A Different Light

by Mariah Stewart

  “Now get on the phone and get Diana over here,” Quentin was saying. “We have a lot of work to do.”

  Diana was an excellent choice for campaign manager. She had been with Ari through all his campaigns, and knew all the old stalwarts and all the new blood. Night after night, they worked into the wee hours, planning their strategy and making up lists of the ward leaders and committee people they would be calling on. Athen would announce her decision to run the following Wednesday, and they had many weeks’ worth of work to accomplish in a very few days.

  True to his word, Quentin worked around the clock on the literature and posters they’d plaster all over the city. Posters bearing the replica of the new medical center, the shelter, and the community center asked the residents to “Keep the dream alive.”

  Full-page ads in the local papers carried Athen’s promise that the vision of a new Woodside Heights offered by Evelyn Wallace was still within reach, that her work would be carried on as a testament to her commitment. Ms. Evelyn had promised her help as soon as she was able. She’d drafted letters to the editors of all the local papers, asking the residents who’d supported her to offer that support to Athen.

  Dan swiftly retaliated, dismissing Athen as no more than an opportunist who “quickly moved in to declare her candidacy before Ms. Evelyn had settled into her hospital bed, one who’d fight to hold on to her office even if it meant taking advantage of the misfortune that had befallen a woman she’d called friend.”

  “Think,” he crooned to the TV cameras, “what a hotel, a convention center would mean to the city, of the revenue it would bring in. Think how the city could grow and prosper once the center of town had been cleared of the blighted neighborhoods.”

  At his rallies, he’d address wildly supporting crowds.

  “Put Dan Rossi back in office, and Dan Rossi will put Woodside Heights back to work!”

  “Dan Rossi means he’ll put Woodside Heights back to work for him,” Athen had responded. “Ask him where he was when all those jobs were leaving Woodside Heights.”

  “Ask Athen Moran what she’s done for this city in the past two years,” Rossi taunted.

  “Ask Rossi what he accomplished in the previous eight,” she replied calmly, then added, “I think getting a commitment from the Bradford Foundation to fund not only a badly needed medical center but a true community center and the shelter envisioned by Evelyn Wallace is a pretty big accomplishment. Not only jobs for the city, but doctors. A trauma center. Neonatal and pediatric specialists …”

  “She’s a novice,” Rossi sputtered upon hearing Athen’s remark. “An amateur. The hardworking taxpayers of Woodside Heights want to see this city soar, want to see this city become a mecca here in the northernmost part of the state.”

  “If that’s what the citizens of this city truly want, that’s what they’ll vote for on Election Day,” Athen told the reporter from the Herald. “They will choose. All this harping from Mr. Rossi is a smoke screen. For eight years he sat back in his chair and smoked his big cigars and watched this city fall apart. For the first time, someone is offering Woodside Heights a choice, and the choice is greater than him or me. It’s an opportunity to decide the direction in which this city will grow. Until the first Tuesday in May, no one will know for certain what that choice will be. We’ll all just have to wait, and we’ll find out together.”

  “MORE WINE, MAYOR MORAN?” THE waiter offered solicitously.

  “No thank you.” She shook her head. “Quentin, don’t you think this is odd? The entire room is deserted.”

  Athen surveyed their surroundings, clearly puzzled. They were, as she observed, the only diners in the small, elegantly appointed side room of Étienne’s, the lavish restaurant that just months ago had opened in a lovely old mansion on a hill that overlooked the city. “Where do you suppose everyone is?”

  “Probably at the polls doing their civic duty.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “Besides, this is a Tuesday night, and the night of the hottest election this city has ever seen. I’m sure people will begin to filter in later.”

  “Maybe we ought to get back.” She shifted nervously in her seat. “Maybe we ought to check the returns.”

  “Sweetheart, the polls don’t close for another hour.” He entwined his fingers with hers. “Just sit back and relax a little. We’ve plenty of time.”

  “I didn’t expect to be this nervous,” she confided. “I never thought a day could be as long as this one has been.”

  “Well, it’s almost over and we’ll know soon enough,” he reminded her. “I think I’d like some coffee. How about you?” He signaled for the waiter.

  “Quentin, I have had about ten cups past my limit.” She sighed. “I’m positively wired.”

  “Two decafs,” Quentin told the waiter.

  “Quentin, I feel like I should be back at headquarters, waiting with everyone else.”

  “Nonsense.” He moved his chair closer to hers and massaged one of her tired shoulders with his right hand. “It’s going to be a long evening, and after the past few months, I think you’ve earned the right to relax and have a peaceful hour or two.”

  He leaned back as the waiter placed their cups on the table, then moved Athen’s cup slightly to the side and placed a large goblet filled with raspberries and whipped cream before her.

  She frowned. “I didn’t order dessert.”

  “Étienne made it special for you, madame.” The waiter beamed.

  Athen managed a smile. After the waiter left the room, she told Quentin, “If I eat another bite, I’ll be sick.”

  She passed the goblet to him. He passed it back.

  “Of course you won’t be sick.” He smiled. “Eat your dessert. Raspberries are good for you. Superfoods, and all that. I read about it in a health magazine.”

  “Quentin, I don’t want …” She protested as he lifted the spoon to her mouth. “Oh, honestly, Quentin …”

  “Athen, you don’t want to offend Étienne,” He leaned forward. “He’s the best chef in town.”

  “Oh, all right, I’ll eat some of it.” She shrugged. “But you have to finish it.”

  “Sure.”

  He watched closely as she dipped her spoon into the frothy cloud of whipped cream, playing with it, unconsciously raising small peaks here and there.

  “You know, it’s funny.” She put the spoon down on the plate beneath the goblet. “The last election was just an exercise. I hadn’t the faintest idea what was going on, nor did I really much care, and I won so easily. Of course, that time I was unopposed and had Rossi’s backing. This time, when it means something, when there’s really something at stake, it’s so difficult. I want so badly to win, Quentin. Not just to beat Dan, but for Ms. Evelyn.”

  “She’s very proud of you, just as I am,” he said. “Everyone who loves you is proud of you. Not just for taking on Dan, but for the way you’ve conducted yourself all through this. And Dan should thank you for not throwing Mary Jo Dolan in his face.”

  “You know I couldn’t do that.”

  “Weren’t you even tempted, just a tiny bit?” he teased.

  “Maybe a little,” she conceded. “But that would make me just as bad as he is.”

  “You are an amazing woman.” He leaned over and kissed her ear. “Now, finish that little confection and let’s get going.”

  “Quentin, I feel like a whale,” she moaned.

  “Well, you haven’t been eating regularly these past few weeks. At least polish off the whipped cream.” He held out the spoon.

  “I can see you won’t be satisfied until I explode.” She grimaced, taking the spoon. “Maybe if I just move it around a bit it will look as if I’ve eaten more than …”

  She stopped in midsentence, her attention on the bowl of the spoon, her mouth half opened in surprise.

  “May I clean that up a bit for you?” he asked softly.

  Her eyes filled with tears as they moved from the spoon to his face.

  She passed the spoon to
him and he dipped it into his water glass, then retrieved the sparkling ring from the bottom of the glass and dried the diamond with his napkin.

  “I guess having gone this far, I should go the whole nine yards.” He smiled and pushed back his chair.

  Her eyes never left his face, even when he dropped before her on one knee.

  “Athena Stavros Moran, will you marry me?”

  Still stunned and speechless, Athen sat wide-eyed, barely blinking.

  He cleared his throat.

  “Athen, this is no time to go mute,” he told her in a mock stage whisper. “This is supposed to be a big moment.”

  She nodded her head slowly.

  “Was that an affirmative yes, you know it’s a big moment, or yes, you will marry me?’ His rested an elbow on his raised knee, his eyes twinkling.

  “Both.” Her voice came out in a squeak. She cleared her throat and repeated, “Both.”

  He took her hands in his and slipped the ring on her finger. She hardly seemed to notice.

  “Don’t you want to see it? It’s almost three karats, Athen—at least look at the damned thing,” he said with a laugh.

  “It’s gorgeous.” She leaned over to hold his face in her hands, and he kissed the trail of tears that streaked down her face. “Are you sure you want to do this? If I get elected, things could be pretty hectic.”

  “Nothing could be more hectic than the last few weeks have been, and yes, I’m sure I want to marry you. I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. I love you more than I thought it could be possible to love anyone. Your future is my future. Whatever happens tonight, we’ll celebrate together or we’ll lick our wounds together. Whatever the future brings, we’ll deal with it together.”

  She leaned over and kissed him again, the election forgotten for a few long moments. Finally, she tugged at his lapels.

  “You can get up now.” She laughed when she realized he was still kneeling on the carpeted floor.

  “So, do you have any thoughts on when you might like to tie the knot?” He moved his chair close to hers and draped an arm around her shoulders.

  “I always wanted to be a June bride,” she said wistfully.

  “June it is.”

  “That’s barely a month away.” Her eyes widened at the thought.

  “Then I suggest we enlist my mother,” he said. “She’s a whiz at putting together big parties.”

  “What do you think the kids will say?” she wondered aloud.

  “Guess there’s only one way to find out.” Quentin signaled for the waiter to bring their check. “By the way, you’re thirty-seven votes behind with three more precincts to be counted.”

  “How do you now that?” Her jaw dropped.

  “Diana’s been texting me all night, and I’ve been checking every time you turned your head.”

  QUENTIN PULLED INTO THE DRIVE at the carriage house on the Chapman estate that had been converted into Athen’s campaign headquarters and turned off the car lights. They sat in the dark for a few moments, savoring the last few minutes of calm they’d have for the next few days. He ran his fingers lightly through her hair, and she rested her back against his shoulder.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Quentin, I just want you to know that, whatever the final outcome is, I will never be able to thank you for everything you’ve done. I don’t mean just the material you wrote or the money you raised. You always made me feel that this was as important to you as it was to me. That you believed in me.”

  “I do.” He kissed the side of her face. “Now and always. Win or lose.”

  “Let’s go see which it is.” She took a deep breath and unfastened her seat belt, then opened her door.

  They could hear the shouts before they reached the door. Mayhem greeted them as they walked into the carriage house and her jubilant supporters welcomed her wildly. The tally from the final precincts had just been announced.

  Athena Moran had defeated Dan Rossi by one thousand fifty-three votes.

  30

  Athen leaned on the top railing of the deck and watched the gulls sway in graceful circles above a serene blue sea. The morning sun danced a dazzling ballet of endless, glittering arabesques across the water for as far as the eye could see. She shaded her eyes with one hand to cut the glare and watched an osprey dive for a meal. The warming sand lay before her seductively, and she was unable to resist its lure.

  Kicking off her sandals, she set off across the beach, startling a red-winged blackbird that landed on the outstretched arm of a lone scrub pine at the top of the dune. The bird took off in an agitated flurry, one short dark feather spiraling down to rest on the sand. Athen picked it up as she passed and followed the wooden boardwalk toward the shore.

  She ventured a hesitant toe into the white froth of water left behind by a gentle wave. The sand at the waterline was still cold, the early summer sun not quite strong enough to have warmed the sea, and she stepped backward, her feet seeking a dry, warm spot where the low tide had not reached. A glint in the sand caught her eye. She reached down and picked it up. The sunlight radiated off the bright green piece of sea glass, and she cleaned it off so that it glowed like an emerald. She turned it over and over in her hand to study it before slipping it into the pocket of her shorts. Small bits of well-polished quartz, pink and yellow, went into her pocket as well. On her way back to the house, she kicked up the sand to reveal a cream-colored shell lined with pale pink that lay next to a small, perfect scallop shell. She added both treasures to her bulging pocket.

  Halfway up the beach she plunked herself down in the sand and leaned back on her elbows, squinting as she glanced up first one side of the beach and then the other, not seeing a soul on either end. She dug her toes beneath the sand and hung her head back, her face lifted to the sky, savoring the moment’s solitude and the joy of being exactly who and where she was.

  There is something so primitive about being on a deserted beach, she mused, something peaceful in lying alone on the sand with the cry of the gulls and the soft lapping of the ocean the only sounds.

  “There you are.” Quentin followed the path of narrow boards. From her vantage point, he took the form of a giant striding across the sand.

  “Come join me.” She patted the space next to her. “Pull up some beach and sit down.”

  He lowered himself to the sand, waving a fat white envelope to taunt her.

  “Guess what I have?” he teased smugly.

  “Wedding pictures?”

  “The ones Brenda took. She just emailed them to me and I printed them off.” He pulled a stack of photos from the envelope and she reached for them. “Uh-uh. Not with those sandy hands. I will hold them and we can both look, but you may not touch.”

  “Stop teasing, Quentin, I can’t wait to see.” She leaned over his shoulder. “Oh, look, your mother looks positively flustered.”

  “That must have been right before the wedding, when she discovered that the florist had placed the topiaries at the wrong end of the garden.”

  “Like anyone would have noticed. But, oh, look how beautiful everything was.” She sighed as he held up the next picture.

  The Chapmans’ grounds had been transformed into a bower of roses for the wedding on the previous Saturday. Lydia had insisted that only a rose garden would do for the marriage of her only son, and it had taken several florists to bring her vision of clouds of roses to life. “Was there ever a more beautiful wedding?”

  “Never. It was spectacular,” he agreed.

  “Look at my father.” She leaned closer for a better look. Ari sat proudly in his wheelchair, Diana behind him, smiling happily, her hands resting on his shoulders. “Wasn’t he handsome? And wasn’t Diana beautiful? I’ll have to have that one enlarged and framed for both of them. And Callie—oh, my, how serious you both look, Quentin. What were you talking about?”

  “Callie was informing me in the gentlest possible terms that while she was in fact delighted that I was marrying her mother,
I had better not be harboring any thoughts of becoming her father, because she already had one, thank you very much, even if he was dead.”

  “Leave it to Callie.” Athen grimaced slightly. “What did you say?”

  “I told her that I have great respect for her father, and I am very much aware of how close they were, and that I would never try to step into his place, but that I would always be there for her if she ever needed me.”

  “We should have spent more time talking to the kids about what this will mean,” she thought aloud.

  “I think we handled it well, before the wedding. You can’t anticipate every possible scenario, but we’ll handle things as situations arise.”

  “I guess Timmy must feel the same way.” She hugged her knees. “I mean about me not being his mother.”

  “I don’t think it’s quite the same,” he told her. “I don’t know that he has many glowing memories of Cynthia. Timmy might like to be mothered just a little.”

  He shuffled through the pack of photos, Athen peering over his shoulder. Meg—a beautiful maid of honor in pale rose silk. Veronica on mile-high spikes—dyed baby blue to match her dress, natch, her hair piled skyward and freshly lacquered for the occasion—clinging to the arm of her husband, the stalwart Sal, who, all muscle, was almost as wide as he was tall. Brenda, in a yellow silk sheath, with her man of the hour, a film producer from California. Caitlin Forbes, in a green raw silk suit, her hair short and casual, her arms around her brother. Athen met her for the first time the week before the wedding, and they sat for hours talking like old friends.

  “I will never forget the way you looked when you came through the doors onto the veranda.” Quentin held a picture of his bride as she walked from the shadow of the house into the sunlight, stunning in a simple ankle-length dress of deep champagne lace. “I have never been so touched by a single moment as I was when I looked up and saw you walking toward me.”

  He seemed to struggle for a second, collecting the right words.

  “It seemed right then and there that I knew what it felt like to be reborn. That after all the pain of the past few years there was something so wonderful waiting for me.” He rubbed the side of his face against hers, his voice all but a whisper. “I would have endured a thousand heartaches to have had that one moment when I knew I’d be spending the rest of my life with you.”