Once Upon a Bride

by Jean Stone

  “Us?” Jo asked. “Because of our business? But you said you didn't want to join us as a partner. You said you didn't want to work, that your kind of work took place in your house, with a husband, with your kids . . .”

  Elaine shook her head. “No, no, no,” she said, then swallowed another swig.

  Jo wondered if Elaine's bottle contained more than water. “Well,” she said quietly. “What, then?”

  “You've all been so busy moving into new places and starting up your business that no one's talked about my wedding. Two weeks have gone by, Jo. Which means I'm two weeks closer to my big day and no one but me seems to care.”

  She was right, of course. Jo set her plate down on an unopened carton marked BOSTON PR CLUB AWARDS that she knew contained seven glass-etched, foot-tall statues that she had once coveted because they'd declared Jo's work Best in Show seven years in a row.

  “That's not true, Lainey,” she lied, resting her hand on Elaine's shoulder. “When Sarah and I went to Boston, we talked about little else. Sarah has some wonderful ideas.”

  “Well, when is someone going to talk to me?”

  “By next week, I promise.”

  Elaine seemed somewhat comforted, then Jo asked, “Are you sure you don't want to be part of the business?” She knew Elaine would say no, but asking again might help her feel less left out.

  Elaine said no thanks, then hugged Jo and left.

  Jo finished her dinner, tasting not pasta but the guilt of letting down a friend. When she was done, she pushed aside the carton of awards and decided that instead of unpacking, she'd go to the shop and see if anyone was around or if she could do anything to start Elaine's wedding plans rolling. If nothing else, she could begin with a checklist for the dos and the don'ts.

  The lights were on in the storefront, but the front door was locked. Jo could see the receptionist—what was his name?—busily typing on the keyboard of a laptop computer. She rapped on the glass. His eyes flicked toward the door and he jumped up. He mouthed the words, “Sorry, we're not open for business.”

  With her hair in a ponytail and not an inkling of makeup on, Jo wasn't surprised he didn't remember her. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her washed-out jeans. “I work here,” she shouted. “We met the other day?”

  He stood up and moved to the glass. He looked her over a minute, then unlocked the door. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn't recognize you.”

  So much for a gay man making a woman feel very, very special, she thought.

  “I'm Jo,” she said, stepping inside and surveying again all that had been done. The navy walls were rich, the hardwood floors gleamed. Different lengths and widths of glass shelving were suspended from the ceiling by transparent wire at different heights. They held clusters of flowers, bouquets of tulle, and tiny clear glass balls that looked like bubbles in the air.

  “It's Sarah's creation,” the man said. “She thinks the glass makes it look as if everything's floating—‘ethereal' is the word she used.”

  Ethereal, yes, Jo thought. It was quite unusual and quite lovely.

  Then she remembered why she was there. “Sarah and Lily,” she said, “are they around?”

  The man shook his head. “Just me, wrapping up a few things for the day.” He stepped back toward his laptop and looked at it. Then he reached out and closed the screen onto the keyboard. He folded his arms across his stomach and leaned against the desk.

  “I'm sorry,” Jo said, “I've forgotten your name.”

  He smiled. He had a beautiful smile for a man his age. Over forty, like us, Jo thought. She wondered if he had a partner to share his life with, or if men were as tough on one another as they were on the opposite sex. “Andrew,” he said, revealing a dimple that could have been carved by a sculptor it was so well-defined into his clean-shaven right cheek.

  His right cheek, not his left, like Brian's.

  She quickly recouped her breath. “Andrew,” Jo repeated. She walked around the showroom, truly amazed at all that had been accomplished in so little time. “Sarah went home?”

  “Yes,” he said. “She said Jason was due in tonight.”

  Jo nodded. “And Lily? Is she upstairs in the apartment?” She began moving to the back room, toward the steps that led to Lily's new place.

  He laughed. “She spent all day arranging and rearranging furniture up there,” he said. “She decorated it like a doll's house. She bought everything yesterday from Madison Kids.”

  Jo knew the name. Madison Kids was a Fortune 500 company that started kids early to develop designer tastes. “And it's all here so fast?” she asked, but did not need a reply. She supposed Andrew had been around long enough to know, as she did, that money always talked, and often delivered in miraculous time.

  “Go ahead up,” he said. “Lily is out, but I'm sure she won't mind.”

  Jo stopped. “Lily's out?”

  “Yes.”

  Elaine was right, Jo thought. They were all so wrapped up in their own lives, they didn't care about the wedding. They didn't care one little bit. “Maybe I can get started on some things down here,” she said. “Do you know where the books are that Sarah brought back from Boston?”

  On his way to a credenza, Andrew glanced back at his laptop. “They're all in here,” he said. “Lily said we should put them out of sight. We wouldn't want anyone to think all our ideas aren't original.”

  Jo laughed and followed him to the credenza. “What time will she be back?” she asked. “I'd really like to talk to her tonight.”

  Andrew shrugged. “Don't know. She's gone out for dinner.” He opened a drawer, then handed Jo three books that were the supposed be-all and end-all: Martha Stewart's Wedding Guide, Another Journey Down the Aisle, The Ultimate Second Wedding.

  Jo scowled. “Did she go out alone?”

  “Nope. She went on a date with that guy . . . oh, man, I'm as bad at names as you are, I'm afraid.”

  “‘Guy'? As in a man?”

  “Yeah, you know. The landlord.”

  Jo looked at the cover of The Ultimate Second Wedding. The white gown that swept across the cover slowly blurred. “Frank?” she asked. “Lily has a date with Frank Forbes?”

  “Yeah, that's his name. The guy with the antiques.”

  14

  The trouble with a woman is you never know when you'll say something wrong, because who knows what goes on in her mind? For now, however, I'm going to pay attention to my mistakes, and share the lessons learned with you. Maybe between us we'll resolve this issue after all.

  Lesson #1: Never mention another man's name in the presence of a woman unless you know whether or not the woman and said man have a past, a present, or the pretense of a future together.

  In fact, Andrew continued, while he marveled at his insight, maybe it's best not to mention any man's name at all. It's been said that we aren't so inclined, that most men have no problem mentioning their conquests.

  Here's a clue: It does not work both ways. Don't remind a woman of her past. If the relationship was bad, she'll get depressed, probably because she'll think it was her fault. If the relationship was good, she'll get depressed because it ended. Either way, you'll lose.

  Not using their names, he then related what had happened when he told Jo about Lily and the landlord, how her cheerful nature had turned solemn, how she returned the books to the credenza drawer, then announced that she'd see him the next day, that she really didn't feel like working after all.

  All because he'd mentioned a woman and a man. All because he'd opened up his mouth before he knew the histories of the people involved.

  He ended his first column by adding: We must, alas, forget that women are different, that they have no penises with which to think. Instead, they use their brain, which is sometimes unfortunate, but most always true.

  He signed the piece A.K., then turned off the laptop and closed up the shop. Tomorrow he'd reread it one more time, then e-mail it to John Benson in the nick of deadline time. And Buzz would h
ave its first “Real Women” column, and Andrew would be much closer to having the new car and the new roof and Cassie's riding lessons paid for several months in advance. And, of course, he'd be closer to Australia, closer to Patty.

  Jo wondered how many men lived in West Hope and why Lily had to pick him. Because even though it had no doubt been Frank who'd asked Lily out, “Make no mistake about it,” Jo said to her windshield, “it was Lily's idea.”

  Lily the Romantic.

  Lily the Man-lover.

  Lily the Seducer, who flitted her “poor little me” flits around every man she could and begged them to take care of her.

  As if Lily Beckwith needed taking care of.

  As if Lily Beckwith, for one minute, didn't know exactly what she was doing.

  Driving faster than she knew she should, Jo took the turn into Shannon Drive. She hated that she was exasperated at a friend, hated that she was—what, jealous? Was that what she was? Did she feel somehow violated, as if Frank Forbes were his brother, Brian, as if he were cheating on Jo with one of her best friends?

  Or maybe, Jo reasoned, she secretly envied Lily for knowing how to capture one man after another, when Jo had spent her life proving she didn't need one.

  Wheeling into the garage, Jo's jaw tightened with annoyance, at Lily, at herself. If her thoughts hadn't been so tense, so intense, her vision so narrowly tunneled, she might have seen the man emerge from his truck and step into her path. She might have seen him before she had to slam on her brakes, the rubber from her tires skidding on concrete, their echo screeching off cinderbock walls, the back end of her small car fishtailing. The man leapt onto the hood of his SUV.

  Jo's car came to a stop. Her breath was short, panting. Her mouth had suddenly gone dry. Oh my God, she thought. I almost hit him.

  Her hand trembled so hard she couldn't open her door. She tried to steady her left hand with her right. But just as the door opened, the man slid off the truck hood and waved her away.

  “It's okay. I'm okay,” he said.

  Jo shook her head. “I'm so sorry,” she stammered and tried to get out of her car, but her legs were weak and they were shaking, too.

  “Don't be,” he said. “Honest, I'm okay. See?” He pirouetted in a choppy, masculine kind of pirouette. At another time, Jo might have been attracted to his sense of humor. Instead, she simply sat there, shaking.

  He walked over to her car. “What about you? Are you all right?”

  Meekly, she nodded. “I'm so sorry,” she said again.

  “No problem,” he said. “Just let me know when you're coming home again, and I'll be sure to be out of town.” He smiled and he winked and he walked away. It was another several minutes before Jo could steer her car into her assigned parking spot and regain what was left of her composure.

  15

  DO

  Ask your best friend or your daughter or your mother to be your maid of honor, no matter how young or old or how great or lousy they might look in the attendant's gown you've picked. Get over how chic or unchic the wedding photos might look if your attendant isn't Cindy Crawford or Iman.

  Jo set her pen down on the small notebook that was balanced on the armrest of the white sofa where Elaine had chastised her for eating lasagna. By focusing on her list of dos and don'ts for second weddings, Jo would feel like she was moving forward, getting started on her new life, helping Elaine start on hers, as well. Maybe the distraction would also help Jo forget that she'd almost hit the man in the garage, that her unhappy state of “limbo” had nearly hurt another human being.

  She stared at the list that she'd begun and decided it would become her antidote to mend her broken heart, her broken life.

  “A spa day for the bridesmaids!” Lily proclaimed the next morning. “With manicures and pedicures and facials and massages!”

  They sat in overstuffed navy chairs clustered in front of Andrew's desk—Lily, Sarah, Jo, and Elaine, the bride-to-be.

  Jo had made early calls to Sarah and Lily.

  “We need to meet this morning,” she said. “We need to work on Elaine's wedding.”

  Then she'd called Elaine and there they all were, sipping Green Mountain coffee and nibbling bagels with cream cheese that Andrew had run to the coffee shop and procured for the group. It occurred to Jo that if the stranger had not been so limber, she might have been sipping coffee from a cardboard cup in the hospital emergency room. Or worse.

  She forced her thoughts to the present, to Lily, who seemed exceptionally jovial for the morning hour. Date afterglow, Jo mused, the touch of cream in her coffee suddenly tasting sour. She cleared her throat. “A spa day is a great idea for first weddings,” she said, “but we're not twenty-five. Besides, we should be thinking about Elaine's needs, not ours.”

  “Oh, pooh, Josephine,” Lily teased. “What better way to celebrate Elaine's wedding? And I disagree. Spa days should be for bridesmaids of all ages. Facials. Pedicures. Manicures. We're never too old to be pampered.”

  Sarah glanced down at her hands. “I'm afraid I have little to manicure,” she said. “An artist's hands usually look like crap.”

  “Precisely my point,” Lily said. “We all deserve to look our best for the wedding. Besides, we can have photos of our outing taken for our portfolio.” She spun on her chair. “Andrew, do you shoot?”

  Perhaps Lily believed that every gay man liked to take pictures, as she believed that every woman craved a gay man for a friend.

  “Sometimes,” he replied. “I can practice, if you like.”

  Lily beamed, her tiny pink cheeks radiating excitement, as if he'd just said he'd fly to the moon if she liked. “Oh, Andrew, that would be divine!”

  A small knot formed at the base of Jo's neck. She supposed that if group meetings were ever to accomplish anything worthwhile, she, not Lily, would have to be in control. “Yes. Well,” Jo continued, rubbing her neck, “we can work on that later. Right now we need to decide if Elaine will still have her reception at home.”

  It had been Elaine's original plan, complete with tables from Taylor Rental and folding chairs from the funeral home set between the badminton net and the birdfeeders.

  “We're only inviting seventy-five people,” Elaine said. “Not enough for a hall.”

  “We can find somewhere else,” Sarah said. “Somewhere picturesque, like The Mount. It's short notice, but we might be able to work something out.” The home of the once-famous writer, Edith Wharton, had become a museum, honored for its elegance and its restored grounds. “I could make a phone call. One of Jason's friends works there.”

  “Wow,” Elaine said. “That would be terrific. But expensive, I bet.”

  “Reginald won't mind,” Lily said with a smile. “Nothing is too good for our Elaine. And for our business.”

  Elaine actually giggled as if she were Lily.

  “Should it be indoors or out?” Sarah asked.

  “We'll need a caterer,” Lily commented. Elaine had intended to ask the Women's Club from the church if they would make finger sandwiches and gelatin salad.

  “What about music?” Elaine asked. “It might be nicer to have live music than a DJ. Especially at The Mount.”

  “Maybe a small group from Tanglewood,” Lily interjected. “Do they have a traveling quartet or something?”

  “The music would have to depend on the theme,” Sarah said, “which we haven't yet determined.”

  Silence, as the women pondered a theme.

  “Gee,” Elaine finally said, “the theme of my first wedding was ‘Justice of the Peace.'”

  Sarah laughed.

  “Well,” Lily said, “today it's different. Everyone simply must have a theme. Victorian. Medieval. Something like that.”

  Jo leaned back and looked over at Andrew, who was typing notes into his laptop. The knot eased from her neck; she smiled. Maybe, she thought, she wouldn't need to be in control after all. Maybe, for once, she wouldn't need to assume all the burden of responsibility. And maybe Jo could find the
way out of her limbo and begin slowly to relax. Even if Lily ended up taking Brian's brother as her devoted husband number four.

  Ambers and russets and deep, rich cranberries, the colors of a New England October in soft, subtle tones, accented by gold. Thick gold ribbons for the bouquets, tall gold vases for the altar flowers, twinkling gold tiaras for each of the bridesmaids.

  The theme would be Harvest. They would all wear pearl white. Simple, elegant slip dresses for Lily, Sarah, and Jo, precursors to the centerpiece—Elaine's magnificent gown, a vision of three-tiered pearl satin with fitted long sleeves and a wide v-neck accented by a single gold choker set with a seven-carat, pear-shaped Tiffany diamond. The necklace would be Lily's. “Something borrowed,” she said with a wink.

  By midafternoon Jo had organized the notes Andrew had taken and the women divided up the duties: Sarah, locate and secure a reception site, then design the décor and flowers and reception around it; Elaine, interview caterers with Jo and select the food, determine limos (if wanted), and decide if she wants any of her kids (or Martin's) involved in the ceremony and, if so, how; Lily, select music and look for appropriate gifts for the guests, as no second wedding would be complete without a substantial memory—not merely a token—something depicting the theme or the ambiance of the location. And Jo, handle the business end of it all: organize contracts, make deposits, set up a bank of contacts they would use, if not for Elaine, then for their future brides. Andrew would be her assistant, and everyone else's when he was needed.

  They decided to travel to Chestnut Hill Thursday to try on the gowns that Sarah had seen. Andrew promised to hold down the bridal fort.

  Then Sarah stood up. “If we're done for now, I'd like to get home to Jason,” she said. “He's off again tomorrow night—this time to the Cape and Martha's Vineyard.”

  Jo wondered if half a man was better than no man at all, then quickly decided she was in no position to judge.