The Christmas Wedding Read online

  “Cliff, I’m getting a cab uptown on First Avenue,” she said. She began to walk away.

  “Emily!” he called out. “Hold on! Please, wait.”

  She froze in place, but she didn’t turn. Cliff was making her nervous now.

  Suddenly his arms were around her shoulders. He bent forward and nuzzled her neck. Then he kissed her cheek, and the side of her mouth.

  “I’m getting a cab,” Emily said. But she didn’t move.

  “Let’s get that drink first,” he said. “The Beekman’s only a block or so away.”

  “I’ve got to get going.”

  He kissed her on the neck again. For a moment Emily thought: If you don’t respond, if you don’t acknowledge it, if you don’t move, then it really didn’t happen. Right? Then she thought, No. Not right at all. This is definitely happening. Now what do I do about it?

  “You’re over the line, Cliff. There’s a cab over there,” she said, and then moved quickly toward First Avenue.

  Run, Emily. Run.

  Chapter 9

  GABY’S SECOND VIDEO, PART ONE

  NOW, THIS IS A FIRST! Never before have I sent a video that got three of the four of you to call me the day you received it. I should get married more often. And, oh, yes, I assume that after you called me, you called each other. I love that.

  Okay. It’s very early up here in western Mass. All you can see through the den window is darkness. That’s because it’s four-fifteen in the morning.

  You see, I’ve been up all night.

  Thinking.

  Now here goes.

  I’ve been thinking about your dad. And…well, that’s what I want to talk to you about.

  Even after three years, it’s as if, if we don’t talk about Peter, then he’s not really dead. He’s just gone away for a while. You know what I mean?

  Let me tell you a secret I haven’t shared with anybody else. I still reach for him in the middle of the night.

  And I sometimes buy lamb chops because they were Peter’s favorite.

  Something will happen during the day, say, in my classroom, and I’ll think, oh, I can’t wait to tell Peter and the kids. I know, I’m a sap. The last of the sentimentalists.

  I mostly remember good times. Who wants to remember missed mortgage payments and arguments, when there are so many sweet, funny things that we shared?

  You know, I just finished reading Freedom, and I do believe Jonathan Franzen writes beautifully, but I think he only has a partial view of what it’s like to live as most of us do. He seems to think that people are empty-headed if they don’t obsess about the obvious absurdities of life and that intelligent people can’t possibly be happy. Well, I don’t believe that’s necessarily true. I think that most people can lead very satisfying lives, as long as they don’t spend too much time staring at their belly buttons and worrying about things that aren’t within their control.

  Anyhow, I was being sentimental before I interrupted myself…I remember a time when Peter and I fell asleep on the dunes in Truro. Two hours later we had so much poison ivy we could barely sit in the car to drive back to the inn. But still, I treasure that lost weekend.

  And I remember how proud he was of the new window he installed in Lizzie and Claire’s room. Only he put it in sideways, and even today, every time I open it, I laugh. Except for today.

  And when he asked me to marry him—quite beautifully, poetically—and I smiled and said “Sure,” I think he was hurt a little. So then I spent at least fifteen minutes telling him all the things that I loved about him. I could do the same thing right now.

  As I’m sure is the case for you guys, not a day goes by that I don’t think how unfair it was that he was taken from us. How stupid, really.

  Oh, damn, I was afraid this might happen. A waterfall is coming.

  Hold on. I’ll be right back. I need to tell you something important.

  Chapter 10

  GABY’S SECOND VIDEO, PART TWO

  SORRY ABOUT THAT. I’m okay now. You know me. Strong like bull, cry at the drop of a handkerchief.

  Anyway…so this guy, this wonderful guy, your dad, who did everything to take care of himself. All that low-fat yogurt, organic fruit and veggies. Weighed himself every morning…Ran four miles every day. And then, the genetic heart-attack time bomb goes off. It was such a ridiculously short time we had with him—as a husband, as a dad, as a friend, as a soul mate.

  But, you know what, one wonderful weekend with your father was worth more than a lifetime with some other men.

  So you’re probably thinking, Well, hey, if you loved Dad so much, why replace him? I guess the point is, I can’t ever “replace” him. It’s just that…I want to be loved again.

  And I really need to do something for myself. I’ve spent my whole life taking care of other people—no regrets—but now I’m doing something for me. Yay.

  That’s what you’re all going to find out about this Christmas.

  Don’t worry. I know who the person is. I’ve known for some time. However, the person doesn’t know who the person is. Like I said, I’m doing something for myself, and this is the way I’d like it to be.

  Ohhh. And by the way, I want to remind you that there are a number of eligible and exceptional candidates around Stockbridge.

  Like, well, your uncle Martin. I know you think of him as your father’s kid brother, but he’s only ten months younger—big deal. And I’ll tell you this. I have always had a little crush on Marty, and he’s had a crush on me.

  Marty is terrific. Negative side? He plays the rhythm guitar—badly. Positive side? Former wife totally out of the picture and living in California. Attractive salt-and-pepper hair, and lots of it. Very good Italian cook. Cute butt from swimming every day. Everybody’s favorite house builder around here.

  Oh, yes, I forgot to mention—Marty has asked to marry me.

  Which doesn’t mean that I said yes, does it?

  Another thing that I forgot to mention, and this is a mindblower: Marty isn’t the only one who’s asked.

  There are three—so far, anyway. Does that seem incredible, even unbelievable, to you? It sure does to me. Even now it does. I’m still in shock and a little numb about the whole thing.

  I’ll tell you how it happened. A few of us were sitting around after one of our breakfasts for the homeless in the barn. Marty, Jacob, Tom, Stacey Lee, and me.

  Suddenly Marty told everybody that he’d asked me to marry him and was waiting for an answer. “You know Gaby. She does things in her own way, and according to her own clock,” he said.

  What happened next started as a lark, almost a skit. That’s what I thought at first, anyway.

  Jacob got down on one knee and—he asked if I would marry him. “I’m serious, Gaby. I’m a serious person when I have to be,” he said. “I’m asking you to marry me. I think I’ve been in love with you for the last couple of years. I’ll be a very good husband, Gaby.”

  The way Jacob asked was so beautiful and thoughtful, it was hard to imagine he hadn’t composed and rehearsed it before that morning.

  Then Tom got up and stood right in front of me. My God, what was going on? He was the most intense of all—but Tom is always intense—and his face was red when he confessed that he’d probably been in love with me for twenty years—but he said it in the sweetest way imaginable. He’s always been confident in athletics but a little shy in some social situations.

  “I can’t let you go to Marty or Jacob without at least telling you how I feel. I adore you, Gaby. I just didn’t know if you were ready yet. If you are…will you marry me? Will you at least think about it?”

  I was stunned, flabbergasted, speechless, and I finally said that, well, I would have to get back to them. I didn’t know what else I could possibly say.

  They were all so sincere, and I care deeply about each of them. I couldn’t hurt anybody’s feelings, and I wasn’t even sure how I felt at that moment. It all happened so fast and was so unexpected.

  But now I
know what I want—whom I want. I don’t think I’ve ever been surer of anything in my life. I am utterly in love with the person I want to spend the rest of my life with.

  Okay, look. Enough jibber-jabbering about me. I’ve got a few chores to do around here.

  So there’s just one thing left to say: See you at Christmas, and see you in my dreams. I love you all so much.

  Chapter 11

  GABY DECIDED SHE would make the DVD dupes later, then take them to the FedEx store. Right now, she had to get out to the barn. Her workday had officially begun.

  She stopped for half a second to check herself in the hall mirror. “Not too bad,” she said, “for being up half the night.”

  She was going to the barn to feed breakfast to twenty or more homeless folks from town. She’d been doing it every day for over twenty years. Her parents and grandparents had done it before her—made breakfast for migrant workers who came in the autumn to pick apples and pumpkins, and for families overwhelmed by the Great Depression, then for unemployed workers from the glove and hat and shoe factories across the border in upstate New York.

  One of the best parts was doing these breakfasts with her friends, her buds, male and female. What made it even more enticing these days: Three of them had asked for Gaby’s hand in marriage. She hadn’t said yes, but she hadn’t said no either. And none of them had taken back his offer. In fact, they were all pressing her for an answer. There had even been an argument or two between them.

  Tom Hayden owned a local farm. He was a former professional hockey player, handsome as sin. And possibly the sweetest man around. Jacob Coleman, the rabbi at Am Shalom Temple in Great Barrington, was another do-gooder like Gaby. He was a serious man, but with a terrific sense of humor. No one could make her laugh like he did. Marty Summerhill was Peter’s younger brother. Her pal for years. Always, always there for Gaby. The fourth friend present was Stacey Lee Pashcow, a middle-aged divorcée whom Gaby had grown up with. Hardly a day passed that she and Stacey Lee didn’t have lunch or coffee together, and a couple of times a month they’d go to Boston to hear the symphony or maybe a Dave Matthews concert. Once or twice a week Gaby stopped by Stacey Lee’s restaurant/store, the Farmer’s Wife, in Stockbridge, where she helped out—chopping chicken breasts, fluting pie crusts, icing the county-famous Chocolate Tart Stacey Lee.

  This morning her latest video performance had made Gaby late, so she jogged toward the cooking area in the barn. What was it that Emily always said—Run, Emily, run?

  “Hate those powdered eggs,” she said to Jacob, who was stirring a pot of yellow goop on the woodstove in the corner.

  The good-looking rabbi leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I know you do, purist that you are. But until those ten hens of yours can produce forty eggs a day, this is the best we can do. Maybe a nice Christian miracle would help? Can you arrange that?”

  Gaby patted Jacob’s shoulder and smiled at Marty, who was about to pass out silverware and napkins to the hungry-looking people sitting around three wooden tables.

  Then Gaby spotted Stacey Lee, who was practically whirling around the barn—sweeping up goat manure, consolidating trash from yesterday’s breakfast, doing the lousy jobs that no one else wanted to do.

  Finally Gaby joined Tom, dishing hot oatmeal into bowls. She worked quickly and efficiently at his side, noticing that almost every bowl had a chip in it. She insisted that they use real dinnerware—no paper or plastic, except for the napkins.

  “Morning, Tom, you look terrific this a.m.”

  “Morning, Gaby, you’re gorgeous as always. God, just look at you!”

  Gaby grinned. “And they wonder why I work the oatmeal bar with you.”

  Tom smiled back at her. “You could make it official. You and me? Oatmeal forever?” Of course Gaby didn’t answer.

  At that point, Stacey Lee began collecting money at the tables. Gaby felt that everybody should pay something for breakfast, even if it was just a few pennies, and even if they had to borrow the small change from her or one of the other helpers.

  “Thanks for coming!” Gaby announced, as she did every morning. “We couldn’t do this without you. Now, who’s hungry?”

  Chapter 12

  SETH AND ANDIE

  GABY’S ONLY SON, Seth, was singing before breakfast that morning:

  Hark the herald angels sing

  Gaby Summerhill is marrying.

  Folks will come from far and near.

  Seth and Andie will be there.

  We’re coming. We’re coming.

  “Are you loving this dumb song like I’m loving it?” Seth said to Andie.

  Andie just smiled.

  They were sitting on a lumpy green sofa that she’d tried to spruce up with orange plastic pillows from a dollar store in Chinatown. But Boston didn’t have a very big Chinatown, and Boston’s Chinatown didn’t have very exciting pillows for a buck. And obviously, Seth and Andie didn’t have a lot of spare bucks for decorating, or much of anything else.

  “I know the song you want,” Seth said. Then his fingers attacked the three-octave keyboard on his lap as he sang:

  Wedding bell, wedding bell,

  Wedding bell rock!

  Gaby’s a bride, oh, my, what a shock!

  Now Andie smiled again, and this smile was wide, toothy, totally irresistible. Whenever Seth told her that, she answered, “I’ve spent my whole life saving my smile for someone like you.” And Seth knew that was the truth. Andie’s parents had died in an auto accident when she was twelve. She recalled her teenage years as a wasteland of loneliness—not bad, not cruel, just achingly lonely. So when she met Seth, and when it was clear that he loved her, she decided to enfold him with all the caring and love she’d been keeping inside since her parents’ death.

  “C’mon,” he said. “You like ‘Wedding Bell Rock’ better.”

  “It’s not that I like it better, Seth. It’s just that I think it works better with my visual.”

  She held up her sketch—a charming, funny, and irreverent cartoon of Gaby and ten unidentifiable men disguised by ski caps and scarves, all riding in an open sleigh.

  Right behind them in a wacky convertible was a couple—obviously Seth and Andie—chasing after them like the Keystone Kops.

  Seth slid the keyboard off his lap. Then he leaned over and kissed her.

  “We’ll go with ‘Wedding Bell Rock.’ That’s the best.”

  “You are the nicest boyfriend,” she said, and she kissed him again. This time the kiss lasted longer. “And the best roommate ever.”

  “Should we finish up the song and the card or should we…you know,” he asked, “before we have to go to work?”

  Andie slid over on top of him. “You know?”

  “You know,” he said. “It’s good we sit around in our underwear sometimes. That way we’re ready to seize the moment. Among other things.”

  “You remember what your mother said—that time she paid a surprise visit in the middle of the afternoon?”

  “‘You two always walk around like you’re in a French movie’?”

  Gaby had also told them she thought it was adorable. They were adorable—both so slim and tall, and obviously head over heels in love with each other.

  But Seth hadn’t told Gaby what was on their minds lately. They were a big bundle of nerves and anxiety, actually. Because—

  The prestigious New York publishing house Alfred A. Knopf was considering Seth’s novel The Dream Chasers. The book had been passed around for six weeks, and now Seth checked his e-mail about every fifteen minutes. He was getting as jumpy as his sister Emily, the lawyer in New York.

  But he still hadn’t heard from Knopf. So that meant he was still the most overqualified receptionist at Arnold Worldwide, a Boston ad agency at Center Plaza.

  Meanwhile, a few floors and offices away at Little, Brown, Andie was busy doing illustrations for children’s books. “Toddler books, not teens or tweens or chapter books,” she would say, using the lingo of the trade. “I
am the perfect visual communicator with the under-three crowd.”

  “So, what’s it going to be?” Seth said, gently rubbing the sides of her arms and hips and legs.

  “We should get this card done,” she said as she kissed him. “Gaby’s a bride, oh, my, what a shock!”

  Chapter 13

  AT EIGHT TWENTY-NINE that morning, Seth, still a bundle of nerves and unfulfilled expectations, swiped his ID card through the elevator turnstile at Arnold Worldwide. He sat down at his desk and booted up his computer. Doctoral candidate in American lit and promising novelist that he was, he would spend the rest of the day greeting visitors and saying, “I’ll buzz back and let him know you’re here.”

  His first order of business was to scan his e-mail and see if the Almighty Knopf had gotten in touch with him in the forty minutes since he’d checked his e-mail at home.

  Nope, nothing from them.

  Just the first of many e-mails from Andie. “It’s been a half hour and I miss you already. Just kidding, kind of. The people at Knopf probably aren’t even in their offices yet.”

  So Seth hung his old cowboy jacket in the closet. Then he arranged the magazines in order—AdAge and AdWeek and Creativity fanned out in one pile, Wired, Face, and L’Uomo Vogue in another. He checked to make certain the night supply supervisor had stacked more paper cups in the cubbyhole with the water cooler (they called it a bubbler in Boston). Then he thought about how his BA in Renaissance literature at Dartmouth had prepared him for this job. He truly was a man for all seasons.

  At eight forty-five the agency account executives came marching in—not bad people, but with a sense of self-importance in their “How you doing, Seth, my man?” or, skipping the niceties, “I’m expecting the ad manager from J and J at nine. Just send him back. Make him feel like he belongs here. You know how to do it, Seth.”