Something Buried, Something Blue

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  The eighth kitten, Spidey, is a tiny black puffball who never strays far from his mama’s side. He was the runt, so fragile for the first few weeks of life that Bella hand-fed him around the clock.

  Drew Bailey recently assured her that little Spidey is past the danger zone and will most likely survive and thrive. “But he won’t be ready to be adopted out until long after his siblings are gone.”

  Overhearing the vet’s warning, Max spoke up. “We’re keeping Spidey forever, just like Chance.”

  “You are?” Drew raised his dark eyebrows at Bella.

  “We are not,” she said quietly, regretfully. “We can’t keep either of them.”

  Her mother-in-law’s city condo isn’t kid friendly, let alone pet friendly. If Grant really does sell this place in the near future, where else would they go? She doesn’t have a nest egg, having spent every spare cent of her summer earnings trying to pay down lingering debt and medical bills from Sam’s illness.

  Odelia is right, she thinks as she hears a door slam out front. This wedding has the potential to turn things around for us . . . and here comes the bride now.

  She glances out the lace-curtained window overlooking the aptly named Cottage Row. The narrow thoroughfare is better suited to the pedestrians who traipsed it all summer than to cars, especially the enormous SUV parked at the curb.

  Beside it, a young couple, equally blond and beautiful, stands gazing up at the house. The man is wearing loafers without socks and madras shorts with a pink button-down shirt—untucked, sleeves rolled up. The woman has on a white linen shirtdress accessorized with gold sandals, belt, and jewelry.

  Bella ducks out of sight before they see her naked and spying, though not before she catches the blatant dismay on the woman’s face. How can she help eavesdropping, though? The window is open and their voices float clearly through the screen.

  “When Calla said this place was quaint, I asked her if that was a euphemism for dump. She assured me that it wasn’t. Apparently, she lied.” The woman’s aristocratic accent is pure Katherine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story.

  “Now, Daisy, don’t be that way. I think it’s full of charm, and I’m sure it’s perfectly lovely inside.”

  Daisy, not Johnny. Maybe this isn’t the bride and groom after all.

  But they’re coming up the walk . . .

  And Bella isn’t expecting any new check-ins today . . .

  And the woman mentioned Calla . . .

  Of course it’s the bride and groom.

  Bella pulls the white eyelet sundress over her wet head and shoves her feet into her white wedge sandals from this morning. There’s a smudge of dirt on the canvas fabric. Oh, well. She’ll cross her feet so that it doesn’t show.

  Story of my life.

  She grabs the towel from the floor and rubs it over her hair, then glances into the mirror. Courtesy of fluster and the sun, her face is the same shade as the wallpaper’s splashy cabbage roses. She hasn’t worn makeup in so long that she can’t even remember where she stashed her cosmetics bag. If she knew, she’d be compelled to put on some lipstick and powder, lest the bride judge Bella’s facade as harshly as she did the house’s.

  You haven’t even met her yet. Don’t decide she’s a snob based on a first impression.

  The bride might be as lovely inside as she is out. Many people are.

  * * *

  Johneen Maynard is not.

  Five minutes into a conversation with the bride-to-be and her fiancé, Parker Langley, Bella is not only convinced that her first impression was correct, but she’s also having trouble remembering why she even thought the woman was lovely on the outside.

  Yes, her features are delicate. Her skin is peaches-and-cream perfection. The highlights in her silky mane are the same shade as the softened honey butter Bella sets out for her guests with blueberry coffee cake leftover from breakfast.

  But there’s a pinched set to Johneen’s expression from the moment she walks over the threshold, casting a distasteful look at the clunky brass andiron beside the heavy wooden front door.

  “I use it as a doorstop on nice days,” Bella explains quickly. “The door used to stay open, but there’s something wrong with the hinges.”

  “Why don’t you get someone here to fix them?”

  “I haven’t had a chance.”

  The heels of Johneen’s gold sandals tap hollowly across the century-old hardwood floors as Bella leads the way to the breakfast room at the back of the house.

  She remembers her own first impression of Valley View the night she and Max came in out of a torrential storm. For her, the dark woodwork, burnished period wallpaper, and vintage furnishings were reassuring as a warm hug from an old friend.

  With towering ceilings, tall windows, and plenty of alcoves and cubbies, the place looks, and even smells, like the old house they’d left back in the New York suburbs. She barely noticed scarred wood and timeworn textiles, but Johneen scrutinizes every flaw. Her eyes are the same opaque gray as the duct tape patch on the storm door’s screen, covering a hole that was big enough for a wayward kitten to squeeze through.

  “When Calla said that she knew the perfect inn for our wedding, I thought it would be . . . an inn.”

  “It is an inn.” Odelia’s voice is perfectly pleasant but with a shade less warmth than usual.

  “I was referring to the kind of inn that has . . . facilities.”

  “Oh, never you mind. We have plenty of restrooms here.”

  Johneen’s impeccably sculpted eyebrows shoot up in dismay, and Bella bites back a smile, well aware that Odelia deliberately misunderstood her.

  “I meant facilities like a restaurant, a cocktail lounge, perhaps a spa.”

  Bella replies, “We don’t have any of those facilities here at Valley View. You might want to look into—”

  “No, this is perfect,” Parker interrupts. He reaches out to clasp his fiancée’s hand. “Every wedding needs ‘something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.’ The house can be our ‘something old.’ The ring is new, and you said you wanted to borrow that bracelet from Calla, so—”

  “Do you mean Calla’s emerald bracelet?” Odelia cuts in.

  “Yes. Green is my favorite color.”

  “Have you asked her if you can borrow it?”

  “No, but she’ll say yes. After all, it’s for my wedding day.”

  Odelia tilts her head and raises her brows as if to say, “Don’t be so sure.”

  Bella suspects that the emerald bracelet is more significant to her, and to her granddaughter, than a mere piece of jewelry.

  “Bella,” Odelia says, “why don’t you tell Parker and Johneen a little about the guesthouse?”

  “Um . . . sure.” She clears her throat. “What, exactly, would you like to know? It was built back in the eighteen hundreds, and it’s been both an inn and a private home over the years. Most of the woodwork and fixtures are original.”

  Poised in the archway between the parlor and dining room, she presses a concealed button to release a small bronze lever. Pulling it, she slides a polished and ornately carved cherrywood panel across the opening. “There are pocket doors like this throughout the house, and they were restored by Pandora Feeney and her husband Orville Holmes when they owned it a few years back.”

  Parker and Johneen’s faces register not a hint of recognition, eyes glazed over like unwilling museumgoers held captive by an overzealous docent.

  When Bella arrived in Lily Dale, she frequently found herself similarly blank when engaged in conversation with the locals. She didn’t recognize celebrity mediums like Orville Holmes. She mistakenly assumed the Fairy Trail was simply a lakeside trail leading to a ferry, as opposed to a woodland neighborhood populated by tiny creatures.

  Before she can go on speaking, Parker cuts to the chase. “All we want is an intimate spot where we can be married in October. This fits the bill, doesn’t it, Daisy?”

  Johneen nods and forces a smile.

>   “Daisy?” Odelia echoes.

  “It’s my pet name for her, because of her coloring,” Parker explains, as if they might actually attribute the nickname to her sunny disposition.

  “And,” he adds, “because she looks like the actress who played Daisy in the Great Gatsby film.”

  “Mia Farrow?” Odelia squints, trying to envision it.

  Johneen shakes her blonde head vigorously. “Of course not! He’s talking about the remake from a few years ago. We weren’t even born when the old one came out.”

  Neither was Bella, but she had watched plenty of classic movies with her father, and she owns a dog-eared copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel. As far as she can tell, there’s as little resemblance between Johneen and Daisy Buchanan as there is between uptight Johneen and the cheerful field flower. The Fitzgerald character’s trademark is her lyrical voice; Johneen’s Main Line lockjaw is the complete opposite.

  “Huh,” Odelia says. “I thought your nickname was Johnny.”

  “No, that was just a silly college thing. It doesn’t suit me at all.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Parker chimes in. “It’s ridiculous. I don’t know what that gaggle of girls was thinking.”

  “They were probably being ironic.” Odelia, whose granddaughter Calla was part of the ridiculous gaggle, still sounds fairly pleasant, but Bella notes an ominous set to her jaw. “College students do appreciate irony.”

  “I guess that’s true. And my freshman roommate’s name was Francesca, so I suppose it was inevitable that we’d become Frankie and Johnny.” Johneen flashes a brief smile, the first genuine one Bella has glimpsed since she arrived.

  “It sounds like you know everything you need to know about the house,” Bella says. “Why don’t we go sit down?”

  She leads the way to the white-wainscoted breakfast room and pulls out chairs at a round café table by the windows. Odelia had brewed a pot of tea while Bella was getting changed and pours it into four mismatched china cups.

  Having skipped lunch, Bella slathers a moist blueberry-studded cake square with butter and tries not to devour it in one unladylike bite. What she wouldn’t give to be with Max and Jiffy, blowing bubbles on the back steps in the sunshine.

  “Are there children here?” Johneen asks as their merry laughter floats past the screens on soapy, iridescent orbs.

  Bristling at her tone, Bella fumbles her cake, scattering cinnamon crumbs. A plump berry splats onto her lap. She dabs at the indigo stain on her white dress.

  Ah, there we go. There’s something blue. Guess we’re all set for the wedding.

  “Bella’s son, Max, lives here with her, and his friend Jiffy lives next door to me on the other side,” Odelia explains. “They’re good kids.”

  “We love children.” Parker isn’t entirely convincing. “Don’t we, Daisy? We’re going to have a bunch someday.”

  “In a few years, maybe. But we don’t want any of them at our wedding.”

  Producing a pen that was tucked somewhere in the cloud of red hair above her right ear, Odelia jots adult reception on a paper napkin.

  “Yes, definitely adults only,” Parker agrees, and Odelia underlines her note.

  “Absolutely no children!” Johneen is adamant, as if she were engaged in a bitter dispute even though no one is arguing.

  Odelia underlines again and adds exclamation points. Then she asks, ballpoint poised, “What did you have in mind for the ceremony?”

  Johneen bristles. “No childr—”

  “No, I mean a church or a chapel or right here at the guesthouse?”

  “Here,” Parker says conclusively.

  “Do you want a religious ceremony?”

  “The ceremony doesn’t matter much to me, although I would prefer not to have anything long and drawn out,” Johneen decides, then gestures at Parker. “And he’s an atheist.”

  “Well, I’ve performed plenty of weddings,” says Odelia, who’s an ordained minister among other things. “I’d be happy to officiate, and I’ll keep it short and sweet and nonreligious.”

  This time, Parker doesn’t bother to consult Johneen. “That would be fantastic.”

  Bella decides that he’s the more personable of the two, with a relaxed, almost lazy lilt to his accent. Still, he isn’t exactly oozing warmth even in comparison to his frosty fiancée. The two of them seem to float above Bella and Odelia in an iridescent little bubble of perfection, impervious to crumbs and stains and other messy complications.

  As Fitzgerald said, “The rich are different.”

  “Then that’s settled. The ceremony will be here, and I’ll marry you,” Odelia briskly tells the couple. “Now let’s talk about the adult reception. How many guests will you have?”

  “Just a few of my friends and their dates,” Johneen says firmly. “No family.”

  “What about your side, Parker?”

  “There’s no one.”

  “No family?”

  “None who can make the trip.”

  “How many friends?”

  “No friends.”

  “It’s not that he doesn’t have any,” Johneen speaks up quickly, “but he’s lived everywhere. Right now he’s in Toronto, and before that, he was in Beijing for a few years. So his friends are scattered all over the world. They won’t have time to be here on such short notice. We’re going to have another reception later in the year so that I can meet them all.”

  “Why not just hold off on the wedding until then?”

  Bella’s question seems reasonable, but the couple does not look pleased by it.

  “We’re getting married in October,” Parker says firmly. “Why wait?”

  Why not wait? This is clearly not a shotgun wedding.

  “So what do you do, Parker?” Bella asks as another possibility occurs to her.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Your career. You’ve lived all over the world . . . ?”

  “Yes. I’m a freelance photojournalist.”

  “You’re Canadian?” Maybe they’re in a rush to wed so that he can obtain citizenship.

  “No, I’m American. I was born down South, went to boarding school in New England and then college in California.”

  There goes the green card theory. But it explains his slight drawl.

  “Where will you live after you’re married?” Odelia asks.

  “Where we live now, for the time being.”

  “Separately?”

  “Only until his assignment is over,” Johneen says.

  “Why not just wait until then for the wedding?”

  “Because we’re in love!” she tells Odelia.

  “And life is too short as it is,” Parker puts in.

  Bella, of all people, can hardly argue with that.

  “Besides, I already have the gown. It’s very elegant. Nothing frilly or puffy.”

  “She doesn’t do frilly or puffy,” Parker informs Odelia and Bella, who nod politely.

  “And no veil. I’ll just wear flowers in my hair, as long as they aren’t scented. I don’t do scents, either.”

  “Daisies will be perfect.”

  “Yes, daisies. And maybe some baby’s breath. Something delicate.”

  Odelia allows the bridal couple to smile contentedly at each other before she resumes questioning them about the wedding. “Were you thinking of a sit-down dinner or a buffet?”

  “A buffet?” Johneen recoils as though she’d suggested that they serve live crickets.

  “Or a cocktail reception?” Bella says quickly. “It could be elegant, and we could do it outside as the sun sets over the lake. The weather can be beautiful at that time of year.”

  Oops. Seeing the look on Odelia’s face, she remembers that October snow is hardly unheard of around here. Located about an hour southwest of Buffalo, in the heart of western New York blizzard country, Lily Dale sees its share of unseasonable storms.

  “Cocktails by the lake.” Parker nods. “I like it.”

  His bride tilts her prett
y head. “I suppose we could do it with a shabby chic flair.”

  Bella doesn’t have to be psychic to know they’re thinking the same thing: Heavy on the shabby.

  “What would you do for shabby chic food?” Johneen asks.

  Good question.

  “There are plenty of vintage platters and serving pieces around the house,” Bella says.

  “Yes, and we can do finger foods.”

  The bride flinches violently at Odelia’s suggestion. “Finger foods? Do you mean like mozzarella sticks and those horrible little hot dogs?”

  “Of course not. We’d do . . . we’d do . . .”

  “We’d do scallops,” Bella says before Odelia, whose culinary skills are as creative as her wardrobe, can make a suggestion. “And grilled shrimp.”

  Johneen and Parker nod. Yes, this is more like it. Seafood is always chic.

  Odelia gives her an attagirl nod, so Bella goes on improvising. “Steak would be nice sliced and served on toasted baguettes. And cheese and crackers, and crudités, and grapes in wicker baskets . . . and maybe we can serve the drinks in mason jars,” she adds, remembering that the basement shelves are full of them . . . along with plenty of spiders.

  Parker warms to the idea. “We can have buckets of wildflowers on the tables, and you’ll have them in your hair and bouquet. We’ll make sure there are plenty of daisies for my Daisy.” He pats her porcelain hand, which is French manicured and sporting an oversized diamond.

  Wistfully remembering her own wedding and Sam, Bella decides that Johneen and Parker aren’t so bad after all.

  “Do daisies even bloom in October?” Johneen asks.

  “They do in my garden,” Odelia assures them. “And the meadow over by the main gate is full of wildflowers right up through the frost.”

  “What about a wedding photographer?” Bella asks.

  “I am a photographer,” Parker says.

  “But you won’t be in any of the photos if you take them.”

  “I’m sure the guests will be perfectly capable of pointing and shooting,” he tells Bella.

  Johneen nods her agreement. “We’ve talked about it, and we’d prefer not to have a wedding photographer posing us for endless portraits. That would distract from what the day is really about.”

  Well, that’s refreshing. Bella would have pegged her for someone who can’t get enough of the spotlight. All things considered, this has gone better than she expected.