Authors: Jean Stone
“It won’t be a barn for long!” Tess cried. “It’s going to
be my studio. Where world-famous hand-blown works of art will be created!”
Suddenly Peter was by her side. “We’re happy for you, Tess,” he said. “I’m glad that things worked out.”
Tess shrugged. “So far, so good. Now, we’d better get those caps and gowns back or we’ll have to pay a penalty.”
“Wait, Tess,” Charlie said. “We need to ask you something.”
Tess felt a stirring in her stomach, as though she were the one with the baby inside, kicking.
“You will help, won’t you?” Charlie said.
The pseudo-baby kicked again.
“With the wedding?” Charlie continued.
Tess rubbed her stomach. “Help?”
“You’re so creative. We thought if you could arrange the flowers …”
Tess shot a quick glance at Peter, then looked back to Charlie.
Hell
, she thought,
what difference does it make now? My mother is dead and won’t have to witness it, and I won’t have to listen to her after the bride and groom kiss. Besides
, she remembered with a smile,
I’ll be the one to get the greatest prize. I’ll be the one to have a family and a great career, too. I won’t be the one to have to live under the cold cloud of Elizabeth Hobart, the world’s greatest bitch.
“I’d love to help,” she answered.
“Great,” Charlie said. “And there’s one other thing I’d like to ask.”
Tess jerked the muscles in her knees, trying to brace herself as she watched Charlie slip her arm through Peter’s.
“Will you be my maid of honor?”
It was going to be a candlelit ceremony at Helen Hills Hills Chapel. Candlelit, so that Marina could attend, so that she could leave Tess’s house in the darkness and no one would notice that the princess was still in town, and no one would notice the secret bulge under her dress. Tess stood in the foyer of the small white church and surveyed the altar. She tried to picture a young Sally Spooner and an eager Joseph Richards standing there, holding hands, taking their vows to love and to cherish until death do they part. She wondered if they had held hands when the plane began to
crash; if they were still connected when death, indeed, parted them.
She clutched her sketch pad and walked slowly down the aisle. It was strange to think that after all her mother’s dreams, Tess would soon be walking down this aisle, with Peter Hobart standing at its end, awaiting his bride. The bride who would be following Tess.
The wedding, however, would hardly seem like a wedding. Charlie would not wear a gown—she’d said it seemed a frivolous thing to do, when the only guests would be her parents, Marina, Nicholas, Dell, and Tess. Tess thought it weird that Charlie didn’t even want her brothers and sisters there. It didn’t surprise her, though, that Elizabeth Hobart had not been invited, not even informed.
“We think it’s for the best,” Peter had explained to Tess, and though Tess had heartily agreed, she’d wished otherwise. Maybe Elizabeth Hobart could have stopped the wedding. Or at the very least, maybe she would have ruined it.
She shook off her old wish for revenge, reminding herself what revenge had once done. What it had done to Charlie; what it had done to herself.
She went up to the altar and forced herself to focus on flowers. She decided that two sprays of white flowers would suffice—a mix of white orchids for elegance, white gardenias for fragrance, and delicate baby’s breath for an ethereal look. She quickly sketched the shape of the arrangements and flinched.
White.
As if Charlie were a virgin. Though Charlie had never discussed it, Tess was certain that the bride and groom most assuredly had an active sex life. She gripped her pencil more tightly and tried not to imagine how Peter looked naked, glistening with sweat, his penis rock hard. She tried not to imagine his hands exploring Charlie’s body, his lips pressed on her nipples, his taut thighs grazing hers. She tried not to imagine it, and yet she did.
She slammed her book shut and sighed.
Life
, she thought,
is so very strange.
She wondered if she would ever feel a man’s arms around her again. Then she wondered if it even mattered. After all, she was going to have a family: a baby to love, a baby who would love her back. Love her for herself. And that was better than any self-centered man could ever be.
She squeezed her eyes shut and wished the time to pass.
Dell had convinced Tess to wait until after Charlie and Peter’s wedding to tell Marina of her plan; until then, Marina believed that Dell was making arrangements for the adoption. There wasn’t really any hurry; the baby wasn’t going anywhere. Still the five weeks until July first seemed an eternity away. It was hard to wait to tell Marina what she wanted to do for her. She savored the thought of Marina’s gratitude, looked forward to proving herself with this, the best, most selfless thing she’d ever done. Finally she would erase the old, bad, unworthy Tess and become the new Tess, the real Tess, the Tess she had really always been underneath it all.
Tess nodded slowly, as if to reassure herself, then she left the chapel and walked slowly up the hill toward her new home, her future. She only hoped that Peter wasn’t there, sitting at her new oak kitchen table, making cow eyes over Charlie. She really didn’t think she could stand that today.
Peter wasn’t there, but Marina and Charlie were. As Tess walked in the back door, she noticed that Charlie had her arm around Marina. And that Marina was crying.
“What’s wrong?” Tess asked, tossing her sketchbook on the worn Formica counter that she had promised herself she would change to butcher block as soon as everyone was gone. Even though her home was small and old, it was going to be comfortable, classy, and contemporary. The kind of home to which her child would want to bring his—or her—friends. A home, not a house. Not the kind of stuffed-shirt place where Tess was raised on Nob Hill.
“Nothing,” Marina sniffed. “Nothing’s wrong.” She put a tissue to her face and wiped her tears.
“Sure,” Tess said. “I always bawl when nothing’s wrong, too.”
Charlie shook her head. “I think Marina’s happy.”
Tess scowled. “Why?”
“Because I am very lucky,” Marina said. “Very lucky to have friends like you.”
Tess folded her arms around her. It was uncomfortable, this show of emotion from the princess. Tess wasn’t sure how to react.
“We think we’re pretty lucky to have you, too,” Charlie
said. “And Peter and I will do everything so that you’ll never regret what you’ve done.”
Tess leaned against the old counter. Suddenly, she felt like an outsider. In fact, every time she heard the names Charlie and Peter linked together she felt like an outsider. The one who didn’t quite fit in. “Exactly what is Marina not going to regret?”
Charlie smiled. “We weren’t going to give you the good news until after the wedding.”
“Good news?” Tess asked, suddenly feeling a little sick to her stomach.
What good news?
Were Charlie and Peter planning to stay in Northampton?
God
, Tess thought,
that would be about the worse news I could hear.
“Do you want to tell her, Marina? Or should I?”
“I’ll tell her. Tess.” Marina’s black mascara stained her cheeks, but her lips were turned up in a smile. “Charlie is going to do the most wonderful thing for me.”
Tess raised her eyebrows and looked at Charlie.
“Not just me,” Charlie said. “Peter, too.”
Marina nodded. “Peter, too. Peter and Charlie.”
Tess shifted from one foot to the other. The sick feeling in her stomach grew.
“Peter and Charlie …” Marina continued. “They have decided to adopt my baby.”
Ever so slowly, the room began to sway. Tess grabbed the counter. Her knees buckled. She tried to take a deep breath but something was crushing her chest. “What?” she asked weakly.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Marina asked. “My baby will not be raised by strangers. My baby will be raised in a wonderful home, with loving parents. It will have a wonderful life, a life of freedom.”
“But …” Tess started to protest, then realized she had nothing to protest. She moved slowly to the sink and stared out the window, into the small backyard. She had planned to put a swing set there … a slippery slide …
“No,” she said. “You can’t do this.”
“What?” Marina asked.
“You can’t. You can’t give your baby to Charlie and Peter.”
“What are you talking about?” Marina asked.
Tess turned sharply around and faced them again. “You can’t do it. Elizabeth Hobart will never accept that baby.”
“Elizabeth Hobart,” Charlie said, “is never going to know.”
Tess pushed her weight against the counter. The sharp edge dug into her spine.
“She will think the baby is ours. She will never turn away a child of Peter’s.”
“What if someone tells her?” Tess’s thoughts raced.
Could she do that? Would she do that?
She thought of Willie Benson again, and of what she’d once done. She felt a strong urge to vomit.
“Who’s going to tell her?” Marina asked. “We’re the only ones who know. And Nicholas. And Dell.”
“And my parents,” Charlie added. “Peter wanted them to know, so they wouldn’t think he and I had to get married.”
Tess rung her hands together. Inside, her mouth was dry as sand. “Well, you never know …”
“Elizabeth Hobart is not going to find out,” Charlie insisted. “And even if she does, it will be too late. Peter and I will be legally married.”
“And my baby will be legally theirs,” Marina added.
So, Tess thought, even if she wanted to, telling Elizabeth Hobart would accomplish nothing.
She turned her head and choked back unwanted tears. She couldn’t let them see her cry. Of course they would never think of
her
as the right mother for Marina’s baby. At least, not in comparison with Charlie and Peter. “Are you …” She struggled for words, words that she feared would make no difference. “Are you going to see your baby? Watch it grow up?”
“No,” Marina said firmly. “We will have no contact. The baby will belong to Charlie.”
The baby will belong to Charlie.
Tess had been foolish to think she could raise Marina’s baby. She’d been foolish to think anything could go right for her. She had lost Peter—never, in truth, even had him—she had lost her parents, and now she was losing Marina’s child. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.
And now all she could do was hope they never found out the ridiculous thing she’d been planning. The only one
who would know her embarrassment would be Dell. And Tess could trust Dell. Dell was her friend.
The wedding was lovely. Marina sat in the front pew of the chapel, placed her hands over the swell of her stomach, and watched Charlie and Peter—the parents of her soon-to-be-born child—pledge their love. She promised herself there would be no more tears; she was doing the best thing for the baby, for herself, and for Novokia. But most of all, for the baby. This baby who would be raised without the stigma of royalty, without the chains of duty.
As Charlie and Peter kissed at the altar, Tess, standing next to them, had her eyes fixed on the flowers. Marina felt compassion for Tess, the one who could never seem to get anything right. Tess, Marina knew, had believed herself in love with Peter.
Well
, Marina thought,
I love this baby inside of me. Sometimes, we must let go of those things we love the most.
And then she thought of Edward James, the man who had shown her love. She wondered if they could have had a future together, if only things had been different. If only she were not a princess; if only he were not married. She stroked her stomach. The life Edward James had given her—the love—responded with a kick. Marina smiled.
After the ceremony, they returned to the house. Dell had been cooking for days, as though a party of two hundred would be present. Tonight, however, Marina wasn’t hungry. There was something else she wanted to do.
“Nicholas,” Marina said in the back of the church as the small group filed out, “I would like to go for a walk. You do not need to come.”
Nicholas checked the clock on the wall. “It is after ten, Princess. A little late for walking.”
“I cannot go during the daylight hours. I need some exercise.” She pushed back her plate of half-eaten potato salad and spinach soufflé and struggled to stand. At seven and a half months it was becoming more and more difficult to sit for any length of time. “As I said,” Marina repeated, “you do not have to come along.”
Nicholas stood. “I will say my good-byes to Charlie and Peter. I am not about to let you go walking around alone this late at night.”
Marina smiled and put on the short red wig she kept by the back door. Not that anyone was looking for her, not that anyone knew the princess was even still in town, yet a necessary precaution nonetheless.
Outside, they walked down Round Hill Road and crossed Elm. Nicholas didn’t question the direction in which Marina led him.
She glanced up at the street sign—Paradise Lane—and took a right. It was something she’d done only once before—once, the night after she and Edward returned from Vermont. Now, Marina wanted to look again. One long look, one last look. And then she would truly find peace.
There were no lights on in the white cottage with the dark green shutters. Marina hadn’t expected to see any. Edward and his wife were by now safely off to London for the summer. Still, she wanted to look. She wanted to feel the warmth of his home, the presence of his life.
She stopped walking and stared at the house. “This is a lovely home,” she said to Nicholas, as she gazed at the window boxes, full with red geraniums, welcoming all who passed by.
“Not much different from a lot of other houses around here,” he answered. “Smaller, in fact.”
Marina nodded. She tried to see inside the downstairs windows; the shades were drawn. She smiled as she thought of her own window shade drawn so many times, signaling first Viktor, then Nicholas, that she was safe and sound for the night. Except, of course, for one special day—one special day and night—when she’d escaped Nicholas and was safe and sound not in Morris House, but in Edward’s arms.