by Lynne Hinton
“When did you break up?” Beatrice asked, even though she already knew the answer.
“Three weeks ago,” Charlotte replied. “I broke it off.”
Beatrice seemed surprised that she had answered honestly and didn’t make a remark.
“And you really think it’s over?” Jessie asked, sounding very concerned.
Charlotte turned to Jessie and then nodded. A few tears stood in the corners of her eyes. She shrugged. “I’m never getting married,” she said.
“Oh, honey, let me be the first to say, you can never say never.” Louise reached up and hugged Charlotte.
“It’ll work out,” Jessie said, cupping Charlotte’s chin in her hand. “You’ll see,” she added. “Just because this wasn’t the one doesn’t mean you won’t find Mr. Right.”
“Or as in Lou’s case, Mr. Right Now,” Bea said.
Louise punched Bea in the leg, causing her to tip over.
Charlotte shook her head. “I don’t know. I think maybe he was Mr. Right. It’s just I’m Ms. Wrong.” She looked away.
No one made a comment. Charlotte cried a bit more and then wiped her eyes and nose. “Okay, this is not supposed to be a pity party,” she announced. “Margaret would tell us to drink up this champagne and then leave this cemetery and go eat some cake!”
The women drank the last from their cups. Jessie nodded, and she and Louise pulled each other up. Charlotte stood up and offered Bea her hands. Bea took them and was pulling herself off the ground. As she was being helped up she turned to Louise one last time, and Louise noticed the glance.
“All right, Mrs. Beatrice Newgarden Witherspoon, now is as good a time as any to give you my news. You are right. Something has happened. Something is different!”
The three women turned to Louise, waiting.
“I’m loaded!” she exclaimed. “George left me five million dollars!”
Charlotte suddenly dropped Beatrice’s hands and then looked on helplessly as Bea dropped back flat on her butt, the panty hose ripping loudly as she fell.
Navajo Fry Bread
10 cups self-rising flour
2 small packages dry yeast
Warm milk (enough to mix well)
Mix ingredients well and knead into a roll of dough. Flatten dough out by hand to about ¼-inch thick. Cut into desired size and fry in hot oil until golden brown. Drain and serve with honey or jelly.
—Donovan Sanchez
Chapter Twenty-three
I thought Louise said he didn’t have any money.” James was in the front bedroom with Charlotte. She was helping him fix his tie. They were supposed to walk out of the house and into the backyard for the ceremony first. Jessie, Louise, and Beatrice, along with all the daughters and granddaughters, were in the master bedroom, putting the finishing touches on the bride, who would come out last.
The backyard at Jessie and James’s house was arranged with folding chairs and one large tent with tables where the food would be served. There were tiny white lights strung in the row of apple trees that bordered both sides of the property. There was a small canopy draped in fragrant bright pink flowers at one end, which was where the wedding party would stand for the ceremony. The event had been rescheduled for a couple of months after the original date, but all the details went as planned. Beatrice had made certain that everything was handled and she had worked all morning making sure the chairs were set and the venue was perfectly arranged. The people began to gather at three-thirty in the afternoon, and the service was to begin at four. The weather was perfect, with a slight breeze for the early summer day.
“Well, that’s what she thought,” Charlotte responded. “But it turns out George was quite the investor. He bought tech stocks in the early nineties, sold them before the market dropped, bought land, sold it before the real estate crash, and anyway”—she shook her head—“I can’t remember all of the details, but I do know that she says he was worth millions.” She looked at her work on James’s tie. “Perfect,” she said with a smile.
James glanced at himself in the mirror. “You make a fine half Windsor, Pastor,” he commented.
“So he ended up changing his mind and leaving his children some money in a trust with certain restrictions or something I didn’t quite understand, and gave Louise five million, all liquidated and transferred into her bank account. Plus she gets the proceeds from the sale of the house when that goes through.” Charlotte looked in the mirror. She brushed lint from her clergy robe and straightened her wedding stole.
“Well, I just can’t believe it. Louise is loaded.” James grinned. “I can’t think of a better person to have a lot of money!”
“Yeah, it’s funny, isn’t it? The whole time she was considering taking George up on his marriage proposal she never asked about his net worth. She really never even thought about that. In fact, she had sold some of her stocks because she figured she would end up having to spend her own money on things for George.” Charlotte touched at the sides of her hair. “Am I getting gray?” she asked, leaning into the mirror.
James smiled and peered down at Charlotte’s head. “I think it’s just the light,” he said. “Has she thought about what she wants to do with the money?” he asked.
“Spread the wealth, so she says,” Charlotte replied. “She’s paying Bea’s cable bill.” She laughed.
“Well, that sounds like that might round out at a few hundred thousand,” James noted with a grin. Like all the cookbook committee members, he knew about Beatrice’s cable arrangement too.
“And she’s going to give us a million dollars to build a new women’s shelter in Gallup. I can’t tell you how happy I am about that,” she added.
“Jessie told me that Louise decided that last night after hearing you tell the stories about the unsafe conditions and lack of room at St. Mary’s.”
“She did. I was going on and on about security and how many women needed a safe place and how we had to turn some people away, and she just volunteered a million dollars.” Charlotte shook her head. “I never expected it. And now I can go back to New Mexico and start working on finding land and building a new facility.”
“Well, that sounds just like our Louise. She’ll more than likely give it all away and not buy herself a single thing,” James responded.
“You’re probably right,” Charlotte agreed.
James nodded. “She’s a good person, that Louise.”
“One of the best,” Charlotte noted. “And then there’s Jessie, who was your wife and who is now to be again,” she added.
James smiled and put on his suit jacket. “And to think I almost lost her,” he said as he buttoned the jacket.
“You couldn’t lose Jessie,” Charlotte said.
“No, you don’t know, Pastor,” James explained. “She was very hurt when she found that letter, and I wasn’t sure she’d take me back.” He pulled at the sleeves of his jacket. “I should have told her about Ramona when I came home. I just didn’t want to mess things up, and then so much time passed, it seemed insignificant.” He placed a pocket square in his front jacket pocket. “Of course, it wasn’t insignificant. And I should have told her.” He shook his head. “After all we went through these past few months, I honestly didn’t think this day would happen,” he added.
Charlotte picked up the groom’s boutonniere from the dresser, and James turned to face her while she tried to find the exact place to pin it on his jacket. “Well, this day is happening,” she said, finally securing the flower and then checking to make sure it would stay. “And you are the most handsome groom I have ever seen,” she commented.
“You will say that to some other man one day soon,” he said. “You will have your own wedding and your own handsome groom,” he added with a wink.
“I wouldn’t wager on that,” she responded, sounding a bit glum. “Besides, there are lots of things worse than being single.”
“It’s true,” James noted. “But there aren’t a whole lot of things better than having a partner y
ou really love.” He backed away from Charlotte and smoothed down the sides of his jacket. “I know because I’ve had both of those experiences, and I wouldn’t choose that being single thing ever again.” He shook his head as he studied his reflection.
There was a pause and James turned quickly to Charlotte, concerned that he might have hurt her feelings.
“Not that I know what’s best for everyone,” he said, trying to take back what had just been spoken. “Single is better than being in a horrible marriage or being like your women at the shelter and in a violent relationship. There’s a whole lot worse than being alone,” he added. “And I’m sure you’ve seen it.”
Charlotte nodded. “I have,” she said. “And I think that part of my problem is that those marriages are the only ones I’ve seen for about five years. I’ve only seen relationships that are poisonous at best and deadly at worst. I had forgotten until now that people can be married and love each other and be right for each other and that a marriage can be filled with the good things”—she smiled at James—“the best things in life.”
James took Charlotte by the arms. “Pastor, I have seen and known a lot in my long life. I have been both pleasantly surprised and bitterly disappointed by people. I have been known to think my own thoughts of violence and destruction, and knowing that about me causes me great shame because I know I am as capable of wrongdoing and hurt as any other man I’ve seen or heard about. But I also know that love can quell the storms in lowly spirits and in tortured minds. Love can open closed hearts, even heal broken places. I know that for my own life, my own shut-down self, my own tumultuous soul, my own raggedy faith.” He paused. “Jessie’s love saved me. It saved me when I was a young man and even when I turned my back on it when I was middle-aged, it was still saving me then. And thank the Lord, I see it now and I welcome it, I want it. It is saving me again.”
Charlotte could feel the tears standing in her eyes.
“And it will happen for you,” James added. “I know it. It just will because you are too lovely of a woman, too beautiful of a soul, not to have it.” He nodded. “You just wait. You just don’t be afraid of it. Love will come back to you. It will.”
The two of them embraced for a long, tender hug until finally there was a knock at the door. Charlotte pulled away and immediately reached for a tissue and began wiping her eyes. James opened the door, and Beatrice was standing there.
“Is it time, Bea?” he asked, and then glanced at his watch.
“Yes,” she replied. She bit her bottom lip.
Charlotte picked up her notes and Bible and turned to face Beatrice. “What, Bea?” she asked, noticing that her friend seemed a bit uncomfortable. “Is something wrong with the sound system?” she asked.
Bea shook her head and was still biting her lip.
“Is it the photographer? Is it the musician? Jessie? What is it?”
She shook her head again. “I, uh, I made a call—” She stopped.
“Bea?” a voice called from the back room. “The flower girl needs to know her cue.” It was Lana, James and Jessie’s granddaughter-in-law, speaking. Hope was her daughter, and she was to come out before Jessie and scatter rose petals.
Bea faced the direction of the voice. “I’ll be right there.” She turned back to Charlotte. Her face was pinched and red. “I may have …”
“Bea, is there supposed to be a guest registry?” another voice called from the kitchen.
Beatrice shook her head and smiled at Charlotte. She cleared her throat. “You look really beautiful and we’re all so glad you’re here to officiate at this event. And, Charlotte, you know that I wouldn’t do anything except what I do out of love, you know that, right?” she asked.
Charlotte appeared confused. “What did you do?”
“Bea!” the voice from the kitchen called out again.
“Yes, I’ll be right there,” she yelled. “The guest book is by the back door,” she added. She waved her hand in front of her face. “I need to go,” she said to Charlotte.
“Bea, wait, what is it you wanted to say?” Charlotte called out, but Bea was already heading down the hall to the back of the house.
Charlotte turned to James and both of them shrugged.
“Beatrice is a conundrum,” James said, shaking his head. “But she puts on a fine wedding,” he added.
“All true,” Charlotte commented. “Well,” she said, looking at her watch. “I guess it’s time for us to go.”
James moved past Charlotte through the bedroom door and she followed. They headed out of the house and at the right moment, with the appropriate song playing on the electric piano, she walked down the makeshift aisle first and James walked behind her. They both turned and faced the audience, waiting for the attendants and the bride to join them. Charlotte smiled at all the familiar faces in the audience, faces of former parishioners that she hadn’t seen in a number of years. She was enjoying seeing everyone again.
It wasn’t, however, until Charlotte turned her gaze and looked near the back of the house that she saw the reason Beatrice had acted so strange earlier.
He was standing near the steps. Donovan had come to Hope Springs.
Perfect Coconut Wedding Cake
3 packages frozen coconut, thawed
1 16-ounce container sour cream
2 cups sugar
yellow cake mix
Mix coconut, sour cream, and sugar in large bowl. Cover with foil and refrigerate over-night. Do not stir after mixing. Make 2 9-inch layer cakes from yellow cake mix, using box directions. Cool and cut into 2 layers each. Spoon coconut mixture between each layer and frost top of cake. Wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate a couple of days before cutting.
—Beatrice Witherspoon
Chapter Twenty-four
Do you think we should be worried?” Louise whispered to Jessie as they stood under the tent enjoying the appetizers and champagne that Beatrice had catered. Everything was perfect at the reception, including the display of the small cookbooks she had placed at every table. Louise was referring to the absence of both Charlotte and Beatrice, who had disappeared after the ceremony and were apparently in the house. They were not, however, together. Lana had revealed this to Louise and Jessie after she had taken her daughter inside to change shoes. She had informed the women that Charlotte was talking to a strange man in the living room and Beatrice was on the phone with her daughter Robin, who had called her stepfather, Dick, during the service to ask that her mother call her right away.
“You’re going to get a cramp if you keep straining your neck that way,” James said to Jessie when he walked over to stand with his wife and her friend.
“It’s Bea and Charlotte,” Jessie explained. “I’m just worried that something is happening.”
“Something is happening,” James responded, leaning over and kissing his wife on the cheek. “Charlotte is falling in love all over again, Beatrice is taking a phone call, and we are enjoying our guests and this beautiful celebration.”
Jessie smiled at her husband. She reached up and touched his cheek, kissing him.
“Would my beautiful, newly recommitted wife like to dance with me?” James asked.
Jessie glanced over at Louise.
“I’ll keep my eye out,” Louise responded, noticing the glance. “I’ll let you know if I find out anything.” She smiled at her friends. “Go dance! It’s your wedding day.”
Jessie and James headed off to the middle of the tent area where a small dance floor had been placed. As they walked toward the floor, the DJ announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. and Mrs. James and Jessie Jenkins.” There was thunderous applause.
Louise watched the couple dance and then looked back at the house. Beatrice and Dick emerged through the back door, and Louise waited until they came toward the tent to move over to them.
“What’s wrong with Robin?” she asked. She had heard about the emergency call when Dick told Bea about her call.
Bea waved away the question. “S
he’s called off the wedding,” she answered. “Farrell Monk ended up showing his true colors when they discussed having children.”
Louise waited for more of the story.
“Dick, honey, would you get me a glass of sparkly?” Beatrice smiled at her husband.
He nodded and walked over to the bar.
“He told her he didn’t want to have any more children and that he had in fact already had a vasectomy.” Beatrice shook her head. “I knew something wasn’t right about this guy.”
“And all this time he hadn’t ever told Robin?” Louise asked, sounding surprised.
Bea shook her head. “No. And in all this time he failed to mention that his last marriage was actually his second and not his first time at the altar.”
“Poor Robin,” Louise said sadly. “She must be devastated.”
“Yes, she’s pretty heartbroken. But she says that she’s glad at least that she learned this now instead of after marrying him. She’s planning to go and stay a few weeks with her sister.”
Dick walked up and handed Beatrice a glass of champagne. “I see Roger Gray from the Kiwanis Club over there. I think I’ll go say hello.” He kissed his wife on the cheek. “You put on a beautiful wedding, hon.”
She smiled at her husband. “It did turn out well, didn’t it?”
“Splendid,” Dick replied. “And already people are talking about the cookbooks. It was a wonderful touch.” He glanced back over at his friend. “You going to be okay?” he asked.
“Yes, yes,” Beatrice said. “Go mingle,” she added. “This is a party, not a funeral.” She grinned. “Lord knows, you could use a change.”
He pinched her on the behind and walked away. The two women watched as he moved in the direction of a table in a far corner. They saw him sit down and begin a conversation with the couple there.
“What’s Robin going to do about the wedding?” Louise asked, taking them back to the previous conversation. She knew that Beatrice had been planning to leave the next day to head to her daughter’s nuptials in Mexico, scheduled for the following weekend.