A Stranger's Wish (13 page)

“You look a bit tired,” he said as we approached him.

“Perceptive of you,” I said tartly.

He grinned that marvelous grin and fell into step with us.

“Staying for dinner, Jon Clarke?” Ruth asked. “Mom went back a while ago to make it.”

He nodded. “She already asked me, just as I was hoping she would. In fact, she sent me down to collect you.”

Suddenly I saw my plans for the evening as less than inspired.

There was a soft plop and an explosion at our feet. I looked in disbelief at the tomato pulp and juice all over my thoroughly dirty left sneaker, staining it an anemic red-brown. I looked up just in time to see another tomato sail past and splat against a fence post.

“Elam, you’ve lost your touch,” Ruth yelled as she broke into a run. “I’ll have to help you.” She raced toward her brother and a pile of rotting tomatoes he’d stockpiled.

“That’s right. You help him, Ruth,” Clarke shouted as he grabbed my hand. “He’s going to need all the assistance he can get.”

He began running across the field, dragging me behind him.

“I should have known better than to visit today. That shows what a long absence will do. Come on, Kristie. Hurry up.”

“What in the world is going on?” I dug in my heels and pulled my hand free.

“Tomato fight. It’s a Zook tradition. John always lets the kids have a bang-up battle at the end of each year’s harvest as a reward for all their hard work.”

Two tomatoes zinged past my head, one falling harmlessly to the ground, the other bouncing off Clarke’s chest. As juice and pulp dribbled down his shirt, a delighted Elam punched the air. “Bull’s-eye!”

“That does it!” Clarke yelled. “Battle stations, Kristie!” He grabbed two tomatoes and threw.

“You’re crazy!” I watched in disbelief as Elam dodged Clarke’s tomatoes and threw another of his own. It hit Clarke in the leg.

“For a believer in nonviolence, you’re an awfully good shot.” Clarke shook his leg free of seeds.

“Two to nothing,” Ruth called. Elam was too busy laughing to talk.

“Come on, Kristie. Don’t be so inhibited.” Clarke threw, missed Elam, but caught Ruth on the skirt. “Can you imagine the chaos when the others were home and Jake was well? It was great!”

“How did you get involved?”

“When I lived with my aunt and uncle, Mr. Zook would hire me to help with the harvest—corn too, but that was never as much fun.”

“I guess not. Ears of corn tend to hurt when they hit.”

“Here.” He put a split tomato in my hand, juice and pulp oozing. “Throw.”

I stared at it a minute. Then something went
pop!
inside. I wheeled and threw. I missed my target. In fact the tomato seemed to disintegrate as it traveled, and nothing was left by the time it reached the enemy camp. Still I laughed aloud.

“Good girl.” Clarke smiled approval.

“Over hill, over dale,” I sang as I bent for more ammunition. A tomato hit me, exploding amidships. I straightened abruptly.

Clarke sputtered with laughter. “Ruth did it.”

“Sorry,” she called, totally unrepentant.

We pursued each other across the fields in the general direction of the house. Crushed fruit lay all around, offering a bounteous supply of ammunition. Even Hawk rushed madly about, barking happily.

The piercing sound of someone whistling through his fingers got our attention. I whirled, ready for a rear guard attack, to find Jake by the edge of the road. I assessed the wisdom of firing the mushy weapon in my hand, an undoubtedly evil grin on my face. He silently double dared me with the narrowing of his eyes. I laughed and threw my tomato to the ground.

He studied us and shook his head. “Mom says dinner’s in fifteen minutes. You might want to clean up just a bit.”

I looked at myself and then at the other three. We were absolute messes. “Even my hair!” I tried to run my fingers through the sticky mess. “Good grief, I’m too old for this.”

“You’re too old?” Clarke said. “I bet I’ve got a few years on you, and I haven’t had so much fun in years.”

I smiled agreement.

We walked slowly down the road past the farm pond with Elam pushing Jake and Hawk loping beside us. The dog gave a sudden bark and detoured to the pond, ducking under the battery-charged electric fence.

“He wants us to wait while he gets a drink,” interpreted Ruth.

Hawk began drinking, his tail waving happily. It was a terrible surprise to him when his tail connected with the fence. The shock, mild though it was, jolted him. He let out a yelp as he jumped, landing ignominiously in the middle of the pond. While we dissolved in laughter, Hawk swam with great dignity to the shore, shook himself off, and stalked away, his feelings hurt.

“A car,” gasped Elam as he tried to get his breath. “Behind us.”

We crowded together on the shoulder to make room for the car to pass. I looked up curiously and found myself staring into Todd’s incredulous face.

9

I
backed through Mr. Geohagan’s door, staring down the hall in wonder at the retreating figure, tall and elegant with his prematurely white hair. An entourage of aides and a bevy of newsmen scurried about him, eager to do his bidding or report his every word.

“Mr. Geohagan, did you see him?” I sank into the chair beside the bed, breathless as a schoolgirl who’s seen a rock star. “That was Adam Hurlbert! He looks even better now than he did when he came to school that one time for Nelson. He wasn’t a candidate then, and his hair wasn’t quite as wonderful. Do you think he puts something on it? I bet he does.”

I knew I sounded like an idiot, but Adam Hurlbert! “I wonder what he was doing at the hospital?”

Everett Geohagan, pale and frail, grinned lopsidedly and tried to look modest. “Visiting me.”

“Visiting you? You must be a big contributor or something if he came to see you,” I said.

He gave the little wheeze that was his laugh. “Big contributions are beyond my pocketbook. I used to work for him. I’m not certain how he found out I was sick, but in he strolled.”

“You worked for him? At Hurlbert Construction? You mean I know somebody who knows somebody? That’s almost as good as knowing somebody myself.”

When he laughed gently at me, I flushed. How naive I sounded. “Still, it must be fun watching someone you know become famous.”

Mr. Geohagan shrugged. “Are you going to vote for him?”

“I certainly am. Aren’t you?”

“I suspect that all I’ll be doing Election Day is reading about the outcome here or in some nursing home.”

“There’s always an absentee ballot, but you’ll be out of here by then and walking into the polling place under your own steam.”

“That remains to be seen. Now tell me, why are you going to vote for him?”

I thought for a moment. “Well, he’s very assured, very controlled. He makes you think he knows exactly what needs to be done and, by George, he’s the one to do it. He’s been well conceived and well packaged. If he’s a fraction as knowledgeable about politics as he is about public relations and image, he’ll be terrific. And he’s a political novice. No backroom debts to pay.”

“And perhaps no political savvy either?”

“You think not? You think it’s all a well-rehearsed act? He doesn’t really know anything?”

Mr. Geohagan shrugged. “I do know he’s been successful at every other project he’s put his mind to, so why not politics? He joined the army right out of high school for the educational benefits. The same week he was discharged, he formed Hurlbert Construction, and in the fall he started college full time at Franklin and Marshall. He finished college in three years and kept the company going the whole time. Granted, it was a small company then, but it was still quite a feat. I was one of his first employees.”

Mr. Geohagan shook his head. “One thing I’ll say for Adam. He’s never lacked ambition or self-confidence. In fact, there are those who accuse him of overweening pride. I think he just decides what he wants, goes after it, and lets nothing stop him. ‘We’re going to be the biggest construction company Lancaster County has ever seen,’ he said.” Mr. Geohagan shrugged again. “We are.”

“Why do you think he decided to go into politics if he’s so successful in business?”

“Power. That and new worlds to conquer. People like him can get bored with things the rest of us would be more than content with. Of course, marrying the governor’s widowed daughter was no drawback, either.”

Irene Parsons Carmody Hurlbert was fifteen years younger than her new husband, and their whirlwind courtship had been splashed all over the media. I followed every detail of the romance as avidly as everyone else—the meeting at a local party fund-raiser; the immediate spark; the glamorous wooing with candlelight dinners, political galas, and vacations at posh resorts in the Caribbean; the soft-soaping of Adam’s nasty divorce five years earlier; the huge wedding with the first lady and the vice president and his wife among the multitude of elegant and well-connected guests. The bid for office was probably inevitable. As was the outcome of his race against a sturdy but thoroughly uncharismatic opponent.

“Irene seems so gracious and charming, to say nothing of beautiful. Is she as wonderful as she appears?”

“I can’t say I know her,” he said. “She’s not the kind who stops at the office like the first Mrs. Hurlbert. Maggie poured her life into the company right beside Adam, ate peanut butter sandwiches when things were tight, raised the kids by herself when he was working all those long hours. Terrible shame when he left her. I liked Maggie. She was real. I’m not so sure about Irene.”

“Rats. I want to hear she’s wonderful and madly in love with her husband.”

Mr. Geohagan smiled his sardonic, lopsided grin. “Did I ever tell you that you remind me of my daughter, Cathleen?”

“Why, thank you,” I said, surprised. “What a lovely thing to say. I didn’t even know you had a daughter.” But I remembered him calling me Cathleen once before.

“I miss her terribly. I think that’s why I enjoy you so much.”

“Do I look like her?”

“Not particularly. I’ve always thought of her as absolutely beautiful.”

I swallowed hard. Not that people tell me I’m beautiful on a regular basis, but this was the most direct repudiation I’d ever had, even if unintentional, which I thought this was. Mr. Geohagan didn’t seem to notice the insult.

“She had red-gold hair that was naturally curly, not straight brown like yours. And she had great dark eyes. Of course you have marvelous dark eyes too,” he hastened to add. Maybe he realized what he said after all, or maybe he’d seen something in my face. Or maybe he was just as politically astute as Adam Hurlbert. “You’re very pretty in your own way, but you don’t look like Cathleen. You’ve got a square jaw and you’re too skinny. She had a wonderful figure, full in all the right places.”

I put on my polite face, trying not to become too depressed by his assessment of my assets or lack thereof. After all, a man’s daughter should be beautiful to him.

He studied me a minute. “You’ve got pale, creamy skin. She had the cutest freckles across her nose, and they drove her crazy. I thought they were adorable.”

“Does she live far away?” I hoped this paragon lived in Oregon or Washington or maybe up in Hudson’s Bay so that I’d never have to compete face-to-face with her.

“She’s dead.” The statement was bald and unemotional.

I gasped. It was more an involuntary rush of air than a word. I felt as if I’d been kicked by an Amishman’s mule.

“Don’t look so upset,” he said. “It’s not your fault.”

“No, but—” I was at a loss for words.

“In case you haven’t noticed, life’s not always nice,” he said with more than a touch of bitterness.

We sat quietly, thinking about life’s low blows.

“But,” he said after a minute, “you bring me great pleasure with your interest in me and my health. I love your enthusiasm for life. Cathleen was that way, always bubbly, always happy. She lived for fun and parties and going out. She always said that people were the most interesting things on the face of the earth, and she had loads of friends. Everyone loved her because she loved them, and she could talk to anyone about anything. She was our sunshine.”

Though she didn’t sound much like introverted, intense me, if it made him happy to think of her when he talked with me, that was fine.

He studied the ceiling tiles without really seeing them. “If I’d listened to her, I wouldn’t be in such a bad fix now. ‘Stop smoking, Dad,’ she’d always say. ‘It’s bad for you. You’ll get cancer.’ I’d laugh at her earnest young face and keep right on. Three packs a day. Then one day I couldn’t go up the steps without puffing, but it wasn’t cancer. Emphysema. Now I have to blow into those foolish machines for the nurses. Or try to blow up balloons. Or listen to lectures by respiratory therapists on the evils of tobacco.”

He gazed sadly at me. “‘Oh, Dad,’ she said when I was diagnosed. ‘I’m so sorry.’” He sighed. “She didn’t know what sorry meant then. I didn’t either, though I sure do now.”

I looked at him with concern. “I didn’t know you had emphysema.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, young lady.” His voice had a bit more life in it. “I’ve had it for five years now. Or it’s had me. I’ve got about five years left, they say—if something else doesn’t get me first. I have a heart condition, a lung condition, and a blood condition.”

I knew about the heart and now the lungs, but a blood condition?

“I’m a full-spectrum patient.” Frustration colored his voice. “No matter what your medical specialty, I’m your man.”

“What blood condition?”

“I have hepatitis. Maybe I got it from the transfusions during surgery, though that’s dubious these days. Maybe it was just from germs floating in the air or from some doctor’s germ-laden necktie. Who knows? But I’ve got it, and that’s what counts. Didn’t you see the sign on the door? I’m contagious.”

I got up and walked to the door. I pulled it open and saw a very obvious sign warning me not to touch anything and to wash thoroughly if I did. I must have been too taken with Adam Hurlbert to notice it.