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Dearest Dorothy, If Not Now, When?

Page 18

by Charlene Baumbich


  Only after his formal acceptance did she present the caveat.

  “Good. Now that you’re on board as my lawyer, you can step up to the microphone in your official capacity during the meeting, should the need arise.” Although he raised his eyebrows—his professional entry into Partonville suddenly feeling nothing short of a baptism by fire ants— he consented.

  Katie flipped through her note cards one last time before tucking them into the front folder in her portable file case that still traveled with her every trip she made between the farm and the mall. She decided to bring the whole thing with her this evening, just in case. She hated how wired she felt, how . . . alone. She snapped the lid closed, scooted the case to the edge of the table and strode to the bottom of the stairway.

  “You coming?” she hollered up to Josh, hoping he could hear her above his stereo.

  “You say something?” he yelled back after turning down the volume.

  “YES! Are you coming?”

  “You want me to?” He sat dumbfounded at his desk, staring at his bedroom door as though she were standing there. This was the first time she’d mentioned this, although he sure knew about the brouhaha. You’d have to be dead not to know about it, Shelby quipped at school today. He quite agreed. Nobody around town talked about anything else these days. But he was grounded. Besides, he was sick of the whole thing anyway.

  “WELL?” she yelled.

  Part of him wanted to just stay away from all of it. The mall was her life lately and he hated that. However, the other part of him said to himself, What are you, NUTS? You’re grounded and you’re going to turn down a chance to get out of this house? “Just a sec! Let me comb my hair!”

  “I’m leaving right now,” she said emphatically, spinning on her heels, passing by the kitchen table and scooping up her file box.

  Josh hopped in the SUV just as Katie put it in reverse. They drove in silence until she turned onto the blacktop. He noticed she sat ramrod straight while her index fingers tap-danced on the steering wheel. “You nervous about this meeting?” he asked.

  She thought a minute. “Nervous isn’t the right word. On guard, maybe. I’m not sure what to expect, really. Sometimes people in this town act like savages.”

  After a moment of silence he begrudgingly—and that was obvious by his tone—spoke. “Dorothy said you’ll do fine and so will Gladys. She’s also glad Jacob’s going to be there in case you need his help.”

  “When did she say all that?”

  “E-mail. Is Uncle Delbert gonna be there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you even talked to him since our dinner . . . seven, eight . . . no, nine days ago?” Now his tone was accusatory.

  “No. And do not push me on this, Joshua Matthew Kinney. I’ve got enough on my mind right now.”

  He sighed and slumped down in his seat wishing he’d stayed home since nothing, not even her own brother, mattered to her but her precious mall.

  When they pulled into the parking lot for the Park District building, Katie was stunned to see that even though she’d come a half hour early, the lot was nearly full. She’d hoped to check out the podium and set up her notes in private. No such luck. After finding a spot near the back of the lot—her eyes scanning the cars hoping to spot Jacob’s Saab—she parked the SUV. Josh opened his door to get out before she even turned off the engine.

  “Josh! Wait a minute,” she said, grabbing him by the arm.

  He turned his scowling face toward her. “What?” he snapped.

  She pursed her lips, then relaxed them. Then her eyes welled. “I’m glad you’re here with me, Josh. Truly. Thank you for coming.”

  He nodded his head, swallowed. He was as stunned as if she’d just sat down at the piano and played ragtime.

  Jacob and Dorothy pulled up in front of May Belle’s to find May Belle standing on the porch waiting for them, her age-old tweed coat buttoned tight up under her neck, a large brown paper grocery bag in each hand. Jacob hopped out, relieved her of her packages and helped her into the back seat of his car.

  “I thought the doughnut shop donated coffee and doughnuts for the meeting,” Dorothy said, turning around as far as her stiff old neck would allow, which wasn’t very far.

  “I baked a few dozen cookies anyway, just in case the meeting runs late and the doughnuts run out. Anything to help prevent the natives from getting more restless,” she said with a nervous chuckle.

  “Not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all,” Dorothy noted. “I’m glad I don’t have to do anything but sit there tonight. I don’t envy anyone involved in this mall.”

  “Oh, thanks!” Jacob said.

  Dorothy smiled, leaned over and patted him on the arm. “Don’t worry, son, the Big Guy’s ultimately in control, even if it might not feel like it this evening.”

  “I’ve been reminding myself of that all day too, Dorothy,” May Belle said. “The tension in this town is prickly. But even though God is bigger than all of us, I’ll have the cookies in the car if we need them. Never hurts to help Him out every now and again, right?” May Belle smiled, recalling Dorothy’s last mention of helping God out by knocking heads together.

  “Right.” Dorothy would never disagree with that.

  “And if we don’t need your secret ammunition, I bet Mom can figure a few personal ways to help relieve you of it. She’s got an extra mouth to feed right now, you know,” he said, catching May Belle’s eye in his rearview mirror and beaming her a smile.

  “I sure do!” Dorothy chirped.

  She sounded so content with him under her roof, Jacob thought, which was another reason he needed to find his own digs before she got too used to his presence. Plus, a man needed his space and he was tired of feeling cramped. He just hoped that after tonight’s meeting he didn’t need to find himself a cave.

  “Now, Nellie Ruth,” Edward Showalter said while reaching across the front seat to take her hand, “I’m sure we won’t be the last ones to get there. You can’t help it if you had to work late, and neither could I.” Then he erupted in off-key song. “Ya load sixteen tons, and what do you get? Another day older and . . . Tar-dy,” he added in the tone of a ding-dong doorbell. Nellie Ruth, a consummate musician who played the saxophone like a professional and possessed the gift of perfect pitch, chuckled and squeezed his hand.

  “Tell me true, ES, how are you holding up, really, with all of these long hours? I know you say okay, but do you mean it, really?”

  “I’m a tough old goat, Nellie Ruth. Tougher than you might think,” he said.

  She thought about how he always opened her van door or gathered Kornflake’s silky ears in his hands, gently rubbing them between his fingers, and recalled his tender prayers. “Tough as nails,” she said, flashing him a coy smile. “But still, here we are on our way to listen to what might turn out to be a debate about your very job, and after all the dedication you’ve shown! Are your long hours and all the personal conflicts with your coworkers, who are also your friends—not to mention all the danger you endure every day—worth defending?”

  “Danger?”

  “Scaffolding, ladders, live electrical wires . . .,” things she simply could not stop fretting about, no matter how much she prayed.

  Edward Showalter sucked his lips inside his mouth. A debate about my very job? By golly, she was right! He’d never once in the midst of all this mall bashing and mayoral haranguing had time to consider his job might be in jeopardy. Why would he? His boss lady was smart, rich and determined, and he was a laborer worthy of his hire. Sure, he was putting in a lot of hours, and there were occasional ruffled feathers with the work crew, and tensions about the mall, and a mayoral race in the works. But a debate about his job?

  Sure enough, if the mall was somehow defeated, so, too, he would be. He would no longer be a man with a managerial title and job security, a man who could one
day care for a wife. He would be nothing more than an unemployed—or at the very best not consistently employed— recovering alcoholic. What was that to offer anyone, least of all a lady like Nellie Ruth? He weaved his way through the maze of cars in silence, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in an attempt to keep his dry throat from slamming shut.

  “Would you please read this for me, Glenda honey?” Glenda looked up from her knitting. Her husband stood before her holding a short stack of papers. He handed her the double-spaced pages hot off his printer.

  “Is this what you’ve been working on the last few nights?” she asked, setting her knitting aside and receiving the offering.

  “It is. But I’ve been working on it in my head for longer than that. Now it’s time to stop working on it and submit it.”

  “I’m proud of you, Carl.”

  “How do you know? You don’t even know what it is and you haven’t read it yet.”

  “First of all, I’m always proud of you. But second, when you take a stand for something, I’ve never known you to be wrong. Once you finally shared what was bothering you, I knew you’d have to do something. You’re a chip off the old block, as your dad—a wonderful old block—used to say.” She shuffled through the pages, surprised at the length.

  “Too long?”

  Sometimes maybe they knew each other too well, she thought. “First let’s give it a read, then I’ll give you my honest opinion.”

  “Since the first day I met you, I’ve never expected anything less,” he said, bending down to plant a kiss on the top of her sparkling gray-haired head.

  The last gentleman to arrive in the Park District building stood in the shadows of the rear door through which he entered. He’d held his foot in back of him to keep the door from slamming shut so as not to draw unwanted attention. He stayed put for a number of reasons, not the least of which was to make sure he could be the first one out. Katie Durbin was just being introduced. He leaned against the wall, withdrew a tape recorder from his interior sport jacket pocket, turned it on and held it out in front of him. So that’s the dame under Colton’s skin.

  Harold Crab sat directly in front of the podium watching Katie shuffle through her note cards. He was close enough to notice the moisture on her upper lip and the faint beads of sweat trickling onto her brow. Even though it was cool outdoors, the packed room felt stuffy—but not that stuffy. She must be more nervous than she was letting on, although his reporter’s sixth sense had already detected a slight air of anxiety swirling around her when she arrived. Herb Morgan had grabbed her by the elbow the moment she entered the building and escorted her to her reserved seat in the front row next to Gladys, who was uncharacteristically quiet. Dazed was more like it. But then she hadn’t been at Harry’s the last few mornings either. Maybe she wasn’t feeling well. Katie seemed perturbed about the seating arrangement, although Harold wasn’t sure why until he saw Josh shrug his shoulders and begin looking around for a single seat somewhere else, the front row already full. At least that’s what Harold thought Josh was doing. In reality he was using the opportunity to search for Shelby.

  But now there Katie stood at the podium after Swifty Forester’s introduction (Swifty was solicited to emcee the evening due to his loudly seasoned auctioneer’s voice and impartial presence) stating her name as if under oath and as though every single person in the room aside from Swifty didn’t already know who she was and hadn’t arrived for the sole purpose of either cheering her on or verbally gunning her down.

  Harold had been the second person to arrive this evening. The first was the janitor. It was hard to keep from laughing out loud as Harold observed the first half of the arrivals either head to the right or left of the middle aisle, as though they were on the bride’s or groom’s side of a feuding family. He’d written as much in his notes. And who among them seemed to vie for those front-row seats? Of course Cora Davis was third to arrive and she parked herself in the front row on the left. Gladys was the fourth in the door and she roosted herself right next to him since the podium was slightly to the right of the center aisle and her positioning quickly took the form of those “for” everything in question on her personal agenda. Sharon, right on Gladys’s heels, pulled a chair out of one of the rows and parked herself up at the front facing the crowd, almost directly sideways from Katie so she could correctly attribute audience comments while still getting a good view of the speakers’ facial expressions. She also wanted to send a clear signal that she was neutral, striving to equally report both sides of the story—although in her heart of hearts, she knew she’d vote for anything that might sink that smug Colton Craig.

  When Dorothy, Jacob and May Belle showed up, they took seats near the middle on the right since that’s as close to the front as they could get. Harold took note that Katie seemed to be watching for them and was relieved when she saw them enter. In fact, she didn’t fully settle into her seat until after she gave them a relieved nod. Of course Herb Morgan was on the right, too, but even though he was relatively early, he had to settle for a seat at the beginning of the second quadrant.

  Once the front half of the seats was filled and the heavyweights were no longer visible, the “sides” weren’t as obvious, so people parked anywhere, then stood wherever they could.

  Now, Katie stood before the deathly silent crowd sweating hot-flash bullets while “setting the record straight,” telling them it was time to “shine our town lights,” “revitalize, display our talents, sell our goods,” “come together with purpose and viable plans,” and “put a new face on our quaint town.” And if there was one thing she wanted to assure them of, she was, whether they believed it or not, “no longer The City Slicker but a country dweller with a heart for the entire of Pardon-Me-Ville.” Why else, she asked them—implored them to consider—would she invest her personal money in Partonville or Partonvillers by keeping a separate file for qualified locals seeking employment positions in the mall and by showcasing their local wares. Had they forgotten she helped Dorothy secure land to establish Crooked Creek Park, which would break ground in the beginning of May? Did she not “evidence” her “genuine pleasure” when she hosted the annual Christmas party out at the farm? And then the clincher: would any of them honestly believe she would be, could be, a Happy Hooker if she was not truly a Partonviller?

  At the mention of the Hookers, Dorothy spontaneously popped up and began to applaud. Harold wondered if Katie and Dorothy had staged this maneuver. (Which they had not, really, although Dorothy did encourage Katie to at least mention the Hookers.) Raising her clapping hands high over her head, Dorothy shouted, “Hurray for the HOOKERS!” thereby inciting every other Happy Hooker in the room—Nellie Ruth McGregor, Jessica Joy, Gladys McKern, Maggie Malone, Jessie Landers and May Belle Justice—to do the same.

  Dorothy had been waiting for the right moment to rally her personal battle cry for Katie without it seeming too obvious. When she heard Katie mention the Happy Hookers she barely had time to think If not now, when? before she was on her feet. It was the perfect opportunity. Since everyone in town knew about, and celebrated, the Happy Hookers, people on both sides of the aisle joined in the applause, finding it a momentary respite from the otherwise strained atmosphere. Dorothy was deliriously happy with the response, especially when she saw Katie break out in her first smile of the evening, raise her hands above her head and begin to clap. It was good for everyone to be reminded that Katie Durbin had been invited into the decades-old, time-honored and sacred club. Whether you were for Katie Durbin or not, you cheered for the Happy Hookers. That’s just the way it was. (Unless you were Sam Vitner, who forced himself to rest his hands in his lap during this shameless electioneering taking place before the debate even began.) Frieda Hornsby cheered so loudly and so long that Fred grabbed her by the arm and yanked her back down in her seat lest people think she’d jumped ship and swapped sides.

  The man holding the tape recorder at the back of the room
almost dropped it. He was unfamiliar with any of the ins and outs of Partonville, and in particular the happy hookers? In his state of shock all he could think was What in the world is going ON in this town!

  21

  C arl sat in his chair, book in front of him, trying to read Glenda’s face while she turned the pages. She held a pencil in her hand and occasionally wrote something in the margins. In some cases he thought she made nothing more than a check mark, although the look on her face didn’t reveal if it was because something was good or bad. Other times she seemed to either jot a few words or draw a line, maybe both. When she finished the last page she took off her glasses, closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. She tidied the pages, took a deep breath and for the first time met his eyes, which she felt burning on her the whole time she read, even though he pretended to read a book.

  “Well?”

  “It’s beautiful, Carl,” she said, a lump catching in her voice. “Moving. This article,” she said, patting the top of the stack, “is perhaps as strong as any building you’ve ever designed. It makes me wonder if a romance writer lurks inside your lovable, geometric, architectural self.” She smiled. “I can almost feel your heart beating—your father’s heart beating—within the rhythm of the words.”

 

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