My Lucky Stars (19 page)

Tara grimaced. “No, thanks. Miss Perfection and I don’t get along so well—in case you haven’t noticed.”

I’ve noticed.
Jane suppressed a grimace of her own. Last night she’d spent the evening acting as referee between them. She paused in the doorway and turned to face Tara again. “Cut her some slack. She’s had a rough year and been hurt a lot. She’s just trying to protect me.”

“From what?” Tara asked. She yawned and stretched, her long, almost clawlike nails reaching toward the ceiling. Between her stripes and wild hair, she did look a little like a predatory cat.

“From you.” Jane met Tara’s surprised gaze.

“That’s the dumbest—like I’d do anything—”

Jane held a hand up, stopping her. “There are many ways people can get hurt.”

“Don’t I know it.” Tara fell back onto the bed. “No worries, though. I’ll stick around long enough for you to have those kids.”

“I wasn’t thinking about that,” Jane said, catching Tara’s eye again. “But more about what can happen between friends when one really cares—and the other doesn’t.”

* * *

“I think,” Tara’s shrill voice carried down the hall, “that at thirty-four years of age I should be able to pick my own clothes.”

One would think so.
With a sigh, Jane closed her scriptures then braced herself for what was sure to be another confrontation. A few seconds later, Tara breezed into the room and turned a circle, showing off a skirt that had a slit almost all the way up to her hip. On closer inspection, Jane saw that the skirt was actually a dress—of sorts—the top being the perilously low-cut halter variety.

Oh boy.
For the past week she’d done her best to ignore Tara’s immodest clothing. Maddie was still young enough that she hadn’t questioned things
too
much. But Jane knew there was no way she could send Tara to church dressed—or
not
dressed—as she was right now. The ward members, as good as they tried to be, were bound to feel uncomfortable with such blatant immodesty, and likely there would be more than a stare or two directed her way. The last thing Jane wanted was Tara’s first church experience to be uncomfortable.

“Aunt Jane, the bishop will kick Tara out if she shows up wearing that.”

“The bishop won’t kick anyone out,” Jane quickly corrected. “Nor would he ask her to leave.”

“See.” Tara shot an I-told-you-so look Jessica’s direction. “Where are the girls? Let’s go.”

“They’re on the back porch, but—” Jane raised herself to a sitting position on the sofa. “Uh—actually there
is
a problem with that dress. It’s likely you’d attract some unwanted attention.”

“Why?” Tara asked. “You said all the women would be wearing dresses or skirts.”

“They will.” Jane hesitated, wanting to proceed with caution. She tried to imagine what it would be like if she hadn’t had modesty ingrained in her from the time she was a very little girl. If she’d really had no concept of her body being sacred.

“The top is slit down to your belly button,” Jessica blurted. Like her mother, Caroline, she had no problem being bold.

“Is not,” Tara said, looking down. “That’s just a birthmark I had embellished a little.”

“Ugh.” Jessica turned away, looking repulsed.

Jane found herself fighting the urge to laugh, though the situation really wasn’t funny. Tara saw nothing wrong with the way she dressed, and Jane wasn’t sure she knew how to help her realize that the way she displayed her body was only serving to attract the wrong kind of men.

“It’s just that because the top is so low, because we can see so much . . . real estate . . . people are going to feel uncomfortable. The dresses most women will be wearing today are a bit more—”

“Appropriate,” Jessica finished. Her arms were folded across her chest, and she had a rather smug, self-righteous look on her face.

“
Conservative.
” Jane frowned at her niece. “Jess, why don’t you wait outside with the girls.”

A brief flicker of hurt crossed Jessica’s face, but she marched past the two of them and went outside. Jane knew she’d have ruffled feelings to smooth over there later, but right now her bigger concern was Tara.
How can I help without hurting her?

“I’m glad to see you’ve taken my side. That little snot has been on my case all morning. She even did some lame head, shoulders, knees, toes routine about not showing your ankles in public.”

This time Jane did laugh. She could only imagine Tara’s reaction to the modesty rhyme the young women of the Church were often taught. “Ankles are okay.” She glanced down at Tara’s slender ankles, shown off by strappy sandals and an anklet that coordinated with her toe ring.

“But if your shoulders are bare, it’s a shirt you shouldn’t wear.” Tara wagged a finger and did her best to imitate Jessica. “Seems like your church is kind of hung up on body parts.”

“I can see how you’d think that.” Jane sent a silent prayer heavenward that she’d say the right thing. “We believe our bodies are a gift from God. We’re made in His likeness—he has a body too—and we have the greatest respect for Him and His gift.” When Tara didn’t say anything, Jane forged ahead. “To show that respect, we dress modestly, reserving the privilege of sharing our bodies with only our husband or wife.”

“So, I am like, the biggest sinner ever?” Tara’s voice wavered between hurt and haughty.

“No—I mean, it’s different when you haven’t been taught.”

“I’m not five, and I don’t appreciate being treated like that,” Tara shot back. “First Ellen, now you.”

“What did Ellen do?”

“Nothing—never mind.”

“You’re breaking our deal to trust me,” Jane reminded her, but her tone wasn’t scolding. She knew pain when she saw it, and beneath Tara’s contempt, Jane could see misery.

Tara shrugged and sat on the arm of the sofa. “Ellen told Ben that I didn’t
know
any better. Like I was some little kid or something. I’d kind of forgotten about it—until now. Thanks a lot.”

Jane reached over, taking Tara’s hand in hers and squeezing. “She didn’t mean it that way, and neither did I. You have to understand that Mormons are raised differently. We grow up constantly hearing that how we dress affects who we are, and the kind of people we’ll attract and ultimately be with.”

“Dress for success,” Tara muttered. “I think I figured that out somewhere along the way.”

“Did you?” Jane looked into her friend’s sorrowful gaze. “Have you had much luck attracting good, decent guys? Or—” Jane lowered her voice. “Is it possible you got mixed up about what real success is?”

“Don’t criticize me,” Tara warned. “Don’t you dare try to tell me that success is
this—
a lovely three-bedroom home—white picket fence included—a husband who’s off flying his helicopter in a war zone, a goody-two-shoes little girl who says her prayers every night, and being big and fat and miserable with more brats kicking around inside you.”

Ouch.
In her younger days, Jane knew she would have gotten up and marched out of the room at such a speech, leaving Tara to stew in her own problems. But she’d learned a thing or two about patience the past couple of years.

And answers to prayers—strange though they may seem.
Jane hadn’t imagined the feeling—no,
knowledge
—that she and Maddie would be taken care of the next few months. And while Tara certainly wasn’t the answer she’d been expecting, Jane knew that Tara was supposed to be here as much for herself as to help. She took a deep, calming breath before she spoke again.

“Okay. I won’t tell you that’s success. But I’ll tell you it’s happiness.”

“Sure it is.” Tara let out an indelicate snort. “Taking care of everybody and everything all the time. Making sure they eat and say prayers and have clean clothes and go to church. I’m not even you, probably not doing half of what you usually do around here and for your daughter, and I’ve hardly had ten seconds to myself since I walked through your door.”

“I never said it would be easy.”

“
Easy
?” Tara snorted again. “It’s exhausting. And then your church adds all this modesty and—
this
.” Tara threw her arms out, making a point to look at the Proclamation on the Family, the Living Christ, and the pictures of the Savior hanging on the wall. “It’s nuts, that’s what it is, what you are now, Jane.” She turned to her, a pleading look in her eyes. “Don’t you miss the old days when you could come and go anytime? When you could eat out, spend money how you liked, fit into something besides a bathrobe?”

“I do miss wearing the clothes in my closet,” Jane admitted, but she patted her stomach affectionately as she spoke. “As for the rest of it, though . . . I
don’t
miss coming and going everywhere
alone
, eating out by
myself
, having no one to talk to, share with, plan with. Sure, I had a lot more free time then, but life was empty.”

“So those are my choices—empty or exhausted. I guess I’ll stick with empty, thank you very much.” Tara rose from the sofa then walked down the hall to her room.

Jane followed, arriving in time to see Tara retrieving her suitcase from the floor.

Jane sighed. “What happened to staying until the babies are born?”

“Sorry. I can’t handle this. I don’t know why you want me here, anyway. I’m not good with kids—even yours, who is super nice—and I can’t change my life for some farmer in Ohio I’ll never see again.” She plopped the suitcase on the bed and started scooping things into it.

“Well, that’s a relief,” Jane said. “I was afraid that’s what this was all about.”

“What?” Tara paused, hands on hips as she stared down at Jane.

“I was afraid that you quitting your job, leaving LA, showing up here—it was all so you could figure out how to get this guy, Ben. And I knew that would never work. A person can’t change for someone else. If you want to be different, be truly happy, then it has to be
from
yourself,
for
yourself.”

“I want to be left alone.”

“Done.” Jane took a step backward, into the hall. “But I really do need you right now. I wish you’d stay.”

“
Need
. There it is. There’s that word I keep hearing.” Tara yanked several hangers full of clothes from the closet and tossed them toward the suitcase. She mimicked Maddie’s high voice. “Tara, I need a drink. Tara, you need to go to church. Tara, you need to get some milk at the store. Tara, you need to change your wardrobe. I’m not used to all this
need
. It’s making me crazy. And what about me? What about what
I
need?”

“What
do
you need?” Jane asked quietly. “Tell me, and I’ll do anything in my power to get it for you.”

“I need—I—” Tara faltered. She pulled another dress from the closet and held it close to her heart. “I don’t know anymore. I just—don’t know.”

“What if
I
do?” Jane whispered. She walked into the room again, stopping a foot away from Tara.

They stood across from each other, Tara in her size-seven revealing dress, Jane in her stretched-to-the-max bathrobe. “Trust me,” she pled. “I care about you, Tara. I love you. I want to help.”

“Why should I trust you? Look what you’ve gone and done to yourself since I last saw you. You’re a mess.”

Jane grinned. “So are you.”

“I am,” Tara agreed, tears suddenly spilling from her eyes. Jane held out her arms. Tara only hesitated a second then stepped into Jane’s embrace, crying on her shoulder.

Twenty-Three

“You should wash that bathrobe,” Tara said, frowning as she looked down at the black smeared across the shoulder of Jane’s robe.

“You should wear less makeup,” Jane said, her mouth twisting in a familiar smile.

Tara resisted the urge to hug her again. Being in her embrace, hearing Jane say she cared about her,
loved
her even, had been the best moment she’d had in a very long time.

Since Ben’s kiss.
Tara froze, her fingers on the keys to Jane’s car.
That’s what was different about Ben’s kiss.

When other men had kissed her, usually after a date (sometimes before), there hadn’t been any emotion—
aside from desire
—involved. But Ben’s kiss had conveyed so much more. He’d felt bad for her situation. He’d been sorry for giving her a hard time. Somehow, in spite of all their arguing, he’d liked her too. She’d felt all that.
And when he held me afterward . . .
She remembered the comforting feeling of her head against his chest, his arms around her.

She remembered how it had scared her a little. And the hurt in Ben’s eyes when she’d told him she was going to ride with Ellen.
He felt something too.

“You okay?” Jane asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Just trying to talk myself into going out in public like this.” Tara splayed her fingers across Jane’s white sweater that she’d borrowed. It was so . . .
plain.
Her thoughts slid back to Ben’s kiss.
He kissed me because he cared about me. As much as I’d annoyed him, he still cared about me. And when I kissed him in the truck, it was because
I
cared about him. Wow.

It was with this startling revelation still in her mind that Tara loaded the girls in the car and drove to church. Even Jessica’s brooding silence couldn’t cast a pall on the glorious feeling coursing through her.
Ben cared. I cared. It was magic. Could I have that again? Is that what Jane and Peter have? I
should
trust her. Maybe, as with her Gertrude’s Mystery nightwear, she’s on to something.

The glowing feeling Tara felt inside lasted all the way until they entered the chapel full of strangers. There were children everywhere. Teenagers. Babies. Families. People who dressed like Jane, in stuffy suits and dresses with sleeves. Tara knew at once that coming had been a bad idea.
No way I’m going to blend in here.
Only Maddie’s insistent hand, tugging her inside, kept her from bolting.