The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (148 page)

He cocked his head, smiling. “Yes,” he said. “I’m asking you to marry me.”

“I don’t want to have to quit my job.” Despite the joy that swept through her, making her tingle all over as if just in from the cold, a part of her clung to the niche she’d carved out for herself.

“I don’t want you to have to, either.”

“I could talk to Bob.” The idea was taking shape in her mind. Couldn’t she work at home and send her column in? “There’s just one thing …” Her voice trailed off as she sank into a chair at the table, feeling all at once lightheaded.

“What?” He eyed her anxiously.

She stared at the picked-over platters of food, remembering when she’d been fat—before she’d realized that it wasn’t what was below her neck that was holding her back, but what was between her ears. Like Dorothy and the ruby slippers, she’d had to find out for herself what the Good Witch could have told her from the start. “I’m wondering whether to rent or sell,” she said.

Then Marc was pulling her into his arms, his mouth closing over hers. It wasn’t the happily ever after she’d once dreamed of, just the last piece of the puzzle falling into place. He drew back, smiling. “You had me worried there for a second.”

She smiled back at him through a shimmer of tears. “You had me at hello.”

T
HE DAY AFTER SCHOOL
let out, Finch threw herself into the preparations for the party. She helped Ian with the banners and Maude with the canapés she was freezing ahead of time. When Hector needed a hand erecting the tent, she volunteered without waiting to be asked. All the while putting in extra hours at the shop to pick up the slack left by Laura, who was only working part-time these days. Ordinarily Finch might have grumbled, but it was a welcome distraction from the moment she’d been dreading for weeks, when she’d have to say good-bye to Lucien.

The afternoon of the party everything was in place. Ian’s banners had been hung. Sam’s flowers filled every vase and pitcher. A full bar, courtesy of Wes, stood under the tent, complete with white-jacketed waiters. Claire was in the kitchen with Maude, putting the finishing touches on the cake. And Aubrey, who’d been put in charge of entertainment, had sent over a live bluegrass trio that was tuning up on the lawn. But it was the party favors Alice had made—T-shirts with a photo of Laura and Hector at their wedding flanked by Maude and Finch, with the caption
AND BABY MAKES FIVE
—that looked to be the biggest hit.

Laura looked a little dazed by it all. She’d been up half the night with Essie, who was cutting her first tooth. But she’d been somewhat revived by the huge breakfast Maude had insisted on. Now her main concern was whether or not the overcast sky would clear in time.

The sun broke through the clouds as Anna and Marc were pulling in, a few minutes before four. “Are we the first?” she called out, looking happier than in months.

“I told her we were jumping the gun,” Marc said with an easy laugh, an arm about her shoulders as they strolled up the drive. “But she didn’t want to miss a minute of it.”

Finch was glad he and Anna were back together. It made Lucien’s leaving that much harder somehow, but she’d deal with it when the time came. “You look amazing in that dress,” she told Anna. Light blue with spaghetti straps, it fit her like a glove.

“You think so? I wasn’t sure how it would turn out. It’s been a long time since I sewed anything.” Anna flushed with pride as she fiddled with a strap.

“You made it?” Finch was impressed.

“My mom taught me to sew when I was about your age.”

“Would you teach me?”

“I’d love to.” Anna looked as if nothing would give her more pleasure.

“You have to promise not to tell anyone, though.” She had her reputation to think of as the only student in the history of Portola High to set fire to the Home Ec classroom.

Anna smiled. “Don’t worry. It’ll be our secret.”

Liz arrived minutes later with her little boy. When she let go of his hand, he raced off like a pebble released from a slingshot. Liz ambled over to say hello to Anna and Marc. She seemed happy for them, though Finch couldn’t help noting the wistful look she wore—a look that turned to a frozen smile when the Rybacks pulled up in their Jeep. Watching Liz greet them, she understood the weird vibe between David and Liz that she’d caught on more than one occasion. It was funny, she thought, how transparent people were even when they thought no one knew. She wondered if David’s wife was as clueless as she seemed.

The thought vanished at the sight of Gerry and Aubrey climbing out of his silver Jag. All eyes turned to Gerry, in a low-cut jersey top and form-fitting black capris. “The fleet’s in!” she called merrily as Andie and Justin tumbled from the backseat. Finch smiled. Andie’s mother was so different from Laura, who hardly ever bothered with makeup and favored comfort over style. The one thing they had in common was that they were both fun to be around.

Martha Elliston showed up next. Finch had invited her after Martha had singled her out at school to thank her for the banana bread. The visit had really perked up her mom, she’d said.

“I’m glad you could make it,” Finch told her. Martha looked prettier than usual in a flowered sundress and pink lipstick that brought out the color in her cheeks.

“I almost didn’t. Mother’s a little under the weather.”

“Um, that’s too bad,” Finch lied. Out of politeness, she’d included the old lady in her invitation but had secretly hoped she wouldn’t come. “Nothing serious, I hope.”

“Oh no. It’s just that she got it into her head to eat an entire jar of sauerkraut and was up all night with the runs,” Martha said with a concerned look that didn’t quite hide her relief at having the afternoon to herself. “And she doesn’t even like sauerkraut.”

“I wonder where she got that idea.” Finch bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. “Come on,” she took Martha’s elbow, “I’ll introduce you to some of my friends …”

Then everyone began arriving at once. Claire’s husband Matt and his kids. The Grigsbys with their daughter Natalie. Tom Kemp and his bride-to-be, Ms. Hicks. Olive and Rose Miller in matching lime-green polyester pantsuits and flowered tops. Myrna McBride with a shopping bag full of books on baby care. Dr. Rosario, who’d delivered Jack as well as half the babies in town, accompanied by her husband, a handsome older man with thick wavy hair the same iron gray as hers. And Sister Agnes, bobbing alongside Father Reardon.

Among the last to arrive were Sam’s sister, Audrey, and her husband, carting a folding stroller with a huge pink bow tied to it. Audrey, who was nothing like Sam, either in looks or personality, shouted into Uncle Pernell’s deaf ear that it was nice to finally have a great-niece to spoil. Which might have stung more than it did if Sam hadn’t slipped up alongside Finch at that moment, saying loud enough for everyone to hear, “Isn’t it wonderful? Now I have
two
granddaughters.”

Anna’s lawyer arrived forty minutes late with one of her FAS kids, a shy eight-year-old named Shoshanna who’d been left behind when her mother failed to pick her up from her riding lesson. Rhonda shot Finch a grateful look when she took the little girl in hand, saying, “You like horses? Come on, I’ll show you ours.”

Shoshanna forgot her shyness and was soon running off to play with the other kids, while Finch lingered in the barn, feeding chunks of carrot to the horses and scolding them like children when they got too greedy and nipped at each other over the tops of their stalls. From the very first day, this was where she’d felt most at home. She loved everything about it: the rich earthy smells, the saddles on their wooden trees like hobby horses, the way the sun slanted through the boards that didn’t quite meet. She didn’t even mind mucking out stalls, which had once prompted Hector to joke that she must have been born in a stable.

In fact, the only time she’d been on horseback before coming to Carson Springs was a pony ride at a fair. She must have been five or six. All she remembered was the fun of being so high up—and afterward her foster mother treating everyone to cotton candy but her, saying that Finch hadn’t thanked her for the ride. But wasn’t that the story of her life? Every time something good happened, it was followed by something bad.

“What are you doing in here? I thought this was a party.”

She swung around to find Lucien silhouetted in the doorway, loose-limbed and somehow aloof, in jeans and a Tour de France T-shirt. “I guess I’m not in a party mood,” she said, feeling as if she’d just swallowed the chunk of carrot in her hand.

He stepped into the sunlight that fell in a wedge over the hay-littered floor. “I came to say good-bye.”

“So this is it, huh?” She’d managed to keep it together so far, but now she felt as though she were falling.

“For now, anyway.”

I don’t want you to go!
screamed a voice in her head, but all she said was, “You’ll be glad to see your mom, I’ll bet.”

“Not half as glad as I’ll be to see the last of my dad,” he said, with a harsh laugh, though she knew he didn’t really mean it.

“I just hope he doesn’t change his mind about Christmas.” His father had agreed to let her go on the trip, and after talking to him, Laura and Hector had given their permission as well.

“He won’t.” They both knew it wasn’t his dad they had to worry about: Six months was a long time and a lot could happen between now and then. “That reminds me …” He pulled something from his back pocket. “I have something for you.”

It was a CD. She peered at the label and began to laugh. “Christmas carols?”

“That way it won’t seem like such a long wait. Hey, it’s not that funny.” He drew closer, frowning. Tears were streaming down her cheeks—but not from laughter. He pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her. He smelled clean, like just after a shower.

“I wish …” Her throat closed up.

“Me, too.” His arms tightened about her. “We’ll e-mail each other every day.” She nodded, lips clamped together so hard they were quivering. “And if I run up a huge phone bill, maybe she’ll decide to send me back. So either way, we can’t lose.”

“You’ll miss my grand debut.” She’d be riding Cheyenne in the Fourth of July parade.

“Simon promised to take lots of pictures.”

He kissed her gently on the lips. When they drew apart, she saw that his dark eyes were glittering. “I better go. My dad’s waiting.”

“Okay, then. Bye.” Outside the band was playing something lively, and the smell of chicken on the grill drifted across the yard. Lucien was almost out the door when she called after him with a choked laugh, “Hey, how did you know my favorite was ‘Chestnuts roasting on an open fire …’ ”

He flashed her a grin that went through her like a knife. “Lucky guess.” Then he was gone, dust motes swirling lazily in the shaft of sunlight where he’d stood. A moment later she heard the sound of a car pulling out of the driveway.

She pressed her cheek to Cheyenne’s neck. It wasn’t fair. Why did she always end up getting left behind? Starting with her mother, who’d dumped her at a McDonald’s when she was five. Was it always going to be like this? Would she spend the rest of her life like Chicken Little, waiting for the sky to fall?

When she finally rejoined the party, she found Andie and Simon teaching the younger kids to toss horseshoes in the sand pit out back. If they noticed she’d been crying they were tactful enough not to say anything, though Andie was extra solicitous and Simon, for once, didn’t crack any of his stupid jokes.

Finch was on her way into the house when she caught sight of Anna and Marc swaying in each other’s arms on the makeshift dance floor built out of plywood. Watching them, she’d never felt so alone.

In the kitchen, she found Maude arguing good-naturedly with Claire over how much sugar to put in the lemonade while Sam and Gerry carried platters of food out to the tables under the tent.

Essie was crying somewhere in the back of the house. Finch followed the sound into the nursery, where Laura sat with the baby in the rocking chair, attempting to calm her. “It’s all the excitement—she’s not used to so many people.” Laura raised her voice to be heard over Essie’s howls.

“Why don’t I take her while you get something to eat,” Finch offered.

Laura handed her over and Essie stopped crying at once, looking up at Finch wide-eyed before breaking into a drooly grin. A long-buried image surfaced: a smiling woman in a blue dress bending over her. She had a sudden sense of something tipped over righting itself as she took hold of a fat brown toe, wiggling it as she chanted in a singsong voice, “This little piggy goes to market….”

Eileen Goudge (b. 1950) is one of the nation’s most successful authors of women’s fiction, beginning with the acclaimed six-million-copy bestseller
Garden of Lies
.

Goudge is one of six children, and the joys and strife that come with a large family have informed her fiction, much of which centers on issues of sisterhood and family. At eighteen she quit college to get married, a whirlwind experience that two years later left her divorced, broke, and responsible for her first child. It was then that she started writing in earnest.

On a typewriter borrowed from a neighbor, Goudge began turning out short stories and articles. For years she had limited success—selling work to
McCall’s
,
Reader’s Digest
, and the
San Francisco Chronicle
—but in the early eighties she took a job writing for a new young adult series that would become the phenomenally successful
Sweet Valley High
.

Goudge moved her family from California to New York City, where she spent several years writing young-adult fiction, creating series such as
Seniors
,
Swept Away
, and
Who Killed Peggy Sue?
In 1986 she published her first novel of adult fiction,
Garden of Lies
, inspired by a childhood anxiety that, because she did not resemble her brothers and sisters, she had been secretly adopted—a suspicion so strong that, at twelve, Goudge broke into her father’s lockbox expecting to find adoption papers. (She did not.) The tale of children swapped at birth was a national sensation, spent sixteen weeks on the
New York Times
bestseller list, and eventually yielded a sequel,
Thorns of Truth
(1998), which Goudge wrote in response to a decade of fan mail demanding she resolve the story.