All Is Bright (3 page)

“Water? That’s ridiculous. Get her a gin and tonic.”

“Who’s got the gin?”

A purse appeared, a liver-spotted hand ducked inside it, and a moment later a silver flask emerged and was pressed upon me. “You’ll have to make do without the tonic.”

I took a sip. It burned going down, in a good way.

“You know what?” I said, looking around the table. “That was exactly what I needed. Thank you. Can we start over?”

“Elise, meet the Seven Widows of Windham,” Nana said.

“Six, unless you’re introducing yourself to your own granddaughter,” pointed out one of the women, who was wearing a homemade pin that said, “I’m a Jew. Don’t serve me that blasted Jell-O.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said. I took in a shuddering breath and tried to smile. “I was just feeling sort of emotional. My old boyfriend got engaged last night.”

“Oooooooh,” one of the women said. “Say no more. Actually, please do say more.”

“My daughter’s over there with her husband,” another women whispered. “I have to go sit with them in a minute, and they’re as dull as paste. I’d so much rather be here, in the middle of the action.”

A woman in a blue wrap dress nodded. “My kids are in Cleveland. Said it was too hard to get here for the holiday.”

“My son’s coming in January,” said another. “He invited me to visit him, but his kids have the flu again. ”

“Again? Those kids get the flu every month. Of course, with six of them, they’ve probably just been passing around the same disease all these years.”

“Can all you biddies stop jabbering and let Elise talk?” the tallest woman of the group spoke up. “So . . .” she prompted me. “Your boyfriend broke your heart?”

I shook my head. “I broke his. He wanted to marry me.”

“Were you in love with someone else?” Seven pairs of bright eyes were fixed on me; it was hard to tell who had asked the question.

“There isn’t anything you can say that would shock us,” someone—I think it was the woman in a blue dress—said when I hesitated. “Between us, we’ve got three divorces, one face-lift and possible other unconfirmed work, two adulterous affairs—of course they were long ago, but one was interracial, which adds an extra bit of spice—a gambling addiction—”

“It’s an enjoyable habit, not an
addiction
,” the woman to her left shouted.

“—and heaven knows what else,” the woman in blue concluded.

So I took a deep breath, and then I started my story with the sweet, surprising kiss on the school bus coming home from that track meet. Over slices of turkey and mashed potatoes and broccoli and secret sips of gin from the flask circling the table, I described our reconciliations and final breakup.

“So you did love him,” a widow named Betty said.

I nodded. “Just not enough. Or maybe not in the right way.”

“You were right to let him go,” she said. Her eyes grew distant. “I married a guy I cared for. And two years later, I met the love of my life.”

“What happened?” I whispered.

“I stayed married to the first guy. The second guy married one of my friends. And I never stopped wondering, ‘What if?’”

I squeezed her hand.

“San Francisco? That’s where you’re living now?” Thelma, the tallest widow, appraised me through narrowed eyes over the rim of her coffee cup. “I’ve got a great-nephew who lives in Seattle.”

“It is in another state, you know,” Nana pointed out.

Thelma batted away the objection. “Oh, they’re all having sex over the Internet now anyways. What I was going to say is, my nephew travels all the time for work. He goes to San Francisco regularly.”

“Is this the guy who sent you the video showing how to do Beyoncé’s moves?” someone asked.

Thelma nodded. “‘All the Single Ladies.’ We practiced it last week, but we didn’t let Betty do the pelvic thrusts on account of her osteoporosis.”

“They were just jealous of my moves,” Betty said.

With each laugh, each sip of gin, each touch, I began to feel better.

* * *

Nana and I stayed in her room until almost ten o’clock, sitting next to each other on her bed, talking and sharing the box of Godiva I’d brought. Neither of us wanted to say good-bye.

“You know, I don’t think you truly regret breaking up with Griffin,” Nana said. “Hold on, is that the dark caramel you’re taking? Put it back, young lady, or I’m going to press the emergency button next to my bed.”

“I already licked it,” I said.

“Liar,” Nana said. “You take the milk chocolate caramel. Anyway, I was going to say that you don’t begrudge Griffin happiness, do you?”

I nodded. “I
wanted
him to find someone else, partly because then I wouldn’t feel so guilty, but mostly because he deserves to. So why am I conflicted about it? What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing.” She smoothed my hair back from my face with her right hand, which wasn’t as crippled as her left one. “Things would have changed anyways, you know. Sounds like they already were changing. You’re happy in San Francisco, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “I miss it here, though. I miss you and Dad.”
And I miss Janice.

Nana’s hand came to rest on mine. “But we’re still in each other’s hearts. Even if we don’t see each other as much. Even through changes.”

“Always,” I said.

“What do you think about the great-nephew in Seattle?” Nana asked.

“I kind of like the idea of a guy who sends a group of eighty-five-year-old women Beyoncé’s dance moves,” I admitted.

“Whoever he is, wherever he lives, you’re going to find him,” she said. Her voice was as gentle as a whisper. I knew I had to go soon, because she was getting tired, but it seemed important for her to tell me this one last thing: “But you won’t forget the ones you leave behind. You’ll always love them, too. I think that’s all most of us really want. To feel like we matter. To know we’re loved.”

* * *

I drove home extra slowly, wary of black ice and other motorists who might be full of hot spiced rum, and it was almost midnight when I pulled into Dad’s driveway. I checked the car to make sure I’d removed every bit of trash before I got out, since he wouldn’t be back home for two more months. Tomorrow morning I’d clean out the refrigerator, sweep the floors, and turn down the heat before heading out to catch my flight. I’d take a final look at Griffin’s house through my bedroom window, then shut the door.

Something was on our front porch.

As I came closer I saw it was a box, maybe a foot and a half long and equally as wide, wrapped in red paper and tied with a big silver bow. I brought it inside and turned on a lamp in the living room, and then, before I even took off my gloves and coat, slowly untied the bow and peeled back the paper.

I opened the lid of the box and saw a burst of yellow, the shine of a strip of satin trim.

I heard her words again, as clearly as if Janice was standing next to me:
I always feel better when I curl up with it and think about all the love stored in it. It’s the most special thing I own.

I lifted the blanket out of the box and held it against my heart; then I closed my eyes.

The story continues with a twist: Now it’s told from Ilsa’s point of view in
Love, Accidentally
, the new eShort Story by Sarah Pekkanen, available now for download from your online retailer.

Read on for a first look at Sarah Pekkanen’s dazzling new novel

Skipping a Beat

Coming in February 2011 from Washington Square Press

When my husband, Michael, died for the first time, I was walking across a freshly waxed marble floor in three-inch Stuart Weitzman heels, balancing a tray of cupcakes in my shaking hands.

Shaking because I’d overdosed on sugar—someone had to heroically step up and taste-test the cupcakes, after all—and not because I was worried about slipping and dropping the tray, even though these weren’t your run-of-the-mill Betty Crockers. These were molten chocolate and cayenne-pepper masterpieces, and each one was topped with a name scripted in edible gold leaf.

Decadent cupcakes as place cards for the round tables encircling the ballroom—it was the kind of touch that kept me in brisk business as a party planner. Tonight, we’d raise half a million for the Washington, D.C., Opera Company. Maybe more, if the waiters kept topping off those wine and champagne glasses like I’d instructed them.

“Julia!”

I carefully set down the tray, then spun around to see the fretful face of the assistant florist who’d called my name.

“The caterer wants to lower our centerpieces,” he wailed, agony practically oozing from his pores. I didn’t blame him. His boss, the head florist—a gruff little woman with more than a hint of a mustache—secretly scared me, too.

“No one touches the flowers,” I said, trying to sound as tough as Clint Eastwood would, should he ever become ensconced in a brawl over the proper length of calla lilies.

My cell phone rang and I reached for it, absently glancing at the caller ID. It was my husband, Michael. He’d texted me earlier to announce he was going on a business trip and would miss the birthday dinner my best friend was throwing for me later in the month. If Michael had a long-term mistress, it might be easier to compete, but his company gyrated and beckoned in his mind more enticingly than any strategically oiled Victoria’s Secret model. I’d long ago resigned myself to the fact that work had replaced me as Michael’s true love. I ignored the call and dropped the phone back into my pocket.

Later, of course, I’d realize it wasn’t Michael phoning but his personal assistant, Kate. By then my husband had stood up from the head of the table in his company’s boardroom, opened his mouth to speak, and crashed to the carpeted floor. All in the same amount of time it took me to walk across a ballroom floor just a few miles away.

The assistant florist raced off and was instantly replaced by a white-haired, grandfatherly looking security guard from the Little Jewelry Box. “Miss?” he said politely.

I silently thanked my oxygen facials and caramel highlights for his decision not to call me ma’am. I was about to turn thirty-five, which meant I wouldn’t be able to hide from the liver-spotted hands of ma’am-dom forever, but I’d valiantly dodge their bony grasp for as long as possible.

“Where would you like these?” the guard asked, indicating the dozen or so rectangular boxes he was carrying on a tray draped in black velvet. The boxes were wrapped in a shade of silver that exactly matched the gun nestled against his ample hip.

“On the display table just inside the front door, please,” I instructed him. “People need to see them as soon as they walk in.” People would bid tens of thousands of dollars to win a surprise bauble, if only to show everyone else that they could. The guard was probably a retired policeman, trying to earn money to supplement his pension, and I knew he’d been ordered to keep those boxes in his sight all night long.

“Can I get you anything? Maybe some coffee?” I offered.

“Better not,” he said with a wry smile. The poor guy probably wasn’t drinking anything because the jewelry store wouldn’t even let him take a bathroom break. I made a mental note to pack up a few dinners for him to bring home.

My BlackBerry vibrated just as I began placing the cupcakes around the head table and mentally debating the sticky problem of the video game guru who looked and acted like a thirteen-year-old overdue for his next dose of Ritalin. I’d sandwich him between a female U.S. senator and a co-owner of the Washington Blazes professional basketball team, I decided. They were both tall; they could talk over the techie’s head.

At that moment, a dozen executives were leaping up from their leather chairs to cluster around Michael’s limp body. They were all shouting at each other to call 911—this crowd was used to giving orders, not taking them—and demanding that someone perform CPR.

As I stood in the middle of the ballroom, smoothing out a crease on a white linen napkin and inhaling the sweet scent of lilies, the worst news I could possibly imagine was being delivered by a baby-faced representative from the D.C. Opera Company.

“Melanie has a sore throat,” he announced somberly. I sank into a chair with a sigh and wiggled my tired feet out of my shoes. Perfect. Melanie was the star soprano who was scheduled to sing a selection from
Orfeo ed Euridice
tonight. If those overflowing wineglasses didn’t get checkbooks whipped out of pockets, Melanie’s soaring, lyrical voice definitely would. I desperately needed Melanie tonight.

“Where is she?” I demanded.

“In a room at the Mayflower Hotel,” the opera rep said.

“Oh, crap! Who booked her a room?”

“Um . . . me,” he said. “Is that a prob—”

“Get her a suite,” I interrupted. “The biggest one they have.”

“Why?” he asked, his snub nose wrinkling in confusion. “How will that help her get better?”

“What was your name again?” I asked.

“Patrick Riley.” Figures; put a four-leaf clover in his lapel and he could’ve been the poster boy for
Welcome to Ireland!

“And Patrick, how long have you been working for the opera company?” I asked gently.

“Three weeks,” he admitted.

“Just trust me on this.” Melanie required drama the way the rest of us needed water. If I hydrated her with a big scene now, Melanie might miraculously rally and forgo a big scene tonight.

“Send over a warm-mist humidifier,” I continued as Patrick whipped out a notebook and scribbled away, diligent as a cub reporter chasing his big break. “No, two! Get her lozenges, chamomile tea with honey, whatever you can think of. Buy out CVS. If Melanie wants a lymphatic massage, have the hotel concierge arrange it immediately. Here—” I pulled out my BlackBerry and scrolled down to the name of my private doctor. “Call Dr. Rushman. If he can’t make it over there, have him send someone who can.”

Dr. Rushman would make it, I was sure. He’d drop whatever he was doing if he knew I needed him. He was the personal physician for the Washington Blazes basketball team.

My husband, Michael, was another one of the team’s co-owners.