Chances Are (3 page)

“I thought he was smarter than that.”

She had been about to add that Aidan had probably been joking, but her mother’s remark stung. “Actually, I think it’s a very good idea. You’d save a lot of money, and I wouldn’t have to stand around in my underwear while your sisters ridicule the size of my butt.”

“Your aunts are the way they are. If I had a nickel for every insult they’ve sent my way, I’d own every B and B from here to Maine. You’re entirely too thin-skinned, Madelyn. You always have been.”

“Apparently my skin is the only thing about me that’s too thin.”

Rose quickly gave her the once-over. “Well, you have put on a few pounds since Christmas.”

“Thanks,” she snapped. “Nothing like words of comfort from the mother of the bride. Make sure you give my measurements to Crystal so she can use them in the documentary.”

“I didn’t say it was unbecoming. You’re tall. You carry it well.”

“Sure I do,” said Maddy. “I guess I’m not supposed to notice that medieval corset the saleswoman brought in with her.”

“Proper foundation garments can make or break a formal gown.”

“I really don’t need a lecture on girdles, Mother.”

“I never said you needed a girdle. Bridal gowns require a certain type of underpinning. You either have boning sewn into your dress or you wear a merry widow. It’s all part of the game.”

“Maybe I don’t want to play that game.”

“It’s one day of your life, Madelyn. It’s about family.”

“No, it isn’t,” she shot back. “It should be about Aidan and me. Nobody else.”

Rose turned away, but not before Maddy saw the sheen of tears in her eyes. Her mother never cried. The only time she had seen Rose cry was that terrible day last year when they had rushed Hannah to the hospital and for a while it had seemed they were going to lose her. It had been a day of intense emotions. Anger. Guilt. Fear. And then the almost punishing sense of relief when Hannah came back to them.

“Ma,” she said, swinging wildly between anger and guilt, “don’t cry.” She forced a laugh. She felt naked and vulnerable, standing there in her ratty cotton underwear. More like her mother’s child than the mother of a child of her own. “Get a shoehorn. I’ll try to squeeze into that dress if it means that much.”

“No need,” said Rose as she turned back toward Maddy. The tears had been replaced by the familiar steely resolve that had sent her daughter running clear across the country immediately after high school. “It’s almost one-thirty. I think everyone could use some lunch.”

“But why don’t we—”

“I’ll get your clothes.”

Maddy was trapped. Rose was already halfway out the door, and it was clear Maddy wasn’t going to follow her in her bra and panties. The only thing she could do was wait until the snippy saleswoman relinquished her sweater and jeans to Rose, then join the rest of the clan for lunch.

Humble pie with a side of crow.

A DiFalco family favorite.

 
“I FOUND A Priscilla of Boston with cap sleeves that would look wonderful on your daughter.” The sales associate, whose discreet name tag read
Dianne
, pointed to an explosion of ivory satin and lace draped across a padded chaise longue. “And in a ten, no less. You have no idea how difficult it is to find anything suitable in double digits. We try very hard to accommodate the fuller-figured bride, but—” Her sigh of disappointment wasn’t terribly convincing. “What can I say? Most of our customers maintain rigorous workout schedules, especially as the big day approaches.”

“We’re going to stop for the day,” Rose said, managing a polite smile when what she really wanted to do was rip out the woman’s artificial heart. “But thanks for all of your help.”

“She only tried on one gown.”

“That’s right,” Rose said pleasantly.

“You can’t make a decision based on one gown.”

“Of course you can’t,” Rose agreed. If there was one thing being an innkeeper had taught her, it was how to dissemble with the best of them. “That’s why we’re stopping for today and going out to lunch.”

The woman’s heavily Botoxed face approximated a human emotion. Amazing she could convey such disdain with so few moving parts.

“May I ask if she liked the Wang?” She flipped open a notebook and uncapped her pen. “I maintain a database of the prospective bride’s preferences.”

“That’s wonderful,” Rose said. “May I offer a suggestion?”

“Please do. I welcome input.”

“Next time, try not to insult the prospective bride about the size on the label. Not very good for business, dear, and even worse for the young woman’s confidence.”

It wasn’t the left hook she wanted to deliver, but that verbal jab to the chin implant was almost as satisfying. Rose had seen her daughter’s face when talk turned to dress sizes and untoned muscles, and she had wished profoundly that she had thought it through before arranging this shopping trip from hell. It was one thing for Rose to gently criticize her daughter’s expanding waistline or taste in clothes. It was something else again for anybody else to even think about it.

Rose was a lioness where Maddy and Hannah were concerned. The depth of her love had the capacity to terrify her. It made her vulnerable to life, to fate; and for a woman like Rose, that fed into her deepest fears. When she had first been diagnosed with breast cancer five years ago, her first thought had been for her daughter. She had stopped going to Mass a very long time ago, but the day before her surgery, she had found herself in the last pew at Our Lady of Lourdes, praying not for herself but that her daughter would be spared a similar fate.

“My daughter’s clothes,” she demanded of the salesclerk, feeling an overwhelming desire to escape the perfumed excess of the salon.

Although it was clear there wouldn’t be a sale—certainly not today—the salesclerk maintained her professional poise in the face of a disappearing commission. Rose was impressed. “I’ll bring them to her immediately.”

Suddenly she saw her daughter the way the salesclerk never could. Her beautiful body, not the body of a girl any longer, but the body of a woman. A mother. The faintest silvery lines across her belly and breasts. The gentle softness that came with giving birth and nursing a child. Maddy had never been more beautiful or more vulnerable to the criticism of others.

And she should have known better than to expose her child to the scrutiny.

“I’ll take them,” she said, then waited while the salesclerk fetched the faded jeans and hand-knit sweater from some secret cubbyhole far away from the Wangs and Acras and Priscillas.

Lucy aimed an uplifted brow at Rose from the far end of the bridal salon while her other sisters scowled and turned away. It might as well have been fifty years ago when they were squabbling over a poodle skirt and the boy next door. They no longer fought over clothes or men—thank God for that—but everything else in the universe was fair game, most especially their children.

Of course they weren’t children any longer. Except for Maddy, their daughters had been married and divorced and married again. They were already showing signs of outdoing their mothers in the marital sweepstakes, racking up numbers that would break your heart if you were foolish enough to think about it for too long. This would be Maddy’s first trip down the aisle, and Rose wanted her day to be everything blessed and special that a wedding day could be. But, most of all, she wanted the marriage to be a good one, the kind that grew stronger, grew deeper, long after the wedding albums had been tucked away.

The salesclerk returned with Maddy’s clothes. Rose thanked her, then slipped back into the private dressing room.

Maddy was slumped on the edge of the chaise longue in the corner, wedged in between a bolt of snow-blind white lace and a stack of design portfolios. She looked up at the sound of the door, then looked away when she saw it was Rose standing there with her sweater and jeans.

Rose handed her the clothes. “I figured you’d seen enough of our friend Dianne.”

Maddy slipped the bright yellow cotton sweater over her head and tugged it on. “Thanks.”

“We’ll wait for you by the cars.”

“Okay.”

Rose hesitated in the doorway. “This shopping expedition wasn’t a very good idea after all.”

“Really?” said Maddy. “And here I’ve been having a swell time.”

She wanted to apologize. The words “I’m sorry” balanced on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t bring herself to utter them aloud. Did wanting the best for your only child require an apology? Was dreaming about a storybook wedding fit for a princess a crime against the nation?

“Don’t take too long,” she said instead. “Bernino’s stops serving at two, and it’s a bit of a drive.”

“Something to look forward to,” Maddy mumbled as Rose closed the door behind her.

Whoever said that clearly never had children.

IT TOOK EVERY ounce of Claire Meehan O’Malley’s self-control to keep from dropping to her knees in front of Rose DiFalco and kissing her cocktail ring. She had been about to fake a heart attack in order to get out of that toxic dressing room when Rose unceremoniously kicked their collective asses out, and not a moment too soon.

Claire had always believed her own family had the market cornered on dysfunctional behavior, but after seeing the DiFalcos up close and personal, she had to admit there was a new contender for the crown. Compared to the DiFalcos, both the Meehans and the O’Malleys were rank amateurs.

Those two old cows, Connie and Antoinette, looked like they were counting down the seconds to a brawl. Claire crossed paths with them a few times a week, and she always found herself whispering a prayer of thanks that she didn’t have to look at either one of them over a breakfast table in the morning. No wonder their families were so screwed up. Generation after generation of DiFalco women continued to pick the wrong men with unerring accuracy.

Not that Claire was being judgmental. The cousins were a likable bunch—most of them, anyway—but their romantic escapades and mistakes were, in some cases, a matter of public record. Maddy’s own history was decidedly less flamboyant, but even she hadn’t escaped her family’s unbroken run of bad luck in love.

Gina and Denise were whispering together near an arrangement of rhinestone-studded Manolo Blahniks that cost more than her monthly mortgage payment. Suddenly she glanced around her at the Vera Wang dresses, the Manolos, and caught the unmistakable smell of money in the air. What was she doing there? Saks wasn’t her kind of store. She couldn’t afford a pair of panty hose in this place, much less wedding party attire. Unless they somehow ended up outfitting the bridesmaids at Target, she would have to find a way to gracefully decline the privilege or tell her youngest that college was out of the question.

“I don’t know who she thinks she is,” Connie was saying, loudly enough for everyone in the store to hear. “She can’t throw us out. She doesn’t own the place.”

“Take a look at my eye.” Toni thrust her face in front of Claire. “Is there any blood?”

Neither one seemed the slightest bit disturbed that the tattooed girl from PBS was frantically scribbling notes near a Badgley-Mischka.

Claire was about to say something uncharitable and possibly unforgivable when the dressing room door swung open, and Rose stalked out for a second time.

“Madelyn said she’ll meet us in the parking garage, and then we’ll go to Bernino’s for lunch.” She glanced around, mentally counting heads. “Kelly and Hannah aren’t back yet?”

“I haven’t seen them,” Lucy said, a faint frown pleating her forehead above her nose. Connie and Toni turned their backs and ignored the entire conversation.

“Kelly was going to take Hannah for some ice cream,” Rose said. “I wonder if—”

Opportunity didn’t have to hit Claire O’Malley in the head twice.

“I’ll find them,” she said, “and meet you at the cars.”

“I’ll go with you,” Lucy volunteered. “It’s a big mall. This way we can spread out.”

“It’s not that big,” she said to Lucy as soon as they ducked out of Saks.

“As long as they don’t know that, I’m safe.” She winked at Claire. “You think you’re the only one who needed an escape hatch?”

They ducked around a display of enormous Hummers that looked like SUVs on steroids.

“We’re not usually like this,” Lucy said as they stopped to check out a map of the mall opposite Tiffany.

“Every family has a bad day,” Claire said. It was easy to be magnanimous with Lucy, even when you didn’t mean it.

“Actually we’re on our best behavior.” Her eyes twinkled up at Claire. “Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

It was, but Claire kept that observation to herself. “My sisters and I once cleared the parking lot at Kmart with one of our fights.”

“The one near Wildwood?”

“Nope,” said Claire. “The big one up near A.C.”

Lucy whistled low. “I’m impressed. I would think they’d pretty much seen it all up there.”

“We put on quite a show,” Claire said. “My sister Vicky had to wear a wig for a month afterward.”

“I’m too much of a lady to ask for details,” Lucy said, laughing, “but it sounds like we’re all candidates for daytime television. Did you see the way our pierced friend has been taking notes? It terrifies me to think of what my sisters have told Peter Lassiter.”

“Don’t you meet him tonight?” Claire asked, trying to keep the judgmental tone from her voice. She hated Peter Lassiter and his entire crew, sticking their noses into places where they didn’t belong, asking questions nobody in her right mind would even consider answering.

“Seven-fifteen,” Lucy said. “He wants to see the scrapbooks from the dress shop I owned on Main Street.”

“Now there’s something worth reminiscing about,” she said. “Bet you don’t remember that I worked for you.”