That’s how he felt about organized religion in general. He sometimes longed for the comfort of faith, but how on earth could one ever discern truth from fiction? The good and honest from the bad and dishonest?
Something caught his eye on the top shelf: a slender, dark-grained leather case with a latch. He pulled it down, finding it surprisingly heavy. He laid it on a round, claw-foot table near the window, flipped the latch, and lifted the cover.
To his surprise, nestled inside the case was a maroon red, jewel-like, portable typewriter, unlike any that he had ever seen. The ribbon appeared to be intact. He gave one key an experimental tap and was pleased with the smooth action.
The noise brought the proprietor, an elderly woman who looked entirely too fragile to be working at a job. She resembled an old-fashioned librarian, birdlike in her frailty, her gray hair in a classic bun. He judged her to be in her very late eighties or early nineties.
“Isn’t it lovely?” she said. “Ever since my nephew brought it here from an estate sale I wished it could talk. I think it would have quite a lot of interesting stories to tell.”
“What do you know about it?” he asked.
“That’s a portable 1934 Smith & Corona Super-Speed Silent. The family said it once belonged to a relative who was a newspaper correspondent during World War II. It was quite expensive in its time, and considered to be of the highest quality.”
“It’s beautiful.” He ran his hand over the smooth, glass-like finish.
“I can find you a sheet of paper to try it out if you wish.”
“I would appreciate that.”
It did not take her long to find some blank computer paper, which she rolled into the platen. She seemed very familiar with the workings of manual typewriters and he was grateful because he had never used one before. Their time had been long past when he entered high school.
“Now,” she said, “you can try it out.”
She watched over his shoulder as he attempted to use it. At first it seemed awkward and difficult compared to the minimal effort it took to touch the keys on his laptop, but soon he fell into a rhythm and the muted clackety-clack of the keys delighted him. It made him feel as though he were a “real” writer instead of someone who simply created blips on a screen.
“During the war, it was nearly impossible to get a typewriter,” she said. “The military was using every available one, and some of their manufacturing companies were pressed into service to make weapons instead. This instrument would have been a rarity and highly valued. My guess is that the correspondent would have protected it with his life.”
“Do you remember the war well?”
He assumed she was old enough to have gone through it, but it was a little hard to judge her age. She could have been anywhere from seventy to a hundred. She had that timeless quality that some women acquire.
“Oh, my dear boy. Do I remember it?” Her shoulders straightened. “I helped win it!”
There was something in the tone of her voice and the pride in her eyes that made him think she had lived it in ways that most people her age had not.
He loved hearing other people’s stories. With plenty of free time on his hands, he probed further.
“How did you live it?” he asked. “Did you grow a Victory Garden? Deal with rationing? Lose a sweetheart or a husband to the war?”
“Oh no. None of that. Stay right here and I’ll show you something.”
Intrigued, he waited until she came back carrying a small, velvet box and handed it to him.
“Open it.”
He did. Inside was a gold medal with the picture of a woman pilot embossed on the front.
“Is this what I think it is?” he asked, in awe.
“A Congressional Gold Medal. The highest honor awarded to a civilian. I did a great deal more than grow a Victory Garden during the war. I was a WASP. The Women Airforce Service Pilots. I flew the planes!”
He had read about the civilian women pilots who had ferried various airplanes, including giant bombers, from the factories to the war effort, freeing more male pilots to be in combat.
“You were a WASP?” he said. “What did you fly?”
“I flew nineteen different types of planes, including B-17s, B-25s, P-47s, and P-51s. I received this medal only four years ago. It took an act of Congress and a presidential signature to make it happen, but we were finally recognized for our service to the country. Thirty-eight of us died while ferrying those planes. I remember having to take up a collection to get the casket of one of our pilots back to her people in Kalamazoo. The government didn’t recognize us as military. We paid our own way there and our own way back home, or, as in the case of my friend, other people had to pay it for us.”
“You don’t sound bitter about it.” He inspected the medal. The workmanship was beautiful. “I would be angry if I’d had to wait so long.”
“That was just how it was back then.” She lifted bony shoulders in a shrug. “Our records were closed for thirty years. Historians couldn’t get into them. No one knew. Some people thought it was an empty boast when I told them what I had done in the war. They thought I was making it up, but I wasn’t.”
A story began to form in his mind.
“Do you have more blank paper?” he asked. “I’d be happy to pay.”
“Of course.” She returned with a small stack. “Feel free. I don’t get much company in here.”
She patted him on the shoulder like a doting aunt, then left to take up her hopeful perch on the stool beside the old-fashioned brass cash register.
He was vaguely aware that people came and went in the store, but he was too busy playing with his new toy to be bothered by them. The few customers seemed to realize that he needed to be left alone.
After a while he stopped typing, pushed back his chair, and blinked. He had been deeply immersed in the story world he had been creating. Surrounded by antique furniture and doilies, he had been transported to an entirely different time, and the words had simply poured out of him.
The paragraphs were filled with typos and strikeovers, but the antique instrument had caused a WWII story to begin to form the minute she had told him about its history. He felt, as he sat there, as though he were the correspondent who once carried and used this machine. His few years working as a wet-behind-the-ears journalist on the streets of New York City had given him some insight into what it might be like to be a young war correspondent who was scared silly, but equally determined to make one’s mark on the world. He could also imagine this lovely older lady as the beautiful young woman she must have been as she climbed behind the controls of a bomber. What courage that must have taken!
He took a rest and read over what he had written. It was good. A little different from the stories he was known for, but good.
He walked around the table, nervous as a cat, putting his hands in his pockets and then on top of his head. Could something as simple as an antique typewriter be the key to opening up the well of creativity within him that had gone dry?
Authors are every bit as superstitious as professional athletes. Most have their little rituals, favorite candles, special writing socks, certain music. One writer he knew could write only with a pet parrot sitting on top of her head.
On the left-hand side of the maroon typewriter were five completed pages. It was satisfying to see his work lying there in such a tangible form. He seldom bothered to print out pages from his computer. They went straight from his keyboard to his editor, electronic submissions so insubstantial that months of his life could be deleted with a keystroke.
“May I?” the old woman asked, indicating the pages of writing.
“Be my guest.”
For some reason, it felt like the very first time he had ever allowed someone to read his work. The same new-writer nervousness. Would she like it? Would she laugh? Cry? Be bored? Criticize?
She did none of these things. Instead, she read to the end and then looked up at him almost in wonder.
&nbs
p; “Where did you learn to write like this?”
• • •
He had not told anyone in Holmes County what he did for a living. Fame created a wall once people knew who he was, and he did not want to erect that wall between himself and this sweet lady. He just wanted to be treated like everyone else . . . and write.
For the first time in ages, he just wanted to write!
“My name is Logan Parker,” he said. “I—I just like to dabble.”
Actually, that was pretty close to the truth. “Dabbling” was an exaggeration, considering how little he had actually written these past few weeks.
She looked deeply into his eyes. “You should be a writer, young man,” she said. “You have a gift. And it is a sin to waste such a God-given talent.”
Her attempt at encouragement brought a lump to his throat. It took him back to when he first began to write—when the dream had been fresh and clean and not sullied by the realities of trying to move massive quantities of books.
“I’d like to purchase this typewriter.” He reached for his wallet. “How much?”
She didn’t answer. Instead she cocked her head to one side. “I don’t believe I shall sell it to you.”
He noticed a price tag, handwritten in an old person’s unsteady hand, dangling from the handle. It read $300.00.
He pulled out his wallet and tried to hand her three one-hundred-dollar bills, but she put her hands behind her back.
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry, Mr. Parker. It is no longer for sale.”
He was puzzled. Could she be suffering from dementia?
“I don’t understand.”
“I won’t sell it to you, but I will rent it to you,” she said. “My name is Violet Hanover. I used to teach high school English at Garaway High School. I am afraid that if I let you walk out that door with this instrument under your arm, you will never come back and you will never finish this story. If that were to happen, I would be devastated because . . .” She beamed at him. “I cannot wait to see how it turns out.”
Bless her heart.
“I might even be able to give you a few pointers from time to time,” she said. “I’m an awfully good proofreader.”
He just bet she was.
He was intrigued. It had been a long time since anyone had shown any interest in his writing except to wonder how soon he could crank out the next book.
“What do you mean, you’ll rent it to me?”
“Do you have a day job, Mr. Parker?”
“Not exactly.”
“Perhaps you could come here every day?” Her smile never wavered. “Let’s say around one o’clock.” Her voice had taken on the echoes of the teacher’s voice she might have used when dealing with a promising but recalcitrant student. “I shall have a cup of tea waiting for you. You may sit here at this table and type until the store closes at three.”
“How much do you want for rent?”
“Your rent, Mr. Parker”—her faded blue eyes twinkled again behind her thick glasses—“is to let me read whatever you manage to write each day.”
“But you will have customers.”
“And I shall tend to them. But no one will be allowed to purchase this writing instrument from me.”
This was one of the strangest offers he had ever received as a writer. To sit in this out-of-the-way antiques shop tapping away at an old typewriter while a ninety-something former girl pilot brought him tea.
He loved the idea.
Writing on a state-of-the-art computer in the silence of his old farmhouse was certainly not getting him anywhere. Instead, he would give this a try for a day or two. If things went well, he would have learned a new method of getting over writer’s block. If things went badly, well, he couldn’t be in any worse shape than he already was.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said. “At one o’clock. I’ll bring some Earl Grey tea. That’s my favorite.”
“Don’t bother. I just happen to have quite a stash of excellent Earl Grey. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Then she made a comment so adorable and old-fashioned that it made him smile long after he left. “Make sure you have your thinking cap on when you come back in here, young man! I shall be expecting great things from you.”
chapter EIGHT
“May I put this on your bulletin board?”
The Amish woman was dressed in a dark green dress and was holding hands with two cherubic children. She dropped one child’s hand long enough to give a card to Violet.
“What is it?” Violet asked.
Logan ripped a sheet of paper out of the old typewriter and added it to the growing pile of manuscript pages in front of him. This was the most prolific he had been in ages—as long as he was writing on the antique typewriter. He and his laptop were still at odds.
There was something about working here, with people coming and going, that was energizing. Sometimes he listened in on the conversations swirling around him, but more often the voices of customers became background noise as he immersed himself in the culture of 1942 Germany.
“I’m looking for work,” he heard the young woman say.
He felt sorry for Violet. As tenderhearted as she was, it would be hard for her to turn the woman down. He doubted that there was enough work here for Violet to hire her.
The story was going well and he was excited. He had gotten books about World War II out of the library and ordered more through a local bookstore. Each night he read copiously and each day he spent sitting at this table spinning a story unlike any he had ever written. For several hours a day, he looked at the world through the eyes of a frightened, twenty-two-year-old war correspondent who was falling in love with a courageous young girl pilot.
Sometimes people stopped to chat. More often they respectfully didn’t.
His deadline for the next sociopathic thriller for his New York publisher loomed, but he put it aside as he indulged himself in the story that had grabbed him by the throat and would not let him go. He had stopped coming in at one o’clock. Instead, he came in as early as the store opened in the morning and stayed until it closed.
Violet was as good as her word. She proofread, made insightful comments in the margins of his manuscript, provided him with pots of tea, and helped him with historical accuracy. In return, he frequently treated her to dinner at one of the local restaurants.
The Amish woman lifted the youngest child, a little boy, onto her hip. “I’m looking for work cleaning houses.”
Logan’s ears perked up. A housecleaner? Ever since he’d started writing on a consistent basis again, his house was falling apart. Clothing, dishes, papers, books were stacked and toppling over.
“And I also cook.”
She cooked? “Oh, honey,” Violet said. “How can you clean houses and cook for other people with those two children?”
“They are very good children,” the Amish woman said.
Logan lost interest. A woman who planned to drag two children along with her couldn’t possibly do a decent job. If he hired her, the children would probably tear the place apart.
On the other hand, the older child, even without her mother holding her hand, was standing perfectly still, looking up at Violet, being as good as gold. The little boy astraddle his mother’s hip, with his little suspendered pants and minuscule Amish hat, was adorable.
Although the woman and her children had their backs to him, there was something familiar about them.
Violet looked at the little card she still held in her hand. “Why are you looking for work, dear?” she asked kindly. “Has your husband lost his job?”
“My husband is gone,” Hope said. “He was killed by a bull.”
“Oh!” Violet glanced up from the card. “You must be Henry and Rose Miller’s eldest daughter. I heard about your loss. Such a tragedy! Doesn’t the church have alms to help you?”
“Ja, but I want to do my part. I’m a hard worker and my small house does not take much time to clean. I have several hours to spare each day.”
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She turned slightly, and he realized that this was the pretty Amish woman with the sad face he’d seen walking to church with her children.
He’d guessed right. She was a widow. His heart went out to her. Having someone to sweep, wash dishes, and tidy up really would be helpful. The children seemed quiet and obedient.
“I could use some help,” he said.
She turned to see who had spoken.
“You?” she said. “You would hire me to work for you?”
“Yes,” he said. “Would that be a problem?”
There was a long hesitation while she considered. “How many hours?”
“How much time would you like?” he said. “My house is a mess. You said you can cook, and I’m getting tired of eating every meal in restaurants. If you want to come over a few hours each week, I’d be obliged.”
She turned a questioning gaze to Violet as though she was not at all sure what to think about this offer.
“He’s quite nice,” Violet reassured her. “And he spends most of the day in here working on his book anyway.”
“Your wife does not clean or cook?”
It was interesting that she immediately assumed he had a wife. He supposed that was because most Amish men his age would be married, but he had no desire to discuss his relationship with Marla. The situation was a little complicated to explain to an Amish person, especially since it did not fit into their moral code. In fact, he was beginning to regret ever having looked up from his typewriter. This could be a mistake. The woman was a little too attractive for comfort. Having her working around his house could be distracting.
“My . . . wife is presently living in Manhattan,” he explained. It was close enough.
“She does not live with you?” There was suspicion in the woman’s voice.
“She has a job there,” he answered.
“He is writing a book.” Violet beamed like a proud mother. “It is very good.”
The woman was uninterested in his writing. She had gotten stuck on the fact that his “wife” was living in another state.
“Why does she not live here with you?”
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