I backed away. “No, you can’t bring us together. And look at you, doing it under false pretenses. You made it sound like you were dying.”
Mom put her hand on her chest. “Well, I am dying…of a broken heart. Two weeks, Sara. Your sister is getting married in two weeks, and you refuse to be a part of it.”
Of course I refused to be a part of it. She was marrying my guy, for God’s sake. The man who used to look at me as though I were the most fascinating and fabulous person in the world—the only person in the world. The guy who knew how to make me smile no matter how bad my day or his day had been. The one who understood what I needed and gave it to me—a sympathetic ear, a funny story, a bit of advice, some silence and a gentle touch. The man I could count on to calmly steer the way through any stormy crisis. My rock.
How could Mom forget the big deal she’d made about Carter being my boyfriend when she’d first met him? After I introduced her to him in LA, she’d said, Oh, Sara, I adore him. He’s so easy to talk to. I feel like I’ve known him for years. No wonder he’s such a successful lawyer. And he’s clearly smitten with you. I think he’s going to be the one. You make the perfect couple.
“Mom, stop the dramatics,” I said. “You tricked me to get me home. I know very well when Mariel’s getting married. And I’m not staying.”
She grabbed my hand. “Oh, honey, come on. You girls have got to put this behind you. I’ve seen you inflict the silent treatment on each other plenty of times, but this situation’s gone on way too long. You two haven’t talked in forever.”
“Forever wouldn’t be long enough.”
“You don’t understand what it’s like to be a mother and be in the middle of your two daughters not speaking with a wedding coming up.” She pulled a box of penne pasta from the cabinet. “I love you both. I just want you to act like sisters again. Why can’t you put the past aside and get back to the way you used to be?”
Mom continued to labor under the delusion that Mariel and I had once been close. I wondered if all parents had blind spots when it came to their children. True, this was the longest we’d ever gone without speaking, but there were always old wounds just beneath the surface that never seemed to heal.
And had she seriously asked why I couldn’t put the past aside? She made it sound as if it were the kind of tiff Mariel and I had gotten into as kids, like arguing about who would sit in the front seat of the car or which restaurant Mom and Dad should take us to for dinner. My sister had stolen Carter Pryce, the only man I’d ever really loved, and in two weeks she was going to marry him. I felt as though my heart was about to shatter all over again.
I wanted to rewind the clock and do everything differently so they would never meet. Rewind it back to the day I’d met Carter, when I was still living in LA, working for Spectacular Events. I’d gone to Santa Monica to see a bank CEO who had hired us to plan a birthday party for her husband. I left her twelfth-floor office and stepped into the empty elevator, stuffing notes in my briefcase as the car descended and stopped on the seventh floor.
A man got in. Tall, tan, with a full head of blond waves, he looked as though he should have been out racing a sailboat. Except he was wearing a bespoke charcoal-gray suit and carrying a red stapler. The door closed; the elevator descended again. Then the car stopped with a loud clunk. I waited for the door to open, but nothing happened. I pushed the button for the lobby, but the button didn’t light up. Several more pushes produced no result except my heartbeat gathering speed.
“Not working?” the sailboat racer asked, pushing the button on his side.
I began to sweat. “I think we’re stuck.” I could hear the tremble in my voice.
The sailboat racer seemed to hear it too. “Don’t worry,” he said, laying a hand on my arm. “We’ll get out of here soon. It’s no big deal.”
He pressed the red emergency button on the elevator panel, and a few seconds later a woman’s voice came floating down from a speaker somewhere above us. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, I’m trapped in an elevator,” Sailor said. “It’s not moving, and the doors won’t open.” He glanced at me. “And I’m with a lovely lady who looks like she wouldn’t mind getting out of here as soon as possible.”
Oh God, I hoped I didn’t have sweat stains under my arms.
The woman told us she’d contact the fire department, but she couldn’t say how long it would take for them to come.
“It’s okay,” Sailor told me. “We’ll be out before you know it.” He lowered his voice to a whisper and said, “Actually, I didn’t even need to make that call. I have special skills learned from watching years of MacGyver reruns. And I can get us out of here with just the objects I have on hand.”
It took me a moment to realize he was kidding, and I laughed in spite of my damp armpits and shaky knees.
“Let’s see what I’ve got.” He held up the stapler. “One Swingline. Red.” He handed it to me and then emptied his pockets, reciting the contents as he displayed them: “One pack of Doublemint gum, one set of keys on a key ring.”
“What’s that other thing on the key ring?” I asked. He told me it was a flashlight. That was very MacGyver-like. Maybe he wasn’t kidding.
“One black leather wallet stuffed with credit cards,” he went on. “One brown lacquer and gold Dupont fountain pen. One cell phone. And one book of matches. With these, I can create an explosive device that’ll blow the door right off this thing.”
I laughed again. He had beautiful eyes, deep blue, and I sensed there were some well-toned muscles under his suit. “I’m so relieved. How do we start?”
“You don’t think I can do it. I find that a bit insulting, Miss—uh, are you a miss?”
“Yes, I am. Harrington. Sara Harrington.”
“Carter Pryce,” he said. “I’d shake your hand, but I’m holding the key components to an explosive device. I don’t want to trigger it accidentally.”
I liked his sense of humor. “I understand.”
He wadded up a couple of pieces of gum and stuck them between the elevator doors and the jamb. “That’s the first step. We need a good seal.”
“Right. And you’re telling me you learned these skills from watching MacGyver?”
“I did.”
I didn’t want to tell him I wasn’t really a MacGyver fan. I listened to him recount the plot of an old episode, something about a Bigfoot-type creature, and I stopped thinking about the elevator walls closing in on us. All the while he added things to the wad of gum—credit cards, the ink barrel from his Dupont pen, the battery from the miniature flashlight. “Now all I have to do is set it off with this.” He held up the book of matches. “Are you ready?”
Fortunately, he didn’t have to do it, as firefighters from the Santa Monica Fire Department began calling to us from the other side of the doors. Within twenty minutes, we were out.
I remember the feeling of relief when the doors opened and I saw the foyer stretching in front of us with its creamy interior and silvery recessed lights, the receptionist busy behind her desk as if nothing were amiss. But I felt something else as well: the sense that I might have been able to stand being trapped in that elevator a little longer just to be with Carter Pryce.