L
eigh stared at the presents spread out on her kitchen table with dismay. The blue Hollyhill Tigers sweatshirt for Jocie. Three rolls of film and some flashbulbs to go with the camera David was buying for Tabitha. The navy blue purse for Aunt Love. The tie and tie clasp for David. All practical, sensible gifts. Even the wooden blocks for Stephen Lee shouted sensible.
Leigh had vowed not to be sensible. She had determined to be extravagant and generous this Christmas. To buy things nobody needed. To only buy things people wanted. She thought she had been, but now looking at the presents in their boxes ready to be wrapped, she realized she hadn’t been able to shake free of her practical bent.
It was no wonder she hadn’t once been able to find a way to tell David out loud that she loved him. Three little words shouldn’t be all that hard to say.
I love you.
All she had to do was open her mouth and let them out. There was no written-down rule that said the man had to say the words first, and even if there was, she could break it. But now looking at her practical presents she knew her problem. She couldn’t be daring. It wasn’t in her makeup. She couldn’t even buy a daring Christmas gift.
A tie, for heaven’s sake. What kind of gift was that for the man she loved? What difference did it make that she wasn’t sure he loved her back? She could still love him. She could still tell him so in words. She could still show him so with a real Christmas gift. But not with a tie. Even if it was red.
Leigh put the tops on the boxes and set all of them aside except Jocie’s gift. She measured out the wrapping paper for the box holding the sweatshirt. She wasn’t wrapping any of the other gifts. Jocie was coming Thursday morning to make chocolate fudge and wrap presents. Since Leigh was off work because it was Christmas Eve and Jocie was out of school till the New Year rolled around, Leigh had told Jocie they might as well join forces and have some fun. Besides, Leigh wanted to ask Jocie her opinion of the tie. To see if she thought it was too bright for David to wear. Now Leigh wanted to just throw the tie away.
She wanted to throw all the gifts away and start all over. Except for her parents’ gifts that were already wrapped and under her tree in the next room. They would be upset by anything other than sensible and practical. Her mother would be happy with the soft house shoes and the pink, flowered snap-up-the-front housedress. As well she should be since she’d picked them out when they went shopping. Her father really didn’t care what he got for Christmas as long as the day got over with quickly so he could go back to playing golf whenever the sun pushed back winter a bit or, if the weather kept him off the course, then sitting around out at the club drinking coffee and talking about playing golf with his buddies.
She finished taping the red foil paper around Jocie’s gift. Of course she couldn’t throw the gifts away. Not and be who she was. She couldn’t even throw away her stockings when they got a runner in them. She had to save them to wear under her slacks, or if the runner was too bad for that, to stuff pillows or something. She’d never made the first pillow, but when and if she did, she had plenty of old stockings for stuffing.
Leigh curled a long piece of white ribbon to fasten on top of Jocie’s present and then made herself a cup of tea. Her throat was feeling scratchy and her head hurt. She hoped she wasn’t catching something. Not now. Not with Christmas Eve on Thursday and here it was already Tuesday. Earlier that night after they had finished folding the
Banner
for delivery the next day, David had told her he was planning something special for them on Thursday night. He wouldn’t say what. Said it was a surprise.
She wouldn’t allow a cold to surprise her. Not that it would be all that much of a surprise. People had been coming in to the clerk’s office all week hacking and sneezing while they leaned on the counter and waited for her to handle whatever business they had.
She didn’t have time for a cold. Christmas was almost here. She and Zella were exchanging gifts over lunch tomorrow. At least Zella’s present wasn’t a bit practical. Four romance novels with covers showing heroes in white cotton shirts unbuttoned to reveal their chests as they clutched the beautiful long-haired heroines. Before she’d wrapped them last week, Leigh had leafed through a couple of the books and wondered how it would feel to be so beautiful that men fought for your favor.
Never, even in her wildest dreams, had she ever imagined men fighting over her. Maybe that was her problem. Maybe she should have wilder dreams. Then she wouldn’t be too sensible. Too practical. Still single into her thirties. Past the age of wildest dreams.
But who said a girl couldn’t keep dreaming? She was still dreaming and hadn’t her dreams gotten wilder every month since July until now she had a date with a wonderful man on Christmas Eve? Until now she was thinking—no, planning a way to say
I love you
.
She put her finger under her nose to stifle a sneeze. She would not catch a cold. She would take an extra hour for lunch tomorrow. She had some vacation time built up. She had money in the bank. She could still go shopping.
The next day Leigh took off at eleven and headed uptown. She passed up the hardware store and the ten-cent store. She didn’t even look toward the shoe store or Pelham’s Men’s Store. She headed straight for the Jewelry Center, the only store in Hollyhill that held out any promise of frivolous spending.
When she stepped through the door and set off the bell, Rollin Caruthers looked up at her and smiled clear across his face. “Miss Leigh, what a pleasure,” he said as if he already knew she had frivolous spending on her mind. “What can I help you with? Perhaps size a ring for you?”
Leigh frowned a little and looked at the class ring on her right hand. “You mean because I’ve lost weight?”
Rollin looked sort of flustered as he waved his hands in the air at her. “Oh yes, of course. Losing weight can make rings too loose. Make them slip right off your fingers.”
Leigh held up her hand and shook it. The ring slipped up to her knuckle but didn’t come off. “I think it’s okay, but it’s nice of you to notice I’ve lost weight.”
“Yes, indeed. You are looking especially nice these days,” Rollin said and that seemed to fluster him even more. “I mean that’s what the missus said.”
“How sweet of her! Please be sure to tell her thank you for me,” Leigh said before she looked down into the jewelry cases. “No, I’m just doing some last-minute shopping.”
“Oh, wonderful. Did you have anything in mind? Perhaps something for a certain gentleman I know?”
Leigh blushed as it was her turn to feel flustered. Then she laughed and said, “How did you guess?”
Thirty minutes later she walked out of the Jewelry Center with a charm bracelet for Jocie, a locket for Tabitha, and a watch for David. A watch wasn’t exactly frivolous, but it was the closest she could come. After all, he didn’t need one. Rollin had told her David had just brought his watch in to be cleaned and it was in perfect working order, but Leigh didn’t care. She’d looked straight at Rollin and said, “Well, now he’ll have two.”
“Yes, yes, indeed. And such a fine watch too. Would you like to have something engraved on the back? The date perhaps? His initials?” Rollin had raised his eyebrows a little at her. “Both your initials?”
And so she’d had the chance to be wild and crazy after all. “How much can you put on there?” she’d asked.
Rollin had turned the watch over and looked at its smooth silver back. “Whatever you want. Do you know his favorite Bible verse? You could put the Scripture reference.”
“Initials. DB. Then ‘love always’ followed by the initials LJ.”
She had hardly even blushed as Rollin had said, “That should work fine. I’ll stay open a few minutes late so you can pick it up when you get off work today.”
Leigh had wanted to kiss him. She thought maybe she should have as she went back out on the street and headed to the Grill for her luncheon date with Zella. If she was going to start being wild and crazy, she might as well go whole hog.
At the Grill, Zella was settled in their usual booth with coffee cups and menus already on the table in front of her. As Leigh smiled and headed toward her, a man stepped into her path.
“Leigh. How are you?” the man said as if they were old friends.
He looked familiar, but then everybody in Hollyhill looked familiar. They all had to come into the courthouse several times a year to conduct some sort of business. No name came to mind, but he’d called her Leigh. It must be somebody she was supposed to know. She smiled and said, “I’m fine. And you?”
“I’m absolutely great. School let out for Christmas vacation yesterday.” He pushed black-framed glasses up closer to his face and smiled. “People don’t think we should be glad about that, but the truth is, most teachers are happier even than our students when we get some days away from the enfants terribles.”
“I guess everybody likes a few days off.” Now Leigh remembered him. He was the teacher who’d been with Jocie the day Leigh picked her up to make cookies. Edwin Hammond. The new English teacher who was giving Jocie fits. Leigh smiled back at him. He was tall and slim, probably around Leigh’s age. Perhaps even younger. And handsome in an offbeat way.
There had been a lot of talk about him ever since he’d been hired to fill in for Janice Wickers after the doctors made her go to bed to keep from losing her baby. He was always telling everybody he was going to write the next great American novel and an author could never have too much material stored up. Who knew? Perhaps one of these days they could be reading about themselves. Somehow, after meeting Edwin Hammond, few of Hollyhill’s citizens expected to like what they might read.
Leigh hadn’t actually ever officially met him. Just seen him that day on the steps of the school. Jocie didn’t like him. She said the man was strange. And unfair, mean, unfeeling, callous, malicious. She’d gone through a whole thesaurus list of unattractive traits. After Jocie’s article about him came out in the
Banner
, the teacher had started tearing her papers apart. She said the man could probably even find fault with Shakespeare or the writers of the Bible, and the only kids he liked at school were the cute girls.
Jocie didn’t put herself in that category, although Leigh thought she could. Jocie was sure the teacher had it in for her, whatever
it
was. And Leigh couldn’t say she was wrong since Mr. Hammond had already called David twice about Jocie’s behavior in his class. Zella had reported that to Leigh with a good measure of satisfaction since Zella had long thought Jocie needed more discipline.
So now, although Leigh couldn’t imagine why the man had stepped so purposely into her path, she took the chance to study him. With his black hair combed back from his face and his angular features, he could have stepped off the cover of one of Zella’s gothic romances. Half the girls at the high school probably had a crush on him.
Maybe that was Jocie’s problem. Maybe she did have a crush on him, and that was what kept getting her into trouble with him. But it hadn’t sounded like that. It had sounded more as if Jocie thought the man had horns sprouting under his black hair.
“You do know who I am, don’t you, Leigh?” The teacher smiled down at her and put his hand on her arm. Leigh wasn’t sure if it was the smile or his touching her that made her uncomfortable, but something did. She shifted her arm away from his hand and forced herself to keep smiling back at him. “Of course. The new English teacher at the high school. Mr. Hammond.”
“Please call me Edwin or even Ed. I hear Mr. Hammond this and Mr. Hammond that way too much at school.”
“Well then, Edwin,” she said. Behind him Zella was peering at them over the top of her glasses. “It’s been nice talking to you, but I’m late for my luncheon date. So if you’ll excuse me.”
“Excuse you?” Edwin laughed. “That’s what the little girls at school are always saying when they need to go wee wee. They wave their hands in the air and bounce up and down in their seats, saying ‘Can I be excused, Mr. Hammond?’ It’s hilarious.”
Leigh’s polite smile disappeared as she started to step past him. “As I said, I’m late.”
He reached out to stop her, but she stepped back out of his reach. “Do forgive me, Leigh. I didn’t mean to offend your sensibilities. I keep forgetting that you people out here in the boonies don’t have much sense of humor.”
“I’m sure I’ll laugh later. Goodbye, Mr. Hammond.” She moved on past him to slip into the booth across from Zella.
“What was that all about?” Zella asked.
“Who knows? He’s that new English teacher.”
“I know who he is,” Zella said. “But what did he want?”
“Beats me. To talk, I guess.”
“About Jocelyn?”
“No. He didn’t mention Jocie.” Leigh unfolded her napkin and put it in her lap.
“Hmph.” Zella mashed her mouth together and her eyes narrowed as she stared past Leigh toward the front of the restaurant.
Leigh took a quick glance over her shoulder to where Edwin Hammond was sitting back down at his table. He caught her looking at him and smiled and waved a little. Leigh pretended she didn’t see him as she turned back to Zella.
“He must have been flirting with you,” Zella was saying. “He’s single, you know.”
“Flirting with me? That’s ridiculous.”
Zella looked at Leigh. “Not so ridiculous. You’re looking very nice today. Practically glowing.”
“Yeah, like Rudolph. I’m afraid I’m catching a cold.” Leigh sneezed to prove it. She sat her gift up on the table to make Zella quit talking about Edwin Hammond flirting with her. Surely that wasn’t true. For sure, she didn’t want it to be true. Jocie was right. The man was just too strange.
J
ocie’s father dropped her off at Leigh’s apartment Thursday morning before he went on to the
Banner
offices. Jocie would have just as soon gone on to the office to help him and Wes work on some of the pages for next week’s
Banner
, but Leigh had wanted her to come so much. And she owed Leigh some time. Leigh was always doing stuff for her. Taking her shopping. Helping her cook something.