The Happiness Pact

by Liz Flaherty

  “That would be good. No additive, though.” She couldn’t mix alcohol with the pills she took. “Can we get it without disturbing your folks?”

  “Probably, although they keep wonky hours—they may already be up.” He got off the bed, leaving her somehow bereft, and reached for her hand. “Come on.”

  She tugged a robe on over her nightshirt and left the room with him. He held her hand as they went down the narrow staircase, and she had to stifle a laugh when they were halfway down.

  “What’s funny?” he whispered when they got to the kitchen.

  “It just struck me what you said about Nate being held together with thumbtacks and cotter pins.”

  “Oh.” Tucker laughed, too, although he was searching her face with unsmiling eyes. “That’s what he always says.”

  Grant and Ellen, dressed in bathrobes and yawning, joined them before the milk was hot. They all sat together in the warm kitchen and watched the sun come up.

  Libby was exhausted by the travel of the long day before and by the dreams in the night that had just passed. She couldn’t tell if she’d taken more anxiety medicine than she should have. But for now, in this place and with these people—especially the best friend whose arm lay across the back of her chair—she was in a safe place. A good place.

  She took in the cozy kitchen with its appliances that looked somehow different from her own and the ferns that hung in front of the east windows. It was, she thought, a virtual Venus. A safe place.

  “I’m so glad you came with Tucker,” said Ellen at one point, covering Libby’s hand with her own. “It’s such a pleasure seeing you.”

  “I’m glad I came, too.” She smiled first at Ellen and Grant, then at Tucker. “It’s the grandest adventure yet.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MEREDITH TEXTED TUCKER at work his first day back from England. How about dinner? I’m cooking.

  He sat for a moment, thinking. He was tired from both the trip home and the long day in the office. He’d started before daylight with a breakfast meeting with the managers, and the sun had been doing its daily tumble into the western horizon when his phone pinged.

  Jack had offered to work late today to take the video meeting Tucker had scheduled, but Charlie had a practice baseball game that night. As Tucker was mulling over how to respond to Meredith’s text, Jack poked his head in his office and asked if it was still okay to leave.

  “You go watch that kid, and remember if he does good it’s because I helped him.”

  Jack snorted. “Yeah, right.” A little pride gleamed in his eyes, though. “Actually, I think he’s going to be better than either of us.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised, and I’m glad for him, too. He has so much fun.” Tucker grinned, thinking of his nephew. “Tell him I’ll make the next one.”

  “Will do.” Jack sketched a wave. “See you tomorrow.”

  When his brother had gone, Tucker tapped into his phone, Sure, but I’ll be late. Eight or so if that’s okay. What can I bring?

  Just yourself was the response, and he frowned at the screen. What might have been flirtatious just...wasn’t. He wondered what was on Meredith’s mind.

  She’d been so willing for him to spend the long weekend in England, as well as completely unconcerned that Libby had traveled with him. He didn’t know what any of it meant, and he wasn’t sure why he wasn’t more concerned.

  Whatever it was didn’t become obvious right away when he got to her place. Zack and Shelby, who’d already eaten, commandeered him into playing fifteen minutes of video games while Meredith finished dinner preparations.

  “Bed!” She came into the living room and clapped her hands. “Ten minutes to read, five to drink and pee, then lights out. Got it?” She hugged and kissed them both, Tucker gave high fives, and they went upstairs.

  Tucker moved to kiss Meredith, and she turned her head so that his lips touched her cheek. She hugged him, holding on for an extra moment, and he drew back to look at her. She was as beautiful as always, but there was excitement in her eyes he’d never seen before. He’d felt it when she’d been in his arms. But it was different. “I do believe,” he said, “that this is a farewell dinner. Am I right?”

  She hesitated. “How would you feel about it if that’s the case?”

  Oh, come on. I’m not the one breaking up here. He had to push back the irritation her question caused. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?” he suggested. “Then I’ll know how I feel about it.”

  “Let’s sit down.”

  He thought with a touch of dark humor that his heart wasn’t broken, because he was still hungry and the pork chops she’d put on his plate looked excellent.

  She took a bite of salad, then put down her fork. “I took the kids to their dad’s this weekend while you were in England, then I went to my folks’ house rather than come back here.”

  There was nothing new in that—she did it more often than not.

  He’d been right. The pork chops were wonderful. He wondered if she’d ordered them from Anything Goes Grill. Meredith wasn’t long on cooking, which he fully understood. He didn’t know how anyone could handle everything that went with working full-time in addition to being a full-time mom.

  “So, was it a good weekend?” She didn’t ask about his, he noticed. The thought made him remember his mother and Grant, sitting across from each other with a cozied teapot and a plate of sandwiches between them while they asked about each other’s day.

  The string beans were good, too. Tender and crisp the way the chef at the Grill did them so well.

  “Their dad took them to the zoo on Saturday and Shelby got sick. They went to the urgent care clinic and I met them there.” Excitement made Meredith’s voice higher.

  “She’s okay, right? Why did she get sick?”

  Meredith waved a hand, the dismissal that of a mother who’d treated many children’s illnesses. “It was the zoo. He let her eat everything she wanted. It made her sick.”

  Tucker frowned. “So then what?”

  “I went back to the house with him and the kids to put Shelby to bed. Zack went to spend the night with a friend down the street. Brad and I got into a huge argument.”

  She sounded happy about that “huge argument,” and she’d called her ex-husband by his first name. As long as he’d known her, she’d only ever referred to him as “my ex” or as “the kids’ dad.” Tucker shook his head, confused.

  Or maybe not.

  “So,” he said, “did the huge argument result in a huge making up?”

  “Not exactly.” The sadness was there in her eyes again, although not with the magnitude it had been before. “But it did end up with us talking instead of yelling. We made apologies instead of casting blame.” She leaned toward Tucker, her elbows on the table. “I don’t know if we can make it work or not. There was a lot of hurt on both sides. But I do know we don’t have a chance if I’m seeing a really nice guy who the kids think hung the moon.”

  You knew this all along. Tucker was surprised at the surge of anger that was his immediate, but thankfully silent, response. He didn’t know whom he was angry at.

  While it was true she’d “led him on,” in the vernacular of his high school years, acting eager for every forward step their relationship had taken, she’d never spoken of love or even affection. She’d never mentioned sharing a future. Nor, he had to admit, had he.

  She hadn’t minded him spending a weekend in a foreign country with another woman. She’d even called Libby to make it crystal clear she didn’t mind.

  He’d known that even with the attraction they shared and the parts of their budding relationship that had meshed in a way that had him thinking about looking at rings and land for houses, something was lacking. He hadn’t mentioned love, affection or the future, either.

&nbs
p; Sometimes he’d been more entertained by her kids than by her. He’d thought that was a good thing, considering that Arlie’s unabashed adoration of Charlie had little or nothing to do with how she felt about Jack. She loved his son for himself.

  But Arlie wasn’t marrying Jack because she loved Charlie. If he and Meredith had married, it would have been because he wanted a family, not because he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

  The certainty of that brought him up short, and he knew with sudden clarity exactly with whom his anger rested. It was himself.

  He smiled across the table. “I hope you’re happy. All of you.”

  Back to square one.

  * * *

  “WE NEED TO give the whole thing a rest for a while.” Libby peered into the eyepiece of her telescope, releasing a sigh of satisfaction when she zeroed in on the light show that was her quarry. “I need to think about work and how I’m going to pay for remodeling the carriage house. You need to meet someone naturally, without me saying, ‘I know just the girl for you.’ Don’t you think?”

  “Maybe.” Tuck bumped her aside with his hip so he could look. “You don’t own the sky, you know.”

  “No, but I should have been an astronomer. And don’t forget Venus is my guardian planet. See the cloud bands on Jupiter. Aren’t they spectacular?”

  He met her enthusiasm with silence. “I’m sure they are, if I knew what I was looking at. I’m here strictly for all the pretty lights.” He moved away, reaching for the beer he’d set on the table between the chairs in Libby’s backyard.

  She looked back at the stars.

  “You probably would have been a good astronomer, though. Are you sorry you’re not?”

  “I guess not. I’m sorry I didn’t go to college, though. Jesse offered to help me go after Dad died. He was actually pretty insistent about it, thinking it would be good to get away from the farm. But someone had to be there, and he couldn’t stay because he was in the navy.”

  “You could always go now.”

  She thought about that for a minute, studying the brightness in the sky. “It’s hard to realize that what we’re seeing isn’t really what’s there now because it takes the light so long to cross those billions of light-years.” She could feel him looking at her, so she stepped away from the eyepiece. “What?”

  “I think I know you so well,” he said, “and then your mind goes off somewhere like that. Who are you?”

  She shrugged. “I’m who you think I am, and you must admit that the real Libby Worth is pretty boring. Do you know I’ve stopped wearing brown because I’m afraid I’ll stand up against a tree trunk and disappear because that’s how monochromatic I am? Do you know what people say when they look at our high school yearbook? They say, ‘Who’s the girl standing between Tucker and Arlie? She looks familiar but I can’t place her.’”

  She stopped, uncertain why she’d gone off on that tangent. She wanted to cry, she who never wept no matter how insistent the depression monster got, but she wouldn’t. Not now. Not over this. “You’re right. I could go back to school now, but it wouldn’t be the same, and I don’t have the money or the time to give it. Plus, what was there then isn’t there now, just like what we see through the telescope. It’s not that I’m unhappy. I’m not. I’m just... I don’t know... I think I’m just tired.”

  Her voice trailed away. She wasn’t sure where her whole poor-me soliloquy had come from, but she wished she could take it back. She stood stiffly, keeping herself apart from him. He’d come to talk about Meredith and their breakup, and Libby had turned things around until it was all about her. What kind of friend was good old Lib now?

  “We still have over three months on our agreement.” He didn’t address what she’d said, but he put an arm over her shoulders and stood there with her until her heartbeat settled down and she was sure her embarrassed blush had faded back into her freckles. “See?” He pointed. “The Big Dipper. You didn’t even have to tell me where it is. Everyone gets lucky sometimes.”

  And she couldn’t help it. She elbowed him, then burst into laughter that had her leaning forward holding on to her knees. He laughed with her, and if he heard her sob a few times, he didn’t say so. He just kept his arm tight around her and she tried hard to pretend his embrace didn’t feel different than it used to.

  They took the telescope inside and went for a walk, Pretty Boy heeling nicely on his lead.

  “I’ll miss her kids the most. I guess that should be a clue it wasn’t right in the first place, shouldn’t it?” Tucker stopped, spinning a couple of flat stones over the calm surface of the lake.

  “I don’t think so. You were attracted to the whole package, not just Meredith. You’re a kid person. It makes sense you’d miss them a lot.”

  Libby thought of Kendall Williams, the girl whose ordinariness so disappointed her feuding parents that neither of them wanted primary custody of her.

  “I’m going to fat camp for six weeks after school’s out while Mom and Dad work,” Kendall had confided to Libby that morning in the tearoom while Marie was having a meeting in the side parlor. “I told them I didn’t need to—I’m already fat—but they didn’t laugh. And when the camp’s over, I have to spend the rest of summer with my grandparents. Do you know how old they are?”

  Libby had chuckled and hugged her. “You’ll have fun. Want to ask your folks if you can help in the tearoom sometimes after you come back?”

  “Can I really?”

  “You bet, but it will involve washing glasses—they don’t go in the dishwashers—and dusting the shelves. Not fun work at all.”

  “I don’t care. I love it here.”

  Libby had regretted the offer several times since she made it—she and Neely had a pretty seamless routine—but now, hearing the sadness in Tucker’s voice when he spoke of Zack and Shelby, she was glad she had. There were a lot worse things than doing something good for a child. Especially a child she sensed might have a viper chasing her.

  “I was just thinking,” said Libby. “Have you ever gone out with Mollie?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ON THE SECOND Sunday in April, when people were still finding Easter eggs hidden the week before, Arlie swore a moratorium on anything to do with her wedding.

  The ever-changing circle of friends who met many Sunday afternoons in the sewing room over her garage sat back as a unit and gestured for her to hold forth. Holly offered her a ladle to use as a microphone.

  Arlie ignored her sister and lifted her chin. “I’ve had it with wedding stuff. With satin and tulle and underwear that costs more than I spent on my wardrobe my entire last year of college. With wondering what I’m going to do if my biological mother shows up. With worrying about the weather. I mean, seriously, are we going to be any less married if it rains on May 26?”

  Holly leaned forward, looking concerned, although her dark eyes danced. “Actually, I think what you should be worrying about is whether your maid of honor is going to outshine you in that gorgeous dress she’s wearing.”

  “That’s right,” said Libby quickly, “or one of the bridesmaids could show you up, for that matter. Who knew I was going to look that good in yellow?”

  “Actually, Tucker did. He picked it out, remember?” Arlie’s expression was thoughtful when her gaze rested on Libby, which was better than how frantic it had been a few minutes before. “So how is it he knew better than anyone else what would look good on you?”

  “He’s known me longer than anyone else has—even Jesse didn’t come on the scene for a few days after I was born, and I’m pretty sure he wanted to send me back. Plus, Tucker’s spent half our lives bemoaning the fact that I care nothing about clothes even though, in his charming words, it’s obvious to almost everyone that I’m a girl. We were leaving for dinner once and he said he wouldn’t go if I didn’t change my shoes.
”

  Holly’s eyes widened. “Did you do it? Change them, I mean.”

  Libby grinned. “Sure I did. I had on one black one and one brown one.”

  “You could worry about Charlie losing the ring, too,” suggested Gianna. “If he gets to clowning around with the groomsmen back there in Father Doherty’s office, he could drop it and it could roll under the desk and never be seen again.”

  “And what if I walk out with Jess instead of Sam?” said Penny Phillipy. “Sam will get mad and stomp off to his hardware store. Jess and I won’t match because I’m wearing mint green and his tie is the same blue as Mollie’s dress, so it’ll be an aesthetic nightmare.”

  Libby raised her eyebrows. “Since when did we start using words like aesthetic? Except for Holly, I mean, who tries to sound like a writer just because she is one.”

  Penny laughed. “Since I just read that word somewhere...probably in Holly’s latest book.”

  “Oh, and did I tell you the photographer I recommended intends to take all the wedding pictures with his phone?” Mollie added.

  Arlie looked from one to the other of them. “You are a bunch of—”

  “Ah, ah. Don’t say it.” Gianna shook her head and a warning finger at her. “I can still put you in time-out. Believe me, my girl, I can.”

  “I had no doubt.” Arlie sat down. She didn’t look either frantic or thoughtful now, just a little pensive. “It’s not about the wedding, is it, Mama? It’s about the marriage. And Charlie.”

  “That’s it, honey.” Gianna, who’d loved and been happily married twice, and was in love again a third time with Max Harrison, leaned toward her. “The best part of your dad’s and my wedding was laughing at you girls because Holly was picking up flower petals as fast as you could drop them.”

  “My favorite part was my dress and the fact that you let me wear cowboy boots to the wedding before they were in style.” Arlie’s smile was a little watery.