GLORIA’S HANDS SHOOK with nerves she’d been trying to hide from Jolene as she unhooked her bra after taking off her shirt behind the closed curtain of the dressing stall. The lab tech had given her a little pep talk about she didn’t have to worry, and explained that the ultrasound was safe and painless, that she’d have some gel placed on her skin, then high frequency sound waves would be transmitted from a probe through the gel into her body, which would bounce back to allow a computer to view them as sound waves to create an image. No different from the kind every pregnant woman received.
Yada yada yada. As if Gloria hadn’t already read every article she could find online. She might be the empress of denial, but now that she’d started on this unwanted path, she intended to be prepared for whatever might happened.
Despite her outwardly brave words, she’d learned early in life that it was better to expect the best, but prepare for the worst. Like the old saying went, if you’re going through hell, just keep on going. That was how she’d always lived her life, and she had no intention of changing. As the machine started beeping, which the tech assured her was merely the Doppler evaluating blood flow (again, something she’d already learned online), she also vowed that she was not going to die. At least not anytime soon.
Not when she still had her daughter’s wedding to attend someday. And hopefully, grandbabies to look forward to down the road. She was imagining a future festive family Christmas with stockings hung from the mantel when the tech broke into her daydream by cheerily announcing that they were all done. And that the radiologist would read the images and have them at her physician’s by Monday morning.
After dressing, fluffing out her hair that had been flattened while lying on the table, and touching up her lipstick in a mirror beneath a fluorescent light that wasn’t the least bit flattering, Gloria returned to the waiting room where Jolene was reading a romance novel. Ironic, she thought, for a woman who insisted she didn’t believe in true love or happily-ever-afters.
“All done,” she announced.
On the TV Jolene had been ignoring, Pioneer Woman had given way to Trisha Yearwood, who was making a pecan pie for the upcoming holiday. Gloria hadn’t been counting on doing much for Thanksgiving herself. Perhaps picking up one of those already made dinners Mildred Marshall sold at the market. Or, since there wasn’t going to be anyone to share it with, nuking a frozen turkey dinner and baking a Sara Lee pie. But now, with her daughter home, she was going to have to rethink that plan.
“Great.” Jolene stuffed the book in her bag and stood up. “We’ve plenty of time to make brunch.”
“THIS IS WONDERFUL,” Gloria said as she and Jolene sat in front of a stone fireplace tall enough for a grown man to stand in. After brunch, they’d taken their wine to a pair of chairs overlooking the lake that was just misty enough after today’s earlier rain to look like the entrance to a magic watery kingdom. “I’m so glad you thought of it. Despite the reason.”
“We should have done it earlier,” Jolene said. “I should have come home more often.”
“I always knew why you didn’t. And understood. I also can’t deny that I enjoyed those fancy LA restaurants and that Emmy party. Who would’ve thought that I’d ever be in the same restaurant with George Clooney?”
“That makes two of us,” Jolene said. She’d never been fortunate enough to do the makeup for the superstar who always arrived with his own entourage, but had heard from friends who’d worked on his movies that he was as warm and funny as he appeared in interviews. But a terrible practical joker.
“I am worried I’m keeping you from work,” Gloria said.
“Don’t worry. I’d honestly already planned to take the time off to work on my skin care line. I have some new things I want to try.”
“I thought you were just making that up so I wouldn’t feel guilty.”
“Well, I wasn’t. And let’s make a deal. Whatever happens Monday, we’re going to be honest with each other. We’re not going to hold back any thoughts or feelings and we’re definitely not going to lie just to make the other person feel better.”
“So, if I get bald you’ll tell me that I’m beautiful.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. But you’re already beautiful. Besides, lots of movie stars have buzzed their hair. Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Charlize Theron—”
“For a postapocalyptic movie set in a desert. Even she couldn’t have kept her hair looking good in a situation like that.”
“Toni Collette.”
“Who played a woman with breast cancer in that movie with Drew Barrymore.”
“Oh. Right. Okay, that might not have been the best example... Demi Moore.”
“In G.I. Jane. This may surprise you, but I’ve never wanted to be a Navy SEAL.”
“See, you’re keeping your sense of humor. That’s a good thing. And let’s not forget Jada Pinkett Smith. Will certainly seems to find her sexy.”
“Since I’m not interested in any men finding me sexy, that’s not an issue.”
“You’re being stubborn.”
“I’m entitled. I may have cancer. I shouldn’t be mocked by my own daughter.”
“Sneaky how you’re now using the outside possibility of cancer to your advantage.”
“One uses the tools one has. And this is where I point out that I do know how to use the internet enough to Google stars with bald heads. As you undoubtedly did after Sarah told you about my mammogram. No one, even a woman who works in Hollywood, could have rattled off that list so quickly.”
“I was preparing to be supportive.”
“I know... I need to admit something I never told you,” Gloria said, looking out over the lake. A man was in a wooden boat, fishing from the bow. With the mist over the lake and the lushly wooded mountains looming up in front of him, he could have been a watercolor painting.
Jolene glance over at her. “Okay.”
“When I found out I was pregnant, I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to be pregnant at sixteen.”
“Who would?”
That was why those vicious, mean-spirited rumors about her mother were so hurtful. Also, knowing how difficult life had been for Gloria, there was no way she was going to make the same mistake. Of course, keeping her virginity wasn’t that difficult when there wasn’t any guy in school that she wanted to have sex with. Except Aiden Mannion. But they’d both had reasons to keep their secret relationship...romance...whatever it had been, from ever going that far.
Except for that day...the last time she’d seen him before he left for basic training. When she’d clung to him like moss on a tree and begged him to make love to her. He’d turned her down flat, devastating her.
“I didn’t know what to do,” her mom, unaware of Jolene’s thoughts, continued. “My parents had just been killed and I was all alone, which was probably why I had sex with your father in the first place.”
“Comfort sex,” Jolene murmured. “That’s understandable.”
“I suppose so.” Gloria sighed. “Social services sent me to live with my grandmother. Who’d be your great grandmother on my mother’s side.”
“You never talk about her.”
“Because I don’t want to think of those days. She didn’t live long enough for you to meet her, but believe me, you didn’t miss anything. She was a harridan who treated me like an indentured servant. I probably wouldn’t have minded that so much if she hadn’t spent all our time together complaining about how my mother and father eloped because my mother turned out to be a slut who got herself ruined by a smooth-talking boy.”
“I didn’t know that.” Jolene only knew her grandparents had eloped. To save the money and all the fuss of a wedding, her mother had always told her.
“I never saw any point in sharing it,” Gloria said. “Because my mother was certainly no slut and it was obvious that they were madly in love, and even if the reason for the elopement was true, which I doubt because I could do the math and my mother would’ve had to get pregnant immediately, they still would’ve gotten married.
“My father was the sweetest, most romantic man. I wish you could have known him. He was taking Mama to a lodge on the coast, not far from where the Mannions have their summer home, to celebrate their anniversary. He’d run all his plans by me first to make sure she’d really love it. Including having chocolate-covered strawberries waiting in the sea-view room with a bottle of champagne and an anniversary cake after dinner in the restaurant with Dennis Loves Janice piped on in pink frosting. Pink was her favorite color.
“The only thing that kept me from falling apart when the trooper came to tell me that they’d been killed was the fact that they’d been on their way home from the trip when the accident had happened. Mama had called me from the lodge that morning, telling me how beautiful everything was, and how they’d just come back from beachcombing and she had a bag of shells and another of agates and sea glass. She’d decided that we could buy one of those rock tumblers to polish the rocks and glass and make jewelry together. She was so excited and happy. That was the last time we ever talked.”
“That’s so sad. But it’s a nice memory.” Yet so bittersweet.
“The car was totaled. I never got the shells. Or the rocks.”
“Is that why you make your jewelry?” Necklaces, rings and bracelets from stones and sea glass her mother found on the beaches she’d once sold on eBay for extra money. She’d continued to make them but now they were sold in her salon, a boutique in the Dancing Deer dress shop and at the Herons Landing gift shop.
“It is. Every necklace or bracelet I make has me feeling as if a part of her is with still me. It helps keep her memory alive.”
She quieted, as if lost in thoughts Jolene didn’t want to intrude on.
“What do you think happens when we die?” she asked finally.
“You’re not going to die.”
“We’re all dying, darling. You, me, that good-looking young man who waited on us in the dining room. Who, I noticed, had his eye on you.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“He did. As did Aiden when we ran into him at the hospital.”
“He did not.”
“He did, too. He looked at you the same way he did at Kylee and Mai’s wedding. Like you were a frosted cupcake he’d like to eat up. But you kept moving as far away as you could from him.”
“Maybe you should have had a brain scan while you were in radiology,” Jolene said. “Because you were obviously hallucinating.”
“I know what I saw. And I saw that Aiden was more than a little interested. And you were trying not to be.”
“Mother...”
“There were sparks,” Gloria insisted. “And I wasn’t the only one who saw them. Sarah and I discussed it afterward, and she agreed there was definitely a mutual attraction.”
“Even if there was, and I’m not saying that’s true, there’s no way I’d get involved with Aiden Mannion.”
“Surely not because of that night?”
“Partly.”
“But he was the good guy. The one who rescued you.”
“I know. But you weren’t there. A lot of that night is blacked out, but I definitely remember throwing myself at him, begging him to have sex with me.” Years later she’d looked up Ecstasy and learned that increased libido was one of the reasons some seriously scummy guys used it to drug girls’ drinks. Which had happened at that party she never should’ve gone to.
“Oh... Well. You had been given drugs, so you can’t feel responsible for what you did under the influence. And the doctor who did the rape exam at the hospital told me you were still a virgin.”
“Only because Aiden and Seth arrived in time. And after beating those boys up and chasing them off, Aiden turned me down.”
“Of course he did. Because, despite all the trouble he’d get into, he was, at heart, a good boy. Who grew up to be a good man.”
“He was always a good boy. He just hid it well.” He’d also been the only person she could talk with back in those days. She still had no idea why he’d kept sneaking out with her, since she’d made it clear that he’d never get past second base, when she knew other girls in town who’d brag about having gone all the way with him.
“Though I have to admit that I never, in a million years, would have expected him to become Honeymoon Harbor’s police chief.”
“He’s turned out to be an excellent one.” Gloria sipped her wine. “He only agreed to take the job temporarily, but Sarah says she thinks he’ll stay.”
“All the more reason for me not to get involved with him. Because it couldn’t go anywhere.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t do long-term relationships.”
“That’s because you’ve never been with the right man. The one you can’t imagine a life without. Your relationship with Chad just ended. I’d say you’re entitled to have a have a rebound fling to get over the cheater.”
“I don’t need to get over Chad. Because I was never emotionally invested. Although this is probably not something to share with a parent, our relationship was mostly sex and a way to avoid becoming one of those women who takes some strange guy she’s just met home from the bar for the night because she’s lonely. I happen to be a serial monogamist.”
“We’re both adults. I hope there’s never anything you feel you can’t share with me,” Gloria said mildly. “So, be a serial monogamist with Aiden while you’re here. You are leaving after New Year’s. Meanwhile, it could brighten the holidays.”
Jolene had already considered that idea after a particularly hot dream involving Aiden, and those handcuffs he wore on his belt. And had rejected it as being nothing more than an adult version of her youthful fantasies.
“I don’t think it’d be possible to have a fling with him. Maybe once, back when he was wild, but he seems so grounded now. He might not even know it yet, but my guess is that he’s going to stay here in Honeymoon Harbor, keep his job and choose himself a woman for the long term. One he can marry and have kids with.” And, of course, they’d undoubtedly get a dog.
“While I was getting my ultrasound, I imagined a family Christmas at the lighthouse, with children’s stockings hanging from the mantel.”
“Not happening.” Jolene took a longer gulp of her wine.
“I’d been thinking of taking a lover,” her mother volunteered.
The unexpected statement almost had Jolene spitting out her wine. Then she remembered that her mother was still in her forties. And had been widowed for years. “I think that’s an excellent idea.” And, although some people might consider thinking about their parents having sex as icky, she’d rather talk about that than her own sex life. Or, more specifically, lack of it.
“Oh, I can’t now. At least not until we get the tests back and they’re all clear. Because what man would ever want to go to bed with a bald woman with only one breast?”
“Overreacting much?” Jolene asked her mother. “And to answer your question, I’d say maybe a man who doesn’t reduce women to body parts? Also, I’ve never known you to be such a negative thinker.”
“I’ve never looked cancer in the face. Or, to be more accurate, in the breast. Though you’re right about the negativity.
“Caroline told me that negativity only draws negative forces and suggested meditation and imagining white lights and such. It was all a bit woo-woo for my taste, but I appreciated the gesture and I am trying to think positively. I tried meditation, but my mind wanders.”
“It takes practice.” Jolene felt a sizzle run through her as she thought back to the image she’d conjured up while waiting for her ticket. The one where Aiden had replaced her Hawaiian beach boy.
“That’s what she told me. But, it’s hard.” She dabbed at her eyes with the corner of the linen napkin. “Not just the meditation, but this feeling of having my life swerve so out of control.”
“I know.” Jolene took her mother’s hand in hers. “And we’ll get that control back as soon as we know what we’re dealing with. So, returning to the original far more interesting topic, who did you have in mind for your lover?”
“You’ll laugh.”
“Scout’s honor, I will not.”
“You were never a Girl Scout.”
“Lucky thing. I never would’ve sold any cookies because we’d have eaten them all ourselves.”
“Good point. Okay... Michael Mannion.”
“Brianna’s uncle?” Jolene barely remembered him.
Michael Mannion was a painter and a world traveler, who’d breeze through town every few years, the closest thing Honeymoon Harbor had to an actual celebrity. She’d seen his paintings during a gallery showing she and Shelby had gone to. She remembered him looking a lot like Pierce Brosnan, with his dark hair and those riveting blue eyes most of the Mannion men seem to have inherited.
“He came back to town a year or so ago. I cut his hair, and sometimes, I get the feeling that he might be a tad bit interested, but then again, he’s such a charmer, it’s hard to tell.”
“You told me he painted that mural on your spa wall for free.”
“He was probably just being nice,” Gloria said. “Because his sister-in-law and I are friends.”
“A sketch is being nice,” Jolene argued. “That’s one big-ass wall, Mom.” A wall that now took spa guests to a visual Tahiti. Or Hawaii. Which, dammit, caused that fantasy to flash back again.
“When you put it that way... For a while he and Caroline looked like they were going to be a thing, back when Ben and Caroline were separated—”
“Seth’s parents were separated?”
“For a short time earlier in the year. But Ben got his act together and Caroline went back to him and they’ve been traveling the country in a motor home. She swore to me that she hadn’t let her relationship with Michael go any further than friendship and him teaching her painting, but it was obvious to a lot of us who were watching that he wouldn’t have minded if she’d chosen him.”
“Wow. Talk about a soap opera.”
“I really felt for her. She didn’t want to leave Ben, but he’d become such a negative old stick-in-the-mud. She’d just gotten to her breaking point. Then she had her heart attack—”
“Brianna mentioned that at the wedding. That must’ve been what scared him into doing whatever it took to win her back.”
“It probably made him realize what he’d lose if he’d lost her,” Gloria agreed. “But she told me he’d already been working on fixing things before that. They even had a date. In Port Townsend. And he brought her flowers.”
“That’s sweet.”
“It was. I was so happy for them. But that’s when I started thinking that maybe it was time to get back out there. Although I haven’t been on a date since I was fifteen, so I’ve no idea how it’s done these days.”
“It’s probably not a movie and milkshakes afterward at the Big Dipper. Michael Mannion’s a world traveler. He might take you to Seattle. Or even Hawaii. Can you imagine spending January lounging on a tropical beach instead of wind, rain and gray skies?”
“I said I’d been thinking about the idea of a lover,” Gloria said. “Not that he’d probably ever ask me.”
“So, ask him. It’s a new world, Mom. I realize you haven’t dated since you were a teenager, but women can initiate things now.”
“So Caroline and Sarah keep telling me. And easy for them to say, since they’re both happily married... Sarah keeps offering to set us up. But it’s a moot point now.”
“Why?”
“I told you. Because I may have cancer.”
“And you may not.”
“But still, even having a suspicious lump means that it may be lurking inside, just waiting to break out.”
“I don’t remember you ever being so pessimistic.” Even all those years with Jolene’s father, her mother had always believed he’d change.
“I know. I just don’t feel at all like myself anymore. I’ve been overly emotional all year. Dr. Lancaster diagnosed it as probable perimenopause, and put me on a low-dose estrogen. I asked her about the risk now, with the lump, but she suggested we just wait for the tests, then we could discuss taking me off the pills gradually, or quitting cold turkey.”
“She sounds sensible.”
“She is. And very nice. Did I tell you she has a daughter? There doesn’t seem to be a husband in the picture so I’m guessing that she’s divorced, but of course, it’s not the type of conversation that comes up in a well woman checkup.”
“Well, my vote is that you should move Mike Mannion to the top of your list of potential lovers.”
“I don’t have a list! This is a small town. There aren’t that many eligible men. At least not that I’d be interested in.”
“Certainly none as good-looking as him.”
“He has a haircut scheduled next week. He said that Harriet Harper, Sarah’s mother and the matriarch of the family, informed him that his shaggy—and, personally, I think sexy—hair might be appropriate for a bohemian European artist, but he’s in Honeymoon Harbor now and she expects him to look respectable for their family Thanksgiving.”
Jolene laughed, her mother joined in, and for that frozen moment, sitting here together, watching the sun set into the lake in a fiery blaze as the fishing boat puttered back to the dock, life was as perfect as it had been in a very long while.