Page 121 of The Wedding Favor

I climbed onto the bed with the album.

“You like to say I never talk about life before New York.” She cradled the album in her hands. “But I suppose I liked to keep those memories for myself. They’re all such good, happy ones.”

The album cover was brown and worn and when she opened it to the first page, it revealed black pages with curled corners. It looked as though this book had been handled many times. A treasured possession.

The first few pages were of a small girl with bouncy curls whose infectious smile made it clear it could only be Gloria as a child. “I was adorable, wasn’t I?”

I smiled. “Very.”

“An absolute daddy’s girl. My older sister would get so annoyed at that, but it wasn’t my fault God made me this way.”

“Your sister must have wanted to strangle you on a regular basis. You were probably unbearable.”

She nodded. “Oh, definitely. Don’t worry. I made it up to her when we were older.”

On the next page, the black-and-white photos showed an older Gloria, perhaps fourteen or fifteen. Some were with her family or sister, at Christmas, or a birthday. But in many of those photos, there was another face that kept appearing—a tall, gangly boy with a head of wild, pale hair and light eyes.

“That is Warren.” She traced his face with a fingertip. “I loved him very much. He was my first kiss, you know. He loved me, too.”

A soft smile settled on her face. She seemed lost in her memories for a long moment.

“First love,” I said.

“Indeed. But we knew each other very well. I’d always dreamed of leaving Two Harts and making it big in New York. So, we never, ever spoke of a future together. Sometimes I wonder…”

“Wonder what?”

“If he’d asked me to stay, would I have?” She closed the album with a little sigh.

“Do you regret never telling him how you felt?”

“Regrets are worthless things.” She waved a hand at me. “Write that down for the memoir.”

“That you’re never going to write?” I muttered, but I pulled out my phone and did as she asked.

“No regrets. Mostly I’ve just wondered: was he happy? Did he have a long life? I know about the three kids, but maybe he had more. He always wanted a big family. I always wanted my name big in the lights.” She clutched the album to her chest.

“I gotta say, this was kind of a depressing story.”

“Oh, no, it isn’t. I loved him when I was fourteen and I love him now. But if I’d stayed in Two Harts, if we married, I never would have met Thomas and that would be so much sadder. That man was the love of my life. Warren was the love of my childhood. Very different. Sort of how Aidan was the love of your childhood.”

She was right. Aidan would always be special to me. I had loved him once and a small part of me would always love him.

“Maybe,” she patted my cheek, “Abe is the love of your life.”

FIFTY

“There’s no crying in pageants.”

—excerpt from the unpublished memoir,

Darling, I Must Say by Gloria Hayes

The day-long pageant practice on the Saturday before the pageant was about as fun as it sounds.

I brought, among other things, my thrift store dress, the tennis skirt Yessica talked me into wearing for the sportswear portion of the contest, and the “pageant approved” high heels.

“You look like someone peed in your coffee this morning,” Yessica said when she found me sitting in the auditorium where’d we been corralled for some kind of guest speaker.