by R. S. Lively
"I know you did," she says. "And I appreciate that. My son could take some lessons from you when it comes to getting rent in on time. That's why I don't mind you breaking your lease early at all."
"Breaking her lease?"
Mrs. Davenport looks at me with slightly narrowed eyes.
"Well, yes. I just assumed... I mean – you do want the two of you to live in your house, don't you, Grant? After all, you own it, and it does have a slightly larger layout than this one. Now that the two of you are married, it only makes sense for you to live in your house, and for me to put this one up for rent again."
And there it is.
"You're right," I say. "That does make sense." I wrap my arm around Emma's shoulders. "And how wonderful of you to arrange for the movers to help my lovely wife get settled in her new home."
Mrs. Davenport nods.
"I want to be able to get the house up for rent as soon as possible," she says. "There are already a few people interested. I didn't want the move to get overlooked in your… newlywed bliss."
The somewhat uneven blend of her emotions is uncomfortable, but I continue to smile at her. Around us, the young men, who look like they were plucked directly from the high school football team, continue to scurry around bringing things out of Emma's house and piling them on the wagon. I don't know why they don't just carry them straight across our little shared strip of grass to my door, but they seem like they’re on a mission. Emma rushes inside to supervise the gathering of the rest of her belongings, but steps back out onto the porch a few minutes later, shaking her head in defeat.
"It's all in boxes," she says. "It's like magic. It took me weeks to pack before I moved back here. How did they condense my entire life in two days?"
"Speaking of which," I say. "Mrs. Davidson, how did you hear about us getting married?"
Before she can answer, Judy's car screeches to a stop behind the wagon.
Chapter Fifteen
Emma
Judy pauses a few steps onto the yard and turns an angry glare toward Jeremy. I don't know what happened between the two of them in the few days we’ve been gone, but they are clearly upset with each other. I was positive they would be the ones who spontaneously run off and get married. Not me.
Shit.
Suddenly, it seems that Judy has exerted enough of her silent wrath on Jeremy, and she turns toward me. I try to convey to her without speaking that there's more to the story.
"Mr. Kleinfelder."
I turn to look at her.
"Mr. Kleinfelder?" Grant and I repeat at the same.
"Oh, yes," Judy says as she gets to the bottom of the stairs leading up to the porch. "Mr. Kleinfelder. We all know about Mr. Kleinfelder. It's his fault, isn't it? He's responsible for this."
"Judy, why don't you and Emma go inside my house," Grant offers. "It's quieter in there, and you two can talk privately."
Judy doesn't say anything, but stomps off in the direction of Grant's house. I take the key he holds out toward me and meet his eyes. He shakes his head. He knows what I'm thinking.
Mr. Kleinfelder?
Judy refuses to look at me as I unlock the front door. We walk into Grant's house, and I quickly close the door behind me and lock it. I don't want to give the makeshift moving brigade the opportunity to slip into the house. If I do, we'll have to wait until they’ve finished piling all my belongings in Grant's house before I can talk to Judy.
"What do you have to say for yourself?" Judy asks.
"I thought you weren't speaking to me," I say.
"Don't try to be cute," she says. "How could you do this to me?"
"Judy…"
"How could you not only forget to call me at midnight, but not even bother to tell me you were getting married?"
"Judy…"
"I thought we were friends, Emma. I thought we were close."
"We are, Judy…"
This is beginning to feel like a conversation with Grant.
"I had plans, Emma. I had thought this all out. See, you didn't know I knew. But I knew. And I knew you didn't know I knew. So, I just went right ahead knowing, and planning."
"What did you know?"
"About you and Grant. You said there wasn't anything going on between the two of you. Then you said you didn't know what it was."
"But you knew?"
"Exactly. I could see it all along. The two of you were trying to pretend you weren’t hopelessly in love with each other. From the first time I saw you in the same room together, I could see it. Even when you were acting like you didn't want to be anywhere near him, I saw the way you looked at him. And the way he looks at you, too. There wasn't any fooling me. I could see this coming a mile away, so I started planning."
" Judy…"
"I planned the engagement party. I planned the bridal shower. And that was going to be beautiful. I can already tell you that. All the tiny bridal shower food was going to be themed."
"Judy…"
"Why?" Judy suddenly wails. "Why didn't you tell me? Why did you deny me the opportunity to make my compelling argument as to why I should be your maid of honor instead of Carina, and then go to Mr. Alexander for my dress and dyed-to-match shoes? Why did you ruin your bachelorette party at Esmerelda's School of Exotic Arts? Why did you rob my little niece Tetyana of her big chance to be a flower girl alongside Grace?"
"You have a little niece Tetyana?" I ask.
"I do," Judy replies. "She's three. She's the daughter of my Gram's cousin's granddaughter. She's never been a flower girl before, and she would have been adorable in the blush pink and dusty purple dress, with white gloves, carrying that bitty white satin basket filled with flower petals."
She's choking up, and her voice is rapidly reaching dog-training pitch.
"That all sounds adorable," I tell her.
"Then why didn't you tell me?" she asks.
"Because there isn’t anything to tell," I say.
"Nothing to tell? How can you say there wasn't anything to tell? You got married, Emma."
"I know,” I say. “But... not really. I mean, yes, we are really married, but... it wasn't supposed to happen this way. Judy, listen to me. I didn't tell you I was getting married, because I wasn’t planning on it. I'll tell you the whole story, but you have to promise you won’t tell anyone. This has to stay a secret, promise?"
"So, you didn't mean to leave me out of your wedding?" she asks.
I shake my head.
"Of course, not," I say. "I would never go through with something like that without you there with me." I let out a breath. "You should probably sit down," I say. "This story is a bit complicated."
We settle on to the couch, and I pour out the entire story of what happened, from leaving Magnolia Falls for the New Year's Eve wedding until we arrived back here. Even telling the story makes me feel dizzy and anxious. I don't know whether I should give in to the fluttering, elevated feeling in my heart, or if I should pay more attention to the heavy stone sitting in the bottom of my belly. In a way, it's a relief to talk it through with Judy first. Just laying it all out forces me to confront the situation, and allows me to start to understand how I feel, and what my next steps should be moving forward.
When I'm done, I look at Judy expectantly.
"So, you're legally married?" she asks.
"Yes," I say. "Legally."
"But you didn't mean to get married?"
"No," I say.
"And you were just going to come back and pretend you weren't married?"
"Yes," I say.
"But now everyone knows you're married, so you don't want any of them to know you didn't mean to get married?"
"No," I say.
Judy gives a single, slow nod.
"I can work with that," she says. "I don't entirely believe it, but I can work with it."
"What do you mean you don't believe it?"
"That you didn't mean to do it," she says. "I don't care how much you say the drinks made you do it. Those little
bubbles aren't strong enough to force you or Grant to do anything.”
"Right now, that doesn’t matter. We just need to make sure no one else finds out what really happened, and after a while, we’ll let everyone think it fizzled out and file for divorce. It's as easy as that."
"Sure," Judy says. "Easy as that."
I nod.
"I have to ask you a question," I say.
"About Jeremy?" she asks.
I nod again.
"Yes," I say. "I have to know what happened. You seemed so happy when you were talking about him last week. What happened? He’s such a nice guy.”
"Exactly," she says with the venom of someone who has been deeply betrayed.
"What do you mean, exactly?”
"Well, let me tell you what he did to me the other day," she says.
I feel my chest tighten. I rest my hand on her arm.
"What happened?" I ask.
"Nothing," she says with a sniffle.
"You can tell me, Judy. You can trust me. What did he do?"
"Seriously," she says. "Nothing. He did nothing to me. That's the problem.”
I blink at her a few times. I'm sure there has to be more to the story that I somehow missed, and maybe if I just wait, she'll backtrack and fill in all the gaps for me. No such luck.
"What?" I ask.
"Yeah. The other week, I was looking all juicy and loosened up from pre-lunch, post-brunch mimosas, and he ignored all of my very sexy advances. He didn't even try anything. Not a kiss, not even a little casual groping."
"So, you’re mad at him because he didn't take advantage of you when you were buzzed? Do you even realize how ridiculous that sounds? This is a man who really likes you," I say. "One who cares about you and wanted to make sure you felt safe."
Judy's jaw drops. A second later, she bounds up from the couch and darts for the front door.
"Jeremy!" she cries out. "Is there room on that tractor for one more?"
I walk out onto the porch to watch her try to climb up onto the seat behind Jeremy. He doesn’t move, but I can see a faint smile playing on his lips. Grant steps up onto the porch beside me and nods toward the tractor.
"A grand reunion?"
"Looks like it might be," I say.
Judy scrambles back off the tractor and runs toward me with her arms open. Gathering me into a tight hug, she tucks her head close to my ear.
"Thank you, Emma. I'll make sure nobody in town gets wind of your little secret."
She squeezes me a little tighter, and I squeeze back.
"Thanks," I say.
She runs back to Jeremy and climbs up behind him. He says something to one of the men standing nearby, and the younger man detaches the tractor from the trailer. They putter off down the road toward his house, leaving the trailer full of my belongings stranded on the side of the road. I can deal with that. If it means Judy has a chance to be happy, I can cope with a dent in my curb appeal. Looking on the bright side, if Jeremy never comes back for his trailer, I can drag it up into the yard and turn it into one hell of a lawn ornament.
"It turns out," Grant says in a conspiratorial whisper, sidling up to me, "Mr. Kleinfelder is from Magnolia Falls."
"He is?" I ask in stunned surprise. "How could you not know that?"
"His family moved away a long time ago," Grant says. "But that's how he knew about me and my company in the first place. He still keeps in touch with a couple of people around here, and they told him about the business. It interested him, and he came up with his own list. When he ended up marrying us on New Year's Eve, he couldn't help himself. He had to tell his friends here. And you know what happens with any bit of information that ends up with someone in Magnolia Falls."
"It spreads like wildfire," I say. I let out a sigh, but then look at him questioningly.
"Why didn’t he mention it to you? Don't you think he would tell you he's from your hometown, and knows a lot of the same people you do? Especially if it's important enough to him that he still keeps up with a few people here and decided to play messenger about us getting married."
"Apparently being from Magnolia Falls is something he’s pretty sensitive about. Even though he keeps up with people still here, he hasn't been back on the island since he moved all those years ago. According to Mrs. Davidson, who has known of him since she was a little girl because of her grandfather, he doesn't like to talk about living here because it brings back some bad memories."
"What kind of bad memories?" I ask.
"It seems his senior year experience was cut short."
I feel my lips part in a silent gasp.
"The prom," I say. "He was supposed to go to the same prom as Mr. Bernheimer."
Grant nods.
"Yep. He and Bernheimer were friends back in the day. Still are, evidently."
"So not being able to go to his prom was a bad enough memory he left Magnolia Falls, and never came back?"
Grant shrugs.
"I don't know," he says. "That's all I got from Mrs. Davidson. But now we know how all of Magnolia Falls knows about us getting married."
"So what do we do now?" I ask. "Because our whole plan of just keeping things quiet until we figure out what to do obviously isn't going to work out."
"At this point," Grant says, "we're pretty wrapped up in this. I think our only option is to go along with it for a while.” He takes my hands and holds them close between us. “For now, we’ll play the happily married couple. We work. We plan the prom. Eventually, the fervor over our fairytale ending will die down, and we can make a decision then."
I nod, and my eyes wander over to the end of the street, and the corner that curves around to where my mother's house sits.
"We should probably go talk to our families," I say. "I haven't even heard from my mother. That either means she's so furious with me she can't even speak, or that she doesn't want to say anything because she wants me to surprise her."
"I guess we'll hope for the latter," Grant says. "Should we let them in on the situation?"
I shake my head.
"No," I say. "I already told Judy, but that's only because she was about to jump off a cliff from despair. The more people who know, the more chances of everyone else finding out. Besides, I don't want to hear all of their different opinions or start getting pressured.”
"You want to be able to make your own decision," Grant says.
"Yes," I answer. "If our families find out what's really going on, we're never going to hear the end of it from any of them. We just need to play it cool for now. "
"So what do we tell them in the meantime?" Grant asks.
"We tell them the truth," I say. "There's no reason to lie about it."
"The truth?" Grant asks.
"Yes, the truth. There was a last-minute change of plans at the wedding, and we made the impulsive decision to step in for the couple."
"We'll just gloss over the rest?"
"Smooth as silk." I look at the corner again. "We should probably just get this over with," I say. "My mother first. There’s only one of her, and it should be easier. Then your family.”
"Alright," Grant says. He looks over to where Mrs. Davidson is still standing. She occasionally glances in our direction over her shoulder in that subtle way that people do when they don't want to look nosy.
"Mrs. Davidson, can you keep everything under control until we get back?"
She gives a terse nod.
“Ok boys. Time to start moving Mrs. Laurence’s belongings into her new home!”
Oh god. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get used to that.
"You're just going to let them wander in and out of your house without you here?" I ask.
Grant guides me toward the street so we can walk to my mother's house.
"They've already pawed through every inch of your house and dismantled everything you own. We'll call it even."
The conversation with my mother isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but I'm still exhausted by the
time we make it back to my street. She had Carina on speakerphone, which meant I had to listen to both of them practice the time-honored tradition of simultaneously congratulating me and making me feel guilty. Not being able to see the expression on my sister's face made it much harder to determine how she really feels about the situation. I start toward my house, but Grant calls after me.
"Where are you going?" he asks.
"Home," I say. "I need a long bath and about three years of sleep."
He points towards his house.
"You walked past home," he says.
Shit.
I hang my head and make my way back across the grass toward him where he waits for me on the porch. I step inside, but only get a few feet away from the front door.
"What happened in here?" I ask.
All of my belongings have been stacked haphazardly on the floor and any other available surface, shoved into corners, and piled on the sofa. I can't see any further than the living room, but I can only imagine what didn't fit into this room has trickled its way throughout the rest of the house. Yet again, I find myself in the position of not knowing where to find my underwear.
"I don't think I can do this," I say.
"Sure, you can," he says. "Just look at it like a maze. We’ll make a path through the living room, then work our way back to the front of the house."
"That's not what I mean," I say. "I don't think I can do this, this fake marriage. Did you see how my mother looked at us?"
Grant nods.
"It was a shock for her," he says. "But did you see how she smiled when she asked if you were happy? She might not like the idea that she wasn't there for the wedding, but she's relieved to think you've finally found your way again. Have you thought about how she felt watching her child go through so much pain the last few years? She was right there by your side when you left Magnolia Falls, and when you married Wyatt. Even you said that the wedding was every mother's dream. When it all fell apart, she had to watch her child crash and burn, and there was nothing she could do."
"She was happy when I divorced Wyatt," I say.
