Forever Finley

by Holly Schindler

  “She said that?” Jo asked.

  “Yep. Not perfect. But interesting. Isn’t it?”

  Jo stared down at her closest friend in all of Finley. Norma, with the shop right next door to her own Jo March Books: Depository for the New & Used. Of course the lover of stories was imagining Norma’s own personal history—in a way she hadn’t quite imagined it before. Norma’s story had a new chapter, suddenly. And Jo wanted to read it. Every last line.

  “While you’re at it, look at Damien over there,” he instructed. “Watch.”

  Seemingly deep in thought, Damien raised his left index finger to his mouth and began to gnaw on his fingernail. Natalie, his fiancée, pushed his hand back down to his lap.

  “His fidgeting ways have returned. Don’t you find it interesting that meeting Natalie would ease that habit, but now, getting closer to their wedding is making the fidgeting return—and return with a vengeance?”

  “It’s only a fingernail,” Jo protested, getting into this now—this sport of people watching. It obviously interested her far more than what was taking place on the field. Mark’s heart thundered with happiness as she leaned in closer.

  “No—it’s more. I’ve been working with Natalie on her wedding bouquet, remember? She wanted to talk boutonnieres one day. So we met Damien at the elementary school after the final bell had rung. His teacher desk, in the kindergarten classroom—it looks like it’s been attacked by a scared Rottweiler. He’s chewed on everything—pen caps and pencil erasers. He bends paper clips out of shape. He shreds pieces of notebook paper into tiny little wads.”

  Jo eyed Damien. “I feel like we’re snooping.”

  “Observing,” Mark corrected. “I’m a scientist, after all. That’s what we do.” Jo smiled briefly at his words—yes, that was right. He was. Mark Quigley, botanist and university lecturer. He was a scientist—an observer. A note-taker.

  The crowd around them screamed. Touchdown. Jo’s face grew pensive.

  And Mark wondered if she was thinking of last August, of what they had observed together—an inexplicable moment playing out before them on the porch of his tree house.

  “Do you think Amos and Finley were the perfect couple? Was she—when you saw her… You got close to her. Was she—?”

  Mark frowned. She wasn’t just thinking of it now, but talking about it. “I saw a girl,” he admitted. “I saw—” His voice faltered. Saw what? Last summer, under the red August moon, he’d actually believed he’d seen Finley Powell, the long deceased love of Amos Hargrove, founder of their town. It had been a beautiful addition to his planet of unknowns. Tonight, though, the idea of seeing Finley Powell rang in his head not like a memory of something that had actually occurred, but like the hazy remnants of a bizarre dream. The kind that made him shake his head and say, “Boy, wouldn’t Freud have had a field day with this one.”

  Still, though…he couldn’t deny it completely. Last summer, Finley had given him a jar of real seeds—which she had called moon seeds. Once planted, they had grown enormous vines that had, over the course of a single night, woven themselves into the lattice on the front of Jo’s bookstore—vines that were even now, deep into fall, sprouting blooms. He still had the blue glass fruit jar the young girl had used to give him the seeds. It was still sitting in the center of his tiny kitchen table. That much was real.

  What did that mean about the rest of it?

  “They were teenagers together, weren’t they?” Jo asked, directing her eyes toward the forty-yard line in time to see a Hargrove receiver open his arms and press the ball to his chest, just as he might press a girl’s head against the same chest later that night. Maybe under these very bleachers. Familiar scenes playing out over and over again.

  Teenagers, though? Amos and Finley? Somehow, that didn’t seem quite right. Not to Mark. Not for a love story that had played out against the backdrop of the Civil War. Not when Amos left to fight for the Union and Finley stayed behind on her family farm, tatting the wedding shawl she would never wear. Those details all sounded far too grown-up to belong to a couple of teenagers. Only, technically—yes, when they’d been together, they had, in fact, had “teen” attached to the ends of their ages.

  Maybe the youngest faces in the bleachers would have tried to convince Mark that when Amos rode gallantly off to war, as the legend went, that was really like today’s high school sweethearts driving off to different colleges. All those texts sent back and forth, promising a future of love between them. Vacations, semester breaks. Returning home to take up where they left off. Unfortunately, life sometimes got in the way and promises died. Even with the best of intentions.

  Unplanned events could rip you apart. That, too, remained the same. Generation after generation. First love was timeless. Whether it involved “courtship” and hoop skirts and horse-drawn wagons or jeans and steamed Chevy windows…and the bleachers.

  But Amos and Finley—they were more. They had to be. A man who founded a town and named it after his first love, with the idea that he would be reunited with her right there, after he had passed away, too? The idea of a man filling his days until that reunion by making dreams come true for the townspeople of Finley? That was no simple teenage love story.

  Then again, though…Mark had long known that for the most part, it was malarkey. He had been the one keeping the legend of Amos alive. He’d secretly been playing the role of Amos for years. Granting tiny wishes, returning lost wallets and class rings, slipping rent money into jacket pockets and tying helium-filled balloons to car radio antennas when the owners were in need of a definite pick-me-up. Little good deeds. Always anticipating that the recipient would laugh, say, “I guess Amos was hard at work today.”

  It was why he’d been keeping a notebook, after all. To keep track of who needed what in town. So he could decide who Amos would pay a visit to next. No one had ever found him out. No one but Jo. But he knew he could trust her to keep his secret.

  “What were you about to say a minute ago? You saw—what?” Jo pressed, interrupting Mark’s wild barrage of thoughts.

  Mark shook his head as if to say their conversation should be saved for another time—out of earshot of Hargrove fans.

  He wiped sweat droplets from his brow and dried them on his khaki shorts, leaving dark smears. It was unusually warm for November. So warm, fall colors had yet to emerge. Usually, by this time of the year, Finley was alive with maroons and fiery oranges and mustard yellows. Standing in the middle of the tree-lined town square normally made Mark feel as though he’d been drop-kicked into an original Annie Ames painting.

  This year, though, it seemed so many trees had dropped their leaves without ever turning color at all. And everyone had flocked to the homecoming game wearing shorts and T-shirts. A few were still in flip-flops. The warmth felt unnatural. It clung to the air like a house guest that refused to recognize it was time to leave.

  The heat gave the evening a muted, fuzzy, yellow-tinted haze. It made November look kind of pale, actually.

  Sickly. This year, November looked sickly.

  The rest of the familiar faces in the stands appeared as uncomfortable as Mark felt. But for Mark, tonight’s discomfort had far more to do with the way Jo had casually brought up the August sighting than it did the heat.

  Mark ran his fingers along the top of the notebook in his pocket, remembering the way he’d stopped taking notes after his August run-in with (did he even dare think it?) the ghost of Finley Powell, casualty of Civil War disease and Amos’s teenage love. At least, he’d stopped taking notes about what his neighbors needed. And when he eavesdropped on conversations at the Cuppa coffee palace or the Corner Diner, he found himself searching for only one thing: evidence of another sighting. He was a scientist, after all. He needed hard, verifiable proof of what he had seen. He would write that in his notebook.

  He squirmed beneath Jo’s unrelenting gaze. He had not seen Finley since. Not once. And judging by what he’d overheard over his meatloaf and mashed potatoes, neither h
ad anyone else.

  Still, he’d kept his ears perked, ready to pounce on any Amos must’ve been hard at work assumption. Especially now that he was abstaining. Would Amos’s good deeds continue on without his help? That would be a kind of proof, wouldn’t it? After all, if Amos existed, then surely Finley did.

  Even at homecoming—surrounded by the entire town—he had not heard any of them mention Amos’s name. Not in the parking lot on the way to the field, not standing beside the bleachers while he was waiting for Jo, and not as they’d scooted in-between the rows, up to the top level.

  Jo whispered, her breath laced with the smells of mustard and soda, “I heard that Amos left flowers for old Ms. Lewis. For no reason at all. Signed the card from Mr. McKinney. Heard the two of them were seen sipping Old Fashioneds at the Twinkle Star.”

  Mark opened his mouth to tell her she was wrong—to say that Mr. McKinney had done that himself. Finally gotten up the guts to send flowers to the widow he’d long had a schoolboy crush on. Mark had seen him in the florist shop. He’d been going there often lately; while he’d wanted to rely on local blooms for Natalie’s wedding arrangements, he knew that he would need to place orders for a December wedding. What grew in December, other than a person’s longing for the summer sun?

  Yes, he’d been placing an order for some additional bouquet greenery when Mr. McKinney bought his own arrangement; he’d leaned forward just enough to watch Mr. McKinney scrawl the widow’s name on the card.

  Mark started to tell Jo that—but he stopped when he saw the look on her face. He knew that sparkle in Jo’s eyes—he could identify it just as easily as he could identify the blooms that grew beside the river. It was the same look she’d given him last spring, when she’d discovered his Amos-like deeds.

  “Amos knows how to bring two people together,” she said, nudging him gently.

  And there it was, why she’d brought up last August: she’d convinced herself he’d orchestrated that, too. As a way to tell her he really was okay with their not getting married. No—not just tell her. Insist that committing to each other while allowing themselves the freedom to maintain their own lifestyles was a beautiful life. Every bit as beautiful as any wildflower that grew along the river beneath his tree house. Together but separate. She thought he’d stolen Miriam’s overalls and gotten some young girl to play the “Finley” role in order to show her how he felt.

  But what about the sprouting vines that had encircled them that evening on his porch—as if binding them together, in a way no silly piece of paper ever could? Had she ever seen the vines in the same way he had?

  He was afraid to ask.

  He knew, though, that he needed to shake off her look of complete adoration. He didn’t deserve it—he had not done something kind for Ms. Lewis and Mr. McKinney—and he was uncomfortable getting credit he was not due.

  He could return to people watching. That would do it. He’d tell her another story about the bleachers. The one about Jessica Steele and Cody, the town contractor currently working alongside Jessica’s house-flipping parents. They’d gone to the prom together. And she had been so proud that the guy every girl in the senior class had their eye on had asked her…then so wounded when he hadn’t tried to make a move on her. It had led to a fight right there, under those very bleachers. Had he wished he’d invited someone else?

  Yes, he’d told her. I wish I’d asked David. Finally. He’d admitted it. For the first time. Out loud.

  And Jessica had laughed and thrown her arms around his neck, and he had felt it—total acceptance. For the first time. Under those very bleachers. Cody had told him about it once—Mark wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was just easier to tell your stories to the town eccentric. Because you didn’t care as much what he thought.

  Maybe, for a certain period of time, Cody had thought of himself as the town eccentric. Maybe he’d felt some kind of kinship to Mark.

  He wouldn’t tell Jo that part, though—just the part about the bleachers. About Jessica Steele. Whose parents were right over…

  “Hey!” he bellowed, staring at the bottom row of bleachers. “Where are the Steeles?”

  Without thinking, Jo automatically turned toward the same direction Mark had just looked. Only to find—as Mark had—the spots reserved for Tim and Patricia Steele, the still fairly-newly-retired Hargrove High teachers, were empty.

  “They’re always here,” Jo protested.

  “Without fail,” Mark agreed. Every game—not just homecoming.

  Obviously eavesdropping, Ruthie—a waitress from the Corner Diner—leaned back from her position in the row just below Mark and Jo. “Tim’s been coming to the diner a lot lately.”

  “Just Tim?” Jo asked.

  Ruthie nodded. “Patricia hasn’t been feeling well.”

  “Flu?” Mark asked.

  “She found something. A lump.”

  After a stunned pause, Jo offered, softly, “Tim didn’t tell you that.” Then added, “He’s got a mouth like a steel trap.” Most men around Finley did.

  “No,” Ruthie agreed, “it’s been floating around.”

  That simply meant that Ruthie had been told in confidence, and had promised to keep her word. But secrets were not normally kept in Finley. They were allowed to roam free, like wild birds, flittering about between door sills. She wasn’t going to reveal her source.

  “They have a big job to finish over at the Powell place,” Mark observed, almost as a way to challenge what Ruthie had said. “The wedding’s in six weeks.”

  “That they do. But, you know, worry—that in itself can feel every bit as bad as an illness sometimes,” Ruthie observed, her voice quiet and laced with sadness.

  “So she still doesn’t know for sure?” Jo asked.

  “No, it’s not official. She’s got an appointment at Mercy Hospital. Over in Morrisville. They’re better equipped than we are here.”

  “When?” Mark’s fingers were running yet again along the top edge of his small notebook.

  “A week from now. A biopsy.”

  “Jessica will be coming home, then?” Jo pressed.

  “No.” Ruthie spoke with her eyes poised on the distant horizon line. “Patricia said no need to get Jessica all worked up. Didn’t want to say anything to her until they knew something for sure.”

  Jo grunted. “Still, though. I’d think Patricia’d like to have her daughter’s support.”

  Ruthie nodded. “Yeah, I think not telling her has far more to do with Patricia looking out for Jessica than it does with her being the least bit honest about what she really needs.”

  The crowd around them sucked in their breath as a Hero’s pass was launched into the air.

  And Mark knew, without hesitation, that he was about to don his Amos hat yet again.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  “I’ve never seen you this freaked out,” Sean said, watching Jessica pack as he sat on the edge of their bed.

  “Not as freaked out as Mom’s going to be when she finds out you’re living here.”

  “I’m being completely serious.”

  Jessica sighed, scrunching up the nose she’d inherited from her father and running a hand through the sandy blond hair she’d inherited from her mother. “I know,” she murmured, tossing an unfolded sweater on top of her open suitcase.

  At first, Jessica’d thought the e-mail was a prank. Why wouldn’t she? It had been sent to her work address from Amos Hargrove. His legendary name had appeared in the left-hand column of her inbox. She’d frowned, sure that clicking on it would unleash some horrendous virus onto her computer. Her work e-mail address was public, after all, posted right there on her law firm’s website. Along with her picture. And a short bio indicating that she had grown up in Finley, Missouri.

  But few people outside her hometown knew about the legend of Amos Hargrove, she’d reminded herself. It had been—well, not really a secret treasure, but more like a family heirloom. Something everyone in Finley assumed meant far more to them than it ever would to a
stranger.

  And unleashing some sort of e-mail virus attack seemed so—well—un-Finley-ish.

  Besides, the subject line proclaimed: YOUR MOTHER’S SURGERY. And even though that, too, had seemed like the kind of scare tactic some online predator would use to bait her into opening a malicious message, she couldn’t stop herself. She’d clicked.

  Her mother was having a biopsy. She didn’t want to worry Jessica. But “Amos” thought she would want to know.

  Jessica’d called the hospital—the one mentioned in the e-mail, the one in the slightly-bigger town just down the highway from Finley. The same city where her parents had attended college, practice taught, married. Where they had begun. It couldn’t be true that something so catastrophic could be happening that it could also be—she could hardly bring herself to think it, but—well, their story couldn’t be ending there too, could it?

  She’d assured the voice on the other end of the line that she was an emergency contact for her parents—she had access to their patient records. A precaution her parents had taken three years ago. A precaution that Jessica had shrugged off as she’d signed all the necessary forms. Such matters were all so far away, she’d thought then. Too far away to make any kind of blip on her radar of all things mildly important.

  Now, though…It was confirmed. Her mother was going in for a surgical biopsy.

  And in that moment, time had stopped.

  “How long do you really think you’ll be gone?” Sean asked.

  “It depends. Her biopsy is scheduled for the day after tomorrow.” Jessica turned away from him, so he couldn’t see her face. She had found a few lumps of her own shortly after her call to the hospital. A lump in her throat. A lump in her heart. A lump hidden deep in the pit of her stomach.

  “You sure you don’t want to call your folks first?”

  “Mom had her reasons for not telling me. If I called, she’d insist I stay here.”

  “You sure you don’t want me to come with you?”

  She was sure. This wasn’t the time to bring Sean home.