He lights his sparkler, and then uses it to light mine. He sits down next to me and we wave them like wands over the water, laughing. After they’ve burned out, we sit there quietly. Our shoulders are almost touching.
Then he reaches over and takes my hand, just like that. His is warm, and he gives mine a squeeze. I squeeze back. Even though it’s dark, I can tell we’re both smiling.
Zach who?
CASSIDY
“ ‘Things are changing so fast it almost frightens me,’ Anne thought, a little sadly.”
—Anne of Avonlea
Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop.
The slow, steady hoofbeats in the street below echo the dread in my heart. I lean out the turret window and watch as Led and Zep pull up in front of our house. Their manes and tails have been brushed and braided, the silver on their harnesses gleams in the sun, and the carriage they’re pulling behind them is decked out with ribbons and flowers and a big sign on the back that reads: JUST MARRIED.
My mother is getting married today. An hour and a half from now the wedding will be over and she won’t be Clementine Sloane any more, she’ll be Mrs. Stanley Kinkaid. And Stan the man will be my stepfather.
Downstairs, our house is bustling with activity. I can hear laughter floating through the window on the floor below, where Courtney and my mom are getting dressed in my mother’s bedroom. My mom probably has her Avonlea dress on by now. That’s what she calls it. Megan keeps saying she never meant for it to be a wedding dress, but where else would you wear a fancy getup like that? There’s a clatter of pots and pans from the kitchen, where the caterers—my mom’s friends and colleagues from Cooking with Clementine—are putting the final touches on the food for the reception, and strains of music drift up from the other side of the house, where a string quartet is setting up in the gazebo. Mom and Stanley are getting married in our backyard.
At last night’s rehearsal dinner, I sat at the restaurant wondering why there’s no such thing as a real-life invisibility potion. It would be so much easier if I could just make Stan the man disappear. There’s nothing really wrong with him, he’s just not my dad. I try to imagine him living here in this house with us, and I can’t. I try to imagine having breakfast with him every morning, and watching TV with him every night, and going on vacations and bike rides and trips to the grocery store. I just can’t.
The thing is, I still just really, really miss my dad.
Zep lifts his head and whinnies.
“Easy, boy,” I hear Mr. Delaney tell him. Mr. Delaney is wearing a top hat and white gloves. He’s going to drive us all off after the wedding.
I wish I were more excited about riding in the carriage. Courtney and I are supposed to go with my mom and Stanley as far as the train station. Then Mr. Delaney will bring us home again after they leave for their honeymoon. Mom knows about the going to the Concord Station part, but she doesn’t know where she and Stanley are going yet. I do. They’re taking the train to Boston, and then they’re going aboard a cruise ship to Prince Edward Island. My mother’s going to get her wish. She’s going to Avonlea—well, Cavendish—to see Green Gables. Nobody’s supposed to know, but Stanley left his briefcase open one night when he was over for dinner and I saw the brochures and couldn’t help snooping. I haven’t told Mom, though. Even I’m not dumb enough to do something that mean and spoil the surprise.
I can’t help but wonder which voyage she’ll like better—the one on that little sailboat with my dad, or this trip on a fancy ocean liner with Stan the man. But maybe Dr. Weisman told her not to compare too, just like he told me.
I glance down at the photograph on the window seat beside me. It’s the silver-framed one of me and Dad that I gave Mom for her wedding shower. “So what do you think of all this?” I whisper to Dad, wishing he were here to answer me.
A couple of cars drive up and park near the waiting carriage. People are starting to arrive. I watch them get out—it’s some friends of my mother’s from her yoga class, and the Chadwicks, including Stewart, which will make Emma happy.
“Cassidy? Are you up there?”
It’s my mother.
“Yeah,” I reply.
“Are you dressed?”
I tug at the scratchy lace collar on my dress. “Yeah.”
Trust my mother to go and pick out the frilliest, girliest bridesmaid dresses in creation. I look ridiculous. Megan says the color—pale green—goes well with my hair, but I don’t care, I still feel like an idiot. Courtney, on the other hand, is wearing the exact same dress, only in a different color—hers is pale pink—and she looks like a princess. I may be sitting in a turret, but I’m just not princess material. You’d think my mother would know that by now. I’m more the dragon type.
“Hurry up, honey, you need to come down now!” she says. “People are starting to arrive, and the photographer wants to take pictures soon.”
“I’ll be down in a minute.”
The truth is, I wish I could stay up here forever. It’s so nice and quiet and far away from everything. Plus, it’s breezy, what with the open windows nearly all the way around and the shade from the big elm tree. Not that it’s all that hot out today, which is pretty amazing for August in Concord. It gets really sticky in the summer in New England, something it never did back in Laguna Beach.
Being up here is kind of like being in a tree house, I decide, which makes me think of last winter at Half Moon Farm. Maybe if I asked her, Mrs. Wong would lend me her handcuffs. Then I wouldn’t have to go downstairs and pretend to be all happy about the wedding.
A long black limousine turns down Hubbard Street and stops in front of our house. The back doors open and Isabelle d’Azur and Wolfgang climb out. Wolfgang spots me and waves. I wave back. Cars are arriving faster now—Nana and Grampie, who are going to stay with Courtney and me while Mom’s on her honeymoon; Dr. Weisman and his wife; Fred Goldberg from the Cooking Channel; the Delaneys; the Hawthornes; the Wongs; and an elderly couple that I recognize as Stan the man’s parents. His dad looks just like him, only older and balder. He and Mrs. Kinkaid are pretty nice, actually, but I already have enough grandparents. I don’t need any more.
I hear footsteps on the stairs and quickly shove the picture of Dad and me under a cushion.
It’s Megan and Emma and Jess. They crowd into the turret, practically glowing. They’re really excited about the wedding. It’s easy for them to be happy. None of their mothers are getting married today.
“You look really nice, Cassidy,” says Emma.
I grunt.
She’s wearing a dress exactly like mine, only lavender. A lavender headband is holding her brown curls off her face. Jess and Megan are both wearing the same dress as mine too, only Jess’s is pale blue, and Megan’s is yellow. Bridesmaids always wear matching dresses, which I keep telling everybody is a ridiculous tradition, but of course nobody ever listens to me. Especially when it comes to fashion.
“We look like a bunch of stupid Easter eggs,” I grumble.
“Stop being surly,” says Emma.
“Stop using words I don’t know,” I reply.
“How about rude, then?” she tosses back.
“Or grumpy,” adds Megan.
“Or cranky,” says Jess.
“Okay, okay already, I get the point.” I heave a sigh. “Look, I’m not in the mood for the synonym game today.”
“C’mon, Cassidy, you’ve got to stop sulking sometime,” Emma says. “Look at it this way—at least your mom chose a good guy. My mom says Stanley Kinkaid’s a keeper.”
“She’s right,” says Jess. “Just think of all the nice things he’s done for you and your mom—and for us.” Stanley looked over Concord’s tax laws and found something called a grandfather clause, which sounds a lot like Santa Claus to me, only I know that’s silly of course, and he was able to talk the town selectmen into exempting Half Moon Farm from the property tax. The Delaneys still had to pay this year, but they won’t ever have to worry about losing the farm again.
They’re right, of course. Everybody’s right. Stan is a good guy. Even Dad would have liked him. I can picture the two of them hanging out, eating pizza and watching the World Series or the Super Bowl on TV, trading stats about the players. They’d have gotten along really well.
“Girls!”
It’s my mother again.
“It’s time for pictures!” she calls. “Everybody downstairs on the double!”
“You guys go ahead,” I tell my friends. “I’ll be right there.”
They leave and I stare out the window a while longer. Then I hear whispering at the foot of the turret stairs. It’s my mom and Stanley.
“You go talk to her!”
“Why me?”
“Please, honey? I can’t get her to come down.”
Stanley trudges reluctantly up the stairs, like he’s coming to meet his doom. Beware the dragon girl in the tower, I think. Feel my fiery breath!
“Um, hi, Cassidy.”
I hunch my shoulders and turn my back on him, staring out the window again.
“Great view from up here,” he says, sitting down on the window seat beside me.
I nod.
“Wow, the Delaneys sure spiffed up that old carriage, didn’t they?”
I nod again.
“It’ll be fun to ride in it, won’t it?”
I shrug.
Stanley clears his throat. “So, Cassidy, I thought maybe we could have a little talk here. You know, man-to-man. I mean, uh, man-to-girl.”
Stanley’s trying really hard. Part of me wants to cave and just be nice to him. The dragon girl part of me wants to let him squirm. I let him squirm.
“I know you’re still not entirely on board with this whole wedding thing”—he looks at me hopefully, like maybe I’ve changed my mind in the last fifteen minutes—“but maybe you can cooperate anyway today. For your mother’s sake.”
I continue to stare out the window. I don’t give him an ounce of encouragement. Wicked, wicked dragon girl!
He sighs. “Look, I know how you feel about your dad—”
I turn on him. “Do you?” I say, my anger blazing out hot as dragon’s breath. “Do you really?”
“Well, I, uh—”
“Your parents are both still alive,” I tell him, the words tumbling out of me. “I saw them just a couple of minutes ago. You have no idea how I feel about my dad.”
Stanley sighs. “No, Cassidy, I suppose you’re right,” he admits. “But it’s not as if I’ve never lost anybody I loved, and if you really try, perhaps you can imagine that I might have a tiny inkling of how you feel.”
The dragon girl lifts a shoulder.
“And maybe while we’re talking about feelings, we can talk a little bit about how I feel,” he continues. I can tell he’s getting worked up, because he’s beginning to sound a little dragonlike himself. “Ever since I started dating your mother, you’ve been nothing but rude to me. I’ve tried to be nice to you, tried to find things we could talk about and things we could do together. The thing is, we have a lot in common, starting with sports, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t be friends.” He sighs again, and the anger drains from his voice. “I’m not trying to be your dad, Cassidy. Your dad will always, always be your dad. Forever. That’s a fact, and that’s not going to change, whether I’m a part of this family or not.”
I scuff my toe on the floor. I’m starting to feel really small.
“I have absolutely no intention of trying to replace your father. I thought maybe you’d realize that by now, but you keep pigheadedly clinging to this notion that I’m some horrible beast who’s trying to steal your mother away. The fact is, I love your mother. I think she’s the most amazing, beautiful, talented woman I’ve ever met. And I think you and your sister are two of the most amazing, beautiful, talented girls I’ve ever met. I know I’m not your dad, and I promise I’ll never try to be, but maybe you could at least consider allowing me to be your friend.”
By now I’m blinking back tears. I duck my head so Stanley doesn’t see. “Maybe,” I manage to whisper.
Stanley is quiet for a while. He nods. “Okay, then,” he says. “Maybe is good. Maybe works for me. I’ll take maybe. There’s hope in maybe.”
He reaches out and pats my shoulder. And without another word, he leaves the turret.
Hope.
Such a tiny word.
Such a powerful word.
I used to hope that Dad would come back, that the accident had all just been a terrible mistake. That hope kept me going for months. But I gave it up long ago.
I take the picture of my dad and me out from behind the cushion.
“I wish you were here,” I whisper to it. “I wish you were here to tell me what to do.”
Deep down in my heart, though, I already know what my father would say. Always bring your best, Cassidy. Bring it to every game.
Have I really brought my best to this game?
I think about my mom calling Stanley her “knight in shining armor.” I don’t know about the shining armor part, but maybe she’s got a point. Maybe not all heroes ride white horses. Maybe some of them are disguised as short, balding accountants. Accountants with nice eyes that crinkle up around the edges when they smile. Maybe one of those accountants might even rescue a dragon girl from her tower prison.
Maybe Stanley Kinkaid is right, maybe this new life won’t be so awful. Maybe I can hope a little too.
And clinging tightly to that tiny tendril of hope, I kiss the picture of my dad and set it on the windowsill, facing outward so he can watch us when we ride off in the Delaneys’ carriage. I look down to the front lawn below, where Emma and Megan and Jess are standing together like colorful butterflies. They spot me. “Come on, Cassidy!” Emma calls, waving. I wave back to her. I stand up, finally ready to leave the turret and the dragon girl behind. Then I go downstairs to where my family and friends are waiting for me to step into my future.
“My future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don’t know what lies around the bend, but I’m going to believe that the best does.”
—Anne of Green Gables
Mother-Daughter Book Club Questions
Which of the girls do you think has changed the most from the first book, and how?
Have you ever read Anne of Green Gables? If so, did you enjoy it? If you haven’t read it, did this book make you want to?
Do you have a place that you love like Half Moon Farm or Green Gables? Have you ever thought about naming places like Anne, and then Emma and Jess, did?
What are you involved in at school? Sports? The newspaper? Are the other students involved competitive with one another?
If you play a sport or are involved in another after-school activity, do you prefer being on a team, like Cassidy’s hockey team, or being by yourself, like Emma’s skating lessons? Why do you think that is?
Do you think Becca Chadwick has changed from the first book? In what ways is she different? How is she the same?
Were the moms right in inviting Becca and her mother to join the book club, even though Becca had been intentionally mean to some of the members in the past?
How do you think Megan felt, being torn between two groups of friends? Have you ever been in a situation like that? How did you handle it?
What do you think about the prank that Cassidy, Emma, and Jess tried to play on Becca? Was it right or wrong? What about the prank that Jess tried to play on her younger brothers? Have you ever played a prank on someone? What happened?
Should Jess’s parents have told her earlier about losing Half Moon Farm? What do you think their reasons were for not telling her sooner? Have you ever been upset with people around you for kee
ping something from you? What do you think their reasons for doing so might have been?
Think back to the scene when Stanley took Cassidy to the Bruins game. Did you understand Cassidy’s bitter feelings toward Stanley, or do you think she should have been nicer?
Have you ever been lost, like the girls on their camping trip? What did you do?
Have you ever made s’mores?
Would you ever want to model in a fashion show? Why or why not?
If you had to design an outfit for your best friend, what would it be like?
Which of the girls do you most relate to? Has this changed from the first book?
If you could get to know one of the characters better, who would it be and why?
What was your favorite part of this book, and why?
Would you change anything about the ending of this book?
Author’s Note
Exactly a century ago this year, Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables was published. The story of the irrepressible red-haired orphan was an instant hit, and has since been read and loved by generations of girls—including me. In fact, my mother was Canadian, a native of Nova Scotia (right next door to Montgomery’s beloved Prince Edward Island), so for my sisters and me, Anne was required reading.
One of the unexpected pleasures of writing The Mother-Daughter Book Club is the opportunity it’s given me to talk with girls and their moms across the country. Invariably, many of these book clubs later write to tell me that because of my book, they were inspired to read Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. Nothing could delight me more than to know that I’ve had some small part in introducing young readers to such a classic tale—one which, like Anne of Green Gables, is dear to my heart. Timeless stories such as these richly deserve to have a whole new generation of readers fall in love with them, so if you haven’t yet been introduced to Anne Shirley, and to Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert and Diana Barry and Mrs. Rachel Lynde and all the other inhabitants of Avonlea, I hope that reading Much Ado About Anne will inspire you to make their acquaintance. If you do, I can assure you that you’ll definitely be in for a treat!
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