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“Stay there, Mrs. Halverson. You fainted. I’m Sarah’s friend Julie. You remember me?” Penny nodded.
“I’m a doctor,” Julie went on, her voice calm but authoritative. “I just want to check you out before you try to get up.”
Penny swallowed. “I’m…I’m so embarrassed. I’ve never done anything like this before.”
Julie peered into Penny’s eyes and felt around her head and neck for bumps. “Do you remember what triggered the fainting?”
Sarah’s head shot up. “Ah-h, I wouldn’t go there if I were you.”
Just then an argument seemed to erupt from the other side of the door. Julie frowned. “What’s going on in—”
Heavy footsteps coming down the hallway interrupted her words. “Is everyone all right?” It was Ben, Katarina’s husband. Despite his oversize physique, he looked very smart in a custom-made tuxedo. Katarina must have put the screws to him because he’d even gone and gotten a haircut for the occasion.
Katarina put her hand up. “It’s okay, sweetie. I think we’ve got it under control.”
He looked at Penny lying slack in her daughter’s arms. “Well, it doesn’t look that way to me.” His baritone was full-bodied.
Immediately, there was a large thump from the other side of the door, followed by more scurrying noises.
All heads turned, even Penny’s.
Ben pushed his way toward the door.
Sarah stood. “No, let me.” She brandished the key. “Julie, could you hold my mom?”
“Okay. But you’re sure you don’t want to let Ben check it out?”
Sarah sniffed, slipped her grandmother’s watch up her wrist, and stepped around her mother. “No, I think it’s more like cue the bride.” She set her jaw, unlocked the wooden door and pushed it open.
Katarina and Julie craned their necks.
“Oh, my God! I don’t believe it!” Katarina exclaimed loudly.
“What a total and utter schmuck!” Julie shouted.
A startled voice escaped from the other side of the door. “Sarah, I can explain.”
“No, let me,” came a second voice.
Ben took a step forward, but Sarah held out an arm.
“Oh-h-h…” Penny swooned for a second time. Luckily, Julie was still holding her.
Sarah closed the door, relocked it and faced her friends, leaning against the wall. “You saw what I saw, right?” Sarah looked from one face to another.
Katarina nodded. “If you mean that they were untangling their naked selves from a Revolving Half Moon Pose, I would have to agree.”
Sarah bit her lip. “Actually, I think it was the Downward Facing Pigeon.”
Ben coughed. “Where I come from, we don’t need that many words to describe what they were doing. What I want to know is who’s in there with Zach?”
Julie patted Sarah’s mother on both cheeks to revive her.
“It’s Ken, his partner in his yoga practice,” Sarah said.
“Sarah?” the male voice on the other side of the door sounded plaintively. Penny moaned.
Sarah looked down. “Mo-om…oh…Mo-om, I’m so sorry.”
“Was, Zach with—with…another man?” Her mother was almost too frightened to ask. “Here? In Grantham?”
Julie blew air between her pursed lips. “And they would have still been going at it, totally oblivious to the outside world, if we hadn’t made so much noise.”
“Thank you for pointing that out,” Sarah said. Silently, she rehashed her own lovemaking with Zach and came to the stark realization that they had never achieved such a passionate detachment from reality. Should that have been a clue? Who knew at this point? The only thing that was clear in her mind, and in her heart, was that she was broken. Utterly and absolutely broken. Crushed.
She placed her hand on her stomach to control yet another surge of indigestion. She tried to gather her thoughts, but the image of Zach and Ken kept interfering.
Still, she refused to come apart. She’d save that for later. “Well, let’s see…we need a plan,” she stated in a deliberate tone. “First…ah…the guests. They’ll need to be told that the wedding is off—I should probably do that.”
“I’m happy to do it.” Katarina stepped forward.
Sarah bit down on her lower lip and nodded. “Thanks, but I think it’s only proper that I should. In the meantime, could you let everyone know I plan to address them in a minute?” She looked over to Ben. “And could you do me a big favor? Could you go and tell my father the news? He’s outside. I know I’m being a coward, but I don’t think I could face him, not yet, anyway. And I certainly don’t want him back here. Who knows what he’d do?”
Ben straightened his shoulders. “I’ll be happy to. But first, with your permission, I’d like to deck Zach. I feel the need to inflict pain. You have to understand—it’s a guy thing.”
“It’s not just a guy thing.”
Her own gas pain reared up more violently. She breathed in deeply, if not a little noisily. It was New Jersey, after all, the pollen capital of America. “Thanks, Ben, you don’t need to punch out Zach. Just dealing with my father will be more than enough,” she said. She slanted her head toward the closed door. “First, I’ll take care of business here, then I’ll go tell the guests.”
She studied her mother. Penny had started to sob quietly.
Sarah reached in the hidden pocket of her wedding dress and pulled out a hand-embroidered handkerchief. It had been Grammy’s, as well. She handed it to Julie. “Here, you can pass this to my mom. I know she has one of her own, but this might be a source of added comfort.” Grammy had been a sensible woman. She would have understood.
Next, without missing a beat, Sarah clasped her left hand and began working off the engagement ring that Zach had picked out and she had always found too showy. She passed it to Julie while Katarina busily positioned the bouquet of ferns and lilies of the valley under Penny’s head to act as a cushion.
“Could you take this, too?” Sarah asked. “I don’t want it to get in the way.”
“The way?” Julie looked confused.
“I intend to slap a certain someone silly, but I have no desire to break any skin.”
“Sarah. Let me explain. Ple-ease.” Zach’s wailing voice penetrated through the door.
Sarah shook her head. “When I come back out, and after my mother has recovered—poor Mom—I’m not sure she’ll ever recover. Earl was one thing, but this…. Anyhow, when all the drama’s died down, do you think someone could scrounge me up some Tums?”
“Tums? I was thinking more along the lines of vodka,” Katarina said.
Sarah laughed a sad laugh. “Actually, vodka sounds like a great idea, but under the circumstances, I’m afraid it’s not such a good idea,” she said in a low voice, not wanting to further upset her mother. Penny’s eyelashes fluttered closed.
Katarina raised her eyebrows. “And that’s because…”
“You remember when I told you how my father blew a gasket when he found out I was living with Earl in New York City?”
Katarina and Julie nodded.
“Well, he’s going to have an apoplectic fit when he learns that this time I’m pregnant.”
CHAPTER TWO
September, four months later
“RUN, FRED, RUN!” Huntington Phox called to the black-and-white dog that was dashing from one side of the backyard to the other. A mixture of Australian cattle dog and an undisclosed number of hounds, Fred was low to the ground and moved like a bullet train.
“Uh…Hunt, I think he’s mastered running. It’s ‘stop’ that might need a little more work.” Ben Brown turned from watching the hyperactive animal to his longtime friend and partner.
He and Hunt went back more than a few years, first working at the same investment firm on Wall Street before Ben unnecessarily took the fall for an insider trading scandal and left the company. The two had gone on to found a successful venture capital firm in Grantham. Hunt knew that Ben was grateful. For his sticking by Ben no matter what, Hunt also knew his friend was more than grateful.
He also knew he was cagey. Ben might gladly walk through fire, walk on water, or put out the fire with the water for Hunt. But that didn’t mean he didn’t have his own agenda.
So Hunt waited, knowing that Ben was mindful of the tactical nuances necessary when it came to persuading Hunt about something. Because, even though Hunt may have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he haggled with all the skill of a Bedouin horse trader.
“So when did you acquire this…this…beast?” Ben asked, opening with what Hunt surmised was a sideways gambit.
Hunt glanced at Ben before returning his attention to Fred. The “beast” raced along the winding paths fronting the flowerbeds, scattering pine-bark chips and beheading several black-eyed Susans.
“For your information, Fred happens to be a dog, a one-year-old dog, and I picked him up today when I was driving by the animal shelter.”
“Well, if you say he’s a dog, I guess I’ll have to believe you. But he looks more like a big tail attached to an unidentified flying object.”
Fred chose that moment to leap a hydrangea bush with a single bound. He made it about halfway before losing air and crashing into the branches. Ben winced. Fred bounced out and looked around. His tongue hung out, practically reaching his knuckles. His eyes were bright and eager.
Ben shook his head. “All I can say, you’re a braver man than I to risk bringing a new puppy to your mother’s garden.”
Hunt turned. His hands were thrust into the pockets of the khaki pants that hung from his slim hips. He had finished his rounds of chemotherapy three months ago, but his weight loss was still apparent. Not that he had ever been heavy. But the lanky physique that had proved ideal for skiing and tennis and wearing a custom-made tuxedo with debonair flair, now resembled an undernourished teenager’s. The bulky fisherman’s knit sweater only accentuated his sunken chest. And the baseball cap he wore barely concealed his stubby hair, thinner and curlier than the thick blond waves he once had.
“It’s not a question of bravery,” Hunt said in response to Ben’s remark. “I brought Fred here because my house doesn’t have a fenced-in yard.” That was true. His ultra-modern in-town dwelling might have a rooftop pool, a state-of-the-art sound system, and a well-stocked wine cellar, but it lacked even a single blade of grass.
He went back to admiring the dog’s antics. “Besides, Mother won’t know. She’s in Manhattan, attending the opening of a new exhibit at the Met.” Those of Hunt’s social ilk only ever used the shortened form of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“And you think she won’t notice when she gets back?” Ben watched as Fred finally gave up the chase and plopped down in a sunken reflecting pool. The mutt lapped the water, then raised his head and panted. Water dribbled from his corrugated black lips. He looked very wet, very tired and very proud.
Ben laughed.
Hunt shrugged. “I’ll figure out something. In the meantime, I keep reminding myself that I am her only son and heir.”
Ben walked over to the pond and looked more closely. “At the same time you might try reminding yourself that your mother’s prized water garden used to be in that pond.”
Fred burped. He waggled his narrow bottom on what was once a rare species of water lily.
Hunt winced.
Ben straightened up. “Although I don’t have the name of an exotic-plant specialist on speed dial, I’m not without some equally powerful resources. Lucky for you, I think I know how to smooth this over.”
Hunt raised his eyebrows doubtfully. He had an inkling his friend was about to show his hand.
“Oh, ye of little faith.” Ben pulled out a pamphlet from the back pocket of his jeans.
Hunt looked at it. “Don’t tell me. Some little idea of my mother’s?”
“What did you expect? She drove out to my place a few days ago and showed me the course listing for the new session of the Adult Education School. She thought you might be interested, and I agreed it was a good idea.”
“She scared you witless, didn’t she?”
Ben held up his hands. “Completely. Still, in my defense, after she left I stuffed the pamphlet in a pile of junk mail, never intending to talk to you about it. But now, given the circumstances….” He nodded toward Fred. A water lily pad adorned his forehead.
Hunt flipped open the front cover and read the introductory remarks in mocking tones,
“Dear Grantham Community Members,
Welcome to the twenty-sixth year of the Grantham Adult School! As in years past, we are delighted to offer a wide range of classes to meet the needs and interests of the community. Our instructors include noted scholars from Grantham University, as well as artists, artisans and business experts residing in the area. Above all, we at the Adult School believe that education does not end with a diploma. Hence, our motto, Education: the Wellspring of Life.
Iris Phox, President
Grantham Adult School”
Hunt snapped the booklet shut. “As I recall, those very words practically made you gag not all that long ago.”
“Yeah, I admit that’s true. But think what it did for me. When I finally went—okay, not entirely on purpose—to Katarina’s class, I found the woman I love, got my relationship with my son back in order, and acquired a whole new set of friends and family. That’s what I call adult education!”
Hunt slipped his hand in his pants pocket and pulled out his BlackBerry.
“Who are you calling?” Ben asked.
“Oprah. Your story needs to be told to a larger audience.”
Ben rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay. I know it sounds hokey. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a smart thing to do. I mean, look at you. You just hang around doing nothing. You’re not interacting with anyone except…except some mutt whose social skills leave more than a little to be desired.”
“I presume you are referring to my friendship with you?” Hunt joked.
“All right, I asked for that. Not all of us were born on the right side of the tracks.”
Hunt knew that Ben’s declaration grossly understated the harshness of his childhood years.
“But say what you will, at least I’m working my butt off to earn an honest living,” Ben continued.
Hunt rubbed his cheek. “I thought you were okay with me taking a leave from work. If you’ve changed your mind, then you’re free to get a new partner.”
“Jeez, Hunt, I don’t want a new partner. And I’m perfectly okay with you taking time off. What I’m not okay with is you taking a leave of absence from life. I mean, to tell you the truth, I just don’t get it. When you were first diagnosed with lymphoma and had to go through all that wretched treatment, you were amazing, more than amazing. I still can’t believe how you insisted on coming in practically every day while you were undergoing chemo, let alone dealing with the stress and worry. But now that it’s behind you, you’re a wreck. Logic tells me it should be the other way around.”
