by LoRee Peery
“Have at it, then.” Moselle pictured a decorated folding screen standing behind the coffee machine. Then she gave close scrutiny to the older women. She loved looking at them this way.
Aunt Lanae’s illness would zap that for a time.
As the older women headed for change, Moselle was ready to move on as well. This stay in Platteville was only an interlude before she became part owner of Use it Again, Sam—an antique store in Kansas City.
Her mother came over to wrap her arms around Moselle. “Without your help on the bank loan, I would have had to wait a long time for this shiny baby. It is truly amazing how the Lord works in His time.”
“And if Frivolities opens in time for Memorial weekend, you’ll have enough to repay me so I can buy into the store in K.C.” Moselle tightened her hold and inhaled the joined scents of lavender and sage that her mom had mixed at the Old Market in Omaha. She kissed her mom’s cheek before letting go.
Tears glistened in her mom’s and aunt’s eyes, and Moselle’s vision blurred with moisture in response. “Do you need help with the machine?”
“No way, José.” The older women answered before they giggled.
Moselle slapped the heel of her hand to her forehead and turned to leave. “Is Mexican OK for dinner?”
“Yes way, José.”
“Get me out of here.” Moselle headed out.
She grabbed her bag from a shelf by the door, which opened on a whisper, and Moselle patted the wood over the success of being oiled. Her sunglasses were a touch away and when she looked up, the old fire escape caught her eye. Just for grins, she ascended the stairs. The iron risers gave a hollow vibration under her feet.
When she reached the small landing, she turned to look west. She had a view of the river and the sky beyond where the sun would set. “Maybe Eric’s onto something, deck and all. Even if that work has to wait.”
The window could be enlarged for a door. She removed her sunglasses and peered inside. Through the wavy old glass she could see all the way across the room to the opposite windows. Light streamed in from the street side.
“What a place for my workbench.”
Her mind jumped ahead and she pictured a raised sleeping mezzanine in one corner. The rest of the space could be open except for the bathroom.
Yes, Eric had a terrific idea.
By the time her feet touched ground again, Moselle was questioning zoning laws. Weak in the practices of local government, she imagined they’d need to petition the city supervisor’s office to allow a residential dwelling above the store zoned for business.
She gazed back up and pictured purple and white petunias blooming in ceramic pots on her deck. Then with creative mind and lightened heart, she all but skipped the ten blocks to her mother’s home on Lilac Street.
But, could her heart handle being so close to Eric while he played carpenter?
****
That evening the kitchen was cleaned and the dishwasher had started its hum when a knock sounded on the back door. Moselle patted her hands dry before crossing the room.
Eric grinned at her through the glass panel. She responded with a frown but opened the door to offset any rudeness on her part. His hair looked wet, and he smelled like a wake-’em-up kind of spicy soap.
“Mmmm, tacos?”
“Taco casserole.” She crossed her arms and lifted her chin.
He stood there, his muscles filling the kitchen, with a wise-guy grin as though he knew some joke that she didn’t.
Eric took a long time studying Moselle’s face. He produced a sheaf of papers she hadn’t even noticed. “We’re ready to get this ball moving. I have the names of a couple electricians for your mom.”
With dramatic flourish, she snagged the list. Moselle offered a smile with her renewed good manners. “We have spumoni ice cream if you’d like dessert, Eric.”
“Have to take a rain check. It’s meeting night at the fire hall.”
Moselle wanted to thank him again, but got lost in watching his energetic exit. She shut the door and handed the papers to her mother. “Mom, can we talk for a minute?”
Geneva pulled out a chair and Moselle joined her at the table.
“Eric gave me a really good idea this afternoon.” She reached out and picked up the hem of her mother’s skirt. “This looks like that recital dress I wore in seventh grade.”
“It is. The progression of purples makes a nice binding, doesn’t it?” Geneva took Moselle’s hand and held it on her knee. “Now, what’s this idea of Eric’s?”
“You know I love being here in the house where I grew up, but I’m so used to living alone.”
“But—”
“Let her talk.” Lanae interjected from the doorway.
Moselle took the plunge. “What do you think of making a studio apartment, a loft, above Frivolities?”
“What a fantastic idea!” The sisters agreed in tandem.
Moselle lifted her chin to seek patience from the ceiling.
“I know you’re used to living alone, but I was just getting used to having you around the house.” Geneva swirled up from the chair, her quilted skirt brushing against Moselle’s leg. “Whatever you think is best. Eric’s a great carpenter. Now, my sewing room is calling.”
“A John Wayne western is calling me.” Lanae patted the heart-shaped doily on her denim vest.
Moselle longed for her workbench back at the store—to get lost in her art.
She meandered into her mother’s sewing room. The room was as cheerful as Frivolities. Shelves of fabric organized by color rested behind open closet doors. Moselle favored the end wall adorned with a hodgepodge of lightning and windmill photos, interspersed with framed biblical quotes.
Geneva raised a brow in greeting and went on with her close work at the table. “So, did you and Eric have an opportunity to talk much today?”
“Electrical stuff, you mean?” Moselle rocked from one foot to the other, not sure where she wanted to land.
“You know what I’m talking about. You’ll never be able to go on with your life until you settle things with him.” Geneva sent her daughter a sidelong glance. “He’s really quite a man, you know.”
Moselle huffed. “But, Mom, how do I see Eric without remembering what he was like twelve years ago?”
Geneva reached for the green-tinted canning jar before she lifted her eyes to meet her daughter’s. “Are you the same person you were in high school?”
She drew in a frustrated breath, but her mother spoke again before Moselle could form a response. She followed the movement of her mother’s finger as it traced over the insignia on the outside of the glass before she twisted off the galvanized lid.
“Look at the worn edge of this pearl button,” she said, indicating the warped white button that rested in the palm of her hand.
Moselle plucked the button from the cup of her mother’s soft hand and rolled it between her thumb and index finger. It felt smooth on the top side and rough on the bottom. It wouldn’t lie flat on the surface of the quilted wall hanging, wherever her mother chose to anchor it in place.
Warmed by childhood memories, she handed it back. “I suppose this is your object lesson for today.”
Moselle felt the smile tug at her mouth and then let it broaden to mirror her mother’s. “Something like, ‘this is what life does to us—smoothes and wears away some edges while leaving others rough.’”
They shared a laugh. The feather hanging from Moselle’s long dream catcher earrings brushed her neck, the touch as soft as a thread.
She reached for the clear Mason jar that held plastic white buttons. “But, back to Eric, Mom. Why should I trust him now?”
Moselle opened the jar lid and pulled the faded red rubber seal off the rim. Buttons rained from the tipped jar into her palm.
She watched her mother draw a length of hunter green thread and insert it through the eye of the needle.
“He’s grown up to be quite a nice man. You should get to know him.”
>
Moselle exhaled a rude noise and clenched her teeth against a disrespectful remark. She swallowed as her mother nodded in approval of Moselle’s suppressed response.
“Think about it, Moselle. Am I the person I was before your dad died? Are you?”
“Of course I’m not,” she finally admitted.
In an attempt to rid her eyes of threatening tears, Moselle shook her head and drizzled buttons from one hand to the other. The gentle snick soothed her troubled thoughts for fleeting seconds.
“We were all kids at eighteen. Remember, as a young man Eric went through losing a baby and a divorce.”
Moselle remembered all too well from her own perspective. She had loved Eric. They’d argued. Two months later, he and Moselle’s best friend walked down the aisle.
She became aware of the beaded sweat caused by her hold on the buttons. She swooped them back into the jar. One sphere of white plastic bounced from the maple table top to the floor.
As she watched the button roll across the floral rug, Moselle saw a memory flash of her blouse button flying through the air and over the seat of Eric’s old souped-up high school Ford.
Moselle’s Insurance
3
Lost in the moment, she’d reveled in Eric’s kisses. The next thing she knew, things had gone way too far. She’d asked him to stop. And to his credit, Eric had heeded her request.
She had wanted him. Over the years she’d never regretted not giving in.
What she had missed most was the like-minded connection with Eric. They’d been part of one another’s lives for so long. She’d been hurt so deeply that she’d erected a thick wall to keep her from giving anyone else the chance to take her beyond an eighteen-year-old girl’s concept of dating.
Just the memory of their last night together, even after all these years, was enough to quicken her breath and create a tinge of remorse.
Something had held her back then.
Thank You, Lord, was a mantra she’d often used through the years.
Truth was she’d been willing to give herself to Eric, only there wasn’t a ring on her finger.
Moselle had sobbed and prayed. She’d made it a quarter mile before he pulled up and stopped the car. They rode to town in silence.
“Go away.”
“What did you say, dear?”
She had spoken out loud? “Oh. Nothing, Mom. Facing old ghosts.”
Moselle left the chair. On all fours, she retrieved the pearl button. And wondered how Eric remembered that night and the following days.
****
Eric’s thoughts kept straying from the firehouse meeting to Moselle. He remembered the fine, soft touch of her hair, how the silver at her ear had felt warm. And the way she smelled. Fresh and alive. He plowed his fingers through his own hair, scratched his beard, tried to refocus.
Chief Kory Schaeffer finished up the newest information on hazardous materials. Platteville was close enough to the interstate that their fire department covered an area twelve miles long. Eric shivered over the dangerous idea of a Haz-Mat call.
Aside from vehicle accidents, the only overturned semis he’d seen carried boxes of clothing and crates of chickens. He straightened in his chair, not wanting to give in to the chuckle that threatened at the memory. The fatalities weren’t funny, but the guys had joked about escaped hens mating with pheasants in the wild.
After the meeting, conversation ebbed and flowed as the firefighters joked over their coffee.
A slap on his shoulder nudged Eric forward a smidgen, but his feet stood ground. “Hey, man, I hear that good-lookin’ Moselle Carson is back in town.”
Before he had a chance to respond, the circle around him came to life like the cackle of those runaway chickens.
“Oh, yeah. The new chick business in town.”
“She never did get hitched, did she?”
“Isn’t she the one you—”
Eric bristled. “Don’t even think of finishing that thought.”
“So the one who flew the coop is back in town,” the gruff comment came from his right. “Think she can be talked into staying?”
Eric slid his glance up and over his shoulder toward his best friend.
Marty Marolf lumbered near Eric’s side. He reached around to refill the large mug that looked small in his hand. “We talking about the one who stuck in your craw?”
The size of his bear-like best friend always pulled a grin from Eric, especially when he pictured him with his tiny wife. Born in the Philippines, Camille Marolf would never see five feet tall. But they had an admirable marriage, and as much as anything, that’s what Eric respected about the guy.
“Enough of this chicken business.” Eric shook his head in dismissal and turned to leave.
Marty leaned in close, not to be deterred. “Do you plan to keep her in town this time?”
“That’ll happen if it’s God’s plan. And if so, I’ve got my work cut out for me.”
“This time, you have a different product to sell.” Marty guffawed and flexed a giant arm. “You can do it. You’re the super salesman, aren’t you?”
Not to the town’s newest customer. How could he convince Moselle that he wasn’t responsible for spreading those rumors years ago?
Who are you kidding?
He was guilty because he’d never set the record straight.
Standing up to old rumors began tonight in the fire hall.
“It was all just talk.”
Moselle wasn’t the one who had given herself that fateful Friday night.
****
At nine o’clock that night Moselle found herself alone at Frivolities, perched on a ladder, unhooking merchandise from lattice that hid the exposed tubes of duct work along the ceiling.
She blew a puff of air that moved the sky-blue, turquoise, and pale pink tail of the kite. She raised her arms and fluttered her fingers among the dangling colors. She tickled a ladybug’s wing and released a girlish giggle. “I still can’t get over those two thinking up this wildness.”
“You’re saying you couldn’t come up with this craziness?”
Moselle would have fallen off the ladder, but Eric grabbed her ankle.
“Sorry to scare you. You know I’d catch you if you fall. What’s that? A stretched-out Slinky toy?”
Moselle released a nervous laugh. “Eric! You took ten years off my life. What are you doing here?”
“Saw the light. Saw you through the window, then came around through the back.”
Eric had been ever-present on her mind since her return. And here he was.
He seemed so big and relaxed. She felt small and nervous.
Like a persistent thorn in a sock, she refused to feel any way but vindicated for her refusal to give in to Eric’s advances on that long-ago Friday. He’d been in the wrong.
She believed the Bible and God’s plan for the marriage bed. Consummation came after the vows.
“Shall we check out that living space above?”
“I’ve wondered how scary it looks upstairs at this time of night.”
He extended his hand. “Be careful.”
“Just don’t surprise me again.”
“Got a flashlight. Let’s go explore.”
She tossed a wave over her shoulder at the work to be finished, lifted a flashlight for her own use from its spot in the toolbox, and traipsed past the restroom to the huge door at the end of the hallway. The door stuck a bit when she pulled. Eric reached around her and opened it like nothing. The golden gleam from the flashlight revealed a light switch so she flicked it up and shut off the flashlight button in a coordinated motion.
The deep treads appeared smoothly worn and thick under her cushioned shoes. Moselle counted sixteen steps to the top, anything to take her mind off Eric’s hand at the small of her back.
She drew in her breath at the wide expanse. Putting the flashlight to use again, she searched for more electric lights. Spanning the room she saw two huge industrial light fixtures high above and
found the switch plate right at the top of the stairs.
“Of course.” She laughed.
She probably wouldn’t have noticed the wiring before Eric brought it to their attention. Now her gaze tracked the exposed wires, complete with porcelain insulators. Messing with the rolled insulation and fishing through wiring would be a messy job.
The lights didn’t add much more illumination than the windows letting in light from the street. The corners remained in shadow.
She could picture it, though, as a finished living and working area. It was such a delightful, open space. The storage corner could be converted into a dressing room and bath, with stairs leading to a loft area for the bedroom. She imagined the kitchenette where she could either step outside to eat on the deck, or watch the sunset from a counter inside.
“Oh, Eric,” enthusiasm spilled into words, “I love it.”
For some reason he remained quiet, no doubt looking ahead to the renovation work.
She wandered closer to the storage area and her heart picked up its beat at the sight of a stack of four thick wooden doors. “My work surface!”
“What?” His deep voice bounced off the walls.
“Daydreaming.” She heaved a sigh and wondered why she was so excited.
Frivolities needed to open in time for a good profit so she could return to Kansas City and get on with her life. She had a workbench there.
The thought of K.C. brought to mind her final days of high school, when the other students talked about her. After graduation classmates scattered off to new jobs, vacations, and visits to college campuses.
Her best friend, Beth Phillips, had left town to visit her grandparents. When she returned, Beth and Eric announced their upcoming wedding.
No doubt about it, too much was at stake for her to think of the loft as a future home. But it would make a nice temporary living space.
****
A disembodied voice, identified as the electrician returning his call, echoed through the room as Eric hung his hat. This was one of the times he rattled around in the simple brick ranch, the house he considered home, missing the sound of another’s presence.
He had been restless since seeing Moselle. He recalled snippets of the firefighters’ conversation, especially Marty’s question about keeping Moselle in town.