by Gayle Roper
“We always put a rocking chair in a baby’s room,” she said. “And we try to make the master bedroom as beautiful as possible, especially for the single moms who for financial reasons have to put themselves last. Freshly painted walls, a colorful border and new sheets with curtains that match can make such a difference to a woman.”
My head was swimming with the scope of all Good Hands did as we reentered Tug’s office. Candy collected Bailey, who was sitting in an unhappy lump on my chair, pausing at the door to again remind Tug to tell me about Simon, the mailman.
“Yes, dear.” He made himself sound put-upon, but it was obvious that the bond between Tug and Candy was deep and lively. Just like Curt and me, I thought—until I remembered North Carolina.
Lord, please change his mind. Help him see how perfect going home will be.
I watched as Tug walked Candy and Bailey to the office door, then stood there, his eyes sad as he watched them down the hall and outside.
“I worry about her,” he said. “She’s so unhappy.”
Bailey of the glorious fall of soft gold, Bailey who was very overweight and wore the ugliest clothes she could find, Bailey of the excess eye makeup, Bailey who wanted to be different but wasn’t rebellious enough to become fully goth.
“It’s the age,” I offered. “She’ll probably slim down and wash away the black gunk in a year or two.”
“From your lips to God’s ears. It’s just her older sister was so easy! Candy and I were spoiled.” He walked back to his desk and sat down. “Now let me tell you about our friend Simon, the mailman, who had the poorest mail route in Amhearst and found us our first clients. He told us which people we could trust to have legitimate needs and he told them that they could trust us not to rip them off.”
By the time I returned to The News, I had more than enough information about Good Hands for an article, but I wanted more. I wanted that magic three points of view. Tug had given me names so that I could contact some of the nearly one thousand volunteers who gave up their Saturdays to help the many home owners—mostly widows, seniors and single moms—who were somehow scraping by but with no extra funds to hire someone to repair things and no time or knowledge to make the repairs themselves. I also wanted to interview some of the people Good Hands had helped and find out about the difference the assistance had made in their lives.
“At first all we thought about were the houses,” Tug had said. “Then we started to notice the people and the serious problems they often faced. Our motto became Hope, Joy, Dignity, reflecting what we hoped to offer our clients.
“Then we finally realized that often our clients had spiritual needs, too, so we’ve now incorporated spiritual goals into the program. We ask each client to have a ten-minute Bible study with us when we come. One or two of each team have volunteered to help this way and the clients seem to like being cared for and prayed for in this format.”
I was feeling really good about the world and the way some people made positive differences until I walked through the door of The News and saw Mac, Jolene and Edie standing around my desk. Larry, the sports guy, was frowning at me from his desk across the room.
I froze, every instinct telling me to turn and run. “What?”
“Pittsburgh, Merry?” Jolene said.
“The Chronicle, Merry?” Mac said.
Edie just looked at me with disappointment like an aura about her.
I blinked. “How in the world?” I hadn’t told anybody but Curt and I knew he wouldn’t talk about my job offer, especially with the topic so tender and unresoloved between us.
“If you’re going to argue about something with Curt, don’t do it in public,” Jolene said, pointing one of her lethal nails at me. “Astrid is the town crier.”
In that moment, Pittsburgh’s siren call sang incredibly sweetly. A large city where no one knew my name. A large city where Curt and I could slug it out in one of the shops in the Strip and people would barely blink. Here in Amhearst I might as well be living in a glass house.
I sniffed, sat down and activated my computer. “Mac, go edit something and leave me alone. Jo, go water your plants. They look dry. Edie, go write about some great Chester County house or some wonderful, quirky Chester County resident. If and when there’s anything any of you need to know, I’ll tell you.”
I began typing furiously. Not that anything I was writing made sense. I might as well have been typing the quick red fox jumped over the lazy brown dog.
The phone rang and I answered to find Tug Mercer on the line.
“I’ve contacted several of the people that Good Hands helped and they’re looking forward to talking to you. In fact, if you’re free tomorrow afternoon, Bailey can go with you to introduce you.”
No wonder Good Hands had accomplished so much if Tug was always this on top of things. “Tomorrow sounds fine. One-thirty?”
When I hung up, I found I had also calmed down. I looked surreptitiously at my three coworkers, all carefully ignoring me. When Curt and I moved to Pittsburgh, I’d miss them. A lot. They had become good friends. No, they had become more, woven into the everyday fabric of my life in a way that made me feel cared for and appreciated, the threads of our lives woof and weft one to the other. Yes, I would miss them even if I wouldn’t miss Astrid.
I sighed. Lord, let’s get this over with quickly, okay? Pittsburgh, okay?
TEN
I left the newsroom just after 4:20 to walk to the old building down the street from The News for my interview with Tony Compton. As I exited, I smiled sweetly at everyone and said not a word. Jolene and Edie smiled sweetly back, something that was unnerving coming from the acerbic Jo. Mac just glowered.
They cared that I would probably be moving. I walked with a spring in my step; I really was going to miss them. I was.
I smelled the fumes in the old building before I noticed the clean look of the newly painted hallways. The building had always been clean and well kept, but brown walls a shade just this side of mud had made it depressing. Now it welcomed me.
Halfway up the inner stairs to the offices of Grassley, Jordan and McGilpin, I met Mr. Weldon, the custodian, coming down, a ladder taller than he in his hands.
He stopped and smiled at me. “Merry! What a wonderful delight.”
I grinned at him. Mr. Weldon played in the bell choir at church with me and he loved it just as I did. I should say he played a bell. He and his wife shared high C and D.
“I don’t trust myself to play two,” he always said. “Too hard what with flats and sharps and all. But one I can manage. And Mother wants me to be happy and play, so she takes the other.” And the Weldons would smile at each other. I got a kick out of their eccentricity and delight out of their affection for each other.
Mrs. Weldon always reminded me of Barbara Bush, aging without self-consciousness, taking the wrinkles and gray hair as just a part of life. Mr. Weldon was a plump man of indeterminate years with graying hair that curled no matter how short he cut it.
“I’d shave it all off,” he told me one night after bell practice, “but Mother likes to run her fingers through it.” He sighed, then grinned. “Ain’t life tough?”
I’d laughed all the way home.
Now I said, “The place looks very nice, Mr. Weldon. The bright beige makes the hallways look light and welcoming.”
He looked at the freshly painted stairwell with some anxiety. “You really like it? I’m afraid it’s going to show every bit of dirt and every fingerprint. That wonderful brown didn’t show anything.”
“You might have more dirt to tackle, Mr. Weldon, but the light color’s much better for a dark old building. Take my word for it.”
He bobbed his head at me. “I got carried away by this wonderful paint sale, Merry, and then after I bought it, I had to use it. No returns.” He sighed. “I can never pass up a good sale. That’s why Mother never lets me have any of the credit cards and only a few dollars at a time. I’m what they call a shopaholic.”
I had
to laugh at the image of Mr. Weldon elbowing his way to a sale table.
“And never let me loose in the Home Depot or Lowe’s,” he continued. “I love those stores. I had so much fun buying the paint for the new lawyer’s office—he didn’t want the soft lavender that Ms. McGilpin had, surprise, surprise—and then I couldn’t resist the lure of the sale and got the beige, too.”
“Well, it was a good purchase.”
He eyed the walls again, then grinned happily. “Bright.” And he continued downstairs with his ladder as I continued up. At the landing I turned right toward the door that now read Grassley, Jordan and Compton, Attorneys at Law.
I pulled the door open and walked into the reception area.
“Yes?” asked a young thing who was actually wearing a skirt. Required professional attire? Maybe I ought to do an article on business dress in this era of casual business clothes. I hadn’t worn a skirt to work in years.
“I have an appointment with Mr. Compton. I’m Merry Kramer of The News.”
She consulted her appointment book. “Of course, Ms. Kramer. Mr. Compton is due back from court at any minute. Won’t you take a seat?” She indicated a comfortable arrangement of deep stuffed chairs grouped around a coffee table covered with magazines.
I took a seat, stuffing the decorator pillow behind my back. A tall man had picked these chairs, never thinking about a shorter person whose legs weren’t long enough to sit back in the chair. Then again, maybe that was why the decorator pillows were here. I checked the magazines, impressed not only with the selection but the current dates. I decided to take advantage of the enforced downtime and read without guilt. I was halfway through the second magazine when the door to the hall opened and a tall, dark-haired man in a navy pinstriped suit and crisp white shirt walked in.
“Hello, Annie, my angel,” he said with a charming smile. “How’s it going?”
“Fine, Mr. Compton, sir.” The receptionist fairly glowed at his attention.
“I hope no emergencies have cropped up while I’ve been gone.” He paused by her desk and she turned bright red with pleasure.
“No emergencies, Mr. Compton.”
He nodded and smiled full wattage as he loosened his power tie and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. “Good. I’ll be in my office,” he said. “No calls, please.” He started toward a closed door where the opaque glass still read Trudy McGilpin. He stopped and frowned. “When is that man going to change the name?”
His voice was mild, but he was clearly annoyed.
Annie swallowed like it was her fault the door hadn’t been renamed. “He changed the main door.” She pointed.
“So he did. Well, that’s a step in the right direction.” He grabbed the knob of the door to his office and opened it.
As Annie’s eyes swiveled from the door back to the lawyer, she spotted me, forgotten under the spell of her boss. “Uh, Mr. Compton, your four-thirty appointment is here.”
He stopped, spun and saw me for the first time. He gave me the same charming smile he’d bestowed on Annie. I could see why Valerie Gladstone, his late fiancée, had fallen for him. If receptionists and strangers got this wattage, imagine what someone he cared for got.
Annie stood quickly and said, “This is Merry Kramer from The News. Remember?”
“Of course, of course.” He walked to me, his hand extended.
I stood quickly, knowing he didn’t remember at all.
“Ms. Kramer, forgive me for keeping you waiting. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” His two-handed grip swallowed my hand. “Please, let’s go into my office.”
“Mr. Weldon just finished painting it for you,” Annie said helpfully. “It’s a beautiful color.”
Tony Compton nodded and stood aside to let me precede him. When it was obvious that Compton’s attention was on me, Annie sat with a sigh. Poor kid. Unrequited love was a very hurtful thing.
The walls of the office were a beautiful color, a rich crimson that sat well with the crisp white window frames, crown molding, baseboards and bookshelves. On the floor under boxes of unpacked papers and books lay a cream oriental rug patterned in crimson, fawn and black. Behind the massive cherry desk was an executive’s chair covered in crimson leather. Assuming Tony Compton had asked for the walls to be crimson, he had either a great decorator or an unusually strong sense of design and color for a guy.
“Wow,” I said, looking around. “Very lovely.”
“I was going more for you-can-trust-this-guy than lovely,” he said with a smile. I couldn’t help but notice that when he smiled, the corners of his dark eyes crinkled like those of an old-time cowboy too long in the sun. Interesting on a man whose job kept him indoors most of the day.
He indicated I should sit in one of the two visitors’ chairs placed before his desk. They reminded me of the two upholstered chairs my mother had sitting at either end of her dining room table, except these were crimson leather instead of blue on blue brocade.
As I sat down, I told myself that the paint fumes weren’t bothering me, weren’t making my nose twitch.
“So, Mr. Compton,” I said, “what made you decide you wanted to practice law in Amhearst?”
“Please, call me Tony.” His smile was so charming I found myself smiling back automatically. He must beguile juries easily with that charisma, especially the women.
“So, Tony, what made you decide to practice law here in Amhearst?”
“As you probably know—and I’m assuming someone as professional as you did your homework—I practiced for several years in a large firm in Harrisburg.”
I wondered how he knew how professional I was, but I had to admit it was a good line. I found myself sitting straighter.
“I liked being in a firm at the center of state politics. There was always something exciting going on. But after a while the furious pace and the constant stress began to wear on me.” He aimed the high-wattage smile at me again.
I nodded as if I understood and wondered whether a smile that came so easily and so frequently meant much. I also told my stomach that the stronger-than-usual paint vapors were not making me feel ill. After all, throwing up in a man’s freshly painted office is hardly professional.
Tony stood abruptly, for once sober-faced. “I don’t know about you, but these fumes are getting to me. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that man used oil-based paint, the smell is so strong.”
Gratefully I stood, too.
He walked around his desk and put his hand on the small of my back to guide me toward the door as if I didn’t know where it was. He smiled down at me, one of those smiles that says you’re-the-most-fascinating-woman-I’ve-ever-seen-and-I’m-so-glad-you’re-heremy-day-would-have-been-a-total-loss-without-this-time-with-you.
Quite frankly not many people had ever smiled at me like that. Just Curt and once in a blue moon, Jack, the old boyfriend. And maybe the kid I had a crush on my freshman year in high school. I loved it when Curt looked at me with such genuine love and delight. Jack and the kid from high school no longer counted. With Tony, even though I knew it was part of his schtick, I felt flattered.
Women of Amhearst, look out!
Maybe I should wave my engagement ring in his face, let him know I wasn’t on the market, but I wasn’t sure it would deter him. Based on my limited sampling—Annie and me—I’d say that women automatically brought out his charm. I wondered what Mac would say if I wrote that Tony Compton was a ladies’ man. Hire him at your peril.
He turned me gently toward the door. “Let’s just walk down to Ferretti’s and have a bite to eat while we finish this interview. I never did get any lunch.”
I stepped out quickly just to prove I could get to the door all on my own and felt my left foot catch on the edge of one of the boxes waiting to be unpacked. I put out a hand to stop my fall. It slapped against the office wall right by the door and for a few seconds I balanced precariously over the box that had tripped me. Tony solved my problem by shoving the box out of the way with one foot
while he grabbed my free wrist and hauled me upright.
“Are you all right, Merry?” He managed to sound as if he actually cared.
Safe on my feet, I stared at the smudgy hand print I’d made on Tony’s freshly painted wall, then at my red hand. “I am so sorry!”
He smiled again, but it wasn’t the easy smile of earlier. This one seemed a bit forced. “Not to worry. The paint guy—”
“Mr. Weldon,” I said.
“What?”
“The paint guy.”
“Ah. Well, he can fix it, I’m sure. Now we’d better get you cleaned up.”
He led me out to the reception area by a new grip about my other wrist, my red hand suspended in front of him as if he feared I might accidentally touch something. Maybe his blindingly white oxford shirt? Annie stared at us openmouthed.
“There’s the washroom.” Tony pointed, releasing me.
I went into the room and shut the door behind me. I pumped soap from the pretty dispenser on the sink and lathered up. The first sign that I had a problem was when the lather didn’t turn red. I rinsed my hands, and my palm was as red as ever. I made a face at myself in the mirror. Definitely oil-based paint. I had a new understanding of why Mrs. Weldon didn’t let Mr. Weldon have any credit cards. Any man who was a soft enough touch to buy oil-based paint for walls just because the price was good was a dangerous man if unsupervised.
Well, he could give me some turpentine to remove the paint and I’d be fine. I stood in the front hall and called his name, my voice echoing most satisfactorily up the stairwell. No answer. Tony banged on the locked door of his office though we both knew it was useless. Mr. Weldon had gone for the day and was probably home having dinner with Mother.
I sighed as I slid into a booth at Ferretti’s across from Tony. What I needed was Curt and his artist’s supply of turpentine. I smiled to myself. What I needed was Curt, period. Then I frowned. In Pittsburgh.
Astrid appeared and held out menus to us. She looked at me curiously. Then she spotted my red palm as I reached for the menu.