Four Steps to the Altar Read online

  She opened to Chapter One, thought about reading, then had a better idea.

  Andrew scooped another spoonful of macaroni and cheese onto his plate as he tried to think of an effective way to bring up the issue that Cassie had caught Jo naked in his bed. It was the perfect opportunity, with just the two of them there. How long had it been since they’d had dinner without Jo? Too long, he thought guiltily. He was still Cassie’s dad, and though they’d be a new family, he must remember to reserve time for Cassie alone, just the two of them, the way it had been for six years.

  And they were great together! Father and daughter, her apple not falling too far from his like-minded tree. There was nothing they couldn’t talk about, least of all this. Hell, they’d had the birds-and-the-bees talk a couple of years ago, when Cassie informed him she knew everything. She’d always made these kinds of “delicate” matters easy on him, like when she’d been the one to say she needed a bra, or when she’d started her period and asked the school nurse to help her pick up some “things.” And all that girlie stuff aside, Andrew had told Jo the truth: Cassie was crazy about her.

  So why did he feel awkward now? Why didn’t he know where to start?

  He chewed slowly and decided to proceed in the tradition of rock stars and comedians and warm up his audience first. “It’s really nice that Mrs. Connor still sends dinner over sometimes.” Mrs. Connor was their next-door neighbor, who had saved Andrew’s single-parent butt on more than one occasion, first as Cassie’s grandmotherly babysitter, now as a responsible adult to help out with his daughter when he was held up or when Cassie needed a ride to or from somewhere. Though Mrs. Connor knew Andrew and Jo would soon be married and he and Cassie would move to Jo’s house, she continued to supply a homemade dinner at least once a week. “She’s going to miss us,” he added.

  Cassie shrugged a no-big-deal kind of shrug.

  “It’s good,” he said. “The macaroni.”

  She nodded.

  Well, he wondered, as the two of them nibbled away at his window of opportunity, he supposed he could say that Jo mentioned Cassie forgot her homework and he could ask if she found it all right.

  “So,” he said, “did you have a good day at school?”

  She looked at him and rolled her eyes. It was a move that always reminded him of Cassie’s mother, the woman who’d dumped Andrew and Cassie and broken both their hearts.

  She finished her broccoli, because Cassie was a rare kid who loved vegetables. She even had toyed with becoming a vegetarian when she’d had her first crush, on Sarah’s son, Burch.

  “I had my interview at the college today,” Andrew said, then regretted that he’d turned the focus onto him.

  “Cool. Are you going back to teach?”

  “I hope so. I don’t know yet. It’s up to them.” He ate more of the casserole and wondered if Mrs. Connor would give Jo the recipe. Check that, he said to himself, I should get the recipe for myself. So I can make it when it’s my night to cook. He smiled, loving the potential of his new life, knowing it would be wonderfully different from the superficial years he’d spent with Patty.

  Then Cassie’s head turned to the black plastic cat clock whose eyes moved back and forth in time with the swing of its pendulum tail. “I have a biology test tomorrow,” she said as she stood up. “I have to call Marilla. We didn’t finish studying before her mother brought me home.”

  “Wait,” Andrew said quickly and a little too loudly as he dropped his fork. He didn’t want his chance to slide by. “You know Jo stayed here last night,” he blurted out. Well, he supposed, that was one way to do it: straight to the slightly embarrassing point.

  Cassie’s eyes didn’t meet his. Had that ever happened before?

  Andrew scowled. “Jo is kind of freaked about it, but I told her you’d be fine, that you know we’re getting married and it wouldn’t be giving you any ‘wrong kind of message.’ ” He tried to smile a slightly conspiratorial smile, a just-between-them look to reassure Cassie that he might be marrying Jo but Cassie would not lose her position as his closest friend.

  It would have helped if she’d just turn her eyes toward him.

  Her silence lasted a heartbeat too long. Finally she said, “Sure, Dad, I’m cool with it.” She remained standing as if awaiting further instructions, then Andrew said, “Oh. Well, good.”

  Then Cassie left the kitchen and Andrew stared at the remnants of dinner still on his plate and wondered why a small knot was now at the bottom of his stomach where the macaroni and cheese ought to be.

  7

  Jo knew that, because it was Monday evening, Marion’s new husband, Ted, would be at his West Hope Men’s Club meeting, and Jo’s mother would be alone in the beautiful condo overlooking the tall pines and sloping lawns on the back side of Tanglewood.

  Peering through the glass doors off the deck, Jo saw Marion at the new kitchen table. She seemed to be poking through her small metal recipe box, the same metal box Jo had seen all her life, the one that had helped produce everything from salmon loaf with a sauce of creamed peas to congo bars for the church fair. Jo watched her mother, now aging and content. She marveled at the fact that though Marion was ensconced in the pretty, tri-level home, the love and the goodness of things that “really mattered” appeared to have stayed intact. Jo wondered if she would stay the same once she married Andrew, once she became a stepmother to Cassie.

  She drew in a short breath and knocked on the door.

  “Tea,” Marion stated once Jo was inside and seated at the table with the recipe box. “Where’s the groom tonight?”

  Jo smiled. It seemed she always did that now whenever Andrew’s name came up. “Home with Cassie. I needed a night to myself.”

  Marion put a kettle of water on the stove, ignited the burner beneath it. “So here you are at your mother’s. Not by yourself after all.”

  Marion was nothing if not astute.

  Pulling the recipe box toward her, Jo flicked through the yellowed index cards, past recipes written in her grandmother’s handwriting, past others typed no doubt on Marion’s typewriter when she was at work as a clerk down at the town hall. “Mom,” she said, “I’m trying to figure out how to be a good stepmother to Cassie.”

  Marion nodded, dropped tea bags into mugs. “You’ll do it slowly, honey. You’ll be fine. Cassie is a nice girl.”

  “She’s twelve.”

  Marion nodded.

  “I saw her at school today. I went to pick her up, but she wasn’t interested. Mom, she was dressed in a ridiculously short miniskirt with her navel on display. And she had on eye makeup that I’m sure Andrew has never seen, let alone would approve of.”

  Marion nodded again; the teakettle whistled.

  “Should I tell Andrew? Should I talk to Cassie? I feel like she’s sneaking around behind his back, trying to look like she’s twenty-one. How am I supposed to know how to handle this? I mean, what if Cassie gets angry and decides she doesn’t like me?”

  Marion poured the water, brought the mugs to the table, and sat down. “Stop trying so hard,” she said.

  Jo blinked, and Marion smiled.

  “First of all,” Marion continued, “Cassie isn’t your responsibility, she’s Andrew’s. You don’t have to be her mother; just try being her friend. Maybe she’s going through a stage, maybe she’s just doing ordinary growing-up things. Keep an eye on her. If you really feel this behavior is becoming a problem, then you can decide what to do. But right now, don’t be a stool pigeon. Nobody likes stool pigeons.”

  Jo put her elbows on the table, rested her chin in her hands.

  “Whatever is going on,” Marion continued, “give Cassie the time and the space to be herself. The way I let you be yourself.”

  There was no point in mentioning that Marion had not known about some of the ways in which Jo had been “herself.”

  Then Marion leaned across the table toward Jo. “You and Sandy weren’t angels, I know that,” she said. “I knew about the time you threw stone
s at that boy’s bedroom window and broke it. What was his name?”

  Jo nearly knocked over her tea. She felt silly, embarrassed, shy. “Danny,” Jo said. “Danny Peterson.”

  “You had such a crush on him.” Marion smiled.

  Shaking her head, Jo asked, “Mother? How did you know?”

  “Because the boy’s father called. He saw the two of you running away through the bushes. It was dark, but he heard Sandy call out, ‘Jo, slow down!’ As far as he knew there was only one girl in all of West Hope who could have answered to that name.”

  Of all the problems between Jo and her mother—and there had been several over the years—Jo had never known, never suspected, that Marion would have kept this a secret. “You never told me you knew.”

  “No. I paid for the window and decided it was best not to mention it. You were mortified enough that the boy you were madly in love with was madly in love with someone else.” Marion smiled, then added, “Alicia Barnes. Yes. I knew that part too.”

  Jo smiled. “Well,” she said, letting her hands fall onto the table. “Thanks.”

  Marion covered Jo’s hands with hers. “All I’m saying is, take it slow with Cassie. My bet is she already knows her boundaries. Keep an eye on the ball and an ear to the ground, but don’t alienate her by asking for trouble.”

  Jo wondered when her mother had become so smart, and why Jo hadn’t known that when she was twelve.

  Lily had decided to act as if nothing were wrong, as if she were still in the “thinking” stages about marrying Frank, as if she still intended to give him an answer after Andrew and Jo’s wedding, after the chaos quieted.

  The truth was, she was mortified that she’d confessed to Elaine about the money and Frank and how reprehensible she really was at heart, and Elaine had made matters worse by saying, “If the money thing bothers you so much, Lily, why don’t you just say no?”

  Lily didn’t know the answer to that question, any more than she knew what had made her think she could fight her narcissistic, shallow demons by calling Frank and offering to make dinner for him and his father and his mother, who was in the hospital bed in the living room.

  Could one good deed really make up for all her self-centered ones?

  Of course, Lily’s idea of “making” dinner consisted of plundering Elaine’s refrigerators for wedding-reception leftovers, which was why she now stood in the Forbes’s kitchen having served spinach quiche and crab cakes and scallops wrapped in bacon.

  “It’s the thought that counts,” Frank said.

  “Did you make these yourself?” his father asked, devouring his sixth or seventh scallop.

  Frank’s mother, Eleanor—who apparently had the C word though no one discussed it, which was fine with Lily—only wanted toast with a bit of grape jelly. Lily placed it on a napkin with gold printing that read, Jaimie and Stuart, April 1, 2006, and brought it to the other room.

  The woman’s eyes stared at the wall next to the fireplace, as if she were counting pale hydrangea blossoms on the old beige wallpaper. Maybe she was simply listening to the beep-beep coming from the monitor beside her.

  “Sit,” Eleanor instructed, patting the edge of the bed.

  Lily sat, careful not to bump the tubes that zigzagged from the IV drips into the woman’s arm like cables from a DVD player into a television set. She’d met Eleanor twice before but had never seen her out of bed, had no idea if she was tall or short, plump or not, though she seemed soft-spoken, sweet.

  “It’s Lily, isn’t it?” the woman asked, and Lily felt a snap of guilt that she’d spent so little time trying to get to know Frank’s family. She was afraid of getting too attached, she guessed. Too attached, too committed, too exposed.

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s Lily. Lily Beckwith.”

  Eleanor Forbes nodded, then she asked, “Are you going to marry Frank?” Her voice was a mere whisper, either from her illness or so the men wouldn’t overhear.

  Lily didn’t know how to answer, so she said, “I don’t know.”

  Eleanor touched Lily’s hand. “He’s a nice boy, my Frank. It’s wonderful that he turned out so nice when his brother, Brian, turned out so…” Her voice trailed off and her eyes closed, and for a moment Lily wondered if she had fallen asleep. Or maybe she had died.

  The monitor beep-beeped.

  “Mrs. Forbes?” she asked, looking down at the woman’s thin hand that remained on hers, hoping beyond hope that the woman was still alive. Lily would say, Yes! she’d marry Frank, if that would bring Eleanor back to life.

  The eyelids fluttered open. The kind face smiled. “You should marry him,” she said. “You’re not like Sondra, are you?”

  Lily grinned. “No,” she said, “I’m not like Sondra,” having no idea, really, if she was or not. Frank so rarely talked about his former wife, and that was fine with Lily, because that meant there was nothing she had to live up to or make up for.

  “He deserves a nice girl,” Eleanor continued, as if Lily needed one more layer of guilt. She’d had so many layers excavated in recent days she now felt like a piece of Elaine’s baklava.

  The woman began to cough and Lily held her breath.

  “Can I get you some water? Some tea, perhaps?”

  But Eleanor just shook her head and seemed to try to smile.

  Lily stood up. Her knees were weak. Good grief, she’d never sat so close to someone who was so sick. She’d like to leave the house, run away, and not come back, not have to deal with the reality of the life and death that was evolving right here in this house. She’d like to handle this the way Aunt Margaret would.

  But Lily was not Aunt Margaret, so she smiled and said, “I hope you enjoy your toast,” hoping she didn’t sound abrupt. “I need to check on Frank and your husband in the other room.” She guided the woman’s hand toward the wedding napkin, then went back to the kitchen, where Mr. Forbes was working on the quiche.

  “So,” Frank said, “this was a nice surprise.”

  Lily forced another smile, hoping it did not look fake, hoping it concealed the raw emotion she felt. “Yes, well, you have a lot on your hands. You have your own business to run, you have this house to run, and you’ve been helping us at the shop…”

  “My pleasure,” he said, and she felt the guilt twang again.

  “But this is what friends are for, right, Mr. Forbes?” she asked.

  The elderly man nodded and washed down his meal with black coffee that Frank must have made while Lily was with his mother. “Are you going to marry my son?” the elder Forbes man suddenly asked.

  Frank said, “Dad…”

  Lily stepped back and said, “Well, now, wherever did you get an idea like that?”

  “ ‘Lily this’ and ‘Lily that.’ That’s all we ever hear. Just ask Eleanor.” His old eyes danced and he winked at Lily.

  “If you’re trying to flatter me, Mr. Forbes, it’s working.” She opened a small box that Elaine had packed with butter cookies.

  “So?” he asked. “Are you or aren’t you?”

  “Dad,” Frank said again, then playfully shoved a cookie into his father’s mouth. “That’s enough.”

  Lily forced another smile, then picked up the trays and brought them to the sink, tears threatening her eyes. What on earth made her think she deserved to be with them, such a nice, stable family, such loving, kindhearted souls?

  Andrew sat in the driveway, wondering why Jo wasn’t home. He’d driven over unannounced, to collect a goodnight kiss.

  But where the heck was she?

  He had a key now; he could go inside the house. But her car was gone; the place was dark. And so he hesitated.

  She’d said she needed time alone. Had she meant that what she needed was time away from him?

  Stop it, he told himself. This is Jo. This is not Patty.

  He had his small surprise all planned. He was going to rap-rap on the kitchen door. He was going to smile and look “little boy cute” and charm her the way he’d once charmed millio
ns of television viewers.

  He was going to kiss her once, then leave. He’d read in an old Buzz magazine that that was a very sexy thing to do.

  But he couldn’t kiss her if she wasn’t home.

  Where the heck was she?

  It was too late to be shopping, too late for much of anything in West Hope.

  So he sat there another moment, wondering if he should wait, wondering if that would make her think that he’d been spying on her, that he was trying to smother her, smother being the word Patty had used when he’d complained she wasn’t spending enough time with him and Cassie. Smother being the word she’d used to try to cover up for her late nights and secret forays with the Australian bastard she ended up running away with.

  He looked up the street, then down the street, hoping Jo’s car would come. There were no headlights, though.

  If he sat here much longer, he supposed he would go nuts.

  Instead, Andrew shifted the old Volvo into reverse. He hesitated a moment, promising himself that he would not make a big deal out of this by mentioning it to Jo, reminding himself that he could trust her, because she was not, was not, Patty.

  Then he took a deep, deep breath and backed out of the driveway, wondering if and how he would survive this new commitment, and if love did this to everyone, made them totally irrational.

  8

  Hi. I’m Teri Higgins. Can you handle a wedding with eighteen attendants?”

  It was four o’clock the next afternoon. Lily was alone—abandoned!—in the showroom at Second Chances, tap-tapping a pencil as she sat at Jo’s desk, wishing the others hadn’t left and taken with them their distraction, wishing something would happen to take her mind off thoughts of Frank and the Forbes family and Antonia and the Beckwith money, which had kept her agitated most of the night, the morning, and the whole damn afternoon.

  Work, she supposed, would be the antidote that Jo would recommend.