Four Steps to the Altar

by Jean Stone

  Antonia laughed. “I’ve finally figured out why my brother liked you.” Her red lips bounced around with animation. “Beneath your capricious, often annoying exterior lies a delightful, strong woman who is really quite unconscionable.”

  Lily could not tell if Antonia was mocking her or complimenting her.

  “Antonia,” she said, her flare of anger simmering to a simple need to know the truth, “why ever are you here?”

  Another person might have called the woman’s expression smug, but Lily recognized it as one of entertainment. “Well,” Antonia remarked, “I could say I’ve come to meet the man who seems to have stolen your heart, but since neither of you knows that I know what’s been going on, I suppose I should leave it up to you to properly introduce me. Unless, of course, you’ve been too fraught with worry that I shall cut off your inheritance.”

  She was enjoying this, wasn’t she?

  She was amused by the perplexed look that surely must be on Lily’s face, by the butterflies that she surely knew were flapping their wings inside Lily’s stomach.

  “I don’t want your money,” Lily said so quickly and so loudly it surprised even her. “I want my life back, Antonia. I love this man.” She pointed a shaky finger in Frank’s direction, briefly noticing her need for a good manicure—good heavens, how long had it been? This business of working hardly left time for personal essentials.

  She shook away her thoughts and returned to the moment. “I don’t know if he loves me anymore, and I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t. But I love him more than your money can buy, Antonia, and I’d rather have him than a hundred dollars of your cash.” She supposed she should have said “one” dollar, not “a hundred,” but Lily’s monetary frame of reference wasn’t like other folks’.

  Antonia moved closer. “Too late,” she replied with half a hearty laugh. “Like it or not, you’re the closest thing I have to family, Lily Beckwith. For some reason, my brother’s death seems to have forced us together. It’s as if his ghost has been testing us to see if we could finally be friends.” Her eyes shifted to Frank. “Lily has never known this, but I do know what love is. There was a man named Howard. He loved me very much, and I loved him. Sadly, he was killed in 1968, in Vietnam, the way Lily’s father might have been. I never had another man, because I didn’t want one.” She looked back at Lily and said, “Now, if you both will excuse me, I shall go see if the real-estate office is still open.”

  Launching a last Cheshire grin at Lily, Antonia padded from the store.

  Lily looked back to Frank, who stood, dumbfounded, asking, “Who in God’s name was that?”

  Instead of bursting into little-girl tears or dropping to the floor in a fit of melodrama, Lily closed her eyes and smiled at the absurdity of life, specifically, her life, and at the ways in which we have so much to learn from others, if we only can give them a little bitty chance.

  She was back in his arms and that was all Andrew cared about.

  “It’s over,” Jo said. “Not just the trial, Andrew. I mean, it’s really over. Seeing Brian…well, I realized that the fantasy is finished. There was no pull, no desire to be with him, not at all. All I could think was how pathetic he is and how wonderful my life has become. I feel as if I truly have been given a brand-new chance in life.”

  He could have said, A second chance, but thought that would sound corny. Instead, he kissed her and pulled her close, under the covers, safe in the warmth of his bed in the cottage where they’d come as soon as Frank had dropped them off. Cassie would be going straight to Mrs. Connor’s after school; she wouldn’t expect Andrew and Jo to be home. But Jo had said it didn’t matter anyway. She didn’t mind if Cassie knew that she was in Andrew’s bed; she didn’t mind if the whole world knew that Jo could at last proclaim that she loved Andrew David Kennedy with all her heart.

  It had been a long time coming, Andrew said, and well worth the wait.

  Then he added, “Frank is determined to give you the money. On the ride to Boston he told me all about it.” He’d already explained that when he returned from New York and Elaine told him that Frank was going to the trial, he’d dashed from his cottage to hitch a ride with him. “Did you know Eleanor was the one who paid Brian’s bail?”

  Jo flinched. “What?”

  “Apparently, Eleanor Forbes was the one Brian always turned to when he was really down and out.”

  “When he couldn’t find a woman to pick up his financial slack.” She seemed to think a moment. “But that other woman,” she said, “the one who was his wife…”

  “Bled her dry, I guess. Bled them all dry.”

  “And I was the only one who finally understood.”

  He kissed her on the neck. “Because you are smarter, better-looking, and more loving than any of them could be.”

  Jo smiled. “So Eleanor knew all along what Brian did to me. And Frank knew Brian was out of jail all these months?”

  “No, he didn’t. Eleanor left a letter for him with her will that explained everything. She made him promise that what was left of her life insurance—what she hadn’t borrowed against to post Brian’s bail—would go to you to make up for the things that Brian had done. She also said for him to let you know that she was sorry.”

  Jo lay quietly, rubbing Andrew’s shoulder with her gentle fingers. “How can I fault a woman for loving her child without conditions? I see that’s how you love Cassie.”

  He kissed her and he said, “Yes, I do.”

  She kept rubbing his shoulder, kept reassuring him of her love. Then she said, “West Hope could use some new things for the library. Computers, software, things for the people in town. And the schools. Maybe they could use some new computers at West Hope Elementary. I’ll talk to Frank about donating them in his mother’s name.”

  He kissed her again because she was so wonderful. Then he said, “Speaking of money…” and out it came: the saga of Frannie and the Second Chances magazine and Antonia. He was more than glad that Jo said it sounded exciting but then she asked if they could please talk about it later and use this time to do something else. At which time Andrew smiled and said, “Sure.”

  They made love at last, then the sun set and the room grew dark and Andrew said, “Jo, let’s get married.”

  She laughed, then traced his face with her sensuous finger. “We are getting married. September, remember?”

  “No, I mean now. Without any frills. Without anyone knowing. Let’s elope.”

  “It’s funny you should say that. I always thought a wedding would be nice, with bridesmaids and flowers and a beautiful white gown. But lately there are days I feel so saturated by weddings I could scream, let alone want one for myself.”

  He rolled on top of her again and began to tease her throat with his lips, his tongue. “How about next week?”

  “We could go somewhere exotic. Like Vermont. That way we wouldn’t be gone long.”

  “Perfect,” he said.

  “But what about Cassie? Maybe she’ll want to be included…”

  “We can tell her just before we leave.”

  “But…”

  “But nothing. I think my daughter will understand our need to be alone. Besides, she’ll be grateful just to know her old dad’s finally happy.”

  “I think she wants her new stepmother to be happy too. We had a really great time while you were in New York.”

  There would be time to talk about that later too.

  “So,” Andrew said, “let’s write our wedding vows.” Then he bounded out of bed and grabbed a pen from his dresser and a few pages from the business plan that Frannie had put together, which Andrew had hastily stashed in the corner with his suitcase of his New York clothes.

  “I’ll go first,” Jo said. She closed her eyes and smiled. “From the first day that I saw you I had no idea we’d end up here…” she began, and Andrew started writing on the back of Frannie’s sheet of paper titled long-range predictions. “I never dreamed,” Jo added, “that one day I would trade
in my name, Jo Lyons, for Jo Kennedy.”

  Andrew paused. He looked at her. “Kennedy? Are you sure you want to change your name?”

  She smiled again. “Oh, yes. I like the way it sounds.”

  40

  Lily stopped laughing when she realized Frank wasn’t smiling.

  “When?” he asked. “When did you plan to tell me that you have a sister-in-law?”

  She knew then that this wasn’t funny, that she’d known all along it wouldn’t be funny when he found out about Antonia and the reason she hadn’t said she’d marry him way back when he’d asked her.

  Dropping down onto the settee where they’d made love so long ago, she lowered her eyes. “Oh, Frank, it’s all so complicated.”

  He remained standing. He folded his arms. “I’m listening.”

  She sighed. She didn’t know where to begin, so she started with the night her parents were killed, with the way she’d abandoned Billy Sears, with the huge hole that had been left in her heart, her soul. She told him about Aunt Margaret and how she’d done her best, but she’d lost her brother and sister-in-law and was empty too.

  She told Frank about the baby that never was, how she’d somehow tried to fill the hole with new life but how God hadn’t wanted that to happen.

  And then she told him the rest: the men in her life who she’d kept at a shallow distance; Reginald, who’d skated the closest to her heart; the money and the fluff and the substitute stuff that had worked pretty well until now, until Frank, until the women of Second Chances had given Lily a real second chance of her own, a second chance to stop the nonsense and straighten out her life.

  She told him she’d seen Billy Sears again, that she’d been underwhelmed, that she’d realized she’d wasted too many years feeling sad and guilty about him.

  At the end, Lily said, “But it’s all okay, Frank. I’m okay, at last. Please don’t feel you have to marry me just because it’s what I want now. I will truly understand if you go back to Sondra. She was your wife, after all.” The tone of her voice surprised even her: It was honest and pure, no manipulation intended, no finagling of a Lily agenda.

  When she stood up to leave, Frank stepped in her path. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked straight into her eyes.

  “I love you, Lily Beckwith,” he said. “I love you as I never loved Sondra or any woman in my life. I would be honored if you’d marry me. As long as you promise to keep your late husband’s money to yourself.”

  The flutter came to life inside her stomach. Then Lily suddenly knew. She just knew.

  “Oh, my God,” she said, as her hand flew to cover her mouth. She wriggled from his touch and darted to the door. “Will you wait here a few minutes? Just a few? Please? I’ll be right back. Honest. Please.”

  She ran down the steps of the old town hall, then raced across the eighteenth-century town common as if the British were on their way again. She unlocked the front door of Second Chances, her hand trembling with excitement, her voice muttering, “Oh, jeez,” and “Oh, wow.”

  She rushed through the doorway, grabbed her purse, then bolted through the showroom, past the racks and stacks of black-tie ensembles for the eighteen five-year-olds, through Sarah’s studio, and out the back door.

  She dashed toward her two-seater Mercedes just as a bicycle sped into the parking lot and a voice called out, “Lily!” She recognized the rider: It was Cassie.

  “Can’t stop,” Lily shouted back as she fumbled for her car keys. “I’m having a crisis.”

  Cassie’s tires squealed to a stop next to the car. “Me too,” the girl breathlessly said. “We need to talk, Lily. Please?”

  “Oh, hell’s bells,” Lily said, and pointed to the passenger door. “Park your bike and get in. You can tell me all about it while I drive.”

  It wasn’t the first time Lily had bemoaned the fact that the West Hope Drugstore that had once, like everything else, been in the center of town had been usurped by the big chains and the big boxes and was no longer within walking distance from the old town hall.

  41

  They didn’t know I was in the house,” Cassie said. “They didn’t know I’d come home from Mrs. Connor’s to get my new Green Day tour shirt.”

  Lily waved her hand. “On with it, girl. What happened?” She cranked on the ignition, slammed the shift into reverse.

  “My dad and Jo. Well, they were in the bedroom.”

  Lily groaned, backed out of the parking space, then jerked the shift into drive and gunned the engine. “Oy,” she said. “Jo will never get over this one.”

  “No, Lily,” Cassie continued. “It’s worse than that. I overheard them talking. They’re going to get married.”

  She peeled out onto the street. Lily loved Cassie, really she did, but right now she didn’t need a chattering twelve-year-old at her ear.

  “Cassie,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady as she zipped the car up Main Street toward the strip mall outside town, “I don’t know how to tell you, but this is not news.”

  She braked at the red light, the only one in town. With no cars around, she could have gone straight through, but with her luck Elaine’s ex-brother-in-law was crouched behind the mailbox on the corner with his radar gun aimed. She thumped her fingers on the steering wheel.

  “But they’re going to elope,” Cassie said.

  The light turned green. Instead of stepping on the gas again, Lily turned her head. “What?”

  Cassie shrugged. “They’re going to elope. Next week. I thought you and the others might want to know.”

  Lily blinked. “You’re kidding.”

  “No. It was my dad’s idea, but Jo agreed. She said she is so saturated with weddings she no longer wants one of her own.”

  “Well,” Lily said, the blood that had been pumping in her veins now creeping to a stop. “We can’t let them do this. We just can’t.”

  “They seem pretty definite.”

  “Well then, we’ll just have to think of something to stop them.” She looked back to the light. It had gone from green to red again. She looked right, then left, then accelerated.

  “Lily?” Cassie asked. “Where are we going, anyway?”

  “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  Lily laughed. “Well, if you promise not to spill my secret to anyone, we’re headed to the drugstore. I need to buy a home pregnancy test.”

  EPILOGUE

  Did you get it?” Lily whispered to Cassie on the steps of Seranak House after she’d lined up the bridesgirls and the groomsboys for the kindergarten teacher’s wedding and threatened them with time-outs if they dared to move.

  Cassie nodded and patted the pocket of her cute ruffled skirt and pretty silk shirt, which Lily had picked out. She looked so grown-up today, with a light amount of makeup and powder-pink lipstick. “They’ll never know what hit them,” Cassie said.

  Lily smiled, gazed up at the sky, and said quick thanks that the day was so gorgeous, that the sun was so brilliant and the sky was so blue. She inhaled a long breath, then turned to Sarah, who stood at the entrance to the aisle between the rows of white chairs and signaled okay. She looked toward the white tent where Andrew stood next to Elaine beside the long bank of buffet tables because he had agreed to help serve the pizza bites and hot dogs and french fries and all kinds of sugary, little-kid food. Jo’s mother was there, too, with her husband, Ted. Lily had easily coerced them into volunteering too.

  Lily signaled okay to Elaine.

  She barely heard the string trio that glided from “Froggie Went A-Courtin’” to Mendelssohn without missing a note. Lily turned to the kids. “Okay,” she said, “it’s time.”

  And, just like that, eighteen five-year-olds moved with perfect, practiced precision—the girls clutching their wildflower nosegays, the boys with shoulders squared (except for Gabriel, who mischievously giggled and grinned and bowed to each row of guests). The most beautiful little girl was Tiffany Lupek, who proudly wore her short veil atop her chemo-ba
ld head, smiling the smile of a child who’d only yesterday heard that she was now in remission, not really understanding the magnitude of the announcement but excited, no doubt, by hugs and kisses and tears of joy.

  As Lily watched the children, she touched her hand to her belly, hoping her child—her boy or her girl—would be healthy and happy, knowing that whatever, she and Frank would do their utmost to be the best parents the world had ever seen.

  “You have what?” Frank had said once Lily had dropped Cassie off, returned to the antiques store, run into the ladies’ room, and emerged three minutes later holding the plastic wand.

  “I have two pink lines,” Lily said, not concealing her excitement. “I’m pregnant, Frank. We’re pregnant. We’re going to have a baby, ready or not.”

  The corner of Frank’s mouth had begun to quiver, then his eyes grew moist with tears. “Lily,” he said as he reached out, but before touching her he smiled and let out a small whimper of a cry and slid down to the floor the way she had in church at his mother’s funeral.

  He’d said he was overwhelmed, overcome, overjoyed as she’d cradled his head in her lap on the settee where it—the act of conception—had no doubt happened.

  “And now I’m embarrassed too,” he said, half-sitting up.

  She laughed and said they were quite a pair, weren’t they? A couple of old fainters about to have a kid. Then she turned quiet and said she hoped he didn’t mind but that she’d fibbed early in their relationship when she’d said she’d taken care of birth control but the truth was she’d pooh-hooed it because she thought God had nixed her plan for babies long ago. She didn’t mention that she’d stupidly not worried about STDs because she figured Frank wasn’t the type to sleep around.

  “Lily,” Frank said then, as he touched her cheek, “you’ve made me the happiest man in the world.”

  “And you,” she replied, “you’ve made me the happiest woman.”

  No one but Cassie knew their secret. They’d decided to save their news until after the events of today, until the limelight had been focused on the appropriate people. For once, Lily was glad to wait to become the center of everyone’s attention.