by Jan Karon
Harold sat up and peered at his wife.
‘Lord have mercy! Th’ caption under this picture of Esther Cunningham says she’s deceased!’
‘But you were just at her birthday party.’
She grabbed the magnifying glass she kept on the table in the napkin holder. She could not make heads or tails of this mess, but maybe she was missing something. It was too early to call Lois Burton at the Woolen Shop, who’d know what was going on. But why bother Lois when she could get it from the horse’s mouth? As soon as she finished her coffee, she would call up to Esther Cunningham’s and see if she was dead.
• • •
So, Lew,’ said Abe Edelman, ‘did you hear about burglars breaking into the Methodist church office?’
‘I didn’t hear that.’
‘They got away with over two thousand bucks in pledges.’
He could tell Lew Boyd not only didn’t get the joke, he was grumpy as all get-out.
‘So,’ said Abe. ‘I was sorry to see Esther Cunningham passed. Glad she got to celebrate a big one yesterday.’
‘Esther Cunningham did not pass,’ said Lew, who was trying out a pair of work shoes. He had not had new work shoes since ’09. ‘It was Esther Bolick who passed.’
‘But th’ special edition . . . ’
‘Don’t pay any attention to that rag,’ said Lew. ‘I got stuck for sixty-three bucks plus wiper fluid on that deal. J. C. Hogan owes money back to half this town if we can find ’im. My mechanic put air in his tires this mornin’, says he was headed to Chimney Rock—hidin’ out would be my guess.’
Lew stomped around, test-driving the shoes and grinding his teeth like the dentist told him not to do. He had run his last ad, done his last duty to the local community as an honest, God-fearing merchant trying to make a decent living.
Abe felt a grin coming on, but stopped it dead. Down the road, he’d get a free half page out of J.C. Meantime, he wouldn’t mention that he’d invested only fifty-one dollars plus change.
• • •
Dora Pugh was able to park this morning in front of her hardware store, a treat she had enjoyed in October only four or five times in recent years. In a few days, she’d have to take a helicopter to work and parachute onto the roof, as tourists would be parked all over the place, occasionally in somebody’s yard. And how could she complain, really? Bottom line, at the end of the day, wadn’t it tourists who helped put bread on Mitford tables?
She picked up the newspaper in its plastic bag. She knew for certain the Muse had come yesterday, yet this was clearly something from them. She remembered having a call from J. C. Hogan which she had not returned because she was busy dumping fake autumn leaves in the left-hand display window and setting out the rakes and tarps with a red vintage lawn chair. Though tourists did not buy a lot of hardware, they liked her displays, had even stepped inside and told her so.
She switched on the coffee, which she needed after a day like yesterday—finding one of her best friends dead and all that ambulance and funeral home business and Father Tim praying and taking charge and then missing the party she had desperately wanted to attend but couldn’t since her nerves were shot.
She settled onto her stool and removed the newspaper from its shuck.
There was a picture of Esther Cunningham, topped by a headline.
Goodbye to the town monument? They were getting rid of the town monument?
She’d heard a nasty rumor about planting pansies where something had to be removed. Unbelievable! You could not get any satisfaction whatsoever by drivin’ around a bed of pansies.
She liked driving around the monument; she had driven around the monument since she was a child; that is what people used to do for a good time. You drove around once or twice, then out to the country for a little picnic on the side of the road. If it was Sunday, which it usually was, you would sit on that big rock by Hoover’s store and eat fried chicken out of a shoebox, with potato salad and deviled eggs and a Dr Pepper. After that, her daddy would buy everybody an orange Popsicle from Mr. Hoover and they would drive back to town and circle the monument a couple of times and go home and play checkers. That had been wonderful! That had been enough!
Wait a minute.
Good Lord. Esther Cunningham had passed! This had nothing to do with her party. And right on the heels of poor Esther Bolick! There was their old mayor, with her hair in the Carol Burnett style she wore in the eighties. Passed? Of all things! How terrible. All those beautiful daughters to mourn their mother, and her poor husband, who was a saint, and twentysome, maybe thirty, grans . . .
That’s the way it was with people. Fine one minute, dead as a doornail the next. Well, she would be missed. Yes she would, they both would. She had cried her eyes out last night about Esther Bolick, but didn’t know if she could do the same for their old mayor.
But wait. Under the picture was this story about the OMC. And the names of people who’d been the happy recipients of Esther Bolick’s famous cake.
Oh, no. Oh. Lord. Surely not.
They had got their Esthers mixed up.
Just like she’d always said, it was confusing for two important people in one little town to have the same name. And now the chickens had come home to roost.
• • •
Esther Cunningham took a forkful of the scrambled eggs she was allowed twice a week while Ray cleaned up the kitchen. He had brought in some kind of junk mail in a plastic bag, and put it on the table.
‘The parkin’ solution a few years back was a Band-Aid,’ she said to Ray. ‘After years of wranglin’, what did th’ council do? Raze a condemned buildin’ and put down an asphalt slab for thirty-five cars. Thirty-five! We need space for seventy-five, minimum!’
She slid the plastic bag off whatever it was, maybe coupons.
What would she run on, anyway? The old slogan she was famous for had lost its zing. Mitford takes care of its own? No. Something new, fresh, exciting.
‘You know what this town needs?’ she said.
‘What’s that?’ He sighed deeply and noticed the faucet needed a new strainer.
‘Excitement!’
He did not respond.
‘Do you agree?’
‘It wouldn’t hurt,’ he said, though personally, he couldn’t take any more excitement.
‘But that’s puttin’ th’ cart before the horse. Th’ real question is, what would be my platform?’
Again, no answer. So it had come to this, she thought—hearing aids at four thousand a pop.
‘Maybe a community center!’ she shouted. ‘Every town needs a community center!’
He would like to open the window over the sink and jump out, but since it was ground level, he would only sprain an ankle. ‘Daddy,’ one of his girls said, ‘just close your ears and don’t listen.’
‘So, what do you think? Ray! Are you listenin’? How about a community center?’
On top of everything else, his wife was losing her hearing and about to bust his eardrums. ‘The bookstore,’ he hollered, ‘is our community center!’ Somebody promised he’d get a crown in heaven. That would be the least they could do.
‘Lord help!’
He turned around and saw that she was white as a sheet.
‘What is it, buttercup?’
‘I’m dead!’
‘Now, now,’ he said.
She held up the special edition. ‘Read this.’
• • •
Coot Hendrick had finished his morning chores at Happy Endings, and at ten o’clock the store was spanking clean and ready for business. After saying hey to Miz Murphy and Louise, he scooted next door to take his break on the bench at Village Shoes.
Yessir, this was the best seat in town. A nice cool mornin’ with th’ leaves about four to five days off from peakin’ as far as he could tell. Some said a week or more, but if h
e was to bet on it, which he wouldn’t, th’ color would be a little early this year.
He zipped open the plastic bag of apple chunks, which he ate each morning, based on the notion that an apple a day keeps the doctor away. And there came th’ MPD captain, Miz Hogan, lookin’ none too pleased. Tight-lipped, you might say.
‘Mornin’, Coot,’ she said.
He saluted. ‘Mornin’, Captain.’
She hesitated, sighed. He moved over on the bench.
‘No, no,’ she said, ‘I can’t sit.’
‘While you’re standin’ here,’ he said, ‘I have a question if you don’t mind.’
She gave him a blank look.
‘Want a piece of apple?’
Another blank look. ‘No, thanks.’
‘Do police get to run red lights ’cause they’re police?’ He had been wondering this.
She sat down. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Well, I seen somebody do it, I don’t know who it was, an’ I wondered if it’s a regulation for police to do what we cain’t do.’
‘You say you don’t know who it was?’
‘No, ma’am, it was too far away to see.’
She got up as quick as she’d set down. ‘Have a great day, Coot.’
‘You, too,’ he said. ‘An’ thank you.’
He realized she had not answered his question. Probably a lot on the mind of a police captain.
• • •
He and Cynthia hated this for Esther Bolick’s sake.
How had things gone so completely haywire? At least the basic information about funeral and graveside services was just as he reported yesterday to J.C.
He punched in the numbers.
Three rings. Four rings. Five. And a recorded message:
‘Thank you for calling the Muse. We print good news! Please call again and have a nice day.’
4
MEADOWGATE
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3
She opened the box, dug into the packing material, and removed three objects swaddled in Bubble Wrap.
She unwrapped the small.
Then the medium.
Then the large.
Three pink pigs with battery-operated coin counters.
She lined them up on the farm table.
All through college and Atlanta and the nonprofit, she had used a shoebox or a Mason jar. She had loved the fun of counting out pennies and nickels and dimes and quarters and rolling them up and taking them to the bank. But there was no time at Meadowgate to count pennies; they would have to count themselves.
She had read that people won’t pick up a penny anymore, and not many will pick up a nickel. But the dime was a game-changer. Seventy percent of people would pick up a dime, and everybody would pick up a quarter.
She would still pick up a penny. So she would take the large. After all, she was out there buying things and paying cash when she could, and maybe she would be selling eggs, which was nearly always a cash transaction. She would keep her piggy bank in the kitchen on the windowsill.
The medium was for Dooley, who didn’t often handle cash; his bank could go in their bedroom. And Jack’s would be the small and sit on the windowsill next to hers.
She found batteries in the storeroom and searched the kitchen tool drawer for three pennies and a dime she put there last week.
Yes!
One by one, she slipped coins into the big pig.
01 . . . 02 . . . 03 . . . 13 . . .
She remembered some pocket change in a soap dish in the laundry room and ran to fetch it. A nickel and three dimes.
The coins chimed into the counter.
18 . . . 28 . . . 38 . . .
Forty-eight cents.
They were starting over.
And it would be good.
• • •
It was her best friend’s signature thing not to cry, not even when her husband left at Christmas four years ago and never came back, not even for his Armani suits.
But Beth was crying now, while talking on a cell phone in Central Park and walking fast.
‘All I’ve done for four years is work. I haven’t gone out with anybody in forever. Two years, to be exact!’
‘Remember what Astrid said? Beth doesn’t cry, she works at Goldman!’
‘The truth is, I do cry. A lot. Mainly because I work at Goldman! But I almost never cried . . . in front of anybody except my mom and dad.’
‘Thanks for crying in front of me.’
Beth had been her college roommate and her matron of honor. She had known in June that something was wrong, but Beth hadn’t wanted to talk. ‘What will you do?’
‘It’s the first time since high school that I haven’t known what to do. All I know is, I resigned on Thursday and I’m clearing out my office on the fifteenth. If I thought I’d stay in investment banking, I’d have given six weeks’ notice, but I’ll never work in this business again. I’m no good at being lashed to the stake and the VPs playing with matches.’
‘Why don’t you come live with us for a while?’ The thought startled her. ‘Until you know?’
‘I couldn’t come down there and sponge off you like some poor relative. What would I do with my Yankee self?’
‘We could cook dinner together. You could play with Jack and help with his lessons while I paint. Or you could help put the garden down for winter. And the eggs . . . we have so many eggs . . . we could sell them instead of giving them away. You’re good at marketing!’
She was off and running, her head a teeming nest of to-dos. ‘Best of all, you could be an aunt! We’re seriously short of aunts for Jack. That would be enough right there, more than enough.
‘And you could help with canning pumpkin if you come soon, I would teach you how . . . ’
Beth gave her nose a hard blow. ‘I never knew it was so much work to live in the country. Everything was completely beautiful and peaceful for the wedding.’
‘It took seven people and eight weeks to make it beautiful and peaceful.’
‘It would be great to be there. Heaven.’ Beth was walking faster, breathing harder. ‘Okay, but if I come, I promise not to overstay my welcome. I love Meadowgate and you and Dooley and Jack Tyler, and I have lots of money saved because I never had time to spend it. Which means I can pay rent!’
How would Dooley feel about this? She had jumped in so fast, without thinking. ‘Would you come straight here?’
‘My lease is up on the fifteenth. I’m sending things to storage in Boston and will stop over with Mom a few days. So if it works with you and Dooley, I could be at Meadowgate on the twentieth.’
But of course he would be glad to do it. He liked Beth, and after all, it was only temporary. ‘This is so good! I’m so happy! You’ll be the best country girl!’ She’d almost forgotten what it was like to have a friend her age.
‘How is Tommy? We texted a couple of times, but I was so overwhelmed with making this decision . . . ’
‘His grandmother died, he was very close to her. He’s been really sad.’
‘Oh.’ Beth slowing down. ‘I’m sorry.’ Two dogs barking; a pause. ‘Are you sure about this, Lace? I won’t stay forever, just till I can think things through. And I promise to be useful.’
‘I’ll call you tonight.’
‘I’ll be in a meeting all afternoon, then I need to finish a proposal, then have dinner with clients from Dallas who don’t know I’m leaving . . . ’
‘But this is Saturday.’
‘That’s what I mean!’ said Beth.
• • •
Through the open windows of the clinic, he heard the backup singing of their vintage mowers.
He was addicted to the sounds of this place—the bawling of cattle, the barking of dogs, the bilingual stuff of mockingbirds, the occasional yowling of a mountain cou
gar—the whole symphony of living in the country.
Jack had come over to watch his dad work, lugging a bucket of water. These days, no trip to the clinic was allowed to be made empty-handed.
The hit of the morning had been the llama, with its seductive eyelashes and imposing physique. Jack had gone nuts over the big guy, and so had Charley. Hal’s old client, a woman who lived pretty far up the cove, had delivered the llama, ready for shots, in an open trailer. She had tied ribbons and small bells in its impressive mane. ‘I’m an old hippie,’ she said, ‘here to meet the new vet and get a break from cannin’ apple butter.’ She had come bearing two quarts of the same as a gift to the new doc.
Around eleven, Amanda rang his office. ‘You have a visitor.’
‘Who?’
‘Come see,’ she said.
His red-haired seventeen-year-old brother was grinning big. ‘Hey,’ said Pooh.
‘Hey, yourself! What a surprise!’
Hugs, backslapping.
‘You’re my uncle Pooh!’ said Jack.
‘All th’ way. How’s our Jack Tyler?’
‘You can call me just Jack now.’
‘Okay. Just Jack.’
‘No, I mean plain Jack.’
‘Plain Jack. I like it.’
‘No-o-o-o!’ said Jack, laughing. ‘Can you put up my swing?’
‘That goes up later,’ said Dooley.
‘I’d like it up now, please, please.’
‘We all want stuff up now. As soon as we can. You’re tall as me, dude.’
‘Six-two,’ said Pooh.
The marvel of it, having this kid brother. He had been so busy since the wedding he hadn’t thought much about family. ‘Come on back. Perfect timing. What brings you to the sticks?’
‘I’d like to run something by you, if that’s okay.’
‘Better than okay.’
‘It’s kind of . . . personal.’
‘We’ll go in my office. Jack, take Charley home and ask your mom to set another place at the table.’
‘Thanks. I didn’t come for that, but I’m starvin’.’ Pooh looked around the prep room. ‘What’s goin’ on?’