Chapter 28
CHAPTER 28
Lizzie finally drifted off to sleep sometime after 2 am, at least that was the last time she’d looked at the clock. Daisy the wonder-mutt, came bursting through the partially open door at 6:30, followed by her extremely apologetic mother.
“I am so sorry, honey, she jumped out of my arms on our way down the hall and made a beeline for you.”
Lizzie stretches, yawns and glances at the clock. “It’s fine, come here girl,” she says, patting the bed for Daisy to jump up. “I could use a good snuggle.” Daisy jumps up and immediately begins licking Lizzie’s face. “Oh, I love you, little girl,” Lizzie says, pulling the small dog into her chest. “Dog snuggles are the best.”
“How are you?” her mother asks, sitting down on the side of the bed. “Did you get a little bit of sleep before this one woke you up?”
“I got some, but had lots of weird dreams, nothing I can really remember, but they woke me up and then I’d fall back asleep. I do remember dreaming about Billy coming here and stealing my bike, that’s strange, huh?”
“Not really. It’s pretty symbolic, he’s taken something very precious from you. You’ve put so much thought and effort into helping Jack with Terra Marique, and your wedding of course, no wonder you’d think of him stealing something from you,” Gabby shakes her head. “I don’t know what happened to those two. They were brats as kids. No matter how nice I was when they’d come to the office, they were always difficult. I had hoped they’d both grow out of it and become better adults, but that sure didn’t happen.”
Lizzie sits up and wraps her arms around her knees. “I keep going over and over in my head what Jack said about wishing he’d never come back here, and as much as I try to convince myself that he’s stressed, he’s scared, and angry, I can’t shake thinking that’s how he really feels, and that the best thing I can do is to cancel, or at least postpone the wedding. I don’t ever want to feel like he was pushed into this when it wasn't what he really wanted.”
Gabby is silent for a moment, collecting her thoughts. “I haven’t ever known a young man more in love than Jack is with you,” she says. “Sometimes I sit and watch him look at you when we’re all together, and I think, I have never seen a young man look at a woman the way he looks at you.”
“Mom–”
“Let me finish, honey. He loves you, I have no doubt, and I don’t want to see the two of you walk away from each other again when it’s so clear to everyone who knows you that you two are meant to be together.”
“That may be true in theory, but the reality is, every time we get close to getting married, something major happens and it all falls apart. Maybe it’s the universe telling us that we just aren’t meant to be, and maybe it’s time for me to pay attention to that message and stop ignoring what’s right in front of my face,” Lizzie says, swinging her legs off the side of the bed and standing up. “I am going to get some coffee, and then I am going to call Jack and suggest we at the very least postpone the wedding. There’s no way he can be preparing for this court date–well now two court dates– and have his head in planning our wedding and feeling excited about it.”
Gabby knows better than to argue with her daughter. When she makes up her mind to do something there is no dissuading her, but she can’t resist. “I just think, that–”
“Mom, I need to do this to take care of myself, okay? I have to feel like I am taking control of my future, that I’m not leaving it up to Jack, to Billy, to anyone, I need to do something so I can feel like I’m in charge of my life. Can you understand that?”
Gabby nods, and then gives Lizzie a hug. “I’ll be quiet now,” she says. “This is your life, this is your decision, and your dad and I will support you in anything you decide to do.”
“Thanks, Mom, I really appreciate that,” she says. “What I’m deciding right now is that I really need some coffee, how about you?”
Two cups of coffee and a hot shower later, Lizzie is feeling a bit more human. She also knows the knot in her stomach isn’t going to go anywhere until she talks to Jack and tells him how she feels.
“Your dad said to tell you that he’d hold down the fort today if you don’t feel like going in,” Gabby says when Lizzie comes into the kitchen, dressed for the day. “Maybe you should take the day off and just focus on you and Jack?”
“I really need to work, which is what I’m going to do after I talk to him.” she says as she puts her jacket on. “I texted him and we’re going to meet at the Bunny Park, I’m sure it’s quiet now, and it’s warm enough to sit outside this morning.” She picks up her laptop bag, purse and keys, and takes a deep breath.
“I love you, Lizzie,” Gabby says. “Please take good care of yourself and that beautiful heart of yours.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do, Mom.” She turns to leave and stops, “I’ll call you later, I promise.”
“I’d really appreciate that, I’m going to be sitting here worrying about you!”
Lizzie nods and heads out the door to her car. It’s a beautiful, bright, early spring day. A day so pretty it’s hard to think that everything is anything but perfect, but it isn’t.
When Jack arrives at the park, two minutes after Lizzie, he’s carrying two coffees from Sea Coast. Lizzie thanks him, but doesn't think having more caffeine is a good idea–she’s nervous enough already–so she politely puts it down next to her.
“Hey,” Jack says, sitting down next to her. “Thanks for meeting me, I was worried you wouldn’t even want to talk to me.”
“Of course I’d meet you! How are you?” she asks, she can tell looking at him he’s not good, but wants to know how he feels.
“Somewhere between not great, not good, and terrible, I’d say. Like how someone feels when the bottom has fallen out of absolutely everything that means anything to them,” he says.
“Yeah, that pretty much sums up how I feel too.” They sit side by side on this uncomfortable metal bench in silence. Then the silence is broken by them both at the same time.
“Look,” they both say.
“You go first,” Jack says.
Lizzie takes a deep breath. “Okay, um, boy, this is hard. But I think that at the very least we need to postpone the wedding, if not cancel it. There is so much going on, clearly you have a lot of mixed feelings about being here, in Cranberry Harbor. I think we need to reassess that this is what’s best for both of us. I can’t and don’t want to leave here. I’m committed to running the paper with my dad, but if you don’t want to be here…”
“What? What the hell are you saying? You think I am going to lose it all? Thanks for believing in me, in our team.” Jack is dumbfounded.
“I didn’t say that, I got the feeling last night that maybe you didn’t want to fight. Well, except Billy,” she knows that’s a low blow, and tries to backpedal a little. “Okay, so what’s your idea?” she says, trying to sound more open to hearing his thoughts than she really is.
“I was going to suggest we postpone the wedding. Just for now.” He’s a bit agitated. “But clearly you have other ideas. Like not getting married at all.”
She honestly hadn’t expected him to so readily say he wanted to postpone the wedding. “No, us not getting married is your MO, not mine,” she says, knowing that’s a very low blow. She takes a deep breath and regroups. “So just put everything on hold? Indefinitely?”
“Not indefinitely, but yeah, I guess, since I don’t know how this is going to play out, yet, we don’t even have a court date. How can we be planning a wedding when I could be in the middle of being sued?”
Lizzie shakes her head, trying her hardest to fight back any tears. “Sure,” she shrugs, whatever you think is best for you and your project.”
“Lizzie, that’s not fair, you know I want to get married too--”
“Really? Seems like you are quite comfortable with putting it off, maybe this is a silver lining for you,” she says.
“Lizzie, look, I know I’m not exactly at my best, and I was a total jackass last night talking about wishing I’d never come back here. I didn’t mean that. Haven’t you ever said anything in the heat of the moment that you didn’t really mean? I know you have.”
“Of course I have, but I also think sometimes in the heat of the moment we say the thing we don’t even let ourselves know we feel deep down–”
“And you’re such a mind reader that you know exactly how I really feel, deep inside? That’s quite a skill you have Ms. Martin.”
Lizzie doesn’t say anything. She turns to look at him. “You’re being mean now. You’re never mean.”
Jack leans forward and puts his head down. When he sits up he looks right back at her. “And telling me you can’t understand why getting married when I’m going through the worst time in my life might not be a good thing?”
“Fine. I’m letting you off the hook. Let’s postpone the wedding,” she says, trying her best to not burst into tears.
“I don’t feel like I’m on a hook, Lizzie,” he says. Just then his phone rings. He takes it out of his pocket and looks at it. “It’s one of the lawyers in New York, I have to take it.” He gets up and begins pacing around the brick courtyard.
Throwing overly caffeinated caution to the wind Lizzie takes a large sip from the coffee Jack brought, probably not a good way to calm down, but she needs to do something.
Jack is emphatic as he talks to the lawyer. His end is filled with lots of passionate statements:“I am not giving up” “No, I’m not settling,” “I am here to stay, they are not getting rid of me”. Then he ends the call with a terse, “Fine, sure, right, okay. I’ll talk to you later.”
Hearing him talk that way to someone else makes her think maybe he does want to stay. Maybe it’s just marrying her he’s not so crazy about.
He breaks the silence after downing the rest of his coffee. “So the good news is they don’t think that this lawsuit has legs. They think that the fact that the town didn’t sell it to us, that they are letting us, a nonprofit entity use the land for the good of the community, might make their claim that the town didn’t want them to have the land and then nullified their development deal, moot. Their lawsuit hinges on the claim that the town was biased against them, turned around and let us have it.”
“And the bad news?” Lizzie reluctantly asks.
“It’s possible the outcome could depend on what judge we get and how they interpret what the town decided to do,” he says.
“But the whole town, well, most of the town, all wanted this! Doesn’t that matter?”
“Yes and no. They could claim they were never given the opportunity to take their idea to the town, and one possibility is that they might ask for a town vote to decide who gets the land,” he says. “And that could set us back for weeks, months, or even years while that works its way through the courts and town red tape.”
“No one wanted their stupid McMansions, no one!” Lizzie says. “And the only reason Billy and Bud are with them now is because it’s a way to cause trouble for you. And they are totally using Billy and Bud.”
“I don’t disagree.” He stops talking and turns his whole body toward her. “We need to get back to the matter at hand. I’m not going anywhere, Lizzie. But maybe we should postpone, just for a little while until this is all cleared up. I love you and I want to marry you. We talked about getting married at Terra Marique, and right now we aren’t even allowed to get near it. God, we’re probably going to lose our whole crew, I hadn’t even thought of that until this moment.”
Lizzie is heartbroken, but sees that Jack is not in a place to be able to deal with her hurt, so decides to put a good face on it, to keep those tears to herself. She is going to suck it up and not tell anyone how she really feels. “Postponing doesn’t mean canceling,” Lizzie says, forcing a smile. “I want our wedding to be something we’re both excited for, not an event to get over with before you have to meet with lawyers. I will be fine,” she says, trying to convince herself as much as she is Jack.
“So you believe me that I’m not going anywhere? That I want to be here? That I want to be with you?” He takes her hand.
She nods, still pushing back the tears. “Yeah, I put myself back to four years ago, and–”
“This isn’t four years ago, Lizzie, I’m not the same person, you’re not the same, we’ve grown up, but we have to be able to talk about things and not react without talking to each other, okay?”
“You’re right,” she says, dying inside. “I’m sorry I overreacted. It all felt so familiar and I freaked out.” At this point she wants to talk about anything other than their postponed wedding. “Did the lawyer say anything about the assault charges? I’m concerned about how that will reflect on the case, and what it means for you.”
“He said that while it certainly wasn’t helpful that I did something so stupid, that technically Billy was trespassing. I still had a right to be on the land cleaning out my belongings and it could be interpreted that I was defending myself against a trespasser who was harassing me, which he most certainly was. Fingers crossed that’s how it goes down. I have no prior record of any kind, and Billy has one a mile long. Minor infractions, but he’s been known to the community as a trouble maker, so he’s hopeful that at the most I might get a little community service.”
“Your whole life is serving the community,” Lizzie says, trying to be positive. “The whole purpose of building Terra Marique is literally for the community.”
“Good point, I don’t necessarily see it that way, I’m doing it because I love it and I think it’s going to be great for the town, but maybe a judge will see fit to count my work as community service. If not, I’m happy to clean up a park or volunteer somewhere.”
Lizzie looks at her watch. She really wants to leave and process all that’s happened, and maybe cry. “I should get to the paper and see what kind of mayhem awaits me there. Dad is probably being inundated with requests from papers in Boston and who knows where else.”
“So we’re good? You and me?” Jack asks.
“Yes, we’re good.” She then thinks about her beautiful dress, and her heart aches again. “I should tell Jess that I’m not going to need my dress hemmed right away. I don’t want her to think I forgot...”
“You’re sure you’re okay with that? With waiting?” Jack asks, a little nervous seeing how this conversation began. “You still want to get married, right?”
“Of course!” She forces a big smile. “I think the best thing we can do is focus on getting this lawsuit to go away. We’ll have our wedding when this is all behind us and you’re back up and running.” All she wants to do is go, before she breaks down.
“Okay,” they both stand up. “It seems weird to not have an office, even if it’s just a trailer to go to,” Jack says. “Maybe I’ll take my laptop and go to Sea Coast, or the library. I don’t want to go home, that seems depressing.”
Lizzie gives him a kiss. “I’d invite you to share our office, but we don’t have another desk. I’ll call you later. Keep me updated.” She starts walking to her car. Only a few steps in the tears start to flow.
“Good talk,” Jack calls after her. Lizzie doesn’t turn around, she just waves.