Talk of the Town (18 page)

Thursday afternoon, Florence and Ronald walked into Maxwell’s room. Florence was carrying an enormous flower arrangement studded with huge stargazer lilies and white daisies. Several balloons proclaiming, “Get well,” bobbed merrily above it.

Maxwell looked positively stunned. His color had subsided to a sickly bone-white but a flush stole into his cheeks. “I don’t deserve these,” he said.

“Why on earth not?” Florence asked.

“You’ve become a part of our little community,” Ronald told him. “Here.” He pulled a bundle of envelopes bound in a rubber band from the inside pocket of his jacket and set it on the bedside tray. “From your friends at the Coffee Shop.”

Maxwell just stared at the pile, shaking his head. “This is… you people don’t know me at all.”

“We think we do,” Alice said gently. “You can’t spend weeks in Acorn Hill without acquiring friends, Maxwell. You might as well accept it.”

They all laughed, and the young man relaxed. But Alice noted that his thin fingers picked ceaselessly at the edge of the sheet all through the evening as more visitors came and went. Fred and Vera stopped by, bringing a pretty planter with African violets. Hope Collins came from her shift at the Coffee Shop, still wearing her uniform and bearing two blackberry pies from June.

“One for the nursing staff, to bribe them to take good care of you,” she told him, laughing. “And one for you. Alice had better take it home this evening so it doesn’t disappear.”

Maxwell gave her a small smile. “You’re assuming we can trust Alice with blackberry pie.”

The women laughed, and Alice said, “Very good point.”

Just as Hope was leaving, Jane and Clothilda came in. Louise had gone home before dinner to mind the inn so that Jane could drive over for a short visit. Clothilda insisted that she wanted to visit Maxwell too, and they stayed until seven thirty, quietly chatting with Alice and occasionally including Maxwell when he was awake. His coughing continued to shake his slim frame.

Visiting hours ended at eight
PM
. Alice patted the young man’s hand, realizing how fond she had become of him. “I hope you are able to sleep tonight.”

He nodded. “Are you coming tomorrow?” Almost immediately, he shook his head. “I understand that you’re probably too busy to—”

“Stop,” Alice said. “Stop telling yourself that you are not important. I’ll be here tomorrow.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “See you then.”

“Alice,” Jane called when her sister came through the front door that evening. “We’re in the kitchen.”

Alice hung up her jacket, then trudged back to the kitchen. “Hello,” she said, finding both her sisters at the table. “What a day,” she said, dropping into a chair.

“It was quite eventful,” Louise admitted. “That poor boy. There are few things worse than being sick when you are far away from your home and family.”

Alice shook her head. “I’m not so sure Maxwell would see it that way. From what he has told us, his home wasn’t a very happy place.”

Jane nodded. “He’s seemed very happy right here at the inn.”

“Yes,” Louise admitted. “He really seems to have settled in here.”

“How is he doing?” Jane asked.

“About as I expected,” Alice told her. “He’s still coughing, but I’m hoping he’ll be able to sleep tonight. And tomorrow he should begin to feel a little better. It’s going to take some time, though.” She yawned and covered her mouth with one hand. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” She pushed back her chair and rose. “I must go to bed. I’m exhausted.”

“Wait a minute.” Jane held up her hand in a “stop” gesture. “I called you in here for a reason.”

“I almost forgot.” Louise rose, too, but she merely walked to the counter and returned to the table with a package.

“What’s that?” Alice asked.

“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Jane said. “It was delivered today but in all the excitement I set it aside and completely forgot about it until just a little while ago.”

“We wanted to wait for you,” Louise told Alice.

Alice leaned over and looked at the package mailing label. “This is addressed to Wendell!” she said, beginning to laugh.

“Let’s take it to the parlor,” Jane said, picking up the box. “Wendell’s sleeping under the piano, and I really think it would be rude to open his mail without him being there.”

Louise and Alice both chuckled as they followed Jane out of the kitchen.

Alice moved ahead and snapped on the light as she entered the room. Wendell lay on his tummy, his two front paws tucked in toward his chest. He swung his head around when the three women entered.

Jane set the box next to him, then knelt and began to stroke Wendell’s back. “You have mail,” she informed him.

He had the good grace to look interested in the package.

“Let’s open it.” Louise sounded surprisingly excited. “I’m dying to see what’s in it. There’s no return address,” she pointed out to Alice.

Jane ripped away the packing tape and folded back the flaps of the box. A note card lay on a layer of bubble wrap. She picked it up, opened it and began to read:

Dear Wendell,

    I offer my deepest apologies for taking you on an unwanted journey recently. Please accept these tokens of my esteem to celebrate your safe return. Tell your caregivers thank you for letting me know you arrived home safely.

    I hope to see you again some day.

Yours truly,

Lyle Jervis

    P.S. Next time I visit, I promise to keep my car windows rolled up.

“Isn’t that sweet?” Alice found herself touched by the whimsical little letter.

“Let’s see what’s in here.” Jane pulled out the top layer of bubble wrap. “Oh, this is pretty and so soft.” She handed a royal blue pet bed to Louise. “And look at these presents!”

Jane took the three cans of gourmet cat food. “Fish, chicken and lamb. Wendell will be thrilled.

“And look at this.” Jane held up a long, slim plastic stick. Attached to one tip was a length of elastic string with a feather dancing at its end.

Wendell sat up, his eyes narrowing intently. As Jane gently swished the feather in the air, he began to stalk it, pouncing just as Jane tugged it backward. One claw caught and for a second the elastic stretched. Then Jane pulled it free, and the feather bounced high in the air as Wendell made a wild leap for it, landing on the floor beside the bed.

“What a marvelous toy!” Louise exclaimed. “Our couch potato might actually get some exercise with that.”

Alice laughed as she pulled one last item from the box. “Look, Wendell,” she said. “A catnip mouse. Oh, you’re going to enjoy this.”

She was right. Wendell sniffed cautiously at the mouse she had tossed across the floor toward him. He caught it between his paws and proceeded to rub his face against it, then flopped down right on top of it and rubbed his whole body over it again and again. On his feline face was the funniest look of ecstasy Alice had ever seen.

She began to laugh. “He’s acting like some of my patients do when they get pain pills. The pills make some people overly happy.”

“I hope they don’t roll around on the floor,” Louise said, watching the cat’s antics.

“You’d be surprised at some of the things they do,” Alice said, laughing. “I’ve seen it all.”

“So have I, now,” Jane said. “Our cat receives a package.
Sheesh
.”

“What a nice man,” Louise said.

“Yes.” Jane was still watching the cat. “Tomorrow I’ll help Wendell write him a thank-you note.”

Maxwell had more visitors on Friday. Ethel bustled in, shaking raindrops from her umbrella before she approached the bed. She looked a bit miffed at the size of the flower arrangement that Florence had brought, but when Maxwell evinced great pleasure in the gift certificate to the Coffee Shop tucked into her gift of miniature roses in a teacup, she seemed mollified.

Around three, a candy striper came in carrying two more flower arrangements and a bouquet of balloons, all from members of Grace Chapel who had gotten to know Maxwell from his brief time at church and from the Coffee Shop. The room was beginning to look like a flower shop, and Alice smiled every time she looked around. Surely knowing so many people had thought of him would aid in his recovery.

When his dinner tray arrived, Alice helped him open containers and utensils, then sat back and watched in satisfaction as he ate. It was the first time he’d really seemed interested in food since Tuesday evening. And he appeared to be coughing less as the day wore on.

He asked her questions about the inn as he ate, wanting to know if there were new guests coming, how Louise’s piano lessons had gone, what Jane was making for breakfast.

“How is Wendell?” he asked at one point. “He came home and I left a day and a half later. I hardly have gotten to see this marvelous feline.”

Alice laughed. “He’s doing very well, I believe. His injuries seem to be healing cleanly.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” she added, “you mentioned Bigfoot yesterday and we were interrupted. The furor appears to be dying down a good bit this week. There haven’t been any further developments, and only Florence still seems to believe it was something other than a teenager’s prank.”

Maxwell was silent for a moment. “You never really believed it, did you?”

Alice chuckled. “Well, I admit to having a few nervous moments when we found that huge footprint at the pond. I was sure something was going to leap out of the bushes at us. But I suppose I am too much of a skeptic. There is so little tangible evidence of Bigfoot, I simply can’t imagine that there really is a huge creature running around out there.”

Maxwell nodded. “A very sensible view. One with which I agree.”

A nurse appeared in the doorway then, beaming at Maxwell. “Here he is,” she said to someone out of sight in the hallway.

The nurse stepped back and a man came in. He wore an expensive-looking black suit, a starched white shirt and a red silk tie, and he carried an overcoat across one arm. He had steel-gray eyes and a long, thin face and… he looked like Maxwell, Alice realized.

The young man had fallen silent. He was staring at the new visitor as if he was seeing a ghost. “Father?”

“Hello, son.” He stepped closer to the bed and held out a slim, flat package. “I brought you a book. It’s a first edition of the first published paper of Sigmund Freud, in the original dust jacket.”

“Really?” Maxwell sounded surprised. “Thank you. I’m interested in psychology. It’s my area of study.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

His father nodded. “How are you feeling?”

“Better. I’m on antibiotics.”

The two stared at each other for a suspended moment. Alice cleared her throat and rose. “I believe I’ll go down to the cafeteria for some tea,” she said to Maxwell.

“Oh, wait,” the young man entreated. “Alice, this is my father, Maxwell Alexander Vandermitton, Junior. Father, this is Alice Howard. Alice and her sisters run the inn at which I have been staying.”

“Miss Howard,” murmured the older man. He took the hand she offered and shook it gravely. “We have spoken,” he told his son. “She’s… quite a remarkable lady.”

Maxwell beamed as if his father had praised his judgment. “Isn’t she?” Then his face changed. “You’ve spoken?”

“Yes,” Alice said. “I called him. I thought he should know you’d been hospitalized.”

“There was no need.” Very formally, he said to his father, “I’m sorry if you worried needlessly. I’ll be fine in a day or two.”

“Rubbish!” said his father. “I already spoke to the doctor. You were very sick and if you don’t take care, you could relapse. Maxwell, I’d like you to come home with me when you’re released.”

“Home?” The younger man said the word as if he’d never heard it before. “What do you mean, home?”

“To my home. Our home. I have canceled my travel engagements for the next six months. I would like you to consider coming to stay for at least that long. Longer, if you like. It’s your home too.”

Maxwell appeared dumbstruck. Cautiously, he said, “I wouldn’t want to be in your way. You shouldn’t have canceled your plans because of me.”

With equal care, his father replied, “There is nothing more important to me than you. The travel can wait. Please, son, just think about it. You and I need time to talk, to get to know each other.” The man took a deep breath. “I’ve made mistakes, pushed you away when I should have pulled you closer. I can’t change the past, but I’d like a chance to create a happier future.”