Four Steps to the Altar Read online

  Lily’s attorney—who had curiously been connected to the Beckwith fortune too—explained that, according to the will, Antonia was within her rights to set the limit. Lily and Reginald had been married only six years, after all, and it was typewriter-and-adding-machine, Beckwith money.

  Antonia then shrewdly set an adequate amount just over a hardly contestable, “livable” line for Lily, but way less than she deserved. Still, Lily hadn’t balked, because she feared that she might drown in nothing if she made too big a wave.

  “Unless you remarry,” Lily’s former lawyer had explained. “Then all bets are off.”

  She’d thought that was a rather blue-collar remark coming from a stuffy Beckwith lawyer, but at the time Lily truly was in mourning and could not imagine being married to anyone, ever again.

  She should have known that was an uncharacteristic lapse in Lily-like judgment.

  “Well,” Sutter said finally, as he peeled off his eyeglasses, “you’re right. You have a problem.”

  Lily looked out the window, as if one more glance at Andrew would help her feel less desolate, less like the only fish adrift. But wherever he was going, Andrew had disappeared from view, and Lily was alone.

  “I’ll lose everything,” Lily told her friends over lunch after she’d left Sutter’s office, after she’d finally broken down and told Sarah and Jo about Frank’s proposal. “I know that sometimes I seem shallow to all of you, but I lost my parents when I was so young…. I know that money has helped to fill the hole. Okay, I know it’s superficial, but money is my life. And, whether you understand or not, I’m terrified of not having it.”

  They were sitting in the back room of Second Chances—Jo, Sarah, Elaine, and Lily. Andrew had not resurfaced from wherever he’d gone.

  Finally Sarah spoke. “Sutter offered no advice?” she asked, because, of course, she was in love with him and most likely thought that he could walk on legal (and every other kind of) water.

  Lily shook her head. “Antonia is the executrix. Whatever she says goes. Oh,” she said, holding her hand up to her forehead in a Scarlett O’Hara move that she simply couldn’t stop, “what am I going to do?”

  For a moment no one said a word. Then Sarah set down her vegan sandwich, which Elaine had made for all of them today, and said, “If you really want to be with Frank, why do you have to marry him? Antonia couldn’t change anything if you just lived with Frank, could she?”

  “I suppose not. But Frank is old-fashioned, Sarah. And I believe in marriage. We’re not like you and Sutter.” She was glad, at least, that she’d said “you and Sutter” and not “you and Jason,” Sarah’s former live-in lover, the father of Sarah’s son. Still, if Sarah took any offense, she shrugged it off.

  Then Jo spoke up. “I like Frank, Lily. It wasn’t easy for me in the beginning, having him around because of his brother. But even though he’s such a good guy—in fact, maybe because he’s a good guy—you might want to think about whether marrying him would really be the right move for you. Forget about the money aspect. If it weren’t for that, would you really want to be his wife? Do you really want to live here in West Hope forever, have the West Hope social circles become the fun part of your life?”

  Well, of course Lily had thought of that a thousand times already but was too embarrassed to admit it. “Thanks for your thoughts, Jo, but I know that you can’t be objective. Besides, I’ve always thought my social life would revolve around my best friends.” She felt defensive suddenly, irritated that Jo’s old boyfriend, Brian, had been, still was, Frank’s brother, and that Brian was part of the reason Frank was under so much stress.

  “Well,” Sarah added, “it’s not as if Frank is poverty-stricken. He has a long-standing business. He owns some commercial property. The old town hall.”

  And, of course, the building in which they all now worked. Lily sighed. “But he doesn’t have millions,” she said quietly.

  “And when Antonia dies?” Jo asked. “What happens to the money then?”

  “Nothing. I still get my allowance because it comes from the trust fund. The rest goes to charities. The ballet, the opera, maybe stipends to the household help.”

  Elaine poured more coffee from a red-and-white insulated jug. “I know what you should do.”

  All heads turned toward her.

  “Be Antonia’s new best friend.”

  Jo blinked and Sarah laughed and Lily moved her hand to her throat. “Hell’s bells, Elaine. That’s hardly realistic.”

  Elaine got off the stool that sat next to Sarah’s drawing table. With coffee cup in hand, she strolled around the fabrics and the drawings and the wedding props that now adorned almost every square foot of Sarah’s creative space. “I think it is realistic, Lily. You’ve complained about Antonia since you married Reginald. But have you ever tried to be her friend?”

  “She hates me.”

  “She was threatened by you. Once. After all, you stole her baby brother. It doesn’t seem to me that she’s had much else in her life.”

  “She has the ballet and the opera.”

  “But not many friends.”

  “No. She always bitched that she had to take care of her brother because their parents were always traveling to one continent or another. They left Reginald and Antonia with their nanny and the servants.”

  “So Antonia felt responsible. And then, in later years, he married you and the bottom fell out of her world.”

  They were silent again.

  “She doesn’t have friends because she’s not very likable,” Lily finally said.

  “Then maybe she needs you,” Elaine added, “as much as you need her.”

  Jo had learned long ago to try not to intrude on another person’s crisis, to not judge the reasons another person had for thinking a certain way or behaving in ways that she hoped she would not. Lily’s problem was Lily’s, and while they could try to ease her discomfort, they certainly couldn’t convince her that she was being superficial, that maybe now was the time for Lily to grow up.

  Jo was not Lily, so she could not possibly understand Lily’s situation any more than she could fathom why Andrew was in the mood that he was in. Was he having second thoughts about their marriage? Was he getting anxious? He’d be much more anxious if she told him what she’d seen when she went to Cassie’s school, if she told him that her instincts said Cassie might be headed for adolescent trouble.

  Long after the lunch hour, long after the others had resumed their work, Andrew finally called.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi,” Jo replied.

  “I’m home,” he said.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “I have a headache.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Yeah.”

  His voice lacked animation. Maybe he really did have a headache.

  “Did you take something?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Did you take something. For your headache.”

  “Oh. No. Not yet.”

  “Should I come over after work?”

  “Sure. If you want.”

  If she wanted? What the heck was going on? “Maybe I should call first. To be sure you’re not asleep.” She picked up the papers on her desk, arranged them in a pile. Surely she was being foolish, surely everything was fine.

  “No. Come over when you leave work.”

  “Shall I pick up something for supper?”

  “Yes. No. Don’t bother.”

  “It’s no bother, Andrew.”

  He paused. “Well, okay, then. Chinese if you want.”

  “Will Cassie be home?”

  “I guess.”

  “Andrew?” she asked. “Is everything all right?”

  He paused, then said, “Sure. I’ll see you later?”

  “Yes.”

  There was nothing left to say then but good-bye.

  After that, Jo turned back to the checklist for the Gilberts’ wedding and realized that she was the one with a headache no
w.

  13

  When we started this business, we had no conception of the details—and the differences—in planning second weddings instead of firsts. We knew that things would be different, should be different, but we honestly did not know how different they would be.

  We learned quickly.

  Andrew sat at his laptop in the small study off the living room of the cottage, his and Cassie’s cottage, the place they’d grown to love but soon would leave.

  He had walked for more than two hours after he left Second Chances. He thought about Jo, about Cassie, about his future and his past. He thought about the years that he’d been a single dad, about the early times when he sat right there in the cottage, sleepless, worried sick, because Cassie didn’t have a mom.

  He thought about the time he’d gone to the mother–daughter luncheon for the kindergarten kids. He’d been the only father there.

  He thought about the time Cassie had come home from Mrs. Connor’s and asked if he would marry Mrs. Connor so she wouldn’t have to keep schlepping her My Little Pony suitcase back and forth between the houses when Andrew had to go into New York City for one reason or another. He’d laughed at the way Cassie had said “schlep” as if it were a standard word in a six-year-old’s vocabulary. He didn’t laugh at the suggestion that the seventy-year-old Mrs. Connor should become his wife.

  As he walked he’d also thought about when Cassie was eight or nine and she’d given him a Mother’s Day card because she said that she figured he was her mother and her father, wasn’t he? The card was pink and had glitter on the cover and a small white ribbon tied in a bow. Andrew had put it in his drawer, tucked beneath his socks, until he’d gone to teach one day and a student noticed glitter on his shoes. After that he wrapped the card in plastic and moved it to the bottom drawer.

  On his solitary walk, Andrew had thought of all those times and more, but mostly he thought how scared he’d been at first after Patty left, then how at some point—he did not know when—he’d slid into a place of comfort, just him and his daughter, as if she’d never had a mother, as if he’d never had a mate.

  Sometime after an hour and three-quarters had passed, Andrew realized the recent thoughts that he’d been having were like the ones he’d felt back when he and Cassie first moved to West Hope.

  He was not bored. He did not want to go back to New York City, back into television, back into the life of a semi-celebrity. He did not feel less a man because he could make an awesome meat loaf (in fact he was secretly proud of that).

  The problem was, Andrew Kennedy was scared.

  Scared of marriage.

  Scared of commitment.

  But mostly, scared of losing everything a second time around.

  But it wasn’t until he hung up from talking to Jo that it occurred to him he might not be the only “second-timer” with those kinds of feelings.

  So he’d sat down at his laptop and begun to write the blog, to write with optimism and with information, to write with wit and charm, as if he was one of the women of Second Chances, administering advice.

  He decided to write the opening installment as if he were Jo. Maybe the blog would recharge his spirit the way his Buzz magazine column once had; maybe it would lighten his mood if he pretended to be inside her head and not his own.

  In the course of wedding planning, we’ve also learned that getting married a second (or third, or more!) time has more problems beyond the ceremonial or the emotional kind. There are many basics to address! Here are a few examples: 1. His place or hers: Where the heck will you live? It seems like an obvious problem, but at this stage of life, you both most likely have made some kind of home. Which one of you is more willing or able to make the move? The ideal situation is to start fresh. Begin with a new home that the two of you can create—one without memories of other spouses or lovers, the good or the bad—a place that will be yours with your new family. Andrew and I are lucky enough to be moving into what was my grandparents’ home, the home where I was raised. But we are planning major renovations and an addition that will make it seem new, even to me.

  He grinned again, hoping that was how she felt. The renovations hardly made the place “new,” but at least Jo hadn’t lived there with anyone except her mother and her grandparents. He winced at the reminder that though this was his second wedding, it would be Jo’s first. Brian Forbes, thank God, didn’t count for anything. Brian Forbes would never be lucky enough to live in Jo’s house with her.

  Then he thought about Cassie, and he quickly typed:

  2. If kids are in the picture, this is an even bigger consideration. Neighborhoods, schools, and their “rooms” must be carefully thought out.

  Cassie would like the new setup at Jo’s. Though she’d be leaving her small, familiar room, she’d have two rooms upstairs—the largest bedroom and the next-largest for a study/TV/computer room. The upstairs bathroom would be all hers. Andrew promised not even to use it when he was in the third upstairs bedroom that would be his study. All in all, Cassie would have lots of room for all her stuff, though she’d be happiest, of course, if she got the purple paint she wanted.

  Which led him to think of all the junk that he’d accumulated in the cottage and what he’d leave behind. Like what about the pots and pans he’d picked up at tag sales because when they’d moved out of the city he’d wanted no reminders of Patty’s presence, not the towels that he hung on the bathroom racks, not the soufflé dish in which she prepared chocolate soufflé, the only thing that she knew how to make?

  He shut his eyes and continued.

  3. Who has the best potato peeler or stereo system or bathroom towels? As in example #1, you both probably have a complete kitchen, bath, and a bevy of stuff. We suggest you spend a weekend with your “intended” to go over these “essentials,” and have a big garage sale, unless you plan on doubling the size of your house.

  In less than three weeks he and Jo would be married and they hadn’t done this yet. Even the new family room and master suite would not make the house able to accommodate two houses full of junk.

  He sat back in his chair and drew in a deep breath. He reread the entry. Then he thought about the other issue weighing on his mind. Hesitating for only a moment, he wrote,

  4. Will the bride take the groom’s name, or will she keep her own?

  He stared at the words that stared back at him. Why did this question seem like such a big freaking deal?

  And then Andrew knew the answer.

  Patty, Cassie’s mother, had never taken Andrew’s name. She had her career, she’d explained. She had her image to maintain.

  So Patty had remained Patty O’Shay, international cover girl, independent woman, who needed nothing from her husband, not even his name.

  He blinked, then saved the words that he had typed. He opened a new file that he titled blog stuff. As soon as the women agreed to this support system for second-timers, he’d have some opening material all set to go.

  And who knew, he realized, maybe someone in the big, blog audience out there in the universe would strike up a dialogue on this name-changing thing, and he would finally be able to relax, and he and Jo would live happily ever after, after all.

  14

  With a little luck, Lily would get Antonia’s answering service—a real woman named Claudia, because, as with most things, Antonia refused to go modern.

  Lily sat on the pink-and-white-striped sofa in her tiny living room above Second Chances. She stared at the cordless phone she held in her hand and told herself she had nothing to lose. Antonia didn’t like her—had never liked her—so an attempt to befriend the woman wasn’t going to upset the family apple cart.

  The first time they’d met was a disaster. Reginald had wanted to buy a yacht to use in the summers to traverse the Mediterranean, specifically the waters surrounding Sardinia, the small island off Italy that had entranced him since he was a boy.

  Lily and Reginald were in the early stages of their relationship. They’d met t
hrough a “mutual friend”—the nail technician who buffed Reginald on Thursdays at three o’clock and did Lily’s acrylics on Thursdays at four. The woman convinced Reginald to wait one afternoon, saying she knew a young divorcée he might like. By five-thirty Lily and Reginald were having drinks at the Pierre. No one ever knew that Lily had been the one to instigate the introduction, that one week earlier she’d grilled the nail tech about her customer list, then presented her with a most generous tip.

  Reginald didn’t tell Lily about his sister until their fourth date.

  “She raised me,” he’d said, and Lily thought that was wonderful because the closest she’d ever come to having siblings had been Jo, Sarah, and Elaine, and she hadn’t met them until college.

  He told Lily happy tales of trips to Europe on grand ocean liners in the early 1950s; his mother had been afraid of airplanes. The ships were luxurious and slow—in the daytime Antonia played checkers with him in the card room, at night the rhythm of the waves rocked young Reginald to sleep, while his older sister sang soft lullabies, imitating the soothing voices of Rosemary Clooney and Julie London.

  Lily hadn’t known who the singers were, but she could tell the trips represented fond times in Reginald’s memory.

  “Antonia never married,” he said with sadness. “But I’ve been lucky that instead she’s watched over me.”

  Lucky, indeed.

  She’s too young.

  She’s too flighty.

  She’s only after our money.

  Although Lily never heard Antonia say any of those things to her brother, the sentiments were plainly etched between the lines that formed on the woman’s forehead when Reginald at last introduced them.

  He brought Lily to the family home on Madison Avenue because, even then, Antonia rarely went out, except for Pavarotti or Baryshnikov or whoever the woman deemed their reasonable facsimiles. Maybe she was afraid of the New York City streets the way her mother had feared airplanes.

  They’d had tea and cookies. The words were sparse: Where had Lily gone to college? Where was her family home? Where did she have her coming out?