Bygones (4 page)

The idea revolted them both.

“What do you think, Bess?”

“I don’t know.” She looked out the window at passing cars, imagining herself walking down an aisle with Michael . . . again.
Seeing her wedding gown in use . . . again.
Sitting beside him at a wedding banquet . . . again.
Then she repeated, “I don’t know.”

“I guess I don’t see that we have any choice.”

“So you want me to give her the go-ahead for this dinner at the
Padgetts
’?”

“I think we can fake our way through it for her sake.”

“All right.
But the dress- What should I say about the dress?” This issue touched closer to home than all the others.

“What harm would; it do if she ware it?”

“Oh, Michael.”
She looked away, suddenly self-conscious.

“You think just because you wore it and the marriage didn’t last, the thing is jinxed? Be sensible, Bess. I say let her wear it. It’ll save me five hundred dollars.”

“You always were putty in her hands.”

“Yup.
And I kind of enjoyed it.”

“Need I mention that the piano will have to be moved again?”

“I’ll pay for it. I told her, when I bought it, I’d foot the bill for the piano moving for life.”

Bess almost laughed. They eyed each other; repressing grins.

“All right, let’s back up to that remark you made about saving five hundred dollars. I take it from that that you’re going to offer to pay for the wedding.”

“I thought it was noble of the two of them not to ask for any help, but what kind of scrooge would let his kid lay out money like that when he’s earning a hundred thousand a year?”

Bess raised her eyebrows. “
Oooa
. . . you dropped that in there very neatly. Well, it just so happens I’m doing quite well myself. I insist on paying half of everything.”

“It’s a deal.” Michael extended his hand. She shook it, and they felt the shock of familiarity.

Immediately they broke the contact.

“Well,” Michael said, “you ready to go, then?”

She nodded, and they hitched their chairs back from the table. While they were donning their coats he inquired, “How’s your mother?”

“Indefatigable as always.”

“Say hi to the old doll for me, will you? I’ve missed her.”

“I’ll do that.”

At the door she felt the touch of his hand on her back.

Memories.

They paused, groping for parting words. Then Michael spoke. “You’ll call Lisa, then?”

“Yes . . . . Well, good night.”

“Night, Bess.”

They turned and went to their separate cars.

Bess started the engine in her
Buick
Park
Avenue and sat while it warmed. She heard the growl of Michael’s engine as he passed
I
, behind her, and caught a glimpse of a silver Cadillac Seville in the rearview mirror. So it was true-he was doing well. Six years before she would gladly have stuck pins in a voodoo doll of Michael Cur ran.

Tonight, however, she felt an inexplicable touch of pride that once, long ago, she’d chosen a winner. She sighed, put her car in gear, and started home.

TWENTY minutes later she pulled into the horseshoe-shaped driveway of the house she and Michael had shared, on

Croix
River
, it was a beautifully balanced Georgian-style home, with a center door, and windows on either side. The entry was guarded by four fluted round columns supporting a semicircular railed roof, and from the second story a great fanlight overlooked the front yard. The place had a look of permanence, of security-the kind of house pictured in children’s readers-the kind of house where only a happy family would live.

They had fallen in love with it on sight; then they’d gone inside and had seen the magnificent view, clear across the river to
Wisconsin
, and had gasped in mutual delight. Nothing that had happened since had changed Bess’s opinion of the house. She still loved it.

She pulled into the garage and entered the service door to the kitchen. She’d redone the room since her business had flourished, and had installed plush cream-colored carpeting in the attached family room. The color scheme there was a blend of smoky blues and apricots, inspired by the view of the river and the spectacular sunrises that unfolded beyond it.

Bess dropped her coat onto the long, loose-cushioned sofa in the family room and went to the window. The curtains were a blue and-apricot floral, which was repeated in two deep, chubby chairs.

She stood looking out at the winter view, thinking of Lisa . . . Of Michael . . . and of their unborn grandchild.

My God, we’re going to have a grandchild.

The thought brought a lump to her throat. It was difficult to hate a man with whom you were sharing this milestone.

The dots of window light glimmering here and there across the river became starbursts, and she realized there were tears in her eyes. Bess turned away from the window.

She built a fire in the family-room fireplace and sat on the
floor .
before
it, disconsolate. She wondered what Michael thought about becoming a grandfather, and where Randy was, and if Lisa truly loved Mark Padgett, and how she herself was going to survive this charade Lisa was asking of her. Already she was bluer than she’d been in months.

The telephone rang, and Bess glanced at her watch. It was going on eleven. She picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Hi.
Just checking in.”

“Oh, hi, Keith.”
She scooped her hair back from one temple.

“You got home late. How was the dinner with Lisa?
”.

“Not so good, I’m afraid . . . . Oh, Keith, Lisa is pregnant.”

At the other end of the line, Keith released
a swoosh
of breath.

“She wants to get married in six weeks.”

“To the baby’s father?”

“Yes. Mark Padgett.”

“Then I don’t understand. What’s the problem?”

That was one of the troubles with Keith. He often failed to understand. She had been seeing him for three years, yet in all that time he’d never seemed sympathetic at the moments she needed him to be.

Particularly when it came to her children.

“The problem is that I’m her mother. I want her to marry for love, not for expediency.”

“Doesn’t she love him?”

“She says she does, but-was “Then what are you so upset about?”

“It’s not that cut and dried, Keith”

“Well, what, then?”

Bess said
,.
”...Michael was there.”

Silence.
Then, “Michael?”

“Lisa set us up. She invited us both,
then
made an excuse to leave the apartment so we’d be forced to confront each other.”

“And?”

“And it was hellish.”

Silence again, before Keith said, “Bess, I don’t like this.”

“My seeing Michael?
For heaven’s sake, I haven’t spoken a civil word to the man in six years.”

“Maybe not, but it only took one night to upset you. Bess, I want to come over.”

“I don’t think you should. It’s nearly eleven, and I should go into the shop early in the morning.”

From his silence she anticipated his reaction.

“You’re pushing me away again, Bess. Why do you do that?”

“Please, Keith, not tonight. Randy will be home soon.”

“I wasn’t asking to stay overnight.” Though Bess and Keith were intimate, she had made it understood early in their
relationship that as long as Randy lived with her, overnights at her house were
out. Randy had been hurt enough by his dad.

“Keith, could we just say good night now?

I really have had a rough day.”

“Oh, all right,” he said with exasperation, “I won’t bother you tonight. What I called for was to see if you wanted to go to dinner on Saturday night.”

Bess became contrite. “I’m sorry, Keith. Yes, of course. I’d love to go. What time?”

“Seven.”

“All right, see you then. And, Keith, I really am sorry. I mean it.”

He expelled a breath. “I know.”

After Bess had hung up, she sat staring at the fire. What was she doing with Keith? Merely using him to slake her loneliness? He had walked into her store one day three years ago, when she’d been three years without a man, three years insisting that all men belonged at the bottom of the ocean. He was a little on the plain side, but one of the best sales reps she’d ever encountered. Known in the trade as a ragman, he’d wheeled in a big forty-by twenty-inch sample case and announced that he liked the looks of her store. He needed a gift for his mother, and if she would look through his fabric samples while he perused her merchandise, they each might find something they liked. If not, he’d never darken her door again.

Bess had burst out laughing.
So had Keith.

He bought a vase trimmed with glass roses, and she was indeed impressed with his samples. He called a week later and asked if she’d like to go out.

On their first date, he had been impeccably polite-no groping, no sexual innuendos, not even a good-night kiss. They had seen each other for six months before their relationship became intimate. Immediately afterward he’d asked her to marry him. For two and a half years she’d been saying no and he’d been growing more frustrated by her refusals. She had tried to explain that she wasn’t willing to take that risk again, that running her business had become her primary source of fulfillment. The truth was
,
she simply didn’t love him enough.

He was nice, but when she saw him, she only smiled, never glowed. When he kissed her, she only warmed, never heated.

And of course there was that thing about her children. He was jealous of Lisa and Randy, and slightly selfish.

If Bess had to say no to him because of a commitment with Lisa, he became piqued. He held that her stand on his sleeping at her house was ridiculous, given that Randy was nineteen years old and no dummy.

There were many facets of Keith that displeased her.

So the question remained,
Why
did she continue to see him?

The answer was plain: he had become a habit, and without him life would have been infinitely
more lonely
.

She sighed, then rose and wandered into the dining room and on through an archway into the living room. In the corner where two large windows met, a grand piano stood in the shadows-black, gleaming, silent since Lisa had grown up and moved away.

Bess switched on the music lamp. Its rays shone down upon an empty music rest and closed key cover. She wondered why she herself had given up playing. After Michael left, she’d shunned the instrument just as she’d shunned him.
Because he had liked piano music so much?
How childish. There were moments when the sound of the piano would have been comforting.

She opened the bench and leafed through the sheet music until she found what she was looking for. Then she raised the key cover. The notes shimmered through the darkened room as she found the familiar combinations and struck them.

“Me Homecoming”-Lisa’s song, Michael’s song.
Why she had chosen it, Bess neither dissected nor cared. As she played, the tension left her, and she began to feel an immense sense of well-being.

She was unaware of Randy’s presence, until she ended the song and he spoke out of the shadows.
“Sounding good, Mum.

“Oh, Randy!” she gasped. “You scared the devil out of me! How long have you been there?”

He smiled, one shoulder propped against the dining-room doorframe. “Not long.” He sauntered into the room and sat down on the bench, beside her. He was dressed in jeans and a brown leather jacket. His hair was black, like his father’s, and spiked straight up and finger-long on top, trailing in natural curls below his collar in back. Randy was an eye equals
Fatcher
, with a lopsided, dimpled grin, perfect teeth, and brown eyes with glistening black lashes. He had an unhurried manner, and had adopted the rough-cut look of the young pop singer George Michael.

Now he turned his head infinitesimally and unleashed a lazy quarter smile. “Been a long time since you played.”

“Um-hum.”

“Why’d you stop?”

“Why’d you stop talking to your dad?”