lights, and thank God they didn’t blink.
The tables had Christmas centerpieces in the same colors, and the place mats were cloth and so were the napkins. (This was very swank for Bartley.) The U-shaped banquet arrangement hadn’t changed, though, and as we all drifted to our seats I realized that Jack was maneuvering us toward the O’Sheas. He was steering me unobtrusively with his hand on my back, and I was reminded of a puppet sitting on a ventriloquist’s knee, the controlling hand hidden in a hole in the puppet’s back. Jack caught my look, and his hand dropped away.
Dill was already standing behind a chair with my sister on one side and his mother on the other, so only Jess O’Shea was available as a target.
Jack managed to slot us between the O’Sheas. I was between the two men, and to Jack’s right was Lou. Across the table from us was Patsy Green, squired by one of the ushers, a banker who played golf with Dill, I remembered.
The salads were served almost immediately, and Dill properly asked Jess to say grace. Of course, Jess obliged. Next to me, Jack bowed his head and shut his eyes, but his hand found mine and his fingers wrapped tightly around mine. He brought my hand to his mouth and kissed it-I could feel his warm lips, the hint of teeth-then deposited the hand back in my lap and relaxed his grip. When Jess said, “Amen,” Jack let go and spread his napkin on his lap as though the little moment had been a dream.
I glanced up and down the table to see if anyone had noticed, and the only eyes that met mine were my mother’s. She looked as though she were half embarrassed by the sexuality of the gesture… but pleased by the emotional wallop of it.
I had no idea what my own face looked like. A salad was placed in front of me, and I stared down blindly at it. When the waitress asked me what dressing I wanted, I answered her at random, and she dolloped my lettuce and tomato with a bright orange substance.
Jack began gently questioning Lou about her life. He was so good at it that few civilians would have suspected he had a hidden agenda. I tried not to speculate on the nature of that agenda.
I turned to Jess, who was having a little trouble with a jar of bacon bits. After the nicely decorated room, plunking the jar of bits down on the table reminded me firmly we were in Bartley. I held out my hand with a give-me curve of the fingers.
Somewhat surprised, Jess handed me the jar. I gripped it firmly, inhaled. I twisted as I exhaled. The lid came off. I handed the jar to him.
When I looked up in his face, there was a kind of dubious amusement on it.
Dubious was OK. Amusement wasn’t.
“You’re very strong,” he observed.
“Yes,” I said. I took a bite of salad, then remembered that Jack needed to know more about this man.
“Did you grow up in a town bigger than Bartley?” I asked.
“Oh, not bigger at all,” he said genially. “Ocolona, Mississippi. My folks still live there.”
“And your wife, is she from Mississippi also?”
I hated this.
“Yes, but from Pass Christian. We met in college at Ole Miss.”
“And then you went to seminary?”
“Yes, four years at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. Lou and I just had to put our trust in the Lord. It was a long separation. In fact, after the first two years, I missed being away from her so much, we got married. She held any job she could get in the area while I worked to graduate. She played the organ at churches, she played the piano for parties. She even worked at a fast-food place, God bless her.” Jess’s square, handsome face relaxed and warmed as he talked about his wife. I felt acutely uncomfortable.
The salad dressing was thick as sour cream, and sweet. I shoved the most heavily laden lettuce to one side and tried to eat the rest. I couldn’t just sit there and question him.
“And you,” he began the conversational return, “what’s your occupation?”
Someone who didn’t know my life history?
“I’m a house cleaner, and I run errands for people. I decorate Christmas trees for businesses. I take old ladies grocery shopping.”
“A girl Friday, though I guess ‘girl’ is politically incorrect now.” He gave the strained smile of a conservative paying lip service to liberality.
“Yes,” I said.
“And you live in Arkansas?”
“Yes.” I prodded myself mentally. “Shakespeare.”
“Any bigger than Bartley?”
“Yes.”
He eyed me with a determined smile. “And have you lived there long?”
“Over four years now. I bought a house.” There, that was contributing to the conversation. What did Jack want to know about this man?
“What do you do in your spare time?”
“I work out. Lifting weights. And I take karate.” And now I see Jack. The thought sent a warm rush through my pelvis. I remembered his lips against my hand.
“And your friend Mr. Leeds? Does he live in Shakespeare?”
“No, Jack lives in Little Rock.”
“He works there, too?”
Did Jack want it known what he did?
“His job takes him different places,” I said neutrally. “Did Lou have Luke-isn’t that your little boy’s name?- here in the Shakespeare hospital?” People really like to talk about their childbirth experiences.
“Yes, right here at the hospital. We were a little worried… there are some emergencies this hospital can’t handle. But Lou is healthy, and indications were that the baby was healthy, so we decided it would be better to show our faith in the local people. And it was just a great experience.”
Lucky for you and Luke and Lou, I thought. “And Krista?” I asked, thinking this meal would never end. We hadn’t even gotten our entrees. “Did you have her here? No, she’s at least eight, and you’ve been here only three years, I believe?”
“Right. No, we moved here from Philadelphia with Krista.” But something about the way he said it was odd.
“She was born at one of the big hospitals there? That must have been a very different experience from having your little boy here.”
He said, “Are you older than Varena?”
Whoa. Change of subject. And a clumsy one. Anyone could tell I was older than Varena.
“Yes.”
“You must have traveled around some in your life, too,” the minister observed. The strip lights above the table winked off his blond hair, about ten shades darker than mine and certainly more natural. “You’ve been in Shakespeare for about four years… did you ever live here, in Bartley, after you got out of college?”
“I lived in Memphis after I graduated from college,” I said, knowing that would probably cue his memory. Someone had to have told him the story, since he’d been living here more than three years. My history was part of town folklore, just like Mrs. Fontenot shooting her equally married lover on the courthouse lawn in 1931.
“Memphis,” he repeated, suddenly looking a little uneasy.
“Yes, I worked for a big housecleaning service there as a scheduler and supervisor,” I said deliberately.
That flipped his memory switch. I saw his pleasant, bland face grow rigid, trying to restrain his dismay at his faux pas.
“Of course, that was years ago, now,” I said, easing him off the horns of the dilemma.
“Yes, a long time,” he said. He looked sorry for me for a minute, then said tactfully, “I haven’t had a chance to ask Dill where he and Varena plan to go on their honeymoon.”
I nodded dismissively and turned to Jack just at the instant he turned to me. Our eyes met, and he smiled that smile that altered his whole face, deep arcs appearing from his nose to his lips. Instead of the tough reserve of his defense-against-the-world face, he looked infectiously happy.
I leaned over so my lips almost touched his ear. “I have an early Christmas present for you,” I said very
