A Little Learning (20 page)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
T
HEY
WERE
IN
Sultan for the week, using the Empire Street house, with Kurt Gorenzi’s blessing, during wedding preparations.
On the morning of the wedding, however, Lauren and Rory and Samantha were at Sondra Nichols’s home helping Rory dress, while Belle played with her stuffed animals in the next room, when Rory’s cell phone rang. Rory was at her dressing table and unable to move because both her grandmother and Lauren were holding up pieces of her hair.
“Should I answer?” asked Samantha.
“Yes, please.”
“Hello? No, it’s Samantha. Hi, Beau. No, she can’t talk.”
“I can,” Rory said.
“
I’ll
talk to him,” Lauren said, as though prepared to sort out the brother who’d dared to call at such an inconvenient time.
Samantha took the part of Rory’s hair which Lauren had been holding and they traded the phone.
“What?” said Lauren. Then, “You’re kidding. What did Dad say? Really? Okay. No,
I’ll
tell her. She’s getting her hair done. Bye.”
She hung up. “Your old house is for sale again.”
“Oh, yeah, I know,” Samantha said. “The guy’s business is tanking, and he needs cash right away.”
“It’s a cool house,” Lauren said.
“For, like, a family of six,” Samantha put in. “Maybe with a housekeeper thrown in.” She laughed.
“What did your dad say?” Rory asked.
“That he won’t live in a pink house.”
Samantha and Rory made faces at each other. They’d always liked the exterior of Desert’s house. Desert wasn’t able to come back to Sultan for the wedding. She said her parents couldn’t do without her, even for a few days.
Sondra said, “I should say not. That place looks garish. I was surprised the new owner didn’t paint it first thing.”
“That’s part of its charm,” Samantha told her.
They continued weaving the wreath into Rory’s hair.
“Does he like the house except for its being pink?” Rory asked Lauren.
“Beau’s not sure. The pink was the big deal. And Caleb likes it pink.”
“I like pink, too.” Belle came in carrying Mouse and Squish. Her dress was a child’s version of Lauren’s, in light blue. “So does Squish. Squish’s tentacle got squished by Elsie Cow, and he needs it kissed.”
“Didn’t you kiss it?” Samantha asked.
“By Lauren.”
“Oh.” Her sister crouched down. “Which one was it?”
“I don’t know,” Belle said.
“Better get all of them,” Samantha advised.
Belle nodded in agreement as the doorbell sounded.
Sondra made a perplexed face, then hurried to answer it. They heard her speaking to someone, and then she called, “Lauren, will you come here?”
Lauren left the bedroom, and Rory wondered who was there.
A moment later, the girl returned to the bedroom with Sondra behind her. Lauren carried a large white envelope, the size of a tabloid newspaper. Her eyes were bright, excited.
Rory looked up at her.
“I’ve been entrusted by Dad to give you your wedding present,” Lauren told her. She placed the envelope on the table in front of Rory. “I’m supposed to explain it to you.”
As Samantha finished her hair, Rory opened one end of the envelope and slid out the contents. It was a glossy image, a print, of an anime character with curly brown-and-gold hair and huge brown eyes. She was surrounded by fire and carried lit coals in each hand. Behind her loomed a massive yellow-and-white snake with red eyes. Lola with a cobra’s hood and fangs, breathing fire.
“Her name is Mieko. She’s a fire goddess. The snake is Tama. She protects Mieko. And Dad wanted you to be sure to know that he asked me and I said it’s okay. In fact, we kind of came up with it together—Koneko was dedicated to the fire goddess as an infant. She chose to turn from that calling and become a demon. But Koneko is still tied to Mieko, and she can never break that bond, and Mieko watches over her and sometimes calls her back from evil.”
Rory’s reflection swam in the mirror. Swallowing, she set the print against the glass as Samantha pinned the wreath to her head.
Rory said to Lauren, “Thank you,” and reached a hand toward the girl.
Lauren reached around from behind and hugged her. “You look pretty,” she said.
* * *
R
ORY
RODE
TO
Blythe Meadow in her father’s Toyota Land Cruiser, with Belle and Lauren, while Sondra rode in Samantha’s car.
My father is going to give me away on my wedding day.
A year ago, none of it would have seemed possible. But now she was his partner at the Sultan Mountain School. She and Seamus had decided that the family would live in Sultan—all they needed was a suitable house.
Rory hoped that Desert’s old house would meet the criteria, but there were other possibilities, as well, including building a new house—an idea her father embraced, of course, as a boost to Sultan’s economy.
They reached the meadow, and Rory peered across the sunlit grass until she spotted Seamus in a tuxedo, speaking with the minister.
Beau ran toward the Land Cruiser and opened the door. “I’m helping you out,” he told Rory.
“Thank you,” she said and scanned the guests, waving to Sultan friends and turning toward Samantha’s vehicle. “Will you go help my grandmother, too, Beau?”
“Yes.” He shut her door behind her and ran toward Samantha’s passenger door. Caleb beat him.
Kurt came around the front of his car and offered his arm to Rory.
“Thanks, Dad,” she said.
The guests were nearly all seated in folding chairs set up in the meadow for the ceremony. She saw Jay Norris from the Sultan Mountain School ushering a woman in a head scarf and a man in a dark suit and yarmulke into seats on the bride’s side.
“No way,” Rory said.
“Yes, way,” Samantha told her. “But you’ll have to wait until after the ceremony to say hi. Just don’t pass out when she introduces him.”
“As?”
“The Rabbi David Stern, her
fiancé.
”
Rory laughed out loud. “Is she still Desert?”
“Noami,” Samantha said with a smile. “Though I get the feeling this guy might have some pretty sweet names for her when they’re alone.”
The recorded wedding march began to play on the car stereo that was serving as sound system. Seamus’s best man offered his arm to Samantha, and they began the walk ahead of Rory and Kurt.
Kurt said to his daughter, “Well, I’m glad all my scheming paid off.”
“What scheming?”
“My dear, what kind of generous soul do you think was going to give Seamus Lee and his kids the gift of a three-month course with the Sultan Mountain School?”
Rory gazed at her father, aghast. “Someone with ulterior motives, obviously.”
“Well,
you
weren’t part of the plan. Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?” They needed to start walking, but she wanted to hear the answer to this.
“Let’s go,” said her father. As they took the first steps that would lead her to the rest of her life with Seamus, Kurt told her, “You were only part of the plan, in that I’d learned the hard way that there’s a price for letting someone else raise one’s child, or children. It’s losing something you can’t experience again.”
Rory squeezed his arm. “It’s okay, Dad,” she said, and then she gazed ahead toward Seamus.
His green eyes crinkled in a smile as he watched her approach.
“Does he know?” she said.
“By the end of the course, he’d guessed. He insisted on paying their way. After you agreed to marry him, I couldn’t refuse. It would have been rude.”
“Mm.”
Kurt took his daughter’s hand and placed it in Seamus’s.
Seamus said, “Thank you.”
He and Rory gazed at each other, and a wind rustled paper in the minister’s hands, lifting one of the sheets into the wind. He grabbed at it and then had to turn and chase it into the meadow.
“What did you thank him for?” Rory whispered.
“Because of what he told me. That you’re the most valuable thing in his life. And he gave you into my keeping.”
“Who is giving you into mine?” she asked.
He looked toward the front row, where Belle was crouched down in her dress and white tights, petting Seuss, Lauren was rolling her eyes at something Beau had said and Caleb was folding his program into a paper airline.
Rory and Seamus laughed at the same time.
As the minister made his way back to them with his notes, she said, “Then, I’ll have to thank them, too.”
* * * * *
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ISBN: 9781460304365
Copyright © 2013 by Margot Early
Originally published as GOOD WITH CHILDREN
Copyright © 2007 by Margot Early
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