One True Heart (26 page)

T
UESDAY

Johnny drove Kare to town Tuesday after they had lunch. He didn't like the idea of her going back to her apartment, but just because she was his fairy didn't mean he could keep her. Talking to her was like breathing pure oxygen. She opened up his senses, his understanding, his world. If just being around her was making him smarter, he couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't somehow having the opposite effect on her. Maybe having him near was dumbing her down.

“I'm going to miss you, Kare,” he admitted as he fought the urge to reach over and touch her. “I don't know when I've enjoyed a weekend more, even if it was a problem that brought you to me.” He'd liked when they talked and when they were quiet. He probably should have brought her back Monday, but they never ran out of things to talk about and one day would never have been enough.

“I had fun, too. It's great to cook in a real kitchen. My apartment is so small I don't even have a drawer in my
kitchen. If I did, the landlord would probably charge me for it.” She sat with her legs crossed and folded beneath her as she rode in his truck. “I'm glad we built the chicken coop. Now you can get up every morning and collect fresh eggs.”

“Promise you'll come back out and show me a few things about chickens when they arrive.”

Kare laughed. “How could you have lived on a farm all your life and never had chickens?”

“Maybe when Mom left she took the chickens with her. I don't remember.” The farm was pretty much an all-boys' club until he married Scarlet. He remembered asking her once if she wanted a garden, or chickens or even a cow. She said, “Why? The store is five miles away.”

Kare pulled out a pen and notebook from her huge bag.

“What are you doing?” he asked after a few minutes.

“Making a list of all I'll have to teach you about how to be a farmer. It's more than just growing a cash crop every year.” She pointed her pen. “Like, I'll bet you don't even know what song you have to sing every night to get chickens to sleep.”

“You're right, I have no idea.” Johnny acted as if he were giving it serious consideration while she giggled, obviously knowing he was teasing her. “It might take a while.” He winked at her just like his grandpa had. “I'm a slow learner, so you'll be visiting lots.” He liked the sound of that idea. “I thought you hated farming.”

Kare's big eyes teared up. “I never hated the farm. I hated the loneliness of never being near anyone my age, and I hated never being able to go to a movie or a library or see a parade or go trick-or-treating or buy a snow cone, but I never hated the farm.”

Leaning her head back, she added, “I love snow cones. I hang out at the stand so much every summer they think I'm an addict.” She daydreamed for a while, then said, “I love watching plants grow and feeding animals and collecting eggs. I miss my home sometimes but I've never gone back, not since college.”

“Why not?”

“My folks never really invited me. Mom had me by accident and did her duty to raise me. She did a good job and loved me. She read me stories every night until I started reading. Took me on educational trips. Bought my clothes, taught me to cook. But once I left, she never invited me back.”

“I wish someone had taught me to cook. When my grandpa moved to town he handed me a can opener and said, ‘Good luck.'”

“No, he didn't.” She hit him on the shoulder, knowing she was being teased.

Johnny played the victim. “I'll probably starve now after having real meals for three days. I won't be able to go back to my ration of two cans of dog food a day.” He'd told her that once he'd been so tired when he fixed supper that he opened dog food instead of beef stew. He was halfway through the can before his taste buds woke up enough to complain.

She rubbed away the punch she'd given him as if she'd hurt him. “I'll come back, John. Plus you've got enough leftovers to last the week.”

He didn't have the nerve to tell her that it wasn't the food he'd miss, it was her company. He didn't have the right to say anything. A smart woman like her could never fall for a regular farmer like him. So he'd better change the subject before he made a fool of himself or they both started crying. “You sure you want to visit my grandpa? Just because I go every Tuesday doesn't mean you have to. I could take you by your place first.”

“I don't mind at all. I drop by the senior citizens' center almost every week. Mr. Wheeler is one of my best customers.”

Johnny thought of asking what she was charging his grandpa for, but he'd learned Kare used her own vocabulary and didn't always mean what he thought she said. He decided to wait until they visited before asking too many questions.

As he watched her play with her scarves he thought about how strange she'd seemed the first time he'd stumbled upon her office. Now he thought other women looked plain
without all the colors floating around them. When he first met her, he decided there was something very simple about Kare Cunningham, more child than woman, but the longer he knew her he realized she had an intelligence, a complexity far beyond normal people.

Of course, his gauge had been Wendell and Scarlet. Both low bars to measure by. Conversations with Kare pushed him, made him pay attention, made him step in instead of zoning out of life. She quoted philosophers and statesmen. She worried about things happening in the world and what they should do about it like the two of them might make a difference. Every living thing mattered to her. When she'd walked up his front steps she'd noticed a caterpillar crawling across the top step. She'd helped him down and onto the grass.

A few minutes later, when they walked in the senior citizens' center, Pops rushed over to Kare, totally ignoring Johnny.

“We've been waiting for you, little darling,” he said like she was a celebrity. “The coffee fund is almost dry and I need to know if I should play poker this week.”

“Only if the stakes are eatable.” Kare kissed his wrinkled cheek.

Johnny stood just inside the door as his eighty-year-old grandpa stole his girl. He didn't know whether to be angry or impressed. She was hugging on him and laughing at his dumb jokes and he was winking so much at her Johnny thought his grandpa might have developed a twitch since he saw him last.

A group of men in one corner all stood to welcome her. Some hugged her. One old man danced around with her as if someone had struck up the band.

Kare held up one finger asking them to wait a minute as she rushed over to the quilters to say hello and then the painting corner where everyone was supposed to paint the same picture but no two looked alike.

Johnny felt like he'd taken the prom queen to the dance. No one said hello to him. He was the invisible man until one of the activities coordinators, with a name tag that said Jeter Peters, motioned him over. Jeter was rubber-band thin.
His favorite time in school must have been craft time and he never got over it. In any other job he would have been the office pest, constantly organizing celebrations, surprises, and fund-raisers while he gossiped. But here, he was loved.

“Thanks for bringing Kare in, Johnny,” Jeter said as if Johnny were nothing more than the delivery service. “We've all been worried about her. Mrs. Clark's son is a dispatcher for the sheriff's office and he told her someone was stalking Kare. After the questions Kare asked us last week we feared she might be in trouble. I was about to organize a Kare Watch to run round the clock.”

“What questions?” Johnny thought of telling Jeter they didn't need a Kare watch, he already had that covered, but he wanted to know the questions Kare had been asking first.

“You know, like did we know someone who had a private plane or could we think of any newly arrived people in Harmony who didn't seem to have a job or attachments. Someone acting fishy, like a ‘most wanted' type with no friends or family. I told her about Max Dewy being a pilot, and how he always smiled showing too many teeth, but I guess he'd don't fit as a loner now because he's attached to your wife.”

Johnny wasn't surprised even the senior citizens knew about Scarlet and Max. Apparently, he'd been the last to hear. He didn't know, or care, that Max was a pilot, but if he ever got close to the man again Max might have a few less teeth.

“Which reminds me”—Jeter patted Johnny's shoulder as if they were buddies—“your wife dropped by the other day and asked the strangest question.”

“What?”

“She wanted to know how your grandpa was doing and if there was any chance that he'd be dying in the next few months. She said she didn't want to upset him by hurrying the divorce if he was ill on account of how much it would hurt the old guy if you and she split up.”

“Very considerate of her,” Johnny said. The Wheeler farm was worth well over a million, but it was family land.
If she waited and divorced after he inherited, she could claim half of his half.

“I know.” Jeter nodded. “I've never seen her visit or stop by for lunch with Mr. Wheeler, but she must really care about him.”

He glanced over at Kare. She was at a table alone with one lady and it looked like Kare was reading her palm. She looked like a multicolored angel with all her scarves that were so light they looked like a breeze might rip them.

“You don't mind the fortune-teller doing readings?”

Jeter shook his head. “She makes them pay a three-dollar donation to the coffee fund as payment. You'd think as short as their lifelines must be it'd make them sad, but it doesn't. They all love her to come.”

Johnny waved good-bye to Jeter and walked over near enough to Kare to listen.

“You've had a great love, Delta, and a blessed life, haven't you?” his little fortune-teller said to a lady with white hair.

“I have. I knew you'd see that in these old worn-out hands. I had Ollie for almost sixty years with me. We were blessed with eight grandchildren. Now that's a bushel full.” White hair almost touched Kare's black as Delta added, “Do you see a peaceful passing for me, child?”

Kare smiled. “I do.”

“I thought so.” Relief relaxed the worried lines across a face that had seen eighty-four years. “I've always known he's waiting for me, so I'll go when the time comes. I thought he fought so hard because he didn't want to leave me. Finally, I promised him I wouldn't be long and he went on ahead.”

Johnny moved over to the coffeepot before he started crying like a baby. When he made it back, Kare was holding hands with an old friend of Johnny's grandpa named Mr. Railsback. The old guy had farmed a mile down from them until a few years ago. He still lived on the farm, but he leased out his land.

“You're a very brave man,” Kare said as she touched the old soldier's palm.

“I just did what had to be done. No more. It was war, you know. We all had to be brave men back then.”

Kare patted his arm where a faded tattoo poked out beneath his sleeve. “I know, but that bravery has served you well over the years, Mr. Railsback. It got you through the hard times.”

“I was in the Marines,” he started, then added, “I remember the time . . .”

Johnny noticed Kare didn't say another word. Mr. Railsback talked the rest of her reading, then kissed her cheek for being brilliant and paid his three dollars.

The next man looked younger than the others at first glance. He still had a full head of sandy-colored hair with white at the temples.

“Hello, Mr. Gray. You here with questions?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Just thought I'd visit. Always good to see a new face.”

“But don't you want to know how long you'll live or if you'll win the lottery?”

“Nope.” He shifted in his chair. “I figure it don't matter how long you live, but how well you lived it. Maybe help a few people out, smile when you don't have to, and take time now and then to just enjoy the ride.”

“You should be telling the fortunes, not me, Mr. Gray.”

“No thanks, but I would like you to call me Brian or Brian Scott. That's what my folks sometimes called me.”

“All right, Brian.” She offered her hand. “I think I'd be honored to be your friend.”

Johnny noticed the man's hands were stained but Kare didn't shy away. A working man's hands didn't frighten her.

“You see it, son?” his grandpa whispered so close to Johnny's ear that he jumped.

“What?” Johnny turned to the grandpa he'd loved all his life.

The older Wheeler smiled. “The kindness in Kare. Ain't one person in a hundred has that big a heart. She's fragile; she'll need protecting from time to time, I'm guessing. I'm thinking it'll take a man strong as an ox for that job.”

“Not me. We're just friends. We're not seeing each other. I just stepped in to help when she needed it.” Johnny wondered if he was lying to his grandfather or himself. Not that it mattered. He was still lying.