A Summer Wedding at Cross Creek Inn

by Cheryl Holt

  He texted: Happy Thanksgiving!

  She texted back pretty fast: Happy, happy to you too!

  What are you up to today? he asked, slyly expecting to provide an opening where she’d ask him to drive to Malibu.

  The minutes ticked by with no response, and he couldn’t believe how disappointed he was. He waited and waited, and finally—finally!—his phone pinged. He rushed to grab it and . . .?

  It was from that prick, Eric. What gall! And on a holiday, of all days!

  Dennis threw his phone in a drawer, where he wouldn’t hear it if it pinged again, then he sighed and focused his mind on his work.

  Crystal tugged down her baseball cap and adjusted her sunglasses.

  “Ready?” her lawyer asked.

  “Ready,” she answered.

  He wasn’t the guy she’d retained earlier that spring when her name had first been attached to the bribery investigation. She couldn’t afford that guy anymore. This new kid was fresh out of law school and the most junior assistant at a fly-by-night law firm that was mostly full of ambulance chasers.

  He was mildly competent and fairly cheap, so that was how low her fortunes had sunk. She was grateful that she could afford an ambulance chaser.

  It was Thanksgiving Day, and he’d arranged for her to turn herself in to be arrested on the holiday. They were hoping that any idiot who might still have cared about her predicament would be too busy to pay attention.

  She would immediately post bail and head home, but the whole episode was so demoralizing. Oh, how the mighty had fallen!

  She was living in a rented condo in Tarzana, and she spent all her time fighting: with Dennis, with her prior sponsors, with the courts, with publicist Pippa, with staff demanding back wages. Currently, her fiercest battle was with warehouse owners where stock of her wellness products—that nobody was interested in buying—were hogging the shelves. They had to be removed to a different location, but where?

  Everyone was mad at her, and she owed everyone money. Lindsey’s drinking shenanigans in Colorado were four months old, and social media rules should have guaranteed that it would fade away, but there was a determined group of bloggers who refused to drop the subject.

  Every aspect of Crystal’s life was wrecked: her brand, her image, her media channels, her product lines.

  Lindsey had compounded the debacle by getting a DUI. She’d been driving home from a bar and had crashed into a telephone pole. She hadn’t hurt anyone, but from the howls of outrage that had erupted, you’d think Crystal had raised a serial killer.

  She wanted to staunch the bleeding, but couldn’t figure out how. She was reviled everywhere.

  She left the condo, her puppy-dog lawyer trotting at her heels, and they tromped to the elevator and went down to the lobby. It was a gated building, so she was safe inside it from her pursuers, but she had to make it out to his car that was idling by the curb. It would deliver her to the police station where she’d be booked for the simple crime of using her money to get her daughter into college.

  Not that the little shrew was grateful, and hey, Crystal was broke now. Wasn’t that punishment enough?

  She reached the door and peeked out the lobby window, and to her enormous frustration, there were paparazzi on the sidewalk, waiting to snap a photo of her during her moment of greatest humiliation. She assessed the angles, the crowd.

  There were a half-dozen men present, and they were bored and staring at their phones. If she was lucky—which she hadn’t been in ages—she’d be able to run to the car and jump in before they realized who’d rushed by.

  Her lawyer had hired a driver and a burly security guard. The driver was behind the wheel, and the guard was standing by the rear door, prepared to whip it open.

  Lawyer-boy texted him that they were about to exit, and he straightened and glanced over at her. It notified the paparazzi die-hards that something was about to happen. They jerked their cameras toward her, the lenses aimed to capture her every step.

  “Dammit,” her lawyer muttered.

  She glared at him. “Don’t trip over your own feet. If you fall down, I’ll leave without you.”

  She marched out—head down, stride firm—as if she wasn’t in a hurry and hadn’t noticed them lurking.

  As she neared the vehicle, they started bellowing rude questions. She was successfully ignoring them until one idiot shouted, “You were once everybody’s darling. How does it feel to be the most despised mother in America?”

  The taunt enraged her. She stopped and flipped him off with both middle fingers, and of course, it became the picture seen around the world.

  The security guard grabbed her and shoved her into the car. He shoved in the lawyer too, then he slammed the door and leapt in the front seat. Cameras were thrust against the windows, trying for a last shot of her, but thankfully, the driver hit the gas, and she was whisked off to jail.

  “I’m starving. When do we eat?”

  Sharon had just taken the turkey out of the oven, and it was sitting on the counter in the kitchen of Greg’s Portland home. It was a stately, three-story, older house, in the Sellwood neighborhood, that he’d lovingly restored.

  He snuck up and pinched off a bite, and she swatted at his hand with a spatula.

  “About thirty minutes,” she told him. “Don’t ruin your appetite, and don’t be a nuisance.”

  He was behind her and nibbling kisses on her neck.

  “I’m happy,” he murmured.

  “I am too.”

  Once the nuptial fiasco had wrapped up in July, they’d gone to their respective residences, but three short days later, Sharon had found herself on his stoop in Oregon.

  For two months, she’d traveled back and forth to California until she couldn’t bear the disruption and partings any longer. She’d packed her possessions and had moved out of her Malibu house and into Greg’s Portland one, and she couldn’t remember ever being so content.

  A realtor was managing her California house for her, offering it for weekend rentals, and it was earning Sharon an amount of income so obscene that she felt guilty accepting it.

  She’d been wed to Dennis for twenty years, but nothing about that period had been ordinary. Dennis had been an up-and-coming producer who’d had big ideas percolating, so he’d never been around much.

  After the divorce, she’d hunkered down in Malibu, living like a widow or maybe a Victorian spinster. Weekends and holidays had been particularly miserable, with little to occupy the slow hours and rare company to entertain. She was finally enjoying the adult life she’d always yearned to have, and she might have stepped back into the 1950s.

  Greg got up and headed to work every morning. She rose with him, made his lunch, and kissed him goodbye at the door. When he arrived back—physically exhausted—in the afternoons, she was there to spoil him rotten.

  Everything about her current situation was perfect, and they’d even discussed marrying someday in the future, but she couldn’t agree just yet. She might change her mind after she’d settled in a bit more, but for the moment, she was delighted with how matters were progressing.

  Greg’s kids were all home, so they were awash with people, noise, and chaos.

  Rachel and Kyle were renting an apartment in Eugene, with Kyle a sophomore at U of O and Rachel employed as a barista in a popular coffee shop. She hadn’t been able to apply to be a student so late in the summer, so she would enroll for the following schoolyear, although she liked her job so much that she wasn’t sure she wanted to be a student.

  Jennifer had flown up from LA for the long weekend. She’d recovered from her failed wedding, or if she hadn’t recovered, she hid it well. She never talked about Eric or Cross Creek. The only portion of it she ever mentioned was her road trip afterward with Alex.

  She and Alex had stumbled into Portland a week after everybody else, and they’d be
en much more attached than they should have been. But Alex had an important job in Kenya, and when his vacation was over, he’d returned to it. Jennifer had her photography business in LA, so she’d left too.

  If they’d kept in touch after their departures, Sharon hadn’t heard.

  Amy was back—for good. She’d abandoned the commune and had strolled in about the same time Sharon had. Initially, Sharon had been worried about how they’d interact. After all, Amy was there to take care of her dad so Rachel could head to Eugene with Kyle.

  Sharon and Amy had both intended to assume the same responsibilities toward Greg, so it might have stirred hard feelings or petty jealousies, but Amy was the most laidback person Sharon had ever met.

  She’d lived in a collective group for a decade, where chores and duties were shared, so she never complained and was eager to chip in with any task. Sharon adored her, and rapidly, it seemed as if Amy was the daughter she would have picked for herself if she’d been lucky enough to birth a girl. They were already that fond.

  She sent a quiet prayer of thanks to Greg’s deceased wife. Though it was probably strange to think it, she felt as if the woman had brought Sharon to them so she could watch over them in the woman’s absence, but they were giving Sharon what she needed too.

  She had a family again, a man to coddle, a home to tend, and children to mother.

  Kyle came into the room and said, “I thought you might get a kick out of this text.”

  “Who’s it from?”

  “Have a look.”

  He handed her his phone, and she read a quick exchange between him and Lindsey Holliday.

  Happy Thanksgiving! Lindsey had written.

  He’d replied, Same to ya. Where r u? What r u doing today?

  I’m in rehab. Court-ordered.

  WTF?

  DUI.

  Wow. No joke?

  No joke. I’m not usually allowed contact with the outside world, but it’s a holiday, so regular rules are suspended.

  I’m glad you’re in rehab. You go girl!

  My life still sucks.

  It will get better the longer you’re sober. You’ll see.

  I still hate optimists too.

  Somebody should be one.

  The food here is disgusting, but they claim they’re serving turkey. I’m not sure it will be edible. Will keep you posted.

  Hang in there.

  “Crystal’s daughter, Lindsey?” she said to Greg. “She’s in rehab.”

  Kyle added, “She has issues with alcohol.”

  “That’s depressing,” Greg said. “I hope she’s serious about her treatment.”

  “Who knows?” Kyle shrugged. “She has more problems than any female on the planet.”

  Sharon chuckled. “She had Dennis and Crystal Benjamin as parents. What can we expect?”

  “Speaking of . . .”

  Kyle pulled up an entertainment website and showed her the phone again. There was an article with a banner headline: Worst Mom in the Universe!

  Next to the article, there was a picture of Crystal flipping off a reporter. It was a terrible photograph, and Sharon almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

  “She was arrested this morning,” Kyle said as he retrieved his phone. “On that college bribery thing? She’s being permitted to post bail immediately, but it’s not much of a way to spend Thanksgiving.”

  Greg snickered and said to Sharon, “Don’t you dare gloat.”

  “I wasn’t gloating.” She paused, then said, “Maybe I was just a bit.”

  Jennifer sauntered in, and she was clutching a dark-blue folder of some kind. She smiled at her dad and said, “I have to tell you something.”

  “If it’s awful,” he said to her, “can it wait until tomorrow? Today is too wonderful, and I don’t want any bad news to wreck my mood.”

  “It’s not awful,” Jennifer said. “At least I don’t think it is. I can’t predict what your opinion will be though.”

  She held out the object, and Sharon realized it was a passport.

  “What’s this?” her dad asked.

  “I’ve decided to visit Alex in Kenya. He invited me, and I’m going.”

  “No way!” Kyle crowed as her dad huffed, “Kenya! It’s . . . it’s . . . in Africa. That’s so far away.”

  “It’s not up on the moon, Dad,” she said. “People can actually travel there in airplanes.”

  “What about your business in LA? What about your apartment?”

  “Well . . . ah . . . about that.” She hemmed and hawed, then admitted, “I shut down my business, and my lease ran out. I didn’t renew it.”

  “My goodness!” Greg looked bewildered. “Isn’t this rather sudden? Have you thought this through? I mean, ever since you were a kid you dreamed of living in LA. Should you pick up and leave?”

  “California has lost its luster for me,” she said. “It’s just not . . . fun anymore.”

  Sharon raised a brow. “I don’t suppose that luster might now be shining on Alex?”

  Jennifer grinned. “He and I grew really close last summer, and we told ourselves it was merely a reaction to what went wrong in Cross Creek, but we’re still really close, so we’d like to discover what could happen.”

  Greg and Kyle appeared too stunned to comment, so Sharon jumped into the breach. “I’m delighted for you. As opposed to my other son, Alex is a terrific guy. If you can latch onto him, you should.”

  “Thanks.”

  Jennifer came over to Sharon and gave her a tight hug. The sweet gesture brought tears to Sharon’s eyes.

  “You Laytons are all so nice,” she said as she swiped them away. “Before the day is over, you’ll have me crying like a baby.”

  Kyle and Jennifer wandered off, so Greg and Sharon were by themselves in the kitchen. Once the others couldn’t hear, Sharon murmured, “Crystal is in jail! Am I horrid to find that hilarious?”

  “No, you’re not horrid, but let’s not talk about her. I’m having enough of a meltdown from contemplating Jennifer being involved with another one of Dennis Benjamin’s sons.”

  “Alex is nothing like Eric. If she falls in love with him, they’ll have a safe ending. I swear.”

  Her phone pinged, which was surprising. Since she’d moved to Portland, she’d had a few messages from her Malibu rental agent, and a few of her friends had reached out to ask how she was faring, but they were casual acquaintances who were simply being polite.

  She glanced down at the screen and was shocked to have received it from Eric. After he’d snuck out of the Cross Creek Inn, he hadn’t contacted her, but then, she hadn’t expected him to. She was an afterthought to him, and he’d rarely been kind.

  “You will not believe who just texted me,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “Eric.”

  Greg bristled. “The little prick. Will you answer him?”

  “I imagine I should. I never like anyone to think I’m a shrew. Not even him.”

  She sent a bland reply, then her phone pinged again, and she assumed Eric must be lonely or even suffering some regrets, but when she glanced down, she laughed so hard that she had to stagger over to a chair and sit down.

  “What did he tell you?” Greg asked. “He better not have been offensive.”

  “The second one isn’t from Eric. It’s from Dennis!”

  “Oh, my God. The gall of the man! What does he want?”

  “He wished me Happy Thanksgiving. Why would he?”

  She hated to seem bitchy or callous, but she couldn’t help her ex-husband or adult child. Whatever problems they were suddenly experiencing, she couldn’t fix them.

  Furtively, she held down the power button and shut off the device. If they texted again, she wouldn’t see any messages until much later.

  The doorbell rang, and
they peered toward the front of the house. Rachel was watching TV in the living room, and she called, “Amy! Where are you? You have company.”

  The pronouncement was startling, and she and Greg went out to learn who had arrived. Amy had been upstairs, and as she hurried down, Sharon studied her. There was no sign of the commune resident she’d been earlier in the summer.

  She’d lightened her hair and had cut it in layers so it hung in a pretty way. She was wearing jeans and a warm wool sweater, leather boots on her feet. She could have been any ordinary young woman, perched on the cusp of an exciting future rather than the depressed, guilt-ridden girl she’d been for over a decade.

  “Who is it?” she asked Rachel as she headed to the foyer.

  Sharon followed her and was stunned to find Josh Taylor standing there. He looked abashed, as if worried about his welcome, but she was so glad he’d come. He would add to the merriment, enhancing her growing perception that she was leading a normal life again.

  He was clutching a bottle of wine and a huge bouquet of flowers, and they were difficult for him to balance because his right arm was in a sling, as if he’d been injured or had had surgery.

  Amy’s jaw dropped with astonishment. “Why are you in Oregon?”

  “I was in the neighborhood,” he said, “and I thought I’d stop by.”

  “In the neighborhood? Seriously?” Amy’s tone was very skeptical.

  “Or I might have been in California—moping and feeling very sorry for myself—and your dad suggested I fly up for Thanksgiving.”

  Amy whirled on her father. “Dad! How did you know this would make me happy?”

  “I’m very wise,” Greg said.

  Rachel rushed over to Josh and took the flowers and wine, so he was able to clasp Amy’s hand. He pulled her close and kissed her on the cheek, and she sighed with pleasure, as if she’d been waiting for him forever.

  She drew him out of the foyer and into the living room, and he grinned at Sharon and said, “Hi, Ms. Kildare. I hope you don’t mind my being here.”

  “My gosh, no!”

  She bustled over and hugged him, as Greg said, “He had to quit playing baseball, Sharon. Didn’t I tell you?”