Kiss Me Hello (22 page)

Bonnie was sitting in her usual place. Rafe Corazon was with her. A queasy look came over her face when she saw Sara at the door.

“Halloo,” Peekie called out from the espresso bar. “The usual?”

“How about some peppermint tea instead?” Sara said. She pointed at Bonnie who was starting to collect her things. “Stay there.” She sat down across from Bonnie. “I have something for you.”

“A subpoena?” Bonnie said nervously. She looked at Rafe.

“
Ya
me voy
, ladies.” Rafe laughed and raised his hands. “This is my cue to get back to work.”

“Oh.” In dismay, Bonnie watched him leave the shop.

She looked different. Her hair was looser, and her outfit was simple, slacks and a nice top. Her makeup was less intense, not so plastic. She was less gorgeous. More pretty.

“I tried to tell you before,” Sara said. “I’m not angry with you.”

“You’re not mad that I accused you of murder and almost had you arrested.”

“Well, when you put it like that…” Sara shook her head and smiled. “No. I’m not. It was a weird night, and Bram was acting weird. The problems in my marriage weren’t your fault.”

“That’s generous.” Peekie put a pot of tea on the table in front of Sara. “Isn’t it, Bonnie?”

“Not really,” Sara said. “In a way, it’s selfish. I want to live forward now, not look back.”

She didn't want to hold grudges ever again. She’d let go of her resentment of her dad. She’d forgiven Bram for being screwed up. She’d even forgiven herself for misunderstanding Bram all these years. She wasn’t going to waste her time “hating on Bonnie” as Bram once put it.

“Well, then,” Bonnie said. “What is it?”

“What is it?”

“You said you have something for me.”

“Right. That first day I came to Pelican Chase, at the rehab center I heard you ask Aunt Amelia where something was. I forgot all about it until I found this in the house. I thought it might be what you were looking for.” Sara handed Bonnie the journal. “I think it belonged to your mother.”

“Oh, my god.” Bonnie opened the journal and scanned a few pages. “I knew she must have kept a journal. I knew it. Dad said she was always writing in one when they…when they were together.”

“That’s wonderful then,” Peekie called over her shoulder on her way to help a customer at the register. “A real treasure.”

“It is.” Bonnie leafed through the pages. “I asked Amelia about it a million times, and she always blew me off.” She looked up, her eyes brimming with tears. “Thank you.”

“I’m just glad I found it,” Sara said. “I was cleaning out the aerie—the room at the top of the house. I found it in the desk up there, in a drawer underneath some porcelain snowdrops.”

“What are you going to do with the place?” Bonnie said. “I always dreamed of restoring it to its former glory, but Amelia wasn’t interested.”

“I think it would make a great bed and breakfast,” Sara said.

“A wedding spa,” Bonnie said, hugging her mother’s journal.

“Spring weddings on that front lawn would be lovely,” Sara said. A wave of nausea washed over her, and she sipped her tea. The peppermint aroma alone made her feel better. “My wedding was from hell.”

“I’m sorry,” Bonnie said. “Truly.”

“I laugh about it now,” Sara said. “I was pregnant. One day Bram said let’s go get married. We can go to Tahoe and just do it. I agreed. I was still pretty religious then. He wanted to do the right thing. And I loved him.

“Anyway, by the time we got up to South Lake Tahoe, it was late. At the wedding chapel, they said we had to get a license and the closest place was the clerk’s office in Carson City. So we drive to Carson City. By then it’s dark. We have to go to the back parking lot. There’s a dim light from a bare light bulb on these rickety old stairs up to the back door where someone buzzes us in.

“We get to a room with a huge woman sitting behind a desk. I mean she’s huge, like a character from a Peter Max cartoon. You know, like that cartoon movie
The Yellow Submarine
. She’s completely white. Pale white skin, white clothes, white hair piled up high on her head. We sign a bunch of papers and I write a check and we go off with our license back to South Shore.

“We find the only wedding chapel still open. The guy that marries us is the tallest man I’ve ever seen in my life. He looks just like Lurch from
The Addams Family
. His assistant is a tiny little guy like something out of a David Lynch movie who sells Bram a bouquet of blue and white plastic roses for me.

“By the time we get out of there I'm starving. All I want is something to eat, but no nice restaurants are open. In Tahoe! Can you believe it? We stop at a Denny’s then drive back down the hill. My wedding day.”

“Not art,” Bonnie said.

“Hardly.” Sara sipped her tea. “You know, a wedding spa isn’t a bad idea. It might be just the thing for Turtledove Hill. A way to atone for my insult to the gods of marriage.”

Bonnie shifted in her seat and looked down at the journal in her lap. One little tear rolled down her cheek. “That was my thought,” she barely whispered.

“Of course, I’d need a partner if I was going to do it right,” Sara said. “Someone who had a great sense of style.”

Bonnie’s eyes grew large, so full of hope that was cruel to keep her waiting.

“Yes, Bonnie. I mean you. Do you think we could work together?”

“I don’t know,” she said frankly. “But I’d like to try. I have a lot of ideas.”

At least she was honest about it. Sara took that as a good sign. “Let’s get together soon and talk about it seriously.” She left Bonnie with her mother’s journal and went to the register to pay for the tea.

“Peppermint tea, eh.” Peekie said. “Are you sick?”

“Not really.” Sara needed to tell Bram about the baby first. He deserved that much. “So how are things with Spot? I’ve been out of the loop these last few weeks.”

“There are no
things
with Spot,” Peekie said. “We are arch nemeses.”

“I don’t think so.” Sara raised an eyebrow.

“Shut it, now.” Peekie slapped her playfully with the receipt.

“Vain to deny it, Peekie. I know what I know.”

“One dance does not a love affair make,” Peekie said as Sara turned to go.

Bonnie met her at the door. “Be careful, Sara,” she said. “Bram is…he isn’t safe.”

“I appreciate that, Bonnie, but he’s not dangerous. Not anymore. He doesn’t remember anything. Nothing about Pelican Chase at all. I had to tell him about Aunt Amelia. He didn’t even remember quitting his job.”

“Just be careful,” Bonnie said.

“I will,” Sara said. “Trust me. Bram will never hurt me again.”

- 26 -
Song of Songs

T
HE MAILBOX AT THE END
of the driveway was usually full of junk mail. Today there was also a certified letter from the school district informing Sara that her layoff was final. There was also a card from Cindy with a picture of her and Dad and Becca.

Sara wasn’t about to pursue a relationship with Cindy—or Dad, for that matter—but she was glad the bad blood was gone, and it was nice getting to know Becca. Since reconnecting, Sara and her little sister had exchanged quite a few emails. In fact, since the internet was installed at the house Sara was on line far more often than Bram.

He still wasn’t himself. In the hospital he had to learn basic functions. At home he’d had to learn to use the computer and to drive again. He’d asked where the stick shift was, forgetting that his new truck had an automatic transmission. Dr. Kasaty had said there was probably residual brain damage, so slight it didn’t show up on tests.

There was one other big change. It was like he’d had a personality transplant. He was nice. She never realized how not nice Bram was until this new guy showed up for comparison.

He was sitting on the veranda wall now, leaning against the stone pillar, reading a book. He waved as she drove in, his face alight with pleasure. He never used to be so happy to see her. She parked in the driveway and joined him on the veranda.

She wished she could forget that deep down he wanted to kill her.

He smiled. “How is your day so far?” His voice was deeper, or maybe it just seemed so because he was so much calmer these days. Happy to be alive. “Did you see your friends?”

“I did. Peekie and Bonnie both say hi.”

“That’s nice.”

He really didn’t remember who they were. “Bonnie wondered when you were going to finish writing your new book.”

“Oh, I don’t know. It doesn’t hold any interest for me now. I thought I might try something else. Something set in Pelican Chase before the war.”

“Which war?”

“Good point,” he said. “There have been so many.”

She might as well get this over with. She hopped up next to him on the wall and dangled her legs over the side. “I need to talk to you about something. I don’t want you to hear about it from someone else after you leave.”

He swung his legs over the wall and put the book down between them. She felt a twinge of anxiety. It was one of the leather-bound volumes from Aunt Amelia’s library. The collection had been started by Joss’s father, and many of the volumes were rare books and first editions.

“This was my mother’s book—favorite book,” he said.

“
Jane Eyre,”
Sara said. “I didn’t think you liked nineteenth century novels.”

“Sure I do. The later ones are better.
The Portrait of a Lady, He Knew He Was Right. Middlemarch.
But
Jane Eyre
has a perfection all its own,” he said. “I wanted to revisit Jane and Rochester. See if their connection was as powerful as my memory of it.”

“You’re so different now.” She looked away from him. This kind of talk was dangerous, made her want to ask him to stay. To start over. To try again.

“Do you really believe that?” He touched her hand, made her look at him. His gaze bored into her, as if her answer meant the world.

Of course she wanted to say yes. Of course she wanted it to be true. And it hit her. He’d become like Joss. He saw her now. She’d gotten so used to not being seen by people who supposedly loved her that she’d almost disappeared to herself.

Not being seen. It was like not existing. Her parents never saw her. They saw a mythical perfect daughter who never existed. Bram never saw her. He saw a wife he made up in his head.

Joss saw her, Sara, for who she was. When he looked at her, he saw her, and he wanted to know her better. Bram looked at her that way now. But would he stay like this or revert back to his old self?

She couldn’t risk it. She had to think of more than just herself now.

“I saw Dr. Kasaty this morning,” she said. “I’m going to have a baby.”

“That does it.”

He jumped down from the wall and went down on one knee. He took her hand in his and looked up imploringly. “Marry me, Sara,” he said. “For god’s sake, marry me.”

They both looked at her bare left ring finger. She’d removed her wedding band the morning after he tried to throw her down the stairs.

“You mean renew our vows?” She felt sick to her stomach, and not because of the baby. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

“Sara,” he said. “If you had known me only since I came home from the hospital, if I was a different person, if it was impossible that I could ever be that other man ever again, then would you marry me?”

Wait a minute.
“You called me Sara.”

“I love you, Sara. I love you so much, I couldn’t leave you. I saw the light, Sara, and I turned away because you’re a brighter light. You’re the light of my heart, of my soul.”

She caressed his cheek. “You called me Sara.”

He turned her palm to his lips and kissed it. Her heart pounded, and she had to make herself breathe. “
The flowers appear on the earth,”
she said
, “the time of singing has come, and…”

“… and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.”
He completed the verse.

“Joss.”

“Yes. I’m Joss.”

She looked into his eyes, and she knew it was true. “But how?”

“It’s a jumble. I had resigned myself to the light. I swear. I didn’t fight it. But the bell rang, and suddenly I saw you. I felt your fear and loneliness. You said Bram was dead. And then I was in his hospital room. The nurses were disconnecting the monitors.”

“Good lord.”

“He was gone, Sara. Like Amelia and Eleanor, there was nothing. The next thing I knew, everything changed. I was looking at the world—at you—through these eyes.”

“What do you remember?”

“Everything.”

“Is Bram…”

“Bram is gone. I mean I remember everything of my life.”

“Everything.”

“I remember Olivia. I remember the war—which I could have done without. I even remember how I died.”

“Oh, Joss. They found your body. They said you were shot.”

“That’s right. One day I brought flowers to Daniel’s grave, and I had a feeling someone was watching me, but I saw no one at the cemetery. When I got home I felt restless so I went for a walk along the cliffs to think about what I was going to do with my life.”

“Not return to the vineyards?”

“I was never going to make a good farmer. Jeremiah Poole does far better with the vineyards than I ever will. Did, I mean. I keep forgetting that was over sixty years ago. I was happy to let him continue the lease. In fact, while on my walk I decided to sell him the vineyards as he’d long desired.”