“Really?”
“Mom has figured out that they’re going to get married and she’s going crazy.”
Chad sighed. “Think you can convince her to give him a chance?”
“I already did. That’s why she’s going crazy. She wants to do the wedding thing.”
“Very nice. So have you been sewing anything? Did you get the peroxide? What about your presentation?” Chad’s questions fired at her, one after the other, until she screamed in protest.
“Whoa! Let me see. I haven’t bought fabric yet, so I haven’t sewn anything. I did get the peroxide and my presentation is about half done I think. Mom’s reading it now so it might be less if she says it’s awful.”
“How can it be awful? It’s just you telling who you are and what you do.”
Willow sighed. “Because if I write my life exactly as it is today, I’m not writing about what I’m supposed to. If I write it how it’s going to be when we find our helper, I’m lying about today.”
“So write about how it was, how it is, and how it’s going to be. If we have someone by the time you speak, change the last bit to how it is then.”
She stopped mid-stride. Glancing around her, she wondered where she was and how far it was to get back home. “You just finished the thing for me. I know what to do now.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Thank you, Mr. ‘I won’t give her a chance to thank me.’”
Chad laughed. “Now don’t forget pink. I know how you’re dying to sew more pink.”
“And purple, and yellow, and peach, and white—lots of white.” She glanced up at the street sign. “Chad?”
“Hmm?”
“How do I get home from the corner of Lake and Sunset?”
Chapter 163
Willow stepped into the fabric store, reveling in the same amazing feeling as the variety of fabrics, trims, and notions filled her eyes again. Why had she not felt awed and invigorated over the volume of clothing at stores in those first days off the farm? Had she already been numbed to variety by the time she entered, or did the promise of creativity override what would have been overwhelming?
Josh saw her first, calling out as he wove through round tables of fabrics. “How are you!” He frowned. “And where are those adorable boys!”
“I’m great and the boys are being properly spoiled by their grandmother. Came for that pink flannel you told me about.”
“It’s a girl!” Josh’s enthusiasm spread to a few others who sent them curious looks. “I just knew it would be. I told Becca last week that I was going to cut some and bring it out to you, but I got sidetracked.”
“I was hoping you and she might want to go out to dinner with me.”
“Let me call her right now. Hold on.” As he dialed and waited for Becca to answer, he led Willow to an heirloom-sewing corner of the store and pointed to the Swiss wool challis. “This stuff is just fabulous. You have to feel that.”
While she chose the colors she wanted, choking at the price per yard, Josh arranged with Becca to meet after work. She added more diaper flannel to the pile, preparing for the boys’ next sizes, and added a bolt of embroidered voile. “It’s crazy to buy it now,” she admitted as he disconnected his call, “but it’s so pretty and maybe I’ll have time to make something by the time it’s warm enough to wear it.”
“I was going to show you that. I saw it and thought, ‘That just fits Willow. It’s perfect.’”
He dragged her to a shelving unit full of books. “I saw this book come in the other day and I almost bought it for you then, but I wasn’t sure. It seemed very you, but some of the little notes are so New Age or Neo Pagan that I hesitated.”
She flipped open the book and smiled at the little patterns for dolls, clothes—everything in classic Waldorf style. “Oh, this is adorable. I do want this. The ideas are exciting.”
“Becca said you would say, ‘I don’t know if I have room on my shelf for it. I’ll have to look first.’”
Laughing, Willow tucked it under her arm and carried it and her fabric to the registers. “She knows me well. We have several craft books of Mother’s that I will never use. This will replace those.” She nodded at the phone he stuffed in his pocket. “Can she come?”
“Her exact words were, ‘I’ll get Mae to come over so that I can meet you at the store at five o’clock sharp.’”
“Good.” She hesitated, unsure if she should pry, and then couldn’t resist asking, “Any reason you guys aren’t married yet?”
“Only one?”
“That sounds like a question.”
With a sigh that spoke before he did, Josh shrugged. “I’m not ready to hear no or not yet, so I keep putting it off.”
“I cannot imagine what would make her say either.”
“I cannot imagine why she wouldn’t say anything but, ‘no way.’” Josh waved and went to put away the bolts she had used. Just as it was her turn to pay, he beckoned to her, hissing, “Willow!”
Excusing herself from the line, Willow hurried to where he stood by the yarns. “What is it?”
“I forgot about this stuff. Come feel it.” He led her to a rustic display case. “It’s so misleading. You’d expect jute and other rough fibers, but these are the softest yarns and threads I’ve ever felt. Wool, bamboo, silk, silk and bamboo combined—heavenly stuff. I just pictured little booties and baby caps and well…”
Before he said the word “softest,” Willow’s hands ran lightly over the skeins and balls. She fished out a pink, two whites, and a yellow in different weights. “This is lovely and it’s less expensive than the yarn store.”
“That’s what I was thinking. It’s just been so long since you’ve been in, I keep remembering things.” His eyes widened. “I just realized something!”
“What?”
“You’re going to have fresh inspiration for the Boho line!”
As the server left with their orders, Becca cleared her throat. “I have to ask now or I’ll never get the courage.”
“What?”
“How are you holding up after the… discovery?” Becca flushed and reached for Josh’s hand. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s fine—well, asking is fine,” she clarified. “Let’s just say that the ordeal was.”
“Was what?” Josh’s eyes bounced back and forth between the women, trying to follow the silent conversation they carried.
Becca spoke first. “Was an ordeal. The ordeal was…an ordeal. See?”
“Right.” His other hand stretched across the table and covered Willow’s arm. “I’m sorry.”
“I keep thinking it’s over—done. There is no more ugliness, and then bam. Something else happens to prove it’s still a problem. At least the reporters stopped bugging us. That RAT strike helped there.”
“What kinds of things happen?” Becca scooted her chair closer to Josh’s and laid her head on his shoulder. “Man, I’m tired. The kids were crazy today. I swear we’re going to have a storm tonight.”
“Any excuse to get my arm around her…”
Willow grinned. “I needed this. You two always make me smile.”
“You didn’t answer the question.” Becca’s eyes bored into Willow’s. “Name one thing—just so I can get a feel for how it’s affecting your life in a real way. I live vicariously through you as it is. Why not ‘weep’ vicariously with you too?”
“I told you about wanting to hire help, right?”
“Yeah… some guy to come out and do all the—what is it you want him to do?”
“Just everything I don’t have time to do. Gardens, animal rotation, crops—stuff. We’ll have to increase production a bit to be able to afford him and a place for him to live if it works out, but not much. All we care about is breaking even.”
“So, with today’s job market, why would it be hard to find someone to do that? I mean, even without experience, those aren’t hard things to learn, are they?” Becca fidgeted with her silverware as she spoke.
; “It’s easy enough to learn with training. We’re giving that. People just don’t want to work where a murder happened or they really want to see where it happened but that’s about all.”
“Why a man?”
Josh and Willow stared at Becca. Willow spoke first. “What?”
“Why are you looking for a man? I mean, it’s all work you’re doing now, right?”
“Yeeesss…”
“So why specifically do you want a man?”
“I don’t particularly want a man.” She blinked, trying to follow Becca’s thoughts. “I don’t understand.”
“Well, you said you were looking for a man, so I wondered why if a woman has been doing this stuff all these years.”
“Well, it was less work,” Willow clarified, “and two women. I don’t think the ad specified a man, but maybe I’m wrong.”
“So man was just generic for person.”
“What’s with you, Becca? Why hound her about the choice of words? I’ve never seen you like that.”
“Because I want the job.”
Becca’s answer hung over the table as if waiting to crash into their dishes. The server arrived with their food as if to maximize the potential invisible destruction. As seconds passed while the server set their plates before them, Josh and Willow stared at one another and then at Becca who fumbled with the napkin in her lap.
“What do you mean,” Willow asked cautiously after the server left.
“I mean I want the job. I want to work there. I don’t care where there I live as long as I won’t freeze. I want to dig in the gardens and make the soap, and butcher the chickens—”
Josh’s forkful of chicken lowered to his plate, and Willow could have sworn his skin took on a green hue. “You want to do what?”
Willow shook her head. “Don’t say it. I get it.”
“What’s the problem, with—”
Once more, Willow preempted her. “I think it’s a man thing or something. Chad turns green at the idea of it too—particularly chickens. Not sure what the deal is, but there you have it.” Her eyes slid to Josh before focusing on Becca again. “What about Ida?”
“Gram would come too I think—maybe not at first. But if it got to the point where we really did consider putting up a real house, she would.”
“You’d be so far away,” Josh whispered.
“But Chad and Willow have a couch. They’d let you sleep on it now and then.” Her eyes begged Willow to confirm her statement. “Wouldn’t you?”
“Every night if you wanted, but—”
“But my job—”
“That you hate.”
Josh shook his head. “I don’t hate my job… just the lack of advancement opportunity. The lack of a chance to be truly creative because I spend all day helping other people find what they need to create.”
Tears slowly filled Becca’s eyes. “I don’t want to see you less. I’m not saying that at all, okay?”
“Yeah…”
“I just don’t want to spend the rest of my life watching other people’s children grow up. I don’t want to spend my life changing other people’s children’s diapers and teaching other people’s children how to count or do fractions. I want to do something that I love if I can’t spend my days teaching my own kids to do those things.”
“And you love the farm.”
“She came alive on the farm, Josh. You should have seen the difference in just a short while. Part of that was meeting you,” Willow admitted, “but she really took to all of the work.”
“Could she do it?”
“Do what?” Willow blinked slowly, trying to think fast.
“The work—whatever you need someone to do. Could Becca do it all by herself?”
“Sure.”
“I want to apply.” The first tear spilled. Becca blinked others back and turned an apologetic face to Josh. “I—I don’t want to go, but I do want to do this.” She stood. “Excuse me.”
Willow watched her weave through the tables to the back of the restaurant. Josh stared at his plate. “Should you go with her?”
She shook her head. “I think she needs a moment alone.” Willow leaned forward. “Are you all right?”
“No.” Josh swallowed. “I can’t even try to fix it or it will seem like I just feel manipulated into it—and I don’t!” His eyes widened. “I really don’t.”
“I can’t imagine thinking you did.”
“The gas will kill me. The hours in the car—so much wasted time. I mean, she’s worth it, but—” He sighed. “Here she comes. Do me a favor?”
“Sure.”
“If she ever asks if I am sincere, will you try to assure her I am?”
“Going to let her go?”
“Can I stop her?” Josh sighed before smiling up at Becca. “You ok?”
“No, but I will be.”
“Becca, you don’t have to commit—”
“If you don’t want me, then I understand. I don’t have a lot of experience and I know I’m going to need a lot of training. If you think I don’t really want it, though…” she sniffled before adding, “Willow, I want this almost more than anything else I could think of.”
A hairline crack streaked across a corner of Willow’s heart. How would someone like Becca stand to choose between a lifestyle she loved and a man she loved? Surely, Josh wouldn’t put her in that position, but did she know that? Really know that? “Excuse me. I want to call Chad and make sure he has no objections—what they would be I can’t imagine—before I tell you the job is yours.”
She hurried outside, fighting back emotions that squeezed another crack into her heart. Her fingers fumbled for the phone keys. “Chad?”
“Hey, what’s up? I just put up the first sheet of drywall!”
“Two things—”
He must have heard the pain in her voice because he interrupted her. “Lass, what is it?”
“First,” Willow continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “thank you for not putting me in the position of choosing you or my lifestyle. At the time you would have done it, I would have chosen my life over you. I would have been wrong, but I couldn’t know that then.”
“Aw, lass really… what’s wrong?”
“Becca wants the job.”
“What job?”
She swallowed hard and tried again. “She wants the job on the farm, Chad. She wants to move out there and do it. You saw how much she loved it that week she spent so much time with us. Every time she comes back, what’s the first thing she asks?”
“‘What do we get to do today?’ Get to do. She says that every time. It’s so—I don’t know, charming.”
“And she means it. She wants this job so bad I think it’ll crush her if I say no.”
Chad grew quiet, the sounds of the drill ceasing. “Wait. Why would you say no?”
“Josh.”
“He doesn’t—why doesn’t he just marry her then!”
“He’s afraid of rejection.”
Willow snickered as Chad began ranting—at first incomprehensibly. “—think every man has to do? It’s part of being a man. You have to risk rejection. I think God set it up that way to keep us humble or something. But so help me if Chuck Majors can gather the—the—courage to ask Pop if he can propose—”
“He did what? Why didn’t you tell me? Does Mom know?”
“I don’t know. I assumed you both did.”
“Wow.” Willow smiled. “Well, that cheered me up a little.”
“So Becca and Josh…”
“Can she have the job? I want to give her an answer before I leave so that she isn’t left torn any more than she is already.”
Chad’s answer came swifter than expected. “Of course. Tell her we’ll have the fifth wheel delivered the day she wants it. I’ve already got the septic guy coming out on Monday.”
“You do?”
Chad grinned. “I figured we’d be needing it someday, so why not get it ready for that day?”
“I told Josh he
could sleep in our house any time he wanted.”
“Sure.” Chad sighed. “We have to be prepared to lose her. The day Josh gathers the grit to ask, she’ll give her notice.”
“I know, but at least she’ll have a few months or so and maybe that’ll give us time to find someone else.” Willow laughed. “Maybe absence will make the heart grow fonder.”
“I always thought that was a stupid line, but this week I’d say it’s true.”
“I miss you too.” She sighed. “So it’s okay?”
“Yeah. And if you get a chance, tell Josh to call me. I have a feeling there’s more to this than we think.”
Willow hurried into the restaurant and stopped their server on her way to the table. “Can you bring something festive to the table? Dessert, cool drinks—non-alcoholic preferably. Please?”
“Celebrating…”
“New job for my friend.”
The young man nodded. “I’ve got you covered.”
Once seated, Willow furrowed her forehead, gave the most apologetic expression she could manufacture and said, “I’m really sorry… Josh. Chad said yes.”
Becca squealed, flung her arms around Josh, and kissed him before pulling back again, blushing. “Sorry I—”
“Well, I’m not… I mean I am but—” Josh groaned. “You know what I mean.”
The air at the table changed. Trusting her instincts, Willow picked up her purse and pulled it over her shoulder. “You guys finish up. I’ve got a surprise coming for you. I’ll see you later. Call me when you’re ready to talk move in dates and things, okay?”
Becca nodded as Josh protested. “Don’t go now…”
“You guys need time to process. It’s a big change for both of you. I’ll see you at the Mission on Sunday if I’m still here.” At the front desk, she waited for the check, sliding her card across it. “Can you ask the server to give the third dessert or drink, or whatever he was going to bring, to someone in the kitchen?”
“Oh, we can cancel—”
“He’s already put the order in. I’m happy to pay for it. I just hate to see it go to waste.”
The server stopped by the front desk just as she pushed the door open. The hostess must have shown her tip and told about the dessert because as the door shut behind her, she heard a single word. “Wow.”
Past Forward- A Serial Novel: Volume 5 Page 19