Toni L.P. Kelner - Laura Fleming 04 - Country Comes to Town Read online

  Country Comes to Town

  Copyright © 1996 by Toni L.P. Kelner

  All rights reserved.

  Published as an ebook in 2013 by Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.

  Cover art by Tiger Bright Studios.

  ISBN 978-1-625670-43-4

  DEDICATION

  To Robin Perry Schnabel:

  My dearest sister, fare thee well:

  The elements be kind to thee, and make thy

  spirits all of comfort! Fare thee well.

  —Antony and Cleopatra, Act III, Scene 2

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I want to thank:

  Stephen P. Keiner, Jr., for story conferences, edits, and holding the baby so I could work

  Magdalene Ward Keiner, for taking so many naps and occasionally sleeping through the night

  Elizabeth Shaw, for proofreading and finding words that missing

  Dr. Rich, on GEnie, for able research assistance

  The raccoons, for all their help

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Also by Toni L.P. Kelner

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  The doorbell rang while I was in the middle of writing to my husband, Richard. He had left for England only the night before, but overseas mail is slow and I told myself that I wanted him to get a letter right away so he wouldn’t be lonely. Of course, the real reason I was writing was because it would make me feel less lonely.

  I pushed the intercom button. “Who is it?”

  “Laura? Is that you?”

  The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. “Yes, this is Laura.”

  “It’s Philip. Can I come in?”

  I hesitated, more out of shock than anything else. I hadn’t seen Philip Dennis for at least three years, and I really wouldn’t have minded if it had stretched to four or five.

  “Laura?”

  I pushed the buzzer so he could come in, then wondered if I should have. Philip had a knack for making me question every action.

  I opened the door to my apartment, and watched as Philip came up the stairs to the second floor. He looked almost the same as he had the last time I had seen him. Maybe his hair was a bit thinner, I thought meanly, but that was the same ratty blue jean jacket. When he saw me watching him, he grinned that grin I used to find so attractive. I hadn’t known what “insouciant” meant until I’d met Philip.

  As soon as he got to the landing, he said, “You look great! Better than ever.”

  “Thanks,” I said, though I knew I didn’t look all that great. I hadn’t intended to go out that evening, so I was wearing my most faded jeans and a stretched-out red sweater. With anybody else, I’d have thought they were being polite. With Philip, I was suspicious. “This is a surprise.”

  “Aren’t you going to let me in?”

  I stepped back to let him in the door and closed it behind him.

  “What a great place!” he said, looking at everything—the furniture, the pictures on the wall, even Richard’s sword, hanging above the couch. Philip pulled off his jacket and sat down, instinctively picking Richard’s favorite chair. I tried not to wince.

  I sat down on the couch, a safe distance away. “I didn’t realize you knew my address.”

  “I got it from Jessie. So how’s Rich?”

  Nobody ever calls Richard by anything but his full name. “Richard’s fine. How’s Colleen?”

  He shrugged his shoulders, always his favorite way to change the subject. I wondered if he could read me as easily as I could read him. Probably not. I hadn’t been nearly as important to him as he had been to me.

  “So what brings you out this way?” I asked. Snow was predicted for that night, and though he had been born in Massachusetts, Philip never had been fond of winter weather.

  “Actually,” he said, “I need a favor.”

  “What’s that?” I said, half expecting him to ask me for a loan.

  “Do you think I can crash here for a while? I know Rich is out of town, so you could use a man around. I’ll sleep on the couch, of course.”

  That got me mad, and I wasn’t sure what I was madder about: that he would ask such a thing after all this time, the idea that I needed a man around the house, or his thinking that I would consider letting him sleep anywhere but on the couch. “I don’t think so, Philip,” was all I trusted myself to say.

  “Look, Laura, I really need someplace to crash.”

  “What happened to your house?”

  “Colleen’s been a real bitch lately, and today I’d had it, so I decided to split.”

  In other words, she had thrown him out. “Why don’t you sleep at the office?”

  “I can’t. Vinnie and Inez are on the warpath. They want to fire me as it is, so I don’t dare sleep there.”

  “You’re kidding.” Philip had cofounded Statistical Software, Inc., right out of college, and he was the author of StatSys, their mainstay software package. Though Vinnie and Inez were officially in charge, I couldn’t imagine them actually firing Philip. In fact, I would have thought that he’d have set up the company so they couldn’t.

  Philip looked disgusted. “Vinnie got the bright idea that we should sell stock and let a bunch of ignoramus investors run the company. Now he and Inez want me to be Mr. Corporate, and you know that’s not me.”

  “Not hardly,” I said. In fact, I had always suspected that Philip had founded his own company so he wouldn’t have to get a suit to wear to interviews. “But there must be somebody from SSI who can put you up.”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? As much as I’ve done for them, and now they’re ganging up against me. They’re a bunch of losers anyway.” He did his best to look forlorn. “You’re all I’ve got.”

  A few years back, I’d probably have fallen for it, but not now. “No, Philip.”

  “Come on, Laura, it’ll be like old times. I’ll eat whatever you’ve got handy, and I don’t make much of a mess.”

  I translated that to mean that he’d allow me to cook and clean for him. “No.”

  “It won’t be for long. A few weeks, a month or two at most.”

  “No.”

  “All I’ve got to do is to rattle a few cages at SSI and they’ll get off my back. Once I’ve got my job settle
d, I’ll be able to convince Colleen to let me go back home. They need me, all of them. How long can it take for them to realize that?”

  “I’m sorry, Philip. No.”

  “Look, I know it’s going to be awkward, after all we’ve been to one another, but I swear that I won’t come between you and Rich.”

  As if he could! I was getting tired of being polite. “Forget it, Philip. You’re not staying.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s my house and I said so. I’m not going to argue with you.” Paw, the grandfather who raised me, had taught me that it’s never a good idea to get into a pissing contest with a skunk.

  “At least let me sleep here tonight. You know it’s supposed to snow. And I left the car with Colleen.”

  “Then you’d better get moving and find someplace to stay.” It sounded callous, but I knew that once I let him into my home, I’d never get him out again without the help of the police. And he had to have enough money to get a hotel room, if not with cash, then with a credit card. He just preferred mooching. And his next plea made me so mad I wished I had said something meaner.

  “What about that Southern hospitality y’all used to tell me about, like in Byerly, North Carolina?” he said, in a Southern accent so patently false that it hurt my ears. Though we had dated for two and a half years, he never had bothered to figure out that “y’all” is plural.

  “Since you used to refer to Byerly as the armpit of the universe, I don’t think you should be invoking its name now.”

  “I was kidding.”

  “Well, I’m not kidding. You cannot stay here. Not a month, not a week, not a night. In fact, I want you to leave now.”

  “But Laura …”

  I went to the door, opened it, and held it open.

  For a minute he just sat there as if daring me to throw him out. But I guess he could tell that I would if I had to, because he finally got up.

  “Jesus, Laura, what a bitch you’ve turned into.”

  I didn’t answer, just kept holding the door.

  “This is your revenge for my breaking up with you, isn’t it? I can’t believe you’d be small enough to hold that against me.” With the word “small,” he stretched to his full height, which was nearly a foot taller than me. “I guess you can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl.”

  “That may be,” I said, “but I sure can take the asshole out of my apartment.” I shut the door firmly behind him, and loudly rattled the locks to make sure he knew that he couldn’t get back in.

  Chapter 2

  I didn’t have a chance to brood about Philip because the phone rang right after I heard him stomp down the stairs. “Hello?”

  “Laurie Anne?”

  “Vasti? What’s up?” My cousin rarely spends money on long-distance charges from North Carolina to Boston, and it wasn’t even weekend rates yet.

  “I wanted to make sure that he got there all right. Mama was watching the Weather Channel and she said that y’all were having a snowstorm up there.”

  “Richard left last night, and the storm hasn’t started yet, so everything’s fine,” I said, touched by her concern. I should have known better.

  “Richard? I’m talking about Thaddeous.”

  “What about Thaddeous?”

  “Did he not make it in?”

  “In where? What are you talking about?”

  “Aunt Nora said he was leaving first thing Saturday morning, and even with changing planes in Charlotte, I thought for sure he’d be there by now.”

  “It’s Friday, Vasti.”

  “Oh dear!” she said unconvincingly. “I’ve gone and spoiled the surprise.”

  “What surprise?”

  “I’d better not say another word. ‘Bye, now!”

  “Vasti!” It was too late. She had already hung up. I thought I knew what was going on by then, but I called Aunt Nora, Thaddeous’s mother, to make sure.

  “Hello?”

  “Aunt Nora? This is Laura.”

  “Why, Laurie Anne! This is such a surprise,” she said, in a theatrical voice that would have told me that something was up even if I hadn’t already known it.

  “Aunt Nora, is Thaddeous coming up here?”

  There was a short silence. “How did you find out?”

  “How do you think?”

  “Vasti?”

  “She just called.”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have told her, but it slipped out. And Thaddeous wanted it to be a surprise.”

  Looking at the mess in my living room, and remembering that the kitchen was even worse, I was pretty sure that it was Thaddeous who would have been surprised. “How was he planning on getting to my apartment?”

  “He figured he could take the subway, like you do.” As I was trying to imagine my cousin making his way to my place on the subway all by his lonesome, Aunt Nora added, “He figured he could stop and ask somebody for directions if he needed to.”

  “It’ll probably be better if I meet him at the airport,” I said, trying to be diplomatic. Knowing how much Aunt Nora likes surprises, even vicarious ones, I said, “Tell you what, don’t tell him I know, and I’ll surprise him instead.”

  “That’s a good idea.” She paused. “Then you don’t mind him coming?”

  “Mind? I’ve been wanting him to come visit for I don’t know how long.” I would have preferred more notice, but that was neither here nor there.

  “That’s good. He hasn’t taken any time off from the mill in a coon’s age, and he’s got so much vacation stored up that they were going to take it away from him. Besides, I thought maybe you could use the company with Richard being gone.”

  I knew which of those reasons was the real one, of course. Though Aunt Nora tries to be a nineties woman, she just hates the idea of my being in a big city without my family around. But she meant well, and I really was looking forward to seeing Thaddeous. I got his flight information, and before I hung up, warned her, “Now don’t let him talk to Vasti before he leaves.”

  So much for my plans to mope about Richard, pig out on sour cream-and-onion potato chips, and watch the snow come down. I looked out the window. No snow yet, but I could tell from the gray glow in the sky that it was coming. Then I went into the kitchen and sighed. I knew Thaddeous wouldn’t expect my place to be as clean as his mama’s, but he wasn’t going to be expecting dirty dishes on every available surface, either.

  I was pushing up the sleeves of my sweater to start washing up when I thought about something else and opened the refrigerator. It wasn’t empty, but I didn’t have enough food to feed my cousin even one meal. Thaddeous is a big fellow with an appetite to match. That meant I was going to have to go out to the store. Normally, that wouldn’t have been a big deal, but since it was right before a storm, the stores would be filled with people buying enough milk and bread to last in case this storm turned out to be as bad as the legendary Blizzard of 1978.

  I wasn’t happy about it, but there was nothing else I could do. So I pulled on my coat, grabbed my pocketbook, and left. I did check to make sure that Philip wasn’t hanging around when I left the building, but the coast was clear. I just wish it had been that empty in the grocery store.

  By the time I got to the airport the next day, I had finished my shopping, washed all the dishes and most of the laundry, mopped the kitchen and bathroom, vacuumed and dusted the living room and bedroom, and neatly stacked everything I couldn’t actually put away. I didn’t think Thaddeous would write home about my housekeeping, but he wouldn’t decide to stay at a hotel, either.

  Boston’s Logan Airport maintains what they call “sterile concourses,” meaning that I couldn’t go down to the gate to meet Thaddeous as he came in. Instead, I waited at the end of the concourse, hoping to catch sight of my cousin before he headed for the baggage claim.

  I needn’t have worried about missing him. Thaddeous towers over most crowds, unless the Boston Celtics are around, and I spotted him long
before he got to me.

  “Thaddeous!” I yelled. “Over here!”

  He peered over heads until he saw my wildly flailing arms and grinned. “What in the Sam Hill are you doing here?”

  “I live here. What’s your excuse?”

  By now he had made his way to me and nearly lifted me off my feet in a great big hug I did my best to return.

  “Just thought you might like some company for a few days,” he said.

  “A few days? If you try to get back on that airplane in less than a week, I’m going to knock a knot on your noggin. And two weeks would be better than one!”

  “How did you find out I was coming?” Then, before I could say anything, he answered his own question. “Never mind. I knew Mama shouldn’t have told Vasti.”

  I saw we were blocking traffic, so I said, “Come on, we’ll go get your luggage.”

  I’ve flown in and out of Logan enough that it took me no time to find the right baggage carousel, meaning that we had that much longer to wait for his suitcase to arrive.

  It was while we were waiting that Thaddeous leaned over and whispered, “Am I dressed all right?”

  “You look fine,” I said. He was dressed in blue jeans, a flannel shirt, and his winter jacket, and carrying his Walters Mill ball cap. His mama must have reminded him to take it off inside. “Why?”

  “I just wasn’t sure what I should wear up here. I didn’t want to embarrass you by looking like country come to town.”

  “Thaddeous, I’m so glad to see you that you could be wearing a lime green polyester suit and I wouldn’t mind. Besides, this is Boston. You can get away with wearing anything here.”

  “Is that right? Then I should have brought my Stetson, like I wanted to.”

  Actually, it was just as well that he hadn’t. The only men I see wearing cowboy hats in Boston are tourists, gay, or both.

  Thaddeous’s suitcase showed up then, and after he grabbed it, I said, “I thought we’d take a cab into town.”

  “What about that subway you keep telling me about?”

  “There’ll be time for that later. This way you’ll get to see a little bit of the city on our ride in.”

  Fortunately the cabbie knew my neighborhood, so I didn’t have to spend the whole trip directing him. Instead, I could show off for Thaddeous. “That building with the clock is the Custom House Building,” I said. “Just wait until you see it lit up at night. And that’s Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market. It’s just filled with funky shops and places to eat. The Aquarium is right by there, and I know you’ll like that.”