The New Man

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Helen had just time to tie back the front flaps of her tent, say hi to her neighboring exhibitors and put money in the cash register before the first shoppers, a pair of women, wandered in.

  “Ooh!” one exclaimed, lifting a bar of soap. “Smell this one.”

  Ginny gave her mother a satisfied smile.

  Kathleen was working at her day job today, but, with her daughter Emma, could handle the booth tomorrow. Jo, who had roomed with the two women until she married Kathleen’s brother, Ryan, had promised to spend a few hours here this afternoon to give Helen a break.

  By ten-thirty in the morning, the grassy aisles between the rows of tents were clogged with mothers pushing strollers, fathers bouncing toddlers on their shoulders and grandmothers outfitted with walkers and flowery hats. Overshirts were vanishing into tote bags. Spaghetti straps and straw hats abounded. The day promised to be the hottest yet in July, which meant the mercury would top eighty. Given the humidity, Helen was glad to be in the shade most of the time.

  Ginny’s shyness vanished at craft fairs. She gravely answered questions, helped people find particular soaps and assured them that the shampoo was “the best.”

  “My hair is really clean.” She tilted her head so these particular women could see. “Some of the stuff from stores makes me itch. Mom says my skin is sensitive.”

  One of the women hid her smile. “Really. Mine is, too. Heck, I’ll give it a try.”

  “So’s Buster’s skin.” Her companion reached for a bottle of the pet shampoo. “That darn dog is allergic to everything!”

  Ginny smiled her approval. “Auntie Kathleen doesn’t put anything artificial in her shampoos or soaps.”

  Both women laughed. Ginny looked puzzled. Her solemnity and adult speech came naturally to her. Somehow, after her father’s death, she’d quit being a child. Once she came out of her shell, she was a miniature adult. She could never understand why real grown-ups found her amusing.

  “What a doll!” The woman with the pet shampoo took bills from her wallet. “Is she yours?”

  “Yes.” Helen smiled as she made change. “She’s eight going on forty.”

  “And what a saleswoman.”

  Helen laughed, too, although she worried about Ginny. An eight-year-old should be playing with Barbies or jumping rope with friends, not going to work with her mom. But this was almost always Ginny’s preference. She did have a few friends, which was an improvement over two years ago, but she would politely turn down offers to go to one of their houses if her mother was working a craft fair that day. Helen could never decide whether Ginny loved selling soap so much, or whether this was another manifestation of the way she’d clung after Ben died.

  But if Helen argued, Ginny would gaze up at her with wounded eyes and say, “But aren’t I a help? You always say I am.”

  What could Helen do but throw up her hands. “Of course you are! I just don’t want you to feel you have to come.”

  “I want to.”

  So here Ginny was, a skinny little girl with mouse-brown hair in two braids, a thin face and great big eyes, patrolling their booth with the relaxed efficiency of an experienced saleswoman.

  Jo showed up at noon on the nose. Despite the heat of the day, she managed to look cool in khaki shorts, sandals and a white tank top, her short dark hair shining and bouncy. In contrast, Helen kept pushing escaping strands off her sweaty forehead.

  Jo made a face. “I had to park about a mile away. This place is jammed!”

  “Business is really good.” Helen turned from her and smiled at a customer who was holding one of Logan’s beautifully made wooden boxes packed with Kathleen’s products. “Oh, you’ll enjoy this,” she said, ringing up the purchase. “The mint is wonderful.”

  “Actually, I’m going to tuck it away for Christmas. This—” she set down a citrus bar on the card table “—is for me.”

  “Ah. Well, I’ll put a card in your bag in case you decide you want more after you use this one up. A number of stores in Seattle stock our soaps.” She glanced at the total. “That’ll be $68.73.”

  “You do take checks?”

  “You bet.”

  Another satisfied customer. In the lull that followed her departure, Jo asked, “Do you want to grab a lunch break?”

  Helen looked around. “I’d better make it a quick one. I don’t know if you can keep up by yourself.”

  “I’m Wonder Woman.” Jo flexed what biceps she had. “Of course I can.”

  Helen laughed. “Well, Ginny is itching to see the children’s art. I wish her teacher had known how to enter her students’ work.”

  “Wouldn’t she love that?” Jo flapped her hands. “Go, go! I’ll be fine. Get something to eat while you’re at it.”

  “Bless you.” Helen was starting toward Ginny when the sight of a man entering the tent made her heart give a funny bump.

  Alec Fraser, of course.

  He looked directly at her, as if half a dozen other people didn’t crowd the tent. “Hi.”

  “Hi.” She returned his smile.

  He sidestepped so a young woman pushing a stroller could maneuver between him and a pyramid of soap bars. “Looks like business is good.”

  “It’s amazing. If it stays this busy all weekend, we’ll sell everything.”

  “That’s the way we want it.” He paused. “Can I get you anything? I can bring you lunch, if you tell me what you like.”

  She almost asked if he was offering this service, too, to all exhibitors, but refrained. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  “Oh, thank you, but I have help. In fact, I was just about to take my daughter to look at the children’s art.”

  “Really?” His gaze followed hers to Ginny, who was getting a bar of soap from a bin and handing it to an elderly woman with a cane. “I’m heading that way.”

  Helen’s heart gave another lurch. She knew a lie when she heard one. He wanted to spend time with her. She didn’t understand why. As handsome as he was, he must be fending off women with considerably more style—not to mention looks—than she had. But he stood there with his hands in the pockets of his chinos, smiling warmly at her and waiting as if in sublime confidence that she would say “How nice. I’d love your company.”

  Blinking, she realized she’d actually said it, not just thought it. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jo wink and give her a surreptitious thumbs-up. Helen blushed.

  She raised her voice. “Um…Ginny? Jo’s here. Let’s go look at the art inside.”

  Ginny pointed the elderly woman toward Jo and joined her mother. “Okay. Can we get lunch after?”

  “Of course.” Helen put a hand on her shoulder and steered her out of the tent. “Ginny, meet Mr. Fraser. He’s on the committee putting on this fair. Alec, this is my daughter, Ginny.”

  “Nice to meet you.” He smiled at her. “I have a daughter not much older than you. Lily is eleven.”

  “Lily is a nice name.”

  “Thank you.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Are you coming with us?”

  “I thought I would, if you don’t mind.”

  The furrows deepened.

  Helen squeezed her shoulder meaningfully.

  “Okay,” Ginny mumbled.

  “Thank you.” Looking over the eight-year-old’s head, Alec met Helen’s gaze. His eyes were very blue.

  She felt sure she was blushing again, and hoped he’d attribute it to the heat.

  They made their way through the crowd toward the school, Ginny lingering at food booths to check out the choices, before they entered the cool building.

  A few people wandered about, looking at the children’s artwork and talking in low voices, but there were nowhere near as many as were outside. Helen had a long drink from the fountain beside the rest rooms. Ginny was already twenty feet ahead, crouching in that effortless way children have to examine a brightly colored picture that hung low on the wall.

  Alec looked at Helen’s mouth, then back to her eyes. “Feel
better?”

  “Lots,” she admitted. “Crowds get to me.”

  “Claustrophobic?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Maybe a little. Oh, I don’t know. I really enjoy selling, which is weird since I don’t exactly have the right personality. I work at Nordstrom, too.” As if he cared, she chided herself. But he looked as if he did, her shy glance told her. “But when it’s crowded like today, I can hardly take a breath between helping people. Not,” she added, “that I’m complaining.”

  “I didn’t think you were.” He stayed at her side as she slowed to look—oh, admit it! she was pretending to look—at some charcoal drawings.

  When she glanced at him again, she saw that he was watching Ginny, who had her head tilted like a bird as she examined something with intense concentration.

  “Is she artistic?”

  “Yes, actually she is.” Helen watched her daughter, too. “I think her drawing is really extraordinary for an eight-year-old. She takes it seriously. I wish…” She stopped.

  “You wish?” Alec Fraser’s focus, as intense as Ginny’s, was on her face.

  “Oh, just that I could give her more opportunities.”

  “I wonder,” he said thoughtfully, “if expensive art classes really are valuable. Your Ginny may learn more sketching on her own, without any pressure, than she would if she had lessons.”

  “I wish I could be sure.”

  Ginny had moved on to a case of what appeared to be ceramics. Her nose nearly touched the glass.

  “What parent is ever sure?” Alec’s tone was dry.

  “You said you have an eleven-year-old?”

  “And a fourteen-year-old son, who is in a sullen phase. I’m praying Lily doesn’t decide to imitate her brother.” His smile wasn’t quite a smile. “My wife died two years ago. It’s been tough on the kids.”

  Helen’s chest felt squeezed and her voice came out sounding thin, not her own. “And on you. I know, because I’m a widow.”

  They had both stopped walking and stood facing each other. His eyes narrowed. “When?”

  “Three years ago.”

  “What happened?”

  “Ben had a brain tumor. It was…drawn out.” Those few words barely began to hint at the agony of the two years that followed his diagnosis. “Your wife?”

  “Leukemia. She started feeling tired, went to the doctor, and six weeks later she was dead. That quick.”

  “You were very, very lucky then,” Helen said simply.

  His mouth twisted. “It…didn’t feel that way. But I know you’re right. If she couldn’t get better…”

  Her voice hardened. “Watching a person you love suffer is a living hell.” Especially when you knew you were the one responsible. The one who insisted one more treatment be tried, that—however irrationally—hope not be abandoned.

  “Yes.” That was all he said; all he had to say.

  Together they turned and started down the hall again, shoulder to shoulder.

  “You haven’t remarried?” he asked after a minute.

  “No.” She thought of all the things she could say, but chose not to. “You?”

  “No. I’ve barely dated. Helping the kids through this has consumed me. Linda and I were involved in starting up this arts and craft fair and administering the scholarships we give with the proceeds, but I didn’t even come last year. I just…couldn’t.”

  Hearing the anguish in his voice, Helen asked, “Did Linda come the year before?”

  Looking straight ahead, he talked. “Sick and shaking, she insisted. We both knew she was dying, but we pretended. She bought a hat to cover her bald head. She wouldn’t wear a wig.” He was silent for a moment. “She died eight days later.”

  “I am so sorry,” Helen whispered, reaching for his hand in an instinctive need to comfort.

  He glanced down in surprise, then turned his hand in hers to return her grip. The smile he gave her—tried to give her—was flavored with grief and lacked the charm of his earlier ones. “Thanks.”

  They were gaining on Ginny, who was spending long minutes in deep concentration on works of art that interested her. Helen gave his hand a gentle squeeze before letting go. The last thing she needed was to have to explain to her daughter why she was being so friendly with a man she barely knew.

  “Hey, kiddo. See anything you like?”

  “This one.” Ginny turned her head several ways, as if to change the perspective. “I wish I could draw like that.”

  In the colored pencil work that had attracted her attention, a boy and a puppy wrestled on a shaggy lawn, scattering fluffy dandelion heads. The detail, shading and lifelike quality were extraordinary. Especially for an artist who was only…

  “Seventeen,” Helen said. “The girl who drew this has nine years on you, Ginny. Imagine what you can learn in nine years.”

  “I don’t know if I can learn this much.” Ginny sighed and said abruptly, “I’m hungry. Can we go eat?”

  “Sure. Did you decide what you want?”

  Ginny, of course, was a connoisseur of fair-type food. “I think I’ll have a gyro today. A chicken one. With feta cheese.”

  “Sounds good.” Helen bent to kiss the top of her head. “I’ll have the same.”

  “It’s one of my favorites,” Alec said. “Do you ladies mind if I join you?”

  Ginny eyed him but remembered her manners. “No, that’s okay.”

  Alec did know how to talk to kids well enough to get her chatting about what things she especially liked that were for sale outside.

  “There’s pretty jewelry,” she conceded, “but I don’t like jewelry. I’m not old enough. I like some of the paintings, but some of them aren’t very good. The stained glass right next to Mom’s tent is especially beautiful. I wish I knew how to make stained glass.”

  “More expensive lessons,” Alec murmured out of the corner of his mouth to Helen.

  “Lots of the stuff looks kind of alike,” Ginny continued. “If I had the money today, I’d buy—” she frowned in thought “—one of those mosaic mirrors.” Pushing out her lower lip, she gave a decisive nod. “Have you seen them? You can stand them on your chest of drawers, or hang them on the wall. The lady had one last week with green and blue tiles mixed with silvery ones. It was like a swimming pool. Somebody bought it, though.”

  As they emerged into sunlight to the noise of a band tuning guitars in the pavilion set up behind the gym, Alec asked, “Have you seen the porcelain dolls a couple of rows over?”

  Ginny gave him a look that spoke louder than words. Why would she have any interest in a doll? But, very politely, she said, “No, I haven’t.”

  Alec hid a grin.

  “Does your Lily collect dolls?” Helen asked.

  “Actually, she does. She doesn’t play with them, but she still seems interested. I thought of picking one out for her birthday.”

  They joined the short line to order at the Greek gyro booth.

  “When is her birthday?” Helen asked.

  “August thirtieth.”

  The person ahead of her stepped away and Helen ordered for herself and Ginny. “Lemonade?” she asked her daughter, then confirmed their order with the teenager inside the trailer, “Two lemonades.”

  Alec tried to persuade her to let him pay for all three lunches, but she was already handing over bills. Ginny gave him a suspicious look. Helen poked her under the guise of moving her to the next window where they waited for their gyros.

  “He was just being nice,” she whispered.

  “Why is he being so nice?” Ginny asked, her voice carrying.

  “Because he’s a nice man!” Helen hissed, then gave him a bright smile when he joined them. “Your kids here?”

  He shook his head. “Lily went swimming with friends, and Devlin…well, in theory he’s mowing our lawn and several of the neighbors’ lawns today. He’s set himself up in business.”

  “Enterprising.”

  Alec grunted. “Honestly, I think he just wants to buy
more CDs and go to more movies with his friends than I’m willing to pay for.”

  “But at least he’s willing to work for them.”

  “True enough.”

  His frown hadn’t entirely cleared, though, telling her that he worried about his son. Helen thought perhaps she was lucky that Ginny had been so young when her father died. The two awful years of Ben’s illness had changed Ginny forever, of course. Helen hadn’t had the time and energy for her the way she once had, and, at four and five years old, Ginny just hadn’t understood what was happening. She became scared of her daddy near the end, and Helen had feared that she would be haunted because she hadn’t said a proper farewell. But so far Ginny hadn’t asked questions and hadn’t expressed regrets.

  Maybe it was worse when children did understand what was happening. Alec’s son would have been twelve, a transitional age anyway. Helen remembered how confused she’d been at twelve and thirteen. What if she’d had to say goodbye to her dying mother? She shuddered at the idea. Did the boy blame himself somehow, as kids so often did, for his mother’s illness? Was he mad at her for leaving him? Did he fear that his father would die or desert him, too?

  The dreadful thing was, Helen hadn’t been able to afford counseling for Ginny, and she had no idea whether her own daughter harbored anger or fear or guilt. By the time Helen had crawled out of her own grief enough to worry about Ginny, she didn’t want to talk about the past. She claimed she didn’t remember her father that well. Maybe she didn’t. She’d only been three when he was diagnosed, and by her fifth birthday he was a skeleton with tubes going into his veins and nose, the hiss of the respirator enough to drown out his feeble voice. By then all she knew was that her mother cried constantly and spent hours of the day at the scary man’s side. He wasn’t Daddy; couldn’t even pretend to be.