Happily Never After

“Saroyan didn’t even play football when he was at MGU. He was a math major.” O’Toole said math as if it were something ridiculous, like majoring in tiddlywinks. He didn’t seem to see the connection between Saroyan’s studies and his ability to buy and sell O’Toole ten times a day.

Tom drained his coffee and tilted his watch under the table. Fifteen more minutes of this, at least, before he could check his watch openly, gasp and imply that he’d been enjoying himself so much he’d lost track of the time.

Diplomat? Gymnast? Babysitter might be more accurate. Ego babysitter. He tried to tune out the little voice that said this was nothing a grown man should be doing for a living.

Suddenly, his cell phone began to vibrate. Apparently there was a God.

Giving O’Toole a “gosh, isn’t this annoying, just when we were having such a good time?” smile, Tom unclipped his phone and answered without even bothering to look at the caller ID. Ordinarily he screened, having just enough old girlfriends to be cautious, but right now he’d welcome a call from any one of them.

“This is Tom Beckham,” he said formally, already folding his napkin and crooking a finger to let the waiter know it was time for the check. Whoever really was on the other end of this telephone, as far as O’Toole was concerned, it was urgent firm business.

At first there was just silence. And then he heard a soft female voice.

“Tom?”

For about six tenths of a second he honestly didn’t recognize the voice. And then it hit him. Hit him hard.

It was Kelly.

An image rushed toward him, leapfrogging the years. An image of the two of them in a dark corner, laughing at first, and then touching, and then she was crying, and he was up against her, and she was kissing him and whispering his name, but crying, crying the whole time.

Her red-gold hair falling loose against the green satin of her dress, the fresh-apple smell of her, the salt of her tears on his lips, the insanity inside him.

“Tom? Are you there? It’s Kelly. Kelly Ralston…I mean Kelly Carpenter.”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m here. What’s wrong?”

Now that his mind was working again, he understood that something must have happened. Something bad. She hadn’t called him in ten years, though at first he had deluded himself that she might. No one from the wedding party had ever called him, except Mr. Mellon, who had actually come out to Atlanta ready to beat Tom, he’d said, until he no longer knew his own name and had to be fed with a straw.

“I—I don’t know if you heard,” she said, her voice still somber and husky. He wondered if she’d been crying again. Who made her cry these days?

“Heard what?”

“About Lillith. Lillith Griggs. I mean, she became Lillith Griggs, you knew she and Jacob got married, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I knew that.” He and Jacob had been good friends back in law school. Jacob still kept in touch, still wrote now and then, though of course he didn’t admit that to Lillith, who had, like Kelly, been one of Sophie’s bridesmaids and therefore subscribed to the official position that Tom Beckham was scum. “What about Lillith?”

“She was in a car accident. Three days ago.”

“Is she all right?”

“No.” A wretched pause. “She was killed.”

The waiter came over then and held a check for Tom to sign. He scrawled something, almost glad of the distraction. He needed time to absorb the news.

He hadn’t known Lillith well, but she’d always seemed much more…alive than most people. She was always the one laughing, playing practical jokes like wearing stiletto heels to the rehearsal so that the lineup by height suddenly seemed all wrong. She was a beauty and a brain and a class clown all in one. What kind of automobile accident had been savage enough to extinguish all that?

“I’m sorry to hear it,” he said carefully, glancing over at O’Toole, who was tonguing around in his empty drink, trying to hook a piece of ice and suck any lingering vodka from its surface. O’Toole met Tom’s gaze over the glass and frowned, pointing at the telephone.

Tom covered the mouthpiece with his palm.

“We’re done here, O’Toole,” he said, though he knew that those four words might well undo all the goodwill he’d spent the past hour building.

O’Toole put his glass down slowly, giving Tom an incredulous look. “Damn right we are,” he said. He tossed his napkin on the table, scraped his chair back loudly and walked away.

“Tom, are you still there?”

Tom took his hand off the telephone. “Yes. Sorry. How is Jacob?”

“He’s a mess,” Kelly said. “That’s why I’m calling. The funeral is tomorrow, and he asked me to let you know. He hopes you can come. I do, too. He needs a friend…and you seem to be the one he wants.”

It was subtle, but he could hear how inexplicable she found that fact to be.

“Okay,” he said.

There was another pause. “You’ll come?” She must have been expecting an argument.

“Yes,” he said. “Tell him I’ll be there. What time is the funeral?”

“One. We’re all meeting at the house and riding together. His house.” She took an audible breath. “But Tom…if I tell him you’re coming, if I get his hopes up, and then you—”

“I’ll be there.” He heard the doubt quivering in her silence. He couldn’t blame her. She couldn’t know that, since he’d left Cathedral Cove, he had never made a promise he didn’t keep. Of course, he made damn few promises.

“Kelly, I’m telling you I will be there. Have I ever lied to you?”

“No,” she said slowly. “Not to me.”

“Then trust me,” he said, and in spite of himself a wry note crept in. He could feel his tilted smile nudging at his lips. But come on. Had anyone on this earth ever spoken a more ironic sentence? “I’ll be there.”

KELLY KNEW BETTER than to trust Tom Beckham, so she couldn’t understand why she was so upset when he didn’t show up at the funeral home, or at the graveside service.

She was just mad at herself, that was all. She should never have told Jacob that Tom was coming. He had kept glancing over his shoulder at the service, and now that they were back at home, every time the door opened he looked up expectantly.

She stood in the kitchen, carefully pulling the plastic wrap off plates of deviled eggs and pans of meat loaf, and trying not to feel a little angry with Jacob, too.

But darn it. He had friends, lots of them. People who really cared about him, people who filled his house and his refrigerator, people who called and stopped by, who prayed at his side and cried at his side and loved Lily almost as much as he did.

Why weren’t they enough? Why did he need Tom Beckham, too?

Why did anyone need Tom Beckham?

The door opened, and to Kelly’s surprise a lovely blonde walked in, dressed in the most elegant little black funeral dress she’d ever seen. It was Samantha Mellon, Sophie’s little sister.

“Hi, Kelly,” Samantha said softly, brushing her long, silky hair back behind her shoulder and smiling. “They told me you were in here. I thought maybe I could help?”

Kelly stuffed the plastic into the trash can, wiped her hands on a towel, and reached out to give Samantha a hello hug. It was very sweet of her to come—and probably somewhat risky. Over the years, her mother and brother had developed an intractably hostile attitude toward every one of the young men and women who had been in Sophie’s wedding party.

As best Kelly could understand, Mrs. Mellon and Sebastian felt that the bridesmaids and groomsmen had all abandoned Sophie after she’d been jilted. True friends would have stuck by her, defended her. If they had, Sophie might never have ended up in an institution.