Gypsy Magic (The Little Matchmakers) (13 page)

She pulled her hand free. “I am too. About the way you were raised. About your… situation. Your Kevin deserves the kind of father mine had. One who put him first, was willing to fight to give him what was best for him.”

“Did he fight for you? As in, what was right for you?”

“I don’t know.” She stood. “I liked what I did. I still do.”

She went inside and slipped behind her curtain, wondering not for the first time, if it was her mother’s insistence on turning Gypsy into a child model that had started her parents’ marriage crumbling, and if having Kevin had been a futile attempt at repairing a rupture. “I still do,” she’d told Lance about liking what she did. But did she? Wasn’t she ready for a change? Hadn’t that been her primary reason for accepting Tony’s proposal? Hadn’t she believed it would lead to an early marriage and soon after, a home and family? No, she argued with herself. Of course it hadn’t been her
primary
reason. She wouldn’t have accepted him, at the age of twenty, if she hadn’t loved him. The question was, though, did she still? How ironic, the home and family—well, child—she’d wanted, had been found here on this “uninhabited” island.

She and Tony had never even lived together. “Until we’re married, it wouldn’t look good,” he’d insisted. “I don’t want to be seen as a man of loose morals regardless of what ‘most people’ do. I want to be a politician people can trust to do the right thing, always.”

Hence, she lived alone, still, while her yearning for home and family never waned.

Much later, she heard Lance come in and saw the darkness grow to become all-encompassing as he turned off the lantern she had left burning for him. She sighed and turned her face to the wall, still sleepless, still wondering what would happen when she finally returned from this idyll and faced reality again. Her fingers running over the scar on her cheek, she would not, she knew, face it unchanged, and most of the changes would not be of a physical nature.

~ * ~

Since the drizzly day of the party, the sun had shone warmly down upon them, making the damp forest steam. On the fourth afternoon Gypsy decided that her next ploy would be a bonfire and cookout. She and Kevin worked hard and soon had a pile driftwood stacked on the little beach below the clearing, near where the wharf rose and fell with the tide. Despite the recent rain, she didn’t dare risk lighting a fire near the trees.

She handed Kevin a long, tapered twist of newspaper and said, “You can light the fire, love. It might flare up quickly with the bacon drippings I poured on the dry kindling in there, so be ready to hop back.”

Kevin’s eyes were round with awe. “You’re going to let me light it all by myself?”

“Yes. I know you’ll be careful.” She struck a wooden match on a nearby rock and set the end of the paper alight. He touched the burning brand to the kindling pile near the bottom and scrambled back as a proof of black smoke and curling tongues of orange flame leapt into being, crackling and snapping at the dry driftwood from high up the beach. They’d dragged down a large stack. Smoke curled and fled in streams and billowed upward and out over the water, carried on the normal evening off-shore breeze. In next to no time the entire pile was a light.

“Look at it go! Look at it go!” Kevin shouted, dancing around. “Can we put more wood on, Mother? Can we, please?”

Gypsy pulled him back to a safer location and replied, “No, that’s enough. By the time it’s night, the pile will have burnt down into that big dead stump we rolled down the bank. It will be one big glowing coal and that’s where were going to cook our dinner. We’ll roast potatoes wrapped in foil… And when they’re done we’ll roast wieners on sticks. That what I’ve been saving those cans of wien—
Oh!
”

The ejaculation was forced from her lungs as a large hand clamped onto her shoulder, jerking around to face the glowering, unnaturally pale countenance of Kevin’s father.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Kevin scooted out of reach near the fire, watching with wide, frightened eyes.

Gypsy reached up and peeled his fingers from her shoulder. “Having a beach-fire. What does it look like?”

Slowly, color came back to his face and he let his hands fall to his sides. Gypsy saw his fingers unclench as he forced himself to relax. He rubbed the muscles in the back of his neck. “I smelled the smoke—I thought—cabin…”

Gypsy was stricken. What a stupid thing to have done! “Oh, Lance! I’m sorry. It was thoughtless of me not to warn you. I didn’t think. I should’ve known you’d be worried. Please forgive me…” She knew she was babbling, seemed as powerless against her words as she was against the urge to take his hand in hers to cling to it. He had been concerned! He cared! For Kevin, of course. But the knowledge was very good.

He flicked her hand off him and looked down at her with contempt she had not experienced since the day of her arrival, and said, “I wasn’t worried about your worthless hide, woman. There’s two-and-a-half weeks’ work in that cabin… Work I’d never be able to duplicate.” With that he stalked off, not looking back.

“Whew!” Gypsy said, blowing her hair out of her eyes. “I guess that put me in my place! Two-and-a-half weeks’ work indeed.”

“I guess we better put it out, huh, Mother? He’s pretty mad, isn’t he?” Kevin was at her side, touching her hand.

“No, we won’t put it out,” she declared firmly, still feeling highly incensed at Lance’s parting shot. “We’re going to cook our dinner out here remember? I was just telling you about the wieners, but I hadn’t gotten to the best part yet.” She perched on a beach log and pulled him into the circle of her arms, smiling at his funny, solemn expression as he listened intently, willing to be convinced. “In the back of a cupboard, where no one knew about them, I found a whole bag of marshmallows.”

His eyes opened wide “Do you think the shepherd left them?”

“No.” She gurgled, choking on laughter. “I think they were part of the stores that your daddy ordered.”

“Daddy bought marshmallows?”

“Sure. I guess he thought the two of you might want to roast them on a fire,” she said with a conviction she could not feel. It seemed more likely that Lance had merely ordered enough foodstuffs to last a man and a small boy for a month, and a tenderhearted clerk had added the marshmallows—as well as a couple of cake mixes.

“But he didn’t like us making the bonfire.” The frown between Kevin’s black brows almost obliterated his eyes. Gypsy smoothed it out with a gentle fingertip.

“Oh, Kevin, you’ve got it all wrong. You should’ve stayed closer and listened. When I explained that we were having a cookout on the beach, your dad told me he had smelled the smoke and thought the cabin was burning down. Sometimes, when a person has had a bad scare, when they see the people they were worried about are safe, they’re so relieved that they just have to get mad at first, to let off steam. Daddy will enjoy the cookout just as much as we will. You’ll see.” Although her words were reassuring to the child, Gypsy could only hope she was right.

Kevin cheered up somewhat and the tense, pinched look left his face as he scrubbed potatoes for her to wrap. Together they scraped holes in the ashes, buried the potatoes under glowing coals and returned to the cabin to get everything else ready. While Kevin scrubbed carrots, Gypsy tore off a sheet of paper from one of Lance’s sketch pads and began scribbling.

When she was finished, she told Kevin to stay in the cabin while she went to check the fire and turn the potatoes so they wouldn’t burn. Slipping a sharp knife into her pocket she picked up the note she had written and walked casually to the door but, once outside, flew into action. She hacked three long branches from a small alder tree at the clearing’s edge, quickly cleaned twigs from them and made splits in the ends. Then, leaning them against the door frame, and hanging her note to a nail in plain sight, she reentered the cabin to gather up the rest of the meal to transport it to the beach.

So keyed up was she listening for him, she heard his footsteps long before Kevin was aware of his father’s arrival. The child continue to gaze, mesmerized, into the flames, oblivious to the tension which held Gypsy in its grip as she listened to the crunch of Lance’s feet as he approached them across the thirty feet of broken shells, rocks and sand that made up the beach. She did not turn. She was totally rigid by the time he reached the other side of the fire and eyed her strangely over top of it for a long silent minute.

He cleared his throat and rested his gaze on Kevin. “I cut some sticks for us to roast our wieners on. I’m sorry if I sounded mad when I came down here earlier, but sometimes when a person has had a bad scare, when he sees the people he has worried about are safe, he just, uh, sort of sounds mad. It’s the relief, I guess and… And… he just has to let off steam.”

Gypsy felt the stiffness leaving her limbs like water down a hole and she trembled as she swung around to catch the most beautiful expression on Kevin’s face. His eyes glowed up at his father and he said in an awed tone, “That’s exactly what Gypsy told me.” He ran to her. “Gee, you’re smart!”

“Not too smart, I hope,” said Lance quietly and Gypsy shot him a half angry glance. Was he going to spoil it all before it had even begun? But no. It seemed not. “When I walked down the path, I got a whiff of a delicious smell coming from around here Are you roasting potatoes, maybe?” He licked his lips, looking hungry.

“Yes, Daddy! I scrubbed and scrubbed with a brush and they’re all clean and Gypsy wrapped them up and we both buried them together, but you can take them out for us because Gypsy says that’s a daddy job. They’ll be too hot for us to handle.” He sucked in a long breath and then seemed to remember just to whom he was talking for he subsided onto a log he had helped drag near the fire and hung his head.

“Good!” Lance said heartily, almost too heartily, and Gypsy longed to be able to warn him not to overdo it. He must’ve seen the alarm in his eyes for he lowered his tone and went on, “I’m glad you saved a special daddy job for me.”

Kevin looked at him warily, then at Gypsy. “Can we cook the wieners now… On the sticks my dad brought us?” he asked, and she hoped Lance had been as aware as she had of the note of pride contained in those two words—
my dad
.

~ * ~

When the last marshmallow had been taken hot and sticky from its roasting pole and had slid down Kevin’s greedy little gullet, Gypsy stacked the dishes and other things she’d brought down, meaning to take them up to the cabin. Lance stopped her.

“No, I’ll do that. I want to go up for a while anyway. You two stay here, if you like.”

An avalanche of cold disappointment came thundering down over her head, but Gypsy managed to smile up at him in the light from the fire when she told him that yes, she and Kevin would stay on watch the sparks.

With a long stick she probed deep into the burning pile and shook hard. A shower of sparks flew up, tiny streaks, lines and stars, bright against the blackness of the sky and ocean. Kevin gasped. “Oh, do it again!”

Again and again until Gypsy’s arm ached with the effort, the sparks flew soaring and dipping, dancing in the night while the fire cast a click flickering red glow across the two faces which stared intently upwards.

They moved at last, of one accord, and had taken but one step when Lance said quietly, “No, back to where you were. Look up again at the sparks. Can your arm take a few more shakes, Gypsy? I’m nearly finished.”

Hardly daring to breathe, Gypsy pulled Kevin into position and kept him enthralled with the flying fire until Lance said, “All right. Come and sit down now. All done.”

Gypsy subsided onto a log near the fire and pulled Kevin between her knees. Lance sat nearby and placed the sketchpad on the ground behind the log before pulling a battered old harmonica from his pocket and tapping it twice on his knee.

He put it to his mouth and haunting, sweet melody rose thinly, to be lost in the grandeur of the night and the stars and the slowly rising tide. Touching Gypsy’s hair gently at the end of the first piece, he said, “Sing.”

An old spiritual poured out of the harmonica and Gypsy joined in, softly at first, but in the friendly darkness, with more power and confidence until her clear alto filled the night air with joy.

The music went on and on, through all the old songs from the days of the pioneers, to the nonsense songs from everyone’s childhood until Lance, noticing something of which Gypsy was not yet aware, softly began to play
Home Sweet Home
. She managed the first verse, but halfway through the second, a lump grew in her throat until it choked her and her voice fell off while the music continued, soft and slow and sweet, drawing tears from her eyes to send them trickling down her cheeks. She turned her head, hoping she could wipe them away, make them stop somehow before Lance noticed.

The rising tide lapped at the lower edge of glowing coals, hissing, making a plume of white steam. Lance glanced over. “Kevin’s asleep,” he said gently after the last notes had flown away. “Let me take him.”

He knelt in front of Gypsy to lift the child from between her knees and as he did so, looked into her face, illuminated fitfully by the dying glow of the fire. His hands paused in the act of reaching for the drooping form of his son, and with a sharp intake of breath, he said, “Gypsy!” A fingertip flicked a tear from her cheek and she wiped her face with the back of one hand, forcing a smile of self-derision.

“Oh, this is nothing. You should see me if it’s ‘Auld Lang Syne’,” she said, attempting lightness, rising swiftly to her feet and carrying Kevin with her. Lance slid his arms under the child and she relinquished him.

However, as soon as she did, his limp form jerked into total rigidity and his eyes popped wide open and staring.

“Gypsy!” he wailed, still half asleep, and twisted around searching frantically for her.

“Hush, hush,” she soothed, patting his back, trying to force him to relax in his father’s hold. “It’s all right. you fell asleep listening to the music and your dad’s going to carry you to bed.”

Kevin struggled and Lance stood him on the ground, stepping back, his face masked. “If you’re awake, you may as well walk.” When Kevin swayed uncertainly, still not fully awake, Lance snapped, “Well, get going. The tide’s coming in and we’ll all have wet feet if we don’t get a move on.” A wavelet washed over the last of the fire.