The only salvageable part of the dinner was the pies. Mrs. Jensen had stored them in a large ice chest in the basement when she ran out of counter space in the kitchen. As she cut the pies, the doorbell rang, and one of the neighbors appeared with a pumpkin pie in her hand.
“We had an extra pie, and I thought maybe it would help, with the fire and everything.”
“Thanks,” Sharon Jensen said graciously. “We were just about to serve dessert.”
Before the pie was served, another neighbor came by. This one delivered a plateful of sliced turkey and two pumpkin pies. Mrs. Jensen thanked her and added the pumpkin pies to the seven already lining the counter.
“Years from now we’ll all look back and remember this as the year we ate pumpkin pie and nothing else,” she said as Sierra watched her cut the generous slices.
After the feast of pumpkin pies, two whole pies were left. The table was being cleared when the doorbell rang and another neighbor stood there, offering a bowl of leftover stuffing and two pumpkin pies.
“None of us had room for pie,” the neighbor stated. “I thought maybe your family could put them to good use.”
Sierra heard her dad thank the woman and then deliver the goods to the kitchen counter.
“It seems for every pie we eat, another one shows up,” Wes said.
“And to think I knocked myself out making all those pies yesterday,” Mrs. Jensen said, and she burst into another round of laughter and tears.
Even though Sierra had planned to sneak upstairs to write Paul, she decided she should stay to help her mom before she fell apart completely. For almost two hours, she washed everything that was handed to her. The kitchen’s entire contents reeked of smoke and needed to be cleaned. All the aunts seemed to enjoy hunting out the smoke-tainted items. They celebrated their discoveries by delivering them to Sierra saying, “Ew! Smell this plate” or “Phew! This candleholder really stinks!” Sierra kept washing, emptying the sink, filling it with more soapy water, and washing some more.
For a while Aunt Emma dried dishes. Then Sierra’s mom took over. Wesley came in at the end of the first hour, as if they were part of a tag team. He said there was a request for more coffee from the living room. That got Mrs. Jensen away from the sink long enough for him to pick up a towel and work on the row of glasses Sierra was washing. Aunt Frieda insisted that all the shelves be wiped off before anything could be returned, so the glasses had to wait until she was ready for them. She also took on the task of taking down the curtains to be washed.
Sierra’s cousin Molly had been assigned by her mother, Frieda, to wipe down the walls, the top of the refrigerator, and the cupboards. The only problem was that Molly kept dunking her sponge into Sierra’s dishwater. Instantly, the water would turn sooty gray. It was driving Sierra crazy. She knew everything needed to be washed off, but why couldn’t Molly use the paper towels and spray cleaner as Mrs. Jensen had suggested and Sierra kept reinforcing? Wesley solved the problem by providing Molly with a mixing bowl full of sudsy water and a new sponge.
“I heard you were thinking of bringing a guest home for Thanksgiving,” Sierra said to Wesley. “I bet you’re glad now you didn’t bring her.”
“Her?” Wesley said. He shook his head. “I invited a guy from Japan. He had never heard of our American custom of Thanksgiving. But he decided to go with someone who lives in Corvallis rather than be gone all weekend with me. I’m sure he’ll be sorry he missed all the excitement here.”
“Rats,” Sierra said. “I thought for sure you were bringing home a girlfriend.”
“Nope, not me.”
“No interesting women at school this year?” Sierra asked.
“Plenty of interesting women. Just not the right one.”
“What would make her the right one?” Molly asked.
“I have a list,” Wes said quietly.
“A real list?” Molly asked. “A written-out list?”
Wes turned to her and nodded. “Don’t you?”
“Well, in my head, yeah, but nothing on paper.”
“Put it on paper,” Wes challenged. “It will help to clarify what you’re looking for.”
“Like, what do you put down?” Molly was short with round glasses and an upturned nose. She was usually so quiet that Sierra was surprised to hear her quizzing Wes.
“Character and personality qualities, life goals, you know. It’s not a physical shopping list: five foot two, eyes of blue, or anything like that.”
“Give me an example of one of the things on your list,” Molly prodded.
Wesley hesitated. “Well, she has to be a believer and have a growing relationship with the Lord.”
“What else?”
Wesley looked at Sierra, and with a teasing smile he said, “I’d like someone who is emotionally healthy. Preferably an emotional virgin.”
“A what?” Molly wrinkled up her nose.
“You know, a woman who has been saving her heart for the right guy. Someone who hasn’t been falling in and out of love since she was twelve and now, at twenty-three, is a big tangle of broken pieces from her past relationships.”
“You’re a dreamer,” Molly said with a shake of her head. She was a year younger than Sierra but had always acted more mature and serious than her cousin. “No girls like that are left. Especially by the time they’re twenty-three.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Wes said, giving Sierra another grin. “Some seventeen-year-olds have managed to guard their hearts. A guy can always hope a few wise women don’t come with a truckload of emotional baggage when they’re ready to start a serious relationship.”
“What about you?” Aunt Emma said, jumping into the discussion. “Can you honestly say you’re emotionally damage-free? I seem to remember a certain young beauty who showed up at Christmas one year when you were in high school.”
“I never said I was an emotional virgin.” Wes turned and leaned against the counter, his hands resting on the tile as if he were bracing himself for the verbal onslaught that was sure to come from this roomful of women.
“Isn’t that just like a man?” Aunt Frieda spouted. “They want the woman to be perfect, but they don’t think they have to be.”
“I didn’t say that,” Wesley stated. “It’s just my ideal. I do understand reality.”
“How could you if you’re twenty-three and still carrying around a list of requirements?” Aunt Frieda was the only one in the family who had been through a divorce. She had let everyone know that she had felt unprepared for a realistic marriage because she believed all she had to do was marry someone who said he was a Christian.
For the next ten minutes, Frieda challenged Wesley to adjust his thinking to a more realistic view. She emphasized the Scriptures that said Christians are supposed to love one another and help the weaker ones along. “Not a single verse says we should marry only people who are completely pure because, if you haven’t noticed, no one fits that description. We all fail. True love means sticking by the other person in his or her failures and loving that person no matter what.”
Wesley didn’t argue with that but added, “What about 2 Peter where it says we’re to live holy lives?”
“We all fail,” Frieda insisted. “ ‘Holy’ means complete, doesn’t it? We’re made complete when we surrender our lives to Christ. He’s the one who makes us ‘holy.’ It has nothing to do with emotional baggage.”
“I think it does,” Wes said. “We have choices every day of what we choose to keep in the storehouse of our hearts. All I’m saying is I’d like to meet a woman who has relatively few boxes of explosives in her storehouse.”
Molly laughed, which helped break some of the tension that had been building. Sierra had finished the last dish and wanted to get out of there. She felt warm from the dishwater. She also felt a little nervous that Wesley might use her again as an example of someone with a storehouse full of empty boxes. That wasn’t true. She had collected a few emotional mementos along the way. She had told Wes about
some of them, like Drake and Alex. Wes had never suggested to her that he saw anything emotionally inappropriate in those relationships.
But Wes didn’t know much about the box marked “Paul,” which now filled the storehouse of Sierra’s heart. She thought of Wes as understanding how special that relationship was to her. But in reality, how could he? He hadn’t been home for weeks. He probably didn’t even know she and Paul were corresponding.
Slipping out of the kitchen and pulling her green backpack off the coat rack in the entryway, Sierra retreated to Granna Mae’s room. To her surprise, the bedroom was empty. She pulled out Paul’s photo, which was tucked in the bottom of her mound of now untidy clothes. He was still smiling at her, even though he had that tiny slice above his heart.
She stared at the picture for a long time and wished Paul were here right now. They would go for a long walk together, hand in hand. It wouldn’t matter that the rain fell on them or that the wet, molding leaves would fly against their legs. They would be together—close together. To Sierra that’s all that mattered.
If she couldn’t hold Paul’s hand, she at least had his picture and his words. And she could give him back her words. In the solitude, Sierra pulled out a piece of notebook paper and wrote at the top:
P.S. This will probably be the longest P.S. you’ve ever seen. It might even be the longest one in the world. It’s been less than twenty-four hours since I wrote you, but you’re not going to believe what happened here today.
Sierra twirled the end of the pen across her smiling lips and thought how, in a small, secret way, she was spending time alone with Paul. Even with a house full of company.
six
“IS EVERYONE IN?” Sharon Jensen looked over her shoulder from the driver’s seat of the family van. All of the passenger seats held Jensen women, seat-belted and ready for an outing that was, in Sierra’s opinion, more important to her mom than to anyone else. It was Friday afternoon, the final day of the reunion, and her mom was determined to take all the women to tea in downtown Portland.
Sierra had resisted going. It had been another restless night for everyone, and Sierra wanted to sleep in. She had to work Saturday, and Sunday was filled with church and activities, so this was her only real day of vacation. Even though she had spent little time with her relatives because she kept finding quiet corners to write to Paul, Sierra enjoyed the isolation. She knew she was related to these people, but right now, at this point in her life, she wasn’t interested in them.
Granna Mae was in the front passenger seat, and Tawni and Sierra were wedged in the back with Aunt Frieda, who had a wide berth. Frieda was leaning forward, chattering with Aunt Emma in the next seat up. Sierra’s teen cousins, Molly and Nicole, were playing a finger yarn game with the seven-year-old twins, Amanda and Kayla.
“Tell me your big news,” Sierra said, leaning close to Tawni so no one else could hear. “I didn’t get a chance to ask you yesterday.”
Tawni had pulled her hair back in a stylish twist. The strands framing Tawni’s face tickled Sierra’s nose when she leaned close to her sister’s ear.
“I’ve decided to go back to college in January,” Tawni announced.
“That’s what Paul said you were thinking about.”
Tawni looked surprised. “When did Paul talk to you? And how did he know?”
“Jeremy told him, of course. And I haven’t talked to Paul. He told me in a letter. We’ve been writing each other. A lot,” she added for emphasis.
Tawni picked up the clue and looked pleasantly surprised. “Jeremy hadn’t told me. Are you and Paul e-mail buddies?”
“No.”
“No? You write pen-and-paper letters?”
Sierra nodded. The van went over a bump as Mrs. Jensen drove onto the Hawthorne Bridge. The vehicle carried the yakking band of women through the pouring rain toward the heart of the city.
“I’m impressed,” Tawni said. “I didn’t realize you two were, well, what are you? Dating by mail?”
Sierra smiled. She liked that. “I guess you could call it that.”
“How often do you write?”
With a shrug, Sierra said, “I don’t know. Every day. Every other day. Sometimes twice a day.”
Tawni’s blue eyes grew wide. “This is serious, little sister. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t Jeremy tell me? Do you think Paul has told him?”
“I don’t know,” Sierra said. She suddenly felt a pinch in her stomach. What if Paul hadn’t said anything because he didn’t think it was that big a deal? What if their correspondence was only a big deal to her? But how could that be? The guy was composing poetry for her and sitting alone on Friday nights, talking to her on paper. Sierra tried to bolster her confidence. Of course this relationship was as important to Paul as it was to her. He had made that clear plenty of times—hadn’t he?
“Maybe you shouldn’t say anything to Jeremy,” Sierra said cautiously. “I mean, if Paul wants to tell him, brother to brother, I wouldn’t want to steal his thunder.”
“You mean like Paul stole mine by telling you I’m going to Reno?” Tawni said.
“What do you mean, going to Reno? I thought you said you were going back to school.”
“I am. At the University of Nevada, Reno.” Tawni looked like a woman whose mind and will were set in stone.
“Why Reno? What about Jeremy? Why don’t you go to school in San Diego, where you live? I mean, what about all your modeling opportunities? Who do you know in Reno, of all places?”
“No one yet,” Tawni said with a sly edge to her voice.
“I don’t get it,” Sierra said. “Is Jeremy transferring there?”
“No. He has only one semester left. He graduates next June, just like Wes. Jeremy figures he can live through his final semester without me. He even thinks his grades might improve.”
“Do Mom and Dad know about this?”
“Not yet. I’m keeping it a secret until I receive the acceptance papers. There have been some small problems with my transcripts.”
“I still don’t get why you would go to a university where you don’t know anyone and you’re out of state so you’ll have to pay more.”
Tawni just smiled. “Maybe and maybe not.”
Before Sierra could extract any more information from her sister, Mrs. Jensen pulled the van into a parking space and turned off the engine. “I have several umbrellas here,” she said, offering the Portland essential gear to everyone.
Sierra looked out, and the first shop window she saw had the words “Carla’s Café” printed in gold letters under the scalloped, striped awning. She smiled and nudged Tawni. “Did you know we were going to Carla’s? This is the place you brought Paul and me that night before he left for Scotland.”
“We’re not going there,” Tawni said. “Mom found another place around the corner. It’s an old hotel that serves high tea in a separate parlor. Didn’t you hear her talking about it this morning? The parlor still has a lot of the original furniture from when the hotel opened for business in the late 1800s.”
“I guess I didn’t hear her,” Sierra said, scooting across the seat. She stepped onto the sidewalk with the happy, chattering women and cast a melancholy gaze at the front window of the café. Someday she hoped Paul and she could return to sit by the front window. Their conversation would be different now. Paul wouldn’t have to ask if she had a crush on him. He would know, as she knew, that what they had was much more than a childish crush.
“Sierra,” Tawni called, “are you coming with us?”
The others had already scurried down the street and disappeared around the corner. Sierra stood alone in front of Carla’s with the rain dampening her hair. She didn’t mind. She had gotten much wetter than this one day last February when she was walking home with a big bouquet of daffodils as a gift for Granna Mae. She was soaked then, and Paul had seen her while driving by with his friends. That’s when he had started calling her the Daffodil Queen.
“I’m coming,” Sierra
said, still lost in her dreamworld and not caring at all about sitting around with a bunch of relatives for a tea party. She would much rather go inside Carla’s and sit in the chair she had sat in last time and imagine Paul sitting across from her. She could dream up all the things they would talk about and the way he would reach across the table to take her hand. He would squeeze it gently and smile in a way that would say, “I’m so happy we’re finally together, Sierra.”
She sighed as she rounded the corner, with Tawni three steps ahead, holding her umbrella close to the top of her head to protect her perfect hairdo. Mrs. Jensen had asked that Sierra dress up, and she had managed to put together an outfit consisting of a long skirt, a pair of warm socks, and her dad’s old cowboy boots. Her long, wheat-colored sweater hung over the brown and cream straight skirt. She was keenly aware that her outfit wasn’t dressy and stylish like Tawni’s. But Sierra felt like Sierra: comfortable, unpretentious, original.
Now, if she could only convince Aunt Frieda to stop giving her disapproving looks, she would be fine. Fine enough to almost enjoy this tea party—for her mother’s sake, if nothing else.
The parlor of the old hotel was charming. The women were seated in groups of four at several small, round tables that were arranged on the same side of the room as a baby grand piano. When they entered and took their seats, the pianist played Beethoven’s “For Elise,” which had always been one of Sierra’s favorites. She sat next to Granna Mae, and the twins took the other two chairs.
A waiter appeared wearing a white shirt and black vest, with a towel over his arm. He explained the delicacies that were being served that afternoon and went through the list of available teas. Sierra ordered an Oregon specialty tea, marionberry. It came in a china pot with a silver strainer, since it was leaf tea and not in a bag. The twins loved all the attention given to dainty details: the decorated sugar cubes, the tiny silver creamers, and the cucumber sandwiches cut in star and heart shapes. The hotel even served pumpkin pie in cube-sized squares with dots of thick whipped cream on top.