The Road to Testament

by Eva Marie Everson

  The young woman turned her head toward me, and her eyes registered surprise as though she really had not seen me at all. “Oh, I’m sorry.” She pinked, leaving me to wonder if she might be embarrassed at my having caught her flirting with a patron. “I—I didn’t—William doesn’t usually—”

  Will cleared his throat. He rested his hand on one knee and slanted his eyes playfully toward the young woman. “I don’t usually come in with anyone.” He glanced my way. “Brianna, this is Ashlynne Rothschild. She’s from Winter Park, Florida, and she’s going to be working with us down at the paper for the next few months.”

  The young woman—who I’d say was no more than twenty-five—gave a smile I couldn’t read as genuine or not.

  “Actually,” I interjected, “I’ll be working to resurrect the old magazine.”

  “What old magazine?” Brianna asked William.

  “An old magazine our grandparents started together way back when,” Will answered before I had a chance.

  “Hunting Tea Parties,” I said without thinking.

  Both Will and Brianna looked at me as though my spaceship had just landed.

  “What?” Brianna asked, the word sounding more like “whuuuuut?”

  Will shook his head. “Hunting Grounds & Garden Parties,” he said to me. Then to Brianna, “It’s a look at all aspects of Southern living.”

  She brightened. “Y’all gonna talk about football?”

  “Football?” I said. Wasn’t it bad enough I had been sent here to resurrect a dead magazine that featured articles—and probably ads—on killing large-eyed, innocent animals? Me? A journalist accustomed only to writing about society parties, museum displays, art festivals, and grand-scale lifestyles? I now had to write about football, which I knew nothing about.

  “Might,” William supplied the answer before my mind cleared enough to answer.

  Brianna beamed. “I can’t wait for the season to start. Practically right around the corner. You and Rob going?”

  William’s one dimple sank into his cheek as he said, “As always.”

  I had died and gone to my own nightmare. Or maybe I still slept in my bed at the cottage and today hadn’t really started yet. Whichever, I was in the middle of a bad, bad dream.

  Gram said to listen to what others were saying if I wanted to get to know them, but so far, this was all Greek. Or maybe Latin. I’d not done as well in Latin as I had in French, and I was positively failing at my goal of understanding those not like me. If I wanted Dad’s corner office, I had to . . . “Actually,” I said so quickly I almost choked. Brianna and William looked at me. “I’m not all that up on the hunting aspects of things, but”—I swallowed—“back in Winter Park I work for a glossy local magazine down there and . . . we—we do a lot of society articles and . . . galas”—I took a breath—“and openings.”

  “What kind of openings?” Brianna asked.

  “We—we had—” I had to think. Think. “Oh! Park Avenue recently had a new cosmetics store open up and George O came and . . .”

  Brianna’s blank look told me I’d completely lost her. I looked to Will, who again shook his head.

  Friendly, Ashlynne. Friendly. “George O,” I supplied, “is a well-known makeup artist. Anyway, he came and I interviewed him.” I stopped then. Stopped long enough to study Brianna. Had she been with me in Winter Park that day, George would have scooped her out of the crowd of onlookers and shoppers. Her skin was flawless, her eyes large, her brows naturally arched, and her lips full. “You know,” I smiled, “Georgie would have loved you.”

  “Oh, boy . . . ,” Will mumbled. “Brianna, honey? Can we order something?”

  She pointed to the menu. “We have some specials today if you’d like to hear about them.”

  “I would love to hear about them.” My voice shook. I took a slow breath and let it go just as slowly.

  Brianna dished on the specials, and I settled on the Vegetable Panini, a seasonal fruit cup, and unsweet iced tea. Without glancing at his menu, Will cleared his throat and said, “And you know what I’ll have.”

  Brianna smiled at him. “I’ll have that right up for you.” After a smile to me, she sashayed toward the kitchen doors.

  I turned back to my lunch companion. His eyes were hooded, as though he were studying me. “Tell me something,” he said.

  I placed both hands in my lap and squeezed them together. “All right.”

  “What’s got you so on edge?”

  “I’m not on edge.”

  He chewed on his bottom lip for a second before saying, “I make it my business to study people, Ashlynne Rothschild. And you, ma’am, are on edge.”

  I glanced around, my eyes darting from the framed photos of days gone by, to the reproductions of old tin advertisements, and then back to William. “I just want to get along. If I’m going to live here for six months I may as well try to fit in.”

  “That’s gonna happen,” he mumbled.

  “What?”

  “Here you go,” Brianna said as she returned, seemingly out of nowhere. She placed our drinks before us. “And your meals will be out in a jiff.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Um . . . ,” she said, “would you mind, maybe . . . I mean . . . would it be all right with you if we talk some time about makeup and things like that? I mean, I know you’re probably very busy, but I have a feeling you know a lot about things like . . . that.” She took a much-needed breath. “And . . . I mean, I know it’s probably a lot to ask, but I’ve always been real interested but . . . I mean, I just usually wear Cover Girl and Maybelline, you know?”

  “Brianna,” Will said, “Miss Rothschild has probably never heard of Cover Girl and Maybelline.”

  I shot him as mean a look as I thought I could get away with and stay in some semblance of control. “What is wrong with you? Of course I’ve heard of Cover Girl and Maybelline.” I’d never used it, seeing as my mother had insisted my first makeover be at the Clinique counter at Bloomies, but I’d certainly heard of it. Then, feeling almost victorious, I turned to Brianna with a smile. “I’d like that very much. I’m working all week, but maybe Sunday? After church?”

  Brianna nodded. “That’d be great.” She smiled at me again. “I’ll have your panini here in a minute.”

  After she left, I asked Will, “How old is she?”

  “Twenty-four? I’m not sure, to tell you the truth.”

  My mind raced over what I thought would be the perfect products for her. The best look.

  “Want to know how old I am?” he asked.

  “Not really.”

  “Thirty-six last Monday.”

  “Thirty-six?” I wondered then, fleetingly, if the question had been asked because he and Brianna were . . . what was the word Andy had used with Barney? Sweet on each other. “Is Brianna someone special?”

  Will’s jaw set and his eyes turned steely. “No more than any other girl.”

  “Oh.”

  “No.” He raised a finger in admonishment. “Not what you’re thinking.”

  “I wasn’t thinking anything . . .”

  “Oh, yes you were.”

  William clasped his hands together and looked toward the floor. “Believe me, she’s not smitten with me. She’s just a sweet girl. And even if she were, I don’t have time for women in my life. I’ve got far too much to do. No time for . . .” He looked at me again. “Women.”

  “Like what? What do you have to do?”

  “Like the paper, for one. Big Guy plans to hand it over soon.”

  Yes. Our grandparents, being the same age, would be taking full retirement into consideration. Even from careers they’d birthed, nurtured, and loved for decades. “I understand,” I all but whispered.

  “Taking care of my grandparents for another,” Will said as though I’d not spoken. “Big Guy can’t keep up that property by himself and he’s not altogether on top of the men who work the ranch.”

  Even as independent as Gram could be, she needed
Dad from time to time. “What about your parents? Where are they?”

  Will took a gulp of what I presumed to be sweet tea. “My parents went to work on the mission field a few years ago.”

  “Really?” I sat back. Brianna returned with our plates of food.

  Will looked up. “Thank you, Bri.”

  “You’re welcome, Will.”

  I exchanged smiles with her before she darted off to another table.

  William closed his eyes and bowed his head, pronouncing a blessing over the food.

  “Thank you,” I said after repeating the “amen.”

  “So . . . your parents?”

  William popped a French fry into his mouth. “Yeah,” he said around it. “It was something they always wanted to do but wanted to make sure they got me through school and thoroughly edu-cated first.”

  I bit into my sandwich. The flavors of fresh asparagus, greens, and raspberry glaze almost made me dizzy with delight. “You went to college?” I said after I’d swallowed.

  William’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, I went to college. What do you think? We’re all hillbilly hicks barely getting by on a sixth-grade education?” He brought the glass back to lips that had drawn tight.

  I’d once again said the wrong thing. Seemed to me conversations with William Decker ran either hot or cold, and I wasn’t the one controlling the thermostat.

  I laid my sandwich carefully on my plate as Will bit into his hamburger. “No. Of course not.” Leaning forward I asked, “You know, you’re not the only one who has learned to observe people.”

  “Meaning?” he asked around his food.

  “Meaning that for some reason you think the worst of me. From the moment I got here you’ve had some sort of grudge against me, which—quite frankly—makes no sense at all seeing as you don’t even know me.” And made him more like a pack of seventh-grade girls than he realized.

  Will swallowed hard. Used his tongue to work a piece of food from his teeth. Took a sip of tea. Then said, “Oh, I know you, all right.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Because,” he answered. “I know your type.”

  8

  We ate the remainder of our meal in silence, and with me completely confused. I had come to Testament to work. To prove to my father and grandmother that I could be the kind of businesswoman who identified with others. With everyone. Anyone. So far, I’d done wonderfully well with the senior Deckers, with Alma and Garrison, with the Flannerys and with Brianna. But I’d failed with the one person I would spend the most time with during my stay in North Carolina. The one who, I knew from my own experiences, could hold the success of my climb up at Parks & Avenues in his hand.

  But why? Why one minute was the man difficult, the next something close to friendly, and the next, a bear again? As a woman—not to mention as a reporter who loved the act and art of investigative research (something I had far too few chances to do at the magazine)—I set my even newer short-term goal to find out why.

  The ride back to the paper was as icy as the last half of lunch. Will kept to himself until we reached the newspaper door, at which point he said, “We’ve got a story meeting at four. I’m going to get the piece about Sarah knocked out and the pictures sent to Garrison as soon as we get inside.”

  “Do you need my notes?” I asked, hoping for some sort of truce, albeit a professional one.

  “Only if the recorder on my iPhone failed me.”

  I stopped inside the front room. “You were recording the interview?”

  “Always.”

  I followed behind him, stomping as we went along. “Then why was I taking notes?”

  William stopped, turned, and stared at me. “Didn’t I just make that clear? In case my phone didn’t work.”

  Ugh.

  “By the way,” he added. “I’m going to give you my e-mail address. Shoot me the links you found on the Peace Corps.”

  “I can do that,” I mumbled.

  We made our way back to the large room with the mismatched desks. Garrison sat at his corner desk, slowly gliding the computer’s mouse over a pad.

  Talk about antiquated.

  Alma sat at her desk, talking on the phone.

  I pointed to my desk as Will moved all the stuff he’d placed in his office chair earlier, dropping it to the floor. “I’ll shoot those links to you and then . . . ah . . . I’ll get my desk organized,” I said.

  “Sounds good.” Will handed me a business card from his desk. “My e-mail’s at the bottom.” He sat. While his laptop booted up, he pulled out his phone, stuck in tiny earbuds, and slid his fingers over his face.

  All right then.

  After I’d sent the links, and while the newspaper business buzzed around me—keys clicking, phones ringing, voices chattering on the phone—I kept just as busy, going through drawers, flipping through old newspapers and files that had been stored there. Every so often I’d hold up a collection of items, ask if they were to be kept or thrown away. Will always answered “Keep” until, finally, he sighed, got up, and left the room. A minute later he returned with a bin and said, “Put everything you think you don’t want in your desk in here. I’ll go through it later with Big Guy and Gram. See what they want to keep. What they want to throw away.”

  I felt as though I had been scolded. I forced myself to recover. “Where are your grandparents?”

  William returned to his desk chair. “I imagine Big Guy is in his other office and Gram—I don’t know where she is. She’ll be here for the meeting.”

  “His other office?”

  “Coffee shop,” he said. “Right down the road.”

  “Not so unlike Winter Park,” I said. “We have marvelous coffee shops on Park Avenue and—”

  Will pointed to his computer. “I’m sure you do. But I have to finish this piece.” He returned the buds to his ears.

  “Sorry.” I returned to my task of sorting, straightening, and shifting.

  Across the room, Alma stood, stretched, and looked my way. “There you are,” she said, as though our earlier entry had gotten past her completely.

  “Here I am.” I smiled.

  “Want a cup of coffee? I can show you where the break room is . . .”

  I looked at Will, whose fingers continued to fly across the keyboard. I’d never seen a man type quite that fast. “Will?”

  One hand flew up in dismissal. “By all means.” Then he looked at Alma. “Can you show her around in general?”

  “Be happy to.”

  I walked toward Alma, feeling somewhat like I’d found an oasis in the desert. “Thank you,” I said when I reached her.

  “For what, honey?”

  “For . . . coffee.”

  She looked at her watch as we walked out of the office and into the hall. “We’ve got one hour till story time. If I’m going to survive that, I’ve got to have a cup of coffee now.”

  We entered a room to the left. From what I’d seen, in my opinion, the room won “best decorated.” Natural light flooded in from a three-pane window. Mosaic tile between the countertop backsplash and the overhead cabinets added a splash of color. The appliances—refrigerator, dishwasher, microwave, and coffeemaker—were stainless steel. Clearly, not a dime in expense had been spared. A rich, dark wood table and four chairs accented the left side of the room. A pink silk orchid graced the table as a centerpiece, along with a collection of white porcelain salt and pepper shakers and matching sugar bowl.

  “This room is remarkable,” I said, planting my hands on my hips. I inhaled. Everything smelled of red apples and coffee beans.

  “Isn’t it, though? Miss Bobbie has such a way with decorating.”

  “Miss Bobbie? You call her ‘Miss’?”

  Alma ambled over to the other side of the room where she pulled two mugs from one of the cabinets. “Honey, we’re not talking slavery here. But we’re still in the South . . .”

  I joined her, taking the proffered cup. “So? This is the South. So what? Does that mean
you still have to call a white woman ‘Miss’ because she’s your boss and you’re, you know, black?”

  Alma burst out laughing then steadied herself enough to pour my coffee and hers. “No. I call her ‘Miss’ because she’s older than me. Not because she’s white, not because I’m black, and not because she’s my boss. That’s just the way it is here, Ashlynne. We call our elders ‘Miss’ or ‘Mister.’ You know, according to gender.”

  “So you call Mr. Decker . . . ?”

  “Mister Shelton.” Alma opened a drawer and pulled two spoons from a flatware tray. “Do you want creamer?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Regular, half-and-half, or flavored?”

  “Half-and-half.”

  We walked over to the table and placed our mugs on top. Alma went to the refrigerator, brought back the half-and-half, and we sat together. “So, what do you call William?” I asked, pulling the oversized sugar bowl toward me, hoping to find packets of raw sugar.

  There were, along with packets of regular, and packets of Stevia.

  Alma snickered. “Pain in the rump,” she said under her breath.

  My eyes grew wide as my hands rested on the table. Could I trust Alma to confide information about Will Decker so early in our relationship, which was nothing more—at this point—than that we shared a large, congested office?

  My face must have formed the questions my mouth couldn’t, because Alma answered, “Girl, I can only tell you what I’ve heard and that would be gossip. And I don’t go for inner-office gossip. It can only mess things up for everybody.”

  “That’s true,” I admitted. “But just so I’m clear, this . . . way . . . he has. Nice one minute. Mean the next. It’s not just with me?”

  “Mean? Well now, I wouldn’t call Will mean. He’s never been anything but polite to me. He’s just moody is all.” She prepared her coffee and took a long sip, closing her eyes as it slid down her throat. “Now, Alma,” she spoke to herself, “that’s good coffee.”

  I smiled. “Why do you think he’s so moody?”

  “All I know is,” she said, leaning in, “he went to work in Chicago after he graduated college and then, after a few years, he came back here. I don’t know if it’s because his grandfather needed him—and believe you me, he did—and he’s bitter about it or because things just didn’t work out in Illinois. All I know is,” she repeated, “he’s moody, but he’s a good man overall.”