by Sophie Gunn
Contents
copyright
title page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Nina's Story
Coming Soon....Georgia's Story
links
Copyright © 2011 Diana Holquist
This e-novella is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-novella may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. Visit Sophie’s website to learn more about her, this book, and her other publications at
http://sophiegunn.com
IT’S A WONDERFUL WIFE
A Christmas Novella
by
Sophie Gunn
Chapter One
Stewart Zeppalt had shown up on December 24th, Georgia’s birthday, for the past four years and here he was again, right on schedule. His black Audi coasted to a stop in front of Georgia’s stately 1820s colonial, the whole scene looking like a set up for an ad in a glossy magazine. Even the recently fallen snow sparkled picture perfect.
Georgia dropped the brocade curtain and stepped back, not wanting to be caught expecting him, even though of course she was. Five years in a row. Still, it felt unkind to acknowledge his predictability. Dread and thrill combined in her stomach to create a peculiar, primordial emotional soup. This is awful. This is great…awful…
Stuey was here, exactly as she knew he would be. She knew exactly what he was going to say and what she would say.
Except, when he stepped into her foyer, his pleated khakis pressed to within an inch of their life, it felt—different.
“Georgia.” He nodded.
“Stu.” She smiled at her dear friend.
She poured him tea. He added two scoops of sugar, ate three Christmas cookies, then a fourth. Still, not a hint of extra weight showed around his middle. He was a man perpetually stuck in the scrawny body he had found so unwieldy as the seventeen-year-old science-club president.
Georgia had been the treasurer.
Stu’s brown hair was receding and going a little gray around the edges. Over the decades she’d known him, his glasses had gone from smudged plastic trapezoids, to round academic wires, to trendy, rectangular black frames that almost made his hazel eyes look clear and firm. Almost. They chatted about the white Christmas weather and the difficulties of the piece they were going to try to tackle next week at their string quartet practice. “I can’t believe how quickly the tempo changes after measure sixty-four,” Stu lamented. “And the key at the same time! That Strauss is tricky!”
After exactly fifteen minutes of this, he looked at his watch. “You probably have big birthday plans.”
She did. Well, big for her. She was meeting her three best friends, the members of the Enemy Club, at the Last Chance diner for birthday pie. They always came out for her birthday, even in the middle of the holiday madness. “You don’t have to do this,” she said.
“I do,” he said.
They both smiled at his unfortunate choice of words.
He wiped cookie crumbs off the front of his green and red striped sweater and took her hand. He leaned forward. “Georgia, will you marry me?”
She was about to say no, when she hesitated. This was the part where she said no. They’d been through this four times before. But a slight shift in the filament, an undefined something that wasn’t the same made her think for just a moment, would it be so bad to marry this kind, sweet, good man?
And then the moment passed. “No, Stu. I’m sorry. But thanks for asking,” she said.
“The offer always stands.” He dropped her hand, tilted his head to the side, and smiled at her.
“Thanks,” she said. “I really appreciate the offer.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, nothing if not polite. “You hesitated this time,” he said.
“I did. I won’t deny it. Something felt—I don’t know. Maybe because it’s my thirty-fifth birthday, I’m feeling old.”
“You’re not old. When we’re still doing this in thirty years, then you’ll be old.”
“You don’t honestly think you’ll still be asking me to marry you in thirty years?”
“Why not? You have other plans?”
“You’re supposed to say, Why not, I love you and I’ll never love another,” she scolded.
“You know how I feel about love,” he said. “It’s something you have to work for. I don’t believe in that head-over-heels stuff and neither do you. We’re both smart enough to know that instant love stuff is one part lust and one part fairy tale. Not that there’s anything wrong with lust and fairy tales. I love both. But what we have is deeper. Friendship. It’s a much better foundation for a relationship.”
Georgia sighed. “I do love you, Stu. I always will. I just don’t want to marry you and I don’t think you want to marry me. Not really. Still, it’s the nicest birthday present anyone gives me.”
“I’ll wear you down, yet, Georgie.”
They moved on to a discussion of the upcoming seven percent tax increase the Galton town board was proposing. They disagreed on the new trail the town was going to lay through Frederick's Woods, ostensibly for baby strollers, but what about the mountain bikers who would show up?
Georgia felt deeply melancholy. Not because Stuart seemed sad. He didn’t. He had taken her refusal with the same good natured cheer he displayed every year.
She tried to imagine being in his place, getting turned down every year.
She couldn’t.
If things had been reversed, she would have been humiliated. But not Stu. This was his strength, his inner power: he knew what he wanted and he had the patience to get it. They saw each other every Friday night at chamber practice and went out for dinner a few times a month as friends. Nothing fancy. Maybe to the diner where he always ate a turkey club and she had eggs with home fries. Or they’d have steaks at The Pines with BYO red plonk wine that they’d drink over the course of a long, slow, satisfying dinner. They’d never slept together, never even kissed. But Stu didn’t seem to care about that either.
“Stuart, did you ask out that woman Jill introduced you to last month?”
“I did. She was fun. Very pretty. We got along great. Even had some fun in bed, if you don’t mind me telling you. But in the end, she just wasn’t for me.”
“Did you give her a chance?”
“I did. I really did. It just wasn’t right. Georgia, I know who I am and what I want.”
“Who are you?” she asked, genuinely curious. Sure, she’d known him since fifth grade when his father had moved his optometry business from Syracuse to Galton. But still, this yearly proposal was so out of character with the rest of their life, it made everything else about him—his classical music, his thriving law practice, his ribbon-winning heirloom tomato garden—seem like a front.
“I am a man who believes love can be a quiet and peaceful thing.”
Georgia sighed. “You deserve more than quiet and peaceful, Stu.” And so do I.
“Happy birthday, Georgia.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek. At the door, he offered her the small, square jewelry box he offered her every year. The ring inside had been his grandmother’s. She shook her head and he tucked the box back into his jacket pocket.
“Stu, what if we really are still doing this when we’re old and gray?”
“I’m not unhappy, Georgia.”
“Neither am I,” she said. But for the first time, she wasn’t sure she believed it.
#
The next year, Stu’s parents left Manhattan and retired to a palatial estate in Florida. They gifted Stu, their only son, their stately Fifth Avenue, fourth floor Manhattan apartment as a fortieth birthday gift. It was an opportunity that was too good to pass up.
Stu left Galton and moved to Manhattan’s Upper East Side. He took a job as a tax attorney at three times the salary he had made in Galton.
All the same, the next year he drove the four hours upstate through dreadful holiday traffic and an awful storm on Georgia’s birthday to propose.
She said no.
But as the days passed, Georgia started to regret her decision. She missed Stu.
If she really believed that a quiet and peaceful love wasn’t enough, then she had better act on that belief and seek out a wild and romantic love.
So she did.
His name was Bobby Ridale and their brief affair was a disaster.
When the relationship went south, the humiliation was shattering. Late at night, alone in her bed, she thought back on what Stu had said about the value of friendship, the worth of taking things slow, of finding the kind of love that grew from something less desperate and base than lust and fairy tales.
I am a man who believes love can be a quiet and peaceful thing.
She started to long for his quiet company. She started to wonder if she was a fool. She sank into a depression, hardly leaving the house for weeks. The members of the Enemy Club fed her soup and chocolate. They sorted through her mail, listened to her lectures on love and loss, and gave their two cents. They often emerged from her house in the early hours of dawn, exhausted and drained.
Then, one sunny October morning, Georgia finally emerged. She met her friends at the Last Chance, held up her hands for quiet, and announced, “This December 24th, I’m asking Stu to marry me. And I want you all to be there.”
Chapter Two
Jill Kennedy pulled her silver Mercedes to a stop in Georgia’s circular drive. It was the weekend before Christmas, and come hell or high water the Enemy Club spent this weekend together holed up in Georgia’s house ignoring the shopping, the cooking, the decorating, and their families. This weekend was for them and only them.
This would be their last girls’ pre-Christmas weekend if Georgia went through with her plan to marry Stu and move to Manhattan.
Jill grabbed the bottles of chardonnay and her small suitcase off the plush leather passenger seat. She gingerly stepped from the car into the slushy drive, being careful not to dirty her Stella McCartney over-the-knee wedge boots, her early Christmas gift to herself. She looked up at Georgia’s imposing stone house and whispered to the night sky, “Please keep Georgia happy. She’s helped so many people. But I think now she might be the one who needs help.”
Nina Stokes walked up the drive fifteen minutes later in her sturdy hiking boots. She was heated and energized by the mile plus walk through the crisp winter night with a pack on her back and a tray of oatmeal ginger cookies balanced in her mittened hands. Of course, she’d knitted the mittens and the matching hat herself out of un-dyed local virgin wool.
She paused before going into the house she knew so well. This could be their last weekend-before-Christmas at Georgia’s. Well, that was probably good. Nina did, after all, have a husband to look after now. Plus, she’d somehow gotten pulled in to design all-new sets and costumes for the Christmas pageant this year, and there was so much still to do. She was surprised that she loved the work and enjoyed the people so much, even Pastor Rich. But now was the time to leave all that behind. This weekend was for her friends. She sighed, looked up at the sky, and thought, “Help Georgia do the right thing. She deserves true love. I hope she finds it with Stu.”
An hour later, Lizzie Carpenter’s ten-year-old green Ford came to a squeaky stop behind Jill’s Mercedes. Lizzie was late because she had to make sure the Last Chance diner was prepared to operate the busy pre-holiday weekend without her. Then she had to be sure her husband and teenager had everything they needed for the weekend. It wasn’t easy for her to leave the outside world behind right before Christmas, even if it was for only two nights. She’d been ready to bail so many times on this weekend, she couldn’t count them. Luckily, her dear husband insisted she keep up with this ritual of friendship. He was a smart man; he knew how to keep her happy.
But no time to think of any of that now. This weekend was for friendship, Christmas cookies, and wine. Always lots and lots of wine.
She grabbed two bottles and her overnight bag off the dog-fur-coated passenger’s seat and looked up at the house that had been like a second home to her for so long. If all went the way Georgia planned, this would be their last pre-Christmas together in Galton. “Oh, Georgia. I hope you know what you’re doing. Please, please, please be sure you’re sure.”
#
Their thoughts and voices floated up, out of Galton, and into the world. They floated over New York State, past New York City, over the Atlantic Ocean, and into a small darkened drawing room where two women sat peacefully, one reading, one embroidering. A fire blazing in the fireplace and the few, small flickering candles placed around the room didn’t light up the women’s faces enough to distinguish them to a stranger. But they knew each other well. It was more than enough illumination for them.
A third woman stood, staring out the window at the falling snow and tapping her foot impatiently. Every once in a while, she looked toward the two sitting women, as if she was their caretaker, ready to jump into action at the slightest raised eyebrow.
The one nearest the fire put down her book on the quilted throw that was warming her legs and said, “Sophia, I’m hearing a lot of voices from Galton, New York. I want you to go and see what you can do.”
“Me?” The woman standing by the window spun around excitedly.
The other sitting woman smiled gently into her handwork. “Yes. I hear them, too. Do you think she’s ready, Jane?”
Sophia hurried over. “Oh, I am. I’ve been studying. Working.”
Jane nodded to the embroiderer. “It is almost Christmas. She should get a chance.”
Sophia looked from woman to woman, her eyes round like a puppy’s.
“If Jane thinks so, then I agree.” The embroiderer picked her work back up, the matter settled.
Jane said, “Good. Her name is Georgia Phillips. Here, take this folio.” From under her blanket, she pulled out several pages of folded parchment covered with the delicate strokes of a fountain pen.
Sophia rushed to receive the sheets. She was a bit overweight and much more modernly dressed than the others. She sank onto the settee and started reading. “Thirty five. Grew up in Galton, New York, wherever the heck that is. Tiny town upstate, I think. Oh…a tough childhood. Humiliated at eleven, life changed forever. I see. Got it. And now she’s a psychiatrist. Oh, I like that. A doctor—and of the soul, too! A cello player. Nice. And a member of the Enemy Club. The what?” Sophia lowered the folio.
The embroiderer didn’t look up from her work. “Four women. They used to be the worst of enemies back in childhood. Jill was the class princess. Nina was the artist—the weirdo I believe they called her. Lizzie was the bad girl. And Georgia was the intellectual. They despised one another, being children with nothing in common. Over the years, however, as they matured and came into their identities, they found themselves stuck in their tiny town. They gravitated toward one another, drawn by their shared past, the limits of geography, and eventually, genuine affection. Now, they meet once a week at the Last Chance diner and have become the very best of friends. But they’re friends with a difference: They promise to tell each other the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help them Gracie.”
“Gracie?” Sophia asked.
“The baker
of the pies at the Last Chance diner.”
“They may be able to help you with your dilemma,” Jane suggested, picking her book back up and opening to the red silk ribbon that marked her place. “I believe they’re all on your side.”
“What do you want me to do?” Sophia asked, excitement palpable in her wide eyes and tapping foot.
“Georgia is about to ask a man she doesn’t truly love to marry her. You have to stop her,” said Jane, not looking up from her book.
“How?”
“Well, you have to figure that you, now don’t you? That is, if you want to earn your place as—”
“Don’t even say it. You’ll jinx it,” said Sophia.
“You’re making me nervous, dear,” said the embroiderer. “This is important.”
Sophia nodded.
“Now, remember, Georgia is smart. And she’s very stubborn. She’s thought a lot about this marriage. It’s not going to be easy to change her mind,” Jane said.
“Don’t worry. I’ll do it. I’ll figure out a way.”
“Good. Then off you go. Good luck. God speed. And remember, we’ll always be with you. At least, in spirit.”
Chapter Three
Jill, Nina, Lizzie, and Georgia had finished dinner, demolished every last crumb of dessert, and were now arranged in Georgia’s living room, stringing popcorn onto long threads by the roaring fire. They had already knocked back pre-dinner cocktails, a bottle of champagne, and were almost through a second bottle of wine. Unaccustomed to so much indulgence, they were having considerable trouble getting the popcorn onto the needles without stabbing themselves or breaking the kernels, except for Nina, who worked with her usual dexterity. Popcorn was scatted over Georgia’s high-gloss hardwood floor. Broken bits burrowed into the oriental rug. Usually, Georgia would have minded, but now, she just felt nostalgic. Would she have to sell her rugs, or could she bring them to New York? Stu’s apartment was modern and sleek, all black leather and chrome. They’d never fit in there.
