It Happened at the Fair (14 page)

She touched a gloved hand to her lips. “You know the alphabet signs?”

“Yes. Just the alphabet signs, though, not all the word gestures. And I was never so proud as when I asked that man, with my fingers, if there was anything on my tray he’d like to purchase.”

“What did he do?”

“He pretty near bought me out. Best day of sales I ever had.”

Her face softened. “He sounds like a lovely man, but I’m afraid those days are gone. Society has changed since then.”

“Not as much as you think. What I didn’t realize at the time was that I’d unintentionally offended a great many of my other customers by catering to someone ‘abnormal.’ And they let me know it in no uncertain terms.” He watched a gull soar up from the water, then disappear in the blackness of the sky. “I never spoke to the deaf man again. With my fingers or otherwise.”

She bit her lip.

“I’ve regretted it my whole life. I’d give anything to do that over.” He pierced her with his gaze. “Will you teach me? Will you teach me the other gestures he used? Because he hardly ever used the alphabet. Only for proper names and such. I couldn’t find any books about those other gestures.”

She swallowed. “I’m not supposed to.”

“We could go someplace private. I’ve heard the Wooded Island has plenty of places that would shield us from curious eyes.”

She rubbed her temples.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he said.

She gave him a wary look. “What kind of deal?”

“How many lip movements are there?”

“There are three vowel families and eight consonant families,” she said.

“What about this, once you’ve introduced the vowel families and, oh, let’s say, three of the consonant families, you teach me a set of hand gestures.”

She worried her lip.

“I won’t tell anyone. Promise.” He kissed his finger and crossed his heart.

She drummed her fingers. “I’d expect you to do your mirror exercises twice a day, every day from now until you have become proficient.”

He balked. He couldn’t imagine doing such a ridiculous thing. He also couldn’t imagine being so hard of hearing that lip-reading would be his only way of understanding conversation.

After a slight hesitation, he nodded. “Very well. I’ll practice.”

“I’ll know if you’ve done them or not.”

He hesitated. “How?”

“By your progress.” Her eyes reflected the lantern light, flickering with intensity. She gathered a handful of her skirt.

He helped her to her feet. “Then we have a deal?”

“You won’t tell anyone? Not a living soul?”

“Not a living soul.”

After a strained moment, she let out a sigh. “All right, Mr. McNamara. All the vowel families and three of the consonant.”

Pleasure spilled through him. He held out his elbow. “Thank you, Miss Wentworth.”

CHAPTER

12

Cullen splashed water onto his face, chest, and arms, grabbed a bar of soap, scrubbed all over, then splashed himself again. The mirror above the washstand blurred as water dripped from his eyelashes.

“Scoop.” It didn’t look at all the same when he said it. “Scoop.”

He swiped the water from his eyes. “Loop. Snoop. Poop.”

Padding to his nightstand, he toweled his hair and stared at her list. Her writing was different from his. Less smooth. More fussy.

“Smooth.” Grabbing the paper, he walked back to the mirror. “Smooth.”

He repeated every word she’d given him. All fifty. Could she hear him? He looked at the floor, disconcerted to know her room was directly below his. He’d not realized she lodged at Harvell House too. It had been a shock to them both, but when he’d insisted on walking her home and she finally revealed where she lived, it explained why they’d been at the front of the crowd on opening day. Both had been looking for Mrs. Harvell and her group.

He’d never been to any of the house meals because he asked Mrs. Harvell to box up his breakfasts and suppers. Fortunately, she offered half-board to the exhibitors staying at her house, which meant no lunches. It had allowed him to recoup sixty-six dollars of his dad’s money.

Still, he’d not told Miss Wentworth his room was above hers. He simply walked her up the entry-hall stairs and touched his hat when she indicated which door was hers. Once she was safely inside her room, he continued to the top floor. Shaken. And feeling guilty, though his dad had picked out the boardinghouse and neither of them had anything to do with room assignments.

A breeze fluttered the lace coverings at his window. Was her window open too? Were her curtains the same flimsy fluff as his? Folding the list, he returned it to his nightstand and picked up his Bible. A letter from Wanda was stuck in the pages of Proverbs.

Pulling it out, he fingered its edges, comforted to know she’d touched them too, until thoughts of Hodge intruded.

He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, Wanda,” he whispered, for it was a slippery slope he walked and he knew it.

He tried to reread Wanda’s letter, but every time he came to a word with a double oo, a long o, or a long u, he stopped and tested it on his tongue. Tried to imagine what it would look like. Yet his imaginings didn’t conjure up his own lips saying it but Miss Wentworth’s.

He pinched the top of his nose. What would Wanda’s lips look like if she said it? But he couldn’t summon something so specific. He wished he had a picture of her, but she’d never had one made. Folks in his part of Mecklenburg County didn’t have the money for such frivolities.

Frustrated, he thumbed through Proverbs, looking for a nugget of wisdom.

Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge,

But he that hateth reproof is brutish.

Was that how he looked to Miss Wentworth? Like someone who hated reproof? He didn’t hate reproof—well, maybe he did. But that wasn’t why he’d tried to end his lesson so abruptly.

He reread the verse. “Whoso. Reproof. Brutish.”

Putting a finger in Proverbs, he closed the book and walked to the mirror. “Whoso. Reproof. Brutish. ‘Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge, but he that hateth reproof is brutish.’ ”

He would never be able to lip-read all that. But then, he’d been taught only one motion. Maybe if he persevered, gave it a chance. Still, he’d need to hold himself apart from Miss Wentworth. He and Wanda had set a date. The last Saturday in November. He’d set it because she feared some city girl would turn his head.

He swallowed. Wanda was a lot wiser than he gave her credit for sometimes.

HORTICULTURAL BUILDING

“In the center of the rotunda, like a diamond in a most ornate setting, stood a mountain with a collection of tropical plants covering its majestic slope.”

CHAPTER

13

I thought we’d start at the Horticultural Building.” Tugging on her gloves, Della stepped out of Blooker’s and headed toward the Court of Honor.

Mr. McNamara kept pace beside her, offering up no opinion. They’d met at the cocoa mill again. She had a cup of hot chocolate with her boxed supper. He had no drink at all.

“Originally, I thought to start at the Electricity Building,” she continued. “But then I reminded myself you’re a farmer and you probably have very strong opinions about electricity.”

“And why is that?” he asked.

She looked at him, startled. “Well, because of all the controversy over how confused plants are going to get if we set up electric lampposts along our streets. I mean, how will the plants ever know when to go to bed?”

A smile hovered around his mouth. “I imagine they’ll figure it out. And we farmers, as a rule, don’t have a lot of lampposts in our fields, so it shouldn’t be too much of an issue. If it’s the Electricity Building you want to see, I’m happy to follow along.”

She waved her hand in a circle. “No, no. I’m sure you’d much rather go to the Horticultural Building. What farmer wouldn’t?”

“Indeed.”

She pointed to little whirling machines sprinkling water over a soft lawn of grass. A fat robin hopped about, playing in the manufactured raindrops. “Look, someone else has invented a sprinkler system too.”

“So he has.”

They skirted a circular basin filled with pink and white water lilies releasing sweet perfume and approached the domed facade of the Horticultural Building. On either side of the walk, magnificent fields of crimson, orange, and salmon-colored blooms were sullied with giant pots of stiff, awkward cactuses. They were as tall as two men combined and had short stumpy arms. Their small, yellow star-shaped flowers must have been stuck on by Mother Nature as an afterthought, for they didn’t at all look as if they belonged.

HORTICULTURAL BUILDING

Inside, Della came to a complete stop. “Heaven on earth, would you look at that.”

Pansies. The dainty flowers stretched as far as the eye could see and in every color imaginable, making a vast, scroll-like design. In the center of the rotunda, like a diamond in a most ornate setting, stood a mountain with a collection of tropical plants covering its majestic slope. A trickling waterfall beckoned with a song of freshness.

“I’ve been practicing my words,” he said.

She blinked, pulling herself back to the present. They were standing before the most wonderful display of foliage that has ever been seen in the history of the world under one roof and all he could say was he’d practiced his words? She’d have thought a farmer would be moved to tears by such a spectacle.

“Would you like to quiz me?” he asked.

She stared at him in disbelief. “Now?”

“Well, sure. We have a lot to cover, and I don’t want to get caught again at the end of the evening without accomplishing what we set out to. So I figured we could start with a review and move to the smilers or something.”

She raised a brow. “It’s been one day. Are you telling me you’ve mastered all fifty words in one day?”

“Well, maybe not all fifty, but a good percentage of them.”

She wished she’d never agreed to this. She worked nonstop with her students, and though she loved them and her job, by the end of the day she was ready for a break. Especially here at the fair.

The first week she hadn’t been able to explore a thing because of her ankle. Then these last two, she’d been touring with Hilda and Maxine. The truth was, though, they’d wanted to see exhibits that were at the bottom of her list and to continue to spend money at restaurants when they could acquire boxed suppers from Mrs. Harvell. To make matters worse, the students and other faculty members were their main topics of conversation until Della could hardly wait to escape for the night.