“I am told,” Vicky had emphasized each word, “that he’d purchased a ring and was having it sized. He had dinner reservations for the next weekend. He expected they would be married before the end of the summer, perhaps taking her home to Scotland on their honeymoon. A week before he planned to propose, he arrived at his apartment and found Lucia in bed with his best friend.”
“That tramp,” Karen had exclaimed, suddenly understanding the feelings Mark’s mother had for the woman.
“Mark went ballistic. My report is that he literally threw the two of them out. I mean, he didn’t give her time to grab her clothes or anything. He picked Lucia up and tossed her through the door and kicked the guy out behind her.”
Vicky had taken both of Karen’s hands in hers. “I don’t think he’s ever recovered from what happened. You need to understand. The Mark Stuart you know, the quiet guy who has no emotions, the one who doesn’t smile, who doesn’t date, who never laughs, is not the Mark Stuart I knew in college.”
Karen recalled the morning in June when Mark had almost bowled her over as he hurried out of the small park at the corner of Meeting and Broad Streets. His head had been down and he had appeared to be deep in thought. She had called him an absent-minded professor and they both had laughed.
She had noticed a woman with red hair who also appeared to be leaving the park. Mark had dismissed her question about the woman’s identity and she had finally decided it was none of her business to keep up with every person, male or female, to whom Mark spoke.
After that morning, for whatever reason, Mark had seemed to change. He had become more talkative. He had laughed easier and he had smiled readily. Karen had enjoyed discovering the real Mark Stuart.
“I’ll split a cone with you,” he said. “Why don’t you wait on the Battery, sit in the sun.” Mark pointed across the narrow street that separated the park from the seawall. “I’ll be right back.”
Karen crossed the street and leaned on the rail, looking down into the water. The tide was coming in and the water lapped against the wall only a few feet below her. She turned her face up, allowing the sun to warm it. She felt happy. What a turn her life had taken in the last several months.
Karen turned upon hearing the clop-clop of horses’ hooves against the asphalt. A horse-drawn carriage, a sightseeing tour, crept along the street. The carriage was full—twelve passengers and a driver, who doubled as the guide. The passengers wore heavy coats, and blankets covered their legs. The driver was wearing gray wool pants and a gray cap, reminiscent of a Southern soldier from the nineteenth century. The carriage pulled to the curb while the driver recounted the history of the Battery.
“The park is known as White Point Gardens,” the guide was saying. “Its name comes from the white oyster shells that once covered the point, and the park really was a garden at one time. The seawall is known as the Battery. At one time, an artillery battery was located here to protect the city from attack.”
The guide’s history seemed to be accurate, although, over the years, Karen had overhead guides recount some of the tallest tales ever.
“Here,” the guide pointed ahead to where the Battery made a left turn, “the Ashley River flows in from the west,” she pointed to the left, “and meets the Cooper River,” she nodded to the right, past Karen, “flowing from the east. They meet in the harbor, and form the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a proven fact.”
Karen chuckled and shook her head as she turned away from the carriage and glanced across the street, surveying the park.
Even on such a cold day, there were people in the park—many couples and several families. Karen spied blankets spread out in the sun at the other end. Children were running about in the grass and a couple of them were trying to fly kites, although the lack of a strong wind made launching them problematic. Mark was standing in a long line, waiting for ice cream.
Karen smiled. He seemed to enjoy doing things to make her happy. At first, she had hesitated to allow him to help, but in the last couple of months especially, he had seemed to be so eager to do things for her—helping at the museum, driving her to buy groceries, changing bulbs when the fluorescent lights in her kitchen went out, even coming over to cook dinner for her when she had to work late, assistance which had required her to give him keys to her apartment, eliciting numerous questionable comments from Vicky—that she now allowed him to do such things without question. He reminded her of John, Vicky’s husband, who barely allowed Vicky to lift a finger around their house, arguing he had the right to spoil the woman he loved.
The guide was now pointing ahead, toward the remains of Fort Sumter standing in the harbor. She was recounting how a hundred fifty years earlier, soldiers flying the “Bonnie Blue Flag,” a blue flag with a single large star for the independent state of South Carolina, had fired on the fort, effectively starting America’s civil war.
“That war goes under many names,” the guide was saying. “The Civil War and the War Between the States being the most common. In Charleston, it is often referred to as the War of Northern Aggression, or, more commonly, as ‘the late unpleasantness.’ South Carolina troops were stationed here on the battery, at Fort Johnson on James Island, at Fort Moultrie…” the guide continued.
Mark was still waiting for ice cream, although he was now the next in line. He held up his hand, and Karen returned his wave. Another wedding party was gathering at the gazebo. She heard a man’s frantic voice far off to her left, at the far end of the park.
“Eliza. Eliza, where are you? Eliza.”
Karen glanced to her left, in the direction of the voice, but all she saw was the bride, holding her father’s arm as she mounted the steps of the gazebo.
The guide finished her two-minute description of Charleston’s role in the war and shook the reins to start the horses on their way.
“Eliza, stop,” a woman screamed. “Eliza, stop. Come here this instant.”
As Karen turned to look, she spied a blur of red hair, as a little girl dashed down the sidewalk, toward the horses.
“Horsy,” the little girl cried in an excited voice.
“Eliza, stop. Eliza…” A woman with hair the same shade as the girl’s dashed after her, but the child was far ahead. “Eliza.”
“Horsy. Horsy.” The little girl waved her arms in excitement.
The little girl caught up to the carriage and reached out to touch one of the horses just as it began to move. Her foot hit the curb and she pitched forward, squealing in fright. The horse shied, its feet prancing as it tried to move away. It reared on its hind legs, neighing in alarm.
Karen lunged for the girl, catching her jacket just as her feet left the ground. She wrapped her arms around the child and held her tightly as she fell onto the concrete walkway and rolled over, away from the carriage, almost crashing into a group of people who were looking toward the harbor, their backs to her.
The child screamed and began to cry.
Karen screamed too, as her leg twisted beneath her body.
“Karen,” Mark shouted. He had been ready to order their ice cream, but he dashed away, racing across the park toward her.
“Eliza, come to Mummy. Come here, darling.” The woman knelt and held out her hands.
“Is that your mommy?” Karen pushed herself into a sitting position, her arms still wrapped around the child.
The girl nodded and held out her hands. “Mummy,” she cried.
“Go. Go to Mommy.” Karen released her and she ran to the woman, who hugged her and rocked her back and forth. “Are you hurt, darling? Are you hurt?”
“Are you all right?” A woman who had been standing nearby knelt beside Karen. Karen gripped her ankle.
“It feels sprained,” she said. “Oh, it hurts.” She put her hand on her forehead. “I feel sick.” She slumped, and would have sprawled across the walkway, but the woman held her.
A crowd was beginning to grow, and Karen could no longer see the woman and her child.
“You ought to watch
that child more closely,” someone in the crowd called out.
“She might have been killed,” a man shouted.
“You don’t treat a child like that,” a woman said. “If you can’t take care of her…”
The mother’s voice rose above those of the crowd. “One minute she was with us, the next she was crying, ‘Horsy, horsy,’ and running across the grass and…I couldn’t find her, and then she dashed across the street. Thank goodness there was no traffic.”
“Karen!”
A car’s horn blared as Mark dashed across the street, not waiting for the traffic to clear, pushing into the crowd to reach her.
Mark knelt beside her, putting his hand on her shoulder. “Do you need to lie down?”
“No. I…I think I’ll be all right.” She took a deep breath. “Let me try to stand.” Mark and the woman helped her up, lifting her, and setting her on her feet.
“Ow,” she said when she placed weight on her right foot. “Oh, that hurts. Oh, I sprained it.” She took a small step. “Oh, no.”
“Let me help you to a bench.” Mark stretched his arm around her and she leaned on him. “I’ll get the car.”
As he helped Karen down the steps, toward a place to sit, the crowd began to wander away, and the woman and the child approached, accompanied by a tall blond man who was pushing a stroller.
The woman seemed to notice Mark for the first time. Her eyes grew large as she stared, first at Mark, then at Karen.
“Mark?”
An expression of surprise crossed his face as he looked at her, taking his eyes off Karen for the first time since she fell.
“Lucia?” Mark’s grip on Karen’s arm tightened.
Karen’s head snapped up. Lucia? The little tramp. The one who’d hurt Mark so badly. Her eyes narrowed as she inspected the woman. She’d seen her before…Last June. In the park with Mark. She frowned.
No one spoke for a moment.
“Karen, this is Lucia…Mason. Lucia, Karen Wingate.”
“Hi.” Karen felt no need to say anything else. She wanted the woman to leave.
“Hello. I…uh…knew Mark.”
“Lucia is an old friend of mine,” Mark broke in. “Karen is…”
“Your fiancée.” Lucia’s eyes fixed on Karen’s ring.
Karen looked at Mark. He smiled as he reached for her hand. “Yes. Yes she is. We’re being married next week.”
Lucia stared at Karen for a moment, tears in her eyes. “Thank you so very much. You saved my daughter. She might have been killed.” She hugged the little girl tightly against her body. “Thank you.”
“She’s headstrong like her mother, and…” The blond man ruffled the little girl’s hair.
“Stop, Doug.” As Lucia held up her hand, Mark glared at the man, and he stopped talking in mid-sentence, looking away.
Mark’s arm tightened protectively about Karen’s waist.
Karen suddenly realized this was probably Mark’s pig-of-a-best-friend, the one who had slept with Lucia. Karen scowled. She wanted to hurt him and her arm tensed.
Lucia turned back to Karen. “Thank you so much. I…I don’t know what else to say. I hope you’re not hurt too badly.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Karen managed a small smile. “I saw her red hair flash past. There aren’t many of us around, redheads, you know, and we have to look after each other.”
They stood for a moment in silence.
“We’d better go,” Lucia said. “Congratulations, Mark, you’re marrying a very good person.” She turned to Karen. “You are too. Mark is one of the very best.”
“Thank you,” was all Karen could manage to say.
Lucia put her arm around Eliza, and they followed the man with the stroller. “Let’s go back to the car so I can feed the babies.”
Mark turned away from Lucia, but Karen glared at her as she walked away.
“We need to get you home.”
Karen maintained her ankle would feel better if she walked on it, and Mark helped her limp across the street. She insisted on buying ice cream and they slowly walked back to the Battery and stood together, gazing out at the ocean.
Karen tried to guess what Mark was thinking. Surely he realized that, even if she knew nothing about Lucia, the tension in the air had made it clear she was more than simply a friend.
She wanted to ask if he still had feelings for Lucia, but she was afraid of what his answer might be. She still felt insecure marrying a man who didn’t love her, but she didn’t think she could go through with a wedding to a man who loved someone else.
“Do you know who Lucia was?” he finally asked.
Karen nodded. She placed her hand over his and squeezed. “I’m sorry she hurt you so badly.”
Mark took her hand in his.
“Lucia’s Song sounds so sad now I know the whole story,” she said.
Mark stared at her for a moment. “You know Lucia’s Song?”
Karen nodded. “Is there a Karen’s Song?” She tried to ask in such a way that her question might be taken as a joke, but Mark didn’t chuckle.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No song…”
Mark looked down at the water splashing against the concrete seawall. “She’s married, you know. The man pushing the stroller, his name is Doug Mason. He once was my best friend. He’s her husband. They have three children.” He paused, still looking down, then he raised his head, looking deep into her eyes. The expression he wore seemed so torn and Karen could not read it clearly. There was definitely love in his eyes…or was Karen merely drawing conclusions based on her fears…
He opened his mouth to speak and Karen held her breath.
“I’m not in love with Lucia…”
Wedding Bells
They walked along the Battery until Karen’s ankle began to ache, then Mark helped her to a bench, fetched the car, and drove her home. He’d intended to stay with her to help care for her ankle, but Karen said she wanted to be alone.
Arriving home, Mark changed clothes and walked into the living room where he had laid kindling for a fire before leaving for the brunch. He and Karen had planned to spend the afternoon baking Christmas cookies, but they’d agreed to put that off until the next day. He knelt on the hearth and lit the fire, adding large pieces of wood as the kindling began to burn.
He should have told Karen about Lucia, rather than allowing her to hear about them from someone else. Seeing her had upset Karen, it was plain, but what, exactly, would he have said? He would never ask about Karen’s old boyfriends, although he knew she had twice come close to being engaged. Still, he felt as if he should have said something.
Mark tossed a log onto the fire and closed the screen. As he walked to the kitchen to make hot chocolate—since Karen was around so frequently, he now bought cocoa in five pound bags—he reran their conversation at the Battery.
Lucia’s Song seems so sad, now…Is there a Karen’s Song?
She’d wanted to know if she was as important to him as Lucia had been. He sighed.
There was no “Karen’s song,” he had said, and he felt certain she had taken that to mean he had once cared more for Lucia than he cared for her.
What he had said was not actually true. There was a song, a verse, at least, that expressed his feelings about Karen. He hummed it now, an old song—he’d heard at least two renditions of it, one country, one pop. When she’d asked, he had almost told her the song, thinking he could, perhaps, sing the verse to her, making it hers, but this morning, a week before their wedding, with Karen upset after seeing Lucia, did not seem to be the appropriate time to tell her its name, revealing for the first time that he loved her. He was not sure she would even have believed him anyway, thinking he was simply trying to raise her spirits.
He had never expressed his feelings to Karen. Although he now understood he had been falling in love with her over a year earlier when they were hiking in the mountains—the real reason he’d been upset at the Mountain Grill—he had been unwi
lling to admit it, truly admit it, even to himself, until the morning he had talked with Lucia.
His friend in the psychology department had told him that, until that point, he had lived with the unspoken assumption that Lucia would one day return to him. Their discussion that morning had shattered that illusion. He’d gotten his closure.
Perhaps a more important outcome of that discussion had been the recognition that no matter how she tried to dress her behavior as an accident, a response to a dare—which she never refused—or a one-time slip up, what she had truly done was to casually toss him aside for a quick tumble with Doug, and even if she blamed humiliation and fear for not returning his calls, she had then walked away without looking back, leaving him with no apology, no explanation, not even a simple good-bye.
Walking across the street after their meeting, he had known she was not coming back to him, and he had realized that was a good thing, because he could not love a woman who treated him as she had. Only then was he able to admit his feelings for Karen.
Then, he had all but barreled into Karen as he crossed the street that morning.
His head snapped up. Had Karen seen Lucia? Did she suspect he still had feelings for her?
He stirred cocoa and sugar into the simmering milk.
He would have to tell her how he felt.
He sighed again.
There was a second reason he had never expressed his feelings—she did not love him in return.
They had been clear about their expectations when they had resumed dating, and she had never indicated that hers—or her feelings—had changed. In fact, a couple of months earlier, at her insistence, they had spent a Saturday afternoon following the suggestion of Karen’s friend, Kimi Carson, and clarifying their expectations for marriage, an absolutely unromantic, almost mechanical process she would never have suggested had she been in love.
Karen had compiled a list of issues couples had to resolve as they moved in together, whether married or not, and she wanted them to make conscious decisions about how they would handle them. Mark had reluctantly agreed.
Just Three Dates Page 26