Return to Me

by Katie Winters

  “I hope you don’t mind, Gwyneth, but I must go say hello to the bride-to-be,” Janine finally said as she gripped Gwyneth’s hands and tilted herself toward Maggie and Alyssa. “I hope we’ll have more time to speak later?”

  By the time she freed herself from Gwyneth, a few more lurkers had latched onto her. After several minutes more, Janine was able to kick off her Manhattan guests, and she pressed herself through the crowd to find her darling daughter. Maggie’s eyes widened when she spotted her mother. She rushed toward her, wrapping herself in a hug with Janine, knowing full-well that wasn’t the kind of thing you did at functions like this.

  “Mom.” Maggie pulled away and said under her breath, “This party is spectacular. You really outdid yourself this time. Thank you so much.”

  Janine blushed only slightly. “Darling, my eldest only gets married once.”

  Maggie laughed as she flipped her hair, in that very same way she always had as a little girl. “Let’s hope so, at least, huh?”

  “Come now. I’ve never met a happier couple than you and Rex,” Janine said.

  Maggie’s eyes traced over Janine’s shoulder. She paused for a moment and swirled her drink. “Maxine didn’t bring a date? I told her she could.”

  “She said she couldn’t find anyone,” Janine replied. “But you know Maxine. She’s always fine to be by herself. She always has been. I have to say; she’s a whole lot stronger than me.”

  That moment, Maggie yanked her head around, and her jaw dropped as a large bouquet of red roses burst into her arms. “Daddy!” she cried as Jack Potter himself, a man who always liked to make an entrance, wrapped her in a hug.

  The girls had always loved their father, no matter how many business trips he took, no matter how much it seemed that his career took first place over his family. Janine was grateful that the great Jack Potter managed to juggle everything at once.

  When their hug broke, Jack turned and looked at Janine eagerly. “How about this, Janny?” This was a silly nickname he’d tried to make work for years. “Rooftop of NoMad? You really went above and beyond. This is fantastic!”

  “Is that a silly dad pun?” Maggie cried.

  “You bet it is,” Jack said as he waggled his eyebrows. “Just because my little girls are both all grown up doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop being a dad.”

  Jack stepped away to speak to a colleague of his, which left Maggie and Janine. Maggie was just the slightest bit taller than her mother, especially in the heels she now wore, which they had purchased together on a mother-daughter trip to London the previous month.

  “Rex looks freaked out, doesn’t he?” Maggie whispered.

  Janine eyed her fiancé, who looked dashing in his Italian-cut suit. He spoke with his hands as though everything filled him with passion.

  “He’s over-compensating,” Maggie explained. “He hates to have all the attention on him.”

  “I understand,” Janine offered. “When your father and I had our engagement party, I was pregnant, and the conversation wasn’t so bright and optimistic. Plus, you know— I was this girl from the other side of the tracks.”

  Maggie shook her head. “I really can’t imagine that. Grandma and Grandpa must have lost their minds.”

  “Oh, they did,” Janine said, speaking of Jack’s parents. “When we told them I was pregnant at nineteen, I think their first mutterings were... well, what should we do with this woman who’s trapped our son?”

  Maggie’s lips formed a round O.

  “Of course, I told them point-blank that just throwing me to the side wasn’t an option since your dad and I were madly in love with one another. And we were going to make it work with or without their approval.”

  “And make it work, you did,” Maggie said, beaming.

  “You and Alyssa and this entire party are proof of that,” Janine returned as she spread her hand out toward the beautiful guests of their perfectly-plotted night, the wine and cocktail-drinkers, the fine suits and perfectly-manicured eyebrows and new blonde highlights, just in time for summer.

  AROUND EIGHT, EVERYONE gathered around the tables. While Maggie and Rex sat at the head of the table, Janine and Jack sat on either side of the couple, with Janine and Alyssa to the left and right of Janine and Jack. With these great loves by her side along with a hefty dose of champagne, Janine felt all light-headed and free, as though she could have lifted off the balcony and into the clouds above.

  Jack lifted his eyebrows toward her mischievously. “I guess it’s time?”

  Janine nodded. “You’ve waited for it all night.”

  “You’re right. I have to steal the spotlight from my daughter somehow.” He winked toward Maggie playfully as he rose and then clanked his fork against the side of his glass.

  Slowly, the members of the party halted their conversations and turned their attention toward him. Jack held the floor, just as he always did when he wanted to. It was part of the reason Janine had fallen in love with him. She’d never met anyone like him.

  “Good evening, everyone,” Jack said brightly. “I’d like to welcome you to the engagement party for my eldest daughter, Magdalene Potter, better known as Maggie, one of the first great loves of my life. Horrifically for my heart, Rex has decided to steal her away from me. If you’re a father of a daughter, you know how difficult this is. But you also know that when you raise a girl like Maggie, she will dive head-first into life — in a way that makes you proud. When she told me about Rex, I could hear it in her voice. She had this expectation for their future together. Probably, at the time, Rex thought they were just going to keep it casual. Come on, Rex. I know what men are like. And heck, my wife, Janine, knows all about that, too.”

  Janine chuckled, remembering how swiftly their lives had tied into one another — assuredly too quickly for Jack, who had been around twenty-two at the time and therefore had only just begun his wild party days.

  “That said, just as I don’t regret a single day of married life, I know neither of you will, either,” Jack continued. He then lifted his glass of wine still higher and called out, “To Maggie and Rex. May you have a charmed marriage and may your love last forever.”

  Across the party, everyone lifted their glasses so that they shimmered in the last light of the evening. They cheered and then sipped, which resulted in several of them beginning to turn back to their personal conversations prior to the arrival of the food.

  But Janine didn’t want to give all the speech-giving over to her husband. In her mind and probably in the mind of Maggie, she’d been there for much, much more throughout her life. She couldn’t let Jack take all the credit. She just couldn’t.

  Slowly, she stood and began to tip her fork against her glass. Jack gave her a bug-eyed look, which indicated to her that this was a misstep. Several party-goers flashed their eyes toward her; their gazes were filled with curiosity and maybe the slightest amount of annoyance. Suddenly, Janine was reminded of her previous self — the poor girl from Brooklyn who didn’t deserve a spot at the table, who had married into wealth. She again turned her eyes toward Jack, who grunted, “I think we need to get on with dinner, Janny.”

  Janine fell back on her chair and sipped still more of her wine. Probably, he was right. He normally was.

  Throughout dinner, Janine popped in and out of the conversations around her. If asked later, she wouldn’t have been able to say what they’d discussed, as her mind was several hundred miles away. Especially as Maggie’s wedding grew closer, and with Alyssa’s graduation from Yale, Janine had begun to compare her relationship to her own mother and how desperately wrong everything had gone.

  She had grown up with absolutely nothing. And when Janine had been eighteen years old and ready to head off to college, (not that there had been money around for that), Nancy, her mother, had just taken off. She was gone as fast as lightning without paying rent or leaving Janine a few pennies to rub together. She’d left her completely debilitated, forced to build her life from scratch.

&n
bsp; Goodness, how Janine wished her mother could see her just then: celebrating her daughter’s wedding at one of the ritziest hotels in all of Manhattan, with her two daughters and her handsome husband at her side.

  Nancy, I won. Do you hear me? And you can’t hurt me anymore, she thought.

  Chapter Three

  The after-party at the high-rise apartment building began around eleven-thirty at night. Janine felt a tiny bit bleary from wine, and she dropped into her bedroom for a moment to grip the sink of her bathroom and talk some sense into her reflection. “Just a few more hours, Janine. It’s one of the best parties of your hosting career. All of Manhattan’s elites look at you like you own this city.”

  Before she left her bedroom, she touched up her makeup and then gazed at her bed longingly. Often, Jack slept separate from her, in another bedroom, as he liked to stay up much later than she did, tending to various clients and watching sporting events. Even still, she thought she might ask him to collapse beside her that night, as she wanted him close after all the chaos of the day. Plus, he looked so deliciously handsome. She had to pinch herself sometimes to remind herself that he was still all hers, after all this time.

  Her husband...Her Jack.

  When Janine stepped back out of the room, the party was in full swing. She had hired a DJ — a sophisticated one that played a mixture of appropriate music, not some college-aged rapper who manned the DJ table and pumped his head in time as he adjusted the songs. A few people had gathered in the center of the room to dance, drinks in-hand. Near the kitchen, Maggie and Alyssa stood together, both with glasses of wine. They spoke conspiratorially and then burst into giggles. Janine had long-since understood that there was a great deal about her girls’ relationship that she would never be allowed to know. Such was the way of sisters.

  Of course, she knew she had that sort of thing with Maxine. Even though they weren’t blood, they were sisters, through and through.

  Speaking of, Maxine began to approach her. She slid her arm through hers and muttered, “Care to dance, honey-bunny?”

  Janine laughed. “I’m so exhausted that I might topple over.”

  “Well, you don’t look it,” Maxine said as she slowly eased a curl around Janine’s ear.

  “Did you spot any eligible bachelors tonight?” Janine asked as she scanned the crowd.

  “Unfortunately, no,” Maxine returned. “Although I didn’t expect much of anyone. Nobody’s single these days. It’s dreadful.”

  “Guess you’ll just have to split up someone’s marriage!” Janine said playfully.

  “You’re evil, Janine Potter. Absolutely evil.”

  In time, Janine and Maxine lost one another again to the ever-changing seas of the strange social circle. Janine found herself nodding along in conversation with one of Maggie’s college friend’s mothers, then turning around to speak with the older Italian woman Maggie had stayed with when she’d studied abroad in Milan. The woman’s accent was so thick that Janine struggled to make out a single word. Instead, her smile widened, which only seemed to make the woman talk more.

  At one point, she found herself again with Marcia, who leaned toward Janine, her breath laced with fiery alcohol and whispered, “You know, I haven’t told anyone.”

  “Told anyone what?” Janine asked, looking at her with curiosity.

  “You know.” Marcia waggled her eyebrows. “All that work you got done.” She lifted her eyes toward Janine’s eyebrows and then scanned down her face, toward her breasts.

  Janine laughed aloud. “What are you talking about? I haven’t gotten anything done.”

  Marcia’s lips parted. Not for the first time, Janine realized just how pudgy those lips were — as though she’d had multiple bad injections. This was so common, wasn’t it? That people wanted to see themselves in everyone else, even if it wasn’t true?

  “You’re kidding me. Are you telling me you just have fabulous genes?” Marcia demanded.

  “I’m afraid she is.” Maxine appeared beside her again, a fresh cocktail in-hand. She beamed down at Marcia as though Janine was her prize pig at the fair. “And what’s more, Janine held down her own business until about a year ago, when she took a leave of absence. She’s a force of nature.”

  Janine’s cheeks reddened. She slightly hated it when people brought up her naturopathic medicine practice, as it just reminded her that she missed it dearly. Sometimes, she struggled to remember just why she’d stepped away from it. She remembered snippets of conversations with Jack, during which he said it would have been “nice” if she’d had more time to plan some of his work functions. Had that been part of the reason? Or had she just felt stretched too thin, as a Manhattan “socialite” as well as a “professional woman”? She did remember, now that she thought back, some of the snippy remarks from some of the other socialites, including Marcia, who’d said, “I can’t believe your husband lets you work,” as though that was a thing Janine had had to clear with him.

  “Oh yes. That doctor thing you did,” Marcia offered snidely.

  “Doctor thing? She saved my life. Numerous times,” Maxine interjected as she lifted that ever-French nose of hers. “She’s a saint and does amazing work, in fact. The medical world is so different without her.”

  Marcia seemed at a loss for words, perhaps mostly because she was drunk. She staggered back, then gripped the elbow of another woman, and cried out, “My darling, where on earth did you get that bracelet?”

  Maxine and Janine made heavy eye contact. It took everything within Janine not to burst into raucous laughter.

  “They’re too easy, sometimes, aren’t they?” Janine whispered.

  “They’re just paper cut-outs, disguised as people,” Maxine returned.

  Janine sipped her wine as a wave of gratefulness poured over her. “I’m just so glad you’re still around, Max. Really.”

  Maxine shrugged. “Where the hell else would I be? Together till the end, my friend.”

  Janine chuckled as her eyes scanned across the crowd. “I haven’t seen Jack in a while.”

  “I think I spotted him with some of those stuffy businessmen.”

  “Oh yes. That sounds about right,” Janine said.

  Suddenly, there was a hand across her elbow. Janine flashed her head left to find the wide, panicked eyes of her eldest daughter, Maggie. Her hand was just as cold as ice.

  “Mom! I can’t find my earring.”

  Janine sensed the alarm in her daughter’s voice. Her instincts took over. No matter the problem, she was prepared to solve it, especially when it came to her daughters’ happiness.

  “All right. Let’s retrace your steps. Don’t panic.”

  “Mom, Rex got these for me as an engagement present...” Maggie explained as her lower lip quivered just the slightest bit. She extended a palm out to show the other, single earring, without its partner.

  “Okay. Okay.” Janine gave her daughter a smile. “When did you last remember having it on?”

  “In the bathroom,” Maggie insisted, as her words slurred together, proof of her tipsiness. “Near the foyer.”

  “Okay! Okay. Good place to start,” Janine said. She slipped her fingers through her daughter’s and guided her through the bustling crowd, toward the beautiful bathroom, with the tiles they’d had shipped over from Spain the previous summer. The door was locked, so they waited until the person inside the abandoned ship. Once near the sink, however, they came up dry.

  “Oh, no. Rex is going to be so upset!” Maggie cried.

  “I don’t think that’s true,” Janine said. She wanted to add that if it actually was true, that if Rex got so angry at materialistic little things, then perhaps Maggie shouldn’t marry him.

  But of course, that was probably a topic for a different day. Not the night of the engagement party.

  “Let’s keep looking. Where to next?” Janine asked.

  Slowly, Maggie guided her from the bathroom, toward the far end of the living area, then back into the kitchen. She pause
d over the top of the spare appetizers, which had begun to be served to the various party-goers, and said, “I remember it now. I had it in here. I thought maybe they were getting too heavy.”

  “Oh! So you probably took one of them off on purpose,” Janine suggested. “That’s perfect.”

  “Yeah! But I remember I didn’t want to lose them,” Maggie affirmed, her eyebrows stitching together. “So I wanted to put them somewhere safe.”

  “Like maybe your bedroom?”

  “Sure! Maybe. That sounds right, actually,” Maggie said, as her eyes brightened. “Mom, I’m so sorry about this. I feel so silly.”

  “Honey, it happens to the best of us. You’re not silly at all. It’s just nerves. Now go and enjoy the rest of the evening,” Janine said tenderly.

  A tear rolled down Maggie’s cheek, which she immediately caught. “I don’t know why I’m crying. I think I’m just overwhelmed and tired,” Maggie said as her shoulders shivered.

  “Sure. You’re allowed to be tired. Getting married is a big deal,” Janine said as she collected her daughter in her arms. “Why don’t you go sit down with Rex over there, and I’ll head to your bedroom to find the earring? If it’s not there, we can look for it after everyone is gone. I don’t want to stress you out any more than you already are.”

  Maggie nodded somberly and then heaved a sigh. “I’m being so dramatic, Mom. I know, you taught me to be better than this.”

  Janine watched as Rex enclosed Maggie in a warm hug. She then turned on her heel (all the while praying for a time when she could finally remove her heels) and stepped toward the back hallway, which led toward Maggie and Alyssa’s old rooms. Alyssa had taken an internship for the summer, while Maggie and Rex already lived together at a loft in Brooklyn. Janine could remember when she and Jack and the girls had moved into the high rise, around fifteen years before. Maggie had been nine; Alyssa had been seven. Goodness, it had still felt like such a palace, even with the four of them. Now, it was like a ghost town, especially when Jack left on business trips.