CHAPTER FIVE
Visiting with Abigail Clarke was one of Jeff’s never-miss appointments. Lunch at noon with Miss Abigail was penciled in on every Thursday square on every calendar in his office. Pam turned up the old country road and glanced at the clock on her dashboard. Eleven forty-five, fifteen minutes early.
It was obvious to anyone with eyes how much he hated canceling at the last minute. Volunteering to take his place just seemed like the right thing to do. She could only hope Mrs. Clarke was as pleased with the idea as Jeff had been.
Pulling into the gravel parking lot, the three-story yellow Victorian house reminded her of an elaborate gingerbread creation. A wraparound porch trimmed in curlicue wisps of decorative white wrought iron invited passersby to stop and take notice. The rocking chairs swaying ever-so-slightly in the breeze called for folks to come up and sit a spell. All in all, if it was necessary to spend what was left of your golden years in a nursing home, the old Keller estate appeared to be the place to spend them.
The slate path wound gracefully from the surrounding white picket fence, past the colorful blooms, green lawns, and hundred-year-old trees to the charming old house. Inside, the Keller Nursing Home held even more surprises. Passing through the front door was like stepping back in time. The last of the Keller family had died off in 1978 and had left the house, the surrounding land, and all the furnishings to the city under the stipulation that the home always be used to care for the elderly. If the condition of the turn of thecentury furniture and the fine shine on all the intricate wood trim was any indication of patient care, it explained why Mrs. Clarke was still alive and well at ninety-seven.
“May I help you?” Sitting in a tall, straight-backed dark wood chair covered in plush red velvet, the gray-haired woman playing solitaire at the oversized desk reminded Pam of a small child seated in a king’s throne.
“I’m looking for Mrs. Clarke. Pastor Parker sent me.”
“Oh. Is he going to be late?” The woman’s smile faltered for only a moment.
“I’m afraid not. He was needed at the hospital.”
“Oh, dear. Nothing serious I hope?” Pushing to her feet, the woman stood in front of the ornate chair. She couldn’t be more than four-foot-and-a-wish tall. She was also considerably older than Pam’s first impression.
“We hope not.”
“Good. I’ll add young Jeff’s ailing parishioner to my prayer list tonight.” The woman moved around the desk and took hold of Pam’s hand.
Pam had no idea which surprised her more, that the woman had taken hold of her hand and was leading her down the hall as if she were a lost little girl, or that this petite card-playing receptionist was the ninety-seven-year-old woman Jeff was worried about.
“You’re Mrs. Clarke?”
The old woman chuckled. “Don’t look so surprised, dearie. Think of me as French cheese. Not really old, just ripe.”
It was Pam’s turn to laugh. The old girl had a sense of humor.
Stopping a short distance down the hall, the woman gestured at a narrow doorway. “This is my room. Why don’t you have a seat?”
Pam moved in the direction the aged finger seemed to be pointing and sank into an overstuffed easy chair. The modern comfort seemed somehow out of place among the other antiques in the room, including Mrs. Abigail Clarke.
“Every boudoir needs a good reading chair,” Mrs. Clarke explained. “I don’t read as much anymore, but that’s no reason to give up the most comfortable seat in the house.”
Pam paused to take in her surroundings. The rosebud-covered wallpaper, marble-topped dresser, and bedside tables seemed to suit the petite woman who had now taken a seat across from Pam in a traditional woman’s Victorian sewing chair.
“This is a lovely room.”
“Thank you. I’ve seen a lot of changes in home decorating in my time, but this era is still my favorite.” Abigail shifted her gaze from the velvet-draped window to Pam and smiled. “So tell me, dear. How can I help you?”
Oh, good grief. Surely his eyes were playing tricks on him.
Jeff made a U-turn at the corner and pulled into the café parking lot. There was no missing his mother’s pristine 1976 Chevy Impala nestled among the array of beat-up old pickups. “Okay, so it was my mother and probably Carol Ann.” But that didn’t mean the third woman in the bunch was Sandra Quinn.
He glanced at his watch. Almost one o’clock. He wouldn’t mind some of Mabel’s cooking about now. He’d missed his weekly lunch with Miss Abigail. Little Benjamin Palmer’s crisis had come and gone with a whimper. When the boy’s mother had discovered an empty bottle of aspirin on the floor, and her precocious three-year-old blithely informed her he had eaten them, she’d panicked and raced him to the hospital. Not until much later did everyone learn, after eating only one, the aspirin had tasted so yucky that Benjamin had thrown the remainder of the pills in the toilet.
Looking up at the restaurant’s large paned windows, Jeff shook his head. If that was Sandra he’d seen entering the café with his mother and sister, then it was his duty to save her from whatever scheme they had conjured up this time. Heaving out a deep sigh, he turned to the door and marched up the front steps and across the large room to his mother’s table.
“Why, Jefferson, dear, what a nice surprise.” Etta Mae smiled up at her son with all the poise of the most innocent of Southern ladies.
“Hey, handsome,” his sister said with a broad smile. “Gonna join us? We just sat down.”
“I know. I was heading back to the church when I spotted Ma’s car and saw y’all walking in here.”
Carol Ann patted the seat beside her. Sandra and his mother were already sitting side by side across the table from her. For a split second he was tempted to shout at Sandra, “Run for your life.”
Visions played before him of her driving out of town and not stopping until she reached Anchorage like the last woman his mother and sister had tried to set him up with. The sound of the choir singing off-key as it had before the blessed addition of Sandra’s strong melodic voice screeched painfully in his head. He couldn’t let that happen. With a nod he slid in beside his sister. “Thanks. I’m starved.”
“You know Sandra here, don’t you, dear?” Etta Mae waved a hand at the woman seated beside her.
“Of course he does, Ma.” Carol Ann rolled her eyes at her mother, and Jeff wondered if he’d underestimated his sister all these years. Perhaps she wasn’t in cahoots with their mother’s matchmaking. Maybe, like debris in a tornado, she was just sucked in. He’d certainly learned a long time ago, when his mom set her mind on something, there was no point wasting his breath trying to talk her out of it.
“Nice to see you again, Pastor.” Sandra nodded politely.
“Oh, call him Jeff. Everyone does,” his mother suggested sweetly.
Time for him to take control of the conversation. “Sandra will be working with the church elderly program. Yesterday she went with me to visit Mrs. Perkins.” He shifted his attention from his mom to Sandra. “Mrs. Perkins called me this morning. She’s very taken with you. She tells me that you’ve already got her scheduled to see someone about her thyroid?”
Sandra smiled. “I’ve made an appointment with Dr. Sanderson. It took a little finagling. Fortunately his nurse and I go back a long way. She squeezed us in on Monday.”
“How nice of you, dear. Isn’t that nice of her, Jeff?”
“It is most definitely a blessing to have Sandra helping out. I’m sure Mrs. Perkins especially is thankful Sandra chose to move here to Hope’s Corner and not some other place.” He paused to look his mother square in the eye. “Like, say, Alaska.”
“Oh, my. Just look at the time.” Abigail Clarke stared up at the large digital clock on the dining room wall. “Young Jeff must be wondering what I’ve done with you.”
Much to her surprise, Pam found herself wishing it wasn’t so late. She hadn’t expected Miss Abigail to be such an entertaining storyteller. Even though Pam had grown up
in Hope’s Corner, she’d simply taken for granted that things in town had always been the way she had remembered them. She’d never thought back to what it was like when the town was too small for a beauty parlor, café, or post office. “Would it be all right if I came back some time for another visit?”
“Why heavens, child. Of course it would be all right. It would be my utmost pleasure to have your company again.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s me who should be thanking you. Jeff’s a sweet young man, but his eyes tend to glaze over just a bit if I spend too much time talking about Haddie and her dresses.”
“Haddie?”
“Did I not mention Haddie?”
Pam shook her head.
Abigail smiled. “We threw such a grand opening when she opened her dress shop. It was a bit strange, her being a colored woman and all, but she’d saved her money working back East for one of them fancy stores with fancy labels.
“Her plan had been to go farther west. She was going to go to Fort Worth. Haddie’d heard about the government opening up Camp Bowie, and that colored people could buy a home there, though not in the nicer part of town, mind you. Back then there weren’t many places where colored folk could buy their own place.”
“How did she wind up in Hope’s Corner?” For three hours Pam had listened to Miss Abigail talk about her hometown. She needed to get back to work but couldn’t resist just one more story.
“I don’t rightly know. If anyone asked her, she’d shrug and say, ‘The hand of God.’ At first she hired on as cook right here at the old Keller place.” Abigail chuckled. “Even when I was a girl, this was the old Keller place.”
“It has been around a long time.”
“Nearly sixty years before I was even born.”
“So Haddie worked for the Kellers?”
“Why, yes, yes she did. She was here a while. Can’t remember exactly how long. I was just a little thing at the time. None of us knew then that she had a way with a needle and thread. One day this strapping man as dark as night in the woods came knocking. I remember it so well. I was playing in the front yard with Gracie Keller. We’d never seen anyone so big. Scared us half to death until he smiled. Those big white teeth in that dark face was a shock, but his smile was one of those smiles that goes clear up to a man’s eyes.” Abigail giggled. “Would you believe his name was Tiny?
“Haddie had sent for him. She’d bought a little piece of land on the edge of town. Not that it was much of a town then. Most men could spit from one end to the other. Anyhow, Tiny, turns out he was Haddie’s brother. He built her a little shop.
“The womenfolk were so happy not to have to go all the way to Poplar Springs for a new dress that Haddie’s business took off right away.” Abigail’s gleeful expression slipped. “Few years later Tiny succumbed to the influenza. Such a strong man killed by a little old germ.”
Pam could see the pain of a little girl in her new friend’s face. She felt tears well in her eyes.
“Now don’t you go starting the waterworks.” Abigail leaned over and patted Pam on the leg. “Tiny was a good man. A good friend. And I know someday soon, I’ll be seeing him again.”
With a nod of her head, Abigail put on a bright smile and stood up. “I think I’d best be letting you get back to young Jeff, or he may not let you come visit again.”
“Yes.” Pam pushed to her feet. “Although I don’t think Jeff would ever want to stop me from visiting, but I really do have work to do.”
After a long hug and a short wave, Pam slid into the front seat of her car and drove off. Miss Abigail stood on the porch waving until the house was out of sight.
“Have you ever met anyone so interesting?” Pam glanced up before turning onto the main road to town. “She reminds me some of your Grandma Raven. Don’t ya think? She liked to tell stories too. First time you took me to Hunters Ridge was after your grandmother’s story about how the street Lovers Lane in Dallas really used to be a lovers’ lane.”
Stopped at a light, Pam looked up at the feathery clouds inching their way across the sky. “Oh, Travis. Do you know how much I miss you?”
A horn tooted. The woman in the sedan behind her waved. Pam recognized the high school principal and waved back, smiling into the rearview mirror as though there were some chance the nearsighted old teacher might actually see her remorseful grin.
“You were a good man, Travis Dawson. A good friend, husband, and lover, and Miss Abigail’s right. I will see you again.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“Yours.” Carol Ann flopped in the chair across from Jeff’s desk. “But it wasn’t that bad. Trust me. Ma was much worse with Barbara Lynn.”
“I find that hard to believe. I’m thirty-four. Why is Mom carrying around a photo of me when I was six months old? And for Pete’s sakes, on a bearskin rug. Real people don’t do that!”
“You were a cute baby.”
“Yes. I know. And bound to produce more cute babies. I think Mom got that point across to Sandra loud and clear.”
Carol Ann muffled a giggle. “Sandra didn’t seem to know which way to turn, but all in all, I think she handled it very well. Much better than Barbara.”
“Yeah, well, I certainly hope so. Besides the fact that the choir doesn’t sound…painful anymore, having a volunteer nurse working with the church means a great deal to me, and I don’t want to lose her.”
“Excuse me.” Pam walked into Jeff’s office and waved at Carol Ann. “I’m back if you need me. And don’t want to lose who?”
“Sandra Quinn.” Carol Ann waved back. “Mom invited her to lunch today.”
“After she accidentally bumped into her at the grocery store.” Jeff turned to his sister. “What did Mom do? Sit in her car until the woman showed up, then accost her in the frozen foods aisle?”
Pam covered her mouth with her hand to hide the chuckle.
“She’s not that bad.” Carol Ann defended their mother, trying and failing to hide her own amusement.
“Okay, let’s say I believe Mom and Sandra just happened to bump into each other at the market. Why can’t Mom leave my love life alone?”
“Because you don’t have one.” Carol Ann turned to Pam again. “Isn’t he good-looking?”
“Uh.” Pam looked from Carol Ann to Jeff. She shrugged apologetically, then glanced back at his sister. “Yeah.”
“See. I rest my case. Good-looking guys should have girlfriends.”
“If you don’t need me here, I think I’ll go back to work.” Pam took two steps back before Carol Ann sprang from her seat, blocking Pam’s exit.
“Oh, no you don’t. I need help.” Carol Ann reached for Pam’s arm. “He’s right. Our mother gets a little overly gung ho sometimes, but she’s not totally wrong. What we need is another voice of reason. Help me convince big brother here there’s more to life than his work.” She turned Pam so they were both facing her brother.
“I’m not so sure I’m the voice of anything,” Pam said softly.
“Nonsense.”
“Carol Ann—" Jeff started.
“I’m serious. You don’t have to get married. Get out, have a little fun. Ask someone, anyone, to a movie, dinner, something.” Carol Ann raised her palms upward, silently pleading with her brother.
“Okay. Fine. I’ll ask someone to dinner. Happy?”
“Yes. Who?”
“Who?”
“Too many words for ya, big brother? Who are you going to ask out?”
“I don’t know, but I promise to let you know as soon as I do.”
“Ah, ah.” Carol Ann shook her head. “Not going to work this time. You want Mom off your back? Pick a woman of your own. It doesn’t have to be serious.”
“You’ve said that already.”
Carol Ann spun around to face Pam. “What are you doing for dinner tonight?”
Pam raised her hand to her chest, pointing to herself. “Me?”
Carol Ann nodded.
“Pro
bably stop at the café.”
“And you?” Carol Ann turned to Jeff.
“Carol Ann,” he drawled out, clearly frustrated.
“Answer me.”
“I don’t know.”
“Fine. Have dinner at the café. And since you’re having dinner there, and Pam’s having dinner there, why don’t the two of you share a booth?”
“Carol Ann.” Jeff’s tone rose an octave.
“I’m not fixing you up. I’m being practical. You both have to eat. You’re both unattached, and it will keep Mom from siccing Sandra Quinn on you. You do want Mom to stop playing matchmaker don’t you?”
“You’re as bad as Mom.” Jeff pushed back his chair and stood up. “Sorry, Pam. Insanity seems to run on the female side of my family.”
Relieved that Jeff wasn’t taking Carol Ann seriously, Pam managed a small smile. “Don’t be too hard on them. They both love you, but I really do have to get back to work.”
Pam couldn’t get out of Jeff’s office fast enough. She knew he didn’t have any interest in her, but just the same, the thought of having dinner alone with another man, any man, felt too much like cheating on Travis. Someplace deep in the back of her mind she knew it made no sense, but that didn’t change a thing.
She’d had all of ten minutes to sort through the stack of files on her desk when Carol Ann plopped herself on the corner of Pam’s desk. “You’ve got to help me out here.”
“Me?”
“Just a gentle suggestion here or there. Maybe point out when a nice single woman is paying attention to him.”
“Like Sandra.”
“Sandra pays attention to him?” Carol Ann perked up like a pedigree dog on point.
“Let’s just say I don’t think she’d say no if he asked her out to dinner.”
“Oh, really?”
Pam could almost see the plans forming in the woman’s head.
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