3. Heather
Heather Charleton-Bicks is in love. Again. She”s known Dave Hutchens since the previous New Year”s Eve when they”d met on Christmas Key, and she”s pretty sure he”s the one. Or rather, she”s pretty sure he”s the new one.
”Soooo,” Marigold Pim says, sitting in the pedicure chair next to Heather”s. ”You want to marry this guy?”
Heather looks out the window of the Bodacious Booty Salon and out at Seadog Lane, watching as Ruby and her daughters step out of Doubloons and Full Moons. ”I think so.”
”Okay.” Marigold sounds unconvinced. ”Tell me why this guy makes you want to take the plunge again.”
Heather feels dreamy just picturing Dave”s face. He”s tall, distinguished, older--an absolute prerequisite for her, and a fact that makes her dating life the butt of many jokes amongst her female friends--and he treats her like a queen. That”s been the common thread in each of Heather”s first five marriages: an older man who acts like a gentleman and treats her like gold. Someone who understands that a woman of valor is a true gem, and that she”s worth coddling and caring for. Certainly a therapist could spend time unwinding Heather”s relationship with her own father and come up with some sort of hard nugget at the center of her attraction to older men, but she”s not terribly interested in any of that. She likes what she likes, and what she likes now is Dave Hutchens.
”I think I want to do it again because Dave is someone who believes in family. His kids are wonderful. And his grandchildren--just wow!” Heather puts a hand to her chest and leans over in her pedicure chair like she”s about to tell Marigold something that”s top secret. ”His youngest granddaughter let me tuck her in when I was up in Providence this summer, and just before she fell asleep, she called me Grammy.”
Marigold lifts one eyebrow and takes a sip of the champagne that the salon has offered the women as they get their heels buffed and their toes polished to the sounds of Bing Crosby playing throughout the salon. ”And you”re fine being called Grammy at your age?”
Heather smiles and looks up at the ceiling like she”s thinking of something unspeakably wonderful. ”Yeah. I actually am. I never thought I”d have anyone call me Mom, or Grandma...all I”ve ever been is someone”s wife.”
Marigold pulls one foot out of the tub of hot water as instructed and places the other foot into it. ”So, possibly touchy question here,” she says, cutting a sideways glance at Heather. ”But if you were younger and wanting to be a mother, how come you never had kids with any of your other husbands? Because, if I may be so bold as to say so, men can keep shooting live rounds until the end. Even if your husband was eighty, if you were still thirty, you probably could have gotten pregnant.” Marigold knocks back the rest of the champagne in her glass and sets it on the table next to her pedicure chair. ”Again, sorry for the indelicate way I delivered that, but it felt worth pointing out.”
Heather”s smile dims just a touch. ”Well,” she says, pursing her lips for a moment before going on. ”I wanted to have kids with Edward, who was my second husband. I was twenty-nine and he was sixty-eight, but he said that he didn”t think he”d live long enough to see them finish grade school. And as it turned out, he was right.”
Heather”s manicurist holds up two bottles of polish: one sparkly red, and the other a hot, passionate, hibiscus pink. Heather tilts her head at the pink one and smiles.
”Oof,” Marigold says. ”I”m sorry, honey.”
”Yeah...” Heather is wistful. ”He died a year after that conversation. Stroke on the golf course.” She shrugs now, but she”s anything but nonchalant about this loss. ”He was a wonderful man with an amazing family. So I married his brother.”
Marigold”s head snaps in her direction. ”You did not!”
”I did. How have I not mentioned that? Are you sure I didn”t tell you ladies about Bates McDougall? He was five years older than Edward, and so incredibly handsome. Dashing, really--”
”Wait, this was his older brother?” Marigold slaps the armrest of her chair loudly and gives a hoot of laughter. The other two women in the salon look up from their phones.
Heather lowers her voice. ”Yes, Goldie. I told you: I like them a little worn in.”
Marigold laughs even louder. ”Worn in,” she says, wiggling her bottom in the chair and putting her feet up on the ledge so that her manicurist can apply the first coat of emerald green to her toes. ”They broke the mold after they made you, girl.”
Heather takes a long pull of her champagne. ”That”s true,” she says. ”The world could only handle one of me!” She watches people as they pass by the window, their arms laden with gifts and groceries for the upcoming holiday, and then she looks back at Marigold. ”But I think Dave makes me want to do it again because he offers the promise of family. Of love. And, if I”m being honest, of someone to take care of me.”
”That”s important to you, isn”t it?”
”Isn”t it important to everyone?” Heather”s eyes bore into Marigold”s. ”When you married Cobb, wasn”t there a part of you that wanted to marry him for the security? For the fact of having someone to sleep next to every night and wake up to every morning?”
Marigold considers this. ”I was young,” she says. ”I think I married Cobb purely because I felt I couldn”t live without him. I really and truly just wanted to be with him every second of the day. I wanted to inhale his scent, to see the world with him, to be able to reach out and touch him anytime my heart desired.” She nods decisively. ”I married him because I felt passion and love and desire, not out of self-preservation or security.”
Heather looks at her hands as she knots them in her lap. ”I guess we all marry for different reasons.”
”Oh, Heather,” Marigold says, reaching over and touching her friend”s arm. ”Absolutely. And for different reasons at different points in our lives. Cobb and I are back together now for an entirely different reason than the one that brought us together in the first place. Okay,” she stops herself, holding up a hand. ”That sounds wrong. We”re together for love again this time, but it”s a love that feels like it”s changed somehow. It”s more solid. Less frantic, if that makes sense. I see him and my heart warms as I watch him make a cup of tea, whereas when we were younger, if I caught him doing something mundane, I wanted to physically meld my body with his. I wanted to absorb him, to drink him in--hell, if I could have, I probably would have snorted the man.”
”Oh!” Heather laughs in surprise, covering her mouth with her hand. ”I don”t think I”ve ever wanted to snort a man.”
Marigold shrugs. ”Different strokes for different folks, right? And each relationship has its own vibe, its own tenor. I”ve been with other men between my two marriages to Cobb, but I never once looked at one of them and wondered whether I could fuse my soul with his. I just never felt the way I feel about Cobb with anyone else.”
”Yeah,” Heather says, shaking her head a little sadly. ”I”ve never wanted to fuse my soul with someone either. But I have loved them all terribly, and I was devastated when each of them died.”
”So, all five of your husbands have died?”
Heather nods. ”Heart attack, stroke, car accident, heart attack, cancer,” she says, ticking her husbands off on her fingers.
”Wow. And is Dave at all worried about your track record?”
Heather looks shocked.
”I”m sorry!” Marigold says, reaching over and slapping Heather”s thigh playfully. ”I”m sorry. My sense of humor is darker than most people”s. Sometimes I need to reel myself in.”
”It”s okay.” Heather laughs uncomfortably. She is a true Southern belle at heart, and her manners and sense of humor are not nearly as bawdy as Marigold”s, a former supermodel who traveled the world and had all kinds of wild experiences before marrying a bonafide rockstar with a drug habit (though Cobb Hartley is clean as a whistle these days, and he and Marigold have settled into a quiet, early retirement on Shipwreck Key). “And no, I don’t think he’s worried that I’ll send him to an early grave,” she says, making an attempt to laugh off the fact that she lost all of her former husbands far sooner than she would have liked.
In fact, she’d loved each of them deeply, and had hoped that somehow she’d live the rest of her life with whichever man she’d been married to at the time, even when their age differences made that highly unlikely. Edward had been the kindest of all her husbands: he’d woken her each Sunday morning with a freshly-picked bouquet of flowers from their garden, and had never stopped referring to her as his “beautiful bride,” even when they’d been married for nearly a decade. His brother, Bates, had had the zaniest sense of humor of all her true loves, and had been willing to do anything to make her laugh. Once, at Disneyland, Bates had volunteered to go on stage with the actors in a show, joining a bunch of little kids up there as they did whatever they were told to do by the Disney characters. Heather had loved him even more for that.
Her husband Bill had been quiet, but so tender. For all the words he never said out loud, he’d leave her love notes—small scraps he tore from rolls of paper towels, the corner of a napkin, a part of the newspaper—and each of them read like tiny haikus about her beauty or her gentle heart. Andrew was the most skillful and insatiable lover of the bunch, and the way he continually devoured Heather had left no doubt in her mind that she was both desirable and loved. And Clifford, a jovial, affable red-haired man with giant hands and a booming laugh, had been the richest of them all (and they’d all been wealthy), but had no qualms about sharing that bounty with others. In the years they spent together, Heather knew he gave giant donations to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in the name of his daughter, Jenny, who’d died of leukemia at the age of four, and that he was generous beyond all reason with friends and family.
They’d all been wonderful husbands, and Heather is convinced that the fact that they’d lived and loved long before she met them made them all the better at being husbands. She’d never once been jealous of their first wives, their grown children, their grandchildren, or the years they’d lived before she was even born. She just considered herself lucky to be loved by such big-hearted men.
“I’m sure you’d make Dave happy beyond all reason,” Marigold says now, wiggling her toes as she admires the freshly applied green polish. “Has he popped the question yet?”
This question troubles Heather, because oddly, he hasn’t asked her to be his wife. “Well,” she says, licking her teeth as she remembers the way he dodged her hints at marriage. “Not exactly. But I think we’re getting closer.”
“Hey,” Marigold says, sliding her feet into the flip-flops she’s brought with her to the salon. “If you’re happy, I’m happy. I’m on Team Heather. Always.”
Heather appreciates the support—she truly does. But something is nagging at her as her manicurist finishes putting on the final coat of hot pink polish. Something about the way Dave tuned out when she mentioned a winter wedding…she’s not sure, but she’ll have to get to the bottom of it soon if she wants to be the next Mrs. David Hutchens. And she most certainly does want that.