New Year's Wedding

by Muriel Jensen

He smiled. “You okay? That was pretty loud.”

  And pretty dark! “Yeah.” The thin quality of her voice didn’t even convince her.

  He seemed to hear that and came up the stairs, stopping a few steps below her and reaching up to take her hand. “You’re shaking,” he said, helping her to the bottom.

  “Yeah,” she said again. “I’m not crazy about the dark.” Her voice quaked in rhythm with her body.

  “It’s okay,” he said, putting an arm around her and holding the other with the light out ahead of them. “Want to sit on the sofa and I’ll make you a cup of tea?”

  “Please. Thank God for your gas range.”

  “Want something to nibble with it?”

  “I don’t know.” She tried to joke. “I think my family ate every last crumb you had. Anyway, I’m not hungry, but tea would be wonderful.”

  “Watch your shins.” They’d reached the coffee table and she walked carefully around the sharp edges to the soft, inviting sofa. She sat a little tensely in her midnight blue negligee, realizing now that she was freezing. She wrapped her arms around herself.

  Grady yanked a knitted throw off the back and placed it over her shoulders. “Sugar in your tea?” he asked. When she shook her head, he left her the lamp and headed unerringly for the kitchen. She caught a glimpse of lightning from that direction, and this time it took a moment for the thunder to crash. She hoped that meant the storm was moving away.

  She turned sideways on the sofa and tucked her legs up under the blanket, resting the side of her face against the sofa back. Her heart had stopped thudding and was now down to a steady bongo beat. She drew a breath and let it out slowly, trying to free herself of the fear as she’d been taught. Breathing in confidence, breathing out fear.

  She remained a tight ball in the blanket until she heard the kettle whistle. In a minute, Grady returned with two steaming mugs. She swung her legs down and held the blanket over her lap.

  Grady put the mugs down and walked around the table to sit beside her. In a gesture she didn’t want to analyze, she threw half of the blanket over his knees. She hoped that didn’t scare him.

  She realized that had been a baseless worry when he moved a little closer and put an arm around her shoulders. “You’re still shaking,” he observed.

  “But not as much. I’m beginning to...” Get over it, was on the tip of her tongue but she bit the words back. That sounded as though she’d had a panic attack or some other frightening event. She’d been on the brink, but she didn’t have to admit to it. He hated fuss.

  He looked down at her face, framed by the crook of his elbow. “You look like you did when you got off the elevator,” he said. “Does thunder have anything to do with your claustrophobia?”

  “No.” She sat up and reached for her tea. “Though I don’t like loud noises, it’s the darkness that’s the real problem for me.”

  “My father used to tell Jack and me when we were children that there’s nothing in the dark that wasn’t there when the lights were on.”

  She told him with a look that that wasn’t always true. “Actually, it’s not fear of someone in the darkness that could hurt me, it’s the oppressive nature of the inky blackness itself. It’s like I’m all wrapped up and closed off. I can’t see ahead, or beside me, or anywhere, to give me some sense of having space. I’m trapped in a void.”

  His frown was sympathetic. “Did something happen to you as a child to cause this condition, or is it just something you’ve always had?”

  “I’m really not sure. I have sort of unformed memories of shouts and screams and other loud noises. I think I was afraid.”

  “If that awareness goes back so far that you have no clear memory, maybe it was from before you were separated from your brother and sister.”

  She’d thought about that. “Could be.”

  “Maybe they know what happened. Why you’re afraid.”

  She sipped at her tea and shrugged. “Yes, but they don’t know about my claustrophobia, remember?”

  “You think that diminishes you somehow? Because it doesn’t.”

  “Yeah, but who wants to go into all that during wedding preparations? It’s better left alone for now.” She was glad Grady sat beside her, comfortingly big.

  “I suppose. Can I ask you a question about your claustrophobia?”

  Lightning lit the path from the kitchen for an instant, and they were both silent, waiting for the thunder. It was loud but a little more delayed and sounding slightly more distant.

  She returned her focus to the conversation. She also noticed that she felt warm and even comfortable again, and that his nearness was...nice.

  “A question. Yes, go ahead.”

  His turn in her direction disturbed the blanket. He pulled it up over her again and leaned his elbow on the back of the sofa. “I don’t get why you’re frightened of elevators and darkness, but you were able to ride in a plane. I mean, I noticed you were tense. But that’s got to be the ultimate nowhere-to-go scenario. Why didn’t that freak you out more?”

  That was tricky to understand. It didn’t even always make sense to her. “First,” she explained, “the plane was part of my therapy when I was an adolescent. I traveled with my father, and the therapist worked with me to make me face my fear. It’s a matter of putting you in a worse situation so you have to deal with it in order to move through it and finally come out the other side.”

  “That doesn’t sound easy.”

  “It isn’t at all, but I did very well. In fact, eventually I thought of myself as cured—until about a month ago when all kinds of major emotional things converged to bring it all back.”

  “You mean the Ireland thing?”

  “Yes, but before that my father was caught in a revolution in Bangkok, where he’d gone to set up the government’s new computer system. For days, there was no communication from him.”

  Grady nodded, touching her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I heard about that. We were all in Texas at the time. That was when Jack and Corie had just located you and were trying to contact him.”

  “I’d noticed that I was having a minor recurrence of my fear. I usually rode the Metro all over Paris, but I couldn’t anymore. I got on to go visit a friend who was no longer modeling, and I had to get off long before my stop, and almost knocked down an old man on my way out. I had to take the stairs everywhere because of my issues with the elevator, and left the light on when I went to bed at night.” She was starting to feel a little agitated.

  “We’ll stop talking about it,” he said, handing her her cup. “Have another sip of tea.”

  “No.” She remembered her therapy. “I have to get to the end of the story. Or at least where we are now.” She smiled thinly as she took her cup from him. “I’m sure this isn’t the end by a long shot.” She sat back, the cup held against her blanket, the other hand wrapped around it.

  “I went to Ireland thinking that I always have great control when I’m working. I’d get rid of this little emotional blip and I’d be fine. But then there was all that hair and makeup stuff I was telling you about.” She sounded distressed even to her own ear. “I had resolved that for myself when I started modeling. That invasion of your space can make you insane, but I’d learned to distance myself from it, to become as much of an object as the pushing, the brushing and patting and painting of me made me feel. The thing was...”

  She stopped and heaved a sigh. “The thing was,” she said again, “that I was different now. I couldn’t just compartmentalize like I used to because now my emotions were more important, a bigger part of me than they used to be. The thing with my father really scared me. I know my brother and sister had endured so much by the time they were my age, but I hadn’t. That near loss shook the world for me, and even my place in it. I’d started to wonder if I should be away so much. My father and I were
all each other had.

  “So, going back to work made things worse instead of better. I was emotional and edgy, and all my old tricks to maintain control weren’t working. Then I got word from my father about Jack and Corie, and how long and hard they’d looked for me. While I was so anxious to see them, I was scared, too, because I was starting to feel like a fraud. All those confident stares into the camera, all those smiling struts along the runway no longer represented the real me.”

  He took the cup from her and placed it on the coffee table, then put his arm around her shoulders again and drew her close.

  “Jack and Corie are crazy about you and very proud of you. Not because you’re a supermodel, but because you’re their little sister.”

  She leaned into him and said gloomily, “Who they think has it all together. And I don’t.”

  “Nobody has it all together. We just try to act like it so that maybe one day it’ll happen. And, anyway, look at all you’ve accomplished so far for the wedding. You’ve got everybody pumped.”

  “That’s only thanks to all my connections.” She raised her head to look into his eyes, his smile coaxing one from her. “I thought you hated all that stuff. Are you pumped?”

  “I have to admit that I am, a little.”

  “But there’s going to be lots more fuss.” She made it sound like a dire warning.

  “I’m resigned to that being my life as long as you’re here.”

  She rested her head against him again. “Something’s missing in my life. Maybe that’s why I’m trying so hard.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know. And I realize that’s ridiculous, like I don’t even know myself.”

  “Well, if you knew yourself, you’d have it all together, and we’ve already concluded that you don’t.”

  “Thank you for sparing my feelings.” She slapped his chest.

  “On the chance that what your life is missing is honesty,” he speculated with a grin, “I’m trying to help out.”

  She straightened, something suddenly clear to her.

  “That really is part of it,” she said, leaning on his arm, but looking into his eyes rather than laying her head on his shoulder. She missed that intimacy but wanted to say this to him directly. “When I first started having this sense of being out of sync, I thought a lot about what I do and how it’s all superficial and artificial...” She added seriously, “Though, of course, it serves a purpose and I’m not condemning it, just admitting what’s true.” She drilled him with a look. “As someone who so values reality, you should understand what I’m saying.”

  “I do. And maybe you’re right.”

  “But...to you, reality is hard work and no fun. To me, it’s...” She sighed and dropped her head to his shoulder, exhausted. “I don’t know what it is, so how will I ever know when I have it, or find it, or walk right by it? No, don’t answer that. I’ll figure it out for myself.” She could hear herself beginning to slur just a little from sleepiness. “Have you noticed that it hasn’t thundered in about ten minutes? You think the storm is over?”

  As though in answer to her question, thunder boomed in the distance.

  “It’s still here, but moving away. Why don’t you try to sleep?”

  She snuggled into him, found a spot for her nose right against his throat, and put an arm around his waist to anchor herself.

  He closed his eyes and knew he wouldn’t sleep a wink.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “I JUST WANT to look at your suit and see if you need me to take it to the dry cleaner’s for you. You can have it back in two days if you pay extra.” Grady’s mother was wandering around his kitchen, apparently conducting some kind of personal inspection.

  “It’s fine, Mom,” he said. “We’re renting suits.”

  “But you should look nice for the bachelor dinner.”

  “I’ll look great, I promise.” So that she would stop pacing, he asked, “What are you wearing to the wedding?”

  Finding nothing to complain about, she dropped her purse on one of the stools at the breakfast bar, blinking at him in surprise. “I’ve never known you to have an interest in fashion.”

  He downed the last of the dulce de leche coffee Cassie had poured for him before she’d left with the Palmer women and put his cup in the sink. “Can’t help myself. Cassie’s a model, Corie’s a designer, there’s enough wedding stuff going on around here to make a man run for the hills. I can’t help but absorb some of it.”

  “I may not even go to the wedding,” she said, picking up her purse, sitting and holding it on her lap as though it were a toddler.

  He poured her a cup of coffee, thinking there was something else going on besides talk about clothes. She was avoiding his eyes, looking a little uncomfortable, and that was very unusual for the woman who prided herself on being forthright and always speaking her mind. He placed the coffee in front of her and took the seat beside her. “What’s going on, Mom?”

  She tried to look innocent. “What do you mean?”

  “I think you’re here to talk about something besides wedding clothes. And why don’t you want to go to the wedding when Ben’s mom specifically invited you?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “She told me. She said she thought you were lovely—her words—and they’d be so happy if you would join us.”

  She did that evasive thing with her eyes. “I’m not sure they’re my...type. Or that I’m theirs.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Mom. There are no types. You like people or you don’t. If you do, it’s a shame to pass up getting to know them better.”

  “They seem so...sort of...stylish,” she said, as though that defining word had a bad connotation. “A model, a designer and Helen used to be an editor. I have nothing in common with them. They live in a world we don’t usually ever see.”

  “True. Not a lot of models and editors in our lives. But that doesn’t mean you won’t like them when you get to know them. And the fact that they invited you into their lives by asking you to the wedding means they’d like to know you better.”

  “Yeah...well...” She tried to brush it off. “I’m just a former teacher who became a housewife who stayed home for ten years to take care of a husband who was too busy trying to stay alive to notice how hard I worked for him and...” Her lips tightened. She kept emotion bottled up, closed off. One day she was going to blow like shaken champagne.

  “How much you loved him?” Grady guessed. “I know. Dad was a pretty simple man, who considered everything outside his experience something not worth caring about. And, when he became ill, and you were healthy, even though you lived your life in the interest of his, he sort of lost track of even you.”

  “Your father was a good man,” she said defensively, one tear slipping down her cheek. She wiped it away as though it offended her.

  “I know that.” He put a hand over hers on the table. “I can be honest about him without loving him any less. He was a good father, but pretty rigid in what he thought. Not everything you know about is good, and not everything you’ve never seen or heard of is bad. You’ll love these people. You have to give them a chance.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t have anything to wear to a wedding. And I hate shopping. I’m all...square and lumpy.” She swept a hand down her sturdy torso.

  He had to laugh at that. “That’s ridiculous. You always look nice. Let Cassie take you shopping. She can make something out of nothing.”

  At her offended look he quickly amended, “She can help you find something that will make you look spectacular. I’m going to call her. She and her family are shopping right now.”

  “No! Grady...”

  He stood and dialed Cassie on his cell phone. “Hey, Cassie. My mom’s here and needs something to wear for the wedding. Are you still a
t Bay Boutique?”

  “We are.”

  “If Mom meets you there, can you help her find the right thing?”

  “I’d love to,” she said, sounding pleased that he’d called. He was surprised by how pleased that made him feel in return. In the background, he could hear the other women’s laughter. “If she doesn’t see us when she walks in, it’s because we’re running in and out of the dressing rooms. Tell her to just follow the noise.”

  “Right.” He smiled to himself. Considering how worried she’d been last night, it was nice to hear her happy. “She’s on her way.”

  His mother’s face was purple with exasperation as he turned off his phone. “I wish I could still ground you.”

  He went around the table to wrap her in a hug. “Just enjoy this, Mom. I know it’s a lot of fuss and feathers, but in another week Cassie will be gone and life will be back to normal. A lot more real than we need it to be.”

  She frowned at him as he walked her to her car. “What does that mean?” She stopped at the driver’s-side door to look up at him with a penetrating stare. “You’re falling for her, aren’t you?”

  “I like her a lot,” he corrected. “But I’m as steeped in reality as you are. Mostly. Actually, I don’t know anymore. Go buy a dress. I have to get to a meeting at the station.” He opened her door.

  “Remember Celeste,” she warned.

  “Will you please get in the car?” he said a little more sharply than he’d intended. “I’m not likely to forget her.” But the truth was, he seldom thought about her now. He’d thought he’d never get over the hurt, but he seemed to have done just that. And that made it all the more mystifying.

  “This woman’s even more highfalutin than Celeste was.”

  “Mom, if you don’t start the car, I’m going to push you all the way downtown myself.”

  “I’m going. But mark my words.”

  “’Bye.”

  “I love you,” she said before she started the car.

  “And yet you love to torture me.”

  “Really. And who’s sending whom to buy a dress?”