Miranda's Wedding Chapter 13.
On the Sunday afternoon before her wedding, Miranda drove her Porsche out of the garage, and headed south down to Greenwich Village, to the address Emily had given her, which was the apartment she now shared with Serena. It was in an expensive area, almost in the same price bracket as the Upper East district where Miranda lived, so she guessed Serena must be paying the lion's share of the rent.
Miranda's heart was heavy, and the responsibility of what she about to do weighed heavily on her, but it had to be done.
"Will you be OK on your own?" Andy had been anxious for her, and for Emily, knowing the likely outcome of the afternoon's interview, but she'd smiled, and said. "I'll be fine. Don't worry. Just keep an eye on the twins for me, there's a love."
"Oh, of course, we are all going to take Tilly into Central Park to run off some steam in the sunshine. You could join us there later, if you like."
"No, I'd better not promise to be back at a certain time. I hope I'll see you all at dinner, and by then Charles may be home after his trip to Boston, so we can find out what he's discovered."
So the afternoon might end on a pleasanter note than it would begin. She hoped so. Driving through central Manhattan took concentration, even on a Sunday afternoon, and she had never been to Serena's place, but the soothing tones of the GPS woman behind the dashboard guided her there safely, and she found some on-street parking close by.
She pressed the bell at ground level, and looked up at the mid-rise block of apartments. Then she heard Emily's voice in the intercom.
"Miranda? I'm opening the door. Please come up to the third floor. The elevator is just in front of you."
The heavy street door swung open as if by magic, and Miranda entered. She was wearing a business suit and heels, dressed for work, because this encounter would be anything but informal, and she instinctively knew that Emily might be reassured to see her in clothes she recognised and related to.
She held her breath and coped with the small elevator. Every time she entered an elevator Miranda had an exasperatingly common little panic attack. It was a residue of a claustrophobia bestowed on her as a small child by her step-father, who enjoyed throwing her down into the coal cellar as a fun punishment, and had once fallen asleep in a drunken stupor and forgotten her until the following morning. But the third floor arrived within seconds, and she could breathe again.
She turned left down the corridor, and Emily had come out of the apartment to greet her.
"Dad's here," she said. "Thank you for coming." Though she still wasn't sure why Miranda was gracing them with the visit.
The flat was immaculate, stylish and bright, as Miranda had imagined it might be. When she entered, she saw her old protagonist sitting in a chair by the window. He looked older than when she had seen him only five months before, but at least he had taken off his stiff dog-collar, and was dressed like anyone else. He could pass in any crowd without being noticed.
Emily felt the awkwardness of the meeting, and said, "Would you like to sit down, Miranda? Can I offer you a coffee, or a tea?"
Miranda remained standing, but replied, "No dear, I'm fine. Could I just have a few words alone with your father? Do you mind?"
Emily gulped visibly and shook her head. "No, of course not. I'll just go into the bedroom and um, do some tidying up."
It was a very small apartment, so there was little choice of places to go to give them privacy. Emily backed away and went off into the bedroom, closing the door behind her. Then they heard her turn on the radio, as an extra reassurance that she couldn't hear them through the door. Miranda walked over to the window, and turned so the light came from behind her, and Trevor had to blink slightly to read her expression.
"So we meet again Bobby."
"Yes. As you see I haven't said anything else to Emily about how unhappy I am with this idea of hers to get married to her girlfriend. I kept my side of the bargain."
"As I recall, there was no bargain struck. I only urged you to do the decent thing, the Christian thing, to show a little love and understanding."
She could see him flinch slightly as she invaded his territory of being a card-carrying evangelical Christian.
"But there's something much more important at stake here. I think you know that. Emily really has to be told the truth. You can't keep it from her. Serena's father has already threatened to put out private investigators on you, to check Emily is clean and won't bring his family into disrepute, did you know that? He may already have done it.
"But when they do some digging, how long do you think it will be before your true identity and background comes out? It could ruin Emily's happiness for ever, hearing it from men hired by her fiancée's father. It could stop their marriage, and also wreck her chances of a reconciliation with you. This is why you have to tell her, now, while I'm here. You've had more than enough time, and she's not a child anymore. She's a grown woman."
"Why do you care?"
"Because Emily is, or was, my personal assistant for nearly three years, and someone I have a deep sense of responsibility about. She's almost family."
"She's the only family I have too. I have always tried to shield her, but I suppose your sins will always find you out. Who would have known that little Miriam would be the avenging angel who would swoop down and find me out, after all these years?"
He looked up at her. "After Christmas, I remembered you more and more clearly. You had long red braids down your back, and then you had them cut off, and overnight turned into a little looker. I remember Charlie Reynolds had a bit of thing for you."
At the very mention of that name, Miranda's eyes flashed. "A bit of a thing? Yes it was a bit of a thing. He caught me behind the fish and chip shop on the Walworth Road and raped me. I was barely fourteen, and still a virgin. It completely traumatised me. I didn't speak of it for weeks, then when my period didn't come, my foster mother took me for a test, and when they found I was pregnant, I was allowed to have an abortion. I even named him, but the police said there was no corroborating evidence, He was one of your best mates as I recall."
"Oh, I am so sorry. I never knew. He died of a heroin overdose in his twenties, if that is any consolation."
"What do you think?"
Miranda looked back on that year with such sadness, but it had galvanised her into action, and had eventually helped her build an armour plate of forged steel round her emotions.
"Because of you and your drug-running, all of us foster kids were sent away to other parts of London, and I lost touch with everyone. But this, today, isn't about me. It's about you and Emily. If you do love her, and want to be in her life, then tell her what happened, how you repented and reformed, how you are still repenting, and you are genuinely sorry for trying to block her love for Serena.
"I am going to bring her out of the bedroom. She must have sorted her socks by now. And I am going to leave you alone in here together. You can do it, Bobby. I know you can. You can't be more frightened of your own daughter than you are of all those mobsters who used to be chasing you across London for stealing their trade."
"Yes, send her in. If P.I.s are after me, then it won't be long before the police will be as well. I have lied blatantly on my immigration visa-waiver forms, but they are getting so much tighter after 9-11, I think they'll be on to me soon. And Marcy, my new partner, her daughter actually lives with another gay cop, which is how we met at your party. My life seems to have gone full-circle in the last six months, it's crazy."
Miranda decided it was time to move, before he got more cold feet, and went across to the bedroom door.
"Emily, please come out now. Your Dad and I have had our little chat, and he has some things to tell you. While you talk privately, I'm going to take the opportunity, if you don't mind, to sit at your make-up bar and give myself a manicure. I'm sure you have some interesting shades I can try out."
Emily looked at Miranda with her mouth open. "Oh . . .Yes . . . here . . .Try these."
She pulled out a large tray of various colours, and ample supplies of nail buffers and files, along with cotton removal pads.
"That will be lovely. Thank you."
And Miranda pushed Emily gently back out into the living room and closed the door on her. She took the liberty of retuning the radio from pop to PBS and turned the sound up even louder. Then she tried to focus on replacing her perfectly adequate manicure, with something new from Emily or Serena's palette. The bright purple looked quite interesting, or maybe the green.
It was fifteen minutes later, as Miranda was listening to a talk about sustainable bee-keeping in Wisconsin, and had almost reached her seventh finger nail, when she heard a sharp cry from the next room, and then a sound of sobbing which went on for several minutes.
Oh dear. Well finally the truth had been born. She carefully screwed up the bottle of varnish and turning, stood up. There was the sound of a door shutting, and then the bedroom door opened. Emily stood there, tears streaming down her face.
Miranda walked towards her, and Emily fell into her open arms in what might be accurately called floods of tears.
"Sshh, there, there. Just cry it out. It will be all right. Far better that you know."
"It's. . . it's just the shock, you know . . . I would never have dreamed in a thousand years . . ." she gulped, too shocked to realise that Miranda, who had never touched her, and who had seemed previously to hate any show of emotion, was now soothing her, if not like a mother, then very close to it.
"And you knew this, all along? Why would you keep it to yourself?"
"I only realised when I met him again at Christmas. I wanted him to tell you. But Emily, he is still the same man who brought you up. He's been hiding from the past in the Church all these years maybe, but he is still your father. And now he's told you the truth. You can start to have an honest relationship."
"I sent him away," sobbed Emily. "I told him I hated him and wanted him gone. I think he's gone to Marcy's. But I didn't really mean it . . he's my Dad, and I still love him. Oh Miranda, what shall I do?"
"Use my handkerchief to dry your eyes while I make us both a cup of tea."
Emily accepted the little folded square gratefully, and even in this crisis, thought how stylish it was of Miranda to have a perfectly laundered cotton handkerchief about her person. (She didn't realise that Miranda had just a few days ago had accepted the same handkerchief gratefully from Andy's Mom, and now kept it as a little talisman.)
She sat down on the couch, hardly knowing what to do or think next. Her father's set of wedding clothes hung in a garment bag from a hook on the apartment door, and seeing them brought on a fresh wave of misery.
"Do you think Serena will possibly still have me, once she knows I'm the daughter of a jail-bird? Apparently he was sentenced to seven years!"
"Well, he got out in five, he told me, for good behaviour." Miranda realised, as she said it, that this was of little comfort.
"And my poor mother never knew a thing!"
"It seems not. He really did start a new life, moved a hundred miles away from London, and settled down. He's no longer a criminal, Emily."
Miranda brewed them both a cup of tea with a bag between two mugs, and passed one to the girl.
"Do you think so?"
"I trust so. He told me, and I think he was telling the truth. He's pretty much a broken man, Emily, and he does seem to love his new partner."
"But, Miranda, if he came into the USA, not once, but twice, under false pretences, isn't he an illegal alien?"
"Probably. Especially with a conviction for drug-dealing. But . . ."
Miranda looked anxiously at Emily, who she could see was about to have a complete melt-down.
"But Emily . . . listen to me. It's only a week to the wedding. Why don't we hope for the best? I think you should message your father and tell him you still love him. Let him stay with Marcy until you both calm down, and after you have had a chance to talk to Serena, then we can think it through again. Do you want me to stay with you while you call her?"
"I don't know! She'll be with her family by now. Oh Miranda, they'll never let her marry me now. My life is ruined."
"Hush, no it's not, not at all." Miranda hugged Emily and rocked her back and forth against her chest.
"Look, I don't like leaving you here on your own. Come back to the town house with me. You can talk to Serena from there. We have a spare bedroom available, now that Hannah and Harry have left for Cape Cod, and Andy and I will look after you. Do you have your father's number?"
"Yes. Of course."
"Well ring him."
Emily sniffed pathetically, but tried to make the call with shaking fingers.
"It's gone straight onto answerphone."
"Then just leave a message. Everything will look better tomorrow. I promise."
Emily did leave a voice message, halting and very sad, but she told her father she still loved him, and hoped they could work through everything. But not to return to the apartment as she was going to stay overnight with Miranda.
Then Miranda briskly washed up their empty tea mugs, (Emily goggled at this) and told her to pack an overnight bag. Emily obeyed, and they drove back up to the town-house together.
When Andy opened the door, she raised her eyebrows in concern on seeing the pair of them, but Miranda shook her head to discourage any questions.
"Emily is staying with us tonight, girls," she said to the twins. "I'm just showing her up to her room."
Cassie and Caroline, still warm from running all over Central Park, looked up at Andy with little pink, puzzled faces.
"Why is Emily here?" asked Caroline. "And why has Mom only got nail-varnish on six fingernails?"
"It's like a cop thriller," declared Cassie. "Or the end of the world! I've never seen the like!"
This made Andy roar with laughter, as this was one of Momma's favorite expressions.
"Not the end of the world, sweetie. Perhaps it's the latest look in manicures. Come on, let's check through your homework, and make sure it's all done for school tomorrow. Mommy will be down soon, and then we'll find out what has been happening. But be nice to Emily. She may have had bad news."
They went to get their school books like good little girls, but Cassie whispered as she went, "I still think Emily is a snobby-boots. But she is nicer than she used to be, or maybe we just know her better."
"Most people are nicer when you know them better," declared Andy, and she spoke the truth. People are nicer, when you understand them better, even the worst sort, which Emily certainly wasn't.