Four Steps to the Altar

by Jean Stone

  Even second-time brides should have a wedding theme, Andrew typed above the sounds of the rock group Green Day that emanated from Cassie’s stereo upstairs. It was Sunday morning, the next wedding wasn’t for a few hours, and Andrew figured he had time to sit in the small study off the living room and prepare another blog entry—this one would be from Lily. He’d decided he would keep creating messages until his collection was impressive enough so he could show the others and they would all agree that a blog would be exciting. Fun. A credibility bump for Second Chances.

  He smiled as he considered the word bump: a TV word, a ratings word. Would the media business ever completely leave his blood?

  “Not hardly,” he said with a short laugh.

  At least he could do this for now. Tomorrow he would sit down with Cassie and talk about her expectations for Jo. Tomorrow he would sit with Jo and find out if she was going to take his name or not.

  Tomorrow, after this nutsy wedding weekend was complete.

  Until then, he could at least prepare to share his thoughts with cyberspace. Hell, maybe he was better with an audience that was invisible, like in his TV-reporter days.

  Ah, yes, he thought again. The media. The world of news that has become the world of hype.

  Then he thought again about the magazine that the mystery woman had called about. The magazine that was going to be designed to focus on second weddings. Who the heck was she? He remembered that Jo had taken the call. She might have written down the woman’s name and number. Jo was organized like that.

  He started at his cell phone, which sat next to his computer. He hadn’t heard from Winston College yet; he knew he might not. What harm would there be in tracking down the woman? A job was a job, and though he loved Jo and her former college roommates, it might serve everyone much better if he didn’t count on wedding planning to meet his career needs. He could write about it instead. At least he knew how to write. At least he knew how to persuade an audience to pay attention. And he’d learned a few things about the business side of magazines when he’d been railroaded into helping Irene when John was “indisposed.”

  Without another thought, Andrew jumped up from his chair and shouted, “Cass! I have to go to the shop for a little while!”

  But Cassie’s stereo was too loud; she no doubt couldn’t hear him. So Andrew threw on his light jacket and took the stairs two at a time. He knocked on Cassie’s door, then pushed it open when she didn’t answer.

  And there she was—or rather, there someone was—sitting at the small vanity he’d bought when Cassie turned ten. The reflection in the mirror looking back at him could no way be his daughter. His daughter did not have such heavily black-lined eyes, did not wear jewelry in her eyebrows or dark purple lipstick on her lips.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Andrew screeched.

  Cassie sighed and turned the music down. “What?” she asked.

  “Are you going to a costume party?”

  She set down a thick wand of some junk that she’d been putting on her lashes. “Dad,” she said, “be cool, huh?”

  “Cool?” He glanced around the room. How long had it been since he’d been in Cassie’s room? He always tried to give Cassie her privacy, her space. Apparently, he shouldn’t have.

  Posters of sweaty rock stars dressed in black were Scotch-taped to the ceiling, another one…oh, God, a poster taped over her bed was of Patty, Cassie’s mother, posed on what he assumed was an Australian beach, wearing nothing but a skimpy bikini.

  He pulled his eyes from the image, but motioned to it with his thumb. “Where the heck did that come from?”

  She blinked. “I bought it the other night. In the underwear store. She’s everywhere, Dad.”

  Yes, Patty had always been “everywhere.”

  “Cassie,” he said, slumping onto the unmade bed. “Cassie, honey, what are you doing?” His head was spinning now; his ears seemed to be buzzing.

  “It’s Sunday, Dad. I’m going to the mall.”

  What might have been a skirt was tossed across the bedspread. It was black with silver studs stapled along the side seam, which was half the distance from Cassie’s waist down to her knee. Had she bought that at the mall, too? Surely she hadn’t worn it to May Fair.

  Had she?

  Had he been so busy with his head in his self-centered clouds that he hadn’t paid attention to Cassie and Marilla in the backseat of his car? Who he’d let go off by themselves because he was a trusting chaperone? One of the cool dads? A guy who hadn’t even known that his daughter had bought a risqué poster of her—God help him—mother?

  He snatched up the skirt. “You’re not wearing this.”

  She sighed again, turning off the stereo.

  Andrew’s insides rolled as if a bowling ball had been dropped in his stomach and was racing down the alley.

  “Dad,” she said, “don’t make a big deal out of this.”

  Strike. The pins went down.

  “Cassie, honey, what’s happening?”

  “Nothing’s happening, Dad. I’m going to the mall. That’s all.”

  He felt Patty’s turquoise eyes burn into the back of his now-aching head. “No,” he said. “No, you’re not.”

  “Dad, come on. I’m a little old for you to start telling me what to do.”

  So that was the problem. He’d never been the right kind of father. He’d tried too hard to be cool. He’d never disciplined Cassie, never drawn up rules. But he’d never felt he had to. Until now. “I can,” he said. “I will.”

  Her hand moved toward the stereo. Her better judgment seemed to change her mind.

  “Honey,” he said, trying with all his might as a father and as a friend, “is this because of Jo? Don’t you like her?”

  Cassie turned back to the mirror and began to pluck the silver rings from her eyebrows. “I know she’s been spying on me, Dad. I figure she’s trying to get me into trouble.”

  The bowling ball was back. “What are you talking about?”

  Cassie stood up abruptly; the vanity stool tumbled to the floor. “Look, Dad, I know she’s going to be my stepmother. But she’ll never replace her.” She pointed to the poster behind Andrew’s head. But he didn’t have the courage to turn around and look at it again. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed on his daughter, at the black around her eyes that now drizzled down her face as tears plopped down her cheeks.

  Andrew stood up and reached out to her. “Cassie. Honey…”

  But Cassie turned and bolted from the room, leaving him standing there, with Patty staring at him, the two of them accompanied by a bunch of rock stars in the bedroom that had once belonged to their little girl.

  16

  Unlike Friday, Sunday was rainy. Lily fully expected that a damp chill would seep into the big Victorian and emit an aura and a scent of an earlier, mildewed time. Something reminiscent of The Addams Family, perhaps.

  Cre-e-e-e-eak came the sound as the thick oak front door opened to greet her.

  She donned her best public-relations wedding smile and hoped it wasn’t little Pugsley on the other side. Or maybe it was Antonia, who would no doubt feel at home.

  It was neither Pugsley nor Antonia, but Sarah.

  “You’re late,” she said. “I’ve almost finished decorating.”

  “I was delayed,” Lily replied, “by an urgent family matter.”

  Anyone but Sarah would have asked what happened and if everyone was okay and was there anything that she could do to help. Not that she wouldn’t help anyone who asked. But Sarah didn’t pry, and Lily was too distressed right now to talk about it anyway.

  She stepped into the foyer and let out a small cry. “Sarah! What have you done?”

  Sarah smiled her slow and humble smile. “Do you like it?”

  Lily moved past her and went into the parlor, where the ceremony would be held. “Good heavens,” she said. “This isn’t the same place.”

  “But it is,” Sarah said. “It only needed a few touches.”


  A few touches? The house had been transformed from a dingy crypt into a softly glowing, romantic haven. The furniture had been removed. In its place small rows of chairs—enough to seat the fifty guests—stood before the altar. At the beginning of each row, Sarah had tied magnificent cream-colored lace bows, each accented by a plump, vanilla rose.

  The altar was equally lovely. Sarah had placed one of the lace runners that Elaine and Lily had bought across the top of what was a cherry-stained huntboard with fine cabriole legs. Lily smiled at the way her knowledge of antiques had grown since meeting Frank, since being in his life.

  Frank.

  “Oh,” she sighed.

  Touching a petal in the sweet bouquet of vanilla roses that sat in a low brass vase atop the altar and the lace, Lily wondered for the hundredth time what she was going to do when Antonia arrived the next day. What would she say to Frank? What would she do with Antonia? Surely she could not introduce the two of them.

  Your dead husband’s sister? Frank would ask, and have every right to question why Lily had never mentioned her, because she never had. What would have been the point?

  Is he your lover? Antonia would ask, fishing for further information about whether or not Lily planned to marry him and reinstate the Beckwith money where it belonged.

  “Well?” Sarah asked, jolting Lily from her trance. “Do you like it?”

  “Like it? It’s pure heaven, Sarah. You’ve done a wonderful job.” Without another word, she sat.

  “That’s one of the children’s chairs,” Sarah said. “Be careful not to mess it up.”

  It was then that Lily noticed that the chair was smaller than the rest, though it suited her just fine. Children’s chairs had been another of Sarah’s innovations: Second weddings, she had reasoned, usually had lots of kids.

  Lily counted the small chairs. It seemed that this time there would be four.

  At the kindergarten teacher’s wedding, there would be eighteen, not his or hers, but they would be there nonetheless. Children, after all, symbolized life and love and innocence.

  Lily and Billy Sears had planned on having children. “Lots and lots and lots of kids,” she’d said as they’d huddled under a blanket beneath a big tree by the river, watching the sun set behind the stoic skyline of West Point. They had made love twice already and had used condoms so the kids wouldn’t arrive too soon. There would be plenty of time for that, after Cadet William Sears had graduated and been given his commission, after he and Lily married beneath the crossed swords at the chapel, after they had tossed aside the white and silver wrappings of their bounty of wedding gifts and set up housekeeping, just the two of them and the babies they longed to have.

  “The girls will be as cute and sweet as you,” Billy had said.

  “And the boys as handsome and as smart as you,” Lily had replied.

  But life had stepped in and scattered the sand castles of their dreams, and children had not come.

  Reginald had wanted to adopt. It had been the single time Antonia was on Lily’s side. “The last thing we need,” Antonia had said, “is for someone else’s children to get their hands on the Beckwith fortune.” It was bad enough that Lily’s hands were on it.

  “Sarah?” Lily asked now. “Didn’t you ever just want to do it? Get married, have a bunch of kids, do the whole ‘establishment’ thing?”

  Sarah straightened one last bow and laughed. “Sometimes you scare me, Lily.” She’d made it very clear that, while weddings were good for business, they were not for her. Not even for her and Sutter, because she didn’t feel the need. Picking up her scissors and a few leftover roses, Sarah said, “Jo’s upstairs helping the bride get dressed. I’ll be in the kitchen helping Elaine with the hors d’oeuvres.”

  Lily nodded with disinterest.

  “As long as you’re going to stay there,” Sarah added, “you might as well answer the door if any of the guests arrive.”

  A moment later the door chimes rang. Lily hesitated, then stood up and went to greet the people she did not know and would never see again, wishing all the while that Sarah could transform her life the way she’d changed the house.

  Jo didn’t know what she’d expected. She had, after all, known that sooner or damn-well-later Brian’s trial would take place, that she would have to enter a courtroom and come face-to-face with him again. That she would have to sit on the witness stand and tell the world what he had done to her.

  She knew it would happen, yet in these past months with Andrew, she’d managed to detach from the remnants of Brian’s mess.

  As much as Jo had known that sooner or damn-well-later the trial would take place, she’d chosen to erase it from her Brian-weary mind.

  “This is the most beautiful wedding dress I could have ever imagined,” Gladys Randolph said.

  Jo had stopped counting how many times she’d heard that from the brides of Second Chances. She smiled. “We’re so glad you like it.” They were upstairs in the master bedroom of the hundred-plus-year-old house that Sarah had made magical for Gladys Randolph and Jim Barton’s wedding day. With Jo and Gladys was Gladys’s sister, Linda, who was the maid of honor. Linda wore a celery-colored dress trimmed with the same ivory lace that graced the bodice of Gladys’s antique-satin sheath. Gladys was not usually a very pretty woman; today, however, she was a lovely bride.

  “It’s going to be an awesome day,” Linda exclaimed, then kissed her sister on the cheek. “I’ve barely slept, I’m so excited. You two are finally getting married!”

  Jo pinned a small mantilla on Gladys’s short-cropped, golden-rinsed hair. Jo knew the story well. Gladys and Jim had been childhood sweethearts. When they were in the eighth grade, the Randolphs moved to the Midwest. Gladys and Jim both grew up and married other people, had kids (she three; he, one). Eight years later her marriage ended; twelve years later, so did his. Then they each joined the same Internet dating service.

  “If that’s not true love, then nothing is,” Linda had said the first time she and Gladys went into Second Chances and Gladys told them how she and Jim Barton had gotten back together. Elaine nodded and Sarah smiled and Lily wept. And Jo was more convinced than ever that love usually happened at the most unexpected times.

  She hoped that love wouldn’t abate as quickly, once she told Andrew about the trial. She hoped he wouldn’t be as nervous as he’d been when he went to her house and she wasn’t home.

  “How much more time?” the bride asked, and Linda said, “Twelve minutes. Twelve minutes until you are the happiest bride in the entire world.”

  Until the last few days, Jo had thought she would be the happiest bride in the entire world. She. Not Gladys Randolph or Lucy Gilbert or a kindergarten teacher.

  But now…between Cassie’s odd behavior and Andrew’s apparent angst, was the trial another omen?

  What if the testimony lasted beyond the wedding date? What if it interfered with their honeymoon? Andrew would have a right to be very angry. They were only going to Martha’s Vineyard for a few days—the business was too busy to take more time than that—but what if…?

  She knew there were at least two other women who’d been scammed by Brian. At least two others who would have to tell their stories too. How long would that take?

  The back of her neck tightened. She placed the long-stemmed ivory roses in the bride’s hands; she adjusted the pearl-dotted ribbons that were tied around the flowers and flowed gracefully to the hem of the antique satin dress.

  “Every bride is the happiest,” Gladys said.

  “Of course! It’s the best day of her life and everything is perfect.”

  “Even when it’s raining?”

  “Absolutely! Look how beautiful you are!”

  Jo fruitlessly rubbed the tension in her neck. Linda was right: Gladys was beautiful. Because even the plainest, most ordinary woman was beautiful on her wedding day, and every wedding turned out perfect.

  Unless…

  She watched as Gladys took a last, scrutinizing look int
o the mirror. And it was then that Jo knew she could not marry Andrew after all. Not yet, anyway. She needed for Brian’s trial to be over and done with. She had to have a clear and happy mind. She needed for Brian Forbes to be out of her life for good.

  17

  You have to help me,” Lily implored her friends as they sat in a red vinyl booth at a coffee shop on the outskirts of town. The Randolph/Barton wedding had been joyful and complete; the women had approved the work of the cleaning crew and discharged them from the Victorian; luckily they hadn’t needed Frank or his pickup truck, because Lily hadn’t wanted to face him right then. What she needed was her friends. What she needed was to go somewhere with them to talk.

  “I’m beat,” Sarah had said.

  “Me too,” Elaine had added. “And it’s still raining. I just want to go home and take off my shoes.”

  Lily stepped up the urgency in her voice. “Please. I need you. All of you.”

  Jo asked Lily if it could wait until the morning. Lily said no, the problem would only be worse by then.

  So they had agreed, because that’s what they always did for one another.

  And there they sat, among a sparse Sunday evening crowd: a few pastel-clad nurses apparently having ended their weekend shift at Berkshire Medical Center; a smattering of long-haul truck drivers evidently getting a jump on their weekend treks to Chicago or Detroit.

  Elaine ordered an omelet because she, the caterer, hadn’t eaten all day.

  “I did as you ladies suggested,” Lily said. “And now Antonia will be here tomorrow. I have no idea what to do with her. Or with Frank. Or with myself for that matter. I don’t even know how long she’s planning to stay.”

  Tired, glazed eyes looked back at her.

  “And she’s bringing her damn entourage. Her driver. And Pauline, her personal assistant. Amazingly, she’s leaving the butler in New York.” She folded her arms. She rocked slightly back and forth. “Whatever shall we do?”