Competing versions of Juts’s cow jumping over the moon created some confusion for Cora. On the one hand, Juts and her friends had humiliated Dimps Jr. On the other hand, her younger daughter, weary of being picked on, had fought back. Louise, never one to withhold a criticism of her Lutheran sister, actually gave an evenhanded report, which impressed Cora. Celeste’s report, interspersed with laughter, was also evenhanded.
Louise worked on Saturdays at the Bon Ton. Often Juts would walk Louise to the store, then go on to a friend’s house, but this Saturday she stuck close to her mother, volunteering for odd jobs around the house.
Making small dumplings from scratch, Cora felt flour fly in her face. She put her finger under her nose to keep from sneezing.
Celeste walked into the kitchen. “You look like a Japanese geisha, your skin is so white.”
Wiping her hands on a dish towel, Cora smiled. “Aren’t those the ladies of the evening?”
“Not exactly but close enough. We don’t have an equivalent. They must be well read, discreet, graceful, able to pour tea, perform dances, and recite poetry. Having never been entertained by one, I can only go by what Spotts told me.”
Her late brother had traveled widely, thanks to his army rank. Young, handsome, intelligent, Spotts was being groomed by a few senior officers to rise. All felt he was born to be a liaison officer.
“Think of him every day.” Cora returned to rolling the dough. “Think of my father, think of Aimes.” She named her late boyfriend. “So many of the people I knew are gone.”
“You didn’t name Hansford.” Celeste cited Cora’s husband.
“Don’t think of him. For one thing, I don’t know if he’s dead or alive. Some men aren’t worth a second thought.”
“Some women, too.” Celeste perched on a kitchen stool, picked up a pastry wheel and cut out thin rectangular sheets 24 x 8 inches. “There. No one can say I lack in the domestic arts.”
Cora shook her head. “Yes, madam.”
Celeste smiled. “Where is Juts?”
“Last I saw her, she was polishing the stair rail.” She checked the big striped bowl, into which she had put cooked beef, pork, veal, bacon, 4 eggs, ½ cup fresh chopped parsley, ¼ cup cream, ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon white ground pepper, a pinch of ground nutmeg, and diced potatoes. “I guess Monday I’d better go down to South Runnymede before the principal.”
“Yes. Yes, you should. You can be sure that Big Dimps will march in brimming with righteous wrath to defend her chick.”
“Mmm.”
Juts, rag over her shoulder, walked into the kitchen. “What next, Momma?”
“Take a feather duster and lightly dust the painting of Miss Chalfonte on the landing. Lightly.”
“Okey-dokey.”
“Juts.” Celeste put down the dough cutter. “Ben Jonson thought every man had his element. Yours is hot water.”
“Yes, Miss Chalfonte.”
“And Juts, for what it’s worth, she had it coming.”
A big smile crossed Juts’s face as her mother ordered her, “The painting.”
Cora watched those young shoulders sweep back, the kitchen door was pushed open and Juts marched out vindicated. Vindicated or not, she dreaded Monday.
“Granted, the Rhodes girl baited Juts, but you know, Cora, both those Rhodes girls are pushed on by their mother. She made a bad marriage and she’s determined they won’t so she makes everyone miserable.”
“Even black magic can’t change a chicken.” Cora began filling the dough rectangles then crimping the ends together so the dumplings would hold.
The front door opened. “It’s just me!”
“Kitchen,” Celeste called out.
Fannie Jump appeared, none the worse for last night’s drinking. “The town is abuzz. Some people believe Juts hung a live cow over the moon. Others that Louis Negroponti worked mechanical marvels. And no one knows what became of Dimps Jr. except that she did go home. Don’t you just love gossip?”
Both Celeste and Cora laughed, then all heard the front door open and close again.
“Twink, it’s me.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.” Celeste shrugged as Fairy entered the kitchen.
Eyes wide, the proper lady breathed, “You won’t believe what people are saying about the dance. I’ve even heard that Big Dimps will sue.”
“If Big Dimps sues, it will be lawyers without briefs.” Fannie roared with laughter.
Fairy couldn’t help but laugh. “She doesn’t have the money really.”
“No, but she has what she’s always had.” Fannie Jump pulled up a stool.
Fairy followed suit. “Cora, even with your recipe, I can’t get my cook to make dumplings like you do.”
Cora inclined her head, with a small smile. “It’s the cook’s hand. Helps if your last name is Hunsenmeir.”
Fairy smiled back. “True enough. Her last name is Garthwaite.”
“But Cora, Hunsenmeir is your married name. You were a Buckingham,” Fairy added.
“I’ll always be a Buckingham, but Hansford’s mother taught me how to make her family dishes. What a cook she was, and as wide as she was tall.”
They laughed, remembering the big-hearted woman.
“Pity she couldn’t raise a better son,” Fannie remarked.
“Well, that can be said of many a woman, I suppose.” Celeste inhaled the delicious aroma as Cora dropped the dumplings into the broth in which she had cooked the meats.
“Fifteen minutes,” Cora, hands on hips, announced.
“You made this for us?” Fairy was surprised.
“Girls, after last night I knew you’d all be here by noon.” Cora laughed and they laughed with her. “Fifteen minutes!” she hollered. “Juts!”
“Yes,” came the reply from the majestic stairwell.
“Set the table for three.”
The door swung open, and a silent Juts marched to the pantry to collect the plates.
The three friends watched her walk, then rose to gather in the dining room, a few decanters on the eighteenth-century sideboard.
Fannie picked up her favorite. “I heard liquor is already crossing Lake Michigan into Chicago. Also heard boats on the Chesapeake are offloading booze to boats coming down the Susquehanna, the Potomac, you name it. We ladies ought to consider investing in a new business.”
In a tiny voice, Fairy, pouring an aged sherry, remarked, “Fannie, love, you’d drink up our profits.”
“Not if you put them under lock and key,” she swore.
Juts had set the table, so they moved from the sideboard to sit. Fannie asked, “How did your people know to buy this furniture when they did?”
“I don’t know. I never asked.” Celeste waited until all the food was on the table, the friends served, then she picked up her fork. “In the eighteenth century, this was modern. No one knew if it would last. Funny, isn’t it?”
“Have you heard from Ramelle lately?” Fannie bit into a dumpling.
“Not for a few days. Neither rain nor sleet nor snow slows down the mail; it must be something else.” Celeste sipped some broth, which couldn’t have been better.
“The baby’s due in May. Maybe she doesn’t feel like writing. The closer I got to the due date, the more I just wanted to be rid of the little hitchhiker. It was awful.”
Celeste and Fairy chimed in unison, “We know.”
Fairy lowered her already quiet voice, as she didn’t want Juts, wherever she was, to hear. “Do you think Big Dimps will really sue Juts?”
“How can she? Juts’s a minor,” Fannie Jump said.
Fairy pressed her line of thinking. “What if she sues Cora?”
“Then every mother in Runnymede would be sued at one time or another,” Fannie sensibly replied. “Big Dimps will huff and puff. She’ll bedevil Mr. Thigpen, she’ll complain to Pastor Wade. Sooner or later, it will blow over. For one thing, the town hasn’t had this much fun over something since before the war.”
Paul waited for Louise to get off work and they hurried to the Capitol Theater. Buster Keaton enthralled them. After the movie, the evening air cool, the two listened as the nightbirds emerged on the square. A few bats darted here and there.
“I like bats,” Louise announced. “And they don’t get in your hair. That’s silly.”
“They eat bugs.” Paul reached for her hand for the first time.
He grasped it firmly but not too firmly. She didn’t pull away, so the two walked hand in hand along the square toward Cadwalder’s.
“By summer, I hope I have enough for an old car. Then I can take you places. Here we always wind up at the drugstore or Dolley Madison.”
Dolley Madison was a restaurant, part of which hung over a creek three blocks down Frederick Road.
“I like Cadwalder’s. Best hamburgers ever.” Louise told the truth but she was sensitive to his slender paycheck.
Once inside, they slipped into a booth.
Flavius came over. “Spring’s here. I can smell it.”
“You can.” Louise agreed. “My usual.”
“I know it well.” Flavius looked at Paul. “Sir?”
“Hamburger and a milkshake, chocolate.”
Louise leaned back in the booth. “You could eat five milkshakes a day, I don’t think you’d put on an ounce.”
The grin on his face faded as Lottie and Dimps Jr. barged up to the table. With them were their dates, Lionel Tangerman and Bill Whittier.
“If I’d known you were here, we wouldn’t have come in,” Lottie huffed.
Paul spoke to Lionel and Bill. “There’s room for everybody.”
Dimps Jr. was plastered to the handsome Bill. While seemingly not as taken with her as she was with him, he didn’t appear to mind. Lionel, the twenty-two-year-old son of the police chief of North Runnymede, had seen Paul around town but didn’t know him.
Lottie put her arm around Dimps Jr.’s waist. “Your brat sister humiliated my sister, who, you should know, sold more tickets to the dance than anyone has ever sold before.”
“Selling tickets is very important.” Louise had no idea what to say and didn’t want to lose her temper.
“And furthermore, I don’t appreciate your behavior in the Capitol Theater,” said Lottie, pointing her finger at Paul. “You were always trying to touch me.”
Paul did not raise his voice. “I was not.”
Lionel loomed over him. “You calling Lottie a liar?”
Paul stood up. “Would you like to step outside? You’ve insulted Wheezie and you’ve accused me of whatever you’re accusing me of.”
Flavius hurried up. “If you two fight, I will call John Gassner. Lionel, your father may be police chief of North Runnymede, but you’re in South Runnymede now. If you can’t be civil, get out.”
Lionel knew his father would pitch a fit. Lottie, on the other hand, still hoped for a scene.
“Who cares?” Lottie tossed her head back.
“This wouldn’t be good for my father.” Lionel knew that.
“You care more about your father than me!” Lottie shouted.
Lionel didn’t reply. Paul stepped back one step, as did Lionel. Bill Whittier had other things on his mind than a fight. He took Dimps Jr. by the elbow to usher her out.
“What are you doing?” Dimps Jr. protested.
Bill brooked no interference. “You don’t need another mess.”
Lottie turned on her sister. “Well, I’m standing up for you.”
“Lottie, Bill’s right.” Dimps Jr. had some sense. “Come on.”
Livid, Lottie again pointed her finger at Louise. “I will get even with you and with Juts.” She turned to Paul. “You aren’t worth getting even with. I just went out with you because I felt sorry for you. You didn’t know anybody.”
She slammed the door on the way out. Paul sat down.
Louise took a big sip of her Co-Cola, the correct southern term for Coca-Cola. “Pearlie, I have to ask you, what did you see in her?”
He threw up his hands. “I sure didn’t see this side of her.”
“But you liked her?”
“I did. I mean, not so much that I wanted to be around her all the time. Going out once a week was fine and I did meet people. It’s funny, Wheezie, but she would agree with whatever I said and I started thinking that I didn’t know what she thought.”
“Now you do.” Louise played with her straw. “You kissed her.”
“Wheezie, I did. I’m twenty-four. Would you want to keep company with a man who’d never kissed a woman? Sometimes in the war, I thought I’d never see a woman, much less kiss one.”
She considered this. “You held my hand.”
“I did and I want to do it again.”
“You haven’t kissed me.” She pouted.
“You’re right.” Paul got up, sat next to her in the booth, and gave her a convincing kiss. Then he returned to his seat.
Startled, Louise’s lower lip jutted out slightly. She touched it to see if her light lipstick had smeared.
“I can kiss you more. I’d like that.” He smiled. “Here’s the thing, Louise. I like you. I’ve never been out with anyone that I could talk to like you. We can disagree, we can agree, you listen and you work hard, too. You’re not some”—he paused—“I don’t know the word. You’re important.”
Louise realized she’d been holding her breath. She inhaled deeply. “You can kiss me anytime you want.”
They reached across the table to touch hands as they laughed.