The Southern Side of Paradise Read online

  This was totally beside the point, and I knew I shouldn’t say anything. But I couldn’t help myself. “Wait,” I said. “Who was it again who took us all to McDonald’s a couple of months ago?”

  Jack was looking helplessly at Mom now, and I wondered if he was rethinking this quest he had undertaken to be with her. I didn’t doubt he loved her, but was she worth all of this? All of us?

  “No, no, you’re right,” Caroline said. “I tell you what: why don’t you get married and have Mark go on a reality show with some slut and then give me a call and let me know how you react. ’K?”

  I smirked at her and told myself the lie that every bride has to in order to fling herself down that aisle. My marriage will be different. But I said, “Mark doesn’t even want me to be on TV.”

  Mom stood up now, too, the four of us in a circle.

  “I love Mark,” Caroline said, “and I love you, and I love you two together. But we all know you’ve had your doubts about this relationship . . .”

  “Actually,” I said, “I thought about what my brilliant sister Sloane said the other day at your house, and Mark and I don’t have to have a cookie-cutter marriage. I can be in LA some and here some, and even though he doesn’t want to move, that doesn’t mean he can’t travel back and forth every couple of months for a week or so. I mean, we’ll work it out.”

  I could see the worried look on Sloane’s face, those double wrinkles she got between her eyebrows. But she didn’t say anything, so I ignored them.

  Then Caroline started singing. “Goin’ to the chapel and we’re . . .”

  Mom chimed in, “Gonna get ma-a-arried . . .”

  Sloane started on the verse, “Spring is here, the-e-e sky is blue, whoa-oh-oh . . .”

  Then they were all in full song, and for the first time but not the last, I realized it: I was going to be a bride. I was going to walk down the aisle and wear a white dress and get married. It was then I realized I didn’t have anyone to walk me down said aisle. I decided immediately I would get Adam to do it. If he was walking right by then. He had sustained multiple injuries in the helicopter crash that led to his capture and even more during the months he was MIA. But the man was a soldier. He knew all about fighting a hard battle and coming out the other side.

  A few minutes later, when the squealing and singing and general noise had stopped, I noticed Jack still sitting on the couch, looking something between amused and terrified. You couldn’t blame the man. I would wonder what I had gotten myself into, too. I also noticed that Kyle was now leaning on the open front door, admiring all of us. Well, maybe not all of us. Maybe just me. Either way, my heart skipped a beat. But I got myself back together. It had been one night. Just one night. It had meant nothing.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Stopping in to say hi on my way home from work.”

  I kept meaning to ask my mom if Kyle always stopped by on his way home from work or if it was only when I was around.

  I felt suddenly tongue-tied, and instead of responding, I said, “You know what would be so great? I’m totally in the mood for some green juice.”

  Mom and Sloane groaned, while Caroline said, “Oh, yes, yes, yes!”

  Mom sighed. “I love you, Em, and I’m glad you’re being healthy, but the mess in the kitchen after you juice is too much.”

  “I can see there’s a lot happening here tonight, so I’ll come back in the morning,” Kyle said, laughing. Then he added, “Congrats, Em. You’re going to be a beautiful bride.” The words seemed to taste bad in his mouth.

  “Please,” Jack pleaded. “Please, Kyle. Take me with you.”

  Kyle put his hand to his heart, as if it genuinely pained him to say what was coming next. “If only I could, my good friend. But you know as well as I do that when it comes to the indomitable Murphy women, it’s every man for himself.”

  Maybe it was only in my mind, but I felt like he looked at me a beat too long when he said it. And it made me wonder if Kyle thought about that night every now and then, too.

  FIVE

  ansley: a nice gesture

  I had known Kyle for seven years. I had drunk his coffee every day. And for the entire time I had known him, I had begged him to do just one thing. Last week, he had finally agreed.

  My assistant, Leah, had taken over a lot of the ins and outs of my daily design business, but this was something I knew I had to do myself. I made my way to Kyle’s shop, Peachtree Perk, with a bag full of samples I planned to drop off: black and white tile for the floor, wood choices for the booths that would be handmade at Peachtree Furniture, leather for the cell-phone pouches that would hang on the walls to encourage people to disconnect so they could reconnect. I had pictures of industrial barstools and renderings of a sophisticated, modern white quartz bar with metal trim that we would install in the center of the café.

  When I walked in, Kyle was rushing around behind the counter as two women old enough to know better—or at least hide it better—admired his chiseled jawline. “So what’s the damage?” he asked, never stopping his movement.

  I slid a piece of paper across the counter with the quote. My time would be free, obviously. Kyle was like one of my children.

  Glancing at the paper as he walked by, he said, “Solid. Let me know when I need to close for the installation.”

  I held up my bag. “Don’t you want to see some samples? Choose some things?”

  He finally stopped moving, his hand on the steamer as he prepared a latte, and looked up at me. “Ans, you don’t tell me what to put in your coffee. I don’t tell you what to put on my floors. We’re artists. I trust you.”

  I smiled. “You’re going to love it.”

  “No doubt.” He started moving again, and as I walked back out onto the sidewalk—wedding planning with the girls called—I got lost in my thoughts.

  I wanted to ignore it, tried to ignore it, hoped it would go away. But there were no two ways around the fact that Jack was acting very oddly toward me, skittish, almost. We had made a pact not to eat any sugar the entire week—a real feat for both of us—and when I was making dinner at his house the night before, I had found a Snickers bar in the pantry. I turned to him, arms crossed, and said teasingly, “Jack, do you have something you need to tell me?”

  He went completely white and stammered, “Oh, um . . .”

  I pulled the Snickers out from behind my back, laughing, and he visibly relaxed, his shoulders going soft. I wanted to ask what was going on, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to. I got the feeling it was news I wasn’t going to like.

  And while I was mostly wrapped up in the Emerson wedding-planning fest, it was hard to ignore that Caroline and Sloane were also acting strangely. It wasn’t unusual for Caroline to be a touch chilly toward me, but Sloane? When she snapped at me about letting the boys have cookies after school, I wrote it off as stress over Adam’s difficult physical therapy that day. But when she didn’t call me or drop by a single time for three days, I had to think it was me.

  I wasn’t that worried about my daughters being upset, because I only assumed I had done something inadvertently to offend them. It wouldn’t be the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. But the Jack part worried me.

  Being back together with your first love is one of those things that sounds sweet and romantic, but all the craziness of the past few days must have been eye-opening, to say the least. I couldn’t help but worry that the magic was wearing off and Jack was changing his mind.

  Caroline was supposed to be heading back to New York, to her permanent home, but she had decided (and rightly so) that she couldn’t possibly leave all of us alone in charge of the wedding planning. I didn’t doubt that she wanted to be here to micromanage every detail of Emerson’s wedding, but I also felt there was something more, something she wasn’t saying, underneath her gesture. I was sure she would miss us, of course, but I also wondered if thinking about being back in the city with James was becoming harder than she
’d imagined now that it was almost here, if it made her rethink taking him back. But you couldn’t ask Caroline things like that. She was very defensive when she felt her decisions were being questioned.

  Caroline was the first to arrive at my dining-room table, with a huge white binder in her hand. I mean huge huge; I’d never seen anything quite like it. She was wearing a pair of white jeans and an off-the-shoulder top. It wasn’t anything special, but she looked unfathomably glamorous even so. Sloane walked in behind her, still in her flannel pajamas.

  “Sloane,” Caroline scolded, “did you seriously walk down the street in those?”

  She shrugged. “It’s two doors down, Caroline. Honestly.”

  Caroline sighed. “Where is Kyle?”

  I smiled. Coffee Kyle delivered us our favorite beverages every morning, as he did to the rest of the locals. He usually brought mine to Sloane Emerson—my waterfront design store a couple of blocks away—but he knew I’d be home with all the girls.

  “The coffee shop was slammed this morning,” I said. “Plus, it’s a nice gesture that he delivers to us, Caroline. We’re not on a schedule or anything.”

  She rolled her eyes and sighed. “I see those bills you get from him every month. You should be on a schedule, for what you pay.”

  Sloane and I shared a glance. It seemed like scary, controlling Caroline had come to our wedding-planning meeting today, which worried me. Whatever Caroline acted upset about was usually a deflection from her true pain. In that way, she was masterful at hiding her emotions.

  She looked at her watch, a diamond-encrusted Cartier piece that James had recently surprised her with, which sat inches below the massive apology diamond ring he had given her a few months before. I could have told him that my baby couldn’t be bought. But if she was going to stay with him despite his idiocy, she at least deserved some nice gifts.

  “Where is the happy couple?” Caroline asked.

  “They stayed out way too late last night celebrating,” I said. “I heard Emerson come in after two. I’m shocked she’s already out and about this morning.”

  But Emerson rarely missed her morning run, no matter what was going on. Sure, she was an actress and had to keep her figure, but Emerson said running was more than that for her. It was her therapy. It was my torture, so I couldn’t really relate, but whatever made her happy. Plus, if she was running, she couldn’t be sick. Right? I was bursting to ask her what was going on with her health, but I hadn’t found the right moment.

  “That’s sweet,” Sloane said. “I’m happy she’s so happy.”

  I felt Caroline’s mood shift from foul to pleasant as she said, “I want her to have everything she has ever dreamed of.”

  I knew that was true. Caroline was the one who had encouraged Emerson to follow her acting passion—in fact, she had been the one who had persuaded me to allow Emerson to act when she was younger. I didn’t want her in the spotlight and had been worried about what that life might be like for her. But you can’t deny your children their passions. I got that uneasy feeling again, as I hoped that Mark was her true passion. I had always believed that work was important, but it was nothing compared to finding your life partner.

  Mark and Emerson burst through the door, giggling, breaking my thoughts. You couldn’t help but smile. They were both in black running shorts, Mark in a T-shirt and Emerson in a form-fitting jogging top. And they were both really, really sweaty.

  “Gross,” Caroline said under her breath.

  No one exercised more than Caroline, but she always showered immediately afterward.

  “I’m sorry if our love is gross to you, Car,” Emerson said.

  “I love your love, Em. I just don’t love your sweat.”

  “I love your sweat,” Mark said, kissing Emerson’s nose.

  “I love your sweat, too,” she said back adoringly.

  “Sorry in advance about the soon-to-be-sweaty dining-room chairs, Mom,” Emerson said, sitting down.

  Mark sat down beside her, but instead of facing the rest of us on the other side of the table, he sat sideways, staring at Emerson, rubbing her antique-diamond-clad hand with his. His expression said it all: he couldn’t believe she’d said yes. He couldn’t believe that he would get to spend the rest of his life with this woman, who had been a fantasy for him for so many years. The rest of us couldn’t believe it, either.

  She’d only been engaged for a day, so we hadn’t bugged Emerson yet with the finer points of the relationship, but we’d get our answers soon. Caroline and I had been up late—we were the night owls of the bunch—debating whether Emerson was making the right decision. I had gotten the nerve up to ask Caroline, “Does Emerson seem OK to you? I mean, does she seem well? She hasn’t mentioned to you being sick or anything, has she?”

  Caroline had looked at me like I was crazy and said, “No. She seems great to me.”

  That eased my fears. If something serious was going on with Emerson, she would have told her sister.

  I loved that Caroline and James were letting Sloane and Adam live in their house while they got back on their feet. I loved that my grandsons were right down the street. I loved that Caroline, Vivi, and Preston had to stay with me because their house was occupied. And I would love it if Emerson stayed in Peachtree, too. But I wanted her to put her happiness first.

  “OK,” Caroline said, opening her massive book. “Let’s get down to it. I think the first thing we need to pick is the venue. Then we can nail down a date.”

  “Actually,” Emerson said, “we’ve decided we want to get married Labor Day weekend. All of our friends will be down here already, and . . .” She paused dramatically. “I have to be back in LA the next Tuesday.”

  She cut herself off, but we could all tell there was more to that story.

  “Why do you have to be back in LA the next Tuesday?” Sloane took the bait first.

  “Well,” Emerson crooned, looking ecstatic. Mark looked less ecstatic. “I just found out that I am playing Sissy in the new film version of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.”

  I heard my gasp before I felt it in my chest.

  Sloane jumped up from her seat and ran around the table to hug Emerson. “I don’t even care that you’re sweaty!” Sloane exclaimed.

  “Wait just a minute,” Caroline said. “You mean to tell me that they hired you to play Sissy? The one with all the cleavage?”

  Looking at Emerson, who had a body more like Twiggy than Marilyn, I had to admit it was a fair question.

  Emerson crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. “That’s what push-up bras are for, Caroline.” We all laughed.

  “Em,” I said, “this is unbelievable.” I could feel tears in my eyes. I was so proud of her. She had worked so hard for every role, big or small, that she had gotten.

  “It really is unbelievable,” Mark said under his breath. I didn’t love the way he said it, as if what was really unbelievable was that someone would leave him. But acting was Emerson’s first love. Anyone who was with her would have to understand that.

  Caroline glanced at me across the table. This was exactly what we’d talked about last night: Mark wanted Emerson all to himself.

  Sloane, oblivious to our silent discussion, was crying. “You’re going to win an Academy Award. I’m going to have a sister who’s an Oscar winner!”

  Emerson laughed. “OK, OK. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It’s an amazing part, but an Academy Award?”

  You could almost see her goose bumps as she said it.

  “I wanted to complain about having to plan your wedding in two months,” Caroline said with a smile, “but now that I know you’re getting ready for the role of a lifetime, I’m going to be OK about it.” She opened her binder again. “Labor Day will be absolutely glorious anywhere in Peachtree Bluff.” She paused. “I’m assuming you want to have it in Peachtree? I mean, I have an entire section of destination-wedding locales if you’d like to look at those.”

  I looked at Caroline in astonishment as Emers
on said what I was thinking: “When did you have time to put this all together?”

  “She’s a vampire,” Sloane said. “She doesn’t need sleep.”

  “Exactly,” Caroline agreed. “But I do need coffee. I’m going to kill Kyle if he doesn’t get here soon.”

  “We’d like to get married in Peachtree,” Mark said, chuckling. “But thank you for your thorough research, Caroline. It is much appreciated.”

  “In that case,” Caroline said, “I have several options, but the one I think you’ll like the best is getting married at St. James’s and then having the reception at the Yacht House.”

  The Yacht House was a beautiful old shingled building with twenty-foot ceilings whose entire back wall opened onto the water. It had a huge deck and the prettiest view of the sunset. I could get on board with that.

  “I love the Yacht House,” Mark said enthusiastically.

  Emerson scrunched her nose. “Why don’t we do the rehearsal dinner there?”

  “OK,” Caroline said, jotting it down in her notebook. “Do you still want to do the ceremony at the church?”

  Jack walked in from the kitchen, sat down beside me, and squeezed my shoulder, seeming like his usual self today. He kissed my cheek, and I smiled, but neither of us said a word. This was wedding planning. It was serious.

  Emerson shrugged. “I want something kind of different.”

  Caroline ran her hand through her hair. “You could do the Bluefish Club, or the Sea Oats.”

  Emerson looked bored. “That’s definitely not different.”

  “What about the Historic Site?” Sloane asked, referring to the beautiful green space in the midst of Peachtree Bluff’s oldest part of town, which included a historic jail, an apothecary, a schoolhouse, and a beautiful home complete with a full catering kitchen.

  Caroline nodded. “We could tent the whole thing and have Peachtree Grocery cater.”

  “That might be cool,” Mark said.