Pamela Morsi (32 page)

A grand cake in the Greek-temple style was ordered for the event. Mrs. Boston, who retained a fine reputation as a confectioner, had volunteered to make a marzipan bride and groom to adorn the white butter frosting layers and represent the sweetness of the wedding day.

Bubbly champagne shipped all the way from France was an extravagance that raised eyebrows among the ladies of the Circle of Benevolent Service. Reverend Holiday even appeared a bit ill at ease with serving spirits, and imported ones at that, so soon after a
religious ritual. He suggested to Gussie, privately, that she limit her guests to one glass apiece.

In short, it was to be the finest, the fanciest wedding that the town of Cottonwood had ever seen. And why not? Gussie asked herself. When a woman has waited thirty-one years, she certainly ought to celebrate with more than a simple ceremony.

She was to be a married woman at last. After all the long, lonely years, she would take a man’s name, meld her life with his own, share his bed, perhaps bear his children. It meant monumental change and tremendous challenge. It was everything that she had hoped for!

And yet, it was so much less than what she really wanted.

July 5th was the date she’d set upon. The wedding was to take place on Sunday afternoon. Close enough to her original plan that it felt as if she’d achieved her goal, but avoiding any conflicts with the Fiftieth Anniversary Founder’s Day Fourth of July Picnic.

It was all going to be absolutely wonderful. A beautiful wedding, marriage at last and maybe a family—it was a happily-ever-after by anyone’s definition. Still, Gussie found herself sighing, almost sadly.

“A penny for your thoughts.”

Amos sat across from her in the porch shadows of a summer evening. They had shared a nice meal in the dining room and had come outside to escape the heat.

He was spending almost all of his free time there these days. He closed up the shop early and came straight to her house. They ate dinner together almost every evening. And they sat upon the porch until nearly bedtime. Amos would then politely take his leave and Gussie would retire. It was ordinary. It was easy. It was almost as if they were already wed. Almost.

“My thoughts are hardly worth a penny,” she told
him. “Perhaps you should wait until I’m on my high horse about something. Then I’ll give you more than you’ll want, absolutely free.”

They smiled at each other pleasantly. He had a nice smile, straight, white, even teeth, full lips and crinkles in his cheeks all the way back to his ears.

Amos was a thoughtful and generous suitor and showed every indication of being a good husband. She was lucky. She was very lucky, she reminded herself, not for the first time.

“How was the shop today?” she asked. “Did you do much business?”

“A typical day,” he told her. “Most of the regulars stopped by to get a word or two in.”

“And a few of them had more than a word or two, I suspect.”

He chuckled lightly.

“Pete Davies was in,” Amos said. “He asked me if it was true that Mr. Everhard was tailoring a cutaway coat for my wedding.”

“Ah … I’m sure Mr. Davies didn’t approve,” Gussie said.

“He didn’t voice his opinion one way or the other, but he did tell me that his father was buried in a coat just like that.”

They enjoyed each other’s company. A long association had made them easy with each other, friendly, complaisant.

“Has Rome mentioned anything to you about a new distiller?” she asked him.

“Distiller?” Amos shook his head. “No, he hasn’t said anything to me.”

“He will. We’ve been making do with the old one for quite some time now. The valve is in a perpetual state of repair and disrepair.”

“Ah,” Amos replied, rather disinterested.

“So when he does ask,” Gussie said, “you must put him off.”

“Oh?”

“I want to surprise him,” she explained.

“Surprise him?”

Gussie nodded eagerly.

“With the passage of that Pure Food and Drugs Act in Congress, I’m thinking that the demand for new mechanical processes may foster some new inventions,” she said. “I’m hoping we can streamline the plant, maybe with new, modern machinery. I don’t want us investing in any old-fashioned equipment.”

Amos was looking at her strangely. But then, the man knew nothing about ice production or the manufacturing process.

“If he asks about replacing the distiller,” she said, “try to stall him until after the first of the year.”

“You want to streamline the plant?” He sounded surprised. “I thought we were going to sell it to him.”

“Oh, yes. Yes, of course,” Gussie replied, recalling that she’d tacitly agreed to that. “I suppose Rome can streamline it himself.”

She felt a sinking sensation in her heart. It was a keen sense of loss. One that she willed herself not to give in to.

“Will you talk to him about it?” she asked.

“I will if that’s what you’d like, Miss Gussie. But really, you should talk to him about it yourself,” Amos said. “You’re the person who actually knows something about it.”

It was true, of course. She should be discussing the business with Rome. Amos wasn’t even interested in ice manufacturing. He was a barber and all of his experience and expertise was in the tonsorial arts. His
fledgling participation in the company was at her request and his own reluctance. Gussie didn’t want to talk with Rome. She couldn’t bear to talk with him. It was painful just to have him sit on the porch and make his report.

To touch someone’s heart and give him your own so totally, so intimately, was a dear and special thing. To then pretend that it had never happened was a torture. To know that their lips would never meet again, to forever be exiled from the shelter of his arms, to recall with perfect clarity that moment of immeasurable bliss that he had given her and insist that it never be repeated.

Gussie loved her business. She had nurtured and cared for it as she had her home and her garden. It was her last connection to her father, her family, her heritage. It was as dear to her as if it were a part of herself, an extension of who she, Augusta Mudd, was in the world. However, she was prepared to give it up. To give it up forever rather than live with the pain of seeing Rome every day, wanting him and knowing that he was eternally beyond her grasp.

“Amos, would you like to kiss me?” she asked suddenly.

He raised an eyebrow, perhaps surprised at her boldness.

She was startled herself at her question. He had kissed her cheek when she’d accepted his proposal. And they brushed each other’s lips at every meeting and parting. But there had been no passion between them, no lusty lovers’ tryst, no danger of anticipating the vows to be spoken.

“Of course I would like to kiss you,” he answered.

He rose from his chair and approached her. Taking her hand, he urged her to her feet. They stood awkwardly together for a long moment.

Gussie felt nervous, ill at ease. They had kissed before, but it had never seemed so deliberate, so intentional. It had never before been so important to her.

Amos leaned down and put his lips against her own. It was a gentle meeting of two mouths. Friendly. Chaste.

He stepped back and they stared into each other’s eyes. It was as if they were brother and sister. Affectionate cousins. Platonic companions.

“That won’t quite do, will it?” he said with refreshing honesty.

He didn’t need to explain himself further. They were both fully aware of his meaning.

She watched him swallow his reserve as he gave her an encouraging grin.

Amos slid his arms around her waist and pulled her closer to him. Gussie wrapped her arms around his neck. He was taller than Rome, she noted against her will. He was taller but not nearly as muscular. Not nearly as warm. Not nearly as welcome.

This time when he brought his mouth down on hers, it was open. She parted her lips for him as well. Willfully she put all she had into her response, remembering the feeling that she’d shared with Rome and replicating it to the best of her ability.

Amos was trying very hard to please. He moved his mouth on hers. His tongue lapped and explored, teased and tasted. His fingers combed up into her hair at the nape of her neck. He held her fast as his kiss deepened desperately. Their bodies were flush, tightly together, but no heat emanated from them. No flame burned. Amos brought a hand up to grasp her breast in a burst of feigned passion. But it
was
clearly feigned.

They broke apart, not meeting each other’s eyes, then they seated themselves in the chairs once more.
The silence between them was all-enveloping. There was nothing to say. No excuses to make. It was as it was and they had no power to make it different.

Is it Bess?
she thought she should ask him.
Are you still in love with your late wife? Is it me or is it anyone?
That was how she should be questioning him. That was the correct course of inquiry. But she demanded nothing. She didn’t really care. And what if he turned the tables on her? Was she a woman lacking in desire? Did she not love him? Or did she love someone else?

Gussie didn’t want to answer, so she posed no questions of her own. If she felt no carnal needs, perhaps it was best that he felt none either.

They got along very well, Gussie reminded herself yet again. He was quiet and respectful. She was serious-natured and hardworking. Their marriage would never be explosive or imprudent or … or even passionate. But they could be … content. That surely would be enough, she told herself. Simply content.

Resolutely she turned to Amos and smiled. She had lived without fiery romance for thirty-one years. Surely she could resolve to do without it for thirty more.

“So have you heard any rumors about Rome and Mrs. Richardson?” she asked by way of making conversation.

He looked momentarily shocked and she realized that she had phrased the question quite incorrectly.

“I mean—I mean, have you heard anything … lately?’ she amended. “I was actually hoping for an announcement from those two.”

“An announcement?”

“Yes,” she answered. “I advised Rome that the most efficient and time-tested method of restoring a reputation includes hasty nuptials followed by uneventful matrimony.”

Amos appeared genuinely puzzled. “Surely you can’t think that Rome should wed himself to her,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Mrs. Richardson has … well, she has …” His voice trailed off and he cleared his throat. “Miss Gussie, her sullied reputation was fairly earned,” he explained.

She blushed, but refused to be embarrassed into silence.

“You mean that she has … she has been with men other than Rome,” Gussie clarified.

“This is not a proper topic for our discussion,” he replied.

“We are to be married in less than a week, Amos,” she pointed out. “Surely we can relax some of the proprieties.”

“I’m not certain a matter such as this should be discussed even between a married couple,” he said.

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I’m a woman grown. I know … I know babies aren’t found under cabbage bushes.”

He smiled at her, his stern facade melting somewhat.

“Certainly not in this part of Texas,” he said. “The heat would scorch them.”

She answered his smile with one of her own, but didn’t give up her train of thought.

“Why do you think that Rome shouldn’t marry Mrs. Richardson?” she persisted.

Amos seemed genuinely annoyed at having to explain. But did his best in his own, rather stifled way.

“Nobody sells fruit at a peach picking,” he said with great emphasis.

Gussie rolled her eyes.

“Next you’ll be talking about free milk and cows.”

Amos nodded. “My point exactly,” he told her.

“Well, my understanding,” Gussie responded, “is that Mrs. Richardson is … shall we say … out of the dairy business.”

“Miss Gussie!”

“She has vowed to turn over a new leaf,” she said. “She shows every evidence of doing so. And I personally believe her.”

“The future cannot change the past,” Amos replied. “Rome is a smart, ambitious man. He would not wish to tie himself to a woman who has proven to be faithless.”

“Faithless to whom?” Gussie asked. “You knew her when Grover was alive. So did I. Was she not a devoted, loving wife?”

“Yes, yes, she was that.”

“Doesn’t that part of her past exist as well? If she was a good wife once, why would she not be again?”

“Perhaps she would be,” he said. “But a man might not be willing to take such a chance.”

“Marriage is always a chance,” she said. “There are no guarantees of happiness anywhere. It’s a wonder that wedlock still exists, that anyone is willing to step up to the challenge of it.”

“But when you’re in love,” Amos said, “you’re willing to risk everything.”

The words were out before he could stop them. Gussie watched the expression upon his face as he realized what he had said. He’d been speaking of his own marriage, his love for Bess, sweet, sickly Bess. He married her for love, cared for her during her short life and mourned for her years after she was gone. He’d done that all for love.

Now he was about to marry Gussie and none of that emotion, none of that fine feeling, none of it was a part of their plans.

“You’ve proved my point exactly,” Gussie said quietly. “If Rome loved her, none of that would matter. Not her past, not her reputation, not even other men. If he loved her, as you loved your Bess, then nothing could stop him from going after what he wanted.”

Amos swallowed. Slowly he nodded.

“Obviously Rome does not love her,” he said.

“Could a man … be with a woman, touch her, lie with her and not love her?” Gussie asked.

“It happens all the time,” he answered.

“Could you?” she asked him.

He didn’t answer. He turned his attention away from her, gazing intently upon the fireflies in the garden.

“I suppose we will see,” she whispered quietly to herself.

“What?” He turned back to her. “Did you say something?”

Gussie felt a strange lethargy settle upon her like a weight on her shoulders.

“I said that July is a very hot month to plan a wedding.”