The Road to Testament

by Eva Marie Everson

  Mom always said I healed fast.

  Maybe, like my ankle, my heart would too.

  I picked up my cell phone to call her, then changed my mind. Instead, I hobbled down the stairs, made a cup of hot tea, got my book, and went outside. I waited a minute or two for Buddy and Kelsey to amble up the hill and, when they didn’t, I opened the book and attempted to read past fresh tears.

  Maybe they’d heard the argument the night before, I thought.

  Maybe they didn’t like me anymore. Either.

  I looked into the cloudless, blue sky to blink the tears away, then returned to my book.

  Give love, the tile read. Two hands throwing three hearts into the sky demonstrated the action. The text read: Hate stirs up conflict, but love covers all offenses. —Proverbs 10:12; and Conduct yourselves with all humility, gentleness, and patience. Accept each other with love. —Ephesians 4:2.

  At the bottom of the page were three simple words: LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

  “I’m trying, Lord,” I said aloud. “I promise you, I’m trying. But . . . what did I do that was so wrong? I don’t get it. Help me to understand. Help me to love more. Better.” I smiled. “More better.”

  I closed the book, sipped on my tea until the mug was empty, and went back inside in time to hear my phone ringing.

  Brianna. Before she had left my home on Tuesday I had given her my number, and she’d called me several times since. Always asking if I’d told Will. Before, I could say, “no.” Now I’d have to tell her the truth. My heart grew heavy as I answered.

  “Hey, Bri.”

  “Oh, Ashlynne,” she said, nearly breathless. “Last night was fabulous. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  I forced a smile. “I take it things went well.”

  “I think so. I told Cliff he could take Maris home with him if he wanted. Of course, he did. And then Rob and I stood outside my car and we talked and talked until the bugs nearly took us away.”

  “I’m so glad.”

  “What about for you and William? You looked pretty cozy,” she said, singing the last two words.

  I swallowed my angst. “Bri, I need to tell you . . . I showed William the vial.”

  “And?”

  I walked slowly to the nearby wingback chair and sat. My ankle throbbed so I propped my foot on the ottoman. “He’s a little upset. I’m—I’m not sure why . . . exactly. I mean, I think there is more to it than what he is saying—”

  “What is he saying?”

  I scooted to the back of the chair and laid my head back. “Not much, really.” I rubbed my temple with my left hand, then drew my hair back and over one shoulder. “He—he doesn’t want us to do anything about this, but—”

  “—but, Ashlynne. We have to. If someone is giving him drugs, he could die or something.”

  My tongue darted across my lips, moistening the dryness. “I know. Believe me. I know.”

  She didn’t respond initially. I waited. I knew she needed the time to digest my unexpected news. “So what are we going to do?”

  Now it was my turn to pause. To ponder. To wonder what the right move to make would be.

  When you don’t know what to do, Gram always said, do the next right thing.

  Was the next right thing to see another young boy die? To watch another family grieve? I couldn’t do that. Even if it made me the outcast in this town, I couldn’t. “Bri? When do you go back to the Flannerys’?”

  “Tuesday, why?”

  “All right. We’ll go—you and me together—and we’ll see what else we can find. See if there is something connecting Sean Flannery’s usage of steroids to the person who supplies him.”

  “You’ll do that?”

  “Yes.” I closed my eyes against the thought of what this meant. All of it.

  “But, Ashlynne . . . I don’t . . . I mean, my rule is . . .”

  “I know. No snooping.” I opened my eyes. “Fortunately for you, I’m sort of a pro.”

  An hour later, the crunching of tires over gravel caused me to look up from my laptop, which I’d placed on the kitchen bar, and where I typed my notes from the last few days. I leaned over to gaze out the window. My Jag was now parked just beyond the tree that had, the night before, taken the tiny brunt of William’s wrath.

  Sliding off the stool, I hobbled to the door where my crutches had been propped. I grabbed them for support and then stepped outside in time to see Will coming around the back of the Jag.

  “Oh,” I said.

  He stopped. His eyes, shadowed by the brim of his hat, were downcast. Nearly colorless. He looked as if he’d cried as much as I had the night before, if that were possible. “Hey,” he said. The key fob dangled from between his fingers. “Brought your car back to you.”

  “So I see.”

  He took another step. Stopped. “Can we—can we talk?”

  I wasn’t sure we could. Or, to be more exact, I wasn’t sure I could. There were no words left to say. My heart had been stripped bare and beaten. Left bruised. I’d opened a door. A infinitesimal door. Just enough to let someone come in and—possibly, maybe—form a friendship. An alliance that would grow a newspaper. Resurrect a magazine. And—possibly, maybe—end with my “corner office” as Will had so indelicately put it the night before.

  Regardless of my hesitancy, I nodded. “I don’t see why not.”

  32

  I pivoted toward the rock garden’s sitting area. “Out here fine?”

  “Of course.”

  The crunching beneath his boots followed me and, when I leaned the crutches against the arm of the settee, William bridged the gap between us with wide strides. His hand extended in an offer to help me sit and I took it. After I settled, he sat next to me, removed his hat and hung it on the armrest.

  He looked at my feet. “You’re in shoes.”

  “I’m in hiking boots.”

  “But you’re still using the crutches.”

  I blinked. “Do you want to talk to me about my shoes? Or something else?”

  He “humphed.” Extended the key fob. “Here.”

  I held out my hand and he dropped the fob into the palm.

  I focused on the car. “Thank you.”

  He raked his fingers through his hair then tossed the ends between them as if he were freeing himself from something. “I need to apologize to you.”

  As I’d done before, I knew I could say, “Apology accepted,” but the easiness of the words didn’t seem appropriate. This time, there had to be more. “For?”

  He rested his elbows on his knees, dropped his head between his shoulders, and turned his face to mine. A hint of a grin broke across his face. “You’re not going to make this painless, are you?”

  I extended my left leg. Folded my hands together as though in prayer, and rested them in my lap. “I have twenty-three weeks left here. I’ve barely gotten through the first two. If I’m going to survive this . . . plan . . . of my grandmother’s and my father’s, then, I’ve decided, it’s important . . .” I swallowed. My ankle hurt and fatigue wrapped around me from my lack of sleep the night before. “No. I know that if we are going to move forward . . . as coworkers . . . we have to be completely honest with each other. Last night . . .”I stared at my hands. Clenched them. Released. “Last night you scared me.”

  He leaned back. Crossed one ankle over a knee. “You didn’t seem scared.”

  “Well, I was.”

  “All right.” He swallowed and his Adam’s apple moved slowly up and down his throat. “You want us to be honest?”

  “Yes.” I felt the rise and fall of my chest with every shallow breath.

  William stared toward the sloping of lawn leading to the highway. “When I went off to college, Big Guy thought I was going to come back here, be the best reporter The Testament Tribune has ever seen, bring the paper to new heights.” He chuckled, but his eyes didn’t register happiness. “He’d retire on my hard work—not to mention his own. But I had no such aspirations. I didn’t want to be a big fi
sh in a little pond. I wanted to be a big fish in a big pond.” He grinned sheepishly at me.

  I didn’t smile back. I couldn’t. My grandmother’s words were too loud in my head. What had she said to me a mere two weeks ago as she told me about my upcoming move to Testament?

  You need some time away from all that Winter Park has afforded you. You are a recognized fish in the Winter Park pond. But I—and your father—feel it’s time you know what it’s like to be, as the old saying goes, “a little fish in a little pond.”

  Well now I knew. And so had William. And he had wanted more. Like me.

  “Go—go on.”

  “So. During my senior year, with me about to graduate summa cum laude, one of my advisors suggested she contact someone she knew at the Chicago Star. I couldn’t believe my luck. Even though I knew I’d be walking into a lion’s den, what with Chicago’s reputation for scandal”—he shook his head—“I didn’t care. I wanted that job.” Will glanced at his grandparents’ home. “I needed that job.”

  I understood that, too. Wanting a job so desperately I was willing to do anything.

  Go anywhere.

  “Big Guy and Gram . . . they were hurt. Gram cried. Big Guy stomped around a lot.” He winked at me. “You know Big Guy.”

  I couldn’t help but smile, but I swallowed it quickly. “Yeah.”

  “But I promised,” he said, raising a fist, “to make them both proud.” His voice strained against the words. What he’d done—hurting his grandparents—had hurt him. Deeply. Because, in the end—as I’d already learned—he had not.

  But I asked the question anyway. Half out of hurt over the night before. Half because I wanted to hear the rest of his story and I feared he’d stop at this point. “And did you?”

  “No.” He shrugged. “Maybe at first. At first I shot straight to the top. I was like Midas.” He lifted his hands, palms up to the world. “Everything I touched turned to gold. Then I met Felicia Moses, daughter of Conrad Moses, one of the most successful, most powerful businessmen in the entire state of Illinois.”

  “The woman who looks like me?”

  The question startled him. “How’d you—oh.” He leaned back in the chair and opened his mouth as though to laugh, but nothing came out. His head lolled toward me. “That day in my house. You went snooping, didn’t you?”

  “Not on purpose.”

  His brow furrowed, quizzically. “How do you not go snooping on purpose?”

  I squared my shoulders. “I don’t know. Somehow, I just . . . do.” I pointed at him. “This isn’t about me.”

  William chuckled. “Okay, okay. And yes. Yes, you look like Felicia. The first time I saw you—in town—for the first brief second, I thought you were her. But you were . . .”

  “Me.”

  His smile broadened. “I was going to say, ‘not.’ But, I guess that’s accurate. You were you. You are you. But you also stirred up a lot of bad memories that I’ve worked a year to get over.” He leaned over again. Cracked his knuckles. I opened my mouth to fuss at him, but caught myself.

  “So, what happened?”

  “Chicago’s Trade, Commerce, and Tourism was headed up by a man of honor and principles.”

  “Boscano.”

  Will nodded. “I happened to be at a social function with Felicia and her father one evening when I overheard someone talking about Eric’s background. Where he’d come from. How he’d pulled himself up by his bootstraps . . . self-made man . . . all that.” William clasped his hands together. “He’d been homeless during the entirety of his high school years and still managed to graduate with a 4.0. Went to college on a number of scholarships . . . Well, the list goes on.” He pushed at the air, as though he were throwing something away. “That night, I couldn’t sleep. Kept tossing and turning. And at some point I realized the notion to write Eric’s life story was nipping at my brain.” He paused. Wiped his mouth with his fingertips. “I went to Conrad—Felicia’s father—and asked if he could make an introduction, which he gladly did.”

  “And how did Mr. Boscano feel about having his story told?”

  William smiled broadly. “Pretty jazzed. I spent hours with him. Interviewing. Looking through old family photo albums. When I could, I shadowed him at work.” He hung his head again. “One afternoon, he asked if I wanted to come into this meeting. To sit and observe.” Brown eyes met mine. “It wasn’t an important meeting or anything. Just a meeting.” He swallowed. “When it was over and everyone who’d been sitting around the conference table shuffled out, I slipped into Eric’s inner office. And I—I left the door cracked. Not open. Cracked.”

  “Okay.”

  “I heard two men walk in. I didn’t know who, but I heard two distinct voices along with Eric’s. They were making him the proverbial offer he couldn’t refuse.” He cocked his head. “Only, he did refuse. One of the men told him not to be an idiot. To think of the kickbacks.”

  I hadn’t counted on this. None of it. I’d believed the worst about William—just as the girls in seventh grade had believed the worst about me—before knowing everything there was to know. I leaned over the arm of my chair, reached across what felt like a chasm between us, and touched his arm. “That could have been so dangerous for you,” I whispered.

  “I guess, in the end, it was. But to answer your question, I pressed myself against the built-in bookcase and prayed neither of them got an itch to go into Eric’s office.”

  I pulled back my hand. “And then? Did they leave?”

  He squinted, his eyes focused on the hand that had touched him, then left. “Mmhmm. Eric came into his office. By then, I’d slipped into his private bathroom and walked out like I’d heard nothing.”

  “Why? Why not just tell him you were proud of him or something?”

  “I don’t know, Ashlynne. I just didn’t want to rock the good- fortune boat I was in with any kind of scandal.” He shifted. “But, months later an article came out in the Star that insinuated that Eric had, in fact, gone to them with the offer. I couldn’t figure it out. Why would the paper print such nonsense? I went to Conrad, told him what I knew and that we had to retract the article.”

  “Of course.”

  William shook his head. “No. That’s when I realized what was going on. Conrad Moses owned a large amount of stock in the paper. Enough that when he said jump . . .”

  The enormity of what Will said dropped over me like a quilt made of metal. “The paper asked how high.”

  “Yeah. Turns out he was behind the men coming in that night.”

  “He told you that?”

  “Mmm. Said things that I thought I’d only hear in the movies. You know, like, ‘Boy, you keep your nose clean here and you’ll keep moving on up.’ ” Will’s voice changed to match that of Conrad Moses. “ ‘Run your mouth and I’ll have you bumped down to a G.A. so fast your head will spin and with the salary to match.’ Then he kind of leaned back, rested his hands on his chest and said, ‘And I don’t think my daughter will take to marrying a lowly general assignment editor.’ ”

  “And?”

  He sighed. “I said some things I shouldn’t have said, stormed out. Went back to my apartment, called Big Guy and told him I needed to come home for the weekend. Needed somewhere to clear my brain.”

  I looked toward the house again.

  “I got here to discover that my grandfather was overworked, overtired, and the newspaper falling apart. Still, nothing felt better than sliding into a pair of jeans, some boots, and riding around in that old truck you fell down the hill to keep from driving.”

  His smile was infectious and I laughed. “Yeah. That’s why I did it. That and the rattlesnake you were chasing me with.”

  Will chewed on his bottom lip, which made me mildly uncomfortable. “I told Big Guy about what happened. I told him I wanted to come home. To make things right at the paper. And, like an idiot, I told him I wanted to bring Felicia back here. To marry her. Because she was a good person and I knew that, when she heard my rea
sons, she’d come back with me.”

  “And yet, no Felicia Moses Decker lives here in Testament.”

  “No.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should ask why not. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to know.

  “I flew up to Chicago, put in my resignation, drove immediately to Felicia’s apartment, and asked her to marry me. Presented her with the two-month-salary ring and everything.” His head quivered. “She threw herself into my arms, squealed like a schoolgirl, then bounced all around the room, holding the ring up to one light and then another and finally to the light coming in from the window.” His breath came like the air from a balloon. “And then I told her the rest of my plan.”

  “And she shot you down.”

  He blinked. “She never loved me.” He pulled at his nose. “She couldn’t have possibly. She said, ‘I wouldn’t be caught dead in some redneck town in North Carolina, William. You should know that about me.’ ” He smiled sheepishly. “She’d never even been here. And she said ‘North Carolina’ like a cussword.” He sighed. “And,” he drawled, “I guess I didn’t know that about her.”

  “And then you did.”

  “Yep.”

  “So you came home without her.”

  “Yep.”

  “But did you do anything to help Eric?”

  He cracked his knuckles again. “I didn’t have to. I went to him, told him everything, and he said, ‘Don’t worry about it, Will. These things have a way of working themselves out, but I appreciate it.’ So, I’d more or less put it all on the line for something he wasn’t even worried about. But in the end, I knew myself better, I knew the woman I thought I wanted to marry better—and certainly her father—and I’d managed to keep my ethics.”

  Ethics. There was that word again.

  33

  So, that’s why you were so angry when you met me. You thought I was like Felicia.” Which, of course, I’d already figured out. But it wasn’t the looking like her he had reacted to, but the being like her, on the inside, that riled his dander. “You thought I was going to ridicule Testament.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” This time, his smile reached his eyes. “You have to admit, walking into the office every day that first week, wearing all those name-brand clothes. And shoes that are only going to give you back problems one day. Purses that, I bet, cost the same amount most families around here spend on their monthly mortgage payments.”