But alone, in the privacy of her car, surrounded by the faint chirping of night insects and the stream in back of the mill whispering what she didn’t want to hear, Mary didn’t have to put on any kind of face at all. She could simply weep to her heart’s content. Weep for what she’d lost and for the debt she would continue to accrue
…
yes, and for the despair that even the right choices can bring.
Oh, Charlie,
she told him silently,
I didn’t want it to end. I just don’t see another way.
Mary wept until a group of diners, boisterous with too much booze, spilled into the lot and began making their way toward the car parked alongside hers. Fearing someone would think she was ill or had gone mad, she straightened and flipped open the glove compartment in search of the box of Kleenex stashed there. Its interior light flicked on, and in the rearview mirror she caught a glimpse of her face: puffy red eyes and a forehead marked with a red crease from the steering wheel. She blew hard into a tissue and started the engine. On the drive back to her mother’s—now Noelle and Hank’s house—her sinuses throbbed and her head felt swollen to twice its normal size.
An expression of her mother’s came to mind:
There’s a lid for every pot.
The truth of it brought a grim smile. Only why, oh, why, did
hers
have to be a man who for one reason or another was never a perfect fit?
The following day was a little easier to bear. She got through the rehearsal dinner, at which the worst thing that happened was the demise of the restaurant’s elderly air conditioner. Then Saturday arrived, the day of the wedding, and there was a noticeable drop in the humidity that had been clinging to the region like water to the inside of a glass. The sun shone brilliantly, and though every little thing that could go wrong did, no one seemed to mind.
Hank got called away in the early hours of the morning to deliver Norma Hofstedder’s baby, which wasn’t supposed to have been due for another three weeks. By nine, when he still hadn’t returned, Noelle nonetheless refused to worry. ‘He’ll be back in plenty of time,’ she insisted cheerfully.
Emma’s stuffed dog Bowwie, laundered for the occasion, emerged from the dryer with only one ear intact, the other a handful of shapeless brown fuzz. But after some initial whining and sniffling, she allowed herself to be consoled by Grandma Mary, who made the point that this way, when she started first grade in the fall, she could carry a piece of Bowwie tucked in her pocket as a reminder that he was waiting for her at home.
Last but not least, Noelle discovered a rip in the lace hem of her wedding gown. And then she
did
panic a bit, less confident in her sewing skills than she was in her bridegroom’s ability to deliver babies. Luckily Aunt Trish, who pointed out with a twinkle in her eye that it had been
she,
not Mary, who’d won first place in the home ec spring fashion show, was on hand to repair the damage.
In Mary’s old room her sister hummed as she sewed up the rip in Noelle’s gown. Her cheeks were pink, and her eyes glowed. She’d never looked prettier. If Mary hadn’t known better she’d have thought her sister was the one getting married. Everything was Joe this and Joe that.
‘Joe says it’s a refreshing change from couples who insist on writing their own vows.’ Trish, seated on the bed, glanced up from her stitching. ‘Not,’ she was quick to add, ‘that he has anything
against
it, mind you. But there’s something so nice about the old-fashioned way. What’s wrong with “love, honor, and obey” when both people say it?’
Mary, at the dressing table, stopped fussing with her hair and turned to smile at her sister. There was no reason not to smile. It was after ten, with the wedding scheduled for eleven-thirty, and Hank had just returned. A minute ago she’d heard the front door slam and the sound of his voice drifting up the stairs. The breeze blowing in through the open window smelled of lilacs. Sunlight fell over the old maple bed where Trish sat cross-legged, the satin gown on her lap a pool of molten silver. All was right with the world.
With one exception: As parents of the bride she and Charlie would be seated side by side, but they wouldn’t
be
together. For the simple but complicated reason that she’d broken off with him, once and for all.
Which you will not, I repeat
not,
allow yourself to wallow in or in any way spoil this occasion,
cautioned a stern voice in her head.
‘There’s nothing wrong with the old-fashioned way,’ she agreed pleasantly.
‘I mean, of course a bride and groom should have any kind of wedding they want,’ Trish prattled on. ‘Why, just the other day I was reading in a magazine about this couple, both avid scuba divers, who exchanged vows underwater. Did you ever hear anything more peculiar? But the point is, they got exactly what they wanted.’ She stopped to take a breath. ‘Goodness, where was I? I forgot what I was trying to say.’
‘That when you’re in love, nothing else really matters,’ Mary said somewhat distractedly, her gaze fixed on her reflection in the mirror, on the enamel-backed brush she was pulling through her hair, part of a prized dresser set given to her by her grandmother when she’d turned sixteen.
Behind her in the mirror, she saw her sister give a firm nod. ‘Well, it’s true. With all the pain and suffering in this world—and God knows this family has had its share—what better to celebrate than two people in love making a life together?’ The needle in her hand flashed in and out of the silvery pool in her lap. ‘Take me, for instance. Six months ago who’d have thought I’d be in any kind of mood for a wedding? But you know something, I think finding out about Gary was actually a blessing in disguise. If I hadn’t walked in on him with that—that woman’—her lips tightened as she spit out the word—’I wouldn’t have gotten to know Joe.’ She stopped, catching Mary’s eye in the mirror. ‘Oh, listen to me, going on and on. You’d think
I
was the one getting married.’ She blushed deeply, her cheeks as blooming pink as the Cecil Brunner roses climbing up the trellis to peek in over the sill.
Mary tossed an affectionate look over her shoulder. ‘I have a feeling you’re next,’ she said, causing her sister to blush even harder. ‘How does Joe feel about the bookstore? I always thought being a minister’s wife was a full-time job in itself.’
‘Maybe so, but Joe’s not like that. He’s very supportive of my career.’ Trish’s staunch reply had the air of a topic that had been much discussed between them. ‘If anything is going to get in the way, it’s that disgusting mall. Did you know that Bigelow Books is already distributing flyers around town?’
She was referring, of course, to Cranberry Mall, on which Van Doren & Sons had eventually resumed construction, after an understandable delay. The grand opening was scheduled for the end of July, just three weeks away. And Trish, along with the other small downtown business owners whose livelihoods were threatened, was merely cowering in fear, waiting to see what would happen. Mary grew suddenly exasperated with her sister.
She spun around on her dressing stool. ‘Well, for heaven’s sake, why aren’t you doing something about it?’
‘What
can
I do?’ Her sister’s shoulders sagged.
Mary’s publicist’s instincts kicked in. ‘For one thing, you could distribute a few flyers of your own—you know, like you did with the orange-crowned warbler. Remind your loyal customers that you’re willing to go the extra mile.’
‘That’s not a bad idea.’ Trish nodded thoughtfully.
‘Then organize some sort of event. A cooking demonstration. Or getting together with the Old Rose Society to promote a book on gardening; those ladies love nothing more than an excuse for a tea party.’ Mary found herself warming to the idea. Excitedly she added, ‘You could even host some sort of regular event, like a once-a-month breakfast at which some well-known author would speak.’
‘Why would a well-known author come to Burns Lake?’ Trish asked dubiously.
‘To sell books, of course! And,’ she added slyly, ‘because you’ll present it to their house publicist as the best idea since sliced bread.’
‘I will?’
‘The way it works,’ Mary explained, ‘is you sell tickets to the event so you know how many people are coming. Say you get fifty to start with—that’ll grow as word spreads—and the entry fee includes the price of the author’s book, with coffee and pastries thrown in. That’s a guaranteed sale of fifty books, plus more down the line. You keep the profit margin low to promote ticket sales, and in return you get some cachet, lots of goodwill, and a steady flow of customers.’
‘That’s brilliant.’ Trish brightened visibly. ‘There’s only one catch: I’d need someone as experienced as you to help me pull it off.’ She held out a hand to prevent Mary from putting her two cents in. ‘Listen to me, before you start trying to make me over in your image. It’s taken me half a lifetime, but I’ve finally made peace with the fact that I’m not you. Don’t look at me that way. I’m serious. Do you know how easy it was growing up in your shadow? The country mouse and her city cousin.’
Mary felt the wind go out of her sails. ‘I didn’t always live in the city.’
‘No, but even when you were here, there was always something different about you. You were more stylish, more determined somehow. Smarter, too. Definitely smarter.’
‘You’re selling yourself short,’ Mary insisted.
Trish frowned, shaking her head. ‘No, I’m not. I’m just telling it like it is.’
‘Yeah, well, look where it got me. I’m so smart I almost lost the one child I have and the only man I ever loved.’ A wave of loneliness washed through Mary, and the room’s sunny warmth suddenly felt heavy and cloying, like a too-sweet dessert.
‘Smart isn’t the same as knowing how to be happy,’ her sister observed with the ironic air of a woman who’d spent precious years barking up the wrong tree.
‘Well, if you have the secret to happiness, I’d appreciate your sharing it with me.’ Mary heard the caustic note in her voice and cringed. Was she becoming the very thing she’d dreaded, a clone of her mother?
Trish laughed and reached over to retrieve her spool of thread. She snipped off a length as long as her arm and squinted like a pirate into a spyglass as she poked it through the needle’s eye. ‘Some of it’s just luck, but a lot of it, I think, is opening your eyes to possibilities you never imagined.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well, take
your
career, for instance.’ Trish bent once more to her task, more assiduously than necessary, it seemed to Mary, her needle flashing in and out of the silk fabric. ‘It wouldn’t be the same, I know, but you could be a publicist somewhere besides New York City. Oh, I’m sure it’d be a huge adjustment, and I’m not saying you’d make anywhere near the same kind of money. But just for the sake of argument, you
could.’
Mary, rightly suspecting she was being led down the garden path, replied a bit too sharply, ‘Okay, then, just for the sake of argument, where do you see me setting up shop?’
‘You were the one that pointed out the need to promote my bookstore,’ Trish said. ‘What about all the other small businesses that’ll suffer when the mall opens? If we had someone as experienced as you to show us the way, it might work. Otherwise, we don’t have a prayer of surviving.’
‘This sounds like blackmail to me.’ Mary glared at her sister.
‘It’s just common sense.’ Trish breezed on. ‘I’m always reading about quaint little towns like ours—”the town that time forgot,” that’s how it’s always billed—that some smart promoter figured out a way of making it into a tourist destination.’
‘Sort of like preserving an endangered species?’
‘Exactly!’ Trish glanced up wearing an expression of such bright-eyed innocence it was hard not to buy it. Enthusiastically she went on. ‘So you see, if someone like that were to take on Burns Lake, just think what could be accomplished.’
‘Why do I get the feeling I’m being offered a job I never applied for?’
Her sister’s face fell. ‘Well, it’s just a thought. You certainly don’t have to take me up on it. I was just making the point that you can be happy and fulfilled anywhere you choose to live.’ She tied off and snipped the thread, holding the gown up for Mary’s inspection. ‘There. Does that look straight?’
The subject was closed. And in the ensuing whirl of activity Mary hardly gave it a second thought. It wasn’t until she was at the church seated in the front pew of the sanctuary—done in pale woods with simple, soaring lines much grander than suggested by its exterior—watching Noelle glide down the aisle on Charlie’s arm, that her sister’s words returned to haunt her.
You can be happy and fulfilled anywhere you choose to live ….
But she hadn’t
chosen
Burns Lake. Quite the opposite, she’d spent most of her adult life trying to escape it.
Are you sure you weren’t just running from things that were too hard to face? From people who’d disappointed you or who you felt
you
had let down. Like your mother. And Noelle. And yes, Charlie.
Mary shut her mind against those thoughts, focusing on her daughter instead.
Noelle was a vision in satin and lace, her gown as simple and elegant as the wedding itself: no bridesmaids or ushers in attendance, the only decoration the arrangement of flowers at the altar and a spray of pale pink orchids in her hand. In that moment, as Charlie and their daughter approached, Mary indulged in the memory of her own long-ago wedding, a very different sort of affair, to be sure, with Charlie looking nervous but beaming just as happily as he was now. He’d been wearing an ill-fitting navy suit and she the dress in which she’d been confirmed three years before … let out a roomy three inches to accommodate her newly expanded waistline. The ceremony, such as it was, had taken place at town hall, with only Corinne in attendance and Charlie’s folks, wearing the pained and slightly guilty expressions of parents who suspect they’re somehow to blame.
The only ones who hadn’t seemed to notice the lack of floral arrangements, organist, and a host of teary-eyed relatives were the bride and groom themselves. And now, with all their heartache momentarily stripped away, Mary-was free to remember exactly the way it had been. The way she’d felt.
I was happy,
she thought with no small measure of awe,
really, truly happy.