“I’m not so certain I want to do it again.” I couldn’t believe I was speaking those words. “I mean, it’s fun and all, but I-”
“You were far more involved in solving the case than you were in acting.”
Graf said it so well.
“I don’t know. Can’t I do both?”
He smiled. “I don’t see why not. You can be biprofessional.”
My cell phone rang and I saw with surprise the number from the Sunflower County Sheriff’s Office. I answered cautiously.
“Sarah Booth, I’m trying to find Tinkie. It’s important.” Coleman’s voice was strained.
“She just boarded a plane to head home,” I said. “What’s wrong?”
He hesitated, and I felt a sharp blade to the gut. Whatever had transpired between us, I’d never given him reason to doubt me.
“It’s Oscar,” he said. “He’s deathly ill.”
He could have slugged me and I wouldn’t have been more shocked. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
Coleman took a breath. “We’re not certain, but it’s bad. Remember the old Graystone Estate? The bank has held the mortgage on it for years, and Oscar had a buyer, so he went out to check the property. When he got back, he wasn’t feeling well. Two hours later, his secretary found him in his office, unconscious.”
Before I could even think, I was signaling frantically at Tinkie to stop the plane. She quit waving Chablis’s paw and made a face at me.
“Stop the plane,” I told Graf. “You have to stop it. I’ve got to get on.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Just stop that plane.”
While Graf went to find someone in authority, I ran to the plane with Sweetie right at my heels. Tinkie’s face reflected horror, but in a moment the door of the plane reopened. She came out.
“What?” she yelled above the roar of the airport.
Before I told her, I had to know the extent of it. I spoke into the telephone. “Coleman, how bad is Oscar?”
“Sarah Booth, it could be fatal.”
I made my decision. “We’re both headed home.” I couldn’t abandon Tinkie with Oscar so sick. What I was really worried about was telling Tinkie about Oscar.
“I’ll call you when I land,” I said to Coleman before I hung up.
As I stood on the steps of the plane, I saw Graf. I ran toward him and explained briefly, that Tinkie’s husband was seriously ill.
“You’re a good friend, Sarah Booth. Do you want me to come?”
I shook my head. Tinkie was going to require my undivided attention. And Graf’s career was hanging in tatters. He needed to be where he could address a million issues.
“Stay here. As soon as Oscar stabilizes, I’ll be back.”
He kissed me. “Go. Call me when you get there. And be careful.”
I kissed him with my heart tearing in two. But then Sweetie and I were on the plane, and in less than fifteen minutes, I’d ripped my friend’s world apart and sat holding her as she cried.
We were headed back to Zinnia, but not as victors. Oscar’s sudden illness could change our worlds forever. He was a fit and strong man, and it would take a serious illness to bring him down. But Coleman’s tone of voice had frightened me. This wasn’t just a case of the flu.
The truth was, I didn’t know what we might find in Sunflower County. But one thing was for sure, I wasn’t about to let Tinkie face it alone.
I sat on the steps of Dahlia House in the warm spring sun, my cell phone at my side, waiting for word. Tinkie was at the hospital. She wasn’t allowed to see Oscar, except through a glass window, but she refused to leave her spot in the hall.
I’d spent most of the night beside my friend, but I’d come home to check on Sweetie Pie. She was fine, and the cotton planted around Dahlia House was a tender green, extending to the horizon in long rows.
I heard the squeak of rubber wheels, and I looked up to see who had a baby stroller at Dahlia House. But it wasn’t a stroller. It was a wheelchair, and in it sat a chocolate rendition of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
“We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Jitty pushed up the small glasses that perched on her nose.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “Look, you can play Marilyn or Lana or Halle or just about anyone. But I don’t think you can pull off FDR.”
“I’m only going for the HBO movie, not a major feature release. Kenneth Branagh is hard to imitate. That man’s got some moves.”
I put my head in my hands. As glad as I was to see Jitty right back here on the front porch of Dahlia House, I was too worried about Tinkie and Oscar to enjoy her games.
The wheelchair creaked up to my side. “Did you know that polio victims were treated as if they had the plague? People were terrified of them. Sometimes no one would help them at all, and the high fevers killed them. Strange that it was a virus that could be controlled by a simple vaccine.”
She was spoon-feeding me hope, and I mustered a smile for her. “Welcome home,” I said.
“Right back at you.” She pushed up the glasses that weren’t meant for her smooth nose.
“What are we going to do?” I asked.
“Same as always, Sarah Booth. Fight. It’s in your blood and in your bones. You fight for what you love and hold dear.”
“Tinkie will die if Oscar doesn’t make it.”
“No, she won’t. She may wish she died, but she won’t keel over.”
I swallowed back a lump. She was right. Loss made a person want to die, but it just wasn’t that easy to lie down and quit.
“What am I going to do about Hollywood?”
“You know better than to ask me that question. Besides, you got to make the choice. Listen to your heart, Sarah Booth.”
“I got my wish.” I felt like crying. “For a few weeks, I was a movie star.”
“Indeed you were. No doubt about that part.”
I didn’t even have the energy to make a drink. I just sat on the steps and watched the electric green leaves of the sycamore trees that lined the driveway dance in the spring breeze. This was the perfect time of year in Mississippi. This was the time of new birth and growth and high hopes and expectations.
But I was torn between two careers, two places, two men, and two times-the past and the future. But for this moment, I could pass the decision on all of them. I had only to stay and help my friend through the toughest time of her life. After that-well, I would worry about that tomorrow.
“Good decision,” Jitty said. She was tired of the wheelchair, so she stood. “I think you need a drink.”
“I thought you were worried I’d end up like Great-uncle Lyle Crabtree.”
“It’s in the blood, that cravin’ for the drink. But somethin’ tells me you gone need a whole lot of liquor before this is over.”
“I hope you’re wrong, Jitty.” But as I closed the door of Dahlia House on the most perfect of spring days, my gut told me that she was right.
Carolyn Haines
