Edwina (15 page)

“How’d you know?” She looked around. “The
pillow. Look, the hollow from your head is still there.”

“Gosh, Cece, do you miss anything?”

Cecelia didn’t answer. She was picking up her
purse.

Edwina knew it would be useless, absolutely
useless to argue. She did feel pretty good after the nap... and it
was a play. She loved plays. “So what’re we seeing?”

“The Evening
Gown
. It’s a Victorian drama complete with
romance, music, song, and dance. Interested?”

“Of course.” Edwina picked up her new purse,
compliments of her sister, and slung the long handle over her
shoulder.

Chapter 25

E
dwina was actually happy. They’d found a suitable dress, and
for once had agreed on the color and the simple style. But not the
price.

“Forget the price, will you, Ed? Just this
once? We have no time to squander. Now for shoes.”

“Shoes,” Edwina mumbled. She’d come to
Chicago in her worst possible clothes . . . and now this.

“You can’t wear your tennis shoes or the
Birkenstocks.” Edwina wanted to laugh at her sister’s tut-tut. All
troubles aside, Edwina found herself twirling in the ankle-length
black dress. The cut of the dress fit her body shape perfectly.

“Ed, you look... well, wonderful.” Cecelia
cocked her head first to the left, then the right, and back to the
left again. “Really, you’ve lost weight, I can tell.”

“I really like the dress, Cece.... Thank
you.”

“Oh,” her sister fanned the air with her
newly painted mauve nails. “It’s worth it to see you so... so
pretty. She grabbed a hank of her hair and held it on top of her
head. Your hair looks good swept up like that. It’s so thick—I’m
jealous.”

“
Jealous?” Edwina swirled
and stared at her sister.

“Yes,” Cecelia admitted reluctantly. “You
have nice hair.”

Edwina’s thoughts flew back to Bertie’s same
comment. “Thanks, really . . .”

“No time for foolishness. Let’s go. Best
seats in the house mean we cannot be late.”

For once Edwina enjoyed her sister’s
bossiness. She felt like a queen, even though she knew she was far
from it. It still felt nice to receive a compliment from someone
who was so totally different from herself.

Two hours later, Edwina rose from her seat
slowly and followed her sister. She heard nothing except the last
song as the music crescendo rose higher and higher and the lovers,
entwined in each other’s arms, sank to the stage floor and died. It
was so unexpected, she wanted to cry. She’d thought all along they
would end up happily ever after. Wasn’t that how romantic stories
were supposed to end?

“Well?” Cecelia called over her shoulder as
she cut through the crowd.

“It was so sad.”

“Merely pathos.”

“It was more than mere sentiment... it was
dreadful.”

“How can you feel things so intensely?”
Cecelia had stopped, turned, and now stood staring at her.

“It’s a story. It can happen to real people,
to us. It’s sad, that’s all.”

“Sad or no, that’s not the
point. Because of the play’s pathos, no one will dare tell the
ending, creating a scintillating innuendo. It will draw more
patrons, which in turn is more money, which equals exquisite
success in numbers
and
dollars.”

“Is that what the play meant to you?”

“
Of course. What else?
People are just people—it’s the success that counts. Why else would
someone go to all the work? Just for fun?”

Cecelia’s light laugh disturbed Edwina
deeply. Her sister was smart and beautiful, but she lacked any
depth or understanding of humanity that Edwina could see. And for
that she was sad.

“I’ll check the numbers tomorrow and let you
know. At one hundred eighty dollars a ticket, you can just bet they
little more than broke even this first night. But the next few
nights should stir enough interest in the community as to double or
triple attendance.”

“One hundred eighty dollars each?” Edwina
could not think past the amount and then realized a very profound
thing. She was just as money-conscious as Cecelia. They were at
different ends of the spectrum, but both were extreme. Edwina could
not imagine why she had not seen the trait in herself before
this.

Perhaps it had been the trip to Scotland.
She’d experienced something new, fresh, exhilarating.

The ride home in Cece’s elegant black
Cadillac was silent. Each had a lot to think about.

Chapter 26

E
dwina accepted the classy black dress as a birthday gift
along with a new pair of black flats with thin straps across the
top of her foot, which her sister had insisted upon. She hated
heels and refused all of her sister’s attempts to force her to buy
any. After the late drive back to Niles the next afternoon, she’d
not woke early enough to get back in time for church because
Cecelia had not wanted her to leave. Strange, since they could
hardly occupy the same space before one or the other went nuts...
for very different reasons, of course.

It was nearly four o’clock before she hauled
the last bag up the stairs. Laundry was the first order of
business, then the calls waiting on the answering machine. After
the washer was pumping away, she grabbed a pencil and an old
envelope to write on and pushed the button. There were six
messages.

Two from Cecelia reminding her to write down
the telephone number of the Gillespies or “they would be up the
creek without a stick.”

Edwina had to laugh. Her English sister was
forever mixing up American phrases.

The next four were from different people: two
employees from work, one friend, and a business acquaintance. All
said something about a lady taking her job.

“Taking my job?” The words hung in the
air.

“Why would anyone want to do that?” She
shrugged and listened to the messages again, bypassing
Cecelia’s.

Each person sounded alarmed and seemed to
want to say more, but didn’t. What had happened while she was
gone?

The only problem she’d had last week was the
woman who’d come in to take her place while she was out. Surely ..
.

There was nothing to be done about it now,
and worry was not going to be her best friend for the rest of this
pleasant day. She settled herself in the soft chair next to the
window in her bedroom. The sun would soon be setting, but for now
Edwina turned on the little fan on the table nearby, stuck her feet
up on the windowsill, and smiled. She would read while the laundry
was washing.

* * * *

Six working days later she was fired. It was
now Monday morning, and after completing a very stressful week, all
sorts of stories were flying about her inconsistency, her
inabilities, and her lack of qualifications. So she’d buried
herself in work, hoping the problem would go away. It didn’t.

She’d sat in the chair across the desk from
the man who owned her job. He told her all the things she had done
wrong and why they’d had no other choice but to let her go.

“A month’s pension should carry you,” he’d
said. He asked if she had any questions, and at the shake of her
head, because God help her, she couldn’t think of a single word to
say, she got up and walked out of the library.

Even now she wondered if she’d lost her mind.
Had what just happened really happened? Or was it all a bad
dream?

The job she’d worked so hard for—all gone
with the snap of his fingers. She walked home. Tears would not
come. Anger would not surface. She felt impervious and totally
indifferent. Didn’t it say somewhere in the Bible that all things
work for good? She couldn’t remember where that was, and it struck
her to look it up once she climbed the stairs to her apartment.

She got to the door, looked in her hand, and
there was no key there. She’d forgotten her purse. Edwina sat down
on the step and stared at the trees blowing in the wind. A leaf
loosened and came sashaying down, landing a few inches from her
feet. She picked it up and fingered the veins, the tenderness of
the still-green leaf and stared at it in wonder. If God could make
such a beautiful thing, couldn’t He..., Her mind would not go any
further. There was a walk she had to take.

Back to the library she headed, steam
building in her brain as she walked. How dare they accuse her of
mishandling funds, losing books, and all such other nonsense. For
once in her life she wanted to fight.

Stomping back, she opened the door. No one
had locked the entry doors. “I suppose I will be accused of leaving
the doors unlocked, right after they requested the keys be turned
in to them,” she sputtered.

Two employees walked past her and snuck
looks, but she didn’t pay them any mind. She had a few things she
wanted to do.

First, she knocked on her office door and
found the woman who’d taken her place. She at least had the decency
to look ashamed. The man who’d fired her was sitting there too.

“May I have my belongings?”
Edwina said between clenched teeth. She opened her desk drawer and
plucked out her purse and a book. “This, this is
my
book,” she said
pointedly as she waved it in the air.

“Of course,” the man who’d just fired her
said politely.

“
I... I say this to both of
you. The charges you accused me of are totally bogus. God knows it,
and I know it,” she said and gave them her back. Her ears tuned out
everything except her new black flats as they clip-clopped across
the polished floors. For the last time.

* * * *

“
They what?” Cecelia nearly
screamed into the tele- phone. “I’m coming down there this
instant.”

“No... no you’re not. I’ll handle this,”
Edwina said. “Father and I have already talked. He is going to
contact a friend of his on the board here in town and look into the
charges.”

“How dare they!” Cecelia was livid. Edwina
was rather grateful for the support, even if it was given in
anger.

“Don’t worry, Cece. Everything will be all
right. There are other towns, other library jobs. It’s just that...
well, I don’t want to move, but . . .”

“What, Ed? You’d actually consider a move?”
Cecelia’s voice was sympathetic.

“Well, it might be good for me to make a new
life some- where else. I love my hometown, but—” She was cut off
when Cecelia began talking, and it wasn’t to her.

“Ed, look I’ve got to go. Tenant problem.
Sorry . . .”

Cecelia was gone. Everyone was gone. She felt
a little like Jonah, spit up on the shore after being in the belly
of the whale. What should she do?

Edwina started to gnaw at her fingernails,
then sat on her hands instead. “Not going to start that,” she said
aloud. It was time to find her resume. She got up and fished in a
drawer for the folder.

An hour passed. She reworked the old resume
and, pleased with the progress, felt like a walk. Down the stairs,
across the street, down a deep ravine, and she was in the park by
the river. People were laughing, walking their dogs, pushing babies
in strollers, and playing Frisbee. Some were fishing off the decks,
others sitting in the grass entwined in each other’s lives.

Her world had changed in one fell swoop, and
although it was frightening, it somehow inspired her to move
forward. She had always been so fearful of not being attached to
some- thing—her job or school, specifically. She was suddenly and
totally. . . free. Free to move, seek a new job, work at a
restaurant, manage a McDonald’s if she wanted to. This was a time
to pray. Pray for God to move her... not that she would move
herself, but for a God who loved her to direct her. Prayers flowed,
sometimes fearful, sometimes extremely full of hope.

Her practical nature swung into motion. No
more ice cream, walk more than drive to save gas, and for sure no
long-distance phone calls. These duties were familiar. These were
things she could control. Some things she could not. It was a
reminder to remember which was which. That was the hard part.

She had a little money saved because she’d
wisely refrained from purchasing anything expensive for several
years. It wasn’t a lot, but she would make do. It was nearly dark.
Time to head home. The far-off sounds of children still playing
buzzed in her ears.

Something would come up soon. It just had
to.

Chapter 27

H
er father and Cecelia had taken matters in hand, bypassing
her efforts to play her own ball game. They kept going to bat for
her. She was up to the plate, but they were always grabbing the bat
and swinging for her.

That was the word picture that framed itself
in her mind.

“Father, please. It
is
unfortunate. You’ve
already talked to the council. It’s pretty cut and dried. Nothing
personal.”

“How can you say that, Edwina? Being fired is
personal.”

“Yes, I know, Father, but maybe it happened
for a reason.”

“You’re right. Certainly. But you need to
learn how to stand up for yourself and fight when you’ve been
wrongly accused.”

“They wouldn’t listen.” Her words were
gentle.

“Okay. I’ve given it my best. You’re a grown
woman. Tell me what you want to do.”

“Thanks, Daddy. I was thinking... and tell me
if you’re not interested, okay?”

“All right.”

“
Well... I was thinking
perhaps I could come up and be your assistant. In exchange you
could help me with my expenses, just until I get on my feet. I
think I’ll go for my master’s degree in Library
Sciences.”

“Honey, good choice. Of course we’ll help.
Victoria will not mind you living here, I’m certain of it.”