The Wedding Pearls

by Carolyn Brown

  The cleaners did a fine job with the dress, considering that it was well over sixty years old. Fitted to the waist, the bridal satin dress was covered in a delicate lace with hand-sewn beads scattered over it. Sleeveless, it showed both of Lola’s tats on her upper arms and portions of the henna tat across her back.

  Frankie and Ivy wore matching blue satin pantsuits, and all their diamonds had come out of the bank vault for the day. Tessa wore a lovely blue-lace dress with a portrait collar that matched her eyes perfectly. She’d worn it when she served as a bridesmaid at Clint’s wedding. Sophie wore a darker blue satin one that she’d worn to a Christmas party the year before. Neither of them had wanted to shop for a new dress, not when they could spend the time with Lola, Frankie, and Ivy.

  They were all dressed and the time was drawing close to start the ceremony when Frankie took the long, slender velvet box from her purse, snapped it open, and removed the strand of pearls. Tessa couldn’t take her eyes off them. They’d been worn by generations of women in her family, and today her birth mother was getting them passed to her. And someday they would be Tessa’s.

  “With these pearls, I’m giving you years and years of legacy, Lola.” Frankie fastened the pearls around Lola’s neck. “Be happy and love life. They are now yours to pass to Tessa in the future.”

  “Thank you, Mama.” Lola’s voice was thick with emotion. “I treasure this day, not because of these pearls, but that you are here to pass them on to me.”

  Ivy dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “Oh, hell! Y’all stop it or you’re going to make me cry, and when I weep, Blister has a hard time keeping me breathing. So let’s get this party on the road and stop all this sentimental folderol. Weddings are supposed to be happy. If I’d wanted a sad day, I could have stayed home and watched Steel Magnolias. Besides, I’ve seen the fellowship hall and that wedding cake is calling my name.”

  “Steel Magnolias is not sad.” Melody handed the circlet for Lola’s hair to Sophie. “That’s a beautiful movie that makes you laugh. It’s still the best movie ever made.”

  “Is your signature color still pink?” Tessa asked.

  “Yes, it is, and my wedding will be bashful and blush, just like Shelby’s was in the movie,” Melody declared.

  Lola rolled her eyes.

  “That is Melody’s trick, not yours,” Tessa said.

  “Mine was knitting. You think I should get out my pink baby yarn?” Lola asked.

  Tessa hugged Lola gently. “Not today.”

  “Are you trying to tell us something?” Sophie asked.

  Tessa smiled at her tattoo mama and her tutu mama. “No, I am not. And today is not about me. It’s about Lola and Hank, and I heard our cue. Me first, and then you, Mama, then Lola comes in with Ivy and Frankie. Like Ivy said, there’s wedding cake waiting, so let’s get this party on the road.”

  The toast that Hank gave at the reception was what put the idea in Tessa’s head. He mentioned that Lola had stuck with him through the doubts and fears of a new relationship, through the arguments as well as the joys.

  Argument was the word that stuck like it had a thick coat of superglue. Tessa and Branch had bantered back and forth, but they’d never had an argument. Was this what Matt was talking about when he said that she didn’t have enough passion to argue with him? That life was too dull with her?

  She’d been devastated when he left, but if she lost Branch her heart wouldn’t be broken, it would be shattered so badly that she’d never get over it. She’d be a hollow person like Lola had been all those years.

  As matron of honor, Sophie gave the next toast, and it was beautiful. She talked about Lola being the best friend a woman could ever have and how they shared something that went deeper than a bloodline.

  Tessa heard every word and clapped at the appropriate times, but the fact that she and Branch had never had a single argument stuck in her head. Maybe their passion was in the bedroom, but Maw-Maw had told her once that bedroom stuff lasts only a little while each day and the rest of the time she’d better like the man she picked out to live with the rest of her life.

  What if a year down the road, Branch looked back and realized that he’d felt alive twenty-four hours a day with Avery? What if the bedroom passion wasn’t enough to hold?

  “Are you okay?” Branch asked.

  “I’m fine, but we need to talk,” she said.

  “Are you going to propose to me?” His eyes sparkled.

  “I told you a long time ago that Maw-Maw would skin me alive for that.”

  He slipped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed gently. “Are you going to break up with me?”

  “I don’t know,” she said honestly.

  “Let’s slip outside while they’re having cake and punch. If you’ve got something to say I want to hear it now, not worry all evening about it.”

  A slight warm breeze whipped Tessa’s hair around in her face when they sat down on the porch steps. Branch tucked a strand behind her ear and kissed her on the ear.

  “You go first,” she said.

  “You called this powwow, darlin’. So you have to go first.” Branch smoothed the legs of his black western-cut dress slacks down to stack up over the tops of shiny cowboy boots.

  “We never argue. I mean, really argue, as in throwing things, crying, breaking up, makeup sex, all that,” she said bluntly.

  “I’ve had that kind of relationship and it didn’t last,” he said.

  She picked at an imaginary piece of lint on her dress. “I haven’t, and it scares me that you’ll think I’m boring.”

  “Good Lord, Tessa! You are not boring. You are the most amazing woman I’ve ever known. I couldn’t fall in love with a boring person.” He tipped her chin up and his lips met hers in a steamy kiss.

  “In love?” She heard the words, but she didn’t believe her ears.

  “I know. It’s insane. I mean, how can I be in love with you when we’ve known each other only three weeks but my heart tells me it’s true? I’ve argued with it, tried to talk my way out of it . . .”

  She laid a finger on his lips. “Why would you talk yourself out of it?”

  He removed her hand and kissed each fingertip. “Because it was going to hurt if you wanted to talk to me to say that you are bored because I don’t fight with you over every little thing. Maybe you think I’m boring?”

  She pulled his lips down to hers in a lingering kiss. “You are the most passionate man I’ve ever met.”

  “We will argue someday, Tessa. No one lives with another person twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and agrees on everything that comes up or happens. But when we do, we’ll settle it right then and there.”

  “So I’m going to live with you someday?” she asked.

  Branch’s hand skimmed her bare arm. “I hope so. Want to move in tonight?”

  She gasped. “Don’t tease me.”

  “I do not tease about serious things,” Branch said.

  She shook her head. “Not tonight.”

  “I love you,” he said.

  She shivered in spite of the warm night air. “Still not tonight, but I do love you.”

  “Okay, then, let’s go back inside and get some cake.”

  She frowned. “We said that we love each other and you are thinking about cake?”

  “Those were the words. We’ve known it for a long time, haven’t we, Tessa? My heart had no doubts from the time I walked into your travel agency, and it absolutely knew you were the one when you slid into the Caddy that first morning. It took me awhile to catch up.”

  She tucked her hand into his. “I like the words.”

  He pulled her up and drew her to his chest. “Then I’ll say them again. I love you. I love you. I love you. And darlin’, I know why you are worried. You have no grounds, not with this old ugly cowboy. I love the sound of your voice, the way your hair feels against my nose, the way you fit into my arms, your laughter, everything about you.”

  “That may be the sweetest thing
anyone has every said to me, and I believe it all except for that ugly cowboy shit.” She laughed. “Now we can go get some cake.”

  Ivy yelled across the room the moment she saw them. “Lola is getting ready to throw the bouquet and we need single ladies. Tessa, you and Melody get your butts over here.”

  “Did you hear that? She said butt instead of ass.” Branch chuckled.

  Tessa rolled up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. “Next will be the garter toss and she’ll tell you to get your fine sexy butt over there to the middle of the room.”

  Branch winked at her. “Are you fighting for the bouquet?”

  “Are you tucking your hands in your pockets when Hank tosses the garter?”

  “Come on,” Frankie yelled. “You two can talk afterward.”

  Lola and Hank walked hand in hand to the middle of the room.

  “We’ve decided to do this at the same time,” Lola announced. “So you guys line up over there and girls over here.”

  Branch joined half a dozen bachelors and Tessa stood behind a couple of tall girls who could reach a lot higher than she could. Besides, she didn’t need to catch the bouquet. Branch had said he loved her. Her chest tightened. Her breath came in short gasps and the room did a couple of spins before she got it under control.

  Well, you said the words, too. It was Maw-Maw’s voice in her head that time.

  Lola and Hank turned around backward and Frankie yelled, “One, two, three, let ’em go.”

  They faked the throws and then turned around.

  “We’re doing this our way,” Lola said.

  She and Hank went back to the two groups and Hank stretched the garter around Branch’s forearm at the same time that Lola handed her bouquet to Tessa.

  “But . . .” Tessa said.

  “I want you to be next. I don’t want to be eighty and on my last leg when I put these pearls on you.” Lola hugged Tessa. “Besides, your mama would like to see grandkids and so would I.”

  Tessa sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed and opened her journal. With a long sigh, she started to write with the pen from the last hotel they’d stayed in.

  Mama and Daddy are sleeping, worn out from the wedding and all the preparations to get it ready. It’s strange having them in this house. Lola and Hank have gone to Galveston for a couple of days, but she says she’ll be calling in several times a day to be sure that Frankie and Ivy are okay.

  Branch said he loves me and I said the words back to him. I meant them, and when the heart speaks there should be no buts in the way. However, this scares the devil right out of me. What ifs plague every thought as I sit down with this journal tonight. One week and four days and I have to make a decision about going back to Louisiana. Thinking about leaving Frankie and Ivy and not being here with them until the end makes me so sad that tears come to my eyes. Leaving Clint and Mama and Daddy and moving two hours away makes me as sad as staying here. My mind says to go back to my job, my security, and my family. My heart wants to be here, and I can’t do both.

  Frankie and Ivy were so tired tonight that I bet they sleep most of tomorrow. Bless their hearts, they were the life of the reception, though, and stayed until the last crumb was swept from the floor and the last light was turned out.

  Mama and Daddy are going home after breakfast in the morning and then I’ll have the house to myself until Monday morning when Lola and Hank come home. I can’t bear to be in this house alone, so I’m going to pack a bag and go to Branch’s ranch as soon as the dust settles from Mama’s van heading back to Louisiana.

  I’m supposed to be recording my feelings but today has been like a merry-go-round with each horse painted with a different word. The horse with the pretty baby blue reins and saddle is happiness for Lola and Hank. The one with the gaudy red is joy that Frankie and Ivy felt like leaving the nursing facility and coming to the wedding. That one with lots of pearls and fancy gold lettering has to be the one with “love” written on it because Branch said he loves me.

  Maybe by this time next year we’ll be ready to announce our engagement and Mama can have a few months to plan a wedding. Wow! He hasn’t proposed and I’m thinking about dresses and cakes. It’s the moment, I’m sure. Seeing Lola in Frankie’s dress and knowing the story of the pearls—it’s put my mind in the happy-ever-after mode. Tomorrow I’ll think clearer and more rational. Tomorrow I’ll make a decision about what I will do the last day of this month. But tonight, I’m going to call this the merry-go-round day and hope that I dream of Branch when I fall asleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The next week passed so quickly that Tessa looked back on Sunday afternoon and wondered where the days had gone. Her mama and daddy had gone home to Louisiana, but Sophie called at least twice a day all week. Hank and Lola came home and the routine began on Monday. The three of them had breakfast together and then Hank went to the antique shop to help Inez. Lola and Tessa went to see Frankie and Ivy, had lunch with them, played board games, watched reruns on the big-screen television, or listened to them bicker about the next day’s menu or tell stories about the old days.

  Sometime in the afternoon Branch always came to sweep her away to the ranch for a few hours, most of which were spent behind the closed door of his bedroom. Then suddenly it was her last Sunday of vacation time and she had only three days left to make up her mind about her business in New Iberia, about her two families, about Branch. He hadn’t asked her to move in with him again, but he did tell her every day that he loved her, and there was that glorious afterglow that kept happening.

  Hank, Lola, and Tessa skipped church that morning and had lunch with Frankie and Ivy. That day it was fried chicken and all the trimmings and peach cobbler for dessert.

  “Can you believe it, Mama?” Lola laid her napkin on the table and wiggled her shoulders in a sitting-down dance. “I ate a whole meal and didn’t drop a single bite of food on me or dump anyone’s glass of tea on the table.”

  “It’s because you are in love,” Frankie said and then looked at Tessa. “Both of you!”

  “Hey, what’s going on in here?” Sophie rapped on the doorjamb and walked right in. “Is that cobbler I smell?”

  Lola and Tessa both jumped up from their chairs, and the three women met in the middle of the room in a three-way hug.

  “What a wonderful surprise. Have you had lunch? We can call down to the chef and have him make you anything you like,” Frankie said.

  “We’ve eaten but I did bring doughnuts from that fancy shop in New Iberia. They make the best beignets in the whole state, so I threw in a few of those as well as a dozen regular doughnuts,” Sophie said.

  Derek held up the bag, crossed the floor, and set it on the table before he pulled Tessa out of Sophie’s arms and gave her a bear hug. “I missed you this week, sugar.”

  “I missed you, too, Daddy.”

  “Are you coming home Thursday?” he asked softly.

  “I don’t know. It’s a hard decision,” she said.

  “I know, sugar, but whatever you decide, I will support you. It’s not that far from there to here but you know I’d rather have you a mile away in your little apartment. Now go give your mama a hug. She misses you as much as I do.”

  She leaned against his broad chest. “Thank you, Daddy.”

  “Hey, hey, looks like the gang is all here,” Branch said from the doorway and held up a white paper bag. “I brought along a dozen of those chocolate chip cookies from the bakery in Beaumont that Ivy and Frankie like. Reckon we could get some coffee from the kitchen?”

  “Later,” Frankie said. “Right now we’re all full but in an hour we’ll break out the beignets, doughnuts, and cookies and have us a celebration feast.”

  Tessa left her father, tiptoed so she could kiss Branch on the cheek, and slipped her hand in his. “I’ll have to stay today,” she whispered. “I can’t leave when they just now got here.”

  “It’s okay, darlin’,” he said.

  Branch handed Frankie the
bag, and she set it on the end table beside her recliner. “You been doin’ all right today, Miz Frankie?”

  “She’s fit as a fiddle and sassy as hell. I think she made up that brain tumor so she could stay in here with me while I’m dyin’,” Ivy smarted off.

  Frankie’s finger shot up to point at Ivy’s nose. “Don’t pay no attention to her. Her brain is oxygen deprived. And besides, she’s old as dirt.”

  “Girlfriend, I’m only a few weeks older than you are.”

  Frankie grinned. “Cradle to grave.”

  “You’re damn right, but if I die first and find out when I get to them pearly gates that you were fakin’, I’m going to let Lucifer have you. I’m not goin’ to talk Saint Peter into letting you dust the heavenly gates for him. And put that finger down before it goes off and kills me graveyard dead,” Ivy said.

  “What is cradle to grave?” Sophie asked.

  “We were born the same year and we’ve been together ever since. We’re plannin’ on dyin’ the same year so we can be friends from cradle to grave,” Ivy said.

  Branch helped Ivy to her bed and fluffed her pillows so she’d have a nice place to settle down. “We don’t need to talk about that grave business today.”

  “We, young man”—Frankie pointed at him—“will talk about what we want.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He grinned as he sat down beside Tessa and laced his fingers in hers.

  “Is that all you got to say?” Ivy narrowed her eyes.

  “Well, I did have something else to say but it’s not to you two fussy old gals,” Branch answered.

  “Well, get on with it. I’m needing a nap,” Ivy fussed.

  Branch suddenly let go of Tessa’s hand and dropped down on one knee in front of her. It took a full five seconds before she realized what was going on and then her heart skipped a beat before it leaped ahead on a full head of steam.

  “Tessa Ruth.” Branch looked into her eyes and there was no one in the room but the two of them. “I fell in love with you the first time I saw you sitting behind the desk in your travel agency. It took my mind a while to catch up with my heart, but it’s there now. I wanted to do this while it was still September so that looking back in years to come we will always remember September as being our month. I love you. I can’t imagine life without you and I don’t care if we have a twenty-four-hour engagement or if it lasts two years. I want to know that you will marry me, so please say yes.”