A Beautiful Fall (18 page)

Before they’d reached the farm, Emma heard the sound of her cell phone ringing inside her purse.

“Please tell me they’re not calling you about work on a Sunday,” Will said.

“It might be Samantha calling about the party.”

Emma took out her phone and looked at the caller ID.

“It’s Colin,” she said, flipping open the lid of her cell and placing it against her ear.

“Hello.”

“I can’t believe you’ve only been gone seven days. It feels like a month.”

“Where are you? You sound like you’re running to catch a bus.”

“I’m at the club on a treadmill. Some of the members complained about not getting clear cell phone reception in the fitness center, so they made some structural changes and now we can use our phones while we workout.”

The whole idea sounded farcical. “Why would you want to?” Emma asked.

“Just one more way to do business,” Colin said. “I hope you’re okay with me calling you. I tried to reach you last night again, but I couldn’t get through.”

“I’m sorry, Colin. We worked on my dad’s home office all day, and last night there was a big community event here and a group of us went together.”

Emma listened to Colin’s breathing, a short choppy sound as clear as if he were in the car with them.

“How’s the office coming?” he asked.

“It’s almost finished. It just needs a little drywall work, a polish on the floor, new paint, and we’ll be done.”

“Furniture,” Will added.

“Oh yeah, I promised to take my dad to look at office furniture. I think that’s tomorrow,” she said, looking at Will to confirm. He nodded. “I want to get him a cloth chair for his office, not one of those sticky leather ones.”

Will rolled the Cadillac up the drive and parked it under the carport. He nodded at Emma and went inside through the kitchen door.

“Good, sounds like everything’s come together. It will be nice having you back in Boston,” Colin said.

Emma swung open her car door and walked out into the sunshine. She kicked off her shoes to feel the grass underneath her feet, enjoying a lackadaisical stroll after church.

“Colin, can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, go ahead,” he said.

“Do you believe in God?”

She heard his surprise in the silence. Faith had never been a hot topic in their discussions.

“Yeah, I guess so. Everybody believes in God to some degree, most do anyway. Why? Did you spend the morning in a Southern revival tent or something?”

“Something like that,” she joked. “I went to church with my dad. I just thought I’d ask you because I trust your opinion. You seem to know a lot about everything.”

“Enough to be dangerous, I suppose,” he laughed. “I believe in God, went to Mass as a kid. I think there definitely are some things that are right and wrong. Yeah, you’re hearing that from a fellow lawyer. The bottom line is, I think religion’s fine, unless people take it too far and fall over the edge. That’s the CliffsNotes version of what I believe. What about you?”

“I think there might be more to it than that. It seems to give some people a greater sense of community.”

“Like I say, I’m not an expert. I think religion is like medicine. When life gets you down, it’s there if you need it.”

“Christina probably has some thoughts on the subject,” Emma said, her eyes drawn to dozens of yellow wildflowers still in bloom, growing on the side of the barn.

“Who’s Christina?”

“A friend of mine. She’s a Christian author and speaker. Travels around the country talking about things like this.”

“Maybe you should talk to her about it.”

“Maybe I will,” Emma said.

“Okay, let me ask you a question,” Colin said.

“All right,” she said, carrying a handful of wildflowers back to the house to put in the kitchen window as a gift for her dad.

“Aren’t you the least bit curious why I’ve called you so many times this week?”

~ Fourteen ~

You’ve already proved it to me time and time again
Baby you’re one good friend.

—G
EORGE
C
ANYON

“One Good Friend”

At two o’clock that Sunday afternoon, Emma parked Old Red against the curb in front of the Connors’ quaint Juneberry home. She noticed the ornate Victorian porch, recognized Samantha’s touch in how it was decorated behind the waist-high wooden handrail. Corn stalks, straw bales, a small kitschy scarecrow, assorted pumpkins and gourds greeted visitors and gave them a friendly welcome.

Emma climbed five porch steps, walking up to the open door feeling like a kid trick-or-treating. She knocked, but just as she gave the door her first tap, Jim was getting up from the recliner.

“Am I the first?” she asked.

“No, no, there’s a couple already back there,” Jim said, opening the glass door and escorting her through the Connors’ homey family kitchen.

Samantha greeted her at the patio door, all smiles. She wore not a trace of anxiety, which impressed Emma. The thought of running around to set up a tea party after spending all morning at church was daunting to her.

“Samantha, this looks beautiful,” she said, standing on a step at the back patio doorway.

The enclosed patio ran almost the full length of the house. It was kind of a hidden treasure, a screened-in sanctuary overlooking Samantha’s backyard garden. Latticework capped the farthest porch wall, providing privacy and some separation between houses. Samantha had decorated the space in white wicker, including rocking chairs and a love seat, a bookcase filled with plants along the house wall, and baskets containing large green ferns hanging from the ceiling.

She’d warmed up the room with pink decorator pillows and a beautiful ruby red carpet.

“Hi, Emma.” Samantha welcomed her with a hug.

“I’m so glad you could make it. Let me introduce you to everybody. You know Beth; she’s a little taller than the last time you saw her.”

Beth said hi with a wave, somehow managing to pull off looking grown up enough to be invited and too cool to be there all at the same time.

“And I’d like you to meet Janette Kerr,” Samantha said, gesturing toward the smiling older woman sitting in one of the wicker rocking chairs. “Janette has become such a good friend through our ladies Bible study at church.”

“How do you do?” Janette said, in a voice sounding both gracious and sociable. Her face looked familiar. The blonde-haired woman with a gentle hello and unhurried manners radiated peace. Emma wondered but didn’t think she’d ever seen one of Janette’s movies.

“Fine, thank you. It’s a pleasure meeting you. I understand you’re an actress?”

“Oh, ho, that was a
long
time ago.”

Emma sensed she was neither proud nor ashamed of her Hollywood career, weary perhaps of having the same conversations about it. Emma took her answer as a hint and sat down with her at the table.

“Sure is a pretty dress you’re wearing,” Emma told her.

“Thank you. I wore it to church this morning.”

“We’re still waiting on Christina,” Samantha said. “But I’m just so glad that you’re all here today. I wanted to throw a welcome-back party for Emma since we love her and haven’t had a chance to see her in a while. Now that the weather’s cooler and the bugs are gone, I thought we could all get together and just have some snacks and girl talk.”

From the other room, they heard Christina’s voice.

“Looks like we’re all here!” Samantha said.

After hugs and hellos and compliments on the patio’s decor, everyone was seated for tea.

“As you can see, we have a couple different kinds of hot teas, fruit tea, unsweetened tea, and just plain old water to drink.”

Beth rolled the teacart into the center of the patio. The centerpiece of the impressive display was a ceramic teakettle—white with blue and purple wildflowers, surrounded by matching cups, creamer, and sugar bowl. The cart was stocked with everything from milk to cream, honey, and cakes.

“At first, I thought about asking everyone to bring a dish to pass, but then I thought maybe Beth and I could just bake a few things.”

“A few things?” Christina laughed, and the others joined in. The table looked decked out for Thanksgiving, with pumpkin pie, chocolate frosted brownies, sliced turkey and bread for sandwiches, and banana bread.

“Samantha, Martha Stewart would blush in embarrassment if she were here,” Christina said. “This table looks incredible.”

“Yes, Samantha, you’ve completely outdone yourself,” Emma said.

“I’m just so glad to be invited,” Janette said.

Samantha smiled and joined everyone at the table and Beth began serving the tea.

“Beth, we hope you’ll feel at home with us,” Emma said, watching as the teenager served the hot tea with practiced poise.

“I feel like I’m with the Juneberry all-stars,” she said. “You ladies have done it all.”

“I’m not sure how to take that,” Samantha joked.

“I’m taking it in the best sense,” Christina said.

“I’ll bet you all have some great stories.” Beth poured another cup of hot tea and offered it to Emma.

“Stories we’ve got!” Christina said. “I’m not sure we’re going to tell them, but …”

The four ladies laughed, and Samantha coaxed the seated women to help themselves to the food.

“Oh, come on. Mom says you and Emma went to high school together and used to hang out at her house all the time. What kind of teenagers were you? Did you ever get into any trouble?” Beth asked.

“We were actually pretty good girls,” Christina said. “Your mom made sure of that. Emma was on the track team, and I was in student council.”

Beth poured a cup of tea for her mother after serving everyone else, then poured herself half a cup. “What about boys?” she asked.

“We dated some in high school,” Christina said. “Mark Barnes—do you remember Mark?” she asked Emma. “Mark asked me to the junior prom, and I dated a foreign exchange student from Ecuador my senior year.”

“Ricardo!” Samantha and Emma belted out, laughing at the memory.

“He was nice,” Christina said. “Okay, a little weird, but nice.”

“What about you, Emma? You must have had lots of boyfriends.”

“Not really,” she said, pouring cream into her tea and stirring it. “I was more of a tomboy in high school. I dated some, but it was on and off.”

“You dated Michael in high school,” Samantha reminded her. “Everyone thought you two made a nice-looking couple.”

“We were never that serious,” Emma said. “We went to a couple of dances, and he asked me to go to a game and watch him play baseball that spring. But really we were all just part a big social group. Somehow, we managed to escape the entanglements of awkward teenage romances.”

“Speak for yourself,” Samantha said. “I
married
my high school sweetheart, although to be honest, our relationship was never that awkward. My parents liked Jim right off the bat, and I got along with his mother so well that by the time June came around after graduation, we were already talking seriously about a wedding that upcoming fall—and no Beth, don’t
even
think about it.”

“You and Michael were never serious?” Christina asked. “You got along so well that summer during college, I would have expected that was sparked by a trace of something from when you dated before.”

“Hmm, you’re really asking me to go way back, aren’t you,” Emma said. “He’d asked me to dance with him my sophomore year, that was the first … no, he’d helped me open my locker—oh this is funny, I’d forgotten. He helped me open my locker my freshman year. Remember how hard it was to open those old lockers with the combinations—turn right, turn left. I could not get mine to open, and then this arm reached over my shoulder and whacked the door by the handle and it popped open. Turned out it was just stuck.”

“How did you two get back together that summer before law school?” Samantha asked.

“It was sweet, really. I had taken my dad’s truck to Dudley’s car wash on top of the hill—is it still there? I don’t remember seeing it. Anyway, my dad offered it to me for the summer and I wanted to wash off the farm dust and vacuum the inside. I think I’d graduated from BU only a few days earlier. It was May, warm and sunny, I was so happy to be done with school for a little while.

“Michael and his friend Terry drove up to wash his Blazer and we just started talking. He was already working in construction at the time. Michael and I just started hanging out all the time. We loved to go out to the lake and look at the stars. He’d bring me flowers, listen to me tell all my dreams, and I wrote him letters …”

Emma drifted back in time on a wave of memories, as buoyant as a raft on a summer lake. She wondered when she started signing those letters, “I love you.”

“I don’t think there was a day that entire summer that we didn’t spend at least some time together. He was on my mind all the time.”

Her eyes bore through the glass-top wicker table as she spoke. A single finger rocked back and forth across the edge of her teacup. The other women listened in silence.

“Every week our love grew deeper and wider. By the Fourth of July, I knew I was over my head in love with him. We thought we were perfect together, and I never doubted it, not once.”

Emma stopped. Her testimony, and then her silence, only deepening the mystery. Around the table, the ladies’ collective curiosity built into a crescendo.

“You can’t stop there. What happened?!” asked Christina.

Emma ran her small delicate hand over her blue and white cloth napkin next to her plate, feeling the coarse fibers, tracing its patterns. Christina was right, she’d gone too far into the story to stop telling it now. She owed it to them. She took one last look over the figurative rocky cliff—the interruption in her story—then made the decision to dive into the deep blue lake.

“At my dad’s house, we’re remodeling an old room, the guest bedroom downstairs. Michael suggested we could gain some extra square footage if we knocked out the closet. It was being used for storage, so first we had to empty out all the boxes. We moved them into the living room along with all the bedroom furniture and other debris from the renovation.