Scones and Sensibility (10 page)

“Bye, Clint!” Clementine crooned, and then stood and cleaned up his mess, which consisted of more crumbs and debris than when our baby cousin Chloe pays us a visit.

“I’m surprised you are still involved with that unimaginative nincompoop. Really, Clementine, I am surprised you can endure it. He keeps you from being attached to anyone else, and I am sure you noticed how wretchedly he treated me just then.”

“Cut it out, Polly,” Clementine said, wiping off the table. “And really, ‘nincompoop’? I was hoping you’d be done with the
thee
s and
thou
s by now.”

I ignored her rash comment and sat at the table, placing a laced napkin on my lap. “I met a young gentleman who is employed at the toy store today. He’s your age, Clementine, and ever so handsome and kind. He adores chocolate chip muffins and, I believe, is planning on calling tomorrow morning. His name is Edward. Imagine, dear Clementine, a prince, and you would not be far from his true image.”

“Edward, huh? Well, why is he coming here?”

“Clementine, my darling sister. He is someone who is suited for you. He has manners and an enticing British accent, and he was so kind to aid me in my hour of need.”

“Well, why don’t you date him then?”

The tea kettle sang out, and I poured a small cup of tea in Mama’s roseleaf tea set. I added two lumps of sugar and blew over the top of the tea. “Ah, I would if he was but my age. Unfortunately, years between us will forever be a barrier for any love that we may have had. But really, Clemmy … Clementine, Clint is just like every other boy in the school. He’s a bore. Edward? Well, he’s perfect for you. And he’s coming over tomorrow morn for chocolate chip muffins.” I sighed.

She turned to me, a piece of Clint’s leftover bagel in her hand. She wagged it at me. “He can come for muffins, but don’t you go trying to fix me up with him. Ever since you read that stupid book about prejudice and pride, you’ve gone completely nuts.”

I sipped my tea. “Well, I mourn for you, my dear. And if I am completely nuts for having manners and good taste, then Clementine, I hope to be completely insane.” I dabbed at the corners of my mouth. “And I think you will think much differently on the morrow.
Edward is quite a dashing suitor and respectful of me, unlike Clint.”

At this she rolled her eyes quite unbecomingly.

She was beyond my help, it seemed. I sighed deeply and smelled …

Something burning?

I crinkled up my dainty nose. “Dear Clementine, you perchance have not been … cooking something?”

“Oh, crap!” She smacked her hands on the table and dashed for the oven.

She pulled out a blackened shriveled circle and plopped it onto the counter. “Stupid pizza,” she said.

I took my leave after wrapping a small red apple from the fruit basket in my lace handkerchief. “Remember about the gentleman who will be calling tomorrow. I do hope you’ll do better with the chocolate chip muffins in the morning.”

“Oh, shut it, Polly.”

I
t was very distressing to continually dial Fran’s telephone number and find the line still unavailable. The temptation to bicycle over to her house was almost too much for me to bear, but I resisted. Instead I took refuge in the beauty of words and took up
Pride and Prejudice
. Turning to the delicious scene where Elizabeth finally accepts Mr. Darcy’s proposal of marriage, I placed the back of my hand against my forehead and recited aloud the lines from that beloved novel:

Had Elizabeth been able to encounter his eye, she might have seen how well the expression of heartfelt delight, diffused over his face, became him; but, though she could not look, she could listen, and
he told her of feelings, which, in proving of what importance she was to him, made his affection every moment more valuable
.

I sighed. “Indeed, that is—”

The telephone rang, jolting me from my pleasant contemplation. “Hello, Madassa residence.”

“Polly, it’s me, Fran.”

“Finally!” I sighed in relief. “My dearest Fran. Do you know how I’ve longed to speak with you these past hours? I’m afraid it put me in such a flurry of emotion that I was forced to recite romantic lines to soothe myself.”

“Yeah, sorry. He was on the phone for a while. And well, I listened to most of the conversation, but then I sneezed—you know how my allergies act up in the summer—so Dad told me to get off.”

Upon concluding her sentence, she sneezed and I was convinced that this had indeed taken place. “Ah, though I love the buds of spring and the flowers of summer, for this moment I lament their effects on you. Now, what took place this night?”

“Her real name is Ruthie Carmichael and she lives just a few hours away.”

“Hmmm. The name suffices, though Ruth is much more distinguished than Ruthie. What else?”

“She laughs a lot, and she works for a dentist.”

I shook my head. “
Tsk tsk
. That is not a good sign. I simply cannot imagine your father dating a woman whose hands spend most of the day in other people’s mouths. Any other occupation but that one.”

“I don’t care about the dentist thing so much, it’s the fact that I think they are planning on seeing each other … and soon.”

The adverb hung in the air like a thick cloud of doom.
Soon?
“No way! Are you serious? Um … please tell me it isn’t so.”

“Yeah, I think … I think it might even be next weekend.”

“You’re kidding me! I mean, oh dear! I haven’t much time then to introduce your father to his one true love.” I placed another beautiful sheet of stationery in front of me in preparation for the work ahead. “But do not fear, dearest friend of my heart. I have already begun to brainstorm. Now it is simply choosing the woman of his dreams.”

“Well, maybe you don’t have to. She sounded really nice and funny and she even said—”

“Oh no, dearest friend. I know that I must continue. Surely you don’t want this woman Ruthie, if indeed that is even her real name, to lead your father astray as your mother was led?”

I was met with silence. Poor Fran, unable to utter a word in such dire circumstances.

“Fran? Are you still there?”

“Yeah. Anyway, Dad wanted me to talk to her on the phone too, sometime this week. I guess so I can get to know her or something.”

“I am very sorry for that, Fran. But perhaps I will find a suitable lady of quality for your father before that unfortunate phone call, he will fall in love instantly, and you will be spared the task of conversing with her.”

“All right. I better go,” Fran said, in a manner that sounded filled with despair and sorrow.

I sought to pluck up her spirits despite this small setback. “I will telephone you tomorrow with the name of that special young woman.” I set the receiver down and turned to my calligraphy set.

I pulled out my worn and tattered copy of
Anne of Green Gables
, careful to hold it with the binding down so that pages twenty through eighty would not
fall out. Reclining myself upon my satin comforter, I flipped to the middle of the book when Anne first comes to the little schoolhouse and Gilbert lays eyes on her delicate beauty.

The scene graced through my mind like an elegant dance.

He noticed her.

That would need to be my first tactic. They must notice each other. And to accomplish this, the two needed to be in the same place at the same time.

Clementine and Edward would meet in the morn, so I had already accomplished this for my dearest sister and she was sure to be embarking on the wild adventure of love come the next afternoon.

Miss Wiskerton was already filled with love’s promise. Tomorrow I would deliver a chocolate Danish for dear Miss Wiskerton and reveal the name of Mr. Nightquist to her.

As for dear Mr. Fisk, I had encountered no woman that met up to his stature. Yet tomorrow, above all else, I would make that my primary task. Time was of the essence.

I heard the kitchen door open below me and quickly stole to my open window. Mama and Papa had
returned earlier from their date and had fallen asleep in each other’s arms while watching a Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn movie. Because of this, I knew that it was Clementine and Clint returning from their walk to the pier.

“Good night, Clemmy,” Clint said.

I rolled my eyes at his farewell. Did he really have no romantic imagination at all?

“Night, Clint. I love you.” He kissed her on her moonlit cheek with the passion and love he’d likely give to his grandmamma (though for Clint to have any such gallantry to the elderly was beyond my realm of imagination).

Clint smiled and said, “I know,” and the door closed.

Ugh.

Clementine’s footsteps on the stairs brought me away from the window, lest she find me eavesdropping and become even more disagreeable.

There was a soft knock upon my door. “Come in, dear Clementine,” I said. And hope sprung anew inside my chest at the thought of her confiding in me—confiding in me that indeed she was not content with Clint and needed my aid … needed my sisterly friendship once more.

The door opened and in she walked, the picture of elegance except for the way her mouth seemed almost to snarl and her bright yellow shirt, which bore the words
HOT CHICK
on the front. “How did you know it was me?” she asked, placing her hands upon her hips. “Were you eavesdropping again?”

“No indeed, perish the thought.”

“Trying on my necklace?”

“Of course not.” Though my mind flitted to the beautiful necklace our parents had given Clementine on her sixteenth birthday. I had named it the Amulet of Love because of its great beauty, and though I had wished to try it on, the necklace was not in any of its usual hiding spots.

“Were you looking through my journal then?”

“By all means, no,” I said. I hadn’t realized she’d taken up writing her daily trials in a diary. I wondered if she kept the Book of her Soul under her mattress cushion as before.

“Polly?”

“Yes, my dear sister?”

“Are you sure you weren’t snooping around?”

“Of course not, though I cannot understand why you ask.”

“Because I thought I heard someone at the window,
and because you knew it was me at your door,
and
because of the guilty look on your face.”

I glanced down and pulled out a fresh sheet of stationery. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. This face is the same face as always.”

Clementine laughed just a little, reminding me briefly of how she used to act toward me. “Come on, Polly. Your expression is exactly the same as it was when I found out you’d been reading my journal. The same one that you had on when I caught you taking out all the lightbulbs and hiding them so we’d be forced to use candles.”

I allowed a slight smile to grace my face at the memory. “And still I am convinced that any atmosphere is made much more romantic by the flickering light of a candle.”

“Well, as long as you’re not spying on me, Polly, like you did when I was dating Brent.”

Ah, yes. Brent. Clementine and he had many long conversations with one another on the porch just below my window. Indeed, I could have written a book with the information I received from their communications. Brent and I had gotten along quite well, and he often brought back a single pretty chocolate
just for me when he and Clementine went out upon the boardwalk.

But unfortunately, Brent had a laugh that could not be endured for any amount of time, and he was much too proud about his family’s great riches. I knew the connection could not last.

Clementine moved toward the door. “Good night, Polly.”

“Um … uh … how was your evening walk with Clint?” I asked in an effort to keep my dearest sister in my room just a little longer. In fact it was not so long ago that we shared the same bedroom. Lying awake in the long evenings she and I would giggle and converse or engage in songs until we fell under the moon’s hypnotizing gaze. I yearned for those moments to be memories no longer … but rather the present.

Clementine stopped at the door and sighed. “It was great.”

“Did he offer you flowers?”

“No.”

“Offer you a beautiful seashell from the wild surf as a token of his love?”

“No.” Her hands went to her hips. “Polly, I know where this is going, so just stop.”

“But my dearest, did he give you nothing? Did he say anything that caused your heart to patter within your chest?”

“Of course, Polly.”

“What?” I asked, interested in any side of Clint that was not extremely dull.

“Well … I don’t know. He said … he said that the moon lit up my hair like a lightbulb.” And at that, with no further words on the subject, Clementine departed from my room, slamming my door behind her.

I sat back down upon my bed and took up my pen. Ugh.

A lightbulb?

Her statement only made me more determined to rid my sister of this common boy and introduce her to a gentleman who would sweep her off her feet.

Lightbulb, indeed.

Edward would arrive tomorrow, and if the seed of love did not blossom between them tomorrow morning, I would need to take more drastic measures to save my dearest sister.