Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good (21 page)

M
ake me a blessing . . .

He jiggled the key in the lock. Nothing.

More jiggling. More nothing.

‘I hear you don’t cuss,’ said Abe, obviously enjoying himself.

‘Not if I can help it.’

‘When I messed with that lock last summer, I personally could not help it. The air turned blue all the way to the bypass.’

Jiggle to the left, jiggle to the right, as per instructions.

‘Easy does it. You’re trying too hard. You have to be gentle with it.’

He felt blood thrumming between his ears.

‘Hey,’ said Coot, coming up at a trot.

‘Hey, yourself,’ he said. ‘Pull up a chair.’

Coot thumped onto the Happy Endings bench, glad to find a little action on the street.

‘Good morning, Father!’ J.C.’s wife, Adele, was in full MPD gear and looking taller, somehow. ‘I see you’re keepin’ your hand in where criminal activity’s concerned.’

Abe and Coot had a laugh.

‘Ha, ha,’ he said, dry as a husk. Barnabas stuffed himself beneath the bench.

‘Want some help?’ asked Adele. ‘I’ve worked with that lock a couple of times.’

‘It takes a village,’ he said, jiggling.

‘Is that the right key?’

Of course it’s the right key. Why couldn’t a man have a little bloody privacy trying to enter his bloody workplace? Thank heaven for the Irish, who saved the day when it came to cussing.

‘How does Hope put up with this?’ he said to no one in particular.

‘It works fine for her. Most of the time, anyway.’ Abe crossed his arms, lounged against the display window. ‘Lieutenant Hogan here could use her piece on it. One shot and you’re open for business.’

Adele tapped the silver badge on her jacket. ‘Make that Captain Hogan, if you don’t mind.’

He wiped his sweaty palms on his khakis, shook her hand. ‘Congratulations, Captain. Well deserved.’

‘I’ve got to open up here pretty soon,’ said Abe. ‘So can th’ captain shoot th’ lock or not?’

More laughter. More additions to the crowd of onlookers. Coot passed around an open bag of Cheetos.

‘Why, hey, Father! Marie Sanders, remember me? I gave that armoire to th’ Bane and Blessin’ a few years back.’

‘Oh, yes, I remember your armoire.’ He had helped move it off the Sanderses’ truck. It weighed a ton. He had intensely disliked armoires, including his own, ever since.

‘It made a dandy entertainment center for the Bolicks,’ she said.

‘Yes, ma’am, I remember.’

‘We didn’t have a place for it anymore.’

It seemed the key wanted to veer right, into an inner sanctum unknown, perhaps, even to the lock-maker of yore.

‘Sometimes I miss it, it was very roomy. We kept th’ cat litter in
there an’ th’ dog food, then th’ mice started comin’ in through a hole in the back.’

One more time and he was done, the whole town could have a go. He removed the key, waited a moment, and inserted it again, as if rebooting a computer.

‘It wasn’t a real big hole or anything,’ said Marie Sanders. ‘We patched it before we put it in th’ sale.’

‘Hold it right there! Just keep doin’ what you’re doin’, Father, okay? Great! Super! Yay-y-y! What’s goin’ on?’

Vanita Bentley had arrived with her iPhone.

Click
. The key found the sweet spot. A little short on breath, he escaped with his dog into the silent realm of ink and paper, and closed the door behind him.

Books! Man’s best friend.

Next to the dog, of course.

•   •   •

S
ANDWICH
. A
PPLE
. R
AISINS
. A
LMONDS
. Bottled water. Toilet tissue. Kibble. Winnie’s peanut-butter dog biscuits. Journal. Fountain pen. Pushpins. Flyer for the front door.

He stashed the empty backpack under the sales counter and moved on to the fun part.

Lights. Beethoven. Coffee.

Since retiring, he hadn’t been able to find the groove worn by all those years of priesting. Getting up at five had remained routine, as had Morning Prayer, but from there, routine staggered off the cliff around seven-thirty a.m. and perished on the rocks below. He had missed being in a groove, a fact he discovered by realizing he’d found one at Happy Endings.

Two days of routine and five of the wildly random. Most people would give anything for a plan like that.

He read Marcie’s note.

Fr Tim, Here’s our O for Oct. sale!!!! feels like we just had it yesterday—I could not do window on Wed. with O banner which we keep under stairway. Pls put banner on display window floor with stack of books on chair with O titles. U r an angel. Call if u need me. Use stuffed cat that looks like M Ann, also under stair.

PS Big box books arriving today U unpack I shelve OK?

He pinned his quote to the corkboard.

Tolle, lege: take up and read. —Augustine of Hippo

He carried the flyer to the front door and taped it to the glass. If Esther Cunningham came after him for this, he would go to the mat for the right to use the front door as a declamatory venue. He would bend but he would not break.

Open Wednesday,

Thursday & Friday

10 until 4:45

Come in &

Add A Literary Quote

To Our Billboard

He made the sign of the cross and turned the
CLOSED
sign around.

OPEN
.

Yes.

•   •   •

‘M
Y
DELIVERY
TRUCK
’
S
RUNNIN
’
LATE
,’ said J.C. ‘Here you go, hand-delivered.’ J.C. spread today’s edition of the
Muse
on the sales
counter, tapped a story on the front page. ‘You can read that out loud in your preaching voice.’

He skipped the headline beneath a two-column-wide color photo, and read:

Adele Hogan has been named Captain of the Mitford Police Department, filling the former position of our new Chief, Joe Joe Guthrie.

‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t you feature our new chief on the front page? I mean . . .’

‘He’s inside front page,’ said J.C. ‘Not official ’til November. Read on.’

“I will be honored,” Hogan said when the news was announced internally, “to serve the citizens of Mitford as ably and justly as I possibly can.”

‘Nice, huh?’ said J.C.

“She’s the one for the job,” said former Chief Rodney Underwood, who moves to Wesley as Chief of the WPD. “I was impressed when she interviewed several years ago. Some people when they interview, you can tell they just want to carry a gun and drive fast.”

‘Adele is truly different,’ said J.C. ‘She wants to carry a gun, drive fast,
and
be of real service to the community.’

‘Noble,’ he said.

•   •   •

‘D
ARLING
! A
NY
BUSINESS
UP
THERE
?’

‘A couple of tourists from Alabama, one from Statesville. Pretty steady.’

‘Have you read the
Muse
?’

‘About Adele, yes, but haven’t read about Joe Joe.’

‘You have sixty-five votes.’

‘Sixty-five!’ He felt the heat in his face.

‘It’s looking very promising. And Coot got another vote, he has three now. Here’s what the article says:

“Every little town needs a town fixture. I cast my vote for Coot Hendrik who once helped my elderly mother cross the street plus he ran after somebody’s grocery cart last week when it rolled down the hill behind the Local. Little things mean a lot, people! It doesn’t have to be all sparkle and shine. Sincerely, Anonymous.”

‘Him again. Did you find the letter?’

‘No, but Puny can have a go tomorrow. I thought you’d like what Anonymous said.’

‘That it can’t all be glitter and gleam? Amen to that.’

‘Sparkle and shine, I think he said. You can’t get this sort of thing in the
Times
, sweetheart.’

He wanted a five-hundred-dollar day today, he really did, plus he had to find a bunch of
O
titles and get the window done.

‘Any news from next door?’ he asked his wife.

‘I called this morning,’ she said. ‘Sammy’s some better, but now Harley’s down with it. So far, Kenny is unscathed.’

‘Okay, gotta go, Kav’na. See you around five-fifteen.’

‘By the way, did you order something? UPS dropped off a long box this morning. It’s in the garage.’

His scalp prickled. ‘I’ll tell you everything when I get home.’

The God of the Second Cue had delivered.

•   •   •

‘Y
OU
DIDN
’
T
TELL
ME
you were workin’ at th’ bookstore.’

He was astounded to see Emma Newland with a tan. They were clearly giving free samples at A Cut Above.

‘I didn’t know I was expected to report such matters.’

‘Which days are you workin’?’

‘Thursday and Friday.’

‘I still have Tuesday open,’ she said.

And he still had Tuesday closed. ‘I’ll remember that.’

‘I voted for you; I emailed it to Vanita last week. But I think this should be a democratic election, so next week, I’m voting for Winnie.’

‘Good,’ he said, ‘she deserves it.’

‘I guess a person can have more than one vote.’

‘Probably so. I don’t recall seeing any rules. How about buying a book?’

‘I don’t have time to read.’

‘For your granddaughter,’ he said. ‘Grandchildren have time to read.’

Emma adjusted her half-glasses, peered around the store. ‘What do they read?’

He didn’t actually know, he needed to discuss the whole issue of children’s books with Hope. ‘Eric Carle.’ He’d heard Cynthia mention Eric Carle. ‘Or—let’s see, starts with an
S
—Sendak! Maurice. Yes, he was quite the revolutionary.’

‘Nothing political,’ said Emma.

He was still conflicted about whether to promote Cynthia’s books, which were perennially displayed throughout the store. He headed for the Children’s section, tailed by Emma.

‘So what did th’ bishop want?’

‘He wanted to talk something over.’

‘What was so
grave
that he couldn’t mention it in his letter?’

‘It was so grave that I can’t mention it in conversation.’

That was sticking the knife in and turning it. He pulled
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
off a shelf.

‘It was somethin’ to do with Lord’s Chapel, I can tell you that.’ Smug’s truest meaning, personified.

He studied the
S
authors, found a Sendak, paged through. What if
Where the Wild Things Are
scared the granddaughter? How could he possibly know what to recommend if all he’d read of the children’s inventory was
Violet
books?

‘Just give me one of Cynthia’s,’ she said, impatient. ‘Or two—Hope needs th’ money. So, are you goin’ to say somethin’ about my tan or not?’

‘It’s becoming.’

‘It’s th’ Boca. You should try it yourself while th’ special’s on. And by th’ way, I will not vote for Wanda Basinger next time around, I am not that democratic.’

He took two
Violet
books off the shelf and headed for the register, Emma nipping at his heels.

‘Nothing she does is out of the goodness of her heart. A restaurant is a
commercial
enterprise; she is
paid
to make great fries, she is
supposed
to stack her garbage in a neat pile for pickup.’ She stood at the sales counter, slid her glasses down her nose, gave him a look. ‘So where’s any leadership involved in that?’

He swiped her card.

‘How’s Snickers?’ he said.

•   •   •

H
E
WAS
ROAMING
THE
STORE
looking for
O
titles when he heard the bell. Irene McGraw. Irene was in her usual garb of pants and cotton sweater, making the casual appear elegant. He wished he could remember the name of the famous film star people said she looked like, but since he never saw a movie . . .

She didn’t see him, so he let her browse. Book browsing had its own set of rules, of course. It was a contemplative pursuit, and he was trying to learn when to reel in a paying customer and when to reel out.

‘Irene,’ he said. ‘I’m glad to see you. I apologize for the uproar we caused.’

She smiled. ‘It was very funny. So few things are in today’s news. Thank you for your concern, it was lovely to feel looked after.’

‘How’s the new grandson?’

‘A fine, big boy, thank you. He has his Grandfather Chester’s eyes.’

‘I miss seeing Chester,’ he said, meaning it. ‘How may I help you?’

She waved her hand, a kind of flutter. ‘Lots of grandchildren who love to read.’

‘Fifteen percent off titles beginning with
O
,’ he said.

‘I’ll just wander through, if you don’t mind. I may be a while. I like to read the books I give.’

He was impressed, to say the least.

‘I’ll leave you to it, then. And many thanks for your kind generosity to the hospital. When we went looking for you that day, I waited for Cynthia in your living room. I confess that I studied your paintings. They’re breathtaking, really.’

There was the look he always associated with her, the distant, sorrowing, distracted look. A look which was actually rather beautiful, like the face of a Madonna.

She smiled, but didn’t acknowledge his praise. ‘I believe the children’s books are that way?’

‘Come with me,’ he said.

Two hours later, Irene McGraw was still sitting on the floor in the Children’s section, books strewn about in a bright sea of color. For the first time since he’d known her, she appeared . . . what? Relaxed. Comfortable.

‘I’m just going to have a bite of lunch,’ he said. ‘Cynthia made a sandwich with grilled chicken, it’s already cut in half. Will you join me?’

He hardly expected her to accept, but she did. She looked up and smiled and said, ‘I’m hungry as a bear. Thank you.’

He brought over his sandwich with the apple cut in slices, and the
almonds and raisins, and laid it all out on the children’s book table with two cups of water, then helped himself to a chair several sizes too small, and passed her the half sandwich on a napkin.