Sweet Everlasting

by Patricia Gaffney

  “Oh, no? Is she sick?”

  “Mother is never sick. Did you bring your scissors today, Carrie?” She nodded. “Do you still want to cut my hair?”

  “Yes, if you like.” She ducked her head, coloring with pleasure, and Tyler got that fresh, cool, heartracing feeling in his chest that assailed him at odd times in her company.

  She found the scissors in her bag while he took off his collar and stuck it in his trouser pocket. He crossed his long legs, and she came up on her knees beside him. “I didn’t bring a comb,” she explained shyly as she pushed her fingers through his hair to straighten it. The soft, soothing sensation made him close his eyes and moan. “Feel good?” she murmured.

  “Mmmm. Don’t let me fall asleep on you again, Carrie.” He opened one eye to see her smiling. “Did I ever apologize for that?”

  “No, you didn’t, and it was very rude. Here I go for years without saying a word, and the first person I finally talk to starts snoring in the middle of my life story.”

  That tickled him. He started to chuckle, and she leaned against his shoulder to laugh with him; the sound of their hilarity flushed a bird out of the sycamore tree—a warbler, Carrie guessed, craning her neck to follow its flight, maybe a yellowthroat. Bees and crickets droned in the clover. Crows cawed crankily, skulking along a line of trees at the meadow’s edge. Tyler could easily have fallen asleep under the gentle ministering of her hands, but presently she broke the contented silence with two soft-voiced, uncharacteristically personal questions. “What’s your mother like, Ty? Don’t you like her?”

  He smiled. “Yes, I like her very much. But she’s what’s called a ‘formidable woman.’ If I let my guard down for half a minute, she’d eat me alive.” Carrie’s fingers stilled; he turned his head and saw her look of amazement. “I take it your mother never tried to gobble you up,” he said blandly.

  “My mother? Oh no, my mother was wonderful.”

  “Lucky girl—being eaten isn’t any fun at all. Carolivia swallowed my father whole. All he wanted to do was read books and write scholarly papers nobody would ever read, but she had other plans.”

  She went back to cutting his hair. “What plans?”

  He closed his eyes, savoring the flutter of Carrie’s breath behind his ear, soft as a caress; the elusive fragrance she used activated another pleasant chest spasm. “My mother was a Morrell before she became a Wilkes. Do you know the Morrell name, Carrie?” She shook her head. “It’s famous, at least in Philadelphia.”

  “What does it stand for?”

  “Money,” he smiled. “Specifically, old money. The Morrell Company is one of the oldest shipping lines in the country; it imports and exports commodities all over the world. When my parents married, the idea was that my father would learn the business and eventually become its head. But he was completely hopeless, a dreamer instead of a schemer. My mother, on the other hand, was a natural. So the inevitable happened: he became a lovable figurehead, and Carolivia ran the company.”

  “ ‘Carolivia,’ ” she repeated, drawing out all the vowel sounds. “How important it sounds. Is your father still alive?”

  “He died when I was fourteen.”

  She made a sympathetic sound. Because it was Carrie, he knew it came from the heart, no reflexive gesture of compassion. “And now,” she guessed, “your mother wants you to be the head of the company.”

  “She’s given up on that, although it obsessed her for years. No, she’s finally become reconciled to the deplorable fact that I’m a doctor. Now she has something else in mind for me.”

  “What?”

  “She wants me to be president.”

  “President? Of the company, the—”

  “Of the United States.”

  Carrie sat back on her heels and gaped at him.

  “Well, I can see I won’t be able to count on your vote.”

  “Oh—no—you’d make a wonderful president, I’m—I just—”

  He laughed at her. “Relax, Carrie, I’m not running.”

  “Oh.” She laughed, too. “But—what a strange thing, Ty, for her to have in her mind! Isn’t it? I don’t know, but I thought presidents were always senators first, or lawyers at least, or generals—”

  “Usually, yes. But both the Wilkes and Morrell names are very old and very well connected, politically and socially. Stranger things have happened, as Mother likes to say. And her master plan begins on a smaller scale, with me being elected to something in Philadelphia first and then Congress, she doesn’t care which House. You’re not cutting too much off that side, are you?”

  “What? No, I’m almost finished.” She was leaning close, frowning with concentration, the tip of her pink tongue between her teeth. The breeze blew a long strand of her hair across his throat, and he wondered what it would be like to trace the delicate outline of her ear with his fingers, or his lips. She bent closer to blow hairs off the back of his neck, and his whole body tightened.

  “And so—when she writes you letters, it makes you feel sad? Because you love her but you don’t think you can ever please her, not if you please yourself at the same time?”

  “That’s it,” he said softly, half his mind on what she was saying, the other half on the shapes her mouth made when she spoke.

  She shook her head, perplexed. “But how could she not be proud of you—you’re a doctor.”

  He chuckled; she might as well have said, “You’re a god,” her voice sounded so awed. “But my mother thinks of herself as part of an enlightened aristocracy, Carrie. She wouldn’t admit it—she thinks she’s a Republican—but personal power is important to her. She wants her only son to be a leader of men, she wants the Wilkes name to be venerated. Power, glory, noblesse oblige—you can’t achieve them by taking care of sick people, so she doesn’t value that profession.”

  Carrie thought about that in silence. “Does your sister have to fight against her all the time, too?”

  “No, Abbey stays out of it, above it, I’m not quite sure how. I suppose she got the best of both my parents—my mother’s strength and my father’s gentleness.”

  “But you’re strong. And gentle.” She’d laid her scissors in her lap; she was resting her hand on his shoulder. “I think you’re the kindest man I’ve ever known. I wish …”

  She didn’t finish. Her gray eyes were wide, luminous with emotion, and utterly without guile. He couldn’t look away. He didn’t ask her what she wished because he already knew, and it was time to end this risky, tantalizing moment. There were many reasons why an emotional entanglement with Carrie was out of the question, and remembering them had always—eventually—swamped his desire for her at dangerous times like this. She was too young for him, much too innocent; something from the past had wounded her, and he couldn’t take responsibility for her; they came from different worlds, and one day, perhaps soon, he would go back to his and leave her here.

  But she tempted him so powerfully. He reached out to touch the whitish wildflower, wilted now, she’d threaded through the buttonhole of her new dress, beneath the low collar. Her fingers on his shoulder tensed. He drew the flower out and brought it to his nose. A revelation. “This,” he murmured wonderingly. “Carrie, this is your scent.”

  “Honeysuckle,” she confirmed, lips curving in a slow, unknowingly seductive smile. “My mother taught me to use it. I put some here, and here. “She touched the back of one ear, then the other. “Do you like it?”

  Her shy coquetry was new and disarming, and her throaty voice was devastating. He slid his fingers along her jaw to the back of her neck and bent toward her, nuzzling wisps of her hair aside with his lips and breathing in the faint, subtle fragrance that was part honeysuckle, part Carrie. “I like it better on you.”

  “Oh, Ty,” she whispered, and closed her eyes. She started to tremble. “You can kiss me if you want to.”

  The sun gilded her hair and the fragile line of her cheekbone; her soft, delectable mouth was an invitation he was weary of refusing. He gra
zed the pad of his thumb across her lips. Her lashes fluttered, dainty and nervous, casting elegant shadows on her skin. “Carrie,” he breathed, “how beautiful you are.”

  She opened her eyes—and the undisguised wanting in them finally brought him back to earth. When she touched his cheek, he took her hand away and kissed her fingertips, then straightened away from her. “But if I kiss you,” he said, in a rough approximation of his normal voice, “I’ll be late. You wouldn’t want all those swollen Shindeldeckers on your conscience, would you?”

  For a long moment she didn’t return his determinedly lighthearted smile; she studied him gravely, alert for the faintest sign of rejection. She was too intelligent for guessing games; words were what were needed between them now, if he was to be honest with her at all. But he didn’t know his own mind well enough to explain himself to her, and all the reasons he could give for turning away from her would hurt her. So he didn’t speak. And when she finally smiled—because he’d reassured her, or because he’d taught her to play his game?—he knew a coward’s relief.

  She put her stockings and shoes on in silence, gathered her belongings, and rose gracefully to her feet. He grasped the hand she held out for him and stood with her. As soon as he was upright, she dropped his hand and moved back a step. She swatted a fallen lock of hair back over her shoulder and cocked one eloquent eyebrow at him. “Of course, I’m new at it and maybe I’m wrong, but I can’t help thinking.”

  “What, Carrie?”

  “That kissing must be like anything else—quick sometimes, other times slow. You must’ve had in mind the slow kind, Ty, but to tell you the truth I wouldn’t have minded a quick one. Those Shindeldecker children wouldn’t even have noticed.”

  She sent him a twinkling look, spun on her toes, and danced away across the wildflower meadow.

  13

  “TO YOU, CARRIE. TO the start of your new career.”

  She lifted her glass and touched it to Tyler’s mug of beer. The pride in his eyes warmed her all the way through to her bones; a glass of French champagne couldn’t have tasted any sweeter than Erma Stambaugh’s ice-cold buttermilk did right at that moment.

  “Well, look at this, now. What’re you two celebrating?”

  She glanced up to see Mrs. Stambaugh herself, carrying a wide black tray with two plates of food on it—ham steak for Ty, honey-dipped chicken for Carrie; “honey-dipt,” the menu read—and smiling at them while she tried to pretend she wasn’t wild to know what they were doing together in her restaurant. Other people were wondering it, too, Carrie could tell from the stares they’d gotten when they’d come in, and were still getting when people thought they weren’t looking. Well, they couldn’t be any more surprised than she was, for she’d never been in a restaurant before, and now here she was in Pennicle’s, Wayne’s Crossing’s finest, at a table with a white cloth on it, sitting across from—this was the best part—Tyler A. Wilkes, M.D.! She folded her hands in her lap and squeezed tight, nearly quaking with excitement.

  “We’re celebrating the imminent purchase and publication of Carrie’s new book,” Tyler spoke up, answering Mrs. Stambaugh’s question.

  Mrs. Stambaugh used the minute it took to set their plates down to get her face in order, and say with less astonishment than she surely must’ve been feeling, “Carrie’s what?”

  Ty beamed across the table at her, and Carrie could feel her cheeks getting hot from pleasure and embarrassment. “You mean you didn’t know Carrie’s an author?”

  “Why, I declare. No, I can’t say I did. What kind of a book did you write, honey?” She rested her hands on her big hips and looked at Carrie as if she’d never seen her before—as if she wasn’t the mute girl she passed in church every Sunday, or the shy, backward girl her son Carl used to throw mud balls at every day after school.

  “She’s written and illustrated a book about the birds in Franklin County,” Ty answered for her. “It’s not quite finished yet, but it soon will be. Frank Odell’s been acting as her agent, and he’s pretty sure he’s found a buyer for it.”

  “Why, I declare, isn’t that something? That is purely something, mm mm mm.”

  Carrie was half-afraid she might laugh out loud because it sounded so funny to hear Ty call Mr. Odell her “agent.” She smiled up at Mrs. Stambaugh—who was looking at her now as if she was Sarah Bernhardt, come to sample the cuisine at Pen?icle’s. She might’ve stood there all night saying, “Mm mm mm,” if Ty hadn’t asked her for the mustard. She pulled herself together and went off to get it, still shaking her head.

  Ty had a conspirator’s grin that told Carrie he knew everything that was going on in her head. “How’s your chicken?” he asked, and she nodded that it was fine. The mashed potatoes surprised her, though; she’d never seen so much butter on just one food in her life. So this was how people ate in restaurants. Ty had been sure she was joking when she’d told him that, except for the counter at the drugstore, she’d never eaten in one before. That was after she’d told him the miraculous news about her book and he’d said they ought to do something special to celebrate. He’d made a joke—she hoped it was a joke—that he wanted to take her some place public for a change so she’d have to shut up and he could finally get a word in edgewise. But what a luxury talking to him was, and how fast she’d gotten used to it! The habit of muteness was old and ingrained, though, and she had no real fear that she’d unthinkingly blurt something out to him in front of everybody at Pennicle’s. Just the same, it felt strange that she couldn’t say to him straight out, right now, “Oh, Ty, I forgot to tell you in all the excitement—I got a letter today from Dr. Stoneman.” Instead she found the letter in her pocket and handed it to him across the table.

  “What’s this?”

  She made a gesture that said, Open it. She watched him unfold the one-page letter and begin to read, admiring his long eyelashes, his cheekbones, the way his jaw muscles worked when he chewed his food. He had on a striped gray coat that made him look serious and wise, not to mention broad-shouldered and handsome. His dark, shiny hair, if she said so herself, had never looked better. She liked his wide maroon tie; a “Windsor” tie, he called it. But her favorite touch was the bright orange marigold in his buttonhole—a gift from her; she’d snipped it from Eppy’s garden an hour ago.

  He started to smile, then chuckle in that low, rumbling way she loved, and she guessed he’d gotten to the part in the letter about “Ingrid the Impaler.” That was the nurse who was making Dr. Stoneman obey all the rules and regulations at the sanatorium. He said terrible things about her, but in such a comical way that Carrie had had to laugh, too. But what she liked most about the letter was the optimistic sound of it, at least if you read between the lines. Dr. Stoneman was the least hopeful person she’d ever known, so he must be improving if he could find even halfway cheerful words to say about his stay at the hospital.

  “I got a note from him, too,” said Ty, folding the letter up and giving it back to her. “Not as nice as yours, I must say. You should feel flattered, Carrie, that he cleans up his language for your benefit.”

  Her notebook and pencil were beside her plate. Do you think he’ll get well? she wrote. She’d asked him the question before, and he always said he didn’t know, but maybe now he had new information to go by.

  But he only shook his head and said, “I honestly don’t know. At least he’s finally getting the kind of care he needs if he’s to have any chance at all. If he’d done this a year or even six months ago, I’d like his prognosis better. As it is, all we can do is hope.”

  And pray, she added to herself. Did Tyler believe in God? She’d never asked him. Dr. Stoneman didn’t. That had shocked her when she’d first found out. Thank you for telling me the truth, she wrote in her notebook. You know—not trying to spare me.

  He nodded, and started to say something, but at that moment they both saw Spring Mueller of all people, walking toward their table. A feeling came over Carrie that she didn’t have very often but which she recogn
ized easily enough as jealousy; it got stronger when Spring raised her perfect blond eyebrows and looked back and forth between her and Ty as if she couldn’t quite put the two of them together in her head. As if she was looking at a beautiful lady in an ugly dress, or a handsome prince on an old broken-down horse.

  “Good evening,” she said in that affected way she’d had since she was fourteen—or before, for all Carrie knew; maybe she was born that way. “How are you, Tyler? No, please, sit down. I can only stay a second, I’m dining with my parents. Carrie, hi. You’re not sick, are you?” She laughed a false, tinkly laugh, not trying to hide her perplexity. She was worse than Mrs. Stambaugh, Carrie decided, because she was smoother, and because her supposedly humorous disbelief that Ty could know Carrie any other way but professionally was a subtler insult.

  But the look on her face when Ty told her what they were celebrating went a long way toward erasing all the mean, envious thoughts Carrie had ever had about her. For a minute Spring couldn’t even speak, she was so confounded. Finally she managed to say, “Well, isn’t that nice, I couldn’t be more surprised,” and then she launched right away into a speech about how she was leaving in two days for the Whitson Teachers’ College in Harrisburg, and she wanted to be sure to say good-bye to them—looking only at Ty, of course—and how excited she was because molding young minds was a noble calling, and she only hoped she had the sensitivity and the intellectual capability for the difficult but worthy task that lay ahead of her—et cetera, ad nauseam, as Dr. Stoneman would say. Carrie stole furtive glances at Ty while Spring droned on, and at first all she could see in his face was friendly politeness; but then, in the depths of his beautiful blue eyes, she could’ve sworn she saw a flicker of impatience. A bright, unholy, completely wicked glee came over her. Even guilt couldn’t make it go away.

  Finally Spring stopped talking about herself. “I hear you’re going to be getting some competition soon, Tyler.”

  “I heard that, too,” he said agreeably.