Heart-strong
Authors: Bonnie McCune
by Bonnie McCune
Copyright 2013 Bonnie McCune
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Cover art by Joan Alley
This book is a work of fiction
and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is
purely coincidental. The characters are the product of the author’s imagination
and used fictitiously.
Warning: The unauthorized
reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of
this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other
means without the permission of Prism Book Group. Please purchase only
authorized editions and do not participate in the electronic piracy of
copyrighted material. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Published
by Prism Book Group
ISBN-
978-0-9858941-7-7 First Edition 2013
Published
in the United States of America
Contact
info:
[email protected]
Please enjoy this sample from
A SAINT COMES STUMBLING IN
by Bonnie
McCune.
Rachel Kinsey always met men. Frequently unsuitable ones.
Buskers whistling on pan pipes or thrumming drums. Winos old and young.
Patched-up homeless with shopping carts, asking for a handout. But also
construction workers, computer techs, teachers. She related to all sorts,
inherently able to identify the human element in each.
Her universal appeal to them was a sympathetic outlook and
an open, trusting demeanor, the result of her big hazel eyes fringed with curly
lashes and her teddy bear rounded cheeks. She may not have been the most
gorgeous female in town, but she oozed empathy, compassion for their problems,
understanding about their clashes with friends and family.
Their universal appeal to her was a human connection with
the male of the species. Men of all shapes, sizes, and colors fascinated her.
She considered them as nearly a separate class of creatures. Lacking brothers,
cousins, uncles and assorted other men in her family, and robbed of the weak
connection she’d had with an emotionally distant father when he divorced her
mother, she made males the subject of informal but intense scrutiny. She knew
this weakness for fellow mortals, even unreliable or penniless fellows, caused
many of her personal problems. But the failing, which had culminated in a
defunct marriage with an infrequently employed handyman, also had brought her
son Scott, now ten, so she loosed her curiosity unfettered.
Late one afternoon in August she announced to her sister, “I
met a man today.”
“You’re always meeting men. Usually unsuitable ones,” her
sister snapped back.
“I don’t know if he’s unsuitable, but he was tall and had
the brownest eyes. I’d know him if I saw him again.” In her musings, she tilted
the water pitcher somewhere in the vicinity of the glasses.
Sharon turned from the stove where she was wafting spoons of
spaghetti sauce through clouds of steam and tomato splatterings. “Rachel,” she
whooped and jumped across the kitchen to rescue the pitcher before the water
spilled. “Was he another one of your weirdoes?” Sharon asked as she put the
pitcher on the counter.
“Oh, no. None of those. He was just a regular man. Had a
decent haircut. Even wore a sports jacket. Although he did look...a bit ragged
around the cuffs. And his tie was off-center.”
“So a touch of vulnerability. Where did you meet him?”
“Outside Super Shop “
“What does he do?” asked Sharon.
“I don’t know.”
“Where does he live?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. All I know is I
want to see him again.”
“Well, you realize the chances of that.” Sharon moved the
spaghetti pan to the sink and began draining it.
“Yes, slim and none,” Rachel recited Sharon’s standard
philosophy.
* * *
He could remember what she looked like. Just like the sketch
he was attempting from memory. She’d made such an impression, he could almost
see her sitting over there in the corner, her honey-colored hair matching the
rays of the setting sun that filled the room, picking up the color of the
potted mums and the warm tones of the oak dining table. Yes, not only was Jim a
weekend artist, albeit a serious one, but also he was a romantic who’d absorbed
his values in great gulps of popular culture—love songs, sentimental films,
novels several decades past their initial popularity.
Jim hadn’t noticed her at first outside the grocery store.
They both had been looking at the ad taped to the window listing weekly
specials. Outrageous, he’d been thinking, apples for two ninety-nine a pound.
“Criminal,” she’d said and turned toward him. “Criminal. Apples at two
ninety-nine a pound!”
Then she’d looked up and up, and he’d looked down and down.
She’d blushed. He’d flushed, never having felt such an instantaneous camaraderie
with a woman before. He couldn’t, wouldn’t analyze the response, but figured
her candor as well as her rounded figure and her understated attractiveness had
something to do with it. He wished he’d thought fast enough to introduce
himself, or ask her a question, anything to extend their time together. But
he’d been too flustered.
He usually went for blondes, but this little lady had an
indefinable spark, as if she enjoyed every moment of life and shared that
delight with those around her. Probably she loved to cook—her appearance at
Super Shop and her familiarity with prices of produce indicated as much. Jim
was so bored with the frozen, canned, and dried selections he juggled for
meals, he could puke. And eating out, even with friends, was costly and, he
admitted to himself, sometimes boring with their constant conversations about
sports or excessive drinking.
The woman he’d run into probably could discuss current
events and art and had educated opinions on both. She certainly had decided
judgments about costs of food. He wished he could get to know her better.
Jim thrummed the eraser end of the pencil on the counter.
Maybe she was his dream woman. Too bad he couldn’t translate his feelings into
an adequate work of art. He sighed, laid the pencil down, shoved the drawing in
a stack of miscellaneous papers, picked up the can opener and went to work on
the two cans of spaghetti destined for his dinner.
* * *
The next night it rained. At precisely the same time she’d
gone the evening before, Rachel ran to Super Shop, dodging umbrellas and
puddles. She paused to take off her scarf and fluff her hair outside the window
with the ads. No one else stopped in the rain except a plump old woman having
trouble folding her portable shopping cart. Rachel went inside, picked up half
a gallon of milk, and waited in the longest checkout line she could find. Busy
surveying the other customers, she didn’t leaf through the celebrity and gossip
rags, nor did she didn’t swear under her breath at the
idiot paying for his purchases with loose pennies who grinned in her
direction. There was no sign of the tall dark stranger, so she left the store.
As she walked home, she daydreamed. If his attire meant
anything, he probably had a decent job, one in management or a profession. And
his demeanor was so welcoming; his eyes, so friendly. She’d felt immediately
that they’d be compatible. She wished she’d see him again.
* * *
Jim leapt off the bus. A late client at the Center for
Dispute Resolution made him miss his regular ride. He ran down the street to
Super Shop, dodging umbrellas and puddles. No one stood by the window with the
ads. He dashed inside, grabbed a loaf of bread and some bologna, and waited in
the longest checkout line he could find. Was her hair dark blonde or light
brown? He couldn’t recall. But he’d know her if he saw her again, with her
direct yet trusting gaze and her whimsical air, like a beloved rag doll. He
didn’t see her. At home he made himself a bologna sandwich smothered with
ketchup and mayonnaise and stared now and then at the sketch he’d pulled from
the pile of papers by the telephone.
* * *
The next night Jim was on time, and Rachel was late. Jim d
idn
’t need a thi
n
g
fro
m
t
h
e
s
t
ore
—
he
bo
u
gh
t
a
pac
k
age of crinkle po
t
ato chips. He exited out the east door just as Rachel entered
the west door. Her boss, a lawyer with high expectations of success but no
money for overtime, had begged her to stay late to finish the legal research
for a Monday court appearance. Rachel didn’t need a thing from the store, so
she bought some oven cleaner.
Chalking their first exchange up to chance, neither bothered
loitering by or in the grocery store again. Once in a while, Rachel mentally
kicked herself for not asking the man his name. Once in a while, Jim yearned
over the sketch of the young woman wi
t
h the
short, straight nose and pouting lips.
Fall arrived, leaves dropped from trees, days shortened,
nights grew colder, people became snippier. Rachel and Sharon shivered in their
shared apartment in a vain attempt to control their heating bills by setting
the thermostat at sixty-three. Scott spent all his spare time in the park
playing soccer. When his obsession lasted longer than thre
e
weeks, Rachel
withdrew fifty dollars from her tiny savings account to sign him up with the
ten-year-olds’ team. Each weekend she dutifully went to a game. Even though she
hadn’t yet learned all the rules, she cheered when the other parents cheered
and picked up the empty soft drink cans dropped by careless young players.
Scott’s team always lost. He blamed the coach. “If Jim were
our coach, we’d win,” he said one day as he and his mother walked home. He
alternately bounced and kicked the soccer ball.
“Jim who?” Rachel asked.
“Jim! The one who showed me how to block a punt.” Scott
turned his foot sideways in a near-impossible position.
“I thought Jim was a kid.”
“Oh, Mom. I’ve told you a thousand times. I see him
sometimes on Sundays when I go to the park with Owen to fool around. He played
soccer in college. He was nearly a semi-pro.”
“Nearly a semi-pro!” Rachel was suitably impressed. A sudden
thought occurred to her. Like his mother, Scott had a positive genius for
picking up eccentric men. She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.
“What does this Jim do? Does he hang out at the park all the
time? Is he ever with anyone?”
“He’s just a guy.”
Rachel was not reassured. “Just a guy” could range from a
drug pusher to a grandfather. “Don’t tell him where you live. And don’t go
anywhere with him,” she cautioned.
Despite the warning, Scott brought Jim home the very next
day. Rather, Jim brought Scott. The impossible foot position had met the soccer
ball with a predictable result—a strained ankle. Scott hobbled several blocks
leaning on Jim. He finished the distance up the front steps and elevator in
Jim’s arms.
Just when she’d decided
to use the oven cleaner purchased wee
k
s
before, th
e doorbell interrupted Rachel. She
knocked her head soundly on the stove’s interior wall and moaned. She
walked to the door rubbing her noggin and peered through the peephole. All she
could see was Scott clutched in someone’s arms.
“What are you doing?”
Rachel shrieked as she threw the door open. She snatched her son from the
stranger without looking at the man. “What on earth has happened? Are you
hurt?”
“Not much. I twisted my
foot is all. Don’t have a cow.” Scott shot an uneasy look in the man’s
direction.
“You drive me crazy,” she
continued, huffing and pu
f
fing her way to
the couch where she lowered Scott gen
t
ly to
t
he cushions and began feeling the leg with
careful fingers. “Does that hurt? That? That?” With each question she moved her
hand to a different area of her son’s limb, eliciting a squeak of alarm from
the boy. “We should get you to the hospital. Why wasn’t an ambulance called?”
“It’s not that bad. It’s
not even swelling.”
