"I'm sorry," he said. "But maybe with time . . ."
"Time doesn't heal scars, as most people commonly think," I said. "It simply makes them firmer, stiffer. One must accept it and not hope to mend and return to what he or she once was."
"That's a hard and cold lesson, Olivia," he remarked. "That's what the truth is, Nelson, hard and cold most of the time."
He stared a me and I did not shift my gaze.
"You're going to run this town one day," he predicted. "You're a natural born leader. You should have been born . ."
"A man?" I finished for him. He shrugged.
"Sorry. I know that women are supposed to be treated with equal respect these days, but I'm still a bit old-fashioned when it comes to that, I suppose."
"You're just a typical chauvinistic male," I replied and he laughed.
He held up his hands.
"Guilty," he declared.
"Of what?" Samuel asked coming over to join us.
"Of stereotyping," Nelson explained.
Samuel looked from him to me and then shook his head and returned to pointing out the changes I had suggested be made in the historic sections of the house. It was a large two-story, side-gabled house. I had suggested capping the paneled front door with a decorative crown and then adding a row of
rectangular panes of multicolored glass beneath the crown. I wanted the windows to have double-hung sashes and many small panes. Samuel complimented me on every suggestion I made. None of it came
from imagination, however. I had researched the period and knew enough to make suggestions that the architect thought sensible.
Consequently, our wedding date was set with such speed it raised eyebrows. Some even had the audacity to suggest I might be pregnant. Belinda enjoyed the gossip. I did everything I could to end those rumors, but kept the date of our wedding. I was hoping it would help bring Daddy around again. Without Mother, he would have to represent my interests and I tried putting more decisions and questions on him, but his invariable response was, "Whatever you think best, Olivia. Don't worry about any expense, if that's a problem."
He even suggested I involve Belinda in some of the wedding planning, a suggestion I didn't take seriously, of course. Belinda had no taste, no real breeding, no sense of decorum. She would turn my wedding into a garish nightmare if she could. She tried to get me to invite some of the Bubble Gum Club, but I resisted.
"I'll have no one to talk to at the reception, no one to dance with. Please," she pleaded, "at least invite Kimberly and Bruce and maybe Arnold."
"It's not a party; it's a wedding," I told her.
"But I thought the reception was a party."
"Not the sort of party you attend," I said.
In the end I relented and agreed to invite Kimberly and Arnold.
"Kimberly and I will just have to share him," she moaned. "I'm sure none of Samuel's friends or Daddy's business friends will ask me to dance. I won't have a good time," she threatened.
"It's supposed to be my day, Belinda, not yours. I think you could at least consider that," I lectured. "When you get married . ."
"I'm going to have a real wedding. I'm going to get Daddy to rent a yacht that holds one hundred and fifty people and the wedding will be at sea, and there will be fireworks and the band will be on a boat beside the yacht, but playing so loud it won't matter."
"I can't wait," I said dryly.
"I can," she said with a laugh. "I'm not ready to be someone's wife just yet. I can't stand thinking about being with only one man forever and ever, just kissing the same old lips every night . . . ugh," she said shaking her shoulders as if she were shaking off a cold rain. "I don't think a woman should get married until she's at least forty."
"That's ridiculous, especially if you want to raise a family," I said.
"I don't expect to be a good mother anyway," she told me.
It always amazed me how Belinda could face her failings and weaknesses so easily and just as easily accept them. She was beyond feeling unhappy about herself. I despised and envied her for it simultaneously. It embarrassed me to think we had come from the same mother and yet she probably wouldn't ever develop a wrinkle from worry. She would go through life on those damnable bubbles, laughing and content.