Dust
Page 10
Her brow went up in knowing. “Darlin’, just how long have you been aware of my offer to your sweetheart here?” she asked, which quelled my wondering. “Because if I know Westley—and I do—you found out less than twenty-four hours ago.”
I laced my fingers low and in front. “Yes, ma’am. He told me last night.”
“Good land of the living, Westley. Son, will you ever change? Life is not to be lived by the seat of your pants. A grown man of your breeding should know that.”
For a brief moment I thought Miss Justine might retract her offer, what with Westley being, in her eyes, so fly-by-night. But in the next moment she slid one arm around his waist and laughed. “God love it. If you weren’t such a fine pharmacist and cute to boot, I’d throw you out right now and tell you to have your lunch at the Burger King.”
I forced a smile while Westley’s laughter came easily. Something in Miss Justine’s voice let me know right away she had always been in on my future husband’s ways. Ways I wasn’t privy to. Yet. Ways his family kept mentioning and I kept telling myself were endearing. A part of his charm. One of the reasons I loved him so much.
And I did.
As lunch was served and conversation buzzed around me about the drugstore and those in neighboring towns, as talk went from profit and loss statements to salary and future expectations and the church we were slated to join, I listened. One hundred percent aware that this was my future being discussed and yet feeling completely not a part of it. Like I wasn’t going to be Westley’s partner in all this. I was no more than a textbook or a china doll that would be boxed up with the rest of our things and brought to town with him. For a moment, as my heart began to race and the lines around me started to blur, I thought to run. To jump up from the round wicker table against the glass wall overlooking a lush lawn full of gardens and statues and detailed wrought iron benches alongside a dark and brooding lake, and bolt to the car where Westley would find me, and I would beg him to take me home.
And then … “What do you think about that, Ali?”
I startled, my eyes jerking to Westley’s. “About what?”
Westley laughed, then reached over and took my trembling hand in his steady one. “She’s a bit overwhelmed,” he said to Miss Justine.
Miss Justine’s shoulders leveled. “As well she should be. Young bride-to-be. When’s the wedding, did you say?”
“December,” Westley said.
I supplied the rest of the answer. “Seventeenth.”
“And you must simply have scads to do. Well, this will be one less thing.”
I blinked several times. “What will?”
Westley squeezed the hand he continued to hold. “The house, sweetheart. Miss Justine has found us a house.”
“Completely furnished,” she said. “Now the furniture is not new, but it’s clean and I’m sure it will be to your liking. You’ll have lots of bridal showers and whatnot, so you’ll have plenty of your own nice things to make it feel less like a house and more like a home.”
“A house?” I said, my voice a squeak.
“Small,” Miss Justine said. “But just what you’ll need for now.” She leaned toward me. “Sweetheart, I hope you don’t mind, but I thought—”
I stole a glance at Westley, who appeared pleased beyond words. “No, I—it’s just that I haven’t even told my parents and I’ve barely wrapped my brain around the move and I—I—” And then, against my will, monstrous tears slid from my eyes.
“Ali …” Westley released my hand and, in one swift movement, he stood next to me, his hand resting on my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
Through a haze of tears, I saw the woman sitting across from me cock one of those perfectly arched, penciled-in brows. “Westley,” she said, her tone maternal and forthright. “Leave us alone, will you?” She waved him away with the back of her ringed fingers. “Go on, now. Go tell Rose Beth we’ll have coffee and dessert in the front parlor.”
Westley did as he was told but not before planting a kiss on top of my head and not before the world turned nearly to night outside and, as predicted but later than expected, rain began to spatter against the glass. The next thing I knew, Miss Justine had me by the same hand Westley released. She pulled me over to a cluster of white wicker loveseats and chairs with overstuffed cushions, all nestled in the far-right corner, where I sat blubbering like the child I was.
“There now,” she said, stuffing a pale pink handkerchief into my hand. “Blow your nose before you dribble all over that adorable little top of yours.”
This time, it was I who did as she was told. “Mascara must be all over my face,” I whimpered, thinking of how I probably looked to such a refined woman. A woman I had so wanted to impress. But, how to do that with mascara streaks down my cheeks?
“It is, but you’ll survive it. Now,” she said patting my knee. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”
And I did … I told her how much I loved Westley … and my parents … and my job … and my hometown. I told her that it all seemed to be happening so fast; faster than I could keep up with. I told her how one minute I was a single girl watching Match Game and the next I was an engaged woman whose fiancé hadn’t told her about the move. He’d told his brother and sister-in-law, but he hadn’t told the one person—me—who it would have the greatest effect upon. And then I ran down a completely different rabbit trail, telling her about the bridal showers my mother’s friends had already scheduled and the tea the women of the church were organizing and that, so far, no one had asked me if the dates were okay. They simply expected me to be there and that was that, and so far, I’d been fine with it because all of this was really, truly exciting, but …
“But … I don’t even have my dress,” I sobbed. “And to top it off, I never really had an example with my older sister. I mean, she’s married and all, but she didn’t go through any of this. Not that we’re even that close. I’d like to be, of course, but, well, we just never were. Not that there was much hope for that after she ran off and married the—”
A brow rose with the tilt of her head. “The?”
I managed a wobbly smile. “We call her husband ‘the bum.’”
Miss Justine smiled. “And why is that?”
I squeezed the pretty pink handkerchief. Shook my head. “I-I shouldn’t say …”
She sat upright beside me. “Oh, come on now. You and I are slated to be friends, I just know it. And if you can’t confide in a soon-to-be friend …”
“It’s nothing personal against him, really,” I supplied quickly. “Because he’s—as my sister says—a godly man.” I shook my head. “It’s because of his job … or lack thereof.”
“Oh,” Miss Justine said, the word coming out in a tiny staccato. “So, he doesn’t work.”
“Oh, he works,” I said, keeping my eyes on the handkerchief, wondering if I should take it home with me and wash it or hand it back to her in the awful mess it was now in. No one had ever taught me the etiquette for such a moment. “It’s just …” How could I explain my brother-in-law to such a woman as Justine Knight?
“Well, if he’s a godly man, he must do something. If I’m not mistaken the Good Book says that if any would not work, neither should he eat.” She cocked a brow. “Does he eat?”
I had to swallow a smile. “Yes. Yes, of course, he eats.”
“Well then. What exactly is it that he does so he can eat?”
I looked at her fully, then. At the graciousness of her. “Well, he says he’s a writer, and I suppose he is. I mean, he’s a journalism grad, but so far all he’s done is turn out a few articles for some local magazines and, well, a small one in Time. Mostly my sister brings in the bread and butter.” I spoke rapidly now, hoping Westley was not in earshot. “My parents went slap crazy when Westley and I started dating. And I mean that in a good way. I thought my mother was going to have a spasm when I told her he’d asked me—me—to marry him.” I took a breath. “But without a dress, how am I supposed …” The
n, without warning, the tears started back up, tears I’d fought to keep at bay since I’d overheard Westley speaking with his brother and DiAnn. Tears I’d kept buried beneath the surface while wondering why my future sister-in-law seemed a little … cold toward me. Or, if not cold, reserved. Tears I’d covered up while focusing on having a “good time.”
Miss Justine ran her hand between my shoulder blades, told me to blow again—which I did—and then calmly noted that there were plenty of shops in Savannah that sold lovely gowns and with my cute little frame, finding the perfect dress shouldn’t be a problem. “Your mother and—are your grandmothers still alive?”
I nodded as I ran the handkerchief over a now-tender nose.
“Well you should make a day of it. That’s what I did with my daughter—DiAnn’s mother. Sharon and myself and Sharon’s future mother-in-law. Of course when DiAnn married Paul, we completely put on the dog.”
“Oh,” I said, “I didn’t know how, exactly, you were related. I mean, I knew she was your granddaughter, but …”
“Sharon is my oldest. Her brother Aaron is my youngest.”
I let the family trivia sink in to stop thinking about my own. “So … two children?”
Her face fell. “No,” she said. “There’s one in the middle. Buford Henry Knight II to hear my late husband say it. Biff to everyone else.” She took a deep breath through her nose, then shook her head. “My son took off right after his father died. Right after he discovered that, no, he was not taking over the pharmacies nor was he getting a dime of his daddy’s money.” She pointed to her chest with a manicured nail. “That was my inheritance.” She smiled then, albeit a forced one. “But enough about my children, dear one, especially that one. Do you feel better now?”
I nodded through a giggle. “I do.”
Westley’s head came around the doorjamb. “Safe to return?” he asked, stepping in as if on cue.
“Yes,” I said, standing and walking to him. He put his arms around me, the safety of them wrapping me like a warm, fuzzy blanket.
“Good,” he said, again placing a kiss on top of my head. “Because there is a delicious-looking red velvet cake and some piping hot coffee in the front parlor. Which is good because I just stepped outside, and I’d say the temperature has dropped about twenty degrees since we got here.”
“Well then,” Miss Justine said, reaching the two of us, “it’s a good thing you have each other to keep yourselves warm.”
Chapter Eleven
The rain let up.
After red velvet cake and coffee, Westley and Miss Justine and I stepped outside into the cooler but wet-blanket air and into our hostess’s Lincoln Town Car, then drove several streets over to a neighborhood of picture-perfect cookie-cutter houses, each one flanked by fat oaks and swaying pines and each one painted a different color from the rest. “It’s like a village of doll houses,” I said, my nose pressed against the back-passenger’s window. I turned to Westley and grinned. “I love it.”
“These homes were built back in the 1940s,” Miss Justine supplied as she turned the long-nosed car into the driveway of a house painted carmine red and trimmed in winter white. The front windows boasted window boxes devoid of flowers but, beneath them, a line of fat boxwoods. From the driveway, I could see that the backyard had been outlined with a white picket fence. Two steps led to the small front porch where a painted-white wooden bench perched near the door. A red-, white-, and black-striped pillow angled along with a few potted plants gave the area a “come and sit” feel. I immediately felt that I would.
“The 1940s?” Westley asked.
Miss Justine put the car in park, turned the key, then shifted so she could look at us in the rearview mirror. “Charming as they can be. Tiny, but charming. Hardwood floors—pure oak—and recently updated with lovely wallpaper and chair railing in many of the rooms.” She pulled the key from the ignition. “Ready to see?”
I nodded. “I know I am,” I said.
“Let’s do it,” Westley said.
Within a few minutes, the three of us had walked through the small, square rooms, each one more enchanting than the next. “It’s like an English cottage,” I said when we had returned to the living room. I crossed my arms against the chill in the house. “But without the thatched roof.”
Westley tweaked my nose. “What do you know about English cottages with thatched roofs?”
I shrugged. “I saw a movie once—my sister and I—that was filmed in England. There were thatched-roof cottages everywhere in this village.” I chuckled as my eyes roved around the living room—painted in burnt orange and trimmed with wide baseboards, crown molding, and chair railing, all painted in warm off-white. “And that’s what this reminds me of.”
“What do you think of the furniture?” Miss Justine asked.
I told her it was fine because it was. Not new, like she said, but certainly presentable. “I can purchase some pillows,” I said pointing to the orange tapestry sofa that seemed to stretch for miles. Then, looking at its matching chair, I said, “And maybe one of Mama’s afghans to throw over the chair.”
“Sounds lovely,” Miss Justine said as I stepped into the adjoining dining room.
“And I’m sure we’ll have some lovely pieces from our showers to show off on the sideboard in here,” I noted.
“Now, the kitchen,” Miss Justine noted as she brushed past me and into the next room, “could stand some modernizing, but it has a dishwasher so thank the good Lord for that.”
I peered in at the tiny square room that barely had enough counter space for a bowl, a pot and a pan, which hardly mattered given my cooking skills. And when I said so, Westley laughed behind me and quipped, “There’s your excuse when it comes to my question of what’s for dinner.”
I turned and poked him in the ribs, and then, as he pretended injury, walked back into the living room and on into a small hallway where two bedrooms jutted off—one to the left and the other straight ahead—and a bathroom to the right.
I stepped into the front bedroom—the larger of the two—once again crossing my arms, taking in the maple-finished bedroom set, the floral bedspread with its tiny matching pillows—one round, one square—and the thick shag throw rugs cast on both sides of the bed. Late afternoon sunshine had broken through the lingering rain clouds and headed through the double window flanked by curtains matching the bedspread. The light shot straight to the bed, illuminating the place where, finally, Westley would hold me in his arms without restraint. My brow rose in anticipation, remaining there until, as if on cue, Westley’s arms slid around my waist, and his lips nuzzled my neck. “Now, this is what I’m talking about.”
“Westley,” I whispered harshly, then broke free of him, but not before the now familiar tingle had rushed down my body and back up again. Not before the warmth had spread and settled deep into my belly.
As expected, my fiancé laughed at my embarrassment, then turned and walked into the second bedroom where twin beds had been set side by side under single windows. The walls, painted a creamy yellow, brought an added layer of warmth to the room. And, like all the other rooms, the baseboards and crown molding trimmed the room in off-white.
“Perfect for when our parents come to see us,” I said to Westley, whose gaze had turned to something I didn’t recognize in him. Not yet, anyway. Something that told me he saw beyond the blue bedspreads and the white throw pillows. Beyond the doily on the bedside table between the beds, the one serving as a resting place for a milk glass lamp.
Miss Justine joined us then. “Or for when you decide to expand your family,” she noted, having overheard me. “Although, that would mean getting rid of the beds.” She sighed then. “Oh, well. The two of us will have to shop for a crib and the other things you’ll need for a nursery, that’s all.”
A new heat rose in me, one Westley spotted immediately. His pensive look changed to an expectant one, one that made my heart pound, both in anticipation and in dread of things happening too fast.
Westley stopped an hour outside of Bynum, pulling up next to a phone booth, which he darted into to call my parents. To let them know we were running late and that we’d explain more when we got there. “What did they say?” I asked when he returned to the car and nearly before he shut the door good. “Who’d you talk to?” My thumbnails hacked away at each other.
He chuckled as he drove back onto the highway. “What are you so nervous about?”
“Just—Westley—they’re going to be so upset when we tell them about moving. Who’d you talk to?”
“Your mother.”
I leaned my head against the seat, turned my head toward the window, and peered out to the sky that had already turned the color of dark-blue ink. I allowed my eyes to roam heavenward, straining to see stars whose light might have burst through already. Finding only a few and recognizing none, I looked back at Westley. “Did she sound upset?”
“About what, Ali? They don’t know anything yet.”
“But—I mean—did she wonder why we were running late?”
Westley squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. “Do you want a play-by-play?”
I reached over, ran my fingers into the curls of his hair, not wanting him to be angry with my insecurity and knowing the effect it had on him. “Please.”
“Be careful,” he said then, casting a sideways glance my way. “You know what that does to me.”
I leaned toward him, kissed his jaw, and said, “I’ll be careful if you just tell me.” My fingers left the curls that looped over his collar, then rested on his shoulder. A reminder that I was there, and I needed him. More than ever, I needed him.
“Well,” he drawled. “She started off by saying hello.”