“I just have a few things to say about love,” Jack continued.
Nancy’s heart pounded, and she downed the rest of her drink to even her nerves. She glanced toward Janine, who looked stricken. Love? How could Jack Potter say anything about love after what he’d done?
“When you find love in your life, you have to be brave enough to grab hold of it and never let it go,” Jack continued. “You have to believe in your heart, in every emotion— and you have to be gentle with yourself as you propel yourself forward through time.”
Janine’s eyes rimmed with tears as her lips turned up into a sad smirk. Maxine’s gaze turned across the table. She seemed to stare directly at Janine. At that moment, Janine caught her eye, as well— and the two women faced off, across the family table. All the blood dropped out of Janine’s cheeks. Nancy wanted to stand up and punch Jack Potter in the nose. At fifty-nine, did she have the strength for that?
She smiled inwardly at the image of it: the grandmother of the bride knocking the father of the bride out in front of everyone. What a sight. They would assuredly have a full-page spread in some tabloid. “Grandmother Knocks Out Jack Potter!”
Jack concluded his speech with, “Now, let’s enjoy this beautiful evening, shall we?” But in the wake of it, Janine stood and clacked her fork against her glass. Jack turned and scowled at her. His eyes said, “But I’ve already done the speech. Why do you have to?”
Again, the crowd quieted down for Janine. She lifted her chin regally, like a queen, and began.
“I want to thank you all for coming to my daughter’s wedding. It’s a day Maggie always dreamed about, so it’s been a real struggle bringing this dream to reality. But I think we pulled it off. What do you think, Mags?”
Maggie whistled playfully.
“I think that’s a yes,” Janine joked. “But in all seriousness, I want to say one thing. When I was a young woman, I gave birth to Maggie and felt immediately like an imposter. How could I possibly bring a baby into the world, let alone figure out how to raise her? How could I possibly fill her head with all the knowledge she needed to get through her life? I worried endlessly about every little detail— from what kind of toothpaste to buy to whether or not I should allow her to ride a bicycle. And you know what? All Maggie ever did back then was look at me and say, ‘Mom. I can handle it.’ And I feel that in her even now. She’s always had a wild independent streak. She’s always marched to the beat of her own drum. And when she met Rex and told me she planned to marry him, I asked her, ‘Maggie, are you sure? Is this really the one?’ And she said, ‘Mom. Yes, he is. I can handle it.’ And I knew in my heart, she was right; she had this.” Janine sucked in a breath and then held her flute even higher towards her daughter. “Maggie, you have made me so proud to call you my daughter. I couldn’t ask for anything else other than all the happiness in the world for the two of you. I love you, honey. I love you both so much. To Maggie and Rex!”
Janine’s tears streamed down her face as Maggie mouthed, ‘I love you, Mom,’ and her own tears cascaded down her cheeks. The crowd clapped wildly for the mother of the bride, who sat and bowed her head, having outdone her ex-husband in speech alone. Jack continued to glower in his corner.
Janine turned her lips toward Nancy’s ear and whispered, “At the engagement party, Jack didn’t let me give a speech. I wasn’t about to let him cut me out this time.”
“You showed him,” Nancy told her with a wink. “And his was so boring with no real meaning behind it; it’s like he was just there.”
Janine’s laughter twinkled like music. When she calmed, and the first platters were passed around for the first course, she lifted her glass toward Nancy and said, “I can’t imagine today without you here, Mom. Thank you. You were always the missing puzzle piece of my life.”
Chapter Ten
“You’re the grandmother of the bride?” The question was pushed toward her strangely near the drink table. The questioner? One of the Manhattan socialites whom Janine had spent the majority of her twenties and thirties alongside. She ogled Nancy as though she was some sort of prize, then gasped when Nancy nodded. “That’s simply insane. Isn’t it insane?” the woman asked her friend.
“It’s insane,” the friend echoed.
Nancy shifted uncomfortably. Her eyes moved just past the woman before her to find another pair of eyes settled upon her with curiosity. They were greyish-green and oddly warm. Their owner was a man who seemed to be in his late fifties, early sixties. His hair was mostly salt on the salt-and-pepper scale, and his skin was tanned and glowing. He had a classic five o’clock stubble, and his lips drew the slightest of crooked smiles, one that seemed especially for her. Nancy felt a strange stab of recognition; she was attracted to this man.
But she hadn’t felt that way toward anyone but Neal in maybe fifteen years. It was strange territory. And at fifty-nine, she’d expected that sort of thing was a part of her past, now.
“Tell us. How old are you?” One of the Manhattan socialite friends begged Nancy now.
Nancy had nearly forgotten about them, as though they were two flies circling her head.
“The grandmother of the bride, but you look late-forties tops,” the other affirmed.
“I am decidedly not late-forties,” Nancy corrected with an ironic laugh. “But I did have my baby at sixteen. I wouldn’t recommend it, of course, but it does set you up to be a youthful-looking grandmother.”
The women exchanged glances. The one on the left, who wore particularly ridiculous-looking lip-liner, gasped and said, “You had a baby at sixteen?”
This sort of lifestyle was on the trashy side. It didn’t happen to “rich” women with other options. Nancy knew this.
“I don’t regret it for a second,” Nancy told them.
The greyish-green eyes behind them brightened as Nancy stepped around and eased herself alongside the gossiping women, positioning herself directly beside this stranger. She leaned across the bar and ordered herself another vodka tonic as her heart raced.
“Don’t you just love people?” The man beside her asked suddenly. His voice was thick and husky.
A laugh erupted from Nancy’s throat. She took the vodka tonic and turned to face him. “They can surprise you.”
“Those women don’t surprise me,” the man said as he tilted his head toward the socialites. “I don’t think they’ve had a unique thought in forty years.”
“And I suppose you’re stirring in unique thoughts?”
“I’m lucky if I have one a month,” the man said, chuckling. “But it doesn’t mean I don’t want to put women like that in their place.”
“And where is that— the kitchen?” Nancy asked playfully.
The man laughed outright, smacking his thigh with a heavy hand. Nancy’s heart lifted. It had been a long time since she’d flirted. Was that what this was? She thought back to what Alyssa and Maggie had said about her to their friends; she had been this wild child, hadn’t she? She had gone all over the world; she’d been with many men. She’d had a way with this sort of thing— and maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t too dried up for that sort of thing. Was she?
According to the glow in this man’s eyes, she wasn’t.
“What are you drinking?” Nancy asked the stranger.
“I haven’t quite decided yet,” the man told her.
“And yet, you look like a guy who always knows what he wants.”
“Do I? That’s curious. Tell me, then. Tell me what I want.”
Nancy’s grin widened. They faced off as the band, located on the far end of the dance floor, began to play another song, something Nancy might have wanted to dance to in another era. After all, she had danced her way through the seventies and eighties. She’d always had time to move her hips, to get lost in the frenetic beats, to feel as much as she could. She and Neal had never danced much together; theirs had been a passionate relationship of compassion and understanding, with very little “party.”
But something about
this stranger made her want to dance again.
“I think you want to dance with me,” she said suddenly.
His eyes grew wider. “I see you’re the kind of woman who likes to take chances.”
“I used to be.”
“Aren’t we always who we used to be?”
“That’s a tricky question for another day,” Nancy told him. She slipped her hand over his, leading him toward the center of the dance floor. Nancy then eased her hand over his shoulder and shimmied her hips along with his. He had a beautiful sense of tempo, and his eyes never left hers, as though he was captivated with her.
It was remarkable to feel that she’d captivated someone again. She had thought that sort of thing was lost to another time.
They danced— not just one song, but five in a row. At times, she caught Maggie or Alyssa eyeing her. Both lifted a thumb in support with huge smiles. Janine danced with Henry toward the far end of the dance floor, both lost in one another’s eyes. But Nancy wasn’t there to fall in love. She was there to have a great time— to feel again. She was there to learn how not to think.
As another song fluttered off, only to be replaced with another, the stranger placed his lips near her ear and said, “I don’t suppose I could tempt you with a dance out by the water?”
A previous version of Nancy would have leaped at this idea. Nancy decided to follow that instinct. She nodded and then said, “I don’t suppose you’d like to steal us a bottle of wine?”
He winked, then turned toward the open bar. Nancy followed behind him and watched as he walked around the side of the table, focused on the bartender, who was busy with other customers. In a flash, he gripped one of the bottles of white from the nearest fridge, then rushed out toward the darkness beyond the reception area, where the Nantucket Sound burst out toward the rest of the Atlantic. It was an inky darkness, a nothingness filled with so much. Nancy found strength and a speed within herself that she didn’t know she still had. She stretched her legs out vibrantly and chased him to the far dock, where they both collapsed on the sand and giggled like children.
The stranger heaved with last juts of laughter, then inspected the wine bottle.
“Oh no. We need a wine opener,” Nancy breathed.
“Not to worry. I was a Boy Scout. Always prepared.” He lifted a keychain, on which he had a small wine opener. With a twist of his hand, he drew out the cork, then passed the wine bottle over to Nancy. “Ladies first.”
“Some lady. Drinking wine out of the bottle,” Nancy quipped with a smile before taking a long swig.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” he said. “Or whatever they say.”
Nancy took one more and then passed the bottle to him. Silence filled the space between them. A small voice in the back of Nancy’s mind reminded her that this man was a stranger; she was the bride's grandmother; she was acting irrationally.
But another voice reminded her of the awaiting test results and that nothing in life was for certain. Time was a finite resource. She would do with it what she could.
“Some wedding, huh?” The stranger said it, then rubbed the back of his hand across his lips.
“Some wedding.”
“Lots of gossip swirling around,” he said. “About the mother of the bride and the father’s girlfriend.”
“Yeah, touchy subject,” Nancy said.
“Do you think people just get bored and create their own chaos?”
Nancy considered this. “I think I used to do that. I wanted to tell myself a story about myself that interested me. I’m not sure I’m like that now. I don’t think that way of living has a lot of longevity. But it’s good for a single night, maybe.”
“Are you suggesting that’s the reason you came out here with me? For the story?” the stranger asked. He then took a swig and grinned that mischievous grin of his.
“Maybe. And maybe I just asked myself if I’d surprised myself recently.”
“Do you think it’s important to surprise yourself?” he asked.
“Yes, maybe not all the time. But enough.”
“Even bad surprises?” he asked.
“Yes, even those.” Nancy took the bottle and drank three gulps. The stars above had been to morph and swirl, resulting from her three vodka tonics and several sips of wine. She didn’t drink like she used to— thank goodness. But she still felt strange, like a lightweight.
The stranger removed his shoes and stood to place his feet in the rush of the chilly waves. He grimaced, then dropped his head back. “Yow,” he said. “That’s cold.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“Join me.”
Nancy laughed. “I’m afraid my toes will fall off.”
“Trust me,” the stranger said. “They won’t.”
Nancy removed her shoes and stepped alongside him. There, she laced her fingers through his. She was reminded suddenly of the night she’d conceived Janine. There had been similar energy, a similar feeling of leaping into nothingness, as though whatever happened next didn’t matter, as long as right now felt just perfect.
“Tell me something real,” the man said now, as the waves rushed around their toes and her body quivered in the darkness.
Nancy swallowed sharply. What did she have to lose?
“I’m scared,” she breathed. “I know I can’t get anything back. And I’m scared I don’t have much time left.”
Silence filled the space between them again, but it was a comfortable quiet, a thoughtful one.
“It’s the worst, isn’t it? Getting old?” the stranger asked.
“Maybe, but it has its benefits, too. And I would like to get much, much older.” Nancy’s eyes filled with tears. “I only just built my relationship with my daughter and granddaughters, and there’s so much more to do. My stepdaughter, Carmella, and I— well. Things have always been strained, and I ask myself why that is. Maybe there’s a way past this. Maybe life is about bettering yourself no matter the chips you’re dealt.”
“Beautifully said,” the man told her.
Nancy stirred with a moment of fear. She had given this man a great deal of herself. She prayed he would tell her something, too. Something that set him apart.
“I’m from the city,” he finally mustered. “And I hate so much of my life. I hate that I’m only here for some sort of proof of my social status. I hate money and what money does to your position in society. I hate that I’ve worked my whole life for this position, only to find out it’s not enough.”
“Is anything ever enough?” Nancy asked, turning to look at him.
“I don’t know. I ask myself that. But if the answer is no, then what do you do? Do you stop living?”
Nancy exhaled through her nose. “I don’t know to be honest.”
They stepped back from the water, shivering. The man grabbed the bottle of wine and took another swig, then passed it over. Nancy teetered slightly. When she removed the bottle from her lips, she rose on her toes and dotted a kiss on this man’s lips. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to forget, if only for a moment, that she was a fifty-nine-year-old widow with maybe very little time left.
Right then, she was just Nancy Grimson. It’s all she had to be.
“Grandma? Grandma?” The words howled out through the night. Nancy jumped back from the stranger’s embrace and turned to face Alyssa and Peter, who’d seemed to have the same idea as Nancy and her stranger. Alyssa had a bottle of wine in one hand and a cheeky smile between her lips. “Grandma, what on earth are you doing out here?”
“Grandma.” The stranger echoed the title and gave Nancy a funny smile.
She certainly didn’t feel like a grandmother just then.
“And Maddox?” Alyssa turned her attention to the stranger. Her eyes scanned from Maddox to Nancy, then back again as the realization took hold of her. “Wow. Grandma. Did you just go back in time and pull out the wild youthful woman you once were?”
Nancy lifted her chin to catch Maddox’s gaze. “My granddau
ghter knows your name.”
Maddox chuckled. He then took another long sip of wine and said, “I’ve worked with Jack Potter for the past twenty years. I would think his daughters would know my name.”
Nancy cackled. It all seemed so ridiculous. “You’re friends with the father of the bride?”
“Friend. It’s an interesting term, isn’t it?”
Nancy’s heart swelled at the hilarity of it all. “I suppose we could never work.”
“Isn’t that the greatest tragedy of all?” Maddox teased.
Alyssa crossed her arms impatiently. She wanted their stance on the beach. Nancy felt unwilling to give it up. But in a moment, Maddox exhaled and said, “I had better head back.” Alyssa and Maddox and Peter had broken the perfect spell. It was time to return to reality. How sad.
“I’ll join you,” Nancy said. “Here’s the beach, love. Like grandmother like granddaughter?”
Alyssa tittered as Maddox howled with laughter. “What is happening here on Martha’s Vineyard?” he teased as they marched back toward the glow of the reception. “Seems like there’s something in the water. The rest of the world’s rules just don’t apply.”
“And thank goodness for that,” Nancy said with a crooked grin.
Chapter Eleven
The final moments of the reception were filled with snap-shots of beautiful images. Nancy tried to soak up each one, to add them to her ever-growing memory bank. There, Bruce wrapped his arms lovingly around Elsa and whispered something in her ear as the music slowed and shifted them back and forth. Cody and Carmella chatted excitedly at one of the tables, their eyes aglow and their cheeks ruddy from alcohol. Maggie remained latched in the arms of her now-husband; her eyelids were half-open as she rolled her head back playfully and spoke to Rex as though they were alone, not in a crowded space. At times, Nancy caught sight of Maddox, that wonderful stranger, but he seemed perpetually at a distance, as though they’d gotten too close and now had to ricochet off of one another. Nancy remembered this from her previous dating life. Sometimes, too much was said or felt at once, and you had to move past that person, like two ships passing in the night.
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