A Table By the Window (14 page)

“It was easier than I thought it would be,” Carley said. “I'll just have some last-minute things to box up before the movers come, like the quilts on my bed.”

“Well, our guest room is waiting for you when you're ready. I'm glad you're not bogged down with clutter. Cordelia wasn't a pack rat, and she got rid of a lot of things before moving down here.”

Carley made iced tea. Aunt Helen wanted to try the raisin bread—but only half a slice, just in case. She was not as enthusiastic as Carley was, and followed with another sandwich on whole wheat with her soup. She spoke of a trip her family had taken to San Francisco, years ago when Rory was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.

“Muir Woods was my favorite place. There was something ethereal about those sequoias.”

“Why don't you both plan on another trip there?” Carley asked. “You can stay with me, and I'll be your tour guide.”

“That's very sweet of you, but I don't know if we'll ever take you up on it. I had enough of traveling when Rory was in the air force. And the shop keeps me so busy.” Ice clinked as she set her glass down. “Which reminds me…I need to pass along a message.”

“Yes?”

“This is probably silly….”

“Why don't you tell me, and let me be the judge?”

“Well, all right. A good friend, Marianne Tate, asked if I thought you might be interested in staying on a couple of weeks longer.”

Why?
raced from Carley's mind to her lips, but having essentially given her word that she would listen, she kept them closed.

“She and her daughter, Jenna Moore, own Grandma's Attic across from my shop. Naturally I had told them about you. Marianne and Jim fly to Miami tomorrow to visit friends and take a Caribbean cruise for their fortieth anniversary. Only their granddaughter, who was to help Jenna run the shop, called from McComb this morning to say her morning sickness is worse, and asked if they would find someone else.”

“But I already have my return ticket,” Carley said.

Aunt Helen nodded. “Marianne said she would pay the penalty for changing it. And your salary, of course, as well as the loan of her car. They would turn in your rental car for you at the airport. All shops are closed Sundays and Mondays, so you'd still have some time to pack. But don't feel pressured. There's always the temporary agency in Hattiesburg. I've used them myself during emergencies.”

Thus, problem solved. “Why would she want me at all?” Carley asked. “She wouldn't have to pay the airline penalty or lend out her car, if she used the agency.”

“Well, she liked Cordelia very much. And I mentioned that you were just as personable.”

“Really?”

Her aunt smiled. “Don't be so modest, dear. As far as your airline penalty, it would work out to about the same amount as hiring a temp. Frankly, new shop clerks start out at minimum wage. The agency charges us two dollars an hour more so they can make a profit. And you never know if whomever they send will be good with customers. That's asking a lot of you—minimum wage and delaying looking for a job. I'm just being selfish. I'd like to have you stay longer.”

Carley chewed on a bite of sandwich, and the idea. Minimum wage was not an issue, not for two weeks. And without knowing when she would manage another trip this way, it would be nice to spend more time with her newfound family.

Still, she needed to be looking for a permanent job. But what sort of job? She was not ready to take on teaching again. Perhaps it would be good to have a little productive space in which to think about her future, to download
San Francisco Chronicle
classified ads in the library and see what was available.

The doorbell chimed. Carley went through the living room and welcomed Blake Kemp, who settled the matter.

“It's going to take about seven working days before we find out if our loan came through,” he said, accepting Carley's offer of a bowl of soup. But he declined a sandwich on either of the two breads.

Why not just wait it out here?
Carley thought. She could pay her February rent and utilities online. She would just have to telephone her landlord to hold her mail once the post office started delivering again, then ask the freight company to come later, so that she would be certain of being back in San Francisco to receive everything.

“Oh, by the way,” Blake said, hitting his forehead. “Sherry wanted me to give you the key we borrowed from the Paynes. But I forgot it.”

“You may as well keep it, since you're buying the house,” Carley said. “I have a spare on my chain.”

“On the same chain?”

“Well, yes.”

“Hmm.” He chewed thoughtfully, swallowed. “Now correct me if I'm wrong…but isn't the point of having
two
keys, to keep them apart in case you lose one?”

“Smarty britches,” Aunt Helen said, but smiling.

Carley smiled too. He had a point.

****

“Here we go, Bobcats, Here we go!”

Tallulah trailed Seminary by five points, but for the past nineteen minutes of game time, the lead had changed hands seven times. Players and referees were sweating, coaches and cheerleaders could barely be heard above the continuous roar from both sides of the gymnasium.

“What are your favorite colors? Red and white, red and white!”

“LET'S HUSTLE, BOBCATS!” Sherry called out from Carley's left.

When the half-time horn bleated, both sides rose and cheered players on their way to locker rooms.

“I'm drained!” Carley said over the din. “I'd forgotten how exciting a basketball game can be. And I can't imagine how it must be to watch your own son out there.”

Sherry nodded, her face flushed. “I have to cut back on caffeine on game days, or I'd be out there slapping referees.”

“Would you care for something from the concession stand?” Aunt Helen asked from Sherry's other side. Uncle Rory was leaning forward as if poised to go. Blake, an unofficial coaching assistant, was in the locker room with the team.

“No, let me,” Carley said. Her offer had nothing to do with the fact that she had spotted Dale Parker enter in civilian clothes shortly after they were seated. But she could not help but hope that he would happen by the concession stand at the same time.

Sherry nudged her side. “We'll both go.”

A sign over the stand read
Sponsored by Tallulah High Beta Club
. Teenagers and adults worked the long counter. Sherry had informed Carley earlier that she and Blake and four other parents with sons on the team did not work the stand during the games, but they were in charge of setup and cleanup. A tall girl wearing a red baseball cap gathered two cartons of nachos, a hot dog, popcorn, and napkins on a cardboard tray for Carley. Sherry's tray held the drinks. Carley insisted on paying and was relieved when Sherry's expression betrayed no resentment of her inheritance.

Dale Parker did not materialize. But as she received her change, Carley noticed another friendly face behind the counter. Other customers blocked her from moving sideways, so she leaned forward to call, “Hi, Neal!”

Neal Henderson scanned faces, stopped at hers. “Hey…uh…”

“Carley!”

“Oh yeah! Carleyreed! I'm the potato chip man!”

There was a ripple of laughter, none of it cruel. A man with a mullet haircut said, “Hey, Neal, how's about you quit flirting with the pretty lady and give us some service?”

Neal grinned at him. “Okey-dokey, Mister Chuck!”

Forty-five seconds after the start of the second half, one of Tallulah's seniors made a three-point shot, bringing the score to thirty-three to thirty-five. Patrick struggled to guard a player with two inches of height advantage, but at times, by talent or sheer determination, was able to block several shots and produce points on the offensive end of the court.

“Go, Patrick!” Sherry called, while a half carton of nachos grew cold from inattention in Carley's lap. With the score tied and twelve seconds on the clock, Coach Sullivan called a time-out and brought his players together for one last huddle. Then as the ball was inbounded, Patrick and the other forward stepped into the path of the covering guard. The Tallulah center rolled around the pick, was fed the ball by the point guard, and with a simple lay-up, the game was over.

“Yes!” Carley exclaimed amid the roar. She hugged Sherry, Uncle Rory, Aunt Helen, and the woman and child behind her. After so much excitement, she was too stoked with energy to go home to her quiet house, so she stayed and helped Sherry and Blake and two other sets of parents clean up the concession stand. When they were almost finished, they divided the last of the hot chocolate into Styrofoam cups and sat in a circle in metal chairs reliving the best moments of the game and simply enjoying one another's company.

“Why don't you just stay down here, Carley?” asked Lynn Hall, mother of the point guard. “We could introduce you to my husband's cousin. He's a dentist in Hattiesburg and looking for a wife.”

“His
fourth
wife,” said her husband, Ron, a chemistry and physics teacher.

“I thought polygamy was illegal,” Blake said, wide-eyed.

Carley joined their laughter. In their state of euphoria and exhaustion, they would have chuckled if someone had commented upon the weather.

****

Soon after arriving at Grandma's Attic, Carley realized that shop-clerking was similar to being a waitress—answering patrons' questions about any given menu item, showing gratitude that they had walked through the doors, yet giving them space and not fawning over them.

As to the merchandise, Marianne Tate had a system.

“Every item has a number on its tag or in the display case,” her daughter Jenna had explained during a lull, pulling out a drawer of an old mahogany library card catalog. She was a short woman in her late thirties, well under five feet tall, with a wide smile, beautiful teeth, and very curly brown hair. “When someone asks you about an item, you simply look up its card to find out more about it.”

Each card contained penned notes from either Jenna or her mother, and sometimes taped photographs or magazine clippings. But on the first day on this job, Carley simply straightened merchandise, dusted shelves, and allowed Jenna to do the selling.

The Hudsons had invited her for supper, so she brought over the pesto pasta salad she had prepared before work. Sherry, Blake, and Patrick were in Birmingham visiting Conner. Uncle Rory placed on the table a platter of what appeared to be beef pot roast, surrounded by potatoes, carrots, and onions.

“Venison,” he said proudly.

“Oh,” Carley said dully.

He smiled understanding. “Not sure about that, are you?”

“Well…”

“You don't have to eat it,” said Aunt Helen.

“Thank you,” Carley breathed, and just in case she had hurt Uncle Rory in the slightest way, she added, “The vegetables look delicious.”

He winked. “And they don't remind you of Bambi, do they?”

Later, in the living room, Aunt Helen and Carley looked over the photographs while Uncle Rory worked the
Hattiesburg American
crossword puzzle, with Tiger dozing at the side of his chair.

“What's a seven-letter word for
scoundrelly
—begins with a
k
and ends with an
h
?” he asked, raking the end of his pen through his mustache.

“Knavish?” Carley guessed after mentally counting letters.

“That's it!”

“It pays to have an English major on hand,” Aunt Helen said.

Carley felt so close to the two, so grounded in family, that she thought she would not wish to be anywhere else.

Until Aunt Helen said, “We have a nice little church, Grace Community. Would you like to come with us tomorrow?”

“Thank you, but I'd rather not,” Carley said.

She waited for the “why” that was hanging in the air.

But instead her aunt nodded, and Uncle Rory asked for a word starting with
m
for
cryptogram
.

“Mystery,” Aunt Helen said, giving Carley a thoughtful little smile.

****

“It was made by James Powell and Sons in England, in 1921,” Carley said on Thursday while rain fell outside. Her fingers trembled slightly as she unlocked the case that held a Venetian-style pedestal bowl of clear green glass for a middle-aged couple named Fletcher.

“Ninety-five dollars, Dave,” the woman mused.

“Like you said, it would look elegant on the console table,” her husband said. Both were originally from Kansas, they had told Carley, and now lived at Keesler Air Force Base, where Major Fletcher was stationed.

“Well, yes…”

His hand held out the pewter jam pot, priced at twenty dollars because of a dent along the base. “We'll put this back, if it would make you feel better.”

She thought about it and smiled. “All right.”

Carley was pressing tissue paper around the sides of the bowl when Jenna returned from lunch, propping her umbrella in the stand at the door. After the Fletchers left she said, “I can't wait 'til Mom calls. How did it feel, making your first big sale?”

“It felt great,” Carley said.

But the sale that gave her the most satisfaction occurred the following morning, when a trio of women with heavy Southern accents entered. They were from Foley, Alabama, they said, another Southern antique Mecca. Only the woman wearing thick bifocals had been to Tallulah before. They were looking for Depression glass, old clocks, vintage aprons, and salt and pepper shakers. Jenna asked Carley to help the woman seeking the latter.

“Oh goodness, here she is!” the woman breathed after scanning the shelves. Almost reverently she picked up a four-inch pepper shaker in the form of a little nun with folded hands.

Having just dusted those shelves the previous afternoon, Carley said, “I'm afraid we don't have the salt shaker. That must be why it's only three dollars.”