by Rob Summers
Chapter 24 The Truth About Fret
After the party, Dignity went up to the library to relax before bed. He was scanning a magazine when a howl of anguish reached him from somewhere down the hallway outside the open door. A moment later he saw Joy clatter past the doorway running like a terrier escaped from a cage full of alligators. A door creaked open down the hall and was immediately slammed.
He slowly put down the magazine, rose, and stretched. Whatever it was, he was not going to panic. Joy seemed to have sought refuge in the room shared by his sisters Love and Faithfulness. Let them handle it for the moment. So stifling a yawn, he sauntered down the hall to the closed door and listened.
“What have I been kissing!” he heard Joy exclaim disgustedly.
“Slow down. Now, are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?” Love said with composure.
“Yes, I’m sure. She went through this long, involved lead-up to it, and then she told me so herself. Worse yet, once she told me I could see her, I could see it in her eyes.”
“What did you say?” Faithfulness asked.
“ I didn’t say anything to her, I just ran up here.”
“The poor thing,” Love said. “I know it’s a shock for you, but she can’t help it, she can’t change who she is.”
“And all the time you didn’t know,” said Faithfulness, “all the time you were hugging her and whispering sweet nothings in her ear and—”
“You wipe that smile off your face,” Joy said angrily. “This is not funny.”
Dignity knocked and went in, finding Joy seated on a chair and the sisters on one of the beds. Joy’s expression was one of mixed disgust and anger, his sisters’ more of suppressed amusement.
“Dignity I just had the shock of my life,” Joy said. “We’ve got to get her out of here. Fret just told me that she’s….” His mouth formed a wavy line and he could not finish the sentence.
Love spoke for him. “Fret turns out to be Miss Worry.”
Dignity slowly absorbed this and sat down himself. “But how in the world?”
“I’m beginning to figure it out,” Faithfulness said. “Mr. Selfishness comes by so seldom anymore, and he was the only one providing her with her special foods. So she’s been on a forced diet for years, and we didn’t know it because she never came out of her room until recently. Plus she grew her hair long and switched to contacts. I always thought Worry was a lot older than Joy, but Love says only a couple of years. Who would have thought she’d turn out to be pretty?”
“She’s not pretty,” Joy moaned. “I just thought she was.”
“Where is she?” Dignity asked.
“In her room.”
“I’ll go down and talk to her.” He patted Joy on the shoulder. “Buck up, guy. I’ll still be your best man.”
“Not funny,” Joy growled.
When Dignity knocked, the door was opened by Honesty. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “She’s talking about moving out.”
“Did you know about this?” he asked.
“For the last few weeks, yes, but she and Grace wanted me to keep their secret because she had important things to do for us all. Grace told her after the council that she could make herself known, and I talked her into breaking it to Joy just now. It didn’t go well.” She grinned, showing uneven teeth and added in a whisper, “Actually, it was a hoot.”
“I’ll bet. But how is she? Is she crying?”
“Buckets. Come on in and see if you can comfort her.”
The skinny woman was seated in an easy chair with tears on her cheeks, holding a handful of tissues and looking blankly out at the world. Now that he knew her identity, he couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t recognized her before.
He sat down beside her and tried to think of a reason to comfort the infamous Miss Worry.
“You say she’s thinking of leaving?” he said to Honesty.
“Yes.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“Shh. Don’t make her feel worse. She’s changed, the poor thing. Grace said a few weeks ago that, if all goes well, he may change her name again, to something better than Fret. She’s really coming around to Heavenite views. I mean, if you and I could repent, then why not her?”
Dignity had to admit it was possible. He took Fret’s slim hand. “Joy needs some time to get used to this,” he told her.
“I said it would end in tragedy,” she said. “How could I ever be accepted here?”
“Well, actually, if Grace says it’s all right—”
“No, it’s no use. Thank you, Mr. Dignity. I know you mean well, and it’s so good of you, but I’m doomed to always be an outcast. Tonight I join the ranks of the homeless. But it’s so cold out, and I’m sure it’s going to snow.”
Dignity and Honesty looked at each other with suppressed smiles. This was the old Worry they had known, whining and gloomy as ever.
“You stay right here,” he said and squeezed her hand. “I’ll talk with Joy. He’s a native Heavenite, so he doesn’t know what it is to come out of the darkness and into the light. But Honesty and I know, so we’d be the last to condemn you.”
“Reason will throw me out.”
“No she won’t.”
“And I fell in love with him,” she said weakly. “I let him think he loved me too, when all the time I knew he would despise me if he knew the truth. I should never have even talked with him, but he’s so….”
“Handsome? Charming?” Honesty suggested to her. “Ten times smarter than you?”
Dignity flashed her a look of warning. “I’ll go talk with him,” he said again.
When he returned to the sisters’ room he found the three Orchards looking much the same except that Joy looked more resigned.
“She’s a wreck,” he told them. “Blames herself for keeping the secret for so long, but apparently Grace wanted her to. Joy, nobody says you have to continue a romance, but you could show her just a little friendliness.”
“We were supposed to go to the Navy Ball together, and Grace just let everyone know that it’ll be held tomorrow night,” Joy said. “Once we got there, I had actually been thinking of asking her to marry me.”
Dignity blinked. He had had no idea that the relationship had gone so far. This put things in such a different light that he decided to risk some advice. “Take her there anyway. You don’t have to ask her to marry you, and all thought of romance is over, but you can show that there are no hard feelings. I mean, as far as I can tell she never lied to you. She told you there was some mystery in her past, right? But Grace’s advice and her own fear of losing you kept her from telling you who she was. That’s pretty innocent, isn’t it?”
“Yes, yes, she’s innocent. It’s not that, Dig, it’s that she’s the lady we all used to mock and tease when we came here. She’s this whiny, absurd lady that nobody liked or trusted; and she was known to work for Mr. Power; and she thought she was in love with Selfishness, of all people. Plus she was a recluse and a hypochondriac and, and—well, she used to be fat. And I never gave it much thought, but I guess I assumed she was at least ten years older than me.”
“Will you escort her tomorrow night?” Dignity asked. “Let’s say it’s this charitable thing you can do for this silly older woman. She isn’t under any illusions; she won’t take advantage of your kindness.”
Joy looked as bleak as Dignity had ever seen him. “I’ll think about it,” he said. “I’m not saying I will, just maybe.”
“I hope you’ll do it,” Faithfulness said. “Anyway, Love and I need to go downstairs now and help Reason with some last minute gift wrapping for Wisdom.” She rose and, facing her brother with a smile, wiggled her fingers in front of his eyes. “And all the time, she was right in front of you, right there in your arms!”
“Cut it out! It isn’t funny.”
Part V The Gloria Dothan