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Authors: Janice Graham

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Women's Fiction, #Contemporary Women, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Contemporary Fiction

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BOOK: Sarah's Window
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CHAPTER 6

Not long after that, Sarah got herself a job waiting tables at the Cassoday Cafe, about seventeen miles down the highway from Bazaar, just across the turnpike. Unlike Bazaar, Cassoday enjoyed a bit of a cosmopolitan reputation, was indeed a crossroads of sorts in the Hills and drew an occasional cyclist from Seattle or San Francisco. Folks were quick to say it figured in somebody's guidebook of recommended bike paths through the Great American Wilderness, although who put them on the map remains a mystery.

Joy Bell was fond of saying Cassoday got into that guidebook because of her cafe, and it was true that the Cassoday Cafe had its charms. The faded signwall over the long, sagging porch read:

CASSODAY CAFE GOOD FOOD AND GOSSIP ESTABLISHED 1879
and it tried hard to live up to that reputation. Folks around here didn't much care that the once spiffy crimson letters had faded to rose and the paint was peeling off the clapboard walls, because talk was never in short supply, and the food, although unpredictable, was a cut above anything you could get for miles around.

Apart from Joy's little enterprise, the town wasn't too interested in drawing strangers to its dusty streets. There was a wind-washed two-room house across the street from the cafe that fronted as a makeshift dry-goods store, and a hand-lettered
open
sign hung crooked in the window even though most mornings the place was dark as a grave. Kay Potts's antiques store down the boardwalk from the cafe had been around for as long as most folks could remember, although it saw only slightly more profit than the dry-goods store. There were a couple of hitching posts out front but they were there only to keep the men from ramming their trucks into the porch and bringing down the roof. Occasionally Wayne Tonkington rode over on horseback, but he always tied his horse around back on the clothesline.

Sarah knew the faces of her clients and the clothes they wore and who had to take what pills with his meals and who was diabetic and who was on a salt-free diet. She knew this as well as she knew the nicked-up tables and how Joy liked the chairs arranged, and the exact placement of the aging photographs on the walls: Billy Moon wrestling a steer, and Ethan Brown in his yellow slicker driving cattle down a ribbon of dirt road on a misty morning, and the sign over the entrance (removed from the old bridge at Cottonwood Falls) that read: "5$ Fine for Driving on More than 50 head of Cattle or 100 Sheep at one Time," and the one in the toilet (courtesy of Ray the Antique) that read: "Don't Squat With Yer Spurs On." Of a more recent vintage, placed conveniently next to the cash register, was the gallon pickle jar with a finger-smudged index card taped to the front that read: "Sarah's College Fund." Underneath someone had scrawled "Or Whatever." The fact that Sarah emptied it every Christmas and went on a shopping spree with Joy and Clarice up in Kansas City (they spent most of the little money there was on beer in a smoky Irish pub on the Plaza) didn't stop folks from contributing from time to time. Eventually that pickle jar entered into their myths and traditions, and no one really gave a darn if Sarah and Joy and Clarice (mostly Clarice) drank her college fund away every year.

CHAPTER 7

The people of Chase County generally take their pleasures in things close to the land. They time their festivities according to the cycle of natural things, and their gatherings are mostly of the intimate and familial sort. So when Clarice Blackshere decided to give an open house in honor of her daughter, Susan, and son-in-law, and even went to the trouble of mailing out invitations to friends and family and old schoolmates of Susan's— some of whom resided as far away as Wichita and Topeka—the event began to take on a certain importance about town.

Of course, part of the draw was the old prairie mansion itself. Many of the guests who came that day had lived their entire lives in the county and never set foot in the historic Blackshere house. It was built of blocks quarried from Chase limestone, the same honey-colored stone that had been used to build bridges and churches and capitol buildings all across the country. Great stone columns rose in simple symmetry supporting wide, airy porches on the first and second floors. You knew by looking at it that the old house was proud of itself, of its oiled cherry moldings and leaded glass door and red-tiled roof. There was a porte-cochere where horse-driven buggies had once drawn up to be handled by barefoot boys, and young women in long rustling skirts had descended into the dust and mud, grabbing their bonnets back from the wind, trying to make believe they did not really live in this place that most people just passed on by.

 

Clarice put her heart into the little party that afternoon, took particular care with the buffet (catered by Joy) and had an extravagant centerpiece of creamy orchids laced with red roses delivered all the way from Emporia in the snow. The old prairie mansion looked especially festive that cold January afternoon with huge logs blazing in the native-stone fireplaces, fresh pine garlands cascading over the doorways, and orange- and clove-scented candles flickering in every room.

Folks started pouring in at three
p.m
. sharp. Ladies with rouged cheeks gawked as they shed their coats and patted down their hair, and men with calloused, work-hewn hands greeted their friends and neighbors with self-conscious laughter at the sight of one another in sports jackets and ties that had long ago fallen out of style. They felt as though they were glimpsing a trace of their county's history—peeking like voyeurs into the proud past of the Hills' first cattle baron, and there was a touch of stiffness and perhaps a little make-believe in their steps and their manner as they plucked Joy's buffalo wings from a platter and gazed up curiously at the 1860s portrait of Jacob Blackshere, Sr., with his foot-long beard and seer's eyes.

Susan herself, a large woman, tall and heavy-boned with a delicately pretty face, welcomed the arrivals, taking their coats. Clarice stood at Susan's elbow, a little nervous, her eyes moist with pride. The baby, poor thing, had caught a cold and was running a fever, she explained, and had to be kept upstairs with a baby-sitter. John, they added apologetically, had driven up to KU's research library that morning and was expected any minute now.

The afternoon slipped by, and they finished off every last one of Joy's buffalo wings and her crab salad and jalapeño dip, and at five o'clock, when John had still not appeared, the crowd started to thin. Folks dug their coats out of the pile in the back bedroom and shrugged them on with furtive glances to one another, and thanked Susan—her mouth strung in a tight smile—for the invitation. (By that time Clarice had broken down in tears and Joy was sitting with her in the kitchen with a box of Kleenex on her knees, trying to console her but mostly making sure she stayed out of the gin.) The departing guests hunkered down against the cold blasts of wind and hurried to their cars and pickups to turn on their heaters and speculate as to what the hell had happened to John Wilde that had kept him away from a party planned in his honor, a party folks had driven long distances to attend.

Those who remained, however, changed the tone of that open house as if the old grandfather clock in the hallway had just struck the witching hour. Mostly it was a small crowd of friends close to Clarice and Joy who hung on, and when Billy Moon set down his glass and looked around the old parlor and said what a perfect dance floor it could be, Joy took the hint and dashed out to her pickup for her Garth Brooks tapes. Susan wished in secret they would all just go home, but she stood back while they shoved the chairs into the corners and the buffet table to one side and rolled up the carpet to bare the old hardwood floor; then everybody fell into a line dance. Wayne Tonkington emptied the last of the rum into the eggnog, and by five-thirty nobody gave so much as a passing thought to John Wilde.

After a while, somebody slipped in some Jimmy Dorsey tunes, and Wayne and his lady-friend coupled off and others followed suit, and without even bothering to ask, Billy caught Joy by the hand and spun her into his arms. He held her bundled tightly to his chest, grinning behind his dark mustache as he whirled her around the room with his hand pressed firmly to the small of her back. Sarah was surprised to feel a slight prick of jealousy as they swept by in front of her and Joy flashed a rapturous smile her way.

The room was filled with music and chatter and laughter, and Sarah looked around for her grandfather. Ruth had taken the car home earlier, but Jack had wanted to stay to watch the dancing. She spied him seated on the edge of a folding chair in a corner clutching a paper cup of eggnog. One of his favorite songs was playing, and he was smiling wistfully, his foot tapping out the rhythm on the wood floor. He swayed a little—whether from the eggnog or the music, Sarah wasn't quite sure.

There was a lull, and then strings and a French horn swelled, promising a slow dance. Billy appeared behind Sarah and swept her into his arms.

"At last," he whispered with his lips touching her ear.

"You could have had me earlier."

"I like to keep the best until last."

 

Sarah could still remember the first day she laid eyes on Billy Moon. She had been a senior and he all of thirty, and it was his first year teaching history at Chase County High. Sarah sat at the back of the classroom and doodled in her notebook, and you would have sworn she never once lifted her eyes, but she knew every move he made and could have told you how many times he walked up and down each row, and how many times he came within one foot of her and then turned and walked back to the front. She could have described with astonishing accuracy the colors of his plaid shirt or where he notched his belt, the scar on his hand from a bad rope burn and the Band-Aid on his thumb. She knew from the tiny white creases at the outer edges of his eyes that he had spent his summer in the sun—undoubtedly roping steers—and she knew she was hopelessly in love with him. She also knew he was a happily married man with two young kids and that every other girl at Chase County High was equally besotted.

But after a long and painful battle with cancer, Maude had died tragically just before her fortieth birthday. To fill his empty hours, Billy had taken on the job of organizing volunteer tutors at Chase High—of which Sarah was one—they had been thrown back into each other's path, and what had once been a high school crush had, with time, grown into something undeniably adult.

 

Billy increased the pressure of his hand on her back, and they moved around the room without talking for a few minutes, content to be in each other's arms.

They did not hear John Wilde arrive. He had come through the porte-cochere at the side of the house and into the kitchen, and it wasn't until they heard voices raised in argument that they realized their guest of honor had returned. Billy grimaced, and Wayne let out a low whistle and said it was time to wrap it up. Clarice flew out of the kitchen with an embarrassed smile on her face and scuttled around the room in her stocking feet blowing out candles.

They were rolling back the rug when John Wilde rushed into the room. He carried a fat and tired-looking leather briefcase and a load of books under one arm, and he stopped in his tracks and looked at them all strangely with that blinding blue gaze of his. Everyone stopped talking then and the room grew dead silent, and Sarah was afraid even to breathe. She suddenly wished she was not there, wanted desperately to escape.

To her astonishment John's eyes found her, traveled quickly over the faces to hers, and she felt her pulse leap with the shock. Then he hurried on to his study but paused once more at the door to turn with a rather bewildered look and mumble something apologetic before closing the door behind him. Susan emerged from the kitchen and hurried after him.

Billy must have noticed the look on Sarah's face, because he slipped an arm around her waist and said loudly enough for everyone to hear that John Wilde didn't look a whole lot different than he had that night he rescued him from a blizzard. Still had that look of a doe caught in the headlights. Only difference was this time he had sense enough to wear a coat. Everyone laughed except Sarah.

John had only just switched on his desk lamp and dropped his books when Susan stormed in. She stood fuming silently in the doorway and then marched across the study toward him.

He was sifting through the clutter of papers on his desk, apparently looking for something. He glanced up, eyes bleary and bloodshot, and muttered, "I'm sorry. I really am."

She crossed her arms and gave an exasperated sigh. "You're hopeless," she said.

"So I've been told," he replied with a dry smile.

"Will you come out now? At least make some apologies?"

"Sure. Just give me a minute." He closed his eyes, and massaged them gently with long, lean fingers. "Will your mom ever forgive me?"

"Maybe. One of these years."

She approached him and smoothed back the lock of hair that had fallen into his face. "I need to sit you down and take the scissors to your hair again."

She leaned forward and gave him a quick peck on the mouth.

A sound from behind drew their attention, and John turned to see a young woman in the doorway holding a coat. She came forward into the light and John recognized her immediately; she had been standing next to Billy Moon, and it had crossed his mind that this was Billy's Sarah.

"I'm sorry," she said.
"I
was looking for my grandfather. I thought maybe—"

"There's no one here," Susan answered curtly, and Sarah apologized again and turned to go, but just then there came from the back of the study, where an old armchair was turned toward the fireplace, a kind of choked snort, followed by an incoherent mumble.

Sarah halted and turned.

"Grandpa?"

There was a slight commotion as the old man tried to stand and kicked over a bottle of whiskey beside the chair. He bent to retrieve it, staggered, and fell. There was a stream of muttered epithets as he tried to pick himself up off the floor.

John caught the expression on Sarah's face as she hurried toward the old man. There was no shame, only compassion and deeply felt sorrow.

She took the bottle from his hand. "Come on, let me help you," she whispered and crouched to get a grip on him. John dodged quickly around the end of his desk and hurried toward them. Jack had risen from his stupor, was staggering alongside Sarah with an arm slung over her shoulder. He narrowed his bloodshot eyes on John and told him he could manage by himself, thank you, and thanks for the Jack Daniel's.

"I'm sorry," Sarah said in a low voice with an embarrassed glance at John. "I just need to get him home."

John emerged from his study a few minutes later, but the remaining guests had scattered into the night. He stood on the doorstep and watched while Wayne chased Janie across the front lawn with a clumsily packed snowball raised over his head, and Billy Moon and Sarah helped Jack Bryden down the front walk.

Sarah drove home that night with her grandfather slumped against the window, snoring softly. She drove automatically, following the ribbon of road without seeing it, trying to summon up an image of John Wilde, but all she could recall was the penetrating set of those stone blue eyes.

BOOK: Sarah's Window
6.05Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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