Like the First Time

by Francis Ray

  “He did it for them. They thought very highly of each other.” Becoming uncomfortable with the conversation, Claire went to the door. “If you don’t need anything I want to make a couple of calls.”

  “I’m fine.” Brooke opened the drawer and sniffed appreciatively. “But before I leave Sunday I want to know how you keep the scent in the room. My expensive candles certainly haven’t done it.”

  “Sachets beneath the pillows, back of each dresser drawer, and on top of the armoire,” Claire explained.

  “I suppose you made them, too,” Brooked said, a teasing smile on her face as she walked back to her case.

  “As a matter of fact, I did,” Claire told her and this time she let herself feel proud. “My mother was allergic to a lot of different additives in soaps and scents, and since she loved her ‘smell goods,’ as she called them, she started experimenting with making her own. She taught me. She always said a house and a woman should smell and look beautiful.”

  “Sounds like my kind of woman.” Brooke hefted her bulging bags of cosmetics.

  Claire had to smile. “Daddy always used to complain that my mother was going to put him in the poor house with all the different fragrances and oils she used to buy, because she always believed in buying the best. But I can’t count the high number of times I saw them walk hand-in-hand on the beach. They were devoted to each other.”

  “My parents are the same way.” Brooke placed her cosmetic bag on the counter in the bath and came back out. “That’s the kind of marriage I want, and I plan to have it with Randolph.”

  Claire wished there was someone to share her trials and triumphs with. A twinge of envy coursed through Claire and she quickly pushed it away. “You’re going to call him again?”

  Brooke glanced at her slim diamond watch. “I think I’ll wait. It was probably best that I didn’t reach him. Randolph doesn’t like emotional women.”

  A frown worked its way across Claire’s brow. “But surely he’d understand in this case?”

  “I think he would, but I’m too close to jeopardize things.” Brooke picked up her empty case. “After we’re married, if I have a problem I’ll cry all over his Italian suit, but not now.”

  “Whatever you think best,” Claire said, but she recalled the times her father had comforted her mother when she’d been upset about something or another. From talking with her mother, she knew he had been the same caring way before they were married. “I’ll go make that call. When you’re finished you can come into the kitchen.”

  “See you in a bit.” Brooke started to the closet with her empty case.

  Claire went to the kitchen, glanced at the basket of gift items, and felt her eyes fill with tears. She had to call Lorraine. Besides being the president of the book club, she was also Claire’s mentor and friend. How was she going to tell a woman she respected and admired that life had slapped her down again. That this time she wasn’t sure if she could get back up.

  * * *

  Lorraine Averhart was restless.

  She picked up a fashion magazine only to toss the issue down before she opened it. Fridays were always her day to regroup, to reenergize. For the past year she’d purposefully planned her schedule that way. After rushing to meeting after meeting, both church and civic, on the other six days, she needed some quiet down time. Usually she found something to occupy her mind, some task she hadn’t completed, but not today.

  Arms across her waist, she gazed out the terrace door of the great room. A limestone walk led the way to the rectangular swimming pool fifty feet away. The life-sized Grecian statue at the far end signaled the beginning of the three informal gardens filled with roses, ferns and wildflowers and four murmuring fountains. Usually she enjoyed the way the dew settled on the roses, the shifting shapes as the sunlight probed its way though the giant oaks, but not today. She was unaware of the sigh that drifted across her lips.

  Her French Renaissance dream home was the height of luxury and comfort. Even her mother, after all the years of having nothing but bad things to say about her marriage, finally admitted Lorraine’s home was a showcase. She hadn’t set out to impress her mother; her goal had been to have a home her children, and husband Hamilton, could relax in and enjoy.

  Lorraine shifted from one low-heeled sandal to the other and sighed again. Hamilton was out of town on business more than he was home these days. Their two oldest children were grown and gone. Their youngest, Stacy, might as well have been. A sophomore journalism major at Howard, Stacy had settled in nicely to being away from home and was enjoying living on her own. Justin and Melissa, the two oldest, had jobs in financing in New York and Baltimore, respectively, which kept them away. She missed her children and understood they were forming their own lives apart from their parents. She understood that and was proud of them.

  She just wished she could see where her life was going.

  Empty nest syndrome, Hamilton had said. But it was more than that. The feeling had been nagging at her for months. It had burst into her consciousness four months ago after Margaret, her oldest and dearest friend, died, and it refused to leave.

  Lorraine blinked away the tears. Margaret wouldn’t have wanted that. Even as cancer ravaged her body, she’d refused to let it destroy her spirit. She had been so full of happiness and laughter. She’d always had time for everyone, but never took time out for herself. And when she did, it was too late. The saddest part of saying goodbye to Margaret was in knowing she’d died without fulfilling her dream.

  The dream they’d shared.

  After years of talking about opening a floral gift shop they’d finally decided to stop letting family, friends and all of their other obligations stand in their way. They both loved flowers, but Margaret’s family owned a wholesale florist in Akron. She knew the business backwards and forwards. Lorraine’s business experience was nowhere as in-depth, but she’d worked in a gift shop in high school and college and loved it.

  Lorraine would never forget the excitement in Margaret’s voice the afternoon she called to say she’d found the perfect location. She’d pick up Lorraine the next day and take her to see for herself. They’d never gone. After their conversation Margaret and her husband had gone by her doctor’s office for her biopsy results.

  Lorraine’s eyes darkened with pain. Margaret had fought so hard. When it became apparent that she would never get well, she made Lorraine promise not to let their dream die. But Lorraine didn’t know where to begin. The two years of art she’d taken in college before she’d dropped out to marry Hamilton certainly wouldn’t help. Margaret had the business expertise and the contacts. Without her, the shop would remain a dream forever. But giving up Margaret and their dream was hard.

  Turning away, Lorraine stared at the room behind her. The French Country décor was picture perfect. The glow of the pale golden walls and warm sable floors pulled the Louis XVI furniture together in soft coherence. She’d carefully chosen each piece. A full-time maid that Hamilton insisted on ensured that their home would remain immaculate. They had come a long way from the tiny walk-up apartment they’d lived in while Hamilton worked on his M.B.A. at Columbia in New York.

  They’d been as poor as the proverbial church mouse, and had almost starved, as her affluent parents had predicted. That was thirty-eight years ago, and now Hamilton was president of his own company, Corporate Revitalization. He was brilliant at turning around companies on the verge of bankruptcy. In the unsettled economy, his services were in high demand. He’d been in Memphis for the past week, guiding another firm from the brink of disaster.

  And that left her in this big empty house by herself.

  On the oval table across the room the phone rang. Unfolding her arms, Lorraine walked over to pick up the receiver. Absently she fingered the velvet-soft petals of the orange and ivory roses in the floral arrangement in a Baccarat crystal vase. “Hello.”

  “Hi, Lorraine. It’s me, Claire.”

  Immediately Lorraine straightened. The happiness that had
been in Claire’s voice when they’d spoken last was gone and in its place was an unmistakable sadness. “Claire, is something wrong?”

  After a brief pause, Claire softly admitted, “I got caught in downsizing again.”

  “Oh, Claire, I’m so sorry.” Lorraine took a seat on the creamy white silk sofa, the hem of her brightly colored sundress fluttered, then settled around her ankles.

  “For some reason, I knew I would be asked to go,” Claire told her. “I just felt it once we started hearing that the company had hired a revitalization expert to come in.”

  Lorraine’s eyes shut briefly. She distinctly remembered Middleton as one of the companies Hamilton had been a consultant to a few months ago. In that capacity, he would have made suggestions to revitalize the company, and that often meant a reduction in the work force. Of all the people to lose their jobs, Claire was probably the worst.

  “But I’ll find another job. I have to.” There were equal amounts of determination and desperation in her voice.

  “You’ll make it, Claire.” Lorraine fervently hoped she was right. “You aren’t the kind of woman to give up.”

  “I used to think so, but now…” Claire’s voice trailed off.

  Lorraine ached for Claire and felt somehow responsible. “The last three years have been rough with you losing your father, then your job and shortly thereafter your mother being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. If you weren’t at your part-time job, you were with your mother.” Lorraine folded one arm across her waist and leaned back against the sofa. “You made her last days more comfortable by keeping her at home. I admire you for that.”

  “No matter what, I’ll never regret doing for them,” Claire said, her voice tired. “I have to keep the house. They both cherished and loved this place so much. There are so many good memories here.”

  “You will,” Lorraine said. For some odd reason, she again thought of Margaret, who had always done for someone else, then died before she could achieve her own dream. Lorraine shook the thought away. “I insist on having the book club meeting here tomorrow evening. I’ll call all the members and tell them of the change.”

  “I knew you’d say that,” Claire said, sounding relieved. “You’re such a good friend. I don’t know what I would have done after Mama died if not for you and the book club.”

  Lorraine thought of Hamilton, with Middleton’s accounts spread over his desk, and shook her head. “I feel the same way about you. That’s why I wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  “You were pretty persistent,” Claire said, a small smile in her voice.

  “There was something about you that drew me to you. Still is.” From their first meeting at church a little over three years ago, Lorraine had immediately liked the shy, sensitive Claire and purposefully sought her friendship. “Please come to the meeting.”

  “Thank you, but I don’t think I’d feel up to it, but if you’ll be home tomorrow I’d like to drop off the little gifts I made for you and the members.”

  “You probably don’t feel like getting out,” Lorraine said with understanding. “Why don’t I come by this afternoon and pick them up and save you a trip into town?”

  “You sure it wouldn’t be too much trouble?” Claire sounded relieved.

  “Not at all. I’d love to see you and visit for a while.” Lorraine glanced around the empty room again.

  A weary sigh drifted through the phone. “I may not be very good company.”

  “All the more reason for me to come,” Lorraine said. There was certainly nothing to keep her home. “I can pick up dinner if you’d like.”

  “No, I’ll cook,” Claire told her. “A friend from work is here for the weekend. She lost her job today, too.”

  Worse and Worse. Neither one of them would want her there if they knew Lorraine’s husband was probably the cause of them losing their jobs. “Is six all right?”

  “It’s fine. You know the address.” Claire gave her directions after crossing Ben Sawyer Bridge. “It’s easy to find.”

  “I’ll find it, don’t worry. Should I bring anything?” Lorraine offered.

  “No, thank you. I have it covered.”

  “See you at six.” Lorraine hung up the phone. Hamilton, I love you, but your job stinks, she thought with a sigh.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Claire left Brooke setting the table when the doorbell rang. “Must be Lorraine. I’ll get it.” Claire left the kitchen and went to the front door. She tried to smile when she saw her friend. “Hi, Lorraine.”

  “Hello, Claire.” Lorraine greeted her. She was a tall, striking woman. In her late fifties, she had a smattering of gray in her layered auburn hair. She wore a big white shirt with screen-print roses and red capri pants. Like Brooke, Lorraine had an innate sense of style and, despite her wealth, she was unpretentious and friendly.

  “Glad you made it all right.” Claire stepped back.

  “You gave excellent directions.” Seconds after Lorraine stepped over the threshold, she lifted her face and inhaled deeply. “Whatever that scent is, I love it.”

  “Pear vanilla,” Claire informed her, and closed the door.

  Lorraine glanced at the living room and dining room flanking the entrance foyer that led to the family room in the back of the house. “Claire, your home is lovely. So warm and vibrant.”

  Claire flushed with pleasure. “Thank you. Yellow was my mother’s favorite color. Now it’s mine.”

  “It’s so peaceful and natural.” Lorraine cast appreciative glances as she followed Claire through the great room.

  “Mother believed less was better and kept the space open with scatter rugs on the hardwood flooring throughout the house. We all liked walking on the beach and the neutral furniture can take it and no one had to worry about tracking in sand,” Claire said as she entered the kitchen to see that Brooke had finished setting the table.

  Introductions were quickly made and in a matter of minutes the women were sitting down to a dinner of spicy spaghetti with thin slices of link sausage and homemade spaghetti sauce. Claire was thankful she’d already made the pound cake for the meeting. She topped it with ice cream and plump strawberries. At least she could offer her two friends a decent meal. Finished, they cleaned up the kitchen, put away the food together, then sat around the small table sipping coffee and talking.

  “I hope the book club members like the little gifts.” Picking up a medium-sized red gift bag, Claire handed it to Lorraine. “These are for you.”

  “Claire, thank you.” Smiling, Lorraine pulled out a bar of rose-shaped soap, a jar candle, and potpourri. “They smell wonderful.” She touched a manicured nail to the satin ribbon on the potpourri. “And look too beautiful to use. This is too much.”

  Claire was already shaking her head as Lorraine tried to give the items back. “You encouraged me to join the book club, had meetings in your home when it was my turn because you knew I couldn’t afford to feed them, and helped me after Mama died. I wish it was more.”

  “You certainly know my weakness.” Lorraine sniffed the scented soap and candle. “Smells like a mixture of peach blossoms and vanilla. I love candles, and bath and body products.”

  “Me, too.” Brooke sat across from them at the small table. “I can’t believe Claire made them.”

  Lorraine’s attention snapped to Claire. “You made these?”

  Claire folded her hands in her lap and repeated what she’d told Brooke, then finished by saying, “This is the first time since Mama died that I felt like making them.” A bit embarrassed by the way Lorraine was staring at her, she shifted in her seat. “I just wanted to give the women something special for letting me be a part of the book club.”

  “She made them all perfumed soap.” Getting up from the chair, Brooke returned with the sweetgrass basket and set it on the table. “If it wouldn’t be rude, I’d accidentally misplace one in my bag.”

  “I made some extra if you want one,” Claire said.

  “I’ll take one.” Brooke qui
ckly accepted with a smile. “Since I’m not in the book club, I’d like to pay you.”

  “Mama would be ashamed of me if I charged my friends. I’m just glad you like them.” Claire glanced from Brooke to Lorraine, still finding it difficult to believe that two such sophisticated women, who were used to the best, liked her products.

  Lorraine picked up a bar of soap in the nylon bag and brought it to her nose, then inhaled and closed her eyes for a moment. “Hmm. The women are going to go crazy over the soaps. You’re sure you won’t come?” She turned to Brooke. “You’re welcome as well.”

  Both women quickly declined. “Please explain and tell them that I’ll try to make it next month,” Claire said.

  “No trying. I’m letting you miss this time, but next month I want you there.” Lorraine smiled across the table at Brooke. “There’s always room for one more.”

  Brooke shook her head and picked up her glass of sweetened iced tea. “Thank you, but I think I’ll pass.”

  “If you change your mind about tomorrow night, or joining, please feel free to contact me. Claire knows the phone number.” Lorraine stood. “Do you want me to take the soap in the basket and return it?”

  The coiled basket had been made by her great-great-grandmother. It was one of the few things that had passed from one generation to the next. “I’ll pick it up.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Lorraine said firmly. “I’ll bring it by one day next week.”

  “Thank you.” Claire walked her friend to the door, fervently hoping by then she’d have a job.

  * * *

  What am I going to do?

  Claire had pondered the question all night, and as she watched the sun slowly rise, turning the Atlantic into a sparkling blue jewel, she still had no answer. Her severance pay was for only two weeks, and her unemployment check wouldn’t come even close to paying the mortgage payment. She couldn’t lose the house. She’d promised her parents. They were proud that they owned land that served as an entry point for their ancestors. The house would be the beginning of a legacy that would be handed down through her to her children and her children’s children.