“Did she have any buried treasure in the closet?”
“No, not really. She had a lot of trinkets, and some letters, and enough travel souvenirs to sink The Love Boat. You’ve never seen so many nearly identical postcards of blue water.”
“Nothing scandalous, though.”
“Well, I’m trying to resist reading her love letters. It’s not easy.”
“She seemed like she had quite a life.”
“To say the least,” Laurie agreed. “I think she was a hellraiser. I’m not sure what a hellraiser even looked like in the 1950s, but I’m pretty sure whatever it was, she qualified.” She paused. “I did find this duck.”
“A duck?”
“Not like quack quack, not a live duck. This wooden duck, like a decoy. It was in her cedar chest, way down at the bottom. Forgotten, I guess.” She kicked a pebble off the sidewalk. “It’s weird, though. Because I did read this one letter, one of her love letters.”
“Of course you did.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, you would have, too, don’t judge me. Anyway. There was this line in there about how if she ever was desperate, there were always ducks. I don’t have a clue what it means. For all I know it could have been a policy with a duck-themed insurance company or something. But it’s weird, right? This letter about ducks, and there’s a duck in the bottom of her trunk under all these blankets?”
“Did you ask the downsizing guy?”
“I did. He took a look at it, and he said it wouldn’t sell for much. I hung on to it, but I think I’m going to let him buy it off me for fifty dollars. I can’t take everything with me that’s interesting, or I’d…you know, I’d take everything with me.”
They got to the coffee shop, and he opened the door for her again, and she slid inside where it was nice and cool. “Okay,” she said, “this is much better.” They both got big cups of coffee wrapped in Cozy Cup sleeves, and he gestured toward a couple of leather chairs. “You want to sit?”
“Sure.”
Once they were settled, he looked at her expectantly. “So. The wedding.”
She smiled. “How much do you know?”
“Just that it got called off.”
“Right. So you want the whole thing?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay. Well, we hadn’t been dating for that long before we got engaged, only about a year. I don’t know, maybe it wasn’t long enough. It’s a long time when you’re over thirty-five, I feel like. But we got engaged, which seemed like we were making appropriate progress or whatever.”
“Did he give you the ring and get down on one knee and say ‘Laurie Sassalyn, will you do me the honor of agreeing to be my wife so we can make appropriate progress or whatever?’？”
“No, but I’m not sure he wasn’t thinking it.”
“How romantic.”
“Anyway, a few months before the wedding, we were registering for gifts. The wedding was supposed to be in August, and this was February, because apparently people need months to buy you a present even when you tell them exactly what you want. I found the whole thing sort of mortifying, like I was making a list of demands, but I know it’s what’s done.”
“Well, when Becca and I got married, we got a giant green dish that I never stopped calling ‘the golf trophy,’ so don’t knock the registry.”
“You don’t even play golf. Or do you now?”
“Of course not, come on. I’m divorced, by the way.”
“I heard.”
“Right, because your mother has Facebook.”
“Exactly.”
“Okay. Continue.”
“We were at one of those big stores, I forget what it was called, Homes-N-Things or whatever. And we were walking around with those little guns. These scanners you aim at stuff, and it goes beep, and it’s added to your registry. We beeped a Vitamix, some really nice linens, some regular stuff like a salad bowl or whatever. And then he wanted this waffle maker.” She looked over at Nick, and he was looking at her with raised eyebrows. “What?”
“Nothing. Are you kidding? I love this story so far. I’m riveted. Five stars. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
She laughed. “Okay. Anyway, he wanted this waffle maker. But not just any waffle maker. It was called the WaffleSmart, I think. It came with these metal plates that swapped out, so you could make waffles with different designs on them. I think it had a flower and maybe a rabbit and a map of the United States. You could buy add-ons, you know, Darth Vader waffles, Ohio State waffles, Red Sox waffles.”