If Wishes Were Kisses: Six Beloved Americana Romances, a Collection (Small Town Swains)

by Pamela Morsi

  "You can't play fast and loose with the rules of society without ultimately having to pay," she said, and then returned to the contemplation of her handkerchief, choking with sorrow on the stark sadness of her own words.

  Teddy looked at her, puzzled. Her brown eyes were red-rimmed and swimming with tears. Her slightly untidy brown hair was coming loose from the ribbon that tied it at the nape. And her expression was one of anguish.

  "What are you talking about?" he asked.

  She looked up at him. Bravely she reached across and grasped his wrist. It was an attempt to comfort him as he tried to comfort her.

  "They had a child, Teddy," she whispered. "Aunt Gertrude and Mr. Stefanski had a child that next year."

  Teddy's jaw dropped open and he stared in patent disbelief. "A child? That's impossible."

  "It's not impossible, Teddy. It's true. I read it in her diary," Claire said.

  "But how . . . where—"

  Teddy realized the course of the questions that he was asking and blushed. "I mean . . . how can this be true?"

  Claire shook her head.

  "I don't know. I don't know anymore, Teddy. That's where the journal stopped. She just stopped. She said she wasn't writing anymore. But it is there. It is there in her own handwriting. In 1899 she and Mikolai Stefanski had a child, a healthy little girl."

  Claire waited a long moment before she continued. "1899, Teddy," she said, letting the number of the year sink in. "It must be me. I must be their child."

  "What?"

  "Oh, Teddy, I think I'm your sister."

  Chapter Two

  GERTRUDE BARKLEY STEPPED out of the Dooley Shaving Parlor and Tonsorial Surgery at the comer of Main Street and B Avenue. The several wide-eyed males loitering in the doorway gave the locally infamous spinster a wide berth. She smiled at the fellows, almost ruefully.

  "Good morning, gentlemen."

  Her greeting met with mumbled response from the few who had not been struck mute by the sight before them. The rest continued to stare with as much astonishment and awe as when the circus elephant had been paraded down Main Street last spring.

  Gertrude knew, without their shocked expressions, that she had done it again. The quiet town of Venice, Missouri was fated for another uproar. And once again she was the cause.

  With a determined smile, she hastened her step. Her head felt light. Not as if she were about to faint, something Gertrude Barkley was not prone to, but as if a weight had been lifted from her. And indeed it had. Thirty-seven years' growth of her dark brown hair now lay on the barber's pine-plank floor. What was left curved about her jawline with only the barest indication of a need to curl upward.

  Her chin was held high, a common occurrence, but now easier to manage as she made her way through the busy downtown boulevard that was the center of the small Missouri community. People were looking at her. That was not unusual.

  Being a nationally recognized author and unquestionably the most famous citizen in town, notoriety was to be expected. Today's attention, however, was more direct. On the streets of Venice this morning, the townspeople busy upon errands stopped and stared at the sight, a woman with her hair cut.

  "Lovely day," Gertrude pointed out politely as she passed Naomi Pruitt frozen in her tracks.

  The woman stammered haughtily and her head shook until the load of flowers and fruit decorating her broad-brimmed hat trembled dangerously.

  Gertrude was tempted to laugh out loud, but she concealed her humor as best she could and continued onward.

  Old Mr. Wentworth, whose eyesight was reportedly badly failing, apparently managed a glimpse of her. His near-toothless mouth opened in shock, causing his cigar to fall to the sidewalk.

  "You've dropped something, sir," Gertrude whispered lightly as she passed beside him.

  As she made her way down the broad, clean brick sidewalks of Main Street, people stepped back, giving her a clear path. Gertrude was much used to being the center of speculation and attention. And she had been aware of the reaction her haircut was likely to generate. It wasn't that she enjoyed oversetting the neighbors. In truth, it bothered her that she could disconcert them so easily. Still, it was worth it. She shook her head lightly, marveling in the feeling. It was freedom. More than that, it was new, so new that newness was a total sensory singularity.

  Gertrude laughed at her own foolishness, an action that startled the awestruck Main Street onlookers as further evidence of a woman gone mad.

  She ignored them. This was what she had needed, Gertrude thought. She had suffered the doldrums most of the summer. She'd spent endless hours with Principal Shue planning the accoutrements for the new high school. She had dutifully aided her sister-in-law in making curtains for the meeting hall of the Crusading Knights of the Mystic Circle. And she'd worked long hours on the new novel, the final book of the DuPree trilogy. Not any of these activities had served to make her feel younger, stronger, or even alive. But upon this pleasant fall morning in 1915, her new haircut did.

  Her next destination was the Barkley Bank. Her midyear royalty had been wired to her yesterday. It would have been simple to have her brother, George, who was the town banker, deposit it for her. She was not, however, willing to do that. This was her money. Money that she had made herself. It was not an allotment, a legacy, or a stipend. Her success had been hard-won and a subject of great disbelief among the locals. She would make the deposit herself so that all the gossips would immediately know. And if she must do it with a brand-new haircut, so much the better.

  The bank was at the center of town, the oldest building on Main Street, a fact that was obvious to the most casual onlooker. Up and down both sides of the street were buildings of all sizes and styles, but they had one thing in common. Each and every building, like the sidewalks, the curbs, and the street, was bright red brick, Stefanski Brick. Formed and fired at the Stefanski Brickyards on the west side of town. The bank, however, built by her father and now run by her brother, predated the brickyards and was constructed of smooth brown river rock. It stood in sharp contrast to the other buildings and as a monument to the Barkley tradition of going their own way. Gertrude Barkley understood that perfectly. She often wondered why her brother did not.

  She opened the wide front door of the building. It was free of the traditional bank bars and in itself was a work of art, composed of delicate beveled window-glass hand-painted with the words "Barkley Bank." It was a testament to the mentality of the community. If preeminent criminals like Jesse James, the Youngers, and the Daltons had not seen fit to rob the bank, the community was not about to be fearful of the current crop of no-account lowlifes.

  Gertrude stepped inside smiling broadly, her head high. The bank was not full of people; two or three, however, were present. Ethel Duberry, a former teacher, and a well-known stickler for good form, glanced momentarily at Gertrude's shorn locks and then hastily looked away as if she had chanced to see her underwear. With a quick nod, she hurried out the door as if suddenly aware of a quite urgent appointment.

  Chester Fallon, a farmer from the nearby valley, was standing at the counter, cheerfully paying off his seed debt. When he turned to leave he caught sight of Gertrude. He looked her up and down with disapproval and then pushed past her with mumbled words about the "wildness of town women."

  Grantham Mitts, perhaps the town's most elderly citizen and known to every member of the community as simply "Old Grandpa," sat contentedly upon the small waiting bench at the far side of the room. He rocked back and forth contentedly and quietly sang to himself the words of “Taney County Bad Companions."

  Gertrude nodded pleasantly to him. At least he was not shocked by her new bobbed hair. In some ways it was unfortunate that everyone wasn't as unconcerned with this world as was Old Grandpa.

  Determined to remain in good humor, she stepped up to the counter and greeted the bank teller.

  "Good day to you, Mr. Harris," she said brightly. The pinched-looking young man with thick glasses glanced up fr
om the stack of paper money he was counting and opened his mouth as if to speak. The words apparently stuck in his throat as he gazed at Gertrude in stupefaction.

  She politely ignored the bug-eyed stare.

  George Barkley, who was deep in concentration at his desk, must have sensed something amiss, and he glanced up from his account books. He did a quick up-and-down perusal of his sister, then his eyes came up again, this time staring in horror.

  "What have you done!" His whisper came out almost as a hiss.

  With increased purpose, Mr. Harris turned his full attention back to the money he counted.

  "Good morning, George," she answered her brother evenly. "I've merely come to present my deposit."

  It took only a second for George Barkley to make his way through the small half-door at the far end of the counter. Gertrude had clearly done it this time. Her brother descended upon her like the wrath of God. Red-faced and teeth clenched, she would have almost been able to swear that steam was coming out his ears. He was standing before her, puffed up, at full height, and ready to blow, when the tinkle of the bell sounded at the doorway.

  As one, the brother and sister turned toward the intrusion. Mikolai Stefanski stepped into the near-empty bank building.

  "Good morning," he said, greeting them. To George he offered a polite nod. Gertrude received a slight bow, a gesture lingering from his European manners.

  "Stefanski," George ground out in minimal response.

  "It's a beautiful day," Gertrude said brightly.

  "So it is," Stefanski agreed. "And the trolley, it runs on time."

  Most people would have no idea how the one thing concerned the other, but Gertrude Barkley knew Mikolai Stefanski better than most people in town. She smiled at him.

  "You've come with your payroll, I suppose," George said.

  "Every Thursday," Stefanski replied. He glanced once more at Gertrude and her brother. "Mr. Harris can help me."

  George gave his sister an assessing look and almost sighed in frustration. Stefanski Brickyards was the biggest payroll in town. He never left it for his assistant, and certainly not for Mr. Harris.

  "Let me get your books," he said. He gestured to Harris to assist Gertrude.

  "I want to deposit my royalties," she told him.

  The young man took the telegraph receipt from her and nodded. He stepped away from the counter and Gertrude and Mikolai Stefanski stood quietly together, alone.

  Gertrude turned her head to smile at him lightly. She was very aware of him. How could she not be? Somehow the big near-empty bank building was dwarfed by his presence. He was not a tall man, nor was he excessively large. He was of medium height and muscular build. But he was a giant, somehow. He had been that way since the first day she had seen him over seventeen years ago. He had been poor then, and ragged, his wagon weathered and rusty. His English then was broken and accented to the point of being indecipherable. His young son perched upon his knee, the two were grimy with road dust and near indigent as they rode into town. Even then he had seemed larger than life to Gertrude. His shoulders were as broad as an ox and he was as muscled as if, like Atlas, he carried the weight of the world. He was a man to be gazed upon with wonder and mystery. A man to give flesh and blood to her romantic fantasies.

  Gooseflesh fluttered up her arms and skittered across the tender flesh upon the back of her exposed neck. She cleared her throat. She was momentarily at a loss as to what to say. Stefanski's eyes were a pale hazel color that was neither quite green nor brown. His brow was well defined and heavily garlanded with bushy eyebrows that almost grew together over the bridge of his nose. His face was wide and strong- featured, but somehow it retained a handsomeness in that strength.

  "It's a lovely day," she chattered nervously, and then remembered that she'd mentioned that to him already.

  He nodded politely in agreement.

  Perhaps it was his ambition that made the man seem so large, Gertrude thought. Seventeen years ago he'd arrived in town in a decrepit wagon. Today he was the city's foremost citizen and had her brother, the banker, rushing to do his bidding.

  "You have cut your hair," he said.

  Gertrude turned to face him, her eyes wide.

  "Yes, I . . . this morning, I had it cut."

  He nodded. "I noticed right away," he said.

  "Do you like it?" she asked. Immediately she wished she could cut her tongue out. Of course he wouldn't like it. Only fast city women cut their hair. Doing it was a craziness, a bid for freedom that Gertrude needed. It was not something for which she could expect approval.

  To her surprise, Stefanski nodded slightly. "It suits you, Miss Gertrude," he said. "I believe that it suits you."

  Chapter Three

  It was past midmorning when Mikolai Stefanski caught the Interurban trolley back to the brickyards. The trolley master nodded at him respectfully as he settled himself in the broad, shiny open coach with polished pine seats. He had not chosen the deep green color of the cars. When he'd ordered them he had assumed they would be black or brown. But he liked them. Green went well with red, especially Stefanski red. And Venice, Missouri was almost completely that color. The transit company was just another business venture that Mikolai had begun for the good of his workers. It had turned out better than expected and good for the town.

  The trolley slowed as it passed the crosstrack at Wentworth Street. There were only two lines. One ran down Main Street from the brickyards in the west to the Barkley house on the city's far east side. The other track ran from the shanties of the south river side to the new high school building just north of town. Transfers were made for free so that anyone in Venice could go all the way across town in only a few minutes for the cost of five cents. Stefanski was understandably proud of that accomplishment.

  "Main Station!" the trolley master called out.

  As the car hesitated at the stop, Mikolai looked about him. A lot had changed about Venice, Missouri since he had arrived here in the summer of 1898. And Stefanski was proud to think that many of the changes could be directly credited to him.

  Venice was a town that galena had built. Mining for the bluish gray ore that was mostly lead had begun in the lean years just after the Civil War. Merchants and businessmen, like the Barkleys, had hurried in to feed, clothe, house, and ultimately relieve the get-rich-quick miners of their gains. By the time Stefanski had arrived, the mines were almost all played out and the town was dying. There was no industry, no work for the common man. Stefanski had changed that.

  He glanced toward the rows of fine brick buildings running on either side of the street. The day he'd first come to Venice, the buildings along Main Street had all been rotting clapboard.

  Now, the cleanly swept streets were slick paving brick, fired from Stefanski kilns. Finer thoroughfares couldn't be found in St. Louis or Kansas City. They were a far cry from the muddy trail he'd ventured upon the day he'd arrived. He'd driven his worn-out wagon into town with baby Teodor upon his knee. The thick Missouri mud that made up the city's roadways was as bogging as driving a mule team through half-baked taffy. Mikolai Stefanski had changed all that, too. Venice, Missouri continued to exist, it could be argued, because Mikolai Stefanski had chosen to settle there. Certainly, the clay was rich and good for brick. Perhaps another brickyard might have opened. But no other businessman could have been as driven to succeed as was Stefanski. And the entire town had benefited from his ambition. Mikolai was pleased, but did not think himself a better man for his accomplishments. Ambition and success were all that he had. Neither warmed a man's heart, or his bed, on a cold winter night.

  He urged his thoughts back to matters of real importance. The week's payroll was completed and his accounts in balance. The dedication tea for the new high school was this week. He should remind Mrs. Thomas, his housekeeper, to brush his best coat. He had the new issue of Architectural Digest at his office. He should bring it home for Teddy. That wouldn't seem as if he were pushing. The boy was interested. Pastor Wilker
son claimed that some of the Negroes were tired of being relegated to standing room at the back of the church pews and were hoping to recruit their own preacher and build their own house of worship. He should find out if they would accept money or materials from him. Josh Patrick was still not back to work after nearly a month. The man claimed he was sick unto death. Stefanski suspected he was merely sick of working. But something would have to be done about the man's wife and two children.

  Ultimately the concerns and cares of the day settled in his mind and he allowed his thoughts to linger upon the memory of a face. It was the face of Gertrude Barkley. It was a face he'd seen and admired for years. There was a time . . . well, it was a time long ago. Today that face had looked different. It looked different with her new shorter hair and he thought he liked it. The short dark brown curls bounced around her head, one falling down across her brow. She'd looked her very best, dressed for town. There had been a tautness about her as she had absently pushed the stray lock back with a gloved hand, revealing those sparkling bright brown eyes.

  His eyes softened at the memory and the right side of his lip curled slightly into an almost dreamy smile.

  Yes, he liked Miss Gertrude's short hair. For Miss Gertrude, that is, he amended to himself quickly. Normally women should look like what they are, normal women. But Miss Gertrude was an unusual woman. It suited her to appear unusual.

  Stefanski knew that his thoughts didn't quite make sense, but he wasn't exactly sure where his reasoning went astray. Bobbed hair was generally the province of young women, young, fast women. And if he had had a daughter, Stefanski was sure that he would not at all approve. But Miss Gertrude was neither young nor fast. On her, the bouncy curls at her jawline and nape were more appealing than dangerous. Miss Gertrude was attractive in her own way; he'd always thought so. And the boyishly short haircut somehow accented the unexpected femininity of her features.

  Yes, Stefanski decided, he liked Gertrude Barkley's new haircut. But then, it could not be denied that he liked Gertrude Barkley.