.
It was still early, and there were only a couple dozen people meandering the rooms below. Mostly the ladies league and their dates, middle-aged to elderly gentlemen who looked as if they’d put on a few pounds since last wearing their formal attire, by the way their shirts stretched over their bellies. What she hadn’t expected was that Daisy would stop the music and point at Charity at the top of the stairs. Which of course stole all her words.
There was a pause, and Charity could feel the eyes on her. She’d pass out, but fear of tumbling headfirst down the staircase forced her to breathe.
And then there was applause. Widespread applause followed by a few cheers as Jeanna Rudd stepped from the group and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, our Founders’ Day Ball savior, Charity Baxter.”
Charity smiled at Daisy, who restarted the music. People wen
t back to their mingling, but Charity still felt eyes on her. Intensely on her. Hair stood up on the back of her neck. She scanned the crowd. There, beside Harold and Louise near the front door, stood Dalton.
Her grip tightened on the banister. His eyes didn’t leave hers as he mouthed one word. “Beautiful.”
Charity reminded herself to breathe again when tiny spots appeared before her. She mouthed back, “Terrified.” That made him chuckle. He was dressed in a black tux with a black velvet tie. She tried to swallow, but her throat was cotton as he made his way across the floor. She took her first step down the stairs. Her hand remained on the banister lest she fall off her stilettoes. But she couldn’t tear her gaze from Dalton.
Feelings swirled inside her chest. Things she shouldn’t feel for him. Couldn’t feel for him. Those feelings frightened her. He was her best friend. Why did she always love people who were incapable of loving her back?
At the base of the stairs, he placed his hand over hers. “You look incredible.”
“Daisy chose the dress. I had a more reserved one I bought first.” His hand was warm over hers, and the touch chased away the emotions she’d had. Things would be OK. They loved each other as friends. That was all they could have, and it was enough for Charity.
“Come on, let’s dance.” He led her to the dance floor and turned her toward him.
For the moment, Charity would allow herself to let go and feel. She might hate herself for it tomorrow, but right now she just wanted to spin and turn on the dance floor with the man she knew she couldn’t have.
Harold twirled Louise in his arms. Years ago, he’d always been careful with her because of her injured leg. But tonight, he held her close, and with their thighs touching, they floated around the space as if the floor had been made only for them.
Two months of spending time with her, and Harold knew all he needed to know. Louise had been a tender part of his past. But now he wanted her to be his future.
In the Light of the Garden: A Novel Page 25