Carla Kelly (2 page)

The smile left Julia's face.
And then Aunt Carolina will look at Mama and Papa and make some arch remark about “Julia's wedding is this winter, and won't that be a relief?”
she told herself.
The cousins will giggle, and Ezra will say something like “Couldn't be happier,” or “Aren't I the lucky fellow?”

Thinking of Ezra, she looked at his engagement ring on the window ledge over the sink. Funny that she still thought of it as his ring and not hers. She always took it off before she started to cook.
Trouble is,
she thought,
I forget to put it back on.
She went to the sink and pushed the ring onto her finger. He had selected it, vetoing her wish for a ruby. “Diamonds are investments, Julia,” he had told her in that patient way that made her want to grit her teeth.

She had given in; it was better than an argument. She couldn't unburden herself to Iris because her sister had a stone so small that Aunt Carolina had to squint to see it.

I am being ungrateful, and that is wicked,
she thought as she went in search of old newspapers.
But if Ezra tells me one more time how he argued the jeweler down to a better price or how a diamond is every woman's dream, I swear I will scratch a bad word on the window with it.
She sighed and fingered the pages of Monday's
Deseret News. Papa never coerces or gets huffy if I disagree with him,
she thought.
I wonder if Ezra really loves me.

She knew her fiancé thought she was pretty. Once he had told her that he was engaged to the prettiest girl in the Avenues. But was that enough?

I am being critical today,
she thought as she found more newspapers. Julia had heard her father declare more than once that
he
was married to the prettiest girl in the whole universe. Maybe Ezra just wasn't extravagant.

But that was Ezra. Just as surely as he had announced to her that he would never put more than a dime in a beggar's cup, she knew that life with Ezra Quayle would not be like life at home.

It was a dismal reflection. They had been engaged for a year, but he was not generous with his kisses.
And he still asks for permission,
she reminded herself.
I know I want a virtuous man, but he doesn't have to be a stick.

Julia picked up yesterday's newspaper and tucked it under her arm with the other papers. She had promised Iris that she would pack the rest of her cups and saucers in the crate still open in her bedroom. She glanced at the clock. The wedding party must surely be on the way to the Celestial Room by now, but she had time to do this one last thing for her sister.

Her younger sister. Trust Iris to snare a wide-eyed dairy farmer from Draper before she turned twenty-one! And here Julia was, twenty-seven and a little too cynical for her own good. For three years Ezra Quayle had courted her deliberately—every act, as far as she could tell, planned far in advance as though he followed a schedule. She stopped on the stairs.
I wonder what it feels like to be kissed by a man with nothing more on his mind than kissing me.

These were not good thoughts to take into a room where a bride's traveling dress was neatly spread across the bed. The hollow feeling in her stomach grew as Julia tore the newspaper into strips and picked up the first cup.
It'd be a shame if I find myself married to someone who knows he needs to be married but isn't quite sure why,
she considered.

“I don't think your engagement is a good idea, Julia,” she said aloud.

Aghast with herself, she packed swiftly then, stopping only when she needed more newspaper strips. She picked up another sheet and stared at the page in her hands, distressed as the newsprint grew blurry.

It is stupid to cry when everyone tells me how fortunate I am to have found a man who will provide well for me and never cause me a moment's anxiety
, she reminded herself. “This will not do, Julia,” she said. she stared at an advertisement outlined in a box, willing herself to focus on those words until she could read them.

It was the classified section. Julia stared down at the words. “‘Rancher Desperate,’ ” she read aloud. “Sir, I doubt you are as desperate as I am.”

She lowered the paper, but the two words intrigued her. “‘Rancher Desperate,’ ” she said again, and kept reading. “‘A long-time, stable stockman 80 miles northwest of Cheyenne is searching for a chef of mature years to cook for him and four hands and do light housekeeping. Salary includes sixty dollars a month and found. Direct all inquiries to paul Otto, The Double Tipi, Gun Barrel, Wyoming.’ ” She looked closer at the ad. “My word,” she said. “ ‘rancher seeks a graduate of Fannie Farmer's Cooking school.’ ”

She wrapped a cup in a different page.
How would some old Wyoming rancher have ever heard of the cooking school?
she wondered. She continued packing until all the newspaper was gone, except for the page with that ad. “Bother it,” she muttered. Irritated with herself, Julia wrapped the page around the last cup, put it in the crate, and set the lid on top.

She was halfway down the stairs when she knew she could not marry ezra Quayle. Before reason triumphed, she turned around and marched back into iris's room. she removed the newspaper from the cup on top and hurried downstairs to the kitchen.

She found a piece of paper and Mama's fountain pen. Washing her hands quickly, she sat down and composed a letter. “ ‘Mature years,’ ” she said, as she poised the pen over the paper. “Mr. Otto, I am twenty-seven years old, and if that is not mature, then I do not know what is.”

She wrote a quick reply, writing twice over the words “Fannie Farmer's Cooking school graduate,” so they would stand out on the page. Room and board and sixty dollars a month? “Mr. Otto, I will cook for you!”

Julia almost ran to the postbox on the corner. She hurried back into the house and was standing on the porch when Papa's new Pierce-Arrow—the pride of his heart, despite the Doctrine and Covenants’ injunction not to “covet thine own property”—turned the corner toward the alley behind the house. She dashed inside, pulled the copper mold from the icebox, and plopped the raspberry ice into the punch bowl.

There was just time to remove her apron and touch up her hair before she had to smile a welcome at Ezra and Mama, who came through the back door together. She stood close to Ezra while Mama exclaimed over the wedding cake. “Kiss me, Ezra,” she demanded suddenly, standing on tiptoe to increase his opportunity.

He leaped away as though she were covered with spots. “Right here?” he whispered back. “What will your mother think?”

Better you should worry about what I am thinking
, she thought as Iris burst through the door and threw herself into Julia's arms.

“Oh, Jules, I'm so happy!” she wailed.

Julia kissed her sister, admired the gold band, and wished herself in Gun Barrel, Wyoming, cooking for Desperate Rancher.

ulia excused herself for not saying anything right then in the kitchen. Her sister's wedding reception was not the time to squelch an engagement everyone told her was made in heaven.

Nor was the next day a good time either, what with Mama's headache and Papa moving slowly, done in by the petit fours and too many cream mints. Even Friday was too soon, with Mama still mooning about Iris so far away in Draper.

“Mama, it's only an hour away in Papa's auto,” Julia reminded her.

Mama wiped her eyes. “Thank goodness Ezra bought the house two blocks over.”

Don't remind me,
Julia told herself, thinking of all the hours Ezra devoted to the subject, describing every detail of the purchase until she wanted to scream. “Yes, how fortunate,” she murmured.

Somehow, Saturday was not the time to make any radical statements, and Sunday was out of the question. A week passed, and she convinced herself she was glad she had said nothing. If she could not extricate herself from her dilemma without help from Desperate Rancher, then she deserved none.
Face it, Julia Darling,
she thought.
You're afraid to say anything.

She took a good look at Ezra when he came over in the middle of the week, trying to see him through others’ eyes. He was nice looking. He would probably never lose his hair like some men, or his teeth either. And nobody ever dresses better than a banker. Her father was proof of that.

His conversation was on the dull side. He had served a mission to the British Isles and taught Sunday School, and Julia knew he attended the temple regularly. He earned a good living. She would never want for anything. She sighed.

“Why the sigh?” Ezra asked.

His comment startled her. “Uh, I was thinking about Iris on a dairy farm,” she lied.

“I can't imagine what Iris was thinking to marry such a man. Why, he probably tracks manure into the kitchen on his boots,” he said, sounding painfully prissy.

He cleared his throat. She could not help another sigh, knowing that he was about to make a pronouncement of some sort, usually the kindly, improving statement intended for her own good.

“Julia, we really should set a wedding date,” he began. “I've bought the house, I'm due a raise, and I'm nearly twenty-nine.” She could tell he was choosing his words carefully. “Julia, I've been so patient! I let you go to Boston, and I never complained.”

She couldn't help the way her eyes narrowed.
You
let
me?

He wasn't through. “You'll be twenty-eight in three months and four days, if I'm not mistaken.”

You're never mistaken,
she told herself miserably. “Yes, I'll be twenty-eight in three months and four days,” she said, her voice calm but her heart cracking a little around the edges. “How about right after Thanksgiving?”
Please say no,
she thought.

“That would be unfortunate. I was thinking October 20,” he replied. “That's a good time at the bank, so I wouldn't have to take any work along with me if we go to St. George for a week, as we've discussed.”

No one but Ezra would think about accounting during his honeymoon. “That's agreeable,” she replied, as she writhed inside. “I promise not to bring along my darning egg and needle.”

He stared at her for one blank moment and then laughed. “That's a joke, isn't it?” he asked.

She couldn't help herself. “What about January?”

He cleared his throat. She closed her eyes, dreading whatever was to come. “Really, Julia, I would think you would want to be married before you turn twenty-eight. People are starting to talk.”

“Ezra, my various parts will work just as well at twenty-eight as they do at twenty-seven!” She knew immediately that she had offended him. She put her hand on his arm, desperate to apologize before he had time to clear his throat again and reprove her in that patient way of his that made her feel like a two-year-old. “I'm sorry, Ezra. That was vulgar.”

He agreed promptly. “That is a regrettable tendency that I plan to reform when we are married.”

The porch suddenly felt like an escape-proof cell. “October, then,” she murmured.