Starting Over On Blackberry Lane
Uh-oh. If there was a but, that meant trouble.
“I have Sheetrock all over my dining room.”
“On purpose? You didn’t tell me you were doing a home improvement project.”
“I am now. My roof sprang a leak and my ceiling caved in. I discovered it when I got home from work.”
Okay, that was even worse than a Brad breakout. “Oh, no. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, well,” Cass said philosophically. “It is what it is.”
Cass had a dozen years on Stef. Did a woman master that sort of give-me-the-grace-to-accept-the-things-I-can’t-change attitude as she got older? Stef needed it now.
“Why do you want to relocate the bridal shower?” Cass asked.
“Bradley.”
Cass knew what that meant. “Don’t tell me. He’s started a new project.”
“He’s started a new mess. He forgot that the shower’s tomorrow and decided this would be a good weekend to pull down the wall between the dining and living rooms. He’s got his saw set up and hung a big plastic sheet between the two rooms. A lovely setting for a bridal shower, don’t you think?”
Cass chuckled. “It’ll be interesting. But don’t worry. Everyone on the guest list is either married or has been. We know what men are like.”
“Brad is in a class by himself. He’ll tear up the floor, too, and then the one in here because it’ll all have to match. Then that mess will sit for about a million years while he figures out his next step.” He was still figuring out the next step for installing a new tub. Good thing their house had two bathrooms.
“At least he’s making an effort,” Cass said, obviously trying to help her look on the bright side.
True. But every time Brad made an effort, it wound up an unfinished disaster. She sighed. “This is going to be so...embarrassing. Some of these women haven’t even seen my house.”
“Trust me, they won’t care. It’s about being together, and no one’s going to judge you. Anyway, like I said, they’ve all seen men in action. Your plastic curtain will be a conversation piece.”
“Yeah, but it’s supposed to be about the bride. If this doesn’t give Griffin cold feet...” Except lately it seemed she was already getting them.
“I think she’s already got them,” Cass said, voicing Stef’s thought.
In the last few weeks, Griffin had been a little less enamored of her husband-to-be, a little crankier with him. Okay, he didn’t help out around the house much, but he could be trained. And yeah, he wasn’t a big reader like Stef, but when he was busy gaming she had plenty of free time to read or hang out with friends. He was good-looking and fun-loving, and his sense of humor balanced Griffin’s more serious nature.
They both had interesting jobs. Griffin was a food photographer. (She didn’t make much, but it was a heck of a lot more fun than Stef’s boring part-time job as a teller at the bank.) Steve was a video game tester. (Brad had been extremely jealous when he learned what Steve did for a living...until he learned what Steve made.) Granted, they weren’t rich yet, but the earning potential was there. They had no kids, no responsibilities, and Griffin’s house wasn’t in a state of perpetual disaster. Life on her side of the fence looked pretty good.
“Do you think she’s being too picky?” Stef asked.
“I don’t know. Having been down the divorce road, I’m wondering if there is such a thing as too picky. Better to be sure than be sorry.”
“But her wedding’s the first of June.”
“That’s still several weeks away,” Cass pointed out.
“Maybe I should’ve had the shower closer to the wedding date,” Stef mused. “What if she backs out?”
It would be so awkward for her friend if she had to return all the presents. Still, Stef had picked the early date because she knew Griffin’s old friends in Oregon were planning a shower for her next month. Starting the celebrations early had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now she wondered if she should’ve delayed the party.
“Things have a way of working out,” Cass said. “Meanwhile, we’ll party tomorrow and commiserate with you on the work in progress.”
Stef frowned at the ugly plastic sheet and the mess beyond. This was so...subpar. “Maybe I could switch the shower to Zelda’s.”
“You can try. But I think you’ll find the party room already booked. I’m pretty sure Charley said something about a fiftieth wedding anniversary dinner for some people from Wenatchee.”
Stef cast wildly about in her mind. Bailey Black’s tearoom? Except that was normally closed on Sundays, and she didn’t feel comfortable asking Bailey to go to the inconvenience of opening up.
Here came Brad again, Petey skipping along behind him, hauling the old bedroom curtains she’d planned to donate to Kindness Cupboard. Oh, no. Now what?
“I’d better go,” she said to Cass. “I don’t know what Brad’s up to, but it doesn’t look good.”
Cass laughed, then, after assuring her once more that all would be well, let her end the call.
“What’s with the drapes?” she asked Brad.
“Camouflage,” he replied. “You were getting rid of them anyway, right?”
“Right,” she said cautiously.
“So, it won’t matter if they get wrecked. I’m going to nail them up in front of the plastic. Then no one will see. Brilliant, huh?”
He was obviously fishing for a compliment, but she was too irritated to admire his manly creativity. Instead she told Petey, “It’s bath time.”
“I want to help Daddy,” Petey whined.
“We’ll be done in five minutes. Then I’ll give him his bath,” Brad said. “You go relax.”
“Okay, fine.” She’d recorded a mystery on the PBS channel. She’d watch that and imagine her husband as the murder victim.
The corpse had just been discovered when her two boys stopped by the family room on their way to the bathroom (the one that still had a tub). “Take a look,” Brad told her. “It’s not half-bad.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said confidently. But she noticed he took their son and hurried upstairs before she could render a verdict.
The living room now had tan drapes hanging closed on one side. Okay, maybe someone who used her imagination could pretend the drapes were covering a window.
Yes, everyone had a window in the middle of her house between one room and another.
But it beat the plastic curtain. Barely.
“So, not too bad, huh?” Brad prompted after they’d tucked their son in and kissed him good-night.
“It’ll have to do,” she said grumpily.
He put an arm around her. “Come on, Stef—have a heart. Are you going to punish me all night?”
“I might.”
“You wanna just kill me and be done with it?”
With his round face, reddish hair and snub nose, Brad looked like a perpetual teenager. And when he wore that penitent-little-boy expression it was hard to stay mad at him.
But she was still willing to try. “Yeah. And I know where to hide the body.”
He frowned. “You’d miss me. Admit it.”
She sighed heavily. “Promise me this project will get done before I’m eighty.”
He crossed his heart. “Promise.”
“Like next weekend?”
“Petey starts T-ball next Saturday. Remember?”
And Brad was the team’s coach. “This is never going to get done,” Stef groaned.
“Don’t worry, Sweet Stuff. It will,” he said and pulled her close. “Now, how about we kiss and...” He waggled his eyebrows.
“No makeup sex for you,” she said. “Not until I solve my mystery.”
He grinned. “I can wait.”
And that was the problem. He was never in a hurry to finish anything. Maybe she should make him wait for sex until he got the great room finished. Of course, if she did that, she wouldn’t have another orgasm until she was seventy.
Later that night they had some great makeup sex. If only her husband was as good with his other tools. Sigh.
Chapter Two
Griffin James finished straightening her hair, then double-checked her makeup. Okay. Done. She went into the living room of the old Craftsman she shared with her fiancé, Steve Redford, and found him still happily streaming his favorite online video game. Busman’s holiday—wasn’t that the saying for doing the same thing on your day off that you did during the rest of the week? There was a reason Steve’s job was perfect for him. He was a gaming addict.
She stopped by the couch on her way out the door to the shower at Stef’s house. “How do I look?”
“Good,” he said, never taking his eyes off the TV screen.
“I dyed my hair purple. What do you think?” she asked, flipping her strawberry blond locks.
“Yeah, great.”
She glared at him. “Wanna know how you look?”
“Good, yeah.” He punched the controls.
Of course he didn’t. The avatars didn’t care. It was two o’clock on a Sunday afternoon and there he sat in his ratty old T-shirt and pajama bottoms, his hair pulled back in its usual man bun. He hadn’t shaved yet, hadn’t even brushed his teeth. Too busy killing imaginary enemies.
“I’m leaving now,” she said abruptly. “I’m going to lie down in the bathtub and open a vein.”
“Have fun.”
“Steve!”
He glanced up with a start. “Hey, babe, you look good.”
Nice of him to finally notice. “Thanks.”
“See you later,” he said, and his head swiveled back to the TV screen.
She should have been an avatar. He’d have paid more attention to her. As she walked down the street to Stef’s house, Griffin tried to convince herself that she was excited about this bridal shower, that she was excited about getting married.
She needed to be excited. She and Steve had been together for five years, ever since her junior year in college. Now they’d finally be solemnizing their relationship with a wedding, something that had her grandmother very relieved and her mother looking forward to the next step—grandchildren. But lately Griffin found herself wondering if they should take this first step. What were they stepping into?
When they were first together they’d actually gone places, like the Grand Illusion Cinema in Seattle’s U District to watch foreign and revival films or to Jet City Improv. They’d gone to local pubs with friends and played Trivial Pursuit. Steve had ridden his bike a lot. (The extra forty pounds he was carrying now attested to how much he rode his bike these days.)
He’d also played video games with his buddies back then. He had to do that, considering the fact that he was going to school for a career in the game industry. Then he’d gotten his entry-level job as a QA tester and it was as if he’d found El Dorado. The job was supposed to lead to bigger things, but once he got hooked on testing games, he’d forgotten about bigger things—including a bigger salary.
Living anywhere near Seattle wasn’t cheap. Since they could both work from home, they’d opted for small-town life. Living off the land. Blah, blah. The only one living off the land last summer had been her when she’d gone blackberry picking with Stef one Saturday and they’d made jam together. Steve had used it for everything from ice cream topping to PB&Js and then asked when she was going to make some more. She’d said she would if he’d go berry picking with her. He hadn’t. There’d been no more jam.
He’d promised to get working on the house, too. Her parents had lent them the money for a down payment on their fixer-upper. The only proviso was that the house had to stay in her name until they were married (Dad’s doing). Steve was going to take care of the sweat equity and fix the place up. The house was in need of paint both outside and in and had a broken step on the back porch. In spite of the fact that she’d weeded the flower beds, it was a bit of an eyesore. She was sure most of the neighbors had hoped when they moved in that they’d whip the place into shape. So far there’d been no sweating, other than by her—Steve had been too busy “working,” even when he wasn’t—and no whipping. But painting was on his to-do list. Come summer, he was going to get out there and get busy.
Dad had his doubts. And not just about the home improvements getting done.
Now Griffin was starting to have doubts, as well. She tried to picture her life with little Steves running all over the house. Or rather, sitting all over the house. Playing video games. While the back porch step got saggier and the paint continued to chip. Her parents had come to visit Thanksgiving weekend, and Steve had been his usual easygoing, jovial self. Dad had looked around the house and frowned a lot.
Dad wasn’t the only one frowning these days. Griffin wasn’t exactly happy about their life together. Sometimes she felt it had shrunk to the size of a TV screen. Other than a Friday night at Stef and Brad’s, they didn’t do much as a couple. If it hadn’t been for Stef and the other women who had befriended her, Griffin would have felt completely marooned on a gamer’s desert island.
That would change, she’d told herself. Once they had kids, they’d do things as a family—go on picnics, take hikes in the mountains. It was part of why she and Steve had moved here to Icicle Falls, to get out into nature, get moving. So far she was the only one moving. And all that lovely snow last winter, perfect for snowboarding? He’d gone a couple of times, but then, well, there was this new game...
She’d been so excited when they first moved to town. Where was the excitement now?
Through Stef’s living room window, she could see several women, all ready to shower her with presents and hear how the wedding plans were coming along. The wedding plans were coming along fine. The invitations were addressed and ready to send. But she hadn’t mailed them yet.
As she stepped on the front porch, the burble of voices drifted out to her. Everyone was having fun. She’d be having fun once she got inside. Of course she would. And she and Steve were going to be happy. He’d regain the balance in his life. They’d start doing more stuff together, talk more. He was just going through an adultolescent stage.
She realized she was frowning, just like her dad when he came to visit. She reminded herself to smile as she knocked on the door.
A moment later Stef opened it, looking like her usual put-together self, wearing jeans, great jewelry and a really cute blouse that said, I’m new. Stef could afford new clothes. She worked part-time at the bank and her husband made a decent living. She even bought books new at Mountain Escape Books. Griffin bought them used on Amazon and haunted the library.
“You look great,” Stef gushed.
She’d had this sweater for three years. The pants had come from a thrift store outing and the shoes weren’t exactly new, either. But classics never went out of style, right?
She walked into the living room and the misplaced drapes immediately jumped out at her. Oh, boy. Stef had to be happy about that. Not.
“Brad’s...” Stef stopped, unable to continue.
“He decided to knock out the wall,” Griffin finished for her.
“I nearly knocked him out when I came home yesterday. I’m sorry things are such a disaster,” Stef finished as she led Griffin into the room to a chorus of hellos.
“At least he does something,” Griffin said. Stef’s husband was trying. Steve was...playing video games.
“We don’t care,” said Bailey Black, who was within hearing distance. “And it’s not that bad.”
“Yeah, it is,” Stef said, “but thanks.”
“It’s such a guy thing to do,” Bailey’s big sister Samantha said. “Blake’s favorite trick is to start a project right before we have to go somewhere.”
“Yeah, but at least he finishes his projects,” Stef muttered. “Here, come into the kitchen and get some punch,” she said to Griffin. “We also have lavender cookies from Tea Time, and Cass made an apricot torte.”
Griffin followed her out and helped herself to a cup of champagne punch, passing on the other treats.
“I swear, you’re not human,” Stef said in disgust.
“When you take pictures of food all day, it kind of turns you off,” Griffin lied. Actually, she loved food, but she’d been fat when she was a kid and she was never going there again, even if she had to starve herself. Which it seemed she did a lot.
“I was hoping we could move the party to Cass’s place,” Stef said, “but her ceiling fell in.” She nodded at the apricot torte. “You’d better have a bite of that or her feelings will be hurt.”
Griffin had a bite of a gingerbread boy every week for the same reason when she met Stef on her day off for coffee. Stef always finished her cookie for her. Stef had to be a witch, because she somehow magically sucked the calories out of stuff before she ate it.
“You got that right,” said Cass, who’d joined them.
Griffin cut a sliver and put it on her plate. “Your ceiling fell in?”
“Roof troubles,” Cass said with a sigh. “Thank God Charley loaned me her man for the day. He’s over there fixing the mess while I bury my sorrows in carbs.” She shook her head. “I dug my table out from under all the gook that was on it. Thank God I had a pad covering it, or the whole thing would’ve been toast.”
Stacy Thomas drifted out to the kitchen. “This is fun,” she said to Stef. “I love showers.”
“We should’ve had it at your house,” Stef said, frowning at the misplaced drapes.
“You should’ve said something. I would have. But really, Stef, nobody minds. We just all like being together.” Stacy took another piece of the apricot torte. “This is addictive,” she said to Cass.
It was good. Griffin had one bite and set the rest aside.
“You’re killing me here,” Cass said. “Do you rent out willpower?” She cut a piece from the other end of Griffin’s ignored torte and popped it in her mouth. “Never mind. Willpower is overrated.”
The doorbell rang, and Stef hurried to let in another guest.
Griffin and the other two women returned to the living room, which was packed with guests and extra folding chairs. Muriel Sterling-Wittman, the town’s local celebrity, was entering the room now. She wrote as Muriel Sterling and all her books were prominently displayed in the bookstore window. One of these days Griffin was going to buy one.
Talk turned yet again to the remodel in progress. “Men,” Dot Morrison groaned. “If Duncan had done this to me, I’d have beaned him.”
Dot’s husband had died early. One of the cattier residents of Icicle Falls once joked that he did so to get away from Dot. No one who knew Dot well paid attention to that. She was feisty and a bit of a smart-mouth, but she also had a big heart.
“I was ready to, believe me,” said Stef. “Why does he do this? Why can’t he finish anything?”
“I’m guessing it’s his one besetting sin,” Muriel said softly. “Every man has something that makes him human. Just like we do.”
“Didn’t you say I was perfect?” Samantha joked.
“All my daughters are close to it,” Muriel replied with a smile. Her daughters, Samantha, Cecily and Bailey, like their mother, were the uncrowned royalty of Icicle Falls. The family owned Sweet Dreams Chocolate Company. Often referred to as Sweet Dreams Chocolates or simply Sweet Dreams, it was the town’s source of both employment and chocolate.
“The problem,” Muriel continued, “is that when we consider our men’s flaws, we always think we’ll be able to fix them.”
“But what you see is what you get,” Dot added.
Griffin couldn’t help recalling what she’d seen before she left the house. Was that what she wanted to get? Okay, he wasn’t all that bad. He was nice, fun-loving.
Lazy, inattentive.
“Well, I liked what I saw and I’m glad I got him,” Bailey said with a decisive nod.
“Me, too,” seconded her sister Cecily.
“Me three,” Samantha chimed in.
“I’m keeping mine,” said Dot Morrison’s daughter, Tilda, the cop.
Stacy laughed. “You’re too newly married to get tired of him.”
Was Griffin tired of Steve? Was that the problem? And they weren’t even married yet.
“Okay, it’s time for a game,” Stef announced and pulled out sheets of scrambled words for everyone to puzzle out. “These are all things you find at a wedding. I’ll give you two minutes.”
Griffin found it hard to concentrate on the game. She kept mulling over what Muriel had said. The mulling didn’t end with the game. It continued as she opened presents and Stef put together her “practice wedding bouquet,” an arrangement of ribbons and bows mounted on a paper plate.
“A baby for every ribbon you break, kid,” Dot teased as Griffin tore a ribbon on a box from Stacy.
How many little Steves did she want, anyway?
She opened the box to find a lovely illustrated wedding memories scrapbook that offered her opportunities to record how he popped the question (“Hey, babe, I’m getting a raise. Let’s get hitched.”) to where they were honeymooning (they still hadn’t decided—he wanted to hang out in Seattle, she wanted Hawaii).
“What a lovely way to store all those happy memories,” said Muriel.
Happy memories, happy times—fake happy smile. What was wrong with her? This was her bridal shower, for crying out loud. She and Steve were finally getting married. She should be having fun. She should be ecstatic.
With the presents opened and the loot piled up by her chair, the women agreed it was time for more punch. As they moved back to the kitchen, Griffin found herself next to Muriel.
“Do you know where you’re going on your honeymoon?” Muriel asked. “Or is Steve surprising you?”
“We haven’t decided,” Griffin said.
Muriel nodded as if it was completely normal for people not to know where they were honeymooning in two months.
Griffin gnawed on her lip. Should she fess up here, at her bridal shower, that she was having second thoughts? At least if she did, then everyone could take their gifts back home with them. She wished her mom and grandma had been able to come. Mom had the flu, and Gram wouldn’t drive all the way up from Lake Oswego by herself. If Mom was here...
“Is everything okay?” Muriel asked gently.
Griffin found herself shaking her head. “How did you know your husband was the right one?”
“I had two husbands, and each time I knew.”
“But how?”
“By looking at him and seeing us together in the future and feeling happy about it. Each time I could hardly wait to start our new life together.”
There was the problem. Griffin could wait. They’d already started their new life and she wasn’t all that happy. “I don’t feel that way. I think I want...more.” Once upon a time, when they were younger, Steve had been enough. But now... What did she want? What was she holding out for, anyway? There was no Mr. Darcy. There was no mysterious, passionate Mr. Rochester. There was no Rhett Butler. Most men were Steves.
Except you wouldn’t think so to listen to the Sterling sisters. Or Tilda the cop, who’d let Griffin off with a warning a few months back when she slid through a stop sign; Tilda had said married life was making her mellow. Even Stef, although she complained about Brad’s unfinished projects, seemed pretty content with her life.
“Then perhaps you should hold out for more,” Muriel said. “There’s no shame in changing your mind.”
“At your bridal shower?”
“At any time before the big day.”
Griffin nodded, taking that in. “Thanks, Mrs. Wittman.”
She returned to the punch bowl for a refill and tried to assess her situation. She still loved Steve—at least she thought she did—but somehow it was no longer a big love. Was it a good idea to get married when your love had shrunk? Probably not.
She took a sip of punch and tried to screw up her courage to expose her cold feet. Around her everyone was chatting and laughing. The only one not having fun at her bridal shower was her. If that wasn’t a sign, what was?
The party was about to break up when Griffin stopped everyone in their tracks. “Thank you all so much for doing this for me. But...” Oh, boy, this was so embarrassing. Some of these women she still didn’t know all that well. She felt like a fool.
But after listening to everyone talk, she realized she couldn’t go through with her wedding. And she certainly couldn’t keep their gifts. “I need you to take back your presents.”