Bad Heiress Day (14 page)

Everything was as it was intended to be. Life was taking its intended course. The money could be redeemed. Suddenly, Paul’s mysterious why seemed to matter less. What mattered now was what she did with what God had handed her. Because He was beside her.

For a moment, there was no chaos, no fretting over the future, just a still, perfect moment in time. As if God had plunged down out of His heaven, sat down on the couch beside her, and put His arm around her. Truly, it was almost a physical sensation, like a hug around her brain. Around her soul. Darcy smiled at the sappy metaphor, but that’s truly how she felt. She wasn’t sure she could ever relate to anyone what this moment really felt like. She could sit on this couch, cradling her daughter and these mementos of her father, for hours.

The sound of the school bus rolling by the kitchen windows brought her out of her reverie. She counted down, like a rocket launch, the ninety seconds before Mike burst through the door.

He threw his backpack down on the kitchen floor, sat on the steps, and leaned against the wall.

“Mom, I don’t feel so hot….”

B
y Wednesday of the next week, round two of the stomach virus had finally ended. Darcy sighed happily at the prospect of a child-free morning, spent—how else?—with Kate.

“Glad to have Mike back in school today?” said Kate, sipping the last of her tea as Darcy finished loading the dishwasher.

“Yep. Finally. I really wanted to send him yesterday and make our meeting, but his fever had only just gone down. I’m probably pushing it today, but he’s got to get his work to catch up over the holiday.” Darcy loaded the cups from both bathrooms into the top rack—everything that could even
think
of hosting a germ was going to get a good washing today. Sheets and towels were already in the washer on Scalding.

“So that leaves you, what, twenty-four hours to get ready for Thanksgiving?” The two of them were braving the warehouse shopping club to stock up at the last min
ute. Costco the day before Thanksgiving was no place to venture alone.

“Twenty-three if you count the time I’ll spend chatting with you.”

“With my luck the store will be out of sweet potatoes by this afternoon. And mini-marshmallows will be out on the black market.”

Darcy clicked the dishwasher door shut and pushed the button marked Sanitiz-R Rinse. She pretended she didn’t hear the strange clanking noise as the machine kicked on. She reached for a stack of recipe cards, and fanned them in front of Kate. “Pick a card, any card.”

“Huh?”

“No, really. Just pick one.”

Kate plucked a card from the middle. “Why?”

Darcy flipped the card over. “That settles it. We’re making Dad’s corn sausage stuffing this year. I had all seven of these recipes to choose from. That is, of course, providing I can actually get my hands on the ingredients.” Darcy snagged her shopping list off the fridge and proceeded to add the necessary items.

“Corn bread? On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving? You’re brave.”

“I know.” She grabbed her purse off the counter and drained the last of her tea. “But we make a good team and it’s only 9:00 a.m. You can tell me how the meeting with Meredith and Doug went yesterday as we drive.”

“Oh, yeah, that. Well, it didn’t go so well. Come on, I’ll tell you in the car.”

Meredith and Doug had each informed their respective Restoration Project candidates. The group was getting back together to go over initial reactions, identify logisti
cal challenges such as getting baby-sitters, and match women with salons. It was going to be a great meeting—a first chance to watch The Restoration Project’s real implementation. Darcy was frustrated to miss it.

“What do you mean, ‘It didn’t go so well’? Why didn’t you call me last night?” Darcy unlocked the car.

“I didn’t see the point. I knew I was going to see you today.”

“Well, come on, what happened?”

Kate pulled her car door shut and snapped her seat belt into place. “Actually, I may be overstating things a bit. Most of it went well. Really well. Four of the five women were really excited. A little wary—you know, I think they suspect they’re walking into an episode of some reality makeover TV show or something—but mostly excited. Glad, I suppose, that someone notices what they’re going through. It’s going to mean so much to them, Dar. Such a boost.”

Darcy revved the car into gear. “Good. That’s good.”

Kate’s entire body language shifted. “That young mom, though, Michelle Porter? She…well, she didn’t take it so well.”

“What do you mean by ‘so well’?”

“She was angry. ‘Bitter,’ Doug called it. I think even he was taken aback by her letter.”

Darcy looked at Kate. “Her letter? She wrote a letter?”

“A scathing one. She’s…um…not very happy to be chosen. She thinks…” Darcy could see that Kate was trying to smooth over whatever that letter had said.

“Just tell me.” Darcy could feel her already too short temper shrinking. She didn’t care for the way letters had so much power in her life these days.

“Look, you shouldn’t let this get to you. Doug said we
shouldn’t take her lashing personally. She’s mad at the world for what’s happened to her son.”

“You’re stalling, Madam Vice President. And why don’t I have a copy of this letter?”

Kate slumped down in her seat. “Okay, okay. I
do
have a copy for you. But I agree with Doug, I don’t think we should be discouraged by this.”

“Kate, either show me the letter or tell me what it said.
Now.
”

Kate sighed. “She said we were wasting money on stupid things when it could be better spent on research. ‘A good haircut can hardly bring my son his life back’ was one of the better lines. ‘Vain misguided fluffheads’ was my personal favorite.”

Darcy felt like someone had just punched her in the stomach. Twice.

“Look, Dar, she doesn’t get it. She’s up to her earlobes in grief and anger and she can’t see the value of anything right now. Meredith said it was bound to happen now and then. People respond to grief in so many different ways.”

Darcy cut a corner closely, her grip viselike on the steering wheel. Of all the nerve…

Kate continued. “It’s the
other
women you should be paying attention to, the ones who are so grateful and amazed and surprised. We’re giving them something they don’t even understand they need yet. This is good, Dar, really good. Amazing things are going to come from this. You should see the looks on Doug’s and Meredith’s faces—they’re as excited as we were in the beginning.”

“You mean
before
someone lambasted us as vain fluffheads?”

“See? That’s why I didn’t call you last night. I knew you’d get like this.”

“You’d think—” Darcy’s cell phone ring cut her off. She pulled it out of her purse and flipped it open.

“Hon?” Jack’s voice was thin and strained.
Oh, Lord, what now?

“Jack? You sound awful.” Darcy panicked—had he been laid off? Were they cruel enough to do something like that the day before Thanksgiving?

“I’m on my way home. I feel awful.”

“Oh, no…” Darcy wanted to scream, but kept her voice sympathetic. How did she not see this coming? Oh, that’s right, she was an optimist….

“Oh, yes.” He coughed horribly. “I’m getting out of here before I get sick again.”

“Come home, Jack.” Sick
again?

“See you soon.”

Darcy pulled off the road and laid her head on the steering wheel. “Kiss my corn bread goodbye.”

“What?” Kate sounded panicked.

Darcy tried to laugh, she really did. “Jack.”

“I
know
Jack. Jack what?”

“Jack’s sick. He just threw up at work. He’s on his way home now.” With an enormous sigh, Darcy edged the car into a three-point turn to head back. With any luck, she’d make it home just before Jack.

“You’re going home?” Kate wailed. “Jack’s a big boy, you know. He can find a bathroom all on his own. We can still get you the basics in half an hour. Plus extra Pepto-Bismol.”

“No way,” Darcy countered. “Jack’s an even bigger baby than Paula when he’s sick. I thought he looked, well, not himself this morning, but I just assumed it was stress.”

Kate groaned. “Turkey Day’s going to be a real turkey for you this year, huh?”

“I could just cry.”

“Don’t cry. Send Paula and Mike over to our house for dinner—what’s the difference between twelve people and fourteen? I’ll send home a plate of fixings for you. Jack can eat chicken noodle soup and saltines—that is, if he can keep anything down.”

Darcy simply nodded, wanting to sob.

“Do we need to stop for supplies on the way?” Kate was trying to be helpful.

“No, we’re all stocked up. We’ve got enough ginger ale, saltines and chicken soup to feed half the city.”

“This rots, Dar. It just rots.”

The two of them yelled “Rots!” at the top of their voices the whole drive home. Kate would just have to go into the Costco battle alone. The Nightengales were under attack.

Right beside the “vain fluffheads.”

Happy holidays, all right. The Stuff of Legend.

Saturday morning, Darcy Nightengale filled her travel mug with tea and organized her sale circulars. Jack’s stomach had calmed, the kids were happily installed in front of Saturday morning television and Mom was going shopping.

Power shopping.

Thanksgiving had been a complete washout, saved only by the fact that her family now possessed no less than twelve hours’ worth of James Bond movies. It didn’t have quite the same romance as Jack’s birthday, but she made herself an enormous bowl of popcorn and worked her way through four movies.

In between responding to calls for care from Jack, that is.

Suffice it to say the Pause button on the DVD remote got a supreme workout.

Today’s workout, however, would be all about the mall. It was going to take an all-out war to make this holiday season a decent one, and this heiress was up to the challenge. Darcy had spent a whole day nursing the wounds of Michelle Porter’s letter, and it only added to the undercurrent of pain that lingered over the prospect of a Christmas without her father.

The solution, as Darcy saw it, was to have the absolute best Christmas. A really meaningful holiday season. She’d been up half the night, combing the ads, scanning the magazines. She had meals, baking, cards, presents and even new Advent traditions planned out to the tiniest detail. She had a decorating theme for each room. This would be the year she finally made those hand-cut gift cards she’d admired from a television show. She’d downloaded four different churches’ Christmas Eve schedules off the Internet—including, of course, Ohio Valley where Doug was pastor. If the Nightengale household had budded back to life this fall, it was going to blossom into full bloom this Christmas.

Four stores, then lunch, three more stores, then tea with Kate, then two final stores with a swing by the China Pavilion for takeout to bring home. Darcy stacked her flyers, her list and her timetable on the passenger seat beside her.

The Beach Boys were belting “Merry Christmas, Baby” through the car stereo as Darcy zipped out of the driveway. Today, she would get to show her family just how much attention she had for
them
now. It was a new beginning. The birth of new traditions, a time to find new ways to pamper her family and make them her priority.

Stand back, world, Darcy Nightengale is ready to have a full-blown Christmas!

Darcy checked items off her list with an efficiency that would have made even Santa jealous. She’d not only scored the planned items on her agenda, but halfway through the second store she’d found two gifts that were even better than the ones she had planned. She’d stood there, in the back corner aisle of Dillard’s housewares department, and debated if it made more sense to return the previous items now, or wait until later. She’d opted, in a rush of clarity, to do none of the above.

She would return neither.

Kate and Glynnis would get both gifts—the good ones, and the better ones as well.

Yes, folks, this year, everybody was going to get everything. She added two more pairs of mittens to the care package she was sending to a local homeless shelter. And the stock of food she’d send to the food pantry? Well you can bet it would include honest-to-goodness Oreos. If there was ever a year for the queen of presents to claim her throne, this was it.

Darcy stared down at her collection of bags. Suddenly the pressure of plastic handles wasn’t cutting off her circulation; she was simply feeling the weight of her generosity. The lines weren’t annoyingly long; they were simply time to chat with strangers. The holiday season sucked her up in its marvelous momentum, and she reveled in the joyful bustle.

It hurt more to be still. To ponder and remember all those tiny Yuletide details that would never be here again. The fifth stocking unhung. Movement was the antidote to that undercurrent of pain. This was her weapon—the giving, the adorning, the crafting, the rejoicing—her shield against those things which she could not change.

By three-thirty, she was brimming with a deliciously useful exhaustion as she plopped down opposite Kate in the window table at J.L.’s. “Behold,” she said stretching her arms out and rolling her aching shoulders, “I came, I saw, I holidayed.”

“Had a good day, did you? Nice to get out and play with all the grown-up, unsick people?”

Darcy rested her chin in one hand. “I never did that to my mother. I was never that sick, and I never made my brother or sister sick only seconds after I recovered. Never. Not once.”

“You’re an only child. There was no one to infect. That’s hardly an accomplishment.”

“You can’t hold my sibling deprivation against me. And I surely never infected the wage-earning parent the day before Thanksgiving. I was a model child.”

Kate peered over her shoulder out the storefront windows into Darcy’s van. “I’d say you were the model consumer today. That’s quite a haul you’ve got there.”

Darcy grinned. “I’m making up for lost time.”

“Looks like you’re making up for the national trade deficit in there.” Kate sipped her tea. “I’ve got to hand it to you, though, all your shopping done in one day—and on the Saturday after Thanksgiving no less. That’s the mark of a true professional.”

“Well, now, I’m not exactly sure I’m done yet. There are two more stores to hit yet today, and then I’m not sure where I’ll take it from there. I found some decorating ideas I may want to try. And we haven’t even gotten to the food yet.”

“O-kay,” Kate drew the word out again, the way she did when she got all weird. “I suppose you’re entitled to a little retail therapy.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. It’s perfectly fine to blow off steam with a credit card. Sort of.”

“I was Christmas shopping. A perfectly respectable holiday pastime. Normal behavior. Seasonally appropriate.”

“Yeah,” Kate replied skeptically.

“Okay, I guess I went a little overboard. But you know what? It felt so good—so just plain marvelous—to have fun again. To act happy. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

“There’s not. I’m just saying you might want to make sure you don’t…overdo it.” Kate laughed a bit too forcibly. “Well, overdo it more than usual. On the Darcy scale of things. Which is kind of over-the-top to begin with, so…”