Chapter 2
The Spyder
Caroline
Mo waved me over to the booth he was sitting in at his favorite diner.
“Sorry,” he said, pointing to his bowl. “I was getting hangry.”
“And you ordered oatmeal?” I asked with surprise; that just didn’t seem like a Mo meal to me.
“I start with a bowl of oatmeal so I can feel virtuous. I also ordered homemade sticky buns, and this place has the best bacon and cheese home fries.”
“Sounds amazing!” I said as I took a seat in the circular booth with room enough for six.
“Good, because I already ordered.” He gave me an impish smile.
Mo was bald and not much taller than me.
I tried to trace his resemblance to his son but couldn’t really find it.
Wyatt got his looks and height from his mom.
Of course, that would explain why he looked so much like Greg, though his more muscular build came from his father.
Mo’s red Faconnable polo stretched tight across his biceps, which were quite impressive for a man in his sixties.
“Nice shirt,” I said as I set my second favorite handbag on the booth beside me.
“Thank you. I dressed up fancy for you.” Mo winked. It wasn’t creepy like it might be when some older men winked at me. The man was totally endearing.
“So, what’s this all about?”
“You know about the Spyder, right?”
I groaned. Yes, I knew about Samson Scott’s beloved car. The stupid challenge. The whole reason Greg agreed to marry me.
“I do now,” I said to Mo, who watched me with a concerned expression. I tried my best to mask all the painful memories linked to that dumb car.
Two years ago, I gave Greg an ultimatum: either he needed to propose or we were over.
We’d been dating for six years. I was twenty-eight and not getting any younger, and I had my life plan and my vision board.
He scoffed and told me we were just having fun, that I wasn’t marriage material.
True to my word, I dumped him. My mother assured me I did the right thing.
But it didn’t feel like it. I loved having someone to love.
I felt lost not being part of a couple. Without Greg, I was lonely and incomplete.
I kept waiting to hear from him. He had to be missing me the same way I was missing him.
I kept hoping and wishing my life would be like the end of a rom-com, with Greg showing up on my doorstep, begging for forgiveness.
I knew better. Greg wasn’t one for apologies, or saying he was wrong.
Somehow, after all of our fights, I was always the one who apologized.
But then on Christmas day, he showed up with a gift and an apology. He told me that letting me go was the biggest mistake of his life. That he missed me. Would I please give him a second chance? And fool that I was, I did.
Perhaps I should have seen it coming. After all, I had dated Greg for six years without him ever saying a word about marriage.
But I wasn’t looking for red flags; I was pretending I saw green ones.
And after my Christmas Miracle, he was finally the boyfriend I always told myself he was.
He invited me to the Scott’s swanky New Year’s Eve party in Tahoe.
Of course, I’d been there for the annual family reunion each August. But I’d never been there in the winter when all the trees were dusted with snow and the lake shone silver.
Grandma Scott went all out, even though it was a small-ish party for the Scotts.
Only fifty people: the Scott extended family, plus a few close family friends.
As Grandma Scott often quipped, anything worth doing was worth overdoing.
This was the Scott family at their best. Everyone dressed to the nines.
The women wore evening gowns; the men wore tuxes.
Mavis hired a string quartet and a caterer and a bartender.
It was the New Year’s Eve party of my dreams. Greg suddenly became the date I always wanted.
Attentive and thoughtful, he paraded me around as if he were proud to be seen with me.
I was walking on air. As midnight approached, we all gathered on the top deck to watch the fireworks.
We put on coats to brave the cold weather.
As the pyrotechnics ramped up for the finale, live music floated up from the string quartet on the balcony below.
Greg wrapped his arms around me and softly sang into my ear. “Sweet Caroline.”
“I asked them to play this for you,” he whispered. I was so touched, I turned around in his arms, ready for a kiss. He placed his hands on my shoulders and turned me back so I faced the lake. “Not yet, just enjoy the fireworks.”
The explosions grew bigger and bigger with streams of sparkling light reflected on the water. Amid the finale, as clouds of glittery color erupted in the sky, burning words appeared floating on the water. Marry me?
When Greg kneeled down on one knee, I was overwhelmed with happiness.
The message was for me . Before he opened his mouth, my eyes blurred with tears.
He said some words, but I barely heard them.
I was just so happy that, after all these years, he was finally asking me to marry him.
And it meant even more that he was proposing in front of his family.
I said yes and kissed him soundly. More fireworks burned into the midnight sky. I was the happiest creature on earth.
***
I was engaged for a full three months, blissfully planning our June wedding, when I found out about the Spyder.
We were at his Grandma Scott’s birthday party when Wyatt asked if I could drive a stick shift.
It didn’t seem too weird of a question since Wyatt worked with cars.
But Greg immediately looked nervous. “Yeah, my car is manual,” I answered.
I drove a 2008 Mercedes. It didn’t cost much but looked expensive, which was the case with nearly everything I owned.
“Good. Then you can teach Greg so he can drive the Spyder.”
“Spyder?” I asked, baffled.
“You don’t know about the Spyder?” Greg’s sister Mary asked. “Grandpa’s vintage Maserati. It’s all Greg ever talks about.”
“No, tell me about the Spyder?” I asked innocently.
“That’s a conversation you should have with Greg,” Wyatt said with a cold glint in his eye.
Suddenly, I knew that his question wasn’t random.
He wanted to bring up the Spyder for a reason, and from Greg’s glare, my fiancé didn’t want to talk about the car.
But of course, I had to ask on the drive home.
“Tell me about this Spyder.”
“Haven’t you seen it? Grandpa dotes on that car.”
“Okay... but why do I need to teach you how to drive stick?”
“It’s no big deal. Grandpa promised to give it to us as a wedding gift.”
“Really? That’s so generous.”
“I know, right?”
I didn’t question Greg anymore. But I knew there was more to the story.
So, I went to his sister. To be frank, Mary was a huge disappointment.
I had always wanted a sister and had really hoped, almost expected, that Mary and I would be best friends.
But she rebuffed all of my invitations, usually with a cutting comment, insinuating that I was shallow and frivolous, and all of my efforts to look my best were contributing to the downfall of society.
When I complained to Greg that his sister didn’t like me, he said, “So what? Mary doesn’t approve of anyone.
” Which felt true; she especially didn’t like her older brother.
Looking back on it, maybe that’s why she never warmed to me.
However, she jumped at the chance to tell me all about her grandpa’s car.
Apparently, at the family Christmas Eve dinner, Samson Scott gave a speech about how much he loved his wife and extended family, and how he looked forward to meeting his great-grandchildren.
He announced that he would give his beloved 1961 Maserati Spyder and a million dollars to the first grandchild to tie the knot.
“Greg thinks he has it,” Mary said after telling her story, she took another bite of her salad. I had lost my appetite. Samson Scott had issued that challenge the day before Greg got back together with me.
Yep, that’s what it took to convince Greg to marry his girlfriend of six years: the promise of a car and a million dollars.
“Samson Scott had no business offering the Spyder to anyone but me.” Mo’s cherubic face hardened. “That car was my baby. I rebuilt the engine and refurbished it inside and out.”
“Why did you sell it to him?”
“I needed capital. Tools for an auto shop are expensive. I offered the car to my father-in-law as collateral. But he insisted on buying it himself. He promised that if he ever sold it, he would offer it to me first.”
This sounded like the Samson Scott I knew, the affable businessman, who loved to throw his money around and make promises he failed to keep.
Samson was always kind to me. I never got the feeling that he was part of the faction that didn’t approve of Greg dating me.
In fact, the whole Christmas Eve Challenge could have been considered a vote of confidence for me.
Most of the Scott clan knew that I had ended things with Greg because he wasn’t serious about marriage.
“Did you ask Samson about it?” I asked Mo just as the cheesy home fries arrived.
“I had words with him after he made the announcement,” Mo said. “But he laughed it off—said that Wyatt had just as good of a shot at getting the car as any of the grandkids.”
“Did he?” I asked. I couldn’t remember Wyatt ever bringing a girlfriend to any of the Scott family parties.
“He had a girlfriend at the time. And I thought they were serious. But Wyatt broke up with Kaitlyn about the same time you and Greg became engaged.”