After Earl closed the closet door, he responded to her compliment by casting his eyes toward his feet, but nonetheless, she saw the corners of his lips turn up ever so slightly. He leaned down and brushed a smudge off the toe of his left shoe.
“You look nice too, Dorothy,” May Belle said as she rounded the corner, Sheba at her heels. May Belle fingered Dorothy’s pink silk scarf tied around her neck, which set off her navy blue pant suit. Dorothy hooked her arm through May Belle’s and said, “Where shall we sit our little mutual admiration party today, dearie?” She leaned her head toward May Belle’s silver hair, who did the same in return. Even though Dorothy was a good several inches taller it was a gesture they never tired of sharing. May Belle didn’t bother to answer Dorothy’s question since Dorothy headed straight to her usual seat. “Guess I can become mashed potatoes on anyone’s couch!” she exclaimed, patting her belly as she sat. Sheba jumped right up on her lap and rested her head on Dorothy’s knee. “So much for our exercise,” Dorothy said to her, giving her a good scruff behind the ears.
“How about a cup of coffee? I’ve got about one cup left,” May Belle offered before seating herself in her favorite place, her green wing chair with hand-crocheted doilies on the arms.
“I’m coffeed out. A nice visit with good friends is all I need. And do not even think about getting me any sweets. You know you’re my favorite baker in the universe, but I have got to get more exercise if I’m going to keep dropping by your house—which I am. Just being able to pop in is one of the best perks about my move from the farm.”
May Belle suddenly clapped her hands together. “Say, somebody I know is in her birthday month!” May Belle loved birthday celebrations so much that she thought of any way she could to stretch them out. She especially loved making a fuss about Dorothy’s birthday, which often got lost in the rush of holidays since it sometimes fell on Thanksgiving (which it did this year), so May Belle and Earl usually threw her their own private party either before or after. “If an elf were to ask me what you wanted for your birthday, what do you think I should tell him?”
“An elf, huh? Let’s see . . . What should you tell an elf? What do you think your mom should tell an elf, Earl?” Earl shrugged and Dorothy winked at him. “Well, even though I don’t need one more grain of sugar, since it is—or will soon be—my birthday, as the birthday girl, I’d tell an elf I wanted a lemon chiffon cake for an appetizer, a dozen double-chocolate brownies for the main course, three snickerdoodle cookies for dessert and my good friends Earl and May Belle to share them with me.”
“If an elf asks me, then that’s just what I’ll tell him,” May Belle said, nodding her head with satisfaction. The ladies sat in silence for a few moments, thankful for their comfortable friendship.
“I declare,” May Belle said, “Gertrude played her heart out in church this morning, didn’t she? Her playing seemed to inspire the choir and all of us to sing so energetically! It made me feel so happy inside!” Gertrude Hands was United Methodist Church’s faithful organist and the electronic keyboard player for the Partonville Community Band.
“And I believe more of us than ever—discounting you and me, of course—even hit the high notes,” Dorothy said with a smile. “A Baptist friend of mine used to talk about raising the rafters at praise and worship meetings. I’d say we mild-mannered Methodists did a good job of at least coming close to those rafter-raising Baptists this morning.” May Belle drew her hand over her mouth and laughed. She loved Dorothy’s way with words.
“Well, I don’t know about raising rafters, but I’ve got to take down my bedroom curtains and give them a good wash,” May Belle said. “I had all intentions of doing that right after church today, but while you headed off with the altar guild to set up the Thanksgiving decorations, I came home and plopped myself in my chair. And still I feel like I could use a nap. Honestly, I think I’m still worn out from all the baking for the Pumpkin Festival and Centennial Plus Thirty festivities. I bet you are too. How’d it go with the decorating today, by the way? I can’t wait to see it.” Dorothy had confiscated leftover Pumpkin Festival garlands and grapevine wreaths and such before they’d been tossed into the garbage—something she’d bemoaned she hadn’t done last year.
“It went. It would have gone better if Jessica Joy had been there to lend us her decorator’s eye. Point out what would go best where. You know how gifted she is at that sort of thing. I’m sure you noticed she wasn’t in church today. Paul, who had our adorable Sarah Sue strapped to his chest, said Jessica was feeling a little under the weather. Touch of something, I guess.”
Katie walked through the farmhouse carrying a notepad, her Realtor’s sensibilities in high gear. She was taking stock, trying to decide if the structure had any historical value, something she’d not previously considered. She’d just assumed that when the land was eventually developed, this old mice-laden house (as she’d recently come to think of it), along with the rest of the out buildings, would be bulldozed to make way for new homes (that’s the way it happened!), maybe even a gated community and school, a shopping center, the works. No doubt those had been Colton Craig’s visions when he’d made his under-the-table offer to Dorothy for her beloved Crooked Creek Farm last April, the sale Katie beat him to.
Since Dorothy had confided in only one person about his proposal and that had been Katie, Katie had, in a moment of—she had never been sure what all that moment had been about, although Dorothy kept referring to it as her answer to prayer—bought the place with full knowledge it was a gold mine. She had, just as under-the-table, overbid her arch rival and signed the deal, but not before assuring Dorothy that at least twenty acres of the one-hundred-sixty-acre farm (the specified twenty including the swimmin’ hole, Weeping Willy, Woodsy and Willoway, the trees Dorothy had long-ago named) would be donated to the conservation district for the development of Crooked Creek Park. Something to keep Dorothy’s family heritage and fondest memories alive. Katie had been true to her word and in fact helped draw up the gift papers. She was also no fool (and she knew the action had caused Colton to sit up and take notice); any development around a park would considerably up the price of the land surrounding it. She hadn’t been referred to as Kathryn Durbin, Development Diva, for nothing!
If Mr. Craig had thought about all the obvious angles—and he no doubt had—she would simply have to discover a few more before their luncheon. She was also absolutely sure he’d been lathered up about golf course possibilities when he’d made his original offer. Of course, that was before those twenty acres—twenty prime creek-access acres—had been donated. Nonetheless, she’d spent a goodly amount of research time chasing those options anyway. A stone unturned might have dollar signs pasted to the bottom of it. However, her research confirmed her initial suspicions: sans those twenty acres, there now wasn’t enough land left for a regulation course (too bad Arthur and Jessie weren’t ready to sell—or were they?), and Colton had already saturated the area with shorter executive and nine-hole courses. She’d checked “golf course” off her brainstorming list.
But what if she could also manage to build a lake? Would there be enough water to maintain the creek in the park and an upstream—or would it be downstream—lake? Lakes added development value. Something else to explore. Still, she had the gut feeling (and her intuitive business gut was almost never wrong) there was something less obvious that made this land more valuable than met anyone’s eye. One of the things she’d tapped into while Internet browsing—the thing that was inspiring her walk through the house, notepad in hand, competitive juices flowing—was the idea of a farm preservation project of some sort. What if she now donated the five acres that held the house and barn for a museum or something, maybe even set it up between the park and a lake? She’d heard about a couple of “working farms of the past” they called them. People in period costumes making apple butter and milking cows and such. As opposed to the plethora of golf courses already in place, she’d discovered there was no historical drawing ca
rd within a relatively large radius. Or maybe the barn could be transformed into a banquet center, health spa, artist’s retreat center or. . . . That would still leave one hundred thirty home-buildable acres resting between a natural park and a point of interest. Yes! Another piece of possibility for her lunch date, if for no other reason than to simply dangle it under his nose as part of a bigger picture.
Oh, how well she remembered Keith Benton getting her ousted from her position. Oh, how well she remembered that he had often paired up on investments with the pompous Craig brothers. But when Colton had become a certified rat in her personal world was when she’d learned he’d single-handedly manipulated some foreign investors to throw their money behind Benton, which—in a chain reaction of events—ultimately led to her job loss. Although underneath it all she admired Colton’s cunning, oh, how sweet were the possibilities for her single-handed revenge.
4
“Isn’t this beautiful country, Herm?” Vera had her nose all but pushed up against the passenger window. They’d been driving along in silence for about twenty-five miles, which was a record. Normally Vera would have been chatting nonstop, same as Herm. They often talked at the same time, neither seemingly noticing the other was not only not listening but blabbing away too.
However, this time some mysterious force just seemed to have sealed their lips for a spell. Perhaps the silence was due to the fact that neither of them had slept well the last two nights, so excited were they to be setting out on a journey. They hadn’t left their Indiana neighborhood since the last time they’d visited Partonville—unless you counted the two-night stay in Ohio when they attended that funeral—and they were long overdue for a change of scenery. Or maybe their odd silence was because of the full moon. Maybe it was just that they were saving up words for the visit.
“Did you say something?” Herm asked.
“Yes, Herm.” She paused a moment until she remembered what it was. “I said isn’t this beautiful country?” Vera thought the horizon—a wonderful blue-gray sky zip-locked to the black Illinois earth, a few trees hiding the seam—was stunning in its starkness.
Herm quickly checked Henrietta’s rearview mirror to make sure nobody was coming up on him before he took his eyes off the road for a second to survey the beauty Vera was talking about, since surely it wasn’t what was ahead of them: a vast flatness. Since she was looking out her window, he jockeyed his head around to get her point of view. Flat nothing. It was everywhere. He chose not to answer, hoping she wouldn’t notice, which she didn’t. She simply sighed a sigh that exuded the sound one makes when beholding grandeur, leaned her head back against the headrest and within a few moments was snoring, her mouth hanging agape.
Herm allowed his eyes to rest briefly on her profile. “Oh yes, it’s beautiful alright. Plumb gorgeous. But no matter, I love you, my sweet pea,” he whispered.
Jessie had been throwing things all morning. Since she’d been a champion semi-pro, fast-pitch softball catcher in her heyday with the best pickoff arm in the league—and she still played ball now, serving as the pitcher (knees too worn to get up out of the catcher’s squat) for the Wild Musketeers, Partonville’s mostly senior citizens’ softball team—she still had quite an arm. It just came naturally to her to let it rip, it being anything she could get her hands on.
It seemed she’d been born with her internal engine constantly revving, making it next to impossible for her to sit still. Her inability to settle, coupled with an upbringing that, for the most part, trivialized “feelings” (“Obedience is what matters, Jessilyn,” her parents would say when they sat her in the corner time and again for fidgeting), diverted her from a healthy exploration of such “feelings” as emotional frustrations and wounds, so she had early on learned to vent them outwardly—by winging things. Sports, baseball in particular, had been a positive outlet for pent-up emotions. But when frustrations arose and she wasn’t on the playing field. . . . So far among the things she’d launched this morning was the remote control straight into the garbage can. He gives more attention to the TV than to me. Next she’d zinged the can of snuff she’d found hiding in the corner of his La-Z-Boy out the back door. That rot can’t be good for his gums or his gizzard! (Unbeknownst to her, Arthur had not only retrieved his beloved items but hidden them from further abuse.) Her next frustration came in the form of his oldest and favorite pair of coveralls that were never hung up and were worn so thin she claimed, as she launched the wadded-up mass right at him, “I can nearly see your butt crack through these things! (He asked for it!) I don’t ever want to see them again,” she belted, “hear me?”
Since he’d been in motion when the pants came his way, he just grabbed hold of them, bundled them to his chest and kept on marching, right out the back door all the way to his pappy’s old outhouse (stomping to burn off steam) where he changed into them. Ya think yur so gol’ dern smart; well, watch this! Within a flash he marched back into the kitchen.
“I thought I told you . . .” Jessie started to say when she saw what he was wearing.
“You have done told me yur last thing, woman!” The volume of his bellow took her by surprise, which caused her to draw a deep breath and stiffen herself for the battle. For better or for worse, the Landerses’ love language could best be described as snarking. As loud and exhausting as their noisy diatribing could be, it had, over the decades, simply become their communication default mode.
Arthur tossed the coveralls he’d changed out of onto the kitchen table, marched right over to his La-Z-Boy and disassembled the back of the chair from the seat. Handy the way they make these so portable, which is one more reason I love ’em more than women! It was such a pure and grateful thought that he actually patted the seat a couple of times like it was a giant St. Bernard sitting there at his feet. Then out the door he marched with the back of his beloved chair, straight to his pickup truck where he gently laid it in the bed. Jessie just watched, figuring he was finally going to get rid of that thing, which was nearly as old as his see-through coveralls. He marched back in and picked up the bottom of the chair, then proceeded to deposit it in the truck as well. But rather than coming back in to help her rearrange the furniture, which she was already doing to fill in the gap left by the chair’s void, he marched back outside and climbed into the bed of his pickup and reassembled his chair. Then he got behind the wheel, fired up the engine and drove across the lawn right up to the back door where Jessie was now standing, having scurried there when she heard the engine turn over. “I’ll be back when I return,” he said with a note of finality.
“I don’t know why you bothered to reassemble that thing just to take it to the dump.”
“Is that what ya think I’m a doin’?”
She studied his face—his familiar, bold-featured face—through the screen door, through his truck window. Even though she was feeling a little guilty about throwing things at Arthur (although that never stopped her), her dander was up. She was sure he’d asked her a trick question so she chose not to answer; she just glared at him.
“I’ve been workin’ nonstop for days,” Arthur said more matter-of-factly than angry, “and I’m tired of bein’ bossed around. It’s time I git me some rest and the only way I see that happenin’ is to git out of your rampage. And since ya told me to take my chair with me when I went, that’s just what I’m a doin’.”
“Arthur Landers, your cousin and his wife are due here within the hour. Now get yourself right back in here and help me finish up!”
Arthur’s foot hammered down on the throttle. Gravel spit from behind his wheels, which kept him from hearing her uncommon and desperate “PLEASE!” and away he went. When he hit the ruts in the lane the La-Z-Boy bounced up and down like it was happily cheering to be going on a road trip. Since there was nothing Jessie could do to stop him, the best she could do was to throw something toward his back draft. The first thing she set her eyes on was a can of furniture polish. She was sick of cleaning anyway, so away it sailed.
Arth
ur plunked down in his La-Z-Boy, which was still in the bed of his truck, settled back with a smile and snapped up the footrest. He reclined and contemplated the fact that no chair in the whole world could or would ever fit him better; the fabric and padding were worn just where he was. “Can’t even see my butt now, woman!” He’d pulled his truck under a tree in the back picnic area of the park. Not another soul was around. “Perfect,” he said as he gazed up at the tree branches directly above him. The only thing that would have been more perfect was The Tank, Dorothy’s now kaput 1976 battle-worn Lincoln Continental. Tinkering with engines—and oh, how The Tank always seemed to need a tinker or two—used to be Arthur’s labor as well as his relaxation and thinking time. Now all that seemed left to distract or entertain him was breakfast at Harry’s, a walk down to the creek or out to the ancient outhouse (out of service but filled with memories), mastering a new song on his Hohner harmonica or a rest in his La-Z-Boy. And when he didn’t want to think at all—which seemed to happen more often than not lately—he turned on the TV. And he sure didn’t want to think right now, especially about his hysterical wife; he just wanted to enjoy the silence.
I’ll have to remember this spot when the leaves are back next summer. He pulled his pocket watch out of his good ol’ coveralls and took note of the time. He figured he had just enough of it to take a short nap and get back before Herm and Vera arrived, which would undoubtedly be right on the dot since Herm kept a steady pace and had always been good at calculations like arrival times and such. He also guessed his absence would be just long enough to appropriately make his point with Jessie, whatever his point was.
Dorothy and May Belle sat at Dorothy’s kitchen table nibbling on the last of the orange and black jelly beans left over from Halloween. Since May Belle didn’t like the black ones, Dorothy picked through and ate those, leaving May Belle with her favorite flavor. Not only was orange May Belle’s favorite of the Halloween colors, but out of all the jelly beans eaten by mankind. May Belle put her hand over her mouth and laughed when Dorothy stuck out her tongue, which had turned an awful putrid shade. “I would only make this sacrifice for my best of friends, May Belle.”
Dearest Dorothy, Who Would Have Ever Thought?! Page 4