THERE WAS NO need for Jolene to ask what they were talking about. “I can’t say.”
“I had to be Sarah. Or Caroline Harper, she was in the salon, too, when I got the call, but Sarah and I have become closer since Caroline began traveling.” She ran her fingers through her hair, which had always been a tell, something she only ever did when she was nervous. “My doctor wouldn’t have breached confidentiality, even though I did list you as my emergency contact and checked the privacy box allowing her to discuss my medical condition with you. But there’s nothing to discuss.”
“Isn’t there?”
“No.” Her mother had never been a very good liar. She shrugged. “It’s no big deal. And Sarah had no damn right to interfere.”
“I’m not saying it was Sarah. But whoever it was only told me because she cares about you. You need to get that ultrasound.”
“I can’t.”
“They don’t hurt.” Jolene had accompanied a pregnant, fellow makeup artist whose husband had been working as a carpenter on a movie in New Zealand. “I’ll go with you.”
Gloria’s eyes narrowed. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? It’s not because you need a break. Or even because of the fire, because surely it wasn’t the only apartment in Los Angeles you could rent. You think I’m dying.”
She’d never known her mother to be dramatic. Indeed, Gloria Wells had always been steady as a rock, able to handle all storms life had brought her way.
“Of course I don’t!” Which was true. Jolene didn’t have any idea of the seriousness of her mother’s situation, but on the drive from LA, she’d decided to reject that option. “And I honestly do need a break.”
She opted not to mention also hiding out in case any press tried to descend on her after her signing that public statement that she saw on CNN at the airport was beginning to get some coverage. There was also the breakup. Though she and Chad hadn’t had anywhere near the star power as Brad and Angelina—a power couple breakup that continued, after all these years, to stoke new rumors—both Chad and Tiffany loved the spotlight.
“But yes, I also want to be here for you. As you’ve always been for me.” Including that night her mother had rushed to the hospital after Aiden’s call, hugged Jolene, who’d been hooked up to a rehydration IV, and assured her that everything would be all right.
“I’m scared,” Gloria admitted.
“I doubt there’s a woman in the world who wouldn’t be.”
“Not of the cancer. The treatment.”
“Again, it’s only natural to be scared, but if treatment is necessary, that’s why I’m here. And I’ll stay as long as you need.”
“You don’t understand.” Her mother’s green eyes, so much like Jolene’s, brimmed with tears that spilled down her cheeks. The wine sloshed over the rim of her glass and caused a crimson puddle on the white wood table. “I don’t want to lose my hair.” It came out as a wail. Drawn from the very depths of her being.
Jolene knew many people would think she was being foolish. Even vain. Who worried about hair when you were fighting for your life? She was also sure that her mother wasn’t alone. For Gloria, hair, especially her own, had always been her life. And she’d been blessed with hair that any supermodel would envy. Hair she’d passed down to her daughter. Hair Aiden had once loved to comb his fingers through while she laid her head on his bare chest that was as physically perfect as the rest of him.
“I get it,” she said, reaching across the table and taking her mother’s hand. “I really do. I’ve done makeup for stars who’ve asked me how I get my hair to look like this. I always tell them I inherited lucky genes from my hairdresser mom.” She’d often thought that’s why her mother had gone into hairdressing in the first place. Because, looking back through fading Polaroid photos, Gloria Wells, née Rogers, had begun trying out new styles before she’d started kindergarten.
“But here’s the thing. Even if we get to that point, which we have no reason right now to believe we will, hair grows back. But I honestly can’t bear the thought of losing you.”
“If I die, I’ll miss having grandchildren,” she sniffled. Jolene stood up and got a box of tissue, reminding her of that camo handkerchief Aiden had given her.
“You’re not going to die.”
“Now you have a crystal ball?” Jolene blew her nose and tucked the tissue into the pocket of her sweater.
“No, but I volunteered to do the makeup for last year’s LA pink ribbon campaign and learned that the five-year survival rate for patients with cancer in one breast is 99 percent.”
“Which means there’s still that 1 percent who don’t survive.”
“Mom, listen to me.” She sat down, took hold of her mother’s hand again, this time tighter, and held her damp gaze. “I’m not going to let you die. Because I can’t imagine going through life without my mom.”
Gloria took the tissue from her pocket and again dabbed at her moist eyes. “I wouldn’t want to miss my grandchildren,” she said again.
“See?” No way was Jolene going to rain on her mother’s parade by telling her yet again that she had no intention of getting married and having children. She’d witnessed firsthand how hard it was to be a single mom. Women did it every day. With success. She just didn’t want to be one of them.
She lifted her glass. “And never forget, we’re the Wells girls. Whatever we tackle, we conquer.”
“I’ve never wanted to burst your bubble, Jolene, darling, but real life isn’t the Gilmore Girls.”
“It isn’t?”
“Not even close.”
“Well, it should be.” Jolene sobered. “Whatever happens, dammit, Mom, we tackle, we conquer. Together. The same way we’ve always done. If the situation were reversed, wouldn’t you be telling me the same thing?”
“Of course. And I’d still make the pot roast.”
“See?”
Her mother blew out a long breath. Ran a hand through her hair. Then lifted her glass. “Whatever we tackle, we conquer.”
Relief, mingled with a very real fear she refused to reveal, flooded over Jolene. “So,” she said, stabbing a piece of beef so tender she doubted Tom Colicchio could top it in a quick-fire challenge, “we’ll call Dr. Jones in the morning and make an appointment.”
“He retired.”
“Him, too?” What with Seth’s father, Ben, retiring, then the police chief, and now the doctor who’d treated nearly everyone in Honeymoon Harbor, the town had definitely changed during her years away. Not that she’d expected it to stay frozen in place, like Our Town, that the Theater in the Firs seemed to do nearly every year, but it was still a little unsettling. And Aiden being police chief was at the top of the list.
“Dr. Laurenne Lancaster bought out his practice. She’s a former Doctors Without Borders physician who inherited her grandmother’s old house and set up her office in it. She lives above the store, so to speak. The same way I do. Do you remember Olivia Lancaster?”
“Wasn’t she one of the summer people? From somewhere in the desert? Phoenix, or Las Vegas, or something, right?”
“Close. Palm Springs.”
“I remember her being mega rich.”
“An heiress, so the story goes. Her father, who’d be Dr. Lancaster’s great grandfather, was an inventor who held hundreds of patents. One of the later ones had something to do with a machine that cut identical size French fries and onion rings, which helped fast food restaurants become so popular.”
“So the doctor inherited the inventor’s fortune?”
“Just the house. Apparently Olivia donated the rest of her estate to charity. Her own daughter Katherine, Laurenne’s mother, turned out to be one of those poor little rich girls who partied too much and went through multiple husbands and, to hear Olivia talk about her whenever I did her hair, threw her life away. She didn’t want to risk any of her future heirs growing up the same way.”
“Sounds as if she needn’t have worried about that with her granddaughter.” A Doctors Without Borders physician was the polar opposite of an heiress party girl.
“True. I met Laurenne once when she was about fourteen, she came to spend the summer with her grandmother while her mother was on an extended honeymoon in the Greek Islands. She’d spent most of her life with nannies and in boarding schools, and was a pretty, but very serious girl then.”
“I don’t remember her.”
“Her grandmother kept her on a very short leash. She was too old-school polite to say it, but since she was a terrible snob, I always suspected Olivia didn’t want Laurenne mingling with small-town riffraff. She did allow Brianna Mannion to visit for a sleepover a time or two.”
“Given that Brianna was essentially the princess of Honeymoon Harbor, I suppose she was deemed socially acceptable,” Jolene said without a hint of envy or malice.
Brianna Mannion could have used her family’s standing and historical importance in the town to have been a real bitch. But she’d been the kindest person Jolene had ever met. She’d never behaved as if she were above anyone and she’d certainly never treated Jolene as if she’d been below her. Jolene bet all her guests at the newly opened Herons Landing loved her. Her fiancé, Seth, had spent most of Kylee and Mai’s wedding day gazing at her as if she hung the moon and he couldn’t believe his luck that she’d accepted his proposal. Which, Brianna had admitted during the hair and makeup session, hadn’t come easily and had involved some groveling on his part.
Still, if anyone could have helped him recover from losing Zoe, who he’d loved since middle school, it would have been Brianna.
“So, getting back to the subject at hand, we’ll make an appointment for the recheck—”
“I don’t need an appointment. Dr. Lancaster called in the referral and the radiology department at the hospital is open seven days a week. All I have to do is show up for an ultrasound. Which I was assured doesn’t involve any more boob squishing. She also promised that as soon as I got it done, she’d fit me in to her schedule the moment she got the results back. It might take a day or two since the film probably has be sent to a radiologist in Seattle for a second opinion. But apparently they can do it over the internet now.”
“Terrific.” Tomorrow gave her mother less time to back out. “We’ll get it over with, then how about going up to Lake Crescent and having lunch in the Roosevelt dining room?”
Lake Crescent, located in Olympic National Park, was famous for Franklin Roosevelt having hosted a political dinner in the lodge dining room, then spending the night in one of the cabins. Many tour books considered the lake the most beautiful in America.
“I need to work.”
“It’s my first day home,” she pressed. “And when I was here for the wedding, you’d already hired two stylists, and manicurist, and that massage therapist you mentioned from Sequim. With the summer people gone, you can’t be all that booked up, so surely your staff can handle things for one day.” Jolene paused for effect. “Did I mention my apartment burned down just two days ago and I really need some self-care of my own?”
“That’s emotional blackmail.”
Jolene wasn’t about to deny it. “Is it working?”
Gloria shook her head. “You knew it would.”
“It’s been forever since I’ve been up there.” Jolene pulled out her phone, ignored all the texts and emails waiting, undoubtedly all still gossip-breakup related, and tapped into the lodge’s website. “Oh, wow. They’ve updated the menu. How does a cup of Quinault clam chowder, with bacon, fresh thyme, red potatoes and white wine sound for a starter, then an organic Dungeness crab mixed green entrée salad with sweet grape tomatoes, carrots, red onion, spiced pecans and a lemon lavender vinaigrette sound?”
“Delicious. And expensive.”
“Nothing like what it would cost in LA, even if the fresh oysters and crab were available. Besides, we’re worth it. Wait, I have a better idea.”
“I was just looking forward to the chowder.”
“We’ll have that. But tomorrow’s Saturday.”
“So?”
“So the salon isn’t open on Sunday. And you’ve already said they’ll probably send your ultrasound to another radiologist for a second read.” She’d read up on various possible procedures the night she’d gotten the call from Sarah Mannion. “So, since we’ll go with no news is good news until we can meet with Dr. Lancaster on Monday, why don’t we spend the night? And come back late Sunday afternoon?”
“Because...” Gloria paused. Frowned. “I honestly can’t think of a reason.”
Other than the fact that Jolene couldn’t remember her mother ever doing anything for herself. Either she’d been trying to keep her husband out of trouble, or smoothing things over when he had gone on a tear, or doing her best to ensure that Jolene’s life was easier than her own had been.
“It’s settled.” Jolene tapped some more on the phone’s keyboard. “Fortunately it’s off-season so they have vacancies. You want separate rooms or do you want to share?”
“Why would we want separate rooms when we’ve been apart for so long and can catch up. Unless, of course, you’d prefer the privacy.”
“A single it is.” Hearing the hesitation in her mother’s voice Jolene wondered if she thought she’d stayed away because she didn’t want them to be together. Whenever her mom had visited her in California, Jolene had packed the time with so many activities she thought her mom would like, but now realized that while she’d been showing off her exciting big-city life, they’d never really had that much quiet time together.
Though she had seemed to enjoy the Emmy Awards and lunch. They’d sat at a table with a hairdresser who’d once done Meryl Streep’s hair, and had immediately hit it off, launching into a discussion of the actress’s chameleon looks, able to take on the persona of whatever character she was playing. Which, as they both agreed, was helped by hair and makeup, including Streep eschewing Anna Wintour’s trademark brunette bob and insisting on imitating Helen Mirren’s real-life hairstyle for The Devil Wears Prada. A bit of movie trivia even Jolene hadn’t known.
“Here’s a great first-floor room with two queen beds, a private bath and a porch, views of the lake and mountains, and it’s only a hundred feet from the shoreline.” Jolene turned her phone so her mother could see the photo.
“It looks perfect.”
“It doesn’t have TV.”
“That’s fine with me.”
“Terrific.” In truth, ever since she started working in the business, Jolene found it hard to lose herself in a movie or TV story when she was constantly checking out and—yes, she’d have to admit—often criticizing the actors’ makeup. “It’ll be like a grown-up slumber party.”
Two clicks, her credit card charged, and they were set. After which Jolene stood up, went around the table and gave her mother a hug. “We’ve got this,” she promised.
“I remember telling you the same thing when I picked you up at the hospital after Aiden Mannion’s call that night.”
Aiden. There was no escaping the man.
Then her mind jumped to that moment, just for a second, when she’d remembered all too well how those silky black curls had felt against her breasts. And how his beautifully shaped lips could be both strong and soft at the same time.
Nope. Not going there.
“I remember.” Jolene shook off memories that had escaped the box she’d tried to lock them away in. “And you were right.”
With her mom’s support, hard work and a lot of luck, Jolene had moved on. As they’d do with whatever that suspicious lump turned out to be. Whatever we tackle, we conquer.