Wishing for Wonderful (Serendipity #3)(15)



She stepped from the elevator tugging the suitcase behind her, crossed the lobby and handed Walker the keys.

“I’m leaving,” she said. “Would you mind calling the Salvation Army to come and pick up the stuff in my apartment?”

“Okay,” he answered. “Where you off to?”

“Home,” she said. “I’m going home.”

The old man smiled. “Good. Real good.”





Eleanor





John is the sweetest and most loving man I’ve ever known, but he’s got a blind spot when it comes to understanding a woman’s feelings. He thinks Lindsay will see me as a second mother, but that’s pure foolishness. She’s a grown woman, not a child. It’s more likely she’ll consider me an adversary, and I wouldn’t be one bit surprised if she felt downright resentful. I’ve been there, and I know how I felt.

I was fourteen years old when Mama and Daddy got divorced. They fought tooth and nail until one day he slammed out the door and never even looked back. Three years later Mama remarried, and I just about hated her for doing it. I hated Mama and my stepdaddy too. Every word out of my mouth was an argument, and if she looked at me crosswise I’d say she was doing it because of him. It took me almost two years to warm up to the poor man, and when I finally did he turned out to be a really good stepdad. Matter of fact, he was the one who taught me to drive after Mama gave up, claiming I was hopeless.

Regardless of what John thinks, I’ll bet Lindsay feels about like I felt. It’s something to ponder, that’s for sure. Hopefully there’s a way to get around what she’s feeling, but right now I don’t know what it might be.

One thing I do know is that he should have told his daughter about us long before this.

“I’m gonna tell her tomorrow,” he said. Then he suggested we all go out to dinner and get acquainted. I squashed that idea pretty darn quick.

“You can’t just shove me in Lindsay’s face and expect she’ll like it,” I said. “The child needs time to adjust to the thought of her daddy remarrying.”

Take her to dinner, I told John, spend some time being interested in what she has to say, and then tell her about me. If he starts off talking about me like I’m just a close friend, she’ll be less likely to have a heart full of anger.

A situation such as this is almost like reaching for a stray dog. You don’t know what hurts that animal’s suffered. If you try to grab hold of it right away, the dog can easy as not sink its teeth into your hand. The only way to make friends is to wait and let the animal come to you. People aren’t all that different. John’s got to give Lindsay time to sniff me out and make sure I’m not looking to harm her.

I’m praying he has the good sense not to mention the idea of us being married or me being Lindsay’s second mother. The truth is a person only gets one mother, and there’s no one in the world who can take her place. Only a fool would try to be something she’s not. Lindsay doesn’t need a replacement mother, but after hearing what I’ve heard I’m betting she could use a good friend.

If she’s willing to let me be her friend, I’ll be way more than happy.





Cupid

The Homecoming





I watched Lindsay walk out of her apartment building, and I could see she had no regrets. Unfortunately, I do. I’m right back to square one when it comes to finding her Mister Wonderful.

Lindsay thinks her troubles are over, and she’s convinced she’ll find the same happiness she had as a child. What an odd lot humans are. History books, songs and stories are filled with tales of those who’ve made the exact same mistake, and yet every human thinks in their case it will turn out different. Few ever come to realize that love, wonderful though it may be, is not always easy. They look at it through rose-colored glasses and see nothing but blue skies and sun, when in truth love often comes wrapped in a storm cloud. Eleanor and John will soon become painfully aware of this.

~

Dragging the suitcase behind her and bumping it up and down the curbs as she walked, Lindsay headed toward the Budget Rent-A-Car on Thirty-First Street. After filling out several forms that were not at all complicated, she drove away in a Honda Civic, turned down Twenty-Eighth Street and pointed herself toward the Lincoln Tunnel.

When she left New York the sky was overcast and dark grey, the clouds low and weighted with rain. The drive through the tunnel was ten, maybe fifteen minutes, but when she exited on the New Jersey side the sky had cleared, and the sun glittered so brightly she had to flip down the visor. Lindsay took this as an omen and began to believe her life was going to get better. By the time she reached into her handbag to pull out a pair of sunglasses, she was certain of it. That certainty grew with every mile she traveled.

She snapped on the radio, and Mariah Carey was singing One Sweet Day. Lindsay had loved the song back in the days when she’d been happy, long before Bethany was gone, long before she’d moved to New York. As she sang along, her thoughts drifted back to the friends she hadn’t seen in so many years, friends she’d promised to call and never quite gotten around to doing it.

“What a terrible friend I’ve been,” she sighed. “I should have stayed in touch. I could have called once a week or even once a month. Anything would have been better than letting all this time go by and doing nothing.”

Bette Lee Crosby's Books