Bridge To Happiness

by Jill Barnett

  The next day I walked into Scott’s office at Cantrell sports unannounced.

  “Mom,” he said and stood up. “What are you doing here?”

  I closed his office door behind me and said, “I need to talk to you, or maybe I should say you need me to talk to you. Sit.” I waved my hand at him and sat down on a corner of his desk.

  Next to my hip was a photograph taken years ago, in the loft apartment we first lived in. Scott was probably a year and half and he shuffling along in his father’s huge shoes. I picked it up and laughed slightly. “I remember this. Your dad kept it on his desk for years. I stared down at it for long time, and then looked up at him, turning the photograph so he could see it. “See this?”

  He nodded.

  “You sit here and you look at it every day. I think this is what’s wrong. This is what’s creating all those doubts in your mind. The idea that you cannot run this company unless you think like your dad did.”

  Scott frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Scott, son, you are not your father. He was a wonderful man but he made mistakes, big ones. Remember the year he used that factory in China for the clothing line?”

  “And more than half the embroidery for the logos on the winter jackets were spelled wrong.” Scott smiled.

  “And sized wrong. I believe that was a costly mistake that took us into the red.”

  “I had forgotten about that.”

  “That’s why I’m here. To remind you. You do not have to be your father to be successful, Scott.” I pointed to the photo. “Put it away or interpret it differently. Use it to guide you in the right direction, not the wrong one. I talked to Renee. She says you’re not sleeping. Seems to me that you worry so much about how to fill his shoes that you aren’t making your decisions for the right reasons.

  “He wouldn’t want you to try to be him. He would want you to be yourself. He used to come home, proud as a peacock, and tell me about something you did that was great for the company, something he said he hadn’t looked at before.”

  “He did?”

  “Yes. For example: the expansion of our own retail outlets into the larger ski areas. You came up with the idea of opening our own shops in all those mountain villages.”

  “Yes. I did.” Scott looked like her old son. There was something about him that said she had him thinking, and perhaps moving toward believing in himself again.

  “Remember that. You know what to do. And you’re not half as conservative as Phillip makes you think you are.” I stood and walked around the desk, settling my hands on his shoulders. “You boys should make this company yours. Your dad started it, with a lot of harping and begging and convincing on my part. He had doubts and worried about his decisions. But you are the future. You and Phillip and maybe Mickey. His sons are who can take this company in new directions.”

  He looked at her as if he finally understood.

  “So what if you passed on the American Express endorsement and Burton took it. It’s Burton in the commercial, not his son. What were you going to say? ‘My dad Mike Cantrell did this and my dad did that? Come on. My hunch is they would have dropped you for Burton anyway.”

  He laughed. “You’re probably right.”

  “Now, I have something else to talk to you about.” I handed him a check.

  “One hundred thousand dollars? What’s this for?”

  “It’s from my personal account.”

  “I see that. What are you doing giving me this?”

  “I’m making things fair and even, the way your dad would have wanted.” I paused then told him. “I’m going to give Phil your dad’s Porsche.” I nodded at the check. “That’s enough money for you to go out and buy one for yourself.”

  “So what are you going to do about Molly and Mickey?”

  “Nothing, for now. They won’t care. Phil needs to heal. This is the only thing I can think of that might work.”

  He looked up at her. “You don’t have to give me this.” He handed the check back to her,

  “You take it. It’s your money and you know as well as I if your dad would do the same thing. Fair and equal.”

  Scott nodded, folded the check, and put it in his wallet. I bent down and kissed him on the cheek. “Be yourself. There’s no one better.”

  He laughed.

  “Now I’m off to make your brother’s day . . . or scare the hell out of him.”

  “Good luck,” Scott said.

  I left my eldest son’s office and went to the SKISTAR wing and knocked on Phillip’s door.

  “Come on in, Ma!”

  I walked inside and looked at him.

  “I saw you coming down the hall,” he admitted.

  “Can you take some time away, maybe an hour? I need your help.”

  “He checked his watch. Sure, I was just waiting on a call from London but it’s too late now. They won’t call until tomorrow. I’ll check in with Rachel and let her know when I’ll be back.”

  A few minutes later we were in the parking lot. “You drove dad’s Porsche?”

  “I did. Here. I have something for you.” I handed him a paper grocery sack and he pulled out the can of Pledge. His shoulders dropped and he gave me a small smile, grim, but a smile.

  I walked up to passenger door and tossed him the keys. “I need you to take me somewhere.”

  “But Ma—”

  “Drive. You always loved this car.” I sat inside and closed my door, waiting.

  Eventually Phillip opened the door and got into the driver’s seat. He sat there a moment, both his hands on the steering wheel, flexing his fingers. He put the car in gear and started it, shifted forward and popped the clutch.

  “Your dad would have loved that. Are you going to roll backwards down the hills, too?”

  “Shut up, Ma.” His hands on the wheel were bloodless and white.

  “Is that any way to talk to your mother?”

  “I hate this,” he said through tight teeth.

  “I know you do. Drive, son.”

  He followed my directions to the letter and we pulled onto a street not far from the house.

  “Pull over here and park,” I told him.

  We were just sitting there in complete silence. I turned and I pointed at the skid marks on the road. “This is where it happened.”

  Phillip stared at the street and slowly closed his eyes.

  “I have not had the courage to come here before now, to even drive down this street, Phillip.” My voice cracked and I took a deep breath.

  The next minute he was sobbing, loud and harsh sounds that came from deep in his chest. I grabbed him and he fell against me, his shiny shaved head red and hot from spilling his grief, his arms around me, clinging to me, and we cried together.

  Chapter Thirty Two

  I looked up from my game of Solitaire when Molly came through the back door. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” She dropped her purse on the granite counter and crossed to the refrigerator, pulling out a diet cola and pouring it into a tall glass of ice.

  “So what did he say when you gave him the ring back?”

  She turned around, her free hand resting on the edge of the counter, Spider’s pink diamond engagement ring was gone. “He asked if I was sure. He didn’t seem surprised.” She took another sip of cola. “Or maybe he just didn’t care very much one way or the other.”

  I got up from the game table near the fireplace, where the night before Molly had walked in and promptly handed my delighted friend Ellie a pile of rush ordered wedding invitations, and I walked over and put my arms around Molly. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I wish for you and your tender heart that I would have been wrong. If I could trade places with you and take all your fears and doubts away, I would.”

  “I know you would, Mom. I wish I could be less selfish. Like you. I resented you for being right. You are, you know . . . right. It’s very annoying and difficult to keep up with. Some days I hated that you knew the right choice when I made the w
rong one.

  “Blind luck and the experience of making the wrong choices,” I said.

  “We talked about the baby and he wants to make certain his attorney draws up a support contract, with me having main custody. He will be in the picture, when he can, but not obtrusively. I think he’s going to be easy about it.”

  “Our attorneys can work it all out.” I wasn’t that trusting and had talked to a good family law attorney. I wanted Molly and her child protected and safe and never to be part of a custody battle.

  “Is there any ice cream?”

  “Rocky Road, Peppermint, French Vanilla, Caramel Fudge Swirl and Neapolitan. Oh, and Dove bars.”

  “Did you get lost in the frozen food sections?” Molly laughed. “I think I’ll have a scoop of each.”

  “Want some pickles?”

  “Not yet.”

  I joined her and we took out the ice cream cartons. “I craved black-eyed peas and ham with Scott, shepherd’s pie with Phillip, root beer floats and pizza with you, and chili cheese omelets with Mickey. There’s a lot ahead of you. A lifetime, really. Kids are forever.”

  “I told Keely today.”

  I groaned. “That poor girl.”

  “I know. Everyone around her is having babies.”

  “She and Phillip have options. I expect they will be okay.”

  “Phillip is back driving to work again. The Porsche must have done the trick. Good idea, Mom, giving him Dad’s car.”

  Only Phillip and I knew the real story, and it was our secret. It wasn’t the car. The car only got us both to the place we needed to be.

  Molly and I sat down at the game table, bowls in hands. “Hmmm. This is so good.”

  “So how do you feel?” I asked.

  “I’m not as tired. I’m so glad we called off the wedding. So glad.”

  “Yes, well, Ellie can’t wait to burn things from someone else’s marriage mistakes for a change. She claims she has eventually burned every dress she ever wore to get married in as a sacrifice to the divorce gods.

  “She would,” Molly said. “You old broads are pushy lot.”

  “Ah. I’ve graduated from cougar to old broad. How sweet.”

  “Speaking of sweet, how is your boy candy?” Then Molly laughed.

  “I talked to him last night. He said hi and to tell you that you can only marry a man you give your panties to.” I took a bite of ice cream and then added, “Did I ever tell you that I tried to set him up with you when I met him on the chairlift?”

  She stared at me and I saw when she realized it was true.

  I shrugged and said, “Yes, well, we mothers are a pushy lot. You’ll see.”

  “Why is that exactly?”

  “I can only speak for me. I think it’s because I feel like I want you to have everything. I want you to have it all. Although there have been times when I’ve felt as if I had turned into this obnoxious, overbearing mother who thinks she knows what’s best for you.” I paused.

  Molly merely took another spoonful of ice cream.

  “Okay, here’s the part where you’re supposed to say, ‘Oh no, no, no! Mother, you could never be that horrible person.’”

  We laughed together and she took my hands in hers. “I know you’re coming from a good place, and I love you for it.”

  “Well,” I admitted. “I didn’t listen to my mom either. I remember sitting in the kitchen and thinking she was so out of touch. She couldn’t possibly understand what it was like to get married. I was certain she had forgotten all the things I thought were important.”

  “I miss Grandma.”

  “Me, too.” I smiled, open the game table drawer and took out a different set of cards. “Set the bowl down, Shortcake, and I’ll teach you Canasta.”

  “So pour me another Cosmo, March.” Ellie held her martini glass up in the air and I leaned over my trio of dearest friends and refilled their glasses.

  “Me, too. I need another drink before we throw away a small fortune in engraved wedding invitations.”

  “Harrie? You’re the doctor,” Ellie asked. “With my body fat, how much alcohol can I consume before I’m legally drunk?”

  “What body fat would that be Ellie? You lipo’d most of it out when you were married to the plastic surgeon.”

  “So how big should we make this fire?” MC took a poker to the fireplace and stoked the flames, then threw on some more wood. She stood back, eyeing the fire for much longer than necessary. She was stalling.

  Four large white boxes stamped with Crane were stacked in the center of the family room floor and MC, Harrie, and Ellie had come over ostensibly to help me get rid of them. But that was three and half hours ago and not a single invite was yet burned. But we were on our third pitcher of cocktails.

  Rio was coming tonight.

  “Hand me a box. Let’s burn them,” Ellie sipped her drink. “I should have burned the invitations to all my marriages and cancelled the ceremonies, too.”

  “Maybe if you stand close to the fire, Ellie, you can get a faux peel,” Harrie said. “Cheaper than divorce from the city’s top plastic surgeon.”

  “Bitch. What medical school did you graduate from?”

  “Fuck U.”

  “Harrie!,” MC shrieked. But the rest of us were laughing.

  “That was good, Harrie. Let me pour you another,” Ellie took the cocktail shaker and dumped it into Harrie’s glass. “The more you drink, the funnier you are.”

  “That’s because she drinks so seldom,” MC said.” Would you want your doctor to be a drunk?”

  “That’s why I divorced the plastic surgeon,” Ellie said, and she tossed half of a box of invitations in the fire and they flared and snapped and the heat in the room swelled more than I thought was smart.

  MC jumped back. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. Let’s recycle.”

  I picked up the boxes and carried them out toward the garage. Recycling was my original idea. Ellie and the others just used the ceremonial burning as an excuse to meet Rio.

  Just as I kicked the back door closed, I heard the doorbell. As I walked past the family room, my friends were tiptoeing (like the Pink Panther) into the living room, closer and closer to the front door. I was laughing when I opened it.

  “Hey darlin’.” That voice, that voice . . . .

  I heard Ellie suck in a breath.

  Rio pulled me into his arms and kissed me senseless.

  MC was giggling.

  He pulled back and looked into my eyes. “We’re not alone.”

  I shook my head.

  Rio looked over my shoulder, where a few yards away my best friends were lined up like foot soldiers in the living room.

  Ellie stepped away first, her Cosmo in her hand. She walked closer and eyed him up and down. “So you’re the singing cowboy?”

  I laughed because it was so Ellie.

  “I’m the singing cowboy,” he said. “And you must the infamous Ellie.” He went down on one knee before she could blink and he began singing with a forced, off note twang about an old cowhand on the Rio Grande only he changed the words to encompass his downfall from a bad woman named Ellie.

  I had not seen Ellie blush and laugh so hard in thirty years.

  He met the others and we talked for a while. Every so often one of my friends would give me the okay sign.

  Finally he went into the bathroom and I stood up. “Okay. You need to leave now. Go. Go. He’s mine.”

  “Okay, okay! You’re no fun at all, March.”

  “Is Eugene outside?”

  “Of course. We’re drinking aren’t we?”

  I waited for Rio. “My friends have to leave,” I said pointedly and he walked with us outside.

  He’d left his bag and a guitar case by the door and he picked them up as he came inside. A few minutes later we were in the house with the doors closed.

  “I’ve missed you,” he said.

  My arms were around his neck in an instant, his arms were around me, and I was in a world of hi
s scent and taste, and it wasn’t long before we went upstairs.

  About eleven that night, after we had messed up the sheets and taken a shower, I came out from blowing my hair dry and Rio was on the bed, leaning against the huge pillows wearing only jeans and his guitar. His hair was still damp from the shower and I just took in the view. He was picking out a tune.

  It was okay, seeing him there. He belonged in my bed, wherever that was. He was deep inside my heart, and my head. I loved him, madly, deeply loved him.

  “I have a present for you,” he said. “Come sit.” He patted the bed. I crawled on top and sat cross-legged.

  “It’s called Because He Loved You.”

  The title registered and I put my hand on his thigh. I smiled at him, looking at me and wearing that familiar tender look I knew was for me alone, and his face grew fuzzy through my teary eyes, and Rio began to sing:

  You met him too young with stars in your eyes,

  He taught you truths and never told lies.

  His love was honest and not for show

  He had a dream to fly upon snow.

  Together you made his dreams come true

  Because he loved you . . .

  Because he loved you . . . .

  The years of my youth were wild and free,

  I searched for someone who could see the real me.

  And you were in another place and time,

  A place where you could never be mine.

  You learned what it meant—a heart that was true,

  Because he loved you . . .

  Because he loved you . . .

  The world said my love was a sin

  I loved and lost again and again.

  And I paid the price with my name

  No one could ever forget my fame.

  But you and he knew what to do,

  Because he loved you . . .

  Because he loved you . . .

  I thought I could never love again

  But then, but then, but then . . .

  There you were sittin’ next to me

  Willing to see me for what I could be.

  And soon, together, our hearts are true

  Because he loved you . . .

  Because he loved you . . . ..

  EPILOGUE