The Bridegrooms (11 page)

Stop it!

She paced around the room. Compared to most parlors she’d seen, the décor was downright sparse. There were no corner whatnot shelves packed with figurines. Rather, there was a simple, worn sofa and two upholstered wing-back chairs. In the corner by the window, a small round table hosted a chessboard, the players abandoned in the last battle between Hazel and her father.

One tall bookcase was stuffed with various tomes. All of the intricate medical books had been moved down to Doc’s office, lest any of the girls run across an inappropriate anatomical illustration, but a few scientific volumes remained. Althea, once fascinated with insects, had spent hour after silent hour watching them through a magnifying glass, and the
Entomological Classification
text was just as lovingly tattered as father’s prized copy of
David Copperfield
.

Visitors often commented that the room lacked “a woman’s touch,” and then seemed embarrassed, given that four women lived in the home. Vada looked at those women now, their photographs lining the mantelshelf above the fireplace. Two on each side of the simple ticking clock. The three older girls had sat for a photo at the time of their graduation. In hers, Vada smiled the sweet, closed smile that brought out the dimple just below her lip. The color of her eyes was lost to the photograph, but she knew its lavender hue was identically reproduced in Hazel, who looked out at her from the next frame. Taken just a year later, this could have been a picture of Vada herself, given Hazel’s slender figure at the time.

Althea remained the tiny wisp of a thing she was in her photograph, where she wore an intricate black dress with tiers and tiers of ruffles. Her hair was parted down the center and rolled on each side with a flower pinned above her left ear. More than anyone, Althea appeared the same in the picture as she did in life. Maybe because so much of her time was spent in silent stillness.

Next to the photograph of Althea was an ornate silver frame with a green velvet mat behind the glass. The mat revealed two oval-shaped cutouts, and within one of those ovals was a photograph of Doc. Taken nearly thirty years ago, he was a young man, hair slicked down and whiskers neatly trimmed. He wore a white carnation in the lapel of his jacket, as the picture was taken on his wedding day.

The image in profile, Vada remembered as a little girl loving the way her father seemed to be looking with such longing at the woman who, in her own profile, looked back at him. Her childish imagination thought of the thin strip of green velvet mat as some sort of mythical valley the two lovers must cross in order to find each other in the terrestrial world.

But the photograph of her mother had long been removed. In fact, it lay tucked away inside the top drawer of Vada’s bureau, where it had been since the night she snuck down into the parlor to remove it from its
frame. She used to look at it every night, turning her face to the side, trying to look into the woman’s eyes and beg her to come home.

Soon enough, that image of her mother gave way to the profile Vada could never forget—that of her mother in the lamplight, rocking in the chair, humming her final lullaby. That was an image that could never be framed.

Now, instead, the image of her father looked at one of a little Lisette in a photograph taken when she was just twelve years old. Even the dullness of the picture couldn’t hide the coppery shine of the curls pinned to the side of her head with large white bows.

Where Althea, Hazel, and Vada all faced the camera with winsome, thin-lipped smiles, Lisette showed no such restraint. Her eyes were wide, her bow-shaped lips parted, her hand the tiniest blur in her lap.

Molly Keegan always said that the three eldest Allenhouse girls could be a set of those Russian nesting dolls—so alike they were in feature and so graduated in size. But Lisette never fit into that image. She was at once as tall as Vada, as buxom as Hazel, and as thin waisted as Althea.

Vada took a deep breath and stared once again at the head of the mantel, craning close, looking into one face, then the next, then the next—the horrific words of Alex Triplehorn echoing in her mind.

“Oh, Mother,” she whispered to Doc’s boyish profile. “Certainly you couldn’t.”

But then she thought about herself this day. Comfortably kissing one man and thrilling at the touch of another within the hour. “Or maybe you could.”

The light touch on her shoulder startled her, and she spun around, stifling a cry as she saw it was only Althea, a bewildered expression on her face.

“You’ve got to learn to take heavier steps.”

In response, Althea ripped a slip of paper off the little notebook she wore suspended from a ribbon around her neck.

The tears that Vada had been so close to just a moment before disappeared, set free with the release of laughter. “Oh, my goodness,” she said once she caught her breath. “Nothing you read in the telegraph office could even come close to the excitement we’ve had here today.”

Vada put her arm around her younger sister’s slim shoulders and led her to the sofa where they both collapsed, legs tucked up underneath them, and began to tell her the story, beginning her narrative on what she imagined happened the moment Lucky Lou LaFortune’s bat hit the ball.

By the time Hazel and Lisette came home from their errands, Althea was smiling broadly at the image of Kenny Cupid meekly following Molly up the stairs.

But Alex Triplehorn and their fateful lunchtime conversation appeared nowhere in the tale. After all, he’d been kept a secret for the past seventeen years. No need to add him to the mix today.

AMEN TO YOU TOO

Most of the room was still hidden in predawn shadows when Vada opened her eyes. The first thought to register was surprise that she’d slept at all, given how uncomfortably crowded sharing a bed with Hazel had been. At some time during the night, she’d rolled off the bed and onto the floor, taking her pillow and the blanket with her.

Groaning, Vada eased up onto one elbow until she was eye level with the mattress. There Hazel lay curled up within the flannel gown that was the only covering she had against the cold. Her face was smashed against the pillow, and as Vada’s vision adjusted to the darkness, she realized one violet eye was open and staring straight at her.

“I tell you one thing,” Hazel said, her voice thick with sleep, “that boy’d better wake up or die today, ’cause you’re not sleeping in here again.”

It was a wicked thing to say, let alone laugh at, but Vada couldn’t help herself, feeling such relief at seeing the spark of her sister return. It had been a long time since laughter was the first utterance of the day. In the last breath of it she asked, “Is it time to get up yet?”

“Nope. The clock downstairs chimed five just a few minutes ago.”

“How long have you been awake?”

“Awhile.” Hazel scooted to the far side of the mattress and patted the newly vacated space.

Vada climbed up, ignoring the protest of her aching back, and settled gratefully into its softness. She brought up the blanket to cover them both, and they snuggled together. Vada tried not to squeal when Hazel lodged two icy feet against the backs of her legs. “Your feet are like icicles.”

“You always were a cover hog, but I’ve never known you to actually take the blankets
away
.”

They twisted and turned, seeking each other as much as warmth and comfort, and when they finally settled in together, their breathing became deep and even. Perfectly synchronized when the parlor clock sounded quarter past the hour.

“I’ll never get back to sleep,” Hazel whispered to the shadows.

“Hmmm…” Vada was already drifting.

“I’m sorry to have been so horrible yesterday. It was all just such a shock.”

Vada patted her sister’s leg. “It’s all right.”

“After dinner, Doc cornered me in the hallway and asked what was wrong.”

Now fully alert, Vada propped herself up on one elbow. “What did you tell him?”

“Nothing, really. I told him I didn’t like the way Lissy treated that Cupid boy at dinner.”

“She was terrible, wasn’t she?” And she had been, countering Kenny’s every attempt at conversation with some withering, sarcastic retort.

“Yes, but still…did you see the way he looked at her?”

“Poor kid.” Vada settled back down and stared straight up at the ceiling.

“I wonder what it would be like to have a man look at me that way.”

“Like he doesn’t have a brain in his head?”

Vada could sense Hazel’s smile. “No, like he doesn’t have any thoughts in his head besides loving you. Consumed.”

“Kenny Cupid plays baseball. He has to catch, throw, and hit. No thinking required.”

“That’s just it,” Hazel said. “One look at Lissy, and he couldn’t even do that much.” They were silent for a while before Hazel continued. “Garrison doesn’t look at you like that.”

“Garrison’s a lawyer. He needs to keep
a lot
of thoughts in his head.”

“I know but—” Hazel shifted, and this time when her feet touched Vada, they were warm. “Has he ever? Even when you first started courting?”

“Of course he has. I mean, he did.” She was almost sure.

“I’m afraid our Lissy’s going to break that kid’s heart.”

“That’s what our Lissy does best.”

Another bit of silence and it was Hazel’s turn to prop herself up, only this time Vada followed suit and the two looked into each other’s eyes, barely discernable in the darkened room.

“Tell me, Vada. What do you really think, now that you’ve had a night to sleep on the idea?”

“I think I need another night of real sleep,” Vada said. When Hazel showed no sign of responding to her little joke, she reached out her free hand and touched her sister’s face, her fingers touching the lace of the nightcap Hazel insisted on wearing every night. “What do you want me to say?”

“What are we going to do?”

“We aren’t going to do anything, Hazel. Not anytime soon.”

“But Doc—”

“May already know that Mr. Triplehorn is in town. Goodness knows he’s never felt the need to share any of this sordid tale with us over the years. I see no reason why we should share our little chapter with him.”

Vada hadn’t meant for the words to come out quite so bitter, and she steeled herself for Hazel to leap to their father’s defense. Instead, Hazel just lay back down and pulled the covers up to her chin.

“But you have to stop moping around the house about it, or everybody will know for sure that something is wrong.”

“I’ll try.” The words were lost in a yawn so big, Vada feared Hazel’s jaw would unhinge.

Unable to stop herself, she followed suit, burying her head deep into the pillow. Somewhere downstairs, the sound of the kitchen door signaled Molly’s arrival to prepare breakfast. Vada allowed herself one quick thought about getting up and going downstairs to help, but it disappeared as quickly as it came.

The next time Vada opened her eyes, a strip of sunshine pierced through the curtains. The rattling of pans had bloomed into Molly’s familiar morning warning that if the family wasn’t at the table for breakfast in ten minutes, she’d be wanderin’ the streets lookin’ for a dog to feed it to.

Vada was alone in Hazel’s bed. Alone in the room, in fact, and she stood up and stretched, grateful for the last bit of sleep. Once the lingering kinks were worked out, she went to her knees at the side of the bed and bowed her head to pray. It was a ritual she’d held to since she was a child, since the first morning after her mother left when she’d prayed to find her downstairs in the kitchen.

This morning, no matter how tightly she closed her eyes against distraction, she could not bring her heart to focus.

She thanked God for the restoration of peace between Hazel and herself and asked Him for wisdom about how to handle the problem of Alex Triplehorn.

But even as she asked for guidance, her mind swirled in anxious circles as she entertained the possibility of his outrageous claim. She prayed that Doc’s heart would be protected even as she wondered how or if she would ever tell him about yesterday’s lunch at the Hollenden Hotel.