Small Town Girl (13 page)

She leaned away from his fingers. “You probably say that to all the girls.”

He pulled his hand back. He had the feeling the kid was awake and only keeping her eyes closed pretending to sleep now. Enjoying eavesdropping. That was okay. It could be that he was going to have to win them both over to ever get anywhere with Kate. “Only when it’s true,” he said.

“All right then. If you want to talk, talk.” She seemed to be daring him to come up with something that would make her want to listen.

He twisted in the seat a little and draped his left arm over
the steering wheel. “So what about you, Kate Merritt? You planning to stay in Rosey Corner all your life?”

“It’s all I know.”

“All you want to know?” he asked with a lift of his eyebrows.

She didn’t answer him. “It’s nice here. My family is here. Mama needs me to help with the store, and others need me around too.” She gently touched Lorena’s hair. If she knew the kid was awake, she didn’t give any sign of it. “I wouldn’t want to leave forever.”

“But maybe for a while?”

“I wouldn’t mind going to college. Nobody in my family ever has. Well, Evie went to the business school, but that’s not what I want. I want to study literature and history. I want to find out about things I don’t even know are out there to find out about.” She got a faraway look on her face.

“Then you should do it.”

She let out a whisper of a sigh. “Some things are easier to dream about than to do.”

He couldn’t argue against the truth of that. He’d long ago stopped bothering to even dream about his future. No sense building castles in the air that were going to disappear in the first breeze of reality. But things were different for her. “Dreams can come true. Just ask the songwriters.”

She smiled a little, but she couldn’t seem to hold on to it as she stared straight at him. “Do you think the president will keep us out of the war?”

He didn’t know how they jumped from dreams coming true to worries about the war, but then the war shadow hung over them all. “I hope so,” he said.

“But you don’t think so.”

“I don’t know. How can any of us know what will happen tomorrow? But either way I think I’ll be getting a call from Uncle Sam. As soon as he can find me.”

“Sometimes it seems as if everything’s just on hold. That we’re all waiting, for what I don’t know. But it’s not good.”

A tear eased out of the kid’s eye and made a path down her cheek. He reached over and brushed it away. “Hey, Birdie, no fair crying in your sleep. We’re out for a good time, remember?”

Kate hugged her. “You little rascal, have you been playing possum on us?”

The kid couldn’t keep from giggling then as she opened her eyes and looked up at Kate. “I wanted to see if you’d kiss him.”

“You silly goose.” Kate poked her in the ribs, but Jay noted a flush warmed her face.

He grinned a little. “I wanted to see if she would too, Birdie. But there was this kid in the way.”

“Sounds like that was a good thing,” Kate said.

The kid giggled again and sat up. “Are we home?”

“Nope, the car got hot and we had to let it cool off,” Kate said without a moment’s hesitation before she looked over at Jay.

“Yep,” he agreed. “But now I’ve got a hankering for some ice cream. Any place around here sell it?”

“Not on a Sunday. Everything’s closed up. We might have gotten some in Edgeville if we’d thought about it sooner.”

He started up the car and turned it back toward Edgeville. “Point the way.”

“That’s crazy. We’re over halfway home,” Kate said, but she was laughing.

“Everybody should be crazy at least once a week. Right, Birdie?”

“Right, Tanner.”

“Right, Kate?” He looked over at her. She was laughing. She might not know it, but she was beautiful.

“Right, Tanner,” she echoed Birdie. Something about the way she said it was almost as good as a kiss.

K
ate breathed out a sigh of relief as she watched Evie and Mike’s taillights disappearing down the road back toward Frankfort after church Sunday night and was instantly ashamed. How could she be glad to see her sister leaving? But she was. A married Evie was even harder to put up with than an unmarried Evie. It was like she thought being married made her know more about everything now. In truth, she did know more about being married than Kate. She knew about a husband cleaving to his wife. She knew about love. Kate didn’t even know about kissing.

She could know. From experience. Jay Tanner had been ready to kiss her. She was almost sure of that, but Kate had pushed Lorena between them and kept her there. A sensible decision, but sometimes having good sense was overrated. Maybe kissing was too. She thought about Carl mashing his mouth down on hers and felt a little sick. But that hadn’t been a loving kiss. Carl had been angry. He was still angry.

It would be easier if she could stay angry with Carl. She had reason enough. The kiss for starters. Then the words he’d thrown at her in church that morning. Words he’d hoped would hurt her. But she didn’t want it to be that way. She
didn’t want Carl to hate her, but she didn’t want him to love her either. Why couldn’t he see that being friends was best?

Then again, maybe she was the one not seeing things right. Everybody seemed to think she was the problem instead of Carl. Maybe she was. Maybe she should have agreed to marry him. As Evie pointed out, she was never going to find another man like Mike. And Mike was taken.

She could have said yes last week and stood up with Carl this very day in church before he went to the Navy. She could be a married woman just like Evie, and packing to follow her husband to wherever he was sent in the service. Mrs. Carl Noland. She pushed away the thought as a shudder ran through her. She could have never married Carl. Never. But friends—they could have stayed friends forever. She did care about him. She did want him to be safe. She just didn’t want to follow him anywhere. Not even to Hawaii.

He’d intended to wound her with that. She’d been talking about Hawaii, that group of islands the United States claimed as a territory way out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. A paradise half a world away with sunshine and volcanoes and pineapples. She’d read a book about the islands after she’d seen something in the newspapers about a military base there. She’d told Carl about it. How a man joining the service would have to want to pick that over the military base that was being built up in Greenland. Sunshine and beaches instead of snow and icy winds.

Not that any of that mattered when war clouds were edging ever nearer. The bases were there to protect the mainland. To keep the war away from American shores. But overseas people were dying. That wore on Kate’s mind. Sometimes she couldn’t keep the newsreels of bombs exploding over England and Hitler’s army doing their odd goose-step march from playing over and over in her head. And now Carl might be in those newsreels.

Another sigh escaped her just as her mother stepped up beside her on the porch and put her arm around her waist. “Sorry to see her leaving?”

“No,” Kate said.

Her mother laughed softly. “My honest Kate. I’ve never had to probe beneath your words to see what you were really thinking.”

“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” Kate tried to soften the harshness of her word. “I’m glad Evie’s so happy.”

“And Mike too. He was practically beaming today,” her mother added, tightening her arm around Kate. “He’s been waiting for Evangeline to be ready to walk down the aisle for a couple of years now.”

“She wanted things to be right.”

“That she did. Evangeline always has a picture in her mind of how things should be.”

“Is that bad?” Kate turned to look at her mother in the light spilling out from the front window onto the porch. She had the shadow of a frown on her face as she kept staring at the road where the car had disappeared from sight. A look Kate had seen often enough over the years when her mother was concerned over one of her daughters.

“Not bad, exactly. But I wouldn’t be surprised if she cheats herself out of some happiness now and again when life won’t live up to her expectations. Then again, life can be a stern teacher.” She looked at Kate. “Come sit on the swing a minute.”

The night air was beginning to cool, surrendering the gathered warmth of the October day. For a few minutes, they sat quietly, listening to the crickets and tree frogs that were enjoying the way summer had lingered over into autumn. Kate could hear her father inside, reading to Lorena. She could read any book she picked up now, but she still wanted to be read to every night. Something Daddy loved as much
as Lorena did. Kate concentrated on listening closer for a minute and recognized Jules Verne’s
Around the World in Eighty Days
. The familiar words of the story wrapped around her like a hug as she wondered how many times her father had read that story.

Tori and Sammy were on the couch, listening too. Kate could see them through the window, sitting close, holding hands, belonging together in spite of how different they looked. Sammy with his sandy hair and freckles. Tori with her black hair and ivory skin. At fifteen, she was already prettier than Evie and more settled than Kate. She knew what she wanted in life. To finish school, marry Sammy, and have a family. Until then, what made her happiest was yanking her hair back in a careless ponytail and going fishing with Sammy. She didn’t look into the future and wonder if her life was going to matter. She’d already found what mattered to her. Sammy, home, and family.

Home and family mattered to Kate too. Just sitting beside her mother, watching Tori and hearing her father read to Lorena made her heart swell. She couldn’t imagine not being here, but then that wasn’t exactly true. She could imagine. She was bedeviled with imaginings of what might be. Of what she might be. Or should be. She wanted to be like Tori and be content with her place, but she wasn’t. She was adrift in her own mind, lost on a sea of possibilities that was teeming with difficulties.

Her mother finally broke the silence between them. “I love hearing your father read to Lorena. I fell in love with him while he was reading aloud. I used to tell him that with his voice he could have been an actor.”

“Or a preacher.”

That brought a laugh. “Heaven forbid. I was a preacher’s daughter. I have to admit to being eternally grateful your father never heard the call to preach.”

“Is it that hard to be a preacher’s wife?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Mama set the swing to swaying a bit. “But I’ve often thought to be a good preacher’s wife, a woman needs to have a calling the same as her preacher husband.”

“You think Evie has a calling then?” Kate couldn’t keep the doubt about that out of her voice.

“Not one she’s aware of yet, but the Lord has a way of helping people change. Evangeline has much to learn, but she wants to be a good wife to Mike. Some things might be hard for her at first, but I think she may find a calling in time.” Mama looked out toward the road as if sending a prayer after Evie. “And being a preacher’s wife is surely much different from being a preacher’s daughter. I was never able to please my father, much less his congregation. Mike is very pleased with Evangeline, and his evident love for her will be like the prime for a pump and bring forth love from his church people.”

“People here already love Evie.”

“They won’t stay here.” Kate’s mother spoke the words flatly. “He loves our church, but he’s ready to move on. As is Evangeline.”

“That makes me sad.”

Her mother reached over and squeezed her hand. “One of the sure things in life is change, my dear daughter. Everything changes.”

“Everything?” There, swaying back and forth on the swing with her mother the way she had hundreds of times and hearing her father’s voice reading Jules Verne’s words aloud, it seemed as though nothing would ever change.

“Everything but the Lord. He’s the same yesterday, today, and forevermore, but it’s not like that for us. Even when things seem the same, they’re changing. You girls are getting older, growing toward your futures. Things can happen to change everything.”

“You’re thinking about the war over there.”

“Over there.” Kate’s mother let out a long breath that carried the sound of sadness. “Your father went over there in the war that was to end all wars and now look what’s happening. The whole world has gone to war.”

“Not us. President Roosevelt promised he wouldn’t send our men overseas in a speech just last week.”

“We can only pray he can keep his promise. And maybe we are far enough away from the conflict that we’ll be able to simply change the course of the war by supplying the Allies.” Kate’s mother squeezed her hand again. “But let’s not talk about war. We can’t do anything to change what’s happening right now, and war talk is hard for your father. He can’t stand the thought of the boys having to go fight the way he did.”

Kate lowered her voice to a near whisper. “He won’t start drinking again, will he?”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” her mother said with no hesitation. “I don’t think anything could send him back down that path. Thank the Lord. But the war over there does worry him. Carl today worried him.”

“You and Dad wanted me to marry Carl, didn’t you?”

“No.” Her mother gave her hand a little shake. “Why would you think that?”

“You like Carl.”

“Well, yes, but we would never want you to be tied to a man you didn’t love with all your heart. We just want you to be happy.” Her mother studied her face in the soft light before she went on. “But we did both understand that Carl was upset and nervous about his future. That’s why he did what he did this morning in church, trying to make you feel bad.”

“I did feel bad.”

“I know.”

Again silence fell over them, but this time it didn’t seem quite so easy. The swing’s chains groaned a little under their
weight as they kept it rocking back and forth. Inside Lorena laughed. The sound reached out and made Kate want to be inside with her listening to Daddy read. She sat forward in the swing to stand up, but her mother put a hand on her arm.

“Wait, Kate. We need to talk.”

Kate started to say she thought they had been talking, but it was plain her mother had more to say. Kate flashed back through the day, trying to remember if she’d done something wrong, but nothing came to mind other than Carl. They’d already talked about him. She leaned back, but stayed stiff.

“Don’t act so worried,” her mother said. “I’m not going to fuss at you about anything. You’re an adult and can make your own decisions now.”

“But . . . ,” Kate said for her mother, because she heard the word in her hesitation.

“You’re right. There is more.” Mama pulled her hand away from Kate’s and smoothed the folds in her skirt. It was a way she had of getting her thoughts organized. “Mike talked to me this afternoon while you were at the movies.”

“What about?” Kate asked, but she knew. The same thing Mike had talked to her about that morning in the churchyard.

“Jay.” Mama hesitated again as if waiting for Kate to say something, but Kate stayed silent this time. So after a moment, she went on. “Mike’s worried you might be falling for him and he doesn’t think that’s a good idea.”

“It’s Lorena who’s head over heels. Not me.”

“Lorena does like him. I like him. Your father likes him.”

“It’s only his best friend in life who doesn’t like him.”

“Now, don’t be mean.” Mama gave Kate’s arm a little tap. “Of course, Mike likes Jay. It bothered him to tell me what he did, but he doesn’t want you to get hurt. He says Jay is not the settling-down type. That he has girlfriends in every town he’s been in. And I can see why. A good-looking boy like him.”

“He’s a charmer, for sure,” Kate agreed, careful to keep her voice casual. “That was pretty plain from his first hello here before the wedding.”

“But nobody expected him to stick around after the wedding.”

“Graham talked him into it.”

“And that’s what you have to wonder about.” Mama turned to look straight at Kate in the dim light coming from the window.

Kate met her look. “What do you mean?”

“About what Graham was thinking when he offered him a job and a roof over his head.”

“That he can’t climb ladders like he used to and he wanted to get that house painted before winter?” Kate suggested with a smile.

“That’s a definite possibility.” An answering smile flashed across her mother’s face. “But then it could be he was playing matchmaker.”

“Matchmaker?” Kate frowned a little and shook her head. “Not Graham.”

“I don’t know. Good-looking boy blowing in from somewhere outside of Rosey Corner. A touch of the mysterious to make him more interesting. Carl not right for you in Graham’s eyes.”

“And mine,” Kate said. Then she laughed and grabbed her mother’s hand. “But Graham is no matchmaker. He was just charmed by Jay the same as the rest of us.”

“Us?” Her mother lifted her eyebrows at Kate.

“Well, you. I’ve not been charmed. Simply entertained. And a little surprised. I never expected Jay to stick around Rosey Corner this long either.”