Hattie Ever After (3 page)

“Oh, this came for you yesterday. I forgot about it, what with all the hubbub.” She tossed an envelope at me as she left the room. I caught it and saw that it was from Leafie. This was only the second letter she’d sent, so I tore it open right then and there.

I peered inside the envelope postmarked “Vida” and slid out another, smaller envelope, this one from San Francisco. Imagine the coincidence! I opened it, and as I pulled out the letter it held, something small fell into my apron pocket. I left it and took up the letter.

That was all it said. I looked for more clues on the envelope. Aside from the postmarked date—April 11—there was only the return address and, above that, “R. Danvers.” I reached into my apron pocket and fished out the dropped object.

I had seen such a thing before, when I’d lived in Kentucky with that one set of cousins. The eldest—what was her name?—had come home all aglow one night, bearing a similar token. The one now in my hand had started life as a Mercury dime. Mercury’s image had been filed away from the face of the coin and replaced with two sets of initials, carved with careful elegance:
C.W
. and
R.D
. With my thumb, I traced the froth of lacy engraving skimming the edges of those four precious letters.

Chester Wright. Ruby Danvers.

When that Kentucky cousin had been gifted her engraved token, she proclaimed it signified true love. In this case, I couldn’t say what the token meant. I knew very little about Uncle Chester, despite his bequeathing me his homestead claim, though in his one and only letter to me, he’d called himself a scoundrel. Other than that, he was a cipher.

Now another question mark: Ruby Danvers. Was she Uncle Chester’s lost love? The one whose traces I’d found in the trunk he’d left behind? My crystal ball was as clear as if it’d been filled with Montana gumbo mud.

C.W
. and
R.D
. I pressed the token into my palm. Here was yet one more mystery about my scoundrel uncle.

A mystery that, thanks to Mr. Cecil Hall, I now had a chance of solving.

The coin grew warm in my hand. My last check to Mr. Nefzger had been mailed off. If I went to San Francisco, I could always go on to Seattle—or back to Arlington—afterward.

I untied my apron and hung it up slowly.

Eyes squeezed tight, I said a prayer. “Lord, you have moved in many mysterious ways in my short life. If I am supposed to go, I’d sure appreciate a sign.” Slowly, I opened my eyes, taking in every inch of the kitchen for the answer to my prayer.

Nothing inside the room had changed. I glanced out the window. No miraculous rainbow or bolt of lightning. I was on my own here.

I placed my right palm on the swinging kitchen door, standing half in, half out. At that moment, a memory overtook me. I’d been held after school, as Miss Simpson was determined to improve my penmanship by requiring me to copy a sentence on the chalkboard. Fifty times I’d written, “Of all the words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: it might have been.”

There was my lightning bolt. Else why had that particular memory come unbidden? I smoothed my hair and marched into the parlor to give Miss Clare my answer.

I caught Mrs. Brown in the vestibule on her way out and told her of my decision, too. Upon receiving the news, she looked positively distressed. I think it had less to do with me and more to do with the spot she was in. I assured her I’d fix the midday dinner but told her I would need the evening to prepare.

“That’s decent of you, Hattie,” my almost-former employer told me. “Let’s hope Mrs. Whitcomb’s at the meeting today. Her cousin might make a suitable replacement.”

I put the letter and the coin in my skirt pocket and then transformed myself into a veritable conjurer of cookery, measuring flour here, separating eggs there, and stirring, stirring, stirring all the while. With various pots bubbling away, I patted dry the chicken pieces, then dipped them in buttermilk. When I slid the first drumstick into the pan, hot oil splashed out, stinging my cheek and staining my second-best shirtwaist. One more thing to do before packing! I snatched a rag to wipe off the oil, dragging it through the buttermilk, which ran down my arm and onto my skirt. I grabbed another rag to clean my skirt and knocked over the mixing bowl filled with flour measured out for the biscuits. In a few short minutes, the kitchen was a shambles and I looked like a chicken leg, dipped in buttermilk and flour and fit to fry.

At that very moment someone rapped at the back door. “Oh, go away, will you!” I snapped. But the knocking continued. Frazzled senseless, I threw open the door, ready to give whoever stood there a large piece of my mind.

“Do you really want me to go away?” Charlie asked. “I just got here.”

Burnt Biscuits and Beaus

“Charlie!” I screamed, and threw my arms around his neck, scratching my cheek on his starched collar as I hugged him close, breathing in his good Charlie smell of peppermint and pine soap. Then I pushed back to take him all in, head to toe. It’d been two long years since I’d seen him off at the train station, years that had brought some changes our correspondence hadn’t revealed. Those changes added up to more than a few inches in height. He’d gone off a boy of seventeen and returned a man. There was a new scar across his left eyebrow and an unfamiliar expression—sorrow? worry? I wasn’t sure—across that familiar face. But other than that, he was
Charlie, through and through. And home safe from that terrible war.

I pressed my hand to my chest, trying to ease the sudden pain there at the thought of all the boys who didn’t make it back. Seeing him here, his good self right in front of me, completely unexpected, knowing I’d just made a decision that might break his heart, I did the only prudent thing a person could do. I burst into tears.

Charlie dropped his bag and scooped me close. “What’s all this?”

I indulged in a several-minute deluge, making a complete muddle of the both of us. Finally, I gathered myself together and pushed away. “I’ve made you a horrible mess.” Cried out, I dried my face with my apron.

“You can make a mess of me any time.” He smiled again. In an instant, I was taken back to the day we’d met, when he’d walked me home from Arlington High School after I’d come to stay at Uncle Holt and Aunt Ivy’s. I’d been so shy, I couldn’t even get my own name out. But that didn’t bother him. He’d talked enough for the both of us. It was him, too, who’d given me Mr. Whiskers, that sassy old tomcat. I don’t know how Charlie knew that that bundle of fur and purr was just what a lonely orphan girl needed, but he did.

He took in the boiling pots, the biscuit fixings, and the sizzling skillet on the stove. “It looks like my timing is bad.”

Oh, if he only knew. I opened my mouth to tell him of my plans, but the words got stuck somewhere between my head and my heart.

“Shall I come back later?”

Later? There was very little later left. “Charlie … well, I … There’s something—” I had hoped to deliver my news via letter, not in person. “I had no idea you were coming.”

He grinned. “That’s not the only big surprise. Can you sneak away for a walk?”

I gestured at the pots and pans. “Not till after dinner.”

“Looks like you could use a hand.”

“Or two!” I picked up a towel and began cleaning up the mess.

Charlie snapped off a salute. “Private Hawley reporting for duty!”

I shook my head. “You? Cook?”

“You’d be surprised at all the army taught me. About airplane engines
and
how to make my way around a kitchen.”

“
That
I would like to see!” I finished sweeping up the last of the spilled flour.

“All right, then.” He grabbed a spare apron, tying it around his middle. He looked so ridiculous, I couldn’t help laughing.

“Laugh all you want,” he said with a very serious face. “But you’ll have crow to eat for your supper after you taste my biscuits.”

He wore the Charlie look I knew so well. The set of the chin and fixed gaze that said, “I can do this; try and tell me I can’t.” It was the same look he’d worn when Del Bradford had said no one could climb to the tiptop of the old cottonwood tree by the schoolhouse. Or when the other boys on the baseball team said it was impossible to teach a girl—me!—to pitch. Or when he’d been told he was too young
to enlist in the fight against the Kaiser. Tree climbed, girl taught, enlisted and served. Check, check, check. Sometimes it seemed to me that Charlie saw life’s challenges as a mere list of items to tick off, one after another. If he had set his mind to cooking, it would be a safe bet to say he could cook circles around me. Leastways, I wasn’t in the position to turn down an offer of help right then. “Here’s the plan. I’ll handle the salad and chicken and you can tackle the biscuits and cake.”

As I fried and sliced and simmered, I knew I should tell Charlie about San Francisco. Should have told him the very second he arrived. But opportunity doesn’t nibble twice at the same hook. My news was like a heavy stone in a muddy pond, sinking deeper and deeper into my gut.

Cross my heart. I would tell him right after the meal. No matter what.

When the troupe and Mrs. Brown—and Charlie—sat down to dinner at noon, compliments flowed faster than water over the Great Falls. “This chicken is so crisp,” said Mr. Lancaster. “The biscuits are like biting into clouds,” said the ventriloquist. “I shouldn’t,” said Miss Clare, patting her tiny waist. “But that cake is so delicious, I will have seconds.” Had I baked the cake, rather than Charlie, she would not have made such a request. Her comment earned me a Charlie wink, accompanied by a wicked smile, but he never revealed his role as kitchen elf.

Even though he was my friend, I was not allowed to sit and eat. Mrs. Brown was particular about holding the line between staff and guests. Being that I
was
still help, I made
sure I did indeed
help
, hovering around the groaning dining room table throughout the entire meal.

Charlie had finished recounting the most entertaining story about a battlefield baseball game using gas masks as mitts. While everyone enjoyed the laugh, I hurried back into the kitchen to refill the coffee carafe. Task accomplished, I pushed open the door and returned to the dining room as Mr. Lancaster reached over and slapped Charlie on the back. “I’m sure you got your share of Huns over there. Showed them a thing or two,” he said, making a motion in the air as if jabbing with a bayonet.

Charlie’s face gave nothing away, but I noticed his knuckles whitening on the handle of his coffee cup.

“Would you like a refill?” I stood to Mr. Lancaster’s left, coffeepot poised to pour.

“Have you served in uniform, sir?” Charlie’s voice was level. Too level.

I tried to catch his eye. He only wrinkled his brow in acknowledgment of my glance.

“No. No.” Mr. Lancaster cleared his throat. “A minor health defect,” he said, waving his hand vaguely.

“It is nothing to joke about.” Charlie folded his napkin oh-so-carefully and with equal care set it on the table. I moved around, refilling cups quickly, until I was at his side. On his side. He continued. “Not one day goes by that I don’t think about those who did not come home to meals like this. No matter which side they fought on.” He pushed his chair back so abruptly that I had to hop to get out of the way. “Thank you for your hospitality, Mrs. Brown. I should be going.” He
nodded a farewell to the others. “Hattie, may I carry anything into the kitchen for you?”