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

by Pamela Morsi

  By midafternoon when Ma showed up, Cessy felt dead upon her feet. The burn victims had been treated by the doctor and sent home. Since they did not now have homes, Ma had brought them all to Cessy's yard.

  For the sake of keeping their wounds clean, Cessy declared that they and their families would be housed inside. All the bedrooms and parlors would be utilized for this purpose.

  Ma gave her a long perusal as the two began scouring the linen closet for sufficient sheets.

  "You look like Moses did after the Red Sea crossing," Ma told her.

  "Moses must have had it easier than this," Cessy answered.

  "I don't know," Ma said. "There were more of them, and the more folks you got, the more opinions you got to contend with."

  "You're right about that," Cessy agreed. "I have never had my ear bent by so many people with so many complaints in all my life."

  "It's always that way," she said. "I'm so sorry, honey, and poor old Moses. He was eighty years old at the time they say."

  "Poor Moses? At least he didn't get the curse right in the middle of the evacuation."

  Ma tried to look sympathetic, but couldn't help laughing. "Oh, I don't know, honey," she said. "Maybe that's why they called it the Red Sea."

  The two extremely tired women started laughing and simply could not stop. They received a number of speculative looks from other women. That only made it worse.

  When they finally began to get control of themselves, they talked about the fire.

  "They've shot a pipe right off the side of the hill and are pouring the oil into a pit below," Cessy told her.

  "Does it seem to be working?" Ma asked.

  "Apparently so," she said. "As the amount of oil in the tank decreases the fire has been getting smaller. When it gets down to just the skim on the water they can let it burn itself out and throw dirt atop it."

  "Thank God," Ma said. "And thank God that no one is hurt."

  "And your young man it seems had no small part in that," Cessy told her.

  "My young man?"

  "The messenger boy said that the whole idea of going off the side of the mountain came from 'Toolie Tom,' the tool dresser who lived with Cedarleg. And that it was Toolie Tom himself who crawled to the fire to set the pipe."

  "Toolie Tom?"

  "That's what they are calling him," Cessy said. "Everybody here is singing his praises and remembering when they met him and spoke to him. He's a regular hero of the day."

  Ma smiled proudly. "He's a fine feller, that Tom," she said. "I wonder what his new bride thinks about him working up at the fire all day long."

  "She's probably spent much of her spare time thinking exactly what I'm thinking," Cessy said. "Please be careful and I'm oh-so-proud of you."

  "Is your man up there at the fire?" Ma asked.

  "Of course he is," Cessy answered, looking at Ma incredulously. "You sent him there."

  "I sent him there?" Ma was astounded. "Honey, I wouldn't know your man if I should stumble across him in the street."

  "But don't you remember . . ."

  The sound of the Packard honking as it came down the street cut the conversation short and the two women hurried out to the front porch.

  Her heart flew to her throat with thanks as she saw Gerald sitting between her father and Cedarleg. She hadn't realized how worried she had been until she saw him safe and sound at last.

  The crowd began to gather around the automobile. They were waving and cheering and shouting. They were grateful to the men, glad to see them home. Cessy was, too.

  It was when they took up the chant that Cessy's smile began to waver.

  "Toolie! Toolie! Toolie!"

  The cheering was louder and louder and Cessy watched as her husband was urged to his feet by her father and Cedarleg. He waved to the crowd as they called out to him.

  Then their eyes met. Hers and her husband's. They met and held for a very long moment.

  "So that is Tom Walker," Cessy said to Ma.

  "That's our Tom."

  Cessy turned and walked into the house. She went to the sun parlor and opened her desk and began rifling through the drawers. It only took her a couple of moments to find it. She opened up the marriage certificate that Reverend McAfee had sent and stared at the name written there once more.

  Thomas Thursday Walker.

  From the secret compartment she pulled out the handwritten note he'd sent and looked at it. It was

  obviously a note from an oilfield toolie, not from a Yale alumnus.

  A sound at the doorway caused her to glance up. He was standing there as she knew he would be.

  "Cessy?" he asked quietly. "Are you all right?"

  "Am I all right? That is an interesting question” she said. "I am not the person who has been up on Topknot hill fighting fire all day, risking his life, and becoming a hero. I am not the person who has been doing that. I am not that person. But then what person am I?" she asked. "Am I Cessy Crane? No, apparently there is no such person as that. Perhaps I am Cessy Walker, but maybe I am still plain old Princess Calhoun. A slightly used Princess Calhoun, but Princess Calhoun nonetheless."

  "You are legally my wife," he said. "You are legally Mrs. Tom Walker. Reverend McAfee used my real name so that it would be legal."

  "You told him your real name?"

  "He knew it. He knew me. I ... I was raised at the school, Cessy," he said. "I am one of the boys from the school."

  "Ah," she said, nodding. "You must have been left there while grandmama ran off with the gondolier."

  "Cessy, I don't know how to explain," he began. "It started when I was in the Rough Riders. I pretended to be one of the rich boys from back East. They thought it was a great joke. And when I went to town or to parties with them, the ladies just loved Gerald. The same women who would not give Tom the time of day, crowded around Gerald as if he were a prince. After I left the army, well, sometimes I would still pretend. I'd meet some woman and I'd be Gerald and she . . . and she would fall for him. It was kind of a joke."

  "So this . . . this Gerald is a cruel, dishonest amusement that you perpetrate on women," she said. "Do all of these women marry you?"

  "No, of course not," he said. "No one has married me but you. I met you and I thought that you would fall in love with Gerald. So I pretended to be him. Women always love Gerald. He is so debonair and charming. I knew you would never fall in love with Tom. Tom is simply too ordinary. I knew that Tom would never catch the attentions of a woman like you. There are a hundred men around you exactly like Tom. You would never notice him."

  "That you speak of Gerald as if he were someone else I can understand," Cessy said. "But you speak of Tom as if he were only a character also. Who is it exactly who inhabits your body?"

  "I do, Cessy, your husband. The man who loves you." His words were soft and sweet and coaxing, but she heard them through a cold and bitter heart.

  "And why were you so desperate for me to fall in love with you?" she asked. "Were you enamored of my delicate charms, my winning ways? Or perhaps you are inordinately fond of women who are mostly flat-chested and wear eye spectacles? Maybe those weren't the delights that lured you. More likely it was my beautiful, beautiful oil wells that so incited your lust."

  "Listen to me," he insisted. "I admit that my motives were impure at the start. I admit that, Cessy. I was thinking of bettering myself, improving my life. I was thinking . . . well, I was thinking all wrong. But as time went on I realized that I genuinely cared for you. That I could be happy with you and that I could make you happy."

  "You think that you could make me happy? What an incredible conceit! A liar. A cheat. A seducer. A fortune hunter! You think that kind of man would make me happy?"

  "Cessy, we were happy," he said. "Think about this last week, we were intensely happy and we can be again."

  "I think you've made fool enough of me, Tom Walker," she said. "I cannot, I will not, listen to another word. Please leave."

  "Cessy, please, I . . ."
r />   "Do not persist in calling me by that ridiculous name. My name is Princess, but you will call me Miss Calhoun."

  "Your name is not Calhoun, it is Walker," he said. "Mrs. Walker."

  "Not for long," she snapped. "I am going to divorce you."

  "Please don't . . ."

  "Now get out of my sight."

  "Cessy . . ."

  "Must I have someone to throw you out? Do you want to make an uncouth scene on the day of your big triumph?"

  "I don't give a damn about that. I only care about you."

  "If you care about me as you claim," she said. "Then you will walk out of this room, out of this house, and out of my life forevermore."

  Cessy turned her eyes from him. Unwilling to look at him once more. There was a long hesitation and then she heard him quietly close the door as he left her.

  The evening meal did not go at all as well as many would have hoped. Without Cessy to tell everyone what to do and how to do it, chaos reigned, feelings were hurt, and the last to eat complained of cold food in insufficient quantities.

  Cessy was much needed and much missed. But gossip burned faster than oil fires and everyone knew exactly why Miss Princess Calhoun was not there. Her new from-back-east husband, it had been revealed, was actually no other than their own Toolie Tom. It was more intriguing than a two-cent serial.

  Cessy wanted only to be alone, to collect her thoughts and salve her wounds. She had only left the sun parlor after it became occupied by Mrs. Deadum and her injured son Lyst.

  She couldn't go up to her bedroom, which was now occupied by Mr. Earlie and his family, and she was afraid to sit in the kitchen where the group of cooking women were intent upon quiet, speculative gossip, or upon the porch where it seemed everybody was watching.

  She thought about seeking out Ma and Cedarleg, only to worry that perhaps he was staying in their tent.

  With no place safe to sit or stay, Cessy grabbed up her parasol and left the house. It seemed the only solution when one's home was overrun with well- meaning people who love you.

  He had lied to her. He had betrayed her trust. He had made a fool of her. And she had let it happen.

  How could he have fooled her so easily? Only because she wanted to be fooled. Only because she wanted to believe that she had found the man of her dreams at last.

  As she walked alone down the empty afternoon sidewalk, she recalled in painful, humiliated memory how she had thrown herself at him, right from the beginning. How she had worn her heart so fully upon her sleeve. How she had fallen in so eagerly with her own ruin.

  She was certain that it was love at first sight, destined love, perfect love, and that he felt exactly as she had. It was pathetic. She was pathetic. And the worse place to be pathetic was in front of the person whom you care about most.

  He must have laughed at her. He must have laughed and laughed at how gullible and malleable she was.

  Plain, bossy Princess, she always tells everybody what to do. But if you spark her a little bit, give her a few kisses, you can make her dance to your own tune.

  She might have lived with the humiliation, the public embarrassment, even the scandal. But how could she live with the knowledge of what it felt to love him and then never to love again?

  Tears sprang to her eyes. How could she stand it? How would she stand it?

  The horn on the Packard honked loudly, startling her as it pulled up beside the curb. She almost screamed in frustration. Why couldn't she have time for herself? Surely she had earned a good cry.

  "You need a ride, Princess?" her father asked. "Get on in here."

  "I'd rather walk," she told him.

  He nodded. "And I'd rather just keep on driving and come back when all your troubles have settled themselves out on their own. But I'm your father and you're my daughter, and I guess we're going to have to figure this thing out as best that we can."

  With a sigh of resignation, Cessy agreed and took a seat in the Packard.

  "How's the fire?" she asked him.

  "It's out, pretty much. We got a small crew up there watching for flare-ups, but the oil has been drained out considerably. Once we let the dang thing cool off, we'll be storing in there again, I suppose."

  She nodded.

  They drove in silence a bit further. At the far edge of town he pulled to a stop under the shade of a huge oak at the side of the road. They sat silently together for a few moments merely listening to the drone of bees and the wind rustling through the trees.

  "I know you just found out about this, Cessy," King said. "And it's sure hard to think about at first."

  "How long have you known?" she asked him.

  "Since the middle of last night, I guess," he said. "You know, he could have kept his secret."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, he could have stayed home, like he did the day the 'P' came in. Or even when he got there, he could have held himself back, blended into the background. There were so many people there and so much going on. Nobody would have noticed him too much. I even told him myself to go back and help you. He could have done that and kept the secret."

  "Maybe so," she said.

  "But he didn't," King said. "He knew he had something to offer. He knew that he could help and he was willing to do so. If he had not helped, at best all that oil would be flowing down the river right now, or at worst it would still be burning and maybe another sump on fire by now. Bad for us, but for him . . . well, no one would know that Gerald Crane was really Tom Walker."

  "Tom Walker." Cessy repeated the name.

  In memory she could hear his voice in their bedroom, so soft and dear. I was named for Francis Amasa Walker.

  "He was going to tell me anyway," Cessy said. "He'd already tried at least once."

  Her father raised an eyebrow at that and nodded appreciably.

  "That's in his favor then, Princess," he said. "That's much in his favor."

  "He believed I wouldn't notice an ordinary man like Tom Walker," she said. "He thought that it would take a fancy man like Gerald Crane to attract my attention."

  "Guess he didn't know you too well in the beginning," her father admitted.

  "I suppose I really didn't give him a chance to," she admitted. "It was love at first sight for me. I knew that he was the one the minute I saw him. I ... oh, that was just such foolishness."

  "Foolishness?" Her father tutted in disagreement. "Princess, I've always known you to be as levelheaded and strong-minded a woman as I've ever met. You are a lot like me. And I have to admit I've always been proud of that. But in this you are like me, too. And I can't help but speak against it."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Love, Princess," he said. "The kind of love that hits you from clear across a room and knocks you for a loop. That's so rare, it's so very rare. This fellow is not at all what you thought he was and your marriage is not at all what you thought it was going to be. But Princess when you meet someone and violins start playing in the back of your head, I don't think a reasonable person should ignore that."

  "Oh, Daddy," she said. "What if he is simply not the right man? What if he is a liar, a cheat, a seducer, and a fortune hunter?"

  King looked thoughtful and shook his head.

  "I'm not sure if I can tell you for certain," he said. "I was in love once, like that. And she was the wrong woman. She'd lived a hard life and had a shady reputation. She made no secret of her past and I knew it as well as anybody. Marriage to her would have done nothing to enhance the image of King Calhoun and in fact, she might have even tarnished it a little. She was not at all the kind of woman I'd have chosen for a wife. But when I was with her, Princess, I was happy. And when I looked at her and knew that she was mine, I was proud."

  "But you walked away from her?"

  "I did," he said. "And I would be remiss as a father if I didn't tell you honestly that I regret it."

  "Oh, Daddy, maybe it's not too late," she said.

  "It may well be," he answered. "Th
ings were said, words meant to wound that can't never be taken back. I don't know if it's ever possible to get the milk back in the bottle. But yours ain't spilt yet, Princess. It's teetering for certain. But it ain't seeping along the floor. I'd hate for you to be so hasty like your father that next week or next month or next year you'll be sitting around regretting the way that I am."

  "I don't know, Daddy," she said. "I trusted him so. I believed in him so. And now I think I might never be willing to trust him again."

  "Trust is important," he agreed. "Trust is very important, maybe as important as love. But trust can be gained and trust can be earned. Love is either there or it's not. And when it's not, all the trust in the world is empty without it."

  "I do love him," she said. "I can't seem to help that. But I can't just placidly agree to still be his wife."

  "In honesty, Princess, I'm having a hard time being angry with him about this," her father admitted. "Oh, I don't like him lying to you none. But in truth I think that Tom Walker is a man much more suited to your nature than some fancy eastern blueblood."

  "He married me for my money, Daddy," she said angrily.

  King Calhoun chuckled. "Then the joke's on him, ain't it. 'Cause without a refinery we are flat busted, and that's a fact."

  Cessy turned to look at him, her eyes widening in appreciation.

  "You're right Daddy, that is a fact. It is really indisputably a fact," she said.

  She was quiet, thoughtful, and staring sightlessly into space.

  "Lord, Princess," her father complained. "I can hear the gears clanking in your brain clear over this way."

  "Daddy, I have to talk to him," she said. "You'd better take me home. No, no there is no place at home where we can talk. Take me someplace where we can talk."

  "Where?"

  "I don't know, but turn the car around. We've got to go back and get him."

  "He ain't at the house," King said.

  "He's not there?"

  "You told him to go away, so he did."

  "But where did he go?"

  "Out to that Indian School, that's where he said he was going, though I doubt he's had time to walk all the way out there."