Читать книгу Ten Years Later... - Marie Ferrarella - Страница 7

“Maizie, may I speak with you?”

Maizie Sommer looked up from her desk and watched the approach of the sweet-faced, heavyset woman who’d just entered her real estate office.

She knew that look. She’d seen it before, more than once. Not in her capacity as a remarkably successful Realtor with her own agency, but in her role as an even more successful matchmaker.

What had begun several years ago as a determined plan to get her own daughter—and the daughters of her two best friends—matched up and married to their soul mates had turned into a calling.

Since the first time she had gone down this path, Maizie, along with Theresa Manetti and Cecilia Parnell, all three best friends since the third grade, had never encountered failure. Strong gut instincts had guided the three women as they played matchmakers for friends and relatives, unerringly pairing up their targets, not for profit but for the sheer love of it.

As they amassed one triumphant pairing after another, their reputations grew. So much so that at times, their businesses were forced to take a temporary backseat to what Maizie liked to refer to as their “true mission.”

“Come in, Barbara,” Maizie said warmly. Rising, she turned the chair in front of her desk so that the visitor could easily take a seat. “So tell me, what can I do for you?”

Barbara Hunter, whose fondness for rich, good food was evident, sank down into the proffered chair. The retired high school English teacher sighed wearily. This was something she’d been wrestling with for a long time. Coming to Maizie for help amounted to a last-ditch effort before she completely gave up.

“You can tell me how to light a fire under my stubborn son.”

Maizie looked at the other woman, puzzled. “I’m afraid I don’t—”

Anticipating her friend’s question, Barbara elaborated. “He was supposed to come home for his high school’s ten-year reunion, but now he tells me that he doesn’t have time for that ‘nonsense,’—his word, not mine—and that he wants to save that time and put it toward his Christmas vacation so that when he does come out, we can have a nice, long visit.”

Soft brown eyes shifted imploringly toward Maizie. “Oh, Maizie, I had such hopes for him….” Barbara’s voice trailed off, lost in another deep sigh.

Maizie, meanwhile, was busy cataloging information. “Remind me, where’s your son now?”

“Sebastian is in Japan, teaching Japanese businessmen how to speak English. He’s really very good at it,” she interjected with visible pride. “When he skipped his five-year reunion, he told me that he’d attend the next milestone reunion ‘for sure.’ His words,” she said again, more bleakly this time. She looked like a woman clinging to the last vestiges of hope and trying to make peace with the knowledge that it was slipping through her fingers. “I was hoping he’d go to this one and maybe even get together with Brianna.”

The name seemed to just wistfully hang there. “Brianna?” Maizie prodded.

Barbara nodded. “Brianna MacKenzie, the girl Sebastian went with during his senior year. I have this beautiful prom picture of the two of them,” she confided, then added with feeling, “A lovely, lovely girl. I really thought that they’d wind up getting married, but Sebastian went off to college and Brianna stayed behind to take care of her father. The poor man was involved in a terrible car accident the night of the prom. She literally nursed him back to health and was so good at it, she went on to become an actual nurse.”

Barbara closed her eyes and shook her head as she felt the last nail being hammered into the coffin of her dreams.

“I had hoped…” Her voice trailed off, but it wasn’t hard to fill in the blanks. “Now Sebastian’s apparently changed his mind again. I’m beginning to think that I’m never going to see my son get married, much less hold a grandchild in my arms. Sebastian’s my only boy, Maizie. My only child. I’ve tried to be patient. Lord knows I haven’t interfered in his life, but I don’t have forever. Do you have any suggestions?” she asked, clearly counting on a miracle.

The wheels in Maizie’s head were already turning and she was lost in thought. “How’s that again?” she asked, focusing intently.

“Do you have any suggestions?” Barbara Hunter repeated.

But Maizie shook her head. “No, not that. What did you say just before that?” she coaxed.

Barbara paused and thought. “That I don’t want to interfere in his life?” She had no idea what Maizie was after.

Maizie frowned, shaking her head. “No, after that,” she stressed.

Barbara paused again, thinking for a moment longer. “That I don’t have forever?” It was purely a guess at this point.

Maizie smiled broadly. “That’s it.”

Barbara looked at her uncertainly, completely lost. “What’s it?”

The pieces were all coming together. Maizie almost beamed. “That’s how you’re going to get Sebastian to come home—and incidentally, to attend the reunion.”

Barbara struggled to follow what her friend was saying, but it wasn’t easy. “I think that Sebastian already suspects I’m not immortal.”

“To suspect is one thing—we all know no one lives forever—but to suddenly come up against that jarring fact is quite another.” She watched Barbara expectantly, throwing the ball back into her court.

Barbara came to the only conclusion she could. “You want me to tell Sebastian I’m dying?” Even as she said it, it sounded surreal.

“Not dying, Barbara,” Maizie corrected gently. “You’re going to tell your son that you had ‘an episode.’”

It still didn’t make any sense. “An episode? An episode of what?”

“Well, definitely not an episode of NCIS: Los Angeles,” Maizie told her with a patient smile. “If I remember correctly, Bedford High is celebrating a graduating class’s tenth reunion in ten days, right?”

That her friend had this sort of information at her fingertips caught Barbara off guard. She knew that Maizie’s daughter hadn’t gone to that school and knew of no reason why the woman should be aware that the high school was throwing another reunion party.

“How do you know?”

“How do I know that?” Maizie guessed. She loved being on top of things. “It just so happens that Theresa Manetti was talking about landing the catering assignment for that party just the other day. But never mind that for now. You just call that son of yours and tell him that you don’t want to alarm him but that you might have had a minor stroke, and that you’d really rather not put off seeing him, ‘just in case.’”

“But I’ll be lying to Sebastian and that’s a bad lie,” Barbara protested uncomfortably.

Maizie looked at her innocently. “Then you do want to put off seeing him?”

“No, of course not. That part’s true enough, but I haven’t had a stroke, light or otherwise,” Barbara underscored.

Maizie quoted a statistic. “Did you know that, according to a report I recently read, some people actually have strokes and never realize it?”

“No, I didn’t kn—” Barbara held the information highly suspect. “Maizie, are you stretching the truth?”

“No, not stretching, Barbara, but you of all people must know that communication is all about how you use your words. It’s not what you say but how you say it,” she told the other woman with a broad smile. “You have to be ruthless if you want your son to come home.”

Barbara still seemed uncomfortable about the untruth. “I don’t know, Maizie….”

“You don’t know if you want to see your son happily married and starting a family?” Maizie asked.

“No, of course I do,” Barbara said with feeling. And got no further.

Maizie could feel her adrenaline beginning to surge. She loved a challenge—and this had the makings of a really good one.

“Good. Then let me look into a few things and I’ll get right back to you. With the reunion so close, we don’t have that much time. In the meanwhile, you get that son of yours on the phone and tell him that you really want to see him now. That you’d rather not wait until Christmas—just in case. Understood?”

Barbara nodded. “Understood.” She only hoped that, in the long run, Sebastian would find it in his heart to forgive her.