Dearest Dorothy, Who Would Have Ever Thought?! Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  A Note from the Author

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  DEAREST DOROTHY, WHO WOULD HAVE EVER THOUGHT?!

  Charlene Ann Baumbich is a popular speaker, journalist, and author. Her stories, essays, and columns have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Today’s Christian Woman. She is also the author of the first three books in the Partonville series, Dearest Dorothy, Are We There Yet?, Dearest Dorothy, Slow Down, You’re Wearing Us Out!, and Dearest Dorothy, Help! I’ve Lost Myself!, and six books of nonfiction. She lives in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. Learn more about Charlene at www.welcometopartonville.com.

  ALSO IN THIS SERIES

  Dearest Dorothy, Are We There Yet?

  Dearest Dorothy, Slow Down, You’re Wearing Us Out!

  Dearest Dorothy, Help! I’ve Lost Myself!

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

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  First published in Penguin Books 2005

  Copyright © Charlene Ann Baumbich, 2005

  All rights reserved

  Publisher’s Note

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product

  of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons,

  living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Baumbich, Charlene Ann, 1945-

  Dearest Dorothy, who would have ever thought? / Charlene Ann Baumbich.

  p. cm.—(Dearest Dorothy; bk. 4)

  eISBN : 978-0-143-03619-7

  1. Older women—Fiction. 2. Illinois—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3602.A963D44 2005

  813’.54—dc22 2005048743

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any

  other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law.

  Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage

  electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Dedicated to:

  Bridget Ann Baumbich

  Acknowledgments

  To Danielle Egan-Miller, Browne & Miller Literary Associates, who ROCKS. Thank you for caring so very, very much and so very, very well.

  If you want to be proud of your book (not prowd of your booc), have the good fortune to fall into the capable hands (not fell into the culpable sands) of a Most Excellent Production Editor and Copy Editor, a duo with superb sight (not site—which they thankfully corrected a million and forty-two times). Thank you, Sharon L. Gonzalez and Diane Turso, for making me look good (or is it well, or swell, or . . . SAVE ME!). Bless your meticulous and keen minds and eyes, your pursuit of (or is that for?) excellence and for helping the readers to have more than a CLUE as to what folks in Partonville are talkin’ ’bout, as Arthur would say. And thank you for letting him talk like that.

  Here’s what Good Editors do, at least mine: she edits me (forces me to go deeper, try harder, clear up the fog, unleash the possibilities, stay true to the story, stop rambling, trust my gut, not hang myself with stupid stuff). She gives me space and time to move from detesting her rewrite letter (eleven pages, single spaced!) to realizing she’s a genuine genius who guided me, even when I thought I didn’t need to be led. She laughs with me, assures me, puts her foot down and makes me a better writer. Thank you, Carolyn Carlson, for your faith in my gifts, your honesty, your time, your gentle heart and nature.

  Thank you, my Honey Bunny of a husband, for sticking with me, even after I put a rearview mirror on my computer monitor so I could catch you standing in my office doorway looking at the back of my head when I was trying to write—and then YELLED at you for being so intrusive. I love you, even when you threaten to write a book about what it’s really like living with an author. (Hopefully, my herewith True Confession has beat you to the punch ;>)) XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

  Thank you, Dear Readers, for trusting everyone—including me—who helps to make a book a book. May the band of merry folks (including Acting Mayor Gladys McKern) you discover within these pages stir your heart, tickle your funny bone and whisper a word of faith about LIVING LIFE TO THE FULL!

  Introduction

  To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old.

  —Oliver Wendell Holmes

  And now, welcome to Partonville, a circle-the-square town in the northern part of southern Illinois, where oldsters are young, trees have names and the obvious sometimes isn’t.

  1

  Jessica withdrew her arm from beneath the cozy covers and clamped her hand over her shut-tight hazel eyes. The light, which was barely a muted glow seeping through her handmade, roman shades, felt like a Halogen high beam aimed at her pupils. NO! It can’t be morning already! After wearily listening for a few moments to Sarah Sue’s five-month-old chattering in the next room, Jessica could sense that her daughter had been awake for a while. She was reaching the familiar stage that teetered between happy gobbledygook and crankiness. The tiny plastic ball with bells inside, one of Sarah Sue’s favorite toys, tucked nightly in her crib so it would keep her occupied during her early-morning wakefulness, banged to the floor. Drats! It won’t be long now. I am so tired. She rolled onto her side away from the light and pulled the covers over her head. Snuggling into a fetal position, she tucked her hands under her chin. Please, Sarah Sue, go back to slee
p. Please.

  “WHAaaaaa! WHAaaaaaaaaaa!” It sounded like somebody had stuck her daughter with a pin, so sudden and piercing was the wail.

  “PLEASE GO BACK TO SLEEP!” Jessica bellowed from beneath the covers. It wasn’t like her to yell. It was such an unfamiliar sound, in fact, that Sarah Sue stopped mid-squawk. Bless you, child of mine. Bless you. During the quiet lull, Jessica wished it were the weekend and Paul could take over. She felt a selfish pang of guilt for thinking such a thing, for as much as she longed to go back to sleep, she also hoped that the twelve-unit motel they’d stretched their time and finances to buy would one day make enough money to allow him to quit his coal miner’s job, even if he had to find a part-time position elsewhere. Maybe something outdoors so he could drink in enough fresh air to make up for all his underground labors.

  “WHAaaaaaaa! WHAAAAAaaaaaaaa!” Sarah Sue was cranked up for good this time and Jessica knew there would be no stopping her until her child—The Squawking One she’d just blessed—was rescued not only from her solitude but probably from her amply loaded diaper as well. Jessica wiggled around just enough to peak at the clock. It was 8:45 A.M. “Goodness,” she said as she flung back the covers, exposing her floor-length, white flannel nightgown with a teddy bear print on it. After sitting on the edge of the bed for a moment to fully claim her wakefulness, she stood, the soft gown unleashing its collected warmth as it unfolded around her long lean legs. Paul had been gone for hours already and Sarah Sue was usually done with breakfast and ready for a morning nap by now. “This is a record!”

  Her body felt more like a shipwreck than one of a fit woman in her late twenties. Partonville’s annual Pumpkin Festival had ended a few days earlier and the motel, which had been booked solid for the weekend, was at last blissfully empty. Even though they could use the money she was glad for the respite. Between check-ins and daily service, running the switchboard, readying her crafts for the sale, building and decorating a special arch for Acting Mayor Gladys McKern’s pronouncements (what had she been thinking about getting on that committee?)—not to mention caring for a husband and a teething baby—she’d worked from the crack of dawn until nearly 1 A.M. for days on end. She’d been so tired yesterday that she hadn’t even finished cleaning all the vacated rooms and instead took an afternoon nap when Sarah Sue went down for hers.

  She slowly lumbered toward her daughter’s room. Sarah Sue immediately quieted at the sound of her mother’s feet padding down the hall. Just before Jessica entered, she realized she needed to hit the bathroom herself before she could deal with what, even through the closed door, was a for-sure loaded diaper, so she whirled on her heels. A queasiness rolled through her stomach. No whirling. Too tired. Next she was hit by an onslaught of lightheadedness. Definitely no more whirling. Sarah Sue made that annoying half-whine, half-cry sound when her door didn’t open the way she’d expected it to. As soon as Jessica entered the bathroom, a severe wave of nausea overcame her and the next thing she knew she was retching into the toilet.

  “WHAaaaaaaaaa! WHAAAAAAAAAAA!” Jessica started to holler “I’ll be right there,” but before a sound could escape her throat, her head was back in the toilet bowl. When she was done, she rocked back on her heels until her buttocks hit the floor, legs bent up in front of her, feet flat on the floor. With a few moist strands of brunette hair clinging to the side of her face, she leaned back against the bathroom wall and closed her bloodshot eyes. In spite of her exhaustion, her mind wandered over the events of the last few days.

  The decorations at the Pumpkin Festival dance had been remarkable, as had the atmosphere, the band, the DJ. . . . She saw herself dancing in their midst while resting her head on Paul’s shoulder, Sarah Sue dangling between them, strapped to Paul in that baby sling contraption they took turns wearing. While she’d yawned and wondered if it were possible to fall asleep standing up swaying, she’d felt a deep contentment. She was dancing with her husband, in whose arms she always felt safe. And he was looking so handsome in his simple yet, to her, sexy outfit. Paul, smelling like Dial soap (as close as he got to cologne), was wearing a new (the dressed-up part) plaid flannel shirt over a long-underwear top, jeans that were slightly frayed around the cuffs and his new (excessive dress up, Jessica had teased) black Converse (the only brand and color he’d worn since high school) high-top gym shoes. The total ensemble created what they both referred to as his above-the-ground uniform. He had stroked the back of her head and whispered in her ear, “Just think, honey, we’re almost back to normal. All the big doings are winding down as we dance, and Sarah Sue is finally sleeping through the night on a regular basis.”

  But now, before she had a chance to further contemplate their blissful return to normalcy, she bolted back onto her knees, leaned over the toilet bowl and was racked by a few more dry heaves. Wrung out, she curled up on the cold floor and half covered herself with the fluffy white oval bathroom rug. While Sarah Sue wailed, Jessica Joy moaned a short prayer. “Say it isn’t so.” The phone was ringing in the background but she couldn’t bring herself to get up and answer it. Soon she heard her own perky voice on the answering machine saying, “The Lamp Post motel. Your call is important to us and we’re sorry we missed it.”

  “Your call isn’t all I’ve missed lately,” she mumbled with a groan.

  Katie Durbin sat at the table in Dorothy’s cheery kitchen. Dorothy’s erect back was toward her as she stood at her kitchen counter slicing fresh lemon wedges for their large glasses of water. Katie locked eyes briefly with Sheba—Dorothy’s black-and-white mutt—who’d suddenly sprung up from beneath the table with a bark and plunked down in front of the heating vent near Dorothy’s feet. Katie had decided to stop by Dorothy’s on her way home from a shopping trip to Hethrow. She’d gone to nearly a half dozen stores before finally settling on a couple of rugs: a short-bristle mat for the back porch and a nappy woven rug for just inside the kitchen door. Maybe between the two of them her floor would stay tidier. She was tired of Josh tracking in debris from the pasture, the barn and everywhere else he’d tramped. Although she’d tried to train him to take his shoes off on the porch—something she’d never had to think about when they lived in the city—it seemed he was in the kitchen with his head stuck in the refrigerator before her repeated request ever registered. You’d think by sixteen years of age he’d just know better.

  “How did you ever keep the farmhouse clean when you had three children running in and out all day, Dorothy?” Dorothy smiled at Katie as she set two glasses of water—a lemon wedge perched on the edge of each—and a small bowl of backup lemon wedges between them. The feisty 87-year-old seated herself, pushed the sleeves of her pink (her trademark color) cardigan sweater up to her elbows, took a big swallow, then broke out in a grin.

  “HA! Clean? Clean, with three children, a husband, miscellaneous mutts, stowaway barn cats, mice and dust from the gravel road? I doubt that house was ever clean until the day I moved out a few months ago. Now by the end of that day, I finally had a clean house.”

  “Mice?” Katie held her lemon wedge mid-air.

  Dorothy took note of Katie’s surprised face while Sheba moved from the vent to underneath the table to curl up next to her feet. Such a city girl. “Mice,” Dorothy said flatly. “Lots of mice. Which is why we always kept so many barn cats around. Of course, since I am a dog lover to the core, much to my chagrin one child or another would drag one of those barn cats into the house if it didn’t claw them to pieces first—and boy that happened more times than I’d care to remember—and they just never seemed to leave. Although I by no means much took to those cats, I was always grateful when one or another of those scraggly things would turn out to be a good house mouser.”

  “House mouser? Are you telling me that the farmhouse might have mice?” She finished squeezing the lemon, slid the rind into her glass and picked up another wedge.

  “No, dear.”

  “Well, that’s a relief!”

  “I’m guaranteeing you the farmhouse has mice.
Then, and now. Throughout the generations. Families of mice, especially this time of year. You don’t live on a farm without mice, dear; you just learn to set lots of traps, or get mouser cats or . . . cohabitate.”

  Katie mentally ran through Dorothy’s brief list of rodent antidotes. When she spoke, her voice held an edge of frustration. “A, I’m severely allergic to cats, Dorothy. Most animal dander, in fact, so cats are out. B, after witnessing way too many rats in and around condemned demolition properties in Chicago, I have no tolerance for any size rodent. And C through Z, I’m not sure if I can take many more surprises!”

  “Just get you a goodly amount of traps and set them along the edges of the kitchen floor, and under the sink, of course . . . and down in the basement and perhaps along the back of the counter splashboards, if you should find evidence they’ve been in your silverware drawers, and . . .”

  “In my silverware drawers? Evidence?” Dorothy couldn’t contain herself from bursting out laughing at this hard-nosed commercial real estate tycoon who looked on the verge of unraveling at the thought of a few little critters in her house. She reached over and patted Katie’s hand, still chuckling.

  “Traps. That and a little poison, if you . . .”

  “STOP! I can’t hear any more about this right now, Dorothy!” As if to wash this whole conversation away, Katie squeezed the wedge in her hand, plunked it into her glass and took another sip of her water, then screwed up her face again.

  “Are you alright, dear?”

  “Just a little too much lemon, I guess.”