Summer of Joy (34 page)

“I like daisies. And sunflowers. Sunflowers just look like they’re shouting out joy, don’t you think? The way they reach for the sun.” Leigh held her arms up over her head to demonstrate and smiled.

Zella didn’t smile back. “They’re messy. They drip pollen all over. Roses are better. Besides, sunflowers aren’t blooming yet.”

“They’ll be blooming somewhere. Blanche over at the flower shop can get them. I want daisies and sunflowers of joy,” Leigh said. “Big bunches of them.”

“That might be better suited at Mt. Pleasant than First Baptist,” Zella said with a sniff.

“Then maybe we should move the wedding back to Mt. Pleasant.”

“I guess you expect people to stand outside and peek through the windows once all the pews are full.”

“If they want to,” Leigh said. She didn’t really care. All she cared about was how she was going to look in her perfect wedding dress and how David was going to look as he stood at the front of the church watching her walk down the aisle. Whichever aisle it was.

Zella mashed her lips together into a thin line before she said, “All right. Daisies and sunflowers it is. With one bouquet of roses on the reception table where the cake is going to sit in the fellowship hall. You don’t want pollen all over your cake and in the punch, do you?” Zella didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ll pick those roses out of my garden. And Lovella’s. She has some yellow ones. That won’t cost you anything.”

“Thank you, Zella. For everything. Without you, we might not be talking about roses or sunflowers,” Leigh said as she gave Zella a little hug.

“True enough. Sometimes people have to be shoved toward their destiny.”

Destiny. A marriage written in the stars. A match made in heaven. A blessed event. A reason for celebration. And she was celebrating as the sun began to rise on her wedding day.

Leigh sang a few hallelujahs as she danced across her bedroom, through the living room, and into the kitchen.

She didn’t even mind when Mrs. Simpson hit her broom handle against her ceiling below Leigh’s feet. After today, Mrs. Simpson’s too-sensitive ears would be somebody else’s problem.

Nearly all of Leigh’s stuff was in boxes, ready to move. She hadn’t figured out exactly where she would put any of it at David’s house. His house was already full of stuff and people. David was talking about building on a couple of rooms. Some of the men at church had volunteered to help. Thank goodness, they weren’t having to make extra room for Adrienne. She’d left.

David hadn’t asked her to. Leigh hadn’t asked David to ask her to, but Leigh was still relieved Adrienne had decided to leave before the wedding. Leigh did feel bad for her. Not just because of the cancer, but because she’d never realized the blessing of her family. A blessing that was now Leigh’s.

Leigh filled the teakettle and put it on to heat. She had so many butterflies in her stomach that she wasn’t sure she’d be able to eat a thing, but she stuck some bread in the toaster. Maybe the butterflies were hungry and would settle down if she fed them.

She picked up a paper plate covered with ribbons off the table. Jessica Sanderson had carefully threaded all the ribbons from Leigh’s shower gifts through a slit in the paper plate so Leigh could use it for her wedding bouquet at the rehearsal. Leigh fingered the long, streaming ribbons.

They’d had the rehearsal at Mt. Pleasant Church the night before. Zella had said that couldn’t happen, but David told Zella not only that it could happen. It would happen.

“One church is not that much different from another,” he’d said and held up his hand to stop her protests. “So First Baptist does have a longer aisle, but that just means more walking. We don’t need any practice walking. And right or wrong, we’re having the rehearsal at Mt. Pleasant because the good people out there have been planning for months to have the rehearsal dinner for us in the church basement. So we’re going to enjoy.”

Enjoy. She and David had kept whispering that word to one another all through what surely had to be the zaniest wedding rehearsal on record. Tabitha and Robert Wesley were making eyes at one another in a little world all their own. Stephen Lee was crawling under the pews. Myra Hearndon’s twins had crawled under the pews after him while Myra sang “The Lord’s Prayer.” Jocie had to leave her spot beside Tabitha and Leigh at the altar to corral them and sit them down on the pew beside Miss Sally who thankfully pulled a sack of graham crackers out of her purse to keep the babies still for a few minutes. The ring bearer and flower girl, Leigh’s cousin’s kids, took turns banging each other in the head with the ring pillow in spite of their mother’s loudly whispered reprimands.

As if all that hadn’t been bad enough, her Uncle Howie had said he wasn’t really sure he could do the preacher’s version of the wedding. As a judge he always just used a civil ceremony to marry people. Zella got right in his face and told him he’d say the ceremony the way they told him to and that was it. When Zella had paused for breath, Wes had offered to do the Jupiter version. Zella hadn’t been amused. Neither were Leigh’s parents if their glum expressions were any indication as they sat on the second row and watched the madness.

But then the rehearsal dinner made up for it all. Miss Sally took Leigh’s mother in hand and had her smiling and laughing before she’d downed her first glass of iced tea. Matt McDermott sat down by her father and talked tractors. Leigh hadn’t even known her father knew the first thing about tractors, but before long the two men were agreeing on which make was best at pulling a hay baler.

Zella had cornered Leigh before Leigh even had a chance to fill her plate. “A bad rehearsal always means a smooth wedding. If the wedding is as good as the rehearsal was bad, then the ceremony should go off without a hitch.” Zella patted her curls that were looking a little limp in the heat of the overcrowded basement and fanned herself with a paper plate. The whole church congregation had obviously decided they were close enough family to be part of the rehearsal dinner.

“I don’t care, Zella. Not as long as I end up hitched. To David.”

Zella had rolled her eyes at Leigh. “Horses get hitched. Not people.”

Leigh had mashed down a giggle. Giggling was probably something prospective brides her age shouldn’t do either. But then David stepped up beside her and whispered in her ear. “Enjoy.”

So Leigh had laughed and done just that. Enjoyed. And she was going to enjoy today. Rejoice and enjoy. And count her blessings. Number one, David. Number two, David. Number three, David. Number five hundred and six, David.

She had just poured the boiling water over her tea bag and sat down with her toast when she heard something out on her stoop. She sat very still without making a sound and hoped it was David coming by to say good morning before he went in to put in a few hours working on next week’s issue of the
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. But of course it wasn’t. She knew who it was even before she saw the edge of white pushing through her keyhole.

The man just would not leave her alone. Even after she’d practically run over his feet getting away from him the week before. Even after David had called him and told him to stay away from her. Even after he no longer had a job or a reason to be in Hollyhill. Even after she and David had gone together to talk to Randy Simmons, the chief of police, about the man bothering Leigh.

“He’s a strange one,” Chief Simmons had agreed with them on that. “But I don’t know that anything you’ve told me is against the law. He calls you on the phone. You see him hanging around out on the street around your place. I can’t arrest him for that. I need some proof of some wrongdoing.”

“What about the notes in my door? That’s proof he was there,” Leigh said. “When I didn’t want him to be there.”

“I understand, Leigh. Really I do. But did he do anything illegal? That’s what I have to think about as an officer of the law. He’s at your door, but he’s not breaking and entering.” The chief looked at them across his desk.

“God forbid,” David said as he reached over to hold Leigh’s hand.

“Well, see, that’s what I mean,” the chief said. “He may be bothersome and a pain in the neck, but he’s not dangerous. He’s just trying to get your attention, Leigh. Change your mind about getting married to David here.”

“But I’ve asked him to leave me alone. Over and over.”

“Is he threatening you in any way? Saying anything obscene?” The chief picked up a pencil and a little notebook and waited for something to write down.

“No,” Leigh admitted.

“Then I don’t think there’s really anything I can do. Except maybe give him an earful if he bothers you again. Tell him to take a hike, but I can’t arrest him for trying to catch your eye.” Chief Simmons looked sorry about that as he put the notebook down and sat back in his chair. “Like I said, the man’s a strange one. He was in here himself just last week.”

“What about?” David asked.

“Research, he said. For that great American novel he’s writing. Asked me if I’d ever shot anybody in the line of duty. Then he sort of laughed and added ‘or not in the line of duty.’ And when I said I hadn’t ever found it necessary, he asked me if I thought I could if it was necessary. If I even knew how to get my gun out of my holster.”

“Did you tell him you saw action in France during the war, Randy?” David asked.

“I didn’t see how that was anything he needed to know. Course he does appear to be drafting age. Single and all like he is, I’m surprised he hasn’t already been called up. Could be he might have to serve some time in ’Nam if things don’t settle down over there. I wouldn’t envy the man that.”

They’d ended up with Leigh promising to call the chief if Edwin Hammond showed up in her yard or on her doorstep again, and David promising to let the chief handle it if that happened.

Chief Simmons had walked with them to the door of his office. “What is it now? Not even a week till the two of you tie the knot. Once you’re married, legal and all, this Hammond nut will give up on it and head back north to wherever he came from. One thing sure, nobody in Hollyhill will be sorry to see the heels of his shoes leaving town.”

Now Leigh looked at the phone on the wall across the table from her. Too far away for her to reach without getting up. She didn’t want to move or make any kind of noise that might let Edwin Hammond know she was awake and listening to him out on her stoop. She had a thick bath towel draped over the window in the door. He couldn’t see inside even if he did try to make her believe he could.

Leigh held her breath as the doorknob turned and the door rattled. She said a thanksgiving prayer that she’d gotten up and double-checked to be sure the door was locked the night before.

“I know you’re in there, Leigh. I know you’re awake. I know you’re listening.”

He wasn’t shouting, but his voice slid easily through the cracks around the old door. She wanted to put her hands over her ears. She wanted to scream until he went away. She bit her lip and sat very still instead. Maybe the chief was right. Maybe after today, after she was officially and finally Mrs. David Brooke, Edwin Hammond would give up and go away. She wanted him to go away right now. She didn’t need him trying to spoil the most wonderful day of her life.

He was talking a little louder now. Leigh could almost see Mrs. Simpson downstairs peeking out her kitchen window trying to see what was happening. At least Leigh would have a witness if Edwin did cross the line from legally driving Leigh crazy to something Chief Simmons might consider illegal.

“You can still make the better choice. You can still love me. I’ll take you away from here. I’ll make you soar to the heavens.”

Funny, Leigh thought. The man had never said the first thing about loving her. It was always her loving him.

“Let me in,” he said and began shaking the door. “I’ll make you mine.”

Leigh stopped sitting there like one of the three little pigs while the wolf tried to tear down her door. She stood up and grabbed the phone, but she didn’t know the police department’s number. Back in Grundy, her mother had always kept the telephone number of the police taped to their phone. The strip of paper was brown with age with the tape curling up on the edges. Never once had her mother had the occasion to use it.

Leigh knew that number by heart from seeing it a thousand or two times. A lot of good that did her. The Grundy police weren’t going to come run Edwin Hammond off. She started frantically searching for her telephone book under the piles of newspapers she’d been using to wrap her dishes. There was something to say for paranoia. At least then she’d know the number for the Hollyhill police.

“Are you afraid to talk to me, Leigh Jacobson? Hiding like a little mouse in a hole? That’s what living here is doing to you. You’re a tiger, not a mouse.”

Leigh dropped the stack of papers. She knew the county clerk’s number. She dialed it and asked Judy to call Chief Simmons. Then she went right to the door and pulled the bath towel off the curtain rod. She stared through the window at Edwin Hammond who started smiling at her.

She kept her face blank. “Go away.”

“The door’s old. I could break it.” His smile got wider. “Just a little harder push. That’s all it would take.”

“Go away.”

“You don’t really want me to go away. Not really. Your future is at stake. My future is at stake.”

“Go away. Now.” A few streets away, Leigh heard a siren. Not a common sound in Hollyhill. Half the town would be running to their doors to see if it was the ambulance or the police stopping a speeder. No one would think it was a mentally unbalanced man at her door.

“Never,” Edwin said. “I’m here to rescue you.”

The siren was getting closer. Leigh didn’t say anything more as she very deliberately hung the towel back over the window in the door. Then she went back into the kitchen and sat down to drink her tea. Nothing, not even Edwin Hammond, was going to mess up this day for her.

Outside she could hear Chief Simmons talking to the man, but she didn’t try to hear what either of them said. She got a piece of paper and began making a list of things she needed to take to the church. Her suitcase packed for their weekend at Cumberland Falls. Her dress and veil. Miss Sally’s handkerchief she was going to carry in the wedding for the something borrowed. The garter Zella had given her for the something blue. Her grandmother’s gold locket for the something old. Her white slippers would do for the something new.