The audience roared.
Then Mike leaned in and said, “Just one more thing. Getting married doesn’t mean you stop being the best nurse in town. Keep the lasagna and chicken soup coming. They work a lot better than the radiation.”
Tallulah shouted, “Go, Gaby,” and I was determined I was not going to cry.
This event was well rehearsed, because as Lizzie and Mike were replaced onstage by Claire, Gabrielle, Toby, and the sourpuss known as Gus, there was “changeover” music—a version of “Away in a Manger” played at breakneck speed.
Claire began, “Most kids present their parents with problems when they’re teenagers—drugs, booze, sex, disrespect. I was different. I waited until I was about twenty-three before I did anything like that. I was the perfect teen, but I was a…challenged adult. No matter. Gaby was there for me. Always. Every time I needed her, she’d get in the car and make the trip to South Carolina in one day and night. She combined just the right amount of listening with the right amount of persuasive scolding. And if she hadn’t, I wouldn’t be standing here today with three kids and a job and the ability to run my own life, no matter how rough that turns out sometimes.”
Claire raised a glass of water in my direction. “Thank you, Mom. It’s your turn now. Whoever you’re marrying is the luckiest man in the world.”
Then Claire looked over at Gus and said, loud enough for all to hear, “If you roll your eyes, it’s back to the kids’ table for you.”
Chapter 44
AS CLAIRE AND the kids exited left, Emily and Bart entered right.
They looked great together, my lawyer and doctor from the big city. Bart wore a dark black suit, a black shirt, and a dark silver tie. His hair was slicked back in that way that only handsome guys can get away with.
Emily was not to be outdone. She looked like a model. No jewelry (she hated fussy stuff). Her hair was pinned tightly on top of her head—simple and severe, what she called a no-nonsense do. Midlength black skirt. Dark gray cashmere sweater. Black jacket. The only thing about Emily that wasn’t high fashion was the big smile on her face.
She picked up the mike and said, “My mom told us not to come dressed as dreary New Yorkers. So!” She signaled the band, put down the mike, and suddenly the music came blaring out at us—“Jingle Bells,” played in a bump-and-grind tempo.
Now the show went into another gear.
Emily pulled the pins from her hair, and down it flowed in waves around her shoulders. She removed her jacket, showing bare shoulders and arms. Bart shucked off his jacket. Spun it in the air like a Chippendale dancer and dropped it casually on the floor. Maybe this was how he worked his way through med school?
The catcalls and applause were growing. Emily pulled her sweater up and over her head, exposing a pair of red spaghetti straps attached to a minimal amount of glittery red silk.
When she turned around to show the audience the back, well…there was no back. Over to Bart. He unbuttoned his black shirt to reveal a tight, copper-colored T-shirt. He put his black jacket back on, then unbuckled his belt. His black pants fell to the floor, and he was wearing very snug-fitting black-and-white slacks, hemmed so high that the red-and-copper-colored socks momentarily made it look as if he were wearing knickers.
By this time, all eyes were back on Emily. She’d let her skirt drop to the floor. Underneath was the remainder of her dress—a similarly silky, glittery piece of cloth that came to midthigh.
Now Bart picked up the mike. “Like Em said, Gaby warned us not to come dressed as dull working drones from Manhattan,” he said.
“I hope we succeeded, Mom,” Emily said, giving a little hip bump on “Mom.”
The applause was as hot and crazy as the wardrobe. Emily and Bart came to the table for hugs. Within seconds, the whole family was there—grandkids, crazy reindeer, Claire, Liz and Mike (without a cane). Then a chant went up around the room:
“Speech! Speech! Speech! Get up there, Gaby.”
“Who, me?” said little Gabrielle.
Chapter 45
I TOOK CLAIRE’S daughter up front with me, but only for a few seconds and some more laughter as Gabrielle did a little curtsy, then bounded back to her seat.
Then I spoke. “First of all, I’ve got to thank you all a million times for being here tonight, Christmas Eve—and then coming by tomorrow for the wedding on Christmas Day. If it turns out to be fun, maybe I’ll get married every Christmas.
“Now, I know that there’s been a lot of speculation as to whom I’m going to marry. The interest has grown so great that I had to turn away reporters from Entertainment Tonight and Us and People magazines. In fact, as late as five o’clock this afternoon, Jay-Z and Beyoncé were on the phone, trying to get an invitation to tonight’s dinner. Well, the time has come to tell you who the lucky man is.”
Applause and loud cheers from all around the room. “Finally!” somebody yelled. I thought it was Amy Stern, Jacob’s “date.”
“The time has come,” I said, “and that time is tomorrow afternoon.” I laughed. A few of the crowd booed, including Tom, Marty, and Jacob.
“Now I have to say a few things from the heart. Violins, please. I’ve been ending my videos and e-mails and snail mails with the signoff line ‘See you at Christmas, and see you in my dreams.’ Well, I want you all to know something. The fact is: I always see you in my dreams. I see all my friends over the years. And my favorite students from the high school. I see the folks who help every day with the breakfast and some of those who eat with us every day at the breakfast.”
I paused. I blinked a few times.
“And I dream about my family. My kids. Their kids. I am forever falling asleep at night and seeing four-year-old Lizzie’s fat little legs running away from Pincus the pig. Or watching Seth as a teenager coming home at six in the morning and sneaking through the laundry room window. One day—and this was real life, not a dream—I found myself looking through a cardboard box filled with hockey sticks and baseball gloves made for very little hands. Another time, I was straightening books on the shelf, and I pulled down Goodnight Moon, and I recalled how all four of you kids thought this was the finest piece of literature ever written. And then…I dreamed that we were all together again for Christmas.
“And here we are. Just like in my dreams. And when someone asked me to get married, and then someone else, and so on and so forth, I knew this was a good idea. I knew that the only four people in the world who were nosier than me were my children.
“And it worked! We’re all here! The tables are set in the barn. The conductor’s ready to strike up the band. Today has been one of the best days of my life, and I know tomorrow will be even better.
“So thank you all for coming this Christmas Eve. Thank you to my wonderful children—Claire and Lizzie and Emily and Seth. Thank you to my incredible grandchildren. And most of all, thank you to—in no particular order—Jacob, Tom, Marty, and Stacey Lee. You are the best friends anyone could ever have. I love you, and I know you all love me. Even better, you put up with me. Most of the time.
“Everyone! See you tomorrow. And see you in my dreams!”
Chapter 46
AND THAT WAS it for Christmas Eve. Well, almost.
The Summerhill family had a drinking-and-driving rule, a rule made many years before. We called it the Double Designated-Driver Rule. All it meant was that there were always two people who had to stay sober for driving. So if one of the two drivers decided to refresh himself with an after-dinner cognac, there was always another person ready to take the wheel.
Claire’s pickup truck was piloted by Claire herself, who had not had a drink in five years. Seth had offered to drive. He’d stuck to Pellegrino all night, because of our rule, but, as he put it, “If I’m driving and a cop stops us, he’s going to think I’m drunk no matter what. C’mon, a car being driven by a guy dressed like a reindeer’s ass?”
So Claire did the driving while Seth, Andie, the twins, and I did the gossiping about the evening.
/>
Ten minutes later Claire was pulling into the long driveway at the house. As she shifted into park, I looked out and saw somebody walking toward us. And suddenly I realized that the night wasn’t quite over.
“That asshole,” Claire said.
It was Hank, of course.
“Am I late for the party?” he said as we got out of the truck. No one answered him.
I had that sense you sometimes get when someone is really good at disguising how drunk he is but you somehow know he’s drunk anyway. That’s how Hank seemed to me.
“Gaby, I understand congrats are in order,” he said.
“And I understand there are some rooms at Motel Six in Lenox. I’ll get you a reservation and drive you there,” I answered.
“Why would I wanna do that when the family is all here?” he laughed.
At that moment Emily and Bart’s little BMW came quickly down the driveway. People started climbing out of it as if it were a clown car at the circus—Emily, Bart, Gus, Stacey Lee.
“It’s a regular fucking Summerhill family reunion,” Hank said. He moved closer to Claire and me. And Seth and Bart moved toward him.
“Ooooh, Dr. Fucking Wonderful and the boy prodigy are here to protect the womenfolk,” Hank said. “Think the two of you can handle me? I doubt that very much.”
“Take Gaby’s advice, Hank,” Seth said calmly. “We’ll drive you to a motel.”
Hank started to shout then, and to wave his arms up and down, and occasionally to leave his feet. “What? And miss the celebration? Miss the miracle that some jack-off is willing to marry this old bag? That somebody, other than you all, is willing to be told what to do and when to do it and how to do it by Gaby? There’s…there’s…”
But the words got caught in his mouth, and in a move both sad and infuriating, Hank picked up a rock the size of a child’s soccer ball. He threw it with both hands at the pickup’s windshield, which shattered and instantaneously looked like a glass spiderweb.
“That’s the end of it, Hank,” Bart said as he walked quickly toward his brother-in-law. Seth was right next to him. And Gus was next to Seth.
“We’re going to get you to the motel,” said Bart, who was a big man, after all.
“Don’t any of you fucking touch me,” Hank said. “I know when I’m not welcome. I get it, I get it.”
Weeks later when we talked about this evening, everyone said my memory was faulty, but I could have sworn that Hank was crying as he headed toward his little rental car. Before he opened the door, he stopped and shouted.
“Gus!” he said. “Come on and stay with your old man. C’mon, son!”
There was no hesitation on Gus’s part.
“Not this time, Dad. Not this time.”
Hank fumed, but then he got into the car and began to drive off. He slowed down as he came by us, and the thought crossed my mind that he just might be crazy enough to plow me down. Or that he might have a gun.
But he just stopped next to Claire and me, and he rolled down the window.
“You know, Gaby, let me tell you something,” he said. “You’re nothing but a phony bitch. Merry Christmas to y’all!”
Then he drove away, and I don’t know if we had ever loved him, but we cried for him that night.
Chapter 47
I RARELY HAD trouble falling asleep, but this was no ordinary night. Hank had made it even more, well, dramatic. In six hours we would be serving Christmas-morning breakfast to our homeless friends. And several hours after that I’d be getting married to a very special person. I thought about that person now, why I had chosen him, and how calm and secure I was in my choice. I’d come to believe that if you’re going to marry someone, it has to be your best friend, and he was my best friend, somebody I never tired of being around, someone I felt lucky to have love me back. I wished he were here with me right then.
I lay in bed with a nice big snifter of warm brandy next to me. Not surprisingly, Gus knew how to warm Courvoisier to the perfect temperature, and he had done that for me. I shuffled through my big file of wedding notes—menus and bills and checklists for flowers and orchestra and bartenders and, of course, the ever-growing guest list.
Almost everyone in the house stopped by to say good night, and everyone said that tomorrow was going to be a wonderful day. And screw Hank.
I took a sip of the brandy. Mmm-mmm. Gus might not have been too good at algebra, but he knew how to fix a glass of Courvoisier.
Then came a barely audible knock at the bedroom door.
“Come on in,” I said.
The door opened, and Claire stood there wearing a black silk bathrobe, looking as shy and quiet as she had when she was little.
“Remember this?” she asked.
“I thought I’d given that to Goodwill the day you moved to Myrtle Beach,” I said with a laugh. She turned around, revealing the big silver logo of her favorite rock group when she was in high school—INXS.
“Whatever happened to them?” I asked.
“I think they work in a Walmart in Perth,” she said.
I waved for her to come in, and the moment she closed the door it happened—a dam burst. Sobbing. Shaking. Quivering lips. I held out my arms, and Claire rushed to fill them.
“Mom, I’ve decided something,” she said.
“What did you decide?”
“I’m leaving Hank, divorcing him,” she said, and then held her head away from me, anxious, I thought, to see my reaction.
After a few seconds she spoke again. “Are you going to say you approve or disapprove?”
“You don’t need me to approve or disapprove. A marriage is the most private thing in the world. Only the people in it know if it works for them or doesn’t. All I’m going to say is that I love you like mad.”
She sniffled. She smiled. It was a slight, crooked smile, but a smile.
“Thank you. I just didn’t want the sad news to spoil your wedding.”
“Claire, you’re not spoiling anything.”
I didn’t think it would be appropriate for me to add that she had just given me the best Christmas and wedding gift I could have hoped for.
BOOK THREE
The Christmas Wedding
Chapter 48
MERRY CHRISTMAS. I just hoped I would live through this day.
A wedding happened to be coming up in several hours, with two hundred or so people attending. I had a farmhouse so full of guests that two of the cousins slept on blow-up mattresses on the kitchen floor.
Well, I must have thought we didn’t have enough to do. So, since it was Christmas, it seemed only fair that we have our traditional breakfast for the homeless that morning. I just couldn’t say no.
“Mom, a slight planning problem,” Seth announced. “The tables in the barn are all set for the wedding dinner. Where will the folks sit? What will they eat with?”
“Seth, a planning solution,” I answered. “Let them sit at the beautifully set tables. It’s Christmas.”
“If Stacey Lee finds out, she’ll kill us,” he said.
“No, she won’t. Because as soon as breakfast is over we’re going to wash the china and silver, launder the linen napkins, and get everything back on the tables before the first pig in a blanket is swallowed. Even if I have to do it myself.”
Seth nodded as if I had just made perfect sense. He gave me a peck on the cheek and started helping the morning diners find their seats. “As you wish, madame. No one cares for the masses quite like you. Actually, that’s true.”
Instead of just the regular helpers, my family was pitching in, and certainly not for the first time.
This breakfast was intentionally fancier than most we served. Not the usual oatmeal, fruit, and toast. No, this Christmas morn there were buttermilk pancakes with real maple syrup. Also, scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese and scallions. And every table had a big bowl of sliced strawberries.
I turned and headed toward the big griddle, where Jacob, dapper and handsome, even at this early hour, w
as flipping pancakes like a short-order cook.
“You’re here bright and early,” I said. “Slow day at the temple?” He pretended not to realize I was joking. His expression was wide-eyed, and his jaw dropped a bit.
“Gaby, Christmas is not a big day on the Jewish calendar,” he said.
As we laughed, Emily walked over, picked up a platter of pancakes, and took off, quick and efficient as ever. “This is crazy, Mom,” she mumbled, “but kind of fun.” Tom was already at the table with a second platter.
“Thanks for bringing Amy last night,” I said to Jacob.
“No problem,” he said. “I hope it helped make everyone even more confused. Deepened the mystery. Heated up the plot.”
“Oh, I think it did, Jacob. Just the way we planned.”
By now, some of the breakfast folks were finishing up. A few regulars stopped by to thank me and wish me a merry Christmas. Almost all of them knew about the wedding that afternoon. In fact, most of Stockbridge knew.
Old Adele Gould came up to me. Miz Gould, as she always demanded to be called, claimed to be eighty, but she was at least ninety. She gave me a feeble hug and said, “God bless you, Gaby. I got married four times, and I loved it.”
“You give me great hope and encouragement,” I said.
“Miz Gould,” I heard a familiar voice say. “I’m in charge of collecting the dirty napkins.” It was Marty with a big laundry basket. I hadn’t even seen him arrive.
“Fine, go get mine. Right over there.” Adele pointed to her near-empty table. She winked at me and departed.
“I guess she knows who the hired help is,” Marty said. We shook our heads and smiled.
“Merry Christmas, Marty,” I said.