“Audrey?” Susan murmured in a soft voice.
“Hmm?” Audrey didn’t bother to blink up from her crossword.
“Have you notice anything off about Amanda?”
Audrey considered this. She sipped her juice and tilted her head. “I don’t know. I mean, it’s probably just wedding nerves, right?”
Susan tapped a finger against her lip. “Right. That’s what I thought, too.”
“I mean, I, of course, think Chris is a square —”
“Audrey...” Susan said, giving her a stern look.
“But a square in a good way, you know? A nerdy, good-looking dude who will always bring in a lot of money and make Amanda happy,” Audrey finished with a feigned smile.
“Right.” Susan rolled her eyes. “I mean, I always thought Chris was perfect for Amanda. I met him when Amanda was still a freshman. He seemed like everything a mother wanted for her daughter.”
“Yeah! Like a stale piece of bread,” Audrey returned.
Susan knew Audrey always liked to poke every situation until it blew up in her face; it was just her way, just as it was Lola’s.
“Don’t worry, Aunt Susie,” Audrey assured her. “I only say those things because I wish I had a guy around like old Chris. My fleeting summer romance resulted in a watermelon belly. But Amanda and I are different. We want different things. I just hope she doesn’t get bored ten years from now.”
Inwardly, Susan hoped that Chris wouldn’t grow bored of Amanda: of her lists, of her assurance that everything would always work out according to plan, of her perfect cookie-cutter college-boyfriend-law-school-wedding-baby outlook.
“Ready?” Amanda appeared at the bottom of the steps a moment later. She looked sallow, and her cheeks were strangely hollow, as though maybe she hadn’t eaten so well recently.
Susan made a mental note to make that girl a sandwich once within the walls of the Sunrise Cove.
Amanda and Susan bundled up in winter clothes and made their way out into the chilly morning. For once, the skies above were glittering blue and propelled no snow toward them. Susan side-eyed her daughter and snuck her hands into her pockets. Apparently, she’d been so worried about Amanda that she’d forgotten gloves.
“How does it feel to be back?” she asked.
“You know I’d love to be here all the time,” Amanda admitted. “It already feels like home.”
This was exactly what Susan wanted to hear — and exactly not. She wanted Amanda’s home to be with Chris, always. She wanted her to have that immense love, no matter what house they chose or what happened in their lives. She wanted Chris to be a late-nineties Richard, a man with his head on straight and his heart in the right place.
How things changed.
When they entered the Sunrise Cove, they dropped their things off in the old office Anna and Wes had once shared and then headed off to the bistro to say hello to Christine. She appeared from the kitchen in a flurry of flour and smiles, and she smeared her hand across her white-powdered forehead and said, “I don’t know if I can keep up with all the hungry sweet-tooths of Oak Bluffs.”
Christine brought out a little plate of donuts and croissants for Susan and Amanda and sat with them for a while before returning to work. “Zach has been hard at work on the menu for the party,” she said. “And it’s perfect, as usual. I swear, that guy could work anywhere. New York. Paris. He would blend in with all the other chefs. But we have him here! It’s amazing to me. When we have the baby, I know he’ll have to calm down a little bit, and maybe even ask for extra help but...”
She stalled for a second and dropped her eyes to the ground. “The baby. Ugh. It’s so much to think about, isn’t it? Right now, it’s just kind of crazy how big Audrey is. We tease each other all the time. But soon, that belly will become a reality for both of us. It keeps me up at night.”
Immediately, Christine righted her face and prepared a smile. “That said, keeping me up at night isn’t the worst thing in the world. After all, I have to be here at the crack of dawn.”
Both Amanda and Susan chuckled good-naturedly as Zach appeared in the doorway, alongside his busboy, an older teen named Ronnie. They spoke earnestly about the upcoming party and Ronnie’s ability to both “bus” and “serve.”
“It’ll be tricky, my man, but I really think you got this,” Zach said, as he delivered a half-nod of greeting to the girls. “You have to stay focused. I don’t want any more of these freak-outs.”
“No more freak-outs,” Ronnie affirmed with a funny, nervous lisp. “You got it, boss.”
Suddenly, the door to the bistro burst open to reveal Tommy and Scott, both bundled up. Susan’s heart jumped into her throat at the sight of them— Lola’s love and her own had become fast, very close friends. She stood and shot toward them and found herself wrapped in the cold arms of Scott. Despite the chill, she burrowed into him. Goodness, how she had missed him in the night.
“What were you boys doing out there?” Susan asked as she smiled up at Scott. “And Tommy, I thought you were still off on some expedition.”
Tommy and Scott exchanged glances. Susan swatted Scott and said, “No secrets, mister!”
They chuckled as Scott shrugged and said, “Well, baby, you wanted fireworks? You’re getting fireworks.”
Susan yelped with excitement and threw her own arms around Scott this time. It had been a faraway dream — just a thing she had mentioned to Scott once. “What if we had fireworks?” Apparently, he had come through.
“And you, Tommy? Lola was worried you wouldn’t make it back.”
Tommy blushed— proof, yet again that he was nothing but a softie in love. “I couldn’t stay away for so long. Not when Lola can hardly make toast without burning it.”
Lola was no cook like Susan or Christine—another side-effect of their mother’s death, which had happened when Lola had been no more than eleven. Susan’s quick dash off the island after that probably had something to do with it, too. No matter how much time passed, Susan still struggled to fight the guilt she felt surrounding all of that.
But time healed all wounds, didn’t it? Eventually.
Suddenly, another figure whipped in through the front door. She leaped up onto Tommy’s shoulders, and Tommy whirled her around and around, making that same figure shriek, with her head back and her long hair billowing around.
Lola.
Of course, the wild and iconic Lola.
Susan’s heart swelled with love and, admittedly, a touch of jealousy. My god, how she missed her own hair!
“Hey, big sis!” Lola chirped as she dropped to the ground and hugged Susan. “The boys really figured this out, didn’t they? I had my doubts, but it looks like your party is going to be something special this year. I can’t wait.”
“Neither can I,” Susan agreed. Again, she held Scott’s eyes for a long time.
She would never understand why she deserved all this love.
Chapter Six
Ten o’clock on New Year’s Eve, Susan bubbled with champagne as she gazed out across the gorgeous crowd, which had crammed inside the bistro for the festivities. Everyone who was everyone was there. There, Charlotte lifted her chin to whisper something into her new love, Everett’s ear. Susan watched as he gave an appreciative, ever-handsome laugh in return, and then dotted a kiss on her lips. Beside them, Claire and her husband, Russell, stood and across from them, their twin daughters, Gail and Abby, nibbled cheese and crackers and joked conspiratorially, in only the way fifteen-year-old girls can manage. Beside them sat Charlotte’s daughter, Rachel, who was thick as thieves with Gail and Abby and often mistaken as the “third triplet.”
Just beyond, Uncle Trevor and his brother-in-law, Wes, stood side-by-side — both sipping water, as it had been a tremendously terrifying health year for both of them. Even still, their smiles were electric. As Susan snuck closer to them, she caught them both trying to one-up the other with silly jokes, ones that old men liked to swap. It made her heart ache to know how much
the two of them liked each other, as they’d seen so much of life side-by-side.
Aunt Kerry poured herself a glass of wine near the drink table and made eye contact with Susan. Susan approached to say hello.
“This is some party, Susie,” Aunt Kerry commented. “I don’t know if I’ve been to one this large since your mother hosted it here at the Sunrise Cove.”
It felt as though a dagger poked the very tip-top of Susan’s heart. Still, she smiled through the pain of the memories.
“That was kind of what I wanted to achieve,” Susan admitted. “I remember those parties, all of us gathered here and watching the fireworks explode over the Vineyard Sound. It was so beautiful.”
“I remember that one year we caught my Steven out with his buddies. They’d gotten rip-roaring drunk and were trying to hide it from us,” Aunt Kerry said, with a light laugh and a soft nod toward the now-middle-aged Steven, who stood toward the far end of the room with his wife and son.
“Wow. I think I remember that,” Susan said. “Uncle Trevor nearly lost his head.”
“True. Although who knows what our Andy might have gotten into, had we still had these parties when he was a teenager,” Aunt Kerry said.
Susan’s eyes followed Kerry’s gaze. There, she found her cousin Andy alongside Beth and her little son, Will. Andy had an arm slung over Beth’s shoulder and he seemed in intense conversation with Will, whose brows were tucked low over his eyes.
“They really make a beautiful group, don’t they?” Susan breathed.
“That they do,” Aunt Kerry affirmed. “Andy and Kelli are staying with us for now, until Kelli can get on her feet after the divorce. I’m sure it’ll be a long road ahead for her. Mike has never been one for refinement. Although I have to say and I’m sure you can attest to this — it is so wonderful to have so many people I love living with us at home.”
Susan’s heart drummed with sentimentality. “Getting to know my sisters this year after so long was the greatest gift of my life. The fact that I also got Scott out of it? I really don’t know what to do with all my gratefulness.”
Kerry nodded somberly. “All we can do is feel it and never once take it for granted.”
Zach appeared in the doorway of the kitchen with a massive tray of light, fancy snacks — things like stuffed mushrooms and squares of various varieties of cheeses and mini meatballs with impressive spices. Both Susan and Aunt Kerry took pieces from the tray, as Zach cast them both dark glances.
“I can’t even get this out to the table!” he cried.
Both Susan and Kerry fell into fits of giggles as they called out, “We’re sorry, Zach! You’re just too good at this.”
Zach blushed, rolled his eyes, and then immediately had a very-near tumble into Christine, who jumped back just in time. She grinned wildly at him, lifted her hand and pressed it against his bearded cheek. “Remember when you ruined the cake I made for the twins over the summer?”
Zach’s blush turned tomato-red. “Are you saying you’ve been plotting revenge?”
Christine shrugged and then took a square of cheese from the tray. “I’m just saying you should watch your back, Walters. You never know what might happen.”
Aunt Kerry burst into laughter as Christine popped the cheese in her mouth before she sauntered away. “I never know what you Sheridan girls are going to do next.”
Toward the fireplace, Susan spotted Amanda and Audrey seated together, cozied up as the flames flickered in front of them. Audrey seemed very focused on whatever it was Amanda now told her, and Amanda’s face was nothing if not dire and sad. Susan’s heart felt squeezed with confusion. Again, she had the sneaking suspicion that her daughter kept something from her.
She didn’t want to live in that kind of world. She wanted Amanda to know that anything at all she felt or wanted to say, she could say it.
Susan took a slight step toward the girls. But a split-second later, she was side-lined in another conversation between Kelli and Claire, who had a flurry of gossip and a number of jokes. Susan found a good deal of light in Kelli’s eyes, something she found impressive after Kelli had gone through so much heartache herself. Obviously, Andy’s arrival back to the Vineyard had given her something to cling onto.
Plus, there was something about getting rid of two-hundred-pounds of jackass. Susan could attest to that. The first morning she had awoken without Richard by her side, she’d felt it: Oh. Maybe I didn’t love him that much anymore, anyway.
Maybe it had all just been a routine she’d fallen into — no longer a conscious choice but a subconscious ritual.
In any case, her life looked pretty darn different than it had one year before. She had spent New Year’s Eve back in Newark with a few girlfriends she hadn’t really liked anyway, and she’d drank too much champagne and toasted her “new single life” with a sense of malice and sadness. “You’ll find someone else,” one of her girlfriends had said with a shrug. “Everyone always does.”
But in Susan’s mind, she never should have gone out looking for anyone else but Scott.
Just before midnight, Susan felt two muscular arms encircle her from behind. She yelped and spun into Scott’s broad chest. She lifted her chin toward his and her eyes felt heavy. “Do you think we can just head off to bed soon?” she asked. “I swear, putting together this party has taken a lot out of me.”
“Why don’t you come outside with me for a minute?” Scott asked, slowly leading her out the door. “The chilly air will wake you up in no time.”
Susan glanced out toward the ominous night, the last one of the year. Her first instinct was to say no, that she wanted to stay in the warmth. But there really was something special about it: the glowing snow that stretched out across the shore, the twinkling stars above, and that jet-black water just beyond. Her heart swelled as Scott led her toward the coat closet. Who was she kidding? She would follow Scott Frampton wherever he wanted to go.
Once outside, Scott led her toward the edge of the dock. It creaked beneath them, and the few remaining boats, tied up on either side, shifted ominously in the dark waters. Scott lifted his chin to gaze up at the stars, and Susan followed suit. Out there in the darkness, they could see almost nothing except those very stars, which made Susan question everything. If someone had told her: “you’re seventeen years old and out on the dock with Scott Frampton,” she would have believed them.
“We’ve been through so much over the years, haven’t we, Susie?” Scott breathed. His eyes still scanned the heavens.
“That’s putting it lightly, isn’t it?”
Scott chuckled. Finally, he turned his eyes toward hers, and they glittered with curiosity and love and something else — a secret, maybe.
“You know I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you, right?”
Susan’s heart shattered. “I know. And I’ve loved you every second, too.”
Scott drew his left wrist up toward him and eyed the time. “One minute left of this year. One minute. If you’d told me a year ago that I would be out here on this dock with you, I would have called you a damn liar. But here we are, Susan. And I don’t want to live this life with anyone else.”
When Richard Harris had proposed to Susan, he’d done it with Jake in his arms as she’d stuffed the car with groceries before a particularly heinous long night of studying for law school. “Why don’t we just get married? Could be good for tax reasons,” had been his words.
Scott dropped onto one knee, right there on the dock. His large hands cupped hers as he gazed up at her. She had to remind herself to breathe as one of his hands slipped into his coat pocket to produce a small black velvet box. She could feel her heart thud so hard in her chest that she thought it would break free.
Slowly, he opened the box to reveal the most gorgeous, glittering ring—an antique.
“Susan Sheridan. Would you do the honor of making me the happiest man in the world? Will you marry me?”
Susan’s smile was so large that it pained her. At first, sh
e whispered her answer — “Yes, Scott,” but then fell into louder and louder, “Yes! Of course, I’ll marry you! I want to spend the rest of my life with you!” especially as a crowd roared back toward the Sunrise Cove. Obviously, everyone else had known this was the plan and they’d all gathered to watch.
Scott slipped the ring over her finger, kissed her warmly and cupped her head as the cheers and whistles continued. Suddenly, there was a massive explosion that came from one of the other docks. She broke the kiss to peer out across the water, where, it seemed, Tommy and Lola had stationed themselves with the fireworks. Glittering pinks, purples, greens and yellows simmered through the night sky — a celebration of all they’d been through and all they would soon become.
“DID YOU SAY YES, OR WHAT?” Lola screamed from the dock.
Susan rolled her eyes and cackled. “DID EVERYONE KNOW THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN?”
“OF COURSE WE DID, DUMMY!” Lola returned.
Susan hadn’t felt such profound happiness since the births of her babies. She leaned heavily into Scott’s arms and watched the fireworks rip out across the waves. Tears rolled down her cheeks and immediately started to freeze. She had to wipe her cheeks clean.
When the air got too frigid and the fireworks ran dry, Tommy, Lola, Scott, and Susan hustled inside, where the music blared and people spoke excitedly and more drinks were poured. Amanda walked up to Susan and threw her arms around her. In her ear, Amanda whispered, “Mom, nobody deserves this happiness more than you do. I hope you know that. Congratulations!”
When Susan leaned back, she cupped her daughter’s shoulders and peered into her beautiful eyes. All her life, she’d known Amanda to be stable and solid and fully-prepared for every next-step. But even in the midst of Susan’s own happiness, she felt that same darkness within her daughter’s face. All she wanted to do was ask her. All she wanted to do was make sure she was okay.
But seconds later, somebody passed her a glass of champagne. Wes clacked a fork against his glass and produced a speech that seemed to come from a previous version of Wes Sheridan — without any dementia-effect.
A Vineyard Vow Page 4
