A Table By the Window (15 page)

“I would have given three hundred,” the woman said, rubbing her thumb over the smooth ceramic. She turned luminous eyes to Carley. “I already have the salt shaker. Our cat knocked the pepper shaker off a shelf about ten years ago, and I've looked all over for a replacement, even on eBay. My son Robert bought me the set at the dime store when he was a little boy. We aren't even Catholic—he just liked the look of them.”

There was clearly far more to that story. Carley took the shaker reverently from her hands. “Let me find a box for it.”

By the time Carley returned from the storeroom, the two other women had joined their friend at the counter. They wanted to see the shaker. One embraced the new owner, who was wiping her eyes with a tissue.

“You're not from around here either, are you?” the woman shopping for clocks asked Carley, while Jenna rang up two Depression glass juice glasses.

“Guess where she's from?” Jenna said before Carley could answer.

“Hmm…” she said. “California.”

Jenna laughed. Carley gaped at the woman. “How could you tell?”

The woman gaped back while her companions joined in the laughter. “You mean I'm right? I threw out a wild guess.”

“Why don't you go to lunch now, Carley?” Jenna said when the trio had exited.

For the past three days, Carley had spent her free hour reading
Camellia Street
over a bowl of minestrone or a sandwich in the tiny kitchen off the upstairs storage room. Mr. Juban had not exaggerated about it being a great read, and she was rather proud of herself for resisting peeking ahead. But this morning, just before the shop opened for customers, Aunt Helen had stopped in to ask Carley to ring her shop when she could get away to meet her at Corner Diner.

After telephoning, Carley bundled into her coat. The three women from Foley were coming out of Three Sisters Antiques.

“Can you recommend a good place for lunch?” one asked.

Carley nodded. “Corner Diner is just up the street. I'm heading there now if you'd like…”

The bifocaled woman gave her an apologetic look. “I've been there. We were hoping for something not quite so heavy.”

That ruled out Dixie Burger and Tommy's Pizza on the south end of town. The Old Grist Mill had a salad bar, she had heard, but they only opened for lunch on weekends.

“Don't you have a soup and sandwich shop tucked away somewhere?” asked the woman who had guessed Carley was from California.

“You can probably get sandwiches made at the deli at Henderson's Grocery. It's just a few hundred feet west of the flashing light. But I'm afraid there's no place to sit.”

The bifocaled woman apologized for detaining Carley. “I guess we'll do pizza. Thank you.”

Carley glanced over her shoulder before entering Corner Diner. The trio were getting into a dark blue sedan.

“You know, someone should open up a sandwich shop here,” she said to Aunt Helen over identical plates of the special of the day—grilled pork chops, baked sweet potatoes, and turnip greens.

“Why don't you?” Aunt Helen asked while her knife trimmed the fat from her chop.

Carley smiled. “Seriously, I think one would do well. There's nothing here for older women.”

Her aunt cocked a playful brow at her. “
I'm
an older woman. And this pork chop suits me just fine.”

“But you're also a local. The shop clientele are mostly older women in groups.” She looked around at the filled tables. “Even the men shoppers usually accompany wives. This place is too busy, and the hamburger and pizza places aren't suitable for sitting around making pleasant conversation.”

She was about to add that San Francisco and Sacramento had quaint little bistros on practically every block, but she feared sounding like the city mouse talking down to the country mouse.

“You might have a point there,” Aunt Helen said thoughtfully.

“That place next to the drugstore would be the perfect location too. Is the owner just going to let it sit there empty? I didn't see a
For Sale
sign or anything.”

“I guess Emmit's too busy to bother with it. But I doubt Tallulah's ever had a sandwich shop like those in Seattle.”

Carley had forgotten her aunt was more well-traveled than she was. “That's what Blake should think about investing in, instead of a rental house.”

Aunt Helen winced. “I love my son-in-law, but for Sherry's sake I would appreciate your not putting that bug in his ear. A rental house would be a fairly safe investment, but another business besides the barber shop would be just too risky.”

“I understand,” Carley said and dropped the subject.

Dropping it from her mind proved more difficult, she discovered while preparing an omelet for supper. Tonight's basketball game was in Picayune, almost eighty miles away, and Sherry had offered her a ride. But asking Jenna's permission to leave a couple of hours early would have been embarrassing, with less than a week on the job.

Earth-tone colors,
she thought, chopping green onions.
Quaint, but trendy, like a Parisian cafe. Sandwiches and soups on the menu, and light meals like pasta salad
.

Idle pondering, like chewing gum for the brain. But fun to imagine anyway.

The deaths of seven astronauts aboard the space shuttle
Columbia
put everyone in a somber mood on Saturday. Jenna brought a small portable television to Grandma's Attic to keep up with news coverage, and shoppers conversed in reverent tones, almost as if at a wake.

Even conversations between patrons at Corner Diner were subdued.

“Carley dear, forgive my nosiness, but I just have to ask something,” Aunt Helen said as they lunched together.

Carley sprinkled pepper on her chicken and dumplings and braced herself for what she suspected was coming. “Sure.”

“Do you never think about death?”

“I think about it,” Carley said.

“What about God?”

“I believe in God. I'm just…not sure what to think about Him.”

Aunt Helen nodded, brows denting. “But shouldn't that make you want to find out more?”

The worry mingled with affection in her expression made Carley want to pat her arm and agree to do whatever it would take to reassure her. But she owed her aunt no less than honesty. “I did at one time. But then some things happened, and I wondered how He could love me enough to send His son to die for me and yet not protect me.”

“What happened, Carley?”

“Just some things, I really can't talk about. But you can imagine what sort of men my mother attracted.”

The aged face was a study in sadness. “You poor baby.”

Carley turned her head to blink tears. When she had composed herself, she went on. “And please don't take offense—you and Uncle Rory are salt of the earth, but my most rotten experiences have been with religious people.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” Aunt Helen said. “And I'm not even surprised. There are always wolves among the sheep. And often, even the sheep aren't all we should be. But you mustn't blame God. He surely must have put some good people in your life. Look where you are now.”

“Well, yes.” And was it fair to blame God for Huey Collins and not thank him for Janelle Reed and Aunt Helen?

“God gives us all free will to choose, honey, and some people make terrible choices, live terrible lives. Would you want to give up your free will in exchange for everyone behaving as they should?”

“No, of course not,” Carley said. “But why didn't God put good people in my mother's life?”

“I'm convinced He did. We have teachers all around us. But some people, like poor Linda, are so focused on themselves that they never notice them.”

That made sense, Carley conceded silently. At length she took her aunt's hand. “Thank you for caring enough about me to bring this up. I promise, I'll think about what you said. But as for church, you're going to have to give me some time. I don't want to be disappointed again.”

“Then, I won't pressure you,” Aunt Helen said, squeezing her hand. “God wants your heart, more than your body in a pew. But worshiping with fellow believers is still very important. I hope one day you long for that fellowship enough to give church another try.”

“One day,” Carley said, and qualified it by adding, “Maybe.”

****

Later that afternoon, Carley and Jenna stepped out onto the sidewalk to wave at a flushed-faced bride and groom leaving First Baptist in a reconditioned Model T. When Patrick stopped by with a supper invitation from his mother, Carley asked about the game, and congratulated him on the victory over Picayune. “Tell her I'll bring Caesar salad,” she said, and hurried over to Henderson's after work for the ingredients.

The Kemps lived in a two-story mixed-brick house about a quarter of a mile southeast of town on Mill Creek Road. Blake grilled chicken, Sherry stirred together a potato salad, and Aunt Helen tended a pot of butter beans while Carley made the salad and iced the glasses. After supper, Patrick left for Hattiesburg and a movie with friends, and Sherry loaded the videotape of
The Sound of Music
simply because during the meal Carley had mentioned never having seen it.

“How do you solve a problem like Maria….”
Carley sang all the way home.

****

With shops closed Monday, Carley felt no guilt over staying up late Sunday night finishing
Camellia Street
, but she grumbled when the doorbell woke her at 8:45.
I should have packed my robe,
she thought, pulling her coat over her pajamas. Or even bought one, once she decided to stay longer.

“I'm sorry, did I wake you?” Blake asked as Carley let him in.

“That's all right.” But she did not ask him to sit, hoping his business would be brief so she could return to bed.

“I just came from the bank.”

“Umm-hmm?” Carley ran her tongue over her teeth, imagining how foul her breath must be.

“They denied our loan. They said we owe too much on our house and my shop.”

It was Carley's turn to say, “I'm sorry.”

He ran a hand through his dust-colored hair and took a breath. “But it would still work, if you'd finance the house yourself.”

“I can't do that, Blake.” She was glad for a legitimate excuse. “I'll need the full amount to buy a new one back home.”

“It would work out the same,” he argued. “You'd just have to get a loan, and apply our monthly payments to it.”

“I would have to pay interest,” Carley said, fishing.

“But you'd earn interest at the same time. It's a minor inconvenience. You still have a huge chunk of money for the down payment, so your notes should be small.”

“Blake…”

“We'd do it for you.”

She was left with no more excuses. Only a reason that she could not say, not without hurting his feelings—that even though he was family, even though there were times that she liked him, he was not the sort of person with whom she could engage in business with total confidence. And so she said, simply, “I'm sorry, Blake. I'd rather not.”

He was hurt anyway. Angry, actually. “Well, that's just great!”

“I'm sorry, Blake,” she said for the third time, wishing he would leave.

For three seconds he stared at her. As if measuring his words, he said with bitter tone, “You know, Sherry did more for Miss Cordelia than you ever did.”

His meaning was crystal clear. She had snatched the inheritance away from people more deserving. She felt heat rise to her own face, needle-prickles in her sinuses. “My grandmother had a choice.”

“You never even bothered to look her up.”

“You need to go now. Please.”

“Yeah, all right,” he muttered, but paused halfway though the door to throw back, sarcastically, “You'll want to get Kay Chapman over here right away. Sorry we delayed your getting your hands on even more money.”

Sick at heart, Carley made a mug of tea and sat in her coat in the chilly kitchen. Sleep would be impossible, and she did not feel up to visiting the library, the first item on today's list. The worst part of it was that there was no one in whom she could confide, even from the pay phone. Janelle Reed had her hands full in Alaska. Former co-worker Diane Paxton, close enough of a friend to ask Carley to be a bridesmaid in her wedding two years ago, had faded into the land of matrimonial bliss and had yet even to send a thank-you note for the Wedgwood place setting.

And she certainly could not go to Aunt Helen. As close as they had become, her loyalty would still naturally be to Sherry and Blake.

Sherry came over a half hour later, after Carley had changed into slacks and her grandmother's flannel shirt and was halfheartedly wrapping dishes in newspaper.

“I'm on my free hour, can't stay long,” Sherry said at the door. “Blake called. I'm so sorry he was upset. But thank you for not agreeing to finance the house.”

“Then, you're not angry?” Carley asked, afraid to breathe.

“I'm totally relieved. I didn't want to buy it anyway.”

“But you told Uncle Rory…”

“Because that's how it is when you're married to a man with big dreams. I shoot so many of them down that once in a while I just have to go along.”

“Oh dear.” Tears blurred Carley's eyes again. “I was so worried.”

Sherry took both her hands. “Well, put it out of your mind now. Blake'll get over his grumps. I'll talk with him. Really, Carley, it's not a big deal.”

“Thank you.”

“No, thank
you
.” Releasing her hands, Sherry looked over her shoulder. “Now, I have to leave in fifteen minutes. What do you have for a raging sweet tooth?”

“Do you like mint chocolate chip ice cream?”

“Does Popeye like spinach?”