Carla Kelly (15 page)

Julia threw back the covers, got out of bed, and opened the door a crack. She heard the faint rustle of another mattress and quiet footsteps, and then James became quiet. There was the murmur of voices, and in another minute Mr. Otto was humming “Sweet Evalina.” The tune was faint and delivered in a good baritone at lullaby tempo. Julia leaned her head against the door, her eyes drooping, as though he hummed to her: “ … the child of the valley, the girl that I love. Dear Evalina, sweet Evalina, my love for thee will never, never die.”

The rotten curtain fabric allowed in plenty of moonlight, so she padded to her trunk, opened it, and found her scriptures. She left the Bible there but felt the familiar slim-ness of her copy of the Book of Mormon. It was just the right size to rest her head on and block the fragrance of bay rum.

Morning came gently, the sky light, the air cool.
Papa would call that the advantage of altitude,
she thought, as she lay on her back with her hands under her head. The ceiling was covered with newspapers of fairly recent origin, as though an attempt had been made to fix the room a little before her arrival. As the room lightened, she reacquainted herself with the news of the world and wondered where the year had gone.

She was about to burrow back under the covers when she heard her employer's firm steps in the kitchen. Her eyes barely open, Julia listened to the familiar sounds of a damper sliding and the stove handle being inserted into a stove lid. Mr. Otto set down the lid with a clatter, swearing with some fluency at the racket he caused.
I suppose he is going to make further amends by lighting the stove for me,
she thought.

Julia gasped and threw back the covers in one motion, looking about for her robe. “No, no, no,” she muttered when she heard him crumple newspaper and then strike a match on the range. “Don't!” she yelled, as she tugged down her nightgown and opened the door at the same time.

The newspaper tucked under his arm, Mr. Otto lit the lamp with the match in his hand. “What on earth…” he started but then held up his hand to stop her. “Don't take another—”

Julia shrieked as a mousetrap reached out and bit her heel. She stood on one bare foot as tears welled up in her eyes from the sudden pain.

“—step,” Mr. Otto concluded in a normal tone of voice.

Before she could object, he pushed her into the nearest chair, pressed her foot against his thigh, and removed the mousetrap. Almost faint with relief, she gingerly crossed her leg and looked at her heel, where the indentation was still white. “I was afraid you were going to light the range,” she said, too embarrassed to look at him.

“I wouldn't dare light that range,” he said as he sat down next to her and looked at her heel. “I got the message last night.” He touched her heel and she winced. “Hurt?”

“Not much,” she admitted. “Mostly it's just my pride.” She looked at him. “Mr. Otto, I don't usually hurl myself into rooms barefooted, but I heard you lift that stove lid!”

“Just to look at the damage inside,” he explained, releasing her foot. “I had no idea there was so much…” He stopped suddenly and stared at the ceiling. “Excuse me, Darling, but watching you throw yourself into the kitchen and step on the mousetrap was the funniest…”

He was gone then, carried off by a gust of helpless laughter that rendered him almost boneless as he leaned back in the chair. He tried to stop one or two times but gave up the attempt, laughing until he had to press his hand against his side.

I suppose I deserve that,
Julia thought as she watched him.
I must look like a wild woman.

Mr. Otto stopped laughing and dabbed at his eyes. Suddenly quite mindful that her oldest flannel nightgown was also her thinnest one, Julia stood up and prepared to retreat with whatever remained of her dignity. “I'm sorry I haven't yet been able to put my best foot forward at—”

“Oh, stop!” he said in a weak voice and started to laugh again.

Julia was too humiliated to look at her employer. She went into her room and quietly closed the door, wondering why she had ever answered the ad. She sat on the bed, reminding herself that she came to cook, suddenly aware that she had no idea where to begin. And now her boss was laughing at her.

She sniffed back the tears.
He laughs at me,
she thought,
and I can't even blame him.
She glanced at her Book of Mormon lying on her pillow and touched the leather covering. Mama always knew where to look for answers when suffering life's crises.

“I'm so sorry things are a muddle,” she whispered out loud, not sure if she was apologizing to Heavenly Father or Mr. Otto. “I have stepped off a bank into water far too deep for my puny talents, and I have no one to blame but myself.”

Nothing she said was calculated to make her feel better, but she did somehow. After another moment spent thinking about Mama, Julia lifted layer after layer of cooking books and clothing from her trunk. Her very oldest dress lay in the bottom; she had almost not packed the thing until Mama insisted.

She decided against a corset because she didn't want to ruin it with soot and ashes that day. She was tucking her camisole into her petticoat when Mr. Otto knocked on her door. She knew it was her employer; everything about him was deliberate, and so was the knock. Well, not everything, she qualified, as she quickly pulled her dress over her head. He had a certain spontaneity when he encountered a good joke at someone else's expense.

“Not now, Mr. Otto,” she said. “I will be out in a moment.” She touched her bosom, hoping that the camisole was sufficient.
Doesn't matter,
she thought as he knocked again.
I have a whacking big apron somewhere, and I won't leave this room until I find it.

“I just wanted to apologize,” Mr. Otto said from the other side of the door.

She stopped where she was, bent over the trunk. She had to be hearing things. She should be apologizing to him, but she had been apologizing to him for two days now, and it was getting wearisome. She found the apron and cinched it tight around her waist, enjoying the feeling of at least being in control of her figure, if nothing else. He knocked again. She took the cord that bound her braid, picked up her brush, and opened the door.

“Mr. Otto, you needn't apologize for anything,” she said, wishing that she had inherited some of Mama's serenity. She yanked the brush through her hair. “You've been kind to tolerate me thus far, and if I provide some small amusement, perhaps that is something.”

She hadn't meant to sound so wounded. Mama would have made that observation sound matter-of-fact. Julia knew that she richly deserved whatever he chose to dish out. “I am only stating a fact, Mr. Otto,” she added, surprised by the startled expression in his eyes. “I did not say that to churn up your sympathy.”

“I … well…”

“You have a business to run, sir,” she pointed out when he still just stood there. She noticed for the first time that he was barefoot, and he had not combed his hair.
I wonder how often he must get up each night to see to James?
she thought with sudden sympathy of her own. “I intend to clean the range, Mr. Otto, and the storage room. I cannot suppose that any of this will be done before you have to leave for … where was it?”

“The summer pasture,” he filled in. She could almost feel the relief in his voice to have something to talk about that was more in line with his usual communication, she was certain. “Time to bring ’em down, separate them, and send the lucky lads to Chicago. You have a huge task, Darling, and I wish I could help.”

He can't mean that,
she thought, returning to her room to pocket the hairpins from the floor by the bed. She brushed past him and went into the kitchen again, pulling down the least scurrilous calendar. She plunked the hairpins on the calendar to keep them from sticking to the table, wound her hair onto the back of her head in a smooth roll, and secured it with the pins. “You're kind to offer, Mr. Otto, but you did not take me on to do my work for me,” she assured him. “When you return, I will have a meal for you that you will never forget, cooked on that marvelous range, which I fully intend to raise from the dead.”

Look him in the eyes now, Julia,
she ordered herself,
so he will know you mean it. If you can't be mature, you can at least be sincere.
“That is what you are paying me for, Mr. Otto,” she concluded.

“Yes, I am,” he said finally, as though she had reminded him. He turned to take more calendars off the wall. “I was afraid you would leave.”

“I won't,” she told him, less sure of herself than before and feeling like a hypocrite as she thought of Ezra's sorrow when she abandoned their engagement. “After all, sir, we have a contract, don't we? I'm bound to stay for a year.”

He said nothing, only removed another calendar and another. “May I wake James, sir?” she asked, when he did not speak. “I brought eggs from the Marlowes, and if you will locate the Arbuckles Coffee from the wagon…”

Mr. Otto pointed to the storeroom, but she didn't give him a chance to speak.

“I will
not
go in that storeroom until every mouse is dead beyond resuscitation, Mr. Otto! I will make coffee and fix you breakfast in the bunkhouse. It won't be quite to my usual standards, but I will do my best.”

As she swept past him and down to James's room, Julia knew Mr. Otto was regretting he had ever written that ad. She made the mistake of looking back at him and was rewarded with a slow shake of his head and a curious half smile. As she hurried into James's room and bent down to touch him, she wondered if she was less than Mr. Otto had bargained for—or more.

Breakfast went surprisingly well, despite the fact that she yearned to show off her talents with petijohns with sugar and cream, fried smelts and baked sweet potatoes, or cecils, her father's favorite.
This is ghastly and ordinary, and Mr. Otto will wonder why he is paying me $60 a month,
she grumbled to herself as she poked the ham around in the cast iron frying pan.

The bunkhouse cookstove had only two stove lids, but she managed, putting the coffeepot on the farther burner to do its work. Matt Malloy was watching her from his perch on the table. To her amusement, he didn't even flinch when she added the egg and shells to the coffee. He did take mighty exception to the process when she stuffed a handker-chief—her last clean one—into the spout.

“Hold on now, Julia Darling,” he said. “You're taking away the one pleasure I've had in months!”

“Mr. Malloy, let me do it my way,” she said.

“I agree,” Mr. Otto said. “It's safest that way.” He reached for the plates in one of the everlasting wooden crates that someone had nailed to the bunkhouse wall. “Malloy, these plates are filthy!”

The men laughed. “It's all the flannel cakes and hash browns you've been cooking for us, boss,” Doc said, and held out his hand for the plates. He winked at Julia. “They don't even come off the plates anymore. We just set’ em on the shelf as is and wait for another meal.”

I will not rise to the bait,
she told herself. She cracked the eggs expertly into the hot grease and stifled laughter when a chorus of “Ahhs” rose around her.

James came closer. “You didn't mess up one of those yolks,” he said, his eyes wide with the wonder of it all.

“I wouldn't dare,” she told him. “Miss Farmer would flunk me.” She surprised herself by kissing the top of his head, which smelled of nothing worse than boy sweat and wood smoke. James smiled and tucked his hand into the waistband of her apron in a proprietary gesture.

She added more eggs. “James, take these pot holders and put the ham on the table,” she ordered, turning over the eggs, which to her relief cooperated like good soldiers with not a rip or a crack of the yolks. “Gentlemen, do stand back from James. I fear you are making him nervous.”

Mr. Otto found a can opener in the depths of a mound of dirty dishes and opened a tin of pilot bread. He stood staring at the ham on the table until she wanted to laugh. The eggs slid nicely onto a plate, and she set it on the table. With almost one motion, the men sat on the benches.

“We don't have any napkins,” she said, returning to the stove to crack in more eggs. No one seemed to hear, so intent were they on the eggs and ham. She could have sworn the Irishman had tears in his eyes when she unstopped the coffee and circled the table, pouring the brew into each tin cup. In a moment, all was silent, except for the chuckle of eggs in the frying pan.

“I wanted it to be something special,” she apologized, but stopped when she realized that no one was paying her any attention. Julia shook her head, turning back to the eggs.

She poked the eggs into orderly rows and then looked around the room, pleased that someone had removed the more outrageous pictures from the walls. There had been an attempt to make one of the bunks, and clothes that were strewn everywhere last night were in a pile that came all the way up to the room's one window. She smiled to see a daisy drooping in the narrow neck of a liniment bottle.

The men went through the fried eggs with barely a pause. Doc had even hooked his arm around his plate in a protective gesture. He noticed her watching him. “No sudden moves, Julia,” he warned her and grinned when she laughed.