by Jean Stone
Once upstairs, they followed the woman through an enormous gallery, into a lavish dining room, and out a set of French doors to an enormous terrace.
“I'll tell Denise you're here,” the woman said. “Please, make yourselves at home.”
It was, perhaps, easier for Lily to make herself at home than for the rest of them. From the wide, long terrace the lawn tiered down to the distant lake, every tree and walkway, every summer, sunlit flower and vivid blade of grass manicured for loveliness. Jo separated from the others to take in the view, to allow herself a brief moment of memories.
Sarah came up beside her and rescued Jo from becoming maudlin. “It's not fair to do this to Elaine,” Sarah said. “How can her backyard look like anything compared to this?”
Jo smiled and nodded a little, not wanting to agree in case Lily was in earshot and Sarah's words might start a quarrel.
“It's ridiculous,” Sarah continued. “If we're going to be in business together, one of us is going to have to stand up to Lily. We need to bring her into reality and out of that airheaded place where she exists.”
Jo smiled again, then she heard Lily shout, “Girls! Come and meet Denise.”
When they approached, Denise held out her hand. “Winston College, class of eighty-seven,” she said.
“Which was part of why Denise was excited about booking Elaine's wedding here.” Lily hooked her arm through Denise's, as if they were old friends.
Jo's eyes darted from Lily to Elaine to Sarah to Denise. Other eyes darted, too.
Lily laughed. “Surprise!” she said and clapped her hands. “I'll bet you thought I haven't been doing anything constructive. Well, Denise and I have been planning this for days. Isn't it fun?” She turned to Elaine and swept her arms across the air. “The reception will be out here on the terrace. The guests will mingle in the gardens, which will be decorated naturally by the golden linden leaves of autumn. The waitstaff will be in period costume. They'll serve hors d'oeuvres on silver trays and champagne from crystal flutes. The music will rise up from the little bandstand and float down toward the lake. Oh,” she said, holding her delicate hands to her small chest, “it will be so romantic. Won't it, girls?”
The ride back to the shop was animated.
“I can't believe you did this, Lily,” Jo said.
“Behind our backs,” Elaine added.
Sarah shook her head more than a few times. “I underestimated you, kid,” she said.
But Lily smiled and shrugged them off. Her little prank had made them happy, but now she moved on to other things. “I think I'll go to the city tomorrow,” she said. “I need ideas for the wedding-guest gifts. I simply cannot get inspired this far from Tiffany's.”
The city, of course, meant New York City, because, in Lily's world, was there another? “Nothing too costly,” Jo cautioned, then laughed. “If we're going to make Elaine's wedding an example of our work, we won't want to scare off potential brides.” She was still stunned, however, that Lily was now doing her job.
“Darling, the only way we'll ever make any money is to promote the finest . . . the kind of event they won't get just anywhere. Besides, that's another tidbit for your dos-and-don'ts list. DO give your guests quality, second-wedding remembrances. DON'T give them favors as if it's a first wedding. First-timers can't afford it; second-timers, well, should.”
“As long as you remember that most of Elaine's guests won't be from Paris or Rome,” Sarah chimed in.
“More like Pittsfield and North Adams,” Elaine added. “Regular folks who are more familiar with Wal-Mart than Tiffany's.”
They all laughed, then Lily shook her head. “Okay, I get the picture,” she said. “Reginald, however, would have been disappointed.”
“While you're away, would you like me to contact Tanglewood?” Jo asked, at last feeling the sense that they were now working as one. “You might be gone a few days and we should book someone soon.”
“Oh yes!” Lily exclaimed. “That would be wonderful. Sometimes I do wonder if I will ever remember more than one thing at a time.”
“Oh, something tells me you'll do just fine,” Sarah said with a small sigh and the others laughed, because when the clichéd chips were down, it had always been what they did best when they were together.
18
After they returned to the shop (“If I'm going to live here, I suppose I must buy a car,” Lily had moaned), Jo was filled with the fullness of friends and a glimmer of hope for the future. She decided that evening might be a good time to show her mother the apartment on Shannon Drive. Maybe now that Jo had unpacked most of the boxes, Marion wouldn't feel as if the place was as bleak and unworthy as she had expected. On the way back, they could stop at Second Chances. Not that Marion hadn't been kept up-to-date, minute by minute, by the church ladies who strolled Main Street with little to do except smile and gawk and make detailed mental notes.
Some sort of children's furniture was delivered upstairs.
They've taken a perfectly nice storefront and made it look modern.
There's a man inside at a desk—what's he doing there?
But as was Marion's fashion, she had not pressured Jo. There was never a need to. Jo could tell from one comment how Marion felt about something, from world economics to last week's price of fruit.
Her mother was home, sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper, a rotary fan billowing the armholes of her sleeveless shift dress.
“The apartment's air-conditioned,” Jo said. “You might want a sweater.”
It took Marion only ten minutes to apply fresh lipstick, grab her crafts-fair quilted purse, pick up her white cotton sweater, and head out the door.
Five minutes later Jo regretted inviting her.
“It must be awfully dark in here at night, Josephine,” Marion said as they walked across the garage.
There it was, the one single comment that set up disapproval, that left no need to add other thoughts that were certain to be: “It's no place for a woman alone,” or, on the elevator, “I've never liked elevators in these kinds of buildings. They seem so unsafe. If it gets stuck, who would you call?” Then in the hall, “It looks like a hotel, doesn't it? I'll bet you can hear everyone who walks past your door.”
Marion didn't need to say any of those things. Jo felt their presence by her mother's hesitant walk and grip on her purse and the way her eyes search-lighted to the left then to the right.
By the time Jo unlocked her front door she was exhausted.
But then Marion said, “Well, this is quite lovely.”
No doubt the furnishings had won Marion over.
Jo made iced tea and gave Marion a tour. When they sat on the sofa, Marion said, “I think about that Brian Forbes sometimes and I want to scream,” she said. “I simply can't believe he ran out on you again.”
It was something Jo hadn't expected. “We don't know for sure that's what happened, Mother. Besides, I'd rather not talk about Brian, okay? I'm trying to get on with my life.”
“Still,” Marion said, “it would be good for you to have a man in your life.”
Jo studied the ice cubes floating in her glass. “What an odd thing to say,” she commented, but did not add, “coming from you.”
Marion sighed. “Josephine,” she said, “now that you've moved back here, there's something I'd like you to know.”
Despite gossip and opinions, Marion wasn't often given to theatrics.
“I think you should have a man in your life, because I've so enjoyed having a man in mine,” she said.
Jo laughed. Marion's sense of humor often took her off guard. In a second, however, Jo realized Marion wasn't laughing. “Mother?” Jo asked. “Are you serious?”
Marion hesitated, then asked, “Do you remember Ted Cappelinni?”
Jo stared at her mother. Surely this was a joke. “Ted?” she asked. “Ted the Butcher?”
Marion nodded. “We've been seeing each other for years.”
“The butcher?” J
o repeated, the word hanging in the air like Ted Cappelinni's meat cleaver poised to align a perfect blow that would separate the short ribs from the chops.
“He's a good man,” her mother replied. “Kind. Generous. It would do you good to find one of those, too.”
Jo slugged down her iced tea, wishing it was wine. “Well, gosh,” she said, and realized how absurd she sounded. “This is quite a surprise. You and Ted the Butcher. Why didn't you tell me?”
Suddenly she felt like the parent of an adolescent: happy for Marion, yet wary about a relationship that had blossomed and developed behind Jo's unsuspecting back. Then she had but one thought: Did they have sex?
Seventy, after all, was no longer thought to be old.
But Marion?
And the butcher?
“Don't be so shocked, Jo,” Marion said. “I didn't tell you because there was no reason. You were in Boston and I was out here, and the few times we got together there were more important things to talk about, like how you were and the things you were doing.”
Jo stood up and walked to her bookcase. She scanned the spines of books that she'd read in the last few years when she'd grown to hate dating, because what had been the point when she still loved Brian?
“Well,” she said, “it would have mattered to me, Mother. I would have liked to have known what was going on in your life. I'd have liked to have known that you were happy.”
“Oh, don't be so dramatic,” her mother said. “Did I ever say I wasn't happy? Did I ever act it?”
Jo realized then that she'd never thought much about it, that she'd never considered that her mother had needs just as Jo did. “Wow,” she said, “I feel awful that I was so self-centered I never thought about you. About how your life was going. I thought it revolved around your church and your friends.” She walked to the window for the view of the balconies and all the white plastic chairs.
“Ted is my friend,” Marion said. “It's not as if we're going to get married.”
Jo turned around. “Why not?”
Marion laughed. “Because we've each lived alone for too many years. Besides, it's not easy at our age. You young people can just go off and get married and then get divorced if you want. But at seventy . . . well, in my generation we do things for keeps.”
Jo did not remind her mother that her mother might have thought she'd married Sam Lyons “for keeps,” yet she sure hadn't kept him, and no one had died because of it, had they?
“Well,” Jo said, “I don't know what to say. If Ted makes you happy, that's all that matters.”
“And anyway,” Marion continued, “he has his house; I have mine. How would we decide where to live?”
Jo laughed. “You could both sell your houses and move into this building.”
Marion grinned and put on her sweater.
Later that night, Jo lay in bed feeling empty. Empty and alone.
After they'd finished their tea, Jo had driven to Second Chances and showed her mother around, all the while still trying to digest the woman's news.
She wondered if, over the years, Ted had proposed, and if Marion rejected him because she was still in love with Jo's father, the man who had broken her heart. She wondered if such misplaced loyalty was genetic, and if that was why Jo had made such a mess of her own life.
“It's quite interesting,” Marion had said as she scanned through the software that Jo showed her of the “how's” and the “who's” that they already databased on behalf of the clients who'd not yet showed up. “But if Ted and I ever marry—which we won't, I assure you—we'd do it at the town hall. Why would anyone want this kind of stress?”
“Exactly. Which is where we would come in. We'd handle the stress so you wouldn't have to.”
Marion had then moved from the computer to the books of floral arrangements and gowns and reception venues that they'd been compiling with Andrew's help. One four-inch-deep binder was filled with glossy photos of appetizers alone; another with sample “second time” invitations.
Which did not mean she didn't have high hopes for the business, she'd been quick to say.
Which did not mean she didn't doubt for a minute that her daughter would put together another success.
Jo blinked at the darkness now. What would Marion say if she'd known Jo had failed on the epic scale that she'd failed? Would Marion still be so reassuring?
Not that she knew her mother anymore. Marion was right. The time they spent together had all too often been about Jo. Was that what children did? Were they never supposed to get to know their parents as people, not simply as the ones who were supposed to “be there”?
When Jo had thought of her mother, it had often been with flashes of guilt for the poor, lonely woman whose husband had left her and whose daughter had, too. That poor, lonely woman abandoned in the small house with no one but her church ladies to talk to and nothing to do but fill her birdfeeders.
“Ha!” Jo said into the night as she rolled onto her side and felt a tear slide from her eye onto the pillow.
All that time Marion had loved and been loved. It had been Jo who was the loser. And all she could hope for was that Marion would not marry Ted, so Jo would not be faced with helping her mother decide what to do with the house.
“Why don't you live there, Josephine?” She could almost hear the suggestion from her conscience. “Your mother can move in with Ted and you can live there, in the house you grew up in? Then you can be reminded every minute of every day of how far you went and how fast you fell. You could sleep in the same, slant-ceiling room where you once dreamed of escaping West Hope. You could roam the same halls you once roamed when you first loved Brian, and then when he'd gone and when you'd been left with the baby that you couldn't have.
Amanda.
Or Emmett Gray.
The baby that you didn't think West Hope would let you have.
“Jesus,” she said softly into her pillow. It was neither a prelude to a prayer nor a silent curse. It was simply a “Jesus,” because Jo did not know what to think about why she was alive or what in the hell she was doing back here in this stifling town.
By some not-so-minor miracle, Jo slept through the night. In the morning she summoned enough spirit to get into the shower, find some decent clothes, and go out into the world, her new world, such as it was.
She would rather have stayed in bed, the covers up to her neck. But the Most Likely to Succeed had a new role to play and, like it or not, it was what she did best.
In the garage, she unlocked her car door, tossed in her Coach briefcase that no one this side of the Connecticut River either knew or cared was a Coach, then sat in the driver's seat and turned on the ignition. That's when she noticed a small square of paper tucked under her windshield wiper.
Oh, great, she thought. She'd probably done something else wrong, like forgotten to separate her recyclables or parked too close to the secretary on her right or her left.
For a moment she considered ignoring the note, turning on the wipers and swishing it into space.
Sorry, Mr. Building Superintendent. I don't recall seeing a note.
With defiance, she flipped on the wiper-blade switch. But the paper did not fly away: It stuck to the rubber and crossed back and forth in her vision, waiting for Jo to pluck it from its place.
Jo uttered some words under her breath that would have turned the ladies at church a fine shade of pale. She opened her door and reached around to the windshield.
The paper was folded neatly in half. She considered throwing it on the concrete garage floor, then decided what the heck. She might as well know what she had done wrong.
No need to apologize, the handwriting read.
She scowled. What was this?
The last time I was run over I was nine.
Oh, she thought. Then she smiled.
I was in the soapbox derby. Jimmy Thompson rammed me and I flew out of my car and ran over myself and broke my leg.
The note was signed: Jack. Apt. 304.
/> Jo laughed. The guy she'd nearly killed had a good sense of humor.
Stuffing the note into her briefcase, she backed out of her parking space and drove from the garage, the clouds of her life having lifted a little, the darkness having lightened. On her way to the shop, Jo was reminded of how she had survived those first years in Boston, those first lonely, scared years alone. She'd done it by looking toward things she could control, not by focusing on those things she could not. She'd done it by looking toward every tomorrow, and the excitement of building a business.
And now, at forty-three, she might not have a man, she might not have a child, but Jo had Second Chances.
As she drove through the winding, shady streets where white porches and boxes of red geraniums and kids' bikes lined the sidewalks, Jo realized she would be okay, she could have success without loneliness, because she was home with her friends. She could build Second Chances into a thriving business. She could expand the concept to include destination weddings. They could bring it to other New England tourist areas that attracted brides: Newport, Ogunquit, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket. They could become the concierge to the second-marriage majority. They could build a name for themselves. The money would follow.
And then Jo would never feel like a loser again.
19
He willed his eyelids to stay open and his thoughts to keep flowing. At this rate, Andrew thought, I'll be writing this column only in the darkness of night.
Lesson #2: Never underestimate the mood swings of a woman.
Propping his elbows on his desk, he stared at the screen of his laptop. He was tired, so tired, from working twelve hours a day and trying to digest all the things he was learning about planning weddings and trying to determine what morsels he could extract for his column.
He was tired of pretending to act like a gay man when he had no idea how to do that.
He'd finally reached his old friend Hap Little at the store in South Beach. “Dress with panache and simply listen,” Hap said after Andrew had explained his mission. “And act sensitive. Women will talk. They'll tell you everything.” Hap also told him not to worry about his “walk,” that, despite rumors to the contrary, not every gay man swished.