2 Emma, Mr. Knightley, and Chili-Slaw Dogs

by Mary Jane Hathaway

  Debbie Mae snorted. “Not with spaghetti straps. A Regency woman would be considered a woman of ill-repute in that.”

  “Ill repute?” She pretended to consider it. “Well, I could live with that, I suppose, for a color this gorgeous.”

  “My point,” Debbie Mae waved a hand, “was about Mr. Knightley. He was a happy bachelor, but when he fell in love with Emma, everything changed.”

  Caroline let out a short laugh, shaking her head. “Did you just hear what you said? He was a happy man and then everything changed? You’re really not convincing me here.”

  Her cousin laid a flowered, sleeveless button up over one arm and giggled. “You know what I mean.” Her smile faded and her eyes grew serious. “I was happy before I met Manning. But I don’t think I really knew what intense love could be like before him. It’s so different, it’s hard to describe.”

  Caroline flipped the metal hangers to the end and scoured for another possibility. “Eros.”

  “Okay, right.” She nodded. “But I don’t know if all that can be crammed into one little Greek word.”

  “I’m sure it can’t. I meant to say that’s the difference. Eros, agape, and …” She snapped her fingers.

  “Phileo,” Debbie Mae supplied. “Romantic love, friendship, brotherly love. Anyway, I mean that until you experience it, it’s really hard to say whether you want to spend your life without it.”

  “So, what does this have to do with Mr. Knightley and Brooks?”

  “He’s got great friends and a brother, but he’s missing out on a big area. I just would hate for him to discover it too late. Knightley had Emma as a friend, but when they fell in love, they were fulfilled, completed.”

  “Don’t let Brooks hear you call him incomplete.”

  Debbie Mae didn’t laugh. “He’s just not the type of guy to stay single forever, no matter what he says.”

  Caroline chewed her lip, flipping dresses on the rack, unseeing. Would he regret having spent so much time with friends, when he could have experienced the powerful, all-consuming passion of an erotic love? She didn’t want Brooks to miss out, but the thought of him being swallowed up by a grande passion made her feel more than a bit anxious. A vision passed before her, of Brooks and a tall, elegant woman, looking complete. The shadowy figure of this woman wavered in and out of clarity, long dark hair changing to a bright blond pixie cut and finally to waves of gentle auburn curls.

  “Is that what Manning says?”

  Debbie Mae snagged a yellow scarf from the display shelf and draped it over her dresses, eyeing it for clashing hues. “Actually, he told me to stop hounding him. He seems to have this odd idea that Brooks knows exactly what he’s doing.”

  “Maybe you should invite him to your house to watch Emma. That might bring the point home.” Her little joke was lost on her cousin.

  “Great idea!” She wrapped the scarf around her neck. “We should throw an Austen party. Blanche can help! She knows everything about parties! We’ll dress up in Regency clothes and eat pickled partridge eggs or whatever they ate.” Her face was alight with enthusiasm.

  Caroline felt her brows rise to the top of her hairline. What on earth had she started? “Let’s go try these on and then we can talk specifics.” Maybe Debbie Mae would forget all about it when she focused on summer dresses. Shoe shopping was next and it would seal the deal on her forgetting all about the crazy plan.

  Forty five minutes later, Caroline slipped her sunglasses down from her hair and pushed open the glass door of the boutique, walking into the sweltering Mississippi heat. The lilac colored floor-length dress was carefully hung inside a garment bag.

  “Oh, and we can learn some of those old dances!” Debbie Mae clutched several plastic bags and bounced alongside Caroline, her glee apparent even in her steps. Debbie Mae had refused to let go of her brilliant idea, quoting lines from the movie at her over the top of the changing room walls.

  Caroline snorted. “Really, Brooks is never going to agree to that. I can see a movie night, but a costume party with square dancing? Never going to happen, I can tell you.”

  Her face fell, small frown lines appearing at the sides of her mouth. “It’s not square dancing. It’s graceful and elegant. I thought you’d help out. If you don’t want to be part of it…”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to help.” Caroline paused under the shade of a magnolia, a bead of sweat making its way down the curve of her spine. Her feet were aching in her new silver strappy sandals but the wrought iron and wooden bench looked ten degrees hotter than the air. “And I’m glad you guys have started being more sociable. I know Brooks missed you and I sure missed you, but maybe this isn’t the best way to spend time together.”

  To her surprise, Debbie Mae’s large blue eyes misted with tears. “I’m sorry we haven’t been in touch very much.”

  “Hey,” she reached out, touching her hand. “It’s fine. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad about it. But a year is a long time without even a coffee date. Let’s plan that party for Christmas or New Year’s Day.”

  Debbie Mae turned and sank onto the bench, her bags clutched to her chest. Her expression was one of such grief that Caroline sank down next to her. Something was very wrong. Her heart twisted in her chest. Was Debbie Mae sick? Was Manning dying?

  “I just didn’t know how to tell you.” Her voice broke on the last word and her chin dropped to her chest.

  “Debbie Mae,” she said, hearing the panic in her own voice. “You can always tell me anything. I promise I won’t be mad.”

  She laughed, a sad little choking sound that was as far from a laugh as could be. “I know. It’s just so hard to find the words. We tried right away and we were so excited to find out we were pregnant. I started creating the cutest little cards to announce it.” She took a shuddering breath. “It’s a good thing I couldn’t decide between the baby giraffe theme and the daddy penguin theme.”

  Caroline held her hand, her throat tightening in response to the utter devastation on Debbie Mae’s face. Her mind flashed back to those months after the wedding, when her cousin seemed distant, silent.

  “The second time, we decided to wait a little longer.” She paused, looking up into the tree branches above them, her face dappled with bright sunlight. Her eyes glittered with unshed tears.

  The second time? Caroline’s stomach clenched. She had missed so much, assuming Debbie Mae was caught up in the bliss of a new husband. Instead she was drowning under a tidal wave of grief.

  “When that one ended, I needed to take a break.” She looked down at her hands, one clutching Caroline’s as if for dear life. “We waited until February and I didn’t even get excited when the little stick turned blue this time.”

  It was May and there had been no happy announcement. Obviously there would be no happy announcement. Caroline leaned forward, folding Debbie Mae’s shaking shoulders into a fierce hug. They held on to each other in the sweltering morning sunlight, on a public bench in the swanky downtown shopping area, mourning.

  Debbie Mae finally leaned back, wiping her face, trying to keep her mascara from smearing. Caroline dug a tissue from her purse and handed it over silently.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just knew it would be like this and I couldn’t face any more tears.” She laughed, shaking her head. “As if this is any better.”

  She rubbed Debbie Mae’s back, feeling her thin shoulder bones through her pale yellow linen shirt. She’d thought Debbie Mae was watching her weight, maybe running more. Now she could see the weight loss was grief and tragedy showing through.

  “We’ve decided to put it all on hold. I can’t take another…” Her voice trailed off and Caroline wondered what she was going to say. Disappointment didn’t seem the right kind of word for a loss so deep.

  “And I know people will say that it’s so much easier to lose a baby at that stage, before you’re even showing, before you tell everybody.” Her brows drew together in anger. “But it’s not easier for us.
I was so mad at God, I couldn’t even sit in church. I would just fume the whole time. I’m not saying our loss is any bigger or any more awful, but I don’t even know if they were boys or girls.”

  Caroline nodded, feeling the yawning chasm of the unknown that would never be filled. Never knowing the gender meant you might not give the child a name. Without anyone knowing, you certainly wouldn’t be able to have a public ceremony to mourn and show respect for the short life. It would be forever unfinished, no healing closure available. And multiplied by three, the burden was unimaginable.

  “I feel like a failure as a woman.” She watched the shoppers pass on the sidewalk, happy chatter filling the air around them. “You always hear what a ‘real woman’ is. You know, ‘real women have curves’ and ‘real women make biscuits from scratch’ and ‘real women run marathons’. I thought ‘real women have babies’. Or maybe I didn’t even think it. Maybe I just believed it without even considering whether it was true.”

  Caroline smiled a little at the marathon comment. She liked to run but she didn’t think she could ever do a marathon. Or biscuits from scratch. And of course, she had just assumed about the babies. Like Debbie Mae.

  “When it didn’t look like that was going to happen for us, I felt like someone had canceled my woman card.” She looked up, face stricken. “Really, what do I do now? I had it all planned out. College, good job, marriage, and babies. Just like that.”

  She wondered for the first time what Debbie Mae thought of her. She’d gone to college, gotten the good job, and then come home. No marriage. No babies. Probably, like most people, her cousin’s false perceptions were applied most heavily to herself, not those around her. Caroline rubbed Debbie Mae’s arm, at a loss for words.

  She’d always felt like a woman, even when she’d been making cake flops for bridge meetings. It hadn’t touched her faith, hadn’t made her question whether she was loved by God. She just couldn’t imagine the depths of the grief, a grief so deep that it had consumed the whole of the last year.

  “Right now, I just want to focus on something else. I missed my friends.” Debbie Mae looked at her, her lips tilted up in a hopeful expression. “If they can forgive me for being so quiet.”

  “Oh, honey.” It wasn’t the most articulate sentence, but Caroline hoped her hug said it all. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I am, too.” Debbie Mae straightened up, brushing back her hair. “Now, I want this to be a summer to have fun, recuperate, and reconnect. I think your idea about a Regency party is so incredible!”

  She opened her mouth to remind her that she wasn’t the one who’d come up with it, but decided it didn’t really matter. If Debbie Mae wanted an Austen party, Debbie Mae was going to get an Austen party. “I’m still not sure if Brooks is going to want to show up in tails and dance around your patio.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to work on him.” She stood up, shouldering her purse. “Come on, we’ve got shoe shopping to do. And after lunch, we’ll strategize.”

  Caroline followed along, outwardly remarking on the chances of whether they could find Regency shoes without resorting to an online store. Inside, her heart was trembling with the knowledge her best friend had been enduring a life-changing trauma. And she hadn’t even known.

  She’d been so caught up in her own problems with her mother, her own loneliness, wishing everyone would come visit her. Perhaps if she hadn’t been so focused on her own troubles, she would have seen Debbie Mae struggling. She’d been a bad friend, and there was nothing worse in Caroline’s book than someone who let down her friends.

  Before they entered the next shop, she’d decided this Austen party was going to put all other parties to shame. And if she had to drag Brooks there and force him to dance, she would do it. Debbie Mae deserved a little happiness and if they all had to dress up like something in a BBC miniseries, then that would be a small price to pay.

  “Indeed I will. You have shown that you can dance, and you know we are not really so much brother and sister as to make it at all improper.”- Emma

  “Brother and sister! No, indeed.” – Mr. Knightley

  Chapter Four

  Brooks hesitated, standing on the tidy welcome mat, the heat of the setting sun blazing against his back. The familiar green rockers at either end of the long porch were absent. The two matching sets were bought from the local carpenter when Caroline’s grandparents were just a young couple and it was strange to see the cleanly painted planks were they would have been. Probably being refurbished. The Japanese honeysuckle was clambering over the side of the porch and winding up one fat, square pillar. He made a mental note to offer to trim it if the gardener didn’t. Left alone it would work its way under the eaves and twist wrist-thick stems around the gutters, crushing the delicate wood work.

  His gaze took in the overgrown hydrangea visible near the opposite edge of the porch and frowned. It wasn’t like Mrs. Ashley to let the vegetation run wild. The Ashley home was one of the few truly historic homes in Thorny Hollow and Caroline’s mother made sure the grounds and veranda were immaculately maintained.

  He stood, fist raised to the door. How many years had he been dragged to parties, his parents bickering in the front seat? His father would drink too many bourbons and everyone was miserable by the end of the night. He hated facing another party, especially when he should have been doing the party rounds at home, in Spartainville.

  Academics loved a party just as much as genteel Southerners and he needed to participate in the endless rounds of get-togethers. Otherwise, he would end up getting shut out of the ivory tower, out in the cold of the real world. It wasn’t all about the pursuit of knowledge and they all knew it. If only his father could understand that. Maybe when Blanche came back, they could all sit down together and talk it out.

  Brooks straightened his tie and tried to muster some enthusiasm. It had been a hard week and there was nothing he’d love more than to make some popcorn and watch a ballgame. Maybe Caroline wouldn’t be ready. Maybe she’d make him sit in the parlor, next to the long rows of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves while she took an hour or two getting dressed. The term had been rough and although it was almost over, the worst was yet to come. Finals made everyone nutty. He needed a break. Maybe by the time she emerged, they’d decide it was too late to go and end up staying in, debating politics and planning the summer late into the night.

  Not likely, but he could dream. He knocked on the glossy black door, the heavy oak swallowing the sound completely. He heard the faintest sound of footsteps and Caroline opened it not two seconds later.

  “Where’s your dad?” Caroline peered behind Brooks, noting the empty car.

  “He’s not feeling up to it. So we get to be the Elliot family ambassadors.” He felt his lips turn up in a smile, even though seconds before he’d knocked on Caroline’s door, he’d been dreading the prospect. He took a slow breath. This wasn’t the way he wanted to spend a Saturday evening and he was sure Caroline felt the same, but it seemed the curse of the Southerner to attend every party out of polite obligation.

  “Is he sick?” She got the little frown line between her brows that meant concern and sometimes confusion. Today it was just concern.

  “Tired, I think.” He’d driven all the way to Thorny Hollow for a party he didn’t want to attend only because his father asked. Thirty minutes before they left, he’d decided to stay home and watch TV. The bait-and-switch really pushed his buttons.

  “I hope he’s all right. Maybe we should pick him up some tea or something from the Piggly Wiggly on the way home.” He leaned against the door frame and waited while she rooted through her tiny purse. Caroline’s dress was one he’d seen before, but he’d forgotten how pretty it was with cream colored roses on pale turquoise. The fabric was something soft and flowing, the design of the dress accentuated every curve. He allowed himself one admiring survey before forcing his gaze above the shoulders. Her wavy blond hair was twisted up into something carelessly beautiful and she smelled delic
ious, like violets and vanilla.

  “My phone… was just… here.” She frowned and dug deeper, as if the bag was miles wide.

  “You can use mine, if we need one.”

  “I know, but Mama might want to call me and I’d better answer if she does.” She brushed back her blond hair and started removing objects from the small purse. He watched a small hairbrush, silver tube of lipstick, keys, and assorted doodads emerge until the little table by the front door was cluttered.

  “She doesn’t like you to go out.” It wasn’t a question.

  “A-ha!” She held up the small red phone triumphantly. “She just worries a bit when I’m out.” The pile on the table disappeared back into the purse, one item at a time.

  “How did she manage when you were at Midlands? Or at the Post?” He spoke gently, not wanting to cause an argument. But Caroline’s mama had her on a very short leash.

  Just yesterday she’d called him at the crack of dawn to go running. It was the last on his list of most favorite exercises, but somehow she’d pried him out of bed. They’d gone for a long loop around the kudzu-covered neighborhood, well before the rest of the world had risen. When they’d returned, Mrs. Ashley had complained at how long it had taken, as if she’d made plans herself to jog with Caroline at six in the morning on a Saturday.

  “It was different then. Daddy was alive and they kept each other company.” She snapped the purse closed and looked up at him, green eyes as clear as the sea. “It was such a shock for her when he passed. I can understand how she gets anxious when I’m out of sight.”

  He didn’t answer. There was a strange feeling in his chest, as if an ice cube was slipping down into his stomach, melting all the way. Out of sight? The leash was shorter than he thought. He’d assumed she got out a least a few times a week, if only for a run.

  “She doesn’t mind if I go somewhere with you, though. We’re practically related.”

  “We’re not hardly related,” he choked out, laughing.

  “We are, sort of. Your brother and my cousin.”