by Jane Porter
“What time should I be there?” Amanda asked Bette, breaking the silence.
“What time do you finish today?”
“My last client is at five today, and it’s just a cut and style, so I should be free by six if I let Emily close.”
“Let Emily close for you and come to the house. I’ll plan on serving dinner for six thirty. Tyler’s a man, and men like to eat early.”
Amanda choked on smothered laughter. “Did he say that?”
“No, but I know. Men get so grumpy if they don’t eat at a decent hour.” And then Bette was saying her goodbyes and bustling out.
“She hasn’t changed a bit,” Eileen said, as the salon door closed behind Bette. “Always cheerful, always taking care of others.”
“You’ve known her a long time.”
“Oh, at least fifty years. Her son, Patrick, and my boys grew up together. They met in elementary school and then went onto middle school and high school together, although back then, the middle school and high school were all part of the same building. She never had an easy time of it, though. Her husband was hard on her and their son. Everyone knew it. He was quite the disciplinarian, but what do you expect? He was former military, a retired lieutenant colonel, and he ran the house as if he was still in the army. I used to complain about Howard being bossy but Howard was a pussy cat compared to Don, and Howard had his faults, but he would never have tried to dictate to our children who they could date.”
“Don did that?”
“It was Don’s way or the highway.”
“That’s why Patrick left,” Amanda said.
Eileen nodded. “And never returned.”
Dinner at Bette’s had become a weekly tradition, and Tyler usually opened a bottle of good wine, but tonight instead of wine, champagne was chilling on ice.
“Champagne?” Amanda said, surprised to see the silver ice bucket on the dining room table, along with the trio of flutes. “What’s happened? What are we celebrating?”
“Lots of things,” he said, popping the cork, and filling the flutes.
He handed her a glass and he carried two into the kitchen where Bette was bustling around, and humming brightly, reminding Amanda of Snow White.
“I have some news,” he said, giving his grandmother a flute, and then facing both. “On Monday, I report to Sheenan Media, although I’m not entirely sure where I’m actually working, but I met with Cormac today, and he’s bringing me on.”
“That is fantastic news,” Bette cried.
“Champagne worthy indeed,” Amanda added, smiling, clinking glasses with him and then his grandmother. “Why didn’t you call me earlier, and tell me?”
“Because I wanted to be with you when I told you, and I wanted to thank you for always looking out for me, even when I don’t know you are.” He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her close. “I didn’t realize you were supposed to introduce me to Cormac at the St. Patrick’s Day Ball.”
“I tried.”
“I know you did.”
“But honestly, I’m glad you didn’t let me. It’s better this way. It’s all you.”
They smiled at each other for a moment. “Does this mean you might be staying awhile?” Amanda asked softly.
“It means I’m going to look for a house.”
Bette straightened from peeking into the oven, quilted orange hot mitts on her hands. “What? You’re leaving me already?”
“I’m going to try to find something in the neighborhood. That way I can walk over for lunch and dinner and dessert.”
“Not lunch,” she protested. “I don’t like fixing lunch. But dinner, and dessert, definitely. And speaking of dinner, I can’t get anything done with you two underfoot. Take your bubbly and go into the living room. I’ve put some yearbooks on the coffee table. I thought you two would get a kick out of seeing your parents when they were back in high school.”
Tyler and Amanda looked at each other.
Tyler lifted a brow.
“Our parents?” Amanda said, clarifying Bette’s comment.
“Yes, your parents. They were just a year apart. Tyler’s dad, Patrick, was a year older than your mom, Mandy.”
“How do you remember that?” Amanda asked.
“I only had one child,” she answered, turning back to the stove to stir something in a saucepan. “Look them up in the index and you’ll be able to find them quickly.”
As Tyler and Amanda headed to the living room, Tyler grabbed the bottle of champagne and topped off their glasses.
“They must have known each other then,” Amanda said, sitting down on the living room couch and setting her flute on the coffee table so she could reach for the yearbook in front of her. “It’s not a big high school.”
Tyler sat down next to Amanda, and for the next few minutes, they went from the index to a photo, and then the index, to another, and it wasn’t long before it became apparent that Patrick Justice and Julie Scranton didn’t just know each other, they were dating each other. Amanda poured over the yearbooks and the photos and the captions and she discovered that it was a relationship that spanned years.
Tyler was shocked.
He couldn’t stop staring at the photo of his dad sitting on a picnic table next to a beautiful blonde girl that looked almost exactly like Amanda. His arm was behind her and she was smiling up at his dad with clear affection. They were a striking couple, both handsome. His dad was the confident one though. Amanda’s mom looked sweet, but rather shy.
Tyler glanced at Amanda and discovered she had tears in her eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve never seen her look like this. I’ve never known her like this. She’s so young here, and so pretty.”
“My dad was a senior, and she was a junior, which meant she was what? Sixteen or seventeen?”
Amanda nodded. “They dated.”
“For years.”
“I had no idea she’d ever dated anyone but my dad.” She blinked and tears fell. Amanda reached up and dashed them away.
“I knew your mom then.” It was Bette in the doorway, her frilly apron tied over her dress, a spatula in her hand. “Used to have her over to the house all the time.”
“Here? To this house?”
Bette nodded. “She was every bit as sweet as she looked. I liked her enormously. And I know she cared about me. She said I was like a mom to her.”
“I don’t understand,” Tyler said. “Any of this.”
“Neither do I,” Amanda added unsteadily.
Bette sighed. “It’s a long story, but there’s a short version, I suppose.”
“Thank you,” Tyler muttered.
“Your dad, Tyler, fell in love with Mandy’s mom almost right away.”
“Let me guess, he was the quarterback and she was a cheerleader.”
“Almost. He was the quarterback, but she wasn’t a cheerleader. She couldn’t afford the fees. Her family didn’t have a lot of money.”
Tyler heard Amanda’s soft, sharp inhale and he reached for her hand, his fingers lacing with hers.
“They were very sweet together, your dad and Julie, but your grandfather didn’t approve of the relationship. He didn’t—admire—Julie’s family, troubled by her family’s history here in the valley, and he worried Julie would deliberately get pregnant, trapping your dad into marriage, so he put an end to the relationship.” She shot Amanda a troubled glance before looking at Tyler. “It’s what drove your dad from Montana, and it’s why he never introduced Wendy, your mom, to him. Not until the day of the wedding.”
“And Amanda’s mom?” Tyler said gruffly. “What happened to her?”
“She met my dad,” Amanda answered in a small voice. “And had three daughters with him.”
For a moment there was just silence, and then Bette stirred. “I need to check my chicken,” she said, turning around and returning to the kitchen.
Again, there was silence. Tyler didn’t know what to say. The room felt thick with emotion, and he could f
eel Amanda’s hand tremble in his. He tightened his fingers, pressing his palm to hers, holding her hand more closely.
“What are you thinking?” he asked after a long moment.
She just shook her head, the tears still there in her eyes, making them shine. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means when you’re poor, people assume the worst of you.” Her head lifted, and her bright, fierce gaze met his. “It means you have no right to be pretty or smart, and if you work hard, it’s a fluke because, God help you, you’re little more than a gold digger or a social climber. Being poor shouldn’t be a disease. It shouldn’t be the stigma it is, either. I know why Jenny moved to Chicago after she left school. She wanted to escape Marietta and everyone who thought they knew her. I wish I’d moved, too.” She wiped a hand across her eyes. “I wish I’d gone—”
He kissed her then, kissing her to silence the stream of words, kissing to try to distract her from the pain. He hated it when she hurt, and he most of all hated it when he, or his family, was responsible for that pain.
Her mouth quivered beneath his and her soft warm lips tasted of salt. Normally she kissed him back, but tonight she was too sad.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured against her mouth before lifting his head and stroking a silky blonde tendril back from her cheek.
“Sorry you kissed me?” she said huskily, her cheeks flushed, her lips soft and pink and so very kissable.
“Sorry my grandfather was such an ass, and sorry society sucks—”
“It’s alright. I’m stronger than I look.”
“You’ve had a lot of adversity.”
“And I’m successful because of it.” She smiled a lopsided smile, but he was worried because the smile didn’t reach her eyes.
They somehow managed to get through dinner, although afterward Amanda couldn’t remember what they discussed, or even what she ate. She sat at the table, feeling as if in a fog, her head cloudy, thoughts and emotions jumbling together.
It wasn’t until Tyler cleared the plates, leaving Bette and Amanda alone together at the table, that Amanda asked, “All this time you’ve known I was Julie Scranton’s daughter?”
“Yes,” Bette answered.
Amanda didn’t know where to look. She didn’t know what to feel. “I don’t understand,” she said huskily.
She’d known Bette for years… almost half her life. Why keep this a secret?
Tyler entered the dining room with the cake and stopped when he heard what they were discussing. “Why don’t you two talk while I serve the cake?” Tyler suggested.
“I think I’ll have to pass,” Amanda said breathlessly, rising. “It’s getting late and I’m fading quickly. But dinner was delicious, Bette. Thank you for including me again tonight.”
Bette rose, too. “Don’t leave yet! Let’s have the rum cake first.”
Amanda glanced at her watch. “Save me a piece, okay? Because you do make the best rum cake in all of Marietta, but I’m hosting a staff meeting before we open in the morning and I still have to prep for the meeting and then I should try to sleep—”
“But you’re not going to be able to sleep, not either of you, if you don’t talk now,” Tyler interrupted. “I know you’re upset, and so does Gram. Give her a chance to explain, Mandy. Please?”
Amanda stiffened. He’d just called her Mandy. Until now it had always been Amanda. She held her breath, air bottling in her lungs, until she felt a little dizzy, which only added to her confusion.
Tonight so many things had happened, and it was, frankly, too much. Small towns had tight connections, but this was a little too tight. Tyler’s dad, Patrick, had dated her mom, and her mom, as a teenager, had spent hours in this very house.
Her mom had never said a word about the Justice family, or Bette, even though she knew Bette was her favorite client, and a dear friend.
And Bette… Bette had never said a word about knowing her mother, either.
The connections weren’t just tight at the moment, they felt suffocating.
Amanda stood frozen in place, ambivalent and exhausted. She didn’t know what to do. Her brain told her she should go home because she was too tired and sensitive to process anymore tonight and yet another part of her felt troubled and conflicted and didn’t want to leave until things were resolved.
He left the dining room and she slowly sat back down. “Bette, this seems like a bad joke,” she said after a moment.
And when the older woman said nothing, Amanda continued, “Why didn’t you ever tell me that the girl Patrick was dating in high school, the one his father disapproved of, was my mother? Don’t you think that was relevant to the story?”
“I wanted to, but then I also wanted to protect you. If you had never met Tyler, would it have mattered to you? Would it have changed things between us?”
“All I know is that I did meet Tyler, and it has changed things between us—”
“Please don’t say that.”
Amanda looked away, holding her breath, air bottled in her lungs, making her already aching chest burn. She held her breath so long that little spots danced before her eyes. She finally let the breath go, but when she exhaled, tears started to sting her eyes. She felt absolutely broken for reasons she couldn’t even articulate. “Have you always known I was Julie’s daughter?”
“Yes. You and your sisters look just like her, except her hair was a little darker blonde.”
“Dad was the towhead,” she said numbly.
Bette nodded. “He was very handsome. He caused quite a stir in town when he arrived.”
“You remember all that?”
“I do.”
“And you never thought to tell me any of this?”
“In all fairness, I thought it was Patrick’s story to tell, not mine.”
“Why? My mom doesn’t matter? She’s not allowed to have a voice?”
“Well, why didn’t she tell you about Patrick? Why didn’t she tell you about me? Have you never talked about me? Has she ever been to your salon and seen the chair with my name on it?”
“She has,” Amanda answered in a low voice.
“But she didn’t comment on it? She didn’t ask questions?”
“No.”
Bette said nothing, and Amanda was on her feet again, pacing the length of the dining room. She felt chilled and she rubbed her arms, trying to warm herself and yet the block of ice in her chest just seemed to grow larger, and colder. “I don’t understand any of this.” Her words came out broken. “I wish I didn’t know any of this.”
“It’s why I never told you—”
“But why did you come to me in the first place? You were Nell’s customer for thirty-five years. You were so loyal to her, and then I started there, and you switched to me and I never questioned it. I realize now I should have, but I was nineteen, just a college sophomore. It didn’t cross my mind that there was any connection between us, other than you thought I was a talented stylist.”
“You were, and are.”
“But that’s not why you switched from Nell, was it? You switched because I was Julie’s daughter.”
“I wanted to get to know you better, yes.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me then that you’d known my mother? Why never mention her all these years?”
“I cared about your mom. I had grown very close to her during those years she dated Patrick. When it all fell apart, I took it very hard. I missed her. I missed having her in my life. I missed having a girl in the house. Julie had become like a daughter to me—”
“Please. Please don’t say that.”
“Why? It’s the truth.”
“I don’t know, but it’s uncomfortable. And upsetting. Because if she was like a daughter to you, wouldn’t you have had a relationship with her? If she was like a daughter, why don’t you and she speak?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Or did your husband put his foot
down, and you just fell in line? You and Patrick?”
“Patrick loved her.”
“Right. Everybody loved her.” Amanda could barely see through the tears. She was close to losing it, but she wouldn’t do that here. She couldn’t fall apart here, not in Bette’s house. “I have to go. I can’t listen to any more tonight. It’s too much. Please tell Tyler goodbye.”
Tyler was glad to have time alone in the kitchen while Gram and Amanda talked in the other room.
He hadn’t allowed himself to dwell on his grandmother’s revelations during dinner, but now that he had some time to himself, he was shocked by what he’d learned. His dad and Amanda’s mom had dated in high school, and not just dated, but by all accounts, had been deeply in love. They’d been nearly inseparable for two and a half years. But then his grandfather had objected to Patrick’s attachment to Julie, and so his dad left Montana, going to California for college to escape his father and his control. It explained plenty of things about the past, but not all.
Tyler stopped wiping down clean counters to listen as the living room had gone ominously quiet. He couldn’t hear anything anymore. Dropping the dish towel he headed to the living room and found his grandmother still sitting at the dining room table, face covered, crying into her hands.
“Gram,” he said, crouching next to her. “Sssh, don’t cry. It’s okay.”
“It’s not,” she choked. “It might not ever be.”
“Nonsense. Where did she go?”
“Home.”
He lifted his head and looked to the door, surprised, and then not, that Amanda had left without saying goodbye. “It’ll be fine. It will sort out soon.”
“You didn’t see the way she looked at me. She looked at me as if she didn’t even know me… the same way Julie looked at me all those years ago after she and Patrick broke up. One day she was the daughter I’d never had, and the next, she was a stranger.”
“Amanda’s not going to cut you off. I promise you that.”
“She’s so hurt, Tyler. She’s so hurt and it’s all my fault.”
