Be My Valencrime

by Amy M. Reade

  “That’s no problem,” Lilly assured the nurse. “Call anytime. It’s good to know that Mom still knows who I am.”

  “Oh, she definitely knows who you are. She talks about you all the time,” Nikki replied.

  “She does?” Lilly asked, her heart sinking. She wondered what family secrets Bev might be spilling to Nikki.

  Nikki must have heard the dismay in Lilly’s voice. “Don’t worry,” she said with a laugh. “It’s all good stuff.”

  They hung up and Lilly sat back on the couch with a feeling of relief. Ordinarily she wouldn’t mind her mother’s nurse being let in on private family matters going back decades, but Nikki was Beau’s girlfriend. And as much as she liked and respected and appreciated her, Lilly had an understandable desire for Nikki to know only the good things about the family.

  Her thoughts turned to her mother, who was becoming more confused of late. It didn’t surprise her that Bev thought she might be stuck somewhere out in the storm, but she didn’t want her mother worrying unnecessarily about things that weren’t real. She remembered the days when her mother could juggle a dozen things on the to-do list and keep track of her kids’ schedules, her husband’s travels for work, and her own myriad responsibilities. Those days were long gone, but they brought a nostalgic smile to Lilly’s lips. Her mother had been quite a dynamo in her younger days. It was sad to see her decline like this, but luckily there were many things from years and years ago that Bev could remember with crystal clarity.

  Which brought up another worry. Nikki had been spending seven days a week with Bev, bless her, and she hadn’t had a day off in quite a while. Lilly was on the hunt for someone who could relieve Nikki for a day or two a week, but the search wasn’t going well so far. Nikki didn’t seem to mind and she was being well-paid for her dedication to Bev, but Lilly was pretty sure she wanted a day to herself once in a while.

  Hassan called as Lilly was getting into bed and they talked for several minutes. They had gotten into the habit of calling each other late in the evening, and Lilly found that it was easier to relax and go to sleep when she had spoken to Hassan before bed.

  The storm reached a fever pitch in the middle of the night. Lilly woke up to the sound of Barney whining and lay in bed for several minutes, listening to the wind rage outside. Barney usually slept at the foot of her bed, but on nights like this, he curled up closer to her.

  After a few minutes, Lilly could have sworn she heard someone’s voice. At first she thought it was the wind, but the wind didn’t say things like “school” and “snow day.” She got out of bed and padded down the hall to Laurel’s room, where she stood outside the door, listening.

  Sure enough, Laurel was talking to someone. Lilly knocked on her daughter’s bedroom door. “Laurel?” she called softly.

  There was silence on the other side of the door. “Yeah?” came Laurel’s voice after a few seconds.

  “Who are you talking to? It’s three o’clock in the morning.”

  “Just a friend from school. I must have lost track of time. Sorry.”

  “Hang up and go to sleep, honey. You have to be up in three hours.”

  “They’ll cancel school in the morning. I’ll be able to sleep in.”

  “Don’t argue with me, Laurel. Hang up and get some sleep. Goodnight. Love you.”

  “Love you,” Laurel grumbled. Lilly shook her head and returned to bed, where Barney hadn’t budged.

  Sure enough, school was cancelled the next day because of the forecast for continued blowing snow and near-zero visibility. The new president of the Chamber of Commerce, Lilly’s replacement, had also issued a recommendation that stores in Juniper Junction open an hour late to allow the public works department extra time to clear the roads.

  Even though she left the house an hour later than usual, it took Lilly much longer than she expected to get to work because of the driving conditions. Snow blew across the road, obstructing her vision, but she was grateful that the plows had been out and the roads were clear of accumulated snow. Harry was already inside when Lilly arrived at the jewelry shop.

  “Wow! What a morning!” Lilly exclaimed as she walked into the store. Harry was arranging displays in the glass cases. “You probably didn’t even need to come in today, Harry. I would be surprised if we get a single customer.”

  “I don’t mind,” Harry replied. “Besides, there’s something I wanted to ask you.”

  “What is it?”

  “We’ve never discussed this before, so I was just wondering if I get an employee discount on jewelry.”

  Lilly struggled to keep a grin from taking over her whole face. “Of course. You and I pay the wholesale price if we buy anything.”

  Harry smiled. “Thanks.”

  “Any particular reason you’re asking?” Lilly asked, allowing herself just one nosy question.

  “Well, you know I was looking at that pink sapphire ring yesterday…” Harry began. Lilly smiled broadly, knowing where this was headed.

  “Yes,” she prompted.

  Harry took a deep breath. “I’m going to ask Alice to marry me.”

  Chapter 3

  Lilly let out a squeal. “I knew it! I’m so happy for you!” She was beaming. If they had been anywhere but work, she would have hugged him.

  His face matched hers. “I’m happy, too. I just hope she says ‘yes.’” His smile disappeared, replaced in an instant by a worried frown.

  “I have no doubt of it,” Lilly said. “I’ve seen how she looks at you. I’m just so thrilled.” She gave Harry a fond smile and took a sip of the coffee in her travel mug.

  “So when are you going to ask her?”

  “Valentine’s Day.” Harry’s grin had reappeared.

  “How romantic,” Lilly gushed. “Do you want the day off?”

  “No, no, I don’t want the day off,” Harry was quick to reply. “We’re going out to dinner that night and I’ll ask her then. If I have to stay home all day, I’ll go bananas.”

  “I see what you mean. Then I’ll be happy to have you at work.” Lilly smiled again and bustled to the vault in the back to carry more pieces of jewelry to the display cases in front.

  The morning passed slowly, with not a single customer braving the biting wind and snow to buy jewelry. A few people made their way quickly up and down Main Street, but they obviously had destinations in mind and Lilly suspected they were headed to places like the pharmacy or the bank for reasons that wouldn’t wait for the weather to get better.

  Around lunchtime she called Laurel to see what was going on at home.

  “Hi, Mom,” Laurel answered.

  “Hi, honey. What time did you get up this morning?”

  “Around ten.”

  “You’re not going anywhere today, are you?” Lilly asked.

  “No. Vanessa’s coming over to hang out this afternoon.” Vanessa lived only a block away, so Lilly was pretty sure she would make it to the Carlsen house in one piece.

  “Okay. Be good. Love you.”

  “I’m always good, Mom. Love you.”

  Lilly dialed her mother next. Nikki answered.

  “Hi, Nikki. How’s Mom doing today?”

  “Okay, I suppose,” Nikki said. It wasn’t the boundless enthusiasm Lilly had hoped for.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Your mom was furious with me this morning for making her breakfast,” Nikki said in a low voice. “I make her breakfast most days and normally she doesn’t mind, but today she was angry. She said she’s perfectly capable of making her own meals and that if I’m going to keep interfering with her independence, she’ll fire me.”

  “Hmm…. That doesn’t sound like Mom. She’s usually non-confrontational with everyone but me.” She could hear Nikki chuckle. “I’ll try to stop by after work if this wind ever lets up. In the meantime, I guess you should just let Mom fix her own lunch and dinner. If she wants help, she’ll ask for it.”

  Lilly hung up with Nikki and went back to the office, leaving Harry in
charge of the shop. There was paperwork to catch up on and she wanted to look at her XO design sketches again. She kept colored glass crystals in her office to use in making design templates, so she arranged a number of black crystals in an XO pattern and stood back to admire it. The pattern could be used for anything—pendants, cufflinks, earring, or tie tacks. She couldn’t wait to show it to Hassan.

  When mid-afternoon arrived and not a single customer had come into the store, Lilly decided to close up for the day and send Harry home. They put the displays in the vault and went their separate ways, Harry to his house and Lilly to her mother’s house. The wind had let up a little bit, so visibility had improved enough to make the drive easier than it had been that morning.

  Lilly climbed the front steps of Bev’s house and knocked before opening the door. At first, she was pleased by what she saw.

  Bev sat in her armchair, giggling helplessly. Nikki sat in the rocking chair opposite Bev, also laughing. She looked at Lilly and winked. Fred, Bev’s cocker spaniel, ran up to Lilly and danced around her feet.

  “Well, what’s going on here?” Lilly asked, beginning to laugh herself.

  Bev wiped tears from her eyes and leaned her head back. “Oh, Lilly,” she gasped. “You’ve missed the funniest thing.”

  “What was it?” Lilly asked, looking from her mother to Nikki.

  “Fred had an accident in the kitchen and Nikki slipped in it and when she did, she knocked a whole five-pound bag of sugar off the counter! There’s sugar everywhere! You should have seen it!” Bev’s voice rang again with peals of laughter.

  Lilly gave Nikki a confused look. It didn’t sound funny. Nikki glanced at Lilly and shook her head just enough so Lilly would know not to put a damper on her mother’s hilarity.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” Bev said, pushing herself up from the armchair. “I’ll be right back.” She left the room with Fred in tow. Lilly looked to Nikki for an explanation.

  Nikki stood up and headed for the kitchen. Lilly followed her. The nurse said over her shoulder, “There’s wet sugar—five pounds of it—all over the kitchen floor. I’ll clean it up. Your mom thought it was so funny that I didn’t want to ruin her good mood. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her laugh like that. It must have been like watching one of those home video shows where people trip or fall and everyone thinks it’s hysterical.”

  Lilly’s shoulders fell when she saw the mess on the kitchen floor. “Nikki, I’ll clean up the mess. You go sit with Mom. It’s bad enough you suffered the indignity of slipping in dog urine without having to clean up the sticky mess left behind. Are you hurt?”

  “I didn’t even fall. I just slipped on the wet spot. I don’t mind cleaning it up.” Nikki chuckled. “You know, it must have been pretty funny to watch.”

  “You go.” Lilly shooed her out. “I’ll get to work in here.”

  Cleaning the kitchen floor took almost a half hour because so much sugar had spilled everywhere. When Lilly wandered into the living room after she had finished, Bev and Nikki were sitting on the sofa, looking through old photos.

  “And here are Lilly and Beau’s wedding photos,” Bev was saying, pointing to a spread of pictures over two pages. Lilly didn’t mean to groan out loud, but she couldn’t stop herself. There were about a billion reasons she didn’t want anyone looking at those photos.

  Nikki smiled. “What’s the matter with these?” she asked. “I think they’re cute!”

  Oh, God. Not “cute.” Wedding photos are not supposed to be “cute.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Lilly said.

  “That Beau. What a darling,” Bev enthused.

  Lilly squinted at her mother. If Nikki hadn’t been dating Beau, Lilly would have spoken up. Beau? Darling? He left me with two little kids and disappeared without a trace, Mom. There’s nothing darling about that.

  She let it go. Since Beau had come back to Juniper Junction over a year ago, her mother had been under the mistaken impression that he was some charming handyman sent straight from God Himself for the benefit of the old ladies of Juniper Junction. Sure, maybe he had helped Bev around the house, and sure, maybe he had helped her friend Mildred with chores around her house, but that didn’t make him a saint. There was still the matter of abandoning his family and disappearing for a decade and a half.

  Nikki seemed to sense that Lilly was growing agitated. She put her hand on the photo album so Bev couldn’t turn the page. “What are you going to have for dinner, Bev?” she asked. Lilly let out a quiet sigh of relief.

  But Bev was having none of it. She gently pushed Nikki’s hand away. “I want to look at these photos first,” she said. “Wasn’t Lilly’s wedding dress pretty? A neighbor made it for her. She got a good deal.” She looked up at Lilly. “How much did that dress cost?”

  “About three hundred dollars,” Lilly answered. Her mind immediately turned back to the discussion about Laurel’s prom dress. Between the urine-soaked sugar in the kitchen, her mother’s insistence that Beau’s ex-wife and Beau’s present girlfriend look through Beau’s old wedding photos together, and the thought of having to shell out five hundred dollars for a prom dress, Lilly was afraid she might stop breathing.

  To her relief, Nikki came to the rescue again.

  “Bev,” she said, taking the album from her lap and standing up, “I’m sure Lilly has things to do at home. We really should get your dinner started.”

  “What are you making?” Bev asked.

  “You told me you wanted to make dinner yourself,” Nikki reminded her.

  “Oh, pooh. I was kidding,” Bev said. She looked like she really meant it.

  “Why don’t you come out and help me?” Nikki suggested.

  “All right, dear. That would be fine.” The misunderstanding from earlier that day seemed to have been forgotten as quickly as the photo album. Lilly put the album in its rightful spot before saying goodnight to her mom and Nikki, then she left.

  She shook her head as she descended the front steps. It was always an adventure going to her mom’s house. As Bev’s dementia progressed, Lilly never knew what to expect when she went over there. Thank goodness for Nikki—even if she was dating Beau.

  Chapter 4

  When she got home, Lilly walked into the kitchen, tossed her handbag on the counter, and hung up her coat wearily. She wanted nothing more than to get into pajamas and go to bed. Barney raced in to greet her, his nails slipping and sliding on the kitchen floor. Lilly grinned as she rubbed his ears.

  “Laurel?” she called, going to the bottom of the stairs. She could hear Laurel’s bedroom door open.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “What are you doing?” Lilly looked up at her daughter, who was standing at the top of the stairs.

  “Just hanging out.”

  “Is Vanessa still here?”

  “No, she had to go home about an hour ago.”

  “Are those other people I hear upstairs?” Lilly asked.

  There was the briefest hesitation.

  “Laurel, is Nick up there with you? He’d better not be.” Lilly’s jaw clenched.

  “No, Mom. Just a couple of my friends from school.”

  “Oh. Who are they?”

  “Karley and Bella.” Lilly remembered them from Laurel’s soccer games in middle school, but she hadn’t seen them since then.

  “Okay. Are they staying for dinner?”

  “Nah,” Laurel answered. “They just came over to say hi. Why are you home so early?”

  “Not a single customer today. The weather kept most people indoors.”

  “I’m sorry,” Laurel said.

  “Tomorrow is another day. What do you say to frozen pizza tonight? I’m tired.”

  “Sounds good to me. I’ll be down soon.”

  Five minutes later the three girls came clattering downstairs.

  “Hi, Mrs. Carlsen,” Karley and Bella said in unison.

  “Hi, girls. I haven’t seen you in a long time,” Lilly said.

  “I
guess about five years, right?” Karley asked.

  Lilly nodded. “That’s probably right. How have you both been?”

  “Pretty chill,” Karley said.

  “It’s all good,” Bella said simultaneously.

  Lilly smiled. Typical teenage girl response.

  “Bye, Mrs. Carlsen. See you later,” Bella said.

  “Bye, girls. Get home safely.”

  Just a half hour later, Lilly and Laurel were sitting down to a dinner of pizza and tossed salad. “I’m sure school will be open tomorrow,” Lilly said. “Make sure you don’t stay up until all hours on the phone tonight.”

  “I won’t. I’ll turn off my ringer so I don’t hear it if anyone calls.”

  “Who would call in the middle of the night?” Lilly wondered aloud. It was a rhetorical question.

  “I’ll do the dishes tonight,” Laurel offered.

  “And I’ll let you,” Lilly said with a tired grin. “Thanks, honey.”

  While Laurel cleaned up the kitchen, Lilly went into the living room with her cell phone and called her best friend, Noley Appleton.

  “Guess what,” she said when Noley answered the phone.

  “What?”

  “Don’t tell anyone, but Harry is going to ask Alice to marry him on Valentine’s Day,” Lilly said.

  “That’s so romantic!”

  “I know, right? They’re just perfect for each other. Anyway, it’s time to start planning the engagement party. What do you think?”

  “I love the idea, but shouldn’t we wait until they’re actually engaged?” Noley asked.

  “Sure, we can wait, but just be thinking about it. You’re the magician when it comes to parties.” As a recipe developer, cook, and nationally-syndicated food columnist, Noley was Lilly’s go-to person whenever food was involved. She could cook everything from heavy roasts to dainty finger foods.

  “I’ll start making a list of possibilities. Say, how’s your mom? Bill said she was mad at Nikki about something.” Lilly’s brother, Bill, had been dating Noley for a little over a year.

  “She’s having an up-and-down day,” Lilly said with a sigh. “I closed the store early this afternoon because of the weather and I went over to see Mom. She was in hysterics because Nikki had slipped on the kitchen floor and she thought it was the funniest thing in the world. This morning she was mad at Nikki for making her breakfast, but by late this afternoon they were friends again and she wanted Nikki to make her dinner.”