The Best Gift

  The Best Gift

  By

  Wendy Markham

  Copyright © 2009 Wendy Corsi Staub

  ISBN-10: 0984767002

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9847670-0-7

  Dedicated with love and gratitude

  to my dear friend and third grade teacher,

  Janet Pizzolanti Foster,

  who told an eight-year-old that she could write.

  And to the two Lauras—

  Cifelli and Blake Peterson—

  Thank you for making this happen . . . again!

  And to my three patient guys: Mark, Morgan, and Brody:

  The book is done, and today is Mother’s Day . . .

  I’m ready to go celebrate now!

  Prologue

  New York City

  October 2008

  This isn’t the first time Clara Becker has ridden the rickety old elevator to the fourth floor in the prewar Bronx apartment building, and she doesn’t like to think that it might be the last.

  But reality can’t be ignored, and so she does her best to memorize the exquisite grillwork on the elevator door, and the echoing creak as it slides open, and the scent of pot roast that greets her in the corridor.

  Always pot roast. Maybe one of the fourth-floor tenants actually cooks the same thing day in and day out. Or maybe it’s simply a homey cooking smell that evokes the nostalgia of pot roast, and family, and cozy rainy days indoors.

  Today is a rainy day, all right—but she hasn’t spent much of it indoors. She ran errands all morning, then met her good friend and former makeup artist Jesus DeJesus in Tribeca for lunch.

  “What’s the occasion?” he asked when she suggested an upscale bistro, her treat.

  “No occasion, I just miss you,” she told him—not the entire truth. Yes, she does miss him; they don’t see each other nearly as often now that she’s married and no longer a regularly employed actress.

  But that’s not the only reason she wanted to have lunch. She was pretty sure, though, that if she said she had something to tell him, he’d get the wrong idea. Aware that she’s been auditioning again lately, he might assume she’s landed a plum role in some film—or at least back in the soaps, where she spent her early career.

  That couldn’t be farther from what she had to tell him—and when she broke the real news, his reaction was even more dramatic than she’d anticipated.

  “Noooooo!” he wailed. “How could you do this to me?”

  She didn’t bother to point out that it wasn’t really about him. Jesus has a notorious flair for making everything about him. She used to find it an endearing quirk, but it wore thin pretty quickly today.

  “Can’t you just be happy for me?” she interrupted his ongoing lament.

  “How can I be happy knowing this is going to be the final nail in the coffin of our friendship?”

  Clara was emotionally spent by the time she left the restaurant and hopped on the subway to the Bronx. Hopefully, Doris won’t take the news as hard.

  Reaching the door marked 4D, she knocks loudly with the heel of her palm, the way Doris taught her to do.

  “Don’t be shy—for God’s sake, give it some good solid whacks,” the old woman told her on her first visit. “Otherwise I’ll never hear you and you’ll stand out here for days.”

  “Hold your horses, I’m here, I’m here,” a familiar voice calls now, from the other side of the door. When it flies open, Clara momentarily expects, as always, to find herself looking at an adolescent tomboy with red pigtails, freckles, and impish blue eyes.

  The eyes are impish, all right, and the same deep shade of blue. But they’re peering at her through a thick pair of bifocals. It’s been decades since the freckles faded from a face now trenched in wrinkles, and the red pigtails gave way to a snow-white updo.

  Decades since this octogenarian was a precocious kid sister. Jed’s kid sister.

  “What a nice surprise!” She hugs Clara. “You poor thing, you’re drenched. Don’t you have an umbrella?”

  “I do, but it’s that sideways kind of rain that soaks you, anyway.” Clara tries to shake the droplets from her long brown hair, but wringing it out would probably be more effective.

  “Oh, and I brought a little treat for you.” She hands over a white paper shopping bag.

  Doris peeks inside, then lets out a delighted squeal. “Licorice snaps! Aren’t you a sweetheart. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You really shouldn’t have. I know money is tight, and these aren’t cheap.” Like a little girl, Doris tears into the package and pops a couple of the bright-colored candies into her mouth. “Do you know that when I was a girl, these used to sell for two cents a box?”

  Clara does know, because Doris told her. Several times. Like most elderly people, she likes to reminisce and tends to repeat herself. But of course, Clara hangs on every word because Doris’s memories are particularly meaningful to her.

  “They came in a red box back in the old days. I used to go to the movies with my brother Jed and he’d buy them for me.”

  Clara smiles. She knew that, too. But not because Doris ever told her.

  Jed did.

  Doris pries a piece of licorice from a tooth with her fingertip and smacks her lips.

  “Everything changes in this world, but licorice snaps still taste the same. Only problem is, when I was young I didn’t have to worry that they’d rip out my dentures.” She offers Clara the box. “Here, have some.”

  “Oh, no thanks. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to my dentures.”

  Doris, who always appreciates even the weakest quip, chuckles at that. “Come in, come in, let’s go sit on the couch and visit.”

  Watching her close the door and turn away, Clara says, “You really should slide the dead bolt and the chain, you know, Doris. This neighborhood isn’t as safe as it used to be.”

  “Oh, ish kabibble. If anyone wants to come on in, they can just help themselves to anything they want—except my licorice snaps,” she adds slyly, leading the way to the knickknack-cluttered living room.

  The two large windows are spattered with raindrops, and there are several hummingbird feeders hanging outside. Doris collects everything related to hummingbirds—figurines, jewelry, even feeders, though she admits it would be unusual to see the tiny birds buzzing around her urban fire escape.

  “Still, I never say never,” she likes to say—about hummingbirds, and various other topics.

  “You know, my kids finally gave up on trying to get me to move in with them.”

  “I don’t think that would have been such a bad idea, though.”

  “It’s a terrible idea. They’re scattered all over the damned globe.”

  Well, not exactly. But Doris’s family is pretty spread out—a daughter in Reno, a son in Boston, another who just retired to Florida.

  “Then they wanted to talk me into one of those horrid places filled with old coots, but—”

  “Assisted living,” Clara cuts in, sitting beside her on the couch, “and they’re actually kind of nice. My mother and stepfather are—”

  “I’m sure other people do just fine, but me, I’m staying put. This is my home. I like it here.”

  “But—”

  “Honey, if it works, don’t fix it. That’s what I say.”

  That is what she says—often. Along with “never say never,” and countless other phrases Clara has come to consider “Dorisisms.”

  “Like I told my kids, when I leave this place for the last time, it’ll be in a body bag.”

  Clara cringes. “Doris, don’t—”

  “And my kids, when they’re not harping on me to move, they’re telling me it’s about time I started unloading some of this stuff.” She waves a wrinkled hand around th
e room.

  “Why?”

  “I’m sure they think I’m going to kick the bucket any second now, and they’ll be stuck having to come back here and clean it all out.”

  “Oh, Doris, I’m sure they don’t—”

  “Of course they do, and it doesn’t bother me at all. I’d be thinking the same thing if I were them. That’s how it was when my mother was getting up there in years.” With a conspiratorial twinkle in her eye, she adds, “I made good and sure my brother Gilbert got stuck with cleaning out the old house—which I’m afraid didn’t work out so well for you, my dear.”

  Doris is referring to the fact that Gilbert accidentally gave away to an antique store a gift-wrapped package that had been stored in the attic since the early 1940’s, intended as a Christmas gift from their brother Jed to his wartime sweetheart.

  “Oh, it worked out in the end,” she reminds Doris.

  “So it did.” With weathered fingertips, Doris pats Clara’s left hand—the one that has worn a gold wedding band since her wedding last year. “And now, you believe in magic. As you should.”

  Clara smiles, too. But it fades when she remembers why she came here today.

  “Doris—this isn’t just a social visit. I have to tell you something.”

  “Is it good news, or bad?”

  “That depends on how you look at it.”

  “Do I need something stronger than licorice snaps to hear it?”

  Clara grins again—but it’s bittersweet. She’s going to miss Doris terribly.

  “Do you remember how I told you that my husband lost his job at the investment firm?”

  “Your husband, and everyone else on Wall Street. Hard times.”

  It’s impossible to tell by looking at Doris or her modest home that she once made a killing in the stock market. She prefers to live a low-key lifestyle, money or not, in the same rent-controlled apartment where she shared a long, happy marriage with her late husband.

  “Are you okay?” Clara asks her now, caught off guard by the grim look on her face. “Financially, I mean.”

  “I had a lot of investments. You win some, you lose some.” Doris shrugs. “Let’s put it this way: I’ve got enough money to last a lifetime—as long as it’s just whatever’s left of this one. Tell me about your husband.”

  “He’s been looking for something else, but it hasn’t been easy. And I’ve been auditioning again, but once you’ve dropped out of sight for a while—well, that’s not easy, either. Anyway, he finally found something decent, and they made him an offer last week—more money, even, than he was making, and he accepted, and it’s a great opportunity . . .”

  Doris claps her hands together. “Wonderful!”

  “. . . in California.”

  Doris raises a white eyebrow.

  “He starts next week.”

  “You’re moving away.”

  Clara nods. “The job is in the Bay area, and that’s where he’s from, so we’ll have family there. . . .”

  “That’s important.” Doris pats her hand. “And remember, you’ll always have family here, too.”

  Clara swallows a lump in her throat. “It’s going to be really hard to leave. I’ve lived here all my life.”

  “Goodbyes are always hard. But you can’t let that stop you. This is a wonderful opportunity for you and your husband to build a new life together. Smile when you look back, but don’t be afraid to move on. You have to go live. Live for today, live for each other, live for yourself.”

  “You’re the smartest woman I have ever known, Doris. I’m going to miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you, too, my dear. But we’ll see each other again, I’m sure.”

  “I’m sure,” Clara echoes, but she isn’t at all.

  “I know what you’re thinking.”

  She looks up in surprise to see Doris watching her closely, blue eyes sharper than ever.

  “You’re thinking exactly what my kids are thinking.”

  “Doris! Of course I’m not—”

  “No, not about cleaning out all this crap I’ve accumulated over the years, but about my kicking the bucket. Come on, who are we kidding? I’m getting up there in years. I might not be around the next time you get back to New York for a visit.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “You listen to me, Clara. I’ll be around. If not here—if not in this lifetime—I’ll catch up with you sooner or later, right? Because I believe in magic, and so do you. Don’t ever forget it.”

  Clara smiles through her tears. “I won’t. I won’t ever forget.”

  Chapter One

  San Florentina, California

  Christmas Day 2009

  Sitting cross-legged on the rug beside the lit Christmas tree on her favorite day of the year, Clara clutches the mug of untouched coffee her husband insisted on preparing for her when she rolled out of bed forty-five minutes ago.

  Drew shakes the gift-wrapped box. “Hey, it rattles.”

  She smiles. “No kidding.”

  He shakes it some more, watching her face for a clue. Clara glances away, feigning profound interest in a floating dust particle, afraid that if Drew looks into her eyes, he’ll know.

  She admires the living room, its mission woodwork, tall windows, leather furniture, warm-hued carpets and draperies all bathed in the soft glow of twinkling white lights. They moved into the house just in time for Clara to deck the halls.

  Her gaze sweeps the massive boxwood wreath on the exposed brick above the fireplace, the pair of embroidered Christmas stockings hanging from the wooden mantel, the precious antique snow globe nested on it, amid potted poinsettias and her childhood collection of dark-haired angel figurines.

  Beyond the snow globe’s delicate curved glass is yet another brunette angel, one with a broken wing tip. If you wind the key on the globe’s base, it plays “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

  Drew found it in an antique shop and gave it to her the Christmas they met, back in New York. Of course, he had no idea just how meaningful—or magical—it really was. Maybe someday, she’ll work up the nerve to tell him.

  In any case, it’s the best gift she ever received from her husband.

  From anyone.

  And now, Drew is about to open one that’s even better.

  “You know, I really have no idea what this can be.”

  “Well, let’s see . . .” Carefully masking her expression, Clara dares to look his way again. “It can be something that rattles.”

  “No kidding. Like what?” He shakes it again, and she grins.

  Right here, right now, on Christmas morning in the wonderland living room of their dream house, a bank of fog that almost looks like snow swirling beyond the wall of glass windows, Clara can’t help but feel as if she finally has everything she ever wanted.

  No, she hasn’t become a Hollywood superstar. She blew that chance when she got sick and dropped out of what would have been her first major film.

  The Glenhaven Park Dozen, which opened last year, was nominated for a slew of Oscars, including Best Picture—and Best Actress for the newcomer who was recast in Clara’s role.

  That stung a little, because she did love acting, and she does miss it.

  Just not enough to make all the necessary sacrifices that go with the territory.

  Like spending months on location away from Drew.

  Or giving up her privacy.

  Or watching every morsel she puts into her mouth in an effort to stay starlet-thin. Having cancer taught her to love her body because it’s strong and healthy now, even if she did go up a jeans size or two.

  Maybe someday, she’ll want to give her career another shot. But for now, things are perfect just as they are.

  Almost . . . too perfect.

  So perfect that if she allows herself to think about it, she might just worry that it could all go away tomorrow.

  That’s how it happens. One minute, you’re living your too-good-to-be-true life, and the next minute, you’re . . .
r />   Well, not.

  Please don’t let it happen to me. To us.

  “It sounds like box of pebbles,” Drew tells her.

  “Why would I give you a box of pebbles?”

  “To remind me of that weekend we spent at Pebble Beach last fall?”

  “Um, no.”

  “That would have been a romantic gift.”

  “Trust me,” she says, “this is much more romantic.”

  As romantic as being married to the love of her life, a kindhearted man with the warmest, most reassuring brown eyes she’s ever seen. A man whose vow to stay with her in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer, for better and for worse, has already been tested and held fast.

  Her breast cancer, his losing his investment banking job in Manhattan and finding a new one that meant a cross-country move, building their dream house only to have Drew lose his new job, too, thanks to a tanking economy . . .

  They’ve survived all of that, and then some. Life is good. After some financial struggles, Drew found another promising job. He started just last week. Clara has passed the three-year anniversary of her diagnosis, and remains cancer free.

  “Everything looks great,” her West Coast oncologist, Dr. Federman, remarked after the last round of routine tests in November again showed the all clear. He snapped his folder shut and smiled across his desk at her and Drew. “You two should go out and celebrate.”

  They promptly drove over to Napa and splurged on a romantic inn on a vineyard. A candlelight dinner, a bottle of good champagne, a wonderful feather bed . . .

  When she later looked back, counting days on the calendar, and realized that was when it happened, she wasn’t really surprised. It had been a perfect night.

  There’s that word again. Perfect.

  Stop being a worrywart. Life is good. Enjoy it.

  Yes, here on a windswept cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Clara is ready to put down roots, raise a family, grow old together with Drew.

  “Something rattle-y and romantic. A box of diamonds?”

  She rolls her eyes.

  “Cap’n Crunch?”

  “How is that romantic?”

  “It’s what we had for breakfast the first time you spent the night at my apartment. Don’t tell me you forgot?”