Something Old (19 page)

“And this is just the beginning,” Lil purred.

But caution ruffled Katy’s already exhausted nerves. For so long, they had pushed for this day, for the big prize. It seemed strange to think of it as a mountaintop where they would step off into the unknown. Lil’s normal walk—on the Conservative Mennonite edge—filled Katy’s spirit with uncertainty. She was tired. Tired of fighting Lil’s outlandish whims. They were adults. Living on their own. Would it backfire if she gave in and just allowed Lil to be Lil?

“You think David’s gonna keep hanging around?” Lil asked.

“Probably some. Like he said, he’s over at Ivan’s a lot. I hope Jake doesn’t think this is a place for
him
to hang out.”

Megan asked, “You going out with him again?”

“Jake? No way.”

“No, David.”

“Not him, either. I pretty much told him so tonight.” Then Katy thought about how her sister had caught them kissing. Though Karen’s curiosity had been mostly about boy stuff, it had been a sticky situation. The kind of circumstance a Conservative girl shouldn’t be caught in. She needed to set things right. Maybe living in the doddy house could be her new beginning, to be a better person. One who didn’t get pulled into the outsiders’ world. Lil could be Lil, and she would be the Katy she had always wanted to be. Better than before.

“That what you were doing in the closet?” Lil mocked.

“Pretty much. That and fending him off.”

“You should send your scraps my way,” Megan complained between allergy sniffles. “Better yet, how about I set you up with a guy in my Bible class?”

“No thanks. I’m going to go solo for a while. Enjoy my freedom.”

“That’a girl.” Lil handed a tissue up to Megan. “Me, too. Unless that cute waiter with blond hair asks me out.”

Giggling, Katy warned, “Better get your beauty sleep then.” Nobody but Lil would entertain thoughts of dating an outsider.

T
he next morning, to Katy’s delight, the wind had pushed the storm out of Madison County, and Ivan was able to dig out the drive in time for the girls to attend church. Afterward, Lil made them spaghetti, complaining about using store-bought tomato sauce. It was a given that Lil would cook and Katy clean, although she hadn’t envisioned herself hand-carrying all of Lil’s empty diet soda cans to the recycling receptacle that Megan had supplied them. And she hadn’t decided what to do yet about Lil’s unmade bed.

In the afternoon, Megan headed back to her Rosedale dorm, leaving Katy and Lil to experience their first taste of what normalcy at the doddy house might resemble. When the day wound down, they tossed bed pillows in the middle of their tan leather couch, lying head to head with their legs slung over opposite armrests, and allowed the wonder of the moment to settle over them.

“We need throw pillows,” Katy remarked, leery of placing her pillowcase on a secondhand couch.

“We need more furniture.”

“Maybe we need to invite Anita Weaver over so that she can take pity on us and find us a couple of armchairs, too.” Worrying her lip, Katy mumbled, “I’m such a user.”

“Why? Just because you have chapped hands?”

“What?” With a giggle, Katy waved her gloved hands above their faces and corrected, “Not loser. U—ser.” She had smeared a home remedy on them, something she did a couple times a week, sometimes sleeping in the goo. It had become an ongoing experiment, trying to find the perfect combinations of ingredients to rectify her occupational damage. She stared at the white gloves, one of several pairs.

“There’s so many things I want.” Lil sighed. “A new car, a computer.”

“Computer!”

“Well, yeah. Someday.”

Katy pinched the bridge of her nose. “What else?”

Lil suddenly sat up. “I think I’ll make a list in the back of my journal. Anyway, I learned that marjoram adds more flavor to pasta than oregano. And I need to jot down a penne recipe before I forget it.”

“Under computer, you can write…new roommate.”

“Ha, ha, very funny. You want me to bring you anything?”

Katy kept a journal of cleaning tips, but she wasn’t in the mood to think about work or which hand-cream concoction worked best. “Grab one of those inspirational novels for me. I have a stack on a shelf in the closet.”

“The same closet where you were kissing the moving guy?”

“Stop.”

“So when’s your next building meeting?” Lil taunted, skipping off before Katy could throttle her.

The meeting was held in the sanctuary again, and Katy passed by the lobby’s bulletin board to stare at her unfruitful advertisement. As much good as it had done, she might as well take it down. Yet there was always that distant chance… “Still no job?”

Startled, Katy looked over her shoulder to find Jake standing behind her. “Lil told you I was looking for work?”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, I’m looking, too. I’ll need something after the fellowship hall is done.”

Katy moved to find a seat for the meeting. Jake slid into the pew beside her.

“Must you sit so close?” she asked, shrugging her shoulder away from him.

“Mm-hm.”

She glanced at the meetinghouse’s plain spackled ceiling and back. The painter settled in on Jake’s other side pinning him in place, and Jake grinned.

“You’re impossible.”

“That often goes hand in hand with juvenile behavior.”

She remembered calling him juvenile the day of the move. Was that his subtle way of reminding her that she owed him? “Yes, it does.”

Leaning against her—so that she nearly fell off the end of the pew trying to avoid his touch, not to mention his soap and sawdust scent—he dug something out of his tight jeans pocket and flipped it onto her lap.

“Maybe this will make up for it.”

She pushed away something that resembled a pair of tickets. “Whatever you’re up to, no thanks.”

“Come on. They’re ballet tickets.”

“What!” She snatched them back and stared, her gaze so smoldering it could have turned the offering to ashes. Two tickets to
Cinderella?
Slapping them back at him, she narrowed her eyes into stormy slits. “How did you get these?”

He shrugged. “At a ticket office.” When she continued to gawk in disbelief, he added, “At the mall.”

The painter leaned forward and stared, too, and to her further aggravation, she noticed they were attracting a small audience. Why did Mr. Weaver have to be late this night, of all times?

“How did you know?” she hissed.

“I’m not uncultured. I thought you might actually enjoy it.”

“A kid’s ballet?”

“It is?”

She glared at him, not fooled by his feigned act of innocence. “No thanks.”

He gave her a lopsided smile and winked. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

Bill Weaver, breathless from running into the meetinghouse, strode down the aisle and took his place in the front of the sanctuary. He quickly called the meeting to order. But other than recognizing the welcome distraction of his opening words, Katy became oblivious to the proceedings of the meeting.

The tickets to the same performance couldn’t be a coincidence, and the only way he could know she was going to that ballet was through Lil. But why a pair of tickets when she obviously already had hers? Just to keep up the pretense? Why would he think she’d want him along at an already-dreaded event? As the evening wore on, she mulled over the details and poked it from every angle.

Slowly, Lil’s part in the incident became glaringly clear. She recalled that Lil hadn’t wanted her to date David from the beginning. Because she wanted her to date Jake instead. Lil must have warned Jake about David, and that’s why he came to the skating party. Katy’s mind rushed on, working out the scenario. That night at the skating party, Lil had been acting cranky. She’d called someone on her cell phone, too. Then she had hired Jake to remodel the doddy house. Katy widened her eyes in further revelation. And Lil had talked Katy into serving on this committee. And just the other night on the couch, Lil had teased her by asking when her next committee meeting was. What a conniving little matchmaker.

“Katy?” Bill Weaver asked.

She felt Jake’s elbow in her ribs. “Huh?”

“You look like something troubles you. You don’t agree with the size of the storage room?” All gazes turned toward her, eyebrows raised in expectancy.

“No. I mean, yes, I agree,” she fumbled, feeling her cheeks heat. Lil was going to pay.

That night after the meeting, Katy waited up for Lil to come home from work. She rehearsed her angry speech as she emptied the trash, the night air nipping her flushed cheeks. She scrubbed toilets and scoured sinks and wrote furiously in her journal about removing unwanted scents from clothing. And when Lil’s clunker coughed into the yard, Katy was ready for her, standing five feet from the entry, legs planted and fists on her hips.

The door opened and Lil halted. “Whoa.”

“I can’t believe you,” Katy ground out.

“What? You didn’t have to wait up. I’m exhausted. I had to stay and close.”

“You told Jake about the ballet,” Katy accused.

Flinging her purse on the table, Lil shrugged. “You didn’t tell me it was a secret. I only wanted to help.”

Katy followed her to the table. “You think I want the whole church to know that I’m participating in a dancing event?”

Shrugging out of her coat and dropping it over the back of a chair, Lil said dryly, “Where’s Megan when we need her?”

“This isn’t funny. I figured out your matchmaking schemes.”

Lil leaned wearily against a chair. “So that makes me a terrible person?”

“Just the other day when you cut your bangs, you told me that we were adults. So why are you trying to run my life for me? Did you ever stop to think that I might like to be treated like an adult, too?”

Lil shot both hands in the air. “Look. Can we discuss this tomorrow after you’ve cooled down? Like I said, I’m really tired. I just want to go to bed.”

“I’m tired, too. Tired of you interfering with my life. You’re always trying to change me. I’m sick of it, and I don’t think this”—she flung her arms in the air, gesturing at the room—“is going to work out. Us living together.”

Lil froze. Her freckles paled. Then she became angry, too. “You don’t get it. Jake is like a brother to me. He loves you. If you weren’t so stubborn, you’d admit that you love him, too. Because of your pigheadedness, I have to help you guys along.”

“You can’t decide what’s right or wrong for me. Even God gives people free wills.”

Lil’s eyebrow arched. “Don’t go bringing God into this. As if He’s on your side. As if I’m not a Christian. You’re always doing that for me with your goody-goody attitude. But look at you yelling. What happened to your Mennonite upbringing now? Ever hear of nonresistance?”

“And do Conservative girls go around without wearing their coverings?”

Lil’s hand went to her head, then slid back to her side. She raised her chin. “At least I don’t pretend I’m something I’m not.”

“No you don’t,” Katy whispered.

“But you do.” Lil snatched her coat and purse and flung open the door.

“I do not.”

Lil shook her head, then strode out and slammed the door behind her. Shocked, Katy stared at the rattling door. She heard the engine of Lil’s car cough to life and then sputter off the property. Katy flicked the dead bolt with such force it popped back open. She slid it the second time, more deliberately, into the locked position. Good riddance.

She marched to the couch, plopped down, and stared at the floor, virtually panting with outrage. What did Lil mean about pretending? She was serious about living a holy life. Sure she fell short, but she didn’t pretend.

With crossed arms, she went over their argument, even embellishing it with what she should have said but hadn’t. But as much as she tried to justify herself and her anger, Lil’s barbs kept darting back. Especially the idea that Katy wasn’t honest or real.

Slowly, she came to realize that Lil hadn’t been referring to her actions, but her feelings. And specifically her feelings toward Jake. As much as she tried to cover her pining for him, Lil had easily read her. As Katy sat with clenched hands, she allowed the enormity of what had just transpired to flood over her.

Had she really shouted that living together wasn’t going to work? Where had that come from? Some hidden fear? She hadn’t planned to say any such thing. She thought about all the hateful things that had spewed from her mouth like an uncontrollable and unrecognizable force. She couldn’t erase the image of Lil’s shocked, pale face.

She sat for a very long time in her desperation. The timbers of the old house began to creak. She felt alone. And just as that angry force had come unbidden earlier, so did another intruder. Fear. She’d known this enemy all her life, the fear of darkness.

Katy heard another bump, and jerked her glance over her shoulder. Though it was the wee hours of the morning, she would never be able to sleep if she went to bed. Miserable, she rose and put a kettle of water on the stove. Lil’s stove. She waited for the whistle, blinking back her tears. When the tea was ready, she flicked off the kitchen lights and hurried through the dark hall to the bedroom. The thought shot through her mind that something invisible followed her, but she didn’t look back. Heart racing, she shut her bedroom door. The house became a silent, lurking monster that she tried to ignore.