Come Rain or Come Shine (7 page)

‘It's 'is kidneys.' Lucy blinked behind her bifocals. ‘An' 'is teeth. They're fallin' out.'

Maybe one day pigs could be fitted with their own little choppers, which a kind owner might put in a glass of vinegar and water at night.

She gave Homer a hug and busied herself with greeting the other patients.

Whoa. There went Harley blasting out the back door, smelling like an Italian gigolo. Harley had bought this startling fragrance a few years back when he'd been enthralled with his landlady, Helene Pringle. Sitting moribund in a spray bottle for half a decade had done the aromatics no favor.

‘And there he goes,' he said, looking out the kitchen window to the white Toyota with the ski rack.

At home in Mitford, they often sat in the study by their so-called picture window and watched the changing of the light. At Meadowgate, they were occasionally given to Reading the Sunset.

‘Look!' said his wife. ‘Coral growing out of a Pacific atoll.'

‘Ah.'

‘Don't you see it? Or maybe more like Chicago with fireworks over the canal.'

‘An Arctic tundra, for my money,' he said. ‘Except more colorful.'

They could also do this mindless entertainment with clouds. It didn't take much for them, not at
all.

T
wo hams on the mornin' of a five o'clock weddin'? Are you sure you want to do that? This will be a busy kitchen.'

‘So I'll bake the day before,' he said.

‘It'll still be a busy kitchen,' said Lily. ‘We'll have th' last of th' bread comin' out of the oven and three hundred cheese wafers plus Lord knows what else. Plus you'll be runnin' to Mitford to pick up th' cake, th' ice, an' th' guestbook that's shippin' to your house, remember?'

He felt a dash put out. ‘So I'll work a five a.m. shift on the big day.' Didn't she know he was famous for baking hams for weddings, not to mention funerals? He needed somebody to cut him some slack.

Cakes. Ice. Guestbook. White vestments. The Local
. He jotted down the aforesaid items in the planner he recently bought at the drugstore. Very handy.

With all that he'd been through as a working priest, he
had never had a planner. But then he had never been part of a family wedding—other than his own, of course, which he recalled as very, very simple except for the bride getting locked in her bathroom.

Lace had brought home last week's issue of the
Mitford Muse,
which he read with considerable savor.

He would check out the forty-percent-off sale at Village Shoes; he needed footgear for the wedding.

Six-year-old Grace Murphy of the curly hair was giving a tea party on Saturday to which all young guests and their moms, aunts, and/or grandmas were invited. The party would be held at Happy Endings Bookstore, reported Vanita Bentley, and afterward, ‘the world-famous author, our own Cynthia Coopersmith (Kavanagh!!) will read one (or maybe two??) of her famous Violet books. 10% off every purchase if wearing a hat, yayyy!'

Esther Cunningham, former mayor and Absolute Mover and Shaker, was pictured holding yet another of her great-grans, the total of which numbered in the vicinity of Abraham's stars.

‘Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge.' There you go. A close second to his all-time favorite
Muse
headline, ‘Man Arrested for Wreckless Driving.'

As for hometown news in the raw, J. C. Hogan was now taking personal ads.

Not getting any younger—how about you?
Attractive Two-step seeks a Tango

And here was a new feature by the enterprising Ms. Bentley.

LOL

YOUR WEEKLY LAUGH

Selected by

Vanita Bentley

—When you go to court, you're putting yourself in the hands of 12 people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty!!

Right there was the only laugh some people would get this week.

No warning ever again about not planting till May fifteenth. Hessie Mayhew had retired to a bench in the sunshine of St. Augustine. ‘Let people plant whenever they dern well please,' she said before pulling out last October in what appeared to be a Plymouth Fury hitched to a 5x10 U-Haul.

He folded Mitford's weekly gazette and left it on the kitchen table to be enjoyed by other inquiring minds.

He now understood why brides were often crazy, mothers hysterical, and fathers hiding in the tall grass. Each time one detail was settled, a dozen others reared their heads.

He called Dooley. ‘Do we need to talk about parking?'

‘Th' north strip. A couple of guys from th' co-op will handle parking. No problem.'

A good thing. He did not want to be directing traffic in the north strip with his vestments flapping in the breeze.

‘Jack Daniel's or Wild Turkey to bury a month before the big day? Harley's running to town.'

Dooley laughed. ‘Whoever digs it up won't be particular. An' hey, Dad, by th' way. We're going to set a place at the table for Miss Sadie.'

Lunch cleanup: LACE

According to the chalkboard, it was her turn, but Cynthia insisted otherwise. ‘You look pale,' said Cynthia. ‘Are you all right?'

‘I'm okay.'

‘Run up to Heaven and let me do this.'

As much as she needed to go to Heaven and work on his present, she needed something else far more—room to think about the phone call she just received.

She pulled on her jacket and walked across the yard to the bench Willie built, stopping along the way to deadhead the iris. That she had iris to deadhead was a marvel. She liked the crisp, clean snap as the spent blooms spilled their
wine on her fingers. Olivia had taught her a lot about gardening, though she hadn't realized it then.

No matter what, she couldn't pass by the chickens, who, fond of the pleasures of free range, were latched in their run till after the wedding. There would be no feasting on expensive grass seed or scratching about in the straw. They came running to the wire fence, curious to find whether her hand would vanish into a pocket and come out with cracked corn. Yes! Into the air rose a shower of yellow morsels, catching the light and falling . . .

She sat on the bench and gave herself to a chill May breeze from the mountains that had consoled her since childhood. Even at school in Virginia she had never been out of sight of the Blue Ridge. It was real estate privately owned in her soul.

Over by the tree line the girls browsed fescue and clover. She counted them whenever she looked their way, making sure no one was missing.

‘Take time to look at the view,' Beth advised when they talked yesterday. Her best friend and roommate from school would be coming from Boston with her mother, Mary Ellen, instead of with her husband, Freddie, who had walked out last Christmas, not even taking his clothes. Beth had been raised on a farm in upstate New York and knew a lot about natural beauty but hardly anything about men. As for Dooley's friends who were coming, there was only Tommy, who played mandolin and guitar and banjo and used to live up the street from the rectory. Dooley really wanted to keep the
wedding small and have his school friends visit when things were more settled. She knew them all, she would like that; some had kids now.

She fidgeted with her phone, took a photo of the cows in the green distance, and sent it to Dooley. She had come out here to try to arrange things in her head before she called him, but she couldn't think and she couldn't wait. She needed to hear his voice now.

He was tossing stuff into a giveaway pile; she heard a Dave Rawlings CD playing in the background.

‘It looks possible!' she said, startled by her tears. Funny how people are surprised when prayers are answered. ‘They called early this morning. A few days before the wedding, they think. But they're not sure.'

‘This is good.' He was hoarse with his own feelings or maybe exhaustion or actually both. ‘Don't worry.'

She felt the commingled rush of joy and fear. She could hardly believe it was happening at last, and yet the timing . . .

This was a hugely delicate situation. How would all the wedding commotion at Meadowgate affect Jack Tyler? It had been close to impossible over the last two years to keep such an enormous secret from their parents, while the Owens and Willie and Lily, even Beth, knew everything. In its own way this had been as intense as their commitment to vet school.

‘We have to stay calm.' She gulped a breath. ‘We cannot
get crazy.' She was already a little crazy, but was doing all she could to hide it.

‘Let's put craziness behind us,' he said. ‘And about the weather—it should be against house rule to stress about it. If it rains, we get wet. So what, we'll remember it.'

Truman leaped onto the bench and made himself at home in her lap.

‘Great. Okay. Yes.' She breathed out, let it go; she had to let it all go. ‘It's beautiful here. We're getting rain tonight.'

‘Love you,' he said.

‘Love you back.'

‘Miss you.'

‘Miss you more.'

She would say how much more, but it was impossible to put into words.

‘How are the girls?'

‘I just sent you a picture. If they only knew who's headed this way!'

They laughed together. She was getting her breath back. ‘Wait till you see what Clarence is doing for the guest gifts. Amazing. It's a really big order; two other carvers are working with him, they'll deliver the Friday before.'

She was dying to tell him about his wedding gift; he was her best friend and it was strange not to talk about it. She stroked Truman, gave him a neck rub.

‘We decided about the dancing,' she said. ‘If we get married on the porch, Harley and Willie will take the chairs
away while supper happens in the barn. So, dancing on the porch!' With ribbons and roses twined on the railings and lights sparkling in the trees and lanterns flickering around the yard like fireflies.

She wanted to feel like a firefly herself on the night of their wedding. If she could just find a dress.

He liked sitting with Cynthia in the glider, which did indeed glide. Smooth as silk for an old hand-me-down, and a perfect way to savor the evening downpour on the tin porch roof. He could hardly wait until tomorrow to see how the grass was coming along.

Nearly two years had passed since his wife had labored over the writing and illustrating of a Violet book—or any book. She seemed content these days to observe all manner of activity without being stirred to put it between covers. Chickens ruffling their feathers and dusting themselves, old dogs sleeping, quail mothers followed by their obedient broods—in times past, any sort of farm life would have had her up and running to the drawing board. Her contentment was a turn of events completely foreign to him and he loved it. Now he was the only child, as it were, enjoying the best of her daily affections. She had absolutely adored creating all those books, she said, yet nothing charmed or drove or inspired her to do it again.