The Wedding Diaries

by Linda Francis Lee

  Amazingly not dead, Nicki got to school and walked into C Building in hopes of catching a glimpse of Brandon Bonner.

  She saw him the minute she walked in and realized that it was crazy to wait until the pep rally. This was it. This was her chance. Bucking up her nerve, she puffed out her flat chest to make it look bigger, then walked toward him.

  Not two feet from him, she stopped in her tracks. “Please, please, please see me,” she whispered.

  Then it happened. He turned around, just enough so that they came face-to-face. She opened her mouth to say hey, but she froze when some girl called out to him.

  It was all Nicki could do not to grab his arm. Her fingers tingled from holding her books so tight to keep from making a fool of herself. And that’s just what would have happened if she had said hi. Because when she looked closer, saw the light that sparked in his eyes, she could see that he was looking at Mindy Wasserstein, dressed all in pink lace and rhinestones.

  Brandon walked over to Mindy and slung his strong arm around her shoulders just like Nicki had dreamed he’d do to her. And that was when she started rethinking all the black.

  Early the next morning, Nicki took action. It was Saturday, and Vivi was gone for the weekend. Quiet as a mouse, Nicki walked to the stairs and peeked over the banister. Once she was sure that Max had left for the day, she flew down her set of stairs, then back up the other side to the opposite wing of the house.

  Patricia, the sister who took her and Lila on Saturdays and Sundays, had said she’d be there at ten. So Nicki had time.

  She raced to Vivi’s bedroom. With her heart pounding in her ears, Nicki hurried to the closet, yanked open the accordion doors, and found a rainbow of color leaping out at her. Yellows and pinks, blues and greens. Not to mention shoes. Nicki had never seen so many, every one of them with very high heels.

  She remembered Mindy, remembered the way Brandon had looked at her wearing clothes that looked like they came out of this closet.

  Flopping down on the floor, Nicki started with shoes. Leaning in, she saw some of the storage stuff Max kept in the closet. For half a second Nicki thought about pulling out and digging through the old photos she had found once that he kept of all the kids, even some of their mom. But there was no time for pictures.

  Hurrying, she found a blouse and skirt that weren’t half bad if she imagined it as something Mindy would wear. That’s when she noticed the small satin box she had never seen before at the very back of the closet.

  Biting her lip, then glancing back toward the door, Nicki decided it wouldn’t hurt to look. Inside she found the most beautiful tiara.

  Feeling something close to awe, she put it on her head, then pushed up from the floor very carefully to see her reflection. The sight surprised her. She looked like a princess. Her. Despite the black, despite the anger even she could see on her face, the simple crown made her feel freer, lighter. Special.

  “What are you doing?”

  Nicki about had a heart attack until she wheeled around and saw that it was Lila. Her little sister stood in the doorway in her usual confusion of mismatched colors, staring at her like she had gone mad.

  “Go away!” Nicki hissed.

  “You can’t be in here! You’re going to get in trouble.”

  “If you don’t tell, no one will ever know.”

  “But what if Max finds out? He’ll be so mad.”

  Lila got all teary-eyed again, making Nicki feel guilty.

  “Don’t cry, Lila,” she cajoled. “I’m just trying stuff on. Besides, Max isn’t here, and neither is Vivi.”

  But thoughts of tiaras and Vivi evaporated when something like a gunshot exploded outside.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Vivi sat in the car, her fingers gripping the thin, old-fashioned steering wheel, her body still vibrating from the chugging backfire that had echoed along Pinehurst Drive when she turned off the car. Her mother’s faded, dark green Oldsmobile 88 had seen better days. About three decades ago. But when her mother was in town, she insisted on driving it.

  Her father called it her mother’s rebellion. A nuisance to society. A decrepit bucket of bolts. The more her father lamented about the vehicle, the more Isabelle took pride in driving it, tooling around town with the windows open, her hair covered with a gossamer scarf, the ends trailing out the window.

  It didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that her mother did it to get under her ex-husband’s hide, cruising past the El Paso Country Club golf course while Jennings played, making a point to honk whenever she saw him standing with his friends.

  Jennings Stansfield was all about the appearance of the women in his life. A beat-up old car driven by his first wife, and the mother of his only child, infuriated him. Which, of course, was the point.

  Vivi had never understood her father’s need to show off, as she thought of it, or her mother’s need to throw tasteless sorts of things in his face. But Vivi had never questioned. Though the minute she had pulled the vehicle out from behind the downtown service station where it was kept during Isabelle LeBuc Stansfield’s many travels, Vivi felt a prick of her mother’s rebellious blood flowing through her veins.

  Not that she would stoop as low as her mother to get back at her father. The fact was she needed a car. And this hardworking, if unfashionable car perfectly suited her new life.

  With the door squealing in protest, Vivi pushed it open, waved at the neighbor who peered suspiciously out a multipaned window, then went to the trunk. She had to work the key a few times, then actually gave the metal a good hard thump with her fist, before it popped open.

  Her charm bracelet jangled against the rim when she reached in to pull out one of the many suitcases and bags she had loaded into the car.

  “What happened?” a voice said.

  Vivi jerked up to find Nicki and Lila standing in the drive, their eyes wide, their mouths open, looking at her with the same accusing suspicion as the lady next door. But it wasn’t their faces that made her suck in a slow, painful breath.

  “Where did you get that?” she asked quietly.

  Instantly, Nicki’s hand flew to her head and to the tiara Vivi’s father had given her years before.

  “Close your eyes. I have a birthday surprise for you.”

  Her father’s voice, surprising her. She was six and feeling grown up. And very, very special beneath her father’s attention.

  “For me,” she breathed.

  Then he held out the crown. “For my princess.”

  Foolishly she had cherished those simple words, hadn’t even minded that he made her wear it when he took her out on the makeshift stage the following day when he had opened the plant in South El Paso. The crowd had been huge, overwhelming. It was the first time she had felt like a china doll.

  “This cheap thing?” Nicki demanded, pointing to the crown with a belligerent scowl.

  But the teenager’s cheeks were red with guilt and little Lila looked as if the world would fall apart.

  “What kind of a grownup has a stupid tiara hanging around? Do you wear it to bed?” Nicki sneered.

  “Nicki, stop,” Lila pleaded.

  The fourteen-year-old’s face hardened as she ripped the thing off her head, then walked over and shoved it into Vivi’s hands.

  “Take it. I sure don’t want it.”

  For long irrational seconds, Vivi stared at the gift, alternately wishing her father were there, and damning him.

  “What is all this?” Nicki demanded. “More suitcases? Can’t you live with the ten thousand of them you already have here? You need another fifty million to make it through the next week or two? And why the hell are you here? Are you so much of an airhead that you don’t get the words weekends off?”

  Vivi wrinkled her nose. She was more than ready for the weekend off. But after she had retrieved her mother’s car from the service station downtown and made her way to her father’s condo, she’d had an unfortunate visit from the landlord.

  Though if she were
honest about it, by the time Mr. Sandoval knocked on her door, she wasn’t even surprised when he told her she had to move out. Three months’ worth of her father’s rent checks had bounced, and now the man had a tenant ready to move in. One who could pay.

  In a daze, Vivi had packed up the rest of her belongings, then headed for greener pastures—or rather the only pasture available to her just then. Max’s house.

  But she wasn’t about to share all of that with a fourteen-year-old handful or an eleven-year-old who had too many problems to deal with as it was.

  “What were you doing in my room?” Vivi asked sternly.

  “Nothing.”

  “You obviously were going through my things if you found the tiara. I hardly call that nothing.”

  Nicki shrugged. “So we were looking at your lame clothes.”

  Lila gasped. “You were looking. Not me, Vivi. Really. Nicki thinks that if she wears clothes like you, she’ll get that awful Boomer Bonner to like her.”

  This time Nicki gasped. “That is not true. I would never wear your bimbo stuff,” she declared, her cheeks bright red, “and I sure don’t want some guy to notice me looking like some dumb slut.”

  “Watch your mouth,” Vivi snapped.

  For a second, all three of them were surprised. It was the first time Vivi had reprimanded the girl.

  Nicki recovered first. “You watch it. You are not my boss.”

  “I beg to differ.” Just like that, the words popped out of Vivi’s mouth.

  Not that Nicki was particularly impressed. “Beg all you like,” she scoffed, preening at her wit. “It’s the weekend, and weekends I’m free of you.”

  To prove her point, a car pulled up into the driveway.

  “Patricia!” Lila yelped, relief welling up in her blue eyes.

  A woman who couldn’t be more than a few years older than Vivi, and who had Landry stamped all over her, got out of the car. She was beautiful, the promise that Nicki showed beneath all the black and scowls having been realized in this woman. Her hair was dark, her eyes were a bright blue, and her lips pulled into a genuine smile.

  “Hello,” she said, extending her hand. “You must be Vivi. I’m Pat Landry.”

  Vivi saw a true warmth in her expression, and instantly she liked her. “I’m glad to meet you.”

  “Great tiara. I always wanted one.” Pat laughed, the sound sweet and nice, without an ounce of coyness. “And sorry I’m late. I had to get some tickets out before I left this morning. Clients always seem to wait until the last minute to let me know they are taking a trip. The next day.”

  “Clients?”

  “I work at Landry Travel—”

  “She’s the president,” Lila explained proudly.

  Pat smiled and ruffled Lila’s hair. “Easy to be president when your brother buys the business for you.”

  “Really?” Vivi asked. “He bought it?”

  “Yep. He’s helped all of us after we graduated from college. And graduating is a must.”

  “Wow,” she said without thinking.

  Pat looked at her with amusement. “Wow?” Then she smiled, her blue eyes softening with a deep love that somehow hit Vivi right between the shoulder blades.

  “He’s the nicest man I know,” Pat said. “I wish I could find someone like him to marry.”

  Vivi must have made a face, because Pat chuckled. “I take it you don’t agree.”

  “No. I’m mean, it’s not that. . . . It’s just . . . well . . .” She shrugged. “Wow,” she repeated, “I’m just surprised. Though of course I shouldn’t be,” she rushed on.

  “Girls, go get your stuff.”

  Nicki and Lila raced inside. Once they were gone, Pat looked at her. “Why did you take this job if you don’t like Maxwell?” she asked boldly.

  Vivi’s thoughts jarred, and she felt the automatic need to whitewash everything. But something about this woman made her believe that the question wasn’t a way to find some weakness, something to exploit.

  “I’m broke.”

  This time it was Pat who was surprised. “You?”

  “That seems to be a recurring theme.”

  “Oh, well, I just didn’t realize. I thought maybe you were here because you wanted access to Max.”

  “Believe me, access is not what I’m here for. Especially to a man who’d just as soon fire me as say hello.”

  Pat suddenly laughed, then leaned forward like a girlfriend telling secrets. “He can be intimidating, can’t he?”

  It was an amazing feeling, this unexpected closeness that she had missed by attending schools all over the world, never in any one place for long. A shiver of giddiness raced through her.

  “I’ll say,” Vivi said. “Just one look and it’s all I can do to stand my ground.”

  The woman studied her. “But I bet you do stand your ground with him.” She nodded. “Good. He needs someone like you in his life.”

  “To drive him crazy?”

  “To turn his perfectly ordered world upside down a little. Don’t get me wrong, I love Max. And he truly is sweeter than he seems.”

  Vivi wondered.

  A smile pulled at Pat’s lips and she glanced off into the distance. “I swear it’s true. Deep down he cares a great deal. He’s always looked after us. He wasn’t the type of big brother to pretend he didn’t know his younger brothers and sisters, ever. He was mature for his age even when we were growing up. I thought he could do no wrong.” Pat hesitated, her brow furrowing with both poignancy and memory. “When I was in sixth grade, Max was a really popular eighth grader. Everyone loved him. The teachers, the other kids. He was an amazing athlete, smart, funny. I was a nerd, as shy as they come.” She shook her head as she remembered.

  Vivi could barely make out the picture Pat painted. A funny Max.

  “I was fat and dumpy and wore thick glasses just like Lila’s. But he was never too busy or too cool to pay attention to me. That year I was eleven, soon to be twelve, and with so many kids in the house, my mom didn’t have time for much besides keeping the place together. I remember waking up one night with the worst pain in my stomach that I had ever felt. Next thing I knew, I was bleeding.”

  “Bleeding?”

  “I’d started my period, but I didn’t know that at the time. I was convinced I was dying.”

  “But then your mother explained everything?”

  “I didn’t tell her. I hated to add a dying kid to all of her problems. So I stuffed my underwear full of tissues and went to school.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Ugh is right. The next thing I knew I felt blood everywhere. I was on the verge of death, I was sure, but too damn mortified to let anyone know. When I wouldn’t get up to do a math problem on the chalkboard, Mr. Henderson asked what was wrong.”

  “Did you tell him?”

  “I couldn’t. And suddenly the entire class had turned around to stare at me. Bleeding to death seemed the best option.” Pat shook her head and smiled. “I asked him to get Max for me. I told him it was an emergency. A few minutes later my brother came in, so tall and wonderful. Every sixth grader in the class sat back in awe. Mr. Henderson hovered, trying to overhear. But the minute Max saw my face, he knew something was really wrong. He kneeled down in front of my little desk and leaned close and said, ‘What is it, Patti?’I could feel my lip tremble, I was so afraid to say a word. Then it burst out in a horrified whisper. I’m dying!”

  Pat leaned back and laughed, though Vivi could see the shine of tears in her eyes.

  Vivi felt her own tears, felt a strange tightness in her chest.

  “Thank God, Max didn’t panic or even act like I was crazy. He just asked me what was wrong. I told him I was bleeding, there, and when he glanced down, he didn’t hesitate more than a second before he smiled at me and said I wasn’t dying at all. Before I knew it, he had me out of the chair, his favorite sweatshirt tied around my waist before I got up, and he took me to the nurse’s office.”

  “What did your mother sa
y?”

  “I don’t think she ever knew. The next morning there was a library book on my desk with a note from Max telling me that it would explain everything.” Pat straightened and gathered herself. “Max really has spent his whole life taking care of us.” She looked at Vivi. “It’s been a huge responsibility, but he did it. And it hasn’t given him a lot of time to be that boy who cared so easily.”

  Vivi felt the twist in her heart for the obvious love and respect Pat had for her brother. As an only child, Vivi found the protectiveness she sensed in Pat was as foreign as it was intriguing. Vivi had always wanted brothers and sisters. And when she had said yes to Grady’s proposal, she had believed that at last she’d be able to have a family of her own.

  The girls returned, backpacks in hand. “Come on, Pat,” Lila said. “We’ve got to go or we’ll be even later than we already are.”

  “Sorry,” Pat said to Vivi. “On Saturdays we usually go to the movies. You want to go?”

  Nicki went stiff with fury.

  Vivi quickly declined, though she would have loved it. “That is so nice, but I can’t. Thanks anyway.”

  The three sisters who looked so much alike started getting in the car, the love and the caring among them only heightening Vivi’s awareness that their older brother no longer seemed to know how to make the connection to them.

  Before she could think she blurted out, “Pat!” The idea was pulling together at the same time the woman turned back. “What do you think about having a picnic on Monday since it’s a holiday?”

  “A picnic?”

  “For all your brothers and sisters and their families. I know the girls are off. It’ll be fun. And if you could call everyone, I’ll make the food.”

  “Pat,” Lila almost whined from inside the car. “Hurry.”

  “We’re going.” Pat looked at Vivi for a second more, then smiled and nodded. “Okay, that sounds great. How about Cloudview Park at noon? I’ll make sure everyone is there.”

  “Great!”

  It took Vivi only a matter of minutes to put the tiara away and cart the rest of her belongings upstairs. Max was nowhere to be found, which was best, she told herself, because she wanted all the picnic planning done before she surprised him with the good news. Wouldn’t he be amazed that she had remembered his mention of picnics and softball? Obviously he loved both, and what better way to get him to spend time with the girls and the rest of his family?