Jim turned away and headed down the hall to his own office, worried about the man Dylan was becoming.
* * *
Later that day, Louella sent Brenda to the back room to check inventory, but since Brenda had done a full inventory at the beginning of the week, this banishment was either punishment for being late this morning or, more likely, a ploy to get her off the sales floor, where customers had been coming in all afternoon to give her the stink eye.
Doc Killough, who knew everyone in town, had purposefully uncorked the evil gossip genie. What was he trying to do? Shame her into helping out?
Probably.
She was in a truly awful mood when her phone buzzed around three in the afternoon. She stopped counting skeins of baby yak yarn and glanced at the caller ID.
Momma. That was predictable.
Her mother had been pushing her ever since she could remember. First it had been to earn a scholarship to the Juilliard School, then it had been to ditch Keith and come home, then it had been about Ella. The fact that Momma had been right about everything was irritating as hell.
Momma might be soft-spoken but she was pushy as hell.
Brenda connected the call. “Yes, Momma, I did refuse to help Doc Killough.”
“Of course you did,” Momma said in her infernally measured tones. Momma never raised her voice.
“So, are you calling to tell me that I’m being stupid, or emotional, or what?”
“I’m not the enemy,” Momma said. “I understand why this time of year is hard for you. But honey, if you’d let just a tiny bit of Christmas joy into your heart, maybe…” Her words trailed off into a sigh.
Brenda had heard this speech for decades. Ever since the night of the Christmas Blizzard back in 1989, when she’d been sixteen. She would never forget that morning, two days before Christmas, when Chief Cuthbert had knocked on their door, grim-faced and red-eyed, to tell them that Daddy, a volunteer with the Magnolia Harbor rescue squad, had been killed in a freak car accident as he was trying to help someone out of a snowdrift.
Brenda pushed the skeins of yak yarn back into their shipping box. If only she could push that horrible memory to the back of her mind where she could forget it forever.
“I understand, you know,” Momma said into the silence.
No, she didn’t. Momma may have overcome the loss of her husband, but that didn’t make her an authority on Brenda’s grief. And besides, if Brenda hadn’t yet gotten over the loss of her father, then it was Brenda’s business and no one else’s. Not even Momma’s.
“Okay, I know you don’t want to talk about this, honey. But I think it would be much healthier if you did,” Momma said.
“I got a postcard from Ella,” Brenda blurted. “She’s not coming home for the holidays.”
“Oh.”
Silence drifted between them like wind-driven snow.
“Honey, you know how people feel about the clinic,” Momma finally said, ignoring Brenda’s attempt to change the subject.
Brenda opened a box of merino and silk sock yarns and started counting.
“People care about the clinic,” Momma continued. “And the Christmas Chorale performance gets people to the fund-raiser. It’s become an important part of our town’s holiday celebration.”
Brenda made scratch marks on her legal pad as she counted skeins and colorways but made no argument.
Momma went on in her quiet way. “The word on the street is that you’re just being mean.”
“I’m not mean.”
“I know that. You know that. But the rest of the town is calling you Ebenezer behind your back.”
“Paulette Coleman practically called me Scrooge to my face,” Brenda said. “I wonder how that happened? I mean, Doc Killough said you were the one who recommended me to stand in as the chorale’s director.”
“I didn’t exactly recommend you. It’s common knowledge that Reverend St. Pierre has been trying to get you to organize a choir at Heavenly Rest. I’m sure Doc Killough heard about that.”
“Okay. And who’s been nagging me about organizing a choir at the church?”
Another long silence welled up between mother and daughter before Momma said, “Okay. Maybe you don’t care about what people say about you. But for once in your life, could you think about me? My phone has been ringing off the hook all morning. And Christmas isn’t always easy for me either.”
“Oh. So this is about you then?”
“No. It’s about the sick people, especially the kids, who depend on the clinic.”
Momma certainly knew how to play her trump cards.
“You know, Momma,” Brenda said, “Doc Killough isn’t playing fair. He could have called me on the phone. But no, he comes waltzing in here with his happy twinkly eyes and launches a sneak attack right in front of Paulette Coleman, one of Magnolia Harbor’s biggest gossips.”
“You have to hand it to the man for being in tune with the way things work around here. The truth is, you’ve become a scrooge, and everyone in town has known it for quite some time. This is merely confirming their beliefs about you. And I never noticed that Doc Killough has twinkly eyes. I’ll need to check that out the next time I see him.”
“Momma. He’s manipulating me.”
“Yes, he is. And maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe you should let some of that twinkle into your life. It might be good for what ails you.”
“I’ve got to go. Louella has me doing inventory again.”
“Well, that’s a sign,” Momma said in her gentlest of voices, and then disconnected the line.
Chapter Three
Brenda decided that recounting the stock was a royal waste of time. The rest of the afternoon would be better spent marching down to Doc Killough’s office and explaining to him, in excruciating detail, all the reasons she hated this darkest time of the year. It would be like bearing the black secrets of her soul, but she had to believe that once he understood her grief, he’d back off.
So she left the back room and told Louella that she had a headache and needed to go home.
“That’s not surprising,” Louella said as Brenda gathered up her parka and headed for the door. “I’d have a headache, too, if I were you.”
It was truly astonishing how cruel people could be in the name of charity. She stepped out onto the sidewalk, where the skies had opened up in a depressing drizzle. Brenda had left her umbrella at home today so she pulled up her hood and headed off down Harbor Drive toward the medical building on Palmetto Street, which housed the Jonquil Island Free Clinic as well as Doc Killough’s family practice on the second floor.
By the time she arrived, her parka was nearly soaked through. She found herself standing in an expanding puddle of water as she faced down the doctor’s receptionist, Lessie Blackburn, one of A Stitch in Time’s regular customers. Lessie didn’t look particularly happy to see her.
“Is Doc Killough in?” Brenda asked.
“Which one?”
Brenda blinked. “There’s more than one? Heaven help us.”
“Doctor Jim’s son joined the practice two months ago,” Lessie said with a hostile lift of her chin.
“I guess I want to speak to Doctor Jim then.”
“He’s downstairs seeing patients at the clinic.” Lessie paused a moment before adding, “Which depends on the funds raised at the Christmas Gala.”
Brenda backed away from the reception desk. Did everyone in town think she hated sick children?
Nothing could be further from the truth. She’d been a teacher for two decades. She cared about children. But she didn’t have to direct the Christmas Chorale. And besides, wouldn’t it be better for Doc Killough to choose a Christmas-loving choir director?
She headed down the stairs and into the clinic, which was surprisingly crowded with preschool kids and their mothers. By the number of runny noses, it looked as if an upper respiratory infection was running rampant through the community.
She stepped up to the reception area where
a harried Nita Morrison was juggling files. “Take a number,” Nita said without looking up. She nodded toward the bright red ticket dispenser near the door.
Clearly, Doc Killough was too busy to talk right now, and Brenda wasn’t about to cut in line when so many kids needed medical attention. So she helped herself to a number and took a seat beside a woman with a little boy of about six on her lap and another one a couple of years younger playing on the floor with a Matchbox car.
The older child was obviously ill. He rested his head on his mother’s shoulder, and even at a distance, Brenda could hear the rattle in the kid’s chest. His little brother looked like the only healthy kid in the waiting room. He was making little-boy motor sounds as he drove his car around the end table. When Brenda took her seat he turned and gave her a big smile.
“Are you sick too?” he asked.
“Hush, Donovan. Don’t be asking strangers about their health. It’s not polite,” his mother said, turning toward Brenda, her expression a study in anxiety. “I’m sorry. He has no boundaries.”
“It’s okay.” Brenda gave the kid a smile. “I’m not sick. I just need to talk to the doctor. But he’s pretty busy right now.”
The boy nodded. “Yeah, ’cuz there are lots of kids like Harper who have asthma ’n stuff. I don’t have asthma. I’m not the sick one.” He said this last bit in a little whisper, as if he’d heard grown-ups talking about his older brother.
“What did I just say, Doni?” The boy’s mother glared.
The kid turned his back and flopped down to the floor, sitting tailor-style, with his elbow on one knee and his chin in his hand. “How much longer, Momma? I’m bored,” he said.
“I don’t know.”
An ancient memory stirred in Brenda’s mind, of that long winter when Ella had been five and had suffered one ear infection after another. At the time, Brenda had been working two menial jobs and going to school. She hadn’t had health insurance in those days. She was a lot like the mothers in this room. She and Ella used to sing kid songs to make the time pass on those days when they’d ended up at the emergency room. Ella had loved music from the first moment she’d drawn breath.
Brenda squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed back a knot of longing, just as little Doni got up and started jumping around the room like a puppy who hadn’t been allowed to run free in a long time.
“Doni, please,” his mother said.
“Hey Doni,” Brenda said. “Do you know the song about the wheels on the bus?”
The kid shook his head.
“Come here. I’ll teach it to you.”
The kid was ready for any kind of distraction, and Brenda reached back into her memory from the years she’d taught elementary music.
By the time Nita called Doni’s mother’s number, they had sung the song at least half a dozen times. “Bye,” the little boy said with a wave as he followed his mother into the examination room. To her surprise, after Doni and his mother and brother left, Brenda got smiles from several of the other mothers in the room. It was the first time anyone had smiled at her all day.
Brenda remained in the waiting room until almost six o’clock because, every time someone new showed up, she traded her ticket for the newest one. So when Nita finally called her number, the waiting room was empty.
The receptionist gave her a frown. “Brenda, you know you shouldn’t be here. This is for people who—”
“I’m here to see the Doc. And I’ve waited my turn several times over.” She held up her number. “I’m next in line.”
“Are you sick?”
“Well, I guess that depends on how you define sick. Based on the things people have been accusing me of all afternoon, I would venture to say there are many people in this town who think I’m crazy as a loon for not getting on board with the whole Christmas spirit thing.”
This earned her a bona fide glare. “Follow me,” Nita said, ushering her around the reception desk and down a long wall painted a sunny yellow.
Nita stopped at the first exam room. “Wait in here.”
Brenda sat down in another hard-plastic chair. Bernice Cobb, the nurse practitioner, poked her head in the room a few minutes later. “Sorry,” she said, “we had another kid just show up. It will be a few more minutes.”
So she settled in. A few more minutes turned into almost half an hour before Doc Killough opened the door. “Hello, Brenda. What seems to be ailing you?” he asked in a disgustingly upbeat tone.
“I’m not sick. I want to—”
He turned his twinkly eyes in her direction, and it was like getting hit by a Merry Christmas cruise missile. She lost her train of murderous thought and stopped speaking midsentence.
“Well, that’s a matter of debate,” he said, jumping into the silence. “I think you have a case of Christmasitis.”
She was not going to rise to his bait. “You have to stop,” she said.
“Stop what?” He gave her an I’m-up-to-no-good look that might have passed for innocence, except that Brenda had taught school for decades and wasn’t buying it.
“You know good and well. It’s only taken eight hours, but I’ve become Magnolia Harbor’s public enemy number one. Lessie, your receptionist upstairs, as much as accused me of supporting cruelty to little children.”
“She did? Really?”
“Yes. Because, evidently, not wanting to have anything to do with the Christmas Gala is the same as wishing harm on all of Magnolia Harbor’s little ones.” She folded her arms across her chest. “And don’t tell me that wasn’t your intent.”
“That was never my intent. I just want you to help out with the choir portion of the program this year.”
“Okay. So the thing is, I have a good reason for not wanting to direct the Christmas Chorale, and if you’d—”
“Would you like to have dinner with me?” he interrupted.
“What?”
He checked his watch. “It’s almost seven o’clock, and I haven’t had anything to eat since around eleven. I’m famished. How ’bout I take you down to Aunt Annie’s Kitchen for some chops, and you can tell me all about it.”
“I don’t want to have dinner with you. I just want you to understand why I can’t direct the Christmas Chorale.”
“Okay. I’m willing to listen. Over dinner. Come on, let’s go.”
He turned and strode out of the room, leaving her with no other choice but to follow. He was annoying. And dictatorial. And manipulative.
And for a fifty-something man, he was outrageously handsome. But then she’d only just now noticed that fact.
Chapter Four
Jim glanced once to see if Brenda had followed him. To his delight, she had, albeit with a frown turning down the corners of her mouth. How could this grumpy puss be the same woman who, according Donovan Jephson, had managed to get a group of sick kids singing in his waiting room?
A minor mystery he intended to solve. And besides, if she would quit frowning, everyone in town would notice she was beautiful, with curly auburn hair that she wore in a carefree style and a pair of eyes the color of Moonlight Bay on a stormy day.
He snagged his raincoat and umbrella on the way to the door. The afternoon’s drizzle had turned into a steady rain, and Brenda didn’t have an umbrella so he found himself huddling close to her as they made their way around the corner to Aunt Annie’s Kitchen.
Brenda wasn’t a tall person, so he had to hunch to make sure the umbrella protected her from the rain. That brought his face a little closer to the top of her head, where he got a whiff of her scent. And damn if she didn’t smell like tangerines—an aroma that always made him think of Christmas back in western New York. Mom had always put a tangerine in the toe of his stocking. Back in those days, tangerines were rare and wonderful. How interesting that the town’s Scrooge should smell like Christmas morning.
Aunt Annie’s Kitchen was crowded, even on a rainy midweek night. And since it was November, the crowd was mostly locals, many of whom stared at Brenda as t
hey crossed the dining room.
Once they were seated, Jim took a moment to study his adversary. Brenda had a fragile quality about her that had nothing to do with bone structure. The impression came from the way her gaze flitted around the room like a hummingbird in flight, never landing on anything for very long and never really making eye contact.
So he wasn’t surprised when she picked up her menu and hid behind it until Annie came over to take their orders.
“Hey Doc,” Annie said. “I heard Bonelle Jephson had to take Harper to the clinic. Is that baby all right?”
“He’s got a bad cold, but I gave Bonelle some medicine to help him breathe. I see she’s not working tonight.”
Annie shook her head. “No, sir. I told her to stay home. Trevor has to be over to the mainland every night until nine o’clock. He’s got a holiday job at the Value Mart, and her babysitter has come down with whatever’s going around. Harper and Doni need their momma tonight.”
“Annie, you have a heart of gold.”
Annie laughed and then turned toward Brenda. “Hey Miz Brenda, what can I get you tonight?”
“I’ll have pork chops and some okra and tomatoes on the side.”
Jim handed his menu off and said, “I’ll have the same thing.”
“I’ll have sweet tea and hush puppies on the table in a minute,” Annie said, turning away.
“So Doni’s mother works for Annie?” Brenda asked. “I don’t think I’ve seen her here before.”
“She just started a few weeks ago. She had to take the job in order to make ends meet this year because Harlan Cantrell called it quits on shrimping and Trevor, Bonelle’s husband, worked on Harlan’s boat. There are several families who are suddenly in need because of that. Annie has a soft spot for shrimpers’ wives. She used to be one awhile back before she opened her chophouse.”
“You see a lot of shrimpers’ kids at the clinic?”
“Yes, I do. And I see a lot of people who only have seasonal jobs. The clinic is an important part of the island’s safety net.”
A Little Country Christmas Page 31