Read Online Bygones by Lavyrle Spencer - Free Book Online Page A

me.”
    “Oh.” For a moment he’d flattered himself thinking she’d taken the trouble to look it up. “There’s a security system, so just call up from the lobby.”
    “I will. Good-bye, Michael.”
    This good-bye... Michael sat scowling. “Whoa Madame business woman” he said aloud. This is probably a mistake, he thought.
     
    Chapter Six
     
    The following evening Lisa went home to Stillwater to try on her mother’s wedding dress.
    She carried it up from-the basement to her old room for the fitting. .
    Bess stood behind Lisa and forced twenty satin loops around twenty pearl buttons, up the back of the dress, while Lisa studied the results in the dresser mirror. “It’s going to fit,” Lisa said.
    The dress had a beaded stand-up collar above a V-shaped lace bodice, elbow-length pouf sleeves, and a full satin skirt and train trimmed with beads and sequins. “It’s beautiful, Mom.”
    Without warning, Lisa spun from the mirror and headed for the door. “Be right back!” she called as she disappeared.
    She thumped downstairs, then returned, dropping to the bed with a photo album on her lap. It was Bess and Michael’s wedding album. “I want to see how you looked in the dress.”
    “You want to see things the way they used to be, but that part of our lives is over.”
    “Oh, look.” Lisa had opened the album.
    There were Michael and Bess, close up, her bouquet and her veil forming an aureole around them.
    “ Gol , Mom, you were just beautiful. And Dad . . . Wow, look at him.”
    The photo caught at Bess’s heart. She sat down beside her daughter and searched for a balanced response. Allowing Lisa to believe that there was a chance of reconciliation was sheer folly. “Lisa, dear, your dad and I had some wonderful years. And I wish we could have made a happier ending for you, but it didn’t work out that way. Your dad and I aren’t getting back together.”
    “ I’WEHave , what are you going to do? Marry Keith? He’s such a dork.”
    “...Who said anything about marrying anybody? I’m happy as I am. I’m healthy, the business is going good, and I have you and Randy.”
    “Mom, just promise me one thing. If Dad asks you out or something, you won’t get all ticked off at him, will you? Because I think he’s going to do it. I saw how he looked at you the other night while you two were sitting at your end of the table.”
    “Lisa- “
    “Dad is one of the truly excellent men around, you know.”
    “I’m not going to talk about it, and I wish you wouldn’t.”
    Lisa left soon thereafter, taking the dress along with her to drop off at tile dry cleaner’s.
    After seeing her out, Bess returned to Lisa’s old room to turn out the light. There on the bed lay the wedding album, bound in white leather and stamped in gold: BESS and MICHAEL CURRAN, JUNE @ ., 1968.
    She sat beside the album and slowly flipped its pages, feeling nostalgic. Then she closed the book and fell back on the bed.
    This is silly. I have tears in my eyes and a pain in my heart that wasn’t there before I entered this room. I’ve let Lisa put ideas into my head that are based on nothing but her sentimentality. Whatever she thought she detected between Michael and me the other night was strictly her imagination.
    She reached out to touch the wedding album.
    Or was it?
    On Friday morning Bess put on a wool crepe dress in squash gold with a tucked waist.
    She arrived in White Bear Lake with five minutes to spare. Approaching Michael’s condominium in broad daylight, she was doubly impressed. The driveway led through grounds dotted with oaks. The building was V-shaped and sprawling, of white brick studded with royal-blue awnings. It had balconies, brass carriage lanterns, and a lot of glass. And it had the lake.
    Inside, Bess used the security phone to ring Michael. “I’ll be right down,” he answered.
    She heard the elevator hum before its doors split soundlessly and Michael stepped out, wearing gray-black pleated trousers