Dearest Dorothy, If Not Now, When?

by Charlene Baumbich

  It always startled Sadie how different—more alive—Ellie seemed away from the doctors’ office, causing her to wonder how she was perceived by other people. She stared at herself in one of the mirrors. She looked thin and drawn, that old woman in the mirror looking back at her. But even though the light had not returned to her eyes since the death of her son, she felt grateful she was at least engaging in more conversations now than she did a month ago, thanks to the ongoing and kindhearted interest of people like Dorothy, Ellie and Maggie. No, a mother would never get over the loss of her child. But Dorothy, who knew firsthand, modeled a great hope to Sadie that she, too, could one day learn how to live with such a terrible grief.

  One of the best things to do, Dorothy told her, was to get involved with new adventures and new people, when she felt up to it. Dorothy certainly modeled that. She’d befriended Katie and Josh, the newcomers to the town, the minute they’d arrived. It would have been easy for Dorothy to resent them living out at her old place, hosting the Christmas party that used to be hers, but she didn’t. She in fact cheered them on. But Sadie wasn’t as mobile as Dorothy, nor was she as extroverted. Just the same, she thought, forcing herself to sit up a little straighter, it would feel good to get her hair done, and the buzz in the shop reminded her that there was life in the midst of grief—even though her instinct this morning was to crawl back into bed and never get up. “One day, one step at a time,” Dorothy had said, and today’s step was dragging the pieces of her shattered heart to the beauty shop.

  “As you know, Ellie,” Sadie said, forcing herself to think about something other than herself, “I don’t get out that much, aside from to the doctor’s and here. But I’ll tell you, my phone’s been ringing off the hook with election chatter, too, know what I mean?”

  “I surely do,” Maggie said, pulling a strand of Ellie’s hair straight out and pumping her arm into its backcombing rhythm, which in turn pumped her whole body. Backcombing was an age-old art she maintained today’s young stylists had no idea how to properly perform. Thoughts of her disastrous encounter with Cora’s mean spirit flew into her mind and she had to stop the procedure for a moment lest she got caught up and accidentally rip poor Ellie’s hair out by the roots. “If I had a dollar for every low-down backhanded comment made to me in the last two days,” she said, pausing to force herself to lower her booming voice while gently picking up the end of Ellie’s strands and making herself smile until her hands felt the smile, “I’d be a wealthy woman!”

  “How do you respond to opinions contrary to your own?” Ellie wanted to know. “Must be tricky in a business like this.”

  Hm. Maggie would have to be careful lest she alienate half of her clients, since people seemed to be evenly divided. “Well, sometimes I don’t do a very good job,” is all she said before she picked up the hairspray to begin reinforcing the backcombing, which would be followed by the fine art of The Perfect Smoothdown. Visions of Cora leaving with half a haircut caused her to giggle. “No, sometimes I don’t do a very good job at all of keeping my opinions to myself. But by Friday morning I realized I needed to maintain a neutral zone—or a least a neutral mouth—if I wanted to stay in business, lest half my clients end up with a curling iron stuffed down their throats.”

  Sadie laughed, envisioning some of Partonville’s finest walking around town looking like sword swallowers.

  “Maggie!” Ellie exclaimed, wincing at the thought of a hot iron cauterizing her tonsils. “You’re in rare form today!”

  “Nah, I’m just being me. And you know me, I also love to be on the cutting edge of fashion, so I’ve just come up with another brilliant idea.”

  “Do tell,” Ellie said.

  “Since campaign buttons seem to be the latest fashion craze,” she paused here a moment as if uttering the very word fashion elicited the utmost of respect, “I’m thinking of having my own buttons made up saying I VOTE FOR WRINKLE CREAMS! and DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT ASKING! or . . .” she grabbed her rat-tail comb and began the smoothing process, “how about YOU KEEP YOUR OPINIONS TO YOURSELF AND I’LL KEEP MY CURLING IRON OUT OF YOUR MOUTH!” Another round of laughter.

  “Well, I will certainly refrain from asking you what you think,” Ellie said, “lest I can’t help but disagree with it and end up causing Dr. Nielson to come in for my own Saturday emergency appointment!” Sadie laughed again, which felt very good indeed.

  After a final flourish of hairspray, Ellie was done. While she was squaring up her bill, Sadie hobbled over to the shampoo station. Maggie had already moved the chair away, knowing it was easier on Sadie’s poor body to stand at the sink and bend over forward than to try to get her ravaged neck bent backward on the headrest. No sooner had Maggie turned on the faucet than Loretta Forester arrived. Loretta was often referred to around town as Swifty’s wife and Swifty was known as Mr. Sell It Like It Is, the name of his auctioneering business. She helped him run their business by passing out numbers and posting all the paperwork while the auction was in progress. Loretta was not only a genuine hoot but she was the drummer for the Partonville Community Band.

  “Well aren’t you the early bird!” Maggie exclaimed over her shoulders as she adjusted the water temperature for Sadie’s wash.

  “We’ve got band practice at two today, so I thought I’d see if we might get me done a little early.” Band practices were held out at the Park District building where Loretta stored her drums since she was afraid Swifty, who didn’t much care for the “bang-edy-bang-bang” (“Who could stand it?”), might slip her expensive drum set into one of his auctions when she wasn’t looking.

  “Let’s see,” Maggie said, craning her neck the other way to look at the oversized calendar she kept on the wall revealing month after glorious month of muscle men, something Acting Mayor Gladys McKern vehemently objected to when Maggie hung the new calendar every January, but also never failed to observe every turn of the page when she thought Maggie wasn’t looking. “Well Hel-LO again Mr. March!” she said, causing even Sadie to lift her head for a moment to get a gander at the tall, dark and scantily clad warrior. “I see by his six-pack there—same as I saw, or let me say studied, when I flipped the calendar this morning—that it’s March first. Birthday celebration band practice, right?”

  “Yes ma’am. I’ve been saving up my Weight Watcher points just for the occasion.”

  Maggie gave Loretta a quick up-and-down glance. “How’s that going for you?” Nothing seemed obvious, but she didn’t want to sound insulting.

  “Let’s just say I figure I’m already using August’s points,” Loretta said, causing all three women to laugh. Oh, GOOD! Maggie thought. This was just the kind of ongoing lightheartedness she hoped would transpire when Sadie changed her standing appointment. She felt very proud that La Feminique Hair Salon & Day Spa could deliver on not only beautification, but also a balm for a grieving soul.

  “Say,” Maggie said, squeezing shampoo onto Sadie’s hair, “have either of you heard any important news, like perhaps a leak about the mall-naming winner?”

  Loretta marched right up next to Maggie. “No, but have YOU?” She all but screamed in her ear, already figuring how she might spend her gift certificate when her entry, “Partonville Pickens,” won, or at the very least placed.

  “May Belle said the committee was meeting at the Press at ten this morning,” Maggie said, getting right to the shampoo since Sadie couldn’t remain upside-down much longer, “but my eleven o’clock said the shades were drawn and the door was locked when she went by, and that there was a sign posted on the door saying YOU’LL SEE THE WINNERS IN TOMORROW’S PAPER!”—something they’d resorted to after people started knocking on the door about 10:30. “Good gravy! You’d think they were naming the next president rather than a mall, what with all the rules and regulations and secrecy they’ve put people through.”

  “Did you enter, Maggie?” Sadie asked through the small towel she
held over her face to keep water from running into her eyes.

  “Of course, darling! Didn’t everyone?”

  “I guess I just wasn’t up to it,” Sadie said. “Oh, I thought about it a couple times, but my creative juices are just dried up for now, I guess.”

  “And who could blame them?” Maggie said, guiding Sadie to stand up now that she’d finished rinsing. She deftly wrapped a towel around Sadie’s head, then led Sadie to her chair and helped her get seated.

  “So Mags, how many times did you enter since your creative juices are always overflowing?” asked Loretta, who had reseated herself after learning nothing about a mall winner. She selected a tabloid magazine from Maggie’s pile and casually flipped through it, stopping to study a picture of Brad Pitt, then stealing another glance at Mr. March, then back to Brad, deciding that if she had her pick, she’d go with Brad.

  “Only four, but they’re doozies. I imagine you don’t stand a chance with me in the running.”

  “You sharing any of them?” Loretta asked, continuing to flip the pages, acting like she didn’t really care but hoping she would hate every one of Maggie’s ideas, should she choose to divulge them, which she doubted.

  “Not telling. I’m not talking politics and I’m not sharing my entries. But you can probably read all about at least one of them in tomorrow’s paper!”

  Almost everyone in Partonville was thinking the same thing—that is, unless they were too busy trying to figure out how to keep the mall from even opening.

  17

  Josh pulled into the Lamp Post just as Dorothy was walking out the side door into the parking lot. “What a wonderful surprise!” she said as she sped jauntily over to his truck to give him a hug. “I’ve been thinking about you lately. You working today?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be putting in eight hours,” he said somberly, “today and tomorrow,” and the same again next weekend, and for no money. And so much for Shelby and me checking out the Fire Pit, since aside from school, my slave labor and dinner with Mom at Uncle Delbert’s house Monday night, I’m also grounded for two weeks!

  He could not believe visions of the Fire Pit had popped into his mind yet again, and while he was talking to Dorothy! He’d be grounded for life if she could read his mind, not to mention he’d also be mortified. She thought he was such a nice young man; she’d said so on numerous occasions. Then again, she wouldn’t know what the Fire Pit was anyway. Little did he know her father had appeared there at 9 P.M. one rainy night and caught her and Henry (the man she would go on to marry) kissing, banged on the window of Henry’s dad’s Ford and told her she better get on home with him, which she did—never to return to the Fire Pit again for fear her dad would cause a worse scene the next time, which he would have.

  “Eight hours!” Dorothy said, snapping Josh out of his private dialogue. It took him a moment to get his mind away from the Fire Pit so he could remember what they were talking about. Oh, my slave labor. “Goodness me,” she said. “I’m kind of surprised there’s that much work. I don’t recall seeing much action around here today in terms of check-ins or check-outs.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  She looked at her wristwatch. “Let’s see, I’d say about four hours.”

  “You got a part-time cleaning job too?” he asked, which seemed a rather funny question to pose to an eighty-eight-year-old, although he didn’t look much amused with himself for asking.

  “Nope. I came over to relieve Jessica from her wife, nurse and mothering roles so she could get out and about and just be a woman for awhile.” Josh found that a curious statement since when wasn’t she a woman? “Of course I had an ulterior motive, which was to spend time snuggling with that wiggly love bundle of a Sarah Sue.”

  “How’d it go?”

  “Wonderfully exhausting,” she said, yawning while rubbing her back. “That baby’s growing like a weed and moving like a race car. To tell you the truth, I think I’m going to get myself home and take a nap. I was bragging to Jessica and Paul about my afterburner, but I think chasing Sarah Sue around flamed it out.” Josh chuckled. He couldn’t imagine Dorothy ever running out of steam, although she did look rather tired, her posture not as erect as usual.

  “Why’d you say you were working eight hours?”

  Josh chewed on his bottom lip. Dorothy could tell he was ruminating about something. He opened his mouth, then closed it. Then ruminated some more. “Dorothy, did you ever have a car accident on a gravel road?”

  Now it was her turn to ruminate. “Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, I was just curious.”

  “Why, did you?” She looked concerned.

  “Nope.”

  They stood there staring at each other for a moment. “So did you?” Josh asked, breaking the silence. “Did you ever have an accident because of the gravel?”

  She pursed her lips, as though arguing with herself. “I cannot tell a lie. Yes.”

  “How many?”

  “Who have you been talking to?”

  “Sergeant McKenzie.”

  “Do I want to know why?”

  “‘Do I want you to know why’ is the better question, although Mom’ll probably blab anyway.”

  “Do you want me to know? If she tries to blab, I can cover my ears.”

  “I’ll tell you. But,” he hesitated and smiled, both of them obviously enjoying this game of cat and mouse, “only if you’re curious enough to first tell me if you ever had a rollover.”

  Dorothy pursed her lips. Oh, Lordy! she prayed as she looked around him toward his vehicle. “Oh, Josh! Please don’t tell me you’ve rolled your new truck, or your mom’s SUV!”

  “Okay, I won’t tell you.”

  “Did you hurt yourself?” Her voice upshifted an octave. “Was anyone else in the car with you?”

  “I said I wouldn’t tell you I rolled anything . . . because I didn’t.” He sprouted a devilish grin.

  “Thank you, Jesus! And let me just take this opportunity to say that I hope you never do, and also to add that I guarantee you gravel can be very dangerous . . . if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

  He lifted his eyebrows, crossed his arms in front of him, smiled, leaned back against his truck and crossed one foot over the other. “How did you happen to learn that?”

  Now it was her turn to smile. He obviously wasn’t going to drop this. “Let’s just say you can trust me when I tell you I learned firsthand and the hard way. As for you, take the sound advice of people who tell you that gravel riding can be dangerous.”

  “People, huh?”

  “Yes,” she said, puckering up her lips as if to convey “smartypants” without uttering a word. “People who might just be oldsters who have indeed experienced their share of mishaps while riding the gravel, including brief episodes of . . . upside-downness, shall we call it. So, Mr. Kinney, do what I say and not what I did and you’ll live to tell about it! Got that?”

  “Got it, although inquiring minds still long for details.”

  “Inquiring minds will just have to wait since you need to get to work and I need to take a nap. And sometimes, Joshmeister, inquiring minds are too nosey for their own good,” she said, patting his cheek.

  “Oh, ES! Our contest meeting was so much fun!” Nellie Ruth said in a rush of breathless words. She switched the phone receiver between one hand and the other while she shucked off her coat which she uncharacteristically tossed over a chair before collapsing onto the couch.

  “Nellie Ruth, how could it not have been? You were there and you’re more fun than two kitties in a sock!”

  Two kitties in a sock? As if on cue, Morning sprinted across the living room up onto the couch, then came to a leaping halt in Nellie Ruth’s lap where he instantly began to purr like a well-oiled motorboat engine. “I can’t even imagine putting one kitty in a sock, let alone two,” s
he said, running her hand down Morning’s silky back. “You wouldn’t like it in a sock, would you, sweetie pie?” she said in her baby-talk tone of voice.

  “I don’t imagine I would. Plus, it would have to be a whale of a sock to swallow the likes of me!” Edward Showalter smiled at his own funny self, then smiled again picturing Nellie Ruth cuddling one of her kitties, which is the only time she ever used that voice.

  “Oh! I wasn’t talking to you!”

  He laughed. “I know. I was just funnin’ ya.”

  She loved the sound of his laughter. It might seem clichéd, and there was a song by the same title she’d begun playing on her saxophone when nobody was around, but he surely made her feel like a natural woman, which, after what her father had put her through, was a gift straight from God.

  And Oh! Not until that moment did she realize she’d come right home after the meeting, picked up the phone and dialed him without a single thought for proprieties or protocol. It felt so natural—yes, a wonderful word, she thought—to phone him, to hear his voice, to enjoy the sound of his laughter washing over her. Surely this was a sign. He’d been telling her all along that it was okay for a woman to call a man, and so it was—so suddenly and so naturally so. Thank you, Lord. Sometimes she struggled with the simplest things about their relationship. Only God could help her get over her past—and herself— and He was obviously fast at work, even when she least expected it.

  As if Edward Showalter’d sensed Nellie Ruth’s miraculous discovery, the two of them were silent for a moment, each feeling the power of their connection on so many levels. Their relationship had grown by leaps and bounds, a familiar wonderfulness settling over both of them. There were still clumsy moments, but all in all, they were, without question, a steady couple growing more in love every day. She wanted to share everything with him, including the smallest details about her day.

  “I wish I could tell you which entry won!” she said, leaning back on the couch and drawing her legs up under her, making more room for Morning to curl up and settle in her lap, which he did.