Fields Of Gold

by Marie Bostwick

  “About what?”

  “Your life, you goose!” She groaned impatiently. “Eva, you can really be hard work sometimes. What’s going to be different now that you’ve finally exorcised that ghost from your life?”

  I knew she wanted me to say I was going to put on a new dress and knock on the door of the parsonage and tell Paul that I was finally over Slim, but I couldn’t. I picked up the bowl of peas and started shelling them distractedly. Nothing was as simple as Ruby made it sound. Though I’d never told her what happened between me and Paul, I knew she’d noticed how things had changed between us. Paul never came by the house anymore, not even to see Mama.

  Even if I did decide to invite Paul back into my life, it seemed I’d waited too long. The word around Dillon was that he’d been seen walking with Jolene Bergen after services. I’d heard Mrs. Dwyer share the news with Mrs. Linden as she cut and wrapped six yards of hideous moss-colored chintz intended as new dresses for the Linden girls, a matched set of pale, washed-out looking six-year-old twins nearly as ugly as the yardage their mother was buying.

  Mrs. Dwyer, like everyone else in town, knew Paul used to come by our house pretty frequently. Though she never said so to my face (Mrs. Dwyer never said anything to me if she didn’t have to), I knew she disapproved of the pastor keeping company with a woman of such questionable reputation. She leaned over the counter toward Mrs. Linden and hissed the news of Paul’s outings with Jolene in a stage whisper that made certain I wouldn’t miss a word as I stood near the wall, fingering a piece of machine-made lace. It infuriated me, hearing her toss Paul’s name around like that, lobbing her gossip archly in my direction and hoping to wound me with it, but I didn’t lift an eyebrow. I would have died before giving her the satisfaction of eliciting a reaction. Besides, I told myself, what right did I have to be jealous of anything Paul did. He was free to walk with anyone he liked, even the horse-faced Jolene. After all, I was the one who had pushed him away.

  Ruby leaned over and bumped my shoulder with her own, knocking me out of my reverie. “Eva, when are you going to quit wasting time? He’s not interested in Jolene Bergen, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “It’s no concern of mine who he’s interested in,” I shot back, shelling peas more vigorously, nearly throwing them into the bowl.

  Inexplicably, Ruby burst into laughter.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You are! You get any more jealous and you’re going to bruise those peas.” She laughed at her own joke. “Eva, I thought you never paid attention to gossip? Well, the old bats in town have gotten it wrong this time. Jolene and Paul have been seen together quite a bit lately, but there is nothing juicy going on. In three weeks’ time, Jolene is going to have a big white wedding and become Mrs. Elmer Olinger. She been talking to Paul because she wanted him to officiate.”

  “Bud Olinger and Jolene?” I gasped in disbelief. “He must be twice her age!”

  “More than that,” Ruby reported gleefully. “He’s sixty-three, same age as my dad. But, I guess he’s still, well ... let’s just say he’s as much of a man as he ever was.” Ruby winked slyly.

  Her expression was so knowing and comical that I couldn’t help but laugh. “How come you know so much? Ruby, you are making this up. You should be ashamed,” I scolded her halfheartedly.

  Her eyes widened, and she held up her right hand Boy Scout fashion. “I swear it’s true. Clara Johnson is remaking Mrs. Bergen’s old wedding dress to fit Jolene. She’s putting lots and lots of tiny tucks in front so nobody will notice the little surprise underneath the lace.”

  “Oh, now you’re just being mean,” I scoffed, returning my attention to the unshelled peas. “If she was really going to have a baby, why would she want to attract attention to the fact with a fancy wedding?”

  “I believe it is known as a diversion.” Again Ruby winked knowingly, reaching into the bowl to snatch a handful of peas and pop them into her mouth before I could slap her hand. “Maybe they think a big ceremony will distract everyone. Besides, Mrs. Bergen has always counted on her baby having a beautiful white wedding with flowers and cake and everything. Something she can show off about for years to come.” I still had my doubts about the whole thing, but Ruby seemed sure of her facts.

  “Clara told me that Jolene told her they are going on a long honeymoon tour all over the country,” Ruby added through a mouthful of raw peas. “They’ll drive off in a cloud of rice, and in a few months’ time Bud and his bride will motor back into Dillon with a trunk full of souvenirs and a precious bundle that looks real big and healthy for a seven-month baby.”

  “Ruby, you’re terrible.” I grinned despite myself. “That’s an awful story to tell.”

  “What’s so awful about it?” Ruby retorted. “Jolene will end up with a baby and, before too many years go by, all the money Bud’s been hoarding by living cheap as a bachelor farmer. Bud will get a young wife and a reputation as a rogue that will win him the jealous respect of every man in town. On top of that, I think they really care for each other. Seems like a nice arrangement to me.”

  “I can’t decide if you are being romantic or practical,” I said.

  “It’s a good balance,” she answered pointedly. “You should try it sometime.”

  Jolene and Bud were married on a Saturday in late September. Practically the whole town came to watch. By Dillon standards, where weddings were generally buttoned up in five minutes without benefit of bridesmaids or organ accompaniment, and the bride usually spent the morning after the wedding night frying eggs for the groom’s breakfast, it was a really elegant affair. The invitations were printed on white paper so thick it seemed more like shirt cardboard than stationery. I couldn’t help but be impressed. Practically the whole town was invited. However, Mama refused to go. She said she couldn’t imagine what Bud was thinking and that it was bad enough, a man his age marrying a little snit young enough to be his daughter, but having the nerve to dress up in a suit and invite half the town to eat cake and watch while he made a fool of himself was beyond her understanding.

  “I’d just as soon get an invitation to see him and Jolene parade down Main Street buck naked. Anyway, I never liked the Bergens much. They’re a snooty bunch. Always thought they were better than everybody else, and this proves it. I suppose you’re going to go, Eva?”

  “Well, it would be rude not to have at least one of us go, don’t you think?” Mama grunted disapprovingly but didn’t disagree with me.

  Mama was right about people not liking the Bergens. They owned the hardware and feed store in town, which meant they were better off than most, and Mr. Bergen was always happy to share exactly how much better off that might be. Mrs. Bergen was the kind who was always pushing herself into some committee where she wasn’t wanted to begin with and then lobbying to get herself elected chair. I had been five years ahead of Jolene in school, but that didn’t stop her from once lobbing a green apple at my head so hard it nearly knocked me unconscious. All the Bergen kids were mean like that.

  However, none of that stopped folks less hypocritical than Mama from showing up to see the spectacle. People who wouldn’t have invited a Bergen onto the front porch for a glass of tea if it had been two hundred degrees in the shade dressed up and brought presents to the church because they’d never seen a fancy wedding, except at the picture show, and didn’t know when they’d get another chance.

  Despite what I’d said, good manners and curiosity weren’t the only reasons I wanted to go. Paul would be there, and I wanted to see him. Ruby said she couldn’t see any good reason why I didn’t fall in love with him, and sometimes I thought she must be right, but it was too soon. I was not ready to love anyone, though I missed Paul’s friendship very much. Maybe meeting up with him on a fine day, a happy wedding day where we could talk about the weather and the bride’s dress, would give us a way to begin talking again without being too serious. Maybe we could pick up where we left off without needing to discuss painful things. It seemed w
orth a try.

  As it turned out, Ruby had a cold the day of the wedding and couldn’t come, but I put her name on the card of the gift along with mine and promised to tell her about every detail of the ceremony. There hadn’t been much time, but I had run up a quilt on the machine in Jolene’s wedding colors, peach and green. It was nice, but for sheer spite I made it a crib size, just to hint to Jolene that she wasn’t fooling anybody. Considering my own past, I suppose I was the last one who could throw stones, but I’d never completely forgiven her for the apple-throwing incident. Besides, as I sat in the third pew of the church and studied the bride’s middle under the folds of delicate white lace, it seemed to me that Jolene would be needing that baby quilt in only five months, not six like Ruby had calculated.

  Paul officiated, wearing his best white lace and linen vestment, the one his Aunt Cornelia had made for his ordination, that he jokingly referred to as his “party frock.” Jolene had chosen a full church service, complete with sermon, instead of the short recitation of vows that was usually performed at Dillon weddings. I guess it gave more of a chance to show off the dress, flowers, and scene her mama had spent so much money and effort orchestrating. Paul took his text from First Corinthians, Chapter 13, the part about the qualities of love, and read the verses in a strong, clear voice while the wedding guests squirmed uneasily in their pews; I knew why. It seemed awfully sentimental and slightly ridiculous to read something so romantic aloud, especially in reference to this slightly comic May-December coupling. Actually, I considered Jolene to be more in the July or August of her life than the spring, but no matter. People in Dillon looked on marriage as a desirable and practical necessity of survival. Of course, if affection and attraction or even love entered into the arrangement, so much the better, but it wasn’t something you expected.

  Riley Jenson, who was sitting next to me, leaned over to his wife, Velma, and whispered, “Well, one good thing. Least now Bud’s got a himself a suit as is fit to be buried in. Looks like he might need it soon.” Velma elbowed him to hush but grinned at him for having the sass to say what everyone in the church was already thinking.

  It really was a lovely wedding. The bride looked beautiful, everyone agreed on that, as they have at every wedding since time began. People discussed the service briefly as they ate cake and drank punch in the side garden of the church, and then, as always at that time of year, the talk turned to weather and crop yields. It had been a good year, wet in spring, warm in summer, and everybody had gotten their wheat in unharmed by sun or hail. If a person never read the newspaper, you’d never know that the country was on the brink of war. I mentioned this to Riley, who was standing, eating a second piece of cake and looking uncomfortable in a new pair of shoes Velma must have made him buy for the occasion.

  “Never read the papers myself,” he said with his mouth full of cake. “All the news that matters is in the Almanac, anyway.” If I hadn’t been from Dillon, I’d have smiled at his humor, but being a resident, I knew he wasn’t joking.

  I drifted away, looking for a place to sit down. My leg was beginning to ache from standing so long. As though reading my thoughts, Paul came to the rescue carrying two folding chairs. He opened them under the lacy shade of a tree and invited me to sit down. “I heard you were back,” he said. “Was it a good trip?”

  “It was fine. Thanks. I must be getting old.” I groaned, easing myself into the chair. “I used to be able to stand all day and it never bothered me.”

  “Oh no,” he said gently, “not you. Not yet. It’s just when you’re standing in a crowd of people like this, doing nothing, talking about nothing, your mind has to keep occupied so it takes inventory and notices all the little pains that you don’t take time to consider when you’re working.” He smiled broadly. “That’s what I tell myself, anyway, and I’m already past forty. How old are you, Eva?”

  I laughed. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that women don’t like to talk about their age?”

  “Yes, I think I heard that somewhere, but what a silly notion. We should be proud of our age. Each year we survive is a testament to personal initiative.”

  “Or stubbornness. You don’t sound much like a pastor,” I said with smiling disapproval. “I thought we owed each day to Providence.”

  “Just so, but it doesn’t hurt to have something to say for yourself,” he reasoned. “God says if we’re lukewarm, He spews us out of his mouth. I interpret that to mean we are meant to stir things up a little, change things, hopefully for the better. That’s what my father always preached. You see, I come from a long line of troublemakers.” For a moment a cloud passed over his gaze, and he was far away; then he shivered as though suddenly chilled. He quickly shook off the mood and, smiling again, leaned toward me and whispered conspiratorially, “So, how old are you?”

  “Thirty-five, but I feel forty-five,” I said with a sigh.

  Paul nodded in mock solemnity. “Well, you have lived through a lot in a short lifetime.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I surveyed the wedding guests, poor and shabby in carefully ironed best dresses and shoes polished to brilliance in an attempt to camouflage any worn spots of leather. “Everybody has, if you think about it.”

  “Yes,” he said and sat silent. I knew he was waiting for me to tell him about my trip to Des Moines, but I couldn’t. The subject was still too raw.

  “Your sermon was nice,” I commented.

  Paul chuckled sardonically, “Ah, yes. I could see how riveted everyone was.” He smiled and stretched his legs out to their full length, closed his eyes, and tipped his face skyward, enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun. The full light of the day revealed the creases around his eyes and face, and I couldn’t help but think that his age looked well on him.

  “No,” I protested sincerely. “I think they liked it just fine, but it’s not the sort of thing we discuss in Dillon. You should know that by now, Paul. We feel things as deeply as anyone else, I guess. We just don’t talk about them, that’s all.”

  “Really?” he said facetiously, keeping his eyes closed against the afternoon sun but raising his eyebrows in feigned surprise. “Actually, I’ve noticed that. Still, I think everybody would be better off if they talked about love before they slip and find themselves falling into it without knowing what it is—or worse yet,” he said, squinting through one opened eye and training it on me, “mistaking it for something it’s not. I think Saint Paul’s definition is very nearly perfect: ‘love is patient, kind, is not jealous, or self-seeking, or easily provoked; love bears all things, believes all things, endures all things.’ There is hardly anything missing.”

  “My mama and papa were like that,” I murmured understandingly. “There wasn’t anything fancy or poetic about the way my folks loved each other, but it was very complete. Something you could count on.”

  Paul pulled in his legs and sat up straight again. “But there is one thing the apostle didn’t mention specifically, perhaps because it seems so obvious.” He hesitated for a moment and turned his gaze toward me. “Real love is requited, Eva. You cannot love someone so completely, so selflessly, as you have tried to, unless the other person is as giving as you. Anything less isn’t love; it’s obsession. It’s waste.”

  “Paul, I really don’t want to talk about this right now.” I shifted uncomfortably in my chair, noticing the dull ache had returned to my leg.

  “Did you see him?” he asked, his voice lowering to an irritated whisper.

  “Yes,” I hissed in annoyance. “And I am back, so I think that should tell you all you need to know. Please don’t ask me any more questions.”

  He angled his chair to face mine more fully and leaned in toward me. For a moment I thought he was going to reach out and take my hand, but he held himself back. “Eva, I know what love is, what it costs. It’s a price I’d be glad to pay, if only you’d let me. We could be so happy together. Even though you won’t talk about it, I can see it in your face, that you finally know the truth. Lindbergh does
n’t love you. But I do.”

  My heart sparked in anger at him, furious partly that he wouldn’t leave me alone but more because he knew me too well. The cruelest thing I could have said sprang thoughtlessly from my mouth. “You said it yourself, Paul. Love isn’t enough. It has to be returned; anything less is a waste.”

  Paul face went so pale, so quickly, he looked as though he’d had a bucket of ice water thrown on him. I was instantly ashamed of myself.

  “Oh,” he fumbled awkwardly and shifted away from me in his chair. “I am sorry. I feel very foolish. All this time I thought it was him, and that you and I ...” He rose from the chair. “Forgive me, Eva. I hadn’t realized how you felt.”

  I was absolutely mortified by my behavior. With all my heart I wanted to say something that would erase all the hurt I’d caused him, but that was impossible. The best I could manage was an blundering apology. “Paul, I’m sorry. Please. Please, sit down. I didn’t mean that I don’t care for you. I honestly don’t know how I feel right now. You made me so mad, I wanted to say something to hurt you. Don’t leave,” I pleaded. “We are friends. Can’t we leave it at that?”

  He stared at me for a long moment and then finally took his seat. “All right,” he said, his voice filled with resignation. “We are friends. I’m sorry about the other. I won’t mention it again.”

  A silence settled between us, gaping and clumsy, as though we had suddenly become strangers. I racked my brain to think of some small talk that would break the tension and remembered Nils. “How is your brother and his work? Have you had another letter from him?”

  The distant looked passed across his face again, cold and close and resigned. His mind was far across the ocean where his questions lay unanswered. “No, not for a long time. Weeks and weeks.” The muscles on his cheek twitched, and I could see his jaw tighten as though he were chewing on something tough. “I think he must be dead.” He spoke dully, flatly, as a man in shock.