Once Upon a Bride

by Jean Stone

  It reminded Jo of when they were freshmen in college, when Lily wanted to recruit the entire gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic Hockey Team for Winter Weekend. Using the generous allowance provided by her Aunt Elizabeth, who'd been named Lily's legal guardian, Lily paid the way for Jo and Elaine to go with her to Minnesota, where most of the team was from. (Sarah said Lily was crazy and wanted no part of the escapade.) But Lily had insisted they could make it happen. How was she to know the team had other commitments, that their whirlwind tour of nationwide appearances had only just begun, that even if one or two players had been so inclined, chances were Winston College was just too far out of the way?

  Lily and Jo and Elaine had a memorable trip, however. They were stranded in a snowstorm while trying to change planes in Pittsburgh; Elaine had her purse stolen at the bus station in Minneapolis; and Jo came down with a cold that kept her ears blocking and unblocking on the long flight back to Albany.

  The trip had cost Lily a couple of thousand dollars and netted absolutely nothing. She did, however, have Aunt Elizabeth, who was always good for more, a fact that Lily tested often in the name of having fun.

  But that, Jo mused, had been two decades ago. Lily's aunt, as well as Lily's husband, were gone now, leaving no one for Lily to turn to if she squandered money on another foolhardy idea.

  Maybe, Jo thought, she could at least steer her friend in a sensible direction. Jo's experience in business had taught her how to quickly compile research and determine whether or not an idea had merit. She could at least do that for Lily.

  With her computer still in Boston, she'd have to resort to old-fashioned techniques. So instead of going home, Jo drove back to the center of town and cruised around the block four times before she found a parking space away from the antiques shop, but close to the bookstore.

  The West Hope Bookstore looked the same as when Jo was a young girl, when she frequently went after school and spent her baby-sitting money on Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie stories about Miss Marple. It hadn't mattered how young or old the heroines were, Jo loved books about independent women who were strong and smart and always came out on top.

  The bookstore looked as crowded as ever, not with customers, but with familiar stacks of magazines and newspapers and row upon row of colorful, upright spines of books from romance to science fiction, from reference books to self-help tomes. Jo should not have been surprised that the owner was also the same.

  “Josephine?” The woman behind the counter had snow-white hair. She had a stocky build and wore a navy cardigan that might have been as ancient as the bookstore and much of its inventory.

  “Mrs. Kingsley?” For an instant, Jo felt the familiar suffocation creep around her. That West Hope suffocation. Her eyes darted around the store; she fought the urge to flee.

  “How are you, dear? I heard you were back in town.”

  Trapped. How she hated being trapped. She forced a smile. Of course Mrs. Kingsley had heard. In addition to owning the bookstore, the woman attended the same church as Jo's mother.

  “You're taking an apartment on Shannon Drive?”

  Her eyes traveled the store again. Why had she come here? Didn't she know better? “Well,” she replied. “It's not definite yet.”

  “That's nice, dear,” Mrs. Kingsley replied, as if Jo had said, yes, she was taking the apartment. “Well, welcome home. It's always a special time when one of our young returns.”

  Young? Jo wondered if she should remind the woman that Josephine Lyons had graduated from high school nearly twenty-five years ago, that she was hardly young.

  “What can I get you today? Still reading Nancy Drew?”

  Jo smiled again and fidgeted with the shoulder strap of her Coach bag. She almost laughed out loud at the prospect of asking Mrs. Kingsley for books on wedding planning. Within half an hour word would scatter through West Hope like tourists on the lawn at Tanglewood during a rainstorm, that “young” Jo Lyons must be getting married, though no one knew to whom. It wouldn't be that boy, Brian Forbes, would it? They had gone together for so many years . . .

  “Actually,” Jo said, “I'm looking for something to help me decorate the apartment. Some ideas. Color. Style. That sort of thing.”

  “Books or magazines?”

  “Oh, gosh,” Jo said, sweeping back her hair and tucking it behind her ears. “Just a magazine or two.”

  Mrs. Kingsley came from behind the cash register counter and walked toward the magazine rack. Jo followed obediently. She decided acquiescence was the quickest way to a graceful exit.

  “Here's a good one,” the woman said, and continued talking while she flipped the pages, mentioning the colors of today versus yesterday as if she had her own segment on the Home and Garden channel. “I know those apartments,” she said. “My daughter lived there when she was working in the office at St. Alsworth's Trucking. She had a one bedroom. Nice enough place. But then she married Burt Langley. You remember Burt, I'm sure.”

  How could she not? Burt had dated nearly every high-school girl except Jo, and was famous for his “Russian hands and Roman fingers,” and for the fact that his father was the owner of two limestone quarries and the richest man in town. Jo had often wondered why he'd married plain Jane Kingsley, unless it was because she would keep his home fires burning while his hands and fingers continued their life's work.

  “They have four children, you know,” Mrs. Kingsley prattled while Jo shifted from one foot to the other.

  It might have been five minutes, not the five hours that it seemed, but finally Jo was in her car again, having spent forty dollars on magazines about home decorating that she didn't need. She tried not to think about the fact that she should not be so cavalier about spending forty dollars now that money was no longer “easy come, easy go”—easy anything.

  Unlike West Hope, the town Sarah lived in wasn't big enough to need a town green. The “center” boasted only a Universalist church, a general store with a single gas pump, and a combination town hall, volunteer fire department, and library. There wasn't even a police station.

  It had been a few years since Jo had visited Sarah at Christmas. Hopefully, she could find the house. She wondered if Sarah would suggest they try to talk Lily out of her “business” plan. As flighty as their darling Lily could be, Sarah was sensible; Sarah was sane.

  As Jo drove, it occurred to her that anyone who thought summer was cool and shady in the Berkshires had never driven the narrow, winding back roads when the temperature was high and the humidity was higher. Huge cathedral pines and ancient oaks and maples blanketed the air. Not a leaf, not a bird, not a bumblebee stirred; the only sounds were the monotone drones of the cicadas, who were too hot to move, too.

  Thank God the Honda had air-conditioning.

  Jo finally spotted the mailbox that had been crafted from the outer shell of an old bass guitar. DUGAN, the top name read. DONALDSON, it read underneath.

  Turning down the dirt drive, Jo wondered why Sarah and Jason had never married. They'd been together many years: Had their relationship worked because they'd maintained independence?

  A large brown dog loped from between a row of pines and what Jo recognized as Sarah's pickup truck. The dog lumbered toward the car. His pink tongue dangled, his jaw dripped wet drips, his sweeping tail swished welcoming swishes. Just as suddenly, Sarah appeared behind him. She wore long khaki jeans and a long-sleeved cotton shirt: in the woods, mosquitoes and tics were abundant. She grabbed the dog's collar and reined him in.

  “He thought you were Jason,” she shouted, as Jo rolled down her car window. “He always hopes it's Jason when he hears a car.” Maybe like Lily, the dog believed Jason was away far too often.

  Angling the car between two pine trees, Jo was sad they hadn't been in touch more often, that they hadn't shared more of the grown-up parts of their lives. Where had the years gone? Hadn't Sarah just planted the herb garden on the windowsill in their dorm room, only to have it slip off and crash to the sidewalk, narrowly missing t
he housemother's car? Hadn't Lily just danced in Swan Lake in the costume Elaine made? Hadn't one of the straps torn during the performance, leaving the male lead holding Lily's small, uncovered breast in his embarrassed hand?

  Hadn't those things happened only yesterday?

  With a small sigh, Jo turned off the ignition and got out of the car.

  “Lily found a storefront,” she said, following Sarah up toward the house, a shaded log cabin surrounded by lofty yellow and orange lilies, clusters of tall daisies, and waterfalls of thick ivy.

  “I know,” Sarah said. “She called. She wondered if you'd mind that the landlord is Brian's brother.”

  So, Jo thought, Lily, the eternal romantic, had remembered. Jo stopped for a moment, then breathed again. “Oh,” she replied. “Well, no, of course not.”

  Sarah laughed. “That's what I said. I told her that Brian was years ago and we were just kids, for godssake.”

  Years ago, Jo reminded herself. Not yesterday. She went up the stairs and into the house.

  It was a great house. An enormous stone fireplace stood at one end of a huge room that served as the kitchen, dining and living rooms. The master bedroom, bath, and sitting room were in the back, tucked behind a rustic staircase that led upstairs to two more bedrooms, another bath, and a loft that Sarah had once said was “Burch's domain.”

  “How old is Burch now?” Jo asked as she trailed her friend to the kitchen area.

  Sarah tossed back her long, black hair. She wore it down today. It was shiny and silky and reached her waist. Despite the fact that Jo was a natural light brown, not-quite-blond, she'd always envied Sarah her Native American bloodline that had rewarded her friend with such luxurious hair and such Cher-like cheekbones.

  Sarah poured an iced drink. “Twelve,” she replied. “Can you believe it?”

  So Sarah had a twelve-year-old son, yet she'd never married. She'd once said she never felt marriage was necessary, that independence was more important in life.

  In college Sarah had often been called a leftover hippie, though she'd been too young to be a leftover anything. But in the early eighties, in New England, her Cherokee roots—her ties to the earth, her innate spirituality and creativity—had been mistaken for West Coast flower power and most of the old Yankees were fed up with that.

  “Here,” Sarah said, handing Jo a glass, “it's tea from the herbs in my garden.”

  Jo took the glass, then ambled around the room, her eyes taking in the wall hangings and blankets and accoutrements in shades of grass and berries and cloudless skies. She sat on the plump, moss-colored cushion of a chair that was framed by twisted tree branches. “This is a wonderful house,” she said. “It's very much you.”

  Sarah laughed and tossed back her hair. She sat cross-legged on the floor in front of Jo and set her glass on a rug that Jo suspected had been handwoven, probably by Sarah. Sarah pulled her long hair over her shoulder and began plaiting a braid. “Not exactly a froufrou wedding environment,” she said, her eyes indicating a wall on which about two dozen tambourine-size artifacts hung. Each had been painted with a different, primitive design—an eagle, a bear, a wolf. “Tribal drums,” Sarah said. “Made of honest-to-goodness buffalo hide.”

  Jo wrinkled her nose, but smiled. She wondered what it would feel like to have a heritage so strong that it was rooted at one's center, to have a link with something substantial beyond church ladies and a gazebo on a town green.

  “So,” Sarah said, “you like Lily's idea?”

  With a quick shrug, Jo sipped her tea. It was sweet, pure. “I think I'm hoping that you'll talk me out of it,” she said. “Or talk Lily out of it.”

  Sarah nodded, her short-nailed fingers flicking through her hair with practiced expertise.

  “It is rather ridiculous,” Jo continued, “don't you think? I mean, what does any of us know about planning a wedding? Two out of four of us have never even been married.”

  “Yes, but Lily's been married three times, so that makes up for us.”

  Sarah's dry sense of humor was comfortably familiar, like the words to a James Taylor song that Jo had learned long ago but would have thought she'd forgotten. “Your jewelry,” Jo said. “I saw some last winter at a shop in Quincy Market.”

  Sarah nodded. “One of my reps has done real well in Boston.”

  “I bought a piece.”

  “You shouldn't wear silver. Your coloring is all wrong.” She did not say it to be critical.

  Jo didn't tell her the “piece” had been a man's bracelet, that she'd bought it for Brian, and that he'd taken it with him. “You've been so successful,” Jo said instead. “I'm surprised you want to be bothered doing something so ordinary as planning weddings.”

  “Nothing is ordinary if it's one-of-a-kind. I think Lily has a good idea. I think a second wedding, especially, should be an art form, not a cookie-cutter event that follows some archaic set of rules.”

  “But aren't rules important? To use as guidelines?”

  Sarah shrugged. “Depends on the user,” she said with a wink. “And the use-ee.”

  “Oh, Sarah,” Jo groaned, “I'm not sure I can do this.”

  Pulling a large silver clip from her shirt pocket, Sarah snapped it onto her braid. She picked up her tea. “Hey, it's not exactly my dream-come-true, either, Jo. But for me, it's a wonderful gift. Jason's on the road more than he's not, and Burch is no longer interested in spending time with his mother. If I don't get some sort of change in my life, I'm going to go out of my mind.”

  Jo looked around the wonderful log cabin with its eclectic art and the richness and fullness of life it depicted. She was reminded that no life was perfect, no matter what, no matter whose. She thought about what it would take to open another public relations business: the long hours, the worry, the struggle. Then the dog trundled over and lapped from her glass. Jo laughed out loud. He looked up at her as if to ask, “What? Is something wrong?” Then he continued to drink, and she continued to laugh.

  “He likes you,” Sarah said, which was nice, though Jo suspected the dog liked most everyone.

  The dog dripped iced tea on her leg as he meandered away. Jo closed her eyes and thought of her friends. “Maybe you're right,” she suddenly said. “Maybe this is a wonderful gift.”

  If she'd had a girl she'd have named her Amanda Josephine, after her eccentric, fun-loving aunt and herself; a boy would have been Emmett Gray, after Jo's maternal grandfather, who'd died in Jo's sophomore year of college, the man who'd taught her to fish and to ride her first two-wheel bicycle and to build a snow fort that lasted from December until the spring thaw.

  As it turned out, Jo didn't have to worry about girl or boy names, because she'd had the abortion and never became pregnant again. Despite many lovers, none had been worthy; none had been Brian.

  Driving away from Sarah's, Jo hated that she was thinking of all that again, dredging up that old wound that had never quite healed.

  While she'd been in the city, while her life had been chaos, it had been easy to ignore those feelings as if they didn't exist, like crumbs between couch cushions or socks under beds.

  In West Hope, it was different. And it was why, until now, her visits had been short, quick “touchdowns” to say “Hi,” leaving no time to think, no chance to remember that every store was a store she'd gone into with Brian; every restaurant, a place they'd had a hamburger; every dark, woodsy road, one where they'd parked and made love under the old stadium blanket he kept in the station wagon that belonged to his father and brother and their antiques business.

  Everywhere were memories of Brian and of what could have been, of what almost was.

  The years had passed and then they were miraculously, wonderfully together once again.

  “Jo,” he'd said as he stood inside her office door, holding a small Christmas tree decorated with tinsel and red bows, wearing a dimpled smile that she hadn't seen for nearly twenty years. “Oh, Jo, can you ever forgive me?”

  She did.
/>   He said he never had forgotten her.

  She said she hadn't forgotten him.

  It wasn't long—days, in fact—when they began to talk of a future at last. He hadn't known about Amanda or Emmett, the baby that could have been theirs but was not. Jo planned to tell him on the night that had turned out to be their last.

  She'd worn his favorite dress—the short emerald sheath that he said matched her eyes—as if the dress would help him not hate her when she said what she'd done to the baby, their baby.

  And now, memories of Brian were in Boston, as well. It didn't matter where she went, the thoughts would be inside her, lingering, hovering, there.

  Jo turned into the driveway of her mother's small house. She knew then that she might as well move back to West Hope, work with her old friends, be with her old friends, and try to rebuild a life of her own.

  She wondered if she would still be likely to succeed, and how she would feel if, this time, she did not.

  7

  Ordinarily, Cassie was the light of Andrew's life, the apple of his eye, and every other cliché coined regarding fathers and their daughters.

  That night he did not need her to turn into a pain in Andrew's tired ass.

  He'd spent the day writing and rewriting his column. He was sick of talking to women, pretending to be casual, trying to root out the basic flaw that he believed was what separated him from them. He'd combed the campus, watching women on the faculty who thought he was on sabbatical to work on his doctoral dissertation, because that had been a more acceptable explanation than writing about foreplay for a pop-culture magazine.

  Staring at the screen of his laptop, Andrew had congratulated himself that at least he had figured out this much: that dating, or the art of trying to date, was nothing more than sexual foreplay disguised as getting to know each other.