Berry straightened her flannel nightie and swung her legs over the side of the couch. The large front room of her apartment served as living room, dining room, and efficiency kitchen. The other smaller room, her bedroom, had been turned into a dormitory for the ladies. She liked the ladies and enjoyed their company, but she dearly missed the comfort of her nice, big bed. She rubbed a sore spot on her back and slid her feet into a pair of slippers that looked like raccoons.
“Maybe you should remarry,” Berry said. “Have you ever thought about finding a husband?”
“I’ve been looking around, but I haven’t seen anything I like yet. Now if I was younger I’d go for that Jake Sawyer.”
Berry filled the coffeemaker with water, added a couple scoops of coffee, and punched the go button. She had an economics quiz later that morning that she’d totally forgotten about. Twenty-four hours of Jake Sawyer and already she was neglecting her studies. She opened the refrigerator and rattled a bunch of jars around.
“What are you looking for?” Mrs. Fitz asked.
“My coffee mug.”
“Lordy, child, you aren’t going to find it in there.”
“Oh, yeah.”
Damn, she thought, this is what a sleepless night does to you. How could anyone get to sleep with visions of Jake Sawyer dancing in her head? Jake Sawyer in his one-of-a-kind car. Jake Sawyer in her kitchen. Jake Sawyer in his underwear. And she could swear he seemed disappointed that she hadn’t seen him naked.
The man was downright disturbing. She found her coffee mug and filled it with prune juice.
Mrs. Fitz raised her eyebrows. “I hope you’re planning on staying close to home today. That’s a lot of prune juice.”
Berry peered into her mug and wrinkled her nose. “Ugh. What is this?”
Mrs. Fitz rolled her eyes, dumped the juice down the drain, and rinsed out Berry’s mug. She filled the mug with coffee and handed it to Berry. “When you fell out of that tree, did you land on your head?”
“No. I landed on my pizza.”
Mrs. Fitz looked at her shrewdly. “You’re kind of stuck on that Sawyer guy.”
“More like he’s stuck in my head. Isn’t that the pits?”
Mrs. Fitz looked disgusted. “Good heavens you’re a ninny.”
Mrs. Dugan padded into the kitchen area. “Who’s a ninny?”
“Lingonberry here. She thinks love’s a waste of time.”
“Humph. Sometimes it is. Remember William Criswald? The old coot. I fancied that man for seven years and just when I was about to reel him in, he died. The nerve. You can’t count on men over seventy-five. You never know how long they’re gonna last.”
“Well, she isn’t in love with an old goat like Criswald. She’s in love with Jake Sawyer.”
Berry slammed her coffee mug down on the counter, slopping hot coffee over her hand. “Ow! Dammit. I’m not in love with Jake Sawyer.”
Mrs. Dugan and Mrs. Fitz exchanged glances and smiled slyly.
“I find him attractive, and I like him… usually,” Berry said.
“She’s in love with him, all right,” Mrs. Fitz whispered to Mrs. Dugan.
Berry took a cautious sip of coffee and gathered her books together. “I can’t be in love with someone I’ve only known for twenty-four hours.”
“What about love at first sight?”
“It’s a load of baloney. And besides, I refuse to be in love. I have other priorities, like taking an economics test that I’m totally unprepared for.” She glanced at her watch and winced. She had no car, and she was late. “I have to run. I want to go to the library and try to get some studying in before my exam. Send the lunch contracts out by taxi again. I’ll be back at three-thirty. Can you guys handle things?”
“Piece of cake.”
Berry bolted down the stairs, only to be called back by Mrs. Fitz.
“Lingonberry,” Mrs. Fitz shouted, “you’re gonna look awful silly going to class in them raccoon slippers and your nightgown.”
Berry crossed her fingers as she bounded down the stairs ten minutes later. Please God, no more disasters. She closed the door behind her and took a deep breath of cold crisp air. The rain had stopped during the night, and the neighborhood looked freshly washed and waiting for spring. Berry’s mood was starting to improve with the promise of the new day.
She walked quickly, and two blocks later she found herself approaching the Willard Street Elementary School. Jake’s school. She smiled at the old two-story, redbrick building. It brought back memories of her own school days in McMinneville, when each morning she would set off along quiet, tree-lined streets with her little sister, Katie.
It was a childhood of few surprises. Tuna fish or peanut butter and jelly in her lunch box. Hot oatmeal in the morning, homemade butterscotch pudding in the afternoon, and piano lessons every Thursday. The Knudsen household was middle-of-the-road and casually practical. Berry and Katie had worn sneakers and jeans and hand- embroidered shirts and hand-knit sweaters to school. They had a dress for church and they wore the dress with sturdy buckle shoes. No sneakers on Sunday.
Berry realized she’d been trying to reconstruct the stability of her childhood, with little success. Her mother had been a master of order and routine. Each mitten had its proper place, dinner was served promptly at five-thirty, the bathroom was always miraculously stocked with freshly laundered towels. It hadn’t been a household of strict routine and unbending discipline. It had been a household of dull predictability and comfortable emotions.
My life is chaos, Berry groaned to herself. The harder I try, the worse it gets. I wash the towels, but I never get around to folding them. I lose mittens before I can find a proper place for them, and dinner consists of staring into the refrigerator at six-thirty and wondering what the devil I can eat in a hurry. Now I have three old ladies living with me and my refrigerator is filled with prune juice and blood pressure medicine. Berry shook her finger at the Willard School. And if that isn’t bad enough I’ve got Jake Sawyer complicating things. Now not only are all my efforts at organization a total loss, but that rotten Jake Sawyer is destroying whatever emotional comfort I’ve managed to reinstate into my life.
“Why? Why me?” Berry pleaded out loud.
She quickly glanced around to make sure no one had noticed her talking to a school, glanced at her watch, and hurriedly moved on. She couldn’t blame Jake and the school too much. Part of her problem was that days were too short. Twenty-four hours is simply not enough, she thought. If I had twenty-six I might have a chance to make butterscotch pudding once in a while.
Chapter Three
Berry saw the strange little puff of black smoke two and a half blocks away but her mind was on other things- like her recent economics test and Jake Sawyer’s smile. It wasn’t until she turned the corner and saw the fire trucks that her mind contemplated disaster. Her heart skipped a beat and then felt as if it had stopped altogether. The trucks were in front of the Pizza Place. Fire hoses snaked across the sidewalk. Soot blackened the second-floor windows.
Berry clapped her hand to her mouth. “Oh, Lord, no!”
Mrs. Dugan, Mrs. Fitz, and Miss Gaspich were supposed to be safely housed in that building. At this time of the afternoon they would be taking naps and making tea. Please, please, please, Berry pleaded, let them be okay. Please don’t let them be behind those four fire-blackened windows.
Berry stumbled into the street and broke into a run. Her chest was tight with fear, her vision blurred by the pounding of her heart. How could you grow to love three little old ladies so quickly? she wondered. She’d known them less than a week, but they’d become a precious part of her life.
She slowed to a jog when she caught sight of the women standing behind a fire truck. They were safe!
And then
