Brooke nodded, letting her breath ease out. “Yes. That’s what I have on my calendar.”
“Good.” He stuck out his hand, and Brooke took hold. “Thank you, Ms. Spalding, for your efforts to rebirth this town into something useful. We’re all looking forward to the end result.”
29
Kansas City
Brooke
Brooke slipped her hand through the bend of Marty’s arm and ambled up the hallway toward the treatment center’s front doors. The acetaminophen she’d been given an hour ago had kicked in, and she felt no discomfort from her hours in the recliner receiving her second chemotherapy infusion, but she knew from the first one she’d be sick as a dog by Thursday. And probably bald as an egg. Already she looked henpecked, with only a few thin strands of hair still clinging to her scalp. She’d slapped a pink baseball cap on this morning, but she didn’t care to wear something so bland for the duration of her treatments. Before she was too sick to be out and about again, she wanted to hit the mall. If she couldn’t locate a wig, then she’d grab a wardrobe of scarves and hats.
She hoped Marty wouldn’t give her any arguments about a shopping expedition. Leapin’ lizards, the woman babied her worse than her mother ever had. But then, comparing Marty to Jeralyn Spalding really wasn’t fair. One faithful, the other faithless. One compassionate, the other self-centered. One tender, the other hard. They didn’t even have love for Brooke in common because she was pretty sure her mother didn’t give a rip about her.
They reached Brooke’s car, and she pulled her keys from her purse. Marty held out her hand, but Brooke shifted them out of reach and grinned at Marty’s surprised face. “Lemme drive, huh? At least to the mall.”
Marty put her hand on her hip. “What mall?”
“The largest one in Kansas.” Brooke punched in the code to unlock her door and slid behind the driver’s seat. “You’ll love it.”
Marty remained outside the car as if her sandals had set down roots.
Brooke raised one eyebrow. “Are you coming or not? The mall’s in Overland Park, which is about half an hour in the opposite direction of Spalding, so the sooner we get there, the better. That is, if you want to help with supper for the men tonight.”
Finally Marty scurried around to the opposite side of the vehicle and climbed in. She frowned across the console as Brooke turned the ignition. “Are you sure you’re up to this?”
Brooke looked over her shoulder and backed out of the parking spot, wincing a bit when the skin at her port pulled. “I’m sure I won’t be by the end of this week, and I want something to cover my pate.”
“What’s a pate?”
Brooke stifled her chortle. “My head.”
“Oh.” Sadness flooded Marty’s features. Her gaze seemed to drift slowly across Brooke’s baseball cap, as if trying to envision what was underneath, and then she turned forward and was quiet and solemn the entire drive to the mall.
Brooke parked outside one of the larger department stores. She’d bypassed the section in the past, disinterested, but she’d seen a good selection of hats on shelves and spinning display racks. As she recalled, the hats were near the purses, and she led Marty to the area. A few summerish hats lay in a heap under a sign reading Clearance, and Marty began picking through them, her motions slow and halfhearted at best.
Brooke nudged her. “Come on. Cheer up. You’re always wearing a cap, so why is me putting one on such a big deal?” Marty’s lips remained downturned. Unexpectedly, impatience stirred in Brooke’s chest. “Will you stop with the morose routine? I need some levity here. It majorly torques me off to even think about losing my hair. My hair, Marty! A woman’s crowning glory—isn’t that what you called it when you explained to me why Mennonite women don’t cut their hair short?” She yanked off her hat and pointed at her nearly bald head. “Well, my crowning glory is going down the shower drain, and I need something to replace it. So help me.”
Marty’s blue eyes widened. She ducked her head for a moment, then jerked her attention to the hats. She snatched up a pink beach-type hat with a cloth band sporting flamingos and palm trees and slapped it on Brooke’s head. “There.”
Brooke caught her reflection in a mirror next to the display. The hat fell so low even what was left of her eyebrows was hidden, and the brim flopped toward her shoulders like a pair of puppy dog ears. She burst out laughing. Marty laughed, too, although tears twinkled in the corners of her eyes.
Brooke removed the hat, cringing at the strands of hair caught in the straw, and tossed it back on the stack. “Something a little less flamboyant—or flamingo-ant—if you please.” They laughed again, and suddenly Brooke found herself caught in Marty’s embrace. Her port got squished between them, and the pressure hurt, but she clung to her friend, needing the comfort more than she could express.
Marty pulled loose and lifted a tan straw bowler from the table. “This is cute.”
Brooke agreed. She tried it on. It was a little loose, but she could tuck some paper into the inside liner and tighten it up. She nodded. “Sold.”
They found three more hats Brooke liked. A saleswoman carried them to the counter, and Brooke sorted through the new fall hats. Only one appealed to her—a fuchsia felt cloche with a little fan of feathers on the side—and she added it to her stack. Then they rummaged through the scarf pegs and chose half a dozen long scarves in various patterns. The saleswoman put each hat in its own box, except the newsboy-type pink, gray, and white plaid, which she dropped into a bag. She rolled the scarves, tucked them in with the newsboy cap, and stated the total. Marty gasped, but Brooke ignored her and paid the bill.
She started to lift the stack of boxes, but then she drew back. “Ma’am, could you put these behind the counter for a while?”
The saleswoman smiled. “Sure. I’ll put your name on top of the stack. Come get them whenever you’re ready.”
“Thanks.” Brooke scrawled her name on a piece of paper, handed it to the saleswoman, and then caught hold of Marty’s arm. “Come on. There’s something we need to do.”
Marty’s puzzled expression remained intact while Brooke led her through the mall’s wide corridors past various shops, two sets of escalators, and a food court. They moved so briskly that the ribbons from Marty’s cap fluttered, and by the time Brooke caught the tinkling notes drifting from the mall’s carousel, she was winded. She huffed as she stepped up to the ticket window and purchased two tickets for the merry-go-round.
Marty frowned at the ticket Brooke offered her. “What’s this for?”
Brooke pointed to the brightly colored carousel and its circle of horses. “To take a ride.”
Marty gawked first at the carousel and then at Brooke. “You’re joking. We’re too old for that.”
A sense of urgency filled Brooke. An urgency that had overtaken her at odd times ever since she’d received her diagnosis. She gripped Marty’s upper arms, bending her ticket in the process. “We aren’t too old. We’re never too old to do something fun and spontaneous. As long as we still draw breath, we can have fun.” She blinked away hot tears. “Come on. Let’s pick a horse and take a ride.”
Marty’s lips wobbled into a smile, and she nodded. The two of them got in line behind squirming children and their accompanying grown-ups. Brooke couldn’t help but observe the adults’ faces—some smiling, others seeming tired or impatient. She’d often witnessed tiredness and impatience on her mother’s face. If she’d had children, would she have gloried in their exuberance or told them to chill out or else, the way Mom usually had? She hoped she would have been a better mother than the one who’d raised her.
Sadness gripped her, and she pushed the emotion aside. She was going to have fun and that was final. She and Marty chose a pair of painted steeds—Marty’s snow white with purple and pink flower embellishments and Brooke’s as black as the ace of spades with hot-pink and turquoise flower
s—and climbed aboard. Marty sat sidesaddle since her dress wouldn’t allow her to sit astride, but Brooke straddled her horse and grabbed hold of the leather loop serving as reins. She lobbed a grin at Marty. “Ready?”
Marty double-fisted the brass pole. “Ready.”
The carousel’s music swelled, the ride jerked into motion, and the horses glided up and down. When Marty’s was up, Brooke’s was down, and they giggled at each other at every pass. The ride lasted only a few minutes, but in those few minutes Brooke savored the joy of spontaneity, of friendship, of feeling good, because she knew it wouldn’t last. The carousel eased to a stop, and Brooke reluctantly slid off the horse and stepped to the floor. If she were still five or six, like the little girl who’d ridden the horse in front of her, she would beg for a second ride. But a glance at her wristwatch told her they needed to head for Spalding.
School had let out, and high school and junior high kids stood in noisy groups in the corridors. Brooke and Marty wove around shoppers, teenagers, and kiosks all the way back to the department store where her hats waited. As they walked to the car, an idea struck—a spontaneous idea that brought a smile to her face. She stopped and grinned at Marty over the stack of boxes in her arms. “Let’s do it.”
Marty turned back. “Do what?”
“Something silly and fun at the end of each of my chemo infusions, for as long as I’m able. Let’s make it our…tradition.” Brooke knew about Marty’s family traditions—big dinners with everyone around the table, summer picnics, morning and nighttime prayers, quilting bees and harvest parties and fellowship dinners to celebrate happy events. Brooke’s only childhood tradition had been weekly chaos. She wanted—even more than she wanted, she needed—something she could look forward to over the next months.
The urgency struck again, harder than before. She hugged the stack of boxes to her middle. “Come on, Marty, say yes. I want to build some happy memories, like the one I have of the two of us playing on the swings and the teeter-totter and the slippery slide at the grade school playground after the blizzard when we were eighth graders. Remember?”
Marty sighed. “I remember. It’s one of my favorite memories, too.”
Brooke nodded hard. “Yeah. So freezing cold our breath almost turned into ice cubes, but we stayed out until we couldn’t feel our toes and fingers anymore. And we laughed…We laughed so hard. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about that day to help myself smile when life got rough. It’s pretty certain the next few months are going to be rough. I’ll need more happy moments to think about, so let’s make some. Okay?”
Marty sucked in her lips, and Brooke identified guilt in the pinch of her brow. “I’d like to, Brooke, but I—” Her gaze zipped to something behind Brooke, and she gasped. She pointed, her hand bobbing as if caught in a blender. “Look! Look! Someone’s being kidnapped!”
30
Marty
Marty took off at a clumsy run. Brooke hollered at her to stop, but she kept running toward the idling car and the well-dressed middle-aged man who was forcing a young teen girl into the vehicle’s back seat. She rued her sandals. If she’d worn her tennis shoes today instead, she’d be able to sprint. Don’t let them leave before I can help her, God! The demand—because she no longer prayed—repeated itself in her head while the soles of her sandals pounded the pavement and her purse bounced against her hip.
She stopped a few feet from the pair, gasping to catch her breath. “Sir! Sir!”
He sent a scowling look over his shoulder. Then in the span of a second, his expression changed to a smile that somehow chilled her more than his scowl had. “Yes? What can I do for you?”
Now up close, Marty got a good look at the teen, who was half-in and half-out of the sleek gray car that reminded her of a shortened van. The girl’s clothes—tight, the shirt low cut at the neck and so short it exposed two inches of her belly above the waistline of a skirt that seemed barely more than a band of fabric—made Marty blush. She started to withdraw, but then her gaze met the girl’s. A mix of sullenness and fear warred on the teen’s heavily made-up face.
She gestured to the girl. “Is she all right? It doesn’t look like she wants to go with you.”
The man laughed and gave the girl a final shove. She fell into the seat and he slammed the door, sealing her behind tinted windows. “No, she doesn’t. I grounded her yesterday, and she disobeyed me by coming to the mall with some friends. I embarrassed her pretty badly when I pulled her away from them, but she has to learn she must abide by my rules.”
He spoke so smoothly, so confidently, Marty wanted to believe him. But something raised alarm bells in the back of her mind. “You’re her father?”
“That’s right. And if you’ll excuse me”—he brushed past Marty and rounded the front of the car—“I need to get her home for a stern talking-to.” He yanked open the driver’s door and slid inside. The car lurched forward with a squeal of its tires, and Marty jumped back. She stared at the license plate as the car sped away, then pulled a gas station receipt and pen from her purse and scrawled the series of letters and numbers on the back of the receipt.
Brooke huffed up beside her. “What…what did he say?” Her pale face dotted with perspiration and her heaving chest pierced Marty. Brooke shouldn’t be running around parking lots in the heat and humidity.
Marty put her arm around Brooke’s waist and aimed her for the Lexus. “He said he’s her father, but I don’t know if I believe him.” She waved the paper. “I got the license plate number, and I’m going to give it to the police.” She waited for Brooke to argue with her—to tell her she was making a big deal out of nothing.
“I think that’s a good idea.”
Brooke’s grim tone increased Marty’s concern for the girl. Sitting behind the steering wheel with the engine running and the air conditioner on high, Marty retrieved her phone from her purse and tapped in 911. She told the woman who answered what she’d seen, gave a description of the car and both of its occupants, and recited the license plate number. Suddenly her hand began to shake, uncertainty gripping her. What if the man really was a father trying to discipline his rebellious child? A false accusation could fuel the girl’s defiance. “I…I don’t want to get anybody in trouble, but it…” She swallowed. “It looked funny to me.”
“Ma’am, you did the right thing by calling.” The assurance in the woman’s voice relieved a bit of Marty’s angst. “It’s always better to err on the side of caution when children are involved. The situation will be investigated. Thank you for giving such detailed information. This will help the officers.” She requested Marty’s telephone number in case an officer needed further clarification, and then they disconnected the call.
Brooke shook her head, gaping at Marty. “What happened to my timid, mild-mannered friend? You took off like a raging bull. Did you even consider that the man might have a gun or, at the very least, a terrible temper?”
“No, I didn’t.” Marty dropped her phone into her purse. Her hands were still shaking, and nausea rolled in her stomach.
“Leapin’ lizards, Marty, you put yourself in harm’s way.” Brooke reached across the console and placed her hand on Marty’s arm. “And even though you scared the mustard out of me, I’m proud of you. You might have saved a girl from an abusive situation.”
Tears filled Marty’s eyes, distorting her vision. “Do you think so?”
“You never know. I mean, the man was dressed to the nines and drove a nice car, but that doesn’t mean he was on the up-and-up. After all, my mom drove the hearing-test bus from school to school and hung out with teachers and administrators. No one would have guessed how awful it was in my home based on her public persona.”
A warm tear ran down Marty’s cheek, and she batted it away. “I’m sorry you had such a rough childhood, Brooke. And now—”
Brooke waved her hand. “Water under the bridge. It
can’t be changed, so there’s no sense in talking about it.” She sagged into the seat. “I’m pooped. Between the long chemo session, our shopping, and then running across the parking lot, I need a rest. Glad you’re driving. I hope you don’t mind if I sleep all the way home.” She leaned against the headrest and closed her eyes.
Marty used Brooke’s GPS to find her way through Kansas City and onto the highway that led to Eagle Creek. Their stop at the mall and her call to emergency dispatch put them home past suppertime, and Anthony could have berated her for leaving Charlotte in charge again. Instead, he said he’d been worried and then listened when she explained what she’d seen. He hugged her afterward, and she clung to him, grateful for his support, concern, and understanding.
Marty carried a bowl of the casserole with ham, potatoes, and peas that Charlotte had prepared for supper to Brooke, who thanked her but said she wasn’t hungry. She left Brooke stretched out on the sofa with the stereo playing softly and returned to her trailer. She wasn’t terribly hungry herself, so she put the leftovers in the refrigerator and began the supper cleanup.
While she loaded the dishwasher, Anthony sat at the table and told her about his efforts to repair the plaster moldings above the windows on the old bank building. Although they hadn’t discussed Brooke’s plan to turn the bank into a casino since the night Marty confessed it to him, his mentioning the building stirred questions. Would they see the project through? Leave when Brooke’s treatments were complete? Or did he want to leave sooner? Brooke wanted to create a do-something-fun tradition, but Marty couldn’t commit to it until she knew she’d be there for each of the treatments.
After they had changed into their nightclothes and were ready for bed, she gathered the courage to ask him what he intended. He was propped up against the pillows, his open Bible on his knees. She sat on the edge of the mattress and touched his wrist. “Before you start to read, may I ask you a question?”
Ours for a Season Page 23
