One Second to Midnight
It was New Year's Eve at Bon Appétit, one of the oldest and finest restaurants in Jefferson Hills. A waiter, whose many years of service put him on a first-name basis with Pierre's regular customers, led Beth Shannon to a table where her parents, Bernard and Claire Marshall, were waiting for her. For as long as Beth could remember, the Marshall family had gone to Bon Appétit for the restaurant's annual New Year's Eve party. Once she reached the legal drinking age, she, too, started attending the yearly celebration; after all, it was a family tradition.
"Hi, Mom, Dad," Beth said, kissing them both on the cheek.
"Where's Ross?" Claire asked, surprised to see her daughter arrive alone.
"I'm afraid he had an emergency at the hospital, but he promised he would meet us here as soon as he could."
"That's the life of a doctor," Bernard said as he pulled a chair out for his daughter. "That's why I became an accountant."
The main dining room of Bon Appétit was festively decorated with brightly colored balloons and crepe paper streamers, and everyone had donned party hats for the occasion. The live band, which had the style and sound of every dance band Beth had ever heard perform at countless weddings and company parties, started playing Credence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary," and several couples ventured out onto the dance floor.
Beth nibbled on a breadstick, sipped a glass of white wine and chatted with her parents while she waited for Ross to join them.
* * *
Through the marble and oak foyer of Bon Appétit came an attractive, well-dressed young woman, leading a distinguished-looking older man—her husband—in tow. As she joined a group of friends at one of the larger tables, her husband quietly slipped away and headed for the bar located in the Marseilles Lounge.
"Melanie, you made it!" one of the woman's friends called out.
"Yes, but it wasn't easy. I pleaded, begged, bribed and threatened until he finally gave in and grudgingly agreed to come," Melanie confessed as she reached for a glass of champagne. "Honestly," she laughed, "getting my husband to go out to a party is like pulling teeth."
One of her close friends, a twenty-six-year-old flight attendant for United Airlines, put a glitter-festooned crown on Melanie's head and pulled her out onto the dance floor when the band started playing "The Macarena."
* * *
"It's almost nine o'clock. Why don't we start eating?" Beth suggested. "I'm sure Ross won't mind if we begin without him."
As Bernie, Claire and Beth went to the buffet for their salads and appetizers, they all hoped Ross would arrive before they were ready for the main course.
"I suppose the emergency room is busier than usual tonight," Bernie theorized.
"I would imagine so," his wife agreed. "The roads are quite slippery. I'll bet there has been more than one car accident out there tonight."
Too late, Claire realized it had been the wrong thing to say. Beth glanced at her watch again and began to worry.
"I hope Ross doesn't have too much trouble getting here. That sharp bend on Snake Hill Road can be treacherous in this weather."
"Don't worry, dear," Claire said, attempting to reassure her daughter. "Ross is a good driver. He'll be careful."
Beth listened to the band's rendition of "Yesterday" and silently prayed for her husband's safety.
* * *
Melanie was dancing with Bruce Finlay, a computer sciences teacher who taught at the same high school as Melanie did. Bruce, who had made more than one pass at her during the years she had known him, was dancing a little too close, and Melanie gently pulled away.
"I just don't understand what you see in him, Mel."
Apparently, Bruce had already had a bit too much to drink.
"You wouldn't," she replied, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice.
"I'll admit he's rather handsome for a guy his age, but he must be thirty years older than you."
"I really don't think you need to worry about me, Bruce," she announced, laughing off his blatant rudeness.
"But you're so young, so full of life, and he seems so stuffy and serious. How can a man like that make you happy?"
"And I suppose you think you can do a better job?" she teased him.
"I'm only suggesting that if you ever feel like getting out of the house and having a little fun with someone your own age, you might give old Bruce here a call."
"How thoughtful of you! I really can't thank you enough for your generous offer. You know, I just might take you up on it someday. But, Finlay," she said as he looked hopefully at her, "don't hold your breath waiting."
Melanie turned away from Bruce, who was crushed by the rejection, and walked off the dance floor. As the band began playing "Mambo No. 5," she headed in the direction of the Marseilles Lounge in search of her husband.
* * *
Again, Beth looked at the clock. She and her parents had finished their main course and were deciding on what to have for dessert. Still, she had received no word from Ross. The band was taking a fifteen-minute break, and the restaurant was eerily quiet.
Suddenly, from the street outside, Beth could hear the sound of a police car's siren followed by the wail of an ambulance.
Oh, God, please don't let that be Ross, she prayed silently.
Her parents, who could see how worried she was, did their best to lift their daughter's spirits and take her mind off their son-in-law's absence.
The band soon returned for their next set, and once again the sounds of music and laughter reigned at Bon Appétit. When Bernie and Claire Marshall got up to dance to "You've Made Me So Very Happy," their daughter went to the large window in the foyer to check on the progress of the storm and to peer anxiously into the dark, snowy night for any sign of Ross.
* * *
"There you are," Melanie called to her husband, who sat alone at a small table in a dark corner of the Marseilles Lounge. "You know, when you finally agreed to come here with me tonight, I thought you would join in the party, not spend the evening trying to hide from everyone."
"I'm sorry, Melanie. But you know how I feel about this place, this night."
"That was thirty years ago," she reminded him, taking his hand in hers.
He squeezed it affectionately, but the sadness in his eyes never diminished.
"I do know what you're feeling," Melanie continued. "I went through it, too. Don't you remember that? But at some point in your life, you have to let go of the pain and grief and join the world again."
"You're beginning to sound like Dr. Vogel," he laughed.
"If it weren't for Dr. Vogel, you and I would never have met."
Melanie looked at her husband. How different he was from Wayne, her first husband. Wayne had been a drummer in a rock group playing the college circuit when twenty-year-old Melanie Crane first met him. It had been love at first sight for the both of them, and in less than a year, she and Wayne were married. They were so young at the time, and they had so many plans and dreams.
Before long, Wayne's band got a recording contract, and Melanie graduated from the University of Massachusetts with honors. They put a down payment on a house and began planning for the day when its rooms would echo with the laughter of their children. Then one night, on the way home from a concert in Ohio, the plane carrying Wayne and his group crashed in a cornfield in Pennsylvania. There were no survivors.
Melanie had been devastated. Three weeks after Wayne was buried, she tried to take her own life. As part of her psychiatric therapy, she was required to attend Dr. Vogel's grief support group. That was where she met the man who was to eventually become her second husband.
"It's New Year's Eve," she reminded him gently. "Won't you dance at least one dance with your wife? Please?"
As Melanie led her husband out onto the dance floor, the song the band started to play was, quite appropriately, "My Heart Will Go On."
* * *
"Maybe I should call the hospital and see if he's left yet," Beth said, getting more distraught as the night wore on.
"Now look," her mother stated firmly. "You're not doing yourself or your baby any good by worrying so much."
The expectant mother protectively put her hand on her swollen abdomen.
"You're right, Mom. My obstetrician always insists a nervous mother gives birth to a nervous baby."
However, Beth could not help once again looking at the clock. It was already after eleven.
Bernie Marshall stood up and extended his hand to his daughter.
"Since your husband isn't here yet, how about having a dance with your old man?" he laughingly suggested.
As she danced with her father, Beth vaguely heard the band playing "Time is On My Side," but the sound most dominant in her mind was the echo of the ambulance siren.
* * *
"That wasn't so bad now, was it?" Melanie asked her husband as the dance came to an end. "Come on, honey, let's join the party and have a little fun," she urged, pulling him toward her group of friends.
"Well, look who's here," Bruce declared, still smarting from Melanie's rebuff. "So, you finally decided to join us? To what do we owe this great honor?"
The computer sciences teacher, who had been drinking steadily since he arrived at Bon Appétit, had long since stopped being pleasant company.
"Bruce," Melanie said with a note of warning in her voice, "why don't you lighten up?"
"Me lighten up? I'm not the one who walks around here with his nose in the air like he's better than everyone else."
"I'm terribly sorry if I gave you that impression, Mr. Finlay. Let me assure you that is not the case at all. It's just that this place—this day—I have such horrible memories of them both. You see I lost my first wife on this date exactly thirty years ago. We were supposed to celebrate New Year's Eve right here at Bon Appétit."
Melanie watched the familiar signs of agony steal across her husband's handsome face. He had attended sessions with Dr. Vogel for almost twenty-five years, but he had never truly learned to manage his grief. Oh, he and Melanie had had quite a few happy times during their marriage, but the ghost of his first wife's memory was always there waiting in the wings.
"Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't know. No hard feelings?" Bruce asked sheepishly, as he held out his hand in apology.
"No hard feelings," the older man replied, shaking the computer sciences teacher's hand.
Then he looked down at his wife and saw Melanie brush a tear from her eye.
"In about fifteen minutes it will be a new year," he said softly, putting his arm around her shoulder. "It'll also be a new century and a new millennium. Why don't we try to make it a new start for the two of us as well?"
"Yes. Oh, yes, darling!" Melanie cried, burying her head in her husband's tuxedo jacket to hide her tears of joy.
* * *
Gilles Deschanel, owner of Bon Appétit, took hold of the microphone. It was his privilege and pleasure every year to lead the countdown.
"Will everyone please stand?" he instructed with his slight French accent.
Checking his wristwatch, the restaurateur signaled the band for a drum roll.
Beth, by that time, was near the point of tears. In a few seconds, a new year would dawn: the year in which her baby was to be born and the year in which her book was to be published. Was it also to be the year in which she would become a widow?
The drum roll stopped.
"Ten ...," Gilles announced into the microphone. "Nine ...."
* * *
"Eight ...."
Melanie looked up at her husband. He looked so pale. What was wrong with him?
"Melanie," he cried as he grasped his chest and fell to his knees.
* * *
"Seven .... Six ...."
Where are you? Beth thought anxiously. Oh, please, Ross, get here soon.
* * *
"Five .... Four .... Three ...."
Melanie took her husband's hand and felt for his pulse—nothing!
* * *
"Two .... One ....."
"Beth?" he called.
"Ross! Oh, Ross! Thank God, you're all right. I was so worried."
"Happy New Year!" Gilles yelled.
As the band started playing "Auld Lang Syne," miniature white lights on the back of the stage lit up the New Year: 1970.
* * *
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Shannon. There's nothing more we can do," the emergency room doctor informed Melanie.
"I never should have made him go to Bon Appétit tonight," she cried.
"You mustn't blame yourself. Your husband would have suffered this heart attack no matter where he was," the doctor assured her.
"No. It was that place. You see, thirty years ago Ross, his pregnant wife and his wife's parents were on their way to Bon Appétit to celebrate the New Year. It had been snowing all day, and the roads were slippery. Ross was driving down Snake Hill Road and lost control of his car going around a sharp bend. His in-laws were killed instantly, and his wife, Beth, died in the emergency room at one second to midnight.
Our neighbors dread midnight because that's when Salem serenades his lady friends.
