Shop On the Corner, page 25
“You’ve brought their leftover sandwiches home from events before. They were pretty and tasted great.” Mitchell turned to Laura. “Is it all right with you? People might like a little snack with their cake if it’s there.”
“If they really want to,” Laura said. “And tell them we said thank you.”
“I will.” Evelyn paused again. “Additionally, the members of the Arts Council want to go in together to provide dipped strawberries. They’ve started a fund. I couldn’t think of a reason to say no. Will that be all right with you, too?”
“People are being so nice,” Laura said.
“Quinlans have lived in this town for a long, long time,” Evelyn said. “It makes a difference.”
“You’ve helped many times with other people’s events, too, Mom,” Mitchell added. “You’re due to get blessed back.”
She laughed. “I do loan out my big tent a lot!”
Mitchell glanced over her shoulder at the list. “The wedding party is set. The tuxes are all ordered for the men. My cousin Rob will be my best man. Kent from work and Drew Tate are groomsmen and Mike Wingate is coming in from Missouri to be the third.”
“Wonderful,” Evelyn said. “I haven’t seen Mike often enough since he went out west to Logan University to their Doctor of Chiropractic program. Sally says he’s been working at their campus health center in Chesterfield, where many of the students train, since he graduated. I wish he’d move back nearer to home and his family to work.”
“Actually, I think he’s talking to Neal Sterling about coming in with his chiropractic practice. The business has grown to be more than Neal can handle. Mike said Neal started talking to him about it at Christmas. Plus Mike and his wife Susan are expecting their first child. I think they like the idea of raising their children nearer to family. Susan’s people are from Spartanburg not far away.”
Laura tried to follow all this conversation.
Sensing her confusion, Evelyn said, “These are our neighbors on Church Street we’re talking about, Laura. The Sterlings live next door to us; the Wingates live in the next house down. My husband and I were good friends with Bergen and Sally Wingate and our children grew up playing with theirs. Mike and Julie were about the same ages as Mitchell and Alise. You met the Wingates and the Sterlings at the engagement barbeque.”
“Oh, I think I remember them now. Thanks for the reminder. I’m still learning people.”
Evelyn glanced at her list again. “Laura, are your attendants set and the dresses ordered?”
“Yes,” Laura answered. “Elizabeth Donaldson, my best friend since childhood, is coming up from Georgia to be my matron of honor, and you know I asked Becky, Allison, and Paula to be my three bridesmaids.” She looked down at the table and sighed. “It seems sad that I don’t have any family to be in the wedding.”
“I know you’re thinking about your sister,” said Evelyn. “But your grandfather, Pastor Rodney Baylor is coming in to give you away, along with his wife Ann, your Uncle Tom and his wife Deidre, all the way from Gulfport, Mississippi. Mitchell says they are flying in and renting a car at the airport. He offered to go pick them up but Tom insisted that renting a car would be easier since the airport is in Asheville.”
Laura smiled at the thought. “They’re staying over at Junaluska Thursday and Friday night. It’s a Methodist Retreat Center and my grandfather and grandmother visited there when younger. They’re eager to see it again.” Laura picked up a sample of mauve fabric as she talked. “My Aunt Dorothy, Daddy’s sister, and my Uncle Curtis are driving over from Alabama, too. It’s only a six-hour trip, not as far to drive. They’re staying Friday and Saturday with one of Curtis’s brothers who lives in Sylva before going back. My Grandmother Ida isn’t making the trip though. She’s had some health problems lately and thought such a long trip would be too hard for her.”
“So there you are, dear,” Evelyn put in. “Your grandparents and two aunts and two uncles are coming to your wedding, so you will have family present.” She glanced at her list again and then at Mitchell. “Laura and I have already talked about the wedding ceremony and the rehearsal dinner. She can fill you in. I confirmed with Rob’s mother Bernice Killian that she will play the piano for the wedding. She plays for the church, and you know she’s gifted.” Looking to Laura now, she added. “Bernice said she’d already talked with you about the selections, mostly traditional pieces, with ‘Pachelbel Canon in D Major’ for the processional and ‘Wagners Bridal Chorus’ or ‘Here Comes the Bride’ as you walk down the aisle. Is that still good?”
Laura nodded.
“Our professional photographer friend, Benny Fritz, that did the engagement photos, is doing all the wedding pictures,” Mitchell added. “Everyone knows to come to the church early so we can do them before the wedding, too. I hate those weddings where everyone has to hang around after the service before going to the reception because photos need to be made.”
Evelyn began to chat then about a few extra points, little gift bags she and Laura planned to make closer to the wedding date for attendant gifts. She looked up with a smile from the papers in front of her. “I’m so tickled your friend Lillian Greeley, from Amory, wanted to help Rita Harbeck serve in the reception. It gives us a way to recognize them, since you’re close to both. I’ve also invited Rita and Nolan, and Lillian and Bobby, to the rehearsal dinner. I’m pleased Lillian and Bobby could come over from Amory. I know you said they would be camping and staying for a week.”
“I’m looking forward to meeting Lillian and Bobby, too,” Mitchell added, beginning to tell his mother about the campground where they planned to stay.
While listening, Laura was distracted by someone peeking into the large showroom window, where she kept upholstered furniture pieces and decorative items to make the window more attractive to passers by.
Suddenly she gasped, her mouth dropping open.
Mitchell and Evelyn, seeing her face, glanced quickly toward the window.
“What’s the matter?” Mitchell asked.
Laura tried to find her voice. “I think the woman looking in the window was my sister. She’s moved out of view now, but I really think it was her.”
Laura froze then as she heard the frontdoor bell and someone coming in to the vestibule.
“What am I going to do if it’s Georgina and Chance?” she whispered.
“You’ll bring them in here and we’ll talk to them,” Evelyn answered matter-of-factly. “What a blessing we’re here today so you’ll have support at this meeting if you need it.”
Before Laura could get up, she saw Georgina walk from the hallway into the showroom. “Laura, is that you?” she asked.
Georgina paused in the doorway, putting a hand to her heart. “Oh, my goodness, it is you. I thought it was, looking in the window.” She moved across the room. “Don’t be so shocked that you don’t stand up to give your own sister a hug. You’re my family.”
Somehow Laura stood up, and Georgina quickly wrapped her in an embrace. While they hugged, Laura kept glancing over Georgina’s shoulder, wondering if Chance was with her, if he was waiting in the vestibule or would walk in the room any minute.
As Georgina stepped back, Laura finally found her voice. “Is Chance with you?” she asked looking toward the doorway again.
“No,” her sister dropped her eyes. “I have a lot to tell you.” She glanced toward Evelyn and Mitchell. “I can wait in the vestibule until you finish with your clients though.” She gave Evelyn and Mitchell one of her million-dollar smiles. “I’m so sorry to interrupt.”
“It’s no problem. We’re pleased to meet you.” Evelyn stood and held out her hand. “I’m Evelyn Quinlan and this is my son Mitchell. We’re been here talking about wedding plans, so I guess you might say we’re sort of family, too. Mitchell and Laura are getting married at the first of October. We’re so blessed life brought her to Waynesville and we’ve welcomed her, with our deepest love and affection, into our family here.”
Laura watched Georgina’s eyes widen. After a moment of surprise, she looked down to the floor in some embarrassment. “Well, that’s really nice. Congratulations.” She hesitated. “However, Laura and I still need to talk privately about a lot of personal things together.” She stressed the word personal.
Mitchell walked closer, offering Georgina his hand in welcome. “Whatever you need to talk about with Laura, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind you sharing with us.” His eyes narrowed. “There’s nothing about Laura’s past we don’t know, Georgina.”
“I see.” Georgina raised her chin, stepping back. “It sounds as if you’ve heard only the bad things. That woman in the workroom, who came out to greet me when I came in the front door, must have heard bad stories, too. She frowned at me, when I told her who I was.”
She turned to Laura. “I guess you’ve told everyone here my personal business and probably not many nice things about me either.”
Mitchell gestured toward a chair at the table. “Why don’t you sit down, Georgina? I can assure you Laura has shared many wonderful stories about the two of you growing up together in Amory, the good times you had, rich memories of your mother and father and the home you grew up in. She also told us about your talents and gifts and about how well you sing.”
Somewhat disarmed by Mitchell’s words, Georgina sighed and sat down. “Those are kind words, but I still feel uncomfortable sharing some of the difficult personal times I’ve passed through with people I don’t know well yet.”
“Well, here’s the thing,” Mitchell said, returning to his own chair. “I’ve come to feel very protective about Laura. I’m not willing to leave her alone in your company after the threatening letter she received from you and Chance in the past.” A muscle in his jaw bunched. “It’s illegal to send threatening letters in the mail. Did you know that? In North Carolina, it’s a misdemeanor.”
Evelyn straightened and cleared her throat. “Please understand, Georgina, that Mitchell and I would be concerned not to stay here with Laura because of that. I’m sorry if you wanted to talk with Laura alone, but I hope you can understand our feelings.” She glanced toward the door. “Where is your, er ah… partner now?” She searched for the right word before finding it. “Perhaps he might want to sit and talk with us also.”
Georgina blanched white at their words, her mouth dropping open. Then she began to cry. “Chance is not with me. Actually, he’s dead.”
She began to weep openly then after shocking them with her words.
Laura tried to think of something to say.
Angry red spots came into Georgina’s cheeks as she wiped her eyes and then looked around at them. “I don’t know anything about any letters that Chance might have sent to you, Laura. I didn’t even know he knew where you lived. I only found your address on an old scrap of paper in his stuff recently when packing to move.” She crossed her arms, her eyes bright with tears. “It hurts my heart, Laura, for you to think I would write something hateful or threatening to you. I got hurt enough when you moved away without telling me where you were even going. I cried a lot over that.”
“I think Laura had good reasons for all those actions,” Mitchell put in.
Evelyn gathered up her papers and stood. “You know, now that I think about it, I believe I will go on home. I need to pick up the children at Nannie V’s. It’s getting late. Mitchell, I think you and Laura can talk about whatever else needs discussing without me.” She looked at Georgina. “I’m sorry we’ve met at such a sad time for you.”
Georgina lifted her chin again. “I know you think I’m a really awful person, but I’m not. Chance died in early May and my life is all different now. I have a good job, I’m going back to school to finish my degree this fall, and I’m married.” She held up her left hand to show a ring. “I married a really nice minister who helped me to turn my life around. He’s over at Junaluska at some meetings right now. I came here to look for the address I found in Chance’s stuff. I told Warren I didn’t know if Laura was really here or what it would be like when we got together again, so I thought I should come by myself first to see.”
It was all Laura could do to keep her mouth from dropping open once again.
Unflustered, Evelyn said, “Well, that is very nice to hear. Perhaps you and your husband can come back for Laura and Mitchell’s wedding. If you’ll leave your address, I’ll send you an invitation.”
She walked over to give Laura a kiss on the cheek and then left.
CHAPTER 22
Mitchell grinned over his mother’s neat escape. Obviously when she realized Chance was out of the picture and wouldn’t be a threat, she decided he and Laura could handle the rest of Georgina’s emotional overload without her. That’s what it seemed like to him. Who would tell virtual strangers all she’d begun telling them in such a dramatic manner? Her take on things, too, was hardly realistic, seeing herself as a victim rather than recognizing she’d caused most of her own problems herself.
Laura glanced at her watch as she heard the jingle of the front door bell as Evelyn left. “I need to tell Rita and Nolan good night and close the shop,” she said, standing up. “Mitchell, maybe you could get Georgina a cola or a water from the little refrigerator. I’ll be right back.”
“Would you like something to drink?” he asked as Laura left to lock up.
“A water would be nice.” Georgina leaned back in her chair, crossing her leg as he came back with it. He noticed as he brought back the water and walked to sit down again that Georgina let her eyes move over him, with a little more interest than he cared to see. She was obviously a beautiful woman, as Laura often said, with a knock-out figure, blond hair with red highlights, and the sort of easy grace and sure confidence in her own body that some woman had naturally.
Studying him again, she asked, “Are you really going to marry Laura?”
“I am,” he replied.
She ran a hand through her hair and shrugged. “It’s hard to think of my little sister getting married. She was never very good at drawing and attracting the boys.”
What a cat, Mitchell thought.
He picked up his water to take a sip. “You know, that seems hard for me to believe. Sparks lit up the room for me the first time I met your sister. I can’t recall any other woman ever attracting me in quite that way.”
She seemed annoyed at his response and then said, “Well, I regret you and your mother had to get involved in Laura’s and my relationship. I still think it would be better if Laura and I talk privately now.”
He ignored her request. “Did you really not know Chance wrote Laura a threatening letter?”
She squared her shoulders. “No, I didn’t. I had no idea Chance even knew where Laura lived. It never dawned on me that he would look for her either. He was so mad when she left.”
“As I said before, Laura had a lot of reasons for doing things the way she did. Good ones, too.”
She tossed her hair. “You don’t know everything.”
“I’d say I know enough.”
Laura came back in the room then. “Mitchell, if you need to leave, too, I’m sure Georgina and I can finish talking without you.”
“No, I think I need to stay.” He smiled at her.
He’d caught the strained look on Laura’s face when she made the offer. Despite what she said, he knew she wasn’t really sure she wanted to spend much time alone with her sister yet. He could certainly see why. “Besides, Georgina hasn’t finished telling us her story yet,” he said. “We want to know more about what happened to Chance, where’s she’s working, about her marriage and her school plans.”
Georgina glared at him. “You need to know, too, that I was going through a very difficult time in my life last spring when Laura left.” She turned to Laura. “You should have sensed things weren’t really happy with me when Chance and I came to stay with you. It wasn’t easy for me knowing that you didn’t want us there either. I knew how you and Daddy felt about me leaving school and going to be in Chance’s band. I really believed we could be good though, that we could really make it. But it was slower and harder than I thought it would be. Chance was so determined that the band and the music come first with us. Yet we never seemed to have enough money.”
She looked away from them toward the window. “Often, we ran out of food and couldn’t pay bills. Chance kind of handled it all by simply focusing more on his music, writing songs way into the night, practicing with the group till all hours. They all began to drink more, to smoke dope and do drugs and stuff. Chance said all bands did that, that it helped them loosen up, helped new songs to come, and fit the image. I guess maybe I thought that was just the way things were in the industry. I saw it everywhere at the clubs and places where we performed, with the people we hung out with.”
Mitchell leaned forward. “I assume that when things went bad and you got evicted, you came to Laura’s,” he put in, making an effort to move the story along.
She turned to him. “Yes, sort of, and I hated the way Laura looked at us, acted like we were scum or something. Not seeing our dreams at all. I could tell she didn’t believe in us, that she wanted us to leave. Chance was trying to save some money so we could get another place. His parents wouldn’t loan him any more money. They were mad he dropped out of school and mad he hardly ever came home. They didn’t like the band and they didn’t like me. He took me to his home in Kentucky once but they treated me like dirt, really rude, like it was my fault things weren’t going well for us or for Chance and the band right then. I told Chance I didn’t ever want to go back.”
“So Laura was the only person who would give you money anymore,” Mitchell said.
She scowled at him, almost forgetting Laura was sitting right there listening along with him, her face still white with shock.
“You make that sound really mean, Mitchell, but Laura was my family. I thought she might believe in us and help us until we could get our break. Then Chance and I would have paid any money back that we borrowed.”
