by Holly Jacobs
“Hi, Mal. Are you home to stay?” she asked as he looked at the quilts.
“No. Just an extended visit.”
“It is always good to see you,” Annie said.
He didn’t want to answer any more uncomfortable questions, so he kept walking and stopped at a girls’ scouting table. They had small silver circles with tin punch designs. He held up a tree. “This is very pretty, girls.”
A young girl with a long braid down her back nodded excitedly. “We made ’em from juice cans. Mrs. Corbin had us all buy frozen juice and save the lids for months. We got all our families to do it, too. My grandpa said he never thought he’d say it, but he’s tired of juice.” She laughed, as if everything her grandfather did was a particular delight to her. “But he drank it anyway.”
He held out one with a Christmas tree poked out. “How much?”
“Two dollars,” she said.
Then he spotted one with a very good baby buggy on it. “I’ll take this one, too.”
“That one’s for a baby’s first Christmas. You can write their name on it with a marker. They make markers that are all glittery so it’ll look cool,” a redhead told him, as if she was afraid that he would use the wrong, nonglittery marker.
It suddenly occurred to him that the baby would be here in time for Christmas. This would be their first Christmas. “That’s a great idea.”
He paid for his ornaments, put them in his pocket, and vowed he’d find a glittery marker to write the baby’s name on the ornament.
He was going to be a father by Christmas.
His father had given him until the new year to get back to work, but he knew that Senior expected him home sooner. But leaving and going back to work in Pittsburgh had lost some of its allure. The thought of not being here and seeing his child daily . . . was almost a physical pain.
But Malcolm realized it was more than that. He’d miss seeing Kennedy, too.
He scanned the crowd, trying to pinpoint her. She seemed to be everywhere. He wanted to tell her to sit down and let him handle things, but she’d said she’d arranged the day, and he knew she felt that it was her responsibility.
She’d closed the flower shop early and said not to worry because she’d set up a table. It was filled with poinsettias and Christmas arrangements. Some young kid he didn’t know was manning Cupid’s Bowquet’s table for her while she stopped at all the other vendors and talked to everyone.
Some might say she was campaigning, but a lot of the vendors were from out of town. They’d come in for the craft show. And he didn’t think Kennedy ever campaigned. People simply naturally flocked to her and trusted her judgment.
“Mal Carter, how are you?” Clarence Harding asked. He was holding a huge collection of shopping bags. He must have seen Mal eyeing them, because he said, “This is my duty when shopping with Joan . . . holding her bags. Turns out it’s a task I’m good at.” So saying, he set them down on a bench.
“So how are you?” Clarence asked again.
“Fine,” Mal said, but what he really wanted to say was I’m going to be a father by Christmas. He didn’t think Kennedy was ready to tell the community. She hadn’t seemed overly keen on telling his grandfather. And given the way his father had reacted, he suspected she needed some time before they told everyone else that he was the baby’s father.
So all he said to Clarence was “Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving.”
“Well, it wasn’t bad, once I scraped all the burnt bits off Joan’s bird. She’s not much of a cook, my Joan.” It might have sounded like a slam, but the look on Clarence’s face said he didn’t care if his wife could cook. Clarence added, “She’s around the other side, if you want to stop and say hi. She’s selling Christmas frogs and shopping in between sales. I’ll be lucky if we break even.”
Mal started to ask what a Christmas frog was, but Clarence said, “Don’t ask. That woman’s got tadpoles on the brain.”
Clarence grinned as he said the words, and Mal could see that he didn’t mind his wife’s tadpoley brain any more than he minded holding her bags.
How did that work? Seeing past someone else’s peccadillos and loving them despite them . . . or maybe because of them?
His parents had minded just about everything about each other.
His mother had minded that his father worked so much, that he put his career before his family.
His father had minded that while his mother might live in Pittsburgh, her heart was in Cupid Falls.
Some people might think all their minding would have ended with their divorce, but there were so many more differences that they had after they’d separated. He frequently felt as if he was the main reason.
To his mom’s credit, she always tried to include his father. She sent him report cards and monthly schedules with all Mal’s activities listed. His mother invited his father to holidays and birthdays.
His mother loved being around people, and people seemed to sense that and flock to her. Her funeral showed just how many friends she had. To the best of his knowledge, his father had colleagues and clients, but Mal couldn’t think of any friends.
His father golfed and read.
His mother bowled, loved movies and television.
His father’s place was spartan and organized.
His mother had always liked her home to look lived-in.
His mother was quick to hug and equally quick to forgive.
His father . . . wasn’t.
Mal looked at bag-holding Clarence, who didn’t mind his wife’s frog obsession. He’d seen the two of them together and knew they functioned as a single unit. A happy couple.
How did they do it?
“You okay, Mal?” Clarence asked.
“Yeah, I was thinking maybe I’d go find Joan and get one of those for my—for Kennedy’s baby.”
Clarence might be the town joker, but his eyes narrowed. “You do that.” There was no trace of a smile. No joke as he stared at Mal.
Mal hated keeping his impending fatherhood a secret, but he wasn’t going to push Kennedy into it. He’d wait for her to make that first move.
“I’ll see you later, Mal,” Clarence said.
Mal nodded and wondered if Clarence had caught his slip. Mal didn’t realize how lost in thought he was until he practically tripped over a tiny, grey-haired lady.
“Ma’am, I’m so sorry. Excuse me.”
“Don’t worry, kedvenc. I am so short that my Bela, who is about your size, tells me he’s going to get one of those orange visibility flags for bikes and tie it to my head.” She laughed.
Despite his foul mood, Mal couldn’t help but smile.
“And I will let you make up for almost running me over by asking you if you know Kennedy Anderson and can point me in her general direction,” the tiny older woman said. “Crowds are not short people’s friends. I can’t see anything but stomachs.”
“Last time I saw her, she was towards the back of the room, but honestly, she’s moving around so much she could be anywhere by now.”
“Well, why don’t you be my hero and play my lookout and help me find her.” She patted his arm, as if she expected nothing but heroism from him.
Malcolm’s mood lifted even further, and he found himself genuinely enchanted by the small stranger. “My pleasure, ma’am.”
“How do you know Kennedy?” she asked as he scanned the crowd.
Now, that was a loaded question. “I’ve known her since she moved to Cupid Falls when we were kids. Her aunt’s house is next to my grandfather’s, and her flower shop is right next door to the Center, ma’am.”
“Ma’am?” She snorted. “I’m no ma’am. Call me Nana Vancy. Everyone does. Even my own children. Sometimes my Bela slips and calls me Nana Vancy, too, especially when I’ve annoyed him. And that happens a lot.”
He looked at the tiny dy
namo and had no trouble believing that she frustrated her Bela.
“And you’re connected to the Center how?” she asked.
“Technically, I own it.” What was he going to do with it? Kennedy wanted it, that much was clear, and under other circumstances he would sell it to her no questions asked. But she was about to be a new mother. Plus she had the flower shop and she was mayor. He didn’t see how she could take one more thing onto her very crowded list of things to do.
“If you own the business, why haven’t I seen you here before? You let Paul and Kennedy do everything.” There was censure in her voice.
Paul threw him for a moment, then he realized that she was referring to his grandfather. “It’s a long story.” He scanned the crowd and spotted Kennedy. “There she is.”
The small woman’s hand gripped his wrist. She was stronger than she looked. “I have time for a long story before we go see her.”
Mal might find the older woman amusing, but he wasn’t about to pour his troubles out to a perfect stranger. “I don’t want to be rude, ma’am, but it’s personal.”
“Nana Vancy,” she corrected, and studied him. “Oh.”
There was something in that simple syllable that had him worried. “Oh, what?”
“So, you’re the . . . what’s the lingo for baby’s father?”
“Baby’s father?”
She shook her head and her grey hair rippled. “No, that’s not it.”
He knew the term she was thinking of, and though he dreaded using it, he said, “Baby daddy?”
“Baby daddy,” she said with a whisper of an accent that said English wasn’t her first language, even though she’d obviously spoken it for a very long time. She nodded. “That’s it. In my day a baby daddy was the mother’s husband. Period. But you’re not that.”
“Kennedy is a private person, ma’am.” He didn’t add that this particular baby daddy wanted to be the mother’s husband, but she said no.
The woman’s foot tapped with annoyance. “I do not like all this ma’aming. Ma’am. Ma’am. Ma’am. Please call me Nana Vancy. Everyone does. If my Bela can call me that, so can you.”
She’d mentioned her Bela before, and he thought it might be a good way to sidetrack her from her baby-daddy question. So he threw out the question: “Your Bela?”
“My husband. My baby daddy . . . babies’ daddy, if I want to be hip.” She seemed so delighted with the terminology that he couldn’t help but laugh along with her.
She glanced across the room at the very pregnant Kennedy, who was flitting from one table to another, one person to another. “So, you and Kennedy are together?”
“No, not really.” The fact they weren’t officially together wasn’t from his lack of trying.
“Oh.” She looked at Kennedy, then back at Mal, speculation in her eyes. “My friends thought it was too late for love, but they both have men in their lives now. It’s never too late. You remember that.”
He was afraid that it was too late before they’d even started, but he didn’t say that. He simply said, “I will, ma’—” he started, but a look from the older woman made him change the word to “Nana Vancy.”
She patted his hand. “Thank you. When you’re ready to talk, come see me. I’ll be back in a couple weeks for the Everything But a Dog adoption, then the dance. I hear they are calling it the Bow-Wow Ball?” That seemed to delight her as well.
“I’ve heard that, too.” Suddenly he knew who Nana Vancy was. “Oh, you’re her. Kennedy mentioned the events.”
The woman—Nana Vancy—seemed pleased that Kennedy had mentioned her. “Yes. I’m her. I started Everything But a Dog to help homeless dogs find their forever homes. We’ve never had an event outside of Erie before, but we’ve had so many dogs who need homes. We thought it was time to take the search out into the county. Your Kennedy has been a wonder to work with.”
He ignored her your Kennedy remark. Nana Vancy said it with the same sort of tone she used when she said my Bela. She made both sound as if the two people in question were a single unit. Vancy and Bela . . . if you were going with the current fad of mashing two names together, they’d be Vela.
Malcolm and Kennedy? Maledy.
Malady.
Yes, that about said it all.
“You sighed,” Nana Vancy said with a prosecutor’s sort of tone. “What are you thinking about?”
He was saved from trying to explain the hybrid name fad to the woman he’d just explained baby daddy to when they arrived at the woman in question. Kennedy had a hand pressed into the small of her back. He’d noticed her doing it before and wondered if her back was bothering her.
On the heels of that thought, he realized that of course it was. If he taped a bowling ball to his stomach, then stood around all day arranging flowers, his back would be killing him, too.
Kennedy narrowed her eyes as she spotted him, but she pasted a fake I’m-the-mayor-and-have-to-be-nice-to-everyone smile on her face. He could almost read her thoughts. She was thinking he had better not ask her to marry him here.
He winked, hoping she understood it meant he’d try not to ask her, but he wasn’t sure she could count on his ability to control the question.
She shot him a warning look, and he was pretty sure she’d understood him just fine.
“Kennedy, kedvenc, how are you?” Nana Vancy asked.
Kennedy’s gaze dropped from him to the small woman he’d brought with him. She smiled, a genuine smile this time. “Nana Vancy, it’s so nice to see you.”
“I came to do some shopping at your craft show and to see how the building looks when it’s all set up. This is wonderful, kedvenc.”
Mal wasn’t sure what a kedvenc was, but it was obviously a good thing.
“I’m glad you think so. I ordered a rubberized flooring that’s recommended for pets. I called a friend, Nikki, who runs a doggie day care, and she said they use it. It’s easy on the dogs’ paws, and if there are any accidents, it’s easy to clean up. And—” She glanced at Mal. “I’m sorry. I need to make an introduction. Nana Vancy, this is Malcolm Carter, the owner of the Center. Malcolm, this is Vancy Salo, the driving force behind the Everything But a Dog Foundation.”
“We’ve already met,” he said.
Kennedy nodded and went back to talking to Nana Vancy as if he were invisible.
“I hardly recognized you without your Silver Bells,” she said with a laugh.
He’d only just met the older lady, but he had no doubt she’d be the kind of lady who’d wear bells, silver or otherwise. There was some poem about old ladies and purple. Nana Vancy was exactly that kind of lady.
“Annabelle and Isabel have new boyfriends,” Nana Vancy told Kennedy. “They didn’t want to spend a day away from them.”
Oh, her friends, not actual silver bells. Mal smiled. He was still sure Nana Vancy would wear bells if she were so inclined.
The older lady continued, “Since they were busy, my Bela came with me. He’s walking down your Main Street, looking at the shops. He says craft shows give him hives. But the truth of the matter is, he didn’t want to leave the dogs alone all day, so we brought them and he’s taking them for a walk.”
“Oh, the dogs are here? Can I meet them?” She turned to Mal, as if remembering he was there, and explained, “Nana Vancy’s dogs, Madame Curie and Clara Barton, are the reason she started Everything But a Dog. She rescued them—”
“In order to help two people find their happily-ever-after. But don’t worry, I’ve given up the matchmaking people hobby. Now, I only matchmake for dogs and their forever families.”
Mal was glad she was out of the matchmaking business, because Nana Vancy was looking from him to Kennedy, studying them both like lab rats.
Kennedy didn’t seem to notice. She nodded and added, “Her dogs have had their stories written up in the paper. They were
even on the news a few times. They’re famous.”
“Oh, don’t let the dogs hear you say that. Their fame might go to their heads. My grandson made a joke about the dogs being worried that the puparazzi would hound them. Get it? Paparazzi—puparazzi?” She laughed at the rather lame play on words. “Let’s go find them and I’ll introduce them to you.”
As if he were an afterthought, Kennedy looked at him and said, “You’re welcome to join us.”
She didn’t have to say the words “but I wish you wouldn’t” for him to know that’s what she was thinking. He smiled and shot her a look that said, if wishes were horses—or in this case dogs, and he smiled broadly as he said, “Don’t mind if I do.”
Kennedy didn’t look pleased at the prospect.
“How did the dogs help you start the foundation and why are they famous?” he asked as they wound through the tables of crafts.
“Now, that’s a story,” Nana Vancy said. She took his arm. “I probably should start at the beginning.”
He glanced over at Kennedy, who was grinning. She’d obviously heard this story.
“Years ago, back in Hungary, I accidentally cursed my own family to bad weddings. Not on purpose, kedvenc. I thought I was cursing Bela’s family, which wouldn’t include me, since he’d left me standing by myself at the altar. But he finally made it home and married me right away. I was so happy to have him home and that he was my husband that I didn’t realize for a long time that it was my own family I cursed. We moved to the United States and built a life here. That’s when I learned what I’d done. And for years, I tried to undo those words I so carelessly uttered and break the curse.”
She looked at Kennedy, who as if on cue, said, “Words have power.”
Nana Vancy nodded, satisfied. “They do. That’s the lesson. I’d said the words and cursed my family. After my grandchildren married, I managed to break the curse, then I was bored, so . . .” She looked at Kennedy again.
“She started matchmaking with her friends’, the Silver Bells, help,” Kennedy supplied.
“Isabel and Annabelle,” he filled in.
They reached the coatrack and all three of them pulled out their coats.