Back on Blossom Street (20 page)

Alix Townsend

A
lix woke feeling miserable, itchy and vaguely unwell. Scratching the inside of her elbow, she sat upright and switched on the bedside lamp. The alarm would go off in another ten minutes anyway, so there was no point in delaying the inevitable. The instant she turned on the light Alix knew her suspicions were correct.

Hives.

She’d broken out in a full-blown case of hives. No one needed to tell her why, either. Stress over this damned wedding. Nothing had helped. Cigarettes certainly hadn’t. Neither had avoiding the issue with Jordan. Or pretending she hadn’t overheard Jacqueline talking to Susan. In fact, she couldn’t think of any solution—except one.

In eighteen months on the job, not once had Alix phoned in sick. Even now, with her arms swollen and her face blotchy, she hated doing it. Not showing up, especially at the last minute like this, was a hardship on everyone. Alix took her responsibilities seriously.

Reluctantly she picked up her phone. After making the
call she swallowed two antihistamine tablets and went back to bed.

Thankfully, they made her sleepy, and when she woke again, she felt a little better. She took a shower, slathered on some calamine lotion and put on loose jeans and an old T-shirt. Then she caught the bus to Blossom Street. Only she didn’t stop at the French Café. Instead, she walked over to the Free Methodist Church, where she knew she’d find Jordan.

When she arrived, he was on the phone in his office. His eyes widened when she came into view. Alix couldn’t tell if his reaction was simply one of surprise or of shock at her appearance—the swollen face with its red blotches and the calamine-pink streaks on her throat and arms. Cute, very cute.

He ended the conversation quickly and Alix made herself comfortable. Or as comfortable as someone with hives could be. She slouched in the chair across from his desk, trying not to move any more than necessary.

“Alix, what are you doing here?” Before she could answer, he asked anxiously, “Are you all right?”

“Does it
look
like I’m all right?” she fired back. “I’ve got hives.”

His concern was immediate. “Have you made a doctor’s appointment?”

She knew from past experience that medical help could only address the symptoms. “No doctor can do anything for me.” Even with her jacket on, she couldn’t resist scratching. With a determined effort she stopped.

“Nerves?” he asked gently.

Alix tried hard not to let him know how close to the edge she was but didn’t quite succeed. “Something like that,” she snapped.

“You need to relax.” He reached absently for his coffee mug, which stood by the telephone. “Anything I can do?”

“As a matter of fact, there is.”

Apparently her answer surprised him, because his gaze shot to hers. “Name it.”

This was the opening she’d been waiting for. “Cancel the big fancy wedding,” she pleaded. “Let’s go away and just get married. It wouldn’t be an elopement, but it wouldn’t involve all these strangers. The only people we need are family and a few friends. Can we do that, Jordan? Can we end this craziness and have a simple, private wedding? Please?” she added, staring intently at him.

Jordan frowned. “You want to cancel the wedding?”

“The big fancy affair and replace it with a small
sane
one.” The itch was too severe to ignore and she tore into her thigh, scratching relentlessly through her jeans.

Her fiancé’s shoulders sagged with what could only be described as disappointment. “Alix, we’ve already had this discussion, remember? We can’t change everything at the last minute. It’d be too difficult and cause a lot of hard feelings.”

“Don’t you think I
know
it’s the last minute?” she cried. Today was May first; the wedding was in exactly four weeks and one day. She was well aware of what backing out would mean. The invitations had been mailed; people had started sending gifts. Alix hadn’t seen any of them yet, but Jordan had told her about the pile accumulating at his parents’ home.

“I know you’re feeling nervous,” he began.

“
Look
at me,” she cried, holding out her arms, although her jean jacket prevented him from seeing much. “I’ve got hives from head to foot. And there’s something else I didn’t tell you about earlier, because you’d get mad.”

“Something else? What?” he asked, frowning.

“I started smoking again.”

Jordan’s eyes widened, but to his credit he held his tongue. “Did it help?”

She held out her arms again for his inspection; her sleeves slid up, revealing the red welts and the streaks of pink lotion. “You tell me.”

He nodded. “Guess not.”

“I threw away that pack of cigarettes this morning, which probably wasn’t the best idea.” Still, Alix figured she might as well quit now. With the price of cigarettes, she couldn’t afford them anyway.

“Alix, it’s going to be all right,” Jordan murmured. “The wedding will be fine, I promise you.”

Unfortunately, she knew otherwise. But the problem wasn’t just the wedding and everyone else taking control. It was also the man she was about to marry. He hadn’t listened. He kept pushing her away, putting her off, discounting her concerns. Much as Alix loved him, much as she wanted to be part of his life, she was beginning to realize that marrying him was a mistake.

“This isn’t our wedding anymore. It never has been. Your mother and Jacqueline have turned it into a…a circus. I know they mean well and I appreciate their efforts, I really do.” She struggled to explain how trapped she felt. “I’ve tried to pretend everything would be fine. I wanted to do this for you and your family and for Jacqueline and Reese, too. But I can’t go through with the wedding as it stands. I just can’t.”

“You don’t mean that!”

Her throat tightened and her eyes stung with tears. She swallowed painfully. Her voice was choked, hoarse, when she spoke again. “It’s far too important to you to make everyone else happy, Jordan.”

“That’s not true!”

“Yes, I’m afraid it is.” She looked sadly down at her hands and then removed the diamond from her finger. For an instant she closed her hand around it, wanting to hold on to it a moment longer.

“You can’t be serious,” Jordan said, and he sounded almost as if he were laughing, as if he thought this was all some practical joke.

Alix set the diamond ring on the corner of his desk.

“Alix, listen to me. Every bride goes through these prewedding jitters. It’s normal.”

“These hives aren’t normal. Jordan…” She took a deep breath. “There’s nothing I want more in this world than to be your wife, but I can’t become someone I’m not. I can’t marry a man who’s so willing to ignore me and listen to what everyone else wants.”

Jordan frowned at the ring. “You’re actually calling it off?”

Her throat constricted again; unable to speak, she simply nodded.

“Just like that?”

She gave another nod.

He stood and leaned forward, placing his hands on the edge of his desk. “Fine. You want out. That’s wonderful news. Just what am I supposed to tell everyone?”

That
was all Jordan cared about? What other people thought? Alix would have answered him but the pain in her throat made speaking impossible. When she turned to walk away, Jordan stretched out his hand. “Don’t do it,” he pleaded. “We need to talk this out.”

“There’s nothing more to say,” she whispered, watching as he reached across his desk for the ring. He held it between his thumb and finger and stared down at it in disbelief, as if the diamond could explain what had gone wrong.

“Your mother had me pegged from the first,” Alix said. She wanted Jordan to know she was aware of Susan’s feelings toward her. “I’m not the right kind of woman for you. I never have been and I was a fool to believe otherwise.”

Jordan gaped at her.

“Apparently
you
hadn’t noticed, but your family did,” Alix continued. “I’m really not good church material, either.”

“That’s…that’s absurd,” he stammered.

Alix felt he was the absurd one, thinking she could change who she was, wipe out her past and play the role of pastor’s wife. “I’m sorry. More than anything, I wish I could be the woman you and everyone else want me to be. I tried, but it’s not going to work.”

“You’re serious, then? It isn’t just the wedding you’re calling off, it’s the whole marriage?”

This wasn’t a ploy or a trick to get him to change his mind about the wedding and do it her way. He’d summarized the situation clearly. She
couldn’t
marry him. She’d let her love cloud her feelings, confuse her actions. She’d realized, while scratching the skin off her arms, that Jordan hadn’t listened to her. He
thought
he had, assumed he’d allayed her fears. Because she’d wanted to believe him, she’d allowed his confidence to momentarily reassure her.

“What do we do now?” he asked. He gestured weakly, then let his arms fall to his sides.

Alix shook her head and shoved her hands in her pockets for fear she’d start scratching again. “Your mother will know the proper protocol,” she told him.

His mouth thinned, and Alix could tell that the prospect of facing his mother displeased him.

“I don’t think canceling the wedding’s going to be that much of a problem. Don’t worry. Your family will
smooth everything over.” With these words, she walked out of his office.

Jordan didn’t come after her.

Alix got on the bus and rode around for a long time, lost in her misery. On impulse she changed buses and went out to Sea-Tac Airport, then walked to nearby Star Lake, where Jordan’s grandmother, Sarah Turner, lived. With the wedding officially canceled, Alix didn’t know if she’d ever see her again. The prayer shawl was finished and she wanted to give it to Sarah. Unfortunately she didn’t have it with her.

It was quite a hike from the road to the residential area around the lake, but the physical exertion made Alix feel better.

She recognized the house from her visit at Christmas and the time she and Jordan had gone in January. She walked down the dusty driveway and discovered Grandma Turner busy working in her yard. The old woman held a large watering can and wore coveralls and rubber boots, her thick white hair tied back with a red-and-blue bandanna. She straightened when she saw Alix.

“Hello, Grandma,” Alix said, although she knew it was presumptuous to address Pastor Turner’s mother as Grandma, since Alix was no longer going to be part of the family.

“Alix? Is that you?”

She nodded.

“Where’s Jordan?”

Alix shrugged. “Work, I guess.”

Grandma set the watering can aside and clumped over to the house to turn off the faucet. “Well, come inside and have a glass of iced tea. I’m glad you’re here.” Her welcome was so warm, it almost brought Alix to tears.

Obediently Alix followed her to the house.

“I was watering my garden and tending the rhododendrons,” Sarah said as she removed her boots, lining them up on the back steps. “They’re gorgeous this year. Did you notice?”

Alix barely heard her. She stood in the doorway, hands in her pockets, and knew she had to say something, had to explain. “I shouldn’t have come,” she mumbled.

“Nonsense,” Grandma Turner said briskly. As if to prove her point, she took two glasses from the kitchen cupboard.

Alix stepped inside and breathed in the simple beauty around her—the scarred oak table, scrubbed clean, the pots of herbs, the handwoven curtains and braided rug. She loved this house and she loved Jordan’s grandmother. To her horror, she began to cry.

Sniffling, she ran her sleeve under her nose. “I…wanted to tell you I knit you a shawl.” Somehow she managed to get the words out but she didn’t know if they were even intelligible.

Jordan’s grandmother turned to squint at her. “Where’d I put my eyeglasses?” She started moving things on the table in a fruitless search. “I hear better with my glasses on.”

Despite her misery, Alix grinned. Seeing them on the counter, she walked farther into the kitchen and handed them to the old woman. Grandma Turner slid them on, then looked at her and frowned.

Alix wiped her nose again. “I didn’t know if I was ever going to see you again,” she said. “I came to say thank you and to tell you goodbye.”

“Goodbye? Aren’t you marrying—” Grandma stopped abruptly, her eyes narrowed.

“There isn’t going to be a wedding,” Alix told her, refusing to lay blame or offer elaborate explanations. Grandma Turner would hear all about it soon enough.

The old woman pulled out a kitchen chair, sat down and sighed. “No wedding. Now, that’s a crying shame. I like you, Alix. You’re exactly what this family needs.”

Alix desperately wished that was true.

“Talk about a bunch of stuffed shirts.”

“Grandma!”

Sarah Turner sipped her iced tea, then patted Alix’s hand.

“I didn’t…know where else to go.” Even now, Alix wasn’t sure what had drawn her to the old woman. Telling her about the shawl was only an excuse.

“You came to exactly the right place,” Grandma Turner assured her.

Alix choked on a sob. “I gotta leave.” The old lady didn’t need her blubbering all over the kitchen. Besides, Alix wasn’t in the mood to sit around and exchange polite chitchat.

“Did I ever tell you about Jordan’s grandfather and me?” Grandma Turner asked. “Before we got married?”

“No.”

Grandma passed her a box of tissues.

“The Turner family didn’t think I was the girl for him.”

Alix found that hard to believe.

“As you know, I worked back in the days when it was rare for a woman to hold a job outside the home. The Turner family was in the ministry and disapproved of that.”

“But you did marry him,” Alix said, dabbing at her eyes. She hated showing any kind of weakness.

“Yes, I did—because Lawrence stood up to his family and insisted he loved me. I remember him talking to his parents as firm as could be. He said he was well past the age of consent, well past letting them make his decisions for him. If they couldn’t see the blessings I brought to the family, then they needed to open their eyes.”