Three Times a Charm

by Jean Stone

  Jo didn’t know if she should call him or not. She could give any number of excuses.

  I wanted to be sure you and Cassie got there okay.

  I was concerned that Irene made it home safely from Rio.

  I was working on the wedding for the couple from Pittsfield and wondered if you had time to develop a contingency plan in case a nor’easter barrels over the mountain.

  Or the more honest, I was just sitting here missing you and I wondered if you think you’ll ever come back and, if you do, if we’ll be together again. After all, once Andrew was among old friends that he knew in a place that had so much more to offer than West Hope, why on earth would he come back?

  The first time she got up the nerve to call it was Saturday afternoon. Then Saturday night. Then three times on Sunday morning. But each time, Andrew’s voice mail immediately kicked in, a signal that he’d either left his phone in West Hope or that something more exciting was happening that prevented him from taking—or wanting to take—his calls.

  Andrew hadn’t had a martini since that day in John’s office when John challenged Andrew to write the column about real women for Buzz. It was a hundred years ago, he thought, as he stood in the Benson penthouse, looking out across the skyline of Manhattan, holding the thin, triangular glass Irene had thrust into his hand shortly after she blew in the front door half an hour ago, bravely issuing one order after another, setting her world—their worlds—into redirected motion.

  Thankfully, Cassie and Elsa returned right after Irene’s arrival. She immediately set them to work polishing the silver trays and coffee and tea services and the countless flatware they would need. Friends—only the closest—would be stopping by, according to Irene, offering condolences as if John were dead. They would not be told the details—only that John was not coming back—poor Irene! There would be one mini-wake after another, and it would help her process the pain, and heal the wounds. Andrew decided she must have stopped in Dallas to see a New Age guru who was based there, who catered to the stars, and who’d been featured recently in Buzz.

  But behind her stoic posture, she seemed a little manic, even for Irene. It was obvious she really needed him. Them. It was equally obvious that Andrew must alter his resolve to be on the road by dark. Another night, another day, wouldn’t kill him.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” Irene said when she finally took a breath. Her eyes were swollen and red, her face devoid of the makeup she rarely left home without. “I need you to keep the media away. They’ll sniff around, of course. They’ll hear that I returned to the States without John. I don’t know how they get wind of such things, but they always do.”

  As a former television journalist, Andrew knew the press was invariably tipped off, often by the party who doth protest too much. He wouldn’t mention that, however.

  “You’ll tell them that John is researching his next business endeavor, that he’ll be home soon,” Irene continued. “You must lie for me, dear Andrew. If the media learns what really has happened, it will be far too humiliating for someone like me.”

  Someone like her. Yes, he remembered how awful it had felt to see his name emblazoned in the tabloid headlines when Patty dumped him for the studly Australian cowboy.

  Andrew sipped the gin now and tried to decide if he should serve as Irene’s majordomo for the next few days. He supposed John would have expected that, would have wanted Andrew to be supportive, to be sympathetic.

  And then he thought of Jo. What would she think if she knew he was being Irene’s press secretary, a Dee Dee Myers to a Clinton, an Ari Fleischer to a Bush? And what would Jo think if she learned there was more to his and Irene’s past than the fact that she was John’s wife and Cassie’s godmother?

  He stared out at the city and told himself not to worry. The best part of being in the headlines was that they quickly changed, moved on to the next shocking event, the next person caught in or at or by something or someone else. Andrew would, after all, be back in West Hope soon enough, and this would all be over and Jo would never have to know. Until then, for the sake of old friends, he could, should, be Irene’s front man.

  “I’ll help however I can,” he said at last.

  She smiled for the first time since she’d arrived. “Thank you. Now I’ll phone Frannie.” She rose from the chair behind John’s desk. “I’ll have her bring the wedding-guest list tomorrow. I’ll decide from that which of our friends we contact.”

  He didn’t comment that Irene needed Frannie—John’s assistant—to tell her the names of her friends. She would have shaken her head and told him he was such a Pollyanna about the workings of society. He would have said it was because he’d never really bought into the crap of it all, for which he could thank his parents, who’d been too busy as philanthropic physicians, saving the cold and tired and hungry of the world, to be caught up in the pages of the social register.

  He could have said those things, but why upset Irene more than she already was?

  “Where’s the phone?” she asked, roaming the room now, her eyes bouncing from one exquisite end table to another, all of which had been purchased by the workings of—and for—the society that she, not Andrew, coveted. “I must call Frannie right now.” She waved her hand in front of her face as if the temperature in the penthouse had escalated. “Soldata is on her way to do my hair and nails. And Senator Jervis will be here for a late supper, did I mention that?”

  Andrew spotted the cordless on the bar. He handed it to Irene. Yes, he would be her majordomo, and he would prop her up in case she fell, in case her stoic face collapsed under the weight of her mask. He owed the Bensons that much after all they’d done for him. After all they’d done for Cassie. Surely Jo would understand.

  21

  Sarah spent the weekend at home, not dwelling on mothers or fathers or lovers or sons, not spending time planning weddings for the dollars they would bring. Instead, she retreated to the comfort of her pieces of silver. She decorated a thick bracelet with the stars of the heavens; she created earrings in the tradition of a sacred fire, using seven “logs” of silver in place of the wood; she carved a man’s face onto the oval of a belt buckle, then etched on hair. Long Hair, like Sutter Jones’s Cherokee clan. By studying the pieces, maybe she would have a better sense of herself, a better sense of the man who had come to change her life.

  She did not call Jo or Elaine or Lily over the weekend and apologized Monday morning when she learned that they’d spent Saturday and most of Sunday working.

  “We’re just glad you’re here,” Jo said to Sarah. “How did it go?”

  Jo, of course, thought that Sarah had gone to San Francisco, had tended to business that had come up. Sarah saw no need to explain that she had changed her mind, that her unexpected encounter with Sutter had left her with a need to withdraw. “Everything is fine,” she lied.

  “Well, I certainly hope so,” Lily said, “because our bride with MS will be here today.”

  “Could you please call her something other than ‘our bride with MS’?” Sarah asked.

  “Okay,” Lily said, “how about Julie, ‘our special bride,’ because she really will be.”

  Sarah didn’t question Lily’s definition of “special.” “I made some notes the other day,” she said, “some suggestions for the ceremony.”

  “Oh, wonderful,” Lily replied. “A tutorial for second weddings for the handicapped. A whole new niche market. A whole new specialty.” She clapped her hands together the way she did whenever she was about to launch into a scheme, or maybe Sarah was imagining things.

  “Will her future husband be with her?”

  “She didn’t say. But I’m sure she’ll do absolutely anything to help us out.”

  “I thought we were the ones who were supposed to help her,” Elaine said.

  “Well, yes. Actually we’ll be helping one another.” Lily then adopted her sweetest of smiles, and Sarah knew something Lily-like was on the wedding-planning horizon. “Call me a silly goose, but
I just happened to think over the weekend that it would be nice if Julie’s wedding received some publicity. It would help create such a positive public service for handicapped people, don’t you think?”

  Sarah’s eyes moved from Lily to Jo to Elaine.

  “And so you contacted a few of the media folks who were here for the Benson event?” Jo asked the question they all surely were thinking.

  Lily jumped from her chair and flitted from one lovely window display to another, from clouds of white tulle to cascades of satin. Her secret, at last, was out in the open; she was free to garner their praise. “The timing couldn’t be better. With or without saying anything about the Bensons—oh, all right, I won’t—right now the media thinks our business is pretty neat. And now we can keep them interested while the PR iron is still hot.” She toe-danced back to the group as if she were as innocent as she was not.

  “You mean you’re going to tell the media about how we even plan weddings for people with special needs?” the question came from Elaine.

  Jo said, “If I’d had Lily back in Boston, I might not have closed my business.”

  Lily waved away the sarcasm. “Julie will be here at one o’clock. The media, at one-thirty. I’m dying to know what she—and her new hubby—will look like, but we know we can make anyone look wonderful, wheelchair or not.”

  “I can’t believe you’re leaving it up to chance that the couple will be photogenic,” Elaine said.

  “And I can’t believe you’re exploiting the woman’s handicap,” Sarah added.

  Then Lily said, “Oh, pooh, all of you. If you must know, this was Julie’s idea, not mine. She sees it as an opportunity to show that even people in wheelchairs can have normal lives.”

  Sarah shook her head and Jo made no comment and Elaine looked bewildered.

  Then Lily twinkled and sparkled and toe-danced some more over to the doorway to “run upstairs” and prowl through her closets for an outfit for herself that would be “better suited” to cameras than the plain, boring wool she had on.

  To everyone’s pleasant surprise, Julie-the-bride turned out to be gorgeous, with heaps of blond hair and taupe-colored eyes and a body that could wear an elegant sheath and look deliciously seductive even while sitting down.

  To everyone’s additional surprise, Julie’s spouse-to be was a tall, plain woman named Helen.

  Sarah decided it was worth every second of Lily’s prior nonsense to see the shock on her face when she finally “got it.” As far as Sarah knew, Lily was not biased against any race, religion, or sexual preference. As far as Sarah knew, however, Lily had not expected Julie to marry a girl.

  “Isn’t it wonderful that we live in Massachusetts?” Julie said with a lighthearted smile. “We both had first weddings—to men, wouldn’t you know—but mine was in Virginia and Helen’s in Nevada, and look where they got us! Here!”

  Sarah would have loved to ask where Helen was from in Nevada and if it was close to the California border, close, maybe, to the Sierra Nevadas, close to where she’d been raised. But it was more fun right now to study dear Lily, whose facial expression hadn’t yet changed since the couple arrived.

  “We’ve been together eight years,” Helen said. “Now I’ll finally get to be included in the management of Julie’s care.” She was perhaps in her early fifties—Julie, not much younger—and when she looked at her partner, her eyes radiated love.

  “Let’s all get comfortable,” Jo said, gesturing to the cluster of seats in the showroom. Julie guided her motorized chair to where the others were beginning to sit—the others except Lily, who remained standing by the door.

  “Lily?” Sarah asked. “Aren’t you going to join us?”

  Lily put a hand up to her throat. “Absolutely! In a moment!” Then she spun around and offered a giddy, childlike grin. “But first, if you’ll excuse me, I believe I left something upstairs!”

  “What are you doing?” Sarah asked Lily twenty minutes later. She hadn’t come back down, but the television reporters had arrived.

  Lily was leaning against the wall in the room that she used as a living room, the one that overlooked the town common. Her hand was still poised at her throat.

  “I have no idea,” she said. “I simply don’t know what to do.”

  Sarah laughed. “Because of Julie? And Helen?”

  Lily, poor Lily, honestly looked pale. “How could this have happened? How can we do this? What will the media say if we get involved?”

  Sarah sat down on a lemon-lollipop–colored chair, her knees far too close to her face, and decided not to remind Lily that it was too late, that the press was already in the showroom. Instead, she said, “You’re upset because Julie and Helen are gay.”

  Raising her chin, Lily tried not to look nonplussed. “Well, it’s not that they’re not entitled—I mean, I know it’s legal and everything—but, gosh, Sarah, they want to get married! And they want us to help!”

  “And I believe you made them a wonderfully generous offer to pay for our services in return for publicity.” After Lily had flitted upstairs, Julie had told the others of Lily’s magnanimous deal: the gowns, the tuxedoes, the reception, even the limos would be paid for by Second Chances in exchange for press coverage and unlimited use of photos.

  Lily had made the deal but had failed to inform her partners.

  Lily wilted. “I was going to surprise everyone. I was going to show you what a smart businesswoman I’ve become for recognizing a publicity coup.”

  “But you proposed the offer before you knew about Helen.”

  Silence answered Sarah’s comment.

  “Lily,” Sarah said, “not everyone in this world is the same. Take you and me, for example.”

  Her eyes widened. “Sarah Duncan, are you one of them?”

  “A lesbian? No. But it’s okay to say the word, Lily.”

  Lily sighed. “I just can’t picture it,” she said.

  “You don’t have to. It’s not about you. It’s about them.”

  The “oh” Lily uttered came out like a whimper.

  “You’re our resident romantic,” Sarah continued. “You’re the one who believes that everything is better when people are in love. Remember how miserable you were after Reginald died and before you met Frank?”

  “That’s different.”

  “Why? Because Frank is a man?”

  “Well,” Lily answered, “of course.”

  Sarah shook her head and stood up. “Well, I would think you’re old enough by now to know that relationships between men and women together aren’t always the be-all, end-all. In fact, sometimes they’re quite painful and fairly stupid.” She supposed she was speaking for herself and for Jason, though Sarah would never admit that to Lily.

  Staring down onto Main Street, Lily said, “They have bride-and-bride cake toppers now. Groom-and-groom too. I saw them when Frank and I went shopping in Northampton. I think they’re very tacky.”

  “You think bride-and-groom statues are tacky too.”

  “Well, yes, that’s true.”

  “Lily, please. Give them a chance.”

  She toyed with the beads that encircled her neck. “Well,” she said quietly, “Julie certainly seemed nice enough on the phone.”

  “She is nice, Lily. And so is Helen. They’re entitled to a wedding, just like you and me. Well, if I wanted one.”

  Lily pulled back the curtain. “Here comes cable news.”

  “You know,” Sarah said, “for once, you actually have come up with a good idea. The press already knows us through John and Irene; I think they’ll like this story. I think they’ll run it.”

  Stepping from the window, Lily said, “Do you really think so?”

  “Yes,” Sarah said, as she stood up. “And we’ll get the publicity for reasons more worthwhile than the Bensons’ falderal. In the meantime, let’s just be happy for Julie and Helen, okay?”

  Lily bit her lower lip for only a second. “Okay,” she said. “But I think a small nosegay of flo
wers would be better suited for the top of the cake.”

  And more exposure it was. By the time a dozen reporters and their various entourages left Second Chances after seven o’clock that night, they had the angle of the wheelchair, the angle of the same-sex marriage, and a few self-serving, yet unrevealing, sound bites regarding Irene. (“She called from Rio just the other day,” Lily remarked. “She thanked us once again for the wonderful work we did for their affair.” Sarah had cringed at Lily’s choice of the word affair, but fortunately the press was oblivious.)

  Lucky for Lily, she managed not to drop even the barest of hints that all was not well in Bensonville, or that Rhonda Blair’s impending drama would be next.

  Best of all, Julie and Helen seemed to delight in the antics of it all. (“What the heck,” Helen said, “I never liked living in that stuffy old closet anyway.”)

  So silly Lily had not only survived but had come out a winner after all, hugging the two brides after the media left, saying she was so glad that they had made their deal, explaining to her partners that the necessary cash would come from the profits the Bensons had afforded, once the final payment was received.

  “And what’s more,” Lily announced the next morning, after no doubt spending half the night hatching her next scheme, “we are going to New York. That’s where we’ll find the most appropriate fashions and catering ideas and everything wonderful. We have three weddings within a matter of weeks, and we must get down to business once and for all.”

  She then announced that she had already phoned Antonia (her poor, dead Reginald’s “beastly old sister”) to have the Manhattan apartment opened and cleaned up for their arrival, that they would leave Wednesday morning, that she would arrange for a limo.

  She did not have to add that Andrew was in New York, that they damn well knew Irene was there too. She did not have to ask Jo if she wanted to go. Nor did she act surprised when Sarah said yes, she would go too, though Lily had no way of knowing Sarah’s real intentions.