Authors: Beth Kendrick
“I’m sorry, honey. But Erin’s my friend.”
“I know. It’s just…I had everything arranged, and we were supposed to be eating our entrées by now!”
“Who cares?” I exhorted. “It’s just dinner.”
He remained glum.
“Cheer up.” I leaned over to kiss his cheek. “We’re together, we’re having fun—or we could be, if you’d stop acting so prickly. Tell you what, put on a happy face and we’ll get an extra dessert after dinner. To go.”
He perked right up. “Really? You want to do the dessert thing?”
I winked. “Sure.”
“Hmm.” He studied the specials menu, leering. “I’m thinking the cranberry tart. On the small of your back.”
“Will you be deep-frying it first?” I whispered seductively.
“Just for that, I’m using a fork. A really pointy one.”
I licked my lips. “Oh, baby. That’s hot.”
Just as we were launching into a really steamy PDA, a bow-tie-wearing server appeared at the bar. “Follow me, please. Your table is ready.”
“Let’s just get dessert to go,” I urged Nick. “Who needs dinner?”
“You do,” he said, capturing my hand in his. “You need the whole nine yards: dinner and dessert and everything after. Now stop asking questions. You’ll ruin the surprise.”
B
y the time I let myself into Simone’s tidy, white-walled condo, my temples were throbbing with a tension headache. The drive to Boston had given me too much time to think, and the van’s staticky radio and jouncy suspension had left me achy and depressed. I needed half a bottle of ibuprofen, a bubble bath, and twelve hours of sleep, in that order. Unfortunately, Boston’s real estate prices had rendered bathtubs an extravagant luxury, so I’d have to make do with a hot shower.
I turned on the faucet, twisted my hair up, and left my turtleneck, sweater and jeans in a heap on the green tile floor. After a few minutes of inhaling warm steam, I sank down to the shower’s tile floor and curled up under the steady pulse of the water, hugging my knees to my chest.
There was no doubt in my mind that I belonged back here,
but from the moment I’d first sighted the city lights, I’d felt empty and alone. David and I had started in Boston. We’d thrived here, gathered strength from each other as we’d triumphed over what had seemed like impossible challenges: my board exams, his thesis defense. How could one petite senior citizen in a reindeer sweater destroy everything we’d had?
When I finally turned off the water, my cell phone was beeping—I had a message. The missed call log listed Casey’s number, followed by David’s. My tension headache made a roaring comeback.
Casey’s message was garbled–all I could make out were the words “Mothra versus Godzilla”—and she didn’t pick up when I called her back. David’s voice mail said simply, “Call me on my cell the second you get this.” Before I could even dial, my phone rang again. David. When I let it ring, he texted me: Code Blue. Our private equivalent of SOS. David had made many questionable decisions over the course of our relationship, but he had never once abused Code Blue. Something monumental must have gone down. I wrapped myself up in a bathrobe and dialed his number.
“Thank God you called me back,” was how he greeted me when he picked up the phone.
“This better be important,” was how I greeted him.
“It is. Meet me at our bar in half an hour.”
I frowned. “What?”
“You know. The Cat and Canary. Corner of Boylston and—”
“I know where our bar is, David. But why are you in Boston?”
“Meet me in thirty minutes and I’ll explain everything. And wear the black lace thong.”
“I’m hanging up now,” I warned.
“Okay, don’t wear the black lace thong. Just be there.”
He clicked off the line.
No way was I getting dressed and going back out into the subzero wind. No way.
Except…seriously. Why had he followed me to Boston? The curiosity was killing me.
Fine. I’d go to the bar, but I wouldn’t get dressed up. No lipstick, no camouflage skirt, definitely no racy undies. If only I had a garish reindeer sweater. That would serve him right.
David had staked out a secluded booth in the back of the dark, noisy pub, which tonight was packed to the rafters with buzzed college kids and illicit cigarette smoke. The bartop where I’d gyrated with such abandon on the night we’d met was obscured by a wall of thirsty patrons. I made my way through the crowd at the pool table and slid into the seat across from David.
“I’m here,” I announced, giving him what I hoped was a flinty stare. “What’s up?”
“First, I’m sorry about the, you know, thing at the Blue Hills Tavern. I already called Jonathan to apologize.”
I raised an eyebrow. “My
friend
Jonathan?”
“That’s the one. Also, I want to show you something.” He pulled a folded slip of paper out of his pocket and shoved it across the sticky, beer-stained table.
I unfolded the thin, bluish rectangle of carbon paper, which turned out to be a receipt he’d torn out of his checkbook. He’d written a check to Renée in the amount of…“Oh my God.”
He sat up a little straighter. “Are you impressed?”
“That you gave your last remaining cent to your mother?
No.
”
He shook his head, impatient. “I didn’t give her anything. I’m paying her back. For the down payment. This is all I have in the bank, but it’ll have to tide her over until we sell the house.”
“David.” I stared at the sum scrawled on the receipt. “This is your entire emergency fund.”
“Yeah, well. This is an emergency.”
I looked up at him. “What happened?”
“Everything sucks since you left,” he said. “That’s what happened. I can’t believe I let you go.”
“You didn’t
let
me do anything,” I countered. “Trust me, I was getting out come hell or high water.”
“Because I let things get out of hand. Moving to Alden, letting my mom move in, accepting that money from her, leaving the dog in the basement…I felt like we owed her something. But us, our marriage—that’s worth a hell of a lot more than twenty thousand dollars.”
I blinked. “And you’re just realizing all this
now?
”
“No, I knew. But I…well, I let her play me.” He lifted his chin. “She always said she wanted me to be happy. And I believed her.”
“She does want you to be happy. The problem is, she thinks she knows what makes you happy better than you do. And I can’t deal with it anymore. She always has to win, and that means I always have to lose.”
“That’s why we’re selling the house. She’s my mother, and I love her, but I won’t give you up for her.”
“You already did,” I pointed out.
“Something happened tonight.” He looked grim. “Something bad.”
“Is that what Casey called about?”
“She tried to set me up with another woman. And I didn’t like it. I
really
didn’t like it.”
We regarded each other for a long, silent moment. Finally, I asked, “What happened?”
“She ambushed me at the White Birch. She claimed she wanted to use that gift certificate and asked me to meet her for dinner. So I show up, and she’s lying in wait with her latest disciple from her garden club.”
“Shut up.” I sat back. “She wouldn’t. Even Renée wouldn’t—”
“She did.”
“That is—”
“I know. Things got kind of, uh, heated.”
I arched an eyebrow. “And when you say heated…”
“I told her she had twenty-four hours to get out of our house. And it’s going on the market on Monday. I left a message with our Realtor on the way out here.”
“But we’ll lose money,” I protested. “After you factor in closing costs and commissions—”
“I don’t care. I want my wife back.”
I leaned forward. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but where’s your mom supposed to go?”
“Already covered that. I called Henry Reynolds on the drive out here. He said he’d be delighted to offer up his guest room until she can move back into her house.”
“But she can’t stand Henry.”
“If she doesn’t like my solution, she can find one of her own. But I’m betting she’ll have a miraculous change of heart about Henry.”
I watched David carefully, searching for any sign of the conflicted, agonized guilt that had wrenched our relationship apart over the past few months. He looked tired, but utterly determined.
“I’m moving back to Boston,” he informed me.
I had to laugh. “Oh, are you? And what if I decide that I don’t want to go down this road with you again?”
“I’ll wait you out. I’m very patient.”
There he was—the forthright, take-charge man of action who’d managed to stop me in my tracks and charm the hell out of me, even though I’d broken his fingers. When we’d fallen in
love, I’d never felt surer of anything in my life. And right now, despite my best efforts to remain bitter and detached, that certainty was settling back into my soul.
My husband had returned.
I shredded the edge of the check receipt with my thumbnail. “Christmas is coming up, you know.”
“And?”
“I volunteered to be on call at the hospital this year. But soon enough, there’ll be Easter and Fourth of July, and birthdays, and maybe someday we’ll want to have kids…”
“What are you getting at?”
“Well, I’m glad you stood up to Renée. I am. But, for better or for worse, she’s still your mother. What’s the plan with that? Are we never going to see her again?”
He considered this for a moment. “It’s your call. After what she did to you—”
“We can’t hold a grudge forever. I don’t want to cut her off like that.” I rolled my eyes. “Don’t get me wrong; we definitely need to set limits, but she does love you. A lot. Albeit in an all-consuming, desperate, scary kind of way.”
“Erin.” He shook his head. “The woman tried to kill you. Repeatedly.”
“So we’ll start small. Brief phone conversations. Very brief.”
“You’re forgiving her?” he asked, shocked. “Just like that?”
“I’m forgiving
you,
” I said. “But that’s the tricky thing about marriage: it’s a package deal. Family comes with.”
“If you say so.”
“And we should send her something for Christmas.” I grinned as I remembered the gift I’d picked out for her. “Something really special.”
“Oh. That reminds me. She wanted me to give you this.”
“I thought you said you yelled at her and kicked her out of the house?”
“I did. But while I was throwing stuff into my suitcase, she begged me to take this along.” He lifted a red-and-green-wrapped box out of the brown paper bag beside him. “She said to tell you she’s sorry and this is her peace offering.”
“Here we go. Do I even want to know what’s in there?”
We both eyed the box with mounting trepidation.
“Wait.” He cocked his head. “Don’t open it if you hear ticking.”
I lowered my face and sniffed the shiny red bow. “I don’t smell gunpowder. Or peanuts, for that matter.”
We tore off the paper together, revealing a big white box sporting grease stains on one side. She’d bundled my gift into a used bakery container. Classic Renée. When I lifted the lid and rummaged through the crumpled tissue paper inside, I burst out laughing.
“What?” he demanded as I pulled out the green-and-yellow hunk of ceramic. “What is it?”
“It’s a Chihuahua taco holder,” I finally got out.
“You sure? It looks like a cat with massive spinal deformities.”
“I’m sure. This is what I was going to give her for Christmas.”
“And she’s regifting already?”
“She must have found it when she packed up all my stuff.” I signaled the passing waitress for two beers. “Touché, Renée. Touché.”
He curled his lip at the misshapen Chihuahua. “We’re gonna have to move overseas to get rid of her. And change our names.”
“You know we’re going to have to put this on display every time she comes over.”
“I see an unfortunate accident in this little dog’s future,” David predicted.
“Is that your way of asking me to get married again?”
“Are you saying yes?”
“Do we still get to go to Hawaii?”
“As long as we go alone.”
“Done.”
D
o you think David’s in Boston yet?” I asked as Nick and I left the White Birch. After a delectable four-star meal followed by a molten chocolate soufflé, we were stuffed but happy.
Nick consulted his watch. “He might be.”
“I wonder what he’s going to say to Erin?” I mused. “Do you think he’ll beg for forgiveness or just kick down her door and kiss her like Clark Gable in
Gone With the Wind,
or what?”
“Casey. Am I boring you tonight?”
I unlocked the driver’s-side door of my truck. “Of course not.”
“Then stop thinking about Erin and David. Who cares
what’s going on with them? The question is, what’s going on with us?”
“We’re having a great date night.” I handed him the Styrofoam carton containing the cranberry tart. “And it’s about to get even better.”
“Not so fast.” Nick buckled up in the passenger seat and turned to me with a mischievous glint in his eye. “We’re taking a detour on the way home.”
“But…” I gazed longingly at the Styrofoam box. “I wanna do the dessert thing.”
“We will,” he promised. “Later. Right now, I have a surprise for you. I’d drive, but…”
“No. The doctors said no night driving for at least another week.”
“So play along and follow my directions. Trust me.”
“This better be good, is all I have to say.”
He directed me through the main street of downtown, past the country club and the golf course, until we reached the high school.
“Turn here.” He pointed toward the school parking lot.
“Here?” I groaned. “This is the surprise? Nick, I hated this place when we were teenagers and I still hate it now.”
“Trust me,” he repeated.
As I steered the truck down the long, dark drive, my heart plummeted. A return to high school was
his
fantasy, not mine.
“Nick, I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Stop here,” he instructed as we rolled around the back, by the gymnasium doors.
“I don’t want to.”
“Casey, come on. Five minutes. Please.”
“You can’t make me go in there,” I warned him. But I turned off the truck’s ignition.
He sat back and sighed. “You’re right. I can’t make you do anything. But I’m asking you. As a favor. Five minutes.”
I gazed out the window at the bare, black trees and the icy asphalt. “Give me one good reason.”
“Because I love you,” he said quietly. “And I promised I wouldn’t screw this up again.”
“Oh, all right.” I jerked the door handle. “Five minutes. The clock starts now.”
“Not so fast.” He fished a long, gauzy scarf out of his pocket. “Put this on.”
“You’re blindfolding me? Are you going to stuff me in a locker, too?”
“Relax.” He wrapped the thin material around my eyes and rested his warm, capable hands on my shoulders. “No need to panic.”
“That’s what the popular kids always say,” I said. “Right before they pants you in the cafeteria.”
“Let’s go.” He nudged me forward, his breath warm in my ear. “Hup, two three four.”
We paused after a few yards, and I heard the telltale clink of
the padlock against the metal gym doors. When he led me inside, I immediately recognized the chalky, sweaty smell of high school athletics.
“How did you get a key to this place?”
He shushed me, brushing his index finger over my lips. “Try to soak up the moment.”
“I’m doing everything I can to
avoid
this moment. Seriously. How’d you get a key?”
“I applied for that basketball coaching job.”
“Yeah. And?”
“And the old coach remembers me fondly. How could he deny his favorite point guard from the good old days?”
“Sad.” I winced as the doors shut behind me with the resounding clank of a jail cell. “I feel nothing but pity for people who never get over high school.”
“Unlike you, right?” he teased.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I yanked at the blindfold.
“Not yet.” He tightened the blindfold and urged me forward. My wet heels skidded on the slick varnish, but he held me steady.
“Here’s the thing,” he said. “If I start coaching here, you’re going to have to go to a game every once in a while.”
“So?”
“You’ll have to at least pretend that this place doesn’t make you break out in hives.”
“Fine. Give me a big thermos full of vodka before every game and we won’t have a problem.”
“That’s one way to go,” he admitted. “But I was thinking more along the lines of, well, here.” He whisked the blindfold away.
A revolving, mirrored disco ball threw flecks of light across the hardwood floor and the fluffy rolls of cotton batting that were draped atop the first row of the bleachers. Green, white and red streamers hung from every rafter.
I started to smile in spite of myself. “Did you do all this yourself?”
Nick regarded the sagging, uneven loops of crepe paper with great pride. “Yep.” He pointed at the mounds of cotton. “That’s supposed to be snow. Christmasy-like.”
“It’s very Christmasy,” I assured him.
“Good, because this is the winter formal.”
“As in dance?”
“Exactly. Oh shit, I forgot.” He loped over to the corner and turned on an ancient boom box resting by the bleachers. Smashing Pumpkins blasted out at brain-liquefying decibels.
“Son of a…” He turned down the volume and jabbed at the control console. “This was supposed to be my other nineties mix tape.” When I offered my assistance, he waved me away. “Everything’s under control. You go in the girls’ locker room.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Ew. Why?”
“Would you stop second-guessing everything I say and just go?”
As the voice of Billy Corgan continued to snarl about how, despite all his rage, he was still just a rat in a cage, I retreated to the relative peace of the locker room. The fluorescent lights flickered above the battered, puke-green lockers, the initial-carved wooden benches, and the prom dress.
At least it
had
been a prom dress, once upon a time. The tea-length skirt and pouffy sleeves were crafted of the shiniest taffeta I’d ever seen. Magenta. A pair of dyed-to-match pumps were lined up under the dress, along with a huge corsage of pink roses and baby’s breath.
I had boycotted my senior prom the first time around. (In large part because no one had asked me.) But apparently, Nick had decided I deserved another chance.
So I stripped down to my bra and panties and wriggled into the garish, vintage dress. But I could only tug the zipper halfway up my rib cage—because somehow Nick had gotten the idea that I wore a size four. If only. At least the shoes fit perfectly.
“Casey?” Nick sounded impatient. “You ready yet?”
“Hang on.” I took a moment to inspect myself in the mirrors above the rusty, dripping faucets and applied an extra coat of lipstick and mascara.
I clutched the corsage box and headed back out to the gym.
The frenetic angst of Smashing Pumpkins had been replaced by a mellow Chris Isaak song.
“You look beautiful,” Nick said when I made my grand entrance, and I decided to believe him.
“You look pretty spiffy yourself.”
He brushed off the tailored black jacket he’d changed into. “Look who brought a tux. And check it out—it actually fits this time.”
“I’m impressed.”
“Do you like that dress?” he asked. “I asked Tanya for advice, and she said you liked pink.”
That would explain it. I had liked pink…in high school. Back when I’d worn a size four. “You did a great job,” I beamed. “I love it.”
He threw me a cagey look. “You hate it.”
“I do not!”
“Liar.” He started to laugh as he noticed the gaping zipper in the back. “You’re going to throw it in the Dumpster as soon as we get home.”
“Never. I’m going to keep this dress forever,” I vowed. “To remember our winter formal.”
“That reminds me.” He handed me a plastic box containing a pink rose boutonniere to match my corsage. “We have to pin these on each other.”
I felt oddly shy as I positioned the rose on his lapel. “Then do we do our spotlight dance?”
“Not yet.”
“There’s more?”
“Much more.” He ducked behind the bleachers and emerged with a huge bouquet of pink roses.
Huge.
Think beauty pageant. Think Broadway curtain call. Think…“For the prom queen.”
“Wow. Do I get a scepter and a tiara, too?”
“No, but you get to order the prom king around.”
“Excellent.” I waved my hand imperiously. “I order you to smooch me.”
He obliged, sliding his hand over the exposed skin of my back.
“Somewhere, Anna Delano is writhing with envy,” I teased.
“Forget Anna Delano. That’s what I was trying to tell you that day in the woods—you’re the only one I want.”
I stroked his cheek. “And here I thought you were hallucinating.”
“No,” he growled. “I was trying to be sweet.”
“You are sweet.”
“Even though I can’t pick out dresses and I can’t make a turkey and I can’t hang streamers worth crap, I’m trying.”
“I know.”
He suddenly drew back, then hit the floor so hard with one knee that I heard the thud over the music.
I flinched. “Honey, are you okay?”
He produced a small, red velvet box from his jacket pocket and thrust it toward me. “Here.”
I snatched my hands away as if scorched. “Nick, what are you doing?”
“What I should have done the first time.” He waved the box at me. “Open it.”
My hands were trembling so much that I dropped the box twice. I ended up sitting next to him on the dusty gym floor, fumbling with the lid.
“Give me that; the suspense is freaking killing me.” He flipped the top back to reveal a deep green emerald set in a white gold band.
I’d always wanted an emerald ring. Apparently, Tanya had divulged more than just my dress size.
“Okay, I know I was a tool before, but I love you so I have to ask: Casey, will you please marry me?”
I looked at the ring, then I looked at his hopeful face and the belated re-creation of all my teenage fantasies. “I want to say yes.”
His whole body wilted. “But you’re not saying yes.”
My eyes welled with tears. “I’m scared. What if things go back to the way they were? What if we can’t make it work?”
“We’ll make it work.”
“But what if we can’t? I don’t want to lose you again.”
“You didn’t lose me, you kicked me out,” he clarified. “Look, I can sit here all night and promise you that you’ll never
have to do that again, but talk is cheap. I’d rather show you. Day after day, year after year, I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
“But how do I know for sure?” I whispered.
“You don’t. You have to take a chance. But I swear I won’t let you down again.”
I nibbled my lower lip. “Well. I
do
like emeralds.”
“Say yes.”
I slipped the ring onto my finger.
“You’re saying yes, right?”
I nodded vigorously. The dress slipped off one shoulder, revealing half of my bra. “But what will I do with my other engagement ring?”
He raised one eyebrow. “Did you ever pick it up off the floor after you threw it at me?”
“Tanya did.”
“What a girl. You can wear it on your other hand. Or make it into a necklace. Or keep it in reserve for whenever you need something to throw at me.” He got to his feet and extended a hand to help me up. “Come here.”
“Now is it time for our spotlight dance?”
“No. Now it’s time for the time-honored tradition of making out under the bleachers.”
I feigned reluctance. “But I’ll ruin my dress.”
“Luckily, you hate it, anyway. Come on.”
While the disco ball turned and the music of our lost ado
lescence played, we left our formal wear on the dance floor and chased each other under the bleachers.
My prom night wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t the glitzy, ribbon-trimmed fairy tale that the seventeen-year-old me had daydreamed about. But it was more than the twenty-nine-year-old me had ever dared to hope for, and the perfect start to our new marriage.