Holiday Magic (Second Chance)

by Matthews, Susanne

  She’d driven to Atlantic City on Thursday morning, intending to spend a little girl time with Eleni, but things hadn’t quite worked out as planned. Joe hovered around them constantly, and seemed reluctant to leave Eleni’s side. To Georgia, he was more of a bodyguard whose responsibilities included making sure no one got near Eleni, than an assistant. Eleni seemed to enjoy the attention, but it had made her uncomfortable.

  She was concerned about her sister. She had yet to meet her employer, but Joe never left her side. It was almost creepy the way he hung on her every word, as if he were obsessed with her. Come to think of it, that obsession might be mutual. She had seen that rapt look on her sister’s face, and it worried her. The meal had been excellent – a traditional Thanksgiving dinner served in her suite. And suite was hardly the name for it. It was as large as most houses, occupying the top floor of the casino’s hotel. She had asked where Mr. Simmons resided, but Eleni didn’t know. Joe had steered the conversation away from that topic. It had been obvious that he was reluctant to leave them alone. What did he think she was going to do? Murder her sister?

  When it was time to return to Philly on Sunday, Georgia jumped at the chance to leave early. She felt like the proverbial fifth wheel. She had planned to stay until Monday, but it didn’t take a clairvoyant to know that her sister really didn’t want her there. She had the hots for Joe as they said, and wouldn’t hear a single word against him. They had parted on amicable terms, but the last thing Joe had said to her preyed on her mind.

  “Relax, Georgia. I’ll take care of Eleni. Nothing will happen to her while she is with me.” Who was he protecting her from, and why?

  She had wanted to talk to Mark about the weekend, but he’d been called away on Anderson Security business. She’d done her best to answer the accountant’s questions, but her limited knowledge and understanding of the business meant that some of them would have to wait until he returned.

  Georgia’s world had come close to being flung out of its steady orbit Thursday afternoon when she had run into Lucy, the last person she ever wanted to come face-to-face with, at the cleaners. Since the showroom was quiet, Georgia had left Sam in charge for the last hour to go and pick up her black dress and drop off the silk suit she’d worn in Atlantic City. She opened the door to leave and held it open for a pregnant woman just coming in. When the woman turned to smile her thanks, the world tilted. Lucy was blooming with happiness and was obviously in the last trimester of her pregnancy.

  “Georgia,” Lucy cried, surprised and obviously pleased to see her, exactly the opposite of what Georgia felt.

  “Is it really you? You look so different! My God, you’ve lost a ton! Have you been sick?”

  “I’m well. Thanks for asking. You look different yourself,” Georgia said, pasting a smile on her face, and since Lucy showed no sign of entering the shop, she closed the door.

  “Wow! It’s been so long. Where have you been?”

  “I was in New York,” she answered, praying for someone else she knew to come along and end this painful reunion.

  “You’ve been busy, I see.”

  “Yes. It’s our second. Our son will be two next week, and the baby’s due in February.”

  Regret and jealousy pierced her. Had it not been for this woman, she and Mark might be happy parents with a two-year old of their own. Lucy continued as if there could be no possible reason that Georgia would detest the sight of her, and the words barely registered.

  “I was sorry that you didn’t come to the wedding. I really wanted to talk to you, and I hoped we could put all this behind us, and be friends again,” she said.

  “Lucy, you have got to be kidding. Even you must realize that there are some things that can’t be put behind you,” she answered bitterly. “That’s one of them. I’m glad your life turned out so well,” she said choking on the hostility that threatened to make her sick. “I’m sorry, but I have no desire to rekindle the friendship we had. I need to move on, now if you’ll excuse me, I’m late.”

  Lucy stamped her foot, drawing Georgia’s eye to the ridiculously high heels she wore. Surely such shoes could not be good for a pregnant woman’s posture? She looked down at her own sensible walking boots. According to Lucy, she had never known how to dress, why start now?

  Lucy put her hands on her hip, and Georgia waited for the unpleasant lecture she thought would follow. She scowled. If anyone should be giving a lecture, it should be her.

  “You are such a prissy snob, Georgia Baxter. I’d have thought with your modern, new look, you might have unbent a little, but you’re still the holier-than-thou prig you always were. I don’t know why I bothered trying so hard to be your friend.”

  Georgia felt her temper rise, and her face reddened.

  “I may have been naïve where you were concerned, but I learned my lesson. Goodbye, Lucy. Have a nice life, but leave me the hell alone!” She turned to leave.

  “But nothing happened,” blurted Lucy disgusted. “It was all a joke. You weren’t even supposed to be there—well, you weren’t the first one supposed to be there. You overreacted as you always did. If you would have listened, you would have known that. It’s your own fault for being so stuck-up and acting better than the rest of us. Anton got over it. You should too.”

  Georgia turned back and stared at her, too stunned to comment. The vision of Mark and Lucy flashed through her mind. Lucy had yelled something, what was it? ‘Lighten up? It’s not what you think?’ It must have been something like that.

  She stared at the woman in front of her who had the decency to look embarrassed. It was a prank? The moment that had ruined her life had been someone’s idea of a joke. Tears filled her eyes and blurred Lucy’s image. She shook her head, turned, and walked away without saying a word. She heard Lucy start after her, but in those silly high heels, she would never catch up. Georgia walked faster and faster until she was almost running.

  She careened into many people hurrying along the sidewalk, stopping only when she realized it was dark, and she was across the street from Independence Hall. She sat on the bench at the bus stop, and stared into nothingness. Buses came and buses went, and still she sat there in pain, reliving that conversation with Lucy over and over again.

  How many people had been in on the joke? Had Mark? Had he thought it funny to embarrass her that way? She looked up suddenly as a thought forced its way to the front of her mind. No matter how much she would like to believe differently, Mark wasn’t like that. What if he didn’t know either? What if they had both been used? How could a person she had trusted do such a thing to them? But then again, he wasn’t entirely innocent, since the possibility had existed that the child Lucy had thought she was carrying was his.

  The evening dampness chilled her to the bone. She picked up her dress in its plastic bag and turned to go back to the apartment. The last three years of her life ruined by her excessive pride and a practical joke. It was so sad, that it was suddenly funny. She laughed as tears of regret washed down her cheeks.

  How she managed to find her way home was a mystery. At some point it had started to rain, and when she finally unlocked the door to the showroom, she was soaked right through to the skin. The dress would have to be re-cleaned, and Lord knew if it could be salvaged since it had gotten as wet as she had. The good news was that since she had sobbed off and on, the incessant rain had mixed with her tears, and despite everything, she had not made too large a spectacle of herself.

  She had taken a hot shower, and sat on the sofa, wrapped in a terry robe, staring out at the blackness of the night. The rain ran down the windows in rivulets, matching the tears that still fell. How long could a person cry? She had read somewhere that women cried thirty to sixty times a year for no more than six minutes at a time. She must be setting the Olympic record today. Surely there was an end to the liquid that the tear ducts held.

  She raised her cup of mint tea and sipped, hoping the brew would comfort her.

  She continued to agonize over Lucy’
s betrayal. She had thought her a friend. Eleni was right. Lucy must have hated her deeply to have done what she did. Even if finding them in the bed had been a joke, Lucy had moved in to stake a claim on Mark. How else could she have been carrying his child?

  She wanted to talk to Eleni, but she wasn’t sure that she could bear to have this painful discussion overheard by the ever-present Joe. She thought of calling Gwen, but it was after midnight in west Kansas.

  She felt so alone. For the first time in many years, she missed Grandma. When Mom had been traveling, it had been Grandma who had cared for them, who had nursed them through colds and every other ailment known to man that had afflicted them in their early years. It had been Grandma who had nursed her through her disappointments with her sayings and platitudes for every occasion. She would have seen through Lucy had she been alive, but she had died the year before her parents, and suddenly, Georgia missed them all.

  The phone rang. She looked at the clock. It was after two. She was going to let it go to the message when she saw it was Eleni, and suddenly no matter what had happened on the weekend, she needed her sister.

  Chapter Eight

  “Hey, it’s the middle of the night,” she answered trying to keep the sound of her hours of crying out of her voice, but twin intuition kicked in.

  “Something’s wrong, Georgia. I’ve felt it all evening. I’ve been waiting for you to call, but I can’t wait anymore. Are you sick? I think you’re hurt. Did Mark do something? I’ll kill him if he did something!”

  Georgia smiled. Trust Eleni to get right to the heart of the matter.

  “I told Joe that I had to call. I know something is wrong, Georgia; talk to me.”

  “I will if you give me a chance to get a word in edgewise. I ran into Lucy today.”

  She pulled the phone away from her ear as Eleni let out a stream of curse words that would make a longshoreman blush. She pressed speaker in case Eleni felt the need to yell again. Her piercing shrieks could probably cause hearing loss.

  Painstakingly, Georgia relayed what had happened and what had been said. She knew that Eleni had her on speaker, so the ever-vigilant Joe was probably there, but she no longer cared. It felt so good to talk to her other half, the sensible half, or so she thought, that nothing else mattered.

  “I told you that bitch couldn’t be trusted,” shouted Eleni, her voice on speaker echoing throughout the apartment. “She probably set the whole thing up to break up your marriage and make Anton, that’s her husband, jealous. I’m sure that’s why she claimed to be pregnant. I’d heard they’d had a big fight about a week before, and he’d threatened to have nothing to do with her. She probably expected him to find her with Mark.”

  Eleni was incensed. From the way her voice got louder and lower, Georgia could envision her pacing across the carpeted floor of her suite.

  “That cow deserves to die for doing this. I should take out a contract on her,” ranted Eleni. “I’ll bet Joe would know where to find one. This is Atlantic City. There must be hit men all over the place.”

  “Hey! Calm down! Remember me? I’m the wronged party here. You lose points for trying to get a hit man to take out a pregnant woman, so settle down, but you’ve made me feel better, so thanks. “

  “Have you told Mark?” Eleni asked.

  “No, he’s out of town until Friday. I’ll talk to him about it this weekend. Give him a chance to tell his part of the story.”

  “Georgia, he’s said all along he doesn’t remember anything, sweetie. Joe just came in to check on me. Hang on.”

  Georgia listened as Eleni related the story, putting her very ‘biased against Lucy’ spin on it.

  “I’m sorry you’ve been so badly hurt, Georgia.” Somehow, she recognized he meant it. He had suffered because of someone too.

  “She sounds like a real piece of work. I probably could find a hit man,” he laughed, “but I’d hate to see either one of you end up in the slammer over her. I’m glad she isn’t one of my friends. You know, if the guy doesn’t remember anything, I’ll bet somebody slipped him a mickey. It’s happened a few times in the casino. If that’s the case, and it’s really the only thing that could account for that kind of memory loss, he didn’t do anything in that bed but sleep.”

  Eleni agreed, and insisted Mark had never dated Lucy afterward. When she’d called a month later claiming to be with child, he had agreed to do what was best for the child, but had spurned her offer to come over. Eleni knew, because she’d been there when that little discussion had taken place in his office.

  By the time they finished talking, Georgia had stopped her off-again-on-again crying jags, and had agreed to give Mark the benefit of the doubt—she would assume that he had been an innocent pawn in the game, but where was she prepared to let their relationship go? For three years, she had nursed the hurt and humiliation. She couldn’t just let it go like that, but the least she could do was listen to his side of things before making a decision.

  He might not want you anymore, her conscience prodded, pouring vinegar in the open wound in her heart. But he might, she hoped.

  It was well after three when Georgia went to bed, but she slept soundly and awoke determined to move ahead, hopefully with Mark as her friend. Wherever the relationship went from there was in fate’s hands.

  Friday morning, Georgia waited impatiently for Mark to arrive. She was relieved when he pulled into the loading area. She needed to tell him what she had learned from Lucy, but it wasn’t something they could discuss while he drove. She hoped to have the opportunity to raise the topic at the chalet; however, another matter weighed heavily on her mind. She wanted to talk to him about Eleni, and was glad that they would have this time together. There was something strange about that contract and the elusive Mr. Simmons. Although she wasn’t quite as distrustful of Joe, especially after his support last night, she was worried that Eleni could be forming a serious attachment to a man who was essentially a stranger.

  While Mark finished loading the van, Georgia grabbed her coat and the overnight bag Eleni had insisted she pack, and put them in the van. She got two down sleeping bags from a camping themed wedding package, and handed them to Mark. She saw the surprise on his face and the raised eyebrows. His surprise made her defensive.

  “Eleni says it’s a precaution. Apparently there is snow in the forecast, and she thinks it could be worse in the mountains. The last time she told me to do something, and I didn’t listen to her, I regretted it. I won’t make that mistake again.”

  She wouldn’t tell him the thing Eleni had told her to do was call Lucy, instead of going over the morning after her bachelorette party. She wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t? Would she ever have learned of Lucy’s prank? Would Mark have confessed it to her?

  How can you be sure he wasn’t involved? How do you know she was telling the truth when she said nothing had happened? You only have her word on that, and trusting her is the last thing you should do, uttered her pesky conscience, the same one that kept telling her she had to stay away from Mark even though she yearned to be in his arms again. She definitely didn’t want to talk about that, at least not yet.

  Mark indicated the heavy blankets and pillows he’d placed in the van.

  “I wasn’t sure how you’d react to the news about the weather. I didn’t have any sleeping bags, but I did bring blankets. Georgia noticed that they were the hand-woven, wool blankets they had purchased in Williamsburg, but didn’t say anything. How many of the things they had purchased together had he kept? The car, the blankets… she had taken nothing, ordering Eleni to get rid of it all… She had never asked what her sister had done with the trousseau she had been collecting for over ten years. She hoped that whoever had gotten it had appreciated the hours of work that had gone into the embroidered pillow cases and other things she and her grandmother had made.

  She climbed into the van and put on her seatbelt. She had taken off her coat and tossed it into the back. Mark had purchased take-out coffee fo
r himself, peppermint tea for her, and chocolate chip cookies from the coffee shop. She waited until he merged onto Highway 476 before bringing up her sister, the issue that was causing her the most confusion at the moment.

  “Eleni says hi. It’s quite the set-up she has there, but I don’t know, there’s something strange going on, and I can’t put my finger on it.”

  “What do you mean?” Concern gave his voice an edge.

  “Well, he wants her there, but she hasn’t met him; and that attendant he’s given her… the man may be attractive, but a guard is a guard. He didn’t even want to leave her alone with me. She goes nowhere without him. I don’t like it. He acts as if she could be in some sort of danger. I know Atlantic City can be a rough place, but seriously, since when does a decorator need a bodyguard?”

  Mark grimaced. “I had Simmons checked out. He’s a recluse. There are no pictures of him anywhere, so maybe he’s a little paranoid and really wants to make sure nothing happens to her in his casino. Apparently, if he goes out, he’s in disguise. My contact says he’s not at the casino right now. He left for England the day your sister arrived, which is why she hasn’t met him. By the way, he sent a cashier’s check for the full amount of her fee the minute she registered at the hotel. The check cleared and is sitting in her bank account. From what I can tell, everything is on the up and up. He has no connection to the mob or any other shady organization anywhere in the world, and according to my sources, his casinos pay out more often than most.”

  “Well,” she scowled, “it still seems fishy to me, especially this Joe guy. Don’t get me wrong, he was nice, but way too protective of her for just an employee, and there was something about his manner… it’s as if he expects to be obeyed. I’ll bet he carries a gun… Did you think to look at his staff?”

  “Georgia, don’t go borrowing trouble. Yes, I ran most of the names, but there was no Joe or Joseph on the list I had. Maybe it’s a middle name. I’ll have someone look into it right away, or I can do it myself when we get back,” he offered.