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CHAPTER NINETEEN
Surprised, if not stunned, by joy, the rector could scarcely speak. “Congratulations!” he blurted. “Mazel tov! Ah, felicitaziones!”
Andrew pumped his hand. “Well done, Father! And this is Anna’s brother, Antonio Nocelli.”
“Call me Tony!” said Antonio, embracing the rector and kissing him on either cheek. “I have heard much about you, Father.”
“While I have heard nothing at all about you and Anna!”
Anna laughed, throwing her head back. “Let me say, Father, that Andrew is our fourth cousin, so you must not alarm.”
“Yes, for heaven’s sake, don’t alarm!” said Andrew, chuckling.
Anna shrugged and smiled. “My English? Not perfect.”
“Whose is?” asked the rector. “Well, shall we go in? Would you like to take them in while I wait outside?”
“Heavens, no, you must come in, also,” said Andrew. The rector thought he’d never seen his friend so tanned, so boyish, so eager.
“Here’s the key, then. Fernbank will be yours soon enough, why don’t you unlock the door?”
“I am very excited,” Anna told her husband.
Tony agreed. “We could not sleep for thinking of the house Andrew has taken into his heart.”
Andrew swung the double doors open, and they walked in. There was a moment of hushed silence.
“Ahh, bella . . .” said Tony. “Molto bella!”
Anna opened her arms to the room. “It is beautiful! Just as you said!”
“A bit damp, my dear, but—”
“But, amore mio, sunlight can fix!”
“Anna believes sunlight can fix everything,” Andrew told the rector, pleased.
They strolled through the house, savoring each room.
Anna touched the walls, the banisters, the furnishings, often murmuring, “Fernbank . . .”
In the ballroom, he told the story of the painted ceiling and two other Italians, a father and son, who had come all the way to Mitford to paint it, living with Miss Sadie’s family for nearly three years.
As angels soared above them among rose-tinted clouds, he felt oddly proud, like a father proud of a child, eagerly savoring the cries of delight.
Someone to love Fernbank! Thanks be to God!
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Indian summer had drawn on, offering a final moment of glad weather.
They sat on Miss Sadie’s frail porch furniture, which the rector had dusted off. Andrew and Anna took the wicker love seat.
“Now!” said Andrew. “We will tell you everything.”
Father Tim laughed. “Easy. I can’t handle much more excitement.”
“Tony and Anna owned a wonderful little restaurant in Lucera, only a few steps from my penzione. The food was outstanding, perhaps the best I’ve had in my travels around the Mediterranean. I began to go there every day for lunch.”
“Soon,” said Anna, looking boldly at Andrew, “he came also for dinner.”
“Tony cooked, Anna served, we discovered we were cousins, and, well . . .” Andrew smiled, suddenly speechless.
“Shy,” said the rector, nodding to the others.
Anna made a wickedly funny face. “He is not shy, Father, he is English!” She put her arms stiffly by her sides, pretending to be a board. “But that is outside! Inside, he is Italian, tender as fresh ravioli! If not this, I could not marry him and come so far from home!” She laughed with pleasure, and brushed Andrew’s cheek with her hand.
“The building that contained the restaurant was being rezoned,” said Andrew, “and Mrs. Nocelli died last year . . .”
Anna and Tony crossed themselves.
“The cousins had moved away, some to Rome, others to Verona; the vineyard had sold out of the family, so there were almost no ties left. Yet, when I asked Anna to marry me, I feared she wouldn’t leave Italy.”
Anna patted her husband’s knee. “Timing is good, Father.”
“Don’t I know it?”
Andrew smiled easily. “The Nocellis are an old wine-making family in Lucera. We were married by their priest of many years. Fortunately, I was able to squeak in under the wire because of my Catholic boyhood.”
“Your children,” said the rector, “do they know?”
“Oh, yes. They came to Lucera for the wedding. They are very happy for us.”
“Any children for you, Anna?”
“I never had children, Father, and my husband was killed ten years behind by a crazy person in a fast car.”
“And so at Fernbank,” Andrew said, “Anna and Tony and I will have our home and open a very small restaurant.”
“Very small!” exclaimed Anna.
“And very good!” said Tony, giving a thumbs-up. The rector thought Tony was nearly as good-looking—and good-natured—as his sister.
Unable to sit still another moment, Andrew rose and made a proclamation. “We will call the restaurant Lucera, in honor of their lovely village and my mother’s girlhood home—and the wine for the restaurant will come from one of the many old vineyards which have produced there since the tenth century.”
“Brava, Lucera!” said Tony. “Brava, Mitford!”
“Good heavens!” The rector felt the wonder of it. “An Italian restaurant in Mitford, wine from old vineyards, and handsome people to live in this grand house! Miss Sadie would be dazzled. We shall all be dazzled!”
Anna stood, nearly dancing with expectation. “I am longing to visit the apples!”
“In those shoes, my dear?” asked Andrew.
“I shall take them off at once!” she said, and did so.
As he walked up Wisteria toward the rectory, he looked at his house in the growing darkness, trying to find the sense of ownership he expected to feel. Oh, well, he thought, that will come when the pipes burst in a hard winter and I’m the one to pick up the tab.
He patted his coat pocket. In it was a check for fifteen thousand dollars, given him at this evening’s vestry meeting.
Ron Malcolm had presented it with some ceremony. “Father, we priced the house to allow for a little negotiation. H. Tide wanted it so badly, they didn’t try to negotiate, so you paid top price. We all feel that ninety thousand is fair to you and to us, and . . . we thank you for your business!”
Warm applause all around.
He was feeling positively over the top. A two-story residence of native stone, all paid for, and fifteen thousand bucks in his pocket. Not bad for an old guy.
He whistled a few bars from the Pastorale as he ran up the front steps to tell his wife the good news.
He didn’t know where Buck had moved, and though he saw the superintendent on the job site, nothing was mentioned of his new whereabouts.
Buck had left the yellow house spotless. This, however, hardly mattered, since the late-starting conversion would be getting under way next week. It would be all sawdust and sawhorses for longer than he cared to think, and Buck would probably leave it in someone else’s hands as soon as the attic job was finished.
He didn’t want to lose Buck Leeper. In some way he couldn’t explain, Buck was part of Mitford now.
“Timothy!”
“Stuart! I was just thinking of you.”
“Good, I hope?”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” said the rector, chuckling. “What’s up, old friend?”
“Old friend. How odd you’d say that. I’m feeling a hundred and four.”
“Whatever for? You’ve just been where people wear bikinis.”
Stuart groaned. “Yes, and where I held my stomach in for two long weeks.”
“Holding your stomach in is no vacation,” said the rector.
“Look, I’m over on the highway, headed to a meeting in South Carolina. Can we meet for coffee?”
“Coffee. Hmmm. How about the Grill? It’s close to lunchtime. I’ll treat.”
“Terrific. Main Street, as I recall?”
“North of The Local, green awning, name on the window. When?”
“Five minutes,” said the bishop, sounding brighter.
“This,” he said, introducing his still-youthful seminary friend, “is my bishop, the Right Reverend Stuart Cullen.”
“Right Reverend . . .” said Percy, pondering. “I guess you wouldn’t hardly talk about it if you was th’ Wrong Reverend.”
“Percy!” said Velma.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t listen to Timothy, call me Stuart.” Stuart shook hands all around, and the rector watched him charm the entire assembly.
“Hold it right there!” J.C. hunkered over his Nikon and cranked off six shots in rapid succession.
“I ain’t never seen a pope,” said Coot Hendrick, wide-eyed.
“Not a pope, a bishop,” said Mule.
Percy looked puzzled. “I thought you said he was a reverend.”
“Call me Stuart and get it over with,” pleaded the bishop, hastening to a booth with Father Tim.
Stuart poured cream in his coffee. “By the way, someone told me that Abraham’s route to Canaan now requires four visas.”
“Not surprising, since it’s a six-hundred-mile trip. I wouldn’t mind seeing the real thing one day. I was just remembering from a study we did in seminary that Canaan is the birthplace of the word Bible.”
“Not to mention the birthplace of our alphabet. So, how would you like a stint on the Outer Banks at some point? I fancy it might be your Plain of Jezreel, at the very least.”
“Tell me more.”
“Wonderful parish, small Carpenter Gothic church, historic cemetery, gorgeous setting . . .”
“Keep talking.”
“There’s a rector down there who’d like nothing better than a mountain church. I have just the church, and Bill Harvey, who’s the bishop in that diocese, thinks we might work out a trade—you could wn as an interim . . . the summer after you retire.”
“I’ll mention it to Cynthia. Let me know more. So when are you going out to Canaan, my friend?”
“I knew you’d ask, but I don’t know. I’m still terrified, just as you were.”
“How did I get smarter than you?”
“You’re older,” said Stuart, grinning. “Much older.”
“Remember Edith Mallory?”
“The vulture who tried to get her talons in your hide.”
“We have an election coming up, and I feel certain she’s been funneling big money to the opposition.”
“Who’s the opposition?” asked Stuart, taking a bite of his grilled cheese sandwich.
“Not known as the sort who’d be good for this town.”
“If I know where you’re going with this, the best policy is hands off.”
“I agree. Especially since I have no proof.”
“Poisonous business. But you know the antidote.”
“Prayer.”
“Exactly. How’s your Search Committee coming along? I haven’t had a report recently.”
“I’m pretty much out of the loop,” said the rector, “but they seem excited. We surveyed the parish, and the consensus is for a young priest with children.”
“They can save all of us some heartache by asking the candidates a central question.”
“Which is?”
“ ‘Do you believe Jesus is God?’ ”
“Right. I’ve talked about that with the committee. Sad state of affairs when we have to point such a question at candidates who took the ordination vows . . .”
The bishop sighed. “Paul said in the second epistle to the good chap you were named after, ‘The time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine . . . they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn from the truth and wander away to myths.’ Ah, Timothy . . .”
“Eat up, my friend. You’ve got a long haul ahead of you. Why aren’t you flying?”
“I’m driving because I need time to think, I need some time alone.”
“A man has to get in a car and hurtle down the interstate to get time alone? Ah, Stuart . . .”
Stuart chuckled. “Two weeks at the beach doesn’t solve everything.”
“Especially not when you’re holding your stomach in,” said the rector.
“I’ve done it,” Winnie announced.
He couldn’t tell whether she was going to laugh or cry.
“Would you take this copy of the contract home and look it over?” she asked. “I had a lawyer look it over, but I don’t know how good he is, maybe if you’re not too busy, you could do it, I should have asked you before. Course I guess it’s too late now, since it’s mailed, but still, if you would . . .”
“I don’t know what help I can be, but yes, I’ll look it over.” Dadgum it, why didn’t he just go study for a broker’s license? He seemed to be spending as much time in real estate as in the priesthood.
“They’ve about ragged me to death, Father. I guess I’ll stay on and run it.” She looked white as a sheet, he thought.
“I’m thrilled to hear you’ll stay in Mitford. Your business is thriving, you have a legion of friends here—”
“But my family’s up there—a brother and sister and two nieces and a nephew.”
“I know. But aren’t we family? Don’t we love you?” Shame on him, trying to win her heart from her own blood kin.
“I’ll be glad to go on that cruise next week,” she said, not looking glad about anything.
Lace was sitting at the kitchen table doing her history homework when Dooley called from school. Father Tim answered the wall phone by the sink. “Rectory . . .”
“I’m on my way to study hall.”
“Hey, buddy!”
“Hey, yourself,” said Dooley. “What’s going on?”
“Not much. What about you?”
“We’re having our fall mixer tomorrow night. Man!”
“Man, what?”
“Four busloads of girls are coming, maybe five.”
“Man!” He agreed that seemed to say it all.
“How’s Barn?”
“Looking good. Eating well. Sleeping a lot.”
“I sort of miss him.”
“He misses you more. So, what kind of mixer is it?”
“We’re having a band, it’s gong to be in the field house. I helped decorate.”
“Aha.”
“We hung a lot of sheets with wires and turned it into a huge tent. It’s neat, you should see it.”
“When are we coming up for a visit?”
“I’ll let you know. I gotta go.”
“Want to say a quick hello to Lace? She’s here.”
“Sure.”
He handed the phone to Lace. “Dr. Barlowe.”
Her smile, which he had seldom seen, was so spontaneous and unguarded, he blushed and left the room.
They were sitting at the table having a cup of tea as Lace organized her books and papers to go home.
“What’s interesting in school these days?” Cynthia wanted to know.
“I just found out about palindromes, I’m always lookin’ for ’em,” she said.
“Like Bob, right?”
“Right. Words that’re the same spelled forwards or backwards. Like that,” she said, pointing to the contract he’d left lying on the table, “isn’t a palindrome, it says H. Tide readin’ forwards, and Edith if you read it backwards. But guess what, you can also make a palindrome with whole sentences, like ‘Poor Dan is in a droop.’ ”
“Neat!” said Cynthia.
“See you later,” she said, going to the basement door. “ ’Bye, Harley! Read your book I left on the sink!”
“What did you leave on the sink?” inquired the rector, filled with curiosity.
“Silas Marner.”
“Aha. Well, come back, Lace.”
“Anytime,” said Cynthia.
“OK!”
He pulled the contract toward him.
EdiT .H
His blood pounded in his temples. Edith? Could H. Tide be owned by Edith Mallory?
Is that why H. Tide wanted the rectory so urgently? Edith knew he and Cynthia would be living in the yellow house. Did she want to control the house next door to him in some morbid, devious way?
“What is it, Timothy?”
“Nothing. Just thinking.” He took the contract into the study and sat at his desk, looking out the window at the deepening shadows of Baxter Park.
Mack Stroupe. H. Tide. Edith Mallory.
If what Lace just prompted him to think was true, Edith was now trying to get her hands on another piece of Main Street property. The way she had treated Percy wasn’t something he’d like to see happen to anyone else, especially Winnie. And what might Edith be trying to gouge from Winnie, who was selling her business without the aid of a realtor?
He glanced at the contract—it was right up there with cave-wall hieroglyphs—and called his attorney cousin, Walter. “You’ve reached Walter and Katherine, please leave a message at the sound of the beep. We’ll return your call with haste.”
Wasn’t a signed contract legal and binding?
He paced the floor.
Edith Mallory had always held a lot of real estate. But why would she sell the Shoe Barn to her own company? He didn’t understand this. Was he making too much of a name spelled backward?
Then again, why had Mack Stroupe swaggered around town, boasting of his influence on H. Tide’s buying missions?
Another thing. Could Miami Development have anything to do with all this? Or was that merely a fluke?
He didn’t know what the deal was, but he knew something was much worse than he had originally believed.
He knew it because the feeling in the pit of his stomach told him so.
Walter rang back.
“Cousin! What transpires in the hinterlands?”
“More than you want to know. Legal question.”
“Shoot,” said his cousin and lifelong best friend.
After talking with Walter, he rang an old acquaintance who worked at the state capitol. So what if it was nine-thirty in the evening and he hadn’t seen Dewey Morgan in twelve years? Maybe Dewey didn’t even work at the state capitol anymore.
“No problem,” said Dewey, who’d received quite a bureaucratic leg up in the intervening years. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“As quickly as possible, if you’d be so kind. And if you’re ever in Mitford, our guest room is yours.”
“I may take you up on it. Arlene has always wanted to see Mitford.”
If all the people he’d invited to use the guest room ever cashed in their invitations . . .
At ten o’clock, the phone rang at the church office.
“Tim? Dewey. I looked up the name of the undisclosed partner in H. Tide of Orlando, right? And also Miami Development. It says here Edith A. Mallory—both companies. Hope that’s what you’re looking for.”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Exactly!”
He’d been looking for it, all right, but he hated finding it.
He pushed through the curtains to the bakery kitchen without announcing himself from the other side.
“Winnie, I’ve got to tell you something.”
“What is it, Father? Sit down, you don’t look so good.”
“H. Tide is owned by someone who may not treat you very well, I won’t go into the details. The truth is, you probably don’t want to sell to these people and be under their management.”
“Oh, no!”
“You’d be in the hands of Percy’s landlord. I think you should talk to Percy.”
“But I’ve already signed the contract and sent it off.”
“And I’ve just talked with my cousin who’s an attorney. Please. Talk with Percy about his landlord. And if you don’t like what you hear, we need to move fast.”
She wiped her hands and straightened her bandanna. “Whatever you say, Father.”
“Don’t get ’is blood pressure up ’til we’ve served th’ lunch crowd,” said Velma.
She turned to Winnie. “I’m takin’ three pairs of shorts, not short short, just medium, three tops, and two sleeveless dresses with my white sweater. Are you takin’ a formal for Captain’s Night?”
“Oh, law,” said Winnie, looking addled, “I don’t even have time to think about it, I don’t know what I’m takin’, I don’t have a formal.”
“Well, be sure and take a pair of shoes with rubber soles so you don’t slip around on deck.” Velma had been on a cruise sponsored by her children, and knew what was what.
“Velma,” urged the rector, “we need to move quickly. May I ask Percy just one question? How high can his blood pressure shoot if we ask just one question?”
“Oh, all right, but don’t go on and on.”
Coot Hendrick banged a spoon against his water glass. Ever since Velma got invited on that cruise, she hadn’t once refilled his coffee cup unless he asked for it outright.
The rector motioned to the proprietor. “Percy, give us a second, if you can.”
Percy stepped away from the grill, slapping a towel over his shoulder, and came to the counter.
Why was he always putting himself in the middle of some unpleasant circumstance? Had he become the worst thing a clergyman could possibly become—a meddler?
“Percy, now, take it easy. Don’t get upset. I just need you to tell Winnie about . . .”
“About what?”
“Your landlord.”
The color surged into Percy’s face. Two hundred and forty volts, minimum.
“Just a sentence or two,” he said lamely.
He marched down to Sweet Stuff with Winnie, who called H. Tide to say she was withdrawing the contract. She held the phone out for him to hear the general babble that erupted on the other end.
According to Walter, until the contract had been delivered back to the seller by the buyer, either by hand or U.S. mail, it was unenforceable.
When she hung up, he went to a table out front and thumped down in a chair. His own blood pressure wasn’t exactly one-twenty over eighty.
“Earl Grey!” he said to Winnie. “Straight up, and make it a double.”
Once again, the candy had been snatched from Edith Mallory’s hand. She’d lost Fernbank. She’d lost the rectory. And now she’d lost a prime property on Main Street.
In truth, the only property she’d been able to buy was one she already owned.
He was certain she’d make every effort not to lose Mack Stroupe.
Winnie served his tea, looking buoyant. “Lord help, I feel like a truck’s just rolled off of me. Now I’m right back where I started—and glad to be there!”
“I have a verse for you, Winnie, from the prophet Jeremiah. ‘The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him; His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is His faithfulness.’ ”
“Have a piece of chocolate cake!” said Winnie, beaming. “Or would you like a low-fat cookie?”
Esther Bolick was at home and mending, Barnabas was gaining strength, the yellow house was full of sawing and sanding, Cynthia’s book was finished, and Winnie and Velma had sent postcards back to Mitford.
Percy taped Velma’s to the cash register.
Winnie had left a sign in her window:
Gone cruisin.’ Back on October 30
Percy trotted down the street and taped her postcard next to the sign.
Hi, folks, sorry I can’t be here to serve you, but I am in the Caribean soaking up some sun. The Golden Band people had a fruit basket in our cabin and champagne which gave Velma a rash. Gosh, its beautiful down here, some places there are pigs in the road, though. Well, you keep it in the road til I get back, I will have you a big surprise in the bake case. Winnie
“Father? Scott Murphy!”
He could hear it in Scott’s voice. “When? Who?” he asked.
“Last night! Two men who’ve been showing up every Wednesday, one with his kids. They said they wanted to know more about God’s plan for their lives, and we talked, and they prayed and it was a wondrous thing, marvelous. Homeless is beside himself. He thinks that next summer we may be able to do what Absalom Greer did, have weekly services on the creek bank.”
“You must tell me every detail,” said the rector. “Want to run together tomorrow morning?”
“Six-thirty, starting from my place?”
“You got it.”
Scott laughed, exultant. “Eat your Wheaties,” he said.
Andrew rang to find out if Buck Leeper might be available for the renovation of Fernbank. “I don’t think so, but I’ll ask him,” he said.
“I’ll also be looking for a good nursery. I’d like to replace some of the shrubs and trees.”
“I know a splendid nursery, though their trees are fairly small.”
“At my age, Father, one doesn’t permit oneself two things—young wine and small trees.”
The rector laughed.
“I’d give credit to the fellow who said that, but I can’t remember who it was—another distinguishing mark of advancing years.”
“Come, come, Andrew. You’re looking like a lad, thanks to your beautiful bride! I’m smitten with Anna, as everyone else will be. Thanks for bringing Anna and Tony to Mitford. I know they’ll make a wonderful difference.”
“Thank you, Father, we’re anxious to get started on the hill. Anna would like to have a couple of rooms finished by Christmas, though it could take a year to do the whole job properly, given our weather.”
“Let me step down to the church and see what’s up. If Buck is interested, I’ll have him ring you.”
He left the office, zipping his jacket, eager to be in the cold, snapping air, and on a construction site where the real stuff of life was going on.
“Early December, I’m out of here,” said Buck, stomping the mud off his work boots. “Your house is in good hands and I’ll keep in touch, I’ll check on it.”
“Well, you see, there’s another job for you up the hill at Fernbank. I know Andrew Gregory would be a fine person to work with, and certainly Miss Sadie would be thrilled, she was so pleased with what you did at Hope House—”
“I’ve laid out long enough,” Buck said curtly.
Father Tim pressed on. “I believe if you stayed in Mitford, there’d be plenty of work for you. You could grow your own business.”
“No way. There’s nothing here for me.”
He thought of Jessie and the doll . . .
“Well, then,” he said, feeling a kind of despair.
“I brought you somethin’!” said Velma.
“Me? You brought me something?”
“Lookit,” said Velma, taking a tissue-wrapped item from a bag. She held up a shirt with orange, red, and green monkeys leaping around in palm trees.
“Aha. Well. That’s mighty generous . . .”
“You helped Winnie win th’ contest, and I got to go free, so . . .”
“I’ll wear it!” he said, getting up for the idea.
“Have you seen what Winnie brought home?” asked Percy.
“Can’t imagine.”
“And don’t you tell ’im, either,” said Velma. “He gets to find that out for hisself. Go on down there and look and I’ll start your order. But hop to it.”
Tanned people returning from exotic places seemed to bring new energy home with them. He fairly skipped to the bake shop.
He inhaled deeply as he went in. The very gates of heaven! “Winnie!” he bellowed.
She came through the curtains. Or was that Winnie?
“Winnie?” he said, taking off his glasses. He fogged them and wiped them with his handkerchief. “Is that you?”
“Course it’s me!” she said. Winnie was looking ten years younger, maybe twenty, and tanned to the gills.
“Velma said you brought something back.”
“Come on,” she said, laughing. “I’ll show you.”
He passed through the curtains and there, standing beside the ovens, was a tall, very large fellow with full, dark hair and twinkling eyes, wearing an apron dusted with flour.
“This is him!” crowed Winnie, looking radiant.
“Him?”
“You know, the one I always dreamed about standin’ beside me in th’ kitchen. Father Kavanagh, this is Thomas Kendall from Topeka, Kansas.”
“What . . . where . . . ?”
“I met him on th’ ship!”
“In the kitchen, actually,” said Thomas, extending a large hand and grinning from ear to ear. “I’m a pastry chef, Father.”
“You stole the ship’s pastry chef? Winnie!”
They all laughed. “No,” said Winnie, “it was his last week on the job, he was going back to Kansas and decided he’d come home with me first. He’s stayin’ with Velma and Percy.”
No doubt about it, he was dumbfounded. First Andrew, now Winnie . . .
“He likes my cream horns,” she said, suddenly shy.
“Who doesn’t?”
Thomas put his arm around Winnie and looked down at her, obviously proud. “I’m mighty glad to be in Mitford,” he said simply.
“By jing, we’re mighty glad to have you,” replied the rector, meaning it.
Esther Cunningham released a special news story to the Mitford Muse, which ran the morning before the election.
“When I’m re-elected,” she was quoted as saying, “I’ll give you something we’ve all been waiting for—new Christmas decorations!” The single ropes of lights up and down Main Street had caused squawking and grumbling for over a decade. So what if this solution had been forced by economic considerations, when it made the town look like a commuter landing strip?
“Stick with the platform that sticks by the people,” said the mayor, “and I’ll give you angels on Main Street!”
He was among the first at the polls on Tuesday morning. He didn’t have to wonder about Mule’s and Percy’s vote, but he was plenty skeptical about J.C.’s. Had J.C. avoided looking him in the eye when they saw each other in front of Town Hall?
His eyes scanned the crowd.
The Perkinses, they were big Esther fans. And there were Ron and Wilma . . . surely the Malcolms were voting for Esther. Based on the crowd standing near the door, he figured eight or nine out of ten were good, solid, dependable Stickin’ votes.
So what was there to worry about?
Mack’s last hoorah had been another billboard, which definitely hadn’t gone over well, as far as the rector could determine.
“Did you see th’ pores in his face?” asked Emma, who appeared completely disgusted. They looked like craters on th’ moon. If I never set eyes on Mack Stroupe again, it’ll be too soon!”
From the corner of his eye, he watched her boot the computer and check her E-mail from an old schoolmate in Atlanta, a prayer chain in Uruguay, and a church in northern England. Emma Newland in cyberspace. He wouldn’t have believed he’d live to see the day.
He walked up the street after lunch, leaning into a bitter wind. As Esther Bolick still wasn’t going out, he hoped Gene had seen to turning in her proxy vote.
“Good crowd?” he asked at the polls.
“Oh, yes, Father. Real good. Bigger than in a long while.”
He adjusted his Stickin’ button and stood outside, greeting voters, for as long as he could bear the knifing wind.
He hoped his bishop didn’t drive by.
“You and Cynthia come on over and bring that little fella who lives in your basement,” said the mayor.
“Harley.”
“Right. I’d like to get him workin’ on our RV. Anyway, we’re havin’ a big rib feast while they count th’ votes, Ray’s cookin’.”
“What time?” he asked, thrilled that his carefully watched food exchange would actually permit such an indulgence.
“Th’ polls close at seven-thirty, be at my office at seven thirty-five.”
“Done!” he said. He could just see the red splotches breaking out on the mayor.
Uncle Billy and Miss Rose were there when he arrived with Cynthia and Harley. Cynthia zoomed over to help Ray finish setting up the food table.
“I’ve done got a joke t’ tell you, Preacher.”
“Shoot!” he said. “And tell Harley, while you’re at it.”
Miss Rose sniffed and stomped away.
“Rose don’t like this ’un,” said Uncle Billy. “Well, sir, a feller died who had lived a mighty sinful life, don’t you know. Th’ minute he got down t’ hell, he commenced t’ bossin’ around th’ imps an’ all, a-sayin’ do this, do that, and jump to it. Well, sir, he got so dominatin’ that th’ little devils reported ’im to th’ head devil who called th’ feller in, said, ‘How come you act like you own this place?’
“Feller said, ‘I do own it, my wife give it to me when I was livin’.’ ”
Harley bent over and slapped his leg, cackling. Father Tim laughed happily. Oh, the delight of an Uncle Billy joke.
“Seein’ as you like that ’un, I’ll tell you ’uns another’n after we’ve eat.”
“I’ll keep up with you,” promised the rector.
Aha, there was a fellow clergyman, heedlessly exposing his political views. Bill Sprouse of First Baptist bowled over with his dog, Sparky, on a leash. “Sparky and I were out walking, Esther hailed us in.”
“You stuck with Esther at the polls, I devoutly hope.”
“Is the Pope a Catholic?”
“You bet,” said the rector, shaking his colleague’s hand. “Reverend Sprouse, Harley Welch.”
“Pleased to meet you, Harley. I heard you’re mighty good with automobiles. Here lately, my car’s been actin’ funny, don’t know what th’ trouble is, makes a real peculiar sound. Kind of like ooahooojigji-gooump. Like that.”
Harley nodded, listening intently. “Might be y’r fan belt.”
Ray Cunningham strode up, wiping his hands on a tea towel. “Got you boys some ribs laid on back there, I want you to eat up. Harley, be sure and get with me before you leave. I got a awful knock in my RV engine.”
“What time do you think we’ll know somethin’?” wondered Bill Sprouse.
“Oh, ’bout nine,” said Ray, who, after eight elections, considered himself heavily clued in.
The rector backed away from Sparky, who seemed intent on raising his leg on his loafer.
“For th’ Lord’s sake, Sparky!” the preacher hastily picked up his dog, whereupon Sparky draped himself over his master’s arm, looking doleful.
“Esther’s got Ernestine Ivory up at th’ polls where the countin’s goin’ on,” said Ray. “She’ll run down here when it’s all over, shoutin’ th’ good news. Well, come on, boys, and don’t hold back, I been standin’ over a hot stove all day.”
Omer rolled in, flashing a fugue in G major. “Ninth term comin’ up!” he said to his sister-in-law, giving her a good pounding on the back.
Uncle Billy yawned hugely. “Hit’s way after m’ bedtime,” he said as the clock struck nine. Miss Rose, who even in her sleep looked fierce, was snoring in a blue armchair transported years ago from the mayor’s family room. In her hands, Miss Rose clutched several tightly sealed baggies of take-outs.
“Won’t be long,” announced Ray. “Doll, does Ernestine have the cell phone? She ought to at least be callin’ in with a status report.”
The phone rang as if on cue, making several people jump.
“Speak of th’ devil,” said Bill Sprouse, who often did.
The mayor bounded across the room to her desk. “Hello? Ernestine? Right. Right.”
Every eye in the room was on Esther Cunningham, as the color drained slowly from her face.
“You don’t mean that, Ernestine,” she said in a low voice.
Everybody looked at everybody else, wondering, aghast.
Esther slowly hung up the phone.
“Mack Stroupe,” she said, unbelieving, “is th’ mayor of Mitford.”