She had submitted to his clumsiness quietly and gently, letting her body unfold in his hands like the cloth of silk, and he had been stunned at the ease and grace of her giving. He had whispered stupidly of her beauty, had apologized shamefully for his behavior—behavior he could not stop—but she had not seemed to hear him.
“What I’ve done is wrong,” he had said painfully as he walked her to the door of the store. “I can only ask you to forgive me. It won’t happen again. You have my promise.”
She had looked at him warmly, as though she did not understand why he was suddenly sad, had reached to touch his face, and then she had said, “I’m glad you don’t hold it against Ben, me being here.”
And that, too, was something that had lingered in his sleeplessness. Her concern for Ben seemed to be more than appreciation; it seemed deeply personal. And perhaps neither she nor Ben had told the whole story. Perhaps her husband was not dead, and she was only fleeing from him and had confided in Ben, and Ben had taken it upon himself to protect her. It would be like Ben to do so. He had his father’s compassion for people who needed help, and since he had stopped boasting of his skills in baseball, he had become almost invisible when attention was turned on him. How would he explain being the protector of a woman on the run to Sally—or to anyone?
And maybe it meant nothing, what Lottie had said. Maybe it was the only thing she could think to say. He did not believe she had given herself so freely simply to shield Ben. There was too much in the giving, too much.
He stood inside his store, at the window, and searched the street for her, watching the early-morning shoppers arriving in their motorcars and buggies. He wondered if she would return to work, and if she did, what he would say to her.
She would leave Jericho soon, and it would be best. In time, he would remember her only with joy, not fear and regret.
He thought of Coleman Maxey.
Coleman was not right about Lottie. Believing he had seen her with the carnival was only the wildness of his imagination, the kind of trick that magicians used when they locked someone in a box and twirled it and then keyed open the locks to show it empty, and moments later called the disappeared person to materialize in the back of the auditorium.
Coleman wanted Lottie to be the girl of the carnival. It would make his fantasies of her worth the gossip he was bound to spread after she left.
He would not question her about the carnival, Arthur decided, but he would tell Coleman different. He would say he had asked her directly about it and she had provided him with certain proof that she was in Kentucky at the time. And then he would propose that no one else in Jericho had remembered her from the carnival, and she had been seen by most of the townspeople since coming to work in his store. Not just seen, but stared at, examined. He would say that he, too, remembered a girl—pretty like Lottie—but the girl he remembered was much shorter and had a dull, used look hidden in her soft eyes. With persuasion, Coleman might change his story. He might say that Lottie had a look-alike. Pretty, but shorter, a dull, used look in her eyes. Almost a dead ringer, though. Almost.
He saw Lucille Bellflower crossing the street in her curious waddle, her protruding chin bobbling with her steps. She had found her buy in the window on the day before and had pondered over it and now was returning to take it away with her. She would prattle endlessly over its size and color, and she would solicit praises from him for the wisdom of her selection. And he would gift-wrap the item, knowing her secret of sitting alone in her living room, pretending there were onlookers as she carefully unwrapped the surprise present from her addled husband. Before she left the store, Lucille would also remind him that it was her husband who had campaigned for him to sit on the city council. A tender illusion, Arthur thought. Her husband had not been out of his home in ten years. Those who knew him knew he still believed the Civil War raged outside the windows of his home.
He glanced past Lucille and saw Lottie, and he stepped back from the window. A single, hard blow struck in his chest and he inhaled quickly to calm himself.
IF IT WAS false energy, as his mother cautioned, Ben was glad to have it. He had slept well after Lottie’s visit, and when he awoke, he was eager to be out of bed and to move about. His muscles were tender from bed rest, but his lungs did not ache and his vision was clear. He ate a hearty breakfast in the dining room with Sally and Little Ben keeping him company, and then he announced that he felt fit enough to walk with Sally to the store.
“I wish you wouldn’t,” his mother fretted. “It’s already hot and you’re not used to it. You’ll tire out.”
“It’s not that far,” Ben said. “And I won’t rush things. If I get tired, I’ll stop and rest.”
Margaret Phelps sighed defeat. “You talk to him, Sally. He won’t listen to me, but he’d better start listening to you.”
The assignment pleased Sally. It was Margaret Phelps’s first act of surrendering Ben to her care, a small but significant gesture of understanding that went unrecognized by Ben, yet established territory between the two women. “Maybe he needs to learn for himself,” she said. “I’ll watch him. If he pushes too hard, I’ll make him come home.”
A glance was exchanged between Margaret and Sally. Nods that were not nods. Eyeblinks. A rite of passage exercised in the kind of secrecy that only women could share.
“All right,” Margaret said, and she sounded pleased.
To Sally, the moment was important enough to write about in the journal she had begun keeping, beginning with a line that read: Today, Ben’s mother began to let me become part of his life in the way it will be when I am finally his wife….
The walk with Sally from his home to Ledford’s Dry Goods—only a few blocks away—was more taxing that Ben had predicted, but it was not from the summer heat or from his disappearing illness; it was from chattering good wishes flung toward them as they passed neighboring homes and, eventually, the stores and shops of Jericho. To Sally, the voices were like bright strips of confetti rained over a parade—something to reach for and keep as souvenirs—and she seemed to dance around Ben, pirouetting to touch hands or to be embraced by women who were celebrating romance remembered, or wished for. To Ben, it was a feeling of awkwardness, of being looked upon as a trophy from a hunt. He had no defense for the giddy spiels of prattle other than a grin that felt lopsided and foolish on his face. It was not a walk of leisure for Ben, but a sentence of the gauntlet, and realizing his discomfort amused Sally.
“It won’t be so bad after today,” she whispered to him.
“It was easier playing baseball, having people hooting at you,” he confided.
Sally laughed. The sun was on her face, the music of voices surrounded her. She had never felt as grand.
At Brady’s Cafe, Vernon Brady stepped from the door and intercepted them. Vernon was a small, smiling man, generous and likable. The apron he wore seemed a permanent part of his dress, like a costume on an actor. His wife vowed that he slept in it.
“Well, by heavens,” Vernon boomed, “he’s up and about.” He extended his hand to Ben, shook heartily. “We’ve missed you, boy. You feeling better?”
“Sure am,” Ben told him.
Vernon turned to Sally. “And I think I know why this pretty young lady looks so happy, but I want to hear it firsthand. It is true that you finally got him hog-tied?”
“Well, we’re engaged,” Sally said, “but I think I like your way of saying it better.”
Vernon’s laugh rolled down the street. “Come on in for a minute,” he insisted. “I want to hear all about Boston and how Milo’s doing, and I’ve got a peach pie just out of the oven. My treat.” He laughed again. “And probably my wedding gift, too.”
“Maybe we better take up that offer another time,” Ben said. “Sally’s already late for work.”
“Good Lord, Ben, you don’t think her daddy’s going to fire her, do you?” Vernon teased. “Arthur can wait, but that pie can’t.” He opened the door to the cafe and motioned them in wi
th a sweep of his arm. “He gets uppity about it, tell him I’ll hire both of you away from him. Besides, it’s too early for him to be doing anything but raising the prices on everything.”
TWENTY-ONE
LOTTIE HAD HELD the door open for Lucille Bellflower, had nodded pleasantly to the high-pitched wail of Lucille’s complaint about the morning heat, and then she had turned her eyes to Arthur, held them for a moment, and, without speaking, she had walked past him to the storeroom.
“That’s a sweet little woman,” Lucille had said in a purr. “Looks so pretty in that dress she’s got on.”
And Arthur had replied, “Yes, she does.” He had wondered if Lottie heard him.
It took thirty minutes to please Lucille and send her on her way, proudly carrying a lace shawl, gift-wrapped, and when he turned back from the door, Arthur saw Lottie watching him from the front of the storeroom.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
The expression on her face was the same as it had been each day she had worked for him—a simple, girlish look of wonder, a look of surprise and fascination, and then of melancholy. Often the expression made it seem as though she did not hear when someone spoke to her.
Arthur asked again, “Are you all right?”
She blinked. A smile, barely visible, played on her mouth. “I’m fine,” she answered. “I was just wondering what you wanted me to be doing.”
Arthur crossed to her, uncertain of what to say.
“Sally said something about setting up a table for some men’s shirts,” she added.
“Yes,” Arthur mumbled. “That—would be fine.”
“I don’t know which ones she was talking about,” Lottie said.
“The new boxes that came in yesterday,” he replied.
She dipped her head in a nod and then turned to go into the storeroom.
“Lottie, wait,” Arthur said.
She looked back at him.
“I—have to say it again,” he whispered. “How sorry I am about yesterday. I’ve never done anything like that.”
She did not speak. The expression on her face did not change.
“I thought about it all night, and I don’t know what to do,” Arthur said, rushing his words. “I’ve behaved in a way that I would never believe I could, and I’ve violated every trust I would expect of myself, or of anyone else. And I don’t know why I did it.”
“I thought you were lonesome,” Lottie said softly. “When you put your arms around me, you felt that way. You felt like you were lonesome.”
Arthur shook his head in regret. “That’s no reason. No reason at all.”
“It seems like a reason to me,” Lottie said. “It seems like the best reason to me.”
“But I took a vow.”
“Are you lonesome?” Lottie asked.
For a moment, Arthur did not reply. Then: “I suppose so. Sometimes. Everybody is.”
“Did you take a vow for that?”
“The vow covers everything,” he said weakly. He moved his eyes from her, opened his mouth to speak, but did not. He shook his head again, touched his forehead with his fingers as though he wanted to hold back pain. He could feel the damp coating of perspiration.
“I remember my mama waiting up all night for my daddy when I was little, not knowing if he was coming home or not,” Lottie said in a voice that seemed far away. “Sometimes I’d sit up with her and she’d pull me up in her lap, and she’d say to me, ‘Come here and let your mama hold you so she won’t be so lonesome.’ And I’d ask her why she looked so sad, and she’d say, ‘Don’t ever let yourself get so lonesome there’s nothing left but wondering.’ And then she’d laugh quiet-like and she’d rock me and say, ‘You going to be an angel that watches over lonesome people, Lottie. Angel of the lonesome, that’s what you’ll be. Making people’s frowns turn up to smiles, just like some fairy godmother out of a picture book.’” She paused. “I guess I always believed there was something special in being that.”
My God, Arthur thought. He had never heard anyone describe himself, or herself, so perfectly, and yet with such condemnation. He reached to touch Lottie’s arm, without realizing he had touched her. She bowed her head to look at his hand.
“You are that, Lottie,” he said gently. “Yes, you are. But that’s not all you are. You’re special in a lot of ways.”
“No,” Lottie whispered. She touched his hand.
“Yes, you are,” Arthur insisted. “Look at how many people have come in here this week, and I know why. It’s not because of the store, or me, or Sally; it’s because of you. And every one of them that I’ve talked to think you’ve brought life to this store, and you have, Lottie. You have. That’s special. Nothing is as special as that. Don’t you know? You can be anything you want to be.”
Lottie pulled from his touch. “No,” she said. “No, I can’t be. Not like you, or Ben. You know about things I don’t. I just know how to be what I am, and what I am is somebody from Augusta.” A muscle twitched over her lips. “Do you know that’s what my name was? Augusta. Lottie Augusta Barton. My mama said if she put where I was born in my name, I’d always know where I belonged.”
“That’s just where you’re from, not where you belong,” Arthur said. “Maybe your mother meant for you to remember where you came from, after you found where you needed to be.”
Lottie shook her head firmly.
Arthur paused, inhaled slowly, fought the impulse to reach for her. He said, “Is that why you like Ben so much? You think he’s a lot more special than you are?”
She looked up quickly, a shine of tears in her eyes. “Ben’s nice.” She sounded protective.
And then Arthur knew. In an epiphany of understanding, sudden and absolute, he knew that Coleman was right: Lottie had been to Jericho with the carnival, and, somehow, she had met Ben and that meeting had led to her being with him again. A thought flashed: Was Little Ben the son of Ben and Lottie? No, he reasoned. It couldn’t be. Ben had not left Jericho in years, and it would have been impossible for Lottie to be in the town without someone knowing it. That was not the answer. He knew also why Lottie felt a closeness to Ben, why she defended him, and it was a reason he was certain Lottie did not recognize: Ben was the angel of her loneliness. And that made sense. For whatever purpose, Ben had made himself available to her, and that had given her comfort.
“Yes, he is nice,” Arthur said. “Not long ago, I almost lost him, out of my own fault. But I don’t know anybody I’d rather have around me—as somebody who works for me, or somebody to be my son-in-law. His father and I were close friends.”
“He was a lot better this morning,” Lottie said. “I expect he’ll be back to work in a day or so, and then I’ll go on home.”
“You don’t have to go,” Arthur said gently. “I’ve got a place here for you.”
Lottie shook her head slowly. “I told Foster I’d go home. He always wanted me to, since I’d been gone so long.”
“Foster? Was that your husband?”
She nodded.
“Maybe you could go home to visit and then come back and stay here,” Arthur suggested. “Make this your home.”
She did not reply for a moment, and then she said wistfully, “That’d be nice. I feel more at home here than any place I ever been.” She paused. Her eyes floated to his face, still shining. She turned and went into the storeroom.
BEN DID NOT remain long at the store. His presence caused shoppers to stop their browsing to greet him and inquire about his health, and to remark on the turn of events that had introduced him to Lottie Lanier, remarks ending always with a compliment for her.
Also, he felt restless in the store. He had never considered how fully his work had become his life, and how he belonged to every inch of space that incorporated Ledford’s Dry Goods. The scent of new clothes, of leather, of cologne, made him eager to take up the routine he had followed diligently for so many years—a comfortable, easy routine, one that had purpose and dignity. He had never before unders
tood his destiny so clearly. He was a merchant, not a baseball player, even if his failure in the game still affected him. Milo Wade was in Boston, washed in fame, and that was Milo’s destiny. Yet, in so many ways, it seemed that Milo had gotten the worse of it. From all the stories, Milo was tormented. He consorted with demons, and one day the demons would devour him.
In his last years, Ben would remember the day of first visiting Ledford’s after his illness as one of the profound moments of his living. He would say, “It’s when I quit wanting something I never could have and started being glad for what I’d had all along.”
He spoke briefly to Lottie while in the store, saying to her, “You look like you’ve always been here.”
She smiled, deferred to Sally’s presence, and continued her work of arranging a table of men’s shirts.
Arthur told Ben of the sale he was planning. “Sort of a welcome-back-Ben sale,” he said. “But I don’t plan to do anything until you feel up to coming back to work.”
They were standing alone at the pay counter as Sally displayed a dress for Katherine Spearman, the wife of the mayor.
“Yes sir,” Ben said. Then, in a low voice, “I was thinking something and wanted to have your advice on it.”
“All right,” Arthur replied.
“I was thinking that I ought to offer to see Lottie and Little Ben on to Augusta,” Ben said. “And while I was there, I want to look for a ring for Sally.”
Arthur frowned in thought. He looked across the store to Lottie and then turned his face to Sally. After a moment, he said, “I think that’s—that’s a good plan.” He paused. “Sally may feel a little uneasy about it, but that’s to be expected.”
“She could go with us,” Ben suggested.
Arthur shook his head. “I don’t think that’s appropriate. People like to talk, and that’s something neither one of you want, especially from her mother.”
Ben blushed. He had never heard Arthur Ledford speak critically of his wife. Still, it was the truth. Alice Ledford would find fault in anything he did, now that his engagement to Sally was official.