Special Delivery (13 page)

In a flash, Mrs. Willet picked up the phone and began to examine it, tentatively pressing buttons and finally shaking it.

“Um, Min?” said Flora urgently. “Look.”

Everyone looked at Mrs. Willet. Min reached for the phone and tried to pry it from her fingers, but Mrs. Willet wouldn't let go.

Mr. Willet held out his hand. “Could I have that for just a moment, Mary Lou?” he asked.

Mrs. Willet pressed another button.

“Mary Lou?” he said again.

Mrs. Willet dropped the phone, which narrowly missed landing in a glass of water, and Min grabbed it and slipped it into her purse.

Flora glanced at Ruby. Ruby was looking at Flora. Flora bit the insides of her cheeks, then pretended to search busily for something under the table. Mrs. Willet and the phone shouldn't have been funny at all, but Flora was inches away from exploding into laughter.

Ruby bent down, too, and Flora hissed, “Sit up! If I look at you now I'll never stop laughing.”

Ruby sat up, Flora gained control of herself, and soon dinner was over and everyone was pushing their chairs away from the table. They walked slowly out of the dining room, Min holding her stomach and saying, “I'm stuffed!”

They chatted in the lobby until Mr. Willet said, “Mary Lou is falling asleep. I'd better take her downstairs. I'll be back in just a few minutes.”

“I'll come with you,” said Flora.

Along the hall to the elevator, down to the lower level, along another hall, and they reached the locked door. Flora pressed buttons and the door opened. Mr. Willet wheeled the chair through and stopped it by the nurses' station.

“Hey, Mrs. Willet is awake again,” announced Flora.

Mr. Willet peered around to look at his wife. She smiled at him.

“Okay, honey, I have to go now,” he said briskly. “I need to say good-bye to our guests. I'll see you tomorrow.” He kissed her on the forehead and strode back to the door.

“Good-bye, Mrs. Willet,” said Flora. “Happy Thanksgiving.” She followed Mr. Willet out the door, and as it locked behind her, she turned and glanced through the window. “Mr. Willet!” she exclaimed in alarm. “Mrs. Willet's crying.”

Mrs. Willet was sitting motionless in her chair, but her face had crumpled in the way that Alyssa Morris's did when she was about to burst into tears. The corners of her mouth were turned down, her lower lip was poking out, and she was squinting her eyes.

“It's okay,” Mr. Willet said gently to Flora. “Just wait a bit.”

A nurse wheeled Mrs. Willet away, and when Flora peeked through the window again, she saw Mrs. Willet seated contentedly in front of a television, a smile on her face.

“She's already forgotten we left,” said Mr. Willet. “She's probably even forgotten that she was sad. That's just the way it is.”

 

In the car on the way home, Flora tried not to remember Mrs. Willet's face as she had watched her husband leave. She thought instead of the fancy dining room and the chocolate turkeys and Mrs. Sherman efficiently in charge of the dinner. She was staring lazily out the window into the last light of the day when Min's phone rang once again.

“Hello?” said Min. “Allie?”

Flora felt her stomach jump.

“It was? When? What is it?”

There was a long silence during which Ruby grabbed Flora's hand and they clung to each other. Flora didn't even try to make out the rest of Min's side of the conversation. She waited until Min had clicked off the phone and then she shrieked, “Tell us!”

“The baby's here!” exclaimed Min. “It's a girl.”

“Yes!” cried Flora. “Yes, yes, yes! A girl! A girl cousin! A girl to baby-sit for. A girl to sew for!”

“A darn
girl
?” squawked Ruby. “But you can't name a girl Douglas.”

Mr. Pennington let out a guffaw. Then he turned to Min. “Is the baby okay? She's pretty early.”

“She's tiny, and she and the mother are both experiencing a few problems, but the doctors expect them to be fine. The baby will probably have to stay in the hospital for two more weeks, though. Allie won't be bringing her home this weekend.”

Ruby drew in her breath. “We're still going to New York tomorrow, aren't we?”

Flora elbowed her sister, but Ruby elbowed her right back.

“Yes, we're still going,” said Min, and her cell phone screeched from her purse. “Goodness me, what now?” she muttered.

It was Allie calling back. “She wants me to put her on speakerphone,” said Min. She pressed a button. “Go ahead, Allie.”

Allie's voice filled the car. “I forgot to tell you the most important thing.” She paused. “I decided what to name the baby.”

“Probably not Douglas,” murmured Flora.

“I have decided,” Allie continued, “to name her Jane Marie. Janie for short.”

“Our middle names!” exclaimed Flora.

“Mine comes first,” noted Ruby.

“Allie, what a lovely idea,” said Min.

I have a namesake, thought Flora as the car turned onto Aiken Avenue later. A cousin and a namesake all at once.

Hilary Nelson hadn't said much about it (she didn't want to hurt her parents' feelings), but she had not been looking forward to Thanksgiving. After all her family had been through that year — moving to Camden Falls, losing their home in a fire, starting a business at a time when money was tight and the Nelsons had been warned against a new venture — she felt that the very least she could expect was a cozy holiday at home. She wanted to wake up to the smell of turkey roasting in the oven and go to Ruby's concert with her parents and her brother. She wanted to help her mother set the table with their good china and eat a big meal in the middle of the afternoon and later, at what should be dinnertime, help herself to two different kinds of pie. She wanted to spend the day at home with her family.

But the Nelsons were now the owners of the Marquis Diner, so Hilary had been chagrined, although not necessarily surprised, when her parents had announced that the diner would be open for business on Thanksgiving Day.

“But what about
our
Thanksgiving?” Hilary had wailed.

“We'll close the diner at six and have our own dinner in the evening,” her father had replied.

“What are we going to have? Reuben sandwiches and coleslaw?”

Her mother had eyed her. “I'll make our food ahead of time. We'll have a real turkey dinner, just like we always do. And just like we'll offer in the diner,” she'd added. “Do you really think we're not going to serve a turkey dinner on Thanksgiving?”

“This is going to be one of our biggest days ever,” her father had added. “We can't afford not to be open. This has been a rough enough year already.”

“I know,” Hilary had said. “Sorry.”

Hilary had made no further comments about their Thanksgiving plans, but still, whenever she thought about the holiday, she felt a little pang in her stomach. So many things were no longer the way they used to be.

 

When Hilary awoke on Thanksgiving morning, she found that the pang was no longer little. It was quite large, and Hilary had a good cry in her bedroom before she padded down the hallway to the kitchen. She had no idea that by evening the pang would have disappeared entirely, replaced with excitement and a number of unexpected occurrences.

Hilary stood at the front window of their apartment, a piece of toast in one hand, a glass of orange juice in the other. Below her, Main Street was coming to life. Most of the stores and businesses were closed, of course. (“But
we'll
be open,” Hilary mumbled sourly.) Still, there was Mr. Pennington taking Jacques for an early morning walk, and Mrs. Edwards buying a paper at the newsstand, and several cars driv ing lazily through town.

Thirteen and a half hours later, with the day behind her, Hilary (in a much brighter mood) was at the window again. Now the stores on Main Street glowed pleasantly beneath the streetlights. Most of their windows were dark, but the town was busy. People who had eaten their holiday meal at Fig Tree streamed happily out the door and made their way to their cars. Hilary craned her neck as far to the right as possible and noted that Frank had opened Frank's Beans for the evening. People were sitting on the stools at the window, holding cups of Autumn Celebration tea and Pumpkin Spice latte.

Hilary's stomach was pleasantly full of turkey and stuffing and pie, and her head was full of the events of the day. When the phone rang and her father called, “Hilary, for you! It's Ruby!” she leaped to her feet and grabbed the receiver. Then she settled by the window again. “Ruby!” she exclaimed. “You won't believe everything that happened today.”

“You won't believe my news, either!” cried Ruby. “And I get to tell it first because whatever your news is, I promise mine's more exciting. Plus,
I
called
you
.”

Hilary had been about to launch into the details of her day, but she said, “Okay. You go first.”

“All right. My news is …” Ruby paused like an announcer on a game show.

“What? What?” said Hilary.

“My news is … that the baby was born.”

“Yes!” shrieked Hilary. “What is it?”

“Well, it's a girl. But that's okay because her name is Jane Marie. Get it? Jane is my middle name, and Marie is Flora's middle name. And the baby is going to be called Janie, after me.”

“That's great!” said Hilary. “When will she come home?”

“Not for a while. A couple of weeks or so. But she'll be here for Christmas.”

“Oh. A baby for Christmas,” said Hilary with a sigh. “That's going to be so much fun.”

“What's your news?” asked Ruby.

“There are a whole bunch of things,” Hilary replied, and she thought back to that morning when she and Spencer had at last left the apartment and gone downstairs to the diner. Their parents had given them permission to watch part of the Thanksgiving parade on TV before they began their work.

“We'll get things set up,” their mother had said. “You can join us any time before noon.”

By the time they'd entered the diner, they'd found each table set with a pair of paper Pilgrims and a tiny vase containing a russet-colored chrysanthemum. On the chalkboard by the front door was a description of the day's special turkey dinner, which Mrs. Nelson had written in jaunty red and yellow and orange. Pamela, the young waitress who had just started working at the Marquis, had added a brilliant border of vines and pumpkins to the chalkboard. Despite herself, Hilary had begun to feel rather festive. She'd felt even better when her mother had pinned a yellow rose to her shirt. “Dad bought us corsages,” she told Ruby.

“So, who ate in the diner today?” Ruby wanted to know.

“A whole bunch of people I wouldn't have expected,” Hilary replied, although she wasn't at all sure whom she
had
expected.

“Oh.” Ruby sounded disappointed. “Was it just a bunch of people who didn't have anywhere else to go? Lonely people eating by themselves?”

“No,”
said Hilary somewhat huffily.

She thought of how quiet the diner had been when it opened at noon. At 12:15, when no customers had arrived, she had looked anxiously at her watch. This wasn't the Thanksgiving she had hoped for, but she knew her parents were counting on a certain amount of business, and she didn't want them to be disappointed.

“Dad,” Hilary had said urgently. Her father was standing across the diner, readying things behind the counter. Hilary pointed dramatically at the Coca-Cola clock on the wall. “It's twelve-fif
teen
,” she'd said.

“Don't worry,” her father had replied.

At twelve-twenty, their first customers arrived, and Hilary's mouth fell open.

“Who was it?” Ruby asked breathlessly.

“It was …” Hilary paused even longer than Ruby had paused when she had given Hilary the baby news. “It was … Mrs. Caldwell. And her family.”

“Our
teacher
? What was she doing there?”

“That's just what I asked her.”

Hilary told Ruby about the sheepish look on Mrs. Caldwell's face as she'd entered the Marquis, followed by a man and two small boys.

“You got to see her
husband
?!” exclaimed Ruby.

“Yup. And her two sons.”

“
She
gets
boys
.”

“I was so surprised that I said, ‘Mrs. Caldwell! You didn't tell me you were going to eat here today.'”

Mrs. Caldwell had smiled ruefully at Hilary. “We had a tiny accident at home.”

“Our oven caught fire!” announced one of the boys.

“We put the fire out, but we won't be able to use the oven until the repairman has taken a look at it,” added Mrs. Caldwell.

“The firefighters came!” announced the other boy. “It was really cool. You should see our kitchen. Water every where.”