Four Steps to the Altar Page 11

  But Lily had smiled and said she was tired, and she could trust him, couldn’t she?

  He’d said, “Of course,” and she’d kissed him good night, feeling only slightly guilty that the real reason she wanted to go home was so she’d be rested and fully ready to entertain her sister-in-law and her purse strings the next day. So that she could have time to conjure up a clearheaded, foolproof plan to keep Antonia from Frank, and Frank from Antonia.

  Lily hadn’t expected that instead she’d be sitting in her thinking spot not thinking about Antonia but about Billy Sears.

  It had been weeks before he noticed her.

  It was in the fall, her favorite time of year, when the leaves were red and gold and made such a pretty blanket on the grounds of the academy. She’d found a spot outside the building where her father taught his class and had his office too.

  She’d seen Billy weeks earlier when she and her mother went over to the campus to bring her father a textbook that he had left at home.

  “Wouldn’t it be easier,” her mother had asked, “if we lived on the grounds like other families do?”

  But her father had said no, he wouldn’t leave his sister in the two-family house alone, she’d been too good to them, being there for them all the time he was in ’Nam. “It’s no great sacrifice,” he added, “to drive back and forth across the bridge.”

  One night Lily overheard Aunt Margaret tell her mother the real reason they didn’t live there was because Lily’s father didn’t want the boys getting a good look at his daughter.

  The odd thing was, as it turned out, if they’d lived there and not across the river, Lily might never have spotted Billy Sears, might never have seen him that day when her mother stayed in the car while Lily ran inside the building to deliver her father’s book. There was Billy, sitting in the front row by the door, his blue, blue eyes so focused on his work that he hardly looked up at her, though when he did, she’d swear her heart stopped beating.

  Which was why, a few weeks later, after getting her driver’s license, Lily made it a point to “drop by” once or twice a week, to sit on the stone bench on the lawn outside the building and wait for him to fall in love with her.

  It had taken two and a half weeks, but finally she succeeded.

  And then the rest had happened. And now—for the first time since then—Lily knew she was in love again, but it wasn’t easy this time either.

  She clutched the soft plush rabbit and stared out the window and wondered if she would break Frank’s heart, the way she’d broken Billy’s.

  Marion agreed to make the phone calls to let people know the wedding was being postponed.

  Jo sat at her desk the following morning and, with her eyes closed, spoke slowly into the phone. “Tell them September, okay, Mom? Say we’ll get back to them once we know the date.”

  Marion paused, then asked, “Are you sure, Josephine?”

  “Yes, I am sure.”

  She thanked her mother and hung up quickly, aware that someone had walked into the showroom. She opened her eyes and faced Andrew.

  “So you’re really going through with it,” he said, his tone flat and unhappy.

  “I have to, Andrew. If we ever hope to have a real future together…”

  He nodded as if he understood. “Well, until then, life will go on. But speaking of a future, did you happen to save the name of that woman who called a while back, the one from the bridal magazine who wanted us to write a column for their spin-off on second weddings?”

  The sudden way he’d changed the topic was disquieting. Jo turned back to her computer. “Well,” she said, “I must have typed it in the phone log.” She moved her mouse this way and that, then clicked and scrolled with surprising nervousness. “Andrea Hall,” she said, and relayed a phone number.

  She looked at him again; he wrote the information on a Post-it note.

  “That’s it?” she asked. “You’re not going to try and change my mind?”

  “About the wedding? No. I can’t compete with a memory, Jo.”

  “Andrew, please. This isn’t about Brian. It’s about me, wanting my old baggage totally resolved.”

  His face darkened. “And what about your new baggage?”

  “What?”

  “The builders, for example. What do I tell the builders? They planned to begin framing the addition around the first of June.”

  She swallowed. She supposed they should go ahead—they couldn’t leave the cellar hole just sitting there, could they?

  Before she could answer, Andrew quickly tore the Post-it off the pad and shoved it in his pocket. “Never mind. I’ll tell them that we’ll ‘get back’ to them too.” He marched off toward the door. “If anyone wants me, I’m going to work at home today.”

  Watching him leave, Jo wondered if she would regret this day and that conversation.

  He wasn’t going to let her get away with it. Andrew was tired of pissing around, trying to be Mr. Nice. If Jo thought for one minute she was going to be rid of him, she was wrong.

  He would start by becoming the man that he could be, the man who had presence, as John Benson had once said, the man who had believability and power. The only thing that Andrew lacked since leaving journalism was the dogged courage to use it.

  But it had worked in television. Surely it could work again, without John Benson driving the Andrew David Kennedy cheerleading bus.

  Plunked on the overstuffed sofa in the living room of his cottage, Andrew stuck the Post-it note to his knee and punched in the numbers on his phone.

  “Andrea Hall,” he said. He drummed his fingers on his other knee and waited.

  “Who?” the other voice inquired.

  “Hall. Andrea Hall.”

  There was a pause, then a short laugh. “Who’s calling, please?”

  Andrew didn’t know what was so funny, but went on anyway. “This is Andrew Kennedy. I’m with Second Chances, the wedding-planning business for second-time brides. Ms. Hall contacted us a few weeks ago. I’m calling her back.” He didn’t have to add that when she’d called, the women had had a good laugh because they were far too busy planning weddings to get mixed up with a magazine. Luckily, Andrew had a much different agenda, a new way to prove his worth.

  Then the voice said, “Well, I’m Andrea Hall. I’m the one who called your company.” She sounded a little bit too perky, which might be good or bad, but Andrew had decided to give up analyzing women.

  “Have you been making progress on your magazine?” he asked, his voice taking control, his presence oozing out.

  “Yes. Yes, we have.” There was silence again, then the woman’s voice turned serious. “In fact,” she said, “what a coincidence you called. I am heading out of town on business. Up to Albany, in fact.”

  “Well, when you get back, maybe we could talk about how Second Chances might help the magazine.”

  “Why wait until then? Albany isn’t that far from the Berkshires, is it?”

  “About forty-five minutes.”

  “Great. When I’m finished there, in a day or two, perhaps I could drop by?”

  “Sure,” Andrew said. “That would be fine.” He gave her quick directions to Second Chances, then they rang off and Andrew thought what a surprise it was that Andrea Hall had remembered they were located in West Hope and that, yes, it was a coincidence she’d be in the area.

  Maybe his believability was even more powerful than John Benson had once thought.

  20

  Lily sat, braced, in the lobby of Wheatleigh—a stately, elegant, nineteenth-century palazzo. She’d thought it would be wise to be there when Antonia arrived, to greet her guest the way Antonia would expect a host to do. Lily would, of course, have preferred to stay on her sofa, curled up with the rabbit, the way she’d done all night.

  She’d slept surprisingly well, considering everything at stake.

  Closing her eyes now, trying to relax the iron rod that once had been her spine, Lily absorbed the quiet calm of the world of wea
lth around her, the kind of world in which she’d lived as Reginald Beckwith’s wife. It was so clear, yet was so long ago.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Beckwith. So happy to see you again,” the concierge at Paris’s Galileo or Oxford’s Great Milton would say. They were small, intimate hotels, the kind Reginald favored for their food and wine and privacy (privvv-acy, he’d said, as if he’d been born a Brit).

  If Wheatleigh reminded Antonia of the places Reginald had loved, Lily might win extra points for having kept him in her thoughts.

  Luckily, the season hadn’t yet started, so she was able to secure three of the nineteen rooms: the Terrace Suite for Antonia, a less costly, superior room for Pauline, and another for Antonia’s driver, whose name Lily could not recall.

  She’d made the reservations, so naturally she would pay the bill, despite that the world it represented no longer belonged to her. Which was rather humorous, because though Antonia would expect the splendor of Wheatleigh, she’d have a cardiac arrest if she knew that her room cost a thousand dollars a night.

  Wait, Lily thought, a half smile tugging at her mouth. Cardiac arrest? Would that be such a bad idea?

  “Would madam care for a cool drink?” The young man who had valet-parked her car was standing next to where Lily sat, grinning one of those not-quite-happy, European grins. He was lean and impeccably groomed and spoke with a Parisian accent that seemed like the real thing.

  “Non,” Lily replied. “Merci.” She supposed it was just as well that he’d interrupted her fun-but-perilous thoughts. Even Lily, after all, wouldn’t want Antonia dead. Who then would be left to challenge Lily’s patience?

  The young man nodded and disappeared under an ornately carved archway that led down a hall or into another room or a closet, for all Lily could tell. She wondered if staying out of view was a tactic used to make the guests feel as if Wheatleigh were their home.

  Her thoughts then drifted to the fact that the hotel would be a perfect place for an exquisite second wedding. Through the tall windows beyond the sleek black piano, Lake Mahkeenac would make an ideal setting for wedding photos. The pool of still water, known as the “Stockbridge Bowl,” was enveloped by the clear blue sky and bright green Berkshire hills—not austere mountain peaks, but friendly, round balls that looked like scoops of pistachio ice cream tucked into a luscious banana split.

  “There are twelve different kinds of fish in the bowl,” Frank had told her one sunny day last autumn when they’d driven to the lookout point on Route 183. She remembered the rainbow trout and the brown trout, the blue gill and the yellow perch, because they were colorful. And the black crappie, she thought with an inward laugh now. She’d teased him about the coarse, manmade-sounding name, and accused him of making it up.

  Frank had laughed, which Lily loved seeing him do because she suspected he hadn’t done that enough in his life. Later they’d driven to the West Hope bookstore, where he showed her the guide to the Appalachian Trail that mentioned the dozen fish, including the black crappie. She had stood on her toes and kissed him right there in the store, and Frank had blushed because the old woman in a cardigan behind the cash register was watching.

  Those were the moments Lily felt most at peace, when she laughed alongside Frank, when she was unguarded, uninhibited, just plain Lily being Lily. Something about Frank’s manner made her always feel at ease.

  She supposed, however, that Antonia would not understand. Any more than she would be impressed with Lily’s Stockbridge Bowl fish trivia.

  Folding her hands, Lily shifted right, then left. Then she fixed her gaze on the front entrance and continued waiting for the crunch of big Mercedes tires to grate the white stone driveway, and for the trill of Antonia’s nonmelodic voice to call out Lily’s name.

  An hour later, just before lunchtime, the black car pulled up to the door. Lily knew it was the largest-model Mercedes made and had a tan interior, and that Antonia replaced the car every two years with an identical one. The woman, after all, loathed change of any kind.

  Lily cleared her throat and willed herself to stand, as the young man appeared again and opened the front door.

  “Antonia,” Lily said. It was then Lily remembered that, with Jo calling off the wedding and Sondra showing up, she hadn’t given another thought to what to do with her sister-in-law.

  Antonia answered with a nod and hauled her squat self from the backseat, tossing the beady-eyed end of her vintage fox fur stole across her shoulder. “I hope they have lunch,” she said. “We’re famished.”

  Well, lunch would take care of the first hour or so.

  “The main dining hall is on your right,” the young man said. “I’ll take your cases to your suite.”

  “Jonathan will tell you what’s what,” Antonia said.

  Jonathan, apparently, was her driver’s name. He was tall and appeared to be a rather youthful forty-five or fifty, Lily guessed. He nodded a nod of comfort if not deference.

  “Pauline,” Antonia continued, addressing the middle-aged, well-groomed woman, “please go with the gentlemen and unpack my bags. I’ll see that trays are sent to your rooms.” She swept past them and entered Wheatleigh. Her respite in the country, apparently, was under way.

  Lily quickly fell in step behind her, half-wishing now that instead of Wheatleigh she’d selected a motel out on Route 7, where wire racks in the lobby held colorful brochures about attractions, places to explore if you were from out of town.

  The Norman Rockwell Museum, Lily thought.

  MOCA—The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

  Chesterwood, maybe. Was that open for the season yet? It was definitely too early for Jacob’s Pillow ballet or the Berkshire opera. Or Tanglewood, yes, too early for Tanglewood.

  And way too soon to navigate back roads and peep at autumn leaves—they had to get through summer first and about a million weddings.

  Oh, Lily thought as they entered the dining room, what on earth was she going to do now that Antonia was here?

  “I know of women who’ve come up here to Laurel Lake Spa,” Antonia remarked after they’d been seated and a waiter snapped a fine linen napkin onto her lap.

  The spa! Why hadn’t Lily thought of that?

  “What a waste of money,” Antonia continued. “As if a mud bath and a facial can take years off one’s life. Besides, I rather like to eat more than a broiled lamp chop and a carrot stick for dinner.” She then ordered the poached cod with mustard-seed crust and Lily said she’d have the same, but it was not until Antonia dove into a baguette with fresh cream butter that Lily had one of her trademark brainstorms—this one, no doubt, sent as a psychic gift from Reginald into her “pretty little brain,” as he’d often called it.

  Lily smiled. “My friends are eager to meet you,” she said. “In fact, they’re planning a dinner in your honor. A gourmet dinner, actually. Our Elaine has become quite a chef.” It had been their idea, after all, to have Antonia come for a visit. “Be her friend,” Elaine had prodded. Well, for that suggestion, surely Elaine wouldn’t mind whipping up an entrée or two; surely Elaine’s father would help.

  “How nice,” Antonia said, “but they needn’t go to any trouble. I’ll be content to sit out on the terrace and catch up on some reading.”

  At first Lily thought the woman was merely being sarcastic. Then she realized that was perhaps how Antonia spent most days: sitting, reading, existing. She felt an odd twinge of compassion. “It’s no trouble, Antonia. My friends really want to.”

  “When?”

  When? The rod stiffened her spine again. “Well, I think they said tonight.”

  Antonia sipped from the glass of fresh lemon water that, like the young man, seemed to have magically appeared. “All right,” she said. “If they insist.”

  “Pauline and Jonathan are welcome too.”

  The woman set down her glass and did not meet Lily’s eyes. “I think not. I’m sure they’ll enjoy an evening to themselves.”

  Lily couldn’t disagree w
ith that.

  “What time?” Antonia asked.

  Lily blinked a long, deliberate blink, as if only then realizing what she’d gone and done. “Well,” she said, “seven, I guess.” Then she wondered how she would tell the others and if this would really work.

  “Please,” Lily begged Elaine, because what else could she do?

  She’d left Antonia to her book, claiming that she’d offered to help prepare the meal. Which was why Lily now stood in the doorway of the kitchen of Elaine’s catering business, next door to Second Chances. She tried to ignore the look of woe Elaine wore.

  “I’m sorry,” Elaine said. “But, Lily, I’m exhausted. We’re all exhausted.” She leaned against one of the shiny stainless counters that Andrew had helped her buy and Frank had helped install. Frank had gutted another room for Elaine too, creating a real chef’s pantry with tons and tons of shelves. He’d been so good to all of them—surely Lily wouldn’t have to say this was the least they could do in return, the least they could do so Lily could marry him and they could live happily-ever-freaking-after.

  “Please, Lainey,” Lily implored. “Antonia will be so impressed when she sees us all together. Andrew can tell her stories about his journeys all over the world. Your father can regale her with tales of Saratoga. And I’m sure she’ll be charmed by Sarah and Sutter. She’s always given generously to American Indian causes.”

  “Lily,” Elaine said. “I can’t. And, anyway, my father and Larry are playing cards with Jo’s mother and Ted tonight.”

  Lily found it inconvenient that so many new characters had come into their lives: Elaine’s father, Bob McNulty, now had a wife he called Larry; Jo’s mother, Marion, had married Ted Cappelinni, the West Hope butcher. So many new people; so many more lives needing to interact.

  “Hell’s bells, everyone can come!” she said. “Antonia will see what a wonderfully stable life I have!”

  Elaine frowned. “I don’t know, Lily. What about Frank? Are you going to include him too?”