A May-September Wedding (13 page)

She went back
to the swatch of Briggs and Little and put it to her cheek. It was
nice but it was not very smooth. But it was only four dollars a
ball. She started to check out the colours of the Briggs and Little
when Cal grabbed her wrist and led her back to the Rowan. "No
pinching pennies. Ros told me to get what you liked." He let go of
her wrist and put his hand on her chin to tilt her head up to look
at him. "I saw how you reacted to the Rowan."

Taking a deep
breath she nodded meekly, then asked, "Which do you think suits me
better, the forest green or the medium indigo?"

Cal took a
ball of each and walked over to the window, beckoning Phyl to
follow him. He held first one ball, then the other to her face.
"The green is brighter, but the indigo almost matches your eyes.
I'd go with the indigo." Then he made the mistake of looking into
her eyes and felt that wall crumbling again.

Phyl felt the
pull of attraction between them and swayed forward so that she was
inside the reach of his arms. She saw the look of desire and then
Cal blinked and looked away, blushing.

Gathering
herself, she said, in an unsteady voice, "The indigo it is, then."
She took the balls of yarn from him and went to the counter. "I
need sixteen balls of this yarn, please."

The clerk
said, "That will look wonderful on you. I think we have enough of
the same dye lot. Let me check." She disappeared into the storage
room and came out with two sealed ten-packs from the same dye lot
and began to ring up the sale.

Rosalind was
ecstatic at Phyl's choice. "I haven't worked with this yarn in too
many years. Felicity prefers the Sirdar and Lydia prefers Lopi for
some reason. And that lout likes Briggs and Little Tuffy with the
nylon reinforcement. You do know, Cal, that it's supposed to be a
sock yarn and not a sweater yarn?"

Cal rolled his
eyes, "Of course I do. You tell me that every time but I mostly
wear my sweaters when we're camping and the Tuffy doesn't break
when it snags on bushes. I do have my Kelly green merino sweater
that's starting to wear out."

Rosalind
looked at him. "If that's a hint, dear boy, then go buy me some
decent yarn and I'll make you another."

Cal smirked
and said, "I'll be right back." He drifted out the van and came
back in with twenty balls of the forest green Rowan.

Rosalind
looked into the bag and laughed. "You know me too well,
Calvin."

Cal beamed at
his aunt. "Rather I was hoping to take shameless advantage of your
generosity."

She waved him
off. "Bah. I have two more months of staring out the window at snow
covered fields. I need something useful to do with my hands. Will
does most of the cooking during the winter so I don't have a lot to
do until he's back behind the wheel of the tractor."

They made
small talk about the girls and knitting and woodworking projects
until it was time for Will to go check on lunch. At that point Phyl
excused herself to freshen up, and Rosalind asked, "So when are you
going marry that girl, Calvin?"

Cal glowered
at his aunt. "I wasn't planning on it."

"Are you at
least going to live together?"

"Aunt Ros! You
know me better than that."

"So you are
going to marry her."

"What gave you
that idea?"

"Well, I've
given up calling you at your home number and when I call your cell
I can usually hear Phyl in the background. When I did get someone
at your home number during the day, it was Phyl that answered more
than half the time. So what else am I to assume? Usually when a man
spends that much time with a woman they are either married or
courting. I know you aren't married to her because she isn't
wearing a ring so you must be courting. And if you aren't shame on
you."

"Ros, we're
just friends"

"Just friends,
my arse. I know you're still in your mourning year, but don't play
with that girl's heart, Calvin."

"I'm too old
for her."

"Nonsense.
You're in better shape than Will was at fifty-five and he's still
going strong. You take after the MacDougall side of the family,
Cal, like me and Will. You won't die of old age or disease until
you hit ninety at least. And everything else is in God's hands
anyway. So, do you want to throw away thirty-five years with that
wonderful young woman?" She saw the stubborn look on Cal's face. "I
see you inherited the full MacDougall pigheadedness, too."

Cal smiled in
spite of himself. "And you know this how?"

Rosalind
looked at him in surprise. "You have to ask?" Then she gave a full
throated laugh. She was still shaking her head when Phyl came back
into the room.

Phyl asked,
"Good joke?"

"No, we were
just trying to figure out which of us was more stubborn," Cal
replied.

Phyl looked
appraisingly at the two of them. "I'd say Rosalind, but only
because she can practice on Will."

They heard
Will's laugh from the kitchen, then he said, "Lunch is on the
table."

"Why did you
buy a van, Dad? There's only you and Felicity." David's tone was
somewhat belligerent.

"Soccer season
is coming up and I'll be spending more time on the road. Both the
Beast and the Monster are playing up a division on the elite squad
for the Fury U-16s. I wanted something more comfortable than either
my car or Phyl's station wagon for the road trips." There was a
note of pride in Cal's voice.

"I don't know
why you encourage that friendship, Dad. It means you and Phyl spend
too much time together."

"I never told
you who you could be friends with David. I'd like you to respect
your sister's choices."

"It wasn't
Felicity I was worried about. Lydia's okay."

Cal felt his
blood pressure rising. "You might want to consider your next words
very carefully, David Malcolm Richardson."

David paused.
Cal stayed silent and heard a sigh. "So, Dad, what are you two
doing for March break?"

"The five of
us are headed to Virginia and Washington to visit some museums and
historical sites."

"Five of
you?"

"Yes, the
Schuylers are coming with us. Lydia's a real history buff like
Felicity and Tim wants to see the space stuff at the aerospace
museum."

David went
silent for a bit. "I think you're making a huge mistake spending
that much time with Phyl."

"I think
you've made your position very clear. Was there something else you
wanted, David?"

David
belatedly recognized that it would be a very bad time to ask his
father to invest more money in the company, "Nothing really. We
should get together for supper soon."

"That would be
nice. We see Judy and the kids when you're travelling but I'd love
to have you come over and tell me about your latest research
projects."

David
swallowed his impulse to ask for money and looked in his calendar
for an evening when everyone would be free.

Phyl and Cal
brought up the rear as the kids ran on ahead to the church in
Colonial Williamsburg. "Oh what a glorious day," she said as she
inched closer to Cal.

The clouds had
dissipated just before noon and the temperature had climbed to the
high sixties. A few of the locals looked at them walking around in
just their shirtsleeves and drew their sweaters closer. Cal said,
"I thought I was going to split a gut back there."

Phyl said, "I
must have missed something."

"When guide in
the prison said, 'You can imagine what it would be like to spend
the winter in here.' and Felicity asked, 'What is it like in
winter?'"

"Right. I
wondered why he said 'Well, it is winter,' so pointedly."

"Well, does
this feel like winter, fellow pasty white northerner?" They entered
the walled courtyard by the door of the church and spotted a bench
in the sunshine with beds of flowers nearby.

Phyl said,
"No, it feels like a beautiful warm spring day." She pointed at the
bench. "Shall we sit?"

They sat in
companionable silence, basking in the sun and admiring the flowers.
After a time, Cal said, "We're back to winter in three days. How do
you think it's gone so far?"

"I thought it
was brilliant to leave us here in Williamsburg for a shopping day
and to help out in the soapmaking class while you and Tim went to
Newport News for a second day. I don't think he wants to join the
Navy but he is fascinated with boats."

"It was fun to
spend the day with him. Of course, I preferred the Hampton Roads
Naval Museum and Nauticus and he preferred the Mariner's Museum.
Tim loved all of the old paintings of the ships and naval battles.
You should probably encourage his drawing."

"He's taken a
couple of courses. I should ask if he wants to take another class.
We pushed a little bit to get them to try some things at the
beginner level. I was hoping one of them would have some musical
talent, but I'm the only one who uses the piano."

"You have a
lovely singing voice." Cal glanced over and caught the shy smile
then made the mistake of looking into her eyes. She straightened up
and so did he. Cal leaned forward and began to lower his head to
capture her willing lips in his.

"Mum, Mr.
Richardson, you have to see this." Tim came bounding up and broke
the spell. Sighing, they both got up and allowed themselves to be
dragged off to examine whatever it was that caught Tim's eye,
knowing that it would be far less attractive than the other
person.

Phyl sat
brushing her hair on Sunday night and ran over her internal
checklist for the morning. There was enough food for lunches,
enough clean dry clothes to send the kids off to school and the
prospect of a morning volunteering at the adult literacy program
while Cal was helping to refinish the floor in one of the other
rooms.

She thought
back to the beautiful garden and the bench where she had almost
kissed Cal. Another almost. She sighed and felt a contented
frustration.
Dear Lord
, she thought,
I'm falling in love
with him.
At the thought, she expected a wave
of guilt to hit her, but it didn't. She looked at the picture of
Harry on the dresser but there was no guilt, not even very much
lingering sadness.
You were a good man, Harry, a very
good man, but I need another good man now.

She remembered
how Rosalind called him stubborn.
He probably thinks he's too
old for me.
She continued brushing out her
hair while thinking about that then decided that she really didn't
care how old he was. The vacation together was so relaxing. He
didn't try to take control of the schedule, like Brenda or Harry
would have. When something needed doing it was done without much
arguing over who was responsible for it. And all the kids listened
to both of them.

The only
shadow was the time in the restaurant in D.C. when the waitress
referred to her as Cal's daughter. Cal's mood vanished in a hurry.
When she asked him why he only said he didn't want to be like Jack
Littleton of WessexTech but he wouldn't say any more.

Curious, she
padded downstairs to look up Jack Littleton on the Internet. The
third hit was a link to a scanned news article from a business
newspaper from seven years earlier that was part of a case study on
corporate governance.

CEO
fired for bad decision

Jack
Littleton, CEO of WessexTech, was fired Tuesday for 'exhibiting
poor decision making' according to the press release from
WessexTech. Littleton, 48, has filed a wrongful dismissal suit
claiming that the decision to let him go was based on his recent
marriage to Brittany James, a 21 year old marketing specialist who
was also working at WessexTech.

In
the suit Littleton claims that his ex-wife inappropriately provided
personal information to the board and that his business decisions
had never been in question. He also claims that Miss James had
nothing to do with the breakdown of his marriage after twenty-two
years.

Sources at WessexTech point to the corporate code of conduct,
issued under Littleton's signature, which requires executives to
avoid any conduct that would bring negative attention to the
company. Sources also say that the recent publicity surrounding the
divorce, remarriage and extravagantly public lifestyle of Littleton
and his young wife has been a distraction as WessexTech tries to
position itself in the increasingly competitive smart weapons
market.

Phyl then read
through six more related articles and a dozen blog postings
providing scathing commentary on Littleton's ethics and common
sense. One of the articles defended the practice of taking a second
wife if she offered something as a business partner and not just
ego gratification, both of which Phyl thought were awful reasons to
divorce. The last article contained a couple of sentences that gave
Phyl more to think about. 'Littleton, a graduate of Royal Roads in
1977, served in the Engineering Branch of the Canadian Navy for
several years before joining WessexTech as a research
engineer.'

This was
followed later in the article with: 'Brenda Richardson, a board
member of the Canadian Centre for Corporate Governance and a
longtime friend of the Littleton family, expressed her satisfaction
that WessexTech had the courage to dismiss their CEO over his
demonstrated poor ethics. "Leaders must show in their personal
life, as well as their work life, that they have the ability to
make and sustain commitments through good and bad times. A person
who cannot do this will not be loyal to their company or the
shareholders interests in the long run."'

A picture of
Cal and Brenda as a very young married couple entertaining a fellow
officer and his new bride came to mind. She knew from experience
that Brenda was a very loyal friend but she had forgotten that
Brenda worked for the CCCG. It was Brenda that had spearheaded the
push for ethical standards for senior managers and codes of conduct
as part of good corporate governance in the wake of the WorldCom
and Enron scandals.