Serendipity

by Fern Michaels

  “Hell no,” Ross sputtered. “You just think you know me better than I know myself. Well, spit it out, what do you see written in my eyes, in the set of my shoulders? Come on, Woo, don’t be shy.”

  “Guess someone stepped on your toes, huh? Want to talk about it? You washing or drying?”

  “Washing, you use too much soap. I called Jory yesterday and told her I wanted to talk to her. She took the morning flight and got to the house around eleven-thirty. At ten I told my lawyer to file for divorce. This afternoon I met . . . I saw this girl in the deli. . . . My mother is—”

  “Whoa. Let’s take it one step at a time. I thought you said you couldn’t . . . that there couldn’t be a divorce in the Landers family.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said. I don’t care about it anymore. It’s not fair to tie Jory to me because of some cockamamy will set up by my great-great-grandfather. Shit like that went out with the Dark Ages. I want a life with someone who loves me, who I love. I want to try for what your parents have. Jory . . . you should see her, Woo. I couldn’t believe it was her. I saw her at her father’s funeral, but she was wearing one of those dark veils. I don’t even know if she saw me. I didn’t even get to talk to her, for Christ’s sake. One minute she was there, and the next she was gone. She’s a knockout. She has a job and an apartment in Florida, and she gave me back all the money I’ve sent her these past four and a half years. She said she didn’t want anything, and she would sign whatever papers needed to be signed. That means she won’t contest the divorce I said I was never going to get. I was speechless. She apologized for all the misery she caused me, wished me happiness, and left.”

  “Jesus.”

  “The lawyer told me she’d be entitled to take my skin. I thought so too, but she doesn’t want anything.”

  “And you think it’s some kind of trick,” Woo said sourly.

  “I thought so at first, but if you’d seen her, you’d know she meant what she said. This was not the Jory we used to know.”

  “How’d she look?” Woo asked.

  “Good enough to be on a magazine cover. She got a college degree too, by going to night school. She graduated last month. You want to hear something crazy, Woo? I felt like cheering.”

  “Did you?” the big man asked carefully.

  “No. No, I didn’t. I wish I had, though. She turned out nice. Why does that sound so . . . so patronizing?”

  “Because it is,” Woo said, settling the meat-loaf platter in its proper place in the cupboard.

  “That’s exactly the way you sound right now, Woo,” Ross said testily, slapping a dinner plate in his friend’s hands. “You always liked Jory.”

  “Is that a question?” Woo said, just as testily.

  “Yeah. Yeah, it’s a question.”

  “Yes, I did like her. I felt sorry for her. I saw beneath that facade she presented to all of us college boys. I thought she was vulnerable. I never asked her any questions, I made my own observations.”

  “You never told me that,” Ross accused.

  “You never took the time to ask,” Woo accused in return.

  Ross snorted. “She told me she was going to accuse me of rape, me, a guy who worked for her father, for God’s sake, and you say she was vulnerable. I did the honorable thing, I married her. If she’d had the baby, it would have carried my name.”

  “Is this the same baby you said wasn’t yours?” Woo muttered.

  Ross clenched his fists in the soapy water. “Say it, Woo. Let’s get it all out now. A little late, though, isn’t it?”

  “About five years,” Woo drawled.

  “Are you trying to say it was all my fault?”

  “In a manner of speaking. You called the shots, Ross. She was a kid, and you swept her off her feet. She loved you. She belongs to the same school my mother, sisters, and myself included, belong to. You fuck them, you marry them. And then you stay fucking married for the rest of your life.” This last was said so coldly that Ross wanted the floor to rise up and swallow him.

  “You’ve felt like this all along, and you never said a word. Why?” Ross asked, dumbfounded.

  “It wasn’t my business. You’re running a little behind here, let’s get a move on, I hear neighbors on the porch, so it’s time to make lemonade.”

  “Fuck you, Woo. Don’t give me that shit that it was none of your business. You always managed to yank me from something if it wasn’t going to be good for me. Why’d you switch up back there?”

  “Because that was personal, something that was going to affect the rest of your life, and it was none of my business. Hey, the girl did what you wanted, she withdrew from your life, didn’t make any waves, didn’t spend your money. She swallowed it all and made a life for herself. If I had the money, I’d send her a dozen red roses. I swear to God I would.”

  Ross wiped the strawberry-patterned oilcloth. “I have to change the water to do the pans. You can fill the pitcher, and I’ll squeeze the lemons. Two or three?”

  “Three. The lemons are washed, Ma always does that when she brings them home from the market.”

  They worked quietly, side by side, each busy with his own thoughts. This was the first time they’d had such a discussion, and each was wary of what was to come next. Woo took the initiative. “Tell me about the girl you met, and don’t leave anything out. Just give me a minute to take this tray out to the porch.”

  Ross washed the leftover dish suds down the drain before he refilled the sink. He was scouring the meat-loaf pan when Woo opened the drawer for a clean dish towel. “She’s pretty. I met her by accident at the deli. She’s going to work at the magazine. She’s a journalism major and is taking off a year to earn next year’s tuition. Her brother is a photographer. I guess they’re going to work as a team. Both of them seem to have a lot of savvy. I’m having dinner with her tomorrow night. Her eyes are kind of bluish-purple. Very different. She’s a blonde. You’ll probably get to meet her tomorrow. By the way, are you packed and ready to go? How’d it go when you told them at the mill you were leaving? Are your parents happy with this move? What about your father?”

  “I’m packed. I’m ready. They were very nice at the mill. They said it was okay about no notice, and they wouldn’t stand in my way. I can still do their legal work one day a month if I want to make the trip back here. I said I’d let them know. Ma’s real happy for me. Pop was dependent on me, but Ivan and Steve will take up the slack. He’s going to retire in nine months. Everything is going to work out just fine. We’re all trying to save enough money to send them on a trip. Maybe Florida or California, when Pop retires. Hell, I don’t even know if they’ll go. They’ve never been out of Lancaster. They’ll probably use the money for a new roof or something like that. Ma wants a new stove, and the washing machine is on the way out. Don’t even think about saying it, Ross,” Woo said tightly.

  Ross clamped his lips shut. So many times in the past he’d offered to help, but Woo refused. Right now his face looked murderous.

  “Okay, that’s it,” Ross said, looking around. “Almost as good as your mother does it. You got a lot of stuff?”

  “No. That’s a stupid question, Ross. I don’t have any more than I had when I was at school. One good suit, three pairs of slacks, two sport coats, and the rest is knockabout clothes. Is that going to be a problem?”

  “Hell no. You are testy tonight, and don’t tell me otherwise.”

  “Then let’s get this show on the road. Say good-bye to the folks while I get my bags.”

  The good-byes took half an hour. It was 10:45 when Ross steered the Buick onto the turnpike, and another two hours before he garaged the car. They parted in the upper hallway of Ross’s house in Society Hill twenty minutes later.

  Ross’s last conscious thought before drifting into sleep was, he had to figure out what the wary look in Woo’s eyes meant.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Jory Ryan paid the driver and said she would carry her sown bags into the house. It was August 1953, the mont
h Burt Lancaster appeared in the movie From Here to Eternity.

  Everything looked the same, the yard a little more overgrown, the gutters brimming with leaves, the moss thicker between the flagstones on the front walkway. The paint was still peeling on the front door. For some crazy reason, she thought it would look different, that she’d be disappointed when she saw it again.

  There would be water and electricity now, because she’d called ahead to have them turned on. She’d called a garage and had them work on her father’s Rambler station wagon too. She was assured by mail that the car was now serviceable, with a complete tune-up plus four new tires. Ready to be operated, the greasy bill had read. She’d sent a check for $160.

  As soon as she carried her bags to the second floor, she was heading to the nearest grocery store for cleaning supplies and food. No, that was the second thing she was going to do. First she was going to get out of her traveling clothes and get into something more comfortable.

  Jory was winded by the time she struggled up the stairs with the last of her suitcases. Thank God she didn’t have a lot of clothes. Thank God she’d had the good sense to join a group of tenants in her housing complex this last week when they had a yard sale. They were moving too. She’d netted over a hundred dollars from apartment accessories, and another hundred fifty from her secondhand furniture. That plus her severance pay and her personal savings accounted for the $1300 in her purse. She also had a letter from her boss that said she was laid off, so she could collect unemployment out of state. He’d given her a second letter for the personnel director at the Democrat. If she was frugal and collected unemployment, she could get by till the first of the year. Right now she was open to anything and everything. If the paper offered her a job, she’d snatch at it. In the meantime, while she was cleaning, repairing, and collecting insurance, she could send out resumes. She might even have a little extra time to write some articles for Redbook or the Ladies’ Home Journal. If there was any way at all for her to squeeze even a few hours a week out of her busy schedule, she wanted to donate some time to the pediatric ward at the hospital.

  Jory opened the smallest of the three suitcases and withdrew a playsuit and matching sandals she’d had the foresight to place on top of her clothes. Later, when the closet and dressers were cleaned, she’d transfer the clothes from the suitcases. For now she’d live out of her luggage. She’d just made her first decision. She smiled at her reflection in the dusty mirror. If the smile didn’t reach her eyes, who was there to notice?

  She moved quickly, wanted the shopping trip to the A&P out of the way so she could get started on making the place habitable. Besides, she was itching to try out the Rambler.

  Fifteen minutes later Marjory steered the station wagon between two parked cars in the lot. She sat a moment, feeling rather like a queen. Only queens didn’t shop at the A&P. She giggled.

  An hour later she was back in the grimy, dirty kitchen unloading her purchases. She had two grocery bags full of cleaning supplies, a new broom, a dust mop, a wet mop, a galvanized pail, and three scrub brushes. There were cleaning rags in a pillowcase tacked to the back of the laundry room door. She had everything she needed. The food she’d purchased went into the refrigerator, which looked clean. When she tackled the kitchen, she’d clean it just to make sure.

  Jory changed her clothes again. This time she donned a pair of shorts and a shirttail blouse. Her hair was covered with a plaid bandanna. She attacked the house the way she did everything in her life, with energy and confidence. She worked from sunup till sundown, scouring, scrubbing, polishing, and vacuuming. The washing machine ran constantly, the pile of scrub rags mounting by the hour.

  On the fifth day, Jory opened her paint cans and proceeded to give the house on Gravers Lane a new, bright, white beginning. Her painting took another five days. Three additional days were used up by cleaning windows and hanging curtains and drapes from the attic. She found the treadle sewing machine the same time she found the boxes of curtains, drapes, and blankets, but there was no way she could get it down the steep attic stairs on her own. She sighed with relief, not really wanting to take the time to attend sewing classes. The canopy valances and new slipcovers would have to wait. If she managed to get a good-paying job, she could buy them at some point in the future.

  She called a chimney sweep to clean the fireplaces, her one outside expense. He asked her if she had any odd jobs she needed done. For a reasonable fee he said he would scrape the paint on the doors and window frames. For a fee that was slightly less reasonable, he said he would paint the porch in the back and the garage doors. She agreed.

  Her stomach in knots at what she would be spending, she’d casually asked how much he would charge to paint and fix the carriage house. She debated for an hour before she gave him the go-ahead to start work on the building, knowing she would have little trouble renting it. The hard part was how much to charge. As far as she knew, it had never been rented, and even now she couldn’t remember why her father had renovated and furnished it. The furniture was old-fashioned, the windows bare, the utilities turned off. She didn’t even know if there was water. The drawback to renting, the chimney sweep said, was the lack of central heat, but maybe, if he cleaned out the fireplaces and she provided the wood—and he knew just the person who could deliver cords of wood at a reasonable price—it wouldn’t be a major concern. She agreed.

  The Labor Day weekend dawned clear and beautiful. Her abode was finished to her satisfaction. Tomorrow she’d go into town, place her ad to rent the carriage house, and stop by the personnel office of the Democrat.

  To celebrate the holiday, Jory prepared dinner on the outdoor grill: hot dogs, corn on the cob she wrapped in foil, and a potato that steamed along with the corn. For dessert she ate a whole melon and drank two bottles of soda pop. She smoked two cigarettes on the back porch, her eyes trying to see everything at once, the pretty yard, the rows and rows of colorful chrysanthemums, the patchy green lawn that would revive in the spring with the aid of lots of water and fertilizer, something that wasn’t a top priority right now. It was enough that all the underbrush was cleared away, that the shrubs she pruned so meticulously were being shown to their advantage. In another few weeks she was going to have a major leaf problem, when the magnificent old chestnut trees started to shed. Hopefully she could rent the carriage house to someone who would help with the maintenance for a small rental discount. She told herself lots of people liked yard work, gardening, people who would care about maintaining the grounds around the carriage house. She hoped she wasn’t wrong.

  Now, though, she had to do something she’d been post-phoning since the day she arrived a month ago. She had to write to Ross and tell him she’d moved back here, that she was once again a Pennsylvania resident. She thought it was strange that no mail was forwarded from Florida. Obviously Ross’s attorney was in no hurry to speed up the divorce process, or maybe things were moving normally and she was the impatient one.

  “Be done with it already,” she muttered. It would never be done, at least for her; some small part of her would always love Ross Landers. It was one thing to say the words aloud, another thing to accept it in her heart. Every time she thought about her brief marriage, she was consumed with shame and guilt The years should have lessened her feelings, but they hadn’t. Maybe the divorce would alleviate some of the shame, make her life a little more bearable. New beginnings were something she’d only read about in novels and magazines. Maybe now she could apply to her own life all those principles they wrote about in magazines.

  The first rule was learn from your mistakes, don’t live in the past. The second was to find someplace in your home and designate it as “the place” to pack up all your emotional baggage. In her case it was the downstairs linen closet. The emotional baggage consisted of her marriage license, one photograph of her and Ross at a football game, a small bouquet of violets she’d bought herself for the brief marriage ceremony at city hall. She’d centered her baggage carefully on the pr
istine white shelf before she closed the door. She would open the door only one more time to add her divorce papers to the envelope.

  Some people, one of the articles went on to say, didn’t get a second chance. Those who do should act on that good fortune, and it was exactly what she was doing. If she faltered and cried out in her sleep, there was no one to see or hear. If her eyes filled when a song was heard, or if her hands started to shake when she saw bouquets of violets in a florist’s window, so be it. Each day it would get better. Childishly, she crossed her fingers.

  The kitchen was neat and tidy. It looked like someone lived here now. Red-and-white-checkered place mats were on the round oak table. New red corduroy cushions were on the chairs, and ivy cuttings in clear glass pickle jars lined the wide windowsill. The curtains were white and ruffled with red string tieback tassels. Cheerful, homey. On the wall next to the refrigerator was a calendar she’d brought with her of Key West sunsets.

  The electric percolator gleamed, the glasses on the shelves sparkled, and the copper-bottom pots were so shiny she could see her reflection in them in the morning when the sun came through the kitchen window. “I would have made a wonderful mother and wife,” she said in a choked voice. “I know I would have.”

  Jory locked the back door and turned on the small night-light over the kitchen sink. She was done in the kitchen for the night, but later she might want a soda pop or a dish of ice cream. Often she came downstairs in the middle of the night for a sweet of some kind when she couldn’t sleep. One of her favorite things in the kitchen was the bright red ceramic strawberry-shaped cookie jar that was filled almost daily with Fig Newtons. She’d bought it for half price at the hardware store because there were two chips around the rim. Nail polish corrected it perfectly.

  “This is mine, and no one can take it from me. So, I’m a little late getting on with my life, but I’m doing it.” It was something she said to herself every day since she’d returned to Chestnut Hill. She thought it helped.