I didn’t answer him. There is something attractive and irresistible in a limited arrangement, a plan with predetermined closure.
Perfect job, perfect house, perfect small town. A perfectly clear path toward rediscovering lost simplicity, or whatever it
was I’d lost. The move to Rural Ridge seemed ordained, fated. It had been a Sunday when Ceel called, and the eve of our leaving
was a Sunday again. A godsend all around.
And thus does He arrange to give us what we want.
From Hannah’s quote book:
. . . the past came back to her in one of those rushing waves of emotion by which people of sensibility are visited at odd
hours.
—Henry James
H
ope the good stuff isn’t gone,” Ceel said as we climbed from her car. “I have six vases to fill and need a dozen tomatoes.”
She and Ben were hostessing a casual get-together for Hal and me that night.
“A foot-long sub is Mark’s idea of perfect party food.”
“It ain’t only for you, honey,” Ceel drawled. “Don’t be offended by the double billing, but I’m entertaining our new interim
minister and his wife, too. Wait till you see St. Martin’s–in-the-Mountains tomorrow,” she said. “Even the name is wonderful,
isn’t it? Looks just like a storybook church.”
“Careful,” I said. “You’re turning into Mother. ’Mark my words.‘”
“Mark my words,” Mother had predicted during every family road trip, “the sweetest-looking church in any town always turns
out to be the Episcopal church.” And though I’d sat picking at the backseat upholstery, perversely hoping the church would
be something awful and prove my mother finally wrong—contemporary hacienda or a low-slung, pink-bricked monstrosity—it was
invariably charming, nestled beneath swaying pines or sweetly white and ivy covered behind wrought-iron gates.
Inside the cavernous shed of the farmer’s market, giant fans spun lazily from a ceiling still draped with crimped Independence
Day bunting. Makeshift wooden counters were heaped with shucked corn, yellow squash, and tomatoes in varying stages of ripening.
Fingers of carrots, dusty beets, and string beans competed for space with shelled peas—dun crowders, speckled pintos, pale
limas—bagged in clear plastic. I touched leafy vegetables meant for day-long simmering with the fatty scraps of country ham
one vendor hawked. Aproned women in a far corner sold crocheted toilet paper hats and calico lid toppers.
Ceel headed for the flower aisle while I browsed, buying new potatoes no bigger than grapes, Big Boys and German Johnsons,
baby cukes for sandwiches and salads.
Ceel appeared beside me, her face half-hidden by sunflowers and zinnias, loosestrife and bachelor buttons. “What army are
you feeding?” she asked at the sight of my bulging bags.
My sister had no conception of feeding a family. “I got carried away with the atmosphere,” I said; Ceel’s childlessness resurrected
itself when I least suspected it. “Look.” I displayed my prize find: two quarts of wild blackberries, dark nubbed jewels mounded
in paper cartons, a roadside treasure not available in any Durham grocery store. “Still warm from the sun. What a treat. Another
plus to add to my list of reasons for moving. There’s enough here for two cobblers. Remember picking blackberries?”
“Huh,” Ceel said. “I remember the chiggers.”
“Maybe I should get some more,” I debated. “To make jam.”
Ceel rolled her eyes, sneezed into the weedy musk of a Queen Anne’s lace. “Let’s go. Five more minutes and you’ll be buying
a sunbonnet and butter churn.”
An architect’s sleight of hand, Ceel and Ben’s house seemed nothing but roof and windows, a lit lantern in the dusk. Their
home was as sleek as ours was rustic, and I admired its minimal spareness, consisting of only three rooms: kitchen, living
area, and bedroom. Distinctively contemporary, the house boasted a two-storied ceiling checkerboarded with skylights. Honey-stained
wood floors were enclosed by sliding glass doors giving on to a wraparound porch.
“Hello, boss,” Hal said, shaking his brother-in-law’s hand.
“I locked up the Academy to make sure Hal made it tonight,” Ben said to me. “Classes haven’t begun, but the professor here
is already working overtime. Come on in. Ceel’s making sure the lemon slices are precisely a quarter inch thick.”
We followed Ben through the open room to a planked table Ceel had covered with bright bandannas to serve as a bar. Frosted
green and amber longneck beer bottles poked from an ice-filled wheelbarrow.
“Martini on the rocks, please,” I said to the young man behind the table.
“That’s a tall order for a moonlighting teacher’s aide,” he said with a rueful expression. “I’ll need some instructions.”
“Watch this highly technical process,” I said, and dribbled vermouth over an ice-packed glass, then quickly upended it over
my palm. The clear liquid dripped through my fingers to a dish towel. “Now, gin and three olives, minimum. Perfect every time.”
He bowed with mock respect and laughed as I added, “Call if you need my sophisticated skills.”
I stood at a window and watched Ceel light citronella torches on the deck. Ceel and Ben had chosen a snug forested hollow
over a prized mountaintop lot, and sunset’s colors had nearly faded here. The dying day remained only in the smeary pink undersides
of high cloud wisps rippled like tidal sand.
“You’re Hannah Marsh, aren’t you? Welcome to town,” a cheery voice said. “You’ll just
love
it here in Rural Ridge, love it. Bill and I only wish we’d come to our senses and left Atlanta earlier.” I turned to a petite
woman wearing gold jewelry at wrists and neck and earlobes. “Doesy Howard,” she said, “your neighbor behind the overgrown
hemlocks.”
“Doesy?”
“Short for Doris. Our daughter Wendy is just ahead of your son in school. Mark, right? Wendy can tell him everything there
is to know about the Blue Ridge Rangers!”
“I’m sure he’d appreciate it,” I said, smiling at Doesy’s effusion and wondering if Wendy Howard was equally enthusiastic.
“He’s unhappily baby-sitting for our daughter, Ellen, tonight.”
“You should have called Wendy! Most weekends you wouldn’t
ever
catch her home, but she’s grounded for two weeks for cutting her piano lessons. Wendy resists all my efforts to make her
well rounded—don’t you agree piano is a good life skill? Told Mrs. Biddix she had an orthodontist appointment. Unfortunately
Wendy forgot that she’s no longer wearing braces.” Doesy shook her head happily. “The little liar! A social creature if ever
there was one. Always has something going on. Of course, it’s all my fault. I couldn’t wait for her to be a teenager so I
could live it all over again.
Frances!”
she trilled to a woman wearing drawstring pants and a needleworked tank. “Come meet Ceel’s big sister, Hannah.”
Frances Mason greeted me and regarded Doesy skeptically. “You’re resplendently overdressed. What kind of soiree did you think
you were attending?”
Doesy was unfazed. “I’m trying to impress our new rector. The parish offices are dire, haven’t been touched since the fifties.”
In a stage whisper to me she added, “Frances is our village agitator.”
Frances tipped her bottle of beer and took several long swallows. “Loosely related to the community curmudgeon.”
I laughed. “Who do you agitate and curmudgeon?”
“Anyone who’ll let me.”
“Oh, hush,” Doesy said, wagging a finger. “Frances gives me a terrible time. And I’m Picky-Picky’s
best
customer. Anything new in stock?” she demanded. “You know I get
first
choice.” Doesy gave me an earnest look. “I’m an interior designer. Give me a holler if you need help with your house. I know
a place where you can get
darling
kudzu-vine furniture.” I thought of the decorating books I’d consigned to the Dumpster.
“Jesus, Doesy,” Frances said. “You’re the kind of female who gives the South a bad name.”
Doesy stuck out her tongue. “Look after Hannah,” she directed Frances. “I’m going to mingle.”
“Mingle, mingle,” Frances called after her.
“The Mary Tyler Moore Show,”
I said.
She was clearly surprised. “Showing your age. And your good memory.”
“I’m afraid so. Doesn’t she mind the way you tease her?”
Frances gave an economic shake of her head. “Nah. We know each other so well that we don’t have to fake anything.”
“What’s ‘Picky-Picky’?”
“My store. I run a sucker joint.”
“Velvet Elvises?”
“Other end of the scale.
Up
scale. Cutesy cocktail napkins, placemats made of leaves, yard art, hideously overpriced hand-smocked nightgowns. You know,
useless essentials.”
I did know. I’d been introduced to useless essentials— monogrammed jewelry pouches, quilted checkbook covers, piped and plaid
garment bags, satin-padded coat hangers—at boarding school. Before Wyndham Hall I’d never seen a fingernail buffer, much less
a matching manicure set. “Can you make a decent living on summer tourists alone?”
“Suckers know no season, fortunately. And fortunately I’m not in it to make a living. You’ve heard of ‘marrying well’? I divorced
well. You married?”
“Yes, he’s . . .” I glanced around. “Somewhere.” Frances Mason drained her bottle. “Excuse me while I get another.”
Left alone, I wandered outside and gazed appreciatively at the fringe of forest, black feathers against the navy sky of evening.
Dangling from hooks above me, moss baskets dripped pink blossoms of fuchsia. I closed my eyes and tilted my face to the delicate
cascading blooms.
“Sorry,” a man said, sliding open the screen door. “I didn’t realize this hiding place was taken.”
Feeling foolish, I swiveled. “I wasn’t hiding, I was—”
“Oh, go ahead, admit it.” He smiled from a face still ruddy with summer’s sun, made darker still by the faded aqua-striped
shirt and the dim gold of torchlight. Smiled as if he’d caught me. His eyes were dark, the pinpoints of reflected torchlight
seeming to emphasize his accusation. “Just listening to the quiet, then,” he said.
“You must be Rod McKuen.” He was wearing white tennis shoes, old-fashioned thick-soled canvas versions not meant for any activity
but comfort. “Except you’re too young to know Rod McKuen.” The sneakers inexplicably charmed me. “I like your shoes.”
“I keep them in the closet right beside my Wallabes. Proof enough that I’m old enough to know Rod McKuen?”
I laughed. “I
was
hiding.” It was enjoyable to flirt with this man, whoever he was; to indulge in harmless play with its harmless message:
This is fun. Your turn.
“And I’m Peter Whicker,” he said, extending one hand to me and raking hair from his forehead—a funny backward sweep of his
knuckles—with the other. A pale slice of untanned skin flashed before the hair fell disobediently forward again.
“Hannah Marsh.” His hand closed around mine. He must be another teacher at the Academy. . . English, I decided. The eighth-grade
girls probably wrote about him—transparently disguised—in their short stories and creative writing journals. I would have.
His dark eyes narrowed into a squint, thinking. “I forgot my cheat sheet, with everyone’s name and two-word description. You’re
the sister who assists with the children’s choir, right?”
“What?”
“No,” Ceel said, stepping through the open door with a platter of crudités, “that’s me. So you’ve met . . .” She hesitated.
“Nowadays you all have different titles. Are you ‘Father Whicker’?”
I was confused. “ ’Father’?”
“Didn’t he tell you?” Ceel asked. “This is our other guest of honor, St. Martin’s new rector.”
“Oh, I . . . ”
Peter Whicker drew a thumb across his upper lip. “I saw that.”
“Saw what?”
“You rearranged your attitude. Changed your entire manner—and opinion—of me. Didn’t you? Don’t lie.” He knit his brow, frowning
sternly. “Thou shalt not, et cetera. See? See how terrifying I am, quoting commandments?”
I laughed. “No, no, it’s just that I was expecting—”
Someone not so nice looking. So relaxed and regular, unstern and unsomber.
“Wait, let me run through my file of stereotypes.” Again, the backward-knuckled gesture through his hair. “Fat. Bald. Friar
Tuck.”
I opened my mouth to say,
Exactly. Precisely. You read my mind,
and said only, “Something like that.”
His grin was wry. “Fat and bald all in good time, probably.”
“It’s that you aren’t. . . ”
He touched his bare throat. “Wearing a collar.”
Right again. “Is that allowed?”
“Allowed?”
He laughed.
Ceel sighed noisily, reprovingly. “Jeez, Hannah. No thought unexpressed.” She slipped between us, heading for the door. “I’m
leaving before she says something worse. You two come get a plate soon.”
Hal’s silhouette was momentarily framed in a large window before he strode out to join us. “
Interim
rector,” Peter corrected my introduction. “Here to wean the congregation from old alliances, and sentiments and”—his expression
was mischievous—“grudges, maybe.”
“To ready the flock,” I offered.
“Exactly. One of those good Episcopal edicts. What brought the two of you to Rural Ridge?” Peter asked.
I hesitated, reticent. Peter Whicker’s earlier assessment was correct. Knowing what I now knew—that he was a priest—inhibited
me. I couldn’t imagine admitting,
To look for something perfect and good and un-complicated.
“To garden,” I finally blurted. “And because of the mountains.”
Hal looked at me piercingly, evidently annoyed by my insufficient answer. “I sold a business recently, and when Ben called
offering a temporary teaching position, I jumped. We, I mean.” He touched my shoulder, adding, “Hannah and I thought our lives
might be simpler here.” I sipped my drink to cover embarrassment at his forthrightness and immediately choked on the alcohol’s
fiery bite.
“Are you okay?” Peter asked. I nodded, coughing. “And is it simpler?” he asked Hal.
“Too early to tell.”
“We’re in the same temporary category, then. Leaving is part of my job description, too, no matter how much I fall in love
with the people, or the parish, or”—he gestured toward the enveloping blackness—“even the mountains. And I have, just like
Hannah.”