After the second knock, Mary Dell called out permission to come in. Evelyn stuck her head around the door.
“I wondered where you’d gone off to. Are you feeling okay?” Evelyn asked.
“I’m fine. Just decided to come up to my room for a while. I’m just not in the mood to quilt.”
“Now, those are words I have never imagined coming from your mouth.” Evelyn stepped into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. “So, what’s up? And don’t say ‘nothing,’” she directed, a no-nonsense edge coming into her voice.
“It’s complicated.”
Evelyn just sat there, waiting.
“It’s Howard,” Mary Dell finally said. “No . . . maybe not. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m the complication.”
They talked for close to an hour.
Mary Dell felt bad about keeping Evelyn from her quilting time, but each time she mentioned it, Evelyn would brush her off, telling her not to worry about it because this was more important. Then she would lead Mary Dell back to the story, helping her open up, listening for long stretches before asking questions.
What did he say? What did you say? What did it make you feel? Think? Question? Doubt? Cry?
Evelyn’s questions helped Mary Dell to finally see the connections between her words and thoughts, actions and emotions, and realize that she really was the complication. There were no maybes about it.
“I’m going to remind you of something you told me a long time ago,” Evelyn said, “about how right it felt after Howard was born. You were so worried about Howard. You wondered about his future, his chances of success or happiness. Would he ever be able to walk? To talk? Would he learn to read a book or ride a bicycle, hold a job, a conversation? Would he know happiness in life and find purpose? Do you remember?”
Mary Dell’s eyes filled with tears, thinking back to that day, to the unfathomable tangle of questions that had filled her in the weeks, months, and years after Howard’s birth, and how, in time, the answer to every one of them had been “yes.”
“What struck me when you were telling that story,” Evelyn continued, “was that those worries you had for Howard were the same worries I had for my son. I think those are the same questions every mother asks at some point.
“And a lot of the questions that you had about Howard’s future then are the same ones he is asking himself now. He wants to know if he can make it on his own, if he has anything unique to offer the world. That’s what everyone wants to know.”
“But it’s different with Howard.”
“Because he happens to have Down syndrome? Howard faces challenges that other people don’t. But he also has an advantage that most people don’t—a mother who poured herself into him, who gave him an appetite for life and made him believe he could do anything he set his mind to, because she believed it too.”
“I still do,” Mary Dell said. “I always have.”
“I know. So what are you really afraid of here? That Howard can’t survive without you? Or that you can’t survive without him?”
Mary Dell was silent for a long time after that. She didn’t respond to her friend’s question because she knew she didn’t have to. Evelyn already knew the answer. Now Mary Dell did too.
Mary Dell sat up and leaned over to give her friend a hug.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“You’re right,” Mary Dell said, sweeping her index finger beneath her now dry eyes, just to make certain no telltale mascara smears remained. “I shouldn’t be sitting here feeling sorry for myself. I should be celebrating the fact that I’ve done my job and raised a kind, capable, and independent man.
“You know something?” Mary Dell said, her expression brightening. “That’s exactly what I should do. Celebrate! Howard and Rob Lee are both turning thirty in February. I should throw them a birthday party.”
“That’s the spirit,” Evelyn said with a grin.
“But it needs to be something big. Something elegant,” Mary Dell said in a half-musing tone, the wheels already turning in her mind. She wanted to celebrate Rob Lee just as much as Howard, to let him know how much she and the whole family loved him. She would give him a beautiful party, the kind of celebration that Lydia Dale would have wanted to give him, had she been alive. Maybe it would help to lift him out of this funk.
“We should have it in Dallas,” she declared after a moment’s consideration. “At the Hollander Grand! With food and music and dancing. I’m sure Hub-Jay will help me with the planning.”
“Sounds perfect,” Evelyn replied, and got to her feet.
Mary Dell did the same, smoothing out her hair as she followed Evelyn through the door of the suite and down the stairs toward the sewing room to join the rest of the group. Now that the despondency had lifted, Mary Dell was eager to get back to quilting.
“Do you think you and Charlie can come?” she asked as they descended the stairs. “I’ll have to decide on a date, but it would be sometime in mid-February.”
“Wouldn’t dream of missing it.”
CHAPTER 13
It was a little past eight in the morning. Spurs wouldn’t open for another three hours, but Hub-Jay was sitting at his usual corner table. Emerson, the restaurant’s executive chef, and David, the manager, were sitting with him, going over menu options.
“I want something special. This will be my last chance to see Mary Dell before she moves to Too Much, so I need you to stretch yourself here, Em.”
The chef, a stocky man with a beard and several piercings in his ears, crossed his arms over his chest. “I always stretch myself, Hub-Jay.”
Hub-Jay lifted both hands and dipped his head forward, an insincere but necessary gesture of humility. Emerson was a pain and a prima donna, but he was also an artist and had to be coddled a bit.
“Forgive me, I misspoke. What I should have said is that I wanted to give you a free hand and room to let your imagination soar, to create something completely original, no holds barred, no expense spared. I want this to be an intimate and truly memorable occasion, a meal that she’ll want to linger over, where every single bite is a . . .” Hub-Jay cast his eyes to the ceiling briefly, searching for the right words. “A discovery, a revelation.”
Emerson sniffed. Uncrossed his arms. “How about a tasting menu? Say . . . eight courses?”
“Perfect. Genius.” Hub-Jay turned to David. “I’ll rely on you to select the wine pairings. It won’t be easy. You know Miss Mary Dell prefers sweet wines.”
“I was already thinking about that, Mr. Hollander. I suggest flutes of Veuve Clicquot to begin and later a New Zealand sauvignon blanc, Cloudy Bay 2009. With dessert, we’ll serve a 2010 Le Clos, Vouvray.”
David, unlike the truculent head chef, always treated his employer with deference, but also without a trace of obsequiousness, being neither fawning nor familiar, just unfailingly polite. This was how he treated everyone, from the governor to the garbageman. It was a rare quality in any man, no matter how genteel his upbringing, and David’s upbringing, like Hub-Jay’s, was anything but.
Raised in the remotest regions of West Texas, David had moved to Houston in his teens and been hired as a busboy at one of the smaller Hollander properties. Hub-Jay noticed him early on and saw that he learned quickly and was eager to improve himself. In a matter of months, David’s West Texas twang disappeared and his vocabulary expanded. His promotions had been quick and well deserved.
Hub-Jay liked David. They were very similar men, pulled-up-by-the-bootstraps sort of men. David didn’t know it yet, but Hub-Jay was considering promoting him to manager of the property he was building in Fort Worth. There would be a learning curve, but Hub-Jay was confident David could handle it.
“Okay,” Emerson said, pushing himself up from his seat, “if that’s it, I’ll get back to my kitchen. The pastry chef had a meltdown this morning.”
“Vivian?” Hub-Jay’s brow creased with concern. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing
. I said her madeleines had the texture of pre-chewed gummy bears and she burst into tears. Pfft.” Emerson lumbered off.
“David, check on Vivian later, will you? Send her some flowers and sign my name. Good executive chefs are hard to find and keep, but so are good pastry chefs.”
“Of course, Mr. Hollander.”
“Also, I want a fresh arrangement on the table. Tell the florist to keep it simple. All white blooms. And can you check with Gene and see what suites we have open that night? Mary Dell’s furniture will be on the moving truck, so I’d like to offer her a room in the hotel—the best we’ve got.”
“Perhaps we can speed up the renovations on the Alvarado suite,” David suggested. “If so, Miss Mary Dell could be the first guest to stay there.”
“She’ll love that. Good idea, David. I want it to be a very special evening.”
“I’m sure it will be, Mr. Hollander—so special that she’ll want to return very soon. Perhaps permanently?”
David smiled ever so slightly and looked his employer directly in the eye, holding his gaze a beat longer than he normally might. Hub-Jay returned his smile.
“Exactly.”
Mary Dell had been too busy with the move to join Hub-Jay for their usual Friday lunches, but in the weeks that followed, he’d thought of little else but her.
They were an unlikely pair. Though they’d both built successful businesses with few resources besides desperation and diligence, Hub-Jay had worked hard to distance himself from his humble beginnings, transforming himself into the person he wanted to be, a man of elegance, discretion, and uncompromising taste.
Mary Dell, on the other hand, embraced, even reveled in, her country-girl roots. Her speech was laced with old-time Texas sayings—a capable man was described as “a three-jump cowboy,” a similarly clever woman as having “some snap in her garters.” Her taste in clothing and jewelry could best be described as Dolly Parton meets Madonna; Mary Dell had never met a plunging neckline, zebra print, or rhinestone she didn’t love.
Hub-Jay thought her crow-like affinity for glittery objects had mellowed since he’d first met her, but perhaps he’d just gotten used to it. Either way, he had no desire to change her; she was perfect as she was. Mary Dell laughed easily, loudly, and often, and attacked her food the same way she attacked life, with gusto. And whether in spite of that or because of it, Hub-Jay had fallen in love with her.
Mary Dell didn’t know that. But why would she? He hadn’t known either, not until recently. Because the truth was, until recently, he hadn’t known what it meant to truly love a woman.
Sure, he’d had plenty of women. He’d indulged his appetites at will, perhaps overindulged, so much so that he’d lost interest. And why wouldn’t he? Though the hair and eye colors were different, the scores of women he dated were all the same: as perfectly proportioned, coiffed, and clad as mannequins in a Neiman Marcus window, and nearly as hard to hold a conversation with.
The fault was his; he knew that now. Those were the women he’d sought out time and time again. As a young man, back when he didn’t have two nickels to rub together, women didn’t give him the time of day. Or if they did, he hadn’t noticed. He was too busy working, trying to make himself into the man he wanted to be, to worry about women. But once he’d become that man, made some money and a reputation for himself, he was surrounded by women, each more beautiful than the last. He collected them like trophies, as symbols of his success, but the thrill he experienced in acquiring them was always temporary.
He’d treated them badly, used them. Hub-Jay had realized that long ago. Of course, they’d been trying to use him, too, as a meal ticket and a retirement plan, but that didn’t make it right. That was another reason he’d sworn off any real relationships with women. As a boy and a young man, he’d had all kinds of ambitions, but womanizer wasn’t on the list. He’d wanted to be a successful man, a wealthy man, but also a good man.
And Mary Dell made him want to be a better man, a man worthy of her love.
When she told him she was leaving Dallas, it was like being told that the sun would stop rising; he couldn’t conceive of a world without that source of heat and light whose presence he’d come to take for granted. How would he survive in the void?
And when she’d told him how that guy, that Jason, had spoken to her, he’d proposed impulsively, the words spilling forth in an instinctive, almost primal compulsion to defend and protect her.
His declaration took them both by surprise. But when she got up and left him sitting alone at the table, he’d felt like the sun really had set forever, and he had realized he’d spoken truly and from his heart.
He didn’t just want to defend Mary Dell; he wanted to protect and cherish and keep her, always. He wanted to marry her. He’d never felt that way about anyone before. He loved her.
He wanted her physically, too. Just the thought of her stirred up emotions and desires he’d believed were dead in him. And he thought about her all the time.
She didn’t know, because he’d never told her. Even now, if he did tell her, she probably wouldn’t believe him. Having been hurt and betrayed before, Mary Dell had built walls to separate herself from the possibility of love so that no one could ever betray or hurt her again. Hub-Jay was certain of it. If not, someone would surely have claimed her heart long ago.
But Hub-Jay would climb those walls, or tear them down, brick by brick. No matter how long it took, he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
CHAPTER 14
Christmas was a strange day for Holly. It was the first time she’d ever spent the holiday alone. Rachel had left a few gifts for her—a couple of new tops, a necklace, an iTunes gift card, and a vintage, hardbound copy of Black Beauty, which was really kind of sweet. After opening her presents, Holly tried calling Rachel to say thank you and wish her a merry Christmas but ended up leaving a message on her mother’s voice mail. They hadn’t parted on very good terms, and Holly knew how stubborn Rachel could be when she was mad about something. Even so, Holly really did think she’d call back, but she didn’t and that hurt.
Holly couldn’t say that she loved quilting, but on that day, she was glad for the distraction quilting provided. It helped keep her mind off Rachel, or at least helped focus her mind enough so she could think it through a little more rationally, finally concluding that Rachel was either having some kind of tantrum or so wrapped up in her new love affair that she had forgotten she had a daughter. Either way, Rachel would get over it eventually—she always had before.
In the meantime, Christmas or not, Holly had work to do, and that’s what she did, work, on Christmas Day, and the next day, and the day after that, only stopping to sleep, eat, and go to the bathroom. But all those hours and all that effort didn’t seem to be doing much to improve Holly’s skill or confidence in quilting. With only a few days left until the start of filming, she was more anxious than ever.
Holly had a habit of talking to herself when nobody else was around. She did so now, talking herself through the steps required to insert a new bobbin into the sewing machine, something Cady had taught her how to do earlier in the week.
“Check the bobbin case for lint.” Holly lowered her head and peered into an open compartment of the machine. “No lint,” she announced. “Now hold the bobbin with the thread coming down on the left. Insert the bobbin into the case. Slide the thread between the doohickeys. Pull until it clicks into the thingamajig. Excellent!” she exclaimed, hearing the click.
“Going on. Thread the needle, which,” she reminded herself in a tone meant to inspire confidence, “you totally have down at this point. Then push the”—her finger hovered searchingly over a computerized panel—“ ‘double arrow’ button.
“Once.” The threaded sewing needle tip dipped down into the machine. “And twice. Pull gently to bring up the bobbin thread, and . . . voilà! You are a genius!”
Eight minutes later, she was talking to herself again as she stabbed a seam ripper into a tangled nest of threa
d, calling herself names. She didn’t hear Cady’s knock or notice her come through the door of the second bedroom, which now served as Holly’s sewing room. When Cady tapped her on the shoulder, Holly yelped so loudly that Cady nearly dropped the big cardboard box she was carrying.
“You’re almost as jumpy as Rob Lee,” Cady said, then set the box on the floor.
“Sorry,” Holly said. “I was kind of . . . focused.” She held up her mangled quilt block. “I can’t understand it! I did everything just like you told me to—put the bobbin in like a ‘p,’ drew up the thread . . .”
Cady took the block from Holly’s outstretched hand. “Computerized sewing machines can be temperamental. Why did you buy this model? It’s got three hundred and fifty-six stitches. At this point, you need three—straight stitch, backstitch, and zigzag. That’s it.”
“I thought more stitches would make quilting easier.”
“It might,” Cady said, “if you had any idea what you were doing.”
Holly, feeling foolish, felt her cheeks color.
“Oh, don’t mind me,” Cady said, picking up a strip of fabric Holly had left lying on the table. “I had a fight with Rob Lee and I’m still ticked.”
Cady looked down at her hand as she wound the fabric strip around her palm, only to unwind it and begin again, like she was trying, unsuccessfully, to bandage an old wound.
“I can’t run the ranch and the shop at the same time!” she exclaimed after a few moments of silence. “I can’t do everything by myself. Even if I didn’t have the shop to run, I still couldn’t manage the ranch. I can do the business part, but when it comes to dealing with livestock, I’m definitely out of my comfort zone.
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