The Wedding Chapel

by Rachel Hauck

  Then they came home, and gradually the waves of life washed away the shallow shore of their relationship and their expression to each other.

  “Lord, if You can hear me, help us.”

  She believed God cared about people, about her. Otherwise, the whole Jesus-on-the-cross thing made no sense. But all she had was her Sunday school faith.

  And the heartbeat. The one she heard as a kid when she crawled in bed at night and said her prayers.

  It’s why she left Doug. With him, she never heard the heartbeat, no matter how hard she tried. She knew the light within her was burning out.

  But was leaping and eloping with Jack only more of the same?

  Gently Taylor rose to her feet, rotating Jack so his long legs stretched the length of the sofa. “Night, Jack.”

  “Tay?”

  “Yeah?”

  “The salami was good.”

  “I’m glad. Go to sleep.”

  Back in their room, she took another blanket from the linen cupboard and curled up on the bed. As she drifted to sleep, the clock flashed 2:30 a.m. and a childhood prayer whispered across her dreams.

  . . . I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

  Chapter Eight

  COLETTE

  PARK AVENUE WEST, MANHATTAN

  Since the taping of the show ended, Colette had taken to staying in her robe until 10:00 a.m. But no later. She pushed the edge of decorum as it was by lounging around, and she couldn’t bear it much past midmorning.

  Eighty-two or not, she had a life to live. Or so she hoped. Besides, some things were just too ingrained for her to change. Since the age of seven, she’d been waking up at 6:00 a.m. to do morning chores on the Morley farm. A time she did not care to remember or cherish.

  A time of war. A time of death. Oh, the ache of missing Mamá and Papá.

  Colette peered out the window of her bedroom suite. Central Park spread out below her, reminding her in some mystical way how small she was, how minute her success. In the vast scheme of things, she was nothing more than a speck. A gnat in the span of time.

  But for the little girl who’d lost her parents, her innocence, her one true love, her sister, her . . . everything, not even the great park could contain her heartaches.

  But yet I see you.

  Colette pressed her hand to her chest, the pace of her pulse rapid. I suppose You do.

  She’d heard the internal voice of God before. He whispered past her from time to time, but she’d never paused long enough to ask Him what He wanted. Deep down, she knew. Her. He wanted her.

  But she could not surrender. What if the Almighty broke her heart the way life had broken it? Then where would she be? In whom could she place her hope?

  Stepping away from the window, the divine whisper, and the ridiculous travel down memory lane, Colette retired to her en suite to shower and dress.

  By eleven she was in her office waiting for her coauthor, Justine Longoria, and feeling restless.

  The whole retirement business was a rather nasty lot. She found it disagreeable. Eighty-two or not, she wanted to work. To do something, put her hand to a good deed. Empty space just gave her too much time. That’s when those old memories popped in for a visit.

  No, thank you. Colette never understood the glory of reminiscing. Now with Peg gone, Colette imagined the past would be buried for good. All six feet under.

  But she found herself mourning, wishing for someone to talk with about jolly old England, about Mamá and Papá, about the war years. About the joy and pain of Heart’s Bend.

  Colette sank down to her chair. She supposed Justine’s lot would be to hear her out, hear what she had to say. Whether Colette let her write it or not was another matter.

  Seeing Peg’s granddaughter had awakened a longing in Colette she’d not encountered in years. Decades, really. And more secrets pushed to the surface.

  Peg had ruled Colette with an iron hand. She could not, would not, tell their secret.

  They were sisters bound more by pain than by love.

  Seventy years later, Colette was right. It wasn’t over. Did she have the courage to write about it? Peg was no longer around to protest.

  Could Colette tell the truth? The one that sent her away from Heart’s Bend? Should she tell the story of how she never planned to stay in New York? How she longed to return to Heart’s Bend? How acting was a fluke, her fame a charade?

  “Ms. Greer?” Zoë, her girl Friday, appeared in the door. “Would you care for some tea?”

  Zoë, an industrious young woman, was educated and athletic. She bustled about her work as if trying to burn more calories. She was Colette’s recent replacement for Anna, her assistant for more than twenty years who resigned six months ago.

  “At the moment, no. But when the writer arrives, we’ll have tea and sandwiches. Nothing fancy. And the library and the living room need a good cleaning. There are still newspapers in the media room.”

  “I’ll take care of them today.” And young Zoë was gone, bouncing in such a way her ponytail swung up over her head. Colette must remember to inquire of Ford where in the world he had found the ball of energy called Zoë.

  At one o’clock sharp, the writer rang and Zoë brought her to the study.

  Justine was short and cute with her hair cropped in a wispy style that framed her features. She wore glasses that, oddly enough, were the single component that gave Colette confidence that the woman had any writing chops at all.

  Writers should wear glasses.

  “Ms. Greer. It’s an honor to work with you. I’m Justine Longoria.”

  “Of course you are.” Colette shook her hand, then motioned to the chair by the coffee table. “Please, have a seat.”

  Instead, Justine set her laptop down and roamed the room. “This place is incredible.” She leaned to see out the window, down to the busy avenue. “Have you been here long?”

  “Fifty years,” Colette said.

  “The park . . . wow. You can see the whole thing.” Justine faced the room, hands on her hips. “This feels so big. Like I could move in and you’d never know.”

  “I suppose I’d find your little mouse droppings here and there.” Colette sat in her chair by the end table. This was the same spot where she drank her juice in the morning and tea in the afternoon, watching the clouds move over the city.

  “Yes, but not for a very long time.” Justine settled down finally and reached for her laptop.

  “So, how does this go?” Colette’s restlessness intensified now that she was on the mark for telling her story. “I ramble on and you record? Or shall we do this interview style?”

  Justine opened a thin silver computer with an apple emblem. “I thought I’d record while we talk. You tell stories. I’ll ask questions. The publisher provided your basic bio and some older interview material, clips of the Tonight Show, Dinah Shore, and Michael Douglas. Your first soap opera, Love of Life, which I believe you got fired from, and your beginning days on Always Tomorrow.”

  “I was replaced. Not fired.” In truth, she had been fired, but the network told the press Colette had been “replaced.” But if she was going to make this book a tell-all . . .

  Justine tapped on her keyboard and asked about WiFi—at which time Colette called for Zoë—and after a few moments, Justine declared she was ready to go.

  “The publisher would like a first draft by the beginning of the year. Seems doable. Did they tell you it’s set to release around the anniversary of the first episode of Always Tomorrow? Next summer sometime, so we have to get busy. In the publishing world, we’re already behind.”

  “Well then,” Colette said, leaning forward, evoking the courage of Vivica Spenser. “What would you like to know?”

  Justine set an iPad on the coffee table for recording, then kicked off her shoes and curled her leg beneath her, balancing her laptop on her knees. “Tell me how you got to New York.”

  “A truck.”

  She laughed. “Just a truck? You woke up one morning and
said, ‘I think I’ll get in a truck and drive to New York’?”

  “How did you get to New York, Justine?”

  She shrugged, thinking. “I came after college. My boyfriend was here and I wanted to work in an art gallery. But there were no art gallery jobs so I ended up blogging about art and city life. Next thing I know I’m writing other people’s stories. Found out I was a pretty good cowriter. And seven years later, I’m in your living room.”

  Justine’s transparency challenged Colette. She answered honestly, without sarcasm.

  From the end table, she picked up her father’s old cigarette lighter, the one treasure she brought from England—everything else was lost—and used it as a prop. She had vague memories of Papá cupping it in his hand as he lit a cigarette. “I came with Spice Keating.”

  Justine nodded, tapping on her computer. “You came with the big guns.”

  “He wasn’t a big gun in 1951. Just a young man looking for a break in show business. We had no idea he’d produce shows like Go West and Mulberry Street.”

  “My mom loved Mulberry Street. But she was one of the lucky ones where her family life was exactly like the show. Too bad she couldn’t find a husband to do the same for her own kids.”

  “Same with Spice. Mulberry Street was a show about the family he always wanted. Not the one he experienced.” Colette’s first honest confession felt good. Even if it was about Spice.

  “We watch the reruns every Christmas as a family. My mom worked her fingers to the bone to keep us safe and happy, giving us our own version of Mulberry Street.” Justine ran her fingers through her hair, ruining the style and making it stand on end. “What a loss to entertainment when Spice Keating died.”

  “Yes, too young. Only fifty-two.”

  “He lived large, from what I read. Were you in love with him?”

  “In love?” Colette fiddled with the lighter, turning it in her hands. “No, no, we were friends. I’m not sure I even knew what love meant in 1951.” The words twisted around her heart and dug in. Lie. She knew love, and its name was Jimmy Westbrook.

  “How did you meet Spice?”

  “High school. Then we seemed to be ready to change at the same time. I wanted to go places and Spice was offering a ride.”

  “How did your first soap opera, Love of Life, audition come about?” Justine appeared to pull the question from her notes.

  “Spice’s cousin worked on the show. She managed to get auditions for both of us.”

  “Did you always want to be an actress?”

  “Mercy, no. I’d never acted in my life, but I had a lot of pent-up emotion to draw upon. I’d lived through a war and a ship ride to America, and moved to small-town Tennessee to live with relatives I’d never met. I was terrified but excited, afraid yet hopeful.”

  “What were you afraid of? Death? Being alone?”

  “Life.”

  “Just life?”

  “War paints life in very frightening colors.”

  “I imagine so.” Justine scanned her notes while typing something on her computer. “You and your sister were sent out of the city during the London bombings.”

  “In August of 1939. I was barely seven years old. Peg was eight. We were put on a train and sent to live with a family in the country. My father was a pilot in the RAF and my mother worked with the signal corp. I was terrified to leave them. Convinced I’d never see them again.”

  “And did you?”

  “Not my mother, no. Because Peg and I were so young, Papá thought it best we not attend her funeral. He came after the fact to tell us Mamá was safe in heaven and when he flew through the clouds, she’d be with him.”

  Justine glanced up, regarding Colette, then whispered, “I can’t imagine.”

  “No, it’s nothing to imagine.”

  “So you stayed on with your host family?”

  “Papá didn’t want to disrupt our life. And there was really nowhere else to go. Our grandparents were not able and Mamá’s sister lived here, in America. We did get to see Papá over the years. He came out to the farm whenever possible.” Colette smiled. “Oh, those were happy times.”

  “And when did he die?” Justine tapped on her computer.

  “The Battle of Berlin. In ’44. Shot down.”

  Justine shook her head, then stared toward the window. “You hear history, you read history, you watch it in movies or on TV, but you never understand how it impacts people until you encounter someone who was there.” She returned her attention to Colette. “How did you find out? I mean, that your father had died? A telegram? And how did you feel? Scared? Alone?”

  “Our host family told us. And yes, we, I, felt very much alone. Terrified.”

  “Who was your host family?”

  “The Morleys. Farmers in Carmarthenshire.”

  “They were childless?”

  “They had a son. Nigel.” Colette shifted in her chair. She never cared for him.

  Justine smiled. “This is good stuff, but we’re just scratching the surface, getting into the life of the great Colette Greer.”

  “The great Colette Greer was nothing more than a silly girl who became a silly actress, playing the same silly woman on TV for sixty years.” Sixty years. Was she more Vivica than Colette? Or was Vivica simply the light side of Colette?

  If Justine was smart—Colette suspected she was—she’d eventually see the truth. Colette hadn’t been a girl looking for adventure or for her name to be in white lights. She’d been a girl looking for a place to hide.

  “What about boyfriends, lovers? You said nothing happened between you and Spice, but you were, are, a beautiful woman. You must’ve had your share of suitors.”

  “Are you married, Justine?”

  She sighed. “No, I’m not.”

  “What happened to the boy you moved here for?”

  “We broke up.”

  “Do you have a boyfriend now?”

  She rubbed her forehead with the edge of her thumb. “I work too much.”

  “So you understand, then. Sometimes life takes you on a path that never leads to love.”

  “That’s a morbid thought. I want to get married, maybe move to Long Island and have a couple of kids.”

  “Sometimes it’s not in the cards,” Colette said, straightening her stiff back and motioning to her penthouse walls. “This is where my life took me and I’m quite pleased with it.”

  “But you had lovers, right? Just not husbands.”

  Colette pressed her finger to her lips. “Shh, darling. A lady never tells.”

  “Really? ’Cause I got a contract that tells me I’m to get your entire life story.” Justine narrowed her gaze at Colette. “What are you not telling me? Being evasive speaks to me of ‘the one that got away.’ ”

  Colette squeezed the silver lighter into her palm.

  “Colette, was there one that got away?”

  “Perhaps. Or maybe I came to my senses and let him go.”

  SEPTEMBER 1948

  AFTER FRIDAY NIGHT UNDER THE LIGHTS

  Aunt Jean’s wide, warm kitchen was full of light and the laughter of red-cheeked boys. Cousin Clem had many handsome chaps as friends, strapping and rugged from playing sports.

  Sitting among them, Colette sipped from her iced tea, a new drink she rather adored. In Carmarthenshire they drank hot, bitter tea most of the time, or black coffee, without sugar as it was a scarce luxury during the war.

  Each Friday Uncle Fred allowed Clem to host parties after the football match as long as the kids behaved and helped clean up. Although she’d only lived in Heart’s Bend for a month, Colette found these parties wonderful for making new friends.

  Because of Clem, she and Peg had been easily accepted at school. The lads greeted Colette as she walked the halls. The girls insisted she dine with them at the lunch hour. Everyone especially adored Peg, so classically lovely with her reddish-brown curls, curious brown eyes, and pouty lips. She’d taken to wearing red lipstick and Aunt Jean said not a word.<
br />
  Peg also charmed the kids with her mimicking skills. Voices. Drawing. Handwriting. She forged Shakespeare’s script from a photograph on the wall at school and nearly gave the English teacher a heart attack when Peg claimed the piece was original. “It’s been in our family for generations.”

  How the kids had laughed at Mr. Bruner’s expense.

  Last week Peg wrote a letter for one of the senior boys, Larry, who skipped school to see his girlfriend in another town. He brought his mum’s grocery list for Peg to use as a sample. Peg’s copy was flawless.

  Larry exited the principal’s office with a big smile on his face, giving Peg the thumbs-up.

  She meant her skill to be a lark. A way to gain favor. But three more kids had asked for her talents in the last week.

  Colette had warned her just last night that the habit would be her demise.

  “You’ll get caught, mark my words. You think you’re doing good, but you’re causing harm.”

  “You’re such a worrywart. Leave me be, I’m having fun. Wait until I write a letter to myself from Princess Elizabeth.”

  Her laugh gave Colette chills. “Peg, you can’t—”

  “Colette, we’ve already faced the worst thing possible.” Peg pursed her lips, lowering her voice. “After something like that, how in the world can a bit of princess handwriting fakery harm anyone?”

  “You said we were not to speak of their death.”

  “Did you hear me speak of it? I certainly didn’t.” Peg switched off the light. “Go to sleep.”

  “Go to sleep? No. I want to speak of it now that you’ve cracked the door.” Colette switched the light back on.

  “Peg . . .” But her sister had gone silent, rolling away from her, leaving her to simmer in her own grief.

  Music burst into the kitchen from the living room, bringing Colette into the moment. She spun around to see Clem rolling back the rug and grabbing pretty Sharon Hayes for the jitterbug, twisting her round and round until her skirt billowed and her long blond ponytail bounced about her shoulders.