The Fragrance of Geraniums (A Time of Grace Book 1) (15 page)

The substitute’s
eyes fixed on Grace’s golden hair, shining like a buttercup under the school’s
lighting.
For heaven’s sake, what in the world?
Paulie waited, barely
breathing, to see what would come next.

“Is that a…”
Again, Mr. Crookshank’s voice faded away as he squinted at Grace’s bowed head.
“It is!” he announced at last, as if he had discovered a new continent peopled
with cannibals. “It is! It’s a
louse
!”

The classroom
erupted into laughter again, and Paulie watched, horrified, as Grace turned
redder than a robin’s breast. If she shrank any deeper into her desk chair,
she’d become part of it. Paulie glared at the substitute.

Mr. Crookshank,
however, had no interest in Paulie’s anger. He gripped Grace’s elbow, forcing
her to her feet and moving toward the classroom door. Her face was a frozen
mask of horror. “Young lady, you march straight down to the office, and you
tell them that they are to check you thoroughly for lice.”

With that, he
pushed Grace briskly out the door.

I
can’t believe
that just happened.
Grace shook in the empty corridor. She could hear the laughter quieting down
within the classroom from which she’d just been ejected.
They were all
laughing at me.
Her cheeks burned so badly that she touched them with her
icy hands to see if they were really on fire.

The slap with
the ruler hadn’t bothered her. It wasn’t fair; after all, Ruth Ann had also
been passing notes, and she’d gotten away with it. But Grace would’ve just
taken that patiently and gotten on with her day.

But
lice!
She wandered aimlessly down the hall a few steps before coming to a numb halt.
She laid her head against the cool tiled walls.
Why’d he have to announce it
like that?
Her fingers found her scalp and scraped through the hair, glad
to feel the physical pain.

I can’t. I’m not
going back.
She
sniffed away the tears pushing at the back of her eyes and gritted her teeth.
Mama
was right. I don’t belong in school anymore. Ben was wrong. I don’t have any
other choices. Sometimes… Sometimes, you have to settle, Ben.

It felt like a
day of death as she went over to her locker, touching the metal door for the
last time. She made sure that she had all her books and pencils before closing
the locker with a clink that echoed in the empty hall.
Like closing a
coffin,
she thought.
Except there’s nobody in it. Like me. Nobody.

Grace paid no mind
this time to the flop of her shoes as she made her way to the office.
I’ll
return my books. Say that Mama needs me at home right now ’cause of the baby
coming.

After wiping
away those first tears, Grace couldn’t say what she felt. Happy? Certainly not.
Fated? Perhaps… And there was a morbid comfort in knowing you were fated to be
miserable, that it wasn’t just chance, after all.

She was reaching
out her still-stinging hand toward the worn brass knob of the office’s
varnished oak door when she heard a familiar voice call out softly, “Grace! Grace,
wait up.”

As she turned
reluctantly, Paulie dashed down the hallway toward her, dark hair bouncing as
he ran. He slid to a stop right in front of her, breathing deep. Grace dropped
her eyes, staring down at her saggy stockings. Her hands went to her hair,
tucking it behind her ears.
He probably laughed at me, too.

He stood there
silently for just a moment, then said in that straightforward way of his, “I’m
sorry that guy did that to you, Grace.”

She looked up to
see real sincerity shining out of his face. His mouth bore a sympathetic smile,
which Grace found her own lips returning, albeit with timidity.

“Thanks,” she
said softly. “You better get back to class.” Without waiting for his answer, Grace
turned back to the office door.
I’ll probably never see Paulie again.
Grace
couldn’t help the little sigh her heart gave.

“I can’t,”
Paulie said, reaching around her to get the door knob.

She turned
curious eyes toward him. “Can’t what?” she asked.

“Can’t go back
to class yet,” he answered, grinning this time. “Gotta go to the office
myself.”

She tilted her
head at him, puzzled. What’d he do in such a short time to get sent to the
office?

“Lice,” he
smiled. “I got dozens of them. Crawling all over my head.”

Grace’s mouth
fell open.

“Fact is,” said
Paulie, pulling open the door, “you probably caught them from me. I told the
sub that I felt them creeping. In fact, I think the whole class will have to be
checked.”

“But…” Grace couldn’t
find a response. Paulie told the substitute he’d found something in his own
hair?
Dozens of them,
according to him. She felt gratitude for this
strange act of mercy, for she knew Paulie didn’t have bugs and she knew that
she most likely did.

“Come on,” he
said before Grace could say anything more. “We gotta get our heads checked
before we go back to class.” And he gave her a wink as she passed in front of
him.

H
is coffee had
long since cooled off, gathering a white film of cream across the liquid’s top.
But holding the paper cup gave Geoff something to do with his hands, a
necessity. The anxiety he felt now surpassed the feeling he’d had on the
morning of his wedding. But that nervousness had grown from joyful expectation,
whereas this found its root in raw fear. Fear to which Geoff Kinner did not
want to admit.

The waiting room
held half a dozen other anxious relatives of those in surgery. Some, like
Geoff, nursed a cup of coffee or tea; others pretended to read the newspaper,
drowning out their terror with trivialities.

He traced his
finger along the top of the cup once more, then got to his feet and walked over
to the receptionist’s desk. The seated older woman barely glanced up.

“Mr. Kinner,”
she said, “I’ve told you three times now. When your wife’s procedure is over,
we will let you know.”

Geoff nodded
numbly. He’d just found his way back to his seat when the door swung open. He
sprang to his feet, but the man in scrubs wasn’t Doctor Giorgi after all. This surgeon
pulled down his mask and sat next to a young woman who clutched her gloves too tightly
in her lap.

Geoff watched
them openly, the stress of the waiting room liberating his normally polite
nature. Though he couldn’t hear what the doctor said to her, he saw tears fill
the young woman’s eyes. She fumbled about for a handkerchief in her black
purse, finding it at last. She wiped her wet eyes and stood with the doctor.
Geoff observed them as they went through the swinging door.

Something went
wrong with that surgery.
Was it for her husband? Her mother?

His thoughts
returned to Emmeline, even now undergoing the procedure.
Her eyes must be
closed as in death. O Lord, do not let her die.

Yet the prayer
felt somewhat hollow, and he wondered if Anyone listened at all. Emmeline had
said to him that God would not give them a stone for bread.
But didn’t He?
We prayed for a child, and the Lord gave us a child, but He planted it
without much thought.

Either God
wasn’t listening very well or He didn’t care very much.
In either case, prayer
will do no good.
Geoff sank his head into his hands. But he prayed anyway
because he had promised Emmeline he would. And because he was afraid of what
God might do next if he didn’t.

T
he sun had long
since sunken low in the autumn sky, heavy as an overripe orange on its branch,
when Doctor Samuel Giorgi pushed open the door and entered the waiting room.
Geoff had never seen his friend right after a surgery, and he felt some
surprise at how tired he appeared. Sam’s eyes sank deeply into their red-rimmed
sockets, and his olive-toned cheeks looked bleached; his creased forehead had
deepened its lines.

He spotted Geoff
right away, at the same moment that Geoff picked up his head from its cradle in
his hands. Geoff jumped to his feet with the arthritic quickness of one who has
sat for too long a time. He met his friend halfway across the room. “How is
she, Sam?”

Sam didn’t
smile, but Geoff knew that wasn’t unusual for him. The doctor took his job with
acute seriousness, which trait Geoff figured had made Sam the best regional
surgeon in his field. “She’s in the recovery room,” he replied, his square chin
bumping against the surgical mask he’d already pulled down.

“Why did the
procedure take so long?” Geoff couldn’t help but ask.

Sam paused,
hands burrowing deep into his surgical coat pockets. “We couldn’t stop the
bleeding with curettage alone. I had to perform a hysterectomy to prevent the
hemorrhaging from becoming fatal.”

A hysterectomy…
Emmeline would be devastated when she awoke.
This is the end of the road for
us to have children. There’s no chance anymore.
He kept his eyes on the
floor, memorizing the pattern of miniature pink-and-gray tiles at his feet as
tears blurred his vision.

Geoff felt the
doctor’s hand fall on his shoulder and squeeze it with firm gentleness. The
gesture of compassion released the floodgates in Geoff; his eyes welled with
tears before he could make any attempt to control himself. Blinded, he stood,
shoulders shaking, hands covering his face as he wept. And he knew then
something of the Heavenly Father’s grief when He, too, lost His only Son.

“May I see her?”
Geoff asked at last. “I… should be the one to tell her.”

“W
alk you home, Grace?”

The gladness
outweighed the dread for the first time as Grace heard Paulie’s voice behind
her. She picked up the rest of her books from the locker shelf and turned
toward him. “Sure, that’d be alright, I guess,” she answered, a little smile
creeping up on her face.

“I figure we’ve
got time to amble since Mr. K. cancelled the choir.” Paulie grinned at her.
“Guess that wasn’t all bad, was it? I get to walk you home now.”

Grace couldn’t prevent
her heart from picking up speed. But she would be careful. Paulie most likely
didn’t know from what kind of family she came; he’d only moved to town a couple
of years ago. She took in his brand-spanking-new sweater and neatly-ironed
trousers, his shined-up shoes.
Paulie comes from a whole different planet.

He fell in step
with her as she shut her locker, and then he grabbed her books, bestowing
plenty of his wide grins.
He smiles at everyone,
Grace told herself.

Not like he does
at you,
her inner voice replied. She promptly ignored that voice and straightened her
cardigan, hoping Paulie wouldn’t notice the growing holes in both of the
elbows.

“So,” Paulie
began as they stepped into the fresh autumn air, “are you going to let me
really walk you home this time, or are you going take your books back halfway
there and hightail it?”

Grace felt the
blood leave her face. It was true; each of the half-dozen times Paulie had
insisted on walking her home, she’d stopped a good half-mile before the
turn-off path. She’d always made the excuse that she had to hurry; she had
chores, and Mama wouldn’t want to be kept waiting.

“Where do you
live, anyway?” Paulie asked now, and Grace sure was glad that he couldn’t hear
the pounding of her heart.

“Uh… just
through Main Street, over the hill.” She hoped – no, she prayed – he wouldn’t
press for a more exact location.
I shouldn’t have let him walk me home.
But she couldn’t very well say no to a boy who’d let the school nurse treat him
for lice just for her sake.

Paulie nodded. “You
live on Main Street, then?” They stepped up onto the sidewalk that began right
after the school’s tiny parking lot.

“Uh, yeah,
sort-of,” she half-lied, swallowing down her guilt like castor oil. Let Paulie
think she lived in one of those grand, newly-built homes near the center of
town. Better for him to believe that fib than for him to know the truth: that
the Picolettis resided in a ramshackle brick farmhouse that her father could
care less to repair because his mind was on his mistress.

“The church Dad
and I go to is on Main Street. First Baptist,” Paulie commented as one of their
teachers pedaled by them, astride her shiny black bicycle. Her textbooks sat
primly in the basket attached to the handlebars.

“That looks like
fun.” Grace remarked, watching the teacher fly down the sidewalk, the feather
on her small hat bobbing to-and-fro.

Paulie stopped
short. “Haven’t you ever ridden a bicycle?” he asked, squinting in the bright
mid-afternoon sunlight.

“Yeah, of course,”
Grace responded, not liking the surprise she detected in his voice. “Well,
once, when my cousins from Massachusetts came.” That had been when she was five
years old and she’d only gotten to sit on the handlebars while Ben pedaled, but
Grace figured it still counted.

“Don’t have one
yourself?” Paulie asked, shifting the books from one arm to the other.

“No,” Grace
answered, pulling her cardigan more tightly closed and wishing the bottom
button hadn’t fallen off. What’d he think, everybody was rich? Was he trying to
make fun of her or something?

But he wasn’t.
“Wanna come over and ride mine sometime?” he offered, and Grace let her
defenses lower just a little.

“What’ll you
ride if I’m riding your bike?” she asked cautiously as they turned onto Main
Street and Grace caught sight of her brother Cliff popping into the Old Man
Turner’s candy store with a gang of his buddies.
Probably leaching off them,
she figured.
That one’s got no pride.
But she couldn’t really blame
Cliff; the last time she’d had a sweet was when Ben had brought the chocolate
babies weeks back.

Paulie shrugged.
“Dad’s got a bike. I can always borrow his. Wanna come over tomorrow after
school?”

“Why?” The
question popped out of Grace’s mouth before she thought about it. Followed, of
course, by a blush to beat the band. Good thing that Paulie had several inches
on her; it made it that much harder for him to glimpse her scarlet cheeks.

“Whaddaya mean,
why?” Paulie laughed and shook his head like she made no sense at all.

A very nice
laugh,
Grace thought even as she scrambled for an explanation.

But she needn’t
have worried. Paulie kept talking; that was surely the Italian in him. “Cause I
think you’re swell, Grace Picoletti. And I want to spend some time with you,
but you’re always rushing off to get something or other done after school. So
if luring you with a bicycle is the only way to get you to stop a minute, I’ll
happily offer you a bicycle ride!”

He means that.
He really means it.
The smile spread slowly over Grace’s lips even as Paulie’s words sank into her
soul. They’d come to a stop on the sidewalk without meaning to, and an old man
carrying a crate full of apples nearly crashed into them. “Watch it, kids!” the
man barked, giving them a glare.

“Sorry, sir.” Paulie
pulled Grace to the side of the walk, and the old man hobbled on his way.
Paulie waited until they could no longer hear his grumbling before turning back
to Grace. “So how about it? Tomorrow after school?” He raised his eyebrows
expectantly.

But no. Grace
wouldn’t let him persuade her. Beneath that dimply grin, deep inside those warm
eyes, Paulie was a man – well, he would be one soon.
Like Papa.
Mama had
always said Papa had been the perfect gentleman when she met him. Had promised
her the world. Mama had accepted Papa’s offers, first of a soda downtown, later
of dates in the moonlight, and finally his proposal of marriage.

I ain’t gonna
become like Mama.
Grace forced the smile off her face and shook her head. “I can’t.” The words
hurt her, but she would buck up and bear it.
Look at the stars, canary…

“Why not? Just
for a little while?” Paulie appealed, frowning slightly.

See, he’s just
like other men. Now he’ll get mad at me ‘cause he didn’t get his way.
But Grace would
stand her ground, unlike Mama. “No,” she stated.
I don’t owe him an
explanation.
She saw her books tucked under Paulie’s arm. “Here, gimme my
books. I gotta get home.” She raised her chin, waiting for his anger to shoot
out at her.

Yet it didn’t.
Paulie nodded and slowly handed her the books. “You sure? That’s a lot of
books; they’re heavy. I’d like to carry them for you.” Instead of irritation,
friendly concern spread over his countenance.

“I’ve carried them
before,” Grace replied, marveling at how firm she could be when she tried. She
ignored the pain in her heart. Taking the stack from him, she cradled the books
in her arms.

“Oke-dokey,”
Paulie said, serious-faced.
But not mad.
“I’ll see you in school
tomorrow.”

Grace couldn’t
help but feel a bit of pity for him. But she wouldn’t let it show. “See you,”
she answered, short and sour as a baby dill pickle. Turning on the dusty
sidewalk, she dashed toward home.

She didn’t let
herself look back until her feet had carried her a good block away.

Paulie was gone.