I Never Thought I'd See You Again: A Novelists Inc. Anthology (25 page)

“Are you comfortable?” Alison turned slightly to ask the man behind her. Snowflakes were coming down at a steady pace and she was glad they hadn’t needed to hail a taxi.

“Ja, and I’ve never been in one of these,” Mr. Balter leaned forward and whispered in Alison’s ear. “My boy, Karl, he’ll be not believing me when I tell him. I’m riding in an automobile.”

“Enjoy it,” Alison advised as she looked through the windshield. Too many of the clapboard houses they passed needed to be painted. The dust storms this year had burrowed into all the crevices of the wood and left everything looking dingy. A few households hid I wait too long?””d ad started scraping the flaking paint off the walls, but an early winter had stopped them and it would be spring until they could paint.

Only a few of the houses had a shiny black car like Jake’s.

He was certainly proud of his new automobile, Alison thought with a fond glance over at him, and she couldn’t blame him. He’d worked hard at the bank and saved the money for it. This car represented the kind of life she wanted him to have.

“Got another offer from someone wanting to buy my Ford,” Jake said, his voice sounding pleased as he turned off the main street to a smaller one. “Makes five offers this month.”

“You really should put a ‘not for sale’ sign in the back window,” Alison said.

“Ah, but I love it when they make their offers,” Jake said with a chuckle. “Gives me a chance to talk cars for a bit with someone who appreciates a fine automobile like this one.”

Jake pulled into the parking spot close to the doctor’s office. Mr. Balter insisted he was able to get inside the office by himself, but Jake walked next to him just in case.

The doctor asked Mr. Balter to go with him into an exam room while Alison and Jake stayed in the waiting room. The whole place smelled like disinfectant and Jake offered her a piece of Wrigley’s spearmint gum.

“Thanks.” She took a slice.

“What’s his trouble?” Jake asked as he nodded toward the exam room. “His hearing?”

Alison shook her head. “He still has the cough.”

Jake didn’t ask more. They both knew many of the farmers were suffering from lung ailments after all the dust storms they had endured this past year.

“The doctor thinks he should be over it by now,” Alison said.

“He got money for the bill?” Jake asked

Alison pulled out a leather pouch full of dimes. “I’ve been keeping the money he gives me for his meals.”

Jake looked at her for a long minute. “You can’t take care of them all, Allie. You know that. There’s too many.”

“I can take care of him,” Allie said indignantly. “And a few more.”

Jake’s eyes looked a little sad.

“You gave up so much to take care of your mother,” he said and raised a hand when she was going to protest. “I know you loved your mother and would do it all again. But now it’s your turn. Our turn.”

Alison didn’t have any answers for him. Not yet. She wasn’t sure she would ever be able to leave Rosebud. She didn’t understand why he wouldn’t stay. She had her family’s house, with its backyard swing and screened porch. He could share it with her. Their children would grow strong there. Would life really be any better in Chicago or New York City?

Mr. Balter was slipping his suspenders on over his shirt as he came out of the exam room. The doctor was handing him a brown bottle with some syrup in it, telling him to take a spoonful every night before bed. nuzzled the side of his neck">
“ma

Jake helped the older man out to the car while Alison counted out thirty dimes for the doctor’s bill. Then she left, too.

“I’m driving him home,” Jake said as he offered his arm once she was outside. “It’s slippery out here.”

Alison nodded as Jake opened the car door for her. “Thank you. He doesn’t need to be out in the cold any more than necessary.”

Fifteen minutes passed before they arrived at the edge of town. The gray factory had rows of windows, some of them broken, on their high stone walls. A smoke stack, still rimmed with soot, stuck up from the side of the building, an ever present reminder of the black smoke that used to billow out of it.

Jake turned on the road going behind the factory and the houses referred to as cottages came into view. Alison wasn’t sure who had first called them that since there was nothing of the seashore or the country about them. The windows were bereft of curtains, but some of them were covered with blankets instead that would, no doubt, be removed in the darkness and laid on the floor as the children were put to bed.

The sound of an automobile drew faces to the openings. No one came outside as Jake stopped and helped Mr. Balter. It wasn’t until Alison also stepped down from the car that a dozen boys tumbled out of the houses and gathered around the vehicle, just staring at it.

“You can touch it,” Jake said with a wave. “Blow the horn if you’d like.”

The boys didn’t need further invitation. Alison watched their faces light up as they danced around the car, opening the doors and rubbing their bare hands over the fenders. Given how cold the car must be, she was surprised at how long they lingered with their fingers pressed to the steel.

Alison blinked back tears just watching them. They were good boys. She knew most of the families here. She had special rates in her diner for the cottage people because she knew that, with no water or kitchens, they had no way to cook unless they built a fire outside in the snow. And they had scarce wood for doing that. She’d heard they huddled together at night under mounds of quilts to keep from freezing to death.

Finally, Alison signaled Jake that she needed to return to the diner. She and her fry cook had done most of the preparation for tonight’s dinner yesterday, but it was a little past one o’clock and she needed to put the turkeys in the ovens.

With waves of goodbye to the women who were now standing in a circle around the car, Alison reminded everyone that the dinner was going to be ready to eat at seven o’clock.

“And Santa is still coming?” one little girl, Lucy Williams, asked as she clung to her mother’s dress.

“You’ll see him tonight,” Alison promised.

The drive back was short, but the snow had started falling faster.

“I don’t like thinking of those little kids out walking on a night like this,” Jake said as he stopped in front of the diner. “I’m going to drive back and get them at half-past six.”

Alison smiled. “That would be so nice.

Again he held her elbow as they walked to the door. Then he took nuzzled the side of his neck">
“mathe key from her hand to unlock the diner.

“I thought it would be open already,” Alison said. “My fry cook, Alfred, is supposed to be back now. He went Christmas shopping.”

“I expect the stores are jammed with people,” Jake said as he opened the door.

“Not in Rosebud,” Alison said as she reached up to take her hat off. “Nobody’s got enough money to crowd the stores around here.”

She put her hat down on the table and glanced over at the counter. A large white sheet of paper was lying there.

“What’s this?” she muttered as she walked over to the paper and picked it up. She read it quickly and looked up at Jake in alarm. “Alfred isn’t going to be here tonight. His wife has gone into labor and he’s staying home with her.” She looked up. “I mean, of course, he needs to stay home with her. He sent for the doctor, but he — ”

Jake walked over and took her hand. “It’ll be all right.”

She must have looked as panicked as she felt. “What am I going to do without him?”

“You’ve cooked all your life,” he said soothingly. “And I can help with cutting up and stirring things. We’ll do what needs to be done.”

“It’s not the food,” she wailed then. “He was supposed to be Santa Claus.” She gestured to herself then. “I don’t even look like Santa. I’m more like a bean pole. Plus the children would know me. And I promised them. I have a red suit and everything.”

Jake grinned. “Give me a couple of pillows and I could wear the suit.” He cleared his voice and deepened his voice. “Ho. Ho. Ho. Merry Christmas.”

Then he put a leer on his face and winked at Alison. “Want to come sit on my knee, little girl?”

Alison started to laugh and couldn’t stop. It had been so long since anything amused her.

“I was just joking,” Jake said, looking suddenly worried.

Alison shook her head and gradually stopped laughing. “You always know how to make me feel better, don’t you?”

She’d never really realized that before.

“I try,” Jake said simply. Then he took off his suit jacket and draped it over one of the bar stools. “I don’t suppose you have an apron for me?”

Alison put Jake to work peeling potatoes while she carefully diced celery and carrots for three large pans of lime Jell-O salad she was making. She’d had to wait until she put the four turkeys in the oven before she had room in the refrigerator for the salad. Many of the women coming tonight had never tasted Jell-O and they were almost as excited about that as their children were about seeing Santa Claus.

“This must be costing you a pretty penny,” Jake said as he gestured toward the salads. He had a roaster pan full of peeled potatoes and was still adding more to the pile.

“It hasn’t been bad,” Alison said. “I’m using up a lot of what I had here for my diner always wondered if thersGr. The apples wouldn’t keep so we made pies earlier in the week. And the bread rolls used up some of the flour I had. The cranberries were extra, but it doesn’t take many for a sauce. Since I’m closing, I thought it would be a good way to say good-bye to everyone.”

They were silent for a moment.

“I did try to get you an extension on your loan,” Jake said finally. “I want you to know that. The bank said they just can’t do it. They’re not in that good of shape either.”

“I know I owe them,” Alison reassured him. “It’s over three hundred dollars now. I don’t think I realized when I started paying for mother’s treatment that it would come to so much.”

Jake nodded.

While the turkeys baked and the potatoes cooked, Alison decorated the diner with sprigs of holly and mistletoe. She’d wanted to buy a tree, but had spent the money on cream to serve with the pie instead. Mostly children liked the color anyway, she told herself, as she strung yards of shiny red and green ribbons around.

“What about presents?” Jake asked when he came out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel. He had opened the dozen cans of peas she’d had in storage so they’d be ready to heat while she made gravy. “Does Santa hand out presents or is it all just good cheer?”

Alison walked over to a large cardboard box sitting in the corner of the diner. “My mother knitted these for the children last spring before she got so sick.”

Alison held up a armful of mittens in all sizes and colors. Purple. Blue. Pink. Black. Orange. Each mitten was attached to its mate with a bit of red yarn. “We’ll need to sort them by sizes so you can find a pair to fit each child easily.”

Jake nodded. “I noticed none of them had gloves on when we stopped by.”

“The children are fortunate if they have caps,” she said.

Jake walked over to his coat. “I’m going to go out for a minute. I have an idea for the mittens.”

Alison smiled as she watched him leave the diner. He was happier than she had seen him in days, too. The mittens in her hands were soft and she lifted them to her face. Jake had stood by her during her mother’s illness and she hadn’t realized until now that it had been almost as hard on him as it had been on her. She had always thought she was keeping her problems away from him in some way.

She put the mittens back in the box and went back to tucking a length of ribbon in any crevice she could find. When the party was over, she intended to invite each of the women to take several ribbons home with them. Some of the ribbons would end up in a daughter’s hair. Others would be wrapped around precious letters.

A half hour passed before Jake came back, a grin on his face.

He held out the brown bag in his hand. “It’s a secret.”

They worked together for another hour, setting plates and silverware on all of the surfaces, plus setting a tall stack of plates at the end of the counter for those Alison said would stand up to eat. Her diner sat sixty-five people and she expected at least twice as many to come.

“We’ll do take-out dishes for the ones who are sick,” Alison explained to him when she got out some metal tins. “That’ll add another dozen to the total.”

Everything was ready in plenty of time for Jake to start his car at a quarter after six. They had agreed she’d stay behind so he’d have more room for passengers. Besides, she wanted to be in her diner to greet the first ones who came.

Snowflakes were falling lightly when Jake made his first round-trip. The flakes were heavy when he finished the eighth trip. Most of the men and boys had claimed they’d enjoy the walk over and had left the car to the women and girls. They had piled in, some sitting on the laps of others and the littlest ones sitting on top of that.

Alison had lit tall candles and placed them on each of the tables so the diner was golden with the light when Jake came in with the last of the women. Everyone was there, looking around in awe. Alison had cut the Jell-O into squares and put it on small plates on the counter.

Jake went right to work when he got back and started carving the turkeys that were setting on the counter, waiting for the gravy to thicken. Several of the older boys were recruited to help him.

Alison organized the children at the tables first and then suggested the women take places as well. Ruby and Margaret, two of the older teenagers, had agreed to serve as waitresses and two more, Linda and Janette, had taken stations in the kitchen to help dish up the plates.

When everyone was seated and quiet, Alison asked one of the older farmers to pray over their meal. His simple words of thanks to God, and to her, brought tears to Alison’s eyes. Jake must have known because, standing near her, he reached down and squeezed her hand.

Alison opened her eyes and looked across the counter to give a nod to the two waitresses. That was their signal. They reached behind to pick up several plates each from the kitchen and began their march through to the table furthest away.