Mrs. B chuckled as she laid an arthritic hand on Miss Connie’s arm. “Don’t forget, I raised a stubborn one myself. But Jessie came ’round, and so will Katherine. You just got to keep prayin’.”
Miss Jessie is Mr. and Mrs. B’s niece, raised by them since she was sixteen, after her mama was killed. She’s married to Lee Harding, Miss Connie’s brother, which makes her Katherine’s aunt. Miss Jessie was mighty helpful and sweet to me after my own mama’s death, urging me to trust God, telling me that believe it or not, I’d get through the days with his help, just like she had. I couldn’t imagine she’d ever once been stubborn. Miss Jessie was one of the best people I knew. Still is. And my family owes a whole lot more to her than we can ever repay.
We dawdled after church, giving the Kings time to get home first. Katherine didn’t appear to be the homebody type, and hearing that she was in charge of her own welcoming, I lowered my expectations of the food several degrees. I figured if she managed to spread peanut butter on celery, we should be thankful. This assumption raised my spirits significantly. Daddy would not be able to deny Katherine’s shortcomings in the kitchen. Pretty as a woman might be, a man had to eat.
Life does throw a few curveballs.
My thoughts swirled as we parked down the street from the Kings’ house. First, of course, I worried about keeping Katherine away from Daddy, although I had no idea how. My lack of a plan made me feel about as confident as a kitten plotting the demise of a wildcat. Second, Alison’s awe-tinged report of her date with Jacob taunted me. He’d kissed her at the end of their date. She’d been practically beside herself ever since. Surely spring fever had twirled through the air when I wasn’t looking, I ragged to myself. My daddy had inhaled it, and now my best friend. I must have been doing laundry.
And third, I was about to enter Derek King’s house. I’d never been there before. Would I have to talk to him? I have to admit that I felt somewhat curious to see him in his home. Kind of like spying on a rare species in its own habitat.
“What are we gonna do here?” Clarissa asked as Daddy knocked on the Kings’ door.
“Eat,” Robert replied. Daddy chuckled.
“But there’s no kids here that I know.”
“Maybe there will be.” I combed her hair with my fingers, and she pulled impatiently away. “Tell you what, as soon as we go in, you see who you can find.”
I glanced at Daddy, searching for the slightest hint of anticipation on his face. I saw none but felt no less edgy. Ever since our conversation Friday night, I’d sensed he was doing his best to prove he held no interest in Katherine King. As if he fooled me.
“Come in, come in.” Miss Connie beamed as she pulled back the door.
“Hey, Bobby.” Mr. King greeted us as we stepped inside.
“Thanks for includin’ us, Jason, Connie.” Daddy and Mr. King shook hands.
Katherine was nowhere in sight. I looked into the crowded dining room and caught a glimpse of the food. My jaw nearly dropped. Before I knew it I’d wound my way through chatter and bodies to stand before the table, gaping at the delicacies. Tiny puffed pastry baskets with handles, filled with cheese and mushrooms. Chocolate cups with strawberry-colored thick cream. Thin, lacy cookies sprinkled with powdered sugar. Dainty open sandwiches with all sorts of different accoutrements. Fruits cut in unusual shapes. In the center of the table sat a gorgeous flower arrangement, trailing greenery that curled around flickering candles in multiple colors. I’d never seen lit candles in the middle of the day.
“Have you ever beheld such a pretty sight?” a familiar voice asked. I turned to see Miss Jessie at my side.
“No.” We both admired it for a moment. “Who did all this?” I asked, praying that some angel had miraculously taken over the Kings’ kitchen.
“Katherine.” Miss Jessie tasted a cookie with utter delight.
My heart skidded to the floor. “But how did she—I mean—where did she learn it?”
Miss Jessie brushed powdered sugar from her lips. “Katherine’s done a lot a different things since she’s been gone. Workin’ for a caterin’ company, for one thing.”
A lot a different things. I felt immediately suspicious. “Oh, really. What else has she done?”
“Oh, I don’t rightly know everything,” she said vaguely. “Maybe Katherine will tell you.”
Miss Jessie was close to her sister-in-law, Miss Connie. I’d have bet whatever the Kings knew about Katherine, Miss Jessie knew. I pursed my mouth. “Why’d she leave Bradleyville in the first place?”
Miss Jessie eyed me for a moment. “Aren’t you the curious one. Oh, well,” she laughed, “seems most a the town’s curious about Katherine.” She reached for a tiny sandwich and examined it. “She left to go to college.”
Not so unusual. “Where’d she graduate from?”
“Actually, she didn’t. After a semester she decided she . . . wanted to do other things.” Miss Jessie gave a little shrug, as if to say it didn’t matter. But somehow I got the impression it mattered a good deal to her and the rest of Katherine’s family. I started to probe some more, then realized I’d been doing a poor job of keeping an eye on Daddy. “Where is Katherine, anyway?”
“In the livin’ room, talkin’ to folks.”
“Folks” could mean Daddy. “I’d better go say hi,” I breathed, then scurried off.
I heard Katherine’s laughter before I rounded the corner—rich and tinkling at the same time. I spotted her in the midst of a gathering, mouth wide open, head tilted back. Her hair was pulled into a French twist, giving her a regal look. She wore pants—black, silky, and wide-legged, yet clingy to her curves. And a red silk blouse. Men and women alike—although I have to admit the males outnumbered the females three to one—hung on her every word.
“Land sakes,” she teased wizened old Mr. Luther, “how could I possibly forget you? You still pass Tootsie Rolls down the pew when you’re supposed to be singing hymns?”
Mr. Luther blushed and silently drew a Tootsie Roll from his pocket. Everyone around him burst into laughter.
“Oh, you!” Katherine rested her hand on his shoulder. “The best things never change.”
I checked around for Daddy, happy to see him engaged in conversation with Mr. Clangerlee. Probably discussing all the cleanup they’d both had to do after the tornado.
“Jackie.” Clarissa appeared from nowhere. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Um, okay. It’s probably down there.” I pointed with my chin.
Clarissa eyed all the people she’d have to wade through. “Come with me.”
“Oh, good grief, Clarissa, you can go by yourself.”
“No, pleeeease.”
I let out a martyr’s sigh. “Oh, all right.”
I steered my sister around Katherine and entourage, then led her down a hallway until we found the bathroom. “Will you wait for me to come out?” she asked.
“Yeah, yeah, just hurry.”
I sidled toward the wall, watching Katherine intently through the doorway as I waited.
“Hi,” a voice said behind me.
I jerked around. Derek peered down at me, a video game box dangling from his hand. “Oh,” I said, feeling quite stupid. “Didn’t know you were there.”
“I wasn’t.”
I puckered my forehead.
“But now I am.” A smile flashed across his lips, then disappeared.
We stared at each other.
“I was just . . . waiting for my sister in the bathroom.” I gestured vaguely toward the door.
“And spying.” He said it with not the least bit of accusation.
I felt my cheeks go hot. “I was not.”
“Yes, you were.” He sniffed. “But it doesn’t matter. Sometimes I catch myself watching her, too.”
“Spying on your own sister?” I blurted, then could have kicked myself. What was I doing talking to Derek King anyway?
He pushed his glasses up on his nose. “First of all, she’s my half sister.”
I tried not to react. I never knew Miss Connie had been married before.
“Second, I really don’t know her very well,” he said with matter-of-fact ease. “I mean, she left when I was six.”
I groped for something to say. I hadn’t stopped to think what that would be like—a stranger whisking into town and claiming your own family. For a moment I felt an odd alignment with Derek, which rattled me all the more. Then irritation settled in. Why was he telling me all this?
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled.
At that opportune moment, Clarissa emerged from the bathroom. She looked up at Derek and smiled her trusting Clarissa smile—the one that always made the older women at church press her to their bosoms. “Hi.”
“Hey, Clarissa. Wanna see some computer games?”
“Sure!”
“Your brother here?” Derek asked me. “He’s probably bored as all get out.”
The perfect excuse to make my exit. “Probably. I’ll find him and send him on back.”
“You can come back, too.”
Oh, right. As if I wanted to be in Derek King’s bedroom. Besides, I had more important things to do. “I’ll see.”
I found Robert near the food, stuffing his face. “Go see Derek,” I told him. “He’s got a bunch of games on his computer to show you.”
Robert considered the invitation. “Okay.” He took a handful of cookies to carry along.
I returned to the living room. Daddy still talked to Mr. Clangerlee. Katherine said something cute to her admirers, then glanced sideways. At that moment, Daddy turned aside from his conversation. Their eyes met. Katherine smiled at him, slow and sultry.
Uh-oh. I had to act fast. As Katherine edged toward Daddy, all I could think to do was beat her to her destination. Trotting past her, I caught Daddy’s hand. “Come check out Derek’s computer!” I cried. “We gotta get one.”
“Uh, okay.” He looked at Katherine with an apologetic smile. He must have questioned my motives, but he didn’t show it. Good grief, I’d never been interested in computers before in my life.
Soon we hung around Derek’s computer, watching Robert play a game about landing a spaceship on Mars.
“What do I do?” Robert demanded as a warning flashed that his craft was low on fuel.
“Go over here”—Derek pointed to the corner of the screen—“and fuel up. While you’re there, pick up some extra ammunition ’cause your enemies are gonna show up in a minute.”
Before long the room filled with the sound of laser guns and dying aliens. Robert’s fingers jabbed and jerked over the controls. Daddy and Clarissa started shouting, “Watch out, over here!” and “Get that one!” Even I began to lose myself in the game. Derek’s long fingers jumped here and there across the screen, warning of pitfalls, his body taut with concentration.
“Shoot, shoot, shoot!” he cried. Robert streaked his ship through asteroids, gunning until all enemies fell away.
“Okay, super.” Derek punched Robert lightly on the shoulder. “Now go dock to get more fuel.”
We all took a deep breath in the momentary lag. “This is some game,” Daddy said to Derek.
“Yeah.” Derek snatched his glasses off and wiped the lenses with his shirt. “Games like this can teach stuff too, you know. All the math involved in the calculations of time and distance.”
“Let’s get one, Daddy,” Robert said, his eyes glued to the screen.
“Do you have a computer?” Derek looked from Daddy to me. “It’ll need to have lots of memory and a pretty decent graphics card to play this game.”
Vaguely, I heard Daddy answer that like most of Bradleyville, we were behind the times and still hadn’t bought a home computer. But I could only stare at Derek. I’d never seen him without his glasses before. Suddenly his small gray eyes loomed large and warm. He looked so different. Not only normal but actually good.
For a split second, his gaze locked with mine. His fingers stilled. I blinked away and focused again on the screen, wondering at the level of craziness to which I’d just descended. Glory, my brain must be overloaded. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Derek consider his glasses as if seeing them for the first time. Then he cleared his throat and jammed them back on his nose.
“Okay,” he said to Robert, “ready to go at it?”
Within minutes, we hollered like idiots again.
I didn’t even see Katherine enter the room. I’d turned my back to the computer to clack through Derek’s games, which sat in a plastic holder on a bookcase. Naturally, Katherine chose that moment to make her stealthy entrance.
“Hi!” I heard Clarissa sing, but it didn’t register. By the time I turned around, Katherine stood behind Clarissa and next to Daddy, one long-nailed hand resting on my sister’s shoulder as if it belonged there.
“That’s it, Robert, you got it!” She turned to Daddy. “Derek’s been trying to teach me this game all week. I keep getting killed off.”
“Reverse, reverse!” Derek yanked back an imaginary control stick.
“I wouldn’t have thought you were the spaceship type,” Daddy remarked.
“Are you kidding?” Katherine’s eyes sparkled. “This stuff’s a blast!”
Daddy’s lips curved. Suddenly I thought that computer game must be cursed. Look at the strange things happening around it. Katherine’s gaze slid past Daddy to me. She offered me a smile of tentative friendship, without the slightest hint of complicity. And I disliked her even more for it.
“Don’t we have to go, Daddy?” I abandoned the box of games.
Daddy turned to me, clearly annoyed with my lack of subtlety. “Jackie, be still; we have a while yet. Besides”—his tone lightened—“I’m hopin’ Derek will give me a chance to play.”
“Oh, sure,” Derek replied, eyes on the screen. His chin jutted out. “There, Robert, go there!”
Today, I understand Daddy’s remark as a mere indication of his attraction to Katherine—and nothing more. But at the time his words cut right through me. How could he put me down like that in front of her? I thought. I knew he’d made the final comment for her sake—as flimsy proof that he, too, knew how to have a good time. In other words, caught between Katherine and me, Daddy had chosen her.
What that thought did to me, after how close Daddy and I had been since Mama’s death. Something heavy and dull balled in my stomach. I swallowed hard.
Katherine didn’t look at me. But in the tactful turning of her attention to Clarissa, I knew she understood. The thought that she, a stranger, could so easily see through my daddy—and through me—only made me feel worse. As Daddy focused on the computer, seemingly unaware of what he’d done, my muscles turned wooden.
“I should get back to my other guests,” Katherine said quietly and slipped away. Even after she left, the glisten of her presence lingered.
We were among the last to leave.
Daddy and Clarissa had each played the game. Derek offered me a turn, but I would have none of it. By the time we left Derek’s bedroom, Robert had persuaded Daddy to buy a computer. My laconic brother talked a blue streak, asking Derek which other games we should buy and on and on.
“Games are just the beginning, Robert,” Derek told him. “Wait till you see all the cool stuff you can do on the Internet.”
“I don’t know a lot about settin’ computers up,” Daddy said to Derek. “Any chance you might lend some help?”
“Sure.” Derek rubbed his thumbs and fingers, his head cocked at that odd angle. He hadn’t looked me in the eye since that moment his glasses had been off.
Great, I thought. Just great. Derek King in our house. Most likely with Katherine on his heels.
I watched as Daddy said goodbye to Katherine, giving her a brief hug, complimenting her on the food. Her smile at him dazzled. I took my leave of her with stiff politeness, grazing her face with the barest of glances. As the four of us walked to our car I remained silent, aware of how miserably I’d failed and knowing deep within that it would cos
t us dearly.
chapter 6
In case you hadn’t guessed, change in Bradleyville flows at the pace of thick syrup. And most in Bradleyville would say they like things that way.
As long as I can remember, the bench outside the post office has been a favorite resting spot for the older folks. The IGA has sported the same brickwork over its entrance, although some of the new bricks that repaired damage from the tornado stood out lighter in color. The bank still has the sign in one window that reads Banking with us makes cents. The hardware store offers a sale on gardening supplies every spring and lightbulbs every winter. And to this day Bradleyville customs and folks’ way of talking depict an odd conglomeration of the present and many years past.
All the same, one of the biggest life changes in Bradleyville happens amazingly fast and typically at a young age. Love. Which leads to marriage.
In Bradleyville, folks don’t go out with one person this week and someone else the next, not even teenagers. Flirt, perhaps, within respectable boundaries. But then, if you care at all about your reputation—a mighty important thing in Bradleyville—you’ll choose the apple of your eye and start polishing. When all is nice and shiny—usually not long after you graduate from high school (unless you go off to college)—you marry. And that’s that.
By Bradleyville standards, a twenty-nine-year-old single woman was an old maid. Something had to be sorely wrong with her. Too bossy, too temperamental, or maybe just plain mean. And she wouldn’t look so great, either. Which is why you’ll find few unmarried men that age in town—the female pickin’s fall off at a morbid rate.
And then came Katherine May King.
If she’d stayed in Bradleyville, she’d have married long before. She’d have two or three children by now, teach a Sunday school class, and make heart-shaped cookies on Valentine’s Day. Even I would grudgingly admit that Katherine seemed destined for more than Bradleyville could offer. And apparently, she’d managed to collect a wide range of experiences in the great big world. So I had to wonder—why had she returned?
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