The Bridegrooms: A Novel

by Allison K. Pittman

  “It’s something my nan—er, mother taught me.”

  “Which makes it all the more special.” Relieved to see Lisette quietly chewing, and Hazel’s smirk reformed to a small, soft smile, Vada excused herself from the table, asking Molly to put Althea’s breakfast on a tray that she could take upstairs.

  “Already done.” And it was, with a silver dome covering the plate to keep the food warm, a cup of steaming tea, and tiny dish of butter and jam.

  Vada bade them good morning as she backed out the door and carefully maneuvered up the stairs where she met her father on the landing. The grave look on his face made the tray she carried almost unbearably heavy.

  “Doc?”

  “I’m at a loss.” He scratched his chin, or would have scratched it if not for the springing tufts of whiskers. “If the injury had caused any bleeding or swelling in his brain, he would be dead by now. And if it wasn’t a severe injury, he would be awake by now. Instead, he just…”

  “Sleeps?”

  “And there’s nothing more to be done. But don’t be startled when you see him. I’ve propped him up to keep fluid from building up in his lungs.”

  “Do you think it’s time to take him to a hospital?”

  Doc shook his head. “There’s nothing to do for him there that we can’t provide here.” He offered Vada a weak smile and made his way past her to go downstairs.

  She walked straight into her room, expecting to find Althea at her post. Instead, there was Eli, pale against the sea of pillows that surrounded him. His lips were parted, and the room was filled with a sound eliciting both comfort and concern: his breath, deep and regular, but accompanied by the softest rasping rattle.

  She shifted the weight of the tray to one arm and glanced at the smattering of items on top of her bureau.

  “Forgive me, Lord, if You consider this stealing.” She grabbed the folded note found in his pocket and dropped it into her own. Then, after the slightest hovering, she closed her fingers around the two buttons and dropped them in too.

  Althea’s room was at the end of the hall—more of a large closet really, but it seemed to suit her small, silent needs. The door was shut tight, and Vada knocked softly before opening it and peeking in.

  The sound in here was eerily like that of the room she just left but without the fixed rhythm. Instead Althea, facedown in her bed, took in one long, wet breath and seemed to let out only half of it before gasping two or three more short ones.

  Vada set the tray down on the little writing desk wedged into the corner and went to her sister, kneeling and placing a hand on the sobbing girl’s back. “Oh, sweetheart. He’s going to be just fine. I know he is.”

  But when Althea didn’t answer, it was more than just a matter of silence. Despite the tortured breathing, the girl was sound asleep, and no amount of breakfast, no matter how delicious, seemed worthy of disturbing that slumber.

  Vada turned to the opposite end of the bed and, one by one, unlaced Althea’s shoes, setting them gently on the floor. Then she took the blanket folded across the foot of the bed and spread it over Althea’s narrow shoulders, administering slow, smooth circles around her back until the quaking slowed.

  Satisfied of her sister’s slumber, Vada rose to leave and, in her movement, knocked Althea’s worn journal to the ground. Under any other circumstances, Vada would never have pried into those hidden writings, but the book landed to an open page, and she took in the first lines:

  I could not leave your side this night.

  Nor could I seek sleep’s sweet asylum.

  Content, instead, I pray—

  She looked away, uncomfortable with this revelation. And, truthfully, a bit envious. When was the last time she’d felt she could not leave Garrison’s side? Last night, of course, but her reluctance had nothing to do with contentment. More of a desperate grasping, really.

  Quickly, before she could be tempted to read further, she closed the book and set it beside Althea’s pillow. Breakfast could wait, maybe until lunch, and she picked up the tray once more to take to the kitchen.

  She arrived downstairs just in time to meet Lisette at the front door, her schoolbooks bundled in a leather strap. “You managed to make it through breakfast with your newest admirer?”

  Lisette rolled her eyes. “Papa and Hazel are filling him in on all the grisly details about our coma boy. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

  “Well, if you’ll wait for just a minute, I have an early morning errand to run. I could walk to school with you.”

  Lisette pulled back the lace curtain covering the front door window and peered out. “No, thanks. The Britton twins are outside waiting to walk with me.”

  Vada noted the hint of wistfulness in her youngest sister’s voice. “You don’t seem too excited about that.”

  “It’s fine.” She dropped the curtain but did not turn around. “It’s just, after so much conversation at breakfast, maybe I wanted a little peace and quiet on the way to school.”

  “Do you want me to shoo them away for you?”

  “Are you kidding?” she said over her shoulder. “You’re so beautiful, they’d probably forget all about school and follow you on your silly errand.”

  With that she opened the door, giving Vada a glimpse of the two earnest young men waiting at the bottom of the stairs, their identical faces lighting up at the sight of Lisette in her pale green spring coat with her long, caramel-colored curls streaming over her shoulders.

  “I hardly think so, my dear.” Vada turned to go into the kitchen. Suddenly, the front door was open again.

  “Oh, Vada!” Lisette’s sweet voice turned the summons into a song. “There’s a certain man here this morning to see you too. I don’t want to say who, but he’s awfully handsome, has red hair, and his team just lost to our little Spiders yesterday.”

  Vada tightened her grip on the tray to keep from dropping it. “Tell him—” What? To go away? To come back at a more appropriate calling hour? To leave her alone before she lost her head entirely? “Tell him I have an errand to run.”

  “Tell him yourself,” Lisette said, all of her sweetness gone. “I have boys waiting for me.”

  “Lord,” Vada prayed to the empty hallway, “if You won’t keep Mr. LaFortune away from me, I’ll just have to work harder to keep myself away from him.”

  She headed for the kitchen, hoping to offer to help Molly with the breakfast dishes. Not something she would normally do, but this morning she needed an excuse to keep herself inside the house. Instead she walked in to see Molly and Kenny side by side at the sink, happily sharing the chore.

  Hearing the swing of the kitchen door, Molly swung around. “Just leave those on the sideboard, darlin’. We’ll get to them in just two ticks.”

  “All right,” Vada said, a little taken aback by the scene. “Where are Hazel and Doc?”

  “Down in your father’s office, plannin’ out the day.”

  Kenny said something under his breath, and Molly joined him in a private chuckle.

  “Do you need anything from me?” Vada set down the tray.

  “Oh, no, dearie. You just go and get on with your mornin’.”

  Vada eyed the back door, thinking for just a moment that she could escape and double back through the alley. But who knew how long Mr. LaFortune would wait on the front porch. He might even be there when she got back.

  No, no. On second thought, best to nip this problem in the bud and send him packing right off.

  She lifted the large silver batter spoon from where Kenny set the dried dishes, making a joke about looking for spots while she gave her reflection a quick check before heading for the front door. Another glimpse in the mirror beside the coatrack in the entryway reassured her—eyes bright, face free of anything sticky, bodice clear of crumbs, and dark hair arranged with the perfect combination of smoothness and puff.

  Not that any of it mattered.

  Rather than pulling on her light wool jacket, she opted for a bright plum-colored shawl
from the hall closet, and with this securely clutched around her shoulders, she walked out onto the front step, looking straight ahead of her in order to be surprised. In fact, she jumped a bit at the high-pitched little howl he gave the minute the door closed behind her.

  “Hoo-cher.”

  There he was, standing on the sidewalk, one foot up on the third step, leaning forward with his forearm resting on his knee. The moment she looked at him, though, he straightened up and took off his cap, clutching it to his head. “Gardez voir la belle!”

  A pack of boys on their way to school turned and looked. Although it was doubtful they understood the French vocabulary proclaiming Vada as the man’s “sweetheart,” the tone of his voice was unmistakable. The boys made exaggerated kissy noises among themselves, bursting into full-out laughter when Mr. LaFortune raised a fist and feigned a chase down the street.

  “Honestly, Mr. LaFortune.” Vada made her way down the stairs. “That’s the second time I’ve seen you threaten children. Be careful, or I’m prone to think you some kind of a brute.”

  “Think anything you want, cher, as long as you thinkin’ about me.”

  His eyes tracked her down every step until, by the time she joined him on the sidewalk, she felt positively pulled there.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have time for a visit,” she said, ready to brush right past him, “I have a very important errand to run.”

  “Then I run right along with you.”

  He offered her his arm, which she declined, although she made no objection as he fell into step beside her.

  “Don’t know if you heard, but we lost yesterday.”

  “I heard.” She stopped short of saying she was sorry, because she wasn’t sure she was.

  “’Course you don’t care, bein’ a Cleveland girl and all.”

  “My lack of concern has nothing to do with being a ‘Cleveland girl.’ I simply find the end result of a baseball game to have little impact on my life.”

  They were crossing the street now, and for the briefest moment, she found herself standing with Louis LaFortune on the corner where, just a few hours ago, she had been kissing Garrison Walker. Her pancakes flipped themselves in her stomach, and she should have told LaFortune to leave her there and go find someone else to sympathize with, but he was already asking if they were to turn left or right. Without answering, Vada spun to the right, up the familiar trek to Moravek’s.

  “It all my fault, you know. That we lost.”

  She kept walking, knowing exactly where this conversation was going.

  “When I get up to bat, I just freeze. Don’t even take one swing. Let them all fly by, un, deux, trois. All this muscle,” he held out his arms, “and I can’t move a-one.”

  Vada allowed herself one sidelong look at his arm, then picked up her speed. He had no trouble matching it.

  “So you see, belle, why I need those buttons.”

  They were on Commercial Street now, weaving their path through men and women on their way to shops and offices. She nodded to a few familiar faces, ignoring their curious glances to her left, hoping they would think the handsome man beside her was nothing more than a coincidence of proximity.

  For the first time that morning, it occurred to her that she might run into Garrison himself. She never had, given the rigidity of his routine, but how unlucky would it be for this, of all mornings, to be the one he decided to start his day with a delicious pastry instead of Mrs. Paulie’s poached egg?

  She clutched her shawl more closely around her and took one wide step to the right, increasing the distance between them. And while it would be easy enough to avoid his company on the streets, the bell-strung door of Moravek’s bakery loomed ahead, and there would be no escaping him in that small space.

  “You need to leave now.” She spoke out of the side of her mouth. “You can’t go in there with me.”

  “La boulangerie? Pourquoi?”

  She stopped and looked at him, full in the face for the first time since seeing him in front of her house. “I have a note.” She pulled the folded paper out of her skirt pocket. “It’s his. And I need it translated so I can know something…”

  “And this knowin’,” he said, the sideways grin back, “it will make him better?”

  “Of course not.”

  “But it will make you feel better?”

  “I suppose.”

  “So you see, it is not so silly for me to want two little buttons. To think how I might hit the ball if I had this kind of treasure.” His fingers inched toward the folded square, and she snatched it close to her before he could take hold.

  “This is a private, intimate correspondence. You will not turn it into some good luck charm.”

  “And how you know it be so intimate?”

  Heat rose to her neck. “It’s-it’s s-signed by a woman. Named Katrina.”

  “Well then, by all means belle, go inside and find l’amour. I await you here. But I make one request.” He inhaled deeply, expanding his chest, and rubbed his narrow belly. “It smell si bon in there, you must to bring me a little something sweet.”

  The way he looked at her made Vada feel as if she herself were sprinkled with sugar, about to be devoured right there in the street. She tried to squash the deliciousness of the feeling and set her lips firm.

  “Then you’ll need to give me a nickel. Or a dime if you want two. What would you like?”

  LaFortune dug deep into his pocket and produced a dime. He lifted her hand and pressed it into her open palm, and that sumptuous feeling crept over her again.

  “I trust you to know.”

  She walked inside before she could melt.

  There was a modest line at the pastry counter—not more than four or five people. Vada was acknowledged by the gentleman directly in front of her, allowing her to wander off to the side and study the contents of the glass case. She finally decided the swirled buns with raisins and cinnamon would be perfect, seeing the cinnamon color so closely matched the color of his hair, and its sprinkling across the bronzed, baked surface was not unlike the pale freckles that dusted his cheeks—

  “Miss Allenhouse!”

  Vada straightened and looked into the flushed, impatient face of Mrs. Moravek.

  “Tell me. Tell me. We got more peoples.”

  Two more people had come in behind Vada, one of whom she knew from the Ladies’ Auxiliary luncheon committee. “Why don’t you all go ahead of me?” she said. “I’m still deciding.”

  Hoping no more customers would come in, she waited patiently as Mrs. Moravek filled their orders, and when the little bell rang on the closing door behind them, Vada stood alone on the customer side of the counter.

  Approaching shyly, as if she’d never been in the establishment a day in her life, Vada took the folded note and handed it across the counter.

  “Vat this?”

  Last night Vada and Hazel had spent the last few minutes before sleep concocting the story. “It’s a note. We found it near our home and were curious to know what it says.”

  Mrs. Moravek looked at the open paper, then at Vada. “You know who is?”

  “No. It might belong to one of our father’s patients. We thought if we knew, we could return it.” She was struck by how easily the lie came to her.

  “It not my business.”

  “But if it’s important, and we know whose it is, we can return it. And it might be important, Mrs. Moravek. So I promise you, whatever the note says, it will stay between us. I won’t tell a soul.”

  By now Mrs. Moravek’s own curiosity was shining through, and she inched the note across the glass before picking it up and bringing it first close to her nose, then out a little farther, until finally settling on a proper reading distance.

  “Oh,” she said. Then, “Oh my. Oh, is sad. Is too, too sad.”

  Vada was now on her toes, ready to leap across the counter but, trying to remain true to her story, she rocked back on her heels and waited for Mrs. Moravek to lift the corner of her a
pron and dry the tear that left a thin track down her flour-dusted face.

  “Well?”

  “Oh, is tragedy.”

  Breathless, she asked, “Can you read it to me?”

  Mrs. Moravek took in a deep breath. “It say, ‘My dear Eli. I wish you had found me here in the way we dreamed together. But I was a silly girl then. And so young. Mother say never believe the promises of youth. I did love you, of course I did. But was the love of a child for another child. And when your heart has mended, I wish you to find a woman worthy of your love. Always your fond friend, Katrina.’”

  By the time she finished reading, Mrs. Moravek’s voice was thin, and Vada felt her own throat burning with the threat of tears.

  “I do not believe that young man who dropped this note ever want to have it back. I go trow it in oven.”

  “No!” This time Vada did leap, snatching the paper right out of the woman’s hand. “Let me ask my father if he has a patient named Eli. If he doesn’t, I promise I’ll throw the note away. But if he does, well, he has a right to know…”

  Before Vada could finish, Mrs. Moravek stomped out to the back room and came back with a tray full of warm kolaches. She opened the back door to the display case and began tossing them onto the shelf.

  “Dat evil, evil girl. Breaking dat poor boy’s heart. And he love her so much.”

  “You don’t know that.” Vada’s hand shook as she repocketed the note. “Maybe he didn’t really love her either.”

  “Of course he did. For years he did.”

  “If he loved her, he would have married her.”

  “What, marry? They was children.”

  “See?” Vada fumbled with the note, clutching for truth. “They grew out of it. That happens sometimes, doesn’t it?”

  “She grow out. He don’t. Oh, it is so, so sad.”

  Vada folded the tragic little story and stashed it back into her pocket.

  Evil girl. Evil, indeed. Perhaps Katrina had simply found somebody else. Somebody not an ocean away. Nothing evil about that. In fact, it could be downright divine.

  Vada continued her musings until, the shelf restocked, Mrs. Moravek wiped her hands on her apron and, with a voice full of business, asked Vada what she would like to order. One glance out the window revealed the ever-present Mr. LaFortune. He stood, hands clasped loosely behind his back, his expansive chest puffed out, his lips puckered as if whistling.