They make Walt laugh, which isn’t easy to do these
days.”
Riceville, Iowa, must indeed be rural if they only
charged five bucks for a first-run film, Judith thought.
“It’s a big event,” she said, with a need to defend herself. “Bruno Zepf is opening his new epic,
There was a long pause at the other end. Finally,
Mrs. Izard spoke again: “Never heard of him.”
“I don’t know much about Mr. Zepf, either,” Judith
admitted in an effort to appease the disgruntled Mrs.
Izard. “You’ll be hearing from Ingrid Heffelman soon
to make sure you’re put up in a very nice inn.”
“Hunh.” Meg paused. “Okay, we’ll stay tuned. But
this Heffelbump woman better call soon. October’s not
that far away.”
It was two months away, Judith thought, but didn’t
argue. She was beginning to feel grateful that the Izards
wouldn’t be staying at Hillside Manor. Trying to remain
gracious, she rang off. The Kidds and the Izards had
been disposed of; she needn’t worry about Bruno Zepf
and his movie people for two months. The waning summer and the early fall should be relatively uneventful.
It was typical of Judith that, as Cousin Renie would
say, she would bury her head in the sand. On that warm
August evening, she dug deep and tried to blot out
some of life’s less pleasant incidents.
One of them was Skjoval Tolvang. The tall, sinewy
old handyman with his stubborn nature and unshakable
convictions had already made some improvements to
Hillside Manor. He had repaired the sagging front
steps, replaced the ones in back, rebuilt both chimneys,
which had been damaged in an earthquake, inspected
the electrical wiring, and put in what he called a
“super-duper door spring” to keep the kitchen cupboard from swinging open by itself. What was left involved rehanging the door to the first-floor powder
room and checking the toolshed’s plumbing.
Judith came a cropper with the bathroom repair. On
the first day of September, Mr. Tolvang showed up
very early. It was not yet six o’clock when he banged
on the back door. Joe was in the shower and Judith had
just finished getting dressed. The noise was loud
enough to be heard in the third-floor family quarters,
and thus even louder for the sleeping guests on the second floor.
“Damn!” Judith breathed, hurrying down the first
flight of stairs. “Double damn!” she breathed, taking
the back stairs to the main floor as fast as she could
without risking a fall.
