A Light in the Window (16 page)

But that only made a dent in what had to be done. At last, and the thought made his heart hammer, he would have to take Walter’s advice and let the Holy Spirit come up with Sunday’s sermon, because there would be no time for carefully structured notes.

“What can I wrap this goblet in?” he asked Puny. He realized he had been walking around the house in a daze, carrying it in his hand.

“If you aren’t the beat,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “I’m wore out jist watchin’ you moon around.”

“I am not mooning around. I am looking for wrapping paper.”

“In th’ buffet, don’t you remember? That’s where you told me you always keep wrappin’ paper.”

How could he have forgotten? He felt his face grow red. “Did you get the white albacore tuna?”

“I did.”

“In spring water?”

“I don’t know what it’s in.”

“I wanted it in spring water. I specifically wrote that on the list.”

“Is that what you were talkin’ about? I thought you wanted spring water, so I got two gallons.”

Why wasn’t this more fun? “The Collar Button is having a sale,” he said, trying to sound casual. “I thought I might pick up a jacket. What color do you think?”

“What color does she like?”

He should have known there was no hiding from Puny Bradshaw. “Blue. I think she likes blue.”

“Perfect! I’m sick of all that brown in your closet. It looks like a pile of dead leaves in there. Besides, it will bring out the color of your eyes. ”

“Dark or medium?”

“Dark. Get a blazer.”

“Thank you,” he said, sincerely relieved.

Now if he could get Barnabas bathed and find a rhumba album—or was it the tango?—he would nearly be caught up.

“Here,” she said, snatching the goblet from his hand, “let me do that. White tissue paper or red?”

“White,” he muttered, feebly.

“Of course!” she said, clearly disgusted.

That he had to drive to the far side of Wesley to find a music store was no surprise. The surprise came when he discovered they had no record albums.

“No record albums?” He was stunned.

“Just compact discs,” said the sales clerk, eyeing him as if he’d come from another planet.

No albums! What was the world coming to? Seriously? What did one do, just throw out a perfectly good record player, which was probably not even recyclable? What kind of sense did that make?

He didn’t really want to know but thought he should ask. “How do you use a compact disc?”

When he came out of the music store, he went straight to his car and put the box in the trunk. He must not allow Puny Bradshaw to lay her eyes on what he had just purchased. Never. He put the music-store bag containing the rhumba and the tango discs inside the trunk and closed it.

A little excitement was beginning to build, he admitted, but it had not yet risen above the apprehension of where this whole thing might be going and the deep, instinctive fear that he could not, in any case, stop its progress.

“You are far too handsome in blue,” she said.

The extraordinary thing about his neighbor is that he knew she really meant this foolish remark. He could see it in her eyes.

“Impossible! I’ve been plain as a fence post as long as I can remember.”

“Well, now that you’ve started being far too handsome, there’s nothing you can do to reverse it.” She smiled. “That’s the way it works, you see.”

He was standing at her back door, having popped through the hedge to fetch her to the rectory. Not knowing what else to say or do, he handed her the can of tuna. “For Violet.”

“How lovely! And in oil, just what she likes best. Thank you!”

The stock market might have taken a radical upturn for the relief he felt.

“And thank you for the roses. Do come and see them!”

He smelled them as he came along the hall. They were in a vase in front of the bay window of her living room, illuminated by the last rays of light through the curtains. “Here,” she said, removing a long stem from the vase. “This is for you.”

She had taken his breath away when she appeared at the door. Her freshness, her inner vitality were dazzling. Everything about her stood out in the sharpest focus, as if he’d just gotten new glasses. “I ... ,” he said, taking the rose from her hand. He was sinking into her, somehow, and didn’t know if he could swim.

He had waited until Dooley went to his room last night before attempting to hook the thing up and put on a disc. He was astonished when music came pouring out, nor had he ever heard anything like it; it was so clear, so lucid, so like the living sound. He confessed he would not miss the riot of static produced by ancient scratches or the scraping of a worn needle.

“It’s been years since I danced the tango,” he said, holding her close.

She laughed. “The rhumba!”

“Ah, well, I’ve always been a fox-trot man, to tell the truth.”

“Fox-trot men usually have a streak of rhumba in them somewhere. It simply takes some doing to pull it out.”

“Could you pull a bit harder then?”

When the dance ended, he stood with her in front of the fire, in front of the table so carefully set with his grandmother’s old Haviland and the single rose in a vase.

“Look me in the eye,” he said, taking her face in both his hands.

“I’m looking.”

“I want to ask you a question.”

“I love questions!”

He remembered asking her once, “Is there anything you don’t love?” “Yes,” she had said, “garden slugs, stale crackers, and people who’re never on time.”

“Well, then ... would you kindly consider the possibility ... that is to say, the inevitability ... of going steady?”

She burst into tears.

“Cynthia!”

“I always cry when I’m happy,” she wailed.

“Well, answer me, then,” he said, giving her the handkerchief from his pocket.

“Yes. I’ll consider it!”

“Wait a minute. Will I never get this right? I asked you to consider it, but what I really meant was, will you do it? Starting now?”

“Yes. I’ll do it.”

He was going to kiss her, but his legs began to buckle under him.

“Timothy!” she said, holding him up. “Sit down before you fall down!”

He sank onto the sofa, laughing. “Hopeless,” he said, feeling the trembling in his knees and the pounding of his heart. “Utterly hopeless.”

She fairly hooted with laughter. “You’ll get over it!” she promised, giving him a hug.

They were still in a frenzy of laughter, tears streaming down their cheeks, when Dooley walked in and looked around. “Mush!” he said, backing out the door.

She would be home for Christmas, which was only two months away, spend a week or ten days, and return to New York until March, when she would come home to the little yellow house for good.

Perfect, he thought, making the sandwiches on Saturday night. Couldn’t be better! He would have plenty of time to adjust to what he’d just done, get through the inestimable pressures of the holy days, and be waiting for his bulbs to come up as she flew in.

Dooley had had a big football game this afternoon, which he’d attended while Cynthia packed, and was now spending the night with his friend Tommy. In view of that, he turned on the disc player and listened to the tango music again—or was it the rhumba?

Standing at the kitchen counter, shuffling his feet to the music, he caught himself smiling from ear to ear. For more than sixty years, he had been slogging along in wet concrete; now he felt as if he were swimming in a Caribbean pool.

“What is asked of us,” Raymond John Baughan had said, “is that we break open our blocked caves and find each other. Nothing less will heal the anguished spirit or release the heart to act in love.”

Break open our blocked caves!

What a lot of battering it had taken to break open his own cave, he thought. Among the many other things she deserved, Cynthia Coppersmith deserved a medal.

With that in mind, he made her peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich extra thick and wrapped it with a note.

“I can’t help loving you,” she read aloud from his note. “May God bless you and keep you and bring you back safely. Yours, Timothy.”

They were sitting in the parking lot of the small commuter airport in Holding, eating their late Sunday lunch out of a paper bag and drinking root beer.

She smiled at him, her eyes the color of blue columbine. “Well, you see, we’re just alike, then. I can’t help loving you, either. Do you think I would have chased you like I’ve done if I could help it? Certainly not!” She took a bite of her sandwich. “Yum, yum, and a thousand yums.”

“Are the bananas mashed in right?”

“Perfect!”

“I wanted this to be your main course last night, but I hadn’t the nerve. I also prayed for rain, but that prayer went unanswered.”

“You prayed for rain?”

“So I could take you walking in it. The news release at the library said you like to walk in the rain.”