“Abundance is about fantasy.” She had a flash of the silent walk she’d taken with John through the Stanley Park Rose Garden, the perfect spot for a fantasy English tea. She cleared her throat. “But Abundance is a fantasy that any woman can possess and really experience.” She pointed to the four piles of bath products set out on the big work table. Individually they were divine. Collectively, they were goddess heaven with their silver and blue crinkly wraps and bottles.
“Okay.” She took a deep lavender breath in. “A woman, in some secret part of her heart, wants to live a fantasy, not just dream one. We want to be Audrey Hepburn standing outside Tiffany’s with a pastry and an enigmatic smile. We also want to be one of Charlie’s Angels and kick a man to the ground and look fabulous in a gold bikini and take off with our girlfriends in a million dollar sports car that flies.”
Celia’s mouth was open enough to give vision to her awe and surprise.
John turned to Stella. “Can you verify this, Mother?”
Stella laughed and shook her head at Mara, “Hell, yes.”
Mara felt the pleasure of having Stella with her. “And,” she turned to Celia, “it’s more than the ninja kicking power we want. We dream about the English countryside and a picnic with those little cucumber sandwiches and bubbly champagne. We want the elegant…” she kept her eyes on Celia to avoid John’s. She didn’t want him to think he was the… “really attractive duke who wants to kiss us but respects us so much, he’s going to wait until after the tea.”
Celia’s face lit up. “And we’ve got on that great dress with the tiny pastel flowers and the hat. The hat is so cool, and he just kinda leans under it to put his lips to mine.”
“Celia, gross.” Dylan grimaced. “It’s like seeing your sister, really, can you guys stop?”
Celia smirked at him with a definite sister face. “Like you’d think it was gross if Gretchen was wearin’ the hat.” She waited for a response, but Dylan blushed in silence.
John jostled him in a guy locker room way. “Can’t live the fantasy, man.”
Mara considered that she wouldn’t have put Dylan with Gretchen. Gretchen might only be five years older, but she had such focus and drive. But then Dylan had made an entire life for himself from the age of fifteen, so maybe the match wasn’t a stretch.
“Hello…” Dylan cleared his throat. “About the catalog?”
Mara took pity on him. “Absolutely. And, I think the point’s been demonstrated. The fact that you think it’s gross, Dylan, helps me to know that I’m on to something. You aren’t a demographic that buys bath goods.”
“So how,” John studied the four piles of bath products, “are you going to fulfill women’s fantasies with the catalog?”
“Each category represents four types of bath products… four fantasies. I want to start with the champagne of baths, the fizzy ones. And I want all of us to begin in the English countryside.”
“Road trip!” Dylan lifted his hands above his head and shouted.
Mara laughed. “Something like that.” She had a feeling her own Logan might turn out to be a young man just like Dylan with that coolness and enthusiasm in wonderful balance. And for him she would get her own enthusiasm for life back. Her mother had been gone at 59. She would be all there for Logan, right after she did this for her.
Mara stood back and admired the scene. The garden circled in waves of white roses. Their brightness was more ethereal in contrast to the exotics in purple, yellow, and chocolate brown that crested out with glossy petals and leaves as tall as a man.
Centered in the show of blooms, she’d floated the picnic in a sea of emerald grass. And seated, with perfect gentility, her subjects waited.
“This sandwich sucks. Dylan waved a crustless bit of finger food toward her. “I mean, sorry, Mara, but it does.”
“You’re not supposed to eat them until after the photos, Dylan.” Celia tipped her head toward the back of Gretchen’s and whispered, “have some class.”
“You guys look great.” Mara framed them with the camera John had given her for the catalog. He looked, she hated to admit she was admitting it to herself, especially dashing. They all did. Celia sat on the linen cloth, lovely in the floral dress and hat she’d described and Mara had found at the third costume shop she’d gone into. Stella sat with such regal wisdom she could have played Queen Elizabeth the whatever number she wanted to be. And even Gretchen, demure but proud in the best tradition of the untitled, had commented on how handsome Dylan was.
“Okay. Now everybody imagine that we’re all really there. We’re living it out for real.” She took a step back, careful in her own period costume, a lilac gown and bonnet complete with laced up spiky heeled boots that felt like skates without the benefit of a blade for balance. They forced her to slow down in the best kind of way, as if all time was elegant leisure time. She framed them all and the picnic laid out with crystal and silver from Gretchen’s and wine and grapes and the tiny sandwiches it had taken her all morning to make. “Dylan, you’re John’s nephew. You’re titled but in love with the shop girl. Gretchen, you know that Dylan’s Aunt Stella doesn’t approve, so you’re a bit distant. As much as you love the young nobleman, you want what’s best for him, and Stella, you’re a queen.”
Stella held her head higher and then with her gravelly voice made Mara laugh. “Natch.”
“If she’s the queen then I’m a prince.” John lifted one arm and straightened his lace cuff as he smiled at her. “You’ll see.”
Dylan pointed with boy disgust at the ruffled cuffs visible beneath John’s dove grey morning suit. “Kinda you look like a queen.”
“Can I cut him out of the will? Can I send him to the tower?”
She ignored the males. It wasn’t about them anyway. “Celia, you long for adventure. You can’t be a professional singer in this scenario, but let’s say you want to travel to… how about Paris?”
“Paris is good.” Celia dipped her head, her hat half obscuring the appropriate dreamy face she wore, and Mara took her picture, then widened it, framing the lovely day, the gracious moment when fine dining met the verdant lawn.
“I’ll take one.”
She held her breath when the voice sounded like Dan’s. In fact it sounded like Dan was right behind her in the Stanley Park rose Garden offering to take a picture. She turned and let her breath out in one deflated sigh. It was Dan. It was Dan right behind her in the Goddamn Stanley Park Freaking Rose Garden offering to take a picture. Her English fantasy lay in ruins as he took the camera and motioned for her to sit down.
John made room beside him, and she sat between him and the queen. She heard the camera click several times, and with Dan somewhat hidden behind the lens, she’d try to hold on to some of her summer picnic. She reached for one of the champagne bottles chilling in the vintage silver bucket. “Shall we?”
She’d be the woman without ties, sharing an adventure with new friends in a foreign land. She popped the cork without even cringing at the possibility of somebody losing an eye, topped the crystal glasses, and they all toasted. She enjoyed the fizz of champagne on her tongue, the delicious burn of it and powered her way through the glass.
Dan walked over to the linen cloth, and Stella handed him a glass. “Welcome to England’s Commonwealth.”
“Thank you.” He took it and studied the group in silence, taking extra time on John, then focusing on her. She tried to swallow, but he was staring at her like a man meeting a strange woman. Not so much an odd woman, as a woman he’d never met. He seemed so distant, and he was really quite…
“My son John, Celia, Dylan, and Gretchen.” Stella sipped and waved her glass in introductions. “You already know Mara.”
He shook his head. “Not really.”
She might have been thinking he was really quite handsome, but he was really quite a pain in her backside.
Gretchen reached for a grape. “We’ve met.” She popped it in her mouth and looked away as if she’d taken sides after the credit card incident and wouldn’t be offering him any benefit of the doubt.
The least Mara could do was feed her. She reached into the hamper and began to pull out sandwiches.
Dan turned his attention on John. “So, you make bubble bath.”
She couldn’t have said why exactly, but she didn’t want Dan to pull John too deeply into a conversation. “I could just admire these sandwiches all day. Egg. Cucumber. Salmon. There’s nothing like a tiny, tiny sandwich at an English picnic.”
John smiled and took a plate of sandwiches from Mara, not thanking her aloud, as if they were so close he could express his gratitude with only a smile. He balanced the plate on his lap and took a sip of champagne. “Abundance is my company.”
Mara handed Dan a plate, but neither made eye contact. She filled her own plate and began to nibble at her sandwiches with a nervous energy that made her worried she might look mouse-like, but it only increased as she felt the tension vibrate between her and Dan. Seeing John relax, straighten his legs out in front of him, and savor his drink only made it worse. And then he said it. “So, you’re Mara’s ex.”
She felt the salmon stick in her throat. It felt huge lodged in there, huge, even though it had to be a small piece. She could still breathe, plus given the size of the ridiculous sandwiches, how big could the damn thing be? She tried to swallow it down with a swig of champagne, but it just stayed there like it was trying to spawn upstream.
Dan didn’t seem to have anything lodged in his throat. At least his vocal cords were functioning when he snapped out. “I’m her husband.”
John made a non-committal
hmmm
. “I didn’t know you’d gotten back together.”
Dan chomped down on a cucumber sandwich, swallowing it whole like some vegetarian shark attack. Even the bit of salmon stuck in her throat was nervous. “We were never apart.”
“My mistake.” John held his glass up for Mara to top with wine. “I didn’t realize you’d moved here.”
Dan took a huge gulp and shoved his glass in Mara’s direction. “We live in Washington.”
She was choking and she was supposed to pour champagne. She dug around in the large picnic hamper. Hadn’t she tossed in a couple of water bottles?
“Mara lives here.” John took a sip, stretched his legs out even further.
Celia popped up and motioned with too much energy toward the parking lot. “Hey, I’m gonna head back, open the store. I mean, lunch is over. Mara, wanna help me?”
Who could not love the girl? Nineteen, her whole life ahead of her, and she was still willing to risk it all to rescue Mara from the worst English picnic ever held in Canada. She swallowed hard, failed to dislodge the salmon, so just shook her head no.
But Dan was holding onto the conversation with the tenacity of a bulldog. “We live in Washington.”
John waved his wineglass to take in the park. “Mara lives in Vancouver.”
“Janie lives in Washington.”
Water bottle. She yanked it out of the hamper and cranked on the cap. It hurt her palm and didn’t even open.
“Damn, I’ve gotta go.” Gretchen rose and smoothed down her simple skirt exactly as women must have done for hundreds of years. “Hate to miss this, but my shop should have been opened ten minutes ago. Stop by later, Mara.”
“I’ll walk you to your car.” Dylan stood beside her, and Mara was struck by how extra young he looked next to Gretchen, who looked at him in question. He shrugged. “You’re in a dress.”
She shook her head but tossed him a bone. “Okay then,” and the two of them set out across the park after Celia.
“So, Janie’s your new wife.” John smiled. “It’s good to move on, re-marry.”
“Janie’s my old wife.” Mara felt Dan point at her and looked up from the bottle of water that had made actual dents in her hand and still wouldn’t open.
He grabbed it from her. “Oh, for god’s sake, you’ve never been able to open these.” He cranked the top off and handed it back to her. “Your hands are too soft.”
She took a swig of water to clear her throat then another until she felt the fish freed. “I’m not too soft, and I’m not
old
.”
“I never said you were old.”
“You did too. My
old
wife, Janie.”
“You know what I meant.”
“Oh, I know? I never know what you mean because you never mean anything but the thing you say.”
Dan’s face screwed up in frustration. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I’m out of facial tissue, wouldn’t it be fun to shop at the warehouse store? That has no meaning. You never say anything to me that means anything but what you say.”
“What in the hell does that mean? I’m a guy. We say what we mean. We’re not like you women. You never say what you mean, and you never hear what we say without it being something that we didn’t say, didn’t mean, and never even thought.”
John shook his head. “Women say what they feel they can say. It’s a man’s job to hear what a woman means.”
She pointed at John. “Yes.” She felt her heart dip, speed up from the rush of hearing a man get it. “That’s exactly it.”
“What is exactly it? None of this makes sense. Janie. Mara. Washington. Vancouver. What the hell’s happening?” Dan turned away from Mara and appealed to Stella. “How does an uncomplicated woman get so damn complicated?”
Stella sat back, considered her wine then the three of them staring at her. Mara thought they must look as young and confused as Dylan chasing Gretchen had looked to her. “An uncomplicated woman gets complicated when she finally says what she means.”
Mara laid out the photos on Dylan’s work table in a patch of sun. The skylight played across the green glow of the grass, the texture of the linen tablecloth, and the animation of the English gentle folk enjoying their summer picnic. It looked so authentic to her, so much a fantasy lived out. Maybe it was real to her in the photos because for a moment, before Dan started his
my old wife
business, for that moment when she’d forgotten the camera and forgotten the obligations that stood behind it, she
was
someone else.
“I love it.” Celia picked up a close shot of her giving Dylan some sister-like advice while he stared at Gretchen who smiled openly into the camera.