Roberta, New and Improved
It was the second Saturday in June, a perfect day for a wedding with only a few wispy clouds floating in a blue sky. But no wedding was happening at Primrose Haus today. Thanks to a runaway bride, the wedding had been canceled.
This was such a rare thing Roberta almost didn’t know what to do with herself. Daphne suggested a play day.
“We can start by going over to Bavarian Brews and getting a latte,” she said.
“I can’t remember the last time I did that,” Roberta confessed. She also couldn’t remember the last time she and her daughter had gone out and done something fun, just the two of them. It seemed that for the past few years, Roberta had been too busy most weekends to get away, and whenever Daphne had come up to visit, she’d either been with Marnie (always a good thing) or a man (never a good thing).
Bavarian Brews was packed with locals chatting or texting on their cell phones, and tourists wearing novelty hats from the hat shop and armed with digital cameras, ready to shoot pictures of the town’s colorful main street and the surrounding scenery. The place was fragrant with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, and looking at the different concoctions the baristas were making with various combinations of chocolate, coconut and caramel made Roberta’s mouth water.
Del Stone and Ed York were there, and after picking up tall orders of coffee, they stopped by to say hello. Del once more thanked Roberta for giving his little girl such a great wedding. “I’ll wager you’ll be hearing from Representative Wattle. His daughter just got engaged. I told him he couldn’t pick a better place.”
“Thank you, Del. That’s very sweet of you.” Del would have her vote in the next election, whether or not those potholes on Pine Street got fixed.
He elbowed Ed. “You and Pat should’ve done it up right and gone to Roberta for your wedding.”
Roberta couldn’t have agreed more, especially considering how many years they’d all known one another and how much business she’d given both of them. She’d hoped to get invited to the wedding.
“Pat’s daughter insisted on us getting married at her house. It was a small wedding, just family.”
At least it wasn’t a case of not making the cut. “You have to do what your children want,” Roberta said. “I’m happy for both of you,” she added to show there were no hard feelings.
“I feel pretty lucky finding a woman like Pat,” Ed said. “What they say is true—love is better the second time around.”
She’d have to take his word for it.
“After my first time around, I’d sure hope so,” Del said heartily.
Roberta shook her head at Del. “You forget I’ve met your wife.”
He smiled good-naturedly, then wished them a nice morning as he and Ed moved off to stake out a table by the window, which offered a view of the street and its various shops as well as Sweet Dreams Chocolates, the town’s pride and joy and source of all things chocolate.
“Mother, have you ever thought about dating?” Daphne asked when they settled at a table with their lattes.
“Oh, goodness, Daphne. Why would I want a man at this point in my life?”
Daphne shrugged. “Companionship?”
“I have plenty of companionship with you and Lila and my friends at the chamber of commerce. Besides, no real man ever measures up to the ones in my Vanessa Valentine books. You’ve learned that firsthand. Although there may be a few out there who come close,” she mused, seeing Hank walk up behind Daphne. A shame they hadn’t met earlier, before they’d both messed up their lives.
“Hello, ladies,” he said, making Daphne jump.
Roberta would’ve liked to shoo him away, but that would be rude, so she forced herself to ask, “Would you care to join us?”
“Don’t mind if I do.” He seated himself next to Daphne, whose face was suddenly flushed. “I’m surprised you’re not at Primrose Haus getting ready for a wedding.”
“The wedding got canceled,” Roberta explained.
“Uh-oh. Did the groom have cold feet?”
“Nope, the bride did,” Daphne answered. “She’d been married before. She probably decided not to jump off the cliff again.”
“You can’t fly if you don’t take a leap,” said Hank.
Roberta could see where this conversation was going, right into three’s-a-crowd territory. What to do? Her first inclination was to stay at the table like a two-legged guard dog, make sure Daphne didn’t do anything foolish.
But she’d resolved not to interfere in her daughter’s life or tell her what to do, and Daphne had assured her she wasn’t going to rush into anything, that she was learning to be happy on her own. Was it really so foolish to have coffee with a nice, hardworking man, a man who, like Daphne, had gotten a raw deal on love? Anyway, if the two of them were going to wind up together eventually, there was nothing Roberta could do to stop it.
So, no guard-dogging. “I think I’ll go back to the house. My foot is hurting.” Actually, her foot felt pretty good these days. She was off the heavy-duty painkillers and down to ibuprofen, fitting in her morning walks again. She hadn’t taken a walk yet today. Maybe she’d do that.
Daphne nodded and began to get up.
Roberta waved her back down. “Stay put, darling. Finish your latte.” Start your new life.
“We were going to spend the day together,” Daphne reminded her.
“We can do that tomorrow.” Then, before Daphne could say anything more, Roberta slipped out of the coffee shop.
It was around ten in the morning and by now downtown was buzzing with visitors checking out the various shops. It made Roberta happy to see so many people in town. She could remember when she’d first arrived and the place was almost a ghost town. Thanks to the cleverness and hard work of its people, Icicle Falls had come back to life in a big way.
She caught sight of a couple around her age, holding hands as they entered Gilded Lily’s women’s apparel. Their easy familiarity suggested they’d been married for years. The woman had probably said, “Look at that cute dress in the window,” and he’d most likely replied, “Why don’t you go try it on?”
Roberta sighed. If she hadn’t been so bitter, so unwilling to give love another chance, that could’ve been her. But after two bad experiences she’d given up.
Ah, well. She’d still had a good life, a satisfying life. She’d made something of herself, something her mother should have been proud of. Sadly, her mother never got past her disappointment, valued her pride above her daughter’s feelings. Roberta had her faults as a mother, but at least she’d never done that.
She’d done other things wrong instead, always pushing Daphne to do more, be more. Sadly, no one offered parenting classes back when she was raising Daphne. Roberta hadn’t had any help. She’d been completely on her own. And she’d stayed on her own, never hearing from her mother, never seeing her again until the end.
2004
Roberta’s old friend Nan had kept in touch over the years, mostly with Christmas cards and a few phone calls. One day she’d called to tell Roberta that her mother was dying. “I know you don’t care if you ever see her again,” Nan had said, “but she’s all alone in that place. It’s pathetic, really. I think she’s sorry she never mended fences with you.”
She’d had her chance. Actually, she’d had more than one. Roberta’s grandmother had known where she was. Anytime her mother wanted to contact her, she could have. But she hadn’t. So let her die alone, choking on her pride.
And what will you choke on someday? came the thought. Resentment? Bitterness? Roberta had tasted enough of those emotions over the years. She had to admit that now, at sixty, she’d lost her appetite for them.
And so, on a mockingly beautiful spring day, she made the two-and-a-half-hour drive to Seattle. She didn’t tell Daphne she was coming or why. Daphne would’ve wanted to accompany her, to meet the woman she’d never known and offer Roberta her support. But Daphne still knew very little about her grandmother, and that was for the best. The woman had poisoned Roberta. She hadn’t been going to let that poison touch her daughter.
The care facility smelled like a nasty combination of urine and disinfectant. A couple of ancients sat in wheelchairs at the side of the hallway, one a grizzled man who was muttering to himself, the other a woman with sparse gray hair and a caved-in chest, who held out a beseeching hand to Roberta. She had blue eyes and a button nose and in spite of the wrinkles Roberta could tell she’d been pretty in her younger days.
She stopped and took the woman’s hand. “How are you?”
“Have you seen my daughter?” the woman asked. “She’s supposed to come and see me. It’s my birthday.”
How many of her own mother’s birthdays had Roberta missed? If this woman had been her mother, she wouldn’t have missed a single one. “I’m sure she’s coming,” she said in an effort to comfort the woman.
The sweet face changed into a mask of anger. “She never comes.”
The accusation and bitterness hit Roberta like a red-hot poker. “Maybe there’s a reason.” Maybe you’re like my mother, a selfish, judgmental shrew.
Or maybe this woman was simply lonely and unhappy. Roberta softened her voice and gave the woman’s hand a squeeze. “I’m sure she’ll come,” she said again. Daughters did. Eventually. Even when their mothers didn’t ask for them.
The woman on duty at the reception desk pointed her down the hall to a different wing. Room 27, which her mother was sharing with another patient, a woman in the throes of agony. Roberta could hear her groaning from outside the room. When she entered, she had to catch her breath at the sight of the shrunken form in the other bed. This slack-jawed, sleeping cadaver hooked up to a morphine drip couldn’t be her mother. Her mother had been plump, with carefully maintained brown curls and polished manners, always dressed to the nines.
But this was how it ended if you lived long enough. You found yourself riding out your last days in a rickety shell of a body. This will be you someday. Except she’d have a daughter who’d come to visit her and comfort her. She’d have a daughter who cared.
She could have been a daughter who cared. She should have tried harder to forge a new relationship with her mother, should have brought Daphne to see her. Guilt overrode the resentment as she pulled up a chair next to the bed and laid a hand on her mother’s arm.
“Mother?”
The cadaver slept on.
Roberta tried again, gently tapping the arm, wrinkled and spotted with the bruises of age. “Mother?”
The eyes opened and the head turned. The woman squinted at her as if trying to place her.
“It’s me, Roberta.”
“Roberta.” The sound came out faint and raspy. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you.”
“I’m dying.”
“I heard.”
The lips turned down at the corners. “Did you come to see if you’re in the will? There’s nothing left, you know.” The cadaver let out a tired breath and shut her eyes again.
“I didn’t come for anything other than to see you and tell you I’m sorry.”
The eyes stayed closed. “After all these years?”
“I’m sorry you could never forgive me. I’m sorry we never had a relationship, that you never got to see your granddaughter grow up.”
A tear leaked out of one eye. “It could have been different.”
“Yes, it could have,” Roberta agreed.
“If only you’d listened to me.”
So the fault was all hers. Even now, on her deathbed, her mother would bear no blame for those many years of estrangement. “All I wanted was your love.”
Another tear slipped out. “I always loved you. You…disappointed me so.”
She had; there was no denying it. She took her mother’s limp hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry.”
“Why didn’t you say that…years ago?”
“Perhaps I was waiting to hear that you still loved me.”
Her mother gave no indication of having heard. A breath seeped out and she turned her head away. “I’m tired.”
So am I, thought Roberta. Yes, she’d disappointed her mother but her mother had hurt her deeply. What a sad mess. They should have had a relationship all these years. Her mother should’ve come to Icicle Falls to spend weekends and see Daphne performing in the Sunday-school Christmas pageant or watch her graduating from high school. She should’ve been there for Daphne’s wedding, should have held her great-granddaughter. Roberta should have come over to Seattle to take her out to lunch. So much they could have done, so much they’d missed. “I wish it could have been different between us,” she said.
Too late for that now. The only thing it wasn’t too late for was forgiveness. Bitterness was exhausting, and she’d carried hers long enough. “You were never there for me, but I forgive you. I learned from your rejection. My daughter isn’t perfect and we’ve had our problems, but at least she knows I love her.”
The eyes stayed shut and the mouth pressed together in a tight, thin line. Her mother obviously had no more to say.
But that was okay. Neither did Roberta. This time the tears were hers. She couldn’t help crying for what they’d lost all those years, but she also felt like a woman who had just survived a deadly disease. The fever had finally broken. Now she could truly heal. “I’ll do whatever I can to make you comfortable.”
“Thank you.” The words came out so faintly Roberta almost wondered if she’d imagined them.
She gave her mother’s hand one final squeeze. “You’re welcome.”
Before she left, she made arrangements to have her mother moved to a private room. She lasted another two weeks and then she was gone. Roberta saw to it that she was buried at Washelli right beside her father.
“I hope you rest in peace,” she said to her mother when she stood at the graveside. She knew now that she could live in peace.
* * *
Roberta gave herself a mental shake. This was such a lovely day. She had no intention of wasting even a minute of it revisiting the past. Instead, she decided to enjoy the moment at hand and take a walk up Lost Bride Trail. She might not make it all the way to the falls, but the scenery would be beautiful and she could look for lady’s slippers. She’d bring her walking stick, a bottle of water (and an ibuprofen) and take her time.
Half an hour later found her on a wooded mountain path, surrounded by evergreens and ferns, walking through dappled sunlight, taking in the earthy scent and breathing the fresh mountain air. It had been ages since she’d walked this trail. She really needed to get out more, have more fun.
She eventually made it up to Lost Bride Falls. By the time she got there, she was definitely ready for a break. She sat down on a little wooden bench by the scenic outlook to rest her foot and enjoy the sight of water cascading over a rocky outcrop. What a history that waterfall had. She wondered what had happened to Rebecca Cane, Joshua Cane’s mail-order bride, who’d mysteriously disappeared so many generations ago. Had she run away with his younger brother, Gideon, or had Joshua truly killed the two of them in a fit of jealous rage, as so many people had speculated? The lurid story of the disappearing bride had, over the years, turned into something positive. Legend said that any woman who caught a glimpse of the ghost of the lost bride under the falls had a proposal of marriage waiting for her in the near future.
Roberta had never seen the ghost.
She took off her hiking shoe and rubbed her aching foot, then gulped down her painkiller. Even though it was a relatively easy hike, it was probably longer than she should have attempted. She’d go home, kick off her shoes and relax with her latest romance novel.
She’d just put the shoe back on when two strangers came up the path. They were both good-looking men, lean and fit, wearing T-shirts, jeans and hiking boots and carrying water bottles. Roberta judged the younger one to be somewhere around Daphne’s age. The other was probably in his seventies, with white hair and plenty of lines to show he’d logged in some hours out in the sun. He resembled a younger version of Clint Eastwood. Roberta had always adored Clint Eastwood.
The younger man said hello, then got busy taking pictures of the falls with a camera that looked very expensive. The older man smiled and said hello. “Nice day to be out,” he added.
“Yes, it is,” Roberta said.
He strolled over to where she sat. He was a tall man. Put him in a cowboy hat and poncho and give him a cigar and he could be Clint Eastwood. “Great view.”
“You’d be hard put to find a better one anywhere.”
“Do you live here?”
It had been about a million years since a man had been interested, but Roberta hadn’t forgotten the signs. “I do,” she said and introduced herself.
“My name’s Curtis White. This is my son Brian.”
“Good to meet you,” Brian said and continued to take pictures.
“Mind if I join you?” asked Curtis.
“Not at all.” She scooted over to make room on the bench, and he sat down, causing a flutter in her chest.
“We came up with some friends to do a little fishing and hiking.”
“This is the place to do it.” Roberta couldn’t help herself; she had to check his left hand for a ring. Bare-naked. A bare-naked Clint Eastwood. Really, she scolded herself, at your age. Well, what was wrong with feeling the cold embers stir at her age? She wasn’t dead yet.
But just because he wasn’t wearing a ring didn’t mean he wasn’t married…
He was checking out her ring finger, too. “Have you lived here long?”
“For years.”
“Lucky you,” he said. “I’ve always thought it would be nice to retire over here somewhere, have a cabin, fish every day. Never got around to it.”
“It’s not too late.”
He smiled. The man had a great smile. “You know, you’re right.”
They chatted for a few more minutes, long enough for him to confirm that she was single and find out she was in the business of providing brides and grooms with a place to get married. She learned that he was a retired banker and had been a widower for five years. And he was in town until Monday.
“Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?” he asked.
“Oh, I couldn’t. You’re up here with your son.”
“And his brother. They won’t miss me.”
“You can say that again,” teased the son.
“Well…”
“I hear there’s a restaurant that offers traditional German food. I haven’t had schnitzel since I was stationed in Germany. Do you like schnitzel, Roberta?”
“I do, as a matter of fact.”
“Well, then, let’s make it a date.”
Roberta suspected Daphne would have plans for the evening, so why not? They agreed to meet at Schwangau at six. Then, with his son finished taking pictures, the two men said goodbye and made their way back down the trail. Roberta watched them go and wondered what silliness had prompted her to accept a date at this age. Clint Eastwood, that was what.
“Silly woman,” she muttered and rose to her feet. Her back was stiff from sitting, and she paused to stretch and take in the view one last time before starting back. The waterfall was a gorgeous, roaring thing, with rainbows dancing in its waters and in that little cave behind the falls… What was that? She saw the figure for only a few seconds. It looked vaguely like a woman in a long gown.
The lost bride!
She blinked and looked again. Of course there was nothing. “Honestly, Roberta, you really are a silly, old woman.”
By the time she was halfway down the trail she was limping and chiding herself for walking so far. Then she remembered Curtis White and decided her hike had been worth the pain. But she could hardly wait to get home, pop another pill and put her foot up.
When she got to the house Daphne was back. “I thought you’d be out with Hank,” Roberta said.
“No. I came back looking for you. Where’d you go?”
“I went for a hike.”
“It hasn’t been that long since you had the surgery,” Daphne protested. “And you said your foot hurt.”
“I thought exercising it would do me good. Anyway, the doctor said I could walk on it now.”
“A little. Not a hike. Where’d you go?”
“Up Lost Bride Trail.”
“Oh, Mother,” Daphne said, her voice a mixture of disgust and worry.
“I’m fine,” Roberta assured her and went to the kitchen, trying not to limp noticeably. She got some water and washed down a pain pill.
“I can tell,” Daphne said. “Let me get you some ice.”
Roberta hobbled to the back parlor and sat on the couch. Daphne was right behind her, carrying a gallon freezer bag filled with ice and wrapped in a towel. She helped Roberta prop up her foot, then laid the ice on it, over the towel. “You’re a good daughter,” Roberta told her. She was beautiful, both inside and out, and Roberta was glad she’d come home.
“Thank you,” Daphne murmured.
“Now, tell me how you managed to get away from Hank. You know he’s not going to give up until you go out with him.” Whether that was a good or a bad thing remained to be seen.
“I told him I’m not rushing into anything.”
“Very wise. I have a feeling he’ll wait.”
Daphne shrugged. “I do, too. He’s taking me to Zelda’s for dinner. We’re just going out as friends,” she hurried to add.
Roberta wished she’d had the good sense to find a male friend to do things with. Maybe she had that afternoon.
“Do you mind? I know we talked about spending the day together.”
“I don’t mind at all,” Roberta replied. “I have plans for tonight myself.”
“You do?”
“I’m going to dinner at Schwangau.”
“Oh? With who?”
“A very nice man I met while I was taking my walk. He’s up here with his sons.”
Daphne looked incredulous. “You met a man?”
Roberta scowled. “Old people do make friends, you know.”
“I know. It’s just that, well, I’m surprised. All these years, you never dated.”
She had, for a brief time when Daphne was little, only a casual date or two with a couple of the locals. And then that disastrous affair…
1967
Nobody knew about it. He was a salesman from Seattle. He’d stopped at the diner, soon to become Pancake Haus, for a coffee on his way home from Coulee City and they’d struck up a conversation. Conversation had led to dinner, and afterward Roberta had given him a kiss and her phone number. How fortunate that she’d popped in for a bite on her lunch hour that day!
The next month he came back and rented a small cabin and Roberta got a babysitter. He took her to dinner, to a different restaurant this time, one in nearby Wenatchee, and then back to the cabin, and suddenly her dull life began to sparkle. Love at last!
A month later he was in town again. Janice Lind took Daphne for the night so Roberta could supposedly have a getaway with a girlfriend, and Roberta returned to the secluded cabin.
On Sunday morning she made him bacon and eggs. He reached across the small wooden dining table and said, “It’s been a wonderful weekend.”
She thought so, too, and went to take his hand. That was when she spotted it, the barely discernible band of white on his left-hand ring finger. Surely she should have noticed that before. “You’re married.”
Guilt flashed across his face and she pulled her hand away. He tried to cover it with an earnest look. “I am, but it’s over.”
“Until you go home to Seattle?”
“It’s not like that, Roberta. We don’t get along. She…”
“Doesn’t understand you.” The oldest lie in the book.
“It’s true,” he insisted. “We’re separated.”
Roberta had no desire to play that game. She’d already been used once. She wasn’t going to allow herself to be used again. She could almost hear her mother sneering, “Foolish, wicked girl,” as she walked out of the cabin and back to her single life. She was better off alone. The only man a woman could trust was the kind she met between the covers of a book.
* * *
“I was running a business,” she told Daphne now. Protecting my heart from further injury. She’d tried to protect her daughter, too, but Daphne had never listened. She’d kept believing there had to be a good man out there somewhere. Maybe Daphne had been right all along. Maybe Roberta simply hadn’t encountered one until now.
“And only this morning you said you didn’t want a man in your life.”
“A woman can change her mind, can’t she?”
“Absolutely, and it’s about time,” Daphne said now with a smile and an approving nod. “I hope you have a great evening.”
“I do, too.” It had been years since that disastrous, short-lived affair, and Roberta hadn’t been on a date since. She was a female Rip Van Winkle waking up after years of sleep. What was she going to wear? What was she going to say? Was this a bad idea?
Bad or not, she went to Schwangau. She donned a pair of cream-colored slacks, her favorite pink top and floral jacket and her comfiest shoes, and sailed out the door, feeling as nervous as a young girl going on her first date.
Seeing Curtis White waiting for her in the lobby of Schwangau, wearing black jeans and a button-down shirt with a dark blue tie, set her tummy doing flips. She couldn’t remember when she’d found a real, live man so attractive.
“You look lovely,” he said.
Lovely, at her age. She could feel herself blushing. “And you look… Has anyone ever told you that you look like Clint Eastwood?” What a silly thing to say!
He didn’t seem to mind. “I get that a lot,” he said with a smile. “Normally, I clean up better. I’m afraid I didn’t realize there was a dress code at this place. This is the only shirt I had with me. I had to borrow a tie from the maître d’.”
“You clean up just fine.” Roberta told him. Now, there was an understatement. She should pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. Except she didn’t want to wake up. At this point in life, a woman deserved a good dream or two.
The dream only improved as the evening progressed and they shared a bottle of Riesling and life stories (Roberta’s highly edited). Curtis confessed to a love of old fifties doo-wop groups, and then she did sneak a quick pinch. This had to be too good to be true.
Nothing vanished. It was still evening and she was still in a fancy restaurant with a great-looking man. “How about breakfast tomorrow?” he asked as they left the restaurant.
“I think I could manage that.”
Breakfast was even better than dinner, so they decided on lunch, including his sons and her daughter. “He kind of looks like Clint Eastwood,” Daphne whispered as he and his sons walked into Zelda’s.
“He thinks I look like Audrey Hepburn,” Roberta whispered back. “The mature version,” she said with a smile. Of course, other than being slender, she didn’t look anything like the famous actress, but she wasn’t about to disabuse the man. Let him have his fantasy.
Later that day, after their children had discreetly drifted off, they took a walk on the bank of the Wenatchee River, admiring the view of sparkling blue water wending its way past a forest of pines and firs. He took her hand and said, “Roberta, I’ve had a wonderful time this weekend.”
A little gremlin landed on her shoulder and whispered, Here’s where the letdown begins. He’ll say, “But now I have to go back to my real life.”
“I hope you have, too,” Curtis went on.
“It’s been lovely,” she replied, careful to keep her voice neutral.
“I’d really like to do this again.”
“You would?”
He looked surprised. “Wouldn’t you?”
She smiled. “Yes, actually, I would. But let’s take it slow,” she added, picking up her daughter’s new mantra.
He smiled back. “Okay. But not too slow. I’m not getting any younger, and I’d like to cruise the Greek isles before I die. That isn’t the kind of thing a man wants to do alone.”
“I’d like that, too,” Roberta said. She was sure she would.
“Glad to hear it,” he said and kissed her.
It was a kiss filled with both tenderness and promise, and probably the best kiss Roberta had ever had. Maybe life began at seventy-one.