by Lois Richer
He leaned against the counter and finished his cookie, enjoying being alone for a while. Nana had stayed after church service for an impromptu meeting of the Hazardtown Community Church’s women’s group. Her getting involved at church was another signal that she planned to stay awhile. It wasn’t that he minded sharing the house with Nana per se, but he was used to living alone and doing things his way. He knew she didn’t do it on purpose, but at times, she made him feel twelve years old.
The wall phone rang, and he pushed away from the counter to reach over and answer it. “Hello.”
“Jon, this is Becca. I hate to do this at the last minute, but I’m going to have to cancel on the meeting. My daughter has been sick to her stomach since we got home from church.”
“What are her symptoms? Does she have diarrhea? There have been a couple of cases of E. coli at the Saranac Lake medical center.”
“More likely a sugar-overload tummy ache. When I wasn’t looking, she had a second piece of cake at coffee hour.”
“If she’s not feeling better tomorrow, you may want to take her to your doctor. You can’t be too careful.”
“I’m sure she’ll be fine. I feel bad that I have to cancel after you had that birth last Sunday, and we had to put off the Bible study launch until today. I know Autumn’s put a lot of effort into getting our group up and going. The couples group is a lot larger.”
“Mommy! Ari threw up on the chair.” Becca’s son’s voice came over the phone.
“I have to go. Bye.”
He hoped Becca was right about it being nothing more than too much cake. E. coli was more likely to cause diarrhea than vomiting. But even simple illnesses could lead to serious complications. His throat tightened. As had happened with Angie. He shook off the weight settling on his shoulders. Angie had been on his mind too much the past few days, ever since he’d received the literature from Help for Haiti that he wanted to share with the group today.
A knock on the front door drew him into the living room. Autumn stood on the other side of the screen door smiling. The last of his gloom lifted.
“Come in. It’s open.” He started across the room.
She held up a large plastic bottle of iced tea she’d said she’d bring to go with the cookies and a zester/grater to show him her hands were full.
He pushed the door open. She still had on the flowing skirt and red T-shirt she’d worn to church. He’d admired how the skirt emphasized the graceful way she moved when she’d walked down the church aisle to take a seat with her grandparents.
“Hi. Your grandmother asked if I had a zester she could borrow. Is she in the kitchen?”
“No, she stayed for the women’s group meeting at church.” He took the tea and grater from her and placed the tea on the coffee table next to the stack of red plastic cups and napkins he’d put out before Becca had called.
“Your grandmother certainly is getting involved for a summer visitor.”
He thought so, too. “Did she tell you that, that she’s here for the summer?”
Autumn bit her lip. “Not in so many words.”
“She’s enjoying herself, and my grandfather is on a business trip.” Grandfather was always on a business trip or planning one, so his statement couldn’t be too far off. “So she’s extended her visit.” For how long was anyone’s guess. She evaded his question every time he asked. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll put the grater in the kitchen and get the cookies Nana made for us.”
He grabbed the plate of cookies and left the grater in its place on the counter. As Autumn had noticed, Nana was settling in at Paradox Lake nicely. Too nicely. Because he knew how difficult his grandfather could be, he could see how his grandmother might want some time away from him. But Nana couldn’t hide out in the mountains indefinitely. At some point, Grandfather would storm up here to take her back. That could be Nana’s plan—to see if Grandfather cared enough to come after her.
He thought about the loving picture Autumn’s grandparents had made at church this morning sharing a hymnal, each holding a side of the book, shoulders pressed together. His parents in their constant competition would have been trying to wrestle it out of the other one’s hands and outsing each other. Grandfather and Nana would have simply each had their own hymnal or sang the hymns from memory. Of course Autumn’s grandparents could have been putting on a public show. Jon knew all about putting your best face forward, even if it was a false face. That’s what had made her grandparents’ actions seem true.
“Hey, you’re not eating all those cookies, are you?” Autumn called from the other room. Her voice grew louder. “They smelled delicious when your grandmother was baking them yesterday. I hoped they were for us.” She met him at the doorway.
“They taste as good as they smell,” he said. “I sampled them earlier. I couldn’t serve my friends inferior cookies.”
“Of course not. I’d better double-check.”
He lifted the plastic wrap to offer her a cookie and his hand brushed hers as she reached for one. Her eyes darkened, locking his gaze to hers. She snatched the cookie and popped a bite in her mouth. He watched her slowly chew it, obviously savoring the sweet flavor while he enjoyed the delight she took in each chew.
“Jay, I’m home.” The screen door clicked closed behind his grandmother. She looked from Autumn to him. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You’re not interrupting anything.”
“I was just sampling one of your delicious cookies.” Autumn took a step back from the cookie plate and him.
“Good. Jay, I mean Jon—I keep forgetting he prefers Jon. We always called him Jay to distinguish him from his grandfather. Jon and I are still working out our living arrangements. I don’t want to intrude on his privacy.”
Autumn wrinkled her brow.
He understood her confusion. Nana was talking as if she planned to stay with him permanently and he and Autumn had something to be private about. As much as he loved his grandmother and wished he could have lived with her when he was a child, he’d never imagined he’d get his childhood wish now.
“Have you changed your plans?” Nana asked.
“No, I don’t know what you mean.”
“You said your singles group was coming over to watch the Bible series.” Nana made a point of glancing around the living room, stopping with him and Autumn standing in the doorway.
“We are,” Autumn answered for him. “I’m the first one here.”
And maybe the only one coming, considering it was ten minutes past the time they’d agreed to meet. Not that he’d mind watching the movie alone with Autumn. He snapped his thoughts back to the conversation. “Becca called. She can’t come. Her little girl is sick.”
“That’s too bad,” Autumn said. “I hope it’s nothing serious.”
“She said it was probably too much cake. But I told her about the two cases of E. coli at the medical center.”
“You didn’t.”
His jaw tightened. “I thought she should know. The county health department hasn’t determined the cause.”
“Why did she need to know? The two people who were admitted to the medical center were campers from a campground on Saranac Lake. Becca’s daughter hasn’t been anywhere near there. I hope you didn’t cause her unnecessary worry.”
His grandmother placed her hand on his forearm, as she’d often done when he and his father were talking and she’d feared it would turn into an argument. It was her signal to back off a lost cause. He resisted shaking it off. He was old enough to pick his own battles. Of course, it didn’t make any sense to him, either, to be arguing with Autumn. What she’d said was true, and he generally reserved confrontations for family members.
“Becca,” Nana said. “She’s a petite dark-haired woman with two kids, an older boy and a toddler girl?”
�
��Yes, Becca Norton,” Autumn answered.
“Norton.” Nana put a finger to her lip. “I met her mother, or maybe it was mother-in-law, at the meeting today.”
“That would be her ex-mother-in-law,” Autumn said.
Jon eyed the TV across the room and listened for any sound of other people arriving. This was the point where Nana normally would say something about how too many people his and Autumn’s age didn’t make enough of an effort to keep their marriages together.
Nana simply nodded. At least she wasn’t going to be a hypocrite, assuming she’d really left his grandfather. Heaven knew Nana had put her all into her marriage.
“I’m getting to know everyone. Give me another few weeks and I should have it all down. Everyone I’ve met has been so friendly and welcoming, nothing like what you hear about small towns being insular and closed to people from outside.”
“We have our share of narrow-minded people, just like anywhere else. I think the dependence on tourists may make us more open,” Autumn said.
“Whatever, I like it here. How about you, Jon?”
“I don’t know.” His ears had shut down at another few weeks.
Autumn’s eyes narrowed.
What had he said?
“You’re probably so busy working that you haven’t taken time to get to know all these nice people. I’m afraid his father and grandfather have set a bad example for him in that regard,” his grandmother explained to Autumn. “His mother, too, for that matter.”
He caught on to the gist of the conversation. “I joined the singles group.”
“Which seems to consist of you and Autumn, who you already know.”
He hadn’t come to Paradox Lake and the birthing center to make new friends. Nana’s dig about not socializing more took him back to his awkward middle school days when he’d preferred reading science journals and science fiction to spending time with his classmates. His parents were fine with his behavior. It kept him quiet and out of their way. Nana hadn’t been. She’d joined the parents’ organization at his private school and made him go to any and all social functions. By high school, he’d outgrown his awkwardness and discovered girls and they’d discovered him. He still generally preferred his books, though. They didn’t ask him for companionship and commitment he didn’t know how to give.
* * *
Autumn glanced at the door. “Josh said he and Lexi were coming when I talked with him at church this morning.”
“Maybe they changed their plans.” Mrs. Hanlon picked up her e-reader from the table. “I’m going out to the patio to read and leave you two alone to watch your movie,” Mrs. Hanlon said.
Jon threw yet another frown his grandmother’s way. While Autumn could sympathize with his irritation at his grandmother’s remark about leaving them alone, she couldn’t figure out what else was with him. He’d invited his grandmother for a visit, and he’d seemed happy that she was coming when he’d asked Autumn to pick Mrs. Hanlon up at the train station. Now he didn’t want her here?
“I apologize for Nana. And maybe the movie idea wasn’t as good as it sounded to everyone at the meeting the other week.”
Now she knew something was up with Jon. The know-it-all resident she’d worked with at Samaritan would have phrased his idea being a bust in a way that would have put him in a better light. “No need to apologize. My grandmother is the same way about any male friends I introduce her to. As for the movie, July isn’t the greatest time to try to get a group together, with vacations and all.” She needn’t admit that she hadn’t done much better launching the group in the spring. She held a bit of resentment that Jon had commandeered her group with his movie suggestion.
“Hello, hate to interrupt, but someone told us the singles group was meeting here today,” Lexi said.
Autumn didn’t miss Lexi’s emphasis on the word interrupt and, from the brief hardening of Jon’s features, the veiled reference to her and Jon being alone hadn’t been lost on him, either. Why did everyone think she and Jon had something going on? Despite their birthing suite kiss, nothing more than friendship was going to develop between them. They were too different. She was the settling-down type and he wasn’t.
“That’s what I heard, too. Come on in. Autumn and I were putting out the refreshments and wondering where you two were.”
“We didn’t mean to be late,” Josh said.
Jon wiggled his eyebrows in response, making them all laugh. She was entirely too sensitive about people thinking she and Jon were a couple, about everything lately.
Lexi smiled up at her apparent date. “Josh took me to lunch at his mother’s and we all got talking and lost track of time. His grandmother was there. She’s a hoot.”
“She sure is,” Autumn said. “I had Mrs. Stowe for English in high school, as did my aunt and my dad, and maybe my grandparents, too.”
“Get out,” Josh said. “Grandma’s not that old.”
“She’d only have to be four or five years older than my grandparents to have been their English teacher,” Autumn retorted. “I’m going to have to ask them.”
“You do that. But I think I’m right.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“We should start the movie.” Jon’s statement sounded almost like a reprimand.
What was that about? She and Josh were only teasing each other, not arguing or purposely delaying the movie. Jon was altogether too serious too much of the time, at least when she was around him. It made her wonder about the stories she’d heard at Samaritan about his dating escapades. He didn’t strike her as a particularly fun date. Could have been his money they found so fun. While Jon put the DVD in the player, she examined her thoughts. She was probably reacting to the small turnout today and the feeling that she was being pushed at him. He’d only wanted to start the movie.
Lexi and Josh sat on the couch, leaving a well-used recliner and a less-comfortable-looking side chair. Autumn took the side chair, figuring the recliner was Jon’s usual TV-watching spot.
Jon pressed the play button on the remote.
“Should we wait for your grandmother? We saw her outside when we drove up,” Lexi said.
“No.” Jon skipped the advertising at the start of the DVD.
Autumn rubbed her skirt fabric between her thumb and forefinger. “She’s already seen the series, so she went out to the patio to read.”
“Wasn’t Becca going to come? I know Tessa couldn’t get anyone to cover the theater matinee today.”
Lexi was certainly full of questions. From the cozy look of her and Josh on the couch, she might be trying to draw the afternoon with Josh out as long as possible, and Autumn couldn’t blame her. Josh was a really nice guy.
“She called Jon and said she couldn’t come because her daughter was sick.”
“That’s too bad. Maybe she could borrow the DVD and watch it before our meeting.”
“I’ll ask her,” Jon said, pausing the movie. “Are we ready to watch?”
The next two hours passed quickly.
“That was good,” Josh said. “I think—”
“No, no.” Autumn stopped him. “Save the discussion for Wednesday.”
“Right, right. I suppose since the movie is over and we’ve finished off all of the cookies, we should get going.” Josh looked down at Lexi, his eyes soft.
“If you have a minute, I have something else to talk about.” Jon pushed the recliner upright and picked up some brochures on the table next to him. He leaned forward. “We were talking about a mission project at the last meeting. This is some information about Help for Haiti.” He passed the brochures to the others. “I was looking at the ‘Sponsor a Medical Professional’ campaign.”
Josh tapped his leg with the brochure. “That’s a pretty lofty goal for six of us to undertake.”
“We
could make it long-term.” Jon spoke as if the campaign was a done deal. “And bring some other church groups in.”
“Like the couples group, the church women, the youth group, Sunday school when it resumes in September.” Autumn got caught up in his enthusiasm. “Make it a competition. We always do well with fund-raising competitions.”
“No, not a competition. From what I’ve seen since I’ve joined Community Church, the groups aren’t balanced in terms of numbers,” Jon said.
“Not by group. Women versus men.” Autumn looked from face to face. “None of you were attending Community last fall. We had a male-female challenge for UNICEF. It went really well.”
“I like it.” Lexi poked Josh with her elbow.
“You think you women can beat us men?” Josh asked. “Count me in. Great idea, Jon.”
“The competition was Autumn’s idea, not mine,” Jon said.
All the enthusiasm had drained from Jon. Something about having a competition wasn’t sitting well with him. He clearly hadn’t said that to give her complimentary credit for coming up with the idea.
“Help for Haiti is only a suggestion. You guys might have a better idea.” He walked over to the DVD player, ejected the movie and put it in the case.
“Not me,” Lexi said.
“Nor me,” Josh agreed.
“I like it, too.” Autumn scanned the brochure a second time. “Why don’t I call Becca and Tessa later and make it unanimous? When Becca made the suggestion that we support a mission, she asked for ideas, so I don’t think she has any other organization in mind.”
“I don’t like the idea of making it a competition,” Jon said. “But you say that’s been successful at Community before. I’ll go with whatever the rest of you decide.”
“Then it’s a go, as long as Becca and Tessa agree.” Lexi rubbed her hands together and looked sidewise at Josh. “I can’t wait for the kickoff.”
“I’ll need to talk with Pastor Joel,” Autumn said. “Jon, I’d like you to come with me. I’ll do some research on the organization, but you already seem to be familiar with it.” She looked for the spark she’d seen in Jon’s eyes when he’d passed out the brochures to return, and her heart sank when it didn’t. Jon couldn’t be that put out about a little friendly competition.
