Читать книгу The Parting Glass - Emilie Richards - Страница 8

Peggy Donaghue avoided the parking lot of the Whiskey Island Saloon whenever she could, which wasn’t easy since she lived directly above it. On days when there was no parking on the street, she reluctantly took the reserved spot closest to the back door and sprinted for the kitchen. She wasn’t superstitious. She just didn’t believe in tempting fate.

Not unless the circumstances were exceptional.

The young man standing just behind her cleared his throat. “It’s real windy, Ms. D. You don’t have to stay out here. Nothing’s going to happen, I promise.”

Peggy pulled her long chestnut hair into a temporary ponytail so it would stop whipping into her eyes. Over one shoulder she could see that Josh, tall, lanky and clearly uncomfortable, wasn’t looking at her. That was understandable. Josh had just stolen his very first car. He was praying, just as Peggy was, that the owner wouldn’t realize his brand-new Honda Civic was missing.

“I trust you, Josh. And I even trust them.” Peggy nodded to the group of four adolescent boys who were poring over the car like melted butter on the saloon’s Friday night pierogi special. “But I’ll just stay here in case they need me.”

“Nick was locked away in his study. When he gets like that, he doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s not going to know.” Josh’s tone was less certain than his words.

“He’s probably got stuff to do before he leaves town.” Peggy saw a familiar figure coming up between the rows of cars. The willowy strawberry blonde was unmistakable—and related. “Uh oh, we’ve been nailed,” she said in her best Jimmy Cagney imitation. “It’s the calaboose for us now, Scarface.”

Josh’s pale cheeks grew red. “I gotta go. Winston’s gonna make sure it gets done right and stuff. I gotta go home in case Nick notices—”

Peggy waved him away. “You go on. I’ll face the music alone.”

Josh looked properly grateful and took off, skirting Peggy’s older sister by ducking behind the back row of cars. Plastic bags and newspaper from somebody’s blown-over garbage can skittered across the lot in his wake.

Casey Donaghue Kovats came up beside Peggy and stood for a moment watching the group of adolescents tape strings of firecrackers to the back bumper of Niccolo Andreani’s car. The silver Civic was parked close to the back door of the saloon so that it would be out of sight from the road.

“You’re letting those kids tape fireworks to the bumper? You worked in an emergency room. You know how dangerous those things are.”

“No ‘Hi, how are you, isn’t this a windy day’?”

“Peggy, have you lost your mind?”

“Fireworks are dangerous. These are firecrackers, and they’re only slightly higher-tech than tin cans and old shoes.”

“Megan’s going to have a fit.”

“I certainly hope so. We’ve gone to a lot of trouble.” Peggy motioned to one youth, a handsome young African-American with meticulously divided cornrows and a roll of duct tape adorning one arm. “Winston, will you please reassure Casey that Nick’s car won’t blow up?”

Winston abandoned his supervisory post to join the two sisters. “Yo, Ms. K. Nothing gonna happen here but a little noise.”

Casey still didn’t look convinced. “I have great faith in your abilities, Winston, really I do, but what if—and I know this is a remote possibility—you’re wrong?”

“Can’t be wrong. We tried it out yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” Peggy was intrigued. This was new information.

“Yeah, at some wedding. Somebody got married down at the Baptist church.”

“Somebody you know?”

Winston shrugged. “Learned a lot. Like don’t put balloons and firecrackers on the same bumper, unless you want a real mess.”

Peggy tried not to smile. “See? I told you we were in the hands of a master.”

Winston escaped back to his job as Casey rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe Nick had the bad judgment to leave his car at the saloon in the first place,” Casey said.

“He didn’t. Josh delivered it half an hour ago. Nick doesn’t know it’s gone.”

“Then how’s he getting to the church?”

“I thought he could walk. He’s only a few blocks away.”

A gust of wind pushed Peggy against Casey’s hip and made nonsense of that plan. The sky was growing steadily darker, and the wind was accelerating. That morning the official forecast for the spring day had been breezy, with the slight possibility of a shower. But this was Cleveland. Weather was the only guarantee. The particulars were in the hands of God.

“I’d give him my car, but I don’t have a car anymore,” Peggy said.

“You need to remind me you’re moving halfway around the world tomorrow? Like it’s not on my mind?”

Peggy ignored her. “Jon can drive Nick to the church. Will you call him and ask?”

Jon was Casey’s husband of just a year and nearly always willing to lend a hand. “I guess he won’t mind. At least he won’t get blown off the road in this wind. Jon can take care of himself.” Casey smiled. Peggy had noticed that Casey did a lot of that these days. Grinned when she had reason to, smiled mysteriously when she didn’t. Marriage agreed with her.

More than two years had passed since Peggy and Casey had come home to Cleveland, lost souls looking for a place to hide. Now Peggy was the mother of a son, Casey was married to her best friend, and Megan, who ran the family saloon, was about to celebrate her own wedding.

Of course, what sounded like a trio of happily-ever-afters wasn’t. Not quite. Each sister still faced considerable hurdles, but Peggy didn’t want to think about her own. Not for the moment. Today was Megan’s day.

“Remember the last time we stood around the parking lot like this?” Casey said, as if she knew what was going through Peggy’s mind. Both Peggy’s sisters had consistently read her thoughts since the day she was old enough to have any.

“We were at gunpoint,” Peggy said. “And Niccolo walked by and saved us. Now he’s about to marry our sister. Odd how things happen, isn’t it?”

“I peeked inside. I can’t believe what they’ve done, can you?”

“They” was the Donaghue family—and everyone in Cleveland who was related to them or wanted to be. A veritable horde of friends and family had descended that morning to scrub and decorate the saloon where Megan and Niccolo’s reception would be held after the ceremony at St. Brigid’s.

Peggy checked her watch. “I still have a million things to do before Kieran wakes up.” The atomic clock had nothing on Peggy’s toddler son for keeping life precisely on schedule.

“You’re still planning to leave him upstairs with a baby-sitter?”

“He’ll be happier. Everybody will be happier.”

“The old place looks great. The way it did when we were kids and Mom was in charge of family wedding receptions. Megan’s going to love it.”

Peggy knew better. Someday Megan, their oldest sister, would look back at this day with appreciation, even nostalgia. But today she wouldn’t notice a thing. If all the signs were correct, Megan was going to walk through her own wedding ceremony and reception like a newly sentenced prisoner on her way to serving a lifetime behind bars.

Casey grinned. “Okay, maybe she’s going to be a little jittery, and maybe she won’t notice every little detail….”

“Come on, we’ll be lucky if she’s only comatose. I don’t understand why she and Nick didn’t elope.”

“She didn’t want to set that kind of example.”

“For who?” Peggy realized “who” the moment she asked the question. “For me? Megan was afraid if she eloped, I’d copy her someday?”

“I think that’s part of it.”

“Unbelievable.”

“And I think Nick wanted a real wedding,” Casey added, before Peggy could expound. “He wanted his kids to witness it. They take a lot of interest in this kind of thing, even though they’ll never admit it.”

The kids Casey referred to were a large group of teens and pre-teens, including those who were so relentlessly decorating Niccolo’s car. Altogether there were more than a dozen verging-on-delinquent and occasionally endearing adolescents who were part of an organization called One Brick at a Time. Niccolo Andreani was the director, founder and jack-of-all-trades who ran it.

“So Megan’s doing this wedding for everybody else?” Peggy said.

“She won’t talk about it, so I’m just guessing. But you know she’s been a wreck ever since she agreed to marry Nick. She adores him, so it can’t be regret. I just think she hates being the center of attention. She’s happiest when she’s running everybody else’s lives from the sidelines.”

“Well, it’s about time she had her day, whether she wants it or not.” Peggy glanced at her watch. It was ten, and the wedding was at one. “What’s on your list for the rest of the morning?”

“About a million things before I help Megan dress, including a hair appointment.”

“Well, I have about a dozen more on mine. Then I have to get dressed, get Kieran set up—”

“And pack.”

“I have everything ready to go. Aunt Dee came and got our suitcases early this morning, so I can clean up tonight after the reception and they won’t be in the way. Megan’s already advertising the apartment.” Peggy tried to stave off further discussion of her impending departure. There had been dozens of such conversations, all of them fruitless, since she had announced she was moving to Ireland for a year. “Right now I’d better get busy. Because Kieran really is due to wake up—”

A gust of wind nearly lifted her off her feet, and this time it sent her smashing into Casey. Peggy’s shriek was eclipsed by an earsplitting crack. For a moment she was so disoriented that the sound didn’t register. Then in horror she turned her head toward the car and saw disaster swaying just above it.

“Get away from the car! Everybody! Now!” She extricated herself from her sister, and almost as one body they hurled themselves forward. “The tree—”

Winston and his crew were tough guys, but they were also survivors. Instinctively they scattered like the leaves that were raining from the big maple tree positioned just over Niccolo’s new Civic. A horrifying screech, like ten giant fingernails on a heavenly blackboard, rent the air. Then, as Peggy watched in horror, the tree wobbled uncertainly and split in two.

With a thunderous roar, followed by the scream and crunch of metal, the half closer to the saloon fell on Niccolo’s car, flattening the roof and hood. The other half of the tree remained awkwardly, tentatively erect. Nick’s car looked like a week-old sandwich fished out of a teenager’s bookbag.

Peggy did a frantic head count and assessment. The tree had fallen just slowly enough to give the kids time to get away. They looked shaken, but unharmed.

“Everybody’s okay,” Peggy said. She repeated it as a question and got satisfactory answers from all the kids. Winston herded them to the other end of the lot, where they shouted and pointed excitedly.

“It missed the saloon,” Casey said, her voice shaky. “But, lord, Peggy, that door into the kitchen isn’t going to open again until we get a crew out here. It opens out, and the tree’s smack against it.”

Peggy raised her voice over the intensifying wind. “Who cares about the door? What about Nick’s car? How are we going to tell him, and what are he and Megan going to use on their honeymoon?”

“They—they can take mine on the trip. Jon and I can make do with one car until they get back.”

“We still have to tell Nick.”

“Yeah? Exactly when?”

Peggy was still trying to process this disaster. She was the most analytical of the sisters, but analysis was beyond her at the moment. “How would you like to know something like that right before you head off for your wedding?”

“Wouldn’t.”

“Can we keep the kids quiet?”

Casey glanced over her shoulder, and the wind whipped her hair over her eyes. “Winston can. Besides, it was probably his idea to have Josh bring the car over. He’ll want to take as much time as he can owning up.”

Family and friends began pouring out the front doors of the saloon.

“St. Patrick and all the saints! Better call a tree service,” somebody shouted.

Another voice chimed in. “Get a wrecker.”

Casey documented the obvious. “Any sane person would cancel the reception.”

Peggy was trembling now, a delayed reaction that grew more ferocious as she realized just how lucky everyone had been. “You said it yourself. We have a blocked exit. Legally we have to lock our doors.”

Casey put her arm around Peggy’s shoulders. “That’s the good thing about the Donaghues. Not a soul who’s invited to the reception will report us.”

“Casey, do you think maybe we could deed this parking lot to the city and get it out of the family once and for all?”

Two hours later Megan Donaghue stared into the full-length mirror on Casey’s bedroom closet door. A disgruntled woman in unadorned ivory silk gazed back at her. “I really don’t know how I got talked into this. I look like a lampshade.”

Casey spoke from the floor below. “You look gorgeous, and there’s not one inch of frou-frou on that dress. If it were any simpler we’d call it a slip.”

“I should have worn a suit. Only suits make me look like a penguin. How come you got the legs, and Peggy got all that gorgeous straight hair, and I got—” She paused. “Nothing. Not a damn thing.”

“Apparently Nick thinks you have some redeeming feature, and if you don’t stand completely still, I’m going to stick this needle someplace it wasn’t meant to go.”

Megan knew her sister and stopped wriggling. Besides, Casey had seemed unusually edgy since Megan had arrived at the house. She didn’t want to take any chances. “Maybe it’s just momentum. You know? Maybe we just fell into this and kept falling, and eventually he just couldn’t figure out how to get out of it. Maybe he’s been trying to tell me he doesn’t want to marry me and I haven’t been listening.”

“Megan, Niccolo’s been trying to get you to marry him for two years. That’s what you weren’t listening to. Then you finally stopped making excuses, and here you are.” Casey stabbed her needle into the portion of the hem that had come unsewn.

Megan stared at her image in the mirror. She had hoped that on her wedding day, at least, a voluptuous redhead with a come-hither expression and tits would stare back at her. Real tits that filled out a bodice, tantalizing and promising. Instead she saw a short, compact body and the rectangular face that went with it. Granted, there was nothing seriously wrong with the face. The features matched well enough; the amber eyes were large, the expression forthright, and the bright red curls had been tamed into a semblance of order by Casey’s own stylist.

“What does he see in me, Casey? I mean, Nick’s a good-looking guy. I’m not blind. Some might even say he’s gorgeous. I’m wearing a Wonderbra and mascara, and nobody’s going to faint from passion when I walk down the aisle.”

“Megan, don’t ask him what he sees in you on the honeymoon, okay? Because he’s supposed to be dizzy with desire, not laughing his head off.”

“Why am I doing this?” Megan pushed one wayward curl into place. She had been dragged kicking and screaming to the wedding boutique and chosen the simplest dress in the place, but she had refused unequivocally to wear a veil. Instead a spray of silk orange blossoms adorned her short hair, threatening to take off for parts unknown if she continued to bob her head.

“Let’s see.” Casey clipped the thread and sat back staring up at her sister. “Why are you doing this? Maybe because, despite being hopelessly unworthy of love yourself, you love him?”

“Funny, Case.”

“Then if it isn’t love, maybe it’s just good sex? Or could be you need somebody to fix the toilet when it runs—”

“I know how to fix the toilet.”

“Back to sex, then.”

“You don’t have to be married for that.”

“Then you tell me.”

“I’m going through with this because Nick wasn’t happy living together. He believes in love, marriage.” Megan scowled at the curl and pushed it into place once last time.

“He’s a romantic?”

“He was a priest.” Megan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He’s still deeply religious. Living together never sat well with him. He needs vows. He needs the Church’s sanction.”

“So you’re doing all this for him.” Casey got to her feet and started toward the closet to get her own dress. “Congratulations. That makes you a martyr. The church reserves a special place in heaven for people like you.”

Megan waited silently as her sister shed her shorts and T-shirt and slid into a slip and panty hose. Then Casey slid her matron-of-honor dress over her head and presented her back. “Zip this, will you?”

Megan did. The fiery copper-colored silk almost matched Casey’s hair, normally a long mass of curls but today tamed in an intricate French braid woven with silk baby’s breath.

The three Donaghue sisters shared red in their hair, but there was little else that physically tied them together. Peggy, with her oval face and dark amber eyes, was beautiful by anybody’s standards. She had softer features than her sisters and a womanly body that had ripened even further during her pregnancy.

Casey was more interesting than pretty, but she made full use of her irregular features, bright hair and angular model’s body by choosing dramatic, quirky clothing and makeup. Casey always made a splash.

Then there was Megan. Sensible, cut-the-fuss Megan who felt perfectly at home in khakis and an emerald-green polo shirt running the family saloon. Today she felt like a little girl playing dress-up. A particularly awkward little girl.

“Here’s the problem,” Megan said. “I’m not doing this just for Nick. I believe in marriage, too. At least theoretically.”

“When we were growing up you didn’t see too many happy marriages up close. You were too busy raising us to pay much attention.”

“Mom and Rooney were happy at times.”

“Well, sure, when he wasn’t hallucinating. Then Mom died, and Rooney flipped his wig altogether and took off for parts unknown. And you were left to carry on.”

“There are plenty of happy marriages in the family. Look at Aunt Deirdre and Uncle Frank.”

Casey went to the dresser mirror to check her makeup. “You were too busy protecting your turf to pay much attention, Megan.”

Megan supposed Casey was right. Their father, Rooney, had abandoned the family when Megan was only fourteen. She had spent the next years trying to do everything a teenager could to keep the family saloon in operation and her sisters together. And she had been scarred by her father’s desertion. At first Niccolo had paid the price.

“I know I was affected by those early years,” Megan said. “But I’m over the worst of that. Now I’m a big girl. I understand why Rooney left. I’m just glad to have him back—more or less back, anyway. I know he did the best he could.”

Casey faced her. “If everybody without mental illness tried as hard as Rooney does, the world would be a pretty spectacular place.”

“It’s not seeing enough good marriages that scares me. It’s seeing one. Yours,” Megan said bluntly. “Lately, that’s what worries me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You and Jon. I don’t know how you do it. The two of you are happier together than you ever were apart. You make it look effortless.”

“Jon and I were friends in high school.” Casey tugged one shoulder of Megan’s dress lower, then slapped her sister’s hand when she tried to pull it back up. “But what does that have to do with you? You love Nick. You like Nick. What’s the problem? You have what you need, don’t you?”

“You make it look easy, and it’s not. I don’t know how to just fall into marriage the way you and Jon did. Nothing’s ever easy for me, Case. I don’t know about easy. I don’t think Nick does, either.”

“Everybody has to work at being married. Maybe Jon and I make it look easy, but I can tell you there’ve been a few great fights.” Casey’s eyes shone. “And some great make-up sex.”

“What if I give it my all and it turns out I’m not good enough?” Megan turned. “You do marriage counseling sometimes, right?”

Casey, who was the brand-new director of a charitable organization that delivered social services to West Side residents, shrugged. “It’s not my field of expertise.”

“Is this anxiety natural?” Megan bit her lip, then remembered she was wearing lipstick. “For two cents I’d bolt for the door and just keep going.”

“And what if you did? What’s waiting out there that’s so tempting?”

“I don’t want to fail.”

“What would happen if you did?”

Megan considered, but not for long. “I’d die. I can’t screw this up. If I get married, I want it to last. And what if I can’t figure out how to make that happen?”

Casey crossed the room and rested her hands on her sister’s shoulders. “Megan, you don’t have to carry the weight alone. Remember? There are two of you, and I’ve never known two more capable people. You’ll be a roaring success. Someday you’ll be kicking yourself for telling me all this.”

Footsteps sounded in the hallway, and the door burst open.

“Oh, Megan, you look gorgeous!” Peggy flung herself through the doorway. “Spectacular. Oh, I’m going to cry.”

“You’d better not. Don’t you dare.”

“I’ve got to get dressed.” Peggy headed for the closet. “I had to give the baby-sitter instructions, so I’m late. I didn’t have time to get my hair done, and in this wind it wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. But if I pull the top part back and fasten the fancy combs I bought in it, I’ll pass. Besides, everybody’s going to be looking at Megan.”

“Oh, God, I’m getting married.” Megan’s hands flew to her cheeks. “Look, one of you do it instead, okay?”

Peggy pulled her dress from Casey’s closet. It was the same simple design as Casey’s, but in forest green. “I’ll gladly marry Nick. Think he’ll notice the difference?” She slipped off her T-shirt and let the dress slither over her arms and bodice. “I’ll just tell him you changed your mind. He won’t care.”

“Or I could do it,” Casey said. “Then he and Jon can duel for nights in my bed.”

Megan thought if she took one more deep breath she would hyperventilate. “I’ll live through this, right?”

“If you don’t, the Plain Dealer will have one whopping story.” Peggy presented herself to Casey to be zipped. “Any word from Rooney?” she asked Megan.

Understanding and accepting her father’s illness had taken Megan a long time. At some point in the two years since he had returned to his family, she had thrown away the need for an easy diagnosis and settled for the fact that Rooney was not like other men. He had battled hard for sanity, but the years and a dependence on alcohol had taken a permanent toll.

Still, Rooney was no longer homeless, as he had been since Megan’s adolescence. Every night he returned to eat dinner and sleep at Niccolo’s house in Ohio City, a West Side Cleveland neighborhood. He no longer drank, and he took medication that helped him think more clearly. He was sometimes confused, but rarely confused about who his daughters were. He had missed a large chunk of their lives, but he was learning to know them again on his own terms.

“I reminded him about the wedding this morning,” Megan said. “He was up early.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing that made much sense, but he didn’t seem surprised, like maybe he’d remembered already. Will he get there, do you think?”

“He knows where St. Brigid’s is,” Peggy said. “He can find his way anywhere.”

“Megan, let it be enough that he remembered, okay?” Casey said. “He remembers you. This morning he remembered you were getting married. He wants to be there, even if he doesn’t quite make it. A year ago, when I married Jon, he had trouble remembering my name.”

Megan knew that if they searched for and found their father, corralled him and herded him into a car, he would panic. She considered, instead, the one thing she could control. “There’s still time for me to head for Botswana or the Canary Islands. I don’t care which.”

Peggy joined her, leaning down to kiss her sister on the cheek. She stepped back and wiped away a faint smudge of lipstick. “How about the church, instead? You don’t have a passport.”

“Yes, I do. I made sure of it.”

“You don’t have a ticket.”

“There must be planes to Botswana every hour on the hour.”

“From Hopkins? You’d be lucky to hop a jet to Newark.”

“That would do.” Megan straightened her spine. “You think I’m kidding.”

“I think you’re terrified,” Casey said, joining them. “I never thought I’d live to see the day you owned up to it. Now, are we going to church, or do I let everybody know you’re a pitiful coward?”

“That’s a stupid question.” Megan whirled and took one final look at herself in the mirror. Actually, the view wasn’t as bad as she’d feared. She looked like…a bride. “Let’s go.”

Casey shrugged. “You’re so darned predictable.”