The Bridegrooms (33 page)

Certainly, as he pondered for hours and hours trying to decide just what sweet, loving phrase to write on the card, he envisioned her clutching it to her breast only to read it again and again through rapturous eyes of love. Instead, the words sat flat on the page, hardly earning a second glance. The roses, however, were beautiful, and she would ask Althea to fashion them into a corsage to wear that evening.

The other three boxes were flatter and narrower than this first one, and before she took the first tug on the string to open the next, Vada had a vague idea what they might hold. Sure enough, the next box contained three yellow roses for Hazel, the next three peach-colored for Althea, and the last three white roses for Lisette.

She stopped herself from reading the individual card written to each—the girls were entitled to some privacy, after all—and felt the first splash of guilt as she picked up one rose. He was such a kind and thoughtful man. Perhaps last night’s resolution had been little more than a product of sleeplessness. An emotional overreaction. She looked at the card
again while stroking her cheek with the silky red petals. She spoke his name aloud, “Garrison,” and inhaled the rose’s scent, engaging all of her senses in this man, waiting to feel something akin to what she’d felt in the arms of Louis LaFortune.

“I’m afraid you win.”

Startled, she gave a little jump before hastily returning the rose to its box.

“Hello, Mr. Voyant. And just what did I win exactly?”

“The beauty contest between you and that rose. Poor little flower didn’t stand a chance.”

“Well, I’m sure she must be devastated. What does one send a flower by way of a condolence?”

He thought for a moment. “A weed?”

She snapped her finger. “The very thing. I shall arrange a bouquet of dandelions to be delivered tomorrow.”

“Those from Walker?”

“They are, indeed.”

“Must have cost him a pretty penny.”

“Apparently, only the prettiest will do.” She folded the tissue back over the flowers, replaced the lid, and retied the ribbon to a facsimile of its initial pretty bow. “Did you have a chance to talk with Mr. Prochazka?”

He broke into a huge smile of mock gratitude. “I did. And I really must thank you for sending your messenger boy to wake me from a most magnificent dream.”

“Half-dressed dancing roses?”

“Something like that. Anyway, I’ve just come from your house after a long, fascinating interview with the immigrant Lazarus.”

“Don’t call him that. Lazarus was dead.”

“Yeah? And so is this story.” He affected a huge yawn, which
prompted Vada to produce a real one. She covered her mouth and giggled, excusing herself.

“I tried to tell you there was no story.”

“No, three days ago there
was
a story. This is only human interest if the humans are interested. They don’t care about a guy who just woke up. But they would have cared about a guy who might not.”

“And then we’d have them camped around our house morning, noon, and night. Bad enough to have the few that we did hovering around our door. But, you have to admit, the love story is pretty compelling.”

“Love story?”

“He woke up in love with Althea. She sat with him more than any of us did, and he was apparently aware”—she broke off, not wanting to reveal the role her sister’s poetry played—“aware of her presence.”

“Bah! Love stories. I’ll never be considered a serious journalist writing that kind of drivel.”

“No, but perhaps I can convince Herr Johann to write an opera around it, and you can cover that.”

“Ha, ha.” He was devoid of mirth. “But I did, however, manage to get a dream of a story—a bit of a love story, I guess—that I’ll be able to sell and possibly get me out of the newspaper business for good. And for that, I thank you.”

“Thank me?”

“I don’t know what prompted you to send K. C. Cupid to my house in the middle of the night, but I will be forever grateful. In fact, I’ll dedicate my first byline in
Baseball Express
to you.”

Vada furrowed her brow, trying to follow his logic. “I had no idea Kenny was that valuable a player.”

“Let’s just say his value is not in his playing, and he’s never talked to anyone about that until last night. I’m glad I didn’t take his head off when
he was pounding on my door. That’s one family I wouldn’t—Wait a minute, you don’t know about any of this, do you?”

“Not a clue.”

“Does she?”

“She who?”

“That Gibson girl baby sister of yours.” He clapped his hand over his mouth and dragged it down over his chin. “I’ll bet she doesn’t. Of course she doesn’t. I spent five minutes with the girl and had your entire family history. That girl couldn’t keep a secret if she was shackled to it.”

“What secret?”

“Do you know who K. C. Cupid is?”

“Apparently not.”

“First of all, it’s a reversal. Cupid’s his middle name. Mother’s maiden name, I believe. He’s really Kenneth Cupid Chentworth.”

She waited a moment, letting the name sink in and take hold. When it did, her head began to spin. “As in
the
Chentworths? They’re as rich as the Rockefellers.”

“At least,” he said. “You know all that property the Rockefellers bought on Euclid Avenue? Guess who they bought it from?”

“And he told you this last night?”

“I always knew the basics of it, but last night—well, this morning, I guess—he filled me in on some of the details. All off the record, of course, for now. But he guaranteed me a story in time, and I figure now I have an ‘in’ with the family.”

“An
in
?”

He gently touched a knuckle to her chin. “Come on, doll. Isn’t it about time you walked away from that lawyer of yours and ran away with me?”

Oh, how tempting, if she thought there was anything serious behind
his invitation. In fact, it might be fun to accept, just to see how quickly he back-pedaled out of the proposal. But she already had one cruel act to perform, so she simply invited him to carry the flower boxes home with her and join the family for lunch.

“You sure?” he said. “I don’t want to impose.”

“There’s no such thing, and I don’t believe you anyway. Molly always has plenty.”

Quickly, though, first she ran upstairs to tell Herr Johann she was leaving and, caught up in a current of goodwill, asked if he would like to join her family.

“You think I could eat on this day?”

“Shall I bring you back a plate? I think we’re having ham.”

“It wouldn’t be a problem?”

“None at all,” she said before following through on an impulse and giving the stiff little man a kiss on his warm, dry cheek. “Everything’s going to be marvelous tonight, Herr Johann. Simply perfect.”

“You really think so?”

She pulled back to look into his iron blue eyes and saw fear there she’d never imagined existed during all the weeks of ruthless rehearsal. Perhaps Garrison mixed up the cards and sent the conductor a tiny missive of unending love.

“I know so.”

She grabbed her pocketbook and ran back downstairs where Dave Voyant had already restacked the boxes and tied them all together with the long red ribbon.

“After you?” He gestured to the front entrance. “Because you have the key.”

He filled her in on the walk home—off the record, of course, with her binding verbal agreement not to approach any other reporter with
the story as a third-party informant. The story began with a young Kenneth living in an exclusive boarding school in New Haven, Connecticut, playing shortstop on the campus team. On a lark, he tried out for the Cincinnati Reds and earned a spot—to the outrage of his father.

“So they struck a deal. Chentworth senior lets the kid play until he turns twenty-five, or as long as the league’ll keep him, and Kenny promises not to shame the family name by telling anyone who he is.”

“Playing baseball is shameful?”

“To a Chentworth it is.”

“But if he made it on the Cincinnati team, how did he end up here in Cleveland?”

“That’s baseball. Always trading.”

He swore her once again to secrecy at the foot of the concrete stairs, then up they went to be greeted like heroes at the door.

“Flowers? For us?” Hazel ripped the ribbon and the lid off her box and held up one of the long-stemmed beauties. “And we’ll put Lissy’s in water until she gets home.”

“I’ll take care of them for you ladies,” Molly said. “I’m just about to put luncheon on, and I’ll get to it while you’re eatin’.”

Eli and Althea were in the parlor, sitting side by side on the sofa looking through Althea’s favorite book of birds. When Vada walked in, Althea rushed across the room to wrap her thin arms around her.

“Well, hello to you too,” Vada said. “Go into the kitchen. I’ve brought a surprise for you from Garrison.”

Althea pointed to herself and gave a quizzical look before giving Eli a short wave and flying out.

Dave crossed the room to shake Eli’s hand. “How are you feeling, Prochazka?”

“Good. But please, for a while, no more questions. My head still hurts.”

“That’s all right. I have more than I need. Which reminds me.” Dave turned to Vada. “Do you have a telephone I could use? I need to clear some space for this story.”

“Right at the foot of the stairs,” Vada said. “It’s local, right?”

“Just downtown.”

Once he left, Vada had an opportunity to focus her attention on Eli, who had politely stood the moment she walked into the room. He looked none the worse for wear in a pair of well-tailored slacks and a clean shirt. True, both garments fit him a little loosely, as his pants seemed to be literally held up by the suspenders, but certainly a few days of Molly’s cooking would cure that. Or at least it would starting Monday.

“You seem to have a little more color in your cheeks today, Eli.” She sat in one of the chairs opposite the sofa, inviting him to sit too.

“Althea and I went walking. Just to the corner and back.”

Did he kiss her at that corner? “You know, my sister is a very sweet, very special girl.”

“I know. And very quiet too.”

“She doesn’t speak. She can—or she could. But she was badly hurt a long time ago—”

“When your mother left.”

“She told you?” Vada couldn’t imagine how much Althea would have to write to explain this.

“In a way. We were in here looking at the photographs, and I asked if there were any of her mother.”

“That’s when she stopped speaking. And I can’t imagine what she would do to herself if she were ever to get hurt again. Do you understand me?”

“I’m not sure…”

“She’s very innocent. Never had any kind of beau or suitor. Never been courted, never asked to be. Nothing. And I’m afraid—”

“I understand, miss. It is hard to explain, but all that time when I was…asleep…there would be moments—almost like coming to the surface when you are swimming. And I would hear the sound of that pen scratching on paper. And I would hear the writing. Not the words, but the…oh, I cannot think of English word…but the
sense
of them. The emotion of them.”

“The essence?”

“Yes. Exactly. The whole time too, I hear God’s voice talking to me, telling me to sleep a little longer and heal, and He would have a great gift waiting for me. Then you can imagine when I open my eyes and see nobody there, when my heart was waiting to meet this beautiful woman with the beautiful words.”

“What about Katrina?”

He frowned. “What do you know of Katrina?”

Vada told him how she’d found the note and taken it to Moravek’s to have it translated in an effort to find out more about him.

He brightened. “Moravek’s bakery?”

“You know it?”

“When I lived here before, I used to eat there all the time.”

“And what about Katrina? Why were you still carrying around that note?”

“True, she was a girl I loved in the old country. And when I went back, I hoped to return here with her. But she was very young, and how can any love survive that distance? And in truth? When I see her again, I noticed her voice was so high and shrill. I almost pity the poor man who has to listen to it for the rest of his life.”

“So, why were you still carrying the note?”

“I didn’t know I was. Perhaps it had fallen into the lining?”

Vada took this in, allowing her protective instinct time to accept this explanation. When Molly’s booming voice summoned them into lunch, they stood, smiling a truce. Once at the parlor door, he gestured for her to precede him, which she did, until one last thought entered her mind and she turned back.

“By the way, I’m afraid I took your buttons.”

“My what?”

“The buttons that were in your pocket. It seems silly, but I had a…friend—one of the players, the one who actually hit the ball that…well, he wanted something of yours for a kind of good-luck charm. So I gave him your buttons. I’ll gladly replace them.”

He threw his head back and laughed, a pleasant sound that she hoped to be hearing for years to come. “I bought those pants secondhand just…well, the day before the game. I didn’t even know I had buttons in the pocket.”

Then she laughed too, all the way into the kitchen, but when Hazel asked her to share the joke, she couldn’t. Not without telling the whole story, and she couldn’t do that yet. Luckily, Eli seemed content to go along with her explanation of, “Nothing, just some silly thing not worth telling.”

Molly had indeed outdone herself on a Friday lunch, serving three kinds of salad along with slices of cold ham and enormous soft rolls.

“These are from Moravek’s,” Vada told Eli, who was soon ready to eat his second.

Dave Voyant seemed equally comfortable for his first meal in the Allenhouse kitchen. He joked with Hazel and teased Molly, asking why a good Catholic girl like her could bring herself to serve meat on Friday.

“No scandal in servin’ it, sir,” she said good-naturedly. “Just a sin in the eatin’ of it.”

“Nothing sinful here.” Eli speared his third slice.

Vada looked at Hazel. “Is Doc out visiting patients?”

“I don’t think so. At least none were on his schedule.”

Just then, as if hearing his name called, Doc walked into the kitchen, causing all of them at once to stop their conversation.