Hannah's Dream (37 page)

"Adam, do you mean it?"

"I wouldn't ask if I didn't.  You know how I feel about you."

She looked into his warm brown eyes and touched his cheek.  "I do now."

He leaned over and kissed her, and she kissed him back.

"Come on," he said as he stood.  "Let's go tell them the news."

Becky put the finishing touches on Marian's dress while Marian looked in the mirror.

"It's lovely," Marian said.  "It's just like the picture in the catalog."

"I'm just glad Mrs. Healy ordered those plain white dresses.  All I had to do was frill them up."

"Well, you did a wonderful job.  Oh, Becky, we're getting married!"

"I know.  But how will you do without my cooking?  You've never made a thing in your life."

"I think I'm going to learn.  You'll be right next door and you can teach me."

"Cooking is like painting; you have to have a talent for it."

"And you don't think I have a talent for it?"

"You also need a desire, and you've never once shown an interest in cutting vegetables."

"That is true.  I may have to find someone in town.  Or in Denver.  Oh, Becky, we're getting married!"

Becky rolled her eyes, but she understood Marian's excitement.  She, too, could hardly wait to say "I do" to James Hughes.

"Mama," Hannah called up the stairs.

She ran up the stairs and burst into Marian's room just as Becky had finished stitching on a silk rosebud, and took Marian's hands.

"Adam has asked me to marry him!"

"We better send him to town," Becky said.  "There was only one white dress left on Mrs. Healy's rack."

The day of the weddings, the grooms were made to stay at James' house until the wedding ceremonies.  James and Evan sat on the porch smoking cheroots while Adam paced the parlor floor.  James had bought him a new suit as a wedding present, and the collar felt tight.  Adam kept pulling on it with his finger, but it was starched and wouldn't give.  He resigned himself to being uncomfortable on the most important day of his life.

Evan also had a new suit.  With the proceeds from the sale of his house, he bought a new frock coat, boots, and trousers.  James lent him a silk puff tie.  He was a dashing bridegroom.

But James outdid them all.  He had bought a new cutaway with striped trousers.  He looked like the Prince of Wales.  He couldn't wait for Becky to see him.

Jimmy was kicking a stone across the yard in front of James' house.  Marian had bought him a new set of clothes for the wedding, and he, like Adam, looked uncomfortable.  James watched him kick the stone hard.

"Jimmy," he said.  "Come here."

Jimmy walked over and stood by the porch steps.

"Yeah, Uncle James?"

"How you been?"

Since shooting Jean, Jimmy had been quiet.  At first he had been happy and boasted to his friends about killing the mad Frenchman, but when the reality of the event set in, Jimmy began to understand something Evan had told him afterwards.

"It's something you never get over," he said.  "Taking a life works on your soul."

The boy seemed to be better, and James hoped he would return to his old self, but sometimes he would fall into a dark mood and would stay there for a while.

"I'm fine, Uncle James," Jimmy said.

"That's good, son.  You're my best man.  I need you to keep me from running away."

"Ah, you ain't running away," Jimmy said.

"You never know.  I may just take off for the hills."

Jimmy laughed, and James was glad the boy was feeling good.  Marian had been fretting over him since the shooting and he'd hoped the boy would be well for the wedding.  Now he could relax knowing Jimmy's dark mood had lifted.

Marian had hired a woman named Ginger Jackson to help her around the house.  She was a large black woman whose mother, Jane, had been a house slave in Georgia before the Civil War and when the war ended, she migrated to Chicago and then to Denver.  She cooked in the best restaurant in town, but she was kept hidden in the kitchen for fear the customers wouldn't eat food prepared by her hand.  She had a daughter by a man named Luke O'Malley, an Irishman from County Cork who found her dark skin exotic.  He wouldn't marry her, though, and rejected his daughter.  Jane called her daughter Ginger after her favorite spice and raised her alone.  Jane taught Ginger everything she knew about cooking, and when Jane died, Ginger took her place at the restaurant.

One day a waiter complained that Ginger had been uppity with him and news that a colored gal was cooking at the hotel caused the owner to fire her.  He did, however, mention her to a friend, Yvette, and asked if she knew anyone looking for a housekeeper.  It was Yvette who told Marian about Ginger.  Marian met her and hired her on the spot.

Ginger didn't think she'd like living in a small town.  Her experiences with white people had left her defensive and sassy, but she liked Marian and her family, and  after a week in the house, she felt right at home.  Marian treated her well and bought new linens just for her.

Ginger had made a beautiful wedding cake with sugar roses in three different colors for three brides.  The cake sat in the middle of the dining table and whenever anyone walked by, they just had to touch those roses to see if they were real.  Ginger stood with her hands on her hips and, waving a spoon, announced that the next person who put a finger on her roses would lose it.  No one touched that cake again.

Jimmy liked Ginger.  She would make him anything he wanted.  She said he was too skinny and she needed to fatten him up.  She would make him the best cookies he'd ever tasted, but he wouldn't tell Becky that.

James had hired three musicians to come to play The Wedding March.  Chairs were moved out of the parlor and folding chairs from the town hall were brought to the ranch and set up, leaving an aisle for the bridal procession.  Three were put in the corner for the musicians and they sat ready to play.  The food was prepared and Ginger went up the stairs to see if the brides were ready.  They were standing in Marian's room hugging each other when she opened the door.

"What in tarnation are you doin'," she said.  "You got people waitin' for you.  Now wipe your faces and git on downstairs.  My food is getting cold."

One by one they walked past Ginger.  Becky stopped at the top of the stairs.

"You have to call the men," she said to Ginger.  "They're supposed to be waiting for us, aren't they?"

"Lordy, I forgot the men," Ginger said.  "I'm gonna call them right now."

Ginger waddled down the stairs and out the front door.  She looked toward James' house and put her hands to her mouth and shouted.

"You all git over here now."

James, Evan, and Adam walked down the porch steps and started to walk across the yard.

"Come on now, we ain't got all day."

"She's bossy," Adam said.

Evan and James smiled.  They saw Tom Beasley walking toward the house.  He liked Ginger.  He tried to talk to her, but she always walked away from him shaking her head.  It didn't deter Tom from trying again.  Now, as he approached her, she rolled her eyes.

"Lord, get this man away from me."

Tom frowned.  

"Go on, git," she said, and he went into the house.

Ginger had her hands on her hips again and she was pursing her lips as James, Evan, and Adam walked past her and into the house.

"You all go into the parlor.  The preacher's waitin.' "

She walked behind them and when they were in position by the fireplace, she went back to the stairs for the brides.  The guests from town were seated in folding chairs.

Mrs. Gray was at the front and Jimmy sat next to her.  She had taken a liking to the boy and gave him two bits whenever she saw him, so Jimmy made sure she saw him.

"Jimmy," James said and the boy took his place beside his uncle.

When Becky was in place, Ginger pointed to the musicians, and The Wedding March began.  When James saw Becky in her lovely white gown, he smiled.  She looked like a princess.  When Marian entered the room, Evan held his breath.  She was too beautiful for words.  And when Hannah walked down the aisle between the folding chairs, Adam felt tears form in his eyes.  He couldn't see anything but her.

After the preacher pronounced them men and wives, the party began.  Everyone raved about Ginger's cooking.  The couples danced and drank champagne, and when the evening was over, Hannah and Adam changed their clothes and went to the small hotel in town.  The guests said it was the nicest wedding, or weddings, they'd ever been to.

The following day, James and Becky went to Denver on the train.  In the spring, they would go to San Francisco, but with winter coming soon, Denver would have to do.  Becky told Marian she had never been so happy in all her life, and Marian said the same.  They hugged and wished each other goodbye.

Marian and Evan were going to Europe for their honeymoon.  They, too, would wait until spring.  In the meantime, they were content to stay in at home getting to know each other.  She and Evan gave Hannah and Adam a very special wedding gift -- a trip to Paris.  They were not waiting for spring.  They were leaving on the next train.  When they returned, James hoped to have a little house built for them near the hill where Hannah loved to paint.  James also asked Adam to keep his books and gave him a raise.

Everyone went to the train station.  Becky and James were going west, and Hannah and Adam were going east.  Hannah had wanted to show Adam where she grew up, but there wasn't enough time.  One day, she promised, he would see New Beach.  But for now, Paris would be enough.

The boat they took to Paris was elegant and Marian had paid for first-class accommodations.  They disembarked in Marseilles and took the train to Paris.  Hannah was so overwhelmed at being there that she couldn't sleep.  She kept looking out the hotel window in amazement.  And as she and Adam strolled along the Champs-Élysées, she sighed.  She was sharing Paris with the man she loved, the man who had made all her dreams come true.

Author's Notes

It is no accident that I chose the New Jersey shore as the location for Hannah's Dream.  I grew up there, and Red Bank played a major part in my life.  My sister took me shopping there when I was in my early teens, and when I got my driver's license, I dropped my father off at the train station every day so I could have the car to drive to school.  Both my sons were born in Riverview Hospital, now Riverview Medical Center, near East Front Street, and when I worked for Starbucks as a barista, I helped open the store on the corner of White and Broad streets.

I wanted the names of the stores where Hannah and her mother shopped to be authentic, so I researched the Red Bank Register archives and took the names from stores that advertised in the paper in 1895.  I also discovered that the sheriff at that time was Theodore Aumack, but the situations depicted involving Sheriff Aumack are fictitious.  Mrs. Weis' Temple of Fashion existed.  Mrs. Weis built the large store to replace two wooden stores that burned down.  The building, located on Broad Street, still exists, as does the sign she erected.

Long Branch was a favorite summer vacation spot for Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, James A. Garfield, Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, and Woodrow Wilson.  Celebrities such as Edwin and Joseph Booth (brothers of John Wilkes Booth) and Edwin Forrest visited. Lillian Russell, Lily Langtry, and Diamond Jim Brady frequented the seaside resort, whose beaches were a favorite subject of artist Winslow Homer.  I imagine a place like Mrs. Porter's would have existed, though it is entirely fictitious.