Second Chance Love (19 page)

“Mother, are you saying you married Dad because he was rich?”

She shook her head. “This is real life, Steven, not a TV show. I had a few stars in my eyes when I met your father, but it wasn’t just the money. He was very handsome when he was young.” Margaret sighed. “Once I started going out with your father, I couldn’t face Gordon. He called and wrote me for years, but I avoided his calls and didn't write back. I just couldn’t. So many things were different then. You could avoid people if you wanted to. “

Worked out pretty well for you, Mother
.

She shifted, not easily. “Not long after your father asked me to marry him, I got one last letter from Gordon, telling me that he had met someone else. He said that she wasn’t me, but she was a lovely girl and if he didn’t hear from me, he was going to marry her. They were married fifty-three years, until she passed away two years ago. He sent me a letter again earlier this year. He’s still old-fashioned, I guess. Otherwise he'd have sent me an email, or even more barbaric, a Facebook message.”

Steve shook his head, once. “Okay. I don’t understand. I ask you why you’ve always been so distant to Lizzie, and you tell me about an old boyfriend that’s back in your life. Is there a connection between the fact that you chose Dad and his money over a poor farm boy, and the fact that I am choosing to marry for love?" He paused just too short a time for her to reply. "Have you been mean to Lizzie because you’re jealous? Are you really that small?”

If the barb had stung, Margaret didn't show it. “You’ve always seen things in black and white, Steven, but the world exists in shades of gray. I just wanted you to know some of what makes me see the world the way I do.”

Steve nodded. “Fair enough, Mother. The last twenty-four hours has given me a lot to absorb—"

“That’s fine." She nodded at the machinery. "When things like this happen, it changes how you see the world, at least for a while. I know we’ve never been as close as we could have been. I’d like to change that if we could."

Steve mastered the reply that appeared in his brain:
If 'we' could. When all the distance has been created not by we, but by you.

"I do have one thing I need to ask of you, though."

"Okay."

"The
Autumn Wonderland
charity event is coming up in two weeks. It’s our only fundraiser for the year. I’m the chairperson, but I'm not going to be able to handle it. I know it's a terrible time, with what's happening to the company right now, but can you take over for me?”

Steve neither knew nor cared whether his shock and anger showed on his face. His mind wandered back to the last charity event he had attended, a disaster that had almost ruined his relationship with Lizzie at its outset.
And now, with my world going to hell except when it comes to love, and she's had a heart attack and I've been up all night worrying about her, she mainly cares about a goddamn society event, and wants me to involve myself in it.

No. Just hell no, for a lot of reasons, starting with it's just a damn charity event and not important, and ending with I promised not to drag Lizzie into snake pits like that again. Even now, she has her priorities messed up. No
. He felt his control give way. "No. You'll have to find someone else. In the first place, I promised Lizzie not to put her through any more of your pretentious, snooty society bullshit.”

He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Elizabeth. That gentle, kind smile summarized everything he loved about her. “No, it’s fine," she said. "Things are different now. We’re stronger. Your mother needs us.” She looked at Margaret. “Just let us know what needs to be done, and we’ll do it. Steve is busy at the company, but my job at the bookstore isn't very demanding. I can make phone calls and arrangements from there.”

Margaret’s eyes softened. She opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again. Finally, she said, “Thank you, Elizabeth. That means a lot to me. When you leave here, have Steve take you to the house. On top of my desk, you’ll see a file marked ‘Autumn Wonderland.’ I’m afraid I’m a little behind in getting things organized for it. I just haven’t been feeling myself these past few weeks.”

“Don’t worry about a thing. We’ll take care of it,” said Elizabeth

“One more thing.” Margaret pulled her hand from beneath the sheet and reached toward Elizabeth. She could not hold it there long, and it fell in her lap. “Elizabeth, I owe you an apology.”

Elizabeth met her gaze, waited.

“Steven has pointed out to me that I have treated you poorly, but he didn’t need to do that. I already knew it. You did nothing to deserve that, and I am sorry.”

Elizabeth stepped to the bed and laid her hand on Margaret’s.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Two days later, Elizabeth was at
The Prints and the Pauper
, regretting her rash leap into the event planning business. She was an organized person with a memory worthy of her favorite fictional detectives, but knew very little about planning a society charity event.

What Elizabeth did not know, she would have to figure out. A part of her had held out hope of a quick recovery and some involvement by Margaret, but the tests had confirmed that Margaret had experienced what Dr. Narang called a Major Coronary Event. Regular people called it a heart attack. Margaret was well enough to leave the hospital, but far from strong enough to go home, much less embroil herself in event orchestration. Dr. Narang had suggested Park Center rehabilitation facility downtown, where Steve and Elizabeth could look in on her as often as they wished.

So Elizabeth sat at a table in a used bookstore, gazing at a diagram of the Grand Ballroom of the Men’s Athletic Club, moving tiny cardboard tables and chairs into different arrangements. The details were endless: finding someone to make the ice sculpture for the centerpiece, selling the tables at two thousand dollars each, working with the temp staffing companies…a never-ending list of ways in which she could make some mistake. Max was helpful with those things that she thought of, but could not answer her most pressing question:
What am I forgetting?

“Max, can you tell me who has provided tablecloths to previous events held at the Athletic Club?”

“According to reviews on Yowl dot com, Bertram’s Linens has provided that service in the last twelve months. Would you like me to connect you?”

Elizabeth sighed and added another sticky note to her growing pile. “Yes, please, Max.”

Before anyone at Bertram's answered her call, the front door of the store chimed in the noisy way that heralded Gail. Elizabeth had wondered whether Gail might quit her job once she won
Guest House Gestapo,
but Gail was level-headed about her windfall. “It sounds like a lot of money,” she had said in their first phone call, “but after they take all the taxes out of it, I can’t exactly move to Arizona and retire in style.”

As usual, Gail entered in mid-sentence: “…so she handed me this pumpkin spice candle. I finally had to ask, ‘What’s next, pumpkin spice pumpkin? Pumpkin spice douches?’ I mean, it seems like everything these days is pumpkin spice this or that. Hello, sugar. Do you have any plain old black coffee on?”

“You know I do.”

“Well, hello and hallelujah. If you had told me it was pumpkin spice too, I swear I was going to go back home, pull the covers over my head and…”

Gail's twelve-cylinder motor mouth was bearable only because she neither demanded nor expected attention. Elizabeth walked to the back room and got down Gail’s special cup, a fat, happy snowman, and filled it with steaming hot coffee. When she emerged from the back, Gail was giving the diagram a funny look.

“What in the world is all this?” Gail asked, gently poking at the diagram and cutout tables. “Are you playing with dolls these days?”

Elizabeth explained what had happened with Steve’s mother, and how she had suddenly become the city’s newest charity event planner.

Gail’s eyebrows shot up. “You are taking this over for her? When she’s been so mean to you? Elizabeth Coleman, you should be nominated for sainthood. I’ll tell you what. Let me go down to the shop for a few minutes and get Sharon started on unpacking and pricing the shipment we got in on Friday. Then I’ll be back to help you. Together, we can figure out anything. Thanks for the coffee, I’ll bring the mug back with me and you can fill it up for me again…”

Gail departed the store, the bell over the door jingling as loudly as before.

Gail had been right. Between the work Margaret had already done, Gail’s energy, Elizabeth’s organizational skills, and the still-strong influence of Steve and Margaret’s names, they pulled things together.

Two days before the event, Elizabeth went to the Park Center Rehabilitation facility to go over last-minute details with Margaret. She found Margaret sitting up in bed, reading a small book of daily affirmations. She closed it. “Well, good afternoon, Elizabeth. Are you ready?”

Elizabeth sat down beside the bed. “I think we are. I have this terrible feeling that I’ve forgotten something, but no matter how many times I go over the list, I can’t find anything.”

Margaret flipped through the folder Elizabeth had brought. “Let’s see. You decided not to use Thom Goodson as the emcee? I feel terrible that I didn’t already have someone lined up for you.”

“It’s fine. Everything has turned out great with that. I know Mr. Goodson has handled it for you in the past—"

“He’s just an old blowhard that laughs at his own jokes. He's a habit, not an emcee.”

"—but since this is to raise money for the arts, I thought it might be nice to have a host from the arts.”

Margaret nodded. “Makes sense. Who did you find?”

“Well, I belong to a mystery book club. Sometimes we have local authors talk at our meetings. Last year, we were lucky enough to have Tess Lincoln give a presentation, and she was wonderful—bright and funny and engaging. Since she lives here in town, I took a chance and asked her if she would do this for us, and she said she would. I think she’ll do a great job.”

Margaret nodded. “Good. I agree. Nice to have some fresh blood to stir things up a bit. Did you arrange to have Mario’s come in to handle the decorations? Their number was in the folder.”

Elizabeth nodded, and said, “Yes. I saw that you had used Jenson Party Supplies for the linen service, but by the time I saw that note, I had already contacted Bertram’s. I hope they'll do all right.”

“They’ll be fine. I had a falling-out with old Mr. Bertram a few decades ago, but he’s dead now, so that’s just water under the bridge.”

That's an interesting perspective for you to be taking now, Mrs. Larson, but I am not going to complain
.

Margaret flipped through several more pages of notes, then closed the folder with a shaking hand and laid it on her lap. “You have done a wonderful job, Elizabeth. It’s like you’ve been doing this all your life. Perhaps you missed your true calling.”

Elizabeth thought of the shelves in
The Prints and the Pauper,
crammed full of books that gave off that intoxicating aroma of old paper and binding glue. She thought of the quiet hours she spent at her little desk, bent over a book she had discovered. “No, I think I’ve been in the right place all this time. Well, if you can’t see anything I missed, then…” Elizabeth stood up to leave.

“Please, sit down. There are just a few other things I want to go over with you.”

Elizabeth sat back down and took out her notebook to take notes.

“You won’t need that. Have you decided what you are going to wear?”

Of all the things to forget!

"I'm not surprised, but you may be. Would you be so kind as to get up and open the door of the wardrobe there in the corner, please?”

Oh, no
. After a moment's hesitation, Elizabeth walked to the wardrobe and opened the door, ready to leap backward in case it contained something unspeakable. Hanging inside was a dress. As she pulled it into the light, her own hand shaking a little, the fabric shimmered radiance.

“I wanted to do something for you. I don’t know what I would have done without you these past few weeks. I suppose I would have had to ask Chelsea Stanton.” Margaret said it in the tone she might have used to describe eating a rat. “The last time I organized one of the galas with her, she was useless. I ended up doing it all." She rested for a moment. "I think it’s the right size. I have an eye for details like that.”

Elizabeth gawked. Depending on how the light hit the dress, it was either a deep burgundy or light cinnamon, with silver accents at the throat, shoulders and waist. She did not need to try it on to see that it was the perfect dress for her.

“Oh, Margaret. Thank you, but—"

“Don’t even start with that. Steve said you would try to decline. I told him what I am going to tell you: nonsense. We can either waste ten minutes arguing about it, at which time you will end up accepting it, or we can skip all that unpleasantness.” Margaret's tone and eyes were far gentler than the words. She drew in as deep a breath as she could and let it out. “Please.”

“It looks so expensive, I—"

“—have more than earned it with your hard work. Don’t you worry about the expense. I lost a lot on Larson Industries, but I didn’t have all my eggs in that basket. Steven’s father taught me a long time ago to diversify. I’ve had a little investment group with some of my friends for the last fifteen years, and we’ve done very well for ourselves. I’m well able to buy a beautiful dress like that without going hungry. I want to do this for you. It’s not enough to thank you adequately, but it’s a start.”

Like many before her when faced with the iron will of Margaret Larson, Elizabeth acquiesced.

“Now,” Margaret said. “I want you to wear this with it.” She reached out and retrieved a small jewelry case from the table beside her bed. “They aren’t expensive, but they are important to me. My grandfather gave them to my grandmother on their twenty-fifth anniversary. She gave them to me just before she died.” She handed the box to Elizabeth. “I’ll want them back after the gala, but it would mean a lot to me if you’d wear them with that dress.”

Inside the box was a long strand of pearls. Real ones, large ones.

Elizabeth felt tears well up, but held them in. She nodded, took two steps forward and hugged Margaret like fine china. Margaret hugged her back in the same way, but in her case it took all her might.

“All right. Now, one last thing. I am still embarrassed and ashamed of what happened at the Winterland Gala. I feel responsible for what Chelsea did, bringing up all that unpleasantness with your father. I don’t know why I had mentioned it to her. I have no defense, aside from pleading guilty to the charge of being a gossipy old lady."

Elizabeth folded her hands in her lap and waited, felt her guard go up a bit.

“I realize I am about to re-offend, but after the way I’ve acted, it’s only fair that I balance the scales somewhat. I hope that this might give you a new perspective.” She paused, breathed a few times. “There is a reason for the way Chelsea acts. Not only had she expected to reel Steven in, but she knows deep down that she has more in common with your family’s history than she’d like to admit.”

That took Elizabeth aback. Her own family had never been anything but poor, struggling to survive. Chelsea Stanton was the only offspring of Jefferson Stanton, of Stanton Box Manufacturing fame. She had been raised with every advantage. Despite her mother's best efforts, Elizabeth had more than once gone to bed hungry as a little girl. “I don’t see what you mean at all.”

“There are big skeletons hanging in their family’s closet. Unlike your family’s situation, Jefferson got away with things. It would be nice to think that money and influence don’t matter, but that’s not the world we live in.”

Margaret sighed and looked at the rainy afternoon outside her window.

“Jefferson and Lilly, his wife, were friends with Charles and I. We were godparents to Chelsea, and they were to Steven. One night in January of 1983, we went together to a dinner at the country club. I would have rather taken separate vehicles. I liked Lilly, but Jefferson could be insufferable.

I never liked nor trusted him. Charles often said, ‘Jefferson was born on third base, but he likes to tell the world he’s hit a triple.’ Still, Charles insisted that we ride together because he had some important piece of business he wanted to discuss before they got to the club.

"Once we got there, it was typical of those kinds of nights, lots of cocktails and smoking. The men gathered in one room, the women in another. It's not that we were exiled, but rather, we just didn’t care to sit in silence while they talked about nothing but business and sports. One man alone can be interesting, but a group of men have a way of combining noisiness and tedium.”