In Search of Eden, page 23
He said nothing for a beat or two, then handed her the menu, still unopened. “I’ll have two eggs over easy, bacon, crisp, and a short stack.”
“Anything to drink?”
“Coffee.” He turned over his cup. She filled it expertly.
“Coffee for you, sir?”
“Decaf, please,” the other man said with a sigh.
“I’ll be right back with it.”
They were talking intently when she approached the table but were suddenly quiet when she arrived. She didn’t chat, just filled up the sheriff’s cup with decaf, refilled Joseph’s regular, and went about her business. She served their food without mishap, filled their coffee cups twice more, then set the bill on the table. The sheriff left first, and Joseph came to the register to pay. She rang him up but still felt awkward and ill at ease as he stared at her intently.
“Here’s your change,” she said.
“For you,” he answered.
Which embarrassed her even more. It was a very generous tip. She couldn’t very well give it back, but she felt awkward, just the same. “Thank you,” she said and put it in her pocket.
He tipped his head chivalrously. “You gave excellent service.”
“Thank you,” she repeated. She wished he would leave.
He did not. Instead, he helped himself to a toothpick and went back to staring. “How’s the bike riding?” he asked.
She flushed, her face and neck hot. “Just fine. Thank you for the loan.”
“My pleasure,” he answered.
A smile crept at the corner of his mouth, and she couldn’t tell if he was mocking her or just thawing slightly. She felt herself becoming even more defensive and hot. He dismissed her before she could think of what to say.
“You have a good day,” he said with another tip of his head.
She watched him leave, her initial embarrassment now replaced by annoyance. There was something about him that just brushed her hair backward, as her father used to say. She wondered if she had the same effect on him.
chapter 31
*
Eden woke up on Friday morning and lay in bed for a minute. She looked around the bedroom. It had been her bedroom at Grandma’s since she was a tiny baby. It still had all the toys from then, and even though she hardly ever played with them anymore, this morning she looked around and remembered.
She liked this room. The ceilings were low and made an upside down V over her head. Aunt Vi had come over a few summers ago and had painted the ceiling blue with puffy white clouds, and she had painted the walls with interesting things, too. One wall was dark blue with all the planets and stars on it. Eden used to pretend she was on a space ship, that she was exploring the galaxy and her bed was a starship like the starship Enterprise, only she was the captain.
Another wall was all princes and princesses and knights and ladies, and off in the distance was a castle with flags flying from it. She used to pretend that she was like Joan of Arc, a lady, but with her own set of armor and stuff. The third wall was her favorite. It was her Annie Oakley wall. She loved Annie Oakley. Annie Oakley was about the best woman that ever was. She had read a book about her, and so Aunt Vi had painted Buffalo Bill’s Traveling Wild West Show on that wall. There was a buffalo and an Indian chief and cowboys, and Aunt Vi had even painted Annie Oakley herself, wearing her boots and her hat and her dress with her sharpshooter gun. Annie Oakley never missed. She always hit what she was aiming for. Thinking about Annie Oakley made Eden feel brave, and she jumped out of bed and got dressed. Her horse shirt was clean, so she put it on. It was going to be a good day. She could just tell.
She went into the bathroom and washed her face and brushed her teeth and brushed her hair. She found her shoes and socks and put them on and jammed her books and her radio into her backpack, and then she found her night ops watch and put it on. She checked the time. It was only 6:45. There was time to go to the Hasty Taste before school. She pulled down the attic stairs and quickly performed her task.
She went downstairs and ate her scrambled egg and toast while Grandma drank her coffee and worked the crossword puzzle. Today was Friday and Grandma’s friends Aunt Vi and Carol Jean were coming over to pray, but Grandma had already made the brown sugar pound cake, so there wasn’t much to do. Usually Grandma was busy getting ready on Friday mornings, and usually Eden took her time with her chores, but today when she was done eating, she unloaded the clean dishes from the dishwasher as fast as she could, fixed Flick’s breakfast and petted him real quick, then watered all the plants on the front porch. She went back into the kitchen and put her dirty dishes into the dishwasher and kissed Grandma good-bye.
“My, but you’re in a hurry this morning,” Grandma said.
“I’ve got things to do,” she said and left before Grandma could ask her any questions. She got on her bike and rode down the hill into town. She loved the way she felt on her bike with the wind in her hair and her hands out at her sides. She wished Dad could see her, but when she thought of Dad she felt sad and not just because of his being hurt and all. She felt sad because of what she’d seen in the attic. Something inside her twisted and felt all torn up when she saw that picture of Mom hugging Uncle Joseph. She felt guilty herself, like she’d done something wrong. She wasn’t sure what to do about it. She had taken one of the pictures this morning, and it sat inside her backpack now. She could almost feel it in there, burning hot through the canvas.
She felt heavy about it, but then, all of a sudden, she felt something happy light on her, like when Jenny Sanders’s parakeet had flown around and then landed on her shoulder. She had stood very still and just barely turned her head and looked at that little bird, afraid if she moved or made a sound, she would frighten it away. And right now, thinking about Dad and Mom and Uncle Joseph, she felt that way again. Like something very good just came and lit on the sore place in the middle of her chest and told her it was going to be all right. She thought it was Jesus. She was pretty sure it was.
“Was that you?” she asked Him out loud. She knew He was listening. Dad had said so. She talked to Jesus sometimes the way Dad had told her. “Don’t worry about calling it praying,” he’d said. “Just talk to Him. He hears when His children talk to Him, Eden,” he had said. “Just like I hear and love it when you talk to me.”
God didn’t answer back out loud, but she was pretty sure if He did, He would say, Yeah, that was me. Couldn’t you tell?
“God, I don’t know what the deal is with that picture,” she said, and even though her heart still hurt, she felt a little bit better. “Would you figure it out?” she asked. “And while you’re at it, would you help my dad to get better and make my mom like me?” She felt hollow inside when she prayed that part. “Or else help me to find my real mom if she would like me, but if not, then forget it.”
She was at the Hasty Taste. She braked to a stop and chained up her bike. Uncle Joseph said if he saw her bike unlocked again, he would impound it and make her pay to get it back. Then Grandma said, “Oh, Joseph, do you really think someone’s going to steal it in downtown Abingdon?” And Uncle Joseph said, “Ma, the whole world isn’t Abingdon,” and that reminded her of one more thing to pray about. “And, Jesus, would you please make Uncle Joseph not be so grouchy, like he was yesterday,” she said. “Amen.”
She went into the Hasty Taste and looked around. She quickly realized Uncle Joseph and Uncle Henry had left already.
“Hey there, Eden!” Miranda came out from the kitchen. She looked pretty today. “Your uncle has already left.”
“I didn’t come to see him,” she said, and before Miranda could ask her who she had come to see, Pastor Hector came in.
“Well, well, you’re up and about early today, Ms. Williams,” he said.
“I came to see you,” she said.
“Well, what an honor. Come sit down. Could I treat you to some breakfast or perhaps a cup of coffee?”
“Coffee would be fine,” Eden answered, and she followed Pastor Hector to a booth and sat down. It was cool because Miranda came and filled up her coffee cup without even acting like it was any big deal and didn’t even tell her she shouldn’t drink coffee. And Pastor Hector knew Miranda.
“How are you doing?” he asked Miranda. “I see you’ve decided to stay with us for a while.”
“Yes, thanks to Eden,” she said, and Eden felt a little shy when Pastor Hector looked at her with a smile.
“That doesn’t surprise me at all,” he said. “Eden is always watching out for the people she cares about. She’s like her uncle that way.”
She picked at her fingernail, and after a minute Miranda took Pastor Hector’s order.
“Would you like something to eat?” she asked Eden.
Eden said, “No thank you,” and opened four little containers of cream and poured them into her coffee, then stirred in five little packs of sugar. When she was done and it tasted right, she looked up at Pastor Hector. “I was wondering if I could talk to you about something,” she said.
He looked at her seriously and nodded. That’s what she liked about him. He didn’t treat her like she was lame or something just because she was a kid.
“Sure,” he said. “Anything.”
She took the picture she had taken from the attic and set it in front of him. He looked down at it, then back up at her, then reached into his pocket and put on his glasses and looked at it again. When he was finished looking, he nodded and handed it back to her. She put it in her backpack so she wouldn’t have to look at it.
Eden thought he might say something, but he didn’t. He just looked at her but really quiet and calm, and all of a sudden that little bird came back, and she felt quiet and calm, too.
“I didn’t know about that,” she said.
Pastor Hector looked real serious. “You like to know about things, don’t you?”
She nodded. She waited again, but he just looked at her. So she finally asked a question. “Did you know about this?”
He nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I knew.”
“How come no one told me?”
He was quiet for a minute; then he said, “I can’t answer that, Eden. I can only tell you why I didn’t tell you.”
“Oh. Well, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it wasn’t mine to tell.”
“Whose was it, then?” she asked, but she knew the answer. “Your mother’s.
Your uncle Joseph’s. But I will tell you one thing.”
“What?”
“This happened before your mother married your father.”
She felt a lot of the tight things come off of her then. “A long time ago?”
Pastor Hector nodded. “Yes. It happened before you were even born.”
She thought about before she was born, and in her mind she saw the outer-space wall in her room. Why, before she was born was so long ago and far away that it was almost like it hadn’t happened at all.
“Does that help?” he asked.
She nodded, and all of a sudden she liked Pastor Hector so much she thought she would cry. So she frowned and took a sip of her coffee. He reached over the table and held his palm out in front of her. She slapped it, and then they hooked their fingers together in the special handshake Pastor Hector had taught her. “Friends for life,” he said.
“Friends for life,” she repeated, and she was feeling lots better by the time she finished her coffee and rode her bike to school.
School seemed to take forever. Finally the last bell rang, and Eden hurried outside. It was a good day. The sun was still shining and it was warm. Pretty soon it would be too hot for long sleeves. She would have to ask Grandma to make her a horse shirt with short sleeves. Thank goodness she was done with her library restriction. Today she could do her rounds. She would be back to her normal routine on Monday, and she could do her homework after supper. Nobody had been doing her work, and there was a lot of stuff to catch up on. She crunched on the extra apple Grandma had put in her backpack, rode the bus into town, unchained her bike, then got on and rode down the hill, the wind cooling her head.
She made her first stop, parking her bike in front of the Hasty Taste and chaining it to the pump that had a bunch of flowers around it and water trickling out of it. Elna always fussed at her for doing it, but this time she was careful not to mash any of the flowers, and besides, Elna wasn’t here.
The bell on the door jingled when she went in. She always liked that bell. It made her feel happy. Miranda was standing by the cash register with her sweater and purse.
“Hey, gal,” she said. “I was just getting ready to call it a day. I’m beat. This getting up at five o’clock routine is something I’m going to have to get used to. But I love the job,” she said, and she looked like she meant it. Her eyes were shiny, and she was smiling like she was happy.
“Do you like your apartment?” Eden asked.
“I love it, love it, love it,” Miranda said. “Thank you. In fact, as soon as I get my first paycheck, I’m going to buy one of those little grills, and you can come over for hot dogs.”
“Okay,” Eden said, “but before you go, I need to ask you something.”
“Shoot,” Miranda said.
She waited while Eden set down her backpack and got out her notebook, and she didn’t even laugh or smile like some grown-ups did when she wrote things down. “Okay,” Eden said, “I need to know if there’s any news you’ve heard today.”
“Hmm. What kind of news?”
“You know. Just anything that might come in handy.”
“Let’s see.” She looked up at the ceiling and then smiled. “I know. I heard Fred Ingalls tell Wally that his dog had puppies.”
“That bluetick hound?”
“That’s the one.” Miranda nodded.
“How many?”
“Five,” she said, “and only one of them is promised. Henry Wilkes is taking it.”
“Good,” Eden said, writing it all down. “Anything else.”
“Um, yeah. Amos Schultz’s wife went into labor in the middle of the night, and since they don’t have a car, Amos had to ride his horse over to the firehouse, and a volunteer fireman came and was driving her to the hospital, but he ended up delivering the baby on the way.”
Now, that was news! She wrote it down, putting in a bunch of exclamation points. “Who was the fireman?”
Miranda made a face. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t get that.”
“That’s all right,” she said. “I’ll find out. Was it a boy or a girl?”
“Oh! Ah, I don’t know that, either.” Miranda gave her an apologetic look. “I didn’t do such a good job of gathering information, did I?”
“You did all right,” she said. “It takes a while before you get the hang of it.”
“Well, I’ll keep working at it. Maybe I’ll do better next time.”
Eden was tired of writing things down then, so Miranda got her a chocolate doughnut and milk and said good-bye, and Eden felt happy again watching her walk across the street. She liked Miranda a lot. She suddenly had a great idea. She wrote it down in her notebook in capital letters and added a few exclamation points.
MIRANDA AND UNCLE JOSEPH SHOULD GET MARRIED!!!
But then she remembered that they didn’t really like each other, so she scratched it out.
She took her doughnut to the table in front of the window. She ate all the icing first, then took tiny little bites and a drink of milk in between each one. When she was finished, she carried her plate back to the kitchen and left.
Next she went across the street to the post office.
“Hey, Eden, where you been?” Mr. Poncey gave her a big smile and handed her a stack of Wanted posters.
“It’s a long story,” she said, not really feeling like going into the details right now. She thanked him and took the Wanted posters to the copy machine in the back room, where she made copies for her files and then punched holes in the new ones and took them out into the lobby and put them in the binder that was attached to the bulletin board. That way people could leaf through them while they were waiting in line and maybe catch somebody. Bad guys had to eat and go to the Laundromat just like everybody else, didn’t they? Well, then, some regular people might just catch one of them.
“Bye, Mr. Poncey,” she said.
“Good-bye, Eden. Thanks. See you Monday.”
She waved good-bye, then went across the street to the bus station. Mrs. Joyce was working today instead of Floyd, and she was waiting on somebody now. White female approximately five-feet-six-inches tall, gray curly hair, wearing a white pantsuit and carrying a green-and-white pocketbook. No visible markings or tattoos. The lady finished at the counter and then went and sat down next to the door with one suitcase. Eden happened to know that the only bus leaving this afternoon was for Bluefield, West Virginia, with a final destination of Charleston.
“I’m done now, sugar,” Mrs. Joyce said. “Come on over and show me the pictures.”
So Eden took the new Wanted posters to the counter, and Mrs. Joyce put on her glasses. She leafed past the one of Usama bin Laden. There was a twenty-five-million-dollar reward for him, but Eden had already shown him around and nobody’d seen him, and Mrs. Joyce said there wasn’t much chance he would come through Abingdon. But you never knew. She went through the others, even though Mrs. Joyce had already seen them, and then one by one she looked and shook her head. She took a minute when she came to the man who had too many wives.
“He sort of takes after that fellow that bought the butcher shop over at Damascus, but I guess not. I believe that new fellow has blond hair, and this fellow has brown.”
“He might dye his hair,” Eden said.
Mrs. Joyce shook her head. “I don’t think it’s him.”
But Eden wrote a note on the back anyway. She would show it to Uncle Joseph.
“I still don’t think you ought to be reading all this stuff, child.”
“I don’t read the small print.” Uncle Joseph had said to just read the heading at the top and look at the pictures. She asked him why and he’d said, “Sometimes things get too heavy to carry, Eden. Let the bigger people carry this stuff for you until you’re old enough.” She had disobeyed him at first. She read about a man who killed his wife and his two children and set their house on fire, and she hadn’t been able to forget about it for a long time. So after that she just read the top line like Uncle Joseph said.
