Chapter 2. Girls in white dresses.
"When will your divorce be through and finally sealed? Isn't that our main starting date?"
Miranda and Andrea were driving back to Provincetown after their day visiting and cheering up Cindy in Boston, and Andrea was looking over a long list of tasks she'd already identified. She had her trusty reporter's pad on her lap while Miranda took the wheel. When she heard mention of the divorce, Miranda looked as though she was being forced to inhale a bad smell.
"Yes, and I must deal with it pretty pronto. I was assuming the end of this month, but everything seems to have been too quiet for comfort recently. I must talk to Deborah my attorney as soon as we get back to New York. She will be taking the holiday off tomorrow, so there's no point calling her beforehand."
"You've been very quiet about it. You don't have to shield me from unpleasant truths, honey."
"Well, none of it need concern you, my love. You are not even mentioned in the proceedings. He did try to counter-petition, but we blocked that pretty quickly. No, it's just a matter of scraping him off my shoes. I suspect money will help. It usually does."
"Shall I do the research on how we then proceed and actually register in Massachusetts to get married? In the meantime we can talk about the social side, how many people we want to invite, all that stuff. And the vows, are we going to write our own vows?"
Miranda rolled her eyes, and accelerated into the fast lane. "We could write each other's. That would be cute. I could put in yours that you will promise always to obey me, how about that?"
Andrea chuckled, and dared to put her right hand on Miranda's thigh. "Hmm. But what's good for the goose . . . you know? We're both often prone to disobedience when it suits us. Perhaps it's better if we miss out that section altogether."
"Get your hand off me, woman. You're distracting me. There's only one thing I need you to promise me."
"What's that?"
"That this will be my last wedding, that you will never leave me, however foul I am. If you leave me, I will die."
"A bit premature, even thinking like that, don't you think?"
Miranda suddenly went from laughter to seeming close to tears.
"I'm serious, Andrea, really serious. Don't marry me unless you can really mean it. I can think of a thousand reasons why you'd be sensible not to commit for ever, even now. But if you marry me, then not only my heart, but my whole life is in your hands. You have to understand that."
Andrea moved her hand, but only a little way north, to lightly soothe Miranda's chest. She leaned her head and rested it on her driver's shoulder, and whispered very calmly and softly into her ear.
"You do know my answer, don't you? I will marry you with the greatest happiness, and commitment, and one lifetime will never be enough to show you how much I love and adore you. I could never leave you. It would be like tearing out my own heart. Is that clear? Are we good now then?"
Miranda kept driving and looking forward, both hands on the wheel, but Andy saw her eyes fill with tears, and she nodded silently, before saying in one of her whispers, "Yes, we're good. Thank you honey."
And they drove home together through the February evening.
From then on, Miranda's life and her calendar began to get very busy indeed. Firstly she really badly wanted to find out if her brother Charles could come to the wedding, if his performance schedule might allow it. They had talked three or four times a week in the last month, and she knew he was booked to perform in New York again in March, but his dates in May were still unsure.
As soon as they were back at the town-house three days later, she curled up on the kitchen sofa and called him in Sydney where he was back home after a gruelling three months on the road.
"You're free from the 10th to the 20th? Wonderful."
"I'd cancel if necessary anyway. Wild horses won't drive me away. Can I play for you? It would be a privilege."
"Oh Charles, what a lovely thought. We'd be honoured. But there's something else as well. Caroline and Cassidy wrote me the sweetest little waltz as a Christmas present. It's a piano duet at the moment. If I emailed a copy to you, do you think you could look at it and maybe adapt it for cello? They would be so thrilled. You'd probably have to arrange it, smarten it up. But I think it sounds amazing for children of their age, and we could then have it at our reception."
"Miranda, send it through as soon as you can. Of course I'd be delighted. I'll bring it with me then when I come in March, OK? George and I will look at it together."
Miranda's heart swelled with happiness at the idea of her little girls' initiative might have further wings. When they had played it to her on returning belatedly from their father's over Christmas, she had been silenced at their loving gift, but her brother, a world renowned musician, could take it much further.
Then the house phone rang again, and she picked it up quickly, thinking maybe Charles had forgotten to say something important. But this time it was Jenny, Andy's Mom, so they were on the phone together for another twenty minutes talking about quite different things.
Jenny said, "Momma's date for her hip replacement has come through. It's next Tuesday. Andy said she wanted to come, and it would be helpful, because I am tied up at work for all of next week with a difficult set of casework. Momma will need someone here with her when she's discharged, if only to stop her being silly and overdoing things."
"Of course Andrea will want to come, and we'll arrange it. She's out with the twins just now, walking our new hound-dog, but she'll call you back."
Jenny kept Miranda talking. She wanted to know how her friend was doing, and Miranda actually confided in her about the more unsavoury side of her divorce proceedings which she hadn't wanted to spit out in front of Andy. Jenny then said something else, which threw up a whole new idea.
"You know you are planning to take the twins with you both to Italy, but why don't you ask them if they'd like come to Ohio and stay with me and Richard for the Easter Break. We'd love to have them, and we can organise horses for them both. I can take them riding, and also visiting with their cousins. Do you think they might like that, after their father's wedding?"
Miranda's brain worked overtime, assessing this very kind offer but she knew just what the twins' response would be. "I'm sure they'd love that, if you don't mind. It would make things a little simpler, if it's just Andy and me going to Italy this time. We'll discuss it as a family and then get back to you."
After the phone call, she picked up the large calendar which Andy had hung on the kitchen wall and turned the pages to April and May. So much to organise! She wondered when she'd had any time to go to work before. And the precious sabbatical year was already half over.
Pumpkin, growing fast and fluffing up as a young ginger long-furred cat, jumped up onto the counter in front of her and rubbed his head under her chin. For all his faults, he was a very tactile cat, who loved cuddles, and Miranda, despite all appearance to the opposite, shared this with him. She too loved to be fondled and caressed, especially by Andy. In this she and Pumpkin were as one.
The Italian trip had now to be booked. The twins, when they heard the news of the chance to spend ten days in darkest Ohio, literally jumped for joy. Miranda and Andy were both highly amused about how their tastes had changed from a year previously, when the idea of spending time out in rural America would have filled them with horror, or at least exaggerated expressions of boredom.
"Going to camp last August really worked wonders for them didn't it?" asked Andy later that night, after the twins' bedtime, and as she and Miranda sat making some firm plans round school semesters and public holidays.
"Yes, and don't forget how their absence worked wonders for you and me as well. It kicked off everything, me hauling you over here the evening before they went and asking you to do 'research' for me,"
"Yes, on entomology!"
"It was that night when I made a secret vow to get you in my bed, one way or other, even if it killed me. I remember you coming through the door, so warm, so pink, and slightly annoyed after I'd broken up your little drinks party with Sal. I could have eaten you alive."
"I know. We were building up to a crisis, weren't we? We couldn't have lasted much longer anyway, even if we hadn't gone to the French party together."
"I shall miss you terribly when you go to Ohio to be with your Momma. Do you realise, apart from that one horrible night when you were in hospital, we haven't been apart since we started."
"I know. But I'll call you every day. It will be for less than a week, and maybe I can get some writing done as well. Now then, when is Cindy coming down to New York, and will she stay with us?"
"Tomorrow, but she's bringing her mother and they'll have a stopover in a hotel together, she said. Do you want to come? You could look at dresses for yourself as well."
"No darling, I am going to write and catch up the hours I missed while we were away. I am sure between you and Nigel, you will sort out my wedding dress."
"I wish you were more excited about how gorgeous we can make you look."
"No, you don't, not really. We only need one diva and fashionista in this family. Though, have you noticed? Caroline has started looking at clothes with much more interest recently. I went through the sketches she has done with the paints I gave her for Christmas, and many of them are of girls in dresses!"
"'Girls in white dresses, with blue satin sashes.' Maybe I should take Caroline with me to choose your dress then."
"Yes, do that! She'd enjoy it. But bridesmaids dresses for Cindy and Geoff's wedding, they are the first thing you all need to decide on. They'll need making up."
"So much to do, and so little time to do it! Are we going to bed now, then?"
"Yes, Miranda. Just let me settle the animals in the kitchen for the night, and then I'll be yours."
Miranda smiled.
"Don't dawdle, will you? I hate it when people are late for important appointments."
Andrea said nothing, but her answer was in her expression.
Miranda smiled again and began to climb the stairs, slowly.
With luck Andy might catch her up before she reached the top.