The Chocolate Bridal Bash

by JoAnna Carl

  He and my mom were also pictured together at the senior prom the year Bill had graduated. But that year, instead of the formal portraits of couples used in my mom’s senior year, the prom page had been a collage of snapshots.

  In the one of Mom and Bill, both were laughing. I stared at Bill’s face. He had his arm around Mom. She was looking up at him admiringly. He was grinning from ear to ear. He looked completely happy.

  He certainly didn’t look as if he would turn suicidal just two years later.

  Someone cleared his throat behind me, and I jumped all over. I looked up to see one of the city councilmen, Raleigh “Rollie” Taylor.

  “Sorry,” said Rollie. “I didn’t mean to startle you, Lee. Are you researching wedding etiquette?”

  I slammed the yearbook shut. “Not tonight, Rollie.”

  “I wanted to make sure you knew that if Oprah Winfrey married Deepak Chopra, she’d be Oprah Chopra.”

  I chuckled. “I can always count on you to keep me up on these things.”

  Rollie is the classic jolly fat man. I’d been horrified when I first heard his cruel nickname. But when a boy whose name is Raleigh grows up to weigh a hundred pounds more than he should and to be the town’s most enthusiastic teller of jokes, I guess it’s inevitable that his nickname will be Rollie. At least his friends hadn’t added “Poly” after it.

  And Rollie did have friends. This had been demonstrated at the latest city election, when he ran for Warner Pier City Council in a hotly contested race and handily beat a more svelte candidate.

  Rollie had taught social studies at Warner Pier High School for thirty years. Joe had been one of his students. Now, as city attorney, Joe worked with Rollie. They frequently sparred during the meetings, mostly about money. Rollie had a reputation for being tightfisted with his own money—with the occasional splurge on travel abroad—and he definitely was tight with the city’s money. That’s a good thing in general, I guess, but a few months earlier Joe had thought Rollie was urging the council to cut a few legal and financial corners on a case involving an injured city employee, and they’d disagreed publicly.

  Joe had won the council’s support, and Rollie’s proposal had been voted down. Rollie smiled his usual smile, even though he’d lost the vote and might have been expected to be unhappy. Then he said, “It’s okay. Joe and I have been buddies since Lansing.”

  Lansing? Lansing was the capital of Michigan and home of Michigan State University. But Joe had gone to the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. I didn’t understand the reference. But since that time Rollie had repeatedly twitted Joe with references to Lansing. I didn’t get the joke, and Joe hadn’t reacted to it. I hadn’t asked Joe to explain.

  But Joe didn’t seem to dislike Rollie. Nobody did. He belonged to every committee and club in town. If we’d held a popularity contest, Rollie would have come in near the top, even if he never did buy a round at the postcouncil bull sessions in the bar of the Sidewalk Café.

  Rollie reached over and picked up the yearbook I had just slammed shut. “That was the first year I taught at WP High,” he said. He thumbed through the faculty section and pointed to his picture. “I can’t believe I ever had that much hair.”

  “Everybody had a lot of hair then. You were right in style.” Rollie’s hair had been thick and dark then, and it had probably been pushing the rules about length for teachers. Now his hair was gray and cut much shorter. It was also thinner on top, though I wouldn’t have called Rollie bald. The main difference between Rollie of thirty-plus years earlier and today was about fifty pounds. He’d been plump then, but he was obese now.

  Rollie closed the book and asked the question I’d grown used to. “Is your mother coming for your wedding?”

  I tried to answer casually. “That’s the plan.”

  “Great!” Rollie leaned toward me and dropped his voice almost to a whisper.

  “Lee, your mom was such a sweet girl. Why has she never come back to Warner Pier?”

  “She came back for Uncle Phil’s funeral.”

  “That was a mighty quick trip.” He frowned. “She’s not still worried about Bill Dykstra, is she?”

  “I really don’t know, Rollie. She’s never expelled—I mean, explained! She’s never explained why she doesn’t want to come back.”

  He stood up and leaned closer to me. “When she comes, be sure she talks to me.”

  “Why?” My voice was sharp, even to my own ears.

  “Bill was a troubled young man,” Rollie said. “I might know some things about him that would come as a surprise—even to Sally.”

  Chapter 6

  I stared at him for a moment. And suddenly I was mad. Just where did he get off wanting to tell my mom things “even she might not know” about Bill Dykstra? What she knew or didn’t know wasn’t any of Rollie’s business.

  And it wasn’t any of my business, either. My mom hadn’t asked me to snoop around in her past. She would probably resent my doing so. And she’d be sure to resent a former high school teacher—a person she had never even mentioned knowing—snooping around in her life.

  “Listen, Rollie,” I said. “I think you would be wise to drop this.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my mom has never talked about why she left Warner Pier. She has put the whole town behind her.”

  “That may be significant in itself, Lee.”

  “Yes, it may. Or it may not. I don’t know about that. But I do know one thing. I know Mom hasn’t spent the past thirty-three years mooning around over her high school sweetheart and his tragic death. She moved on. She married my dad—he’s a nice guy, and for at least fifteen years they were happy. When their marriage broke up, she moved on again. She found a job she liked and developed it into a successful career. She raised a daughter—and she was a highly supportive mother. She has friends, she has a good job, she owns a nice home, she travels all over the world, and she seems to enjoy herself thoroughly.”

  I stood up and gathered the old yearbooks into a pile. “I suggest that you and I follow her lead and forget the past.”

  Rollie smiled his jolly smile. The one that turned his eyes into little slits. “Of course, you’re right, Lee. Time wounds all heels.”

  He didn’t explain what he meant by that. What heels? I decided not to ask.

  Rollie turned away, humming softly, and went to the shelf of encyclopedias. He pulled out the first volume and took it to a table. By the time I had the yearbooks back on the shelf he was immersed in the book, but he looked up and smiled at me as I left.

  I’d just bawled Rollie out. Why was he smiling?

  I left the library feeling righteous. I was nearly home before I began to regret one thing.

  I hadn’t looked Sheriff Carl Van Hoosier up in the library’s newspaper files before Rollie confronted me. Now I couldn’t. My outburst had ruined any excuse I had for looking into what had happened.

  That thought made me feel guilty and caused me to give myself another lecture on staying out of my mother’s business. At the same time, I admitted to myself that I wasn’t exactly sure that everything I’d told Rollie about her was true.

  Those facts were one way to look at my mother’s life. She had moved on after Bill Dykstra’s suicide. She had married a nice guy, she had built a successful career, she did own a nice home and travel the world.

  But there was another way of looking at it. She had married my dad without realizing that her husband was not ambitious and that he would be happy to stay in his hometown forever; she had always felt that she was stuck in Prairie Creek. And neither of my parents had any financial sense. I used to lie in bed at night and listen to them argue about money. My stepmother had finally straightened my dad’s finances out, but my mom was still up to her eyebrows in credit card debt, mainly because of her travel habit—even travel agents don’t get everything free. Her “nice” home was a dinky condo she had never decorated because she didn’t have the money. And, yes, she did have friends, but she’d never
dated anyone seriously since she divorced my dad. In fact, I knew of a couple of nice guys she’d deliberately dropped when they seemed to be getting serious.

  I’d told Rollie that she had been a “supportive” mother. That was true. Of course, she hadn’t always supported me in the direction I wanted to go. When I was in my late teens, I’d felt pushed and prodded to do things—such as beauty pageants—that Mom had wanted me to do. I’d been enrolled in classes she couldn’t afford—speech lessons, musical training, exercise classes, even “charm school”—not because those things represented what I wanted to do, but because mom felt they’d help me “get ahead.” Getting ahead by developing my brains and professional skills hadn’t seemed to be an option. Let’s face it; she hadn’t believed I was smart enough to develop professional skills. She thought I’d have to rely on my looks, so I’d better make the most of them.

  Despite their other differences, my dad had supported her plans for me. My dad is a Texan. Texans like their daughters to be admired for their beauty and pretty ways. He had bragged about his daughter the beauty queen, but it wouldn’t have occurred to him to brag about his daughter the A student. I made the honor roll, but I wasn’t encouraged to admit it. My mother thought it was just luck, and it simply wasn’t important to my dad.

  For five years I’d tried to please them, entering pageant after pageant. Then I made the disastrous decision to marry Rich Gottrocks—I mean, Godfrey—only to find out that he was disappointed, maybe even angry, when he learned there were a few brains under my natural blond hair. It doesn’t do your ego much good when your husband is disappointed because you earned a four-point grade average.

  When I got married both my parents had given sighs of relief. Their little girl (all five foot eleven-plus inches of her) had married a wealthy man who would take care of her. They’d both thought I was crazy when I ditched the jewelry, the nice car, and the fancy house—along with Rich. And they thought I was crazier when I refused any financial settlement from him and even left the household goods behind.

  But I couldn’t blame my mother for my bad marriage. She’d approved—heck, even my dad had approved, though he and Rich had nothing in common. But I’d picked Rich out all on my own. I had only myself to blame.

  I didn’t yet understand why my mom had pushed me into the beauty pageant circuit, no matter how hard I dragged my heels. I didn’t understand the upbringing she had had, the factors that had made her financially improvident and wild to travel the world whether she could afford to or not. I didn’t understand why she’d never talked about her family much, why she’d never even mentioned having a fiancé who committed suicide.

  And I didn’t understand why she’d asked Aunt Nettie if Sheriff Carl Van Hoosier was still alive. I sure did wish that I’d researched Sheriff Van Hoosier before I committed myself to staying out of my mother’s life.

  But for nearly a week I stuck to that plan. I stayed out of my mom’s life. And I would have stayed out forever, I guess, if Lovie hadn’t intervened.

  It was a quiet Tuesday afternoon, and I was sitting at my computer in my glass cubicle, balancing the TenHuis Chocolade bank statement, when the bell on the street door tinkled. I looked up to see Lovie Dykstra—white hat, red pom-pom and all—coming in. She looked around the shop, glaring, fixed her eye on me, and started across the shop, headed for my office.

  I didn’t know why Lovie had come in, but I knew I didn’t want her in my office. She’d be lots harder to get rid of if she came in there and sat down than if she simply stood at the counter. So I jumped to my feet and headed her off. I got into the shop before she could get past the counter and put her foot on my office threshold.

  But I tried to be polite, even friendly. “Hello, Mrs. Dykstra. Let me offer you a sample of TenHuis chocolate.”

  She scowled. “I didn’t come for candy. I came for information.”

  “You can have both.” I went behind the sales counter and gestured at the chocolates in the glass cases. “Do you like light, dark, or white chocolate?”

  “No. Your mother Sally TenHuis?”

  “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  Her scowl deepened into a glare. “What became of that girl?”

  What interest did Lovie have in my mother? I’d been in Warner Pier nearly three years; why had the subject of my mother come up now? I decided I couldn’t hand out information about my mother to a woman who might be unbalanced.

  I gave a noncommittal answer. “My mom’s doing fine. Why do you want to know?”

  “Where is she?”

  “Mrs. Dykstra, I’m not going to tell you anything about my mother until I understand why you want to know.”

  We stared at each other over the chocolates for a few moments. Then Lovie gave her cackling laugh. “Heh, heh, heh! I’ll just ask you then.”

  “Ask me what?”

  “How old are you, girl?”

  It was the last question I’d expected. I’m sure my jaw gaped. “How old am I?”

  “I guess you know!”

  I decided I might as well tell her. “I’ll be thirty next month. Why do you want to know?”

  Lovie seemed to grow even angrier. She glared at me for another moment. Then her eyes took on a crafty look. “I guess you’re like all these pretty women. You take a couple of years off.”

  I was getting as mad as she seemed to be. I turned abruptly, went into my office, and pulled my purse from my desk drawer. I snatched my driver’s license out of my billfold, took it back to the counter, and stuck it under Lovie’s nose. “You can check the birth date,” I said.

  Lovie read it, squinting at the small print and looking from the license to me and back again, almost as if she were checking to make sure I was really Susanna Lee McKinney, blond hair, hazel eyes, five feet eleven inches tall. And as she read it, her face seemed to crumple. She aged right before my eyes.

  “That man always was a liar,” she said.

  “Who?”

  Lovie glared at the floor and mumbled.

  I was extremely puzzled. “What is it that you want?”

  She mumbled again and turned toward the outside door. Suddenly I felt terribly sorry for her. But I couldn’t imagine what I could do that would make her feel better. Desperate, I offered chocolate.

  “Mrs. Dykstra, everyone who comes into TenHuis Chocolade gets a sample bonbon or truffle. Please let me give you one.”

  She looked back at me and spoke softly. “I just keep hoping.”

  “Hoping for what?” She didn’t answer, but I ignored that. I escorted her to one of the two chairs we keep in the retail area. “Here, sit down a minute. And do let me get you some chocolate.”

  She let me put her in the chair, and she looked up at me almost as if she was pleading for something. But what?

  I tried to smile. “Chocolate is full of theobromine. It actually does make you feel better when you’re upset. Please have a piece.”

  “Flavanols,” Lovie said. “They lower your blood pressure.”

  I was amazed. Was this some weird throwback to the days when Lovie had been a science teacher? “Right,” I said. “Chocolate is good for you. It does contain flavanols. Do you like milk chocolate or dark chocolate?”

  “Coffee?”

  “Coffee flavored? Sure.” I went to the counter and took out two chocolates—a mocha pyramid bonbon (described in our sales material as a “milky coffee-flavored interior in a dark chocolate pyramid”) and a coffee truffle (“an all–milk chocolate truffle flavored with Caribbean coffee”).

  “Do you want to eat them now?” I asked. “Or take them with you?”

  “Take ’em along.”

  I put the chocolates in a tiny box and tied it with a blue TenHuis bow. Then I brought it out from behind the counter and presented it to Lovie. As I held it out, she grasped my wrist.

  My heart pounded. Was I in the clutches of a crazy woman? I resisted the impulse to pull away.

  “Listen!” Lovie said. “I wouldn’t bother your mother.
She was a sweet young girl. I wanted to love her. I just need to know why she ran away in the first place.”

  “She’s never talked to me about it, Mrs. Dykstra.”

  She let go of my arm. “I would never bother her. I just don’t understand why that sheriff lied to me. Oh, he was an awful liar, I know. But why did he lie to me about Sally?”

  She got to her feet and shuffled toward the door. As she opened it she seemed to become aware of the box in her hand. She turned and looked at me. She no longer looked angry.

  “Thank you very much for the kind gift, Miss McKinney,” she said. Her voice had lost its raspy quality. She sounded like a perfect lady.

  “You are quite welcome,” I replied.

  After she left I stood there, blinking back tears.

  What had all that been about? Why had Lovie come? Why had she wanted to know about my mom? Why had she wanted to know my age? Then the answer hit me.

  “Oh, lordy!” I said the words aloud. “She thought Mom ran away from Warner Pier because she was pregnant and her fiancé was dead. She thought her son might have been my father. She thought she might be my grandmother.”

  I didn’t know whether I should laugh or cry. I felt desperately sorry for Lovie. I almost felt sorry that my birth date had disappointed her.

  But my mom had left Warner Pier two years before she married my dad. And I hadn’t been born for eighteen months after their wedding.

  At least the date was long enough after Mom left Warner Pier to be convincing. She might have been able to fake my age by six months or so, but a threeand-a-half-year difference was out of the question. No, my dad was really J. B. McKinney, of Prairie Creek, Texas. And Lovie was not my grandmother.

  At least I knew how I felt about that. Relieved.

  But Lovie had said “that sheriff” had lied to her. She must have been referring to the notorious Sheriff Carl Van Hoosier. He had apparently told her my mom left Prairie Creek for the traditional reason small-town girls left home thirty years ago.