A Light in the Window

by Jan Karon

  "How much?"

  "Double, can you believe it? Nobody in this town goes up double."

  "What does double mean?"

  "Double means highway robbery—better'n two thousand bucks a pop. The only way Percy can swing a rent like that is to raise prices on the menu. You wanna pay four bucks for a poached banty egg on toast? This crowd'll never go for it. Mack Stroupe is circling like a vulture, even as we speak. If Percy moves off Main Street, Mack is fixing to add on to his hotdog stand and serve breakfast. He'll have grits tastin' like they were cooked in a crankcase."

  "Edith Mallory..."

  "Look," said J.C., "I respect that you're not big on foul language, but I gotta say it. You know what the woman is."

  In case he didn't, J.C. told him.

  "So if he doesn't come up with the rent, he's out?"

  "Big time."

  "And if he does, he jacks up his prices and stands to lose his trade..."

  "You got it."

  "I thought somebody had died."

  "Yeah, well, somebody could, and it might be Percy. This could kill him. This place is his life. And lest you forget, buddyroe, th' Muse is right up those back steps there. Who knows when I'll get my little notice in th' mail?"

  "Where's Mule?"

  "Out lookin' for a place Percy can move into."

  The Main Street Grill not on Main Street? It was unthinkable.

  "Pat Mallory wouldn't have done a thing like this in a hundred years," said J.C. "He ate his breakfast at the Grill every morning of his life, desperate to get away from that barracuda. He would have paid Percy to keep it open."

  Velma stopped to pour J.C.'s coffee.

  "Don't worry," the Muse editor told Percy's wife. "There's still such a thing as th' power of th' press..."

  "Whatever that means," said Velma.

  Mule slid into the booth. "Let me tell you, it ain't out there."

  "No luck?" J.C. said.

  "One little old bitty place stuck off behind the Shoe Barn, and she owns that, too."

  "Does she really think Percy can cough up the new rent, or is she trying to run him out?" asked the rector.

  "Tryin' to run him out is the deal. Has some fancy dress shop from Florida she wants to bring in, th" kind that would draw customers from Wesley and Holding, all around."

  He didn't think he could eat a bite for the churning in his stomach. "How much time do we have?"

  "This is the twelfth of April, right? We got to the middle of May and not a day longer. Percy begged for time, but did she give him any? No way."

  "There's got to be something we can do." One look at the anguish on Percy's face as he worked the grill was about all he could take.

  "There might be somethin'..." said Mule. The rector wondered why the realtor was staring a hole through him.

  "I could dig up some dirt," said J.C, "and spread it across the front page. First thing you know, she'd come runnin' in here to hand over the deed, forget droppin' the rent..."

  "Stop talkin' junk and talk sense," snapped Mule.

  "See there?" said J.C, "Ever/body's got their back up. It's enough to make you sick to your stomach."

  Velma appeared and slid J.C.'s order to the end of the table and set down the rector's poached eggs. "You done eat?" she asked Mule.

  "Cornflakes at six a.m.," he said. "I could gnaw th' legs offa this booth, but Fancy's got me on a lowfat diet."

  "Fancy barks, he jumps," grunted J.C, busting open his egg yolk with his fork.

  Mule looked at the rector. "I hear you know Edith Mallory pretty well..."

  "She's a member of Lord's Chapel."

  "You've been carted around in that Lincoln of hers a few times, not to mention you've been seen over in Wesley ridin' around..."

  "Purely business." His toast suddenly tasted like so much Styrofoam.

  "You know what people say..."

  "No," he said coldly, "I don't know what people say, and furthermore..."

  "They say she's got you marked off with a red flag..."

  "I suppose you believe everything you hear?"

  "Well, knowin' you as I do, and knowin' her as I wish I didn't, I don't put any stock in what I hear. But what I'm gettin' at is this..."

  "What you're gettin' at is him suckin' up to a snake," said J.C. "If you ever opened the cover on your Bible, you'd see how that don't work."

  Mule put his hand on the rector's shoulder, looking earnest. "One word from you and this whole thing could be turned around. No skin off your nose whatsoever. 'Scuse th' language, but if she's got th' hots for you like people say, you could talk sense to 'er and she'd listen."

  "I appreciate that Percy's been driven to the wall, but I won't be thrown on the sacrificial fire. The answer is no."

  This was not the usual morning banter. It was serious business; he felt the lifeordeath of it. Even so, he despised being made the goat on the altar. He had no intention of humbly submitting to this tactic.

  "Nobody's sayin' do anything you'd be ashamed of," said Mule, as if the rector's speech had gone in one ear and out the other. "Just take her to a nice dinner over in Wesley. Tell her how th' Grill is one of the oldest businesses in town. Percy's daddy opened it fifty-two years ago. It's a dadgum historic landmark..."

  "Listen. I don't have a lobby with Edith Mallory—I don't give a blast what people say. If she wants two thousand dollars a month, and she can get it, what could I say that would change her mind? You think she's going to turn down twenty-four thousand a year because she thinks I'm...I'm..."

  "Yeah," said J.C.

  "Besides," said Mule, "aren't you in that business?"

  "What business?"

  "Persuadin' people."

  "How's it going ?" said Ron Malcolm, sliding in beside the Muse editor.

  "Rotten," growled J.C., which seemed to express the feelings of the entire booth.

  Ron took his cap off and looked at the rector. "Father, I've been thinking...you know Edith Mallory pretty well. I was wondering if there's anything you could do, anything you might say. I get the feeling she'd listen to you."

  If J.C. Hogan had the guts to grin at him, or if Mule Skinner laid on that insipid wink he was famous for, he would puke, plain and simple.

  •CHAPTER THIRTEEN•

  They had swarmed over him like so many fire ants.

  Then, Percy had joined them when the breakfast crowd thinned out, his eyes filled with some mute pleading that was clearly aimed straight at him.

  It was a conspiracy.

  Given the ten-and-a-half she was now collecting, what could possibly make Edith Mallory give up an easy twenty-four thousand a year? Nothing that he would be party to.

  So what was the use?

  On the other hand, what if he got tough and came up with something that would, perhaps, result in only a token rent hike?

  Maybe a room in her name at the town museum...

  Under the circumstances, he thought he could talk Esther Cunningham into it. Sliding it by the town council, however, was another matter.

  What about a garden planted in her honor? He and the rest of the Grill regulars would gladly grub the stumps out of the town lot with their own hands.

  But he could forget that—the town lot was hidden behind the post office. Edith would want something people could see from Main Street, with a plaque they could read a block away—lighted at night on both sides, possibly by an eternal flame.

  How did he get in a fix like this?

  And, come to think of it, how did Cousin Meg dispose of her trash?

  When the old man called the office, he felt instantly encouraged.

  "Uncle Billy, how are you?"

  "Pretty good, considerin' I done fell off a twelvefoot ladder."

  "Good Lord! Is anything broken? Why, it's a miracle you survived!"

  "Well, sir, t' tell th' truth, I only fell off th' bottom rung."

  "Aha."

  Uncle Billy sounded disappointed. "That's m' new joke, don't you know."

&nbs
p; "I was supposed to laugh?"

  "That's th' general thinkin' behind a joke."

  "Better get a new joke, Uncle Billy. You scared me with that one."

  "You ought t' know I don't git on no ladders, no sir. Th' last 'un I got on, I left it leanin' aginst th' house to rot down. I don't mess with ladders no more."

  "A good idea, all around. How's Miss Rose?"

  "Sly as a fox."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Every day she gets in my money and moves a little bit around to her side of th' mattress."

  "What are you doing about it?"

  "Why, I'm comin' along behind her when she ain't lookin' and movin' a little bit back where it come from."

  "Makes sense."

  "How's your boy? I seen 'im in church. He's gittin' gangly."

  "That's right, he is. He's prospering, I'd say."

  "We want you'uns to come up and have cobbler with us this summer when th' berries are on. And bring that nice blonde-headed woman what crawled in Rose's play-hole and found my ink drawin's."

  He remembered Cynthia crawling behind Miss Rose into the dark space under the eaves that had been Miss Rose's childhood playhouse. "We'll come," he said, meaning it.

  "Have you discussed it with him yet?" asked Miss Sadie.

  "No, ma'am," he said, feeling despondent.

  "Have you come up with anything yet?" Mule wanted to know.

  "No, blast it," he said, feeling pressured.

  "Have you done anything with those family papers yet?" Walter inquired.

  "What do you think?"

  "Ah, Timothy. And with an Irishwoman living right under your roof..."

  "So, sue me," he said.

  He had come home early and found her rifling through the shelves in his study. "How's the book coming?" he asked.

  "Straight on," she said, burying her nose in a volume of Irish poetry. He thought she looked precisely like a barn owl in a bathrobe.

  "I've been wondering...how are you disposing of your trash? We did give you a wastebasket, I hope?"

  "I'm recycling," she said.

  "Aha."

  "Paper products in one bag, aluminum cans in another."

  "That's terrific. We can take the bags to Wesley next trip, get them out of your way."

  "Righto," she said. "No hurry."

  "I'd like you to go with me to the Grill in the morning."

  "Ah, no. Too much staring at me just now."

  A cattle prod, that would be the thing. But he must be kind. After all, blood was blood. "I'll knock at six, as before. And Cousin..."

  She pretended not to hear but licked her forefinger and turned the page.

  "I'll look for you at the dinner table this evening. Sixthirty."

  "I don't think so..."

  "Sharp," he said, meaning it.

  His cousin sat at the kitchen table, glowering.

  Where was the Irish wit, he wondered, the droll humor, the unending stories their ancestors were famous for? What was she, anyway—Scottish?

  He put Puny's lowfat meatloaf on the table, still sizzling from the oven, and went to the stove to dish up the green beans.

  "Man!" said Dooley.

  He turned around to see that his cousin had helped herself to a vast portion and was going at it, full bore, with her fork and knife. "I ate only grapefruit on Sunday, so this will be my substitute day for flesh..."

  "We'll wait for the blessing," he said evenly.

  Holding her fork in one hand and her knife in the other, she sat hunched forward in her chair. What in heaven's name could he do that might bring a smile to those startled eyes?

  At the blessing, he reached for Dooley's hand, but hers was gripping the fork.

  How could she eat so heartily and never put an ounce on her bony frame? Metabolism, he supposed. Where in the dickens had he been when the hyperactive metabolisms were passed out?

  "How many times have you been to the States? I can't seem to recall if you told me."

  "Several times, on and off."

  "Staying with cousins, were you?"

  "On occasion."

  "And where was that?"

  "Once in Oregon."

  "And where else?"

  "Massachusetts."

  "Who were you seeing in Massachusetts?"

  "No one you know," she said.

  "Try me."

  "Cousin Riley."

  "Umm. That wouldn't be Riley Kavanagh, would it?"

  She glared at him. "No, it wouldn't."

  He took a deep breath, only to have it end in a sigh. "Dooley, what's going on at school?"

  "Nothin'," said Dooley.

  Conversing with this crowd was about as reviving as lugging a rock straight uphill. "Well, then, tell us about your book. How does it...begin?"

  She deftly piled green beans on the back of her fork. "It begins as the horror itself began."

  "Aha."

  "One morning in 1845, an Irish farmer discovered that something was dreadfully amiss. The book opens with what he had to say, and I quote:

  " 'It was a warm day when I saw a thick white fog gradually creeping up the sides of the hills. When I entered it, I was pained with the cold. I at once feared some great disaster. The next morning when I traveled about...I found the whole potato crop everywhere blighted. The leaves were blackened and hanging loosely on their stems, and a disagreeable odor filled the air.'"

  "Gross," said Dooley.

  "Moving," said the rector, knowing how that tragic event had scattered, and nearly destroyed, a nation. Oddly, the longest speech he had heard her make was someone else's.

  "When do you expect the book to be finished?"

  "It will be done when it is done."

  "I see. And how long do you think you...might be with us?" Among the Irish, cousins from across the pond were treated with great favor, but he didn't know how much more favor he could fork over.

  She pushed her hair behind her ears and gazed at him soberly. "As long as you'll have me, Cousin."

  Dear Timothy,

  Hanging up on you was a silly and immature thing to do, but I couldn't help it. It just happened. Something came over me.

  Your note arrived, telling me about the mixup, and I've tried to feel remorseful for what I did. Actually, I don't feel one bit remorseful, but I do feel forgiving.

  As I thought how you flew to New York to surprise and comfort me, the ice around my heart began to melt and I could not help but love you.

  Hasn't our timing, and especially mine, been atrocious? If only I had been here when you arrived, do you think things might have been different? Do you think the ice around your own heart might have melted for eternity?

  I've decided I will come home to Mitford at the end of the month and live there always, no matter what the future holds. Nothing can run me away again, not even a neighbor who is kind and loving one moment and distant and indifferent the next.

  Somehow, the mention of marriage has strained even the sweet pleasure we found in going steady. It is grieving to think we might throw it all away because we've come to a hard place in the road and cannot cross over it. One would think that two people with brains in their heads could stand in the road and ponder the obstacle and come up with some ingenious way of getting over or around it! I mean, look what Mr. Edison, quite alone, managed to do with the light bulb!

  Perhaps we could befriends, Timothy. But it's time for me to quit suggesting what we might do or be together and let it rest in God's hands.

  If you think that sounds spiritually noble, it is not. I simply don't know what else to do.

  Cynthia

  He went to his desk and numbly opened the lower drawer where he kept her letters and laid the envelope on top. He stared into the drawer for a moment, trying to focus his thoughts.

  He could have sworn the pile of letters had been deeper, that there had been many more. But then, everything now seemed less than it had been.

  Dooley, how would you like to go away to school next fall?
>
  (Suspiciously) Where at?

  Virginia, perhaps, just one state away. You could come home on holidays,

  and I could come up for special occasions and bring Barnabas.

  (Long silence) I wouldn't like it.

  You would be given every privilege, not to mention friends for a lifetime— and a chorus to sing with that's twice the size of your group at Mitford School.

  (Firmly) I ain't goin'.

  That was precisely how the conversation would proceed. It might as well be scripted on a piece of paper.

  He was suddenly faced with persuading two people to do something they had absolutely no intention of doing. Why was a preacher expected to be so allfired able to accomplish the impossible when that, clearly, was God's job?

  The Lord had never spoken to him in an audible voice, not once. But there were times He had spoken to his heart and in no uncertain terms.

  As he labored in prayer on Friday morning, he received a strong but simple message:

  Go to Buck Leeper and talk.

  This message, which he felt no keen delight to receive, was persistent. Not only did it come when he was on his knees, but again as he washed his hands at the office sink and, later, as he jogged to the hospital.

  He knew the consequences of delay when it came to obeying what he'd been asked to do. Oswald Chambers had found this topic of special interest. "It is one thing to choose the disagreeable and another thing to go into the disagreeable by God's engineering. If God puts you there, He is amply sufficient.

  "...There must be no debate," Chambers had gone on to say. "The moment you obey the light, the Son of God presses through you in that particular...."

  If a parson could not reach out to the desperate, then who could— or who would?

  On the way to the site of Hope House, he made a decision to speak simply. No games, no hidden agendas, no beating around the bush. And let the chips fall where they may.

  Buck Leeper was alone in the trailer. He swiveled around in the creaking desk chair and looked up.

  "I'd like to talk," said the rector.

  "What about?"

  "I don't know, to tell the truth. Just talk. Get to know you better."