Eight
Lelani
Lelani waited until noon to call her mother, when it would be nine in the morning in Maui. Late enough that her mother would be up, but not so late that she would be out shopping or lunching or whatever it was she did to spend her time and money on a Saturday.
“Showdown at high noon,” Kendall had teased as she whisked Emma away for a sunny walk through the neighborhood so Lelani could speak without distractions. Lelani dialed her old home phone number and waited as the phone rang. She didn’t recognize the voice of the woman who politely answered, “Aloha. Porter residence, how may I help you?”
“Aloha. I’d like to speak to Mrs. Porter, please.”
“May I ask who is calling?”
Lelani wanted to ask who had answered but knew that would sound rude. “This is Lelani Porter.”
“The daughter?” The politeness was replaced with coldness.
“Yes. Lana Porter is my mother.”
“I’m sorry, but Mrs. Porter does not wish to speak to you.”
Lelani took a quick breath. “Then may I speak to my father, please?”
There was a long pause.
“I don’t know who you are,” Lelani said gently to whomever was on the other end, “and I don’t know what my mother has told you, but my father and I are on speaking terms, and I know that he would want to speak to me. But if he’s not there, I’ll simply call him at work and—”
“Please, just a moment.”
“Thank you.” Lelani closed her eyes and silently prayed for God’s help. She knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but she wanted to do all she could to handle it correctly. No regrets. She waited a long time, and after a while, Lelani wondered if she’d been forgotten altogether. Or perhaps she was being ignored. She glanced at her bedside clock. Eleven minutes had passed.
“Hello, Lelani,” her mother said in a frosty voice. “I hope this is important.”
“Did I interrupt something?”
No response.
“I’m sorry to bother you, Mother, but I wanted to let you know that I’m getting married and—”
“I am aware of this.”
“Yes, but I wanted to—”
“I assumed you had already gotten married. You were so obsessed with the need to provide Kala with the perfect little home.”
Lelani swallowed hard. “We call her Emma, Mother.”
No response.
“Anyway, Gil thought perhaps it would be nice to have our wedding in Maui so that you and Dad could—”
“What? Pay for it? Do you honestly think you can do what you did to me and then come waltzing back here and expect me to pay for your wedding and—”
“No, this is not about money. I only wanted to ask—”
“All you do is take and take and take, Lelani. You give us nothing in return except grief and heartache, and then you take and take and take some more. How is it possible we raised such a selfish child? Oh, yes, I remember, by giving you everything. You had everything a girl could possibly want, Lelani. And yet it was never enough for you. And now you’re calling to demand more.”
“I’m not calling to demand anything.” Lelani struggled to keep her voice calm. “I was only calling to see if you and Dad would want to come to my wedding.”
Her mother laughed. “Yes, I’m sure that’s all you’re calling for.”
“It’s true. Gil thought that it might help our relationship with you to bring the wedding to Maui and—”
“And you have absolutely no intention of letting your parents pay for your wedding, correct?”
“Absolutely.”
“So what kind of wedding are you planning?”
“Something simple. On the beach.”
“A barefoot-on-the-beach wedding?” Her voice seeped with cynicism.
“Isn’t that how you and Dad got married?”
She laughed harshly. “Yes, because we were poor.”
“And so are we.”
“So you are telling me you are poor and yet you can afford to travel here for your wedding?”
Lelani let out a long sigh.
“And how is it that you are so poor when your father is sending you good money for tuition and expenses and—”
“Because the money he sends goes directly to my education,” Lelani said. “Not to a wedding. I still work at my job.”
“Oh, yes, at the cosmetic counter.”
Lelani looked over to Emma’s crib. “You haven’t even asked about Emma, Mother. Don’t you want to know how she’s doing?”
“Do you honestly think that I would expect you to tell me the truth, Lelani? Of course, you would say she is thriving and growing and deliriously happy to be living with her biological mother and a bunch of other strangers. And why not?”
“Okay, Mother, I want to ask you one more time: Would it help our relationship if Gil and I brought our wedding to Maui? Would you feel honored or loved by this gesture?”
“This gesture?” She laughed again. “If you ask me, it’s too little too late. No gesture is going to heal the heartache you’ve caused me. And no gesture is going to make me forgive you. To me you are dead, Lelani. I feel sorry for our little Kala—sorry that I couldn’t save her from you.”
Tears burned Lelani’s eyes, and it took every ounce of self-control not to say something terrible and hang up. “I’m sorry you’ve become so bitter, Mother. I know it must make you terribly unhappy.”
“You’re what makes me terribly unhappy, Lelani. And for that reason I ask you not to call here again. If you must speak to your father, please, call him at work. I have instructed the servants to protect me from your calls. It’s not good for my health.”
“Unforgiveness is not good for your health either, Mother.”
A loud click told Lelani that this conversation was over.
With shaking hands, she folded her cell phone and took a long, deep breath. Tears were flowing freely now, but she didn’t really care. In a way it was a relief to cry. And it was a relief to know exactly where her mother stood. Did that make the truth less painful? Probably not. At least she knew that the wedding was not going to take place in Maui. And she knew that she had given it her best shot. When she was calmer, she would call her dad and inform him of her plans to be married on the mainland. More than anything, she wished that he would come for the wedding, and that he would walk her down the aisle, but she knew that Lana Porter had more control over this decision than Lelani did.
Lelani slipped on a cardigan and went out to see if she could spot Kendall and Emma anywhere nearby. She might as well let Kendall off of babysitting duty, since she knew that Kendall had more garage sales to scope out today. Although Kendall did most of her garage-sale shopping on the opening day, she still liked to go looking on Saturdays too. Of course, Lelani hadn’t noticed that there was a garage sale going on just down Bloomberg Place, and it was no surprise to find Kendall and Emma in the midst of things.
“Look at these baby clothes,” Kendall exclaimed when Lelani joined them. “They’re in perfect condition, and a lot of them are babyGap and OshKosh and all sorts of cool labels.”
Lelani looked down to see Emma grinning up beneath a small stack of clothes. “Are you getting buried by Auntie Kendall?” she asked.
“Those are for Emma,” said Kendall with enthusiasm. “Look at those pink Ralph Lauren warm-ups. They look like they’ve never been worn.”
The woman hosting the sale came over to them. “These are things my granddaughter has outgrown. My daughter-in-law was just going to toss them, and I decided to add them to my garage sale.” She held up a buttery yellow quilt for Kendall to examine. “This is part of the crib set I was telling you about. The rest of it’s inside, but trust me, it’s all in perfect condition.”
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Kendall grabbed it eagerly. “I want it.”
As Kendall and the woman continued to chatter about baby things, Lelani picked up the garments layered on Emma’s stroller and, to her surprise, discovered that they were all quite nice and would work for Emma.
“I didn’t bring my purse,” she told Kendall. “But these are all good choices.”
Kendall reached for the pile. “Here, I’ll take the clothes. You take Emma and we’ll settle it later, okay?”
“Thanks.” Lelani reached for the stroller.
Kendall frowned. “It didn’t go so great with your mom, huh?”
Lelani just shook her head.
“I didn’t think it would,” Kendall said.
“Well, at least I tried.”
Kendall grinned. “Hey, that means we’ll get to come to your wedding still.”
She nodded with renewed enthusiasm. “Yes! That’s the upside.”
“Better call Gil’s mom. Anna said she’s freaking over the travel plans to Maui.”
“And now she won’t have to.” Lelani waved as she wheeled Emma’s stroller to the sidewalk. Really, Lelani thought she should be glad that it had turned out this way. Sure, not everyone was happy. But Lelani doubted that even God himself could make Lana Porter completely happy. Perhaps in time, but not today. The good news was that everyone else would be a lot happier about this. Except that they’d lost one precious week of planning. Lelani would do all she could to make up for that. Besides, hadn’t she said from the beginning that she wanted a simple wedding? Maybe this would help her to actually get it.
Back at the house, she called Gil’s mother as she fed Emma lunch, quickly relaying the news.
“Fantastic!” gushed Mrs. Mendez. “It is what I had hoped and prayed for from the very beginning. You have made me very happy, Lelani!”
Lelani smiled as she spooned a sloppy bite of applesauce into Emma’s wide-open mouth. “I’m so glad to hear that.”
“But I am sorry if this means your mother is not happy.”
“My mother is an unhappy woman.”
“So I have heard.”
“Gil was right to encourage me to try to include her. But she is so bitter.” Lelani’s voice broke. “I just don’t think I’ll ever have much of a relationship with her.”
“Well, you have us now, mi’ja. We are your family.”
Lelani nodded. “I really appreciate that.”
“Speaking of family, how is my little Emma?”
“Right now she’s sitting here eating her lunch.”
“Well, I’m not doing much this afternoon. We thought we were having company for dinner, but something came up. So if you have any wedding planning to do—now that you’re not going to Maui—I would be happy to watch our girl.”
“Let me check with Megan first. She was helping with the wedding plans and she hasn’t even heard the news yet. Then I’ll call you right back.”
Lelani finished feeding Emma, then set out to find Megan. The two women hadn’t had a real conversation together in a couple of days, and Lelani was feeling a bit guilty.
She found Megan on the phone and wearing a grim expression. Lelani just waved and mouthed “Later,” then went to her own room. She changed Emma’s diaper, then sat her down on the floor. Lelani had carefully baby-proofed her bedroom so that it was almost as safe as a playpen, but more fun for Emma to go exploring in. Then Lelani sat on the floor, phoned Gil, and told him the news.
“I already heard,” he said with a chuckle in his voice.
“Your mom?”
“She was elated and couldn’t wait to tell everyone.”
“I’m not surprised. And I’m glad that I made someone happy today.”
“I heard it didn’t go too well with your mom.”
“That’s an understatement.” She filled him in a bit, taking care not to allow too much emotion into her voice. She felt that Emma was sensitive to that sort of thing.
“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I guess it wasn’t such a good idea. I just hoped that it might make a difference. Or heal something.”
“And I appreciate that. But my mother, well, you know how she can be.”
“I do, but the good news is now all our friends and my family can come. If Mama has her way, this wedding is going to be enormous. So you and Anna might want to give her a limit on guests. I already told her that we’d have to charge her extra for her guest list. I was joking, but she told me that was fine. Anyway, I told her to work it out with you. Sorry to have to cut this short, but I have some business to take care of right now.”
“Of course. I just wanted to make sure you knew and that you were okay with not getting married in Maui.”
“I’m happy if you’re happy. You are happy, right?”
“Absolutely.”
Yes, she was almost absolutely happy. Of course, the thorn in this bed of roses was still her mother. But that was nothing new. If her mother had to be a thorn, at least she was a whole ocean away. Not all girls were that fortunate.
Nine
Megan
“That’s great news, Megan,” Marcus told her.
“Yeah, I’d almost given up hope on getting the job. But the principal finally called me yesterday afternoon. I tried to call you, but when you didn’t answer, I decided not to leave a message.” She kicked off her shoes and switched her cell phone to her other ear.
“Sorry, I was at a meeting.”
She wanted to ask what kind of meeting but knew that might sound obsessive. “Anyway, I’m totally jazzed about it. I already gave Cynthia my notice.”
“Was she sad to lose you?”
“Actually, she was a little bummed.”
“How about Vera?”
“I haven’t told her yet. But I’m looking forward to it.”
“Unless she decides to make your life miserable—I mean more so than usual—until you leave.”
“Well, that’s part of the good news. The teacher I’m replacing is due to have her baby in the next couple of weeks. After I explained the situation to Cynthia, she gave me the green light to leave whenever I need to.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah. Cynthia is really nice. If Vera weren’t there, I might not have looked for another job.”
“But you want to be a teacher.”
“I know. But I guess change is hard for me.”
“Even with Vera gnashing her teeth at you?”
“I’m embarrassed to say it, but yes.” Megan sighed. “I guess I’m kind of a stick-in-the-mud at heart. Pathetic, huh?”
“Then you might not be too pleased to hear my news.” His voice sounded cautious and sent a chill down her spine.
“What?”
“Well, it shouldn’t be a total surprise to you, but Greg Mercer and I just got approved to go to Zambia.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning once we get our shots and pack our bags, the church is behind us—we’re good to go.”
“Don’t you need a visa for Zambia?”
“That’s the good news. If you go as a tourist, which we plan to do, you don’t need one. Since this is a scouting trip, it’s more like we’re tourists anyway.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t sound too excited.”
“I am excited,” she said quickly. “Really, that’s fantastic, Marcus.”
“But?”
“But it seems like it happened so quickly.”
“Sometimes God works quickly.”
“So will you quit the investment firm?”
“They’re letting me take a year off. It’s in my contract.”
“Do you think you’ll really go back?”
“Who knows? But I don’t see any reason to
burn bridges.”
“No, of course not. In fact, Cynthia assured me that if the teaching thing doesn’t work out, I can probably come back. Unless they’ve already filled the position.”
“Why wouldn’t it work?”
“I don’t know. I’m only hired to the end of the year. There’s no promise of a job in the fall.”
“But if they like you …”
“The other teacher might decide to return. They say she’s not sure. It’s her first baby and she’s pretty nervous.”
“So maybe you’ll have her job in the fall.”
“Yeah.” Megan wondered where Marcus would be in the fall. Probably Zambia. “Maybe.”
“Anyway, I got a ton of stuff to take care of. Greg and I are heading over to REI to pick up some things we think we might need over there. We want to be prepared to camp and get by if we need to.”
“Camping in Zambia?” She shook her head. “Sounds a little rough.”
“It will be.”
“Is it safe?”
He laughed. “You know what they say, Megan. In fact, haven’t you said it to me before?”
“What?”
“The safest place you can be is in God’s will.”
“Oh, yeah. Right.”
“Don’t you believe that?”
“Of course. It’s just hard to imagine you and Greg camping in Zambia.”
“Did you know Victoria Falls is in Zambia?”
“Not actually.”
“Most people think it’s in Zimbabwe, but it’s really in Zambia.”
“I’ll try to remember that if I’m ever teaching geography, which isn’t likely, since I’ll be teaching art.”
“And you’re going to be great at it too, Megan. I can just imagine you with a class full of kids.”
“Yes, I seem to recall you saying how you would’ve liked having me as your teacher.”
Three Weddings and a Bar Mitzvah Page 8
