Playing by Heart

by Anne Mateer

  © 2014 by D’Ann Mateer

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  www.bethanyhouse.com

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

  www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

  Ebook edition created 2014

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  ISBN 978-1-4412-6471-8

  Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Dan Thornberg, Design Source Creative Services

  To all the teachers in our family:

  Grandmother Palmer, Mom, Dad, Debra, Dawn, Kris, and our future coach, Aaron

  And to my amazing pianist, Nathan

  I stand in awe of the gift God has given you.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  Epilogue

  A Note From the Author

  About the Author

  Books by Anne Mateer

  Back Ads

  Back Cover

  1

  LULA

  “Mr.—” I glanced down at my seating chart, heart drumming in my ears. My third week in front of a college classroom filled with male students. Three weeks of looking past their disdain. Three weeks holding my ground by sheer force of will.

  I could do this. For myself. For my father.

  “Mr. Graham, could you please tell us about the concept of linear combination?”

  Mr. Graham stretched out his legs and glanced at his classmates on either side. His lips twisted into a smirk as he twirled his pencil through his fingers. “I could explain it, but are you certain you grasp its complexities?”

  I sucked in a breath, my back snapping as straight as a loblolly pine, my cheeks stinging hot. Not a new slur, to be sure, but no student had yet dared be insolent to my face.

  The air in the classroom stilled, anticipation hanging as heavy as a chartreuse sky over the Oklahoma plains in springtime. My body tensed, waiting to see if others would add their opinions. I didn’t know how to answer. I’d worked hard to get to this place, harder than I’d ever worked in my life. I couldn’t crumble now.

  I pressed a hand to my churning stomach. The committee had chosen me, Miss Lula Bowman, as the recipient of the Donally Mathematics Award. I received tuition to pursue my graduate degree as well as a stipend for teaching a first-year mathematics course. I’d weathered stronger gales than Mr. Graham to reach this place.

  Arching my eyebrows, I tried to peer down my nose at the boy-man, wishing I had a pair of spectacles to complete the look. “I’m perfectly capable of understanding it, thank you. Let’s hope you have the same capacity.”

  Mr. Graham’s disdain didn’t slacken. Instead, his mouth curved into a slow smile as his eyes raked down the length of me. “You aren’t so bad looking, Miss Bowman. Couldn’t you find a man that would have you?”

  My lungs expanded as far as my corset would allow, hands fisting and loosening with each angry breath. I pulled up to my full height—wishing it were more than five feet two inches—and tipped my chin toward the ceiling, hoping to add a bit more stature. “I don’t know why you are attending college, Mr. Graham, but I assume the others are here to learn. If you impede that process, I will take up your behavior with the dean. Are we clear?”

  But even as the words left my mouth, I trembled, knowing I had no real recourse. To admit I couldn’t manage the class would be the same as admitting failure. No, I had to handle Mr. Graham on my own, using the same granite resolve I had with my older brothers and sisters when they’d insisted college was a waste of time and money.

  “I will thank you to respect my position as a scholar even if you can’t reconcile it with my gender, Mr. Graham. Women are capable of more accomplishments than a pretty song on the piano or a tasty meal to fill your belly. You’d do well to remember that.”

  The pine table, littered with scribbled pages and mathematics journals, wavered. The pencil dropped from my fingers, rolled off the edge, and clattered to the floor. I rubbed my eyes and sucked in the still, hot air of an Indian summer, temperatures far too warm for the last week of September. I reached for a book and fanned it in front of my face as I considered once more my latest calculations, the ones that refused to be solved.

  A line of moisture rolled down the back of my neck, plastering an escaped strand of hair to my skin. I set it free, then blew out a long breath, attempting to make my own bit of breeze.

  I groaned into the silence, replaying my altercation with Mr. Graham earlier in the day. He’d been quiet during the rest of the class, but I suspected he’d continue to be trouble, and he knew I knew it.

  My elbows thumped to the table. I cradled my head in my hands and stared again at the equation that mocked me while voices buzzed through the hallway. A door closed in the distance. The clacking of shoes against the wooden floor grew louder. I sat up straight. The door opened.

  Professor Clayton’s white head appeared first, and then the rest of the rumpled man emerged. The corners of my mouth pulled upward in amusement. Ever since Mrs. Clayton’s passing two years ago, the professor didn’t seem to notice the niceties of life, only the unflinching surety of numbers.

  “Ah, Miss Bowman. I’d hoped to find you here.” He switched a clutch of papers from one arm to the other as he surveyed the jumble of materials in front of me. I reached across the table and cleared a corner. He let his burden slap to the surface, then riffled through the top few pages until he pulled one free from the stack. His deep blue eyes brightened. “And how is the first female recipient of the Donally Mathematics Award faring this day?”

  The male students of our college don’t think a female intellect suitable to the rigors of mathematics. But I couldn’t tell Professor Clayton that.

  “Quite well, thank you, sir.”

  One white eyebrow quirked. “I’ve heard something to the contrary, my dear.” He waited a moment. I didn’t confirm or deny it. Only held his gaze until he sighed. “But then I knew I could count on you to prove the Donally committee wasn’t mistaken in their choice.”

  “Yes, sir,” I whispered, staring at the table, at the page with the unfinished equation. After six years
of alternating work and college classes, I could finally do both at the same time, in the same place, thanks to the award. I refused to let swaggering young men of eighteen or nineteen ruin all I’d earned.

  Professor Clayton peered at the paper in front of me. “Trouble with that one?”

  I nodded, shame spreading heat into my cheeks.

  “Work the problem again, Miss Bowman. You almost have the correct answer.” He crossed the room to his desk.

  I twisted in my chair. “But how can I fix it when I can’t figure out where I’ve gone wrong?”

  He blinked at me as if I’d asked him a question about the latest fashions, not mathematics. I started to repeat myself, but his hand rose to stop my words. “When all else fails, start again at the beginning.” He returned to shuffling papers.

  I stared at the page, at the scrawled numbers that refused to cooperate. Could Mr. Graham be right? What if I didn’t have it in me to understand?

  No. If I gave in, if I quit, I’d prove my daddy’s belief in me wrong. And prove the naysayers right. The ones who said “Fruity Lu” Bowman would never amount to more than a flibbertigibbet, a pretty little hummingbird who could never alight on one thing for more than a moment.

  My jaw tightened. I would not return to that reputation. Ever. I would finish what I’d started, no matter how difficult the task. Picking up my pencil from the floor, I flipped the paper over and copied the equation once more. Daddy and Professor Clayton believed in my ability to succeed in academia, so I did, too.

  A grueling twenty minutes later, I handed my page to Professor Clayton. He grinned, set it aside.

  Outwardly, I stood unfazed, fingers loosely clasped, but inside I rejoiced.

  “Go on with you now,” Professor Clayton said gently, jerking his head toward the door. “We’ve both plenty to do again tomorrow.”

  I glanced at the clock on the wall. Nearly five. Mrs. McInnish would scold if I came late to the supper table once more this week. I gathered a mathematics journal with my textbooks before darting to the door. Then I stopped. Turned. Professor Clayton’s head bent low, drawing his neat script closer to his aging eyes. I scurried back and planted a kiss on his cheek.

  He looked up, eyes wide with surprise, then returned to his work. Out on the dusty street, I no longer noticed the oppressive heat. Professor Clayton’s approval had turned the world as fresh and new as spring.

  “Miss Bowman? That you?” The lilt of a Scottish accent carried through the screen door as I raced up the steps.

  “It is, Mrs. McInnish. I’ll wash up and be right there!” I swooped up the stairs to my room, tossed my books on the bed, and splashed warm water over my face and neck before straightening the collar of my plain shirtwaist. The looking glass revealed a messy topknot, but I had no time to set my hair to rights. Back down the stairs I ran. I slid into my chair at the dining table just as Mrs. McInnish swept through the kitchen door with a bowl of green beans. I glanced at the three other boarders as I spread my napkin in my lap.

  Mrs. McInnish said a blessing, and we all began to spoon food onto our plates. Conversation bubbled like soup on a hot stove: Miss Thompson regaling us with stories about her music students, Miss Readdy complaining about the girl she’d hired to help at the millinery, and Miss Frank giggling over the romantic gestures of her latest beau. I forked food into my mouth and kept silent. I’d learned quickly that none of these girls were interested in the world of mathematics.

  My room at Mrs. McInnish’s served its purpose, but not in the company it afforded. Long ago I’d decided I had no time for young women engaged in less than serious pursuits. Which meant, of course, that I had few female friends. Or friends of any gender, for that matter. I dabbed at the corner of my mouth with my napkin, anxious to be away from the table and engrossed again in mathematical theories and practical problems. Numbers remained constant in a way other things did not.

  The telephone rang. Mrs. McInnish frowned and hopped up from her seat, wondering aloud who would interrupt supper. A moment later, she returned. “Someone wanting to speak with you, Miss Bowman.”

  All eyes turned to me. My stomach sank toward the floor. “Are you certain they asked for me?”

  “Certain as the day is long. Hurry up now. Susie said the call’s come through from Dunn. That’s to the west, isn’t it?”

  Dunn, Oklahoma. My heart flopped in my chest and my legs turned to lead.

  I hadn’t heard from my family in months. Only my sister Jewel’s occasional newsy letters filled the gap created when Daddy’s stroke left him unable to write. And come to think of it, I hadn’t had one of those letters since late August. My breath caught in my chest. Had something happened to Daddy?

  Mrs. McInnish pulled at my chair. I forced myself to stand, to jerk my way into the kitchen, where the telephone box hung on the wall. I pressed the receiver to my ear and spoke into the mouthpiece protruding like a nose beneath the two bells that looked like eyes. “This is Miss Bowman.”

  “Lula.” My name came as quiet as a breath across the line. “Lula, I need you.”

  “Jewel? Is that you?”

  The rhythm of crying. My fingers gripped the earpiece more tightly. “What is it, Jewel?”

  “Davy’s gone.”

  My whole body tensed. Davy? Her husband?

  “What do you mean, gone?”

  She hiccuped a sob. “The funeral’s Saturday.”

  Davy Wyatt, always so full of life and laughter, dead? How could it be?

  “I need you, Lula. The kids need you. Please come home.”

  Fear rose in my throat, threatening to choke me. All my life, I’d been in the way. The littlest sister. The baby. And yet it was Jewel who took me in when Mama passed, who helped me afford that first year of college. In spite of her infernal matchmaking schemes, I knew she loved me. And now she needed me. She needed me. “Of course I’ll come.”

  “Tomorrow?” She sounded so frail, so fragile.

  I swallowed hard, praying for strength. “Tonight.”

  “Thank you.” The line went silent, at least until Susie, the operator, squawked in my ear. I hung up, stumbled into the dining room, and fell back into my chair.

  “What is it?” Miss Frank leaned closer, her face as pale as mine felt.

  “My sister’s husband has died. I have to go to her.” New strength surged through my limbs. I rose. “I have to catch the train. Tonight.”

  Questions followed me up the stairs, but I had no answers. I brushed aside my satchel, filled a suitcase with a few clothes, then scrawled a quick note to Professor Clayton, telling him I’d return by the beginning of next week. I knew he’d understand. I only hoped the college administration would be as obliging.

  2

  CHET

  “Ma? You ready to go?” My words echoed through our tiny clapboard home. One large room and a kitchen downstairs, two tiny bedrooms and a water closet upstairs. The click of a door opening on the second floor answered.

  “I’ll be there when I’m ready.” The thunk of wood connecting with wood, shutting Ma back inside her room.

  I knew better than to hurry her, even though I was sure she’d complain when we arrived late to the Wednesday night prayer meeting. For the hundredth time, I coached myself to hold my tongue and accept her as she was, not as I wished she’d be.

  My brother was always so much better at that than I was.

  “I’ll be outside,” I called to Ma, shoving my bowler on my head, then jogging down the porch steps, reminding myself yet again that God had called me to take care of Ma. He’d chosen me to stay and Clay to go. No sense rehashing a situation that couldn’t be changed. Ma needed me. My students and my basketball players needed me, too.

  I rubbed a hand across the back of my neck. Already damp. The weather was far too hot for a late September evening. We needed autumn to blow in. Maybe cooler weather would ease the foulness of Ma’s temper.

  Or not.

  Shoving my hands into my pockets, I crossed the ya
rd and kicked the tires of my two-year-old Tin Lizzie, the roadster version, with a buggy-like bench seat, spoked wheels, electric headlamps, and crank-up leather top. And my favorite part—the electric starter. I buffed a spot from the radiator hood with my sleeve, wishing the church sat two miles from our house instead of two blocks. Foolish to drive such a short distance, even in the heat.

  Ma bustled out the door and down the steps. “Stop dawdling. We need to go.”

  My mouth opened and closed. I found a smile, remembering the way Clay’s easy grin would diffuse the sting of Ma’s tongue. I fell into step beside her, offering my arm for support.

  “Coach Vaughn!” I turned to see Reed Clifton—Blaze to his teammates and classmates—wave from down the street.

  “Just a minute, Ma. I need to speak with Blaze.”

  Her lips pursed as her hand slipped from my arm. My star basketball player loped toward us. I prayed his father hadn’t been on a rampage against schooling again.

  Blaze’s eyes cut to Ma. “Ma’am.”

  She nodded, then turned away, giving us the illusion of privacy.

  Blaze leaned in and lowered his voice. “Just wanted to make sure you heard about Miss Delancey, Coach.”

  I cringed. Just the mention of the woman’s name made me want to don a tin cap and dive to the duckboards of a trench in France with Clay and the others. I shook off the willies. Come to think of it, she hadn’t pestered me for the past few days. “What about her?”

  Blaze threw me a cocky grin. “She’s eloped.”

  “Eloped?” I hooted. “And who is the lucky groom?”

  Blaze’s shoulders bounced with silent laughter. “My uncle Sal.”

  “You’re kidding.” I grinned. Until the next thought hit. Then I groaned. “I guess that means a new music teacher.”

  Please, God, let her be as old as Ma.

  Maybe Principal Gray would see fit to hire a woman devoted to her profession instead of a husband hunter. But I doubted it. Every new, young female he’d hired had been more interested in her own future than that of her students.

  “Chet? We’re already late!”

  I glanced at Ma and nodded, then returned my attention to Blaze. “You want to walk with us to the prayer meeting?”