“Oh, there’s one more,” stated Ernie. “You’ll get your chance.”
Ten minutes later, the paramedics delivered the second baby, with Olivia and James helping. It was a little girl. Stacy was exhausted but happy as they placed the babies on her chest to greet her. They decided to move her and the babies to the hospital. The babies were premature and needed to be in special care. The paramedics secured all three of them in the hallway. The wind started to calm down, and they waited for the helicopter to take them to the hospital.
Dan was walking around the farm one more time when he saw Flora. She appeared like a ghost at the edge of the woods. She was completely soaked from head to foot. Dan ran up the hill toward her.
“Flora,” he cried, “where have you been?”
“I heard you,” she shouted, stiffly. “I heard every word about how you’re in love with Marcy. So where do I fit into all of that, may I ask?”
He looked into her face, grief-stricken. “We can talk about it once I’ve got you inside and got you warm.”
“No,” she said, refusing to move. “You need to tell me now. What is going on between you and that girl?”
He took hold of her shoulders gently, and she responded by pulling sharply away from him, tripping backward over a fallen branch, and collapsing in a heap on the ground.
Instead of getting up, she shouted out to no one in particular, “I’m such a klutz!” And then, sitting there in the mud, she began to weep, mumbling, “I will never fit in. I’m just an oddity, something that people feel sorry for.”
Dan knelt beside her quickly and pulled her into his arms. “You fit,” he said, and he pulled her close. “You fit right here, next to me.” He rocked her gently. “I’m sorry you heard that with Marcy. But what you heard was innocent, however you interpreted it. And if you had waited to hear the rest of the conversation, you would have heard me tell Marcy exactly how much I really love you.”
“How do I know that for sure?” Flora spat out, attempting to push him away.
“Because,” he said, pulling her face gently toward him and looking deep into her eyes, “because you’re the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. Being here and being part of those babies being born tonight totally confirmed it for me. You’re the only person I want to have that experience with.”
Through her tears, Flora looked up at him and stopped fighting as he took both her hands in his. He looked deep into her eyes and said something to her.
But Flora never heard him, as the roar of a medical chopper landing drowned out his words. So he repeated the words again, shouting at the top of his lungs,
“Flora, will you marry me?”
Flora’s crying slowed as she blinked away the rain in her lashes, appearing to see for the first time the genuine look of complete contentment and love on his face.
“What?” she shouted back, swiping wet, lank hair from her eyes and revealing a look of shock and incredulity.
“I asked you to be my wife,” he stated. Then softly into her ear, “Please say yes.”
Flora softened as her sobs subsided to short, sharp, gasping breaths. “You want to marry me?” she stammered as she gulped for air. “What about Marcy?”
“Well,” he said in mock seriousness, “I asked her, and she said no, so I thought I’d ask you.” Then he beamed, revealing his joke. He added resolutely, “There is no me and Marcy, only me and you. I have been in love with you since the very first day you appeared in my garage. There could never be anyone else. I see only you, and I love only you. Please say you’ll marry me and make me the happiest man alive.”
She swallowed back her last sobs and smiled through the raindrops that were rolling in a steady stream down both of their faces. Then, before she had a chance to stop it, her heart answered for her.
“Yes, I will.”
Chapter Forty
GLADYS TO THE RESCUE
When I arrived at the usual table, I looked around at all the faces. Only Flora was missing from the group. She had informed us that she and Dan had something important to buy and would be off-island for the day.
This was one of Doris’s emergency meetings. The day before, the sheriff had been by Annie’s farm. Sheriff Brown had let her know that the land developers had paid him a visit. The sale was pending and all their paperwork was in order. And even though he didn’t feel the way they had gone about it had been very honest, the house would soon belong to the developers, and there was nothing he could do about it. Then he had informed Doris and her crew that they couldn’t keep up the picket line forever.
Now, as I looked around at all their faces, Doris looked the most despondent of them all. She just sat there, staring at the menu, oblivious to everything around her. Gladys arrived at the table.
“You lot look a sight for sore eyes. Who died?”
No one responded. We all just sat, hunched around the table, looking at the menus in front of us.
She continued her usual rant. “So, no jolty movements or jumping around the table today, then? Is it safe to send over the busboys? Are you practicing a death scene, or is this one of these center-yourself-and-focus-on-your-belly-button exercises? Personally, I have never seen the need to be centered. I like to be a little off-kilter. It keeps me shrouded in mystery.”
Shrouded in mystery, I thought to myself. She was definitely shrouded all right, but “mystery” was not the word I would use. It smelled more like mothballs.
Doris didn’t even have it in her to bite back. “Cup of coffee,” she said and pushed the menu toward the end of the table. We all added our own drink orders. None of us felt much like eating.
Gladys shook her head as she gathered them up. “Never a dull moment with this crew,” she said and went off to place the order.
I noticed that Annie hadn’t arrived yet. Doris took a drink from a glass of water and cleared her throat. The twins just sat nervously. Suddenly, Lottie broke the silence.
“I prayed,” she said. “I prayed that God would show me what all of this is about, because I’ll be honest with you, I can’t see what the point of all this is. I know it’s all part of his plan, but it’s some sort of odd, mess of spaghetti-type plan.”
From out of nowhere, Gracie piped up. “Ice cream,” she said, “and pie. We all need ice cream and pie. That will make everything better.”
I grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze.
Annie arrived. She actually looked kind of upbeat. She sat down and everyone watched her carefully, taking their lead from her mood.
“Good morning,” she said, brightly. In her hand, she held little bouquets of flowers. She started to give them to each of us. “I know we all feel kind of down,” she said, “but you know, I’ve gotten used to the fact that I’m moving on. I don’t know where to right now, but I’ve talked to a couple of pet shelters, and they’ve all agreed to help me in any way that they can.”
“You know you can move in with us,” said Lottie, stretching a hand across the table to Annie.
“That goes without saying. You could even bring a couple of those pooches,” added Lavinia.
“Thank you,” Annie said. “That’s a lovely thought, and I may do that and bring my little family of five, but I do need to look for somewhere new.” She fought back tears as she continued handing out the bouquets to each of us. “These are just a way of saying thank you. These are flowers from the farm. Deep in the forest, we have these beautiful plants that I don’t see anywhere else, and I wanted to make you all bouquets of them.”
Gladys arrived back at the table and stopped short. She picked up one of the bouquets and sniffed, saying, “Why, those are Lupinus sabinianus Fabaceae. You’re not supposed to pick those, you know.”
Doris came to life, angrily.
“What does it matter,” she said, “whether we pick flowers or don’t pick flowers? That’s all immaterial. Why don’t you just serve us pie and coffee like you’re supposed to?”
Gladys tutted. It appeared to be like
water off a duck’s back for her. “I would love to,” she said, “if you weren’t always so dramatic. You can’t just be simple customers; there’s always some fire going on you have to fight.”
Doris was about to burst, but I jumped in fast.
“What do you mean about the flowers?” I asked Gladys, cutting through the contentious atmosphere, which was building up like a traffic jam on game day.
“Well, these are endangered,” she said. “You can’t just pick them willy-nilly.”
“Endangered?” I inquired. “Does that mean that they’re protected?”
Gladys nodded her head. “I’ll go and get my book,” she said, and she ambled away.
Doris continued to boil over. “I don’t know why we even come here. Every time, we just get insulted, and the food isn’t that good anyway—”
Lottie cut Doris off as she looked at me. “What are you thinking, Janet?” she asked.
I said thoughtfully, “If it’s endangered, there may be a protection order on it. If there’s a protection order on it, then people can’t disturb that land, and you know what that means.”
The penny suddenly dropped for everyone, including Doris. She slammed her hand down on the table so hard that all the condiments popped up in the air and clattered onto the floor, rolling in every direction. “That means that we can stop this going through, or at least we can slow it down,” she said. “Quickly. Give me a pen.”
She started to make hasty notes. “I’m going to go straight over to see the sheriff. Then I’m going over to the fish and wildlife people. I know exactly who to call. I’ll see you all later.”
She jumped to her feet and disappeared out the door, Ethel scurrying behind her.
Gladys came back with everybody’s drink order and a huge book about plants under one arm. She looked around at the smashed condiments on the floor. “I see that the belly button contemplating didn’t last long, then. Back to your usual crazy old selves.” She placed down the drinks, passed the book to me, folded her arms, and added, “I would assign your very own busboy to clean up after you, but they’re all scared you’ll make them sing and dance, and no tip is worth all that malarkey.”
Everyone was looking at Annie. I thumbed through the book till I came to the page Gladys had dog-eared and showed it to Annie. “Do you understand what this means?” I said excitedly.
Annie shook her head. “I have no idea what’s going on.”
“It may be the way to save the farm. If we can at least slow down what’s going on, it might give you a chance to get some money to be able to pay off the bank. Also, they may not be able to build on land where there are endangered plants.”
EPILOGUE
Annie had the letter propped up on her farmhouse table, in pride of place, and informed us that she read it at least twice a day to remind herself it was real. She handed it to Doris, Ethel, and I to read when we arrived.
Dear Ms. Thompson,
The bank is delighted to inform you that it has a new repayment scheme available and is willing to work with you to help repay the back mortgage payments and costs on your account. We like to think of ourselves as a customer-friendly bank and like to be able to work with our members whenever we can. Please call us with any questions you have.
“A customer-friendly bank?” I inquired, lifting an eyebrow to reiterate my lack of belief.
“Oh yeah,” said Annie, who was casting on a new row to start yet another set of woolen booties for Stacy. “Friendly, apparently, means being mean to you for months, then scaring you half to death as they try to throw you out of your lifelong home with the help of a bunch of heavy moving equipment.”
She had called us the day before to inform us that a representative from the bank would be visiting her that morning to finish the paperwork. Both Doris and I had wanted to be there to support her, just in case she needed the help, and Ethel, of course, had come along for the ride too.
As if on cue, an uproar of barking from the barn heralded the entrance of said bank official. I accompanied Annie as she went to open the door.
“It’s you,” she said with clear animosity.
It seemed to make no impression on the person on the doorstep. As he walked in, Bruiser started to growl.
“I should have listened to you the first time,” Annie said, rubbing the dog’s ears and walking back toward the main room, leaving the front door wide open as she shouted over her shoulder, “You had better come in, then.”
As he entered the house, the three things that sprang to my mind were gray suit, blue eyes, and aftershave. This clean-cut, dazzlingly handsome man was apparently the bank’s best asset for breaking bad news to unsuspecting homeowners. He had a disarming presence and a friendly and pleasant demeanor.
Following us into the main room, he introduced himself as John Meyers, offering us an open palm, full eye contact, and a beaming smile. I could see how Annie had been duped into believing this person had her best interests at heart.
Annie, very uncharacteristically, didn’t offer him a drink or a chair but just went back to her knitting, leaving him abandoned in the middle of the room. Not looking up from her needles, she said, “Did you bring the paperwork?”
As he pulled out a file from his briefcase, he didn’t seem at all fazed by her abruptness and instead diverted all his charm in Doris’s direction.
“We at the bank are so glad to be able to work with Ms. Thompson and help her stay in her home. It’s the best for all parties when we can make that work.”
“Yes, funny that ever since you found out that there are not only one but many endangered plants on Annie’s land, your bank wants to work with her,” Doris grunted.
“We obviously want to protect the lovely wildlife that is so prevalent on this beautiful island,” he answered.
“Sure you do,” added Doris harshly. “Your charms and fancy words won’t work on us here. So why don’t you get on with the business at hand so you can be on your way to ‘help’ out someone else?”
He shrugged his shoulders, as if he knew we were calling his bluff and that he was all out of high cards. He pulled out the paperwork, and this time we all read it before Annie signed it. He moved to leave.
We accompanied him to the door, and as he walked outside, he turned to Annie. There seemed a genuine sadness about his eyes. “I get paid a lot for the job I do, and generally, nine times out of ten, I’m going to be the one to tell someone they are being evicted. You can believe this or not, but I’m actually genuinely glad you get to stay on this beautiful farm.”
He seemed to want to say more, but by the scowls we returned, he didn’t push it and started to walk toward his red sports car.
“The devil in a Sunday hat,” spat Ethel as he drove away. We all nodded in agreement.
That same afternoon, we gathered at Annie’s farm for a celebration. The whole cast was joining us, and we had much to do. Ethel and Doris had commandeered Annie’s kitchen and were in the process of cooking up “a backyard banquet,” as Doris called it.
Flora arrived, all sweetness and light, with Dan by her side. They seemed overjoyed to be in each other’s company. As we gathered in the kitchen, I asked if Marcy would be joining us, and Flora shook her head.
Dan licked a spoon that Doris had handed him as he spoke. “I went over a couple of days ago to talk to her about something”—he paused and shared a knowing look with Flora—“and she informed me that because there is not going to be a show, she will be making her own way back to Medford. Apparently a guy she met in town, Jeremy, is traveling down, and she’s going back home with him.”
Interesting, I thought, but not surprising in the least. I hadn’t seen Flora since the birth of the twins a week before, but she was now positively glowing.
Dan and Flora helped Annie and me decorate the farm. We placed bunches of balloons around the garden, and Dan pulled out hay bales for people to sit on around the pond that was teeming with new spring life.
I looked across at Flora as
we strung up a line of fabric flags together in an old apple tree. “You look happy, Flora,” I said. “I’m glad things are working out between you and Dan.”
She giggled as she said coyly, “Yes, things are going really well.”
An hour later, we all came together on one of those wonderful warm spring days that was a nice early reminder that the sun would soon be returning for the summer. We ate Doris’s famous baby back ribs, skillet potatoes, grilled asparagus, wilted spinach salad, her grandma’s recipe of spicy sweet corn relish, and homemade bread, all followed by one of her notorious lemon cakes.
After lunch, the cast decided to act out an impromptu performance of The Merlin of Ooze, except everybody played each other’s parts. Ernie placed a heap of straw on his head and played a very convincing Dorothea as Flora giggled at his interpretation of her character.
Suddenly, we got an unexpected surprise. Martin arrived, and in tow were Stacy, Chris, and the babies, one cradled in each parent’s arms. I threw up my hands in jubilation, saying, “They’re out of the hospital. How wonderful.”
Stacy was still a little pale but was content and glowing with that earthy maternal look that motherhood can sometimes bring, and Chris looked as if he were fit to burst with pride.
“We can’t stop long,” Stacy said. “We’re just on the way home from the hospital with the babies but couldn’t resist stopping by to let you all see them.”
The assembled group quietly and carefully surrounded the couple as they cooed and offered their heartiest congratulations.
“What are you going to call them?” asked Lavinia. “I hear that Lavinia is a fabulous name.”
“We had names all picked out before the birth,” Stacy answered as she flashed her eyes at Chris, who nodded in response. “But after the amazing way these two came into the world, we felt we wanted to honor the people that helped give them life.”
“So we would like to introduce you to Olivia and James.”
Behind me, I saw James’s eyes well up. I knew he had no children of his own, and I couldn’t think of a more fitting way to honor the man who had quietly been our rock over the past few weeks.
Rejected Writers Take the Stage (Southlea Bay Book 2) Page 25