Pamela Morsi (34 page)

“Well, yes, in fact it does,” she admitted.

“Mrs. Richardson,” he said, “why don’t we go take advantage of that little patch of box elder shade and enjoy our ice cream?”

What Gussie might think about that, Pansy had no idea. But her own heart leaped inside her at the prospect of being alone, or even partially alone, with the man she loved.

“That sounds like a lovely idea,” she answered, amazed at her own composure.

Side by side, at an arm’s-length distance, they walked to the small patch of shadow made by the young tree, little more than a sapling. He said nothing until they reached their destination. They turned, keeping the occupants of the Mudd Manufactured Ice location in sight. He handed over her bowl of ice cream.

“Don’t do it,” he said to her simply.

“Don’t do what?” she asked.

“Whatever it is you are planning,” he answered. “Haven’t you done enough already to punish people and ruin lives?”

Amos was well aware that he deserved whatever ill befell him. But he wanted the ax to fall upon his neck alone. He’d been trying to figure out what Pansy’s plan was since he’d first heard about her “new leaf.” He didn’t believe for one moment that she was really trying to change. He didn’t believe it. He wouldn’t believe it.

“You are up to another scheme,” he said as they stood together by the box elder tree. “You schemed to defraud this town, you schemed to seduce me into your bed and you schemed against Gussie and me.”

Her mouth was a thin line of disappointment.

“I schemed
for
Gussie and you,” she said. “She’s in love with Rome, in case that slipped your attention. And you’re not in love with her, in case you’ve deluded yourself into believing otherwise. Also, if I can recall the afternoon correctly, I never seduced you into my bed. We managed to get it all done in a barber’s chair.”

He hated her words. He hated the weakness in him that they represented.

“Just tell me what you are up to,” he said. “I think you owe me that much.”

“Owe you for what?” she asked him. “I owe you because I awakened you from a living death and showed you that there was a whole world going on around you? Or do I owe you because I touched your heart? You can’t let anyone do that, can you? You’re going to marry a woman who does not, cannot, ever love you, just so you won’t be in any further danger of having someone touch your heart.”

His jaw tightened in anger.

“Maybe I am protective of my heart,” he said. “I’ve had it broken and I don’t want to go through that again. But I’m much better off than you. You’re positively heartless.”

“Is that what you think?” Her tone was almost humorous. “That I have no heart?”

“How else could you so easily forget the husband you were wed to? And go from man to man without looking back?”

“You think your loss was greater than mine. You think that you must have loved more,” she told him. “You’re just deceiving yourself. You sought solace in isolation. I sought it in the arms of strangers. We were both wrong. But I suppose we both did what we had to. The goal of grief is to live through it. Now I’ve chosen
a life of chastity and you’re marrying a woman in love with another man. We’re both probably wrong again.”

“I’ve simply made a highly appropriate life choice,” he said. “It’s you who seasons your witch’s brew with plots and schemes.”

Her eyes narrowed and her jaw tightened.

“You’re so interested in plots and schemes, Mr. Dewey,” she said, genuinely angry, “why don’t you ask your fiancée about her little matrimonial machination?”

“What are you talking about now?”

“Ask Gussie Mudd about the plan to use Rome Akers to make you jealous and win over the man of her dreams.”

Amos just stared at her, puzzled but cautious.

She handed him the bowl of ice cream.

“Thank you very much,” she said. “But I’ve somehow lost my appetite.”

He watched her walk away. She headed away from the ice-cream booth as if she wanted to ensure that she made no further contact with Rome or Gussie.

She’d said those two were in love with each other. It was undoubtedly just more of some diabolical plot. Something she and Rome had undoubtedly hatched together to gain control of Miss Gussie’s company. But Rome was going to buy the company from Gussie. And she seemed to very much want Rome to have it.

Gussie was without any doubt about Rome’s innocence in the Sewer Swindle. She was so unshakable in her faith in his honesty, she’d turned the whole town to her way of thinking. Perhaps she was right. Maybe he wasn’t part of any moneymaking scheme. And maybe his pursuit of her was genuine as well.

Amos glanced over at the two of them. She was now
helping him prepare another batch for the freezer. They stood apart, as if unwilling to get too close or to converse with each other more than was necessary. It was as if they were uncomfortable in each other’s presence.

They had not always been this way. He had seen them together many times, both before their ill-fated courtship and during it. They had always been at ease with each other. But now they were not.

Amos watched as Gussie ignored Rome to strike up a conversation with Tommy Robbins, the shute boy. Having attempted to talk to the young fellow several times himself, Amos knew that Miss Gussie must be desperate for the distraction to even attempt it.

Could she be in love with Rome?

Did it matter? After all that had come out concerning his illicit behavior, she could never choose him for a husband. Not even if she were free could she align herself in marriage to a man who was widely known to have carried on a secret liaison with another woman.

Or could she?

What had she told him?
If you’re in love, nothing else will matter. Not the past, not reputation, not even other lovers
. If Gussie loved Rome as he had loved Bess, then nothing could stop her from going after what she wanted.

“But if she’s in love with Rome Akers,” he ruminated aloud, “why is she marrying me tomorrow?”

Amos walked back to the booth carrying the ice-cream bowls. Gussie was washing up the dishes in the makeshift kitchen. Two tubs of wash water sat upon a long bench. The freezer cans and dashers, as well as all the serving bowls and spoons, had to be kept clean.
The cream mixture was stored in two ten-gallon milk cans, kept cool by the wall of straw-covered ice beneath a protective awning. The little area was surprisingly cool for such a hot part of the afternoon.

“Can I help?” Amos asked as he brought her the dirty dishes.

She smiled up at him, though her expression was a little uneasy.

“Have you decided to alter your poor opinion of Mrs. Richardson?” she asked him. “The woman really cannot be as bad as some people say.”

“Perhaps she’s no better than she should be,” he replied absently.

He rolled up his sleeves and picked up a dishtowel. Fishing a freshly washed bowl out of the rinse tub, he dried it and stacked it with the others on the bench.

“Did you find out what she’s going to say this evening?”

Amos shook his head.

“She’s refused to say anything to anyone.”

“Well, maybe she just wants to say it one time,” Gussie suggested.

“Maybe so,” he agreed.

“We certainly are passing out a lot of ice cream,” she told him proudly. “Rome has just started cranking our fourth batch. I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up serving all twenty gallons.”

Amos smiled at her. He liked her enthusiasm.

“You enjoy this sort of thing, don’t you?” he said.

“It’s fun and it’s good for business,” she said. “We give away ice cream. Our customers acquire a taste for it and want to make it more often. That means they’ll be buying more ice and we’ll be making more money.”

“Was this Rome’s idea or yours?” Amos asked her.

“A little of both, I guess,” she answered. “It was Rome who came up with giving away something cool, since it was obviously going to be so hot. He thought maybe chilled lemonade, because he likes it so much. I came up with the plan for ice cream.”

“You and Rome sure do think alike,” Amos remarked. “You seem to like the same things, dream the same dreams, understand each other perfectly. I suspect that you might even be able to finish each other’s sentences.”

“Don’t be silly.” There was a slightly nervous timbre to her voice.

“Gussie,” he said very quietly, “are you in love with Rome Akers?”

She gasped and the soap-slippery bowl she held dropped from her hand.

Amos handed her his dishtowel and leaned down to pick up the unbroken bowl. Wordlessly he took her place at the washtub.

“Why on earth would you suggest such a thing?” she asked him, sounding horrified.

“I know how much you like him,” he said, “and how much you want him to succeed in the business.”

“Well, I like most everyone in town,” she assured him. “And I’ve been helpful and encouraging to practically every young man in the Monday Merchants.”

“That’s true,” he allowed. “But then, of course, there is the fact that you two were seeing a good deal of each other before all this scandal broke. I can’t help but wonder if maybe there was more to your feelings for him than you let on.”

“No, of course not!” she replied so adamantly that
her denial seemed almost excessive. “I have no feelings of that kind about Rome at all!”

That couldn’t possibly be the truth. It was more than obvious that there was something between the two of them. Perhaps it was over, maybe it was awkward, but something was there.

“You must have cared for him at some time,” he said. “You two did keep company for several weeks.”

“There was nothing between us,” Gussie insisted. “Nothing. You have absolutely no cause to worry.”

“I wasn’t worried,” he told her. “I would only worry if I thought you were trying to keep something secret from me.”

That statement stopped her completely. Clean dishes were beginning to pile up in the rinse tub.

“There is nothing between Rome and me that you should know about,” she said finally. “The truth is, we were only pretending to be sweethearts.”

“Pretending?”

“Yes, pretending.” She laughed a little bit too cheerfully. “I can see that here on the very eve of our wedding, I’m going to have to confess everything.”

Amos waited, listening.

“After I delivered my—my ultimatum about wanting to be married and you decided not to see me anymore,” she began, “well, I just couldn’t take no for an answer. I tried to look at it like a business merger. I wanted to merge my life with yours, but you were resisting. I decided that if I brought in more competition, you’d get concerned about your margin of profit and would be forced to reevaluate your position.”

“What?”

“I—I asked Rome to let people think he was courting me,” she said. “We acted like we were sweethearts.
I decided if you saw me with another man, you would want me for yourself.”

Amos could hardly believe his ears. Pansy had spoken the truth. She was not the only woman who was capable of deception.

“And I guess it worked,” Gussie said. “You must have gotten jealous. After the kissing booth, you did come and propose to me.”

“I didn’t even see you at the kissing booth,” Amos answered. “I wasn’t there, remember?”

“Oh, yes, that’s right,” she said. “But anyhow, you did propose. And so you can see that you have no reason to worry about Rome and me. We were only pretending to care for each other.”

“Rome did this as a favor to you?”

She blushed. She’d already said more than she wanted to.

“No, I … I promised him the partnership.”

Amos stared at her, trying to take it all in.

“You gave Rome Akers a partnership in your company so that he would help you make me jealous.”

It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes, I suppose you could put it that way,” she said. “You aren’t angry about it, are you?”

“Angry? No, no, I guess I don’t feel angry,” he said.

“I realize that it is a little dishonest to try to maneuver things your way,” she said. “But life can be so complicated and out of control. Sometimes it is very hard to just let things happen when they don’t seem to be inclined to do so.”

“And you did this because you are in love with me?” he asked.

“Well, of course I … I …”

They were looking each other directly in the eye. He saw the lie there. And he saw the truth.

“I think you are a very good and fine man,” Gussie told him. “I thought … I thought that it was time I married and that you might make me a perfectly acceptable husband.”

Amos stared at her for a long moment.

“I proposed to you,” he said, “because I thought you would make a perfectly acceptable wife.”

She lowered her eyes and nodded slightly before looking up at him again.

“I knew that you weren’t in love with me,” she said. “I’m willing to settle for that.”

“You shouldn’t be. I loved Bess. I loved her with all my heart and my being and my soul. I was thinking that I could never replace that and maybe I can’t, but I’m not going to settle for anything less and neither should you.”

“What do you mean?”

Her face was stricken, but he couldn’t think about how he was hurting her. He reminded himself of Bess, sweet, smiling Bess, and how much they had loved each other. There was no substitute for it and no lesser terms on which matrimony was acceptable.

“I was wrong to ask you to marry me,” he admitted. “I was hurt and angry about something else and I have almost dragged us into a lifetime of unhappiness. I don’t want to marry you, Gussie,” he said. “I’m breaking off the engagement.”

“Are you sure?” she asked him.

Her voice was surprisingly calm. There was no hint of hysteria, fury or even disappointment. She did not even mention the elaborate ceremony, the most perfect wedding the town would ever see, scheduled to take place in less than twenty-four hours.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Amos told her. “I don’t love you.
And I care enough about you not to allow you to marry without love.”

Gussie handed him the dishtowel.

“I’m going home,” she said simply.

She walked away.

R
OME LOOKED UP FROM HIS ICE-CREAM CRANKING TO
see Miss Gussie walking across the hay meadow. Strangely enough, she was not walking through the other booths, meeting people and socializing. She had taken off on the diagonal, making a beeline for the road to town. She hadn’t said a word. It was curious. Enough so that he stopped cranking and rose to his feet. He intended to follow her, but a small sound behind him reined him in. Amos Dewey was washing dishes in the back of their area. Amos was a good fellow. He seemed to genuinely care for Gussie. If someone needed to go after her, surely he would. Perhaps she’d forgotten something at home. Or had thought of an errand that simply could not wait. She was, after all, getting married very soon.