by Judy Baer
“The turkeys have scared other guests,” Mrs. Bump said with a chuckle as she put a platter of French toast and bacon on the table. “I keep forgetting to remind people that they are out there. Most people like them, of course, and enjoy watching them from the tower room.”
I bobbed my head and kept my mouth shut. Nothing I could say would redeem me, and everything I had said so far had made Chase roar with laughter. He hadn’t been there to see the fierceness of that gobbler or feel the first pangs of starvation pierce his belly. He hadn’t experienced the fear of having his eyes pecked out, had to rebuff a turkey doing a mating dance or…Never mind. There’s no way to put a good spin on the fact that I’d gotten lost and scared of a turkey on the grounds of a B and B, only yards from a potato chip factory. I’d made a fool of myself. It wasn’t the first time, but it was one of the most memorable.
“More juice? Fresh squeezed. Or a muffin? Some fruit compote?”
Chase and I shook our heads as best we could with food stuffed all the way from stomach to esophagus. Mrs. Bump had gone all out with lit candles, fruit, a heaping tray of muffins and pastries, French toast dipped in batter and deep-fried, homemade maple syrup, strong black coffee made from freshly ground beans, whole cream for the coffee…and then she’d brought out dessert.
Dessert for breakfast? This is a concept I can get my head around.
“I like something sweet at the end of a meal. Most of my guests find they enjoy it, too. Lemon bar? Oatmeal cookie?”
After breakfast, we dragged ourselves upstairs to our room and lay on our backs on the bed, groaning.
“I’ll never eat that much again.”
“I feel like I’m going to explode and splatter on the ceiling.”
“I tell my patients not to overeat, and now look at me.” Chase moaned.
I peeked at him out of the corner of my eye. He looked great. “There was that wonderful-looking toffee muffin I didn’t get to taste….”
He rolled over and began to tickle me. “You are incorrigible, darling.”
There was a positive in this. I had a pair of pants with an elastic waistband packed in my suitcase. I could try a toffee muffin at breakfast tomorrow.
We both fell asleep, and it was nearly 11:00 a.m. when I awoke. Chase had a pillow over his head to block out the light. I changed into my elastic-waisted pants and a lightweight pink sweater and pink slip-ons that Mitzi had forced me to buy last time we went shopping.
Then I gave Chase a gentle poke. “Want to come with me? I thought I’d go shopping.”
He snuffled and waved his hand at me. I took that to mean I should go alone.
I managed to negotiate my way through the kite shop, the perfumery, the candle shop and a frame-and-print store before I got caught in a funky little dress shop.
What to buy? A hand-painted T-shirt with rhinestones? A broom skirt in luscious faux suede? Gauchos? The leather beaded belt with tie closures, or the handbag decorated with coins? I held back until I had a meltdown in the children’s clothing store. Mobiles of zoo animals and teddy bears hung from the ceiling. Lullabies played on the sound system in the background, and the entire place smelled like talcum powder. I was hooked.
“Can I help you?” I turned to see the clerk, a woman of about my age, with a roly-poly baby on her hip. The little girl was bald as a billiard ball, but wore a little pink headband sporting a satin bow that matched her pink-and-white ruffled dress and pinafore. When she saw me, she started to kick her bootie-clad feet and held her arms out to me.
“May I?”
“Hold her? Sure. She usually doesn’t take to customers like this.”
I took the soft, cuddly bundle into my arms. “She’s heavier than she looks.”
“Wet diaper,” her mother said practically. “I was on my way to change her.”
That didn’t deter me. I was immediately and irrevocably in love.
“Do you have children?” the woman asked. “What ages are they? I can help you look for sizes. We just got a new shipment in, and there are some adorable things in the back.”
“No kids…yet.”
She gave me a sympathetic look. “Someday?”
“I hope so.” The baby laid her head on my chest, and my heart felt as though it might burst.
Chase caught up with me in the quilt shop.
“There you are. Mrs. Bump thought I might find you here.” He put his arms around my middle and gave me a squeeze. “Sorry I slept so long. It felt great, though. I’m a new man.”
“What if I told you I liked the old one?”
“Oh, he’s in here, too. Don’t worry. Did you find anything to buy?”
“I did, but I resisted.” I decided to tell Chase about the baby later. I still hadn’t processed for myself the overwhelming strength of my emotion.
“I found us a place to go tonight. There’s a place within walking distance with great food, live music and—” he paused and grinned “—booths with curtains, in case we want to be alone.”
And we do. We definitely do.
Chapter Seventeen
The stars seemed closer here than they did in the city. As we walked home after dinner, I felt I could have reached up and plucked one from its blue velvet bed. Involuntarily, I shivered.
“Need my coat?” Chase pulled off his jacket and threw it across my shoulders. It was warm from his body heat and infused with the scent of his shaving lotion.
He hugged me to him as we walked. “Do you see the Big Dipper?”
“There?” I pointed to the seven bright stars that formed a small pot with a long handle in the sky.
“And the North Star?”
I drew a line through the two stars at the front bowl of the dipper and followed it as it pointed to Polaris. “And God hung them there. Incredible.”
“Everything God does is incredible. That’s why some people have such a hard time believing in Him.”
“Because He’s beyond imagining?”
“It’s easier to limit Him, to keep Him in a box with our preconceived notions. His vastness becomes more manageable for us when we don’t try to comprehend all He is.” Chase moved his arm, as if to encompass both us and the sky. “It’s less difficult to look closer to home for answers than to imagine that this—and humanity—are divine creations.”
“For me, it’s more risky to believe a patchwork of ever-changing scientific explanations as to why things are than it is to see and acknowledge the divinity in front of my eyes,” I murmured. “But I’ve met Him personally, and you know what happens then.”
Chase placed a gentle kiss on the top of my head and held me closer, confirming that where God is concerned, we are on the same page.
We returned to the house, and on the way up the stairs to our room, we heard a loud thump coming from the nether parts of the mansion. Chase and I stared at each other in alarm. “It sounds like someone fell.”
“Or something heavy toppled.”
Another thump echoed through the house, and Chase and I raced down the stairs toward the sounds, which, as we neared the back of the house, were increasing. Thunk, thunk, thunk.
“It sounds like someone is dragging a dead body down a flight of stairs,” I blurted, my active imagination, primed by this morning’s turkey episode, going into overdrive. “Maybe one of the guests hit Mrs. Bump over the head and is trying to hide her body.”
“Whit, you have got to quit watching cop shows on television. And no more mysteries, either. Come on, I think it’s coming from in here.”
We burst into the kitchen, a rescue team of two. The lights were on, and at the far end of the room was a door open to the basement.
I imagined Mrs. Bump lying broken and unconscious at the bottom of the stairs, an evil-looking man with a kitchen knife standing over her, all of Delight’s silverware stashed in a pillowcase at his feet. Then she appeared, flushed and puffing, at the top of the stairs.
I screamed.
“Oh, dear, I didn’t mean to wake you folks.”
Mrs. Bump, now in blue jeans and a maroon hooded sweatshirt that didn’t fit her Victorian persona at all, dusted off her hands. “Sorry if I made noise.”
“We thought you might have fallen,” Chase explained. “I’m a doctor, and…”
“Well, bless your hearts.” She beamed at us. “I’m just fine. I went shopping tonight for things for the B and B. Then a friend and I went to a movie and I was just getting my Jeep unloaded now.”
“Jeep?” Where was the pleasant Victorian lady that had greeted us on Friday? She’d been overtaken by a plump baby boomer with rosy cheeks and a Grand Cherokee.
“Do you need help?” Chase asked. A large bag of sugar and some boxes still sat by the back door.
“No, I’ve taken the biggest pieces downstairs already. I have cold storage and a bit of a cellar down there. I buy flour in fifty-pound bags. You must have heard me dragging it down the steps. It makes quite a racket. I should have waited until morning.”
“No problem. Just as long as you’re okay,” Chase said. “We’ll return to our room, then.”
“Thanks so much. My church starts at eight, if you’d like to go.”
My heart wasn’t pounding so hard and my imagination was no longer in overdrive when we reached our room. In fact, I’d reconciled myself to the fact that there really are things that go Bump in Delight.
Sunday, May 2
After service with Mrs. Bump in her small country church, where the singing was enthusiastic if out of tune, the sermon passionate if rambling and the friendliness overwhelming, she fed us a banquet of baked eggs and sausage, pastries, homemade applesauce and an assortment of cookies that would rival any bakery’s.
With a series of hugs and grateful goodbyes, she sent us out the door with a bag of cookies for the road and admonitions to come back soon.
“I feel as though I’ve been gone an entire week,” I said as we drove out of town. “What a wonderful break.”
“I could have stayed there a month—or two,” Chase said agreeably.
That was surprising. Chase has never been good at vacations. A part of his mind, no matter where he is or what he’s doing, is always with his patients.
Monday, May 3
Nothing, unfortunately, had changed at the office while I was gone.
Kim couldn’t quit talking about the adoption process, and Mitzi told anyone who would listen about the trials and tribulations of taking fertility pills. Bryan smiled and nodded at Mitzi with almost doglike devotion as she jabbered on. Of course, he was wearing earplugs and hadn’t heard a word she was saying.
Harry called me into his office at three o’clock. His eyes were wild and the row of hairy question marks on his head was once again erect.
“You have got to make those two quit talking about fertility and adoption. It’s scaring our clients.”
“Harry, we rarely have clients in our part of the office. And despite the impossibility of it all, they get their work done. We’re in great shape. You could go out and get a few more customers.” I eyed him speculatively. “Are you sure it’s not you who’s getting scared?”
He sagged into his chair. “What am I going to do, Whitney, if these women go out on maternity leave at the same time?”
Now was not the time to mention that Chase and I had talked about my getting pregnant, as well. “It could be a problem,” I ventured.
“Well, it’s a problem I can’t have. I’ve got too many other things on my mind.” He looked at me, his eyes aglitter. “I want you to find a solution. It’s your new assignment. This office can’t fold in on itself over a baby or two. You figure it out.”
Having divested himself of all responsibility for whatever happened at the office over the next few months, he drew a satisfied sigh and shooed me out of the room.
Thursday, May 6
“Do you want sprinkles or chopped peanuts on this thing?” I called from the kitchen, where I was concocting an ice-cream extravaganza for Kim. Kurt and Chase were out of town, and Kim and Wesley had appeared on my doorstep with pajamas in hand and offered to “keep me company” for the night.
That translates as “We’re lonesome.” Wesley was already zonked out on the guest room bed, where Kim would join him after we’d finished gorging on ice cream and popcorn.
“When is Kurt coming home?” I plucked off one of the many maraschino cherries I’d put on the ice cream and popped it into my mouth.
“Not until Saturday morning.”
“Does this mean you and Wesley will appear on my front step tomorrow night, too?”
“No. We’re going to stay overnight at Kurt’s mother’s place. She likes it when we do that, because she can get her ‘full Wesley fix.’”
It doesn’t take much to get full of Wesley these days, but I didn’t say that to Kim. The more she and Kurt fuss and stew over this adoption process, the more attention Wesley demands. It’s as if he already knows that once this still-on-paper child arrives, he’ll be deposed from his throne and forced to act like a normal child with a younger sibling, that his kingdom will be overthrown by someone wearing Onesies.
“We’re trusting Him for the right thing to happen, but I don’t see…” Kim stirred her ice cream into a muddy mess. “Every way we turn there’s a roadblock. Someone needs more information, another paper…”
I methodically ate another cherry. “Sounds like you don’t trust Him all that much, then.”
She sighed and sagged into the chair. “It is Psalms 128: 3 and 4 that’s really getting to me.”
Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord.
I’d wondered when that might come up.
“Silly, isn’t it? Especially since we have Wesley. But I still feel like such a failure.”
I felt an unaccustomed flair of impatience. “You, you, you.”
Kim looked at me sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You are depriving your husband of a child. You are the ‘unfruitful vine’ who isn’t putting any little ‘olive shoots’ around the table. You are failing Kurt. I thought you said this was about waiting on God, but it sounds a lot more like it’s all about you.”
Her face flushed and she slapped her spoon on the table and shoved the ice cream out of reach. “I hate it when you do that, Whitney.”
“Do what?”
“Hit the nail on the head.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “You’re right. ‘I’ this and ‘me’ that…” She looked at me thoughtfully. “When all the time it should be Thy will be done.”
We sat quietly for a long time. So long, in fact, that Mr. Tibble decided we had perished and jumped onto the table to finish our ice cream.
As I was shooing him away, I added, “It’s Mitzi who’s the challenge, not you. If she goes on another hormonal rant tomorrow…”
Kim nodded wearily. “The woman exhausts me.”
Friday, May 7
And exhaust she did.
Mitzi entered the office like a sailing yacht that had just won the America’s Cup, head held high, prow aimed purposefully toward her desk, a “don’t-mess-with-me” look in her eyes. She appeared particularly tense and on the edge today, like a high-tension wire humming with electricity.
“Cute outfit, Mitzi,” Betty commented on her way by. “Love the short jacket.”
“Don’t mock me,” Mitzi snapped.
Betty blinked, stupefied, and Bryan headed for the men’s room.
“I wasn’t mocking. I meant it.”
“Well, then, thank you.” Mitzi walked behind her desk and began to furiously dust the seat of her chair. “Who sat here? There are cookie crumbs all over the seat. How does anyone expect me to get any work done in a pigsty?”
Betty rolled her eyes, and Kim and I exchanged glances.
“If I recall correctly, yesterday you found a box of old Girl Scout cookies in your freezer and brought it to work.”
&nbs
p; “Are you accusing me of being messy, Whitney? I’ll have you know…”
I stood up and crossed the room. With as much sweetness as I could muster, I said, “Would you come with me to the break room, Mitzi? I have something I’d like to talk to you about.”
“I have obligations here at work, Whitney. I don’t see why I should have to trot around the office after you all day.” But she followed me anyway.
Once we were alone, I looked straight into her eyes. “What is going on? You’re acting like a porcupine with a grudge this morning.”
“Nothing’s going on. Don’t be silly.” Then her eyes filled with tears and she sat down abruptly on a nearby stool. “Oh, Whitney, I feel like I’m having the worst case of PMS that ever was! I bit Arch’s head off this morning, yelled at my cleaning lady because she didn’t scrub behind the kitchen appliances and ran over the garbage can because it was in my way.”
“Hormones?”
“Apparently they don’t agree with me.”
Or anyone else.
“You’ve got to pull yourself together. If you’re going to be on these pills for a while, you’ll have to manage your emotions.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, but we’ll have to think of something.”
“Just pretend Mitzi is PMS-ing,” I advised Kim and Betty while Mitzi was out of the room. “She’s suffering hormone fluctuations. Perfectly normal. You know how to handle that.”
“What do you think PMS stands for, Whitney—Pyschotic Mood Swings?” Kim demanded.
“I know what it stands for to me if Mitzi keeps acting this way,” Betty muttered under her breath. “Pass My Shotgun.”
Okay, so suggesting the others humor Mitzi through this didn’t work out so well. If Betty means what she says, PMS will take on an entirely new meaning.
Potential Murder Suspect.
Chapter Eighteen
Sunday, May 16, Mother’s Day
A truly pathetic group gathered at my house today.
I don’t know why I thought having Kim and Kurt, Mitzi and Arch and my parents for dinner would cheer anyone up.
