Jo had to look twice to recognize the girl running along the dike and waving. But it was Jazz, all right, her face wreathed in a smile, her hair pulled up in a ponytail that swung like a pendulum behind her. She was wearing cutoff jeans, a T-shirt and sandals. And Jo had to check to make sure she was the only other person around before she realized that Jazz was waving to her. She waved back and waited.
“Hi,” Jazz said breathlessly as she slowed to a walk.
“Got a minute?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“It’s Grams.” Jazz took a long moment to steady her breathing before continuing, and Jo’s heart flew to her mouth.
“She hasn’t fallen again?”
“No. It’s her birthday. I mean it will be on the seventh of next month and she’s going to be seventy-five. So Matt and I—and Dad—think this calls for a major party.”
“Jazz, I think that’s a lovely idea.”
“So you’ll help us?” she asked brightly.
“Any way that I can, but…”
“Great. We need your place for the meetings. Tonight at seven-thirty? That’s about the time the home-care person helps Grams with her shower and gets her all settled in to watch television or play some cards with her and such. Grams is usually asleep by nine.”
So you could meet in the farmhouse at nine, Jo thought.
As if she’d read Jo’s mind, Jazz said, “Of course, I guess we could meet at the house, but what if she wakes up and wants to come into the family room and wants to know what’s going on?”
“You’re right. The cottage is yours. I’ll just clear out, for what? A couple of hours?”
“Clear out?” Jazz looked confused, then the light dawned. “No. We need you there. I’m pretty much a novice at planning something like this, although my mother is awesome, so maybe it’s in the genes. But I definitely need another woman’s opinion. I mean, if we leave it to Dad and Matt and his grandfather we’re likely to end up with hot dogs on the grill and some dorky accordion player or something.”
“Well, if you think I can help…”
“As Dad would say, don’t sell yourself short. I mean, Grams told me you have six brothers—two sets of twins. I’m guessing your mom had to have come up with some pretty creative ideas for all those birthday parties.” She took off at a lope, waving as she went. “Have to meet Matt. See you at seven-thirty!”
Jo went back to her work, moving slowly through each bed of vines, lost in the memories Jazz had stirred.
Birthdays. Parties.
Her mother had indeed created magical celebrations—each individually designed to celebrate the unique personality of the child. Each child got a celebration week. The twins each got their own week and separate parties.
“They are twins—not joined at the hip,” her mother would protest when her friends chastised her for going to so much trouble. For Jo, she had designed parties to fit whatever her only daughter’s interests were that year.
Jo lifted a dark green vine stem to examine for signs of pest infestation and stared instead at the shadowy cavern beneath it. She remembered the year when she was six and deeply into believing in things like magical fairies and elves and such. That year her mother had stayed up all night and turned their backyard into a wonderland of tiny fairy dolls holding tea parties beneath the umbrella of a May apple plant. And swinging from the branches of the arbor of grapevines that formed the entrance to the garden had been an entire orchestra of elf dolls her mother had made from scraps of fabric and leather she kept in her sewing room. Each doll was playing an instrument.
Jo shook herself back to the present as she felt a drop of moisture hit her thumb and bounce onto a leaf. She looked up at a cloudless blue sky and only then realized the drop was not rain but a tear so perfectly formed that it had fallen whole instead of winding its way down her cheek.
She heard the putter of Matt’s motor scooter and looked up in time to see Jazz climb on behind him. The two teens waved to someone on the porch as they took off, and Jo saw that Ella had come out to sit for a while.
Maybe a party for Ella was one way she could honor he own mother’s memory. “Pay it forward,” her mom had always said.
Daniel was both relieved and surprised at the change in Jazz. He had never quite gotten used to the ability of a teenager to change seemingly overnight, but if he’d had any doubts about his daughter’s most recent transformation, they were set to rest when he and Jazz went grocery shopping and ran into a couple of Jazz’s classmates from boarding school.
“Hey, how are you?” one girl said, her face carefully arranged in a mask of sympathy so convincing that, for a moment, Daniel thought he might have overlooked some tragedy in his daughter’s life.
“Great,” Jazz replied, and Daniel noticed that while the smile on his daughter’s face was genuine, the other girl’s expression was suspect. Something about the way her eyes kept darting around to check out who else might be in the store. “Dad, you remember Cassie and Sasha,” she added.
“Good to see you,” Daniel said as he shook hands with each girl. “Are you visiting here with your families?”
“Yes,” the one called Cassie replied and turned her attention back to Jazz. “The ’rents have been coming here for like the last decade or something. Très boring.”
Her friend Sasha nodded. To Daniel’s shock Jazz laughed.
“Hey, my family’s been here for like an entire century or something, right, Dad?” Cassie and Sasha once again assumed the expressions of abject sympathy for what they obviously assumed was Jazz’s suffering. Jazz seemed oblivious. “Are you going to be here over the Fourth? Because we’re planning like this giant birthday blowout.”
“Oh, that sounds like fun,” Sasha gushed.
Cassie was more cautious. “It’s your birthday?”
“Not mine. My grandmother’s. She’s like an icon on the island and she’s going to be seventy-five. Isn’t that awesome?”
Daniel thought that if either girl’s smile had been drawn any tighter their glossy lips would have disappeared altogether. “I don’t know. Mom said something about maybe going to Ireland for July,” Cassie said. “Let me get back to you.” She gave Jazz air kisses at either cheek and waited impatiently for Sasha to follow her lead. “Nice seeing you, Mr. Armstrong.”
After they’d scurried away, Jazz stood there for a moment. “You know what’s weird? At school Cassie and Sasha shared the suite with me, and I just realized that this is the first time I’ve heard from either of them.”
“Well, I did take away your computer and phone there for a while,” Daniel reminded her.
“You didn’t turn off my e-mail, voice mail or text messages,” Jazz replied as she guided the cart down the aisle and started selecting snacks for the planning meeting. “Ooh, Dad, check out these napkins with the fireworks design. Should I get them now or wait until we plan the party?”
Dan tossed three packages of various-size napkins into the basket. “Better get them now. If you change your theme we can always return them.”
“Good plan,” Jazz agreed, and consulted her list as she steered the cart to the cheese aisle and seemed to ignore the fact that her two classmates were still standing outside the store, now whispering and laughing. Dan didn’t know how teens handled such things these days, but when he was an adolescent he would have been insecure enough to assume the girls were laughing at him.
“You okay?” he asked after catching up with Jazz.
Her eyes flickered toward the window for an instant. She shrugged. “Disappointed, I guess.” Then she glanced at Daniel and grinned. “Hey, don’t look so worried. It’s not Armageddon. Somehow I will survive. Brie or Gouda? Matt likes Gouda.”
Daniel tossed one of each into the cart and then hugged Jazz and planted a kiss on her forehead. “I love you, kid,” he murmured.
“Dad!” she protested as she pulled away and glanced around. “You’re embarrassing me.” But Daniel saw that she was smiling as she pushed the cart on to the cracker aisle.
Jo watched as Daniel brought in three bags of groceries and set them on the counter in her kitchen. “Just how many people are on this committee?” she asked.
“You, me, Matt, Jazz and maybe Cyrus—five,” he replied, counting on his fingers. “Why?”
“Looks more like enough for a small army division.”
“Yeah. We got a little carried away, but as Jazz says, we’ll have plenty for the rest of the meetings—whatever that means.” He started taking things from bags and storing them in the refrigerator and pantry, moving around the small kitchen as if he’d lived there all his life. “Surely we can wrap this thing up tonight and she and Matt can pull it together.”
“Where is Jazz?”
“She went up to the house so Mom wouldn’t wonder what she was doing down here with you.”
“And you,” Jo reminded him.
“Mom will assume I’m trying to tell you how to manage the crop. She gave me a lecture just yesterday about letting you handle things, and reminded me it’s been several years since I was even around except to help Dad with the harvest.”
“Look, I’m really sorry—about last night. It’s not my place to give you advice and I…”
“No, I’m the one who’s sorry. You brought up a good point about Mom being isolated there in the city. I was checking around on the Internet last night and they have these senior communities—even in Manhattan. I thought I’d check into those and see what they’re like.”
Jo bit her lip to stem any comment she might make about that idea. “How’s Ella doing with her rehab?” she asked instead.
Daniel shook his head in amazement. “She’s incredible. I mean, you can see what it takes out of her. The pain has to be intense, especially when the therapist is working on her, but she just keeps at it.”
Jo smiled. “That’s Ella. She’s a fighter.”
“Like you?”
Jo turned to find him studying her as if seeing her for the first time. She felt the heat rise to her cheeks and decided the safest course was humor. “Hey, when you’re the only girl among six older brothers, survival becomes second nature.”
“Well, I’d better get back up to the house. See you later?”
“Seven-thirty,” she agreed. After a mock salute that made him smile, she added, “Hey, Daniel, this party? It’s a terrific idea and I really appreciate the chance to be a part of it.”
“Better hold that thought. If I know my daughter, this thing could take on a life of its own and we may all regret agreeing to help.” He started to go and then came back.
“On the other hand, just so you don’t get the wrong idea, let me tell you what happened in town today.”
He leaned against the cottage door and told her about the encounter with Jazz’s classmates. “She was so incredibly mature about it. I was ready to smack the two of them, but she just took it in stride.”
“I’m beginning to realize that, first impressions aside, Jazz is a pretty special person,” Jo said.
And, she thought, so is her father.
“Okay,” Jazz announced to the group, “I e-mailed Mama and she sent me the following list of things we need to address.”
Having volunteered to take notes for the meeting, Jo leaned forward, but she could not help noticing the expression of wariness that crossed Daniel’s face.
“Let’s just remember that this is a small party for Grams, honey—not a charity ball at the Met.”
Jazz rolled her eyes and continued. “First there’s the venue.”
“Here on the farm, right?” Matt asked.
“Not necessarily. We need to see what’s available. After all, it might be best if we hold the event somewhere else, since we want it to be a surprise.”
“Next?” Cyrus prompted.
“Theme,” Jazz announced and waited for Jo to write that down. “Food. Entertainment. Guest list. Invitations. Color scheme. Décor. Favors. Time line.”
“Anything on your mother’s list about a budget?” Daniel asked wryly. He was beginning to envision a significant outlay of money for this little shindig.
“Dad!” Jazz cleared her throat. “Let’s start with the theme because that will impact everything else.”
“Seems to me the theme is Ella’s seventy-fifth birthday,” Cyrus drawled.
“Her diamond birthday,” Jazz corrected.
“We could build the theme around that—diamonds,” Jo suggested and was rewarded with Jazz’s beaming smile.
“Whoa!” Daniel held up his hands as if to stop an oncoming car. “Mom is a pretty no-fuss kind of woman. I don’t think she’d be comfortable with bling.”
“Oh, Dad, we’re not talking about actual diamonds. Come on, everybody, let’s brainstorm. Besides the gem, what is a diamond?”
“A geometric shape,” Matt said. “We could do the invitations in a diamond shape. Hey, Grandpa and I could cut some plywood sheets into diamond shapes to use for the tabletops.”
“That’s brilliant,” Jazz crowed. “What else?”
“If we could find pictures of Ella through the years, we could frame them in diamond-shaped frames. We could cut the frames out of mat board in colors to match whatever color scheme we choose,” Jo suggested.
“Write that down,” Jazz instructed. “Come on, people, what else? Dad? Mr. Banks?”
Cyrus shrugged. “Sounds like you two ladies have this thing under control.”
“Dad?”
“Well, if we switch over to the number seventy-five, maybe we could do something with that—like seventy-five balloons or seventy-five roses or…”
“Seventy-five paper lanterns lighting the venue,” Jazz added. “Are you getting all this?”
Jo nodded as she scribbled down ideas.
“Okay, moving on. Color scheme?”
“Her birthday’s so close to the Fourth, so red, white and blue?” Matt suggested.
“Not for Mom,” Daniel said. “Her favorite colors have always been cranberry red and forest green.”
Jo couldn’t help thinking that the fact that he remembered such a trivial detail was pretty special. “So deep reds and greens,” she repeated as she added that to her notes.
“There’s a new paper goods store in town,” Matt volunteered. “Maybe Jazz and I could go there.”
“Or we could make the invitations,” Jo suggested.
For the first time Jazz looked skeptical. “I don’t know. I mean, we want this to be really nice.”
“Honey, handmade can be pretty special,” Daniel said.
“Besides, it suits your grandmother.”
“I could make up a couple of samples and see if you like them,” Jo offered.
“Okay.” But Jazz sounded anything but convinced.
“And you just leave the entertainment to me,” Cyrus announced. “There’s a terrific little local band that Ella likes.”
“Do they have a CD?” Jazz asked, her voice starting to waver as the group took on a life of its own.
“They made a couple of records that did pretty well,” Cyrus said.
Jo watched Jazz take in the idea of record versus CD and calculate the age of Cyrus’s band. “Well, Cyrus, why don’t you ask if you can borrow one of their albums. There’s an old phonograph here in the cottage and we could listen to their music at our next meeting.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Cyrus agreed and Jazz started to breathe again.
“Okay then, Dad, how about you and Mr. Banks come up with the guest list. Jo’s going to work on the invitations, so Matt and I can start…”
“Checking out venues?” Matt suggested.
“Perfect. Shall we meet again at the end of the week?”
“Works for me,” Cyrus said, and stood up. “So, if the meeting’s adjourned, I’ll get on my way. Don’t like driving much after dark these days.”
“I can drive you, Grandpa.”
“No, you and this young lady probably want to get a head start on that venue thing. Don’t keep her out past her curfew,” he instructed as he leaned down to kiss Jo’s cheek, then shake Daniel’s hand and retrieve his battered straw fedora from a hook by the door.
“Are you okay with that, Dad? I mean, is it okay if Matt and I take a ride into town?”
Daniel checked his watch. “Ten o’clock curfew,” he said, directing the comment to Matt, not Jazz.
“Yes, sir.” And the two teens were out the door before Daniel could change his mind.
“Let me help,” Daniel offered when he saw Jo gathering the remains of their snacks.
“I can get it.”
He picked up the glasses, dumping leftover liquids into a single glass so he could carry them all. “I used to work busing tables during the summer,” he said.
“Is that where you met your wife—ex-wife?”
Now, Jo thought, there’s your basic smooth transition. What is the matter with me? But the truth was that from the minute Jazz had presented her mother’s party list, Jo had been looking at Daniel differently. He’d been married and his ex-wife was still a part of his life—at least when it came to their daughter. As usual, Jo’s curiosity had overpowered her common sense.
“Sorry. None of my business,” she muttered as she bent to store the leftover cheese in the small refrigerator.
“As a matter of fact, Gloria and I did meet here on the island. I had just finished my master’s in business and had come back here for what I saw as my last summer of freedom before buckling down to a real job.”
Well, he seems okay with talking about it, Jo thought. “And Gloria?”
“Her parents had just bought one of the old beachfront properties, torn down the home that had been there since before World War One and built…well, something bigger.” He chuckled. “The locals were pretty up in arms about it.”
“How so?”
“Part of the mystique of a place like Nantucket is preserving the charm. Keeping the past alive. The locals considered that property a vital part of the history of the island, but no one had yet gotten around to getting the place registered on the national list for historic preservation.” He smirked. “And frankly the place Gloria’s father built was—well, unique is putting it kindly.”
“Is it still there? Do they still use it?”
“Yes, it’s there, and no, they put it on the market a year or so ago. I don’t think they’ve been up here since.”
“That’s so sad.”
“Ancient history,” Daniel said as he wiped the countertop.
“How about you? I mean, are you involved with anyone?”
“Married to my work,” Jo said with a laugh. “Like you.” But when he didn’t seem to buy her banter, she added, “There was one guy back in college. We were together all four years and even attended the same MBA program. Then just went our separate ways.”
“Because?”
“We wanted different things from life—he was into making his fortune before he reached thirty. It became something of an obsession.”
“And did he succeed?”
Jo blinked as the realization struck her. “I have no idea. We lost touch and I never really kept up with his career—or him.” She glanced around the tidy kitchen. “All set here. Thanks for the help.”
“Hey, do you want to take a ride? We could drive past the place and you’ll see for yourself what had everyone so upset.”
Jo hesitated.
“Come on. It’s a beautiful night and the fresh air will do us both good.”
“Well, you have awoken my curiosity,” she admitted.
“Great. I’ll run up to the house and let the care worker know how to reach me, and then pick you up. Ten minutes?”
“Sure.”
The screen door had not closed all the way before Jo ran to her bedroom. Staring in the mirror, she told herself, Your hair looks like it got caught in a Weedwacker and, trust me, that lemon-yellow shirt is not your color.
She changed into a clean white T-shirt, then grabbed a denim jacket from her closet and glanced in the mirror. Better. She ran a brush through her hair and had just finished spitting out mouthwash when she heard his car horn.
This is not a date, she thought as she reached for and then rejected a spritz of cologne.
But when she opened the car door she couldn’t help noticing that she wasn’t the only one who had freshened up. Daniel was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt that looked like it had come straight off the store shelf. His hair still glistened with droplets of water and he had indeed opted for a splash of aftershave.