“What did he look like?” Tessa asked.
“Oh, he was a handsome one, with blond hair and blue eyes. Not much taller than me, but tall enough I could wear high heels. In those days a woman never wore shoes that made her taller than her feller. Lester had a little old forty-acre place with a two-bedroom house on it down between Boomtown and Beaumont. His granddaddy left it to him, so that’s where we moved when we got married right out of high school in 1949. He worked in Beaumont for an oil company and seemed to have a knack for learning the business.”
“And you?” Tessa asked.
“In those days, I kept house, raised a garden and chickens and milked a cow twice a day and waited on the babies to come along, like any good wife.” A sweet smile appeared as Frankie thought of those days. “Only there were no babies, and the damn Korean War started and Lester got drafted and sent. He was gone for fifteen months and I had to hold down the place and live on what piddling little the government allotted me, but I made it. Ivy was working as a secretary over in Beaumont at a different oil company, so she moved in with me and paid me whatever it would’ve cost her for an apartment and used our old Chevrolet to get back and forth to work. And I waited every day for a telegram telling me my Lester was gone.”
It was the passion in Frankie’s voice that drew Tessa into the story as she sat spellbound, waiting for the next part.
“He came home in one piece, but it took a long time for the light to come back into his eyes. It’s the eyes that tell the stories, not the words or the smiles or frowns. It’s all in the eyes. They don’t lie. You watch a person’s eyes when they tell you something and you can tell if they’re sincere.” Frankie’s voice cracked and she dabbed a tear with her finger. “We’d lie in bed at night and he’d weep for his friends who either didn’t come home or came back with parts missing, and I wept with him.”
Tessa laid her arm on Frankie’s. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. That drew us even closer together, and finally I got pregnant. We were twenty-three that year and had been married five years. I lost the baby and four more after that in the next seven years.” Frankie’s tone had gone softer.
Tessa could feel the pain right along with her for the loss of those five little babies. How in the world did a woman keep her sanity after burying one baby after another in such a short length of time?
Frankie’s eyes went dark and cold. “Doc said I was fertile enough, but my body wouldn’t hold on to a baby. So there I was, thirty years old, and we gave up on having a family.”
Tessa tried to steer the conversation away from all those memories. “What happened to Ivy?”
The light came back into Frankie’s blue eyes. “Oh, she moved out the week Lester came home. Said we needed our own space, and she had a new job in Boomtown working as the school secretary. She stayed at that job until she was sixty-five and retired. She never married and she never stopped being my best friend.”
Tessa pulled her hand free, kicked off her sandals, and tucked her legs up under her. “When did you move to Boomtown?”
“I’m gettin’ there,” Frankie said. “It was 1958 and Lester used the last dollar we had saved to drill for oil on our forty acres. Turned out to be one hell of a wise thing, because he hit a gusher and used all that beautiful money to buy some more land he had a gut feeling about, and pretty soon he had whole pastures full of oil wells.”
“And he bought that Caddy out there with the first oil money?” Tessa asked.
Frankie clapped her hands. “You remembered what I told you. That’s wonderful.”
“I’m enjoying the story,” Tessa said. “We’ve still got time. Tell me more.”
“By 1960 he was ready to put in a real company and it seemed like Beaumont was a better place to do it than Boomtown, so we put in an office and I went to work with him, answering phones, filing papers, and making appointments. It took a few more years to get established, but we finally decided to hire full-time help and he surprised me with the place in Boomtown. I remember the day that he took me out there to see it and gave me the keys. Lord, I thought he’d bought me a mansion.”
“And it was closer to Ivy, right?” Tessa whispered, wanting more and more of the story.
“Oh, yes,” Frankie said. “We’d settled in real good, and then boom, I was pregnant again. We didn’t figure I’d have any luck, but I carried the baby to term and before the two of us turned thirty-six we had Lola. And here comes the rest of our dinner party, so that’s enough for one night. Besides, I’m starving to death and I need a beer.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The dimly lit restaurant was cool and the aroma floating from the kitchen set Tessa’s stomach to growling. She could eat a whole cake pan full of lasagna, two baskets of bread, and six bowls of salad, and then two desserts.
“Maybe not quite that much,” she mumbled.
“Planning your supper by the kitchen smells?” Branch asked.
She nodded. “I’m hungry, and everyone knows that whatever you eat on vacation has no fat grams or calories.”
“I wish that were true.” Lola laughed.
The waitress led them to a table in the corner and Branch seated each of the ladies before he took his place beside Tessa. His leg brushed hers when he sat down and for a split second food was running a distant second to pure old desire. One day she’d been in this cowboy’s company and she had never, ever let her hormones have the upper hand. She didn’t date anyone she didn’t know, and even then there was a definite protocol to the way things progressed.
Melody picked up the menu the moment the waitress laid them on the table. “Thank God, they’ve got eggplant parmigiana. I was, like, afraid I’d only be able to eat a salad.”
“There’s bread and marinara sauce,” Ivy said.
“Teenager cannot live by bread alone.” Branch chuckled.
“She must have peanut butter,” Tessa said.
Frankie cackled out loud. “Aha! She did get a bit of the Laveau smart-ass. I told you that she wasn’t all peaches and cream, Ivy.”
“What are y’all havin’ to drink?” the waitress asked.
“A pitcher of beer for me and Ivy,” Frankie said.
“If y’all will share with me”—Lola looked over at Tessa and Branch—“I’ll order a bottle of red wine.”
“Gladly,” Tessa said. Lord only knew how badly she needed a glass of wine, a good stiff margarita, or even a shot of Jack after the story Frankie had told her.
“I’d rather share the pitcher of beer,” Branch said.
“Me, too,” Melody piped up.
“Over my dead body,” Ivy protested loudly.
“Peach tea, then.” Melody sighed.
One waitress brought out the drinks and another brought a tray filled with bread sticks and two family-size bowls of salad.
Frankie started the process of ordering after she’d taken a long draw of beer from a frosted mug poured from the big glass pitcher the waitress set in the middle of the table.
“So what did you two find to talk about in the lobby?” Ivy picked up her mug of beer and held it up. “A toast before you answer that. To the trip that we’ve planned since we were twenty years old. To our retirement, Frankie. And to nothing but happy times from here through eternity.”
Lola raised her glass of wine. “Hear, hear!”
Frankie’s eyes misted as she held up her beer, her diamond rings glittering in the candlelight. “To family, both old and new, and friends and whiny-assed teenagers. I’m glad you are here to join me on the trip of a lifetime.”
Glasses and mugs clinked together.
“Retirement?” Tessa asked.
“We’re calling it that because it’s our last hurrah. Folks these days make a bucket list. This is the first thing on our list and then we’ll really retire.” Frankie grinned.
Tessa smiled back at her.
“Well?” Ivy said.
“Well, what?” Frankie asked.
“Your talk in the lo
bby? What was that all about?”
“Oh, that.” Frankie sipped her beer before she answered. “I was telling Tessa about Lester.”
“With or without your rose-colored glasses?” Lola asked.
Frankie shook a long bony finger at her daughter. “When it comes to Lester Laveau, I don’t have anything other than rose-colored glasses.”
“Salad?” Melody filled the bowl in front of her and passed it to Ivy. “I do love Italian dressing. I’m glad it’s, like, not made with meat.”
Lola took it from her hands when she sent it that way. “How long have you been a vegetarian?”
“Two weeks. My boyfriend and I made a pact,” she said.
Tessa put the red onion rings to the side and dipped deeply into the salad when the second bowl was passed to her. “It’s a good thing you like vegetables.”
“I know.” Melody smiled.
If the child would wash all that black tar from her face and dress in brighter colors, she’d be a knockout, but who was Tessa to say a word. She’d gone through her rebellious years at that age, too, and had refused to wear anything but bibbed overalls and T-shirts for a whole year. And yes, there was a boyfriend involved in that decision, too.
“What happens if he breaks up with you?” Tessa laid a bread stick on the saucer.
“Not my Creek. He and I are like soul mates,” Melody said.
Ivy’s jaw dropped. “Creek?”
“His real name is Albert, but he chose a new name when we decided to be vegetarians.”
“And you didn’t?” Frankie asked.
“Oh, yes, but I wouldn’t expect you old people to understand or to call me River Dance.”
“Good God, the world is going to hell in a handbasket,” Ivy said. “And hell, no, child, I will not call you River Dance.”
Tessa ate her supper and listened to the easy banter between Ivy and Frankie. She had tiramisu for dessert and managed to get through the evening without the heat that engulfed her every time Branch’s hand or leg brushed against hers burning down the restaurant. But by the time they got back to the hotel, she was ready for a quick swim, more to work the kinks out of her mind than from her body.
Lola did manage to toss her skirt and clothing somewhere near her suitcase when she peeled out of them and donned a bright-green bikini and left the room. Tessa planned to follow her, but first she had to call her mother and report on the first day of the trip, and then she answered a long e-mail from Clint concerning a client who wanted to book a round-the-world trip for himself and his wife on their golden anniversary.
Lola was back by the time she closed her laptop. “The water is nice, but now I need another shower to get the chlorine out of my hair. It’ll turn green in a hurry if I don’t. You probably already know that, but if you don’t, then take a page from my lessons-learned booklet.”
“Will do.” Tessa mumbled, slightly irritated at Lola for telling her something that she already knew. She was almost thirty, not sixteen, and her real mother had warned her about the effects of chlorine on blonde hair when she was just a kid.
She carefully hung her dress in the closet with her strapless bra draped over another hanger and set her sandals on the floor neatly. She put on a tankini in the same shade of blue as her eyes and a cover-up of white lace and headed toward the pool, her rubber flip-flops making little noise as they slapped against the carpet.
The outside pool was small, but there was a decent breeze that evening and she had it all to herself. She dived in, swam to the shallow end, flipped, pushed off with her feet, and made it to the other end before she stopped. She propped her arms on the side and suddenly felt as naked as she did with only a towel around her when she realized Branch was staring at her from no more than three feet away.
His broad chest was covered with exactly the right amount of soft dark hair that narrowed as it traveled downward across a ripped abdomen into the waistband of his bright-blue swimming trunks. “Did you need some time away from it all to think?”
“Are you married?” she asked bluntly.
He shrugged. “No. What has that got to do with anything?”
“Engaged?”
He shook his head. “Was, but that ended last Christmas when she wanted me to sell my ranch,” he said.
“Me, too,” she said.
“You, too, what? You want me to sell my ranch?”
Tessa shook her head. “I was in a relationship that ended at Christmas also. And to answer your question about getting away from everything, it does get more than a little bit overwhelming,” she said. “I probably should have stayed at home and gotten to know them in little doses, but I’m committed now and I’ll see it through.”
Branch extended a hand and she put hers in it. She jumped and then she was sitting beside him with only six inches of air separating them. “Frankie said you could go home anytime you wanted. I don’t have that option.”
“Why did she choose you to drive?” Tessa asked.
Branch’s grin lit up the night more than the lights and the stars. “She says Mollybedamned likes me and that the Caddy hates Lola.”
Tessa laughed out loud. “That’s the lamest excuse I’ve ever heard.”
“Exactly what I told my father, who is senior partner of the law firm where I work. But he said he’s not losing our biggest client, and my job is to make her real happy.”
“Mollybedamned or Frankie?” Tessa enjoyed talking to Branch. His quick wit and funny sense of humor reminded her of her cousin Clint.
“Both.” He grinned. “So I guess we’re in it for the long haul. At least we’ve got each other to talk to if the journey gets rough.”
“What do you think Lola was talking about tonight when she said that about rose-colored glasses?” Tessa asked.
“I never knew Lester Laveau, but my dad did, and he says that he was a tyrant when it came to runnin’ his company. Evidently, he was a different man when he went home, but still I’d bet that Lola saw him in the real light more than Frankie did.”
“Guess everyone has a story and sees things in their own way. Race you to the other end and back, and then I’d best get on back to my room. I’ve got some things to take care of before I turn in for the night.”
“And the winner gets?” he asked as he wiggled his dark eyebrows.
“To be the winner.” She dived in without waiting for him, but he beat her and was sitting on the side by the time the race was done.
“I’m the winner.” He grinned.
“Yes, you are, but don’t enjoy your pedestal too much. The trip isn’t over and winning one battle doesn’t mean you get the trophy for winning the war. We both should be getting back inside,” she said.
“Thanks for the conversation and the race.” He stood up and disappeared into the night air.
Tessa picked up her brand-new journal and opened to the first blank page. Emotions rambled around in her heart and mind like marbles in a tin can. Right beside her on the end table with the lamp was the hotel’s complimentary pen and note pad. She picked up the pen and decided that she’d write in the journal each evening but only with whatever ballpoint pen the hotel provided. That way, she’d take home the ink from each stopping place along the way.
You are superstitious. The voice in her head was Clint’s.
“Am not,” she mumbled.
“Am not what?” Lola looked up from her laptop.
“Are you superstitious?” Tessa asked.
“Yes, ma’am. I never walk under a ladder. I would drive six miles in a circle to keep from going across the road that a black cat crossed, and if all the numbers on the clock are the same, then I have to wait until it changes before I go to sleep,” Lola answered. “Why do you ask?”
“Some folks think I’m superstitious, too,” she answered.
“I think everyone is to some degree.” Lola started typing again.
Tessa scribbled on the notepad to get the ink flowing and wrote September 1 at the top of the first page. That was as
far as she got for several moments. She stared at the wall and wondered how in the hell she was supposed to put what she felt on paper. It was so raw and so emotional, even worse than last Christmas when her relationship had ended so abruptly. Finally, she started to write.
Day one has ended and thirty more stretch out before me. I’m still not sure that I will last through the whole trip, but I made it through the first day. I wish I could say that I’ve made up my mind to stay one more day and then tell them that I’m going back home on the next bus, plane, or rental car that I can find. Or that I’ve made up my mind to go the whole journey. But I haven’t done either, and I don’t like indecision.
It’s like every nerve in me has been scraped raw and I can feel what these people feel. It can’t be because we are blood kin, because I don’t share genetics with Melody, Ivy, or Branch.
She held the pen in the air and smiled. Today had been like an episode of The Twilight Zone or maybe The X-Files. She picked up the pen and started writing again, this time faster and with less attention to what she was putting on paper, ignoring the eerie music from those scary shows until it finally stopped altogether.
Compassion is what I feel for Melody. She’s struggling to find her place in the world. I don’t think I had all those pent-up feelings when I was sixteen, but then I had Clint, and he was my rock in a topsy-turvy world. Maybe she needs a friend like that and fate has sent me on this trip to help her through this dark time in her life. Lord, I appreciate my mama more tonight than I ever did. A teenager can find friends hiding under any rock, but they get only one mama.
She looked up at Lola and damn sure didn’t feel like she had a second mama.
Indifference is what I feel for Lola, with her tattoos and aloofness. She says that she’s glad I came on the trip, but I’m sure I remind her of a painful time in her life.
Clint’s voice popped into her head again. Don’t judge too quickly.
“Stop it,” she said loudly.
“Talkin’ to me or to yourself?” Lola looked up from her work.
The Wedding Pearls Page 6
