Donovan’s Angel (8 page)

They still didn’t. Ethel Ann reached into her
pocket for the check and waved it in the air as she continued her
monologue.

“This world would be a better place if more
married folks remembered that. Palpitation and admonition. And it
all starts and ends in the bedroom.” She winked at Paul. “Right,
honey?”

Paul was equal to the occasion. “I couldn’t
agree with you more. You didn’t tell us your name.”

“Ethel Ann, honey.” She trained her bright
copper-penny eyes on Martie. “Starts and ends in the bedroom,” she
repeated drolly, and then she headed toward the kitchen to gossip
with Mary Muldooney.

Paul and Martie hurried from the
restaurant.

“Do you think we’re combustible?” Martie
asked, shooting Paul a pixie smile.

“Not to mention palpitating,” he said, with a
straight face. They laughed all the way to the parking lot.

Suddenly Martie grabbed his arm. “Paul, I
almost forgot.”

“What?” he asked, covering her hand with
his.

“We can’t leave the Hilton without riding the
glass elevator.”

“I should think not,” he solemnly agreed.

So they made their way to the electronic
glass cage that whisked them toward the stars. Paul pulled her into
the circle of his arms, and she leaned there as naturally as if it
were an old habit.

“You see that constellation?” She pointed to
the Big Dipper. “After Mom died I imagined that she was up there,
riding in the dipper, and that if I concentrated hard enough, she
would know what I was thinking. Even after I learned better, I
still felt that the stars somehow brought me closer to her.”

Paul tightened his arms around her in silent
understanding. And even after the elevator had returned them to
firm ground, their thoughts were still up among the stars.

Martie yawned hugely as they stood beside her
red car. “Too much activity for one day,” she apologized.

“I’ll drive home.” Both of them thought how
right
home
sounded. How natural. As if they were an old
married couple on the way to a session of Ethel Ann’s
palpitation.

o0o

Once home, Paul deposited Martie on her back
porch steps, then gathered her into his arms and kissed her until
they were both breathless.

“Goodnight, Martie.” Then, without another
word, he walked away.

She watched until he was a faint shadow in
the night. “Goodbye, Paul.”

o0o

Church chimes echoed in the morning air as
Martie sprinted down the sidewalk in her neon bright jogging suit,
Baby hard at her heels.

“Morning, Miss Beulah,” she called, setting
her rainbow-hued bangle bracelets ajingle as she waved.

Miss Beulah looked up from the water dish she
was filling for her Persian, Falina Theona. In her brown velour
housecoat she looked like a fat partridge as her head swiveled on
its squat neck to watch the progress of Pontotoc’s Jezebel.

“Brazen creature,” she sniffed. “And on a
Sunday morning, too.”

Martie whizzed down the sidewalk, turned a
corner, realized she would pass the parsonage, and turned in the
other direction. She didn’t need any more reminders this morning.
Today she was definitely, positively, without a doubt forgetting
the minister. She pushed herself, jogging five miles instead of her
usual four. Ordinarily she would have selected a church, for she
loved Sunday morning services. But not today. Not yet. Being in
church, even if it were not his, would have reminded her of
Paul.

She was wheezing when she completed her
morning workout and plopped down on her backporch steps.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she
wondered aloud. “I guess I didn’t sleep too well last night.” She
rubbed Aristocat’s shiny coat.

He endured the attention briefly before
walking away to sit in his favorite spot by the birdbath. Baby, who
thrived on affection, bounded around the corner of the house,
bringing yet another gift to his mistress.

Martie absently scratched her puppy’s head as
she contemplated the fence that separated her from the
parsonage.

“If I didn’t already love this house and this
town, I would move,” she confided to her pet. “It wouldn’t be the
first time.” Her hand moved to stroke the healthy pelt on Baby’s
back. “But even if I went to the moon, I would still remember the
way he smiles with his eyes . . . and the sound of his voice . . .
and the way he looks in the moonlight.”

The loose skin sagged around Baby’s face,
giving her a mournful look as she lifted her head to study her
mistress. Suddenly she gave a sharp bark.

Martie looked from her pet to the soggy
offering at her feet. Gingerly she lifted the mangled garment.

“Good grief!” she cried. “The minister’s
shorts!”

Paul, in clerical collar and black robe, sat
behind the pulpit and scanned the church pews for Martie. As the
organ swelled to a mighty crescendo, his heart plummeted. There was
no silver-blond head among the congregation. The joining of the
congregation and the organ in a majestic “Amen” brought his
thoughts back to the service.

He lifted his eyes and whispered, “I’m only
human, Lord.”

o0o

Martie spent most of the day moving the
preacher’s shorts around. First she tossed them into the garbage
can. Then, feeling cowardly, she fished them out and left them in a
soggy heap beside the back door. Something would definitely have to
be done about them; she just couldn’t figure out what that
something was.

She selected her favorite book of Walt
Whitman poetry and carried it to the sunroom. But right in the
middle of “Sometimes with One I Love” she put the book down,
marched through the house, and picked up Paul’s shorts. They were
still damp from Baby’s mistreatment. She looked inside the
waistband at the label: Medium, 32-34.

Just what she’d thought. The shorts dangled
from her hand as she considered the possibilities of Medium, 32-34,
all of them attractive.

Then, feeling guilty, as if she had barged
unannounced into his bedroom and seen him naked, she put the shorts
into her washing machine and started the cycle. As she dumped in
the detergent she decided to return the clean shorts via the
tree.

While the shorts washed she had an afternoon
snack and revised her plan. She would put them in a box and send
them to him by mail. An act of cowardice, but necessary for
self-preservation.

She changed the shorts to the dryer, then
returned to the sunroom, where she picked up her book and tried to
immerse herself in Walt Whitman. The shorts kept intruding. Even
her favorite, “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” couldn’t
completely occupy her mind. By the time she got to the line, “A
thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me, never to
die,” she knew what those echoes were. They were Paul’s shorts,
screaming evidence of the man she was trying to forget.

She replaced the book on the shelf and
transferred the shorts from the dryer to a shelf in the closet. But
even with the door shut, they still warbled at her. She snatched
them out again and decided to patch the holes Baby had made. Sewing
was not her forte, but she had never seen anything that she
couldn’t try at least once. She had a moment of indecision over
whether to use the red or the green thread, those two being the
only colors available; but once she had selected the red, she
tackled the project with enthusiasm.

The shorts were well worn and getting a
little threadbare on the seat. They felt soft and pliable in her
hands. From time to time she glanced up from her sewing and smiled.
It was a dreamy smile, incorporating visions of Medium, 32-34, and
palpitations that began and ended in the bedroom.

She pricked her finger twice and got the
thread so tangled once that she had to pull it all out and start
over. When the project was finally finished she held it up for
inspection. Nothing could get through the holes, that was for sure.
She actually blushed at the image that thought aroused. But pulling
the torn places together had altered the dimensions of the shorts
so that one side was decidedly smaller than the other. Martie
tilted her head and studied her handiwork. She thought the red
thread and the new proportions gave the shorts a rakish quality.
Leaving them in her wicker rocker, she went outside for a
breather.

The sun was beginning to drop low in the
western sky, and there was a nip in the air. Indian summer would
soon be over. She wrapped her arms around herself for warmth and
strolled past her birdbath toward the large floribunda rosebush
that was still blooming profusely. As she began to gather a
bouquet, a spiral of fragrant tobacco smoke wafted over the fence.
She straightened up and looked in that direction. Paul must be on
the other side of the fence smoking his pipe. She would recognize
that smell anywhere.

With a thousand warbling echoes still
stirring within her in spite of her efforts to silence them, she
moved toward the fence, and the forgotten roses drifted to the
ground in her wake. A good sized peephole presented itself, and
Martie bent down and put her face to the opening.

Paul was standing with his hands in his
pockets, puffing on his pipe and looking at the sunset. He was the
picture of contentment and tranquility.

An intense longing that had been shimmering
inside her all day welled up and burst forth. “Paul!” she
called.

He turned toward the fence and removed his
pipe. “I seem to be hearing angel voices.”

“It’s just me.”

In the waning light he could see one eye and
the tip of her nose through the hole in the fence. “I’m relieved,”
he said, and smiled. “Disembodied voices don’t usually come with
freckled noses.” He walked so close to the fence that the wide
expanse of his shirtfront filled Martie’s view.

“My nose is not freckled,” she protested,
laughing. Paul always made her forget her original intentions.

“I see one. Right there.” He touched her nose
with the tip of his finger.

“Oh, that. It’s kind of pale, isn’t it?” she
asked hopefully.

“Yes.”

“Good. I’ve always disliked those freckles,
so I pretend they don’t exist.”

There was a silence on the other side of the
fence, and then Paul spoke. “Just as you’ve been pretending all day
that I don’t exist?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “And it would have
worked except for the shorts.”

He bent down and put his eye to the crack.
“I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”

Startled, she pulled back. “Baby stole a pair
of your shorts from the clothesline.”

“Which ones?”

“The blue ones. And Paul . . . they’re
getting kind of threadbare. Why don’t you buy some new ones?”

“I’m just getting those broken in. They’re
comfortable that way.”

Martie reflected that this conversation
wasn’t nearly as difficult as she had expected. As a matter of
fact, she was having fun. Temporarily, of course.

“I’m going to mail them back to you. I have
to warn you, though; Baby did some damage. But I fixed it with red
thread.”

She was so serious that he held back his
laughter. “I’ll come over there and get them.”

“No!” she cried.

“Why not?” He was getting a crick in his
neck, so he straightened up. The minute his eye vacated the hole,
hers was back.

“Because I’m still forgetting you. You can’t
come over here, and I’m not even going to talk to you anymore.”

“Does that mean just in person, or does that
include treetop and fence-hole conversations as well?”

“All of them, I think.”

“But how will you tell me about Baby’s raids
on my clothesline?” he asked.

“You can patch the holes in the fence so she
can’t come over.”

“I like it this way. I think I’ll let the
holes stay.”

“Then I’ll patch the holes. Goodbye, Paul.
And that’s my final word.”

He chuckled, then called across the fence,
“I’m going to pray that you forget to buy the nails, angel.”

“I’m not an angel!” she yelled. “And that’s
really my final word.”

Paul stood smiling beside the fence for a
long time after he had heard her screen door slam. He could wait.
He knew as surely as the sun rose in the east that Martie was part
of his future. The grand design had already been drawn, and neither
of them could change it. He might hurry it along, however. He
tamped out his pipe, stuck it in his sweater pocket, and headed for
the parsonage whistling.

o0o

Monday morning Martie went outside to pick up
her forgotten roses.

“Good morning, Martie.” Paul’s rich voice
startled her, coming as it did out of nowhere.

She ran to the fence and put her face to the
crack. Finding herself nose to nose with the minister, she pulled
back. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Greeting you.”

“I’m not talking to you, remember?”

“That’s all right. I’m still talking to you.
Besides, we didn’t finish that conversation about my shorts.”

“Reverend
Donovan
!” Miss Beulah
Grady had entered his yard unnoticed. Her eyes were glazed with
shock at the minister’s strange behavior and outrageous remark.
“What on earth are you doing?”

Paul straightened up. “Hello, Miss Beulah.
I’m having a neighborly chat with Martie.”

“Morning, Miss Beulah,” Martie called through
the fence, grinning impishly. Most of Miss Beulah was not visible
through the peephole, but the part that was, was heaving with
indignation.

Miss Beulah squinted her eyes and tried to
see what that brazen woman was wearing, but the hole in the fence
was too small and the minister was blocking most of the view. All
she saw was a flash of scarlet. She’d give her eyeteeth to know
what had been going on when she appeared. Shifting her covered
basket from one arm to the other, she spoke with saccharine
sweetness.