“No, really,” Tori requested patiently. “Recite one of your poems for me.”
“Honestly I’m not much of a poet.”
“Oh, Ellie, don’t be so modest.”
Ellie knew she shouldn’t, but the opportunity was there and she just couldn’t help herself. “Roses are red, violets are blue, Ross is a moron when it comes to—”
Ross choked on his iced tea and went into a spasm of coughing.
“Cars,” Ellie concluded her poem, as if she had never intended anyone to think she meant to say anything else. “Something go down wrong?” she asked with perfect innocence.
Tori patted his shoulder in concern. “Are you okay, sweetie?”
“Fine,” he wheezed. “I’m fine. Ellie’s poetry just choked me up, that’s all.”
“It was a pretty bad poem,” Tori agreed, her voice expressing sincere regret and not an inkling of understanding. “You may not have realized it, Ellie, but that last line didn’t rhyme.”
“She’s not a poet, Tori,” Ross explained. “She was just named for one.”
“Oh.” Tori looked enlightened. “Which one?”
“T. S. Eliot,” Ellie supplied. “My mother had a crush on him.”
“She knew T. S. Eliot? Wow.”
“She didn’t know him,” Ross said patiently. “She just liked his poems.”
Tori’s smile beamed like a flashlight. “Well, aren’t you glad she named you after him and not Henry Wadsworth Longfellow? I bet it would be really hard to get a date if your name was Henry.”
“She could be named Edgar Allan Poe and still not have any trouble getting dates. In high school the guys were lined up to take her out.”
“Really?”
There was no need to sound so surprised, Ellie thought, wishing Ross hadn’t brought up the subject, knowing she now had to explain. “When our class began turning sixteen, I was the date of choice for any boy with a set of wheels.” Ellie drew her fork through her mashed potatoes. “My uncle Owen was very generous with his expertise and his garage. It got to be a little embarrassing.”
“For whom?” Ross asked with a laugh. “Every male in town had to live with the knowledge that you knew more about cars than we did.”
“But the two of you never dated, right?” Tori asked, coming around to the question Ellie felt sure she’d wanted to ask all along. “I mean, you never dated each other, right?”
“No,” Ross replied.
“No,” Ellie said just as quickly, exchanging her easy smile for his. “That would have been the end of a beautiful friendship.”
“Not only that, I’d have had to pay somebody else to fix my car every time something went wrong with it.”
“Which would have left you constantly broke.” Ellie laughed, just remembering his ancient Toyota. “We had so much fun in that old Land Cruiser.”
“Some of the best times of my life were spent in that vehicle.”
“I wish you still had her.”
“Me, too. I’d take both of you ladies for a spin up to the falls.”
Tori stopped slicing the chunks of lettuce in her salad into bite-size pieces. “But you promised your mother and me you’d stay away from the waterfall this week, remember?”
“Don’t worry.” He stroked his thumb across the back of her hand and gave her another sappy smile. “I’m not about to go jumping in the falls and put the old Bachelor Falls legend to the test.”
Tori’s smile glowed anew. “That’s practically all I’ve heard since I got into town, Ellie. A complete stranger walked up to me this morning in the drugstore and told me if I wanted to get married Saturday, I’d better hog-tie Ross to a flagpole and throw away the key.” Her laughter trilled with high humor. “As if taking a shower in a waterfall could actually stop anyone from getting married. As if it could stop Ross from marrying me.”
She sounded pretty confident. Ellie drew a crosshatch in her potatoes. “Some of the townspeople take the whole Bachelor Daze celebration a little seriously,” she said. “But it’s all in good fun.” She glanced at Ross, who was picking disinterestedly at a tomato buried in his chef salad. “Ross did tell you how the whole thing got started, didn’t he?”
“He did,” Ross answered with an amiable frown. “I have regaled Tori with the history of our town, including the story of the gold miners who remained unwed by bathing irregularly with homemade soap that turned their skin an unattractive green and I’ve told her the sad tale of Lowell Murtry’s kidnapping by the aliens after he had the misfortune of falling in the falls just before he was supposed to marry Ona Mae Hunyacre. I’ve also instructed her on local etiquette during this week of festivities and she knows the dos and don’ts of Falls Day, namely that I and the other single men in town have to make a run for the falls on Friday and that she has to join the other women in trying to stop us.” He stabbed the tomato, sending a tiny splatter of pulp and seeds onto his crisp blue shirt.
“Ross.” Tori drew his name into a soft scold as she dipped the corner of her napkin in her untouched glass of water and began dabbing the stain to dilute it. “Look at your shirt. You’ll have to change before we meet with the minister this afternoon. Does Bachelor Falls have a good dry cleaners?”
It was just a spot. Hardly even noticeable, but Tori treated it like a blemish of massive proportions, scrubbing vigorously until the stain was thoroughly soaked. And Ross just let her do it. Ellie’s appetite gave up the ghost and she laid down her fork. “So what are your plans for the week, Tori? Did Ross leave you some free time to go over to Branson and see a couple of the shows? There’s great shopping, too...if you have the time.”
“My mother has Tori booked every minute between now and Saturday.” Ross pried the napkin-mop from his fiancée’s fingers and gently stopped the stain removal. With a smile, of course, to show he appreciated her efforts, but didn’t want her to break a nail or get dishpan hands. “And in between all the shopping and fittings and family showers, her friends are flying in from Chicago for the wedding.”
“Chrissy is coming on Wednesday.” Tori took over the recital of coming events. “The rest of the bridesmaids will be here Thursday and we’re going to do lots of girl stuff. You know, we’ll have our hair done a couple of times so we can decide how to wear it for the wedding, and there’ll be some last-minute alterations on their dresses. Plus they’re going to help me gather all the addresses for my thank-you notes. And my family is flying in on Thursday afternoon and I’ll want to spend time with them. I’ve already told Ross not to plan on getting much attention from me until after the wedding.” She brushed her fingers across his cheek before leaning closer to check the stain again and give it a fleeting disapproval. “We’ll have plenty of time together on our wedding trip, won’t we, sweetheart?”
“That’s what honeymoons are for.” Ross turned over a lettuce leaf in his salad bowl and Ellie hoped to heaven he was searching for another tomato. “Well, Eliot,” he said absently. “Looks like your job as best man begins early. Since Tori has as much as told me she doesn’t have time for me until our honeymoon, I think it’s your duty to keep me out of trouble this week. How are you going to do that?”
“I’ll give you a crescent wrench and put you under the hood of my hot rod,” she supplied easily.
“You won’t let him get greasy, will you?” Tori sounded a little alarmed by the prospect. “I mean, we’ll be having pictures made at the wedding and...”
“It’s my duty as best man to deliver your groom to the church on Saturday as stain-free as he is at this minute.” There, Ellie thought. Worry about that for a while.
“Thanks, Ellie.” Tori’s smile beamed a thousand unworried watts. “I know I can count on you to take good care of him.” She glanced at her watch, then picked up her fork and speared a crouton. “We have plenty of time to finish our lunch. Even if we do have to allow enough time to go back to the house, so you can change shirts.” She smiled contentedly at both Ross and Ellie and popped the crouton into her mouth.
Ross looked at the wet circle on his shirt, then at Ellie, and his mouth formed a familiar, stubborn line. Okay, Ross! she thought. Show a little backbone. Show some sense. Realizing suddenly what she was hoping for, Ellie felt a little ashamed of herself and turned her attention to the slab of meat loaf on her plate.
Hazel, with her wiry sprigs of gray-blond hair and her lean, mean and solid girth, was making the rounds of her diner and she arrived back at their table, as eager to replenish the water in their glasses as she was to discover what they were talking about so she could report it to others in the diner.
“Everybody doin’ okay, here?” She wheezed like an old De Soto when she talked and hummed like a freight train when she didn’t. “Everybody ready for dessert? I got fresh strawberry pie today. Your favorite, Ross.”
“None for us, thanks.” Tori leaned forward to bestow her regret with a flash of dimples. “I have to watch my waistline and Ross doesn’t care for sweets.” She patted his hand absently as she spoke to Hazel, stroking his long fingers with her shorter ones. “But you probably already know that, since you’ve been feeding him since he was a little boy.”
“I never noticed him skipping dee-ssert,” Hazel said as she topped off their glasses with water from a red, aluminum pitcher. “Fact of the matter, there was a few years when I flat-out depended on Ross to finish off any dee-sserts left over from the day before.”
Tori’s dimples flashed off, then on again. “Well, he’s turned over a new leaf,” she said with complete assurance. “He hasn’t had a bite of sugar for ages.”
“Is tha‘so?” Hazel swiped a wet rag across the end of the table, brushing a crumb into her apron pocket. “No wonder he’s pale as a nasturtium in a poppy field. Don’t you worry none, Miz Bledsoe, I’ll get the roses back in his cheeks b’fore Saturdee’s weddin’. You just leave it to me.” She reached out, picked up Ellie’s meatloaf platter, and set it down in front of Ross, pushing his Go, Girls, Go! salad plate toward Ellie. “There now,” Hazel said. “Ellie wasn’t gonna eat all that, anyway. You polish off that meat loaf and those mashed potatoes while I go back and get you a hunk of that strawberry pie.” And she bustled off to the kitchen, a woman with a mission.
Ross exchanged an amused glance with Ellie. “Guess you’re through eating, Eliot.”
“Guess so,” Ellie said good-naturedly. “I didn’t really want any more, anyway.”
“You didn’t eat much.” He glanced suspiciously from the barely touched meat loaf to her. “Is there something wrong with this? Hazel hasn’t lost her magic touch, has she?”
“Those are fighting words around here, Ross. You know that. The only thing that can compete with Hazel’s meat loaf is Mabel’s chicken-fried steak. Mabel’s Diner is across the street,” Ellie added for Tori’s benefit. “There’s been a not-so-friendly rivalry going on between the two café owners as long as I can recall.”
Ross laughed. “Remember the year Mabel started the Festival Feasts?”
“Don’t say that too loudly,” Ellie whispered with a corresponding grin. “I don’t think this town could survive another recipe war.”
Tori looked from Ross to Ellie expectantly, wearing the questioning expression of someone who doesn’t get the joke.
“A few years ago,” Ellie explained, “Mabel came up with the idea of creating a whole new menu for the Bachelor Daze celebration. She told everyone she was having trouble sleeping, so she spent her nights thinking up new recipes and printing up new menus, which she posted on the diner window the next morning. Not to be outdone, Hazel also dreamed up some new dishes and posted a new menu on her window. She claims it was pure coincidence that the two diners had different menus, but the same, exact food. Mabel was furious and she went underground, blacking her windows and creating her masterpieces in the dark. But the next day, when Hazel’s menu went up in the window, it was all but identical to Mabel’s.”
Tori’s smiled ranged from Ross to Ellie and back again. “Was there a spy in Mabel’s kitchen?”
“Aunt Ona Mae Hunyacre was sure it was the Bostians trying to get in on the festival in their own annoying and alien way.” Ross’s eyes crinkled with humor and Ellie knew he was remembering, as she was, the night they’d snuck out at midnight to do a little adolescent sleuthing. They’d seen Ona Mae out, too, but although they waited until nearly dawn, they never saw her go into Mabel’s house or come out of Hazel’s. But they’d always figured she had to be somehow responsible for stirring up the great recipe war. “There are lots of theories around town, the most popular being that Hazel and Mabel cooked up the whole scheme to drum up business.” Ross scooped a bite of meat loaf onto his fork with undisguised relish. “Ellie and I have always given that theory short shrift, though, because we don’t believe either Hazel or Mabel could keep a secret long enough for it to become a theory. That’s why we’re particularly partial to the alien-conspiracy idea.”
“Oh, Ross, you’re such a tease.” Tori said, beaming her smile on him and showering Ellie with its brightness by default. “Has he always been such a cutup, Ellie?”
“Always,” Ellie agreed, although cutup was not the word she would have chosen in reference to Ross. “In school, he was always cutting up, but then, he was always teacher’s pet, too.”
“Oh, I was not.” Ross said before thrusting the forkful of meat loaf into his mouth and chewing enthusiastically.
“Was he really?” Tori asked, clapping her hands in delight. But her smile faded when she saw the second bite of meat loaf headed for Ross’s mouth. “I didn’t know you ate beef,” she said, making the entrée sound as appealing as roadkill stew.
Ross paused with the tines of his fork hovering a bare quarter inch from his mouth, the savory meat loaf, which was one of Hazel’s jealously guarded secret recipes, tantalizingly close to his tongue. He looked at Ellie and, just for an instant, she thought she saw the first flash of sense returning, but then he put down his fork and pushed the plate back across the table. “I’ve been trying to eat healthier the past few months,” he said by way of explanation.
Tori’s smile bounced back. “This residency has enough stress built in without adding an artery-clogging diet on top of it. Daddy’s a real stickler for keeping his residents healthy and happy.”
Ross pulled the salad platter away from Ellie and picked up his fork again with a definite lack of enthusiasm. “Tori’s a strict vegetarian. She’s incredibly disciplined about it.”
“He makes me sound like a saint.” Tori’s pleasure oozed out in a delighted, little laugh. “But the truth is, I just can’t bring myself to pollute my body with animal fat and the chemical additives put into feed stock these days. Daddy says only one out of every ten thousand Americans has clear, uncluttered veins. Isn’t that just unbelievable?”
“Unbelievable,” Ellie replied, looking around the diner, hoping to see one undeniably healthy person to refute the evils of animal fat ingestion. But the people in Hazel’s Hash House hadn’t come there to eat vegetables and fruit. On the other hand, they all—from Mayor Jimmy and Tommie Nell to three-year-old Nicky Newman and his mom—looked robust and healthy. Then again, on the other hand, Tori was no slouch in the looking-healthy department, either. Ellie felt a little sickly just sitting across the table from her.
“Here we go.” Hazel set a plate with a good fourth of a strawberry pie on it in front of Ross. “Now, I don’t want to find so much as a crumb left on that plate next time I stop by this table, you hear me, Ross Kilgannon?” The salad plate was gone in a flash, combining what Ellie thought was some sleight of hand on Ross’s part as well as Hazel’s.
“She’s kind of pushy, isn’t she?” Tori stared at Hazel’s retreating rear end, apparently oblivious to Ross’s part in the plate exchange and the hungry, lustful expression in her beloved’s eyes when he looked at that strawberry pie. Her smile returned to him like a blessing. “I can wrap that in a napkin and carry it out in my purse,” she offered, blithely indifferent to the casual, but
definitely defensive, way he cupped his hands around the pie plate. “I’ll throw it away and she’ll never know you didn’t eat every bite. I mean, you don’t want to eat all that sugar, do you?”
He did. Ellie could read his thoughts like a book at that moment, and he wanted that pie. He wanted every last crumb of it. She settled back to see how true love handled a piece of strawberry pie.
“It would really hurt her feelings, Tori,” Ross began his campaign. “I have to eat at least a bite of it. I’m sure she’s watching. Hazel’s just that way.”
With one sweeping glance, Tori ascertained that Hazel not only wasn’t watching, she had her back turned. “Give me that pie,” she whispered, reaching for the plate. “I’ll have it out of sight before she turns around.”
He scooted the plate a short distance away from her fingers. “But she’ll think I gobbled it down in two bites.”
“Oh.” Tori frowned. “Okay, we’ll wait a few more minutes, then I’ll grab it.”
Gobbling, apparently, would be worse than consuming all that sugar, Ellie decided, smiling cheerfully at Ross’s dilemma. “If you’re not going to eat it, hand it over,” she said forcefully. “Hazel’s pies are too wonderful to waste.”
Tori seemed startled that anyone would make such an offer. “Well, if you’re sure you want it,” she said.
You’ll get this over my dead body, was the silent message in Ross’s murderous frown.
Delighted as much by the interplay as by the anticipated taste, Ellie leisurely pulled the plate away from Ross, fork and all. “Mmm,” she said. “This looks yummy.”
“It would be better for you if you’d wash that jelly stuff off of the berries.” Tori folded the napkin and tucked it back inside her roomy, black patina purse. “But I guess if you’re accustomed to eating sweets, you like it that way.”
She didn’t have to make it sound as though Ellie consumed a pound of sugar at each of twenty meals a day. It wasn’t as if Ellie outweighed Tori by more than ten pounds, if that much. It was just that her overalls disguised her shape a little better than Tori’s zebra-striped shorts disguised hers. And the pie was worth its weight in gold. It was, as Hazel’s pies always were, utterly, completely delicious.
A Bachelor Falls Page 3