Once Upon a Bride

by Jean Stone

Elaine stood up, too. “And I must get home to my munchkins,” she announced.

  Whether “munchkins” referred to Martin or her fully-grown kids, Elaine didn't specify, but before Jo could ask, both Sarah and Elaine had gone out the front door, leaving Jo with cheerful Lily. And Andrew, of course.

  Lily grinned. “Do you have a few minutes?” she asked, and Jo suspected what was coming next. “I want to show you what I've done with the upstairs.”

  No you don't, Jo wanted to say. You want to tell me about your wonderful date with Brian's brother. Instead, she shrugged and said, “Sure,” because she figured, like Frank, she'd have to deal with it sooner than later, and this time she might as well get it over and damned done with.

  The apartment looked like something from a child's fairy tale: Alice in Wonderland or Eloise at the Plaza. The bedroom had white painted furniture and white ruffled everything; the kitchen and living room were cotton-candy colors with fabrics in fun stripes and life-size dolls with huge, painted smiles scattered about as if they'd just finished playing and were ready for naps.

  “Lily,” Jo said in spite of herself, “you really are something.”

  Lily folded her hands. “After my parents died, my childhood was gone,” she said. “Gone in a flash,” she said, snapping her fingers. “Imagine that.”

  It was the first time, ever, that Jo had heard her friend allude to something distressing.

  “But that was then,” Lily said, quickly recovering. “Then there was college and my first marriage, and I never got to be a kid again.” She nodded as if to agree with herself. “Now I can. Now I can do whatever I want.” She did not add that her first husband had left her, to return home to his mother; that her second decided he preferred the company of men; and that Reginald, well, Jo already knew what had happened to Reginald. Thank God he'd at least left his hefty portfolio.

  “Well,” Jo replied, “the apartment is . . . darling. Really, it is. Darling.”

  Lily looked at Jo and giggled. “It's okay, Josephine. I admit that I'm nuts.” She swooped her light hand. “Come into the kitchen where we shall have a tea party. I can make little sandwiches for lunch and trim off the crusts!”

  Checking her watch, Jo said, “I'll take a rain check, okay? I'd like to get home and finish unpacking.” That's when she realized there were no cartons in Lily's apartment, nothing to say she hadn't lived there forever. “I can't believe that you're settled so fast.”

  “Well, I didn't bring much. I bought mostly new things. And Frank helped me arrange a lot of the pieces.”

  Frank, again. Jo leaned against the doorjamb between the kitchen and living room. Sooner or later, and sooner had come. “I heard you had dinner with him last night.”

  Lily nodded. “He's a very nice man. I know how much you liked his brother, Jo.”

  With what she hoped was a smile that looked sincere, not maudlin, Jo said, “That was a long time ago.”

  “Did you know Frank then? When you were young? Did you know that he was married for ten years, no kids. His wife didn't want any. Then out of the blue—poof!—she up and left him. Said she wanted more excitement than West Hope had to offer. It's sad, isn't it? That such a thing can happen to a man as nice as Frank?”

  Jo leaned over and kissed Lily on the cheek. “Don't ever change,” she said.

  With a small, startled look, Lily said, “So it won't freak you out if I see him again?”

  Well, of course that was coming. “I wish you only the best, Lily. Honestly, I mean it.”

  “It's just . . . it's just that . . .” Lily plunked down on a white wooden chair. “Oh, Jo, I'm so ashamed to admit it, but I utterly despise not having a man in my life. I'm just so much happier . . . so much healthier . . . when I'm in love. Do you know what I mean?”

  Jo smiled. “Not exactly,” she replied, though she remembered perfectly well the inner warmth, the balance, the peace that she'd felt when Brian had been with her and she'd been in love. She supposed she should have asked if Lily was already in love with Frank Forbes, but Jo was suddenly tired from her sleepless night.

  She made excuses to Lily, then trundled downstairs. On her way out, a young girl brushed past her and entered the shop.

  “Uncle Andrew!” the girl cried. “I thought I'd stop by on the way home from school and check out your new job.”

  Jo thought she detected a wince on Andrew's handsome face. “I'll see you tomorrow,” Jo said, and dashed outside before she was sidetracked by any more people or caught off guard by any more of her unwanted emotions.

  16

  Sheesh, Dad, she's one of your bosses? She looks pretty hot. Why can't you date somebody like her?”

  It was ten minutes later and Cassie sipped on an ice-cream soda at the old-fashioned luncheonette/soda fountain two doors down from the shop. Andrew signaled his daughter to keep her voice down. Then he tasted his egg cream and wondered how long it had been since he'd had one. He'd forgotten how good it was.

  “You know very well why,” he said quietly, then added, “and don't call me ‘Dad.'”

  Cassie rolled her eyes, which were so much like Patty's, then said, “Whoever you are, we need to work on your wardrobe. You look like a straight city-boy-turned-college-professor.”

  Andrew surveyed his chinos, his old polo shirt, his sneakers.

  “Pastels,” Cassie said. “Maybe some jewelry. And you have to lose the Nike's. Now we're talking Birkenstocks. Sandals,” Cassie added, before he could ask what Birkenstocks were.

  “So now you're an authority?”

  “I've been watching TV. Drink your egg cream and later we'll go shopping.” She scooped a spoonful of ice cream and shared it with him.

  “I take it this means you approve after all?”

  “Hardly. But I do feel a responsibility to please my elderly Uncle Andrew.”

  Andrew tugged her baseball cap down over her eyes, and Cassie laughed her silly laugh and Andrew felt the sweet joy that he knew was unconditional love, and he was glad that sometimes a man and a woman got together if it meant producing such a neat kid.

  The fact that Jo was so tired surely would help numb the reality that she was driving back to Shannon Drive, that it now was home. She stopped at Quikees and bought a few staples—water and orange juice, coffee and tea and a Sara Lee cake in case she was awake again tonight. Without a man or even a half, she could at least have the comfort of chocolate.

  Pulling into the garage, she noticed the truck of the man that she'd almost hit. She shuddered. Why had the man been so nice? He could have sued her, she supposed, if she had anything left.

  After parking her car, Jo decided to leave him a note, another “I'm sorry” to prove that she was, to show that the next day the incident still lingered on her mind.

  In the glove box she found an old bank envelope from First Trust in Boston.

  This is your neighbor, she carefully wrote. The one who almost hit you last night. I wanted to let you know that I truly am sorry—no excuses, I was merely preoccupied and didn't watch where I was going. Again, I'm sorry. I hope you're okay. I'll try not to let it happen again! She squeezed her initials, J.L., in the little space that remained between the F.D.I.C. and the D.I.F.M.

  Then she got out of her car, juggled her bundles, walked back to the man's truck, and carefully tucked the note under the windshield wiper, where he'd be certain to see it when he went out.

  As she continued toward the elevator, it occurred to Jo that she didn't remember what the man looked like: She'd been so self-absorbed by what she had done, or almost done, that she hadn't noticed.

  Well, I'm learning, Andrew typed later that night after he'd hung up his pastels and he'd removed his silver chime ball that hung from a black cord around his neck and placed his new Birkenstocks on the floor of his now-gay closet. Cassie had finally gone to bed and was, hopefully, asleep, and Andrew at last sat at the laptop, buoyed by a message John Benson had left that afternoon: The column was great; keep up the good work.

&n
bsp; Andrew had no idea what had been so great about it. He guessed John figured that the world was ready for a dose of reality, no more fantasies to end in harsh rejection.

  He pushed thoughts of Patty from his mind.

  Let's use “my” four women as our examples, he typed. I have a feeling that when you put any four together, one will be the leader. He paused; he frowned. He could not use real names. He could not call them Jo, Lily, Sarah, and Elaine. He could not take the risk. But he must call them something.

  He smiled. He typed Jo. Next to that, he typed Jacquelin.

  Then he typed Lily. Olivia.

  Sarah. Sadie.

  Elaine. Eileen.

  He tried not to tell himself that he was a genius.

  Instead, Andrew put the new names into his memory. Then he deleted them from the text and resumed his task. Men do the same thing, he wrote, unconsciously agree that one will be in charge. Does that mean the self-appointed “leader” is the most masculine? In my case, hardly.

  He leaned back on his chair and thought about Jo—Jacquelin. Beautiful, no question. Smart, probably the smartest. Sophisticated, absolutely.

  So what was she doing in West Hope? And what did it have to do with Frank Forbes and the way she became nervous when his name was mentioned?

  Had Frank been a lover?

  Was Lily next in line?

  Would the act break up what appeared to be a long-standing friendship between Lily and Jo, and would it jeopardize their newly formed business?

  He chuckled to himself. It's a goddamn soap opera, he thought.

  Then another of those lightbulbs lit up over his slow-witted head.

  Of course, he thought.

  Shit.

  That's it.

  If John Benson had liked the first column, wait until he saw the rest.

  With another good chuckle, Andrew turned back to his computer and resumed typing, comfortable, at last, with the idea that “Real Women” would really be about the soap opera, the gossip, the women of Second Chances: Jacquelin, the independent power; Olivia, the dependent child; Sadie, the freethinker; Eileen, the traditionalist.

  If there was any other type of woman in the world, Andrew had not found her yet. He would tell their stories as they unfolded, with their names changed (not that they'd ever know) to protect the innocent and the not-so-innocent. And then he'd win the Pulitzer and he'd buy Cassie her own horse and have the cottage roof fixed and buy a new Mercedes and move to goddamn Australia if that was what he wanted to do.

  17

  DON'T

  Invite your former in-laws, no matter how close you still might feel to them. They are part of your former life, and though you might be comfortable having them as guests, your spouse-to-be's family will not.

  On the way to look at the gowns, Jo told them of her plan to create the list.

  “Dos and don'ts?” Lily had asked with a frown. “It sounds awfully rigid. Structured.”

  But Jo explained that the list wasn't meant to structure, just to be used as a guideline. She did not want to explain that developing the list actually gave her focus, a tangible distraction, a welcome game, one small thing about her life that she could control.

  The dresses were perfect, not first-wedding flashy or frilly, but elegant and lovely. When Elaine tried on the wedding gown, she sat down and cried.

  “It's so beautiful, Sarah,” she said. “It's what I've always wanted.”

  Sarah told her to get out of the dress before she dripped mascara on it and they had to pay for the off-the-rack sample.

  They stopped in Sturbridge for a late lunch at the Ugly Duckling, the nestlike, wood-beamed loft at the renowned Whistling Swan.

  Elaine cried again during her second glass of wine. “I can't believe you're doing all this for me,” she said.

  “And for our business,” Lily said, raising her glass in a toast.

  “Which reminds me, I'll go call Jason's friend,” Sarah said and left the table.

  “Who is Jason's friend?” Lily asked.

  Jo shrugged. “The one who works at The Mount, I guess.”

  “Oh,” Lily replied. Clearly she didn't have the same checklist running through her mind that Jo did, the mental organizer pages that were so necessary when one operated a business.

  Perhaps if Lily spent fewer hours decorating her apartment and dining with Frank she might understand. She had yet to contact Tanglewood; she had yet to look for wedding-guest gifts. But Jo drank her wine and reminded herself that without Lily's money or her generosity there would be no business at all. Besides, what did Jo expect? Lily had no experience in the workaday world. Jo supposed it would be up to her to teach their pampered friend. Gently.

  “They're booked October ninth,” Sarah said when she returned.

  “Rats,” Jo said.

  “Oh,” Elaine whined.

  But Lily shook her head. “We'll go tomorrow,” she said. “All of us. I'm sure they can work us in.”

  They piled into Sarah's giant Chevy pickup truck again the next day. Lily's rented, matchboxlike Mercedes was too small for the four of them and Jo's Honda would be too crowded. They could have gone in Elaine's minivan, but Lily had promised herself never to be seen in one.

  “No offense, darling,” Lily said to Elaine as Sarah traversed the back roads toward Lenox, toward The Mount, “but minivans are so momlike, and I'm certainly not that.”

  No, Lily was not momlike any more than she was businesslike. Lily was just Lily, who had no idea that you could not turn up unannounced at a place such as The Mount and demand they change their plans, just because of how much money you possessed.

  Could you?

  Jo looked out the side of the truck and smiled, realizing that, as kids, she'd never fully appreciated Lily's determination to get her way.

  “Has anyone seen the restoration?” Jo asked. The Mount had been constructed in the early nineteen hundreds. Often called “The Renaissance Woman” for her stunning novels (including The Age of Innocence, for which she was lauded with a Pulitzer Prize), for her books on decorating to which professionals still referred, and for her progressive attitudes in a post-Victorian world, Edith Wharton lived there with her husband for only ten years before they split up and she retreated to the south of France. Decades later, with the gardens overgrown and the roof leaking like a postmenopausal bladder, a group of preservationists decided to salvage the estate—one of the few National Historic Landmarks that had been designated to honor a woman.

  The concept of holding Elaine's second wedding there seemed appropriate: a wedding planned by strong, take-charge kind of women, or at least by women trying to be.

  “I've seen it,” Sarah said. “It's an awesome French château. The gardens and the fountains and the walking paths are a perfect venue for a wedding reception. Which someone else apparently believes, as well, or they would not have booked it for their wedding on the same day Elaine's will be.” She steered the truck down a road, past an outbuilding, past what had been a stable. “We're wasting our time,” she added with a grumble. “We should be back at the shop trying to locate other sites.”

  Lily didn't speak, which was, of course, unusual.

  Elaine sat with her hands folded across her polyestered lap. “It doesn't matter,” she said. “My backyard will be fine.”

  Jo kept her eyes fixed out the window and wondered if Lily's determination was about to turn into a full-blown spat.

  They pulled around the circular drive in front of the grand white house. It had been years since Jo had stood before the unpretentious entrance, years since she and Brian sneaked out there for picnics on the lawn and fishing in Laurel Lake and making love in the thick stands of pines. They had been trespassing, but it had been safe; a lot of kids went there for the same reasons. At that time, the place had been abandoned and the restoration hadn't yet begun.

  Jo's breath stumbled somewhere in her throat.

  Then Sarah said, “Come on, girls, let's get this over with.” She opened
her truck door, and the others followed.

  Lily rang what appeared to be a bell at the front door in the forecourt. They stood a moment on one foot, then the other, eyes scanning the white stucco wall surrounding them and the tall topiary sentries, ears hearing nothing but quiet and sounds of nearby summer birds.

  The wooden door creaked open. “Yes?” asked a woman older than they were, but neatly coiffed and perfectly attired in a Talbot's flowered dress.

  “We'd like to speak with the banquet manager,” Lily said.

  The woman smiled. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No. I'm from out of town and I didn't have time to phone ahead.” She somehow had affected an almost-Southern accent, perhaps because Lily deemed that more effective when trying to get her way.

  “Follow me,” the woman said, and stepped aside to let them in.

  Jo wanted to smile but didn't dare.

  The grottolike entrance hall was cool and dark and emitted a sense of being underground. Perhaps recognizing the quizzical looks on all their faces, the woman said, “Edith Wharton wanted her guests to make a slow transition from the outside. Which accounts for the strong depiction of nature portrayed in the décor.”

  Nature was not the word. The vaulted ceilings, mirrored walls, and gurgling fountain literally brought the outside in.

  Jo glanced at Sarah and recognized appreciation for the detailed plasterwork and terra-cotta floor. Lily, however, trotted along behind their greeter, seemingly oblivious to their surroundings, as was Elaine, who just seemed overwhelmed.

  They worked their way up a staircase that had intricate iron railings and a boldly patterned carpet.

  “Edith Wharton was from the Jones family of New York City,” the guide related as if this was a tour and she was paid to speak the facts. “Her habit of spending money lavishly is where the phrase ‘keeping up with the Joneses' came from.”

  Jo had a sense that Sarah wanted to make a comment about Lily and her spending habits, but Sarah checked her words. Jo smiled and kept climbing the wide steps.