Twice Upon a Wedding

by Jean Stone

  “Out, out, damn spot!” she shouted at a purple polka-dot shirt that she’d worn with purple pants.

  “Off with your head!” That to a bright pink hoodie that her son said made her look like Peter Rabbit in drag.

  She stopped when she reached the royal-blue suit that she’d worn for her justice-of-the-peace wedding to Lloyd over twenty years before. She stared at the tiny pinholes where her corsage had been: three tiny white roses, tied with a pink ribbon. She’d worn a hat, though they’d long since gone out of style. It was a small red pillbox with matching red netting that scooped across her forehead and was torn years later when her daughters were playing dress-up.

  She wondered why the suit still hung there, as if the wedding had been yesterday, as if Lloyd had never left her.

  The wedding hadn’t been like Marion and Ted’s. It hadn’t been like the one Elaine and Martin would have had yesterday if she hadn’t broken the engagement because she’d realized in time that Martin was merely a Band-Aid, that even kindly Martin could not ease the pain deep in her heart. She simply hadn’t dared to let herself love him enough.

  Her marriage to Lloyd had not been elaborate. It had been a simple town hall ceremony, with only Lloyd’s brother, Russell, and his sister, Celia, as witnesses. Elaine’s parents hadn’t come down from Saratoga, because she hadn’t told them. They thought she was in the middle of her final exams. They didn’t know that she and Lloyd were getting married. They didn’t know she was pregnant.

  She reached inside the suit jacket and touched the waistband of the skirt. She remembered it had been too tight that day—her belly had swelled above average.

  Throw it out, the new voice inside her urged.

  Her eyes widened, her mouth dropped open. “Out!” she commanded, then pulled the suit off the hanger and hurled it past the closet door.

  “Mother! What are you doing?” Karen, her youngest, had always been a light sleeper. Like her mother, she was the one always on alert, waiting to be sure no one in the house needed anything, because serving others was what she gladly did. Karen was just like Elaine in all those selfless, get-you-nothing-but-headaches and nowhere-but-miserable ways.

  “Sorry, honey,” Elaine said. “Did I wake you?”

  “Of course you woke me. Who are you shouting at?” Her head rotated around the haphazard piles of polyester. “Good grief. What are you doing?”

  “I’m starting my new life.” Elaine stopped her purge for a moment. Karen was sixteen, the last child at home: Kandie and Kory were at college. Karen was also the most like Elaine, dressed now in a flannel nightgown and kneesocks, her face shiny with night cream from the supermarket health-and-beauty-aids section because it was more economical than the department store kind. Karen had watched Elaine shop economically long before Elaine’s checkbook was reduced to a modest alimony: the girl now hoarded baby-sitting money the way Elaine hoarded coupons and reused plastic baggies.

  Karen stooped down and retrieved the purple polka dots. “But Mom, you love this shirt.” She clutched it to her breast as if it were her firstborn.

  Elaine laughed. “You’re right, honey, I did. And I loved your father once, too.” As soon as she’d said those words, she wished she could take them back. She wished she could rewind the moment and erase the sting now visible on her daughter’s face.

  “I hate it when you’re mean to Daddy,” Karen said.

  Elaine sighed. She returned to her hangers, some of the fun now gone from her energy burst. “I’m not mean to your father, honey. I’m sorry I said that. It’s just that my clothes are out of style and so am I. It’s time for a change.”

  Karen disregarded her mother’s apology and continued to rummage another pile. “Your wedding suit,” she said. “You’re throwing out your wedding suit?” Elaine might have chosen to toss the family jewels, given the pain in her daughter’s voice.

  “Honey . . .” she began.

  Karen’s eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to be like her?” She did not have to elaborate on whom she meant by “her.” Her was Beatrix—Trix—as Lloyd had called her, a county court judge who happened to be pretty and smart and rich, and who happened to have stolen Lloyd from Elaine.

  And married him.

  And left him after a year and eight months, right after Elaine and Martin got engaged.

  “No,” Elaine said. “I’m not trying to be her.” Elaine didn’t know if Karen would think that was a good or a bad thing; the issue was simply too sensitive to ask. The divorce, after all, had been hardest on Karen. Kandie, who was as much like Lloyd as Karen was like Elaine, had not hidden her approval of the new Mrs. Thomas. Then again, Kandie and Elaine hadn’t gotten along well since the girl had turned twelve. Kory, Elaine’s son, had tried to stay in the middle, not wanting estrangement from his mom or his dad. Karen, who’d been only thirteen the night Lloyd walked out, still believed her parents would get back together, still tried to encourage Elaine to wait for him.

  Especially after Elaine broke up with Martin and the second Mrs. Thomas broke up with Lloyd.

  Especially now that it looked like Elaine might have a chance with her ex-husband, as if she wanted one.

  “Life changes,” Elaine said quietly. “Sometimes we need to move on.”

  Karen threw the suit back on the floor and stomped from the room.

  Of course, she slammed the door.

  From the darkness of her bedroom, Jo heard the dings of the elevator ticking off the floors. She was on four, the top floor, in a two-bedroom unit identical to forty-seven others in the brick building whose residents might or might not hear the elevator or the trash chute or the footsteps in the hall as clearly as she did; whose residents might or might not hear the snores that resounded through abutting bedroom walls, or the quarrels between neighbors, or the theme song from back-to-back episodes of The Golden Girls that began every evening at six.

  To Jo, the noise was an ongoing reminder that she no longer lived in the soundproof penthouse in Boston, where all that she’d heard was silence after Brian had left.

  The dings stopped on four. She pulled the bedsheet closer around her neck and waited, as if the footsteps that followed might stop at her door.

  When they did not, Jo opened her eyes.

  Brian was finally out of her life. She was back in West Hope where she belonged, at least for now. She was back with her friends, in an exciting new business; she was back with her mother, who’d become a joyful bride yesterday. She was living in a modest apartment, though it had been suggested she should move into her mother’s house, the house where Jo had been raised, now that Ted had bought Marion a new condo, now that they were husband and wife.

  Jo had said “No, thanks.” The house was too big. It needed work. Her furniture wouldn’t match. She did not tell her mother there were too many memories.

  Marion hadn’t applied any pressure. “We won’t put it on the market just yet,” she’d said. “It will take me forever to clean it out, and in the meantime, you might change your mind.” Marion’s procrastination, however, might be for other reasons. How could she walk away from the home where she’d lived all her life, the house her father had bought as a wedding gift for her mother?

  Marion had known no other home. When she’d married Sam Lyons, he was in the army, shipping off for Korea. It only made sense for her to stay in West Hope. When he returned, he took a job on a heavy-construction crew that worked all around the northeast and had him away more than he was home. Then Marion became pregnant with Jo, so the little family stayed put in their rooms on the second floor of the colonial house.

  Nine years later Sam ran off with Doris Haines, the junior-high-school science teacher. He never returned.

  For a few years Jo received cards on her birthday and at Christmas, with gifts like stuffed animals and dolls made in Taiwan. Jo spent many hours watching out her small bedroom window, hoping her father might come by for a visit. But Sam never came, and after a while, the gifts and the cards dwindled, then stoppe
d.

  And now Marion wanted her to live there again.

  Jo supposed it was that, not the emotions of the wedding or the noise of the building, that kept her awake that night.

  The elevator dinged again. She closed her eyes. It took seventeen average footsteps to get from the elevator to her door, number 411. Eight steps to 409; twenty-five or -six steps to 413. She counted eight, then nine, ten . . .

  The steps stopped at sixteen.

  Jo held her breath. Was someone coming to see her? At two in the morning?

  There was no knock, only a soft, swishing sound. A new sound. Then footsteps again, this time growing fainter. The fire door opened, then closed with a hollow, steel thud.

  Her heart came to life. Slowly, Jo slid from beneath the covers and put her feet on the hardwood floor. She reached for her robe and quietly slipped it on. Inhaling a silent breath, she stood up. She tiptoed down the short hall to the front door in the three-by-three area that the sales-manager-on-duty had called a “foyer.”

  In the dull glare that leaked in from the outdoor security lights, Jo noticed a small piece of paper on the linoleum floor. She snapped on the overhead light; she picked up the paper.

  “Six o’clock, Sunday night” was neatly written. “I hope you like Chinese food. Jack.”

  Jo smiled. After all, she had a date—a first date, an as-yet-unopened treasure chest of possibilities—in a matter of hours. She reminded herself that no matter where she lived, or what she did, like her mother, Jo had a new life.

  She turned off the light and tiptoed back to bed, thinking it had been nice that the footsteps in the hall had, that time, been for her.

  4

  Elaine called Lily in the morning.

  “Get over here,” she barked into the phone. “I need your help.” Barking was new, like the rest of her plans.

  “It’s nine o’clock on Sunday morning,” Lily whined. “Is this life or death?”

  “Some people wouldn’t think so,” she replied. “You, however, will.”

  An hour and a half later, Lily was at the door. “Sorry it took so long, but you know I loathe mornings.” She brushed past Elaine and went into the family room, the mauve and peach and blue family room that Elaine supposed she’d want to make over after she was done with herself.

  Me first, she thought a bit giddily as she padded after Lily.

  Lily sat down on the sectional sofa. “What’s all this about?”

  Elaine stood there a moment, looking down at lovely Lily who, despite loathing mornings, was perfectly put together, her makeup on, her light wool pants and vest unwrinkled, her blond, wispy hair wispily in place. Suddenly the task seemed impossible, unattainable, hopeless. Elaine was just Elaine, after all, just a waitress-turned-mom. She fidgeted with the drawstring on her son’s maroon-and-white Springfield College sweats, the clothes she’d thrown on because most of hers were cloistered upstairs in heaps for Goodwill.

  “Coffee?” she asked.

  Lily shook her head. She patted the seat beside her. “Sit down,” she said. “Tell me what’s going on. I assume it’s about a man.”

  Everything to Lily had to do with a man, or the lack of one. Of the four old college roommates, Lily had always been the romantic. Even between marriages she’d not been manless for long.

  Elaine said no, it wasn’t about a man. It was about something much more important. Then she sat beside Lily and related her intention for a makeover.

  When she was finished, there was silence. Lily didn’t jump up and say, “Yes! What a brilliant idea!” Instead she sat there on the sofa, staring at Elaine. “Well,” she said after a moment, “why would you want to do that?”

  If one of her kids had music blasting or if the washer and the dryer were grinding in the background, Elaine might have thought Lily had not heard her right. But Karen was still asleep and the only sound in the house was a slow tick-tick of the battery-operated clock that had been free with her Reader’s Digest subscription and now sat upon the mantel.

  “You’re joking, right?” Elaine asked.

  “Well,” Lily replied. “No.”

  Elaine laughed. “Come on, Lily. Look at me! Look at my life!”

  “What about it?”

  “It’s dull. It always has been. Look at my clothes!” She tugged at the sleeves of Kory’s sweatshirt. “This is probably the most stylish thing I’ve ever worn. Don’t say you never wanted to get me to change my wardrobe.”

  Lily, sweet Lily, reached across and gently touched her arm. “Listen, Lainey, I’ve always thought the most important thing any of us could do is just be ourselves.”

  “‘Ourselves’? Ourselves? What about ‘How you look is who you’ll be’?” Her fingers returned to the drawstring of the sweatpants. She couldn’t believe Lily was disagreeing with her.

  “Well, do you think you’d feel better if you looked like someone who wasn’t you?”

  “But wouldn’t it be better for our business? If we’re selling style and elegance, wouldn’t it make sense for all of us to look the part?”

  “Everyone has their own sense of what style is, Elaine. You’ve had your own style all your life. It’s worked for you, hasn’t it?”

  It had seemed so simple. She’d never expected Lily to react the way her daughter had. Elaine stood up and tightened the drawstring. “Never mind,” she said. “Andrew thought it was a good idea. Maybe he can help me out.”

  Lily stood up. “No, he can’t,” she said. “I can.”

  “But you said—”

  “I only wanted to be sure this is something you really want.”

  Optimism sparked. “I do want it, Lily. I want to change the way I act and look and am. I want to be smart and clever and attractive, for godssake. I want to be a more positive asset to Second Chances. Please help me. Please?”

  Lily put her arm around Elaine. “Of course I’ll help, you silly goose. We’ll start by going to Laurel Lake Spa for a few days.”

  Laurel Lake Spa was the latest exclusive resort in the Berkshires whose trademark was privacy. It catered only to “mature” ladies with “mature” issues, often celebrities in search of rejuvenation. It also had a price tag as big as its following. “Whoa!” Elaine said. “I can’t afford—”

  “My treat,” Lily added, as she pulled her cell phone from her purse. “After all, you’re right about one thing. I’ve been dying to do this for years.”

  Half an hour later, standing in her foyer with a tote bag on one wrist (“You won’t need a thing, Lainey,” Lily had said. “I’ll buy your starter clothes and your cosmetics and the like.”), Elaine patiently awaited Lily’s next command. She didn’t have to wait long.

  “Shavonne will do your hair if we get over there right now,” Lily announced as she clicked off her cell phone again.

  After Shavonne’s they would check in to the spa. Elaine had never been there; she’d only seen the winding driveway from the stone-pillared entrance and the long limousines and big black Mercedes coming or going. She’d never seen faces behind the heavily tinted car windows.

  She’d never been to the spa, but she’d spent many nights on the grounds there before there had been a spa, back when the most noteworthy thing at Laurel Lake was Edith Wharton’s estate and the old ice house down by the water. Elaine and Lloyd used to go often: She’d lost her virginity right there in the ice house; it hadn’t been long before she was pregnant with Kandie and they’d gotten married. And now she was returning to the lake, almost to the scene of the crime, a place that would again spin her life into unknown directions. Like preparing to have sex the first time (she’d known it was inevitable from the first time Lloyd touched her down there), the thought of what lay before her was exhilarating, almost dizzying.

  “Karen, we’re going now,” she called to her daughter, who’d finally crawled out of bed and made her way downstairs.

  Karen meandered from the kitchen into the front hall. She wore the purple polka-dot shirt that Elaine had loved, and a decided
frown.

  Elaine ignored the attire and the facial expression. “You’ll be all right while I’m away?”

  Her daughter shrugged.

  “Of course she will,” Lily said. “She’s almost seventeen.”

  “You’ll call if you need anything? I’ll only be a couple of miles down the road.”

  “She won’t need anything,” Lily said. “She’ll be fine.”

  Before Karen could respond, the doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it,” Elaine said. She stepped in front of Lily and opened the front door. If she’d taken a minute, just one lousy minute, to think about it, maybe she would have pretended that no one was home.

  The old man stood on the front steps; the same old, short, bald man who’d stood there every Sunday morning since Beatrix Thomas had dumped Lloyd the same way that Lloyd had once dumped Elaine.

  Except that there were no kids.

  Except that a year and eight months could hardly compare with twenty years.

  Over the khaki pocket of the man’s khaki shirt was embroidered the name “Leonard.” Leonard was the deliveryman for West Hope Florist. In his hand he held the usual Sunday delivery: three tiny white roses, tied with a pink ribbon. She didn’t need to read the card to know that it read “Thinking of you, Lloyd.”

  She took the flowers in the awkward moment that followed. She reached into her tote bag, took out two one-dollar bills, and paid the man named Leonard so he’d return to the panel truck sitting in her driveway and go away.

  She closed the door.

  “Well,” Lily said. “That’s a nice surprise.”

  Elaine could have said, “It’s no surprise,” but she just nodded. Instead of tossing the flowers into the trash, she tucked them in her tote. No sense pissing off her daughter more than she already had.

  5

  The next wedding to plan was for New Year’s Eve, the John-and-Irene Show, Andrew liked to call it. After all, it would not be a wedding, exactly, but a fortieth-anniversary renewal of their vows. Forty years of wedded bliss—well, mostly bliss—was a concept Andrew had once longed for. Unfortunately, he’d married a woman who had not agreed.