10
Expect the unexpected – and enjoy it.
“I hate to admit it, but Frivolities seems to be the only place in town to buy decent gifts for other women,” Kate Rawlins announced her grudging presence before the bell quit vibrating against the oak of the heavy front door. “I’m looking for a gift for my great-niece who’s coming to visit Christmas Eve.”
Why did the one customer in Frivolities have to be the town gossip? It bordered on rudeness, but Lanae wanted no distractions while she dissected and admired the latest creative efforts she shared with Geneva and Moselle.
The three owners greeted Kate in turn, knowing that she preferred snooping without assistance. They stood in a group, surveying their handiwork in the window display with three pairs of critical eyes.
Lanae patted herself on each shoulder, then gave Geneva and Moselle a loving touch, jubilant over the outcome of the snazzy vanity. Now the focus of a framed collage, the letter held Christmas court in the window, displayed on an easel leaning against a vanity leg.
Geneva’s quilt sampler in a Victorian fan pattern, a crocheted doily of Lanae’s atop a table runner, along with one of Moselle’s Frivolities Memory Boxes sat on the vanity top, completing the attractive window presentation.
“I wonder if it was a mistake to use the only letter without a date,” Moselle said.
“I believe Katherine wrote the letter before the last dated one, when she tells Ted that she is moving to Omaha,” Lanae said.
At the sudden sound of shattered glass, the trio released a collective gasp.
Crystal fragments, once in the shape of a rose, lay in smithereens on the floor at Kate’s feet.
Geneva and Lanae scurried to Kate’s side.
“Don’t worry about it,” Geneva said.
At the sight of all the color leaching from Kate’s face, Lanae asked, “Are you all right, Kate?”
Tremors shook Kate’s frail body.
Moselle, being the youngest and fastest, grabbed Kate’s arm to keep her from falling.
Kate yanked her arm free and rushed out the door, only to sag against the outside framework between door and window.
“I’ll go.” Lanae grabbed a magenta shawl, went outside and slung it over Kate’s shoulders, fearful the woman could have a heart attack or burst something, judging by her lack of facial color.
Eyes glued on Kate’s face, Lanae stayed close, where she stood as though frozen in place.
Kate stared through the window, her lower lip trembling. Her gaze traveled the cursive lines, and her lips moved as she silently read the words of the framed letter. Her breathing was heavy and shallow, even erratic. Her lower lip quivered and she choked. Tears flowed.
Kate took a step closer to the glass and clutched her purse to her waist with both hands. Then her purse swished to the sidewalk in a soft rustling contrast to the earlier splintering glass. The quivering woman covered her mouth with her fists. Then they, too, sank as though dropped.
“I sent so many letters to my Teddy, so many years ago. He was my one true love.”
“Katherine?” Lanae screamed the name in her mind, but it came out a whisper. Lanae would absorb the shock later.
Kate Rawlins appeared to be going into her own shock.
Lanae spoke her name three times, but Kate ignored her.
Familiarity with the contents of the letters made Lanae place a gentle hand on Kate’s shoulders, to hold her close. The small, older woman shook in Lanae’s arms.
“Let’s go back inside, Kate. Where it’s warm.” She guided the woman toward the door.
Lanae wondered if they were in a dream, while she kept her own disbelief at bay.
“He disappeared, you know. My Teddy. Vanished into thin air.” Kate sagged like a rag doll.
Lanae teetered under Kate’s weight.
And fell through the open door to Frivolities.
****
“Whoa, there.” Sage jerked in reaction when he opened the front door of Frivolities from the inside, surprised to find two unsteady women falling into him. He grabbed Lanae’s upper arms, giving her balance in order to steady both women.
Sage set Lanae aside and bent to curl his arm around the skinny woman’s knees, supported her against his chest with his other, and carried her through the shop.
“When I accepted that Teddy Tippin was never coming back to me...”
Sage felt his own knees go weak when he heard his uncle’s name spoken out loud. He staggered, and pretended to swerve out of Moselle’s way as she squeezed by them to open the office door at the back of the shop. The movement helped Sage hold the woman’s mumbled words close to his chest.
He glanced up.
Moselle had disappeared through the office door.
Lanae’s steps were interrupted when the phone rang.
Geneva was flying up the loft stairs.
Once assured none of the others had heard Ted’s last name, he barreled on to the office.
“Katherine disappeared,” the frail woman said.
Sage deposited her light weight in the corner of the sofa, placing a purple velvet pillow beneath her head. “I don’t know who Katherine is, but these gals will take care of you.”
“Thanks, Sage.” Moselle nodded at him.
Then she knelt beside the sofa and gently patted the dangling arm before placing it on the woman’s stomach. “Mom went to get a blanket.”
Sage breathed easier as color returned to the woman’s sunken cheeks. Her body quit its tremors.
The sprig of a woman kept mumbling in a soft, shaky voice. “I became Kate and worked as an insurance secretary in Omaha until my parents came down with a terrible influenza, so ill they needed me back home to run the bakery.”
Sage stood aside so Lanae could hand a glass of water to the woman she addressed as Kate.
Lanae looked as emotional as Kate sounded, as though the older woman’s story threatened to turn them both into blubbering globs.
“I moved to Platteville, and I never left again.”
“Did you ever find out what happened?” Geneva asked from the doorway, handing a fleece blanket to Moselle.
“I never saw my Teddy again. And I’ve wondered all these years why I’m even alive.” Silent tears streamed in a river down her face. “I’ve lived a lifetime of emptiness. I didn’t really want to go on living without him.”
Sage had to get out before he heard the woman repeat Ted’s last name. Somehow, he hoped to keep that knowledge to himself.
“Sorry to show up at such a bad time. You women seem to have this under control.” Sage knew the strong family would care for the older woman.
Moselle caught up with him at the back entrance. “Aunt Lanae’s pretty shook up at the moment. To be honest, I’m a bit shaken myself. She tried so hard to discover who Katherine is, and then to have her just land in our laps, so to speak, is beyond weird.”
Moselle fiddled with both earrings, as though checking to see if the silver feathers bobbed where she had put them. “Now I apologize. I came back to see if you wanted me to tell Aunt Lanae anything?”
“Nope. I picked up my new saddle, and I thought she might like to see it. Came through the alley door because I know she sometimes works back there. I’ll catch you all another time.” Sage left the way he had arrived. The alley door bounced open while he was trying to shut it.
“Sage, thank you! It was a God-thing, you appearing when I thought Kate and I would both topple over. It’s stranger than fiction.”
He let Lanae ramble, acting clueless.
“Poor Kate. Years ago, when Geneva told me about the way Kate kept gossip alive regarding Moselle and Eric’s high school history, I figured she was a busybody with nothing better to do. Labels can be so wrong. I never considered Kate had a reason to be so unhappy. Her life ended when her dear Ted disappeared.”
And my mother’s life became new once she was free from my grandfather’s abuse.
When Lanae looked deep into Sage’s eyes with such trust, he had to turn away. He was unable to put a description to what he read on her face, but it was all female emotion. This particular female wanted things he couldn’t give.
She hugged him quick and released him. “We’ll talk later, OK?” And then she shut the door.
Sage didn’t want to get wrapped up in it. He wasn’t used to so much drama. He had to sort this all out, get it straight in his mind. Yet he knew it was only a matter of time before Lanae, and Lezlie, for that matter, discovered the truth.