Marge gave herself one last look in the hall mirror before heading down to the waiting town car. Her normally-wavy, deep-copper hair was straightened and pulled back tightly into a soft, elegant ponytail, accentuating her long, pale neck and her pearls. The royal-blue, brushed silk of the knee-length dress clung to her figure like it always did, setting off her fair skin and subdued, red lipstick, and she wore his favorite pair of heels, even though they made her tower over him when they went out.
The ritual was always the same: table for one, set for two, Bollinger champagne, and roast lamb, even though that wasn't on the usual late-supper menu. Jack Valentino would usually join her for a little while, helping down a glass or two, then leave her alone to simply eat and reminisce. At midnight she would raise a toast to them, then go home.
She usually reminisced about the night they first met, but there were other moments. There was that night they took a walk after one of her performances, when a huge, drunken oaf tried hitting on her there in the street, and wouldn't take no for an answer. Nigel, despite being a talented boxer, charmed the man down, telling one of his funny Devon farm stories. "He was drunk", Nigel explained, afterwards. "It would hardly have been a fair fight." And there was the time when she was performing, and noticed him there, in the front row, mouthing all of her dialogue silently. "Just in case, luv."
There were no weird conversations with an imaginary person; all other diners ever saw was an elegant-looking woman with a wistful smile, eating alone. Occasionally men at the bar would notice her and try and approach to strike up a conversation, but they usually backed off when they saw her wedding rings; Jack only had to intervene once. Marge loved him for that, and loved all her friends for their support, but she had begun to wonder if her insistence on these rituals was truly helping her cope. They certainly hadn't helped with the insomnia; that she was getting more sleep was purely due to the positive influence of the young people she had befriended. In fact, helping them and enjoying their company were the only times that the true pain of her loss actually lessened. But the rituals were still important to her, because they had been so important to him: he delighted in making her feel special, and she wanted him to still know that she had not forgotten how he made her feel.
She didn't want Nigel to think that she had abandoned him.
Making sure the driver knew when to pick her up, Marge walked into The Monarch. She ate there enough times during the year that the hostess recognized her by sight, and immediately ushered her towards her table in the back, by the wall of photographs. Surprisingly, a middle-aged woman diner walked up before they got there, and shyly asked if she was the Margaret Johnson on the wall.
"Why yes," Marge replied, amazed at being recognized at all.
"I saw your performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream when I was in college in New York," she said, "It was fabulous."
"Thank, you, that's very kind," Marge said, with a wide smile, and took the woman's small notebook and pen. "I'm Margaret Bailey now; will that be okay?"
"Oh yes! Congratulations!" the woman, whose name was Bernadette, gushed, but not without noticing the hostess's sad expression and the fact Marge was by herself. Her face fell as Marge finished writing.
"Think nothing of it," Marge said, "Thanks for appreciating my work, and heck, still recognizing me after all these years!"
Bernadette's smile returned. "Are you working on anything now?"
Marge paused. A damned good question, she thought. Her heart answered: "Not now, but maybe soon." The woman beamed and left them.
"Well, that sure as hell doesn't happen very often these days," she said, and the hostess laughed.
"Is it true you are thinking of working again?" she asked. Marge nodded, and the girl, whose name was Pam, and who wanted, more than anything, to be on Broadway, looked delighted.
The hostess left before Marge had a chance to notice something was wrong: there were two place settings on the other side of the table. Thinking she had the wrong table, Marge stood up, looking for a waiter, when she saw Jack walking up with a bottle of champagne in his hand. She waved, started to sit back down, and nearly jumped out of her skin when she realized Finn and Rachel were now sitting at the table as well.
"What the hell are you two doing here?" she snapped, outraged. She felt blindsided, almost violated.
"Marge, we're sorry," Rachel began quickly, "But we had something to ask you..."
"Here? Now? Are you kidding me?" She turned to Jack, imploringly. "What are they doing here?"
Jack beckoned her to sit, which she did, and he dumped the bottle in the champagne bucket by the table before grabbing a chair for himself. Marge was trembling, hot, angry tears welling up. He took her hand.
"Margaret, listen…the kids approached John, Mary and me first, and said all they wanted to do was ask you to join them for your birthday, and that if you didn't want to they would leave." Jack was calm, and Marge could tell he was saying this out of love, not pity. She started to relax. He smiled gently. "We've been friends for many, many years, Margaret. We both loved Nigel, and miss him almost every day. But these kids love you, too. And they're here to honor you. I think Nigel would want you to at least hear them out, don't you think?"
She glanced over at Finn and Rachel, who sat somberly, holding hands. They looked...adorable, she thought. Finn was in a nice black suit jacket and pants and open white shirt, and Rachel wore a pretty red dress, and what was that gleaming on her left hand? The anger and fear drained out of her.
She reached out to get a better look at the ring.
"You were wearing this the first time you came in the diner, remember?" Marge finally smiled. Rachel did, too.
"We decided the time was right to wear it again."
She took Marge's left hand for a closer look.
The engagement ring was gold, with a brilliant, possibly one- carat stone at the center, flanked by diamond chips, four on each side. It looked very old. The guard ring, also gold, had six diamond chips on each side of the engagement ring's setting. The combined effect was that of an exquisite, diamond flower.
"Oh, Marge," Rachel breathed, "They're gorgeous."
"They first belonged to my grandmother Grace," Marge said, dreamily. "A beautiful, elegant lady from Connecticut. My grandfather bought the set in London before coming home from World War One."
She had calmed down. There was no point in being angry; she felt loved, in a much more expansive way than she was used to feeling. Jack spoke up.
"Listen, I may lose my liquor license for this, but I want us all to share a toast." He pulled out the champagne, and presented the bottle, label up, to Marge. "Happy Birthday, Margaret." She looked at the label. It was a 1996 Bollinger, one of the great vintages, and extremely rare now. She stared at Jack.
"Where did you find this?"
"Never you mind," Jack said, "I wanted to help make this birthday special for you." He opened the bottle, and poured the sparkling wine into all of their glasses, then whipped a glass from his jacket pocket and poured himself some as well. Then he stood up, holding it before him.
"Here's to a happy birthday, Margaret, from friends who truly love you, for your wisdom, and huge heart." They clinked glasses, and tasted.
The wine was dry, as a good champagne should be, but Marge noticed it maintained the dry character without actually having a bite to it. Instead, it left a wonderfully soft feel on her tongue, with a complex, almost nutty flavor. Her eyes closed in ecstasy; she swallowed slowly, as if reluctant to let it go.
"Oh, Jack, " she murmured throatily, "I do believe this is better than sex."
Rachel giggled, Finn smiled, and Jack just nodded.
"As all great wine is supposed to be," he proclaimed.
"I never knew champagne could taste as good as this," Rachel said.
"Me neither," said Finn.
"Okay." Marge took another sip, and Jack refilled everyone's glass. "What do you have in mind?"
Finn leaned forward. "We've got a party ready at a very special place. We were able to talk Elena into letting us include Geoff's birthday as well, so, if you don't feel up to it, a party will occur anyway."
"Please Marge," Rachel pleaded, "Let us help you celebrate your birthday. You've been so good to us, we just want to let you know how much we appreciate your kindness. I promise you, we tried to make sure that Nigel would have loved it, too."
She wanted to bristle at the presumption about Nigel, but something about the look in Rachel's face—a serene certainty-stopped her. She was intrigued, and touched. "You don't know what it means to me that you kept him in mind," she said. They all drank up and Jack distributed the rest of the champagne.
"So…"Finn looked at her. "Will you come with us?"
A part of her wanted to decline. She wanted to say she had prematurely lost the love of her life, and that they could never understand. She felt weary, because it seemed she was always falling short of people's expectations about the nature of grief. Nobody came out and said it to her face, but she knew even her closest friends worried that she should have moved on by now. It would just be easier on everyone involved to simply say thanks, but no thanks. After all, they were giving her that out right now.
Her mouth opened, as if to reply, but closed abruptly. A memory, something she hadn't thought about in years, had popped into her head.
They had been hurrying down a busy street, late for an appointment at one of the bakers in the running for their wedding cake. The stress level was high; her mother, Susan, was recommending a specific baker, and had seemingly taken offense when Marge told her she preferred looking at more than one. What was it about weddings, she wondered, that caused adults to revert to being five-year-olds? The stress was heightened by the fact that she and her mother were very close, and the sudden weirdness threw Marge totally off-guard. And to top it off, her father, Martin, and Amos Bailey took an almost instant dislike for one another, getting into a shouting match over some ridiculously trivial political point when they first met, at the engagement party. Nigel, bless his heart, took charge immediately, standing between them, and telling Amos that he wasn't going to let him come across the Atlantic to New York to meet his prospective in-laws, only to get into a barney over Ronald Reagan. And her father, bless his heart too, was shamed into apologizing to Amos, and made amends by introducing him to the pleasures of single-barrel bourbon.
It was not surprising, then, that Marge didn't want to stop on the street to give a panhandler money. The man was young, polite, and very dirty, but seemed able enough to work, yet claimed he hadn't eaten for a couple of days. She wanted to leave-her father often complained about panhandlers, calling them scam artists. And she and Nigel were really in a hurry. She pulled on Nigel's hand, but he resisted.
"Hang on a sec, luv," Nigel said, groping in his pockets. All he had was a five dollar bill.
"You aren't going to give him that, are you?" she complained, irritably. The young man looked down at the ground, embarrassed.
"It's okay, man," he mumbled, shuffling from one foot to the other.
Nigel pressed the bill into the man's hand and turned away before he could protest. Then he started walking with Marge again.
"There. That didn't take long." She took his arm again, but wasn't about to drop the matter.
"You realize he's going to use that money for booze or drugs, right? "
"Or he might use it to buy a meal."
Marge stopped. "Do you really believe that? He just scammed you."
Nigel didn't get angry, or defensive. He just smiled, giving a little shrug.
"Maybe he did," he said softly, 'But I didn't give him the money with any conditions on how he should spend it." He looked at her with a completely open expression, as if what he said made perfect sense.
"Why?" she wondered. Was this some sort of English thing? She was completely unprepared for his answer:
"Beggars are holy men."
She almost came back with a New York wise crack, but stopped, just in time, when she saw him standing there, hands in his pockets, wearing a serene, certain smile. It seemed to emerge from a place deep within him, and she respected Nigel enough not to make fun of it. Perhaps he had acquired this belief when in Nepal; she didn't know. But she did know that she loved him, and that was enough for her to consider, at the very least, expanding her own perspective. It was enriching, she thought, loving this man: it felt like he would take her to places she had never imagined going herself. No man had ever made her feel that way before.
So she just smiled and took his arm again, and they strolled, not rushed, to the bakery, where the samples revealed that her mother had been right all along.
Marge snapped out of her reverie, and drained her glass. She felt a chill, as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, because the smile Rachel was giving her was the one he wore that day, so long ago. It was as if Nigel was saying she could trust her heart to her new friends, and that maybe their desire to celebrate her birthday with her came from the same non-judgmental place his sense of charity did.
"I'd be honored to accompany you," she said.
XXXxxx
Her town car was already waiting outside—Jack had told the driver what to do and where to go, just in case—and Finn held the door for her, then Rachel, then got in himself. There was a wrapped item—obviously a bottle—on the floor, with a card that said "OPEN NOW". Marge laughed. It was from Jack: a second bottle of Bollinger 1996. She hugged it, enjoying the love she was feeling. She didn't ask where they were going, since it was obvious neither Finn nor Rachel was telling her.
"Oh, Marge," Rachel said as they started moving, "You look amazing tonight."
Marge smiled demurely. Rachel had never seen her outside the diner.
"So I clean up nice, then?" Her eyebrows arched. Rachel laughed.
They sat for a few seconds in silence, then Marge took Rachel's hand .
"I'm sorry I snapped at you earlier. "
"We caught you off-guard, Marge, we understand," Finn said, "We truly wanted to give you the chance to just tell us to get lost."
Marge sighed wearily, and lay back against the headrest. "No, no, it's fine. I've been feeling the need to start changing my life for some time. I just didn't have the inner strength to do it—or I thought I didn't." She felt her eyes glistening. "I've been mourning him for so long that I'd forgotten what it was like to live otherwise. And living like this does not honor him, because Nigel would not have wanted me to be this way." She swallowed hard, staring at the ceiling of the car. "He would have wanted me to be happy. But how can I be happy when I miss him so? I miss him every day. "
"How were the two of you different?" Rachel asked, trying to change the mood. It worked, because Marge smiled again, and lifted her head up.
"For Nigel, 'modern theatre' ended in the 1890's," she laughed, "Although he did like O'Neil and Tennessee Williams. I'm more a fan of Peter Handke, Sam Shepard, and Harold Pinter, but I love performing Shakespeare as well." She paused, then added, softly, "And I loved performing Ibsen- for him."
"Musically, I preferred Bach to his Schubert, and we compromised by both enjoying Mozart and Beethoven. And I'm a hardcore Who fan over the Beatles, and a closet Deadhead." Rachel and Finn grinned.
"What about movies?" Finn asked.
She told them how she got him to love Stanley Kubrick's films, and how she came to treasure Lawrence Olivier and Vivien Leigh and Dr Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia , and how the two of them became enthralled together with the midnight showings at the art houses in New York, seeing cult films like Harold and Maude and Brewster McCloud, and the Barbet Schroeder films with the Pink Floyd soundtracks.
And she told them how she was a homebody who hated thinking about or planning road trips, but who loved going on them with him once they were rolling. Like that trip out West two months after they met, where they camped in a meadow beside the Salmon River in Idaho, and he told her he loved her for the first time, under more stars than she ever imagined could fit into the night sky.
There wasn't enough time to tell them how much he loved plum pudding and how much she hated it, nor of his bafflement at her indifference to Vermeer and love of Van Gogh. And how she loved to mingle at parties, while he preferred perusing people's bookshelves or getting into arguments about philosophy.
Nor did she have time to tell them of the evenings she had off where the two of them cuddled on the couch with tea and McVitie's chocolate biscuits, reading: Nigel his beloved Thomas Hardy, and Marge bursting out laughing at Thomas Pynchon's wacky humor. Occasionally, she would read passages to him in her low, expressive voice, and he would listen, engrossed, despite the fact that Pynchon's writing drove him mad.
She chose not to tell them about the awful time they separated, because there were just some memories that she could never release from the refuge of her heart. It lasted only one week, because the pain of being apart was unbearable, and, in a coffee shop at two in the morning, tearfully trying to talk it out, they had ended up laughing themselves silly at how bad they were at that sort of thing.
Ten years. It was hard to believe he had been gone that long. Hard to believe she had quit the stage and sold his farm, and carried his ashes in a vial around her neck because she thought his love would carry her through until she joined him again. But looking at Finn and Rachel and their joy, and talking about Nigel and her with them, something struck her, something she probably knew, deep down, all along: living like this, like she had for the last ten years…she might as well have joined Nigel that sad, bleak morning when he died.
She hadn't been a total hermit—she served in several New York theatre organizations-but Marge knew her friends worried most about her leaving the stage. The Margaret they saw must have appeared to be some kind of zombie, going through the motions, as if unaware that an essential part of herself had died along with him. They didn't know how much she ached to go back to doing what she had loved for so long, or that she was afraid she couldn't do it anymore without him. Going back would probably be the hardest thing she could do, but, maybe, the best thing, too.
Smiling in the back seat of the town car with her young friends, Margaret Bailey felt a chill of fate: she remembered reading in the trades about an upcoming play—a stage version of the 1941 film That Hamilton Woman, about Admiral Lord Nelson's scandalous, but epic affair with Lady Hamilton during the Napoleonic Wars. The film version, with Lawrence Olivier as Nelson and Vivien Leigh as Emma Hamilton was one of Nigel's favorites ("Winston Churchill saw it 83 times, luv!"). Marge had never seen it before meeting him, and Nigel adorably insisted she wait to see it until after they were married, because Olivier and Leigh were newlyweds themselves when the film was made.
Doing the play could be a gift to him, she thought, or, maybe, his gift to her as well. Assuming she got the part, of course, which made her chuckle: who better to play epic romance?
The car pulled to the curb. Looking out for the first time, her heart leapt, and she whipped around and hugged Rachel as tightly as she could.
They were outside the Streiber Theatre.
