Echoes (13 page)

Lauren sat back, smiling and wondering if she were crazy for liking this nameless, faceless, invisible person.

She typed back to KC:

Lauren sent the letter and found she couldn’t keep a tender smile from her lips. Checking the refrigerator, ready for breakfast, she decided a trip to the grocery store was unavoidable. So she took off, violating the universal rule of grocery shopping: Never shop on an empty stomach. Hers was worse than empty. Her innards were churning the final remains of double fudge brownie dairy product.

Lauren pulled her car out of the apartment complex and into the flow of traffic. All she could think about was how some people might be content remaining single all their lives, but she dearly wanted to share her life with someone else. Someone she could love with her whole heart.

It bothered her that she felt so happy simply because she had received a letter from KC. No man should have that kind of power over her. She had ridden that roller coaster with Jeff, feeling happy when he was happy, feeling responsible when he was sad. She didn’t want to live like that.

I’m going to find my own life. No more of this chasing after attention and being dependent on a man for my happiness. If God has someone for me, he’ll have to bring him to my front door!

Lauren smiled at the thought as she pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store and muttered, “So what are my options here? I’m going to marry a pizza delivery boy!”

At the moment, pizza sounded good—anything sounded good. Her cart became fuller and fuller as she ventured down each aisle. And she became hungrier and hungrier. In uncharacteristic style, Lauren tossed all kinds of impulse items into her cart including potato chips, gourmet ice cream, chocolate chips (telling herself she would make cookies that afternoon and take them to work on Monday), and a canister of international-flavored coffee.

She was about to wheel out of the coffee and tea section when a small green box caught her eye. It read, “Irish Breakfast Tea.” Lauren stood there for several minutes, holding the box in her hand, trying to remember where she had heard about this tea. Someone told her they liked it. But who?

Into the basket went the green tea box. She would figure out later where the subliminal suggestion had come from. Wherever or whoever it was, the suggestion had had its desired effect.

At the checkout line Lauren tossed in a bag of candy corns from the display. Even though Halloween was more than a month away, evidence of its approach was everywhere. To Lauren, candy corns represented autumn, and she was ready for it to be autumn—ready for a change.

The afternoon wind seemed to cooperate with her wishes as it whipped past her in the parking lot, spinning a french fry box and a plastic coffee cup into a dance of glee.

Lauren paid attention to all the deciduous trees that lined her way home. A few had slight tinges of yellow and orange in their outer leaves. What was it she had read once about autumn trees? Something about their being like gypsies wearing amber jewels in their hair, ready to dance with the wind the moment it came calling. That’s how she wanted to live. Like a carefree gypsy, always ready to dance. What a laughable contrast that picture was to her life these past few months, or even
this past year as she had planned out her life so carefully with Jeff. Lauren felt as if she was getting back to the old Lauren. The one she liked. The one who had big dreams in high school.

A garage sale sign appeared as she turned the corner toward her apartment complex. Lauren couldn’t resist. Leaving her eleven bags of groceries in the backseat of her car, she approached with anticipation the mounds of treasures sprawling across the lawn. Boxes of books and heaps of linens were surrounded by rusty garden tools and crates of canning jars. The old brick manor had probably been there since the turn of the century. The acre or so of surrounding land was circled with new housing developments, one of them being the backside of Lauren’s apartment. A young woman sat at a table guarding a metal cash box while an older couple poked around in the clothing stack on the other side of her.

Lauren smiled her greeting and went right to the box of books. She pawed through the vast assortment until she found a small, worn book with roses embossed on the cover. It was entitled
Modern Classics
, which made her chuckle aloud because the copyright date was 1871. The book contained two novels by Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Tales of the White Hills
and
Legends of New England
. Lauren felt her heart beating faster. She had read that Hawthorne had traveled to Italy with his family and actually visited Robert and Elizabeth Browning at Casa Guidi. She clutched the old book, feeling as if she had just met the friend of a dear friend.

The price on the book was a bargain at two dollars. “Excuse me,” Lauren said to the young woman at the table. “Do you have any more old books?”

“I’m not sure. We went through a lot of stuff yesterday and this morning. Sold all the furniture. Whatever is out there is what we have left.”

“Sounds like quite a sale.”

“This was my great-grandparents’ home. They both passed away this summer. We’re dividing everything up. The property has already been sold.”

“What about the house?” Lauren asked, feeling a lump of sorrow in her throat for these people she had never met.

“It’s all rundown,” the woman said. “I’m sure they’ll level it.”

“Can’t it be moved or saved somehow? Isn’t it a historical landmark for this area or anything?”

The woman smiled. “I don’t think so. The land is worth far more than the house.”

Lauren heartily disagreed, even though she hadn’t seen the inside of the house. The imagination wheels began to spin in her head. If she had the money, she would buy the house and fix it up. Maybe turn it into a bed and breakfast. But the balance in her savings account and her monthly income would not qualify her for such a venture.

Some other garage-sale shoppers stepped up with armfuls of clothing. Lauren returned to the linens and drew out of the pile a lovely old wrinkled ivory tablecloth with ivory embroidered flowers in the four corners. She groped through the stack until she had seven matching linen napkins. The eighth napkin eluded her. No matter. When would she have more than seven people over for dinner at the same time?

Returning to the table, Lauren added the linens to her book, feeling jubilant over her finds. She pulled out a ten-dollar bill and handed it to the keeper of the cash.

A little girl on roller blades came clanging up the driveway toward them, carrying an open box in her hands. “I made a sign for them,” she said to the woman at the table. “See?”

The box landed on the table in front of Lauren with a thump followed by an echoing chorus of meows.

“Oh, how darling!” Lauren said, reaching inside the box and picking up the kitten that looked the most dazed of the bunch. He fit in the palm of her hand and was the softest little ball of fur she had ever felt. He was mostly gray with two white patches, one on his nose and one on his front right paw. “Are you selling these kittens?” Lauren asked the roller-blade queen.

“Yes, ma’am. They’re three dollars each or two for five dollars.”

Lauren laughed and said, “I only need one. And this one is worth the price of two to me. Here,” she handed the girl the five dollars the woman had given her as change a moment earlier. “Thank you very, very much. I’ve wanted a kitten for a long time. Does he have a name?”

“No. Only this one does,” she said picking up an orange striped tabby. “I call her Pumpkin.”

“Well, I hope you find a nice home for Pumpkin.”

“I don’t. I hope nobody buys her. Maybe then I can keep her.” The girl smiled and showed the gap where her two front teeth had been. Lauren wondered if those teeth had come out naturally or if the girl’s exuberant roller blading had helped the course of nature.

“Thanks again,” Lauren said as she tucked her kitten in the crook of her arm and carried him, with her book and table linens, to the car. “Hi, little one,” she said in answer to the kitten’s meows. “Are you hungry? I’m starving. Let’s get something to eat.”

Lauren placed the kitten on the floor in the front of her car and headed back to the grocery store. She pushed the cart down the aisle for the second time that day. This time she picked up cat food and cat box filler and a half dozen other necessities to set up her new house guest. At the deli department she ordered a large roast beef on rye, a bag of Cheetos, and a large Diet Coke.

Then, balancing her Coke in one hand and scarfing Cheetos by the handful, Lauren maneuvered her way back to her apartment with the exhausted kitten asleep in her lap, both of them as happy as could be.

L
auren unpacked her groceries with more zest than she had felt in weeks; more than she had felt all summer. Things were changing for her. She was invigorated by the promises of fall, which included an antique book to peruse by the fire and a precious kitten to snuggle with. Perhaps she could tolerate Nashville a little longer and wait patiently for the day when she could move to a small town.

“What should I call you?” she asked her kitten, holding him up to the light. “You’re quite a noble looking young man. Sensitive, yet intelligent. Strong, but shy. Tender and very snuggly. All the qualities I look for in a man. Not that I’m looking, though. Not any more. I’m waiting for my pizza-man,” she said, rubbing noses with the kitten.

She poured some more milk into the kitten’s dish and placed it and the feline on the new mat along the back wall of her kitchen. “So, do you want to hang out with me and wait for the doorbell to ring? It could be a couple of years, you
know. You don’t have any other plans, do you?

“Good. Neither do I. Except for finishing school. And reading this book,” she said reaching for the Nathaniel Hawthorne book on the counter. “I’ll be in the living room. You come snuggle with me when you’re finished there, okay?” She stroked the soft fur along his back and watched his tail go straight up in an eager response to her touch.

Lauren turned on the automatic fire in the wall fireplace and curled up on the couch with her dusty volume. It wasn’t chilly. Yet Lauren felt such a book should not be explored without a roaring fire.

She dusted the cover with her sleeve. “Nathaniel Hawthorne,” she said aloud. “Should I call you Nathaniel? Any friend of Elizabeth’s is a friend of mine.”

No response came from the kitchen.

“How about Hawthorne? Do you like Hawthorne better?”

The kitten appeared around the corner of the kitchen area, stretching on the carpet and sharpening his claws.

“You like that name, huh? Hawthorne it is. Come here, Hawthorne.” She patted her leg, inviting the little one to come join her on the couch. “I probably shouldn’t let you up on the furniture, should I? Oh, well. It doesn’t matter. I can whip off this cover and wash it any time I want. You belong right here with me.”

Hawthorne nuzzled up against her leg. She lifted him to a cozy spot on her lap and turned to the first page. “Shall I read to you, Hawthorne? ‘Chapter one, “The Great Stone Face.” One afternoon, when the sun was going down, a mother and her little boy sat at the door of their cottage —’ ”

A knock at her door interrupted their story time.

“Coming.” Lauren scooped up Hawthorne and opened the door.