Once Upon a Bride

by Jean Stone

  Though he had a tough, muscular build, R.J. Browne was soft-spoken. Jo didn't think he realized how deeply his words had cut into her, piercing her soft cushion of well-practiced denial.

  She hadn't returned to the detective. She couldn't afford his fees, anyway. Not anymore.

  “If you want to hire someone, go ahead,” she said to Frank now. “But please leave me out of it. I think it's time for me to move on.”

  “Jo?” Frank asked. “Is there more to this story?”

  She stretched her neck, each muscle and nerve and tendon letting their irritation be known. “Men,” she said. “Women. Does it ever really work?” Then she looked out the window. The “T” zipped past them, loaded with people—some men, some women. She wondered if any of them were attached to one another and if any of them were content.

  On the rest of the way back to the Berkshires, they rode in silence, without even the symphony to intrude on their private thoughts.

  When they got back to West Hope it was nearly dark, but Sarah was in the back room of the shop, working at a design table set up in a corner.

  “The linden tree,” Sarah said, not looking up from her drawing. “The heart-shaped leaf. It's a perfect symbol for Elaine's wedding. It changes with the seasons of life; it is gentle and velvet-looking; and they're all over the grounds of the Wharton estate. They should be beautifully golden in October.”

  Jo walked in and sat on a stool beside Sarah. The illustration was alluring: trellises intertwined with a cascade of linden leaves. “I'll make them from gold foil,” Sarah went on, “and create their fruits of pearl-colored silk to match the gowns.”

  The image was exotic and elegantly original. Jo wondered if Sarah had any idea how clever she was. Then she realized it was late and Sarah was there, which probably meant one thing.

  “Is Jason gone again?” Jo asked.

  Sarah nodded. “Labor Day weekend at the Thousand Lakes.”

  Labor Day weekend. The summer was over. Jo was amazed that it had slipped away, that she barely remembered its heat.

  “Burch is with his grandparents on the Cape,” Sarah added. “They said they wanted to kidnap him one more year before he turns into a teenager and loses interest in spending time with them.”

  Jo smiled. It was nice that Jason's parents seemed to adore Sarah and Jason's son. Sarah had never talked much about her past, only to say that life in New England suited her better than going back to the reservation where she'd been raised. Even Lily hadn't been able to get Sarah to reveal much about her past. And Lily usually had a way of getting everyone to tell her their secrets.

  “The real reason I'm still here, though, is to get you to go out for supper with me,” Sarah said, setting down her pencil and slipping off her stool.

  “It wasn't him, Sarah,” Jo said abruptly. “Brian's not dead.”

  Sarah nodded and picked up her car keys. “Good,” she replied. “But we're still going out. Andrew is meeting us at the restaurant, and we're going to listen.”

  Jo would have preferred to go home and draw a hot bath and lie there and cry in the warmth and the bubbles. But Andrew had told Sarah what had transpired, and Jo was beginning to remember that this was what friends did: They were there for each other; they listened. She had been on her own for so many years she'd forgotten that friendship bore that blessing—and that responsibility.

  “Lily called,” Sarah said when they were settled into a small vinyl booth at Smokin' LaDonna's on the outskirts of town. It was a new Texas barbecue place that catered to tourists and was not as apt to have neighbors in every booth, their large ears pressed to the backs. “She's coming back tomorrow.”

  “Great,” Jo replied as they ordered Chardonnay. “Did she find the guest gift?”

  “What she found, she said, was inspiration. She asked what I thought about a small book by Edith Wharton, tied with gold and ivory ribbon. Ethan Frome for the men; it's companion, Summer, for the women.”

  “But those books are so sad! So unromantic in their endings! Hardly wedding-appropriate.”

  Sarah smiled.

  “Our Lily may have graduated from college, but I'm afraid she spent little time reading.”

  “Now that's hard to imagine.” The comment came from Andrew. They laughed happy laughs, then he slid in beside Sarah, both facing Jo. Friends, she thought again. It had been so long.

  “Where is your niece?” Jo asked him. “Did you leave her alone?”

  “Nope. We have a great neighbor, Mrs. Connor, who used to baby-sit. Now that Cassie is too old for baby-sitters, according to her, the woman is there when she needs her. By the way, Jo, I added a shopping date into your schedule.”

  Jo nodded, though she was no longer sure if she had the strength for an eleven-year-old.

  “Cassie has been with you a long time?” Sarah asked.

  “Well,” Andrew replied, “yes.” He picked up the menu and said, “I'm starved.” The waitress arrived and he ordered ribs and cole slaw. The women ordered salads: Jo's with barbecue chicken strips; Sarah's, without.

  “So,” Sarah said, once their food had arrived, “it was a tough day for you, Jo.”

  Here comes the support, Jo thought. She looked at Andrew. “It wasn't Brian,” she said. “He isn't dead.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “That it wasn't him, or that he's not dead?”

  “Either. Both.”

  “Well, I didn't see the man, the corpse. But Frank was sure it wasn't his brother. Which didn't surprise me.” She was so tired, the tears started to spill unexpectedly. She set down her fork and quickly picked up her napkin.

  “Oh, Jo,” Sarah said, reaching out her hand and touching her friend's arm.

  “It really would help if you could talk about it,” Andrew said in a low, comforting voice.

  “No,” Jo said. Then she looked at both friends, one old and one new, and she knew that if she didn't tell someone soon, she would split wide open and spill all her secrets out on the red-and-white checkered table.

  They closed Smokin' LaDonna's. By that time Jo had told Sarah and Andrew the rest of her humiliating story, from her pregnancy and the abortion right up to the present, how Brian had taken all the money she had, one way or another, and how that had been the real reason she had moved back to West Hope—not merely because she was broken, but also because she was broke.

  By the time she was finished she was weak, purged, and head-to-toe numb.

  “He's an ass,” Sarah said.

  “A real prick,” Andrew added.

  “You should tell Frank,” Sarah suggested. “About the money.”

  Jo shook her head. “It doesn't concern him.”

  “It does if he's worried that his brother is dead. If he hears the rest of the story he might start to think otherwise.”

  Closing her eyes, Jo said, “He'll think Brian stole all of my money and dumped me, then left the country or something.”

  Sarah and Andrew were both silent. Jo opened her eyes. “Which I suppose is what happened,” she added, finally saying the words that she'd been trying not to admit, even to herself.

  Back at the shop, Jo said good-bye to her friends, then decided to walk, to clear her aching thoughts before heading home. She unlocked her car and tossed her bag inside, then went onto Main Street and took a deep breath of the cool, clear, Berkshire air.

  The center of West Hope was dark and quiet, the only attraction the American flag that stood in the spotlight beside the gazebo on the town green. The tourist boutiques were all closed: the shop that sold jellies and jams and candles and things; the one that offered hand-knit sweaters and thick, woolly shawls; the one that featured handpainted birdhouses. The only glimmer of light came from the windows of the real estate offices, where Polaroid snapshots of properties for sale hoped to lure in tourists out for an evening stroll.

  Walk to Tanglewood, one of the notices read.

  Near Rockwell Museum, read another.

  Then a third, headlined: Lakefro
nt. Winterized cottage, two bedrooms, screen porch, fireplace, private dock. Needs some TLC. $429,900.

  Jo wondered if, for $429,900, she could have enough TLC to put herself back together again—Humpty Dumpty, back on the wall.

  She resumed walking, past the new post office and the old redbrick town hall—ERECTED 1879, its plaque read. She wondered if she'd even known the town was that old. Brian would have known: perhaps because of the family antiques business, history had been his passion.

  Did she know, Brian had asked one autumn night as they'd walked through town, with Jo bundled in his high-school letter sweater from football and track, that Nathaniel Hawthorne thought he lived in Lenox, but that the red cottage where he scribed The House of the Seven Gables was actually in Stockbridge?

  Did she know, he'd instructed on another night, that the southern part of the county was purchased from the Stockbridge Indians for 460 pounds, three barrels of cider, and thirty quarts of rum? Or that the base of the Washington Monument is made of marble from the quarry in Lee, or that the Hancock Shakers were originally called the “Shaking Quakers” because of the crazed way they danced to rid their bodies of evil?

  Jo closed her light sweater around her now and tried not to remember those nights, those hours, when they'd walked and he'd talked, extolling fact after fact, while Jo listened with a lover's ears, thinking he was the most interesting man she'd ever known.

  She supposed that, back then, he was. She supposed that, since then, she'd shut down her emotions and not left her heart open to meet others who might be more interesting, more interested, less hurtful.

  She cut across the street to the town green, walking along the newly restored brick walkway, past the wrought-iron lampposts to the fountain and the granite memorial of war heroes of West Hope.

  World War I. World War II. Korea. Vietnam. Twenty-three names in all; twenty-three men who had never returned, never built a life there, never had a chance to build their futures, or to waste them.

  Never had a chance to break any more hearts.

  “He's an ass,” Sarah had said.

  “A real prick,” Andrew had added.

  They had shaken their heads as if to rid Brian's evil spirit.

  Jo laughed out loud at the image. “Enough!” she said out loud into the night. Enough introspection! Enough self-pity! Brian was gone and Jo knew she'd be better off if he never came back. Finally, finally, she no longer needed him, because Jo had friends once again, and this time she would cherish them. This time, she would not let them go.

  She walked back to the shop, then cut through to the parking lot. When she got into her car she noticed that half the contents of her purse had spilled onto the seat when she'd tossed it inside. On the top was the note from her neighbor.

  She picked up the note and reread it with a smile. Then she dug around for a scrap of paper, this time a toll receipt from the Mass. Pike. She quickly wrote: Sorry about your leg. Did Jimmy Thompson win the race? Jo. Apt. #411.

  A few minutes later, when she arrived home, Jo got off the elevator on the third floor, slipped the note under the door of apartment 304, then climbed the fire stairs to her place, a grin on her face the whole time.

  25

  DO

  Have your wedding “cake” formed out of Krispy Kremes if that's what you want. The second time around, it doesn't matter what your mother (or the neighbors) think!

  It was horrid in the city,” Lily said the next day in the shop, as she fanned herself with great Lily aplomb. She had arrived on the early train from Manhattan with the other “escapees,” as she liked to call them: men who'd traded ties for T-shirts with pockets, and women who'd replaced their leather briefcases with woven designer totes.

  “It was so hot I thought I'd perish, marching from place to place trying to find the perfect guest gifts. Then I went past a bookstore and suddenly there it was—inspiration! How was I to know it was such a dumb choice?” She flung her lithe body into a chair, her winsome pink sundress landing with a flutter.

  “But your idea triggered a thought,” Jo replied. “Instead of guest gifts, why not make a donation to the ongoing restoration at The Mount? We can make it in the guests' names. We could ask that the money be applied to the renovation of Edith's boudoir or her husband's or to the Henry James suite. It will be years before every nook and cranny of the estate is re-created. It's such a worthwhile attraction for the area, don't you think?”

  Lily considered Jo's suggestion. “Give money, not gifts? Charity, not trinkets?”

  “A grown-up gesture for a second-wedding occasion.”

  “Well, sure,” Lily said. “Why not? We could have place cards hand-calligraphied to notify each guest. That would personalize the gesture, don't you think?”

  Jo smiled. Yes, hand-calligraphied cards would add a classy touch. It pleased her that Lily agreed, though not much could have cracked Jo's good mood today. She felt amazingly wonderful. She had slept through the night free from hazy, dark dreams, from unknown thoughts to awaken her with anxious, dreaded fears, her heart racing, her palms sweating, her mind centered on Brian. Not this morning. This morning Jo had opened her eyes, surprised to see the sun, surprised that she had felt such peace, that she had felt so vindicated and no longer alone.

  Now all she needed was to summon the courage to tell Brian's brother about the money that once had been hers, but now was not. Sarah and Andrew were right: Frank had a right to know.

  “Have you seen Frank?” Lily suddenly asked, the matter of the gifts apparently resolved.

  Jo flinched with surprise. Had Lily read her mind? “Not today,” she answered quickly. Then added, “Actually, I saw him yesterday. I went to Boston with him. It was about his brother. Nothing that turned out to be important.”

  Lily's eyebrows raised. Jo remembered that as far as Lily knew, Frank's brother had vanished years ago and Jo hadn't heard from him since.

  Jo took a slow breath and said, “It's a long story. Brian's been missing; the police thought an unidentified dead man was him. It wasn't.”

  Lily's blue eyes grew large, then larger. “My goodness,” she said. “Poor Frank must have been devastated.”

  Poor Frank. Well, Jo thought, of course Lily would think of Frank first. He was the new man in her life, her paramour, at least for now. She had no way of knowing how distraught Jo would have been, because Lily had not known the rest.

  Lily checked her watch. “He prefers a late lunch. I'll go next door in a while and suggest a small picnic. Maybe he'll feel better if he talks about the ordeal.”

  It must be how Lily always captures the men that she captures, Jo thought. She was sensitive to their needs; she was sensitive to trying to soothe their stresses, whether she did it consciously or not. Beneath her flighty ways, Lily cared about others. What's more, she was not afraid to let them know it.

  Maybe I should go with Lily, Jo thought. Maybe I should tell both of them together, then everyone would know. Everyone but Elaine and Marion and, oh yes, the police.

  “Don't forget the gowns today,” came Andrew's voice from across the room. He was armed with a feathered dusting wand, tackling the fragile glass shelves as if he were removing grime from hubcaps.

  “Oh,” Jo said. “That's right. Lily, we all need to be here at three o'clock. The woman from Chestnut Hill is bringing our gowns out for a fitting. Sarah convinced her to come here so we can show her around and maybe work some kind of partnership with her.”

  “Three o'clock. Okay, fine,” Lily said.

  “We can't be late,” Jo said. “We want to try and impress her with our professionalism.” She wondered if that would leave enough time to tell Lily and Frank. Lily, no doubt, would be so upset that she'd then feel the need to comfort both of them.

  Lily smiled wryly. “I'll be here. Though I'm dying to know more about Frank's brother. I've always wondered what makes people just disappear.”

  Jo stood up. An unexpected nerve spasmed in her neck. She had to force away the urge
to defend Brian again. How long would it take before that need would be gone? “Well,” she said abruptly, “Brian's disappearance will probably turn out to be inconsequential. What does matter, though, is Elaine's wedding. Wait until you see what Sarah's done. She's going to transform The Mount into a vision drenched in beauty.” No, she definitely wouldn't go with Lily to talk to Frank. She didn't want to talk about Brian that day; she didn't want to disturb the peace she'd found. “Come look,” she said, and gestured for Lily to follow her into what had once been the back room and now looked like the design studio of a busy, prosperous business, strewn with fabric swatches and color samples and sketches and, somehow, harmony.

  The day passed quickly. While Lily was gone, Jo busied herself phoning the caterer (“We've decided on the cheddar and apple slices to complement the cranberry crème,” she informed them about the appetizers). She talked about the field kitchen they would need to set up to serve the hot entrées, which Elaine hadn't chosen yet. Next she called the party-supplies rental agency (“We want the linens in oyster, not white”), then the cellist who headed the group that would play during dinner (“We've decided a harpist would be nice for the social hour. Do you know anyone?” Jo asked his message machine).

  When at last she hung up, she glanced at the calendar. Only a few weeks remained until Elaine's wedding; only a few weeks to prove that they could act together and create a second wedding that would be worthy of the Berkshires and live up to their sales pitch.

  With Jo still at work and Sarah in the studio, at three o'clock on the dot Lily pranced through the door. Jo couldn't tell from her expression if Frank was still upset, if he'd told her more than he'd told Jo, if he planned to do anything next to find his long-lost brother, the ass, the prick, the man she'd loved.

  Stop it, she commanded herself. She would not think about Brian. She would not, would not, would not.

  Before Jo could ask, the door opened again and in came Dorothy Dixon, an older, square-shaped woman with a stern look on her equally square jaw. Ms. Dixon was from the Chestnut Hill store and gave the impression she was not inclined to dawdle. Which was fine, except that the bride had not yet arrived.