O Little Town (7 page)

When Milton hung up the phone, he set it down into the cradle very slowly and took his time before saying anything at all. Dove waited, giving him the time he needed.

“That was Colleen.”

“Yes, I figured it was.”

“Walter’s sick.”

“I knew he was in the hospital.”

“No, I mean sick. He’s only got months to live.”

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. Does Paul know?”

“She’s calling him now.” There was a long pause. “I’m sorry. I’m not thinking real clear. I really like the ole guy.”

“I know you do. I’ll go so you can do what you have to do. You need to go home and be with her.”

“Yeah.”

Dove got up and put on her scarf and coat and gloves. Milton walked to the door with her and she turned and kissed him good-bye on the cheek. As she opened the door he said, “Don’t worry about that thing with Millie. She’s just a kid going through a kid phase. She’ll be okay.”

“She’s not who I’m worried about right now. Are you going to be all right?”

“I’ve made it through two wars and twenty years without you, Dove. I can make it through anything.”

She closed the door and Milton walked back to his desk and opened the blinds on the store window. The aisles were full. The shelves were getting empty. The day was getting longer. Walter was dying. Colleen was crying. Dove was walking down aisle three. And Christmas was only two days away.

CHAPTER 12

The Sterrett house sat at the end of Whitman Drive. It was the first house in a brand-new development that would see magnificent growth in the 1960s. The doctor and his wife, Doris, built it before their last child was born in 1951, and it is still the flagship of residences in a neighborhood of beautiful homes. Every Christmas the stone wall and the driveway are illuminated by rows of multicolored lights that will stay up till New Year’s Day. On Tuesday, December 23, 1958, at 2:00 p.m., the Sterrett house showed no signs of the season, as the lights would not come on till dusk. Louis Wayne turned into the lane and parked under the carport by the kitchen door. He sat under the wheel and listened to the last verse of “The Chipmunk Song.” Simon, Theodore, and Alvin might be the last laugh he would have for a while. He turned off the engine and went inside.

His mother and his father were sitting in the living room drinking hot tea, Campbell on the sofa, Doris in her wingback chair. The house was silent. Louis Wayne walked from room to room until he found them. The living room was never used except for company and special occasions.
Well
, he thought,
this was certainly a special occasion
.

“What are you two doing in here?”

“Oh, hi, Louis Wayne. Come sit down. Where have you been?”

“Out doin’ stuff. Are you okay, Mother?”

“She’s fine. Just a little tired. Where’s Barbara? Is she with you?”

“No, she’s not. Just me.”

Louis Wayne thought it strange his mother had still not said a word. He knew it was going to be an awkward conversation but he didn’t expect it to be this uncomfortable before he even started.

“Are you guys busy? Have you got a minute?”

“Always, son. What’s on your mind?”

His mother looked sedated, but Louis Wayne knew this was no time to stop and change the subject. He’d been riding around for the past hour working up the courage and forming the words. He had to keep going or he would find all kinds of reasons to back out.

“Pop, Mother, I have something pretty serious to tell you. I don’t know how to go about it so I’ll just do it. You asked about Barbara. Well …”

“Have you two broken up?”

“No. Well, yes. I guess we have broken up. But that’s not what this is about.” Louis addressed everything to his father. “Pop, I have been seeing someone else. And I’m in love with her. I know you may think that’s just something I’m saying, but I really am. Shirley Ann Briggs. That’s who I’ve been seeing.”

“Pretty girl. I know who she is. Cheerleader isn’t she?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you broken the news to Barbara?”

“It’s more than that. Just let me finish.” The words started coming slower and with more difficulty. Each word stretched out into a sentence. “I. Have been. Seeing her. For quite sometime. We’re in love. Very much in love. And we’re going to have a baby.”

The silence of the house when he first walked in sounded like a football game compared to this quiet. The glass of red wine his mother had been holding slid out of her hand and rested on its side in her lap. A dark stain spread on her gray wool skirt, but she didn’t seem to notice. And if his father was still breathing, there was no evidence of this. Then the only movement and sound that defied the stony silence came a moment later when his mother leaned forward in her chair and vomited all over her legs.

“I have to go back to work.”

“But you haven’t said what you think about tonight.”

Buddy and Amanda Briggs were standing outside in the driveway. He was wearing his coat and hat and she wore a sweater around her shoulders and was hugging her arms close to her body. The snowflakes were still fine and melted when they hit the pavement, but it wouldn’t be long before they started to stick.

“I don’t know. Whose idea was this again?”

“Shirley Ann’s and Louis Wayne’s. It’s the way they want to do it. I think it’s a good idea.”

“Do I have any choice in the matter?”

“Buddy, you can say yes and go with us or say no and stay home.”

“Do we know that the Sterretts want this? Are they going to want us there or is this just something Shirley Ann and the boy have come up with?”

“The boy has a name. Get used to it.”

“Is this just something Shirley Ann and that wonderful young man Louis Wayne Sterrett came up with?”

“Oh, Buddy, go to work.”

“What do you want me to do, Mandy? You want me to go over there and hug this boy and thank him for knocking up our one and only daughter and tell his family how terrific I think he is? You want me to kiss each one of them on the lips and wish them a Merry Christmas? Is that what you want me to do?”

“What other choice do we have? You tell me another way to handle this and I’ll listen. I’m just trying to make it easy on everybody concerned. Now you can get mad and take weeks or maybe months to come around, but you know you will come around because there is nowhere else to go. You love your daughter. If you don’t, if this has turned you against her for life and you can just send her out in the cold and never see her or your grandchild again, then … well … I guess you’d have to live with that. But if you know that eventually you’re going to come around and be the man I know you are, then you might as well skip all that hotshot stuff and start tonight.”

Buddy sighed heavily and looked up at the gathering clouds. “Yeah, I’ll come around. But I just don’t know if I can do it tonight. I may need a little more time.”

He got in the car and started the engine but this time he didn’t wait for it to warm up the heater. He just backed out the driveway and turned toward town.

Amanda stood there in the snow not feeling the cold. She needed a little time too. She was doing more talking than feeling for the sake of Shirley and the benefit of Buddy. But she knew she would feel the weight of her feelings soon enough. She walked back in the house and put her sweater on a chair, turned on the radio and began washing dishes. The Christmas music didn’t sound the same. Early this morning it had lifted her spirits but now even Bing Crosby couldn’t cheer her up. She forced herself to hum along to “Silent Night.” And by the time the dishes were dried and “Blue Christmas” ended, she sat down at the table and put her head in her hands and started to cry. Immediately the phone rang. The voice on the other end had always dried her tears.

“Mandy. I’ll go tonight. I’m ready.”

“I love you.”

“What’s there about me not to love? I’m a pushover. I love you too.”

She put the phone back in the cradle and began to hum along with “The Little Drummer Boy.” She was already beginning to feel better. With Buddy on her side, she could face anything. Even Doris Sterrett.

CHAPTER 13

The door to room 213 in Lenity General Hospital opened, and a small dark man in a dark blue suit walked out into the corridor. He stopped and said something in a low tone to a nurse on duty and then proceeded down the hall toward the elevators. Dr. Jerry Yandall had just told Walter Selman that the day after tomorrow he would celebrate his last Christmas on earth. He also told him he could go home tomorrow morning if he wanted. And then he had told him that if he wanted to speak to a minister, priest, or rabbi of his choice, he would arrange it.

Life went on as usual outside room 213. The snow was coming in spurts, and the cars driving by were in a hurry to get where they were going before the streets turned to ice. Inside room 213, Walter Selman was doing what he had been doing for the past week. Lying in bed and thinking. To his credit, his thinking wasn’t much different this afternoon than it had been all week. He wasn’t sad. He wasn’t heartsick or destroyed. He was quiet with maybe a hint of relief. He was old enough to know that dying was not the worst thing that could happen to a man. Lingering and laboring and longing could be so much worse and he wasn’t prone to these. He sensed no change in his disposition or mood. He was enjoying the solitude and worried only that his family would worry. Maybe he didn’t still have his health, but he still had his memories and as long as a man has memories, he isn’t dead. Walter was as alive in this moment as he was before Dr. Yandall gave him the news. Where was the sting? Not here. Not now. Not yet. He still had Christmas. He still had the flowers. He still had his memories.

It was thirty minutes till showtime and young Walter was in Hansen’s Drugs and Notions down the street from the Crown. On orders from his father he was to bring steaming mugs of coffee to the principals thirty minutes before the curtain went up. Walter was about to cross the ice-slick street with a box containing three cups of black coffee when someone grabbed him by the arm, almost spilling his delivery. It was Simon Croft.

“Boy, do you have a doctor around here close?”

“Yes, sir. Just up there,” Walter motioned with his head toward a house leading up the hill on Market Street.

“You better get him. I’ll take that coffee. You go get him and bring him to my dressing room.”

“What’s wrong? What’s happened?” Simon Croft had scared him but it scared him more that something might be wrong with Adrienne.

“Mrs. Knoles got a cut on her head and somebody needs to look at it before she goes on.”

Walter quickly handed the box of coffees to the actor and asked, “What happened?”

“Are you a doctor, boy? Just go get him and tell him to get here fast. We go on in twenty-five minutes.”

Walter ran the short distance to Dr. Butler’s two-story brick house and banged on the front door with the brass doorknocker. No answer. He peered through every window from the front porch and saw no sign of light or life inside. He ran out to the front walk and yelled for the doctor five or six times but still got no response. He turned and ran back toward the theater, almost getting trampled by a horse and buggy and falling down twice on the ice. He ran to the stage door and burst through and raced down the concrete steps, stopping breathlessly at dressing room number two. He knocked frantically till Simon Croft cracked the door open and peeked out.

“You got a doctor?”

“No. He wasn’t home. What’s wrong?”

From inside he heard Adrienne’s voice say, “Let him in.”

Simon stepped back slowly and reluctantly held the door open far enough for Walter to slip through. The light was dim inside but he could see the outline of Adrienne Knoles sitting in a corner with her hand to her head. He walked over to her and saw she was holding a wet cloth to her face.

As if he were in charge, and he sort of felt he was, he took her hand and moved it away from her face and saw a bruise above her left eye. He wanted to ask a dozen questions but he didn’t. It was fifteen minutes to eight, and he knew there was no time for answers.

“The skin isn’t broken. Does it hurt?” he asked, sounding much older than his sixteen years.

“My whole head hurts. Aches all over.”

“It’s not bleeding. Can you go on?”

“I can go on but how am I going to explain this?”

“Where’s your makeup kit? We can cover it with lots of makeup and you wear a scarf most of the time, don’t you?”

“I suppose so.”

He could tell Adrienne wasn’t thinking clearly or she would already have thought of these things. And where was her husband? Did he know how badly she was hurt? Or had he just hit her and left her and didn’t care?

Walter, working under the pressure of time, doctored the wound, helped to apply the makeup, tied the scarf at an angle, and stood back and was pleased with what he had done. He was about to take her by the arm and stand her up when the stage manager knocked on the door and yelled, “Five minutes.”

Simon Croft had been no help at all. He was cowering in the corner in full costume, smelling of fear and alcohol. Walter realized that he was as weak as he was big. This man, whom he had earlier thought was the perfect protector for Adrienne, was crumbling in front of him. A friend, maybe; a protector, not a chance. He took Adrienne by the arm and said to Simon Croft, “You walk up the steps on one side of her and I’ll take the other side.”

“What if we run into Nick?” Simon said to both Adrienne and Walter. Walter could see he was afraid and wasn’t even ashamed of it.

“If he’s in his dressing room, we’re okay because he’s not in the first scene. He won’t come up for another ten minutes.” Walter didn’t really know more about the play than these two actors; he was just thinking more clearly than they were. He opened the door and looked down the hall. He took Adrienne to the steps and held her right arm while Simon held the left. Anyone watching this scene would have surmised the star was simply getting the star treatment. And in all honesty she was.

The show that must go on went on, and the audience loved it, and they loved Adrienne. The audience stood and shouted for her to take bow after bow and tossed flowers on the stage. Adrienne smiled and bowed like a professional and it wasn’t until the crowd finally began to disperse that she collapsed to her knees in the wings and had to be carried to her dressing room by two stagehands who had no idea what was going on. But then neither did Walter.