The Foster Girls

by Lin Stepp

  Vivian felt an instant sense of relief as the conversation shifted. Evidently Stella and Mary had accepted her story on face value. Perhaps she had enough details in it now to satisfy most people and to make it sound believable. Actually, she had added in much more of the truth of her life in this telling. Scott was right. The truth was best whenever one could tell it. She just couldn’t afford to tell all of the truth right now.

  Chapter 8

  Over the next few days, Vivian settled in at the farmhouse, and began to familiarize herself with the community. Stella had brought her a map of the area at her visit, and Mary and Stella had filled her in on where the closest large grocery store and shopping centers were. While out exploring, Vivian drove around the local streets and learned the small shops and stores that were nearest to her. She discovered several places to eat that were not far from the farmhouse, a country buffet restaurant called The Blackbear, Auntie Em’s, a little luncheon café close to the entrance of Stoney Mill Road, and an interesting stone restaurant set back along a stretch of cascades along Cove Creek called The Creekside. She’d tried them all when she had been out and about.

  March seemed to be offering up an abundance of sunny days, and Vivian often did her writing out on the front porch. She was writing on her laptop out on the porch today. And she was even wearing shorts, the day was so warm.

  Scott was right in telling her that many of the local people would come to call on her. Each day some new visitor appeared but Scott did not come again. Once she saw him out in the yard. He played with the animals for a while and got something out of the barn, but he didn’t come up to the house. Vivian supposed she should be relieved about that, but instead, she found herself annoyed that he didn’t even stop by to say hello.

  As she looked up from her laptop now, she saw a young woman coming across the yard from the log bridge at Deep Hollow Creek. She had short brown hair and was wearing cut-off jeans and a T-shirt. Beside her skipped a small girl with flaxen blond hair caught up in a ponytail.

  “Don’t get up,” the woman called. “We’ll come up on the porch.”

  Vivian closed out her computer while they climbed up the stairs.

  “I’m Ellen Greene.” The young woman held out her hand in greeting as she reached Vivian’s table. “And this is Chelsey, my daughter, who has just turned five.”

  Vivian reached out to take Ellen’s hand. “I’m Vivian Delaney.”

  “I heard you’d come,” Ellen said. “I’ve been dying to get over to see you, but Chelsey was sick with a cold and that kept me in for a while.”

  Chelsey grinned and hung back a little behind her mother’s legs.

  “Since when have you been shy, Miss Chelsey Greene?” her mother teased her. “Why don’t you give our new neighbor the gift we brought her?”

  The child held out a little basket. “It’s our soaps, Miss New Neighbor.” Her voice had a childish lisp but she gave Vivian a squinty smile of greeting.

  Vivian smiled back at her.

  “I make homemade soaps,” Ellen explained. “I brought you a variety to try.”

  “How wonderful.” Vivian started looking eagerly through the colorful bars of soap - each packed in excelsior inside the wire basket. “Thanks to both of you.”

  Ellen settled down in one of the porch chairs, propping her feet up on the empty chair across from it.

  “Can I go swing on the swing?” asked Chelsey excitedly, jumping a little on one foot and then on the other. “Please, please, please.”

  Ellen waved a hand in answer. “Yes. But stay where I can see you.”

  Chelsey headed across the yard toward an old wooden swing hanging from a huge maple tree in the front yard. Fritzi trotted after her to keep her company.

  Ellen brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Chelsey loves that swing. She’s always asking to come over here to Mamie’s and swing. It’s hard for her to understand that Mamie’s not here anymore. She misses her.”

  “I think everyone misses Mamie,” Vivian offered.“She must have been such a remarkable person.”

  “She was, and as good as gold. I spent a lot of nice times out here on this porch talking to Mamie. One of her favorite sayings was ‘Good porches make good friends.’”

  Vivian smiled. “That saying is on a sampler just inside the doorway.”

  “I remember, and I love that sampler,” Ellen confided, smiling back. “In fact, I love all of Mamie’s samplers. Did you know she wrote most of the sayings on them herself? Another favorite of mine says: Yellow and blue like sun and sky; make the days pass blissfully by.”

  “That one’s in the front parlor,” Vivian recalled.

  “Mamie said it was her own personal philosophy for having her house all decorated in blues and yellows. She said yellow and blue make a person feel happy.”

  Vivian grinned at that. “She has a point, you know. There is something about those colors around you all day that lifts the spirit.”

  The girls talked companionably about small things for a few minutes, getting acquainted.

  “God, I’m glad you’re here,” Ellen confided at last. “I really needed a woman friend, and it will be wonderful to not be the only educated, professional woman around here anymore. They call me That Pharmacist Woman with All Them Science Degrees.” She wrinkled her nose. “I earned that exalted title because I have an undergraduate double-major in chemistry and physics and another master’s degree in pharmacy. And then, I guess, because I worked as a hospital pharmacist in Knoxville until Chelsey was born. Big deal. It’s only two degrees, for heaven’s sake.”

  Ellen stopped and made a face. “I know it may sound awful and snobby to you for me to talk like this. But so many people around here think it’s downright queer for a woman to have degrees in chemistry and pharmacy. Mr. McFee told me one day that I had ‘an awful lot of book-learning for a woman.’ And Mrs. Rayburn asked me if they ‘really let women major in things like chemistry and physics today.’ She said she thought science-stuff like that was only for boys.”

  Vivian muzzled a giggle. She understood the feeling of being thought odd for having a lot of education.

  “Don’t be so quick to laugh too hard, Vivian Delaney.” Ellen wrinkled her nose. “They’re already calling you That Professor Doctor Woman that lives down at the Jamison place. Everyone gets a label around here of one sort or another. Your other label is That Woman that Writes Things.”

  Vivian laughed out loud then. “I suppose I’d rather be labeled for those two things than for some other awful thing. I guess you’re also That Woman that Makes Soap.”

  “Yes, I am,” Ellen admitted with a grin. “But that one carries more respect around here. Valley people honor crafting and people who are skilled with their hands in the old crafts. However, I have to admit, as much as I love it here, that I sometimes get hungry to be around someone who doesn’t think it’s peculiar to have a few degrees.”

  “So what brought you here to the valley?”

  “Quintin and I both got restless for a less yuppie suburban life. Quint’s a family physician. He wanted to start his own practice, and he learned that the only doctor in this area was retiring and selling out his practice. We could have lived closer to Knoxville and the city life there, but we started looking around here at country houses in the valley. When we found the old Graham place we just fell in love with it. Have you seen it?”

  “Is that the brick house set back from the road past Leo and Mary’s place?”

  “That’s it.” Ellen smiled with pleasure. “The house is only a block or two from your place, and shorter, if you cut across the creek instead of taking the road. It’s called Maplewood, because the house is set back in a grove of maple trees. It’s a wonderful place, a big two story with a white-pillared porch, rambling rooms, and tall ceilings. It felt so much more like a real home after living in the McMansions suburb where we lived before. Ugh!”

  Ellen made a face. “All the houses there were so much alike. It was almost c
reepy.”

  “I’ll have to walk over to see your place one day,” Vivian said. “I love old houses, too. They have so much more character.”

  “Well, this is a fine one. And there is a big barn and a couple of sheds behind the house. That appealed to me, too, because of my soap-making.”

  “How did you get into doing that?”

  “As a hobby.” Ellen shrugged. “I’d done undergraduate work in chemistry, if you remember, and I’ve always liked to cook up things on the stove.” She laughed. “I’ve blown up a few things, too, experimenting. I got into soap-making as something safer to play with after I was married. The process of it is really chemical. Here in the country with the barn and sheds behind the house, I’ve been able to expand a little hobby into a small business.”

  She pulled one of the soaps out of the basket and showed Vivian the label. “I call my soaps Greenellen Soaps. You know, like Ellen Greene reversed. This one is Lavender soap.”

  Ellen passed the bar of soap over to Vivian. “After the basic process of soapification, that’s getting the soap started with oils or fats, plus distilled water and lye, you can add whatever colors, fragrance, and textures you like to make the bars pretty and unique. I added lavender buds for texture to this one. When I can find them, I add hibiscus to get a natural purple color or I use artificial colorings. The lavender oil I use is primarily what gives this soap its wonderful sweet scent. See?”

  “Ummmm.” Vivian held the bar up to her nose to sniff. “What are the other soaps you make?”

  “Sunflower, Vanilla, Peppermint – about thirty different kinds.” She smiled. “I’ve put a variety of the soaps I make in your little basket there. Plus a container of my liquid soap I use for dishes. You’ll like that, and it’s better for your hands than the store bought kind.”

  Vivian looked through the soaps. “Did you make the little labels yourself, Ellen?”

  “No. I had a graphic artist friend make me a stencil stamp with that little herbal logo and the fancy lettering of Greenellen. I couldn’t have created that myself. I’m real inventive but not very artistic. With the stamper, all I have to do is stamp my design in dark green ink on the brown wrappers I put around each bar.”

  Vivian studied one of the wrappers. “It’s a nice cottage industry look.”

  “Thanks,” Ellen said. “I usually make soap on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If you’re interested, you can come over and watch for a while.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  Ellen called out to Chelsey to check on her, while Ellen continued looking through the soaps. She picked up a bar of soap swirled in green.

  “What’s this pretty one?” she asked, when Ellen sat down again.

  “That’s my Camp Soap.” She grinned. “It was one of my first experimental soaps and now it’s one of my best sellers. It’s my secret recipe. It has no fragrance and no fatty oil build-up and it’s great to help keep the bugs away. I work a natural repellent oil blend into it. Scott Jamison started letting me sell it in the camp store at first, so I named it Camp Soap. Now I sell it in hiking and outdoor stores, too, and in most of my shop accounts.”

  She paused. “Scott Jamison is great, you know. Have you met him?”

  Vivian nodded.

  “He has a wonderful way with kids and he is so personable. I’ve never known an easier, more natural person to be around. Quint and I just love Scott. It’s incredible what he’s done with the old Taylor camp, too. Have you seen it?”

  “No, I haven’t gone over yet.” She dropped her eyes, not wanting Ellen to read her thoughts.

  “Well, I’m surprised Scott hasn’t dragged you over there already. He just loves to show off the camp, and he has every right to be proud of it. Chelsey is already asking me when she’ll be old enough to go.”

  Vivian looked up. “What’s the earliest camp age?”

  “Seven years old or getting ready to start the second grade. So Chelsey has got a ways to go. But Scott’s so sweet. He takes her around the camp and lets her see where she’ll stay when she’s old enough. And he lets her play in the pool when the camp isn’t in session. She just worships him and so do Nancy’s boys, Martin and Jordan. Martin is seven now and he’s getting ready to start camp this summer for the first time. Jordan and Chelsey are only five and they are just green with envy.”

  Ellen had propped her feet up on the table while she talked. She had on old, battered tennis shoes with no socks. Ellen was probably five six to Vivian’s five eight. She had a little sturdier build than Vivian’s but looked fit and healthy. Her hair was cropped in a short cut and her face was clear of make-up, with a slight sprinkling of freckles across her nose. She was unaffected and natural, and Vivian liked her.

  “Got anything to drink in the house?” Ellen asked her.

  “Colas and tea. And some chocolate chip cookies I picked up at Auntie Em’s yesterday. Want some?”

  “Tea would be great.” Ellen grinned. “And Chelsey will want tea and some cookies, too, if it’s alright. Look in Mamie’s pantry and see if you can find Chelsey one of those plastic glasses Mamie used to keep in there for the kids. I don’t like her wagging real glassware around. It’s too likely to get broken as active as she is.”

  They all shared a snack then. Afterwards, Ellen helped Chelsey tie the dandelions she’d collected into a dandelion crown to wear around her head. When Ellen suggested making a necklace to match, Chelsey ran out to gather more dandelions out in the yard. This gave the two women time to visit a little bit longer.

  “How did you end up here in the valley?” Ellen asked.

  Vivian filled her in on the same details she’d given to Stella and Mary.

  Ellen listened with an easy interest, her feet propped up on the porch rail. “Well, to my way of thinking, this is a great place for a sabbatical.” She smiled broadly. “And I’m certainly glad you’ll be right next door to me.”

  Vivian smiled back, relief sweeping over her. So far only Scott had challenged and questioned her about her reasons for being here. Everyone else was very gracious and accepting, just as Betsy had suggested they would be. This puzzled Vivian. And she still wasn’t sure what she wanted to say to Scott at their next meeting.

  “All right, tell me who’s been over to see you,” Ellen demanded. “Besides Scott, that is. And besides Scott’s mother and Mary Jamison. Mary has already told me she stopped by and that you were, in her words, ‘just a darling girl.’” She said the last in exactly Mary’s voice tone, and Vivian couldn’t help giggling over it.

  “Well.” Vivian searched her memory. “Mrs. McFee and Mrs. Rayburn came by one day. They brought me great homemade jelly and pickles. And Mr. and Mrs. Miller came by to tell me if I was ever sick that they would deliver anything I needed from up at their market on the highway. I thought that was so nice. Mary brought her husband Leo over. Clyde and Edith Harper stopped by. He told me he mowed and kept up the property here and over at the camp. Clyde didn’t have a lot to say, but his wife Edith was real chatty, and she brought me a great pound cake. Then yesterday, the minister’s wife, Susan James, came over and brought her mother with her. Her name was Ruth Hart, I think. She said she used to be a really good friend of Mamie’s …”

  “And they invited you to church, of course,” interrupted Ellen. “You’ll have to go to church somewhere, you know, or you’ll get a reputation of being a heathen around here. You’re not a heathen, are you? Although I’ll still like you even if you are.” She gave Vivian a teasing look. “I’ll like you even if they start calling you That Woman That’s a Heathen.”

  “Well, I’m not in the heathen category, so don’t worry.” Vivian laughed. “In fact, being by the camp here has reminded me that I first came to know the Lord in a meaningful way at a church camp up in the California mountains. I think mountains have always been special to me ever since. It seems like you can always feel God’s presence so strongly in the mountains. Do you notice that, too, living here by the Smokies, or is it just me?”

&n
bsp; “You, me, and a lot of other people.” Ellen shrugged. “I think it’s one of the things that draws people to come to live here in this area. Don’t you?”

  “Well, I like that idea better than another one I heard,” Vivian observed, remembering Scott’s comment that most people who came to the mountains were running away from something.

  “If you want to go to a great place for a mountain-top experience, we can hike to the top of Buckeye Knob one day. It’s that first tall mountain ridge you can see behind the farm. It’s really gorgeous up there. You can sit on this big rock at the top of the knob and look out all over the valley.”

  “That would be fun, Ellen. I really want to see a lot of places around the area while I’m here.”

  “Well, I’d better warn you that if we take Chelsey, it’s less likely to be serene and peaceful.” Ellen laughed and pointed to Chelsey hanging upside down by her knees from a big tree limb in the front yard.

  As if on cue, Chelsey’s excited shrieks pealed out across the yard.

  “Scott! Scott!!” they heard her exclaim as she dropped out of the tree and started to race across the yard to the tall man coming toward them.

  A big smile flashed across his face as he caught sight of the little girl and soon he was picking her up to swing her around in the air. Something tugged at Vivian’s heart at the sight.

  “I told you she was crazy about Scott.” Ellen waved a greeting at Scott from the porch. “Look at how he plays with her. He’s such a terrific guy. You just wait until you see him with his campers this summer. They adore him and follow him around the camp like he was the pied piper. He has such a way with the kids. Truly charismatic.”

  Ellen stopped to motion Scott to come up on the porch before continuing. She grinned at Vivian then. “And he’s darned handsome, too, don’t you think?”

  Watching him, Vivian had to agree in spite of herself. Her heart had started to pump already just at the sight of him.