Save The Date Part 39

"Sure I can't take you out to a late lunch?" Alice asked, as she pulled alongside Cara's own car. "My treat."

"Thanks, but I've got to get over to South Carolina. We're doing a walk-through and site visit with the bride and groom and their parents, and I need everything to be perfect," Cara said, reaching for the pa.s.senger-door handle.

"Cara?" Alice put a hand on her arm. "Are you sure you don't want me to call the new owner of your building? See if we can't come to an agreement that would allow you to stay put? It seems a shame to leave a place that's so perfect for your needs, just because of some misunderstanding."

"No misunderstanding at all, Alice," Cara said soberly. "Jack Finnerty deliberately misled me. Jones Street is just a shrewd real-estate investment as far as he's concerned. He's just as bad as Cullen Kane, just as bad as my former a.s.sistant. Just as bad as my ex-husband. I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him."

"Okay," Alice said slowly. "Shall I call about Hall Street? See if we can get moving on a lease?"

Cara's shoulders slumped. "Yes. Go ahead. But I can't write any checks until next Friday. Make sure they understand that."

51.

Her car's air conditioner thrummed ineffectively against the glaring midday heat. Sweat stung her eyes, and her pale blue linen shift, which that morning she'd thought would look so cool and effortless, now stuck to the back of her legs and resembled a limp, slightly used Kleenex.

The Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge was a suspension bridge that separated Georgia from South Carolina. Cara glanced down, toward the brownish green water of the Savannah River below, and saw a huge container ship gliding toward the port. Her arms were rigid as she gripped the steering wheel with two damp hands.

Alice had just called with the news that she was drawing up the lease for the duplex on Hall Street. Cara honestly didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

She had ten days to pack up her apartment and shop-her life, in essence-and move out of Jones Street and over to Hall. And she had to do it by herself. This time around there would be no Bert, to make her laugh and help pack and unpack boxes, and moan and b.i.t.c.h about schlepping stuff up and down stairs.

He'd only been gone less than a week, but she missed her former a.s.sistant more than she'd ever admit. Ginny seemed pleasant and efficient, but Cara knew that she and Ginny would never sip from the same cup of snark sauce.

And there would be no Jack, either. The angry words they'd hurled at each other the night before had guaranteed that.

So, fine. She was too busy for idle gossip and casual s.e.x anyway. Cara pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. Time to concentrate on today's meeting.

She and Marie had finally managed to bully Brooke and Harris into agreeing to meet at Cabin Creek to walk through the plans for the reception and after-party. Libba Strayhorn was anxious to show them the progress on the old barn, and if all went well, they'd even be able to finalize placement of all the tables, chairs, and "lounge furniture" Cara had already rented from the tents and events house in Savannah. And, of course, Patricia Trapnell would be there, too.

Cara's stomach was already in knots. She wondered if Patricia was aware of the way her "dear friend" Cullen Kane had managed to so thoroughly torpedo her personal and professional life.

She relaxed her grip on the steering wheel just slightly after her car was finally speeding along the flat, featureless low country on the South Carolina side of the bridge. Glimpses of marsh flashed by, of elderly men with cane poles fishing on muddy creek banks, of elegant white egrets soaring over the green-gold gra.s.s, of rusted, aging mobile homes separated from the highway by little more than a weedy patch of dirt.

Thirty minutes later she slowed the car for the turn down the crushed-gravel drive to Cabin Creek. It was five till two, and she felt relief at the sight of Brooke's white Volvo sedan parked behind her mother's sedate gray Mercedes. There was always a fifty-fifty chance their harried bride might not show up.

Libba Strayhorn met her at the back door, dressed in a short, mint green cotton dress, pearls, and low-heeled sandals. Her blond hair curled just below her chin. Cara realized she'd never seen her client's hair, because Libba was never without her baseball cap.

"You're staring," Libba said, as she ushered her inside.

"It's just that I've never seen you so dressed up before," Cara admitted.

"Doesn't happen very often," Libba said cheerfully. "I had an altar guild meeting at church this morning, and I haven't had a minute to change. But I'm going to, right this minute."

She gestured toward the kitchen wing. "Everybody's out in the kitchen getting something cold to drink. Go on in, and I'll be right with you as soon as I get out of this rig and into something comfortable."

As soon as she walked into the kitchen, Cara sensed something was amiss. Marie sat at the kitchen table, her hands folded in her lap, glancing anxiously in the direction of the French doors that led to the patio. Patricia sat at the far end of the table, her head bent, furiously typing something into her Blackberry. But where were the bride and groom?

Ahh. Finally, she saw Brooke and Harris, outside on the patio. They stood close together, talking quietly, but Cara could tell from the angry set of Harris's usually placid face and the animated flashing of Brooke's hands that they were arguing.

Marie winced. "They've been out there for about ten minutes. Brooke is really wound up about something. I've never seen her like this before."

Patricia looked up from her typing. "I heard them when I walked up to the house, they were so involved, they didn't even notice me. It's all over this silly bachelor party tomorrow night. Brooke is being ridiculous."

"Why do you say that?" Marie said, her voice uncharacteristically sharp.

"She's making this big fuss about nothing. It's a bachelor's party, for G.o.d's sake. A bunch of guys hooting and hollering at a strip club. So what? It's harmless. A rite of pa.s.sage. My son's friends all do it before their weddings."

Marie stared down at her iced-tea gla.s.s. "Brooke won't see it like that."

"Then she needs to get over herself," Patricia shot back. "Harris is a big boy. He can take care of himself."

Marie's eyes narrowed. But before she could respond, Libba bounced into the room. She wore faded blue jeans, a loose-fitting T-shirt, tennis shoes, and her ever-present Cabin Creek baseball cap again, and her dog was right on her heels.

"Thanks for your patience, ladies," Libba said. "I feel soooo much better. You know, every year I swear I'm not going to dress up for these darned altar-guild meetings, and every year, I bow to peer pressure, and put on the dress and heels and pantyhose. And every year, I want to kill myself. It's torture! And I'll tell you right now, I am not wearing hose at this wedding. My mother-of-the groom dress is floor length, so n.o.body but me and Jesus will be any the wiser."

"Ooh, good idea," Marie chimed in. "Mine is long too. And I despise pantyhose. Let's make a pact. We'll call it a hose-free zone." She looked over at Patricia. "What do you say? Are you in?"

Patricia stopped typing on her Blackberry and slipped it back into her Louis Vuitton tote. "Sorry, girls. My dress is c.o.c.ktail length. And Gordon thinks sheer black hose are terrifically s.e.xy."

"You're wearing black to the wedding?" Libba blurted. "Isn't that considered bad luck, or taboo or something?"

"Not for stepmothers," Patricia purred.

Two pink spots bloomed high on Marie's cheeks. The awkward silence was broken when the French doors opened and the bride and groom stepped inside.

Brooke's eyes were red-rimmed, and Harris was stony-faced. He looked from his mother to Cara to Marie. "Can we just get through this, please? Brooke says she has a meeting back in town."

"Sure thing," Libba said. "Let's start in the ballroom."

The ballroom had been freshly painted and wallpapered, and Libba Strayhorn was tickled to be showing it off. She linked her arm through Marie's as they walked around the room.

"I don't know why we waited so long to freshen this room up," she said, pointing out the new window treatments, and the polished floors. She looked over her shoulder at Brooke, who hadn't uttered a single word since the tour had started.

"Thank you so much, Brooke, for agreeing to have the wedding over here. Even that old skinflint Mitch.e.l.l is pleased with how things have turned out."

Brooke forced a smile. "You're welcome, Lib. It looks great."

Cara paced off the room and showed the women the floor plan she'd drawn up for the bandstand, dance floor, ten-top tables and chairs.

"Do we have the fabric samples for the tablecloths yet?" Patricia asked, studying the sketches.

Cara blinked. "I thought you'd seen them, Patricia. I sent them to Brooke two weeks ago. The seamstress called yesterday, she thinks she'll have them done early next week."

Patricia glared at Brooke, who blandly looked away. "Sorry, I guess I forgot. I think I still have the sample in my car, if you really care."

"Not at this late date, I don't."

"Okay, good," Brooke said, smirking.

"I just love paying for something I haven't even seen," Patricia said under her breath.

Marie glanced helplessly from Cara to her daughter to Libba. The tension in the room was nearly as thick and unpleasant as the June humidity.

"Let's go out and see the barn," Libba suggested brightly. "You're simply not going to believe how it looks."

Cara let out an inward sigh of relief when they approached the barn and Jack's pickup wasn't there.

But there were signs everywhere that he and Ryan had worked their magic. A wide new walkway of worn flagstones wound through the newly mown field toward the barn. Nearby, an old farm wagon had been planted with white geraniums, trailing Swedish ivy and swirls of blue plumbago.

"After the guys cleaned the barn they dragged that out, and I told them to just take it to the dump," Libba said. "The next time I walked over here, it looked like that."

"The flagstones were Jack's idea," she said. "He pointed out that walking through the field would ruin everybody's shoes, and particularly Brooke's wedding gown, if they had to trail in the gra.s.s. And G.o.d forbid there might be rain that night."

"It looks like it's always been here," Marie said approvingly. She glanced at Brooke, who trailed a few yards behind. "Isn't it lovely, Brooke?"

"Nice," Brooke said.

Cara stopped dead in her tracks as they got closer to the barn. It had been a month since she'd last been out to Cabin Creek, and the transformation in that time was dramatic.

The cracked and faded exterior barn boards had been pressure-washed and patched, with the new boards carefully stained to blend with the old. The standing-seam tin roof gleamed brightly in the glaring afternoon sun. Wide new windows had been cut into the walls, but the gla.s.s was old and wavy, with true divided lights picked out in a deep gray that contrasted with the original silvery exterior color.

Libba walked up to the newly painted glossy black barn doors. "This is one of my favorite things," she crowed. She touched a black iron latch, and both doors slid open on the wrought-iron sliders.

"Isn't that amazing? Those old doors, I could hardly yank them open anymore. Jack and Ryan found these doors and rigged some system of weights and counterweights, and I can open them with no problem."

Libba spread her arms wide, her face wreathed in smiles as she stepped inside the barn. "Ta-da!"

Brooke stood in the middle of the barn and burst into tears.

"Honey?" Harris gingerly wrapped his arms around his fiancee. "Don't you like it?" He rested his chin on Brooke's shining hair and looked to his mother for help.

Libba shook her head, speechless.

It was Patricia who finally broke the silence. "It's spectacular."

"It's ... it's just so beautiful," Brooke said, her voice breaking. She turned and hugged Libba. "I can't believe you did all of this just for us."

"Well, to be honest, it was for me too," Libba said, rubbing Brooke's back. "Just call it a labor of love."

Their footsteps echoed in the high-ceilinged room. Cara craned her neck to see the exposed trusses and beams overhead. St.u.r.dy industrial-looking galvanized light fixtures hung from thick ropes, illuminating the s.p.a.ce below.

"Should we take off our shoes?" Patricia asked, already slipping out of her own Prada pumps.

"Not at all," Libba said. She leaned down and ran a hand lovingly over the burnished wood floors. "These boards came out of a closed-down textile mill in Spartanburg. They're old-growth pine. If you look carefully, you can see old grease stains and holes where machinery was bolted to the floor, and gouges and dents. I love them just the way they are, and Jack and Ryan agreed. The more beat up they get, the better they'll look."

"If you say so," Patricia said, her tone implying that she thought otherwise.

"It's a barn," Libba said, chuckling. "A really expensive barn, but I didn't want it too tarted up."

"Look up there, Brooke," Harris said, pointing to the gabled east end of the barn. "The old hayloft."

"Harris and his high-school band used to practice up there," Libba said. "Mitch.e.l.l used to say the racket they made would make the neighbor's cows go dry. Brooke, I bet you didn't know you were marrying a musician."

"I didn't," Brooke said.

"That's because we sucked," Harris said. "Called ourselves the Chiggers. We were trying to be bada.s.s, but mostly we were just bad. And a.s.ses."

"I'll bet you weren't that awful."

"Actually, they were," Libba volunteered. She drew Marie aside and pointed again at the hayloft. "I had the guys reinforce the floors with steel beams, and that rail is reinforced too. Someday, my grandbabies will play up in that loft, just like Harris and Holly did, and their daddy before them."

For a split second, Cara saw a tiny pucker form on Brooke's smooth brow.

"Jack had a great idea," Harris said. "He said we should put the DJ booth up there for the after-party."

Brooke pointed at the st.u.r.dy ladder leading up to the loft. "But how would he get his equipment up that ladder?"

"If you open that door back there behind that part.i.tion, you'll see how," Libba said. "The guys put in a nice wide staircase. And underneath it, there's a new bathroom too."

Marie shook her head. "Libba, I'm just stunned at everything you've accomplished in such a short time."

Cara was already pacing off the room, admiring the honest grace and simplicity of the old structure's lines. She reached out and touched a silvery board and felt a deep twinge of regret. Jack Finnerty had rebuilt this barn, poured his sweat and pa.s.sion into every detail and rediscovered its beauty. She wished she could tell him how moved she was by the artistry of his work.

But that ship had sailed.

Libba was still beaming as she led the group out of the barn. "I asked Jack for a fireplace back in the barn, but he talked me out of it. There just wasn't going to be time to build a suitable rock chimney before the wedding."

She pointed to a cleared area on the south side of the barn. "Instead, he's giving me a fire pit over there. He and Ryan will build some benches from wood left over from the barn."

"I've got an idea," Cara said. "If you don't mind, maybe we could move that old cart over near the fire pit. We can use it to set up the bar and the dessert buffet."

Cara turned to Marie. "Layne is baking homemade chocolate-dipped graham crackers and her own marshmallows for s'mores at midnight. And we're going to do a signature Cabin Creek c.o.c.ktail. It's basically an old-fashioned, but we'll use this new bourbon from a distillery in Americus. And we'll serve them in pint Mason jars."