Evie watched with great fondness as her uncle Oggie spooned sugar into his coffee. When he’d ladled in enough to put a diabetic into a coma, he gave the coffee one quick swipe with his spoon, lifted the mug to his mouth and drank long and deep.
“Ah,” he said, when he lowered the cup. “That’s heaven. Believe it. Gives the old ticker a real kick start, if you know what I mean.”
Evie, who was drinking lemonade herself, granted her uncle an indulgent smile and took a nice, refreshing sip.
Oggie plunked his mug on the table and pushed his plate away. “That was one fine lunch, gal.” He stretched a little, and ran his thumbs under his frayed red suspenders. “Now. Down to business.”
Evie sent him a sharp glance. When she’d invited him over, he’d said nothing about any business that she could recall.
“I got a sense you got something on your mind,” he said, as if in reply to a remark she hadn’t actually made. “Am I right?”
Instead of answering, Evie pushed her own plate away and rubbed at a watermark on the table. Now that the moment had come to talk about Erik, Evie found she had no idea how to begin. She felt foolish and awkward and much younger than her years.
Oggie reached across and put his wrinkled hand over hers. “Come on. What is it? You still worried about Gideon?”
Evie pulled away and folded her hands in her lap. She’d hardly thought of her father in the past couple of days. Her whole world had centered down to Erik and all these wonderful new feelings she had for him.
Oggie was still watching her, his beetled brows drawn together. “Did something happen, then? Have you gotten somethin’ suspicious in the mail? ‘Cause I ain’t heard nothin’ else beyond that postcard I showed you.”
Evie shook her head. “No. Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Well, then. What is it?”
Evie looked away.
Oggie refused to give up. “You can tell me. Come on. Look at me, gal. Tell me what’s going on in that mind of yours.”
Evie made herself face him. She gazed into his beady little eyes and knew that he was right. She could tell him.
“I’ve…made a friend.” The words were out of her mouth before she really knew she would say them. They sounded urgent and breathless. And they made her feel ridiculous— someone so backward and socially inept that she fell all over herself, just confessing she had a friend.
Oggie inquired, “And who is this friend?”
“Oh, Uncle Oggie…”
“Come on. Who?”
“Well, he’s not really a friend. Not yet.”
Oggie picked up on the operative word. “It’s a he.”
“Yes. And I do feel that we could be friends. But I don’t really know him that well. That is, Ifeel as if I know him. And I’d like to really know him.”
“Who is he?”
Evie cast her uncle a pleading glance. “This is so hard.”
“You’re doin’fine.”
“I…oh, how can I explain? I feel this natural… closeness to him. Just in a friendly way, of course. Because we’ll never be more than that.”
“More than what?”
“Friends.”
Oggie emitted a snorting kind of noise. “Look, Evie. Just tell me his name, okay?”
“Oh, Uncle Oggie…”
“Come on. Say it.”
Evie gulped.
“Say it. Who is this guy?”
Somehow, she managed to murmur, “Erik.”
“Eh? Speak up.”
“Erik.”
“You said Erik.”
“Yes.”
“Erik who?”
“Riggins.”
Oggie had been leaning across the table. Now he sat back in his chair and folded his hands over his slight paunch. “Ah,” he said.
Evie wasn’t sure she liked the way he said that. “What does that mean, ah?”
“Nothin’, gal. It’s just an expression. Ah. Like in I see. Like in I understand.”
“Oh. Well. All right.”
“And what do you mean, you’ll never be more than friends with him?”
“Well, he told me.”
“Told you what?”
“That he has his kids to raise and he doesn’t have any time for women right now.”
Oggie pondered that information, then he asked, “And what about you?”
“Me?”
“Ain’t no one else here, gal. Just you and me. How do you feel about just bein’ friends?”
“Well, I feel as he does. Friendship is all I’m looking for. I’ll never become…romantically involved with anyone.”
Nothing ever offended Oggie Jones, but he looked offended now. “You mean not ever? Not in your entire life?”
“Yes. That’s what I mean.”
He slapped a hand on the table and snorted in disgust, “Why the hell not?”
Evie didn’t answer. She was not going to explain that. Not even to Oggie. To explain that, she’d have to talk about her gifts, which she would never do.
She wanted to forget her gifts and go on with this nice, normal life she’d found in North Magdalene. That was all she wanted, really. A normal life.
A normal life and one thing more, a soft voice whispered inside her head, to have Erik Riggins for a friend…
“Well? I’m still waitin’ for an answer here,” Oggie prompted.
Evie picked up her lemonade glass, looked into it and set it back down. “I’m just not ever going to fall in love. That’s all. It’s…something I’ve always known.”
“But why?”
“It’s just the way I am, Uncle Oggie. Please. Let it go.”
“But lovin’ between a man and a woman is God’s greatest gift. If you’ve had true love, you’ve had it all. A man can live through hell on earth, if he’s known real love with a good woman. And for a woman, it’s the same.”
All unexpected, Evie felt tears at the back of her throat. Could that be true? Could love—lasting, committed lovebetween two people really make all the difference in life?
She brought herself up short. What did it matter if it was true? She was never going to know love like that with a man. And getting all misty-eyed about it was self-indulgence, plain and simple.
Evie gulped down the useless tears. “I understand, Uncle Oggie,” she said quietly. “But some people never have what you’re talking about. And they get by. I’m one of those people. I know it. So please. Just let the subject go.”
Oggie looked at her sideways across the table. Then he let out a long sigh. He lifted his empty mug. “How ‘bout another cup?”
Evie pushed herself to her feet and gave him more coffee, which he loaded up with sugar just as before. After he’d taken a good, long drink and she’d returned to her chair, Oggie spoke again.
“All right. So you just want to be friends with Erik Riggins.”
“Yes. I do.”
“Good enough. And how can I help you to make that happen?”
Evie felt a smile bloom on her face. “I love you, Uncle Oggie.”
Oggie shifted around in his chair. “Don’t get sappy on me, gal. I’m an old man. I can’t take too much affection comin’ at me at one time. What can I do? Come on, I’m here to help.”
“Well, I was hoping you might tell me…”
“A little about him. About his life, I mean. And his family. And about the woman he was married to. Things like that. So I could get to understand him better. It’s important, I think, to understand your friends.”
“You want a little history lesson, is that it? You want the history of Erik Riggins?”
“Yes,” Evie said. “That’s exactly what I want.”
“That could take a while.”
“It’s Sunday. My shop is closed. I have all day.”
A crafty look came into the little black eyes. “I’m gonna need a good cigar, to tell it all. Mind if I smoke?”
“Uncle Oggie, you’re impossible.”
“No argument.” He pulled out a cigar. “Can I smoke?”
Evie rose and opened both of the kitchen windows, then found an ashtray at the back of a cupboard. She set it before him.
He cackled and beamed up at her. “You’re a jewel, Evie Jones. A queen among women.”
She sat down opposite him. “Just tell me about Erik.”
And he did, smoke curling up from his cigar, his chair tipped back and his eyes full of memories of the way things once were.
“Erik is a Riggins. That’s the first thing you gotta understand,” Oggie told Evie. “And you gotta understand that there’ve been Rigginses in North Magdalene even before there were Rileys—the Rileys bein’ my sainted Bathsheba’s people, in case you don’t recall my tellin’ you before. The Rigginses are good people. Salt of the earth. Workin’ people, if you get my drift.”
“Yes.”
“Tradespeople and laborers,” Oggie elaborated. “And some of them are just a little wild and crazy. Erik’s older brother, Jacob, comes to mind when I say wild. But not that wild. Probably not as wild as my own boys have been in their time.”
Evie made a sound of understanding. Since she’d moved to North Magdalene, she’d heard no end of tales about the wild Jones boys.
“But my boys are another story,” Oggie said. “This story’s about Erik. And how he came from workin’-class people. And he had this talent.”
“Talent?” Evie put her elbows on the table and leaned closer to her uncle, eager to hear every word.
“Yeah. For paintin’ pictures and stuff. Very un-Rigginslike, if you know what I mean. The Rigginses are not artsy types. They don’t paint pictures and they don’t send their kids to college. They get jobs after high school and settle down as close to home as they can manage.”
“So Erik grew up unhappy, because he wanted to paint pictures and go to college and—”
“Whoa, gal. Give me time. Let me tell it.”
“Okay. I’m sorry.”
Oggie puffed on his cigar a few times. Then he continued, “No. As far as I recall, Erik Riggins was not an unhappy kid. Everyone just thought of him as a little bit odd, that’s all. Because of the picture paintin’, I mean. But he started workin’ with his uncle Dewey, paintin’ houses, on weekends and during school breaks when he was in his early teens. It was obvious he was goin’ to do what all Rigginses do. Learn his trade and marry a nice girl and settle down in North Magdalene—and only paint those pictures of his on the side.”
“But then?”
Oggie flicked his cigar in the ashtray Evie had provided. “Then he fell in love with Carolyn Anderson.”
“Anderson?” Evie whispered to herself, remembering the vision of Nellie, when Erik had grabbed her arm down in the shop four days before.
“If you go with him, I have no daughter,” Nellie had said.
Oggie confirmed Evie’s suspicions. “Yeah, Anderson. Carolyn was Nellie Anderson’s one and only baby girl.”
Evie shook her head. It was hard to believe. “Does this mean Nellie was actually married once?”
“She was married, all right. Delbert Anderson’s long gone, now, though. He was long gone fifteen years ago, when Carolyn and Erik fell in love. Died of a massive coronary when Carolyn was barely in school. You ask me, I don’t know how he lasted even that long. Bein’ married to Nellie Anderson would have to be damn hard on any man.”
Evie was nodding. “Nellie hated the idea of her daughter and Erik together, am I right?”
“Bingo. Nellie Anderson always thought of herself as high-class. She wasn’t havin’ her precious little darlin’ takin’ up with any laborer, for all he was a hardworkin’ kid with a heart as big as the Sierras and a good head on his shoulders, too.” Oggie lowered his voice a little, to a conspiratorial level. “Between you and me, I don’t think anyone would have been good enough for Carolyn, so far as Nellie was concerned. Not any mortal man, anyways. Nellie ain’t got much use for mortal man, if you get my drift.”
“So what happened?”
“Love happened, between Erik and Carolyn. And even Nellie Anderson couldn’t make it go away. As soon as they graduated high school, Erik and Carolyn were married, right here in the community churen. Nellie refused to come to the wedding.”
“She turned her back on her own daughter.” It was a statement. Evie knew the truth. She’d seen the truth, four days ago.
“Yes, she did. Erik and Carolyn moved to Sacramento, for a fresh start. See, Carolyn loved her mama, even though she loved Erik more. And she was a sensitive kind of girl. She couldn’t stand to stay here and be snubbed by her own mother every time they passed on the street.”
“And how did it work out for them—for Erik and Carolyn?”
“Word was, they were happy. For a while. Erik built up a solid business painting houses and Carolyn worked for a year or two, then stayed at home to raise the kids. Everything was goin’ great guns. But then, sometime after the youngest was born—”
“Becca.”
“Becca, right. Sometime after she had Becca, Carolyn went into some kind of depression. She was in and out of medical and psychiatric hospitals for three or four years. It broke Erik, financially.”
Evie saw again the vision of the blue-eyed woman, stepping unknowingly in front of the advancing truck. “And then Carolyn was hit by that delivery van,” she murmured, more to herself than to Oggie.
Oggie peered at her through the smoke and clucked his tongue. “So. You’ve heard some of the story already, haven’t you?”
Evie shrugged, a gesture that might have meant just about anything. “And now he’s come back home. To start over.”
“That’s about the size of it. From what I understand, he was too damn proud to get any assistance from the government, or to work out some kind of debt reorganization. He sold the house in Sacramento to pay off a big chunk of the bills. And now he’s rented the house our Regina grew up in, the one next door to where she and Patrick live.”
“Has he made up with Nellie?” Evie asked the question even though she was reasonably sure she already knew the answer.
“No,” her uncle confirmed her suspicion. “They avoid each other as much as possible, from the way I hear it.”
“But the children are her grandchildren. At least she spends some time with them, doesn’t she?”
“Nope. She disowned her daughter when Carolyn ran off with Erik. And now she’s nothin’ more than a stranger to those three kids.”
“Oh, Uncle Oggie. That’s so sad.”
Oggie sighed. “I never claimed to understand what goes on in Nellie Anderson’s head.”
Another question came to her. “And what about the children, then? Who takes care of them while Erik’s working?”
“He’s got Tawny, his younger sister, to help him with the kids. His mom helps out, too, from what I’ve heard.” Oggie smashed the stub of his cigar in the ashtray Evie had provided. “Anythin’ else you need to know right now, gal?”
Evie rose, went to her uncle and placed a kiss on the crown of his sweet, balding head. “That’ll do, Uncle Oggie. Thank you so much.”
Oggie grunted. “You got any whiskey around here? I got a thirst that coffee won’t quench, if you know what I mean.”
Evie went to the cupboard to get the shot glass and the lone bottle she kept there for occasions like this. She carried them over and set them before Oggie, who poured himself a shot, knocked it back and then grimaced.
“Ah. That takes the edge off the day, for a surety. Now.” He handed her the bottle and the glass. “Put this away. Whiskey’s one of my many weaknesses. And one shot is more than I need.”
Evie put the bottle away and rinsed out the glass.
“So what are you gonna do now?” Oggie asked her, when she returned to the table.
Evie hadn’t the faintest idea.
And Oggie knew it. “Maybe you ought to just make yourself…available. Can you do that?”
“Available for what?”
“Family get-togethers. Social events.”
“But I don’t understand how that will—”
Oggie pulled out a second cigar. “It’s a small town. And Rigginses and Joneses do a fair amount of…interactin’. You just go when you’re invited somewhere. And maybe that new friend of yours will be there, too.”