Phantom of Riverside Park (32 page)

David could taste his own fear. This was a
complication he’d never counted on. He tried to deflect her with
humor.

“Six months after the wedding you’ll be sick
and tired of seeing me. Isn’t that the way it usually goes?”

“I don’t know how it usually goes. I’ve never
been married.”

It was a stark reminder that Nicky was Taylor
Belliveau’s illegitimate child, and that Elizabeth, through no
fault of her own, had been placed in the category of unwed
mother.

“This is the first time for me, also,” he
said.

What was she thinking now? He wished he knew
her well enough to ask. Funny how he knew so much about the woman
he was going to marry, and how he knew nothing at all.

“I won’t be deterred, David. I don’t want to
marry a man I’ve never seen.”

“I don’t see how it makes a bit of
difference, especially considering the terms of our marriage.”

“I don’t think I’ve made myself clear. I will
not marry a man I’ve never seen.”

David had always admired tenacity and
courage, and Elizabeth had both. A pity he hadn’t met her years ago
when he’d been young and whole and life was still good. Would his
life have been different if Elizabeth Jennings had been the one to
walk into that hospital room instead of Kelly Lynn?

He couldn’t help but believe the answer was
yes. Elizabeth was not the kind of woman to run away screaming.

Or was she?

He would soon find out. David reached for the
light switch, and slowly turned to face her.

She didn’t flinch, didn’t stare boggle-eyed,
didn’t scream, didn’t cry. He searched her face, looking for the
thing he feared most--pity. It was not there, and David began to
breathe easier.

They stared at each other across the small
space like strangers, newly met. And yet they weren’t. They had a
history, however brief, a common goal, even camaraderie. It was
more than many couples had going into a marriage.

He had to quit thinking of this union as
real.
Couple
was not a correct term for what he and
Elizabeth would be. Yet, he could taste the word in his mouth, and
the taste of it was like cherry ice cream.

Suddenly she was moving toward him, and he
had to fight down the panicked urge to run. She didn’t stop until
she was standing only inches from him.

It had been so many years since he’d been
close to a sweet-smelling, sweet-looking woman that his mouth went
dry.

She reached up and tenderly traced his scars,
every one of them. Not a single ugly patch on his hideous face
escaped her finger study. And then he stopped breathing, for
Elizabeth stood on tiptoe and kissed him softly on his scarred
mouth.

“Thank you, David,” she whispered. “For
everything.”

He almost believed in miracles again.

It was dark when she got back to the
hospital. Elizabeth meant to peek in and check on Papa, then head
home and draw herself a hot tub where she could soak and think. But
he was sitting up in bed with the television blaring.

“I just came by to say goodnight, Papa.”

“Sit down. I’ve got a few things to say to
you.”

“It’s getting late. You should rest.”

“Don’t argue with me.”

Elizabeth pulled a chair close to the bed so
she could hold his hand. His grip was strong considering all he’d
gone through, but then nothing should surprise her where Papa was
concerned.

“How did it go with Lassiter?”

“He’s making arrangements for the
wedding.”

“Weddings are sacred.”

“It’s not like that, Papa. This is more like
a business deal.”

“A vow is a vow, I don’t care what you call
it. When two people marry there’s ways they ought to treat each
other, kind ways. I wish Lola Mae was here to talk to you about
it.”

Elizabeth didn’t. The deal she’d struck with
David couldn’t possibly live up to Mae Mae’s dreams for her. There
was no silver lining here--merely a short-term arrangement based on
her desperation and David’s generosity.

“You don’t have to worry, Papa. I am deeply
grateful to David for everything he’s doing for me. I’m afraid he’s
not getting much in the deal, though.”

“He’s gettin’ the cream of the crop, and I
don’t want you ever to think otherwise. You’re just like your
grandmother. Lordy, I wanted to give her the moon. She never asked
for anything. Did you know that?”

Elizabeth nodded, but she wasn’t sure Papa
even saw her. He had that familiar faraway look in his eyes that
signaled he was back on the farm reliving every moment he’d spent
with the woman he loved more than life itself.

“I wanted to give her pearls when I married
her, but she said, ‘Thomas, you’re the only pearl I’ll ever need.’
She wouldn’t even let me get her a piece of jewelry when Manny was
born. I’d spied a little locket in Brassfield’s that would just
about fit my pocketbook, but she found out what I was up to and
like to had a fit. ‘I’m not fixin’ to have to you throw away money
you need for a new tractor,’ was what she said, and then she put
that baby in my arms and I forgot everything else except how much
we loved each other and what love can produce.”

Elizabeth could have cried. One of the
saddest and loneliest things in this world is never knowing the joy
of loving and being loved. She turned her face toward the window so
Papa wouldn’t see her wipe her eyes.

When the phone rang it was the first time
she’d ever been happy to interrupt one of Papa’s reminisces.

“I thought I might catch you here. This is
David,” he added, as if she didn’t know, as if his voice hadn’t
gone through her like a fourth of July rocket.

“I called to check on Papa.”

“How is he?”

“Bossy.” She laughed, then covered the
receiver with her hand. “Papa, can you turn down the volume on the
TV? I can’t hear David.”

Papa punched the volume down. “I want to talk
to him.”

“He says he wants to talk to you,” she told
David.

“Fine. But first there’s something I have to
tell you. It’s about the wedding.”

Panic seized her. He was going to call it
off. He’d changed his mind. He’d realized he was getting the bad
end of the bargain. He...

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Having no one
there who knows and loves you is going to be very hard for you. I
will be there, of course, but ...”

The silence hung fire between them.
Jubilation and despair raged through Elizabeth, and she did the
only thing she knew how to do: she anchored herself and hung
on.

Finally she found a voice. “That’s all
right.”

“No, I want you to have somebody, some
friend, Quincy, maybe.”

“At the ceremony?” She couldn’t bring herself
to call it a wedding.

“Not the ceremony. Before. In the room with
you.”

“Oh.” She sounded ungrateful. After all he’d
done. “Thank you. That’s kind of you.” Now she sounded like Eliza
Doolittle, trying to learn manners.

“I’ll speak to your grandfather now.”

“Elizabeth’s told me all about this wedding,”
Papa said as soon as he took the phone. “She’s a lady, you know,
just like her grandmother. Before I give you my blessing there’s
just one thing I want to know: will you always treat her
kindly?”

Papa listened, nodding, then he said, “That’s
all I want to know,” and hung up the phone.

Too nervous to sit still, dying to know but
afraid to ask, Elizabeth went to the window and drew the shades
against the night. Finally she could stand the suspense no
longer.

“What did he say?”

Papa smiled. “He said he would never give you
cause to be sorry you married him.”

It wasn’t much, but it was all she had.
Elizabeth pulled the covers over her grandfather.

“Thank you, Papa,” she said, then kissed him
goodnight and drove to her lonely little house on Allen Street. It
was a black night with very few stars, but it seemed to her that
there was a star in the heavens she’d never noticed, and that when
she went up the sidewalk it moved just slightly as if it were
blessing her.

o0o

“McKenzie, you didn’t have to drive up here
for this,” David said,
this
being the ceremony about to
take place in his board room on the fifth floor of Lassiter
Building. “I probably shouldn’t even have told you until it was all
over and done with.”

“Most of the time I think you walk on water,
David, but if you hadn’t told me about your wedding, I’d never have
forgiven you.”

“Right now I feel as if I’m walking on
quicksand.”

McKenzie stood on tiptoe and kissed him.
“Everything’s going to be all right. We’ll get through all this
together, the way we always have.”

“Is my tie straight?”

“No.” McKenzie fiddled with it. David had
thought about wearing a tuxedo, but that seemed excessive to him.
And hopeful. Much, much too hopeful. “What’s she like, David?”

“She’s drop-dead gorgeous, and the thought of
marrying her under any circumstances scares me to death.”

McKenzie got a brush out of her purse and
started fluttering around David’s head like a setting hen. He
started to tell her to stop it, and then he realized that she was
as nervous as he and needed some small task so she could tell
herself that she useful instead of scared.

“You didn’t tell me a thing I didn’t already
know, David. You forget. I’ve met her. She seems extremely nice,
and very vulnerable. What I want to know is what you think of
her.”

“She’s a sweet woman, McKenzie. Intelligent,
courageous, gentle.”

“This must be very hard for her with her
grandfather still in the hospital and her little boy ...I can’t
even stand to think about that. Poor little thing, waiting out
there all by herself.”

That’s why he’d called Elizabeth at the
hospital. The sadness and loneliness of attending your own wedding
with not a single soul who loved and cared for you in attendance
had struck David.

“She’s not alone,” he said. “Quincy and Fred
are with her.”

“They are? Will they be at the ceremony?”

“No. I told her they could come, but she said
it was enough to have them waiting for her when it was all
over.”

McKenzie teared up. “I’m gonna love this
girl, and you...” She punched his shoulder. “I could kiss the
quicksand you walk on.”

o0o

Elizabeth had read that all brides were
nervous on their wedding day, and she hadn’t thought it would
happen to her, considering the circumstances. But she’d been wrong.
She’d chewed her nails to the quick and she’d dropped her soap this
morning and almost broke her neck getting out of the tub.

Somewhere in the huge Lassiter Building,
David was waiting for her, and even if he wasn’t going to be a real
husband Elizabeth had a full-blown case of the jitters. She picked
up her hairbrush.

“Girl, if you start to fixing that hair one
more time you’re gonna be bald as an egg, and it’s not gonna make
one whit of difference about that pretty face of yours. Now let
that hair alone.”

Elizabeth hugged her old friend. “Quincy,
what in the world would I do without you?”

“I’m not fixing to let you find out. Here
now, quit that before you get us both to bawling.”

Actually they were both crying already. And
if Fred hadn’t made them laugh, Elizabeth would have gone to her
own wedding ceremony looking like she was attending somebody’s
funeral.

“You two sound like a dyin’ calf in a
hailstorm,” he said.

“Hush your mouth, you old fool. I don’t see
you doing anything to cheer this girl up.”

“I’m here, ain’t I?”

“You might as well be in Tim-buck-two for all
the good you’re doing, sitting over there like a tree full of
owls.”

“Quincy, you put me in mind of my first wife.
You’re a mighty smart woman. Even if you do have the temper of a
wildcat.”

“I might say the same thing about you. Now
get on out of here. Our girl’s gotta get dressed.”

Fred scooted out the door, but not before he
gave her some sassy backtalk.

“When you get too big for them britches,
Quincy, I’m gonna be the first one waiting round to see you bust
out of ‘em.”

“In your dreams.” Quincy slammed the door
shut behind him.

“He didn’t have to leave. I’m already
dressed.”

Granted, it wasn’t much of a dress. The same
old pink thing she’d bought for the wedding she thought she’d have
with Taylor.

“No, you’re not.. Here.” Quincy thrust a big
box in her direction. Inside lay a simple silk sheath. White.
“Every bride ought to wear white. I wore white to every one of my
weddings.”

“Quincy!”

“Haven’t you ever heard of a
self-rejuvenating virgin? That’s me.”

Still laughing, Elizabeth held the dress up
to herself and looked in the mirror. The dress had the elegant
simplicity of something the Duchess of Cambridge might wear.

“I don’t know how to thank you, Quincy.”

“By keeping that smile on your face. Now turn
around and let’s get you in this dress.”

Elizabeth felt like a woman transformed. She
hardly knew herself in the mirror.

“Oh, Quincy…if I had dreamed of a wedding
dress for myself, this is exactly what I’d have dreamed... I look
like somebody.”

Quincy gripped her shoulders, looking fierce.
“You are somebody, Elizabeth Jennings. And don’t you ever forget
that.” She fumbled in the dress box, and came back with a small
blue case. “Here. You forgot something.”

Elizabeth snapped open the box. “Pearls!”
They were exquisite, and by far the most beautiful thing she’d ever
owned. They gleamed in the satin-lined case, and looking at them,
Elizabeth thought of sun-struck oceans and pale pink sunrises and
mysteries so deep that not even Leviathan could unlock them.

Elizabeth held them against her skin and
wished Papa were there to see her. And Nicky.