The Scent of Lilacs (24 page)

“Well, I guess it would be better if you were married, wouldn’t it?”

“Oh yeah. Even DeeDee would agree to that one. At least I think she would.”

“And Aunt Love.” Jocie’s eyes got big. “Does she know?”

“Since day one. Figured it out the first time I upchucked my toast.”

“And she didn’t flip out and start quoting Bible verses about thou shalt not or something?”

“No, I don’t get why you complain about Aunt Love. She’s been nothing but sweet to me.”

“And I guess Jezebel—I mean Sugar—purrs when you rub her too.”

“Well, yeah, but what’s that got to do with anything?”

“Nothing. Just curious.”

Tabitha stood up and came over to Jocie. “Maybe you’re just too full of energy for Aunt Love. She doesn’t know what to do with you. Me, I’m older and sort of mellowed out right now, and I think she’s actually excited about me having a baby. Like it could be the grandchild she never had. She must have been lonely a lot. She told me her fiancé got killed in France in the First World War. Said she didn’t want to marry after that. Besides, she had to take care of her father.”

“I thought it was her brother who died in the war.”

“The brother got sick and died on a ship on the way overseas.”

“Oh. How come she’s telling you all this stuff and she’s never told me the first thing about it?”

“You’ve probably never sat still long enough for her to tell you anything.”

“She finds plenty of time to quote me Scripture,” Jocie said.

“That’s different. She’s just trying to help you with those.”

“She beats me over the head with those.” Jocie pulled up her camera. “We’ve got a while before the baby comes, right? I mean, I’ve got to get this film to Wes so we can run the paper.”

“A few months,” Tabitha said with another smile. “Lots of
Banner
issues before then. And time to talk.”

Jocie headed for the pressroom, then turned around. “Is it a secret? I mean, you don’t want me to tell anybody?”

“It’s okay if you let it slip to Wes, if that’s what you mean. He probably already knows anyway. Doesn’t much get past him. You weren’t doing a baby prayer, were you?”

“Nope. Just a sister prayer, but I guess I’d better start with a baby prayer now. What do you want me to pray?”

Tabitha put her hands on her belly. “That she’ll be healthy and happy and look like me.”

“Why? Was her father ugly or something?”

“No, he looked fine, but he didn’t want her. And I do, so it only seems fair that she look like me, don’t you think?”

“I guess so. I’m glad you want your baby, Tabitha.”

“Why?”

“Because all babies should be wanted by their mothers.”

“You’re thinking about DeeDee, aren’t you?”

“Maybe.” Jocie shrugged. “It just seems funny that she’d take you and not even say good-bye to me.”

“DeeDee’s not much on good-byes. And she wasn’t planning to take me. I just woke up and caught her packing. She told me to go back to bed, but I went out and got in the car.”

“But she let you go. She would have pushed me out of the car.”

“You wouldn’t have gotten in the car to begin with, Jocie. You wouldn’t have left Dad.” Tabitha reached out and hugged Jocie. “Besides, you were the lucky one.”

“I know.” Jocie pulled away from Tabitha and said, “I really have to get this film started developing or we’ll never get the paper going.”

“Sure, go ahead. I’ll just sit here and watch to see if Dad and that Leigh woman come back holding hands.”

“They were that friendly?”

Tabitha grinned. “Not then, but maybe by now.”

Jocie stopped at the pressroom door. “You know, you could have just told us you were married. That your husband died in some kind of freak accident or something. We’d have never known the difference.”

“That’s what DeeDee told me to do. Said to think up some kind of story on the way across the country. She’d have done it in a minute. Said sometimes lies saved everybody a lot of trouble. But I guess I have too much of Dad in me. I mean, I haven’t been to church since I left here, but that’s one of the big things, isn’t it? Don’t lie.”

“Thou shalt not bear false witness.” Jocie made a face. “Oh no, I’m sounding like Aunt Love.”

“So anyway, while I don’t know exactly why the Lord should pay any attention to anything I want, I do want him to bless my baby, and how could I ask that if I was lying to everybody? Am I making any sense?”

“God will pay attention, Tabitha. Get Aunt Love to quote you her verses about praying. She’s got some good ones. ‘Ask and it shall be given you’ and things like that. I’ve been paying more attention since Zeb and you showed up.”

Tabitha laughed again. “I don’t know whether I should be mad or glad about being paired with a dog.”

“A dog from Jupiter.”

Tabitha rolled her eyes. “And I thought it was crazy in California with everybody saying love conquers all.”

“God’s love does. Just ask Dad.”

“You keep giving me things to ask, I’m going to have to take notes.”

Jocie disappeared through the door into the pressroom, and Tabitha settled back into the chair by the window. She stared out at the street. The traffic was still blocked off Main, and the sound of the speeches echoed up from in front of the courthouse. She listened but couldn’t make out the first word. She could have walked down there, but then people would be looking at her as if she had two heads and telling her how great it was that she was home while they wondered why she was. Nobody came back to Hollyhill from California.

She’d already been the focus of a lot of stares in through the window, and two girls who said they’d gone to school with her had come in to say hello. That was about all they knew to say, and after an awkward exchange of “It’s great to have you back” and “It’s great to be back,” they were glad to get back to the parade.

Tabitha hadn’t known them. Even after they’d told her their names, nothing but a foggy almost-memory came to mind. She’d been gone too long, gone to too many different schools with too many different kids. But they had expected her to know them as if she had been frozen in time the way Hollyhill had.

She’d ridden across the country through a time tunnel and had ended up in Hollyhill not more than a week or two after she left. The storefronts still needed paint. The same cracks she’d jumped over to keep from breaking her mother’s back as a kid still ran across the sidewalks. Even some of the people seemed frozen in time. Zella with her tight, windproof curls and Wes with black ink still imbedded under his fingernails. Mayor Palmor with a few more pounds around his middle but with the same running-for-office handshake.

Of course, she wasn’t the same. Or Jocie. She could hear Jocie and Wes back in the pressroom, and she thought about going back to see them, but that rank ink odor might be bad for her baby. Tabitha wrapped her hands around her belly and rocked back and forth. She would be a good mother, a loving mother, a mother who wanted to be a mother. A mother who kept secrets that didn’t need to be told. She wouldn’t be anything like DeeDee.

Somebody tapped on the window, and Tabitha almost fell out of her chair. A man had his nose pressed against the glass peering in. When Tabitha jumped, he opened his mouth to show no teeth and laughed without making any sound. Lines traced ridges on the weathered skin of his face through the stubble of gray whiskers, but his brown eyes were surprisingly bright. His green shirt flopped loosely around his shoulders. He stepped back from the window and brought the guitar on his back around to strum the strings a couple of times. Then he pointed at the door, almost as if he were a kid asking her to come out to play.

He was older and grayer, but just like everything else about Hollyhill, the same. A name floated up out of her memory. Sallie.
When she was a little girl, she’d been afraid of him and curious at the same time. She’d edged up close to her father’s leg whenever he stopped to listen to Sallie playing his guitar on the street. When they went on up the street, she’d ask her father questions. “Where’s his teeth, Daddy? Why are there quarters in his hat? Is his name really Sallie? Isn’t that a funny name for a man? What is that stinky smell?”

When she got older, she always crossed to the other side of the street when she spotted Sallie playing his guitar with his hat beside him for donations. He always sang louder when he saw her, and any quarters she had in her pocket got heavier. But she never crossed the street to drop any money into his hat.

She felt in her pocket now, but she hadn’t brought any money. Not even a quarter. But he was still grinning at her and pointing at the door, so she got up and opened it. He didn’t wait for her to come outside. He came inside and without the first hello or how are you went right to singing. “Tabitha Jane, Tabitha same. Tabitha Lee, Tabitha free. Tabitha Rose, Tabitha nose.” And then he reached toward her nose with a pinch. She moved her head back quickly. He just laughed again and started in on “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” one of his favorites from years before. His voice wavered a bit, but it just made the ballad sound truer.

“I don’t have any money, Sallie,” she said when he paused between verses. It only seemed fair to warn him that he was singing for nothing.

He just grinned bigger and kept singing. Jocie came out of the pressroom to save her. “I thought I heard old Sallie out here. Are you singing for your paper?” She handed him one of last week’s Banners. “We haven’t got the new one out yet. We’re late because of the parade. Come back in the morning, and we’ll have this week’s issue ready.”

Sallie took the old paper. “Old news is still good news,” he sang.

Jocie looked over at Tabitha. “Sallie wants to be in the know when he’s singing out the news on the streets of Hollyhill.” Jocie looked back at the old man. “Sallie knows everybody’s secrets, don’t you, Sallie?”

The old man strummed his guitar and hummed a couple of minutes before singing, “Sallie knows, but Sallie don’t tell. Not in Hollyhill.”

“Oh, the songs Sallie could sing if Sallie did,” Jocie sang.

Tabitha kept smiling, but she wished she was on the other side of the street. The old man was staring at her, still grinning that stupid toothless grin, but it was as if he were pulling things out of her mind without her permission. And the smell was getting stronger. Just like she remembered. She put her hand over her nose.

He laughed again as he tucked the paper up under his arm, slung his guitar around behind him, and went out the door singing, “Rock-a-bye, baby.”

Her baby did a flip inside her, and Tabitha felt faint. “How did he know that?”

“He probably just saw a baby down the street and had the song in his head. You never know what old Sallie will sing next. But it was kind of weird, wasn’t it? Me talking about him knowing secrets and then him singing that.”

“Does he really know secrets? I remember him, but I don’t remember him telling fortunes or anything.”

“He doesn’t. I just tease him about knowing secrets because he stands out there on the street watching people and eavesdropping when he gets a chance and then sometimes makes up songs about what he hears.”

“Is he going to make up a song about me?” Tabitha turned even paler under her tan.

“Not one anybody could put a face to. He’ll probably just sing the Yellow Rose of Texas is having a baby, or maybe just sing
Rock-a-Bye, Baby, California T.” Jocie frowned at Tabitha. “You look funny. Maybe you’d better sit down.”

“I’m fine,” Tabitha said, but she let Jocie guide her to the chair. “Aunt Love says expecting will make you feel light-headed sometimes.”

Jocie frowned again. “How would she know?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she read a book about it or something.”

“I guess. But anyway, you don’t have to worry about Sallie. He’s harmless. Really. He wouldn’t hurt a flea. I followed him around and wrote a story about him last year. Dad wouldn’t print it, said it might upset some of his subscribers putting Sallie on the front page. But he did put his picture in the middle along with the lyrics of one of his songs I wrote down. It was good.”

“What was it about?”

“I don’t remember. Something about the rain washing all his blues away or Hollyhill away or something away. It’s probably still around here if you wanted to dig through the back issues to find it.”

“I’m not that interested.”

“Don’t they have characters like Sallie out in California?”

“Sure, worse than him, but you don’t know them out there. You just walk past them like they’re nothing more than another trash can.”

“That sounds kind of mean. I thought you said everybody was all into love out there.”

“Some of the people I hung out with talked a lot about it, but it’s easy to say love. It’s harder to do love.”

“Oh, it’s not all that hard to love Sallie the way the Bible says we’re supposed to love one another. Now, giving him a hug—that would be harder. Lots harder.” Jocie picked up another paper and waved it through the air toward the screen door. “When Zella’s here, she has her air freshener out and ready before poor old Sallie can get through the door.”

After Jocie disappeared back into the pressroom, Tabitha scooted her chair back away from the window. She didn’t want anybody else peeking in at her. She wanted to hide out in the shadows as long as possible.