Chances Are Page 10

  “Rose.” Olivia’s voice cut into her thoughts. “You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?”

  “Not a single one,” she admitted.

  She put the saucepan on the stove and lit the burner beneath it. The sounds of Hannah’s laughter and Priscilla’s excited barking drifted toward her from the backyard. What a precious gift this time together had been.

  “Second thoughts?” Olivia asked. “If you’ve changed your mind, we’ll just shake hands and part as friends. We haven’t signed any papers yet, Rose.”

  “No second thoughts,” she said firmly. “I want to do this. It’s a great opportunity, and I believe it will be a big success.”

  “But—?”

  “I don’t think Maddy will go for it. We had a blow-up at Saks this afternoon about wedding dresses. She’ll see this as just another attempt at trying to control her life.”

  “There are worse things.”

  “Working with Claire might be one of them.”

  “They’re both big girls, Rosie. They’ll reach an accommodation.”

  “They’re going to be family. This might—”

  “Don’t micromanage. We’ll supply the opportunity. They’ll decide if they can handle it.”

  “Stay for supper,” Rose urged. “Call Sunny and tell her to close up shop for the day. That way we can ask Maddy together.”

  “Ply her with Chardonnay and carbohydrates, and then go in for the kill.”

  “If you’re here, she’ll be more inclined to see it as a business deal, not some Machiavellian scheme to get her into a Vera Wang in front of six hundred of her nearest and dearest.”

  “You’re not going to have one of those nasty Mommy Dearest spats, are you?”

  Rose tossed a dish towel in her friend’s direction. “Call Sunny,” she ordered, “and I’ll set another place for dinner.”

  And say a prayer to St. Jude, patron of impossible causes, while she was at it.

  Chapter Seven

  “OH NO,” MADDY said as Aidan swung into the tiny parking lot behind The Candlelight. “Rose called in reinforcements.”

  Olivia Westmore’s sleek Jaguar was parked next to Maddy’s proud but battered Mustang. Rose and the chic owner of the only successful stationery store in Jersey Shore history had struck up a business friendship that had unexpectedly turned personal. They were an unlikely combination. Olivia was in her late thirties or early forties, statuesque and voluptuous, many times married. It was said her cleavage could shelter a family of five. She was flamboyant, wildly romantic, a woman with the heart of an earth mother hidden behind a high-maintenance exterior.

  Rose, of course, was none of those things. Maddy’s mother was a relentlessly practical woman. If she couldn’t see it, touch it, or deposit it in her bank account, it didn’t exist. She believed firmly in hard work and common sense, and that big boobs just got in the way.

  Maddy definitely agreed with her on that last one.

  “I don’t think Liv is the type to take sides in family squabbles,” Aidan said as he shifted into neutral.

  “Oh, Rose is too sly for that. She probably invited Olivia over for supper and suggested she bring along her portfolio of wedding invitations for after-dinner entertainment.” She brightened suddenly. “Why don’t you come in with me?” she suggested. “If she can bring in reinforcements, so can I.”

  “Hell, no,” he said, kissing her soundly. “Tommy has the night off, Claire doesn’t do school nights anymore, and all of a sudden Leo says he wants quality time with his wife.”

  “That’s what I get for falling in love with a barkeep.”

  “Say it again.”

  “Barkeep.”

  “The love part.”

  She grinned and pressed a kiss to the side of his neck. “For such a big guy, you’re awfully sentimental.”

  “About you I am.”

  “You’re sure I can’t convince you to stay for supper?”

  “Rosie and Olivia in the same room? I don’t have the balls.”

  “That’s pretty much what Dad said the last time he came to visit. He hid out on the dunes during poker night.”

  “Bill’s a smart man. After we’re married, I’ll be out there with him.”

  They kissed again, then broke apart when Hannah popped out the kitchen door, with Priscilla right behind her, and somersaulted off the bottom step.

  “That kid’s going to be in the circus someday,” Aidan said as Hannah launched herself into a saggy cartwheel. “Every time I look at her she’s upside down.”

  “She somersaulted across a nest of Vera Wangs this morning. I saw what was left of my 401K going up in smoke.”

  “Vera Wangs?”

  “You have a lot to learn, O’Malley. Vera Wang bridal gowns.” She quoted him a price range.

  “That’s a down payment on a house.”

  “Now you see why I have to straighten Rosie out on this. I wouldn’t spend that on a dress even if PBS was footing the bill.”

  Hannah held Priscilla up to the passenger-side window. The poodle lapped at the glass as Hannah dissolved in a giggling fit.

  “Welcome back to age five,” Maddy said as a river of puppy drool ran down the window. “Sure you want to go through it again?”

  He winced as the drool made tracks through the road dust. “I can do it if you can.”

  They both came with daughters, family complications, a lifetime’s worth of unruly, messy personal history that stuck to everything it touched like foam packing peanuts. Their eyes met, and they started to laugh at the wonder and absurdity of finding love in the midst of real life. Hannah, thinking they were laughing at her antics, got even sillier on the other side of the car door. When she tried to balance Priscilla on her head, Maddy knew it was time to stop being Aidan’s fiancée and go back to being Hannah’s mother.

  Hannah was bouncing off the walls with energy, a sure sign Rose had indulged her with some of Aunt Lucy’s famous oatmeal cookies—on top of ice cream at lunch, no less.

  Aidan waited while she scooped up Priscilla with one arm and took Hannah’s hand. He waved good-bye to the both of them, then carefully backed out of the tiny parking lot while Hannah waved one of the poodle’s paws at him in farewell.

  “Gramma’s friend is here,” Hannah said after Aidan’s truck disappeared around the corner. “The one that smells good.”

  “Olivia always smells good,” Maddy said. Maybe that was why almost every man in town followed her around like she was the Pied Piper of Paradise Point.

  “Priscilla ate her shoe.”

  Maddy’s stomach knotted. Olivia wore Jimmy Choos with an occasional flirtation with Manolo Blahniks. Didn’t her mother know anyone who shopped at Payless?

  “Pris didn’t really eat her shoe, did she?”

  “She bit it,” Hannah said, watching as Priscilla sniffed around the rosebushes near the beach steps. “Gramma told her she was bad, but ’Livia said she was just being a dog.”

  Maddy made a mental note to stop by the stationery store and buy something she couldn’t afford. “Is Olivia staying for supper?”

  “Gramma said she had to. She needed the sport.”

  Sport? “Do you mean ‘support,’ honey?”

  Hannah shrugged her shoulders and did an impromptu somersault.

  “Oh, what the heck.” Maddy knelt down on the sandy grass, ignored whatever might be slithering or crawling nearby, and pushed off into her own sloppy but enthusiastic somersault.

  Hannah whooped with excitement. Priscilla yipped and poked Maddy in the side with her wet nose. There was nothing like encouragement to make a woman go for the gold. Three somersaults later, she was busted.

  “Very cute,” Olivia said, as she stepped out onto the back porch with Rose close behind. “Do you do any other tricks?”

  Maddy was torn between mild embarrassment and amusement. “I sit up and beg for crème brûlée.”

  Olivia threw back her head and laughed. She had one of those full-throated laughs men wo
uld lay down their lives for. “Honey, I’d roll over and play dead for a good crème brûlée.”

  “Are you staying for supper?” Maddy asked as she brushed grass, sand, and unmentionables off her clothes.

  “Sunny can’t figure out how to set the alarm at the store. I’ll be back after I lock up.” She looked at Rose. “I’ll see if I can get hold of Stan or Larry while I’m there.”

  The wink Olivia gave her before she left made her mother look like a guilty schoolgirl. Was Olivia planning a threesome with the town’s favorite CPA and contracts attorney? The idea almost pushed her into helpless laughter.

  “What was that all about?” Maddy asked as she and Rose followed Hannah and Priscilla into the house. “What do you need Stan and Larry for?”

  Rose busied herself with the salad greens, which lay drying in a metal colander suspended over the sink. “Olivia and I are going into business together.”

  “You’re going into business with Liv?” Maddy plucked a grape tomato from its nest of paper towels. “What? Rental property?” Her mother had been a successful real estate saleswoman for three decades and had developed a sixth sense for undervalued property with potential.

  “No rental property.”

  “You’re not thinking of buying another B and B, are you?” Visions of the wedding gift from hell danced before her eyes. The thought of living the rest of her life with strangers gargling in her upstairs bathroom made her downright dizzy with trepidation.

  “Such enthusiasm.” Rose reached for the bottle of balsamic vinegar on the ledge. “I promise one B and B is more than enough for one woman. Now, would you go into the pantry and fetch me a bottle of extra virgin for the salad, please?”

  “I don’t need the fancy stuff,” Maddy said. “Wesson oil’s okay with me.”

  “Don’t ever say that around the paying customers! The Candlelight has a reputation to consider.”

  Maddy wasn’t sure if her mother was chastising her, being funny, or telling the truth. Rose had a caustic sense of humor, honed during years of battle with her sisters, and it occasionally drew a few drops of blood.

  “Was that a dig or an observation?”

  “An observation,” Rose said. “I’m not being sarcastic, just literal.”

  “Considering everything that happened this afternoon, I figured I should ask before I went off the deep end.”

  Rose’s sigh was long and low. “I’m sorry about today, honey. I don’t know what I was thinking. I know you hate surprises.”

  “Yeah, especially ones that involve standing around in my underwear.” If she had had a little warning, she could have gone out and purchased something a bit more presentable than her very basic cotton. Like a burka.

  “You hate to shop. Your aunts can be horses’ hindquarters. Your cousins could talk the ears off Mount Rushmore. I can’t for the life of me figure out why I thought that was such a good idea.”

  Her mother looked so unexpectedly contrite that Maddy exhaled for the first time since the salesclerk ran off with her clothes earlier that afternoon. “I’m sorry I overreacted about the dresses.”

  Her mother’s left brow arched just enough to make itself known. “You’re half DiFalco. It’s in your blood.”

  “There’s a frightening thought for you,” Maddy said. “I’ve been engaged to Aidan for less than a month, and the wedding has already made me crazy. I don’t know how anyone could survive doing this more than once in a lifetime.”

  “And God willing, you’ll never know.”

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE the price of this stuff,” Maddy said as she walked back into the kitchen a few minutes later with the olive oil. “It’s liquid gold. You should—”

  She stopped when she realized her mother was plating the meal.

  “We’re not waiting for Olivia?”

  “She called. She’s not coming. There was an emergency at the store.”

  “A stationery store emergency? Did someone run out of gummed address labels or Magic Markers?”

  Her mother laughed. “You should excuse the expression, but it’s a wedding invitation emergency. The poor woman has to hand-address three hundred of them and deliver the lot up to Brielle by nine in the morning.”

  “Another good reason to elope.” And a reason to be glad she had never learned the art of calligraphy.

  “Madelyn—”

  “I’m joking, Ma. You really didn’t expect me to ignore a straight line like that, did you?”

  “Call Hannah,” Rose said, still smiling to Maddy’s amazement. “Supper’s getting cold.”

  Five minutes later they were seated at the kitchen table, ready to dive in. The place smelled heavenly. Boeuf bourguignonne. A loaf of crusty bread, wrapped loosely in a red and white checked tea towel. A crisp green salad laced with the pricey olive oil and fancy vinegar and sprinkled with fresh herbs in season.

  This wasn’t exactly the average Monday night supper chez DiFalco. She hadn’t spent the last thirty-three years as a daughter for nothing. Rose was about to launch a full frontal assault designed to capture Maddy’s heart and mind, but it would take more than a wine-laced supper to convince her she wanted the wedding of her mother’s dreams.

  “You really have to stop plying her with cookies and pastries,” Maddy said as Hannah pecked at her salad. “She was bouncing off the walls when I got home.”

  “I know,” Rose said with uncharacteristic sheepishness. “Grandma Fay used to slip you big wedges of cheesecake when she thought I wasn’t looking, and I would read her the riot act. Now here I am showering Hannah with tiramisu and trifle.”

  “So when do the hordes descend upon us?” Maddy asked as she took a second helping of stew from the serving tureen.

  “The cameraman will be back up from Cape May around ten A.M.,” Rose said, refilling Hannah’s water glass. “Peter Lassiter hopes to make it here by lunchtime.”

  “Doesn’t sound too bad,” Maddy lied.

  “He’s bringing camermen, sound people, and a research assistant with him.”

  “The one with all the tattoos?”

  “And the pierced tongue.” Rose shuddered. “I don’t know where to look when she talks to me. All I can see is that thing clattering around inside her mouth.”

  “I almost had my nose pierced when I first moved to Seattle.”

  “Please tell me you’re joking.”

  “I came this close, but Dad found out and threatened to send me—” She stopped. “Maybe this isn’t such a funny anecdote after all.”

  “He threatened to send you back here, didn’t he?”

  Maddy felt like a worm for even broaching the topic. “I’m sorry. I should’ve thought before I spoke.”

  “No revisionist history at this table,” Rose said. “That’s the way things were between us, honey, but that doesn’t mean that’s the way they’ll always be.”

  “Hannah.”

  The little girl looked up at Maddy.

  “No tongue piercings, okay?”

  Hannah nodded and went back to slipping pieces of tomato to Priscilla under the table.

  “And good luck to you,” Rose said, lifting her glass of water in salute. “Would that motherhood was that simple.”

  “At least I tried,” Maddy said. “Ten years from now I’ll need all the reassurance I can get.”

  “So, you remember what you were like at fifteen.”

  “Vividly.”

  “And do you plan on sharing any of the more quotable incidents with Peter Lassiter?”

  “Not even if they try to woo me with Godiva and double-cheese pizzas.”

  Rose opened her mouth, then closed it quickly.

  “You’re thinking about my waistline, right?” Maddy asked.

  “I was thinking about your cholesterol.”

  They looked at each other and started to laugh, much to Hannah’s puzzlement.

  “What’s funny?” she asked.

  “Your grandma,” Maddy said.

  “Yes,” Rose said, leaning
over to retrieve a lettuce leaf from the floor near Hannah’s feet. “Your grandma is a very funny—what are all those tomatoes doing under the table, Hannah?”

  “Priscilla likes ’matoes,” Hannah said, calmly poking through her salad.

  Maddy darted under the table and scooped up the mess with a napkin. “Sorry,” she said to her mother. “We’ll have the ‘don’t feed the dog at the table’ talk again tonight. At least the camera crew wasn’t here to see it.”

  “I think they’re more interested in watching us plan your wedding than in our dinner table.”

  “Well, I hate to disappoint them but—”

  Rose raised her hand. “Why don’t we just enjoy our supper and table the wedding discussions for later?”

  “Don’t have to ask me twice,” Maddy said, raising her own water glass in salute. “Here’s to our last hours of freedom before the hordes arrive.”

  There was nothing she hated more than a crowd of strangers, all dressed in jammies and bathrobes, marching past her bedroom door at all hours in search of a vacant bathroom. No matter how long she lived at The Candlelight, she would never adjust to bumping into a retired bank president, clad in jockey shorts and a faded Sticky Fingers T-shirt, brushing his teeth in the wrong bathroom.

  Her mother, however, thrived on the commotion. “All the more reason for us to get an early start tomorrow. Lucy said she’ll be here after early Mass to start baking, but you can sleep in until six-thirty. And Kelly comes in tomorrow, so she’ll pick up some of the slack for you.”

  “I didn’t ask for anyone to pick up the slack for me.”

  “I didn’t say you did, Madelyn, but I did hope you’d be pleased to hear it. I know running an inn isn’t your cup of tea, and this gives you the chance to join the poker game at Claire’s.”

  She was pleased, ecstatic to be precise, but she had hoped her feelings were a little less transparent. She offered her mother a verbal olive branch. “I’ll make sure all the rooms are ready before I answer Web site E-mails tonight.”

  Rose opened her mouth to say something, but Hannah beat her to it.

  “Kelly threw up today.”