“You think Mrs. Baker would tell you?”
“Maybe. If I asked,” Leigh said.
“Don’t you want to know? Aren’t you curious? I mean, this is the kind of thing you read about in books. Books like Zella reads. Flowers from a secret admirer. You think Zella sent them to get Dad motivated?”
Leigh laughed. “That’s an idea, but I don’t think so. Not unless she could somehow charge them to your father.”
14
David pulled away from the curb back out on the street as soon as Jocie was on the first step up to Leigh’s apartment. He wanted to sit there and wait until Leigh opened the door. He wanted to see her smile and wave at him, but he couldn’t take the chance that she might run down the steps to ask him about the special date he’d promised her that night.
As usual he’d promised more than he was going to be able to deliver. He kept hoping for this great idea to rise up out of some subconscious romantic reservoir in his head or that maybe the Lord would grab him, give him a shake, and say do this or do that. But all he’d ended up with was a big question: Do what?
He wanted to give Leigh the ring. He wanted to tell her he loved her. He wanted to ask her to marry him. The want-to was swelling inside him until he thought he might burst. But at the same time the words were hanging up in his mouth. So much so that he was beginning to wonder if maybe the Lord had grabbed him and was giving him a shake and telling him not to be such an idiot as to think a young woman like Leigh would want to spend the rest of her life with him.
And not just with him. He came with plenty of baggage. Two daughters. A grandson. An elderly aunt. The ugliest dog in the county. A newspaper barely breaking even. A whole church full of lambs he was trying to shepherd.
Leigh would have to be out of her mind to want to jump into all that. David knew that with his head, but in his heart he was praying she might just be willing to give it a try. He was praying that if this gift, this blessing, was his to receive, then he wouldn’t ruin it by his ineptness at romance.
The truth was, he felt like a sweaty-palmed high school kid trying to work up the nerve to ask a pretty girl to the prom. Except there was no prom. He was supposed to come up with the prom. Some special event. Some special evening. Some special way to tell Leigh he loved her. He’d promised.
He’d thought up and rejected a dozen ideas. He’d even considered going down on his knees after the services last Sunday morning and asking her in front of his whole congregation, but then he worried that she might want to say no and wouldn’t feel she could in front of all those people wanting her to say yes. The church people already had them the same as married just because Leigh had moved her membership to Mt. Pleasant. And he didn’t think she’d say no, but he didn’t want to force her to say yes by surrounding her with fifty or sixty pairs of expectant eyes.
He’d thought about hiding the ring in the community section where the engagement notices were printed when they’d folded the Banner on Tuesday night, but he could imagine what Zella would think of that. She already thought he didn’t have a romantic bone in his body and that Leigh deserved better. Trouble was, Zella was right on both counts.
At last he’d settled on something simple. Dinner out somewhere. He’d bring his own candles from home if he had to. But that was before he started trying to make reservations. Every place was closed. It was Christmas Eve, after all. People wanted to be home with their families.
Now he was nearly desperate. He should have gone on and proposed last Saturday morning at the ball field with the sun coming up and their breath frosty in the air. Leigh might have thought that was romantic. But he hadn’t. And now there wasn’t another Saturday morning before Christmas. This was Christmas Eve. This was the day he’d promised something special.
He looked over at the Hollyhill Flower Shop as he turned in to the street behind the Banner offices. It was open. He could still get some flowers. A couple of roses to carry with him when he showed up at her door that night without a plan. That might be almost romantic, or at least as close as he was going to get. He’d taken Leigh a rose once when he’d gone to the park to walk with her. The first time they’d kissed. The first time he’d admitted to himself, even if he hadn’t admitted it to her, that he didn’t want to be alone anymore.
As he got out of his car, he felt in his pocket for the envelope of money the people at Mt. Pleasant had taken up for his Christmas gift. He was planning to go down to the Appliance Center at lunch and pay off the refrigerator, but he could keep out a few dollars for a couple of roses.
“What’s up, boss?” Wes asked him when he came through the back door into the pressroom. “You’re looking sort of down in the mouth this morning. Don’t you know it’s Christmas Eve?”
“I guess that’s my problem, Wes.”
“You afraid Santy Claus has lost your address?” Wes gave him a quizzical look.
“We haven’t put out any cookies and milk for a long time.” David pushed a smile out on his face. He fingered the ring box that had become a permanent fixture in his coat pocket so he could have it close to hand in case he got a sudden romantic inspiration. He’d about rubbed the felt off the box.
“Then I guess it’s a good thing the Lord don’t have to have cookies and milk to send down the blessings.”
David looked over at Wes. “You trying to preach at the preacher?”
“Sometimes the preacher needs it.”
“A lot of the times the preacher needs it.” David’s smile disappeared as he sank down on one of the wooden stools by the composing tables.
“Aren’t Christians supposed to be extra happy at Christmastime? You know, with the birth of Christ and all.” Wes limped over to sit in one of the chairs they kept in the pressroom now for him to rest his leg.
David looked at the man’s ankle above his shoe top. It didn’t look swollen today, but it was early. “Leg doing okay?”
“It’s holding me up.”
“I’ll have to be honest. That’s more than I thought it would ever do again when I pulled that limb off you last summer.”
“You prayed me through. You and Jo.” Wes gave him a hard look. “You’re looking like somebody might need to pray you through something. Did you forget to go shopping for Miss Leigh or something?”
“No, the problem is, I did go shopping.”
“How’s that a problem?”
David felt the box in his pocket again and looked at the pressroom door. Zella was out at her desk in the front office. He could hear her typewriter. But she generally stayed clear of the pressroom except when she had to help fold papers. David pulled the box out and flipped it open to show Wes.
Wes lit up like a Christmas tree. “I didn’t think you had it in you, son.”
“I’m not sure I do. I’ve been carrying this thing around for over a week. I can’t seem to get it out of my pocket when Leigh’s around.”
“You got cold feet?” Wes said. His smile faded.
“No, nothing like that. I want to give it to her, but I’m not sure I should.”
“You should,” Wes said.
“I’m old for her.”
“Not that old.”
“I’m a preacher. Preachers’ wives have a hard job.”
“Miss Leigh’s up to it. If ever I saw a girl up to it, it’s her. And she wants the job.”
“Do you think so?” David stared down at the ring.
“I don’t have the first doubt about that. The girl’s been after you for months, and once she got you to notice her, she’s bloomed like a flower. Oh yeah, she wants the job.”
David wished he could be half as sure of that as Wes sounded. “But sometimes we want things that aren’t good for us.”
Wes frowned over at him. “Are you trying to shoot down this blessing? That ain’t like you, David.”
“I don’t have a very good track record with love and marriage.” David closed the ring box and slipped it back in his pocket.
“You’ve never had love and ma
rriage. I don’t know what you had with Adrienne, but it wasn’t that.”
David was quiet as he stared at the press across the room. Wes was right. David had tried to manufacture love between him and Adrienne. He’d tried to pray up love between them, but it had never happened. Passion on his side. Then when that faded, responsibility and duty. But never love. And who knew what on Adrienne’s side? Nothing, as far as David had ever been able to tell.
“Do you love the girl?” Wes interrupted his thoughts to ask.
“I do.”
“Then give her the ring and tell her so.”
David looked back at Wes. “I don’t know how.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know how?” Wes had his frown back.
“I wanted to do something special. She deserves something special. What did you do when you asked your wife to marry you?” Asking that surely showed how desperate David was. Wes didn’t talk about his past. Had never mentioned his wife and family to David but the one time when Wes had told him about the wreck. About living when his wife and daughter died.
Now Wes turned his eyes to stare at the press, and for a minute David thought the gloom of the memory was going to swallow him. David reached over and touched his arm. “I’m sorry, Wes. I shouldn’t have asked that.”
“No, maybe you should have,” Wes said with a little shake of his head. “You know, for years I’ve blocked out all the memories because I just wanted to forget, so losing her and Lydia wouldn’t hurt so bad, but that wasn’t right. Isn’t right. We had some good times, Rosa and me. But I wasn’t no Don Juan. We were so young. I was barely twenty and she was eighteen. I didn’t have money for a ring, so I just asked her. We were in the swing on the front porch at her house. It was spring and I can still hear the way the birds were singing in the trees and how I couldn’t breathe until she whispered yes.” Wes leaned forward and fixed David with his eyes. “It’s Christmas Eve. You’ve got a gift for the girl you love. Give it to her. Trust me. It’ll be that easy.”
“Except for not being able to breathe until she says yes.”
Wes sat back in his chair and smiled at David. “Yeah, except for that.”
In the front the bell jangled as somebody came into the office and the sound of voices drifted back to them. David frowned as he stood up. “That sounds like Jocie. She’s supposed to be at Leigh’s.”
Jocie looked up at him as he came out into the front office. “Leigh’s sick.”
“Sick?” David said.
“Don’t look so worried. Just a cold, but she’s sneezing all over. Tawking like dis. I told her I never caught stuff, but she wouldn’t let me come in.”
“Oh, dear.” Zella snatched a tissue out of the box on her desk. “We had lunch together yesterday. I’ll catch it for sure.” She held the tissue up to her nose as if to be ready.
“You want me to go get you another box of tissues?” Jocie said as she rolled her eyes at Zella. “You might run out.”
“Jocie!” David called her down. The last thing he needed was Zella on a rampage about Jocie’s lack of respect for her elders, namely Zella.
“Sorry, Zella. I really will run get you some tissues if you need them.” Jocie ducked her head a moment before she looked back at David. “Dad, you ought to call Leigh. She was feeling blue about not getting to come out to the house tomorrow. Just talking about it made her cry. I told her Stephen Lee was bound to catch a cold sooner or later. I mean, Christmastime is special. You can’t just stay home by yourself. You don’t, do you, Zella? You go to your cousin’s house or something, don’t you?”
“I have family to celebrate with.” Zella’s voice was a little huffy. “And so does Leigh. Her parents in Grundy.”
“Yeah, but she’s supposed to come to our house first in the morning. Wes too same as always. We’re going to have a crowd.” Jocie looked satisfied that everybody was taken care of for Christmas. “I told her she might feel better by morning. But she said you guys had planned to do something special tonight and that she couldn’t get better that fast. That made her cry too.”
“I’ll call her,” David said. At least now it wouldn’t matter that no restaurants were open. He’d have to come up with a new plan.
“But the roses should have cheered her up,” Jocie said.
“Roses?” Zella’s head jerked up. “What roses?”
“Mrs. Baker brought them as I was leaving. They were those deep velvety red kind people put on casket tops when somebody dies. Of course these were in a vase. Probably a dozen of them.”
“A dozen roses?” David couldn’t even guess how much that might cost.
“Yeah, at least. Maybe more. Did you send them, Dad?” Jocie looked at him. “I told Leigh you didn’t. I mean, you would have signed your name, wouldn’t you? And the card on these just read Your Secret Admirer. But who else would that be?”
“I don’t know,” David said. He had a funny sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had theorized that Leigh could do better than hook up with him, but he hadn’t thought there was actual competition on the scene. “But it wasn’t me.”
Zella gasped, and they all looked at her.
“You didn’t send them, did you, Zella?” Jocie asked.
“Of course not. Don’t be silly. But I know who did.” She paused for effect.
“Well, don’t just sit there. Tell us,” Jocie said.
“Edwin Hammond. He was flirting with Leigh yesterday at the Grill.”
“Mr. Hammond?” Jocie almost squawked. “The teacher from you know where.”
“Pittsburgh, I think he said,” David said with a stern look at Jocie even though at that moment he was agreeing with her all the way. He’d met Edwin Hammond. He was good-looking in a bookish way. And young. Young like Leigh. David’s heart sank into that sick feeling.
“Now wait a minute.” Wes stepped up to put his hand on David’s shoulder. “No need in everybody going over the edge here. This mystery admirer might or might not be the teacher from Neptune. We don’t know since whoever it was didn’t have nerve enough to sign his name. But even if it turns out to be him, Zell here says he was flirting with Miss Leigh, not the other way around. We know who Miss Leigh’s wanting to flirt with, cold or no cold.”
“True.” Zella sounded relieved. “Leigh didn’t seem particularly impressed with the man’s attentions.”
“I hope she breathed germs all over him,” Jocie growled. Then she looked at David. “And she really didn’t look all that glad to get the roses either.”
“But he’s so young,” David said.
“For mercy sakes, David. You don’t exactly have a foot in the grave or anything,” Zella said.
“And faint heart never won fair maiden,” Wes said.
“Dad doesn’t have a faint heart.” Jocie looked from Wes to David. “Do you, Dad?”
15
At first Leigh set the roses on her kitchen table. Then she moved them to the kitchen sink. She needed the table cleared off so she could wrap presents. Just in case she had a miraculous recovery before morning.
Miracles did happen. Somebody had just sent her a dozen roses. The funny thing was, she wanted to pitch them in the garbage can. She stared at the roses sticking up out of the old white sink with its chipped enamel. Hardly the proper place for such beautiful roses, but she didn’t put down her teacup to go move them to a more worthy spot.
Edwin Hammond. She’d known he sent them as soon as she saw the card. She just didn’t know why. Maybe he did simply admire her the way the card said. What was wrong with her that she couldn’t believe that? What was wrong with him that she didn’t want him to admire her?
She sneezed and grabbed another tissue out of the box she’d been carrying around with her all morning. She was beginning to feel like Zella with a tissue constantly under her nose. At least Leigh’s weren’t pink. The way she was sneezing and blowing, she was going to run out of tissues. Then what? She didn’t feel like going to the store. No problem. She could always carry a
round a roll of toilet paper. Tissue was tissue. And besides, she already felt like her day was going down the toilet. Maybe she’d try that menthol salve the way Jocie had suggested.
What a rotten time to catch a cold. She went to the bathroom to look in the medicine cabinet for the salve and something to take for her head. It was throbbing, and she couldn’t breathe through her nose.
James Robertson. He was the one. He’d come into the office last week looking just the way she felt and had proceeded to sneeze all over the twenty-dollar bill he’d handed her to pay for transferring some old truck he’d sold. He could have waited another day, but no, he had to come in and shower them all with cold germs. She had half a mind to call him up and tell him how he’d ruined her Christmas.
Maybe she was wrong about Edwin Hammond. Maybe James was her secret admirer. Leigh almost giggled at the thought. James was sixty-five if he was a day, and since he’d lost his wife to cancer a couple of years ago, he seemed to have forgotten why people bought soap. That gave him a certain distinctive air, but it didn’t keep him from making eyes at anybody in a skirt. He always had a thick roll of bills in his pocket, so he had the money to buy the roses. But he wouldn’t.
That was the thing. There probably weren’t five men in all of Holly County who would spend that kind of money on roses. Not as long as their wives were still breathing anyway. That’s why it had to be Edwin Hammond. He wasn’t from Hollyhill. He had practically waylaid her in the Grill. He’d tried to poke holes right through her with his eyes. He’d sent the roses.
Leigh got the aspirin out of the medicine chest and shut the door. She stared at her reflection and almost laughed. Her nose was red. Her hair was flat. Her eyes were watering and bloodshot. She looked horrible. If Edwin Hammond could see her now, he might change his mind about that secret admiration thing.
She didn’t care what Edwin Hammond thought about her. She did care what David Brooke thought. Desperately. And she’d been so sure that this night, this first Christmas they were celebrating as a couple, was going to be something wonderful, and now she was going to be home sneezing alone.
Summer of Joy Page 10
