“Now, now, honey,” her grandmother said, reassuringly patting her hand. “Don’t go blowing things all out of proportion like you sometimes do. I swear, you must get that from your Aunt Nellie.”
Grandma Russell leaned forward and lifted her china tea cup off the low table top in front of them. “Drink your chamomile, dear. It will make you feel better.”
Carrie wrung her tissue in exasperation. Her grandmother apparently hadn’t heard a word she’d said. She’d come here first to confess and secondly to beg moral support. Possibly even to seek approval -- and forgiveness -- for her new choice. But all she’d received thus far had been tea and crumpets with some prattle on pre-wedding-day jitters.
“You don’t understand,” Carrie sniffed. “Tonight’s the big night.”
“The reunion. Very sweet.” Grandma Russell smiled, as if in fond remembrance. Dear Wilson told us all about it. He was so very proud at the prospect of having you on his arm. Never knew that New York man of yours had such local roots."
She shrugged with a thoughtful smile. “Well, I suppose that does explain the accent.”
Carrie set down her tea cup and rummaged through her purse for her aspirin.
“If you ask me,” her grandmother offered, unsolicited. “You keep popping those things, you gonna get a hole in your stomach.”
Carrie ignored that bit of advice and downed two tablets with her, by now, room temperature tea. “It’s not just the reunion, grandmother. It’s looking serious. He’s taking me to meet his father!”
“Wonderful!” Grandma Russell said, clapping her hands together. She paused a moment, looking puzzled. “Are you saying you’ve not yet met him? And what do you mean by serious. Of course, it’s serious. You’re getting married, aren’t you?”
“No,” Carrie said, dropping her eyes to the sofa and wishing with all her might she could sink right between its cushions. “No Grandmother, I’m so sorry. There isn’t going to be any wedding.”
Grandma Russell set her cup down so firmly on its saucer the two pieces rattled. “Nonsense, Carrie girl! That’s just pre--”
“Grandma,” Carrie said, looking up through streaming eyes. “No. I’m sorry. Really, really sorry I waited until now to tell you. But, I...”
Her lower lip began a violent tremble that prevented her from finishing.
Grandma Russell turned sideways and swept her into her arms. “There, there, child. Everything’s going to be alright. I promise it will. Nothing at all that Wilson could have done could merit all this. There is always a way --”
“He left me, Grandmother,” Carrie said, finally finding her voice. “Just like that. No warning at all. And,” she said, her voice taking on a renewed tremble. “For another woman.”
Grandma Russell stiffened in shock. “That letch! I never in a million years would have believed that charming man capable of --”
“Not that charming man,” Carrie corrected with a shake of her head. “Wilson.”
Grandma Russell’s ebony eyes went wide as saucers. “Wilson? What are you saying, child? That the man you brought home --”
“An imposter,” Carrie admitted, hanging her head.
Grandma Russell straightened her spine. “Well, he looked real enough to me.”
“No,” Carrie said, forcing herself to press ahead. “It was all a ruse. We met at the Sawyers House.”
“That local inn you financed?”
Carrie nodded and kept going, lest she lose her nerve. “It was really kind of funny in fact. When I met Mike -- his name is Mike by the way.”
“Good, solid masculine name,” Grandma Russell interjected.
Carrie gave her grandmother a twisted smile. No matter what the rest of Carrie’s story, Grandma Russell had quite obviously made up her mind.
“Mike Davis. Guess you like the Davis part, too?”
Grandma Russell smiled warmly. “It does have a certain ring to it.
“Listen, sweetheart, you can fill me in on the particulars in you’d like to. But it really isn’t necessary. Like the television commercials say, life happens.
“So Wilson was a creep and left you. Good riddance to that one, I say!
“And this Mike -- Mike Davis, the man who not only can’t keep his eyes off of you in a crowded room but also wowed your family, just happened to be at the right place at the right time. I think it’s beautiful. It’s fate. And, he’s a hunk. You’re three for three on this one. Looks, tenderness, compassion.... “What on earth are you staring at, child? Did I forget to wax my mustache?”
“Do you really think so?” Carrie asked, studying her grandmother’s face for wisdom. “Believe Mike and I met for a reason? That in spite of our odd beginnings, it was somehow meant to be?”
“Certainly, I think so! Didn’t I ever tell you how your grandpa and I met?”
Carrie shook her head. She’d thought she’d heard all of Grandma Russell’s stories by now, but this, apparently, was a new one.
“It was back in the days of panty raids...,” her Grandma began sheepishly.
Carrie chortled. “They still do those, Grandmother.”
“Do they now? Well, how prehistoric!
“At any rate, as I was saying, it was back... Well, whatever! I’ll just cut to the chase and tell you.
“The October of my Freshman year at the Woman’s College, there was a panty raid on my dorm one night. And your old grandpa just happened to be below my window in the marauding crowd.”
“You threw your panties at Grandpa?!” Carrie gasped. From the little she remembered of her grandfather, he’d always seemed such a straight arrow.
“Not my panties, heavens no. Needed those. Tossed something much more enticing...”
Carrie waited patiently as her grandmother drew out the moment for suspense.
“Myself!”
“Yourself? You threw yourself out the window?!”
“Well, not intentionally, or anything like that. But I was a young, you see. A brand new student. And it was all so exciting and hedonistic. The very idea of panty raids.”
Carrie giggled, trying to envision her white-haired grandparents in the picture Grandma Russell was painting.
“Well anyhow,” her grandmother continued. “I was leaning out the window just a bit, trying to get a better look at the boys down below. One was quite handsome. Tall, redheaded, sure of himself. Looked to me like a Scot.”
“Grandpa,” Carrie guessed.
Grandma Russell smiled then chuckled at the far-away memory. “Indeed, it was your grandfather. And a very striking young man, at that.
“Well, I happened to catch his eye, you see. I could tell because there he was at the bottom of the window looking straight up at me. Not chanting or carrying on like the other boys. Just very stoically standing there, looking up with the most curious smile.
“And then it happened. Somebody moved behind me, and I lost my balance and fell. Tumbled right out the window and over the sill -- straight into your grandfather’s arms!”
“He caught you?” Carrie gasped.
“More or less."
Grandma Russell grinned and turned a curious shade of plum Carrie didn’t think she’d ever seen on her grandmother. “But the important thing is, even the parts he didn’t catch survived the fall. It was only half a story, with the back of our building constructed into a hill. But still, from that time on, your old grandfather and I had a lot of fun joking about that fateful day I ‘fell’ for him.”
Carrie studied her grandmother, trying to discern whether what she’d just shared was honest-to-goodness family lore or simple cock-and-bull story. Either way, Carrie knew and appreciated exactly what her grandmother was trying to do.
“So then,” Carrie said, balling up her tissue and tucking it into her purse. “There’s something to this fate business after all.”
“Not a doubt in the world.”
Carrie’s cheeks sagged. “But we’ll still have to cancel the wedding, Grandmother. I’ve been avoiding making all the calls. Every time I’ve picked up that telephone, something inside just wouldn’t let me do it.”
“Well."
Her grandmother smiled. “Maybe that something inside knows there is going to be a wedding after all.”
Mike stared into his closet and frowned. Less than two hours to show time and not a thing to wear.
He scratched his head, thumbing through the several designer suits Alexia had given him. It was no wonder he didn’t like his wardrobe. It was all a patent reminder of not-so-pleasant times gone by. Well alright, maybe not all of it.
Mike pulled out a charcoal gray suit, one of the few it had purchased on his own. The others, he realized, would have to go. Not to mention that glaring ring on his dresser.
Why Mike had waited so long to return Alexia’s ring, he really couldn’t say. For sure, he needed the money.
And the Caymans...
Mike laid out his suit on the bed, recalling the long, lazy and often playful afternoons most recently spent with Carrie. Was chasing his dive shop dream really all it was cracked up to be? If that’s still what he so desperately wanted, why hadn’t he already cashed in that ring -- or called the jewelers at least to make arrangements.
Mike walked to the mirror hanging above his dresser, realizing the startling truth. There were simply far too many things holding him to Virginia. His Dad, of course, was currently on his own. But eventually, he’d need more personal looking after. Mike had already done some investigating. Private care arrangements were expensive. No way could Mike realistically budget for those and still be able to sink money into starting a new business.
And then, there was Carrie to think of. Carrie St. John, the woman who’d admitted with a full heart that she loved him, and whom his own raging insides told him he loved back. And yet, Mike hadn’t been able to find the words to tell her. Perhaps because he was still coming to terms with the concept himself. Or maybe, more critically, because he believed on a superstitious level that, by admitting his feelings, he would somehow jinx what was happening between them.
In spite of his track record, Mike had never told any woman he loved her. Not even, surprisingly, Alexia. Adore, yes. Worship, on occasion. But love? Those three little words had never slipped from his mouth. And the reason for this was crystal clear, Mike saw, looking in the mirror.
The day he finally uttered those words would be the day he was prepared to ask a woman to be his wife -- and really mean it. None of this marriage of convenience BS, or racing to beat any sort of artificial time clock. Just a true, honest desire to share the here and now, and forever after, with the woman of his dreams.
Mike’s eyes dropped to Alexia’s ring, glistening on the dresser top. Maybe returning it wasn’t what he needed to do after all. Perhaps that was what the hesitancy in his gut about taking back the ring had been trying to tell him all along.
Mike walked to his nightstand and picked up the telephone to call the jewelers -- with one very important question.
Carrie reached behind her and zipped the back of her red sequined dress. She straightened and studied her reflection in the mirror, hoping she wasn’t going overboard. The plunging neckline, though not untasteful, still might be a little much.
Carrie held a couple of dangling earrings up to her lobes and considered the picture. A little too uptown? Licentious, even? The lady in red...
Carrie walked to her closet on her tiptoes, carefully lifting the hem of her dress off the polished oak floor. With heels on, the length was perfect. And the height difference between her and Mike certainly allowed for any size heel Carrie desired.
With Wilson standing five foot ten, only a few inches above her own five-eight, she’d always had to be more careful.
Carrie stopped considering the two pairs of shoes in her hands and realized for the first time she hadn’t thought of Wilson in days. Of course, she’d mentioned him in her conversation with her grandmother. But, in truth, even in speaking his name then, she’d thought more of his imitator Mike than Wilson himself. In fact, it appeared Wilson had been replaced entirely by Mike Davis.
Oh, dear. Carrie made her shoe choice, then gripped her hem and tiptoed back over to the bed, wondering if this was good. She’d warned herself sternly about the rebound thing. But surely this wasn’t what this was. It was fate, a preordained opportunity -- just like Grandma Russell had said. And, if she ever thought of Wilson Haywood again, she conceded, it would have to be in gratitude. For had he not dumped her on precisely that day at precisely that time, she wouldn’t have wandered down to that pool.
Carrie sighed, recalling her startling introduction to her “swim god."
Not nearly as dramatic as what had happened to her grandmother, but certainly unforgettable in its own special way. Carrie would never forget how Mike had taken her breath away, when he rose from the water, dripping wet. Insinuating moisture racing down every trail of his muscular body.
Carrie swallowed and sat to slip on her shoes. Well, maybe the dress was a little showy. But she’d clearly seen enough of Mike that he deserved reciprocation.
Carrie blushed at the notion that he found her beautiful. That he found her body enticing, alluring...feminine. Not only had he failed to mention her “figure flaws,” he, in his manly appreciation, appeared totally unaware they existed.