Pamela Morsi (2 page)

He was down on his knees between their chairs, carefully picking up the pieces of broken glass. “I … I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Miss Gussie,” he stuttered.

“I have decided to get married,” she announced with great confidence. “It’s time and I’m ready and I’ve decided that Amos Dewey is the husband of my choice.”

Rome nodded wordlessly from his kneeling position. Uncomfortable, he hurried to finish his task as quickly as possible.

“Amos and I have been seeing each other for some time,” she went on. “We are well suited to each other by temperament. And he is a very appropriate companion for me.”

It all sounded pretty cold to Rome. He rose to his feet and carefully set the broken pieces in a napkin
upon the table. To his mind, getting married involved things like love and passion rather than temperament and appropriateness. But then, he’d never been in love, which was undoubtedly why he’d never married. That and the fact that the one woman he had asked had turned him down.

He decided to stand rather than seat himself once more and leaned somewhat uncomfortably upon a porch pillar, as distant as he could get from Miss Gussie and still be able to converse with her.

She had said she wanted him to pretend to be in love with her. He was not certain about why she needed that, but he felt sure that he wasn’t really going to like the idea.

“I hope you and Dewey are … very happy,” he said formally.

“Well, we certainly will be,” Miss Gussie assured him. “I have every confidence of that or I wouldn’t bother to pursue it. But in order to be happily married we have to actually
get
married. That’s proving to be a bit of a stumbling block.”

“A stumbling block?”

“Mr. Dewey isn’t … well, I mean he hasn’t truly thought it through.”

Her statement was obtuse. Rome was a straightforward fellow; he liked the facts set out before him.

“Has he thought of it at all, Miss Gussie?” he asked her.

His question seemed to annoy her. She obviously hoped to enlist him in her plan without humiliating herself.

“Perhaps he hadn’t given it a great deal of consideration,” she conceded. “But after last night, he is bound to think more than once or twice about it.”

“Last night? What happened last night?”

“Last night I confronted him directly.”

“What?” Rome could hardly imagine such a moment.

“I asked him, ‘Are you going to marry me or not?’ “

“And he said?”

‘‘Not.”

“Oh.”

A long, uncomfortable silence fell upon the porch.

Rome felt a wave of pity for the woman beside him. It was just like Miss Gussie to approach the world on a frank, open, businesslike basis. Unfortunately, there were some things that simply could not be dealt with in that manner.

“You disapprove, Mr. Akers,” she said.

“It is not my place to approve or disapprove, Miss Gussie,” he told her respectfully.

“That is exactly right,” she said. “I’m sure you are looking at this in a very traditional fashion. The delicate, pale young lady must pine away at home while she waits and hopes for the man of her dreams to come to his senses.”

Rome made no comment, but he did think that basically, that was the way things were.

“I am not delicate or pale, I’m not even all that young and I have no intention of allowing my life, my fate, to rest upon the whim of a man who clearly does not know what is good for him.”

Rome had to admit that waiting for others to take action didn’t sound at all like something Miss Gussie would be good at.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am,” he told her sincerely. “Surely in time Mr. Dewey will recognize his foolish mistake.”

She gave a little puff of irritable impatience.

“I will not sit pitifully praying for a change of heart,
Mr. Akers. I will take steps to make him change his mind.”

“A man cannot be forced into wedlock, Miss Gussie,” he pointed out. “I mean … unless … well, of course I … you would never …”

“Spit it out, Mr. Akers. What are you trying to say?”

Rome felt his face burning with embarrassment.

“Has Mr. Dewey … ah … taken advantage?”

At first she didn’t seem to get his meaning; then, when she did, her obvious mortification was surmounted only by her incredulity.

“Good heavens! Of course not. How could you even think—”

Rome wished he hadn’t. He had a strong urge to kick himself.

“I didn’t think … I assure you, Miss Gussie, I didn’t think anything. It’s just that you spoke of
making
him marry you, and you … well, you two have been keeping company for a long time and …”

She gave a startled gasp at that statement. He was digging himself in deeper and deeper.

“Mr. Dewey and I are not starry-eyed youths,” Miss Gussie stated flatly. “We would never allow passion to exceed the bounds of discretion.”

Rome chose not to comment upon that. He was inexperienced with the contemplation of, and motivations for, holy wedlock. He was significantly more familiar with the pleasures of the flesh. And though it was true that many husbands appeared less than lusty where their wives were concerned, most seemed to marry those women in a high fever of desire.

“I am sorry, Miss Gussie,” he said sincerely. “I am afraid I am putting everything badly. Frankly, I’m at a loss as to what you plan to do and what my part in it might be.”

The woman was sitting in that extraordinarily straight manner again, so that she didn’t touch the chair back. And her tone of voice was completely businesslike and matter-of-fact.

“I thought about it all night,” she said. “And I believe that the problem here is lack of competition.”

Rome raised an eyebrow. “Beg your pardon, ma’am. Did you say competition?”

“Yes,” Gussie replied. “That is the problem exactly. People, Mr. Akers, are just like businesses. They act and think and evolve in the same way as commercial enterprise. People want and need things. But when those things are vastly available, they prize them differently.”

“Well, yes, I guess so,” Rome agreed.

“So when we consider Mr. Dewey’s hesitancy to marry me,” she continued, “we must avoid emotionalism and try to consider the situation logically.”

“Logically?”

Rome was not sure that logic was a big consideration when it came to love.

“Mr. Dewey has been on his own for some time now,” she said. “He has a nice home, a hired woman to cook and clean, a satisfying business venture, good friends and me, a pleasant companion to escort to community events. Basically, all his needs as a man are met. He has a virtual monopoly on the things that he requires.”

Rome was not certain that
all
of a man’s
needs
had been stated, but after his embarrassing foray in that direction, he decided not to comment.

“He is quite comfortable with his life as it is,” Miss Gussie continued. “Whyever should he change?”

“Why indeed?” Rome agreed.

She smiled then. That smile that he’d seen often before. That smile that meant a new idea, a clever
innovation, an expansion of the company. He had long admired Miss Gussie’s good business sense, and the very best of her moneymaking notions came with this smile.

“I can do nothing about Mr. Dewey’s nice home, the woman hired to cook and clean, his business or his friends,” Miss Gussie said. “But I can see that he no longer has a monopoly upon my pleasant companionship.”

Rome raised an eyebrow and nodded.

“This is where it all came clear to me,” she said. “In the middle of the night, after hours of going over it in my head, I came to the question of whyever should he change. This is when it all came clear.”

Rome listened with interest.

“Tell me, Mr. Akers,” she began. “If, say, our customers wanted twice-weekly ice delivery, would we give it to them?”

Rome was momentarily puzzled and then shrugged.

“If they were willing to pay twice as much,” he answered.

“Oh, but they aren’t,” she told him. “Suppose they want to buy exactly the same amount of ice at the same price as before. But they want it delivered in smaller pieces twice weekly instead of once.”

“Then we wouldn’t do it,” Rome said.

He couldn’t imagine what this had to do with Miss Gussie’s marriage plan, but he went along with it.

“We wouldn’t want to do it?” she asked. “You are sure of that?”

“Yes, of course I’m sure,” he said. “It would cost us more for no further profit. We wouldn’t do it.”

“We wouldn’t want to. But something could motivate us to do it anyway.”

“Like what?”

“Purdy Ice Company,” she answered.

Cottonwood’s other ice company had never been a very strong competitor. Matt Purdy’s operation was quite small, more like a sideline for his farming business. They delivered ice to about half the houses on the far north side of town and a couple of small businesses. Beyond that, they offered no real threat to T.P. Mudd Manufactured Ice.

“I’m not sure I understand you,” Rome said.

“If Purdy Ice began delivering smaller blocks twice a week, we would be forced to do the same.”

Rome nodded. “Yes, I suppose you are right about that.”

“We would be forced to change, pushed out of our profits and complacency, compelled to provide more service for the same money,” she said.

“Yes, I suppose that’s right.”

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do to Amos Dewey,” she declared.

Rome was listening, but still skeptical.

“You are going to pretend to be in love with me,” she said, as if that were going to be the simplest thing in the world. “You will escort me about town. Sit evenings on this porch with me. Accompany me to civic events.”

That seemed not too difficult, Rome thought. He did not normally attend a lot of public functions, but, of course, he could.

“I don’t see how that will change Dewey’s mind,” he told her honestly.

“You will also let it be known that you are madly in love with me,” she said. “And that you are determined to get me to the altar as soon as possible.”

Rome got a real queasy feeling in his stomach.

“Amos Dewey will no longer have a monopoly.
You
will be the competition that will force him to provide
the service he is not so willing to provide, marrying me.”

Gussie raised her hands in a gesture that said that the outcome was virtually assured. Rome had his doubts.

“I’m not sure this will work, Miss Gussie,” he told her. “Men … men don’t always behave like businesses. They are not all that susceptible to the law of supply and demand.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Of course they are.”

He shook his head.

“I’m not sure I’m the right man to be doing this. Perhaps you should think of someone who would seem more … well, more suited to the task.”

Her response was crisp and cool.

“And should I think of some other man to offer the partnership in my company?”

His mind full and his jaw tight, Rome’s thoughts were in an uproar. Miss Gussie always seemed to know what she wanted. And she always went after it with a focused determination. He admired that. But it sometimes made her a very difficult employer. It would make her even more worrisome as a feigned romantic interest.

What on earth made that woman think such a scheme would ever work? And why did he have to be the one involved in it with her?

Because she’s the boss, he reminded himself. He worked for her and that was the way life was. A man was always subservient to his boss. Whether it be male or female, young or old, kind or disagreeable, one had to follow his lead. Unless a man was his own boss.

That was his dream. To own his own business, to do things as he thought best, and have his fortune rise or fall based upon his own work, rather than upon the
whims of someone else. That’s what he wanted. It was his ambition and his hope for the future.

And now Gussie Mudd was handing him that on a silver platter. He could be a partner. Truly a partner. He ran the ice plant now. But as a partner, he would be as much an owner as she.

The offer was tempting, so tempting, too tempting.

“What all would I have to do?” he asked. “How long would it have to last?”

Gussie smiled at him, pleased.

“Very good questions,” she said in a tone of praise peculiar to employer and employee. “Every venture needs defined parameters.”

She was thoughtful for a moment.

“You will, as I said, need to be seen with me and show preference for me,” she told him. “The way rumor spreads in a small town, all you will need to make your intentions public is to let a few words slip to those who frequent the barbershop, and Amos will hear all about it soon enough.”

Rome nodded.

“I was hoping for a late-spring wedding,” she went on. “When the flowers are at their peak. But I suppose, in this instance, midsummer would be fine. Let’s say the Fourth of July—that sounds like an auspicious day for a wedding. It is going to be absolutely perfect. The most perfect wedding this town has ever seen. I do hope you will be there, Mr. Akers.”

Rome couldn’t even meet her eyes. He was pretty certain that it was a goodly distance from where they stood to wedding bells with Amos Dewey.

“Six weeks, Mr. Akers,” she said. “You have six weeks to get me happily married.”

W
EDDINGS OFTEN TURNED A WOMAN’S MIND TO MARRIAGE
. Gussie Mudd, however, did not need any assistance as she made her way to the large, prestigious, dark brick church in the center of town.

Lucy Timmons was to be married that evening. Keeping the church spick-and-span was the task of the Circle of Benevolent Service, the foremost ladies’ group at the church. Today the women were combining that work with some special efforts to pretty up the place for the wedding of the daughter of one of their most distinguished members.

Gussie had picked the most perfect blossoms in her garden to arrange in a basket for Lucy’s wedding. She spent much time among her flowers in the early mornings. The soft hush of sunrise and the sheer beauty of the blossoms gave her a sense of quiet certainty that helped sustain her. It was as if she were venturing out into uncharted territory. She needed to gird herself with calm and serenity to face the challenge.