The Tuesday after Evie spoke with her uncle, she saw Erik on Main Street again. He nodded politely and walked on by.
Her heart sank.
But then she reminded herself that they were bound to meet again. She shouldn’t try to rush things. A friendship, after all, would take time to build.
That Saturday, Regina and Patrick Jones gave a barbecue in their backyard. Erik and Evie were both there. Evie felt all nervous and fluttery at the sight of him.
But then for the first hour or so, he seemed to go out of his way to avoid her. Evie’s spirits drooped. She actually considered pleading a headache and going on home.
Jenny and Becca saved her from running away like that. Jenny approached shyly, with Becca right behind her.
“Lo, Evie.”
“Jenny. How are you?”
“Okay. How’s the princess?”
“She’s fine. Still on the dresser in my bedroom.”
“Honest?”
“Oh, yes.”
“I thought maybe, since she wasn’t in her snow globe anymore and nobody would buy her, that you might have just thrown her away.”
“Oh, no,” Evie assured the child. “I would never do that.”
Jenny beamed. It was clear she still hoped that her father might someday relent and allow her to claim the broken prize.
Becca hoisted herself into the vacant folding chair on Evie’s left side. She put her soft little hand on Evie’s arm. “And how about Chippy? How’s he doing?”
Puzzled, Evie turned to the younger girl. “Chippy?”
“The chipmunk. The stuffed one. On the bed in your store. I named him Chippy. You didn’t…sell him, did you?”
There were a lot of stuffed animals on that bed. Evie wasn’t exactly sure she remembered “Chippy,” yet she had no memory of selling a stuffed chipmunk recently. “I’m sure he’s fine. Still right where you left him.”
“Well, that’s good,” Becca said with obvious relief.
After that, Evie asked the girls if they were all ready for school to start. Jenny said she was ready, all right, and hoped to find a best friend there. Becca announced she was starting first grade and would be able to read her favorite story, Corduroy, all by herself by the end of the year. Corduroy, Jenny explained, was the story of a stuffed bear who lived in a department store and wanted nothing so much as for a child to come and take him home.
As she talked with the girls, Evie was very much aware that Erik was watching them. And when it came time to eat, somehow he ended up sitting beside her. They didn’t say much to each other. But when he passed her the butter, his finger grazed hers.
Evie felt the slight touch right down to her soul and for one brief luminous moment, she understood that she wanted much more than friendship from the big man with the rough hands. But she swiftly put such a scary thought right out of her mind.
There was a street dance the next night, in honor of Labor Day. Evie attended, though she usually eschewed such activities. Erik was there, too. They ended up standing beside each other. And then he turned to her.
“Maybe you would…like to dance?”
She said she most definitely would. He held out his arm, she hooked hers through it. He led her out into the open space in the middle of the street. They danced, by the light of the paper lanterns that she’d helped the Ladies Auxiliary string from streetlight to streetlight that very afternoon.
They talked of everyday things. Erik said that next year, the Labor Day Dance would be held in the new town hall, which was visible a hundred yards away, across the street from Lily’s Café. The hall was nearly completed, and being built with money donated by the wealthy writer, Lucas Drury, who was Mark Drury’s father.
Erik smiled down at Evie, his hand riding lightly on the small of her back as the band played a slow country song. “My own boy, Pete, seems to have formed some kind of club with Mark Drury and Marnie Jones and my brother’s boy, Kenny. They call themselves the Mountaineers.”
“Very imaginative,” Evie whispered a little breathlessly. It felt to her as if her body burned all along the front of her, where it was lightly touching Erik’s.
The following Tuesday, they happened to drop by the post office at the same time. In North Magdalene, since there was no house-to-house delivery, most people visited the post office daily to check the boxes they rented. When Erik walked in, Evie was sorting through her mail, standing at the little counter that ran along the side wall.
He came through the glass door, caught sight of her—and his face changed. He smiled, but it was more than a smile. It was a look of…gladness. She knew without a doubt that he was thrilled to see her. She felt exactly the same.
He approached and they stood right there talking, beneath a bulletin board that was covered with pictures of America’s Most Wanted. Evie felt flushed and excited through the whole conversation.
When they parted, she realized she had no memory at all of what they had talked about. All she knew was that she loved talking to him, watching him smile and tip his head to the side. She loved the way he listened, as if he really wanted to hear what she was telling him. So many people only waited for their turn to talk. They didn’t take the act of listening seriously. But Erik did. He truly listened and he was thoughtful, always stopping to carefully consider his words before venturing an opinion.
On Wednesday, after school was out, Becca and Jenny came into Wishbook.
Evie was dusting a display case when they appeared. Jenny declared that she wanted to own a shop just like Wishbook when she grew up. Then she asked to be allowed to help. Evie gave her a dust cloth. The two of them carefully polished several shelves of china and knickknacks while Becca sat on the bed among the stuffed animals, conversing with Chippy.
When the girls left, Evie put Chippy away on a storage shelf beneath one of the display cases. Even if Erik would never allow Evie to give his daughter the toy, no one else was ever going to own it, and that was that.
That night, at a little after nine, Evie’s phone rang.
“I think we should talk,” Erik said without preamble.
Evie’s throat, which had felt perfectly normal just a moment before, was suddenly like sandpaper, while her palms had gone clammy with sweat. “I…all right.”
“I’ll come over there.”
“Umm, right now?”
“Yeah.”
Evie’s legs went wobbly. Slowly, she sank to a nearby chair. “But…the children. Who’ll watch them?”
“My mom said she would.”
“Oh.”
“Evie?”
“Yes?”
“Is there some problem with my coming over now?”
“No. Certainly not. Just come up the back stairs to the door there. It opens onto the hall that leads to my apartment. You remember my apartment, don’t you?”
He made a noise in his throat, which she took for a yes. Then he muttered, “Ten minutes,” and hung up.
He was there in eight and a half minutes. Evie bad counted the seconds, so she knew precisely how long it took him.
Once inside, he seemed to fill up her small living room, as he did most enclosed spaces. He was wearing tan corduroy jeans and a forest green, slightly threadbare T-shirt and he was the handsomest man she’d ever seen in her life.
“Sit down.” She gestured at a chair.
He dropped into it. She made herself perch on the end of the couch.
Then she sprang to her feet again. “Oh. Can I get you something? Lemonade?” She thought of the bottle she kept for her uncle. “Whiskey?”
“No. I just want to talk.”
She made herself sit on the couch again. “All right.” Surreptitiously, she rubbed her hands together. They were clammy again. Her mouth felt like cotton. “What do you want to talk about?” she managed to ask, then swallowed quickly so she wouldn’t have to cough the dryness away.
“You and me.”
Oh, my Lord, she thought as she managed to murmur, “I see.”
He said, “Evie, I like you. A lot.”
“Me, too,” she replied, ridiculously eager. She made herself take a deep breath, then said, with more dignity, “I mean, I like you, too.”
He was leaning forward in the chair, his elbows on his slightly spread knees, his hands clasped between his legs. He rubbed his hands together, thinking. Then he spoke again. “I thought that we might become friends.”
Her eyes widened. She felt a big smile break across her face. She opened her mouth to say she’d thought the same thing.
However, he spoke again before she could get the words out. “But then, I thought about it some more. And I knew even friendship wasn’t going to work.”
Evie felt the smile melt from her lips. Her shoulders drooped.
He went on, “But it looks as if friendship is happening anyway, no matter what I thought.”
She sat up straight again. This wasn’t so bad, after all.
“As I said, I really do…like you. And so do my girls. They told me they came to the shop today.”
She licked her dry lips. “Yes. They were here. I love having them here.”
“Well, I guess that’s good. Because it would break their hearts if I told them not to come here. They…they seem to have sort of fastened on you and your shop as something just a little bit magical. And they’ve had a rough time, losing their mother. You know, don’t you, about their mother?”
Evie nodded.
Erik looked down at his shoes. “I suppose you know the story. About Carolyn’s illness.”
“Well, I—”
He met her eyes again and waved a big hand. “Don’t feel bad. It’s okay. Around here, everybody knows everything. That’s just how it is.”
“Yes, I’ve, umm, noticed that.” Another rather wavery smile lifted the corners of her mouth.
Erik stared at her; he looked slightly stunned. “Lord,” he said in a near whisper. “You’re so damn beautiful.” Then he looked down at his shoes again. “Sorry.”
Evie blinked. “What for? I don’t…I don’t understand. All you said was—”
His head shot up. His gray gaze burned right through her. “It can only be friendship, Evie. That’s all.”
She realized she wasn’t breathing, and it took her a moment to get air into her lungs. “Well,” she said, when the oxygen had found its way to her brain once more. “That’s fine. Friendship is fine. It’s exactly what I want, too.”
Now he was the one blinking. “It is?”
“Yes.” She cleared her throat. “The truth is, I’m a very…independent woman. I have never married—and I never will.”
“You won’t?”
“No. I like my life just as it is. But I can always use a friend. Someone to talk to, to laugh with. To spend time with now and then.”
“Yeah,” Erik said. “Yeah, I’m with you. Me, too.”
“Then,” she said happily, “we have no problem, do we?”
“No.” He shook his head. Evie thought he looked like a man who’d just won the lottery. There was a dreamy, halfdisbelieving grin on his face. “No, I guess we don’t.”
He stayed for a while after that and even said yes to a can of orange soda. They talked of how her shop was doing and how his business was quite brisk. She told him about the shop in Santa Fe and how much she’d loved it.
“But I love Wishbook more, because I love North Magdalene so much. After all, my family’s here.”
Erik said he knew just what she meant. He was glad to be home again himself, to tell the truth.
After she walked him to the door, Evie floated back into the living room and dropped to the couch. Life was wonderful, it really was, when one had a special friend.
The next day, the girls came to the shop again after school. Evie produced Chippy for Becca. The little one carried the toy around the store with her as Jenny pitched in on the book display Evie was putting together in a back corner.
A half an hour after the girls came in, another child around Jenny’s age appeared. Jenny introduced the newcomer as Peg Clark and said they’d made friends in school just today. Peg quickly became involved with the display, too, helping to arrange the low bookshelves to form a reading nook, setting the books out to look inviting, positioning a stool and an old rocking chair just so, to tempt any browsers to sit for a while.
Not long after Peg’s appearance, Peg’s mother, Tondalaya Clark, came in looking for her daughter. When she saw the girls were having fun, she said that Peg could stay awhile. Before she left, she bought four children’s books that Peg had pointed out she’d like to read.
A few minutes after Mrs. Clark left, the bell over the door rang again. It was Amy Riggins Jones. Amy’s little daughter, Bathsheba, toddled along at her side.
“Hi, Aunt Amy,” Jenny called from the corner where she and Peg were still at work.
Amy allowed Bathsheba to join the other children, once they’d solemnly promised to keep a close eye on the three-year-old. As soon as her daughter was off with the others, Amy explained to Evie that she was looking for a new dress. Then she ruefully patted her round belly. “Do you think you can fit me?” She was seven months pregnant with her second child.
Evie promised to give it her best shot.
However, since Evie didn’t sell maternity clothes per se, finding the right dress did present something of a challenge. There was much laughter and happy chatter as the children kept busy in the corner and the two women plowed through Evie’s racks of dresses, looking for something that might work. At last, Evie pulled out a jumper with a high Empire waist and a tie back. Amy tried it on and loved it.
Evie was ringing up the sale when the entry bell chimed once more. Evie looked up, her professional smile of greeting freezing on her face as Nellie Anderson marched in the door.
“Hello, Evie,” Nellie said, clutching her ubiquitous clipboard to her bony chest. “I’ve come to firm up your commitment to Septemberfest.”
Evie looked at Amy, who wore the same grim expression Evie knew was on her own face.
“Good afternoon, Amy,” Nellie said stiffly.
Amy inclined her head. “Miz Anderson.”
Nellie turned to Evie again. “Is this a bad time?”
It was, of course. A very bad time. The granddaughters Nellie pretended didn’t exist were over in the corner, giggling and whispering as they went about their task.
Evie almost told Nellie that another time would be better. But then she held her tongue. The children lived in the same town with the woman. They were going to meet up with her every now and then.
And just maybe, the more often they met up, the more likely that Nellie Anderson would come to understand just what wonderful kids she was turning her back on.
“No,” Evie said. “Now would be fine.”
Amy said, “I think I’ll look around a little more.”
“Go right ahead,” Evie replied, understanding Amy’s intention completely. If there was going to be any unpleasantness, Aunt Amy would be there to protect her own.
Nellie approached the counter, apparently still oblivious to the fact that the childish voices in the back belonged to her own grandchildren. She coughed officiously and slid a typed sheet of phone numbers from under the clip on her clipboard. “Now. What I’d like you to do is to call these people tonight—tomorrow at the latest. Remind them that we must have those donations of clothing and baked goods delivered to the church by eight in the morning Saturday.” Nellie gave a small, put-upon sigh. “People just don’t seem to remember their long-range commitments like they used to. They need to be reminded, or they don’t deliver as promised. It’s unfortunate, but these are troubled times.”
Evie took the sheet. “I’ll be glad to make the calls, Nellie.”
“Good. And I have you down for a personal donation of—”
“Two cakes and ten dozen cookies, I think it was.”
“Right. Exactly.” She looked up and her lips twitched in what was probably intended as a smile. “So. It’s all settled. You know what you have to do?”
“Oh, yes. I know.”
“Well, then, I’ll be on my—”
Right then, from back in the corner, Amy called, “Becca, no! Come back. Evie’s busy right now…”
But it was too late. Becca was there, clutching Chippy to her heart, and staring up, openmouthed, at the thin woman who gaped back at her in white-faced disbelief.