Dearest Dorothy, Who Would Have Ever Thought?! Page 3

  “These little black things?” he asked as he started to reach for one.

  “DON’T TOUCH THOSE!” Josh quickly withdrew his hands, visions of the biology class episode rifling through his mind. Katie drew a breath and loudly exhaled. “That, Joshua Matthew Kinney, is mouse evidence.”

  “Mouse evidence?”

  “Exactly.”

  Josh stood in silence shifting his eyes from her to the evidence and back again until he finally put it all together. “Oh! Mouse twerps! Mouse doo!” He busted out laughing, just like Dorothy had. “Mouse evidence. You crack me up, Mom!” He doubled over with laughter this time.

  “Yes, mouse evidence. And just what you and Dorothy both think is so funny about filth and disease, not to mention the idea that disgusting mice are creeping around our home while we sleep, is beyond me.”

  “Dorothy’s seen this?”

  “No. But she knows the farm has mice—a little detail she neglected to mention when I talked about buying this place from her.”

  “Mom, it’s a farm! Animals are supposed to live on farms so why wouldn’t mice? All we need is a few traps, I’m sure. No biggie.”

  No biggie. No biggie she lived miles away from civilization. No biggie she practically had no friends. No biggie her house was infested with mice. No biggie she was bored to tears. No biggie she had recently become more a talk of the town than a member of it, due to discovering she’d been conceived out of wedlock and her father never learned of her birth.

  “Right. Mouse evidence is no biggie—for me,” she said beginning to smile. “I’d say it’s just the right-sized task for you, though. The ‘no biggie’ (she drew air quotes around the phrase) needs to be cleaned out of all drawers and cabinets, then you need to scrub them down, shop for mousetraps and set them and dispose of . . . whatever, should they actually catch something. ‘No biggie,’ no arguing. Alrighty?” Big smile.

  Josh laughed. “Alrighty!” He whirled on his heels and said he was going to change his clothes and that he’d start thinking about the ‘no biggie’ (his own air quotes, only more dramatic) project after he checked his e-mail, and by the way, he’d need the SUV to go get the traps. And by the way, she said, no he couldn’t have the car tonight because she was going out to run her own errands. Well then, if Shelby (His sweet Shelby!) wasn’t too busy, could he call her to take him? Well then, even though there was absolutely no dating on weeknights allowed, she guessed he could, but only to run the errand, and Shelby could not come in the house. “Understand?” “Understood.” “And no going in the barn either when I’m not home. Got it?” “Got it.” (All discussions were moot because Shelby couldn’t come anyway. Unbeknownst to them at the time, day after day would go by without traps. The only thing that would change would be their continued discoveries of more evidence, Katie’s ever-growing disgust with the mice, Josh’s amusement that his mom could get so freaked out every time she discovered more evidence, her exasperation that Josh wasn’t handling his chore and his continued bemoaning that he never had the wheels to get the chore started.)

  As soon as he’d disappeared up the stairs, Katie listened to Colton Craig’s message for the fifth time; each time she had started to delete it, but didn’t. This time she wrote the number down. Maybe it was the perfect moment to explore just how valuable her land was to the guy who more than anyone else on the planet, she was sure, wanted it for development. The guy who was tangentially related to how she’d lost her job. Well, perhaps he could have it, mice and all. She could kill two birds with one delicious stone by not only getting herself out of this B-word of a mouse-laden place but by watching her biggest professional enemy grovel for the gem for which he lusted: that which was contingent to Hethrow, the town Craig & Craig (as in Colton Craig and his brother) Developers had transformed from a sleepy little stop along the way into a sprawling metropolitan success.

  Herm and Vera stuffed their giant old green vinyl suitcase until they couldn’t squeeze in one more pair of underwear, even though they each had two pairs to go. “Won’t matter if we take all our skivvies anyway,” Herm said. “My cuz is got a washin’ machine, I’m sure.”

  “Good point,” Vera replied as she flung her winter hat and gloves—just in case—into a cardboard box they were preparing to toss in the back seat of Henrietta, their old Buick sedan. (If Jessie had thought about it, she would have known Herm was for sure a blood relative since with the Landers men, it was Buicks or nothing.) Even though Herm and Vera weren’t leaving for a few more days, they knew they’d both feel better knowing they were ready to fire up Ol’ Henrietta and head toward Partonville! It had been six years since they’d all gotten together, which is why Jessie had invited them in the first place.

  Six years, it turned out, had been just long enough for everyone to forget the misery brought on by their last visit.

  Although the washer and dryer were still whirling with the final load of sheets, Jessica, after working like a dog all day (which is how her mom would have described it), was at long-last finished cleaning all the rooms at the Lamp Post motel. Never had she stretched such an important bevy of tasks over so many days. She’d also at last taken the time to count the money Wanita had collected for the bookmarks Jessica had crocheted for the Pumpkin Festival craft fair—all thirty-seven of them—and given to Wanita to sell in her booth. Wanita (“Yes, that’s the way you spell it,” she’d had to say over and over her entire life) was a good egg to keep the finances separate, even though a few buyers had whined. Wanita had handed the envelope to Jessica at the festival dance. Jessica had tucked it in her purse where it had remained until today. She wanted to give Wanita a portion of the funds for her trouble. “You know,” Jessica had said, “like a commission fee.” Although Wanita had said that she didn’t feel right about taking money from her for such a small favor, Jessica could see her warm to the idea when she’d brought up the word “commission” and proposed that it be a flat five percent of the take. Wanita had acquiesced while her three-year-old twin boys each held on to one of her plump legs with one hand while socking each other with the other, causing her body to jerk this way and that. “Well, that se-ems fair e-nough, and if it m-akes you feel ha-appy,” she’d said, her words bumping out of her mouth as her head jerked.

  What made Jessica feel the happiest about sharing her extra income was knowing that Wanita would have a few more dollars to buy her children shoes and it was obvious they needed them. Wanita’s husband had, not by choice, been unemployed for at least two months. The mines had had a serious round of cutbacks, Paul and Jessica having held their own breath more than once. Since folks had purchased every last one of the bookmarks, the commission added up to more than either of the women might have expected. Wanita had described to Jessica how some women bought five and six at a time for Christmas gifts; it was all a good sign for the Spring Fling craft fair in March, they agreed. Jessica was already visualizing how she could decorate the bookmarks with pastel yarns and buttons.

  But for now, the last remaining chore from the Pumpkin Festival was to drop the money off to Wanita since it was finally tallied. “Maybe tomorrow. I need to go to bed early,” she told Paul after recapping the financial and creative tidbits. But that’s all she told him. They were so financially strapped (hence his above-the-ground uniform—although she speculated that even if he were a millionaire, that’s what he’d want to wear, which was fine with her since she adored his rustic manly look), and he worked so hard already, he didn’t need something more to worry about, especially since she continued to hold out hope that there would be nothing else to tell, even though a mild nausea had consumed her most of the day. The kind of nausea that she’d experienced too recently to forget.

  Wanita once again thanked Jessica for the commission fee. “If you ever want me to do this again, don’t hesitate to let me know. And if you ever need help cleaning rooms or anything and if you wouldn’t mind if I brought the twins along, maybe I could give you a hand once in awhile. I’ve been thinking abo
ut these few extra dollars. . . .” Jessica sure understood the need for extra dollars, which is why she’d put in all the late hours crocheting to begin with. But as much as she wished she could offer Wanita a steady part-time job, she was sure that wouldn’t be financially possible. Maybe with the holidays coming, she might need her. When the Lamp Post had been steadily booked in the past, Jessica had, on occasion, hired somebody to give her a hand. But then visions of Wanita’s rascally twins throwing toys in the toilets, drawing on the walls and pummeling each other—which they were constantly prone to doing—with pillows until the stuffing flew every which way, sprang into her head. “I’ll keep that in mind,” Jessica responded. But about the only thing that would stick in her mind at the moment was her need to toss her cookies again.

  3

  Arthur waited in his truck for Lester to flip the sign on the door to Harry’s Grill from CLOSED to OPEN. He’d been waiting since 5:25 A.M., about a half hour after he’d woken up. Even though he usually hit Harry’s at 6 A.M. when the grill opened, more than ever he’d wanted to get out of the house this morning before Jessie got up and started bossing him around again. He recollected that company had always thrown his mother into a tizzy, too, but today things had reached a fevered pitch with his spitfire of a wife. For the last few days she’d nearly worked him to death—literally. Between fumes from the cleaning products, having to crawl up and down the ladder to wipe down shelves so high in closets that nobody would ever see them (“And may I ask you, woman, what is the point of this?”) and sending him to Your Store to buy bathroom deodorizers she’d seen advertised on TV (“We’ve never needed smell-good before so why do we need it now?”), he was plumb worn out—not to mention she’d nearly accidentally, he hoped, knocked him cold when she’d tossed the plastic gallon bottle full of bleach at him thinking he was ready to catch it, which he had not been. (Thank goodness that when the bottle landed on the floor the impact didn’t knock the cap off; she’d have probably blamed that on him, too!) But worse yet, she’d expected him to clean the bathtub floor with the horrible stinkin’ stuff. Yes, siree, boys and girls, it had been time to vacate the premises before that “maniac of a gol’ dern crazed woman” woke up and opened her mouth.

  Arthur watched the six-day-a-week usuals gather outside the grill’s door. Acting Mayor Gladys McKern always bustled her way to be first in line. Eugene Casey, owner of Casey’s Funeral Home, was much appreciated as a regular since the Partonville Press only came out twice a week and breakfast-goers would be the first to know of any passings in the night before the grapevine had a chance to spread the news. And speaking of the grapevine, there came Cora Davis, the very taproot of the grapevine, right on time. Heaven forbid somebody should nab her seat in the window. Unless it was print day, Harold Crab, publisher and editor of the newspaper, was an early bird as well. Of course, others like Doc Streator and Sam Vitner frequently showed up, too, just as they did today. Arthur leaned on his steering wheel waiting until the “line of characters takes a load off,” then slammed the door to his truck and made his own way to his usual stool. Before either his backside landed or he’d said a word, Lester slid a mug of high-octane coffee in front of him. “You can’t even imagine how much I need this today, Lester,” Arthur said with a dramatic sigh.

  “I’ve got plenty more interesting things to imagine than that,” Lester growled. It usually took Lester a good half hour to speak nicely to anyone, and then the level of niceness in his tone of voice was still debatable—although everyone knew he had a heart of gold. He was a man of few words, at least way fewer than Arthur. (Then again, most people were—aside from Gladys.)

  “Jessie’s on a cleaning rampage!” Arthur spouted to Lester in a voice one might use to “interrupt this program with an important announcement.”

  Lester was going to say “Did I ask?” but instead, sounding like he could not care less, he more or less grunted “What does a cleaning rampage look like, Arthur? I have no earthly idea.” Without waiting for an answer, the lifetime bachelor turned his back on Arthur to face the grill, grabbed two eggs out of the large green bowl, one in each hand, and simultaneously cracked them on the edge of the well-worn Formica ledge around the griddle. He separated his fingers enough to open each shell and unload the contents onto the heat, a finely honed skill with decades of experience behind it. Pleased himself with the maneuver every time. The familiar sound of the sizzling eggs and bacon was music to Arthur’s ears, especially after enduring Jessie’s relentless commands.

  “What does a cleaning rampage look like?” Arthur repeated Lester’s question. “Look-ee here for a minute.” Lester obliged by peering over his shoulder between flipping the eggs. “It looks like this.” Arthur slid off his stool and stood behind it. He drew up his hands to waist-high, rounded his shoulders and held his breath until his face turned red. Then he exhaled with a whoosh and said, “It looks like that.”

  Lester didn’t give Arthur the satisfaction of a smirk, even though he knew that Arthur’s exaggerated pose probably wasn’t much of a stretch since everybody knew Jessie had a temper. But Harold Crab burst out laughing while Arthur sat down again, obviously pleased with his theatrics. Gladys gave a loud harrumph that served as her judgment about making fun of women, although what she was really thinking was that the last she’d seen, the Landerses’ house was past due for a good cleaning and she for one was happy it was taking place before their upcoming Hookers’ meeting.

  Harold spread his paper napkin on his lap. “So what brought on this rampage?”

  “The Hookers are meeting at their house this month,” Gladys said. Gladys had been a member of the Happy Hookers since their inception decades ago. The eight ladies had originally gathered to hook rugs (and thus the name Happy Hookers), but one day they tired of hooking and took to playing bunco, a raucous, mindless dice game that offered a great opportunity for gab, prizes and dessert.

  “Oh, but that’s only a part of the story, Queen Lady.” Arthur spoke loudly knowing full well it would attract Cora’s attention, which was why, of course, he offered no more. When Arthur glanced over his shoulder at Cora and grinned, she realized she’d been baited and therefore let herself settle back on her seat after having leaned his way. Of course, she tried to make it look as though she was just resituating herself, but they both knew better.

  Turned out the bait-and-switch ended up on Arthur, however, because nobody asked him what else was happening, which left him no alternative but to just go ahead and tell. “Herm and Vera are comin’ in from Indiana fer Thanksgivin’.”

  “Gonna be a long rampage,” Harold said. “Thanksgiving is not for . . .”

  “The rampage kin only last three more days since they’re gittin’ here Monday. They’re comin’ in a little early so as we kin have us a nice leisurely-like visit. Haven’t seen ’em for years, ya know.”

  Gladys leaned back when Lester slid her breakfast in front of her. She picked up a piece of toast and bobbed her head back and forth like she was counting, which she was. “Do you mean to tell me they’re going to be here for more than two weeks?”

  “Yes, Mizz Mayor and math wizard extra-or-di-naire.” Arthur bit into his toast looking very satisfied with his own cleverness.

  “Poor Jessie,” Gladys said. The cousins AND you, she thought, shaking her head in sympathy.

  It was mid-Sunday afternoon when Dorothy decided to get up off the couch and take Sheba for a walk. It was shocking just how easy it was to become a couch potato. Before rising, she’d taken a gander at her stomach—two more pounds on the scale—and decided she’d morph into a bowl of couch mashed potatoes if she didn’t get more exercise. “Let’s get ourselves moving, Sheba!” Sheba was at the door before Dorothy had her coat buttoned and off they went. When they got to the first corner, however, Sheba turned and headed straight for May Belle’s. Lickety split, she’d run up on May Belle’s porch as fast as her skinny legs would deliver her. Earl, who was often watching out the window, had the door open before Sheba ev
en had a chance to give it her customary pawing. Earl gave Dorothy a wide grin as she came up the stairs and announced to his mother that his Dearest Dorothy and Sheba had arrived.

  “My, don’t you look handsome today, Earl! I meant to tell you that in church.” Dorothy peeled off her coat and handed it to Earl who hung it in the front closet. He was wearing a pair of dark gray pinstriped wool pants and a light blue, long-sleeved dress shirt with a dark blue sleeveless hand-knit vest buttoned over the shirt. Although the garments were worn thin, especially the pants, they were spanking clean and crisply pressed. May Belle, Earl’s mother and Dorothy’s best friend since childhood, had always been meticulous when it came to Sunday clothes, which Earl left on the whole day. Earl knew these very same dress-up clothes had been worn by his dad and it made him feel good when his mother said he looked just like his handsome father when he wore them. Earl’s hair was slightly tussled, probably from removing his baseball cap when he got home, and anyone with less consideration for a forty-five-year-old with limited mental capacities might have reached up and smoothed it. Dorothy, however, respected Earl as the grown man he was. She wouldn’t have just reached up and fixed Arthur’s or Pastor’s hair, so why would she do that to Earl?