Christmas 2004
Washington
"This winter garden is wonderful, you couldn't have chosen a better location for your wedding," Trisha said watching Kelly.
She was overthinking and constantly checking the clock.
"Kelly?" Trisha tried to get her attention.
"Uh yeah," she replied, "it's beautiful. I had to wait two years to get it, it's just that Brandon should have been here."
"You know how it is, there must have been something he have to do at the last minute"
"Probably," Kelly replied sadly, "it's just that he promised me."
"Well," Trisha smiled, looking into the distance, "late but he kept his promise," she said, pointing to him as Brandon was entering the wrought iron gate, his hands were raised and his blue eyes full of sincere regret.
"I'm sorry," he said as he approached Kelly and gave her a kiss on the lips, "I did it before I could."
Kelly regained her smile, she was used to Brandon's delays, the election campaign was about to begin and she knew that his free time was shrinking a lot, she was happy that he was with her, she intertwined her hand with Brandon's.
"I'm ready and focused to listen," he said with a warm smile, "I'm sorry for the delay," he said, kissing her temple, took his cell phone and turned it off as a sign of full commitment to those two hours he had promised Kelly and the organization of their wedding.
"Look," he said, shaking it in his hands and laying it on the coffee table, "I'm not there for anyone but my future wife."
Trisha smiled and Kelly along with her.
"Wow," said Brandon looking around "this place is really beautiful."
The winter garden was full of white violets and some very light lilac in color, there were weeping willows, some always green semi-fatty plants that could withstand the lowest temperatures.
The winters in Washington could be very harsh, but they would have placed heating mushroom stoves and with a little luck the ceremony could be done outside.
The reception instead was in the internal premises. The room would be set up with round tables and white tablecloths, the centerpieces of crystals, violets, white and lilac, and each chair would be upholstered with white fabric and bows on the backrest in lilac color.
Kelly had organized the Furters' wedding in that place and had fallen in love with it at first sight, one of the first weddings she had organized in Washington. The marriage par excellence that had earned her clientele and knowledge. Hers was a small business started with a thousand fears and with the constant support of Brandon. Organizing weddings and events was something she knew how to do and liked to do, her degree in psychology served her to understand married couples, to guess what they could like, what kind of character they had, after a few months her name had begun to turn in the political salons of Washington and had treated two marriages of two daughters of senators, people who could spend a lot of money, three months later she had hired Trisha and Samantha, who had become friends as well as excellent collaborators.
Kelly had felt proud of herself, and she didn't care about having to ask her father for the money, she needed financial liquidity to support the first expenses, take a place in the city center, renovate it, buy the furniture. Start from the beginning.
She blessed every day the decision to leave Beverly Hills and be flown to Washington. She blessed every day that she was able to change her life, that she didn't stop at sentimental and personal failure, that she had sought a new way, a new way for herself.
Kelly blessed to have changed skin and to have managed to make important decisions, to have taken risks.
" I would have liked to organize your wedding in Beverly Hills," Trisha said as she wrote some notes.
Brandon looked at Kelly who looked back at him "our life is here now," she replied "in Beverly Hills there are some friends left who will come to the wedding, now our friends are here, Brandon's co-workers, you and Samantha, in these three years we have met so many people."
Brandon smiled.
The wedding location had been one of the topics addressed but Kelly had been pretty determined. She had chosen to start over, Washington had been the light for her in a moment of total darkness, there was nowhere else where she wanted to celebrate her marriage to Brandon.
"When will your parents arrive, Brandon?"
"They will be here on Saturday and so will Brenda," he replied.
Kelly smiled, she couldn't wait to see Brenda. Their relationships had been reconnected for a long time, their friendship had had very high moments and desperate moments, but before taking that flight to Washington Kelly had called Brenda, they had had a long conversation, in which Kelly had cried,. Suddenly Kelly had resurfaced from the past and silence and had called Brenda.
Three years earlier. Christmas 2001.
London, 4.00 a.m.
Brenda's phone began to ring insistently. Brenda rolled into the bed and pulled out a hand from under the blankets.
"Yes?"
On the other side she only felt convulsive sobs.
"Brenda.."
She hasn't heard that voice in years.
"Kelly?" She asked in disbelief and still sleepy. Kelly kept soobbing and couldn't say a word.
"Kelly..." Brenda repeated again "what's wrong? What happened?"
"I'm sorry," she replied.
Brenda took a look at the clock, 4.00 in the morning. She Sighed.
"Kelly you have to calm down otherwise I can't understand what you're saying"
"I'm sorry" she kept repeating, trying to control her breathing.
"For what? What do you mind?"
"For everything"
Brenda put herself in a sitting position. Outside the snow was falling slowly and whitewashing London.
It was a quiet and beautiful landscape. Brenda could see it from her bed and gave her serenity. She was no longer the same little girl who left Los Angeles. She was a woman, she had a job, she had a million friends in London, she had built her own house and she was on her own way.
Kelly calmed down and the two girls began to talk. Brenda didn't quite understand why Kelly had chosen her, but she immediately realized that she was desperate, that she was in a total darkness, and in that she felt lost she hadn't called Brandon, she hadn't called Donna, she had chosen her.
"You're not a failure Kelly"
"Yes I am"
"No, you're not"
"Brenda .. look at me. I work in Donna's store, I couldn't keep a relationship up, I have a drug addict history, I'm not able to be alone, what's wrong with me"
"There's nothing wrong with you" Brenda was uncertain , she hadn't heard Kelly in years, she had only known anything about her until Brandon had stayed in Beverly Hills, but after they called off the marriage and Brandon left for Washington, she hadn't heard from her, and she honestly didn't want to have any, she had known that Dylan had returned to Los Angeles and had tried to win back Kelly because he too was completely unable to accept the challenges of change and Kelly was his comfort zone. Two people who grew up in the broth of abandonment hardly know anything else and it seems that they feel comfortable only in the misfit and toxic relationships in which they were born. They only know those.
But Dylan was Dylan and had not been able to resist with Kelly, three months after Donna and David's marriage, after promising Kelly a world that he didn't own one morning either he was gone. He had left her.
"I don't think I want to talk about Dylan," Brenda said trying to anticipate Kelly but it didn't seem like a topic that interested her.
"For years I have envied everything about you," Kelly began to tell.
"Of me?"
'Of you' she confirmed 'the skill at school, the sympathy, the sweetness, the ability to do things, the boyfriend'.
Brenda rolled her eyes "I don't think I want to talk about him," she said again.
"We won't talk about him," Kelly replied, cleared her voice, her face was totally wet with tears, she was squatting on the floor in the beach house, where she now lived alone. The Martins had bought David and Donna a house in the city center and Kelly had been left alone in the beach house.
Kelly was made up, her hair gathered in a tail, her feet barefoot, her backs to the wall.
"I envied everything that belonged to you, and you were right, I wanted everything that was yours, I really didn't want to accept that you were better than me, together we grew up, we went to parties, sometimes I was surprised at myself because I understood that I was close to you to control you better, so that you wouldn't slip out of my hands, being the most popular person was all I had, everything I had managed to get, and you came from Minnesota and you always succeeded everything so easy, Dylan had fallen in love with you in no time, I looked at you And I wanted everything you had. When you had a hard time with him I thought that after all I deserved a love like that too, that I could have had it, but I didn't know I was looking for it in the wrong place, in the wrong person."
"Kelly, what are you talking about?" '
"A few days ago I bought some cocaine,' she said in a very serious tone, 'I told myself that deep down I deserved it if I didn't have anything.'
Brenda muted.
Kelly laughed hysterically "I came home. I spread it on the table. Then you know what I was thinking?"
"To what?" Asked Brenda.
"That it was Christmas and that I always loved Christmas, and that I hadn't even made the Christmas tree and put on the decorations then I asked myself when it was that I had stopped being a cheerful person. Carefree. When did I stop playing and be light"
"From that summer," Brenda said.
"Yeah...The guilt has eaten me all these years, the truth is just that, and I never told the only person I should have told: to you."
"It's been centuries Kelly..." sighed Brenda.
"Not for me," she said.
A few seconds of silence followed.
"What did you do with cocaine?" Asked Brenda.
Kelly smiled in tears "nothing"
Brenda closed her eyes "I'm happy."
"Anyway, your brother wouldn't have been there to save me this time and I would probably have slipped day after day, day after day."
"Like Dylan"
"You said you didn't want to talk about him," Kelly said.
"In fact, I don't want to"
Kelly bit her lips "I don't know what to do Brenda, I feel empty and desperate" the tears started to rise in her throat again.
"What do you like to do?" Brenda asked "what is one thing you really like to do?"
"Cleaning the house" Kelly burst into an amused laugh and so did Brenda. "No, no...I'm serious," Kelly said, "I've become a cleanliness maniac, apart from the store I don't have much to do."
"Kelly..." whispered Brenda.
"It seems to me," she said, "it seems to me that my life is slipping into my hands, Steve and Janet are married, Donna and David, you have a magnificent home in London and a job that you love, Brandon..." Kelly stopped for a moment, bit his lip again, tried not to break his voice "Brandon is in Washington" she managed to say Kelly "how is he?"
'He's fine,' Brenda smiled, 'he loves his job, for the first two years they made him go around the whole of Europe a bit, now he's stable in Washington, he deals with politics, what better place.'
"That's what he's always dreamed of," Kelly said. That's why I let him go, Kelly thought alone.
"I Know," Brenda replied.
Brenda knew that Brandon had broken off all kinds of contact with Kelly, she had preferred it that way, especially after learning that she was with Dylan, he had not wanted to know anything about her anymore, he had wanted to move on with his life. They had had a story in which they had gone through everything, Brandon had told her about it. He had told Brenda everything. Also about how he had cheated on Kelly and how from that moment every beautiful thing they had in their hands had suddenly become unrecognisable. He told her that he would want to marry her but that he knew it wasn't the best time and he couldn't stand to see her with another man, so he left. Not to see. Kelly was an argument that hurt him, just as Dylan's name mortally hurt Brenda and even Brenda had decided to go in the only possible direction: beyond.
"Sometimes I thought about calling your brother," Kelly said, "but I have the impression that he forgot about me, and that he went on, I don't want to bother him."
Brenda didn't answer and that hurt Kelly. It was like a confirmation. A painful confirmation but the truth was that Brenda didn't have an answer. The Walshs had decided to avoid anything that could cause them pain. And it had worked.
"I like to organize events," Kelly said, interrupting that silence.
"What?"
"I like to organize events, I'm good," said Kelly "you asked me what I like to do and that's what I like to do, but I don't even know where to start such an activity"
Brenda smiled "start from the beginning," she said.
Kelly smiled, a smile that Brenda couldn't see on the other side of the ocean. Start. What a beautiful word.
"Happy Christmas Brenda," Kelly said at the end of the phone call.
"Happy Christmas Kelly," she replied.
Brenda hinged up the phone. She looked at the clock, six in the morning.
Out of nowhere they had been able to speak for over two hours. She looked out a still dark and whitewashed London. She thought of Dylan, where he was at the time, she hated doing it but Dylan had always had a place in her heart and she knew she would have it forever, but Brenda had decided to silence that pain and not make it scream anymore. SHe didn't want it to do her more than harm. She looked at her Christmas tree, the gifts under the tree, even Brenda had always loved Christmas and many had passed since Dylan no longer lived in that house.
SHe opened the door to the guest room, Brandon was sleeping peacefully. She was so happy to have her brother with her, he had managed to take a few days off and had jumped on the first flight to London. He had come to see her for Christmas. SHe knew everything about his life in Washington, he had become good at his job and he no longer engaged with any woman, he would go out, a couple of dates, sex, then he let go, it was as if he was terrified of something that he couldn't even define, he was a different person, Brenda could see it clearly, different, how she herself was different.
Jim and Cindy would also arrive tomorrow.
A family Christmas. Like in Minnesota. Like In Beverly Hills. Brandon turned to the other side as his sister looked at him. She wasn't sure she had to talk to him about that phone call with Kelly. She sighed and closed the door.
Christmas 2004
Washington
Kelly was looking worried out the window. The snow was falling slightly but the sky had totally closed and had acquired a worrying purple color. The weather forecast had spoken of a disturbance but it did not appear to be a violent disturbance. Kelly had loved the idea of a little snow as a side dish to her wedding, she just hoped it wasn't a violent storm that would paralyze traffic.
Brandon approached her and squeezed his arms to her waist, resting his chin on Kelly's shoulder.
"What are you looking at?" "M
"I love the snow"
"Yes, me too"
"It's just that it's not a light snowfall as the forecasts had said"
Brandon squeezed her even harder.
"Kelly don't worry"
"I am the bride, my job is to be constantly worried"
"Repeat it a little..."
"What? That my job is to be constantly worried?"
"No" Brandon laughed "that you are the bride"
Kelly turned around smiling and kissed Brandon, the kiss became much deeper.
They had purchased a home in the Georgetown neighborhood, 33st NW 104. A detached house, two floors, the light gray facade with white finishes, a garden, in one of the most beautiful neighborhoods of Washington. They had renovated it slowly, Kelly had taken care of every detail, and now that would be the house to raise their family, where they had dinners with friends. They had left Brandon's apartment at the end of August and had moved there when the house finally began to have the likese of the two of them. It was close to Brandon's office and Kelly's company, there were good schools around.
Kelly still wanted to have children, nothing would make her happier than becoming a mother and making father Brandon but she knew that after marriage, that would be a painful chapter to deal with because endometriosis gave her no respite and the chances of being able to carry out a pregnancy were very low. She had already cried many tears on this subject even though Brandon had already told her that it was a war that she would fight alone, no more, now they were together. It was the two of them. And in two you are stronger.
SHe had postponed any fear until after marriage. SHe didn't want to think about it, she just wanted to marry Brandon, fulfill her dream and yet there was already a room for that child. Next to the master room, to their room, there was a room for which Kelly had not chosen any color.
Brandon hadn't asked any questions, he had understood without her speaking, but he really believed that this was a war they could have fought together. He couldn't stand to see Kelly sad. He couldn't stand it when they were together in Los Angeles he couldn't stand it now.
Brandon broke the kiss.
"Guess who called me?"
"Who?" She asked with little interest while she was busy kissing his neck.
"Dylan Mckay himself"
Kelly moved her head and looked Brandon in the eyes "really ?"
Brandon nodded.
"And where had he disappeared all this time?" "Mmhh...he didn't say that and I didn't ask him, I can't explain it to you, Dylan and I don't need so many questions..." Kelly watched Brandon intrigued, she knew there was anything else he wanted to tell her.
"I told him about the wedding, and he will come here to Washington... Saturday"
"You're kidding me?"
Brandon shook his head. Kelly had a worried expression.
"Maybe you should warn your sister," Kelly said, leaving Brandon's arms.
Brandon looked at her, "Kelly, he's a friend of ours, we're getting married in a week, I couldn't help but tell him."
"No for sure...I know that," Kelly replied, observing the intense snow outside the window, "but I think you should warn Brenda."
"Why do I feel like I did something wrong?"
Kelly looked at Brandon and smiled "because you're almost a husband and you definitely did something wrong"
She went back to Brandon and put her hands around his neck stroking the back of his neck "I believe Brenda never forgot Dylan, and he never forgot her either, and I also believe that Dylan never told the truth about what happened in London before he returned to Los Angeles. I believe there are unresolved things between them."
Brandon sighed "I've always thought so too."
Brenda never wanted to talk about it."
"Not even with me, Dylan seems to have become an unpronounceable name"
"How I was for you," Kelly said, looking at Brandon with a sad look.
"Yes, but only because it hurt too much," he replied.
"I'm sorry," Kelly sighed.
"It wasn't anyone's fault, things went the way they were supposed to, maybe sometimes you have to get lost to really find yourself."
Kelly was moved. It had come to her mind that Christmas, the day after the phone call with Brenda, the next few weeks that seemed to have wrapped her in a depression she couldn't get out of and from which it seemed that no one could get her out. No one but one person. The only one back to save her. The same person in front of him at the time.
"Maybe you'd better call Brenda" she said kissing him on the forehead and guessing what Kelly was thinking
London.
Christmas 2004
Brenda pulled her phone out of her pocket as she walked with a hurried pace through the streets of London. As always she had managed to find a perfect dress for the wedding, as always she had found it at the last minute the day before she left.
"I hold in my hands the most beautiful ceremonial dress in the world," Brenda said in a cheerful tone.
"Let me guess... long? Black? Strapless," Kelly asked.
"Wrong... I'll surprise you," Brenda replied, "I'm ready, I have the dress, I have the plane ticket. I'll make a stopover in New York and I'll be in Washington in time to try on the bridesmaid dress."
"I'm glad," Kelly replied.
The uncertainty in her voice stunned Brenda 'is something wrong?' Asked Brenda as she entered her building.
Brandon looked at Kelly. It was strange, it was a simple thing to say and yet it seemed like an insurmountable mountain.
"No..." Kelly tried to maintain a semblance of normality "Brandon is here with me, I put on the speakerphone."
Kelly elbowed Brandon. Come on... tell her...
Brandon opened his eyes wide and Kelly rolled her own.
"Hi Bran, how are you two going ?" Asked Brenda.
."Well, I'm done, that is, the truth is, I've been organizing events for over two years, and even pretty big events, but for my wedding, there's always something to fix, it seems like an endless journey." Said Kelly
"You'll see, when it's all over you'll miss it"
"No" Kelly laughed "I don't think so"
"Does Brandon help you?" Brenda asked with an air of reproach.
"Let's say he does his part, he nods to everything he already knows I've decided" Kelly and Brenda laughed and Brandon looked down with an amused smile.
"I saw the weather forecast, is snow forecast?"
"It's actually already snowing, but forecasts say it shouldn't be a long thing, even though there's a cold mass moving from Canada. Anyway, I check the weather forecast every fifteen minutes, I'm obsessed" Kelly laughed "on the wedding day the sun will shine"
"Well," Brenda replied, "certainly getting married at Christmas, in Washigton is quite a risk."
"You know what it means Christmas for me, what it means to us," Kelly said, intertwining her hand with Brandon's.
Brenda smiled "yes I know. And I love that you have chosen this day. When will the others arrive?"
Kelly and Brandon looked at each other for a moment.
"Steve, Janet and Maddie arrive on Sunday, David and Donna I think they want to anticipate a few days also because they bring Erin and Jackie, your parents arrive on Saturday like you, Nat said she wants to surprise us. Andrea lives in Boston so he will come the day before."
"Well then we are fully booked"
"You can really say that," Brandon said timidly.
"What do you mean?" Brenda stuck the key in the patch of her apartment. SHe flew her heeled shoes. Her feet felt immediate relief as they touched the cold floor.
"I have to stop going shopping in heels," Brenda said, jumping on the couch, "so? What did you mean?!" Brandon cleared his voice
"I got a phone call an hour ago... from Dylan"
Brenda's cheerful expression immediately extinguished and Brandon was able to feel her sister's change in mood.
"Dylan?"
"Yes" Brandon didn't know how to move "I feel maybe I made a mistake, but I hadn't heard from Dylan in years, and I told him about the marriage"
There were endless minutes.
"He's going to come here on Saturday," Brandon said all in one breath.
"Will Dylan come to the wedding?"
Brandon quickly looked for the most suitable words "Brenda, I don't know what happened in London, and if it's not a person you want to see, we understand, but he's a friend of ours, I'm so happy for this marriage, it came naturally to me to invite him... and "
"Okay," Brenda said without joy.
"Brenda..." Kelly tried to talk.
"No" Brenda tried to recover an air of normality "it's your marriage, it's right that you have around the people around who love you the most and that you love the most and Dylan is definitely one of them, it's right that you invited him."
"Listen... if.."
"I said that's fine, Brandon, I'll call you before I board for New York, okay? I love you. I can't wait to see you," Brenda said, closing the phone call.
Brenda closed her eyes and let herself go on the couch. The truth is, she wasn't ready to see him again, she wasn't ready to talk to him. Dylan, she thought.
next chapter as soon as possible