The Wedding Shawl Page 5

  But before they could get up, Merry made her way over to the table and grabbed Hank’s arm. “Go talk to Tiffany, Hank,” she said. Her voice was firm.

  Hank frowned and followed the point of her finger.

  “Tiffany Ciccolo. You know, Hank. The shooting guard. Go. She needs to talk.”

  “To me?” Hank’s frown deepened. “Is there a problem?”

  “Just go. Now.” Merry placed both hands on his back. Her head barely reached his shoulder blades. She gave him a shove.

  Hank hesitated, but Merry stood resolutely behind him.

  Finally he walked over to the table.

  Tiffany looked up, her expression still sad, but she welcomed the bar owner with a smile. Then she reached up and hugged him.

  “I guess it’s weird to have a wife throw her husband at other women,” Merry said to Nell, her eyes making sure Hank didn’t abandon Tiffany Ciccolo. Out of habit, she began cleaning up the table, using a rag Hank had left behind. “He doesn’t necessarily like it when I offer his shoulder like that, but Hank’s easy to talk to, you know? When he coached our team a lifetime ago, we’d dump on him. This big lug of a guy. But he’d listen. He always listened.” She stopped and laughed. “Maybe that’s why he’s such a great bartender.”

  The sound of car keys broke into Merry’s chuckles, and Nell looked up. Ben stood nearby, a key ring dangling from his fingers.

  “My chauffeur,” she said, looking back to Merry.

  But Merry was already off, hugging some friends at the next table, wiping surfaces, her smile selling a few more beers. She was beginning to believe Cass, Izzy, and Willow when they suggested that Merry Jackson was the real force behind the Artist’s Palate.

  Ben wrapped an arm around her and led her over to the steps. “I know what you’re thinking. ‘If only I had a tenth of that energy.’ ” He looked over at Merry, then pulled Nell close. “But you have all the energy I need, my dear.”

  Nell laughed. “For once in your life, you’ve crawled inside my head and come out with the wrong thought. I was trying to imagine Merry’s elfin body on a basketball court; that’s what I was thinking.” And she was also thinking that beneath her bubbly exterior, Merry Jackson was a compassionate young woman—and one whose husband very nicely allowed himself to be pulled into that compassion, whether he was comfortable there or not.

  Chapter 6

  The next day Tiffany showed up exactly when and where she told Izzy she would. Eleven a.m. sharp. Twenty-two Sandswept Lane.

  Nell opened her front door to an apology.

  “I’m so terribly sorry, Mrs. Endicott,” Tiffany began. She stood on the stone steps, a large bag slung over one broad shoulder and a notebook binder in the other hand. She wore a short-sleeved knit shrug, a single button holding it in place, with a tank top underneath, a silky summer skirt, and red sandals with clunky heels that lifted her to Nell’s height. In her hand she held a bouquet of fresh flowers. The same huge sunglasses covered her eyes and half her face. “For you,” she said.

  Nell waved the apology away and suggested that Tiffany call her Nell. “I’ll answer more quickly,” she laughed, lowering her head to smell the daisies. “These are lovely. Thank you. Now, come on in. Izzy’s pulling some scones from the oven. Let’s talk wedding.”

  Tiffany had called early that morning, and Izzy suggested that they meet at Nell’s house. It made more sense. Tiffany could get the lay of the land, determine what equipment she’d need to bring, how many stylists they needed.

  Izzy waved at Tiffany from the island. “The blueberries are from the market. The rest is all Nell. You’ll be happy you came.”

  “You’re great, both of you. I might have fired me if I’d been you.”

  Izzy laughed. “You may wish we had when you get through with my great-grandmother Chambers, not to mention Great-aunt Florence—she’s ninety and has beetle-black hair.”

  Tiffany smiled and her shoulders relaxed. She pushed her hair back behind one ear and sat on a stool, opening up the three-ring binder and slipping on black-rimmed glasses. She leafed through the book, asking Izzy questions and scribbling down notes.

  She was the kind of young woman people might easily forget. Plain and pleasant. But her coppery hair now added some signature to her, Nell supposed. People would remember the beautiful hair, if not the person. Whatever had bothered her the night before was hidden there behind the glasses, and Nell suspected that was where it would stay. Tiffany Ciccolo was keeping her distance.

  Her movements were purposeful. Efficient and businesslike. Perhaps to erase any lingering images of how she might have looked the night before.

  After scones and coffee, they did a quick tour of the bedrooms where the women in the bridal party would dress the day of the wedding. They’d use Nell and Ben’s bedroom, dressing room, and bath, as well as the guest rooms. It would be more than enough room, Tiffany said, satisfied. She’d carefully written down the names of the wedding party and Izzy’s relatives who needing styling services that day, and assured her it could all be done in an hour or two. Easy. Tiffany would bring champagne, orange juice, bottled water, and nibbles, along with her stylists. She suggested Izzy have some favorite CDs or an iPod loaded and ready to go. This would be another fun part of the day, she promised.

  Tiffany took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. It was then that Nell noticed how tired she looked. A sleepless night, her eyes said.

  As if sensing Nell’s look, Tiffany turned away and looked around Nell’s kitchen. “This is a dream room,” she said, admiring the sixburner stove, the inviting island, and the hanging rack of copper pots and pans. Sunlight poured through the open windows, flooding the breakfast area and highlighting the bamboo floors.

  Nell’s cooking area spilled directly into the family room, where wide couches and comfortable chairs sat on sisal rugs. At the far end the stone fireplace was surrounded by bookshelves crammed with books, small pieces of art, and family photos.

  “I’ve always loved this house,” Tiffany said. “It’s even more beautiful on the inside. Someday . . . someday this is exactly the kind of house I want for my family. When I was in grade school I had a friend who lived around here, and we’d cut through your backyard on our way to the beach sometimes. My friend said all the neighborhood kids did it, but I was pretty sure we’d be arrested.”

  “Not a chance. There was an open invitation. So you grew up here, Tiffany?”

  She nodded, her eyes still scanning the comforts of the homey living area. “Not around here, though. We lived out near the highway. But I went to Sea Harbor High, so I knew some kids who lived in town. Not many. There were cliques. You know how high school can be. Popular kids. Smart kids. Nerds. Geeks. All that awful branding.” She fingered the edge of her sweater.

  She half smiled, almost apologetically, Nell thought. As if it were her fault that there were cliques, or that she wasn’t in the right one.

  “Did you knit your sweater? It’s lovely.”

  “Me?” Tiffany looked surprised, and then she laughed. “No. I’m still on scarves. But I keep trying. I’ve spent several paychecks in Izzy’s store. When I was in high school, my friend’s mother tried to teach us both how to knit once. She was such a cool knitter.” Tiffany paused, a wistful look following her words. She looked down at her cotton shrug. “But this? My sister knit this. She’s a fantastic knitter. She sends me sweaters and hats and socks all the time. Sheila’s, like, amazing. You two should meet, Izzy.”

  “Does she come to visit you in Sea Harbor?”

  “No. Never. She lives in Nebraska. But I keep trying to get her back. Who knows? Maybe someday.” Tiffany slipped off the stool and walked over to the window above the sink. She looked out at the yard.

  “This is a perfect place for a wedding. It’s so beautiful, it should be in a magazine.” She pointed toward the back of the yard and to a circle of fruit trees and shoulder-high rosebushes that nearly hid a small frame house. “I remember that little guest cottage bac
k there, right near the woods. We peeked in the windows once. It had the highest bed I’d ever seen. I wanted to hide away in it and never leave.”

  Izzy laughed. “That’s exactly what I used to do. It was my special place when I’d come here to spend summers with my aunt and uncle. I thought the backyard—woods, trees, hammock, cottage—all belonged to me. I loved it here. And now—well, now it seems the perfect place to get married. Come see.” She headed for the French doors. “Aunt Nell and a friend have turned the yard into a wedding forest, green and soft and peaceful. It’s a paradise.”

  Nell followed the two women outside. She noticed Claire at the far end of the yard, almost invisible in a green T-shirt that blended in with the bushes and trees. The gardener was hunkered down beneath the tall pines, mulching a border of brilliant green and yellow hostas.

  Izzy gestured to the deck steps and the flagstone path. “My aisle,” she said. Then she pointed out the grassy area where they’d set up chairs, where she and Sam would stand side by side and promise to be together the rest of their lives.

  Tiffany looked over the whole yard as if watching a movie. “It’s just perfect.” Her voice caught, and for a minute Nell thought she might need a tissue. But then she seemed to catch herself, and she coughed lightly as if clearing away a frog in her throat. “Weddings make me emotional,” she said, and then asked Izzy if they could check upstairs one more time. She wanted to be sure there were enough outlets for curling irons and dryers.

  But Nell suspected she needed a change of view before her emotions got the better of her. She watched them disappear into the house. In her salon encounters with Tiffany, she’d not seen that emotional side of her, but the thought of Izzy’s wedding gave her a catch in her throat. She certainly understood.

  In the back of the yard, she watched Claire uncurl her body and stand tall, her hands on her narrow hips, admiring her work.

  Claire had shown up to work early that morning, while Ben was just pouring his first cup of coffee. He had seen her through the window and urged her up to the kitchen to share a cup. While Nell was still getting dressed upstairs, Ben suggested to the gardener that she move into the guesthouse until her apartment opened up.

  Nell heard the end of his sentence as she came down the back steps and added her encouragement, insisting that Claire say yes.

  It took less than a cup of coffee for Claire to accept their offer with promises to somehow pay them back.

  They promised to check out the cottage to be sure everything worked, and Claire could move in later that day. To seal the deal, Ben took a key from a hook on the wall and slipped it into her slightly shaking hand.

  Nell added that using the key was optional. They rarely locked things up on Sandswept Lane.

  Nell waved at Claire now to get her attention. “I feel like I’ve abandoned you,” she called out.

  “No, of course not.” Claire looked up to the deck. “I love it here—and you must have a million wedding details to work out. That’s your job. I can handle this.” She dropped her trowel in the wheelbarrow and began walking up the path toward the deck. “This has become my meditation garden, Nell. I don’t know what I’ll do when the wedding is over.”

  “You’ll come over often and simply sit in the yard for a change. Enjoy what you’ve nurtured here. That’s what you’ll do.”

  “You and Ben . . . you’re unusual, you know? Your generosity—”

  Nell cut her off. “No, no, we’re not. This just makes sense. We have a nice guesthouse with the most comfortable bed in Sea Harbor, and it’s not being used right now. It would be silly not to offer it to someone who needs a good place to sleep. I’m glad you said yes. And somehow it makes me feel more secure about all this wedding planning. I don’t know why. It just does. Having you close will be nice.”

  Claire looked at Nell for a moment, as if she wanted to say more. Instead, she smiled a quiet, grateful smile that started in her eyes and spread quickly to her lips.

  Her lips quivered slightly, but then she took a deep breath, peeled off her gloves, and spoke evenly, her composure intact.

  “Do you have a minute? There are a few more things we should tackle before the wedding. I want to be sure we’re on the same page.”

  Nell nodded, and Claire walked up the steps, pulling a rumpled yellow sheet of paper from her jeans pocket. She handed it to Nell. “See what you think.”

  Claire walked over to an Adirondack chair at the side of the deck and sat while Nell began to read through the list. Two blooming hibiscuses towered over the chair, brilliant peach blossoms as big as grapefruits opening up to the sun. It created a private nook on the open deck, a lovely place to curl up and read. Or take a nap. Claire reached up absently and deadheaded a shriveled bloom.

  Nell stood apart, giving the list her full attention. Claire was so organized. Each item was treated as a task with a timetable attached.

  She should really have her own business, Nell thought as she went from item to item. She had at least a dozen friends who would love to work side by side with Claire, learning from her as they tilled the soil, prepared compost piles, rid their yards of chemicals. Maybe Claire would consider a community-center class in gardening. Or a community garden. Nell suspected she’d be as good with vegetables as she was with hostas and gerbera daisies. Perhaps once this wedding was over she’d talk to her about it.

  Izzy stuck her head out the door, squinting into the sunlight and scattering Nell’s thoughts.

  “I’m leaving, Aunt Nell. Headed back to the shop.”

  Tiffany was a step behind her. “Me, too. And thanks for understanding about yesterday. No more missed appointments, I promise. I had . . . I had some things on my mind, but I think I’ve taken care of them.” She hesitated for a minute as if wanting to say more. But instead, she took a few steps toward Nell and hugged her awkwardly. Then she spun around on her clunky red shoes and walked back into the house.

  The sound of their footsteps echoed through the hallway.

  Nell stood there for a moment, looking into the empty room. Tiffany was certainly shy, slightly reserved even. Not a hugger. Not with someone she barely knew. The gesture had touched Nell. Perhaps it was a result of the magic that seemed to fill the Endicott home these days. And if not magic, certainly happy vibes.

  Nell turned back to the list, and then remembered Claire, sitting in the shadows. “The list looks great. . . .”

  Her sentence dropped off.

  Claire was sitting in the deck chair, staring at the house, her mouth slightly open and her face twisted into a grimace.

  An awful look. Pain? Anger? Nell couldn’t be sure.

  She hurried to Claire’s side. “Are you all right? What is it?”

  There was no answer.

  Claire’s chest rose and fell as she inhaled huge gulps of air. She bit down on her bottom lip and waved away Nell’s ministrations. “I’ll be fine. Please. But I need to leave. I’m sorry, Nell. I’m just not feeling too well. I didn’t eat this morning; that’s probably all it is.”

  “Well, then sit for a minute. I’ll get you a glass of water.”

  But when Nell returned just seconds later with the water, Claire was down the steps and around the side of the deck. Nell glimpsed a flap of her green shirt as she rounded the corner of the house.

  The only sign that she’d been there at all was a pair of flowered garden gloves, dropped to the floor as she had fled.

  Nell picked them up and stared at the corner of the house. For two weeks she and Claire had worked side by side, digging in the dirt, sharing views, and talking about life. She found in Claire a kindred spirit.

  “A gentle gardener” was how she described her to Ben one night.

  But it wasn’t gentleness she had read on Claire’s face minutes ago.

  The mixture of emotions on her face were ones Nell couldn’t readily pull apart and describe. But the strength of them made her wonder if she really knew this woman who would soon be staying in their guesthouse. A gen
tle gardener? Or a mystery woman, someone she didn’t know at all.

  Chapter 7

  “It was as if she’d seen a ghost,” Nell said to Izzy that night. “A rather awful ghost.” She stood next to the wooden table in the Seaside Knitting Studio’s back room, pulling containers of food from her cloth bag.

  “I saw the same thing,” Izzy said. “She was standing at the corner of the garage as I started to back out of the driveway, staring at me, at my car.”

  “Staring at you? Did she say anything?”

  “Not a word. I smiled at her, gave a small wave. But she didn’t respond. It gave me goose bumps. Like in a movie. If looks could have caused my car to crash directly into your giant maple tree, I might not have made it back to work.”

  “That’s not like Claire. She’s usually so soft and gentle.”

  “I suppose I’m exaggerating a little. But it wasn’t pleasant, Aunt Nell.”

  “What did Tiffany say?”

  “Nothing. But she didn’t have her glasses on. Which, by the way, we need to make sure she does when she’s working on Nana Chambers’ hair. She can’t see without them. All she could see of Claire was a fuzzy figure.” Izzy scooped up stray knitting needles and rulers as she talked and tossed them into a wicker basket in the middle of the table.

  Birdie settled down near the fireplace next to Purl, the yarn studio’s resident cat. Purl immediately hopped onto her lap, curled herself into a ball, and began purring. “Claire seems to be a lovely person,” Birdie said, her fingers trailing up and down Purl’s back. “But she does seem to have some quirks. It bothered her when I mentioned seeing her at the book club that day, which was a bit odd. Now this.”

  Cass pried the lid off one of Nell’s glass bowls, listening, but her senses tuned in to Nell’s delights. She breathed in the scent of garlic and mint and sighed dramatically.

  Nell laughed and handed her a fork. She looked back at Birdie. “She came back a few hours later with a battered suitcase and cardboard box. I think Claire’s life has had some rough moments.”