Marrying Maddy (8 page)

“Gee, I could just cry for you,” Maddy said, turning her back on him and quickly padding into the small drawing room. “Wait out there, let me get you a cookie. Then you can just go to—”

His hands were on her shoulders, stopping her voice, stopping her heart. He'd followed her inside. Of course he had. Of course she'd known he would. “Get out, Joe. Just get out, okay? Out of my house, out of my life.”

“I just got back in it, Maddy.”

“Yes, you did, didn't you?” she said, bending her knees to step out from beneath his hands, then turning to glare at him. “Aren't I the lucky one. And that performance tonight? I should have been handing out Oscars, to both you
and
my loving sister.”

“Overacted, huh? I thought so,” Joe said, taking another step forward, making a face that used to always produce a grin from Maddy, then a kiss. “Overacted, and overdone. I wanted to make you jealous, Maddy. I didn't plan to hurt you. But I did, didn't I?”

Maddy looked him straight in the eyes. “No, you didn't hurt me, Joe. You can't hurt me because I don't care about you. I don't care what you do, what you think, where you live,
how
you live. But Jessie
is another matter. I never thought she could do something so mean to me.”

“It was my idea, Mad, not Jessie's. And I think the double vodka tonic helped get her into the role. Please don't be angry with her. She's only trying to help a lovesick guy down on his luck.”

“That being you, I suppose,” Maddy said, walking over to one of the long tables covered in white linen and decorated with wedding gifts. With her back to him, she asked, “Do you really think Jessie believes I should be with you?”

“I don't know, Maddy,” Joe answered, walking over to stand beside her, picking up one of a pair of silver candlesticks and testing its weight. “I suppose you'd have to ask her.”

Maddy bit her bottom lip. “I thought—
think
—she's happy for me. She never said anything to make me think she didn't believe Matt and I were suited for…”

“Yes?” Joe urged when her words trailed off. “You were going to say
suited for each other,
weren't you? Not that you and Matt are wildly in love, can't live without each other, don't even want to live without each other. You know, Maddy, all that stuff we used to say to each other. Just suited for each other? Doesn't exactly make your heart go pitter-patter, does it? Suited for each other. I think I'll take what we had, personally.”

Maddy took the candlestick from him, replaced it beside its mate. “That was different. That was lust. We fell in lust, Joe. And maybe in love, a little bit. But it couldn't last. Not with you making all the decisions, keeping those decisions from me. Lying to me, not trusting me.”

“Second verse, same as the first,” Joe grumbled, his hands drawing into impotent fists at his sides. “God, how I wish I could go back and do it over. Do it all over.”

“Would you have done anything differently? Would you really?”

He considered her questions, honestly considered them. Then he shook his head. “No. No, I wouldn't have. You didn't trust in my conviction that Larry and I had a viable product, a future. That hurt, Mad, but I figured if I could just get us married, the rest of it would all work out.”

“But you wouldn't take a penny from me. Wouldn't let me touch my trust fund, talk to Ryan about releasing some funds.”

“I wouldn't ask Mother May I from your brother, no,” Joe admitted, then figured he might as well say it all, every last damning word. “But I wanted to, Maddy. You don't know how much I wanted to take that money.”

Maddy kept her head averted, pretending her knees weren't melting as she stood so close to Joe, as she smelled him, remembered the taste of him. “So why didn't you?”

His smile was wry, and rather sad. “You still don't get it, do you, babe? I wanted this to be me, on my own. Just the way I did it. Just the way I've always done everything.”

“Just the way I've never done anything,” Maddy added, spreading her arms, indicating this single opulent room in her opulent, well-cushioned, safe life. “We're two very different people, Joe, from two very different worlds. And even worse, you're the other type of person. The roller-coaster type.”

That brought Joe's head up. “Say what? The roller-coaster type?”

She nodded, walked across the width of the Oriental carpet to stand in front of yet another long pedestal table burdened with dozens of wedding gifts. “I know it sounds rather simplified, Joe, but I've done a lot of thinking about us over the past eighteen months, and I've decided that there are two kinds of people in this world. The ones who ride the roller coaster, and the ones who don't.”

He followed after her in a meandering way, walking around the perimeter of the room, looking at all the gifts, knowing he hadn't gotten her one yet, didn't even want to think about getting her one she'd share with Matt. “I like roller coasters, Maddy. Always have.”

She smiled sadly. “Of course you do. You're the type that would. The type that thinks of nothing but the thrill of the ride. The type that figures bad things only happen to other people and the ride will be fun, and exhilarating, and nobody is going to get hurt. I'm the other type, the type that believes the roller coaster is just patiently sitting there, waiting for me to get on it so the damn thing can jump the track on the first steep hill.”

“That's pretty black and white, Maddy,” Joe told her, slowly making his way toward her, stopping a “safe” three feet away from her. “And pretty sad, too. Is that why you said yes to Matt? Because you're pretty sure he'd never run off the track? Is that why he asked you to marry him? I mean, I don't want to hurt you, Maddy, but there's not an awful lot of
spark
between the two of you. Anyone would think you've already been married for ten years.”

Maddy lifted her chin, that adorable pointed chin. “Ha, a lot
you
know, Joseph O'Malley. Matt and I make mad, passionate love every night of the week.”

“Just not tonight,” Joe said, grinning. He didn't know why, but he was feeling better, more upbeat, by the minute. Considering the direction of their conversation, that made him either the world's greatest optimist or a man who obviously had no grasp on reality. “And not last night, either. Maybe not even tomorrow night. Maybe—could it be—
never?
”

“Oh, shut up,” Maddy ordered, wishing she hadn't stooped so low as to involve Matt in some sort of contest with her former lover. Her only lover…but Joe wasn't ever going to know
that
one.

“Agreed,” Joe said. “We'll change the subject, and never bring it up again. I mean, after all, I'm off the roller coaster now, just another safe, solvent corporate genius, and you're going to marry Matthew Garvey, and never even
look
at the roller coaster, wonder if you'd missed anything by not taking a chance, taking that ride. So, what will we talk about? Ah, here's a conversation piece if I ever saw one.”

Maddy looked on as Joe picked up the Thing, examining it as he carefully turned it in his hands.

“Well, babe,” he said at last, “you might not have ridden the roller coaster lately, but you sure did go to the fair. You got this for fooling the weight-guessing guy, right? Or maybe Matt rang the bell three times on the test your strength game? Scratch that. You'd get this big beauty for losing, not for winning.”

Maddy snatched the vase from his hands. “This is a genuine
Nove,
given to me by my Great-Aunt Harriet. It's worth thousands.”

“Right. Sure.” Joe's blue eyes twinkled. “Thousands of what, Maddy? So, what did you ever do to Great-Aunt Harriet to tick her off this bad?”

Maddy bit her lip, trying not to laugh. She'd known when she'd first looked at the Thing that Joe would have something funny to say about it. “I don't know,” she admitted at last. “I always thought I was her favorite. Just goes to show you that we don't know everything, doesn't it?”

Joe picked up the vase once more. “I guess you could keep popcorn in it, something like that.”

“Popcorn? I guess that is one option. I was going to give it to Allie, but she threatened to cut me out of her will.”

“I like your grandmother. Smart lady,” Joe said, then belatedly realized that their too-short moments of being at ease with each other, of even bantering back and forth with each other, had just ended. They'd ended the moment Almira Chandler's name had been introduced in the conversation.

“She shouldn't have contacted you, Joe. And you shouldn't have listened to her, shouldn't have come. I'm going to marry Matt. I've made up my mind.”

“Ozzie and Harriet do Allentown. Yawn,” Joe mumbled beneath his breath, shaking his head.

“What? What did you say?”

“Never mind, Maddy, I was just talking to myself. So,” he added, spreading his hands as if to try to gather up the correct words with which to say good-night. Say goodbye. “I guess I ought to get
going. My computer stuff is coming tomorrow, and I'm going to spend most of the day setting it up.”

“Your toys,” Maddy said, her smile slow and somewhat sad. “I remember. Did you ever get that desk you dreamed about? The one that you said would be a complete circle, with a lift-up bar so you could go in and out, sit surrounded by your toys, safe in computer heaven?”

He nodded. “I had one specially built last year. I'm surprised you remember that dream, among so many I bent your ears with while we were together.”

“I remember all your dreams, Joe,” Maddy said, walking toward the door, so that he had no choice but to follow after her. “And now I have some of my own.”

He took her right hand in his, ran his thumb over her fingertips—her cold as ice fingertips, even though the night was warm. “Dreams I'm not in, right?”

“You were,” she said, sighing. “Once upon a time.”

“Another sad fairy tale.” He squeezed her fingers, sighed, then let her go. “I haven't thrown in the towel yet, Maddy. We still could have our happily ever after. If you'll just give me a chance. Don't tell me my stupid pride has left it too late.”

“Your pride, my pride. What does it matter, Joe? I thought I loved you, once. Now I'm not so sure. I'm not sure what love is at all, or if it even exists. I just know that I've planned my life, gotten my priorities straight maybe for the first time in that life. I'm content, Joe. Or at least I was, until you came barging back in my life, courtesy of Allie. Now I
want you to go away again, leave me to do what I've chosen as the best thing for me.”

“And the best thing for Matt? Does he know you don't love him?”

“I do so—” Maddy pressed her lips together, knowing she couldn't say she loved Matt, not when she'd just admitted that she didn't even know what love was. But she did know the pain of loss, and she never wanted to put herself in a position to feel that sort of pain again. “Go home, Joe. It's late.”

He looked down at her, saw the tears pooling in her eyes, saw the hurt he'd put there eighteen months ago and again tonight. He wanted to kiss her, wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her, love her, promise he'd never make her cry again.

But he didn't.

He simply lifted a hand to her cheek, traced his thumb along her cheekbone, down to the tip of her kissable chin, turned and walked out into the night.

“I
n layman's terms, Maddy, they're called signature hives. Doesn't make them itch any less, but they're not dangerous, I promise.”

Maddy nodded as she pulled down her knit top after showing her rather red and bumpy back to Dr. Linda Garvey, Matt's sister. The two were in one of Linda's examination rooms, after Maddy had phoned early that morning, begging help. “So what you're saying is I'm not terminal,” she said, trying her best to smile. Which wasn't easy. Not with this darn fat lip. “I suppose that's a relief.”

“You
suppose
it's a relief?” Linda repeated. “Well, I guess that answers my next question, which was how well the antihistamines are working on those hives. Itch like hell, don't they?”

Maddy hopped down from the examining table, not liking the feeling she had when sitting there, not liking to feel at all like a patient. Which was all Joe's fault. If he hadn't gone out to dinner with
them…if he hadn't all but drooled on Jessie…if he hadn't shown up later, to talk, to argue…to make her remember. “Around three o'clock this morning I began giving serious thought to rubbing myself down with sandpaper.”

“Ouch!” Linda looked up from the prescription she was writing. “Pretty drastic treatment, Maddy. I think I can do at least a little better than that.” She ripped off two prescriptions, handed them to her. “Here, try these. Sort of my two-shot treatment, pills and cream. If you're not a whole lot better in twenty-four hours, though, please feel free to give me another call. At home if it's after hours—you know the number. And, Maddy?”

“Hmm?” Maddy said, trying to read Linda's chicken scratches. Must be one of the prerequisites for graduation for doctors: Illegible Writing 101. When Linda didn't go on, she looked up at her, saw her motion for her to take a seat in the chair beside the examining table.

Linda pulled a round, wheeled stool out for herself, and sat down facing Maddy from across the small room. “Okay, so what's going on?”

Maddy averted her eyes from Linda's, whose own eyes looked so much like Matt's. “What's going on? Gee, I don't know, Linda. I'm getting married next week. We've got all the last minute running around, the meetings with florists and caterers and people I didn't even know existed, let alone knew were needed to pull off a proper garden wedding. Did you know that there are people who just rent out tents for a living? And, if you knew that—and I think I did, too—did you know how many different
kinds
of tents there are? Then there's seating plans,
and photographers, thank-you notes I'm trying to keep up to date on, and…well, isn't that enough?”

“It's a lot, I will say that. Having long ago happily and quite eternally married myself to my career as a pill pusher, however, I never really thought about any of that before you mentioned it. But what else, Maddy? Because Matt told me all these plans are pretty well finalized, thanks to your mind-boggling efficiency, and have been for months. So—what else is going on? What's bothering you?”

Maddy scratched at her left forearm. She'd tell Linda almost anything. But she had never told her the truth, not eighteen months ago, and most definitely not now. “What's bothering me is these
hives!
I can't sleep, all I do is scratch, and no matter what I take, they get worse. If I lie down, they seem to subside for a while, but when I stand up again, they come back again. I actually stood in front of the bathroom mirror this morning and
watched
several dozen small ones pop out on my face. It's enough to drive anyone a little wacko.”

“Or being driven a little wacko is enough to give someone hives,” Linda said carefully, incisively turning Maddy's own words back on her. “Oh, and don't think I swallowed that allergic to your tulle slips story, because I haven't. Those would be contact hives, and you don't wear slips on the end of your nose, you know. Besides, these are signature hives, and that's enough to set off some warning bells in my head.”

Maddy frowned. “I don't get it. What's so different about my hives? I thought you said they weren't dangerous.”

“They're not. The sort of hives you have, Maddy,
are a symptom. A symptom of stress. I had a gal in here last week, covered in them. She thought she was allergic to packing material she was using, but that wasn't it. After talking to her for a while, learning that she'd bought a new house just to have the sale on her present one fall through and that she was looking at paying two mortgages for a while…well, that finally explained the hives. Especially when I traced the mark of a dollar sign on her thigh, just to watch a hive come up in exactly that shape. Signature hives, Maddy. Understand now?”

“Oh. Yes, I guess I get it,” Maddy said, sighing…then quickly lifted her hand from her thigh, where she had begun idly tracing a fingernail over her skin. “Damn. I shouldn't have done that.”

Linda stood, walked over to look down at Maddy's thigh below her plaid Bermuda shorts. The hive had already begun, all three hives, as a matter of fact. The letters were still faint, but readable. “Joe? Who's Joe?”

“Joe?” Maddy said, quickly standing up, heading for the door. “That wasn't Joe, Linda. That was…that was toe. Yes, toe. I'm leaving here to get a pedicure, and it was the first word that seemed to come into my mind.”

Linda, who had Matt's same caring blue eyes, but had somehow missed out on his easier-going nature, pointed a finger toward the chair and ordered: “Sit! Speak!”

Maddy, shoulders slumping, retraced her steps to the chair and sat down as ordered. “Are you going to lock the door, not let me out until I talk? Yeah, I guess you are. Professional confidence here,
Linda? I mean, like you can't repeat anything I say to you, patient to doctor. Right?”

“That's what they told me when they let me write Doctor in front of my name,” Linda said, pushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear, tucking it close to the plain, no-nonsense bun she wore at her nape. “Now, one more time, and try to go for the gusto, Maddy, and tell me all of it. Who's Joe?”

Maddy's face crumpled. It just…crumpled. Tears sprang into her eyes, not to be denied. “Oh, Linda…I'm a mess!” she exclaimed, reaching into the pocket of her shorts for the wad of tissues she'd shoved in there earlier, after the crying bout she'd had at home.

She swiped at her tears, then spread her hands, shook her head. “Look at me. Just
look
at me! I haven't slept in two days, Linda, I'm eating myself right out of my wedding gown, and I
itch
all over. I've got bumps on my face, bumps on the soles of my feet, bumps on my butt, for crying out loud. I'm falling apart.”

Linda let her cry. Just sat and let her cry. Then, when Maddy seemed to be calming down, she retrieved some tissues from a cabinet, planning on handing some to her. Giving this idea a second thought, she simply passed over the entire box to her weepy friend. “Okay, that was good, for a start. Now tell me something I don't know. Tell me about Joe.”

“I…I
can't!
” Maddy said, hiccuping. “I mean, you're Matt's
sister,
and I…”

Now Linda sat down herself, looking up at Maddy from the short stool. “Hooboy,” she said quietly.
“I have to admit I wasn't expecting that one. Came at me straight out of right field. Another man.”

“No!” Maddy protested hotly. “There is
not
another man. Oh, all right, so there
was
…once…but there's not
now
…except that he's back, living right next door, so he
is
here…and I don't want him here because he's just confusing
everything,
telling me I should marry him instead of…well, you know…and…and living right next door, like I said…and…and…and giving me
hives
…and…and…and Allie is…Allie said…Allie—oh, you
know
Allie, Linda.” She looked at her friend and doctor. “Oh, God, Linda, what am I going to do?”

As she did her best to decipher Maddy's ramblings, Linda's first, most immediate reaction, was to think of her brother, how he could end up very hurt, very shortly. But that thought didn't last long. It couldn't. Maddy was her patient, and she had to look at this entire situation in that confidential patient-doctor context.

Besides, Maddy was one of those people you just couldn't get mad at; it would be like getting mad at a flower for blooming. She was just Maddy. Simple, straightforward, sweet and cuddly Maddy. One of the world's good creatures; honest, kind, loyal. She also was one of those people things happened
to;
she never went out of her way to do anything to anybody else. She'd never hurt anyone on purpose. She'd rather cut off her own nose than hurt anyone else.

Or break out in hives from the top of her head to the soles of her feet…

“Maddy, may I tell you something you've probably figured out for yourself?” she asked.

“No, you're wrong,” Maddy protested, sure of what Linda would say. “I started breaking out in hives before Joe showed up, Linda. At least a full hour before Allie dragged me to the window to see him moving into the Harris house. I had hives
before
he showed up.”

“A full hour before he showed up, huh? That would have been while you were trying on your wedding gown, right? What else was going on, besides trying on the gown?”

Maddy tried to suck on her swollen upper lip. “Damn,” she said at last, reaching for another tissue. “I had been thinking about what I'd worn the last time, and how I left Joe standing outside the Vegas wedding chapel eighteen months ago.” She started slightly, looked at Linda. “Matt doesn't know about that.
Nobody
knows about that, except Jessie and Allie and Ryan.”

Linda gave a few second's nostalgic thought to her notion, during high school, of becoming an astronaut. She should have done it. If she had, she wouldn't be sitting here, listening to her brother's fiancée say she had left another man at the altar eighteen months ago, and was probably about to leave her brother in the same ignominious position in another week. That was, unless she wanted to go through the rest of her life gulping down antihistamines.

“You can't do this, Maddy,” she told her, writing out a new prescription and exchanging it for one of the two she'd previously handed over to her. “Never mind the anti-itch cream for now, okay? I'm giving
you a strong antihistamine, and a small prescription for a nerve pill. Because, Maddy, my dear, it's either talk about all of this with Matt, or spend the rest of your life scratching your skin off, straight down to the bone.”

“Once we're married…” Maddy began, then stopped, shook her head. “They're not going to go away? I'm going to spend the rest of my life with a fat lip?”

“Think of it this way, Maddy,” Linda said, trying for a little humor. “You'll never have to worry about being without pen and paper when you want to make a note of something.” When Maddy didn't laugh, but just reached for another tissue, Linda put her arm around her shoulders, gave her a squeeze. “Ah, honey, don't cry. But do tell the truth. It's the secret that's hurting you. The secret and, just maybe, a little indecision on your part. Until you examine what's going on,
and
get this all off your chest, well, I'm pretty sure you're going to have those hives. Modern medicine can do a lot, but it still hasn't been able to cure a guilty conscience.”

 

“Larry? Say something nice about me. Quick. Remind me that I'm kind to animals. That I give generously to charity. That I don't usually go around making women cry.”

Larry's voice—Loony Larry the bookkeeping genius's voice—traveled to Joe through the phone connection from Philadelphia. “Oh, brother. What did you do now?”

Joe shifted the portable phone to his other ear as he sat down on the chaise beside the pool. “Oh, I
don't know, Lar. I showed up in Maddy's life without warning, bought the house next door to her.”

“Yeah, I know. Stupid move, but typically you. What else?”

“That isn't enough? Oh, okay, I'll give you all of it. Or did I already tell you she's getting married next week? Gee, guess not.”

It was always a good thing to put about two feet of air space between ear and phone when giving Larry this kind of news. Money kind of news.
“She what?”
Larry bellowed as Joe held the phone in front of him, saving his left ear to hear again another day. “Are you telling me you paid that
fortune
for a house next door to a woman who left you at the altar, damn near ruined your life—and she's getting
married
next week? Is that what you're telling me, Joe?”

There were a few moments of silence, just as predictable as Larry's vocal explosion, before he went on, more quietly, “Why'd you do that, Joe?”

“Because I'm an optimistic idiot?” Joe offered, sliding on his mirrored sunglasses as the glare of sun from the pool struck him straight in the eyes. “Because I thought she'd take one look at me and fall into my arms? Because I'll do anything, even something as stupid and asinine as buying a house, in order to get her attention? And she hates me, Lar. She's breaking out in hives, she hates me so much. Can you believe it? I'm in love with a woman and she breaks out in hives every time she lays eyes on me. I could actually watch them popping up on her chest last night when we were talking. She was wearing these damn pussycat pajamas that were too long for her, and her eyes were so wide and hurt,
and I've been up all night, calling myself every rotten name in the book. So say something nice about me, okay?”

“I'm coming up there,” Larry said shortly. “I'm coming up there, I'm going to find you a nice, safe padded room for the next couple of weeks. You'll be fine, Joe. I promise.”