Summer of Joy

by Ann H. Gabhart

  But who said a girl couldn’t keep dreaming? She was still dreaming and hadn’t her dreams gotten wilder every month since July until now she had a date with a wonderful man on Christmas Eve? Until now she was thinking—no, planning a way to say I love you.

  She put her finger under her nose to stifle a sneeze. She would not catch a cold. She would take an extra hour for lunch tomorrow. She had some vacation time built up. She had money in the bank. She could still go shopping.

  The next day Leigh took off at eleven and headed uptown. She passed up the hardware store and the ten-cent store. She didn’t even look toward the shoe store or Pelham’s Men’s Store. She headed straight for the Jewelry Center, the only store in Hollyhill that held out any promise of frivolous spending.

  When she stepped through the door and set off the bell, Rollin Caruthers looked up at her and smiled clear across his face. “Miss Leigh, what a pleasure,” he said as if he already knew she had frivolous spending on her mind. “What can I help you with? Perhaps size a ring for you?”

  Leigh frowned a little and looked at the class ring on her right hand. “You mean because I’ve lost weight?”

  Rollin looked sort of flustered as he waved his hands in the air at her. “Oh yes, of course. Losing weight can make rings too loose. Make them slip right off your fingers.”

  Leigh held up her hand and shook it. The ring slipped up to her knuckle but didn’t come off. “I think it’s okay, but it’s nice of you to notice I’ve lost weight.”

  “Yes, indeed. You are looking especially nice these days,” Rollin said and that seemed to fluster him even more. “I mean that’s what the missus said.”

  “How sweet of her! Please be sure to tell her thank you for me,” Leigh said before she looked down into the jewelry cases. “No, I’m just doing some last-minute shopping.”

  “Oh, wonderful. Did you have anything in mind? Perhaps something for a certain gentleman I know?”

  Leigh blushed as it was her turn to feel flustered. Then she laughed and said, “How did you guess?”

  Thirty minutes later she walked out of the Jewelry Center with a charm bracelet for Jocie, a locket for Tabitha, and a watch for David. A watch wasn’t exactly frivolous, but it was the closest she could come. After all, he didn’t need one. Rollin had told her David had just brought his watch in to be cleaned and it was in perfect working order, but Leigh didn’t care. She’d looked straight at Rollin and said, “Well, now he’ll have two.”

  “Yes, yes, indeed. And such a fine watch too. Would you like to have something engraved on the back? The date perhaps? His initials?” Rollin had raised his eyebrows a little at her. “Both your initials?”

  And so she’d had the chance to be wild and crazy after all. “How much can you put on there?” she’d asked.

  Rollin had turned the watch over and looked at its smooth silver back. “Whatever you want. Do you know his favorite Bible verse? You could put the Scripture reference.”

  “Initials. DB. Then ‘love always’ followed by the initials LJ.”

  She had hardly even blushed as Rollin had said, “That should work fine. I’ll stay open a few minutes late so you can pick it up when you get off work today.”

  Leigh had wanted to kiss him. She thought maybe she should have as she went back out on the street and headed to the Grill for her luncheon date with Zella. If she was going to start being wild and crazy, she might as well go whole hog.

  At the Grill, Zella was settled in their usual booth with coffee cups and menus already on the table in front of her. As Leigh smiled and headed toward her, a man stepped into her path.

  “Leigh. How are you?” the man said as if they were old friends.

  He looked familiar, but then everybody in Hollyhill looked familiar. They all had to come into the courthouse several times a year to conduct some sort of business. No name came to mind, but he’d called her Leigh. It must be somebody she was supposed to know. She smiled and said, “I’m fine. And you?”

  “I’m absolutely great. School let out for Christmas vacation yesterday.” He pushed black-framed glasses up closer to his face and smiled. “People don’t think we should be glad about that, but the truth is, most teachers are happier even than our students when we get some days away from the enfants terribles.”

  “I guess everybody likes a few days off.” Now Leigh remembered him. He was the teacher who’d been with Jocie the day Leigh picked her up to make cookies. Edwin Hammond. The new English teacher who was giving Jocie fits. Leigh smiled back at him. He was tall and slim, probably around Leigh’s age. Perhaps even younger. And handsome in an offbeat way.

  There had been a lot of talk about him ever since he’d been hired to fill in for Janice Wickers after the doctors made her go to bed to keep from losing her baby. He was always telling everybody he was going to write the next great American novel and an author could never have too much material stored up. Who knew? Perhaps one of these days they could be reading about themselves. Somehow, after meeting Edwin Hammond, few of Hollyhill’s citizens expected to like what they might read.

  Leigh hadn’t actually ever officially met him. Just seen him that day on the steps of the school. Jocie didn’t like him. She said the man was strange. And unfair, mean, unfeeling, callous, malicious. She’d gone through a whole thesaurus list of unattractive traits. After Jocie’s article about him came out in the Banner, the teacher had started tearing her papers apart. She said the man could probably even find fault with Shakespeare or the writers of the Bible, and the only kids he liked at school were the cute girls.

  Jocie didn’t put herself in that category, although Leigh thought she could. Jocie was sure the teacher had it in for her, whatever it was. And Leigh couldn’t say she was wrong since Mr. Hammond had already called David twice about Jocie’s behavior in his class. Zella had reported that to Leigh with a good measure of satisfaction since Zella had long thought Jocie needed more discipline.

  So now, although Leigh couldn’t imagine why the man had stepped so purposely into her path, she took the chance to study him. With his black hair combed back from his face and his angular features, he could have stepped off the cover of one of Zella’s gothic romances. Half the girls at the high school probably had a crush on him.

  Maybe that was Jocie’s problem. Maybe she did have a crush on him, and that was what kept getting her into trouble with him. But it hadn’t sounded like that. It had sounded more as if Jocie thought the man had horns sprouting under his black hair.

  “You do know who I am, don’t you, Leigh?” The teacher smiled down at her and put his hand on her arm. Leigh wasn’t sure if it was the smile or his touching her that made her uncomfortable, but something did. She shifted her arm away from his hand and forced herself to keep smiling back at him. “Of course. The new English teacher at the high school. Mr. Hammond.”

  “Please call me Edwin or even Ed. I hear Mr. Hammond this and Mr. Hammond that way too much at school.”

  “Well then, Edwin,” she said. Behind him Zella was peering at them over the top of her glasses. “It’s been nice talking to you, but I’m late for my luncheon date. So if you’ll excuse me.”

  “Excuse you?” Edwin laughed. “That’s what the little girls at school are always saying when they need to go wee wee. They wave their hands in the air and bounce up and down in their seats, saying ‘Can I be excused, Mr. Hammond?’ It’s hilarious.”

  Leigh’s polite smile disappeared as she started to step past him. “As I said, I’m late.”

  He reached out to stop her, but she stepped back out of his reach. “Do forgive me, Leigh. I didn’t mean to offend your sensibilities. I keep forgetting that you people out here in the boonies don’t have much sense of humor.”

  “I’m sure I’ll laugh later. Goodbye, Mr. Hammond.” She moved on past him to slip into the booth across from Zella.

  “What was that all about?” Zella asked.

  “Who knows? He’s that new English teacher.”

  �
�I know who he is,” Zella said. “But what did he want?”

  “Beats me. To talk, I guess.”

  “About Jocelyn?”

  “No. He didn’t mention Jocie.” Leigh unfolded her napkin and put it in her lap.

  “Hmph.” Zella mashed her mouth together and her eyes narrowed as she stared past Leigh toward the front of the restaurant.

  Leigh took a quick glance over her shoulder to where Edwin Hammond was sitting back down at his table. He caught her looking at him and smiled and waved a little. Leigh pretended she didn’t see him as she turned back to Zella.

  “He must have been flirting with you,” Zella was saying. “He’s single, you know.”

  “Flirting with me? That’s ridiculous.”

  Zella looked at Leigh. “Not so ridiculous. You’re looking very nice today. Practically glowing.”

  “Yeah, like Rudolph. I’m afraid I’m catching a cold.” Leigh sneezed to prove it. She sat her gift up on the table to make Zella quit talking about Edwin Hammond flirting with her. Surely that wasn’t true. For sure, she didn’t want it to be true. Jocie was right. The man was just too strange.

  13

  Jocie’s father dropped her off at Leigh’s apartment Thursday morning before he went on to the Banner offices. Jocie would have just as soon gone on to the office to help him and Wes work on some of the pages for next week’s Banner, but Leigh had wanted her to come so much. And she owed Leigh some time. Leigh was always doing stuff for her. Taking her shopping. Helping her cook something.

  Listening to her complain about school.

  At least Jocie didn’t have to worry about Mr. Hammond giving her the evil eye until after Christmas break. Jocie wasn’t going to think about him at all. He was just too weird. The last day of school he’d even smacked her on the shoulder with a rolled-up sheaf of papers. His excuse was that she looked as if she was about to fall asleep. She hadn’t even been slouching in her seat. She’d started to ask him if aliens from Neptune had trouble seeing, but she bit her tongue and stopped herself in time.

  She had to survive English. She couldn’t drop out of school and the school said she had to take English. Mr. Hammond taught the only freshman English class. If you could call it teaching. Sometimes Jocie wasn’t sure he knew the difference between a noun and a verb. The last day before break, he’d read them a story he’d written. It was awful. Didn’t half make sense and was way too wordy. He needed some practice writing for a newspaper so he could figure out the value of a word.

  Not that she was going to tell him that. She wasn’t going to tell him anything. She was going to wipe him completely out of her mind at least until she went back to school, and then she’d figure out a way to endure the rest of the year. Praying for him the way her father had suggested hadn’t worked.

  She knew what Jesus had said in the Sermon on the Mount. Her father preached about it, and Aunt Love was always quoting that part about loving your enemies. Pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. And there was something about doing good for people who hated you. She didn’t want to do anything good for Mr. Hammond. She wanted him to fall in a hole and disappear. Leigh opened the door a few inches and peeked out. Forever. She didn’t want to even think about him, much less pray for him. The best she could do was pray he’d be called back to Neptune and soon. Before January.

  As she ran up the steps to Leigh’s apartment, she did whisper a little prayer. “Help me not to think about the teacher from Neptune once until after Christmas.”

  Leigh opened the door a few inches and peeked out.“Oh, Jocie. I tried to call you. I don’t think you should come in. I’ve got a cold.” She sneezed a couple of times to prove it.

  “You sound awful,” Jocie said.

  “I know. I feel like crying.”

  “Did you get your presents wrapped?”

  “Not yet. I can’t quit sneezing long enough. I can’t believe I caught a cold right here at Christmastime. It’s going to mess up everything.” Leigh mashed her lips together, sniffed a couple of times, and blinked her eyes. Tears slid down her flushed cheeks.

  “You might feel better by tomorrow.”

  “But your dad had something planned for us tonight. There’s no way I’ll be better by tonight, and even if I do get better by tomorrow, I couldn’t come to your house and be around Stephen Lee.”

  “He’s going to catch a cold sooner or later. Everybody does.”

  “But I don’t want to give him his first cold. That wouldn’t be much of a Christmas gift.”

  “I never catch anything. Let me come in and help you finish wrapping your presents.” Jocie held up the sack of presents she’d brought with her to wrap. “And I need to wrap mine too.”

  Leigh looked as if she wanted to open the door and let Jocie come in, but then she had a sneezing fit. After she mopped up her nose, she said, “No, no sense in you getting sick and not being able to enjoy your break from school. But wait a minute. I’ll give you some wrapping paper and ribbon and you can wrap your presents at the Banner offices before you go home. Okay?”

  “I promise I wouldn’t catch anything,” Jocie said.

  “I know, but we need to be sensible,” Leigh said and then looked as if she was going to cry again. She mashed her mouth together and fought off the tears. “Wait here.”

  Leigh left the door open as she headed toward the kitchen. Jocie peeked in at Leigh’s Christmas tree in front of her living room window next to the street. Jocie had helped Leigh decorate the tree the first week of December. It wasn’t a live tree. They’d had to fit it together branch by branch, but it looked beautiful adorned with shiny gold garlands, red and blue satin balls, and miniature wooden toys.

  The lights were on even though it was daylight. Aunt Love never let Jocie turn the Christmas lights on during the daytime except on Christmas morning. Several shining red packages with ribbons cascading down their sides sat under the tree on the white felt tree skirt.

  That’s what Jocie liked best about Leigh. That she was so extravagant. She bought things just because she liked them, not because she had to have them. She had a whole stack of records. She bought grapes even when they weren’t on sale. About as extravagant as the Brooke household ever got was buying a frozen can of orange juice every now and again. Aunt Love might have forgotten a lot of things, but she hadn’t forgotten how to pinch a penny.

  Leigh came back to the door and handed Jocie an unopened roll of red foil paper and a spool of white ribbon. “You have tape at the Banner, don’t you?”

  “Yeah. Gee thanks, Leigh. This stuff is beautiful.” Jocie shoved the paper down in her sack of presents before she smiled at Leigh and said, “You’re the best.”

  “I wish I felt the best.” She tried to cough and sneeze at the same time. “You want me to call your father to come get you?”

  “I can walk. It’s not that far. I hope you feel better. Rub some of that stinky salve on your chest or something. That’s what Aunt Love always makes me do if I sneeze even once, and like I said, I never catch anything.”

  “I hate the smell of that stuff, but I guess it’s worth a try,” Leigh said with a weak smile.

  Before Jocie could start down the steps, the Hollyhill Flower Shop van stopped in front of Leigh’s house. “Looks like somebody has sent you flowers.”

  “They might be for Mrs. Simpson downstairs.” Leigh opened her door a little wider to peer out at Blanche Baker lifting a vase filled with at least a dozen red roses out of the van.

  “Wow,” Jocie said as Mrs. Baker started up the stairs to Leigh’s door. She couldn’t believe her father had been so extravagant. Roses had to cost a mint this time of the year.

  “Oh, Jocie. I wasn’t expecting you to be here.” Mrs. Baker frowned as she carefully edged past Jocie on the narrow landing as if she thought Jocie might stick her foot out to trip her or something. Then she smiled at Leigh still standing in the doorway. “I’ve got roses for you, Leigh.”

  “My heavens, they’re gorgeo
us,” Leigh said. “Where’s the card?”

  “Right there in the middle, but maybe you should take them inside before you read it,” Mrs. Baker said as she held the vase out toward Leigh. Then with a pointed look at Jocie, she added, “It might be private.”

  Leigh didn’t pay any attention and neither did Jocie as she peered over Mrs. Baker’s shoulder at the words on the card. “With great affection, Your Secret Admirer.”

  “A secret admirer,” Jocie said. “Oh shoot. Then they must not be from Dad. Nothing secret about his admiration.”

  Leigh was staring at the card as if she was as surprised as Jocie. Mrs. Baker thrust the vase into Leigh’s hands. “Merry Christmas, Leigh. I’ve got other deliveries. Make sure you keep the water in the vase fresh.” Then she gave Jocie a hard look as she said, “And you, Jocie Brooke, don’t be so nosy. They’re not your roses.”

  “I can still smell them before I leave, can’t I?” Jocie said.

  “I guess that’s up to Leigh,” Mrs. Baker said before she went down the stairs.

  “What’s the matter with her?” Jocie asked.

  “I think she thought it might be awkward for me to get the roses with you here.”

  “Why?” Jocie looked at Leigh.

  “Because, as you said, the roses must not be from your father.”

  “Oh,” Jocie said. “So who’s your secret admirer?”

  “I’m afraid to hazard a guess,” Leigh said as she studied the roses. She wasn’t smiling. That might have been because her cold was making her miserable as she sneezed again so hard that she almost dropped the vase.

  Jocie put down her sack of presents and took the vase from Leigh until she got over her sneezing fit. “You want me to carry them in for you?”

  Leigh blew her nose and then shook her head. “No, I can take them now.” She reached for the vase and stared down at the flowers. “A girl loses a little weight and things get crazy.”

  “And you really don’t know who they’re from?”

  “How could I? There was no name.”