Ladies' Night (63 page)

“You sure know how to charm a girl,” Grace said, her tone acidic.

He sighed. “Sorry. This isn’t easy for me. A lot’s happened, Grace. Do I regret what happened? Yeah. I do. J’Aimee was a mistake. Huge mistake. And I take responsibility for that. I’d like to think I’m a better man than that.”

“You used to be a better man than that,” Grace said quietly. “But there’s a lot I regret, too. Drowning your car was not one of my finer moments.”

He laughed. “Nor mine. But I guess I probably had it coming.”

“So. Where does this leave us?” she asked.

“I guess you don’t want to buy out my share of the house?”

She shuddered. The fact that Ben had just given her the closest thing to an apology she’d ever get from him didn’t mean she ever intended to spend another night in the house where he’d betrayed her.

“No thanks.”

“Didn’t think so. I’ll e-mail you the listing agreement. You can let me know if you think the asking price is realistic. I’d like to get out from under it as quickly as possible.”

“Whatever you want,” Grace said. “The faster it sells, the faster I can buy a house for myself.”

“Yeah. About that. I went to see the old man over there on Mandevilla.”

“Arthur. He told me. And he offered to sell it to me for a price I can’t pass up.”

“Good,” Ben said gruffly. “You should have a house of your own. And that place suits you, Grace.”

She was touched. “Thank you, Ben. That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me in a really long time.”

“See? I’m not a jerk one hundred percent of the time.”

“I know you’re not.”

“You might share that thought with Rochelle. She doesn’t have a very high opinion of me.”

“Mom? Have you talked to her recently?”

“Saw her today, as a matter of fact. After Dickie told me you’d been in an accident, I took flowers for you over to the Sandbox. She told me you weren’t there, but she wouldn’t say where you were staying. I’m guessing you’ve moved in with the new guy?”

Was that a note of jealousy she detected?

“No, I’m not living with Wyatt,” she said.

“None of my business, but are things pretty serious between the two of you?”

She couldn’t resist. “I’ll answer that if you’ll tell me what happened to J’Aimee. You said she’s gone? Did she leave before or after you accepted the new job?”

“You first,” Ben said.

“Yes, things are fairly serious between us. But his divorce isn’t final yet, either, and he has a young son, and there are complications with his ex. All that aside, he’s a great guy, and I think we have a future together. Now, you.”

“Christ,” he grumbled. “J’Aimee’s moved to California. End of story.”

“Nuh-uh, you don’t get off that easy,” Grace chided. “What’s she doing in California?”

“Auditioning for some crazy reality show she read about on the Internet. Look, Grace, I gotta go.”

“Not before you tell me what kind of a reality show,” Grace said. “You owe me at least that much, Ben.”

He mumbled something incoherent.

“What’s that?”

He mumbled again.

“I can’t make out what you’re saying, Ben.”

“It’s called
Homewreckers.
Got that? I came home from golf last week and she’d packed her crap and loaded up her car and announced she was going to Hollywood to get a part in a reality show about women who sleep with married men. In other words, home wreckers.”

Grace laughed so hard, she couldn’t catch her breath.

“Glad you’re amused,” Ben groused.

“Sorry,” she said, gasping for air. “Very sorry. Good-bye Ben.”

*   *   *

Wyatt came back and shared his key lime pie with her, and it was so good, she made him buy her a second slice. Then they got in the truck and drove up the beach. They didn’t discuss it, but Grace had a feeling she knew where they were headed.

He parked the car at Coquina Beach. “We’re still not supposed to have a dog on this beach,” Grace pointed out, nodding at Sweetie, who was perched in her lap.

Wyatt opened his door and then came around and opened hers. “I won’t tell if you won’t tell.”

They left their shoes on the soft carpet of pine needles and walked down to the water’s edge. Grace stood still and let her toes sink into the pale gray sand. She looked down at the warm water swirling around her ankles, at the foam frosting the waves as they lapped at the shore. A lifetime ago, she’d felt a suffocating panic, strapped into Ashleigh’s car, with the water rising around her knees. Now, with Wyatt’s hand clasped in hers, she felt as light as the gull’s feather that floated past.

She inhaled and exhaled. “This is good. This is what I needed.”

They walked for nearly an hour, until the brilliant orange sun hovered just above the tops of the Australian pines. Then they found a picnic bench and settled in to watch the show.

“I talked to Ben,” she said, with Wyatt’s arm thrown casually around her shoulders.

“Oh?”

“He’s ready to settle. I think his lawyer saw the handwriting on the wall. Anyway, it turns out he’s accepted a new job in New York. He’s moving immediately, and he wanted to know if I wanted to buy out his share of the house.”

“The mansion?”

“Whatever. There’s nothing there for me now.”

“Is the girlfriend going with him?”

“No. She’s gone to seek her fame and fortune in Hollywood. Ben didn’t sound too heartbroken about it. In fact, I think he was relieved.”

Wyatt turned to look at her. “How about you? Are you relieved? To have her out of the picture?”

She shrugged. “Funny you should ask. I find myself curiously apathetic about J’Aimee. Guess I’ve let go of the anger. I wonder what Paula would say about that.”

“I think she’d say you’ve had a growth moment,” Wyatt said, making two-fingered quote marks in the air.

“Maybe I have,” Grace mused. “I’ll have to write about that in my journal.” She reached over and laced her fingers through his. “How ’bout you? Had any growth moments of your own lately?”

“As a matter of fact, I have. A couple of them, actually.”

“Wanna share?” She kept her tone light.

“Dad and I had some long talks this week. Turns out, he’s not opposed to my selling Jungle Jerry’s to the state for a park.”

“Really? So … it’s a done deal?”

“We’re dealing with the state of Florida, Grace. Everything works at a snail’s pace with them. But it turns out they’ve got some kind of federal grant to develop what they call urban parklands. Smaller parks, under fifty acres, like ours, where the emphasis will be on community education rather than recreation. We’d keep the original gardens, get rid of the old playground equipment, and, in its place, develop demonstration gardens for heirloom Florida fruits, vegetables, and flowers. The guy with the state seems to think there’s a good chance I’d be offered the job as park superintendent, or whatever they call them these days.”

“That’s great, Wyatt!” she said, beaming. “It sounds perfect for you.”

“I know. If I had to write my dream-job description, this would be it.”

Sweetie perked up her ears and gave a low growl. They both looked up and saw an elderly man inching slowly down the beach toward them. He was shirtless and his sun-browned skin gleamed in the dying sunlight. Baggy black shorts hung from his hips to just above mahogany-colored knobby knees. Below these he wore what looked like white surgical stockings and thick-soled black rubber sandals. He didn’t appear to see or hear them—or Sweetie.

The old man wore a pair of enormous earphones connected to an unwieldy metal detector, and his eyes were glued to the sand as he waved the detector’s wand back and forth over a three-foot-wide swath of sand.

Grace nodded in his direction. “You think he ever finds anything valuable? From the looks of him, he must spend hours and hours with that thing.”

“He probably finds lots of bottle caps and pennies. Maybe the occasional set of keys or a piece of jewelry. Probably just enough to keep him in gas and beer,” Wyatt said.

“But he never gives up. And he walks for miles. I’ve seen him every day this week, on the beach outside Mitzi’s condo. I guess it gives him something to do,” Grace said.

“You said you had a couple growth moments this week?” Grace asked idly, her eyes following the treasure seeker’s progress. “What was the other one?”

“Mm-hmm,” Wyatt said. He rested his lips briefly against her right temple. “Callie showed up at the park again yesterday, begging me to give her a job. And another chance.”

Grace half stood and tried to pull away, but Wyatt gently tugged her back down beside him.

“I told her no,” he said, placing his hand on her cheek. “Hell, no. What you said just now—that there’s nothing there for you—back at your old house, with Ben. That’s how it is with me and Callie. I wish her well, for Bo’s sake, but that’s it.”

“You’re sure?” Grace held her breath.

“Never surer,” Wyatt said. “It’s you and me now, kid, if you’ll have me.” Slowly, he slid off the thick gold band on his left ring finger. He stood up, cocked his throwing arm back, and made his pitch.

“This is me, letting go,” he said.

The wedding band spiraled and looped, the dull gold catching glints of the fading sunlight. It landed fifty feet away, in the soft sand, maybe twenty yards in front of the old man, who seemed not to see it.

“Good arm, huh?” Wyatt said, admiring his own prowess.

Grace wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed her approval. “Good arm, good man,” she murmured. “Good everything.”

Epilogue

True Grace, Feb. 14

The old rules of etiquette for second marriages were stern and absolute. In her starchy 1957
Complete Book of Etiquette: A Guide to Gracious Living,
Amy Vanderbilt opined that the second-time ceremony must be small, and that the “mature” bride should never wear white or a veil, or, heaven forbid, expect wedding gifts. She cautioned, too, that many ministers would actually refuse to perform a second wedding in a church! Invitations should not be engraved, as with a formal first wedding, but a handwritten note would be acceptable.

Thankfully, wedding rules these days have been relaxed, or sometimes, totally discarded. Although I’m a traditionalist at heart, for our own second wedding, my intended and I wanted something intimate and meaningful, with just a few close friends and family members.

We actually didn’t tell our guests that they were coming to a wedding at all. Instead, we invited them to what we simply billed as a garden party. Of course, we have the good fortune to have access to one of the most beautiful settings I can imagine, Wyatt’s family’s small but charming botanical park, here on Florida’s Gulf Coast.

The party was to be the last private family party at Jungle Jerry’s, an old-timey Florida tourist attraction founded by Wyatt’s grandparents shortly after World War II, before the park is turned over to the state of Florida.

Our guests arrived at the park’s front gate at dusk and were ferried to the party site by golf carts. When they reached the small enclosed butterfly garden, they were greeted with glasses of pink champagne, iced tea, or locally brewed beer.

Wyatt and I mingled with our guests and enjoyed the food he and I prepared together from local farms and fishermen—stone crab “martinis,” chilled shrimp and avocado gazpacho, and crab beignets with pineapple-mango salsa. All the food was set out on rustic wooden picnic tables that were hand-built years ago by Wyatt’s grandfather, with centerpieces of hibiscus, lilies, orchids, and other flowers picked right from the gardens.

Shortly before sunset, a small string quartet arrived and began to play classical music. At that point, we invited everybody to be seated in a semicircle of battered vintage lawn chairs and proceeded to the surprise event of the evening—our wedding!

The minister, a family friend who happens to be a regular at my mother’s bar, stepped in front of a weathered wooden trellis, which was lit by hundreds of tiny white fairy lights and blooming with pale pink New Dawn roses.

When the wedding march started, I joined Wyatt in front of the makeshift altar.

Amy Vanderbilt says that for a second-time-around wedding, the attendants should be limited to one each for the bride and groom and should be the bride and groom’s age. But, since Amy’s long gone, we broke the rules—just a little.

The bride (that’s me!) wore a 1960s vintage lace-over-silk minidress dyed the same exact hue as the roses. My bouquet was one made for me by Wyatt, from flowers he grew at the park, including hot-pink lilies, deep-violet hydrangeas, and my favorites—heavenly white gardenias. No other flowers were necessary, since the scent of the orange blossoms from the citrus gardens blanketed the late-afternoon air.

I promised Wyatt I wouldn’t ask him to get too dressed up, so he chose his own khaki slacks, a nice white dress shirt—and in a major concession to the importance of the occasion, a navy blue blazer, which he promptly ditched right after the ceremony. He also wore a boutonniere—of rosemary and white phlox clipped from the garden at our tiny newly restored cottage.

Since my own father is deceased, Wyatt’s dad, Nelson, agreed to give me away. Wyatt chose his six-year-old son Bo as his best man. Nelson wore his best (and only) good gray suit, and Bo was heartbreakingly adorable in his own khakis and blue blazer.

I’d begged my mother to be my maid of honor, but she gracefully declined with the excuse that she didn’t want anybody to mistake her for a maiden. As if!

Instead, my friend Camryn agreed to be my attendant. Camryn loves fashion, so she wore a chic one-shouldered deep-violet silk dress by a designer so trendy I’d never heard of her. And spike heels—Camryn says she feels barefoot unless she’s wearing at least four-inch heels—even during a garden wedding in February.

Amy Vanderbilt probably never considered the idea of including a pet in a wedding party, but since our little rescue dog, Sweetie, is such an important part of our blended family, she had to have a role in our big day. Bo was proud and happy to walk her down the aisle, although he did state loudly that he thought the pink tulle ruffle I fastened around her neck was “disgusting.”