If Wishes Were Kisses: Six Beloved Americana Romances, a Collection (Small Town Swains)

by Pamela Morsi

  "She'd just had a baby, Claire," she admonished herself. "She probably wasn't really up to writing."

  But though her head accepted that excuse, somehow her heart would not. In her heart there was something, something strange and dark and fearful. In her heart there was doubt.

  She pushed those uncertainties from her thoughts. After all, she'd heard her own parents . . . that is, she'd heard Prudence and George admit it.

  Her mother had cried. She had cried as if her heart were broken. It was hard to understand. Claire had never meant to hurt her. She had just wanted her real mother. Did Prudence think of herself as Claire's real mother? It was obvious that she did. When she'd skinned a knee or, torn a dress, it had been Prudence whom she had run to. And it was Prudence who had always made everything right. When she'd had to have her tonsils out, it was Prudence who went to Dooley's barbershop with her. And it was Prudence who fed her crushed ice until the swelling went down. On the day when she had started her courses and thought she was dying of a bloody flux, it was Prudence who she had run to. And it was Prudence who had wiped her tears and congratulated her on becoming a grown-up woman.

  "Mama," she whispered sadly into the darkness.

  She loved Prudence. All right, she would admit that. And she loved George, too, grouchy bear that he was. She just wanted the truth. She wanted Aunt Gertrude to admit the truth and then everything could simply go back to the way it was. That's what she wanted, Claire decided. She wanted the truth to come out, once and for all, so they could all return to living the lives they had always led.

  "She has to tell me," Claire whispered. "If she doesn't, I can never go on with my life."

  The certain knowledge that the airing of the truth would irrevocably change her life she pushed away.

  "I have to hear her claim me as her own," she said. "And then I will go back to being just Claire. I'll be George and Pru's daughter again. I swear it. But I have to hear the truth first. I have to hear it. And I will," she declared. "I will hear those words, if it takes every scheme and plan in the book to do it!"

  Claire Barkley had just made a vow of her own.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  TEDDY STEFANSKI WAS having the best afternoon of his eighteen years of life. It was as if he'd been touched by a lucky star. He was playing the best football he had ever played.

  It was cold and drizzly. Unrelenting rains earlier in the week had left the grassy field soggy. The damp afternoon had soaked through his navy jersey and streaks of mud were splattered across his face. But the chilly, wet misery didn't touch Teddy. He was happy. He was playing great football and he was confident that his team was going to win. And if they did, nothing could stop them. They were a shoo-in for the state championship.

  As Teddy took his stance, he grinned at his opponent. His straight white teeth were like a beacon. When the quarterback called hike, Teddy moved in to block. He took a tough hit, but he held off the tacklers. He did his job and he did it well. The halfback made good yards, not enough for the first down, but enough to keep them in the game.

  It was the middle of the final quarter. The score was tied at one touchdown apiece. The sideline crowd was a continuing roar of advice and approval. Venice High School was holding their own, but just barely.

  Springfield was bigger and tougher. They outweighed the Venice team at every position. They had cunning and experience. They had a list of plays as long as a parson's coattail, and an ease of communication that would make you think they were all blood kin. All in all, they were an intimidating team.

  But today, Teddy Stefanski couldn't be intimidated. He was not making eye-catching plays or scoring points. But he was playing the game and he was playing it well. He was doing the kind of tough, hard work that never gets noticed by the excited folks at the sidelines. The kind of work that makes all those exciting, glorious plays possible.

  It was the fourth down. There was less than a yard to go and the team was loath to give up the ball. They were twenty yards into Springfield's territory. On the sidelines the coach looked nervous, but he let Parks, the quarterback, call the play.

  Teddy leaned into the huddle, his hands upon his hips. Beside him, Rufus Bounty was puffing heavily. Rufe was the biggest man on the team. He outweighed Roy Bert by fifty pounds. He was a darn good guard, everyone agreed, but he had a passion for bread and potatoes that slowed him down late in the game. He couldn't be counted on to protect the passer. And passing was dangerous business at any stage of the game. In a fourth-down situation, it was foolish. Punting was the safest option. Give up the ball, deep, and work to hold the opponent on downs. It was what a cautious quarterback might call. But cautious quarterbacks didn't win championships. It was short yardage. A running play could work. If they could get the first down they would have a chance to score. If they scored again, Springfield would have very little time to do more than tie.

  The situation called for a running play. Which one would he choose? A crisscross reverse might work on a less sophisticated opponent, or a quarterback sneak on a team less powerful. Teddy watched the nervous expression on the face of Paul Parks. It was his call and the team would back him up, even if he was wrong.

  "Bent 'W' with a closed cousin," Paul hollered out decisively.

  Teddy almost sighed with relief. It was a very good call. The kind of call he hoped he would have made himself had the choice been his. They were going to go for it. And they were going for it the hard way.

  “Team!" they shouted in unison as they broke up the huddle and hurried to their positions.

  The play was a modified wedge formation with a fullback option. It had worked for Pop Warner at Carlisle and for Charlie Daly at Army. Teddy prayed that it would work for Paul Parks at Venice High School.

  The team lined up in a close-knit wing formation—the center and guards, point men at the ball. They would all surge forward as a unit. The wedge would ostensibly protect the quarterback inside it who would carry the ball, flanked by the two biggest men on the team.

  If the wedge began to break up, Parks would have the option to hand off the ball to Teddy. As fullback, he would be in the tail and, with luck, could find room on the outside.

  Teddy went down into his three-point stance, a squat that brought the balls of both feet and the fingers of one hand in contact with the ground. He looked up and found the eyes of an opponent. He grinned broadly through the mud on his face. He always thought a smile put the adversary at a mental disadvantage. Sure enough, the player that he was looking at appeared nonplussed by Teddy's unexpectedly friendly demeanor and hesitated, missing the instant of the snap, starting a second late. In football, a second could be enough.

  Teddy did not hesitate. He moved in a precision of harmony with his teammates. The hike from center was perfect and the arrowhead-shaped formation moved forward together as one, according to plan. The play appeared guaranteed for success when suddenly a huge Springfield tackle, big as a house and twice as fast, appeared like magic in the middle of the Venice players. Teddy knew that Paul was going down, and surged forward.

  Parks must have sensed he was coming. He turned at exactly the right time, in exactly the right place. He slipped Teddy the ball as easily as passing the potatoes at the dinner table.

  Teddy tucked the pigskin carefully against his chest and looked ahead of him. Roy Bert Pugh, the center, was taking the hits repeatedly and fending off the incoming onslaught. Teddy's eyes widened. Just to Roy Bert's right was a hole in the defenders' line nearly as big as the state of Texas.

  Teddy didn't wait long enough to ask himself if it was a mirage. He ran for it. He'd made five yards before the defenders even realized that he had the ball. He had the first down. He had done his job. But he could see the goalpost in the distance and somehow the fire of gridiron ambition burned inside of him. He made a run for it. He could hear the crowds howling for joy. He felt the breath of the man behind him against his neck.

  Ten yards, he'd made ten yards. He felt as if he had run ten
miles. The defender was on his back. He was going down. He saw the ground heading toward him, but he was smiling.

  Somehow, though Teddy was never to recall it exactly, his shoe caught in the turf. The momentum of the man on his back pulled his body farther than his foot was able to go. He felt a strange pop from inside his knee. It was almost audible. His mind had barely registered what it might be when the pain arrived in a wave of black nausea. He didn't see anything else.

  Teddy came to, in a hazy recognition of where he was, as the tacklers were getting to their feet. He had only remembered the one, but a half dozen seemed piled on top of him. His first thought was for the football. It was still tucked tightly under him. He sighed with relief. That movement caused the pain to shoot through him once more. He almost passed out again.

  His left leg was throbbing so violently, it was as if it had suddenly sprouted lungs, inhaling and exhaling in excruciating torture.

  "Are you okay?" he heard someone ask. The voice seemed far away and faint, not nearly as loud as the ringing in his ears.

  "My knee," he answered. His voice sounded to him like a soprano, like he was a little kid. He repeated himself, careful this time to speak in his normal tone. "I've hurt my knee."

  It seemed like an hour that he lay there in the middle of the field, hurting. People were running around, talking, looking down at him. The referee had made a big production of standing over him and blowing the whistle.

  "Get back! Get back! Give him some air!" he heard the coach yelling at the players as he made his way to Teddy's side.

  "I've hurt my knee, Coach," he said. His voice sounded like a soprano again and it embarrassed him. He added an angry, "Damn it!" to his announcement, just so he wouldn't sound so much like a baby.

  "No need for cursing, Teddy," Coach said. "The doc is here. He's going to take a look at you. He'll say whether you can finish out the game."

  The doctor knelt down beside him and picked up Teddy's leg. The pain shot up his body like a rifle. He threw his head back and gritted his teeth against the scream that was trying to escape him. Teddy could have told the coach he wasn't going to finish the game. But he was expending all his energy trying not to sob like a baby.

  A very familiar face entered his line of version. He saw his father then, bending over him, his face lined with worry. Teddy immediately felt stronger, safer.

  "What are you doing here? Fathers can't be on the field," he muttered vaguely.

  His father answered him. He knelt down beside him and held his head, wiping the sweat from Teddy's brow with his handkerchief. He was talking, calmly, evenly. But Teddy didn't have a clue to what he might be saying. His words were Polish and the only ones Teddy recognized were "Ja" and 'Teodor."

  Through his pain, the young man almost smiled. His father never deliberately spoke Polish. But at times he drifted into it when he was angry or worried. Teddy knew that his father must be very frightened to be speaking it to him now.

  "I'm okay, Father," he said. "I'm okay, Tatus."

  Teddy's use of the Polish word for daddy, a word Teddy hadn't used since he was a child, seemed to reassure his father. He smiled lovingly down at his son and then turned to gruffly question the physician.

  "What is wrong with my son, Doctor?" he asked.

  "Well, the boy is in a lot of pain." Doc Ponder stated the obvious with professional pompousness.

  "We can see that, Doc," Coach said impatiently. "Do you think his knee is broken?"

  "Could be," the doctor admitted.

  "Let's get him to the sidelines," the coach said. "That way we can at least get on with the game. Teddy, do you think you can walk off the field?"

  Teddy wasn't sure if he could even sit up without fainting again, but he wasn't given a chance to answer.

  "I will carry him," his father said. "I will carry him to make sure that he doesn't hurt himself more."

  Gently Mikolai Stefanski, immigrant, businessman, and loving father, swept his son up into his arms as if he were a small boy, not the fullback for the high school.

  Teddy relaxed against him, safe in his father's arms. The pain was biting, clawing. He had trouble remaining conscious. But he fought the blackness and the nausea. He fought it because that's what his father would have done.

  As he was carried across the field he heard his father speaking to the doctor. "I will take my Teodor home and put him into bed. You come with me and see to him."

  "Sure, Stefanski, I'll be over to your house," Doc answered. "I'll come just as soon as the game is over."

  "You will come now."

  Mikolai's words were spoken softly and without the slightest hint of threat. But they were stated with such authority that the doctor's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. Teddy almost smiled. He knew that tone. He'd heard it more than a time or two himself.

  "Sure, Mr. Stefanski, sure. I'll come with you right now."

  "You will be fine, Teodor," his father whispered to him.

  Mikolai Stefanski hurried to the Packard. Doc Ponder glanced back longingly at the game that had resumed, then followed in his wake.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  "CLAIRE, WILL YOU calm down," Gertrude ordered, not for the first time. "We are all worried, but you just can't get yourself in such a state."

  The young woman had been so impatient with the speed of the Interurban, Gertrude had feared she would jump off and start pushing any second. Now, at last arriving home, she had run across the yard and took the steps up the porch two at a time.

  Her niece was understandably worried. Gertrude was also. Her heart had gone straight to her throat when she had seen that Teddy—strong, handsome, young Teddy—was not getting up. On the sidelines, powerless, Gertrude had wrung her hands and watched. When she had seen Mikolai sweep his son into his arms, love and anxiety had welded themselves together into a fierce longing. It was only with great control that she managed not to race toward the man she loved, to throw her arms around him, to publicly declare her feelings for him and beg to share his burdens.

  But she hadn't run to him. He had his son upon his mind and certainly didn't need the affections of his mistress at such an inopportune time. Mistress. She said the word over again inside her head. The term was lowering. The image it conjured in her mind was even more so. A mistress could have a man's attention. She could have a man's body. She could even have a man's love. But she could not share his burdens. A man wouldn't ask help of his mistress. For help, he had the doctor. That was who Mikolai Stefanski needed today, not his mistress.

  She had watched him lay Teddy in the backseat of the Packard. The game had already resumed, but Gertrude couldn't turn her attention to it until the shiny yellow-and-brown car had disappeared from view.

  Determinedly she willed her gaze back to the game. But she could no longer see it. Plays were run. Whistles blew. Cheers were cried. All she could see was the man who she loved, the man who loved her, facing a crisis alone.

  "Aunt Gertrude, I know what I am doing," Claire said adamantly as she charged through the front door of the Barkley house. "I am not 'in a state,' I simply have obligations to fulfill. Teddy is . . . Teddy is very important in my life and I'm going to change my clothes and go over there this very minute. And no one, no one, Aunt Gertrude, is going to stop me!"

  Her tone had gotten progressively higher throughout her speech and by the end of it she was near yelling as she stepped into the foyer.

  "Keep your voice down!"

  The shout startled them both. Gertrude and Claire came to an abrupt halt. Gertrude lay a hand against her heart and stared accusingly at George Barkley, who was standing like a vengeful guard in the doorway of the front parlor.

  "George, what is wrong? You scared the life out of me," Gertrude complained.

  "Chicken pox."

  "What?" The question came from both women in unison.

  "Chicken pox." George shook his head as if he couldn't believe his own words. "Lester has come down with chicken pox. Pru's got him upstairs try
ing to take care of him. You'd think it was the plague with the fuss that boy puts up. He has been a whining bundle of misery all afternoon."

  George ruffled his hair. It was a tired, anxious gesture of exhaustion that was familiar, but one that Gertrude hadn't seen in many years. The staid Barkley banker looked this afternoon much more like the devilish younger brother Gertrude remembered from her own youth.

  "Is Lester going to be all right?" she asked.

  George nodded. "Prudence has finally got him quieted," he said. "But I don't want you two to wake him."

  "When did this happen?" Gertrude asked. "Lester seemed very much his usual self this morning."

  George shrugged. "Prudence noticed him scratching at luncheon. She feared that he might have lice. She tried to catch him for a bath, but he was more wily than usual."

  "I know how he can be," Gertrude admitted.

  "She finally had to ask me for help," he said. "I chased that rascal all over this end of town. That's why I didn't make it to the football game. When I finally got ahold of him and I got his shirt off, his back and stomach were covered with the itchy things."

  "Poor Lester," Gertrude said.

  George nodded in agreement. "He's pretty miserable. We salved the little scamp in calamine, but you remember that it doesn't really help."

  "No, I don't remember," Gertrude replied as she removed her hat and coat and hung them on the hall tree. "I never had the chicken pox, George, you did."

  "Oh Lord, that's right, Gerty," her brother said, his forehead wrinkling thoughtfully. "You were at Aunt Hilly's in Virginia that summer. I hope you don't catch it now."

  "Now? Surely I wouldn't catch it now?" Gertrude's tone indicated the absurdity of the idea. "It's a children's disease."

  "Adults get chicken pox, too," her brother said.

  "Well, I won't," she answered with certainty that she hoped would put the matter to rest.