“Well?” Edward Showalter stood, shaking his head, waiting for the explosion.
“It’s absolutely the most glorious thing I’ve ever seen! Why, I can almost see my own pink scalp reflected up there! And to think that someone actually painted flowers on the wall…I do believe God has been eavesdropping and spreading around my most secret desires!”
Edward removed his painter’s cap and scratched his head. “To each his own. I better get the boys busy moving before they all fall asleep out there. Where, exactly, do you want that desk, since we’re not going to be moving it around any more than we have to. And which bedroom do you want the bed and dresser in? I’m assuming the largest one toward the front of the house, right?”
“Right. And didn’t you load the bed last?”
“Yup.”
“Well, why don’t you go ahead and move that in as well as the rest of the stuff, and I’ll figure about the desk.” The minute he was out of her sight, she sat down at the kitchen table and simply marveled.
Dorothy, wearing her pink pj’s, housecoat and fluffy slippers, turned off the front porch light, then slowly shuffled her way through the living room toward the kitchen. The house was now lit only by the overhead hall light. May Belle, Earl, Nellie Ruth, Jessie and Jessica had all dropped by an hour after the movers had left and stayed until about an hour ago, helping Dorothy move things from here to there. May Belle said she’d waited until she saw the trucks pull away to call the girls, figuring there was enough chaos in the small house at one time already.
May Belle, with Earl’s help, of course, had packed a giant container of sweets in a new Tupperware container, which was their housewarming gift to Dorothy. Jessie brought a big pot of beef stew and stuck it in the fridge, figuring Dorothy could chow on it for a few days until she got her kitchen duly in order, adding, “not that you do much cookin’ anyways!” Nellie Ruth presented her with a metal cart for groceries that pulled on two wheels. “Something to bring your supplies home from town in,” she said. She had attached a child’s bicycle horn, saying if Dorothy drove the cart the way she drove The Tank, she figured she’d need a horn. Of course, that tickled everyone. Jessica gave Dorothy a giant decorative basket she had purchased at Wal-Mart, having found none large enough at the resale shop. She’d decorated it, color-coordinating it with the bright florals that had been painted on the walls. She was sporting a new short-and-sassy hairdo that swung this way and that when she turned her head, and she radiated the delicious fragrance of soothing lavender.
Although none would admit to the painting, Dorothy noticed Jessica’s eyes light up when she let it be known how much she delighted in the kitchen—not to mention the fact that Jessica’s gym shoes were spattered with fire-engine red paint. When Dorothy pointed that out, Jessica assured her that an angel must have spattered her shoes the last time she flew through Partonville. “I’ve heard there are lots of angels flying around here lately,” she said. She then winked at Dorothy, kissed the top of Sarah Sue’s head—who was suspended in yellow and fast asleep at her mother’s chest—then gave Dorothy a quick peck on the cheek, too.
Jessica told Dorothy that it was Katie who had purchased the mailbox during her last trip, then asked Jessica to decorate it. “Katie said although you hadn’t mentioned that old rusty thing, she’d certainly noticed it. She said it felt downright depressing, since it was the first thing you saw when you came to the front door.”
“How sweet of her,” Dorothy said. “How sweet of all of you!”
But now Dorothy was alone, standing near the kitchen table in the dim light from the hall. At night, the fire engine red paint appeared as a deep, rich, warm glow. Smelling of fresh paint and embraced by flowers, the kitchen was more wonderful than any Dorothy could imagine. She moved toward the Tupperware bowl sitting on the counter, reached in and grabbed the first cookie her fingers touched, then re-sealed the bowl. Taking a large, delicious bite, she discovered it was a snickerdoodle. “Perfect,” she said to Sheba, who had rushed to her ankles just waiting for a morsel to hit the floor. “Absolutely perfect.”
By the time she reached the bathroom, she’d polished off the cookie. She flicked on the bathroom light before turning off the hall light, then fumbled around a bit trying to locate her plate container. “Where in the world do you think that thing is?” she asked Sheba, who continued to hover at her ankles, obviously unclear as to where they were heading for the night in this unfamiliar place. Finally Dorothy gave up her search, brushed her teeth, then put the new stopper in the sink and filled it with water, plunking in her partial plate. “That’ll have to do for now.” She then turned on her bedroom light before turning off the hall light.
She stood at the foot of the bed, staring into the room that now, especially compared with the kitchen, felt bare without decoration. Definitely she needed new curtains. Darker ones to help block out the light from that street light outside. And color. Yes, color. She loved her kitchen so much that she’d already decided the rest of the house needed to be just as cheery.
She moved to her prayer chair, which she had instructed the men to place in the corner, and turned on the familiar little lamp on her nightstand. As soon as she picked up her Bible and plopped into the chair, Sheba jumped up on the bed and rolled into her usual little ball at the foot, sensing that this was the place. Dorothy picked up the favored picture of her and Henry and spoke directly into his eyes. “Well, what do you think about this? Could you ever imagine me not living out at Crooked Creek? I can hardly believe it myself.” She set the photo back down on the nightstand and just sat quietly for a moment, her hands folded on top of the Bible resting in her lap.
“It’s wonderful to know you’re everywhere, Lord,” she said aloud. “And it’s especially wonderful to meet You in this familiar chair this evening.” Although she was aching with tiredness, it just wouldn’t be right to spend her first night in her new home without reading something from the Psalms. She put her fingers on the braided bookmark and peeled open the pages. Her previously highlighted words at the end of Psalm 29 caught her eye: “The Lord will give strength to His people; The Lord will bless His people with peace.”
“THANK YOU, Jesus!” she said aloud in a strong voice. “That about does it. Amen.”
She set her Bible back on the nightstand, stiffly rose and walked to the wall switch and flipped off the overhead, removed her robe and slippers, peeled back the covers, slipped into her familiar bed, turned off her familiar bed lamp on her familiar nightstand next to her familiar prayer chair by her familiar Bible and photograph, and snuggled under the familiar blankets. She could have been anywhere.
“Good night, John Boy,” she said. “Good night, Sheba. Good night, Crooked Creek…Good night, moon.”
By 6:30 A.M., Dorothy had finally located her plate container and given the teeth—both in and out of her mouth—a good scrubbing. She had taken a sponge bath, rearranged two dresser drawers and fussed with a few knickknacks in the living room. Although she hadn’t slept well—waking several times, each time spending a quarter hour first remembering where she was, then listening to the new sounds of unfamiliar creaks and occasional traffic passing by—she finally determined at 5:30 that she would not go back to sleep for fear she wouldn’t awaken until noon, when Maggie, who was working only a half-day, was coming to pick her up for pricing out at the farm. Although Maggie wasn’t on the Social Concerns Committee, she was one of more than a dozen people who had volunteered to help with the pricing. Everybody wanted a sneak peek, and this was one sure way to get it—although absolutely no presales were allowed.
It was time for breakfast, and nearly past the time Dorothy should have taken her heart medication. She had finally promised herself, her family, Katie and Josh and May Belle and nearly everyone else in the world, it seemed—including the doc, who occasionally called to check up on her—that she would be careful about things like that. And yes, although she was tired, she was, now in the daylight, somewhat exhilarated by her new surround
ings. “Ta dah!” she said to Sheba as they entered the kitchen and she flipped on the light. “Isn’t this just the most wonderful thing you’ve ever seen?”
She got her pill bottles out of the kitchen cabinet, lined them up on the counter, then opened the refrigerator door to get some milk. Inside the fridge she was surprised to discover a foot-square box with a giant ribbon tied around it and a note that said, “Open carefully!” Withdrawing it from the fridge with two hands, even though it was surprisingly light, she slid the pill bottles aside with her arm and carefully set the box on the counter. She grabbed hold of one end of the navy blue ribbon to untie the bow and discovered it was tied in a knot. After rummaging through four drawers before she remembered where she’d put her new set of tableware, she finally found a knife and cut the ribbon in two places, since it was wound so tightly in both directions around the box. And then she opened the lid.
Six eyeballs were looking straight at her! Three crawdads wiggled and squirmed and crawled over one another, apparently responding to the light that had suddenly invaded their darkness. They were rollicking in an empty ice-cream carton filled with a small bit of water and a few pebbles. A piece of paper was folded and tucked between the box and the ice-cream container. Unfolding it, she read aloud so Sheba wouldn’t miss a word.
Hello! Our names are Clam, Lobster and Crawfish. A humanoid named Katie asked another humanoid named Jessie to pick us up (literally and by the tail) from our home and give us a ride to Vine Street, where we thought we’d spend a cool afternoon. A humanoid named Joshmeister translated our words from Crawdaddie to English, which is why we’re able to talk to you.
We are your Official Welcoming Party, just in case you found yourself a tad bit (which is different than a tadpole) lonesome for the country. Although we’d love to stay, we’ll be hitching a ride back with you and Maggie today since we don’t like snickerdoodle cookies and we figured that’s all you’d have to eat.
Please come and visit us any time you like. You know our slogan: Our creek is for your feet.
Love, Clam, Lobster and Crawfish.
Dorothy was laughing so hard she thought she might wet her pants. Every time she thought she had finally recuperated, fits of laughter would wash over her once again, one time causing her to fold nearly clear in half. When she finally pulled herself together and got the family safely tucked back into the fridge, she phoned May Belle.
“How in the world did you guys get those little buggers into my refrigerator without me knowing it?”
“You mean to tell me you just found them this morning?” May Belle couldn’t believe it. “I couldn’t imagine why you didn’t phone me last night, and now I know why! We were all just bursting last night, hoping you’d discover them while we were still there, but we didn’t want to spoil your surprise. We just wanted you to come across them on your own.”
“Well, I guar-an-tee you I was surprised! Whose idea was this, anyway?”
“Katie and Jessica got to talking on the phone—I guess they do that pretty regularly—and believe it or not, Katie’s the one who thought it up. She told Jessica, who phoned Jessie, and the plan was on. Josh wrote the letter, then faxed it to the drugstore. They phoned Earl to come pick it up and take it to your house while Edward Showalter was finishing up yesterday. Jessie said she could have brought them in when we came to visit, but she thought you might get too nosy before we got them in the fridge. No, we wanted you to discover them on your own.”
“Well, now, that was quite the team effort!”
“Believe you me, it was. But what fun we had!”
“Oh, May Belle, you cannot imagine how good that laughter felt. Honestly, I think the gift of laughter is one of the best gifts God has ever given us!”
“And you, Dear Dorothy, are one of the best gifts God’s ever given to me!”
19
Ever since Dorothy had e-mailed Josh that, much to her total shock, the Wild Musketeers were indeed going to have to have a playoff game with the Palmer Pirates, he had been afraid he would have to miss it, especially since it was going to be held the weekend before the brownstone closing. But now his mom had promised they’d be there to cheer. Even though she was up to her freshly colored red roots in things to do and still wrangling over the marathon of upcoming events, she just didn’t have the heart to say no. What kind of mush pot am I turning into?
“Too bad I don’t quite have my license yet, Mom, so you could buy me a car and I could just drive myself down there!”
“Right.” She rolled her eyes so swiftly that Josh thought they might actually launch out of her eye sockets.
Katie put on her full business press with the moving company, trying to alter their original contract. Since there was now no way they could get moved in before the first day of school, she’d decided they might as well give themselves plenty of time to get things squared away, allowing Edward Showalter to do his thing after the auction and allowing them to have a more thoughtful, organized transition rather than practically having to be “dumped off” at the farm. Dorothy quite agreed with this plan when told about it. Katie determined to let the moving company do as much accurate placement of furniture as possible, sparing her and Josh more physical labor than they cared to endure. They were used to nearly living at the Lamp Post now anyway, so that wouldn’t be a problem. Katie figured she could just drive Josh to school until they got settled into the farm and onto the bus route. Although she did get the moving company to bend a bit, van storage for more than two weeks was out of the question. If she wanted her items packed up but not delivered for more than two weeks, she’d have to have it all offloaded and put in a storage crate, then reloaded since no company was willing to tie up a trailer for that long, especially at this time of year. To have her unique and spendy items handled—possibly manhandled—four times rather than two was out of the question.
So now the plan boiled down to this: they’d travel to Partonville for the Saturday playoff game, head back to Chicago immediately afterward for the final packing and closing, then return to Partonville two days later, the night before school started. That would also get them there two days before the auction. Although auctions were really not her cup of tea, Katie’s proprietary mode had kicked into high gear since Crooked Creek was now officially her property, and it would be filled with strangers. More than once she’d fretted about liability issues. Dorothy told her the church’s umbrella policy covered off-site, official church events, but she wondered.
Edward Showalter had, as promised, reserved the entire week after the auction and before their moving in for any and all odd jobs. Katie decided to try to stop fretting about what might have to be left undone at that point, suspecting that the public would probably take a toll on the property anyway. And after all, until she found a job—her financial situation was strong enough that she never really had to do that, but she truly did miss the energy and pace—what else did she have to do if not to spend her leisurely days transforming an old farmhouse into the dwelling place of a city slicker! Perhaps she would have her decorator come visit for a weekend after they got moved in.
The one thing she couldn’t stop fretting about, however, was how Josh would make the transition. She knew he would probably have to be patient about making new friends. Although Hethrow High was undoubtedly now more urban than rural, because of the town’s progressive years of growth since auto manufacturing had recently come to Hethrow, nevertheless, he would still be the new kid on the block, or in the country, or from the farm—depending upon how one wanted to look at it.
In the meantime, Katie had double-dutied her appointments with her stylist, her massage therapist, her manicurist, the woman who gave her facials and her yoga instructor. Although she would never have thought it possible, she was on the verge of overprimping before she remembered she’d already determined somewhere along the line to come to the city once a month or so anyway after she moved. Get her city fix. And if she dropped her standing appointment with Jeffrey, her colori
st, she would probably never be able to get an appointment, such was his reputation, loyalty base and schedule. A friend of hers had once worn a turban on her head for five weeks! Her roots were so long by the time he could fit her in, she decided just to let it all go gray, cut it severely short and save her money for Maui.
Josh had been spending so much time at Alex’s that Katie felt a bit isolated. Only her daily long-distance calls with Jessica filled in the solitude. Since she hadn’t been full-fledged working around the clock, which had been her habit for so many years, she realized how little time Josh spent around the house—or how often he must have been home alone. But she was now shockingly aware of how completely uncultivated her own social life was. It wasn’t until she had recently started to slip out of the loop that she became aware of how business breakfasts, lunches, dinners and after-hours meetings had become her life. The perpetual competition and deal cutting made it difficult to be able to trust anyone as a true friend. From that standpoint, the upcoming and drastic changes in her life felt welcome, when they didn’t unnerve her to pieces.
Katie agreed that Alex could come along for the ball game trip. Not only was he easy company and Josh’s best friend, but she had also realized during their last journey home together that listening to the two of them chatter—when she wasn’t buried in public radio and they weren’t hiding behind headphones—was a good way to glean some information.
When Josh told her that Alex had suggested they all take pom-poms to the game, Katie swiftly and thoroughly rejected the idea. “I mean, really,” she said. But after she mentioned it to Jessica, who went wild with enthusiasm, the idea finally began to capture Katie. Next thing she knew, she was dialing Alex’s number.
Dearest Dorothy, Slow Down, You're Wearing Us Out! Page 16