Five Brides (34 page)

Or, more precisely, his mother-in-law and
one
of his children had not received the notice.

Deanne shifted her gilded chair closer to her father’s, and stared across the blue-and-gold linen-covered table with dark, mistrusting eyes. A few times, Magda caught the ten-year-old glaring with such intensity, her eyes had narrowed to near slits.

Magda tried all the tricks she could come up with, telling the child that she liked her hair—pulled back with a white ribbon, curls kissing her shoulders—and how much she looked forward to hearing her later that evening. “Your father says you sing like an angel,” Magda said through a shaky smile.

But the child’s idea of expressing gratitude came back as, “I sing like my mother, who
is
singing with the angels.”

“Deanne,” Barry muttered under his breath.

“Well, she is,” Deanne insisted, her eyes perfectly focused on her father’s.

“Your father,” Magda interjected, “has already told me that
your mother had a lovely singing voice.” When no one responded, least of all Deanne, Magda concluded her attempt at reaching the little girl with, “You’ve chosen a pretty dress for your show,” to which Deanne only poofed it over her knees and said, “Thank you very much, Miss Christenson. It was a gift from my nana.” She then looked at the refined woman sitting next to Magda. Her “nana”—who’d been introduced as Harriet Nielson—a woman who appeared to be in her early to mid-sixties, despite the henna rinse in her hair. Her mouth—a thin line accentuated by blood-red lipstick—hardly smiled, and, Magda suspected, the laugh lines around her eyes hadn’t formed from giggles, but from scowls. Especially at those she found distasteful. Like Magda.

Barry placed his left hand on his daughter’s right at the same time as the singer near the front of the room crooned the opening lyrics to “I’m in Love” from
Romance on the High Seas
.

Magda swallowed past the irony as Barry spoke calmly to his daughter. “Sweetheart, you can call her Magda, if you’d like.” Magda stared across the table, suddenly noting the band of gold wrapped around Barry’s ring finger.

Magda brought her eyes to the child’s face, watching her lips form a fine pout before she said, “But I
don’t
like, Daddy. In fact, I’m not even sure what she’s doing here.”

As if on scripted cue, Douglas, in dramatic fashion, dropped his elbow onto the table followed by lowering his head into his hand. “Oh, come on,” he moaned. “Are we gonna listen to
this
all night?” He glared at his sister. “Well,
are
we? She looks like a nice enough lady, Dee. Besides, Dad wouldn’t bring some bimbo along to church, would he?”

“Douglas Cole,”
his grandmother admonished as Magda sucked in her breath in an effort to keep from laughing.

“Son,” Barry said, biting back a smile of his own, which only
served to endear him to Magda more. “We don’t use words like
bimbo
in mixed company.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as though it had grown larger in the last few seconds. “In fact, we don’t use the word
at all
.”

Magda sat quietly, squeezing the linen napkin in her lap. Earlier, she’d thought it most elegant; now it felt heavy and rough. She looked down at the pearl bracelet, hoping it would bring her strength. The kind Inga always seemed to possess.

“Young man, where did you hear such a horrid word?” Mrs. Nielson asked.

Douglas huffed as he crossed his arms. “Some kid at school. I wasn’t even sure it was bad until I got a look at your face, Nana.” He finished off the explanation with a chuckle.

Mrs. Nielson directed a pointed look at her son-in-law. “You pay good money to have the children in that school. Perhaps you should curb your
extracurricular
activities and have a talk with the headmaster.”

“Nana—” Barry said, just as the waiter swept in carrying an oval tray filled with salad bowls. “Ah,” he added. “Saved by the lettuce.”

“Then
lettuce
pray,” Douglas said, laughing at his own joke. “Get it, Dad?”

“Yeah,” Barry said, shaking his head in disbelief. “I get it.” He looked across the table at Magda and, with the deepest conviction, offered an apology with his eyes.

Later, after the blessedly short Thanksgiving concert, Barry drove her home while Nana drove the children back to their residence. Magda looked across the front seat and said, “That didn’t go so well.”

Barry released hearty laughter. “No. No, ma’am, it didn’t. Not at all like I’d imagined it would.”

“Perhaps this was too soon, Barry. Their mother has only been gone three years.”

“Three years is long enough,” he said, his voice tight. Then he smiled at her, his dark eyes shining in the flickering lights brought into the car by the streetlamps along the drive. “I’ve never once brought a woman to meet my children, Magda. To be honest, I haven’t dated since my wife—” He sucked in his breath. “Since Barbara died.”

“You’ve never said her name.” She watched his face, searching for telltale signs of love and adoration for the woman he’d once pledged his life to. The woman who had given him two beautiful children, both of whom looked for all the world like their father. The woman he’d watched die and whose casket he’d stood next to as they eased it into the ground.

“Haven’t I?” he asked, slowing the car to parallel park in front of her apartment. He placed the car in park but left the engine running, then slid closer to her, drawing her into his arms.

It seemed he held her for hours. Magda listened to his breathing—slow and steady—until she wondered if he’d fallen asleep, lulled by the warmth blowing from the vents or the barely audible sounds of Glenn Miller on the radio.

But then he pulled away. “I want you to do something for me,” he said, his eyes looking into hers with such tenderness she thought she might melt into them.

“What?” she whispered.

He inched back, pulling his left glove from his hand to expose the wedding ring that had mocked her earlier in the evening. “I want
you
to be the one to remove this.”

Magda rested her fingertips against the hollow of her throat. “Barry,
no
. I—”

“It’s the way it should be,” he said. “Barbara put it on and
you
should be the one to remove it.” He cupped her chin with his right hand, forcing her to look at him. “
I
want you to do this, Magda.” His lips met hers briefly. “Please,” he said against them when the kiss had ended.

She nodded, then reached for the ring, grasping it with her thumb and index finger. A gentle tug brought it to the knuckle where it stopped, leaving Magda to ponder whether Barbara’s love held it in place from the afterlife.

If she believed in such . . .

She twisted the ring, forcing it over the first knuckle, then slid it to the tip of his finger. It dropped into the cupped palm of her hand, which she stretched out, extending the token to the man her heart now belonged to so fully.

He took it. “Thank you,” he said before slipping it into the side pocket of his overcoat.

Magda shivered. Tucked away, yet it still existed. And it always would, its life perpetual in the faces of two children.

Would he—
could
he—ever love her as he’d loved his first wife?

“Are you cold?” he asked her.

“No,” she said, then thought better of it. “Maybe a little.”

He brought her close again, kissing her fully, drawing a tiny whimper from her. “I love you, Magda Christenson,” he finally said.

“I love you, too, Barry Cole,” she answered back. “But at some point we
have
to talk about your mother-in-law and—” He kissed her again as the music on the radio changed from purely instrumental to Fred Astaire’s “Cheek to Cheek.”

The lyrics played through her head.
“Heaven, I’m in heaven . . .”

But when the kiss ended, she managed to finish her sentence. “—Deanne.”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he said, straightening. “I’ve already
planned a nice little speech for two very bad girls.” He tapped the tip of her nose with his bare finger. “They’re
my
problem, not yours.”

“Go easy,” she said. “Promise me.”

He smiled, then chuckled. “All right, Miss Christenson.” He glanced over her shoulder to the sidewalk beyond the curb. “Ready for me to walk you to your door?” he asked.

“Not really,” she teased. “But I suppose we must.” She sighed. “After all, tomorrow is a workday.”

He looked at his watch as he replaced the glove he’d removed minutes before. “Which means I get to see your sweet face again in a little more than ten hours.”

Magda sighed. “You say it like they’re minutes.” She pointed to her heart. “In here, they feel like months.”

He laughed out loud as he opened the door. “Ah, Magda,” he said. “What joy you’ve brought back to me.” With that, he climbed out of the car and closed the door, sealing her own happiness.

Inga couldn’t say she was shocked. She wasn’t. By the middle of December, as storefronts displayed their Christmas cheer and the goods designed to entice children to write to a jolly man from up north, Inga’s sense of desperation had given way to overwhelming gloom. Not even the tiny tree her roommates had managed to find—the one they’d strung with popcorn and cranberries and placed the little dime-store crèche in front of—could bring hope to her hopeless and miserable heart.

She was expecting a child, all right. And the time had come to tell the father.

And there he was. As soon as Inga and Henrietta arrived at the Los Angeles hotel, Inga spotted him, talking to a lovely creature. Smiling like the devil himself—a spider drawing a fly into his web.

“Look at him,” Retta muttered as they crossed the polished floor toward the registration desk. “Papa Bear with innocent Goldilocks.”

Inga tried to smile, but it didn’t come as easily as she wished. “Only he doesn’t know he’s a Papa Bear. He still thinks he’s a Baby Bear, all cuddly and adorable.”

Retta grabbed Inga’s arm, turning her so they faced each other. “Tell. Him. Tonight.”

Inga nodded. “I promise, Retta. Tonight’s the night.” She pressed her hand against the flat of her stomach. “Besides, I can’t wait much longer. We need to get married sooner rather than later.”

Retta looped their arms together and pulled her toward registration. “I still say there’s got to be a better way than marrying that . . . that . . .”

“Polecat,” Inga said, then giggled. “I heard Evelyn use the term once.”

Inga managed to avoid Frank in the lobby, but called the concierge desk as soon as they’d unpacked.

“I thought that was you,” Frank said, his accent drawing a rush of memories to the surface. “I was—uh—a tad busy or I would have walked over.”

“So I saw. Hey—um—how’s this? I’d like to take you to dinner tonight. On me this time. There’s something . . . something I need to discuss with you.”

“Sounds ominous.”

She pressed her lips together and squeezed her eyes shut.
Slow it down, girl.
“Nothing like that. Just thought we could talk.”

“I’m not off until eight tonight,” he stated as if it were a question.

She looked at her watch; that gave her three hours to prepare,
if she wasn’t ready enough. “That’s fine,” she said. “How about if I pick you up at your room at eight fifteen?”

“Excellent,” he said. “See you then.”

By the time eight o’clock had rolled around, Inga had talked herself into not telling him—no, telling him—not telling him—telling him—at least twenty times. Finally, dressed in a pair of tapered ankle-length black slacks topped with a black-and-white-striped long-sleeved sweater and a pair of black wedged slipper shoes, she told Retta good-bye and went to meet Frank.

He greeted her with a kiss, warm and familiar, as if nothing negative had transpired between them. When they broke apart, she turned from just inside the doorway. “Shall we?”

“You don’t want to come in?” he asked—half-hopeful, she suspected.

Inga managed a smile. “Thank you, no. I’m ravenous. Aren’t you?”

He gave her his best man-about-town look. “Only for you, my dear.”

She raised a brow. “Me and half of Hollywood, I’d bet.” She sashayed toward the elevator, glancing over her shoulder when she heard his door close. Frank rushed toward her, sliding his arms into his suit coat, flexing his shoulder muscles as he buttoned it over a green-and-red plaid vest. “Very festive, by the way,” she said, pointing.

He grinned as he caught up to her and extended the crook of his arm. She took it and they rode the elevator down to the lobby in silence.

“Would you like to dine in the restaurant here or perhaps another, more intimate café down the street?” he asked as they passed through the doors when they slid open. “I’ve found the most amazing little place.”

Inga looked toward the door. “Then let’s try the café.”

He leaned close to kiss her cheek. “Your wish is my command, milady.”

“Such a white knight,” she shot back, wondering how gallant he’d be once he heard her news.

They chatted lightly as they walked from the front door of the hotel to a small café around the block, one she’d not been in before. A blend of strong spices met them as they entered through the glass door, and a wave of nausea hit her. She brought a hand to her mouth, inhaled deeply through her nose, and then slowly released it between slightly parted lips.