Small Town Girl

by Ann H. Gabhart

  That was fine with Jay. He was ready to be out in the sunshine, but once out there he didn’t hang around to wait for Graham or to see if he might wangle an invite to the Merritts’ Sunday dinner. He didn’t belong there in the churchyard among all the families clustered in groups, planning their times together. He didn’t belong anywhere except maybe in his car out on the open road.

  But he did keep his promises and he’d promised Birdie a movie.

  They were on the porch waiting when he showed up at their house a couple of hours later. As soon as he killed the motor, Birdie ran down the porch steps toward his car, excitement practically exploding out of her eyes. Kate didn’t show the same eagerness, but she was smiling. She didn’t appear to be hanging on to any lasting effects from the hayseed doing his best to humiliate her in church.

  It was a half hour’s drive to Edgeville. Kate made sure to put the kid between them on the car seat and then at the movies. She was keeping him at arm’s length.

  Birdie didn’t notice. She was full of chatter in the car that covered up any awkwardness between Jay and Kate and then entranced by the movie. Jay was entranced too. Not by the movie. He barely noticed the actors moving across the screen. The girl two seats over was the one grabbing his eyes. He watched her face in the flickering light from the screen and had the feeling she knew he was watching her instead of the movie, but she kept her eyes on the screen. Very casually, he draped his arm over the back of the kid’s seat and let his fingers graze against Kate’s shoulder on the other side of Birdie.

  She didn’t shift in her seat away from him. A good sign. But a sign of what? That she liked his touch or that she was so engrossed in the movie she didn’t even notice? The kid squealed and covered her eyes as one of the actors on the screen almost got shot. Kate leaned over to whisper something to her, and her hair brushed against his hand. A tingle shot through his arm straight to his heart.

  He jerked his hand back almost like he’d been burned. And he was playing with fire. He’d done that as a kid. Experimented with what he could feed into a fire to make the flames flash up brightest. He wasn’t a firebug. He’d never wanted to set any buildings on fire or anything like that. Not even old haystacks that a lot of the other boys had thought were simply waiting for their matches. He just wanted to know what would make the fire burn hottest or what would make the blackest smoke. He’d lost his eyebrows once to the idiotic idea of pitching a pint jar of gasoline on a fire, but he’d learned. He’d always had to see things for himself, learn it on his own. No matter the cost.

  But some lessons in life carried too big a price. Could be he should just keep hands off. Could be he should take these two girls home after the movie and keep riding on down the road. He could feel Kate looking at him, wondering about him. He rubbed his arm as if he’d had a muscle spasm. And maybe he had. Some teacher once told him that the heart was a muscle.

  She leaned toward him behind Birdie, who had scooted forward in her seat to make sure she didn’t miss a minute of the scene. “Are you all right, Jay?” she asked.

  He thought it might be the first time she’d used his first name without hesitation, and he felt another jolt of unfamiliar feeling slam through him. “I’m fine.” He kept rubbing his arm. “Just had a twitch in my arm. All that painting, I guess.”

  Birdie looked around to fiercely silence them. “Shh!”

  Kate put her fingers over her lips to hide a smile that even in the darkened theater set her eyes to sparkling. She looked back to the screen, but he didn’t. Nothing on that flickering screen could be anywhere close to as fascinating as her. Somehow, before he drove away from Rosey Corner, he was going to get that kiss she’d wanted to give him after the wedding. All he needed was to get her by herself without the kid being a buffer.

  It almost happened on the drive home. Not getting the kid from in between them. Kate had made sure Birdie scooted into the middle again, but the kid had started nodding off before they were two miles down the road.

  Kate put her arm around the girl and let her lean back against her. She smoothed the dark curls out of the kid’s face as she said, “She didn’t sleep much last night. Too excited about everything that was happening. Evie and Mike being there. You taking her to the movies. Sleeping on the floor. We let Tori have the couch since Lorena thought sleeping on the floor would be fun. She found out the floor didn’t have much give, even though we put down every blanket we could find for a pad.” Kate looked over at Jay. Her hair was blowing back from her face. “Evie and Mike had our bedroom.”

  Her cheeks pinked a little, and she looked down at her hands as if she thought she shouldn’t have mentioned the bedroom. Not when talking about the newly married couple. He pretended not to notice.

  “So how does your sister like being married to my friend, Preacher Mike?”

  She looked up at him with a little frown. “Is that what you call him?”

  “Sure, why not? He’s earned the title, and you folks here in Rosey Corner seem happy to hear him preach.”

  Jay smiled over at her. He wished they were parked somewhere in the shade. He wished Birdie was asleep in the backseat. He wished Kate was scooted over beside him where he could put his arm around her and breathe in her scent. Most of all, he wished he hadn’t made her think of Mike. He wanted her to be thinking about him, not Mike. He hadn’t forgotten that look he’d seen on her face during the wedding.

  “Evie’s wanting him to look for a bigger church.”

  “Women. Ready to start changing a man as soon as they say ‘I do.’”

  “Well, nobody expects Mike to stay in Rosey Corner forever. Not like my grandfather Reece did.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not what?”

  “Why not stay in Rosey Corner?” Jay glanced over at her.

  “Our church is too small to pay a preacher enough to keep him going. At least not one with a family. Evie wants to have a house, new furniture, children someday.”

  “Sounds like Mike better get busy.”

  “Evie’s got a job. A good job. She went to business school, so she’s not depending on Mike to do it all, but Evie’s not a small town girl. Even if she did grow up here. She’s always wanted to get away from Rosey Corner to somewhere bigger. Somewhere where the action is.”

  “Sometimes the action’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Jay said.

  “But aren’t you planning to go to Chicago?” She peered over at him.

  He kept his eyes on the road. “I was thinking about it before I got a better offer painting houses.”

  She laughed. It was a good sound. An easy sound. “Is Graham even paying you?”

  Jay laughed along with her. “Sure he is. We made a business deal.”

  “He’s been painting that house since August.”

  “I like a man who takes pride in his work.” Jay saw a place to pull off next to a stand of trees and eased his car over into it. Birdie stayed slumped against Kate and showed no sign of rousing when he killed the motor.

  Kate looked around. “Why are we stopping?”

  “The car gets hot. Needs to cool off.”

  She leveled her gaze on his face. “Do you always lie so easily?”

  He turned his ear toward the motor. “You don’t hear it steaming out there? The thing’s liable to blow up.”

  She called his bluff. “Then maybe we’d better get out.”

  “Okay. The car’s not hot. I just wanted to be able to look at you while we’re talking. I like looking at you.” He slid his arm along the back of the car seat toward Kate, but stayed his hand before he touched her. He wanted to, but she wasn’t putting out any of the welcoming vibes he’d felt in the movie theater.

  “I’m not pretty. Not like Evie or Tori or even Lorena.” She looked down at the sleeping girl and gently touched her hair. “She is so beautiful. Me, my hair won’t curl and my eyes don’t even know what color they want to be. First green, then sort of blue.”

  “And sparkling like sunlight o
n water.” Now Jay did touch her cheek with his other hand to turn her face toward him. “I like your eyes. I like looking at you,” he repeated. “I like talking to you.”

  She leaned away from his fingers. “You probably say that to all the girls.”

  He pulled his hand back. He had the feeling the kid was awake and only keeping her eyes closed pretending to sleep now. Enjoying eavesdropping. That was okay. It could be that he was going to have to win them both over to ever get anywhere with Kate. “Only when it’s true,” he said.

  “All right then. If you want to talk, talk.” She seemed to be daring him to come up with something that would make her want to listen.

  He twisted in the seat a little and draped his left arm over the steering wheel. “So what about you, Kate Merritt? You planning to stay in Rosey Corner all your life?”

  “It’s all I know.”

  “All you want to know?” he asked with a lift of his eyebrows.

  She didn’t answer him. “It’s nice here. My family is here. Mama needs me to help with the store, and others need me around too.” She gently touched Lorena’s hair. If she knew the kid was awake, she didn’t give any sign of it. “I wouldn’t want to leave forever.”

  “But maybe for a while?”

  “I wouldn’t mind going to college. Nobody in my family ever has. Well, Evie went to the business school, but that’s not what I want. I want to study literature and history. I want to find out about things I don’t even know are out there to find out about.” She got a faraway look on her face.

  “Then you should do it.”

  She let out a whisper of a sigh. “Some things are easier to dream about than to do.”

  He couldn’t argue against the truth of that. He’d long ago stopped bothering to even dream about his future. No sense building castles in the air that were going to disappear in the first breeze of reality. But things were different for her. “Dreams can come true. Just ask the songwriters.”

  She smiled a little, but she couldn’t seem to hold on to it as she stared straight at him. “Do you think the president will keep us out of the war?”

  He didn’t know how they jumped from dreams coming true to worries about the war, but then the war shadow hung over them all. “I hope so,” he said.

  “But you don’t think so.”

  “I don’t know. How can any of us know what will happen tomorrow? But either way I think I’ll be getting a call from Uncle Sam. As soon as he can find me.”

  “Sometimes it seems as if everything’s just on hold. That we’re all waiting, for what I don’t know. But it’s not good.”

  A tear eased out of the kid’s eye and made a path down her cheek. He reached over and brushed it away. “Hey, Birdie, no fair crying in your sleep. We’re out for a good time, remember?”

  Kate hugged her. “You little rascal, have you been playing possum on us?”

  The kid couldn’t keep from giggling then as she opened her eyes and looked up at Kate. “I wanted to see if you’d kiss him.”

  “You silly goose.” Kate poked her in the ribs, but Jay noted a flush warmed her face.

  He grinned a little. “I wanted to see if she would too, Birdie. But there was this kid in the way.”

  “Sounds like that was a good thing,” Kate said.

  The kid giggled again and sat up. “Are we home?”

  “Nope, the car got hot and we had to let it cool off,” Kate said without a moment’s hesitation before she looked over at Jay.

  “Yep,” he agreed. “But now I’ve got a hankering for some ice cream. Any place around here sell it?”

  “Not on a Sunday. Everything’s closed up. We might have gotten some in Edgeville if we’d thought about it sooner.”

  He started up the car and turned it back toward Edgeville. “Point the way.”

  “That’s crazy. We’re over halfway home,” Kate said, but she was laughing.

  “Everybody should be crazy at least once a week. Right, Birdie?”

  “Right, Tanner.”

  “Right, Kate?” He looked over at her. She was laughing. She might not know it, but she was beautiful.

  “Right, Tanner,” she echoed Birdie. Something about the way she said it was almost as good as a kiss.

  13

  Kate breathed out a sigh of relief as she watched Evie and Mike’s taillights disappearing down the road back toward Frankfort after church Sunday night and was instantly ashamed. How could she be glad to see her sister leaving? But she was. A married Evie was even harder to put up with than an unmarried Evie. It was like she thought being married made her know more about everything now. In truth, she did know more about being married than Kate. She knew about a husband cleaving to his wife. She knew about love. Kate didn’t even know about kissing.

  She could know. From experience. Jay Tanner had been ready to kiss her. She was almost sure of that, but Kate had pushed Lorena between them and kept her there. A sensible decision, but sometimes having good sense was overrated. Maybe kissing was too. She thought about Carl mashing his mouth down on hers and felt a little sick. But that hadn’t been a loving kiss. Carl had been angry. He was still angry.

  It would be easier if she could stay angry with Carl. She had reason enough. The kiss for starters. Then the words he’d thrown at her in church that morning. Words he’d hoped would hurt her. But she didn’t want it to be that way. She didn’t want Carl to hate her, but she didn’t want him to love her either. Why couldn’t he see that being friends was best?

  Then again, maybe she was the one not seeing things right. Everybody seemed to think she was the problem instead of Carl. Maybe she was. Maybe she should have agreed to marry him. As Evie pointed out, she was never going to find another man like Mike. And Mike was taken.

  She could have said yes last week and stood up with Carl this very day in church before he went to the Navy. She could be a married woman just like Evie, and packing to follow her husband to wherever he was sent in the service. Mrs. Carl Noland. She pushed away the thought as a shudder ran through her. She could have never married Carl. Never. But friends—they could have stayed friends forever. She did care about him. She did want him to be safe. She just didn’t want to follow him anywhere. Not even to Hawaii.

  He’d intended to wound her with that. She’d been talking about Hawaii, that group of islands the United States claimed as a territory way out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. A paradise half a world away with sunshine and volcanoes and pineapples. She’d read a book about the islands after she’d seen something in the newspapers about a military base there. She’d told Carl about it. How a man joining the service would have to want to pick that over the military base that was being built up in Greenland. Sunshine and beaches instead of snow and icy winds.

  Not that any of that mattered when war clouds were edging ever nearer. The bases were there to protect the mainland. To keep the war away from American shores. But overseas people were dying. That wore on Kate’s mind. Sometimes she couldn’t keep the newsreels of bombs exploding over England and Hitler’s army doing their odd goose-step march from playing over and over in her head. And now Carl might be in those newsreels.

  Another sigh escaped her just as her mother stepped up beside her on the porch and put her arm around her waist. “Sorry to see her leaving?”

  “No,” Kate said.

  Her mother laughed softly. “My honest Kate. I’ve never had to probe beneath your words to see what you were really thinking.”

  “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” Kate tried to soften the harshness of her word. “I’m glad Evie’s so happy.”

  “And Mike too. He was practically beaming today,” her mother added, tightening her arm around Kate. “He’s been waiting for Evangeline to be ready to walk down the aisle for a couple of years now.”

  “She wanted things to be right.”

  “That she did. Evangeline always has a picture in her mind of how things should be.”

  “Is that bad?” Kate turn
ed to look at her mother in the light spilling out from the front window onto the porch. She had the shadow of a frown on her face as she kept staring at the road where the car had disappeared from sight. A look Kate had seen often enough over the years when her mother was concerned over one of her daughters.

  “Not bad, exactly. But I wouldn’t be surprised if she cheats herself out of some happiness now and again when life won’t live up to her expectations. Then again, life can be a stern teacher.” She looked at Kate. “Come sit on the swing a minute.”

  The night air was beginning to cool, surrendering the gathered warmth of the October day. For a few minutes, they sat quietly, listening to the crickets and tree frogs that were enjoying the way summer had lingered over into autumn. Kate could hear her father inside, reading to Lorena. She could read any book she picked up now, but she still wanted to be read to every night. Something Daddy loved as much as Lorena did. Kate concentrated on listening closer for a minute and recognized Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days. The familiar words of the story wrapped around her like a hug as she wondered how many times her father had read that story.

  Tori and Sammy were on the couch, listening too. Kate could see them through the window, sitting close, holding hands, belonging together in spite of how different they looked. Sammy with his sandy hair and freckles. Tori with her black hair and ivory skin. At fifteen, she was already prettier than Evie and more settled than Kate. She knew what she wanted in life. To finish school, marry Sammy, and have a family. Until then, what made her happiest was yanking her hair back in a careless ponytail and going fishing with Sammy. She didn’t look into the future and wonder if her life was going to matter. She’d already found what mattered to her. Sammy, home, and family.

  Home and family mattered to Kate too. Just sitting beside her mother, watching Tori and hearing her father read to Lorena made her heart swell. She couldn’t imagine not being here, but then that wasn’t exactly true. She could imagine. She was bedeviled with imaginings of what might be. Of what she might be. Or should be. She wanted to be like Tori and be content with her place, but she wasn’t. She was adrift in her own mind, lost on a sea of possibilities that was teeming with difficulties.