Her gaze flowed over the two small figures approaching the counter and lit upon the dog walking at Willie Lee’s heels. A multicolored dog, with spots.
The children came and sat on stools to Lyle’s right. Lyle, upon seeing the dog said, “I’m not sure dogs are supposed to be in an eating establishment. I think there’s an ordinance.”
Belinda, who came around the counter to get a better look at the dog, told Lyle, “Don’t look, then.”
Corrine twisted her stool back and forth and stared up at the lighted menu, obviously trying to make up her mind. Willie Lee wanted an ice-cream cone, one scoop of vanilla on a sugar cone. Belinda had found that Willie Lee generally knew exactly what he wanted.
“Mun-ro wants a dish of water, please,” said Willie Lee, who always knew what his dog wanted, too.
Marilee came over with a gift box set of men’s aftershave and cologne. It was the expensive brand Belinda’s mother ordered from Germany, and she had managed to get a good business going with it among a number of the women seeking to spruce up their husbands. Belinda preferred regular stuff on Lyle; she saw no need to waste money.
Lyle told Marilee that he thought there might be a fine for bringing a dog into an eating establishment.
Marilee replied that they would leave, just as soon as they got done with their refreshments. “I’d like to buy a gallon of the vanilla ice cream, too, Belinda—for Parker’s birthday tomorrow.”
“You can get it out of the freezer before you leave,” Belinda said and added, “It’s gone up to seven and a quarter.” If the ice cream was so special that Marilee wanted to buy it, she might as well pay well for it.
While Belinda rang up Marilee’s charges, Marilee introduced herself to Nadine, who said, “Hiya’” and instantly turned around to wipe up all around. Nadine was proving a hard worker, who did not care to talk and cared even less to eat. Belinda was pleased.
As Marilee wrote out her check, Belinda saw the ring on her finger. “Is that an engagement ring?”
“Yes. Parker and I got engaged.”
“Huh. Nice ring. When’s the wedding?”
“We haven’t set the date yet. Next month, though.”
Belinda’s attention was distracted from any comment on the matter, however, when the bell over the door chimed and in came the tall blond man—one of the Tell-In people. He stood there with the door open a moment, the air conditioner dripping behind him, all straight in clothes crisp and shiny, as he removed his sunglasses and seemed to scan the store. Then he came forward to the soda counter.
“I’ll take a packet of the Motrin,” he said, speaking to Belinda and motioning with his hand. “And a Coke, to go.”
“You should try the headache powders,” Lyle offered.
The man’s head spun as if on a pivot, and his eyes observed Lyle, who added that headache powders went to work a lot faster. Lyle could be overly friendly, and Belinda could understand the man’s frown, while Lyle just kept on. “It’s ‘cause they don’t have to dissolve like a pill.”
The man, not replying to Lyle’s recommendation, paid Belinda with exact change. She put the money in the cash drawer and closed it with a snap. As she turned back to the counter, movement caught her eye, and she saw Nadine bending down…she was petting the dog that had slipped behind the counter.
The man walked out of the store, with his Motrin and Coca-Cola, without a word of polite goodbye.
Nadine said, “I would guess that guy is not from around here.”
“He’s one of those Tell-In people, and he has headaches,” Belinda said, informing Marilee that she knew things. “The sun probably gets to him. They’re down there searchin’ that Dave Kaplan’s car out back of the police station, lookin’ for a computer chip.”
“Belinda…you aren’t supposed to go tellin’ ever’ body,” Lyle objected.
“I’m not tellin’ everybody. Just Marilee, and I think she probably should know, bein’a member of the press…and she is my cousin.”
“What computer chip?” Marilee glanced from Belinda to Lyle and back.
“That ex of Fayrene’s stole a computer chip from his company. He invented it, but that doesn’t matter, it was still the company’s chip, and he took it to sell to the Chinese. That’s where he got the fifty thousand. But his company hopes he didn’t have time to get it to the Chinese, and they came today with a court order to search his stuff. The sheriff hasn’t told you any of this?” She leaned forward on the counter.
Marilee shook her head. “Tate is probably doing the story. All I did was speak with Fayrene and do the initial write-up.”
Belinda did not think Marilee was sufficiently impressed with what Belinda was telling her. “They’re takin’ that Mercedes apart. They must figure that chip is hidden in there somewhere, or in that briefcase. A computer chip isn’t very big. This is computer espionage.”
Marilee, getting the children up from their stools, said she would make certain Tate knew to investigate for a possible story. Lyle asked her not to say where she heard about the matter.
As Marilee went out the door, Belinda looked at the dog walking behind Willie Lee’s feet. It sure seemed that dog had made certain the Tell-In guy had not seen him.
“You are gonna get me into trouble, tellin’ everything all over,” Lyle said in a dispirited voice.
Belinda, ignoring the comment, leaned across the counter and said, “Parker is havin’ an affair with Leanne Overton.”
Lyle blinked. “But didn’t Marilee just say she and Parker were engaged?”
“Yes.”
“I guess Marilee must not know about Leanne, then,” he said.
Belinda sighed. “Well, of course not.” Lyle could be so dense.
After a minute, Lyle said, “How do you know about Parker and Leanne?” as if she couldn’t possibly know anything and had gone and made up the story.
“That Julia Jenkins-Tinsley saw them,” said Belinda in a what-for manner. “And she is tellin’ it all over. She is such a gossip.”
Fred Grace had installed a mechanical pony ride out front of the florist, sandwiched in between racks holding buckets of bouquets beneath his awning. Willie Lee saw it instantly when Marilee headed to the florist to get flowers for the party.
Marilee thought the ride a fine ploy to draw more mothers and grandmothers to the store.
“You aren’t too big to ride yet, are you, Corrine?”
Corrine smiled shyly in answer. Marilee put a quarter in each child’s hand and allowed them to remain outside and ride the pony while she went inside to get a table arrangement.
Corrine said, “I’ll watch Willie Lee,” as if to earn the quarter.
“I know you will, honey. Thank you.”
Marilee entered the florist and stood for a minute to let her eyes adjust to the much dimmer interior. The first thing she saw clearly was Tate Holloway standing back at the counter. She heard his familiar voice, too.
“Have it delivered this afternoon,” he said to Fred Grace.
Marilee had a little panic about seeing him, one that she did not understand at all. She couldn’t just turn around and go out, though, and she wondered who he was having flowers delivered to.
She went toward the counter, and Fred Grace saw her and greeted her, and then Tate turned her way.
“Hello, Miss Marilee.”
“Hello.”
“I hear you and Parker are finally gonna tie the knot,” Fred Grace said. The adam’s apple in his thin neck bobbed whenever he spoke.
“Yes, we are. Next month sometime.” She really needed to get a date set; she was getting tired of saying sometime.
Fred Grace, holding up an order paper, said, “I’ll be right with you, Marilee…let me get Tate’s order in the works,” and disappeared through the rear curtain, leaving Marilee and Tate standing there, alone.
It was perfectly silly for her to feel nervous about being alone with Tate. She launched immediately into telling him about the articles she had left with C
harlotte, and the entire time she spoke, she tried to figure a casual way to ask about who was to receive Tate’s flowers.
Willie Lee rode the pony first, and he laughed and laughed. Corrine liked watching him. She felt excited and happy about playing with the electric pony. This was a feeling she did not fully trust. Her past experience had been that she could not trust having fun. Somehow she usually had to pay for it.
As if to prove this point, suddenly here came the school principal, Mrs. Blankenship. “Hello, children.”
Corrine said hello, and Willie Lee did, too.
Then, right there in front of Corrine’s wide eyes, the principal said, “Here, let me treat you to another ride,” and immediately she put a quarter in the slot for Willie Lee, and then gave Corrine a coin, holding it out until Corrine took it. With a smile and a nod, the principal disappeared inside the florist’s store.
Corrine stared at the glass door and figured that the principal was in a good mood because school was out. Willie Lee was laughing and saying, “Yeee-haaa,” and Corrine found she could begin breathing again.
It came Corrine’s turn, and she rode, feeling a little self-conscious, since she was eleven years old. With her second coin, she said, “Willie Lee, ride with me.” That way, if any classmates from school should come along and see her, it would look like she was helping Willie Lee.
“O-kay!”
He scrambled up behind her and put his hands around her waist. She quickly put the coin into the slot, and beneath them the metal pony began to gyrate. Wille Lee called out, “Yeee-haaa!”
Corrine had to laugh.
But then there was Munro in the middle of the sidewalk, backing up and wrinkling his nose with a growl.
Corrine blinked, taking in everything that was happening. It was the man who had come into the drugstore earlier—the man Belinda had said was a Tell-In man and had headaches—and a woman was with him. It came suddenly to Corrine that these were the two people who had stared at them on the sidewalk earlier that week, and they were heading for Munro.
The woman was saying, “Here, doggy.”
“That is my dog,” Willie Lee said, speaking with alarm.
Corrine felt Willie Lee let go of her waist. She reached back to grab him, to keep him from falling off the pony that was still bouncing.
“He looks like the dog that belonged to a friend of ours,” the woman said.
“He is my dog,” Willie stated again.
Corrine wished the pony would stop.
“How long have you had him?” the woman said, even as she moved toward Munro.
Just then the man jumped at Munro, to grab him, but Munro quick as a flash scooted under the front bumper of a parked car.
Willie Lee launched himself off the pony, yelling, “That is my dog!”
Corrine scrambled off the bouncing horse, toppling onto the concrete.
The next thing she saw was the man and the woman running into the street, and Willie Lee after them. Somehow she got to her feet and ran after Willie Lee, catching him right in the middle of the street and dragging him back to the sidewalk, her heart pounding clean out of her chest. There had been only one car far down the street, but it could have reached Willie Lee. And she was supposed to look after him.
Willie Lee was crying. Corrine put her arm around him and tried to think of something to say.
But then suddenly Munro appeared from behind the stand of flower buckets.
“Mun-ro!” Willie Lee went to the dog, while Corrine looked over her shoulder to see the two strangers going down the opposite side of the street.
“Shush!” She grabbed Willie Lee, and shoved him and the dog back against the stand of flower buckets, crouching there herself.
“I am go-ing to tell Ma-ma.” Willie Lee made a move toward the florist.
“No,” said Corrine, who believed it better to never tell anything. “If they do own Munro, your mother will make us give him back.”
Willie Lee gazed at her from behind his thick glasses.
Just then Marilee came out of the florist shop, and Mr. Tate was with her. Right behind them came Principal Blankenship. Because the grown-ups were all talking, no one noticed that Willie Lee was sniffing. Corrine shook her head at him, and he pressed his lips together.
Aunt Marilee bid goodbye to Principal Blankenship, and Mr. Tate walked them along to the Cherokee, which was only a few yards down the sidewalk. Corrine kept an eye out for the two strangers but didn’t see them. It was hard to see over the cars, though.
They got into the Cherokee, and Munro lay down with his head on Willie Lee’s leg. Corrine and Willie Lee remained perfectly quiet while Aunt Marilee talked with Mr. Tate some more through the driver window.
As Aunt Marilee headed the Cherokee home, Corrine caught a glance of the man and woman at their dark car in front of the police station. She squished down in the seat.
“Corrine? Honey, what’s wrong? You feel okay?”
“Yes, ma’am…I’m just a little tired. I think I want a nap. Willie Lee does, too.”
“I will not tell, Cor-rine,” Willie Lee said from over in his bed, where he lay with Munro.
“I won’t, either,” Corrine said. “And we’ll have to watch out for a while, make sure we don’t see those people again.”
After a minute, Willie Lee asked, “Why?”
“Because they may be the real owners of Munro. They will take him.” Corrine was puzzled about this entire thing, but she did not see anything to do but hide. In her experience, grown-ups rarely cared what little kids wanted.
Marilee turned off the whiz-bang computer, where she had written two small pieces for the paper, and rubbed her eyes. She should see about glasses.
Her gaze fell on Stuart’s photograph. Should she put it away? Willie had long ago quit asking about his father. She had explained that Stuart traveled away, finally ending that he was gone from their lives. Willie Lee was such an accepting person. She wished she could be so, she thought, finally tucking the picture into the top drawer of her desk.
Rising, she turned out the lamps and walked softly to peer at the children on her way to bed. The light from the hall lamp fell softly into the room. Her gaze fell on Willie Lee, asleep all spread out, and then onto Corrine, who was facedown into her pillow, with Munro pressed to her side.
Corrine was crying softly.
“Oh, honey, what is it?” Marilee pulled her niece up into her arms.
“I…I had…a bad dream.”
“Oh, it was only a dream. You are okay.” After another minute, “Come on and sleep with me.” She took Corrine’s hand. Munro hopped from the bed and up beside sleeping Willie Lee.
Marilee snuggled Corrine into bed, got into her own gown and slipped in beside her niece, whose hands were formed into balls.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Marilee,” Corrine whispered.
“Whatever for, honey?”
“Because I know you like to have the bed to yourself.”
“Oh, sweetheart…yes, I do,” she said, knowing honesty was in order. “But I also like to have you come in here sometimes, and Willie Lee, too. I like to hold you both close. You are a comfort to me, too.”
Gradually she felt her niece relax, and gradually Marilee relaxed, too.
Some time before dawn, Marilee awoke to find Corrine on one side of her, Willie Lee on the other, and Munro at her feet. It occurred to her that it was quite possible that Parker would object to such crowded sleeping arrangements.
In that moment, however, thus surrounded by her children, with Corrine’s hand knotted in Marilee’s hair and Willie Lee breathing upon her chest, Marilee was supremely contented and fell immediately back into a deep, lovely sleep.
Twenty
Nick of Time
Marilee got up early, squeezing carefully out from between the children and the dog, succeeding in not awakening them. She went to the kitchen, made coffee as strong as Corrine’s, and set about throwing her mind into the accomplishment of Parker’s birthd
ay party.
Sometime between the first and second cups of strong coffee, she began to go at it in an all-consuming manner that fully occupied her mind and kept her from perturbing thoughts about her pending marriage. She would deal with those concerns later, after she had finished with Parker’s party.
She had the children’s breakfast made when they came into the kitchen; Corrine was quite surprised, of course.
Leaving them eating and dawdling, she dashed around, gathering everything to take to Parker’s house. She got herself into a chambray shorts sunsuit she had been saving for the occasion and that showed her bare shoulders to good advantange, applied her face in the thorough manner of the unmadeup look, and carefully pinned up her hair to appear careless.
While tying on canvas wedge sandals, she caught a glimpse of herself in the long mirror. She stood and observed her appearance and decided that she had made her decision about marrying Parker in the nick of time, while she still had something to offer and a man would even consider her. Her breath seemed to grow shallow with these thoughts, and she strode out the door and onward into the day.
At ten-thirty, they were each carrying boxes and bags out to the Cherokee; Marilee was somewhat surprised at the amount of the supplies, now that she tried to fit them all into the rear of her vehicle. As she was going about this, Tate came driving past, the top down on his car, his pale hair catching the sunlight. He stopped in the street and wished them a good day.
Marilee called back, “Good day to you, too,” and the next instant, she turned, slammed the rear door closed, headed for the driver’s seat and told the children to get in. Slipping behind the wheel, she wrenched the rearview mirror around, as if to look at herself, but really to watch Tate drive on.
She breathed a sigh of relief as his car disappeared, and then felt perversely annoyed.
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