“No.” I hadn’t entered any shows or contests in years and had no intention of doing so again. “Your mother won an award in the fabric division and second place for best overall. She would have really appreciated it if you had been there tonight.” He needed to understand how he had hurt her.
His smile faltered. “Whatever my mother is feeling, I am sure she will be fine.”
“But I don’t understand why you couldn’t just come to the show, even for a short time.”
“I don’t really want to talk about it right now,” he said as he wiped his hands with an old rag. He closed the gap between us and lowered his head to give me a light kiss. As kisses went, it wasn’t as life altering as his others, but it still had that goosebump quality to it. “I was happy helping out right here and waiting for you to get home.” He smiled with huge charm, and for a moment we were nearly back to where we’d left off in the barn.
He walked toward the pile of boxes in the middle of the floor. “Grady and I decided to get started on the lobby tonight, while things were quiet.”
I didn’t see Grady, only cans of spackling compound and painters’ tools at the top of the stairs.
“Well, that was nice of you,” I said, wondering what he was looking for in the pile in front of him.
“We were clearing out some boxes by the reception desk and I came across this.” He turned around with a smile, and held his hands up.
I felt a chill run up my spine. He was holding one of the photo albums I had worked on this past summer. Not wanting anyone else to see what I had been doing while I spent long hours at the front desk, I had tucked it away in a back closet, thinking I would put it in the attic later. Inside the book were photographs I had taken of the backcountry roads and small towns I had traveled last spring. They were marked with comments, the names of the towns or roads, and random titles that held more personal meaning than I wanted to share. Each sleeve in the book held pictures of life in struggling towns throughout our county. In many ways they were a departure from my simpler, off-the-beaten-track images. They were edgier and bleaker.
Nick turned a page to a photo of an old woman wearing a man’s hat, sitting on a porch next to a young girl in a torn dress and bare feet. Crooked Porch was scrawled in pencil next to that photo along with questions I had wondered about. Whose hat is that? Where is the child’s father? He turned to the next page and I already knew what was on it. An old Chevy truck with no wheels parked behind a gas station. Going Nowhere.
A sour taste formed in my mouth as I watched Nick leaf through the pages of the album.
“These are great, Annie. You should do something with them.” He sounded as casual as if he was looking through a cookbook.
I walked over to him and held my hands out for him to pass it back to me. “I didn’t want anyone to see them.”
He closed the book, held it to his chest, and gave me a tentative grin. “No, I mean it. These are really great! You should get them published. Or even consider displaying them in a gallery. You could create an entire show with these.”
“I’d rather not.” I continued to hold my hands out. I heard my voice speak calmly and clearly, but inside I was shaking with emotion.
He frowned. “Are you mad that I looked at them? I know that art is really personal, but you have talent.”
I lowered my arms and took a deep breath. I was overreacting. Why shouldn’t I be proud of my work? I knew in my mind that it was silly to feel so agitated. But the book was as personal as a diary to me. It was strange to know that he had just looked at the photos and notes without my consent. I felt exposed, as if my clothes had been ripped off.
Nick sensed my mood and put the book back down in the pile, and I resisted the urge to snatch it up.
“It’s personal, that’s all.”
“You seem mad. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. You really need to show that book to someone. Brittany has some friends—”
“I wasn’t ready for someone to go through it,” I interrupted. The image of Brittany looking at my book made me nauseous. “Was there anything else you went through behind the desk? Feel free to look at my checkbook while you’re at it.”
“Whoa,” he said as if I were a wild horse. “Sorry to upset you. I won’t do it again. Look, I appreciate art. I thought the photos were beautiful and had no idea you would have a problem sharing them.”
His tone sounded patronizing to me. “If you’re so into art, you should have gone to the art show.” I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“I was helping out here.”
“We are fine without your help. Next time help your mother. She is lonely and misses you. It was just one night, Nick. You couldn’t give that much?”
Nick’s eyes darkened and his body tensed. “Stay out of it, Annie.”
“Oh, so it’s all right for you to go snooping through my photos, but I can’t discuss something that is right in front of us. Like the way you treated your mother tonight.”
“I don’t want to talk to you about that,” Nick said, turning his back on me.
“Why not? Are you afraid you’ll sound as stuck-up as June Lowell or Scarlett Francis? Go ahead, Nick. I am a big girl. I can take it.”
“Say what, Annie? You’re so good at reading people. What is it you think I am going to say?” Nick bent his head and stared at the floor. I couldn’t see his expression.
“Tell me how much you hate this town. How much better Atlanta is than Truhart.”
“Oh, are we back to that? Is that you what you think?” His voice was flat and ominous.
“Well, you won’t tell me what’s going on. I have no idea what you are feeling half the time, so it’s easy to think you hate this place.”
He swung around to face me, his cheeks mottled red and his eyes black. “You want to know what I feel? You have this naïve idea that just because this is a small town with people who go to church and play bingo together, nothing is ever bad. Big cities are bad. Right, Annie? Atlanta. New York. Evil places. But Truhart, well, it is just full of good citizens who would never harm a soul.”
I stood rigidly.
“Well, guess what, Annie. All isn’t perfect in Mayberry.” I could see a vein clearly throbbing at the side of his neck.
“What are you talking about?”
He opened his mouth and closed it several times. I waited for him to say something. He stared at me, but he wasn’t seeing me at all. He was lost in a place I couldn’t begin to picture. Around us the room was silent except for the sound of the clock above the mantel.
Finally, he lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes. “You couldn’t possibly understand how I feel, Annie.”
“That’s because you won’t tell me. I’m not a mind reader.” I swallowed before adding, “I just don’t think you should punish your mother by running away from your hometown and abandoning her. It isn’t her fault.”
“Abandoning her? Is that what you think I’ve done? You don’t really know me at all.”
“Well—”
“You know, I can’t believe you’re talking to me about abandoning things. That’s ironic. It really is. You’re the expert at running away, not me. You ran away from your dreams a long time ago.”
I tried not to let his words twist in my gut. “I don’t have any dreams, Nick. I am perfectly happy.” I was surprised how feeble the words sounded as soon as I said them.
Nick pointed to the photo album lying nearby. “That’s not the story those pictures tell.”
I stared at the book, speechless. I was happy, wasn’t I? The book was full of images of lonely roads and decaying buildings. And sure, the pictures were sad, but it wasn’t like they were a Rorschach test. The other albums I had created were stuffed with pictures of life off the main interstate, too. Even though I knew my photographs were growing increasingly glum, they were a reflection of the times. They were a part of the backdrop of my life. Not some deep subconscious neurosis.
I was so lost in thought that it took me a
moment to realize Nick was holding his coat and looking up the stairs with a stony expression.
“See you later, Grady,” he said. I looked up at Grady, who was standing at the top of the second-floor landing looking like he wished he was on the other side of the planet.
“You’re going? Just like that?” I asked.
“There is a fundamental problem between us, Annie.” He put on his coat, painstakingly adjusting the collar while the silence grew. Then he stared me in the eye. It felt like he could see through my skin and I wanted to look away. “You want to stay in Truhart. You want nothing to change. And I don’t.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Was this over before it even started? I thought we had begun something special. I knew the reality of loving Nick was different than my dreams—but everything had been coming together.
I couldn’t get enough air. Nick blurred in waves as he walked away from me.
“You know, Nick, I may still be here in Truhart, but at least I don’t let anything get in the way of what I care about. Whatever feelings you may have for this town, you’re letting them get in the way of coming home, and you’re hurting the people who care about you.”
He froze for a moment.
I blinked furiously and walked over to him. “This little town didn’t seem to bother you so much when you were a kid,” I said, grabbing his arm.
Nick pulled his arm away from my grasp and stepped around me. He walked out the front door without looking back. I stood in the doorway for a long time and watched his car drive down the road until his taillights faded in the distance.
A part of me wanted to pick up stones and throw them at his back windows. Good riddance. The cold wind did nothing to cool the anger that washed over me. Good thing we figured out how incompatible we were now, before anything else happened.
I stepped back inside and slammed the door.
Chapter 12
“Are you sure you don’t regret it, Annie?” asked Mom.
I nodded my head and thought for the millionth time how much I regretted it. The trip to Atlanta in August, and even Nick’s visit in October, seemed years ago.
Bing Crosby crooned “White Christmas” on the radio and I stared out the picture window in the dining room at a winter scene that was anything but white.
For the first time in recent history, Northern Michigan had just celebrated a snow-free Christmas. Although the sky had been overcast all week, nothing white and fluffy fell from the sky. The ground was frozen solid in gray and brown hues, making the landscape look like a dirty filter over a camera lens.
As I looked at the barren scene before me, branches swaying in the December wind like skeletons, I could barely make out Mary Conrad’s rooftop. Her house had been empty all week while she spent Christmas in Chicago, which meant Nick hadn’t come home for the holidays. Again. But this year Nick’s absence was my fault.
Actually, no. It was his fault.
Dozens of times I had replayed the night of the art show in my head. I should have kept my feelings to myself. I could admit that much. If I had just said nothing about Mary and the show, if I had hugged Nick and given him a kiss and kept my big mouth shut, everything would have been fine.
“Annie?”
I looked down and realized I was stabbing the table with the tines of one of the forks we were polishing. I turned toward my mom as she stared across the dining room table at me, a worried frown on her face. She had been looking at me like that a lot lately. I tried to smile, but my lips twisted into a messy contortion.
Why was she asking me about regret? I stared at her, wondering if Grady had mentioned the horrible scene in the lobby. He had never brought it up to me, but I caught him studying me as he did odd jobs around the inn. His solemn eyes looked as if he wanted to say something, but whatever it was, he kept his mouth shut.
“What do you mean, Mom?” Maybe I hadn’t heard correctly.
“Do you regret not going to Las Vegas with the other girls in the bridal party?”
The day after Christmas the entire bridal party had taken a flight to Las Vegas, where they were celebrating a bachelorette weekend. While Charlotte, Bebe, Patty, and even Brittany had enjoyed the shows and been pampered at one of the ritziest spas in Vegas, the boys had celebrated their own way. Aunt Addie was very concerned about this, but Charlotte assured us it would be tame. On the final night in Vegas, both bridal parties met up and celebrated together at a chic French restaurant at the Bellagio, a place I had only read about.
I could only hope that Nick woke up next to a fat Elvis, discovered a bad tattoo on his chest, and suffered a hangover the size of Texas. It would serve him right.
“I don’t regret staying home, Mom. I’m not much of a bachelorette-party person. Besides, Ian and I want to help get the inn ready for the wedding.” I didn’t tell her that Ian and I had sunk a large chunk of our savings into getting the inn in decent shape. The same amount Nick probably tipped some long-legged waitress in Vegas.
“Well, Charlotte felt really bad about the fact that you couldn’t go to Las Vegas. You should have taken Henry up on his offer to fly you and Ian out there.” Neither Ian nor I wanted to be Henry’s charity-case future in-laws. “You and Ian have put a lot of work into this wedding, Annie. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate everything. But sometimes I feel like you are giving up too much for this.”
If only she knew how much this wedding was costing me.
“Actually, Mom, you’re kind of my excuse. I don’t think I would like Las Vegas much,” I said as cheerfully as I could.
My mother grunted. “Well, I don’t think I would either. But I would be interested to see what all the hype is about. And I would love to see a show and maybe that handsome single magician . . .”
“Well, I can’t argue with you there.” I wasn’t about to tell her he was gay.
It was three days before the wedding. Charlotte, Henry, the wedding party, and the immediate family were set to arrive tomorrow afternoon. That meant Nick would be back as well. Unless, of course, he had decided that he couldn’t handle Truhart anymore. Stupid man. I jammed the rest of the utensils in the drawer and tried to keep from chipping off a piece of wood in frustration.
“Hey, it finally came, Bump!” Ian walked into the dining room with a large box in his hands.
“What’s that?” asked my mom.
Ian put the box down on a table and grinned at me. For the last few weeks we had found ways to slowly improve things at the inn. The trick was not letting Mom know how much money we had spent.
Ian pulled out his pocket knife and began cutting open the box. “When I was playing a gig in Columbus last month, I mentioned to a production assistant that we owned an inn. He said that occasionally they get promotions for special beauty products in trial sizes for the bands he manages. He had a whole lot of extra products and was hoping to unload a few on me.” Ian finished cutting and peeled open the top of the box.
“Check this out,” he said, throwing aside a clump of the packing material. He picked up several small bottles of shampoo and soap. The brand was far more luxurious than we had ever been able to afford, and my mother placed her hands on her throat.
“Ian, I can’t believe you were able to get this!”
Ian grinned. “And you always thought I’d amount to nothing . . .”
She cocked her head at him. “It’s all very strange how we’re suddenly finding all these connections for fancy hotel goods. If I didn’t know better—
“Hey, I have never actually tried before. I guess that’s what a little effort can do.”
She laughed as she held up a shampoo bottle. “Well, Ian, fancy shampoo won’t help pay off our bank loans. But it sure makes me feel better about this wedding.”
Ian stopped smiling and I saw concern in his hazel eyes. The truth was, everything we were doing was nothing more than a Band-Aid on an open wound.
Now it was my turn to ask about regrets. “Do you regret having the wedding here,
Mom?”
She placed her hands on our shoulders and shook her head. “No.”
I had the feeling there was something she wasn’t saying. She had been working hard managing things too. Hopefully no one would notice the patch job on the roof or the duct tape holding the tables together under the tablecloth. Grady had patched the walls and Mom had bought slipcovers and pillows at an outlet store. Ian and I had pooled our money to buy new linens and sheets as well. Ian even revamped our tired old website. Of course I made him remove the massage package he had built into the website. I don’t know who he thought would handle that, but there was no way I was rubbing oil on some old man’s back.
Charlotte was clueless about our efforts. She had stayed in Atlanta for Christmas. We had watched her on television making gingerbread houses from milk cartons, decorating Christmas trees with origami, and reporting on the experiences of the department store Santas. We missed her but loved seeing her growing success.
We talked on the phone several times a week, making sure the details of the wedding were in place. She assured us that everything would be wonderful no matter what, but I could still hear anxiety in her voice when she talked about Henry’s family.
I couldn’t blame her. June wasn’t exactly making things easy.
June had overruled our choice of photographer, insisting that the one Scarlett recommended would be more appropriate. She was flying him up from Atlanta on the chartered plane with the guests. Then, after we negotiated a deal and reserved almost three dozen rooms for extra guests in Gaylord, June had left a long message on the answering machine explaining that she had reciprocal club privileges with the Grande Lucerne Resort and Spa across I-75. It was a little farther away than the hotel we had booked, and much more expensive, but she felt her guests would “appreciate the amenities.”
“I am totally going to use the bubble bath tonight,” Ian said, holding up a blue miniature bottle.
Mom snatched it from him. “Oh no, you’re not. We need to make sure there are enough for the guests.”
“How many guests do we have now?” Ian asked.
We all turned our heads to see a huge pile of unopened presents on the buffet that the mail carrier had delivered. Next to them was a stack of RSVP cards we had been marking off.
A Wedding in Truhart Page 16
