Chapter Four #2
Melody’s stomach churned, and she closed her eyes briefly, trying to gather strength. “Douglas, it isn’t you. You’re perfectly sweet. Perfectly charming. It’s me. I . . . I’m needed here. And I want to be here, especially with my dad being sick.”
“I can wait! I really can. I’m sorry if I pressured you. I won’t anymore! I promise.”
Melody pinched the bridge of her nose. “Douglas, it’s not that. I . . . I just don’t love you in that way,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”
Douglas’s face crumpled. “But why? We were so happy back at school. What’s changed?”
Melody didn’t answer.
“There’s someone else, isn’t there?” he asked abruptly.
An image of Cal rudely appeared in her mind, but she banished it. “No, Douglas. There’s not.”
“Promise?”
Melody considered. She would not be lying if she answered that there was nothing between her and Cal, because there wasn’t. “No, there’s not, Douglas.”
Douglas put a hand briefly over his eyes. “Can I have my ring back, then?” he asked, lowering his hand. His face was hard now. “It was my grandma’s engagement ring.”
Melody felt suddenly nauseated. This was the other reason she had been dreading this conversation. “Oh, Douglas. I don’t know how to tell you this, but I . . . I had to pawn it. I’m so terribly sorry!”
“Pawn it! Why?” He stared at her incredulously.
Melody pulled her eyes from his and studied the black-and-white celebrity photos she had clipped from Vogue in her younger years and taped to her dormered ceiling. She stared at Clark Gable and then Barbara Stanwyck. Had they ever had these problems? Oh, what had she done?
She returned her gaze to Douglas, her stomach still churning with guilt.
“My dad borrowed money from loan sharks to keep the Merc afloat,” she said in a rush, “and I needed cash to pay them off. I tried raising the money by brewing and selling cider, but it wasn’t enough, so I .
. . I pawned the ring. I’m so sorry, Douglas. ”
Douglas ran his hands through his hair and began to pace in the little space. “Well, where is it? I’ll just have to buy it back. My mother will kill me if I’ve lost it!”
“Melody! Is that you?” Mums called from her room. “Who are you talking to?”
“No one, Mums!” Melody called back.
“Well, be quiet!”
Melody rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to Douglas. “Oh, Douglas!” she said in a lowered voice. “It . . . I don’t know how to tell you this, but someone has already bought it.” The fact that it had been Wesley Elton who had purchased it just to thwart her made it all the worse.
“Bought it!” Douglas ran his hands through his hair again. “Who was it? I’ve got to get that ring back.”
“His name is Wesley Elton. He works at the bank. He’s a bit of a crumb, though, so I’m not sure if he’ll sell it back.”
Douglas looked at her with what seemed utter defeat. “Oh, Melody. How could you do this to me?”
For a brief moment, Melody wavered. Almost instantly, however, her resolve returned.
She couldn’t possibly marry someone she didn’t truly love.
She loved Douglas as a pal, but not as a woman should love her husband.
“I’m sorry, Douglas. I . . . I was desperate.
I’ll pay you back for the ring. I promise. ”
Douglas groaned. “It’s not just the ring, Mel. It’s you. I want you.”
Tears were pooling in her eyes now. “I’m sorry, Douglas,” she repeated. “Truly, I am. We had some fun times. Ones I’ll never forget. But I’m not the girl I was back then. I’ve changed.” She brushed a tear away. “I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.”
“It was meant to be! I’ll show you. I’ll wait for you.”
“No, Douglas.” She took his hands. “It’s no use.”
Douglas stared at her for a few more moments and then dashed out of her room and pounded down the stairs.
Melody did not immediately follow but stood there trying to collect her thoughts.
When she heard the front door bang and his car rumble to a start, however, she ran down the stairs.
He couldn’t leave on Christmas Day! But by the time she got to the front porch, his car was already halfway down the street.
Melody knew it had been the right decision, but it still hurt.
She had gone over it so many times in her head, tortuously thinking of all she could have, should have said to poor Douglas.
Several times she had attempted to write him a letter, but it always ended with her tossing it, unfinished, into the waste basket.
Neither had he written to her, apart from a plain white card expressing his sympathy after her father’s death.
Melody let out a deep breath. “His name was Douglas, Fred. You know that. But I don’t see what he has to do with any of this. I’m not going back. You are!”
“Why isn’t there ever any discussion about my future?” Bunny declared. “If there’s college money no one seems to want, why can’t I have it for Julliard? Miss Elliot claims I have a very good chance of getting in, that I have a talent that shouldn’t be wasted.”
“Who the hell is Miss Elliot, and why should you take her word for it?” Fred scoffed.
“Miss Elliot is my piano teacher, which you’d know if you weren’t so self-absorbed, Freddy.”
Fred drained his wineglass. “She probably says that to all her students.”
Bunny stood up. “You know, for once I agree with Melody. You’re a pretentious brat!” she declared and exited in a huff.
“I don’t see why you all have to argue!” Mums moaned as Helenka came in and began clearing the table.
“Pretentious brat, am I?” Freddy hissed to Melody.
Melody gritted her teeth. “I never said that, Freddy.”
Helenka exited with a load of dirty dishes.
“But you think it, don’t you?”
“What does it matter what I think? You’ve made that perfectly clear.”
“It is banana pudding for dessert,” Helenka announced to no one in particular as she returned to the dining room, now carrying a silver tray with three bowls of heaping pudding topped with whipped cream and garnished with a cherry. She looked worriedly at Mums, who was already getting to her feet.
“None for me, Helenka. I couldn’t possibly eat another bite.”
“Pani,” Helenka urged, setting a bowl at Mums’s place anyway. “Just one bite, no?”
“I’ll have some!” Fred said eagerly, but Helenka was not listening. Having failed at enticing her mistress into dessert, she was now helping Mums out of the room, one arm around her middle.
Fred rose and reached across the table for one of the bowls still sitting on the tray. “I guess I’ll have to help myself. You want some?” He glanced at Melody as he dipped a spoon into the pudding.
“No,” she said, pushing back her chair. “I’m not hungry. I’m going up.”
“I don’t see why you’re so sore, Mel,” he called. “I’m doing this for you, you know. Sacrificing myself for all of you. It’s what Pops would have done.”
Melody paused, her hand on the stair rail.
She turned to look at him. “Sacrificing yourself? No one asked you to, Fred. This doesn’t make sense, and you know it.
You’re just being pigheaded. And this is not what Pops would have done.
He sent for me when he got sick, not you.
And there was a reason for that, if you’d only think about it for half a minute. ”
With that, she marched up the stairs and shut herself in her room for the rest of the night.