Changes (36 page)

“We're going to miss you too.” They would have nothing familiar except each other. Even her furniture was going into storage. There was no room for it in his house. And as the days progressed, Mel realized that this was not going to be easy.

On the fifteenth of December, two weeks earlier than her contract required, she did the eleven o'clock news for the last time, from New York. And she knew that approximately two weeks later, she would be coming on the air, on another network, from L.A., but this era in her life was over. Gone forever. And she cried as she put down her mike, and walked out of the studio, and outside Grant was waiting. He hugged her, and she cried in his arms, and he shook his head, like an astonished father, but he was proud of her too. She had done something good for herself, and he was glad. Peter Hallam was a fine man. Grant just hoped that everything would work: the careers, the kids, the move. It was a lot to ask. But Mel could handle it, if anyone could.

“Good luck, Mel. We'll miss you.” They had wanted to give her a party, but she had refused. She couldn't bear it. Her emotions were too raw now. She promised to come back and visit, and introduce everyone to Peter. To them it was a fairy story. She had gone to do an interview and fallen in love with the handsome doctor, but it all hurt so much now. Leaving them, closing the house, leaving New York.

“Good-bye, Grant. Take care.” She kissed his cheek, and walked away with tears running down her face. She was leaving all that was familiar to her and all her old friends, and five minutes later she left the building, the building where she had aspired to so much and gone so far, and now she was leaving, and when she got home that night, all she saw was a mountain of boxes. The movers were coming the next morning, and it would be Raquel's last day as well. They would slay at the Carlyle Hotel for the weekend, and cm Monday they would close on the house, she would pick up the white wool Bill Blass dress she'd bought at BendeI's, and the day alter, on December 19, they'd fly to L.A., five days before her wedding … her wedding … she sat up in the dark, feeling it all close in around her. Her wedding. She was getting married …

“Oh my God.” She sat in bed and looked at the chaos around her, and the tears slid slowly down her face, as she wondered what madness bad overtaken her life. Even the thought of Peter waiting for her in L.A. didn't console her.

CHAPTER 24

On Saturday the sixteenth of December, Mel stood in her bedroom on East Eighty-first Street for the very last time. The moving men had ransacked the house for two days, and the last truck had just rumbled down the street, to carry her “goods,” as they called them, to California, where everything but her clothes and a few small treasures she loved would go into storage. The rest simply wouldn't fit into Peter's house, he had told her.

The girls were waiting downstairs for her with Raquel, in the front hall, but she had wanted to see the view from her bedroom one last time. Never again would she lie in bed in the morning, looking out the window, listening to the birds in the small garden. There would be other birds in California, another garden, a whole different life. But it was impossible not to think of how much it had meant to her when she bought this house. It was a lot to give up for a man she loved, and yet it was only a house after all.

“Mom?” Val shouted up to her from the front hall. “You coming down?”

“I'll be right there.” She shouted back, her eyes dragging across the room for a last time, and then she ran quickly down the stairs, and found them waiting for her, their arms loaded with the gifts they had exchanged with Raquel, standing next to the valises they were taking to the hotel. And when Mel went outside to hail a cab she saw that there was a light snowfall sticking to the ground. It took her almost half an hour to find a cab, and when she came back to get the girls, she found them in tears, locked in Raquel's arms.

“I gonna miss you guys,” Raquel looked into Mel's eyes and smiled through her tears. “But you did okay, Mrs. Mel. He's a nice man.”

Mel nodded, unable to speak for a moment, and then she kissed Raquel's cheek and looked at the twins. “The cab's outside, girls, why don't you put your stuff in the front seat?” They trundled outside in their boots and parkas and jeans and warm scarves, and Mel found herself thinking that those days were over too, except when they went skiing somewhere, from now on.

“Raquel”—Mel's voice was hoarse from the emotion she felt—“we love you, remember that. And if you ever need anything, or if you change your mind about coming to L.A …” Her eyes filled with tears, and the two women embraced.

“It's gonna be okay,
hija
… you gonna be happy out there … don' cry …” But she was crying too. They had shared so many years, and together they had raised the girls. And it was all over now. Mel had given everything up for her new life, even Raquel.

“We're going to miss you so much.” A horn honked outside, and Mel hugged Raquel once more and looked around the darkened house. The closing was on Monday, and the new people were taking over the following day, and everything would be different. They would paint and paper the whole house, redo the kitchen, knock out some walls. She shuddered at the thought as Raquel watched her.

“Come on, Mrs. Mel, let's go.” She gently took Mel by the hand and they walked outside, and then Mel turned to lock her front door for the last time, feeling everything inside her go taut. But this was what she had wanted, and there was no turning back now.

They stood on the sidewalk side by side, Raquel in the new coat they had bought her as a Christmas gift that she had decided to open early this year, and Mel walked toward the cab. Mel had also given her a check that would tide her over for a month or two, and a reference that would win her any job. She pulled open the door of the cab and slid in beside the girls, and waved to Raquel as they drove away, all three of them crying in the backseat and Raquel crying and waving as she stood in the falling snow.

Once they got to the hotel, the girls were excited by the elaborate suite. They ordered room service, turned on the TV, got on the phone to their friends; Mel finally had a little time to herself. She called Peter from the separate phone in her room.

“Hi, love.”

“You sound beat. Are you all right?”

“Yeah, it was awful saying good-bye to Raquel and closing the house.”

“You'll be out here soon and that'll all be behind you, Mel.” He told her that he had gotten a stack of papers for her from the station in L.A. that day. She was due to start on the first of January, and they wanted to see her briefly at the station the minute she arrived.

“I'll call them on Tuesday when I come out.”

“That's what I told them too. Are you all right, sweetheart?” He knew how hard it was for her to leave New York, and he admired her for the courageous thing she had done. Even though he had asked her to marry him, he had had almost no hope of her doing that. It had all seemed like a dream to him, and now the dream was coming true.

“I' m okay, love. Just tired.” And depressed, but she didn't want to tell him that. It would be better once she was with him again, then the anguish of the change wouldn't be quite as sharp as it was now. “How's work?”

“Intense just now. We seem to have a house full of patients needing transplants, and no hearts. It's like a juggling act keeping ten balls in the air at once.” But she knew how well he did that, and she smiled to herself, and realized again how much she missed him. She hadn't seen him since their Thanksgiving trip to L.A., she hadn't even seen him since she accepted his proposal.

“How's Marie?”

“Doing better again. I think she'll be fine.” He was obviously in high spirits, and Mel felt better again when she got off the phone. And that night she and the girls ordered dinner in their rooms, and they went to bed early, and when they woke up the next day there was a foot of snow outside.

“Look, Mom!” For once, Jessica forgot her serious thoughts and she squealed like a little child. “Let's go to the park and have a snowball fight.” Which was exactly what they did, and afterward Mel suggested they rent skates, and they skated at Wollman Rink, laughing and teasing, and gliding, and falling down. Val didn't seem as enchanted with the plan as her mother and her twin, but in the end she was game and they all had a wonderful time, and they walked slowly back to the hotel, and had steaming cups of hot chocolate and whipped cream.

“I guess we're just tourists now.” Mel smiled. And the three of them went to the movies that night. The girls had plans with their friends for the next day, but they had nothing planned for that night. And on Monday morning, Mel went to the closing of the house, and then stopped at BendeI's to pick up her wedding dress, as planned. It was a simple white wool dress with a jacket that matched, in a beautiful textured cream-colored wool by Bill Blass. And the girls came with her and picked out dresses for themselves in a pale blue, and at Mel's suggestion, they bought the identical dress for Pam.

They were getting married on Christmas Eve at St. Albans Church in Beverly Hills on Hilgard Avenue across from UCLA, and there would be only a handful of guests, all of them Peter's friends, since Mel knew no one in L. A.

“It's gonna be weird with none of our friends there, isn't it, Mom?” Val looked concerned and Mel smiled.

“It's going to be that way for a while, until Peter's friends are our friends too.” Val nodded, and Jessica looked downcast. It reminded her again that they didn't know a soul in L.A. and had to go to a new school. She wasn't looking forward to that. Only Val didn't mind quite so much, it was easier for her because of Mark.

And on Monday night, Mel took them both to “21” for their last dinner in New York, and a limousine took them back to the hotel for their last night. The three of them stood looking out at the skyline before they went to bed, and Mel felt tears sting her eyes again. “We'll be back to visit, you know.” But she wasn't sure if she was reassuring herself or the girls. “And maybe you'll want to come to college here.” That was only two years away for them, but for her … except for visits, there would be no coming back. She had made an enormous step in every way.

The next day, leaving the Carlyle was not as painful as leaving the house had been. There was a sense of an adventure begun as they left, and the girls were in high spirits as they left for the airport in a limousine, and then boarded the plane. Two college students going home to L.A. had already spotted Jess and Val, and once the plane took off Mel hardly saw them again until they landed.

“Where have you two been?” She wasn't particularly concerned as they came back to their seats to land. There wasn't very far for them to go on a plane.

“Playing bridge in the back with two kids from L.A. They go to Columbia and they're going home for Christmas and they invited us to a party tomorrow night in Malibu.” Val's eyes shone and Jessica laughed and looked at Mel.

“Yeah, and I bet Mom will really let us do that.” She was wise to her mother's rules, and Mel laughed.

But Val tried again. “We could take Mark.”

“I think we're going to have some settling in to do.”

“Oh, Mom …”

But the plane touched the ground then, and it was bright and sunny outside, and the three of them looked around anxiously as they came off the plane, wondering which Hallams had come to the airport, but then Val gave a whoop as she saw Mark, and Mel saw that they were all there, even Matthew. She rushed into Peter's arms and he held her tight, and in that single moment she knew that she had done the right thing. She knew that with every ounce of her being, she loved him.

CHAPTER 25

Mel and the girls stayed at the Bel-Air until December twenty-fourth, and at five in the afternoon, a rented limousine came to pick them up, and drove them to St. Albans Church on Hilgard Avenue. She looked beautiful in the white wool dress, and the girls looked lovely in the blue ones. Mel was carrying a bouquet of white freesia mixed with white cymbidium orchids and baby's breath, Jess and Val had small bouquets of white stephanotis, mixed in with tiny spring flowers, and there were tiny knots of the same flowers woven into their shining hair.