Ain't She Sweet?

  “But then we’re not ordinary people, are we?”

  She’d started to hyperventilate and sank down on the chair. “Use your head. Neither of us can afford another mistake. We have to be sure we’re completely comfortable with each other.”

  “I was sure a long time ago. I’m very much in love with you.”

  She gripped the phone tighter. “Come home, Colin. Now.”

  “And put myself at your mercy again? I’m hardly that foolish.”

  “Then how are we going to settle this?”

  “Inside a church in front of a minister. Take it or leave it.”

  She jumped back up. “I’m leaving it!”

  She heard a bored sigh. “Fortunately for you, I’m prepared to be patient for another day or so, which, more than anything else, bears testimony to the depth of my feelings for you.”

  “Stop talking like a fop!”

  “I’ll check in with Ryan periodically. But—and listen very carefully, my darling—I will not be calling you again. If you were a sane woman, I would, of course, behave in a more rational fashion. Since you are a lunatic, however, this is the only way.”

  “You planned this from the beginning, didn’t you?”

  “Let’s simply say that you’re not the sort of woman who can be permitted to run amok.”

  She clenched her fist. “Colin, please. We have the chance for a future together. Don’t screw it up by making unreasonable demands.”

  “How could I screw it up when you’re doing that so very well all by yourself?”

  “I’m pregnant! You have to come back right now to take care of me.”

  “No, my love, you are not pregnant, and I won’t be manipulated. Now, this conversation has grown tedious beyond belief. I love you with all my heart, and I— Are you crying, my sweet?”

  “Yes.” She sniffed. “That’s practically all I’ve done since you left.”

  “Truly?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “How splendid.”

  And that was that.

  Sugar Beth stomped through the house for a few hours, cried some more, and ate her way through two bowls of oatmeal. The next morning she woke up even angrier, grabbed the phone, and hired Bruce Kleinman, Amy’s first boyfriend and the best contractor in town, to start work on the depot. She no longer owed Colin a thing. Right after, she reached Jewel. “Remember when I told you I had this fantasy about opening a children’s bookstore in the depot?”

  “I’m hardly likely to forget it. I told you I thought you should do it. You were the one with cold feet, remember? You said you couldn’t do anything permanent because of Colin.”

  “That’s not a problem anymore, since I officially hate him. And I hope you meant it about us being partners.”

  Sugar Beth pulled the receiver away from her ear to keep Jewel’s celebratory hoots from rupturing her eardrum.

  She showered, slipped into a new pair of orange capris along with a sleeveless white shirt and sandals, and called Winnie to bring her up-to-date. Afterward, she set off to meet Bruce at the depot. When they were done, she went to see Jewel so they could discuss their partnership agreement, and following that, she snatched Charlie from his baby-sitter and took him to the park to play. She ended the day with a quick drop-in at Yesterday’s Treasures.

  “Jewel’s worried about you,” Winnie said as she entered the store. “I just talked to her on the phone, and she said you refused a Goo Goo Cluster. She thinks I should call an emergency session of the Seawillows to do some triage.”

  “Jewel should stay out of the Seawillows’ business,” Sugar Beth retorted. “She laughed in my face when I told her how much we wanted her to join.”

  “You probably shouldn’t take it personally.”

  “How can I not take it personally? Next to you, she’s my best friend, not to mention my future business partner. And she’s not half as funny as she thinks she is. She said joining the Seawillows was the first step toward putting on a hoop skirt and standing on the front lawn of Frenchman’s Bride waving a parasol and going fiddle-dee-dee.”

  Winnie sighed. “This isn’t about Jewel. It’s about you.”

  Sugar Beth sank down in an oak farm chair, the emotions of the past two days catching up with her. “Just because a person understands something about herself doesn’t necessarily mean she can fix it.”

  “I’m guessing we’re talking about you now.”

  “Think about it. A woman who’s always been overweight, for example. She knows exactly what she needs to do to keep off the pounds, but that doesn’t mean she can do it, right?”

  “You’ve got a point.”

  Sugar Beth pressed her stomach. “Call me crazy, but taking a fourth trip down the aisle doesn’t seem like the best way to fix whatever’s broken inside me.”

  “Unless whatever was broken is already fixed.”

  “Just thinking about all this is making me queasy. I’ve gotta go.” She grabbed her purse, gave Winnie a peck on the cheek, and made her way out of the store.

  The heat had begun to settle in, and as she hit the sidewalk, she slipped on her new sunglasses, a trendy pair of aviators. A man she didn’t know tripped over his feet rubbernecking at her. She was too tired to appreciate the attention.

  Gordon greeted her at the door. He’d gotten clingy since Colin left, and she sank down on the tile to give him love, but he was the product of a broken home, and he was too depressed to do more than roll over on his back. Afterward, she made her way to the kitchen, grabbed a carton of strawberry yogurt, and began to pace. Finally, she lay down on the sunroom couch, only to jolt awake a few hours later and begin pacing all over again.

  Night settled in, and her agitation grew. By eleven o’clock, she’d worked herself into such a state she couldn’t stand it any longer, so she marched down the street and banged on Winnie’s door.

  Her half sister answered in a pair of pajama tops, hair tousled, beard-burn reddening her cheek. Sugar Beth stormed inside. “Can’t the two of you spend just one evening talking like normal people?”

  “Don’t take out your sexual frustration on me. What’s wrong?”

  “I need to talk to Ryan.”

  “He’s asleep.”

  “Not for long.” Sugar Beth pushed past her and stalked upstairs. Winnie followed, bitching all the way.

  Ryan lay on his stomach, probably naked, although a thin blue blanket covered him from the hips down, so she couldn’t be sure. She punched his shoulder. “Wake up!”

  He rolled over, the sheet twisting around him, blinked, and looked past Sugar Beth to his wife, who crossed her arms over her chest and glowered. “She’s your old girlfriend. I barely know her.”

  Sugar Beth had started to shake, but she kept her voice low so she didn’t wake Gigi. “Listen to me, Ryan Galantine. When that bastard calls back, you tell him he’s won this round. I’ll marry him. But I don’t take well to being blackmailed, and tell him I intend to spend the rest of my life making him miserable, got that?”

  Ryan pushed himself up into the pillows. He looked sleepy but amused.

  Sugar Beth bore in. “I mean it. If he wants this marriage so bad, he can have it, but he’d better be prepared to suffer serious consequences.” She spun around, marched past Winnie, stormed down the steps and out the door.

  Ryan gazed at his wife. “They deserve each other.”

  Sugar Beth refused to have anything to do with the arrangements other than to say she wanted a private ceremony, just Gigi, Ryan, and Winnie as her matron of honor. No one else, not even Jewel or the Seawillows.

  Which wouldn’t do as far as Winnie was concerned. She called the Seawillows together, minus Sugar Beth, and even coerced Jewel into attending. Since Leeann didn’t have a baby-sitter, they met around her kitchen table, where Winnie took out a yellow pad and got down to business. “We’ll have to plan the whole thing ourselves. Luckily, Colin’s given us an unlimited budget. He told Ryan he wants the ceremony by next Saturday at the latest,
which gives us ten days. He’s afraid she’ll bolt if we wait longer.”

  “I’ll make sure the video store hides The Runaway Bride,” Merylinn said. “No sense in giving her ideas.”

  “If Colin wants to keep her from running off, why doesn’t he get back here and see to it himself?” Heidi asked.

  Winnie gazed down at her yellow pad so she didn’t have to meet their eyes. “He said he had to finish his book first.”

  That didn’t set well with any of them. “You’d think she’d be a little more important than finishing a book.” Merylinn sniffed.

  “I’ve never understood that man.”

  “I hope Sugar Beth doesn’t figure out how far down she is on his priority list.”

  “You know how sarcastic he can be,” Jewel said, doing her best to defend him. “Maybe Ryan misinterpreted.”

  But a sense of uneasiness undercut the rest of their planning.

  Ignoring Sugar Beth’s wishes, Winnie decided on a Saturday evening ceremony at the Presbyterian Church followed by a tent reception on the front lawn of Frenchman’s Bride. With no time to issue formal invitations, Jewel and the Seawillows called everybody they could think of, and by the time they were done, three hundred people had accepted. Sugar Beth went ballistic when she heard. Winnie told her to shut up and find a dress.

  Ryan managed the license, and Leeann dragged Sugar Beth to the lab for her blood test. Sugar Beth had no idea how Colin was handling his end of the process, and she was too busy nursing her grievances to care.

  On Friday morning, the day before the wedding, a crew arrived at Frenchman’s Bride to erect the tent for the reception, and not long after, a rental van appeared with tables and chairs. Sugar Beth strapped a headset over her ears to shut it all out and spent the day petting Gordon and making plans for her bookstore while an old Pearl Jam CD blared in her ears.

  There’d been no time to put together a shower or a bachelorette party, which wasn’t a problem, since Sugar Beth wouldn’t have attended either. The night before the wedding Winnie tried to talk her into staying in the Galantine guest room, but she refused to leave Frenchman’s Bride. This forced Winnie to put her alternate plan in place, and at six o’clock on Friday evening Gigi showed up at the door with three large pizzas, Gwen Lu, Gillian Granger, Sachi Patel, and Jenny Berry.

  “Mom said we could have a sleepover here. Everybody wants to hear your power speech. Plus Jenny really needs help with her eye makeup.”

  Sugar Beth marched to the phone and called Winnie. “Is this what my life has come to? I’m being guarded by thirteen-year-olds?”

  “You’re a little nervous,” Winnie replied. “I decided you needed a distraction.”

  “A little nervous! I’ve pegged the Richter scale on nerves! This is all a setup. The final piece in his plan to get revenge. I’ll march down the aisle, and he won’t be there. He’s going to leave me stranded at the altar. I’m telling you right now, he’s not showing up tomorrow.”

  “Standing you up at the altar would be overkill,” Winnie pointed out. “He already finished you off when he wrote Reflections.”

  Sugar Beth hung up on her.

  Winnie proved to be right about one thing. It was impossible to brood with a houseful of thirteen-year-olds demanding her attention. Gigi’s new friends were geeky and awkward, but sweet and funny, too. Someday the Seawillows might need to form a junior auxiliary.

  She slept badly that night and rose long before the girls. She came downstairs in an old pair of shorts and one of Colin’s work shirts, with her hair hanging in a ratty tangle and a crease across her cheek. Her wedding day. Again.

  After she’d let Gordon out, she disposed of the pizza boxes, then sat at the counter, brooding. Her legs needed shaving, her fingernails were ragged, she’d made no plans to have her hair done, and the only thing she really wanted to do was go back to bed and pull the covers over her head. She let Gordon in and did just that.

  Winnie woke everybody up a few hours later. She bustled around the house, full of phony cheer and annoying platitudes. Sugar Beth lunged for the jar of peanut butter, then put it back because her stomach was in no state for food.

  Ryan was taking the girls to Denny’s for a late breakfast, then delivering them to their homes to dress for the ceremony. Gigi hugged Sugar Beth before she left. “Don’t worry. You can still claim your power even after you get married. Look at Mom.” And then she startled Winnie by hugging her, too.

  After that, Winnie went into hyper drive. “You do have your gown, right? You promised you’d take care of that, and I know you had to buy it off the rack, but you look disgustingly gorgeous in anything.”

  “I have it,” Sugar Beth said, “and it’s locked up where you won’t find it.”

  “Why can’t I see it?”

  “Because it’s a big freakin’ surprise, that’s why! Is Colin here yet?”

  Winnie didn’t meet her eyes. “Not as far as I know. But Ryan talked to him. He’ll be here.”

  “Yeah, right.” Sugar Beth slapped the counter. “I told you what’s going to happen. He won’t show up. It’s why I didn’t want the entire town invited. But would you listen to me?”

  “Of course he’ll show up. He loves you. Now go take a shower. Janice Menken is coming to do your hair at four. You need to be at the church by five-thirty.”

  For a moment all of Sugar Beth’s defenses fell away. She gazed at Winnie. “Tell me I’m doing the right thing.”

  “I’m sure you are,” Winnie replied, in a way that told Sugar Beth she wasn’t sure at all.

  Sugar Beth slammed the barricades back in place. She showered and shaved her legs. Afterward, she permitted Janice Menken to construct an elaborate hairstyle that looked like a wedding cake had landed on her head. She took it apart as soon as Janice left and reconstructed it more simply closer to the back of her head. She refused to wear a veil, and she kept her makeup subtle, with the emphasis on her eyes and only a tawny gloss at her lips. The familiar rituals did nothing to calm her, and she grew even more agitated as various Seawillows kept sweeping in and out to check on her.

  None of them had seen Colin, but they were all very certain he was around somewhere.

  She decided the less time she spent at the church the better, so she fetched her gown from the attic where she’d hidden it and got dressed in Colin’s closet. Just as she slipped into her shoes, Jewel and Leeann appeared to drive her to the ceremony. They frowned when they saw her gown.

  “You’re not really wearing that, are you?” Leeann said.

  “It’s my fourth marriage,” Sugar Beth retorted. “What did you expect?”

  Jewel shot Leeann a meaningful look. “Winnie said she was in a bad mood.”

  “You still look beautiful,” Leeann conceded. “More than beautiful. But Colin’s going to have a fit.”

  “Have either of you seen him?”

  “He’s probably with Ryan,” Jewel said uneasily.

  “Or on his way to South America.” Sugar Beth kissed Gordon good-bye and stomped out to Jewel’s car, her beaded stiletto sandals making lethal clicks on the pavement.

  The nostalgic smells of old hymnals, Pine-Sol, and long-forgotten potlucks enveloped her as she entered the back door of the redbrick Presbyterian church. Winnie, stylish in gold silk, waited just inside. Her eyes narrowed with displeasure as she took in Sugar Beth’s dress, but she wisely held her tongue.

  “Tell me you’ve seen Colin,” Sugar Beth said as Winnie steered her toward a small anteroom just off the narthex.

  “Ryan’s in charge of Colin.”

  “So you haven’t seen him.”

  “I haven’t had time to look. There was a misunderstanding about the music, and the altar flowers weren’t right, then Gigi glittered her eyelids. Did you teach her to do that? Never mind.” Winnie’s face set in a chipper smile. “We didn’t do anything about something old and something borrowed. You have a new dress and blue eyes, but we need the rest.”

  “When it’s your f
ourth marriage, you tend to lose faith in superstitions.”

  “This is your last marriage, and tradition is important.” She reached into her small beaded bag, drew out Diddie’s pearls, and clasped them around Sugar Beth’s neck. “Don’t get attached. I’m taking them back as soon as the reception’s over.”

  Sugar Beth touched them with her fingers, and her eyes filled up with tears. “Oh, Winnie…” She turned and hugged her sister. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” Winnie replied, and promptly burst into tears herself.

  The organist began to play the prelude, and they hopped up and down and waved their hands in front of their faces to stop themselves before they ruined their eye makeup. Winnie blew her nose. “Colin’s definitely here. Mrs. Patterson never starts to play until everybody in the wedding party has shown up.”

  “She’s hated me ever since my ninth-grade recital when I got to dance the Sugar Plum Fairy instead of her precious Kimmie.”

  “Everybody in Parrish isn’t involved in a conspiracy against you.”

  “We’ll see.”

  The prelude came to an end. Winnie thrust a cascading bouquet of white Casablanca lilies into Sugar Beth’s hands and picked up a smaller bouquet for herself, then drew her out into the narthex. Sugar Beth could only see the last two rows of pews, but even they were filled. “What possessed you to invite so many people?”

  “You and Colin are going to be a big part of this community,” Winnie retorted. “Everybody deserves to see you married.”

  “If he’s here.”

  “Of course he’s here.”

  The organ launched into the processional, and Sugar Beth’s teeth began to chatter. “I’m not walking down that aisle until you peek around the corner and make sure he’s there.”

  “He has to be. If he weren’t, Ryan would—”

  “I don’t want to hear another word about Ryan!” she hissed. “Your husband has reason to hate me, too. He’s probably in on the whole thing.”

  “True.” Winnie lifted her bouquet. “And then there’s me.” With those ominous words, she stepped around the corner and disappeared down the aisle.