Dearest Dorothy, If Not Now, When?

by Charlene Baumbich

  “Lord,” Dorothy said aloud as she walked home after her late lunch, “I know You know everything, but it just doesn’t seem like You’re acting like it right now. I’m trying to keep wearing my hat of trust here, but I’m beginning to think You might just need a hand with this one. Or . . .” she drifted off, walking until she’d stepped over three consecutive cracks so as not to break her mother’s back . . . She picked up her train of thought again. “Maybe this whole mountain of mayhem is part of why You’re sending Jacob Henry back home. Then again, if it is, picket lines, mayoral debates and crabby people aren’t going to feel like much of a Welcome Wagon, are they?” She carefully observed a few more cracks until she decided she needed to watch where she was going lest she run head-on into someone. When she looked up, May Belle and Earl were right in front of her.

  “I hope you’re praying,” May Belle said with a generous smile. “I told Earl that’s what you must be doing, walking along staring at the ground like that. We could hear you muttering clear down the way.”

  “Indeed I was. I just came from Harry’s and I’ll tell you what, people are acting plumb nuts. I was just having a few words with the Big Guy, wondering if He might need a little help with this situation.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as you and me and Earl march ourselves straight to the grill and start banging a few heads together, see if we can’t knock some sense into folks.”

  “You were talking to God about that, about banging heads together?” May Belle looked puzzled while Earl looked shocked.

  “Well, not exactly.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” said May Belle. “Besides, I’m not in the mood for knocking heads together today and neither is Earl. Right, Earl?” Earl, a gentle giant of a man, was never in the mood for violence, so he vehemently shook his head. “We’re far too happy being happy for Jessica Joy! She looked like a glowworm in church yesterday, and have you ever seen anyone look prouder of a spouse than Paul?”

  “Thank You, Lord,” Dorothy said, looking up, “for Your perfect timing. Once again I am reminded that Your perfect timing isn’t always ours. If You didn’t send my friends out the door exactly when You did, it’s likely I’d still be grumbling. Amen!” she said, shifting her eyes toward Earl, “and that is enough of that. Right, Earl?” He nodded. “So where are you two off to?” although she didn’t have to ask since May Belle was pushing her folding metal grocery cart in front of her, a system she’d switched to (rather than pulling it) when her back started bothering her several months ago.

  “Your Store. Wilbur’s got whole fryers on sale this week. Want to join us this evening for fried chicken, mashed potatoes and whatever veggie looks good in the produce section?” She looked at her wristwatch and took note it was already 1:30. “Then again, maybe you’re not going to be hungry by five if you just finished lunch.”

  “Are you kidding me? I can already taste your crunchy white chicken gravy. Count me in, you two. See you then. I gotta get me home and make a few phone calls. Want me to bring anything?”

  “Just Sheba. We haven’t seen her lately and we’ve got a nice little pile of scraps waiting.”

  “You’re on. And Earl, we need to talk about my yard. I think it’s time we figure what all needs to be done, now that the snow’s done flying. It’s nearly time to mow.”

  Earl beamed. Nothing made him happier than to help his Dearest Dorothy.

  19

  Katie’s discomfort was obvious to everyone but Stephanie, the Carols’ seven-year-old daughter. Katie wished she could be more at ease in her own skin tonight, but not only was this the first real social gathering with her half-brother, it was also the first time she had shared a meal with any pastor, let alone in a rectory. The whole church thing on its own was still somewhat new and odd to her without these additional complications. What if in the privacy of their own home Delbert and his wife prayed in tongues or some strange thing, or asked her to pray out loud? She felt oddly ill equipped, or peculiar, or . . . on guard. Because of this, she started to bow her head twice after dinner was on the table and everyone was seated thinking Delbert was launching into grace when he wasn’t. When the prayer did come, it wasn’t, as she had feared, some kind of soulful plea for God to make them all feel like family. Instead they sang a happy child-like prayer (obviously their routine) asking God to bless the food, their family and the world—Stephanie’s and nine-year-old Scott’s voices the loudest. Katie was glad for the blessing’s simplicity and felt stupid to have fretted over nothing. She was also impressed by the beautiful table Marianne set, complete with linen tablecloth and napkins, place cards (reminiscent of her few dinners at May Belle’s), Waterford crystal and stunning red glass candleholders.

  Although they’d chatted in the living room a few minutes before Marianne called them to the table, she really didn’t have a chance to look around the way she wanted for fear she’d appear nosey—which to be honest, she was feeling. What kind of home did her father’s son live in? The house had also been his father’s—their father’s—since it was the rectory. (Delbert Junior followed in his father’s footsteps filling the pastoral duties at United Methodist.)

  Had things been different . . . this might have been my childhood home. She suddenly found herself longing for evidence of her father’s fingerprints on the world, a place to rest her hand atop where his might have landed—a touchstone to him, the father she’d never known. Of course it was decades since his death, and a home usually ended up looking and feeling more like the woman who lived in it than the man, but still, Marianne came to this house of her husband’s youth, so some things would surely remain the same, like the stunning dark woodwork that encased the tall doorways. My father would have probably touched that very wood many times. . . .

  It must be odd , she thought, working to distract herself from unfamiliar longings, to move into your husband’s home. She couldn’t even imagine moving into Bruce’s home when they were first married. Oh, the place had been nice enough—his parents were nice enough—but a woman needed to put her mark on a home, make it her nest. Katie’s taste was decidedly contemporary and Bruce’s folks liked French provincial. Making her contemporary taste work at the farm was enough of a stretch. Thank goodness they hadn’t moved into Bruce’s house, since after their divorce that might have made things even more complicated, were that humanly possible. Learning about the other, younger woman was cross enough to bear without her having to be the one to move out. She hadn’t trusted a man since.

  “So, Josh, how goes the job?” Delbert asked, ending a rather long silence.

  Josh chuckled. A pop-off about slave labor perched on the tip of his tongue, but he knew better. He was way too excited about this evening to mess up. “Pretty good and pretty exhausting. Earl came over to work with me yesterday afternoon though, and that was cool.”

  “What have you been working on, besides cleaning rooms?” Marianne asked.

  “We didn’t do much actual total room cleaning this weekend, but we sure did our share of spot-cleaning carpets. And we moved the washing machines out to clean behind them. Man, Earl is as strong as a horse. And . . . let’s see, what else . . . oh, and I learned how to prepare flower beds for spring planting,” he said somewhat more sarcastically than he meant to, causing his mother to raise an eyebrow.

  “I planted a flower seed today,” Stephanie said. “Our teacher brought seeds and we each got our own pot. But it’s a secret what it’s for,” she said, looking at her mom and grinning.

  Katie couldn’t help but notice a small grouping of framed photographs over Marianne’s shoulder. They were arranged on a red velvet scarf draped across the top of a piano. She wondered who played. Not Delbert. He wasn’t the piano-playing type. She didn’t have a musical bone in her body either, other than expertly loading her SUV’s six-changer CD. Aside from her workout DVDs, she usually preferred listening to NPR’s news anyway, so on
e of the first things she noticed when they’d arrived was the classical music playing quietly in the background. Marianne probably played the piano.

  “The children both take lessons,” Delbert said, as though he’d read her mind. Katie smiled, acknowledging the fact she’d been busted. “And this might sound corny, but I enjoy playing ragtime and old music from the twenties and thirties.”

  “Corny. You can say that again, Dad,” Scott said, torquing up his face and smiling at Josh, who he was clearly enamored of and obviously trying to impress.

  “Talk about corny,” Josh said, “my dad doesn’t listen to anything but jazz. Do you know what jazz is?” Scott nodded while Stephanie shook her head. “Let’s just say it’s not nearly as cool as ragtime, which is beyond cool and majorly radical if you ask me.”

  “Radical.” Marianne said the word as if she’d never heard it before. “I have to admit to you, Delbert, that over the years I have thought about you in many ways but radical has never been one of them.”

  Delbert chuckled, as did Josh. Katie thought just being a pastor was radical, but she withheld comment.

  “How about you play us a radical ragtime tune or two after dinner, Uncle Delbert? If that would be okay,” Josh said, turning his eyes toward Marianne, who insisted he address her by her first name rather than Mrs. Carol, which she said made her feel like she should be Delbert’s mother. Katie insisted Josh use proper names with adults but she could tell this was a special issue with Marianne so she let it slide.

  Marianne looked at her wristwatch. “If everyone is done eating I’ll serve up dessert,” she said, rising from her seat. Suddenly noticing Katie’s plate was still half full she sat back down and added, “But don’t let me hurry you, Katie.”

  “Mom never finishes a meal unless it’s some kind of salad,” Josh blurted, wishing he hadn’t since Katie shot him a look.

  “Oh! It never occurred to me you might be a vegetarian, Katie! I should have asked,” Marianne said, her eyes scanning the table noting the rolled pork roast and the bacon in the green beans.

  “No, I’m not a vegetarian,” Katie said, dragging her eyes away from Josh. “I’m just not a big eater. Everything was wonderful!”

  “Wish I could say the same,” she said, holding her hands to her waistline before removing Katie’s plate. “I’ll get these dishes to the kitchen and serve up the cake roll. I asked the kids what they wanted and cake roll it was.” Katie smiled. She hadn’t seen a cake roll—didn’t even know they still existed—since her mother, who loved them, died. She always had one in the freezer. She recalled her mom letting the ice cream melt a little, then mashing it with her fork until it looked like mush. Must be another of those Partonville things, she thought. “The children need to get to bed pretty soon, but I think we’ll have time for one tune, if you think you can limit yourself, Delbert.” A plate in each hand, she raised her eyebrows at her husband, who looked either a little sheepish or guilty, Katie couldn’t tell exactly which, but he nodded agreement. “Let’s just say the pastor at First United Methodist Church has an evil twin who comes out when he sits down at that piano. Not even an earthquake could knock him off that stool, I fear.”

  “Evil twin?” Katie asked, before Josh had a chance to get the words out of his mouth. She looked quite amused and pleasantly surprised by the notion. Ah, something she could finally relate to!

  “May I please be excused?” Scott asked. “I want to go play Nintendo in your bedroom.” Delbert and Marianne had fretted over whether or not to get him a Nintendo, finally deciding they would hook it up on the television in their bedroom, only to be played when the whole family was gathered together on the bed, or for a special occasion, which apparently Scott decided this was.

  “Before dessert?” Josh quipped. “What kind of kid bails on dessert?”

  “Okay, I’ll stay for dessert, but I’ve heard Dad play the piano plenty of times before. It’s not that great. Trust me,” he said. “You’ll see.”

  Katie was blown away. The man played ragtime like a professional. Such abandon! He reared his head back, closed his eyes, rocked forward, nose almost to the keys as he fingered a few rowdy licks. Yes, rowdy, she thought. That was the perfect word. Watching him play the piano was like witnessing Clark Kent come out from behind the pulpit and change into a Piano Man costume just so his fingers could soar across the keyboard. He worked the foot pedals so hard Katie thought they’d surely crack off. Josh was up on his feet clapping and tapping his foot. . . . It was nothing short of magnificent.

  Oh, how Katie longed to drop a few of her barriers, just let loose a little, throw her head back and. . . . What? Now there, she mused, was something to think about.

  When Katie went to bed that evening, she felt more alive and relaxed than she had in a long while. Delbert played two more tunes before Marianne tactfully reminded him that people had school and work tomorrow. Not once had anyone brought up “family” or “relational” issues; they’d simply enjoyed each other’s company. Katie would never again listen to him preach without picturing the wild man inside the poised preacher at the pulpit. She’d now received a hint as to why Delbert and Josh got in trouble in the truck. The redeeming part was that Delbert was a real champion during their meeting at the farm when he came to discuss the issue. He was utterly level-headed and genuinely cared about Josh’s well-being. Josh listened to Delbert. Building a relationship between her son and a man who cared about her son, one who would serve as a good role model, made her pleased with the evening.

  She rolled onto her stomach and cradled one of her many lush down pillows in her arms. Ragtime! Who wouldn’t want to know more about a man like that? Did he get his musical talent from their father? she wondered. She’d have to ask. And if so, where was her portion?

  Jacob looked in his rearview mirror. It felt funny to be driving his Saab for more than a few hours at a time. City living had its advantages. On the other hand, it would feel good not to be breathing someone’s exhaust or listening to honking horns every time he buckled up. Today he’d traveled far enough on the interstate so that traffic had thinned out a bit, for which he was thankful. If anything made him nuts on the road it was tailgaters.

  His mom told him to call her when he stopped for the night. Although he’d be staying with friends tomorrow night, this night he was on his own. Nobody expected him at any certain time so he could drive as long as he wanted and find a hotel somewhere when he got tired. He told her he wouldn’t call if he stopped after 11 P.M. and that he’d give her a buzz when he was back on the road in the morning. Her response: “You call me when you stop for the night, Jacob Henry. I don’t care what time it is.”

  Moms.

  He wondered how old a child had to be before a mom stopped worrying. He recalled how tense and worried Katie had been last Christmas until Josh made it back from his first solo long-distance road trip. He remembered his mother’s exact bedside prayer when his sister was dying at the age of thirty-nine. “Lord, hold my baby girl in the palms of Your hands.” She said she never felt so helpless in her life. “My babies.” At fifty-six, being referred to as a baby felt like both a hard nut to swallow and a rich thing to hear.

  Funny how now that he was moving back his mom’s propensity to worry about him seemed greater, or maybe he was just more aware of it. When he was halfway across the country, she had no idea what he was up to, how late or early he was coming or going. But now that he would soon be living under her roof, her worry radar was activated and spinning like a top.

  But then, she was the main reason he was doing what he was doing. The older he got, the higher his propensity for worry about her, so he guessed they were even. Why had her voice sounded so weak their last phone call? he’d sometimes think. Had she been crying? Would she tell him if she were sick, or keep it to herself so as not to worry him? “Are you sleeping and eating well, Mom?” “Are you taking your heart medication, Mom?”

  Moms
and their sons.

  20

  Katie sat at her kitchen table rearranging three-by-five note cards while trying to convince herself she was ready for this evening’s long-ago scheduled community meeting regarding Partonville Pleasantries, which now shared double billing with a mayoral debate. Could it get any worse? Gladys, Sam and the townsfolk agreed that the two issues were inseparable, so why not combine the events. When chatting with Dorothy or Jessica, Katie referred to the day she first learned about the double billing as The Flood since her body’s response was a tidal wave of hot flashes she claimed produced enough sweat to drown her. Thank goodness she’d been in the privacy of her own bedroom talking on the phone with Jessica, who read her the news straight out of the Press.

  She peeled through her cards again memorizing every step of her agenda. First she would present an update on the mall’s progress and her vision for how it fit into the town’s long-term planning. Then she’d talk briefly about the specific shops within the mall. Then she’d deliver the grand surprise olive branch: she would offer a “Partonvillers Only” invitation to a Partonville Pleasantries open house the Friday evening before the official grand opening, which was now only four-and-a-half weeks away, during which—and she would announce this with great gusto—she would conduct an on-the-spot drawing for a fifty-dollar gift certificate to any shop in the mall.

  She stopped reading and wrote out a new three-by-five note card. “Make sure you ask Swifty to make it clear I will not be opening the floor for questions until after I announce the preview open house and drawing.” Several Partonvillers were inherent buttinskis and the fevered climate in town had rallied them to new heights of bad behavior. She figured this tactic was at least worth a shot. Perhaps a spoonful of gift certificate could help the particulars go down, but she could already hear Dorothy saying, “HA!”

  This preview for townsfolk was Dorothy’s idea. Something to further help residents claim the mall as their own. Dorothy came up with the notion last Saturday night when she and Jacob came for dinner out at the farm. Katie called it Jacob’s official welcome-to-Pardon-Me-Ville dinner, which she hosted in exchange for some legal advice about wording on a few things for the meeting. “Fair enough,” he’d said in response to the invitation. They also met again last night around Dorothy’s kitchen table just to make sure Katie had covered all the bases. (“Like that’s humanly possible with Pardon-Me-Villers,” Dorothy quipped.) It was also the meeting at which Katie asked Jacob to serve as the lawyer for Partonville Pleasantries, to which he agreed. “My first new corporate client,” he said with a hint of sarcasm and a tad more enthusiasm than he was feeling, leaving Katie hoping she’d read his response correctly and that it was just his dry sense of humor.