The Lilac Bouquet

by Carolyn Brown

  Emmy Jo sat at Libby’s Diner through three coffee refills, weighing all the pros and cons of the job that morning. She even pulled a pen from her purse and made a list. When it was time to leave, the pros side was full and the only things on the con side were two names: Logan and Tandy.

  “It’s time,” Libby, Diana’s mother, yelled from behind the counter. “If you are really going to do this, don’t be late on your first day.”

  Emmy Jo had spent many hours at Diana’s house when she was growing up. Tall, dark haired, and brown eyed, Libby had been named for her grandmother, the original Libby. Granny Anna Libby had passed the diner down to her daughter, Ellen, who in turn gave it to her daughter, Libby. Confusing as it might be to outsiders, everyone in Hickory knew the history.

  Diana’s dad, Phillip, and her mother ran the place with the help of a couple of part-time waitresses during the lunch rush. Libby did the waitress work and the bookkeeping. Phillip did most of the cooking and helped with busing.

  Emmy Jo scooted across the booth seat, took a deep breath, and waved. “Wish me luck.”

  “You know I do.” Libby waved back at her.

  She’d only been close to the mansion on the hill when she and Diana drove past it one night. Diana had dared her one Halloween to ring the doorbell. She drove right to the house, but she’d been too scared to actually walk up those steps.

  Now she parked at the foot of the stairs leading up to the front door and waited until five minutes to eight to get out of her car.

  With each step of the twenty-five leading to the Thomas mansion, her feet got heavier and her knees weaker, until by the time she reached the top, it was only pure stubbornness that kept her from turning around and going home.

  The house looked more like a fairy-tale castle than a modern-day mansion with the cut stone and cedar work on the outside, but the grounds were a different story. Last year’s leaves covered the stairs and crunched underfoot. There wasn’t a flower or even a shrub in sight. It needed someone like Tandy to plant flowers to make the place look inviting. Maybe a few rosebushes and some marigolds and petunias would give it some warmth.

  She sucked in a lungful of air, reached out, and pushed the doorbell. That the house might be haunted did not frighten her one bit. She didn’t believe in ghosts or spirits. She didn’t even believe in fate. Her theory was that when a person died, their soul went to either heaven or hell. It sure didn’t hang around Earth to pester the people left behind. And the choices a person made created the consequences that they had to live with when it came time for the decision about pretty white clouds or a big, eternal bonfire. Fate had nothing to do with any part of life.

  Likewise, Seth Thomas did not frighten her, either. She’d only seen him one time before in her life, and that was at the cemetery when she and Tandy went to put flowers on Tandy’s mama’s grave. He’d sat in a lawn chair, his eyes glued on the tombstone in front of him that always had beautiful lilacs in the fancy vase attached. She’d asked her granny who he was, but she’d hurried them out of the cemetery without answering her.

  A short, round woman with a tight little gray knot of hair on top of her head opened the door. “You must be the new assistant. I think Nora has lost her mind.” Between the woman’s nasal voice and her sour expression, Emmy Jo suspected if she smiled, her face might crack wide open. “But come on in. You won’t last through today, much less until the end of May. There ain’t no television in this house and only one radio. All he listens to is the old country station.” She stood to one side and motioned for Emmy Jo to enter the house. “Follow me. From now on you will drive around back and park in the garage and come in by the back door.”

  Emmy Jo had never backed down from a dare, and she wasn’t starting that day.

  Come on, the aggravating voice in her head said, that was not a dare. She was only stating facts.

  I don’t see it the same way, Emmy Jo argued. She’s thrown down a challenge by saying that I won’t stay through the day, and I intend to show her that I will be here until the last minute on the contract that I signed—May 31 at five o’clock.

  She took a step through the dark, heavy door and followed the lady across an enormous living room, through a dining room, and out onto a patio. She recognized the old guy with a mop of gray hair curling to his shirt collar and a thick mustache to match. With steely-blue eyes set in a chiseled face, he glared at her.

  “I hate red.” His voice sounded like that actor Tandy swooned over every time she saw him—Sam Elliott, that was his name.

  Emmy Jo looked down at her dark-red scrubs. “Well, I hate orange. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, you mind if I sit down?”

  “You could just say April Fools and leave.”

  “I don’t care if it’s Christmas. Your sister hired me and I’m here to stay, so get used to it.” Emmy Jo figured if she let him intimidate her in the first five minutes, she’d never earn his respect. “Again, may I sit or am I supposed to stand for eight hours?”

  A flicker of amusement crossed his face. “Suit yourself, but don’t expect me to entertain you. What’s your name?”

  “Emmy Jo Massey.” She eased down into a chair beside him. “And happy birthday to you.”

  All the color drained from his face, turning it the same color as his hair and mustache. She thought for a minute he might faint dead away, but then he picked up one of the half dozen newspapers from the table separating them, shook it out, and started to read, hiding his face behind it.

  She wasn’t sure what to do, so she stared out over the panoramic view from the top of the hill down to where the little town of Hickory was laid out. Straight ahead, almost dead center in the view, the steeple of Logan’s father’s church rose up from the trees. Minty-green leaves had just begun to spread a hint of spring across Hickory. A bright-red cardinal hopped up on the patio wall and cocked his head at them. How could anyone not like red when God made something as beautiful as a cardinal?

  She leaned forward slightly and squinted.

  “What are you trying to see?” Seth asked.

  “I can see the church steeple, but I was trying to visualize where the bank is located,” she answered without taking her eyes from the scene before her.

  Seth went back to reading his paper.

  “Are you going to read all of those?” she asked.

  “Yes. I’m finished with this one.” He handed it to her. “You read it now.”

  “What if I don’t want to read the Dallas Morning News?” She loved novels and her bridal magazines, but newspapers bored her to tears. All that stuff about murder and mayhem and those crazy advice columns would depress a saint.

  “You have been hired as my assistant, so you do what I say. Your first job is to read this newspaper,” he said.

  “Will there be a test later?” she smarted off.

  “No, but reading current events won’t kill you,” he shot right back in the same tone.

  Nora had said to do whatever he wanted, whether it was listening to music with him or taking him for a drive in his car, so she took the newspaper and flipped back to the social pages.

  When he finished the second one, he handed it to her and she laid it in her lap while she read the last bit of the advice column in the first paper. She was drawn to advice columns in magazines but always figured people had to be out of their minds to write such personal things to a public forum. It was like that old television show her granny watched when she was a kid. What was it called? A tall guy always had folks on his show that told about crazy problems in their lives. Jerry Springer, that was it! She smiled when she remembered.

  Hey, wait a minute. She glanced over at Seth. Maybe if I got him and Granny and Jesse Grady all in the same spot at the same time, I’d figure out what started this thing between them. But that show went off television years ago. Maybe I should write a letter to an advice column, even an online one. Her eyes went back to the paper. Dear whoever, my granny and my fiancé’s grandfather have not spoken
in more than sixty years. How do we get them to come clean about the past?

  If she could clear up the past, the present problems could be understood a little better. Like why Tandy was so against her getting married to Logan. And why his parents blamed her for him not following in his grandpa’s and his daddy’s footsteps and becoming a preacher.

  They went through four newspapers by midmorning without another word. She pored over the lifestyle and cartoon sections, and he read every word of the front-page news, the sports pages, and, as near as she could figure, all the real estate ads. At ten o’clock Oma Lynn brought a tray with two cups of black coffee, a bottle of water, and two muffins to the patio.

  “Thank you,” Seth said.

  Oma Lynn nodded and glanced at Emmy Jo. “I didn’t know if you liked coffee or not.”

  Emmy Jo smiled. “Yes, I do, and thank you.”

  “Midmorning snack at ten. Lunch at twelve. Afternoon snack at three. Supper at five, and on Saturday from noon and all day Sunday you will be responsible for taking care of that job,” Oma Lynn told her. “Think you can handle that?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Emmy Jo said.

  Seth picked up a muffin in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. “Now this is coffee. That stuff they gave me in the hospital couldn’t be classified as anything more than murdered water, and young lady, you get it black in this house or you drink water.”

  “I hope it’s strong.” She followed his lead. “I hate weak coffee. To put sugar and cream in good coffee should be counted as a major sin.” That old coot was not going to get the best of her. But despite her words, the first sip of that thick black liquid almost gagged her.

  “You are Tandy Massey’s granddaughter, aren’t you? You don’t look a thing like her.” Seth finished his cranberry muffin and sipped at the mug of coffee.

  “Great-granddaughter. They say I look like my father. Rose was my grandmother and Crystal was my mother. I never knew either of them.” She nodded. “You know my granny?”

  “I did a long time ago.”

  “How did you know her? Did y’all go to school together or what?” She frowned.

  “It’s not important. I’m not talking about your grandmother. Young lady, I don’t want you here. Go on back home, and I’ll call Nora and tell her that you didn’t like the job.”

  “I’m not going away, Mr. Thomas. I can run errands for you. Drive you wherever you want to go. Sit right here and read these papers all day or twiddle my thumbs, but I’m not leaving.” She’d overcome the first hurdle that morning when she rang the doorbell; all the others were nothing in comparison.

  “Sassy piece of baggage, aren’t you?” Seth said. “That much is exactly like Tandy.”

  She’d been called worse. “I suppose her determination did rub off on me.”

  Seth reached for his walker. “I feel sorry for the man you’re engaged to.”

  She rushed to his side and held the walker steady while he slowly pulled himself up. “Most people do.”

  He grimaced, and his veined hands shook slightly as he gripped the walker tightly. “What’s his name?”

  “Logan Grady.”

  “That would be Jesse Grady’s grandson?” Seth moved slowly toward the sliding doors leading into the house.

  “It is.” She followed him as he slowly made his way across the patio.

  “You are my assistant whether I like it or not, so get around here in front of me and open this door. And I’m tired of talking. Oma Lynn, we are going to the office,” he called out. “We’ll have our lunch in there at noon.”

  Rumor had it that Seth Thomas built the house because of a woman. He’d met her out in Amarillo when he went to visit his family and fallen in love with her. Once the house was finished, the wedding was going to be held in the backyard. A week before the big ceremony, she’d called it off, and he’d lived in the big house all alone ever since. Parties had not been thrown there. Christmas lights weren’t put up. It had never had an ounce of life in it, even though Seth had lived there for more than fifty years.

  A wave of pity washed over Emmy Jo as she followed him into the office, a cozy room with full bookcases flanking a rock fireplace. To have all this at his fingertips and yet have nothing but sameness day after day would be downright depressing. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she kept them at bay. She crossed the floor to the marble mantel and stared at the two pictures there. One was an old black-and-white picture in an antique frame of a tall lady holding a baby, with a light-haired man beside her. The woman had dark hair and light eyes and her smile said that she was happy. The way the man beside her looked at her, Emmy Jo could easily imagine him adoring her.

  The other picture, framed to match the first one, was a small oil painting, maybe eight by ten, matted in pale blue to match the sky behind a huge two-story, white-frame house with lilacs in full bloom.

  “Your mother?” she asked.

  “The baby is my mother.” He parked his walker at the end of a buttery-soft leather sofa and winced when he sat down. “Folks are not supposed to outlive their bones. You see that rack of records over there beside the player?”

  She glanced toward them.

  “I want you to play them one at a time. When the first one ends, turn it over and play the back side, then put it back into the cover and play the next one,” he said.

  “What are we going to do while we listen to them?” If this was going to be an everyday occurrence, then she’d bring her bridal magazines tomorrow.

  “Enjoy the music,” he answered.

  After almost two hours of music from the fifties, Emmy Jo was glad to see Oma Lynn bring lunch into the room at noon. The first tray held bowls of steaming-hot potato soup and bacon-and-cheese sandwiches cut diagonally. Two thick pieces of chocolate cake and two glasses of milk were on the second.

  Oma Lynn quickly set up a small folding table in front of Seth and put his part of the food on it. “You can use the desk,” she told Emmy Jo.

  “Is this birthday cake?” Emmy Jo asked.

  “Sent special from Nora. Arrived yesterday. She sends one every year from some fancy place out there in Amarillo. Has it shipped here on ice so the chocolate icing don’t get soft,” Oma Lynn answered.

  “Shall we sing?” Emmy Jo sucked up a lungful of air to begin the song.

  Seth nearly skewered her with his pointer finger. “You do and I’ll shoot you.”

  “After this morning’s music appreciation lesson, I thought you liked singing,” Emmy Jo said. She liked country music, but two hours of that old stuff had come close to boring her to death. Maybe that’s what he had in mind—kill her graveyard dead with boredom.

  “Don’t you get sassy with me, girl,” Seth growled.

  “You can’t fire me, and I’d bet your sister won’t. You could shoot me, but then you’d have to make your own food on the weekend. Looks like we’re stuck with each other. Sassy and grumpy. We could be some of the seven dwarfs if you weren’t so tall,” she answered.

  “I might have to endure it, but I don’t have to like it. And you can wipe that smile off your face, Oma Lynn,” Seth said.

  “Why? She called it right. You are grumpy,” Oma Lynn said as she left the room. “I’ll see y’all on Monday morning in time to make breakfast. I hope you know how to make chicken and dumplings, missy. That’s what’s on the Sunday dinner menu every week, and he likes them made fresh on Sunday.”

  “I can do a fair job,” Emmy Jo answered, glad that Tandy had made her learn to cook. “What’s for supper on Saturday nights?”

  “The month’s menu is on the refrigerator door. You’ll find what you need to fix it. If she leaves before Monday, there are frozen dinners in the freezer, Seth.”

  “I’d gladly eat them if that miracle would happen,” he growled.

  After they’d finished, she carried the dishes to the kitchen and studied the menu. Tonight she was supposed to make spaghetti with meat sauce, hot rolls, and salad. A bright-pink note was stuck to the f
ridge that said there was a rising of bread on the cabinet for the hot rolls. Emmy Jo checked under the towel-covered bowl and figured that there was plenty to make rolls for supper and also a loaf for dinner tomorrow.

  When she returned to the office, Seth had stretched out on the sofa, a pillow under his head and a throw draped over his body. “I take a nap from one to two thirty. After that I like my afternoon snack.”

  “What are my orders during this time?” she asked.

  “You can either leave or unload your things into the room that Oma Lynn has fixed for you. It’s the one with the open door.”

  “I’ll see you at three, then.” Her heart kicked in an extra beat at having some time to unpack and actually see the room where she’d be staying the next several weeks.

  “I hope not.” Seth shut his eyes.

  Emmy Jo raced back to the kitchen and checked the menu. Afternoon snack on Saturday was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple that had been peeled and quartered, and a glass of milk. She could throw that together in ten minutes; she had plenty of time to explore her new room.

  What she figured was the pantry door was ajar. She started to close it, but then thought she’d go ahead and get out the peanut butter and apples. When she threw it open, a set of fairly steep stairs led from there down into a basement garage. She found a light switch and flipped it on, then made her way to the bottom of the steps.

  She wasn’t surprised to see an older-model pickup truck or the brand-new Cadillac, but that shiny black vintage convertible made her big blue eyes pop wide open. There was plenty of room for her car, so she abandoned her idea to get out the peanut butter and apples and opened the garage door to get her car in.

  Once her vehicle was parked and the door shut, she carried the first load of her belongings up the stairs to the kitchen and then the second set to the floor where her room was located. Panting with the exertion of getting a plastic garbage bag from the basement to the second floor, she left them outside the door and sat down on the top step to catch her breath.

  She hit the “Speed Dial” button to call Logan, launching right into conversation as he answered. “This room better be worth it, but I’m not looking at it until I get the last suitcase up here.”