by Kay Shostak
Of course she’d validate Savannah’s opinion. I shake that off, for now. “Your girls are home?”
“Okay, maybe I shouldn’t say only the A students. Also there are the students who’d rather be at school than home with pain-in-the-rear moms. Needless to say, mine are at school. Unless they’re at your house.”
“Nope, they’re not here. But Savannah is.” I sit down on the bed.
“Wait, why are you at home? Isn’t today your Grand Opening?”
“Guess it’s not my big Grand Opening anymore. I’ve been fired by Patty and her mom.”
“How can you be fired from your own business?” Laney’s outrage is palpable, until I realize she’s half laughing.
“Well, Gertie owns the building and paid all the utilities. Andy didn’t charge us for much of anything, and all I did was donate a bunch of books I needed to get rid of anyway. Besides, it wasn’t that fun.”
A male voice comes up the stairs. “Um, Carolina?”
I jump off the bed and shout, “Just a minute!” Into the phone, I say, “Gotta go,” and hang up on someone for the second time that morning.
Stepping out into the hall, I see Mr. Moon smile up at me from midway up the stairs. “The phone downstairs keeps ringing. Would you like me to answer it?”
“Oh, no. That’s fine. I know who it is, and she’s just mad because I hung up on her.” He walks back down as I descend the staircase. “I had to handle something with my daughter. Oh, you have two of them. Two girls. You might want to look into arranged marriages now.”
He smiles uncomfortably, but relief shines in his eyes when the phone starts ringing again and he doesn’t have to respond. I dart into the little office off the B&B hall. “Hello, Missus. So what is it I’m responsible for?”
“We can’t get the church hall for the wedding reception. And since you have accepted responsibility, I want to know what you plan to do about it.”
This woman, I swear. “I have no idea what you are talking about. However, since I know the outcome already, I’ll just say it.” I spread an arm across the office, as though she can see me. “Have it here.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Stay put. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” She hangs up, and I sit down in the office chair.
From the hallway comes Mr. Moon’s voice again. “You’re off the phone?”
“Yes.” Before I rise from the chair, he’s standing in the doorway.
“Can I ask you a question?”
I nod, and he leans against the door way. “Have you met my wife, Jordan?”
I nod. “Yes, she’s quite lovely.”
“Yes, yes she is. Did everyone here see the news coverage about her?”
His shoulders are held back and his chin high, like he’s preparing for a punch. I smile to help him relax, but it seems to just make him harder, his voice, too. “So she is a joke. A scandal here, too, now.”
“No, not really! It’s not like that. I mean, my daughter works for her. Plus, she had drinks with me and some of my friends Friday night. Not a lot of drinks, just a margarita for Cinco de Mayo. Nobody really believes what they see on TV anymore, right?”
He takes a deep breath. “They do in my world. So, your daughter works at my store? This is the daughter you want to arrange a marriage for?” He laughs and drops his shoulders. “My two daughters are so different, and very young. Carly is sweet and wants to be good. But Francie? I believe arranging a marriage now might just be my best bet.”
We laugh, and I stand up. He heads back to his room. “I have some work to do, would it be all right if I set my computer up on your deck for a while?”
“Absolutely. And Mr. Moon, Jordan misses her daughters very much.”
He doesn’t turn around, but his shoulders brace and his head tilts back again. Even his voice is stiff. “She should have considered that before she acted so recklessly.”
Chapter 18
A light breeze lifts along the front porch as I sit down in the rocking chair Mr. Moon sat in earlier. The heat from the sunshine isn’t strong enough to invade the shadows here, but the light is a gentle blue, filled with soft scents of the new grass and leaves and small flowers dotting the lawn and ditch. My lungs can’t get enough of the freshness. Nothing is old, nothing is decaying. Everything is new.
Bright green leaves on the maple at the corner of the porch are bigger than they were yesterday, and their little reddish seed pods are lighter. Across the railroad tracks, the woods are thicker, darker. That new shade of green dressing the trees and grass is growing up. Becoming a more serious shade of green. Serious enough to carry through the long, hot summer, but not that serious yet. Kind of like teenage leaves. And not only are the leaves a bit lighter in color, they are lighter in weight, so they dance in the breeze.
I rock and look and breathe. My khakis hit the tops of my feet each time I rock forward, feet which are released from socks. I hate socks and jerked them off when I got home, since I’m no longer a business owner downtown. If you can call Downtown Chancey “downtown.” I slipped on my old Kmart canvas shoes and threw my socks deep in my closet. I’ll look for them in the fall.
Missus pulls around the curve leading to our road, and her car is only barely visible through the newly thickened woods. I can’t help but smile as I can see her disapproval through her windshield as she parks and opens her door. It must be hard to go through life constantly being disappointed by everyone, and everything, around you. She’s lost her happy fog of being a great-grandmother already.
She has on a butter yellow pants suit, with short heels in beige. I can’t actually tell the color of her shoes from this distance, but I do know they are not white. Not before Memorial Day. She’d rather wear my Kmart slip-ons. Well, no, that would be just as bad. She’d rather cut off her feet. Yeah, that’s more the truth.
“Good morning, Missus. Isn’t it a beautiful day?”
“It’s gone downhill since I left my bed.” She sits down in the rocking chair beside me, her beige pocketbook (matching her shoes) in her lap. “What is this I hear about you quitting the bookstore? Is this not your grand opening day? Seems a little early to quit—even for you.”
That stings a little. “I didn’t quit. I was forced out. They…”
Missus waves her hand in the air like I’m an annoying mosquito. “Enough of all that. I do not really care. Must say I am not surprised. You and that Patty trying to run a business was joke from the start. Everyone knew it. Now, about the wedding.”
When my mouth drops open, she holds up her hand. “No, Carolina, I am not joking. Not another word about your tragic career choices. The wedding of our children. It must happen as soon as possible, and now that’s ruined. Simply ruined.”
She leans back in her rocker, but I notice it stays perfectly still. Rockers, or no rockers, if Missus doesn’t want a chair to move, it doesn’t move. Her mouth does, though. “I find it interesting that you have no questions.”
I rouse myself. “Oh? I’m allowed to speak?”
Missus closes her eyes. “Being juvenile is not attractive, Carolina. Never mind, I will tell you what you need to know.”
(Like we doubted that was going to happen.)
“We need a wedding as soon as possible, because, well, you know. The church calendar has no openings the rest of this month and June is filling up between the Church Homecoming on Decoration weekend, which is the weekend after Memorial Day. Vacation Bible School at the end of the month. So, in order to not leave you out of the planning, I thought I’d not put our wedding on the calendar until I talked to you. Then Gertie Samson swooped in and stole it right out of my grasp. June 12. A perfect day for a wedding. And now, thanks to your lollygagging around as usual, it’s gone.”
“You remember,” I say, “they are already married. This is just a, just a formality.”
Missus narrows her eyes. “Formality? Oh, you are so obviously just the mother of the groom. Why I try to involve you in this is evidence that I try, Lord knows I try, to ma
intain tradition. Of course they are married, but this is Anna’s wedding.”
I am not rolling my eyes, just in case anyone is wondering. And my voice is not sharp at all. “I’m sure we can find another day.”
“Oh, you are, are you? Well, you are wrong. I called you from the church office. The problem events all takes up the entire building with set up and such. VBS, Homecoming, Graduation, and Baccalaureate. We can’t even squeeze in for a few hours on those weekends.”
“What about doing it the same weekend as Patty and Andrew?”
“Be serious,” she snaps. Then she starts rocking. Slowly but steadily, and it’s like a train engine building up steam.
“Mrs. Jessup?”
I was so engrossed in watching Missus think that I missed the screen door opening behind my left shoulder. “Yes, Mr. Moon,” I say as I stand. “And this is Missus Bedwell. Missus, Mr. Diego Moon.”
When he takes her hand, he bends toward her and kisses the back of it. Missus nods slightly, and I believe there is a slight reddening of her cheeks. “Mr. Moon. My pleasure to see you once again.”
“As it is for me. Such a lovely day to spend out of doors. What a pleasant place I chose to open my latest shop.”
To see you again? I do a double take. “When did you two meet?”
“When I came to town last month, looking for the perfect location for a special project.”
I turn to Missus. “You knew? You knew we were getting a MoonShots?”
She sighs. “Carolina, if you knew everything I have to know to keep this town running as it should, you would crawl right under this house and never come out. Now, I have a wedding to plan, so I will leave you to your guest.” She stands. “Unless you’ve quit the B&B business in the last five minutes.”
She walks down the porch steps and to her car while Mr. Moon and I watch.
He shakes his head and smiles at me. “I’m sorry everyone couldn’t know, but I’ve tried to keep a lower profile for this project. I asked her not to tell.” He opens the screen door, and I walk in ahead of him.
“How did you find Missus?”
“Oh, I didn’t. My mother did. This is actually more her project than mine.”
“Then will your mother be coming to Chancey, too?”
He pauses for a moment and lays his hands on the back of the couch, then looks out the front window where Missus’ big, dark car is disappearing around the bend. “I don’t believe that would be a good idea, Mrs. Jessup. As they say in the old movies, ‘I don’t think this town is big enough for the two of them.’”
“The foil-covered pan on the stove has the chicken in it. Everything else is on the kitchen table. Just fix your plate and eat wherever you can find a seat,” I instruct Will. “FM cooked it all.”
“Mmm, barbeque chicken. I’m starving. Where’s Anna?” He turns from the chicken with two pieces on his plate and grins. “My wife. Where’s my wife?”
My arms are folded in front of me as I lean on the counter beside the kitchen sink. “Outside. She’s not hardly able to keep anything much down. She been this sick long?”
Will frowns and sets his plate on the table beside the bowls of food. “Nope. Well, some. Guess it’s normal? She says her stomach gets upset easily, even when not, well, you know.” Between piled high scoops of potato salad and baked beans, he looks up and shrugs. “Guess I don’t really know how her stomach usually is.”
“Guess you don’t. Enjoy,” I say to his back as he balances his plate and a bottle of water while pushing out the back door. Only after the door shuts, do I add, “Nope, you don’t know about her normal stomach problems, because you don’t even know her.”
Gertie lumbers in from the dining room. “Never took to all that eating outside nonsense. Had me a seat in there at a real table. Nice and quiet, too.” She takes her plate to the sink and starts rinsing the dishes already there.
I open the dishwasher and load the wet dishes she hands me. “It’s like they’re playing around with this, like marriage isn’t real and hard.”
“Yeah, but look at all the folks that did it just the right way, got to know each other. Families knowing each other. Taking lots of time and still end up in divorce.”
I sigh and pull out the top rack to load it also. “That’s true. Aren’t you worried about Patty? She’s only known Andy a week or two.”
“Naw. She’s grown up and all. I had me a chance with a guy real quick-like one time. Think we coulda been happy, but Pa said he had to court me. Like we was back in some fairytale or something.” Gertie rinses her hands and then dries them on a paper towel she takes from the holder beside the sink. “Look at me. What fella’s going to court me? And I was already twenty-four. He told my pa he’d rather not and he left. So I went to town, found him, and courted the hell out of him.” She tears off another towel and hands it to me. “Pa dragged me home, put the fear of God into my fella, and the guy moved on to another job down in Florida.”
“Was that Patty’s father?”
“Why you want to know?”
“I, um, just figured that’s where the story was going. It doesn’t really matter.”
“You’re right. It don’t. I’m going back down to the store to do some talking with Andrew about what we should do next. Me and Patty will be back before you lock up for the night.”
She leaves the kitchen, and I turn toward the window over the sink. FM and Missus, along with Will and Anna, are sitting at the picnic table. Savannah is at a baseball game, and Bryan is upstairs doing homework. He had baseball practice earlier, and so he’s trying to get his homework done so he can play video games with Will. Jackson is out of town, but will be home tomorrow.
After putting a little spoonful of potato salad on a saucer, I join the four around the picnic table.
“Here, sit here,” Anna says as she gets up and goes over to perch on the end of the bench next to Will.
Missus moves over to give me more room and clears her throat before she begins talking. “I wondered if we were going to have to come in and find you. We have things to discuss. The wedding is set for Saturday, June 12th. That other wedding will be around noon and our wedding will be in the early evening, which will be lovely. Anna, sit up and listen. Pay some attention, please.”
Anna lifts her head off Will’s shoulder and smiles at her grandmother. “Yes ma’am. An early evening wedding. We will be there.” Then her sleepy eyes open wide. “Oh, Miss Carolina, did Will tell you about his job?”
I look at my son. “You got a job? Where?”
“Connor’s Dealership. In Dalton. Sales.” He keeps eating his chicken and doesn’t look up at me.
Selling cars. He was going to be a lawyer. He wanted to be a lawyer. He was already accepted to law school and now he’s going to sell cars. I focus on my potato salad.“So, I guess, Shaw got you the job. It’s his and his daddy’s dealership, right?”
“Right.”
FM nods and starts collecting their paper plates. “Yep, good dealership. Where I buy our cars. Needs some new blood. Well done, son. Carolina, I’ve got the menus for the rest of the week planned. I’m liking this cooking for a crowd. Hard to be imaginative when it’s just me and Missus.” He steps away from the table, then turns back and looks down at Anna. “Sugar, what do you feel like for dessert tonight?”
Anna’s eyes light up, then she sighs. “I don’t know what I could keep down. Maybe some oatmeal cookies?”
Will swallows the food in his mouth and agrees, “Oh yeah, with chocolate chips in them.”
Anna shakes her head. “Will, I hate chocolate.”
He laughs. “Nobody hates chocolate.”
“I do,” she says as she pulls away from him then stands up. She sighs again and holds out a hand. “Let’s go upstairs.”
Will takes her hand and jokingly lets her pull him up. He puts his arm around her, and they follow FM to the kitchen door, which opens just as they reach it. Bryan pops out.
“Okay, Will, done with my homework!
Got the Xbox set up.”
“Cool, give me a minute.” But when he tries to keep walking, he’s pulled back by Anna who hasn’t moved.
“You’re going to play video games?”
“Sure, for a bit. It’s been a long day.”
“You don’t think I’ve had a long day?”
“I don’t know. What did you do?”
Anna doesn’t answer in words, but her face and body are saying a lot. Only problem? Will doesn’t hear a thing.
FM tries. “So, honey, you want some oatmeal cookies? Sure thing. I’ll get right on them. And Will, I can put some chocolate chips in half the batch.”
My oldest son grins and holds the door for FM to go on ahead and prods his wife with his other hand. “See there? Everything is fine. You go upstairs and lay down, and I’ll come get you when your cookies are ready.”
“They are not my cookies,” she yells and storms past him and FM and Bryan.
Bryan looks over at FM, “I’ll eat hers if she doesn’t want them.”
Will shrugs. “Cool.”
Missus and I groan and close our eyes.
Chapter 19
I am bored out of my mind.
FM is doing all the cooking at the house. Matter of fact, he has something that cooked all night in the crockpot that smells delicious. He actually has planned out what he’s cooking each night. Missus worked out a cleaning schedule for not only the B&B but the entire house, and, not surprisingly, it works really well. Will is learning his new job, so he has long days. Anna is taking a few college classes online and has taken to hanging out at the library. Savannah and Bryan are wrapped up in the end of school tests and parties. Susan is obsessed with her oldest, daughter Leslie’s graduation from Chancey High and the huge party she’s throwing for her. Laney, what is Laney doing? She’s not been around much. She even took the B&B books to her house so she could do them there. Of course, that may have a lot to do with Missus living here.
Opening the bookstore was supposed to take up all my time, so I cleaned my slate of other obligations. How did I let myself get pushed out of the store so easily? But surely if I’d really wanted to do it, I would’ve hung on tighter? Surely.