Autumn Anthology

by Heather B. Moore

  “Census records?” Ethan suggested.

  “Good idea.” She nodded. “How about the 1950 census? That would be the closest.”

  “Sounds good to me.” He watched her as she typed. Did that make him a stalker?

  Sophia’s forehead scrunched up as she read the words on the screen. It made him smile. She was even cuter that way than usual, and that was saying something.

  “Hmm.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Doesn’t look like the 1950 census is available online.” She looked over at him, disappointment heavy in her brown eyes. “Should we try 1940?”

  “It’s worth a try. If Eleanor was here in ’53, she might have been there in ’40.”

  Sophia leaned back. She typed a new search in. After a few more clicks, her face lit up. “Here we go.”

  She turned a little so the screen faced him more. Ethan hesitantly took that as an invitation. He moved ever so slightly closer but made sure she could tell he was doing so to get a better look at the computer. For all he knew, she thought of him as nothing more than a friend. Pushing that wouldn’t do his cause any good.

  Sophia filled in the state, county, city information then the street name and nearest crossroad.

  Ethan let out a long whistle when the search completed. “Thirty-six pages of results.”

  She scrolled up and down on the census image. “This isn’t exactly straight forward. We’ll have to scroll through to find the right street.”

  “I’ve got time.” Did that sound casual enough?

  They scrolled through page after page searching for their street name and house number. He’d never looked through census records before but kind of enjoyed it. They got caught up reading about people’s occupations, where they’d lived before coming to Phoenix, how many children they had. There found unique names they’d never heard before and tried to pronounce them.

  “Here it is.” Sophia sat up straight, her eyes darting from him to the computer screen and back again. “Our address. Right here.”

  He scooted a little closer. Man, she smelled good. Focus, Ethan.

  “Is there an Eleanor?” he asked.

  She moved her finger along the screen, not quite touching it. She went from one line to the other, shaking her head as she did.

  “No Eleanor.” She sounded as disappointed as he felt.

  “Her family could have moved in after 1940.” That seemed more and more like the case.

  Sophia leaned back against the couch again, watching him. “Where should we look next? We can’t get to the 1950 census or the one from 1960.”

  Ethan gave it as much thought as he could while sitting this close to her. “Tax records?” It was the first thing that came to mind.

  She typed in a new search. Then another. Part of him was glad the task hadn’t proven quick and easy. He’d spend the whole evening with her, looking for Eleanor. Once they found her, Sophia would leave.

  “The county assessor’s site is down,” Sophia said.

  “Sounds like they need an IT professional.” Ethan gave her a pointed look.

  “They can’t afford me,” she answered.

  “I’ll have to remember that next time I have a computer emergency.”

  “Nah.” She pushed his shoulder with hers. “I won’t charge you for consultations if you’ll check out my next sore throat.”

  “Deal.” A very welcome deal, in fact.

  “And maybe we can check the assessor’s site tomorrow.”

  “Over dinner?” he suggested, doing his best to keep the hopefulness out of his face and tone.

  “My place this time,” she said.

  “Sounds good.” But in his head, he was saying, That counts as a date, right?

  Chapter Three

  If Ethan could thaw out a frozen lasagna the night before and call it cooking dinner then Sophia felt confident she could order in Chinese and fulfill her obligation to feed him that night. She could cook okay, but even simple cooking required time, and she didn’t have any. She’d spent the day trying to get a server running again and had left work almost a full hour late, ordering dinner on her cellphone as she walked home.

  Ethan was on the front porch when she got there.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “Work was nuts.”

  “Yeah, for me, too.” His smile was quick and weak. He looked tired. Yesterday he’d said that today would be his third twelve-hour day.

  “Dinner’s on the way.” She held up her cell. “Maybe we can do some searching while we wait.”

  “Sounds good.”

  She unlocked the door and stepped inside. Ethan came in behind her. She was very glad she’d cleaned up that morning.

  “Make yourself at home.” Somehow she managed to make the offer without sounding like a teenager with a desperate crush. She felt like it but hoped she at least sounded like an adult.

  Sophia moved quickly to her bedroom and dropped her bag on the bed. She took a minute to smooth out her hair and check her makeup. Of course, Ethan had seen her in all her glory when she first got home. Fixing herself up wouldn’t help much now.

  She pulled off the walking shoes she always wore home. If only she’d had a chance to change them before running in to Ethan— walking shoes with a skirt suit was not the most fashion-forward ensemble. She slipped on a pair of ballet flats, a better pick than the walking shoes, though not as fabulous as a pair of heels. But heels would make her look like she was trying too hard. She wanted to look like she wasn’t trying at all. Guys could smell desperation from three blocks away.

  She pulled her laptop out of her bag and headed for the living room. Ethan was sitting on the sofa, his head tilted back, his eyes closed. Was he asleep already? That didn’t bode well for a fun, borderline romantic evening.

  Sophia approached quietly and cautiously. Just as she reached the sofa, he opened a single eye.

  “Hey.” It was all she could manage with him looking so mussed and casual and cute.

  He sat up straighter, blinking a few times as if shaking off sleepiness. “Did I miss dinner?”

  “It would have served you right if you had.” She dropped onto the couch by him. “You snooze, you lose.”

  “‘You snooze, you lose?’ Man.” He chuckled low in his throat. “I haven’t heard that since elementary school.”

  Sophia laughed and set her laptop on the coffee table. “I spent elementary school desperately in love with all of the Backstreet Boys. So ‘Quit Playing Games with my Heart’ always takes me back.”

  “The Backstreet Boys?” Ethan shook his head. “I think I just lost all respect for you.”

  “You weren’t into boy bands in your impressionable younger years?”

  He made a noise that sounded very much like, “Puh-shaw.”

  “You were too cool for that?” she guessed.

  “Actually, probably too lame. I was one of those weird kids into retro before being into retro was a thing, you know? I was in middle school before I listened to anything more recent than Etta James or Frank Sinatra, and I stopped wearing a bow tie and fedora to school only after the gym teacher warned me I was probably going to get beat up for it.”

  She could picture him walking around his elementary school playground in a zoot suit, snapping his fingers while singing “Come Fly with Me.”

  “My sister refused to be seen with me in public,” Ethan said. “So I told her if she couldn’t be hip to my beat, she could just ice it. She hated when I used old-school slang.”

  Sophia settled into the corner, warming to the topic. “I’m going to guess she was your older sister.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Because younger brothers are the worst.”

  He grinned. “You have a younger brother, don’t you?”

  Sophia nodded dramatically. They talked about their families and childhoods. Dinner arrived, and they kept talking all the way through their meal. He got along with his family. He didn’t badmouth people. Sophia liked that
about him. He was the kind of person you felt comfortable with, safe. He didn’t seem likely to rip into a person behind their back, and he was proving easy to get along with.

  As they finished off the last of the moo goo gai pan, Ethan told her about the first time he administered an IV and how he thought he was going to pass out. She loved hearing his laugh and seeing him smile. Not only because he was ridiculously handsome, but also because she knew that he was enjoying their time together as much as she was. Maybe she should quit pretending she saw him only as a friend. Maybe she should try actually flirting, being more obvious that she was interested.

  Ethan pushed his plate away and nodded toward her laptop. “Guess we better get to work finding Eleanor.”

  And just like that, they were back to business. She hoped he was hanging around for more than the mystery they were solving. She almost asked him. Almost. But Sophia wasn’t that brave.

  She threw herself into the search, trying not to think about how lopsided their interest in each other might very well be. The county assessor’s site was up, but no matter how they searched, they couldn’t find any historical information. Maybe it simply wasn’t available.

  They ran at least a dozen Google searches, trying their address and the year, the street name and “Eleanor,” anything that came to mind. Nothing panned out.

  Sophia set her feet up on the coffee table, the computer on her lap, trying everything she could think of to find the names of the people who lived in their house sixty years earlier. “This is going to be harder than we thought.”

  Ethan didn’t answer. She looked over at him, and her heart fluttered just a bit. He was asleep, curled a little bit into the corner of the couch. He looked cute even sleeping. She pulled a light lap blanket out of the storage ottoman and spread it over him. She’d wake him up eventually, but after hearing of the long, difficult hours he’d put in the past three days, she couldn’t bear to now.

  Sophia sat in the armchair and continued searching for Eleanor, though her eyes wandered to Ethan more than once. She liked him more than she should have, especially not knowing how he felt. Maybe it was a good thing that finding Eleanor was proving difficult. The longer it took, the more time they’d have together. Perhaps she’d convince Ethan she was what he was looking for.

  Chapter Four

  The next afternoon, Ethan made himself a sandwich and sat at the table on the porch. Fall was the best time of year in Phoenix. The days were finally cool enough to sit outside in the shade. The nights were perfect.

  Mrs. Garcia walked past with her daughter. Ethan waved to them.

  “Lovely day, isn’t it?” Mrs. Garcia called out to him.

  “Perfect.”

  She was the neighborhood grandmother and treated everyone like her grandchildren. She had to be in her mid-eighties. Her daughter had moved back from Detroit a couple of years earlier to help take care of her. From what Ethan had learned over the years, the Garcia family had been in Phoenix before Phoenix even existed.

  The ladies came slowly up the walk. Ethan got out of his chair and offered it and the other patio chair to them. He took a seat on the front steps.

  “Any luck with that pretty friend of yours?” Mrs. Garcia was well aware of his interest in Sophia— this wasn’t the first visit they’d had on the front porch.

  “I think so,” he said. “We’ve had dinner together the last two nights.”

  Mrs. Garcia nodded her approval. “But have you kissed her yet?”

  Mrs. Garcia’s daughter gave her mother a scolding look, but Ethan couldn’t take offense.

  “I’m working up to that. I don’t even know if she’s into me yet.”

  “Kiss her good, and you’ll find out soon enough.” Mrs. Garcia looked absolutely convinced of her strategy.

  Ethan, however, was certain it wasn’t the best.

  “Anything interesting happen lately?” Mrs. Garcia’s daughter asked.

  Ethan realized he didn’t know her actual name. Everyone called her “Mrs. Garcia’s daughter.”

  “Sophia and I got a letter,” he said. “To this address, without apartment A or B, addressed to someone named Eleanor. We couldn’t make out the last name or the return address. The postmark is from 1953. We’ve been trying to figure out who she was and if there’s any way to get it to her.”

  “’53?” Mrs. Garcia’s daughter repeated. “That’s the year I was born, so I’m not much help.”

  But Mrs. Garcia seemed to be pondering it. “The Bartletts lived here in ’53,” she said. Mrs. Garcia’s mind was sharp as ever.

  Why hadn’t he thought to ask her? She’d lived in the same house since the late 1940s. “Was there an Eleanor Bartlett?”

  Mrs. Garcia thought for a moment. “Caroline, Norma, and... Delores. Those were all the girls in the family. No Eleanor.”

  Ethan leaned back against the railing. If Mrs. Garcia didn’t know of an Eleanor living at their house in 1953, maybe they’d never find her.

  “Were there any Eleanors on the street? Maybe the envelope was addressed wrong.”

  But Mrs. Garcia was quick to shake her head. “I can’t think of any.”

  “I’m friends with Norma Bartlett on Facebook,” Mrs. Garcia’s daughter said.

  Both Ethan and Mrs. Garcia stared at her for a minute.

  “Don’t look so shocked. I’m hip to social media.”

  Ethan had a momentary flashback to his childhood years of using terms like hip to and square.

  “I’ll ask Norma if she has any idea who this Eleanor might have been,” Mrs. Garcia’s daughter offered.

  “Thanks,” Ethan said. “We’d appreciate it. We’ve hit a bunch of dead ends.”

  “Why don’t the two of you come over for dinner tonight?” Mrs. Garcia said. “We’ll make enchiladas.”

  Ethan was game, but he didn’t know what Sophia’s plans were. “I’ll ask her when she gets home.”

  “Do.” Mrs. Garcia wiggled her white eyebrows.

  Ethan couldn’t help laughing.

  “Enchiladas. Mmm.”

  Sophia walked at Ethan’s side down the street toward Mrs. Garcia’s house. She had agreed to their dinner appointment without hesitation. Ethan hoped the promise of his company was as much a part of her motivation as Mrs. Garcia’s enchiladas.

  “Do you think she’ll make tamales at Christmas again this year?” Sophia asked. “I was the most popular person in the office last December when I brought them in.”

  “I convinced one of my colleagues to switch shifts with me so I could have a five-day weekend thanks to Mrs. Garcia’s tamales,” Ethan said. “They’re worth their weight in gold.”

  “Just don’t tell her that,” Sophia said, a twinkle in her eyes. “She’ll start charging us their weight in gold.”

  Ethan had the strongest urge to hold her hand. He had to tuck his hands into his jeans pockets to keep from acting on it. He’d made progress with their sort-of relationship, but he didn’t think he’d reached that point yet.

  Mrs. Garcia’s daughter let them in. The house smelled amazing. Ethan’s stomach growled loudly, earning him a shoulder push from Sophia.

  “It’s not my fault,” Ethan said. “I missed breakfast.”

  “You probably slept through breakfast. You were pretty wiped last night.” She didn’t seem embarrassed or annoyed by it.

  “Sorry about that. I feel like an idiot. You feed me dinner then I crash on your couch.”

  She waved that off. “It’s not like you’re a total stranger.”

  Mrs. Garcia hugged them both and welcomed them. They took seats next to each other at the table. The dinner was every bit as mouthwatering as Ethan knew it would be. And Mrs. Garcia and her daughter were every bit as matchmaking minded as he feared they would be.

  When he filled Sophia’s cup with water, Mrs. Garcia commented on how sweet it was of him. When Sophia passed the salsa without him having to ask, Mrs. Garcia’s daughter wondered out loud when the two of them had come to know each ot
her so well. They helped clear the table, and Mrs. Garcia declared they were “such a great team.”

  Sophia’s cheeks pinked up. Was she embarrassed? Or was she blushing because she was interested in him but hadn’t admitted it yet?

  Either way, he wasn’t going to let her face the teasing alone. He set his arm around her shoulders. She didn’t pull away. Not even a little. He might have been deluding himself, but Ethan thought she even leaned a little closer.

  For just a moment, his breath caught too much to talk. But he found his voice. “The two of you better be nice to Sophia,” he said. “She’ll give your computers a virus.”

  Mrs. Garcia shrugged like it didn’t matter at all.

  “Speaking of computers,” Mrs. Garcia’s daughter said, “I went on the Facebook today and left a message for my friend Norma.”

  Sophia turned to look at him. He still stood with his arm around her shoulders, which put them nearly nose to nose. He had to think hard to keep breathing.

  “Norma is the friend who used to live in our house, right?” she asked.

  He nodded. Breathe. He liked that she called it their house.

  “Come on into the living room, you two,” Mrs. Garcia’s daughter said. “I’ll read you what she said.”

  As they followed, Ethan let his hand drop from her shoulder to her back, leading her along beside him. She didn’t object to the touch. She didn’t pull away.

  “Do you know what Mrs. Garcia’s daughter’s name is?” Ethan whispered directly into Sophia’s ear. Breathe, he reminded himself again.

  “Everyone’s always called her ‘Mrs. Garcia’s daughter,’” Sophia whispered back. “I think that may be her legal name.”

  They settled onto the loveseat, which was conveniently smaller than a sofa. Ethan had the perfect excuse to sit very close to Sophia. He couldn’t be certain, but he thought she sat little closer than necessary.

  Mrs. Garcia’s daughter sat at the desktop in the corner and put on a pair of reading glasses. “Here it is. Norma thinks her aunt Ellie lived with them for about a year while her husband was fighting in Korea. She’s going to check with a cousin of hers and find out.”