Saturday Morning (5 page)

Are you going to trust Me?

“Yes, of course I trust You.” She caught her breath and thought about what she’d just said.
What are You asking of me?
No wonder Peter got a bit put out when Jesus asked him three times, “Do you love me?” Tears welled up in her throat, a hot, hard lump of them. The back of her eyes and nose burned, so hot was the moisture. “I am sick and tired of crying too. You know that?”

Chai Lai, her seven-year-old, cross-eyed Siamese cat, purred from her chair, stood up, and arched her back, stretching every muscle as only felines do. She leaped to the floor and, tail like a question mark, minced her way between the buckets of cut lavender stems. When the cat got close enough, Andy reached out, scooped her up in her arms, and buried a tear-streaked face in the warm fur.

The week went by, and Andy and Martin communicated only through the Internet. His e-mails came first thing in the morning and never at night before he went to bed as they used to. He never mentioned the new job, moving, or whether or not he’d spoken with the powers-that-be about her circumstances. Instead of the newsy, interesting e-mails he used to send, the morning messages were short and to the point: or

Only hard work drove the demons from Andy’s mind. But even
harvesting lavender—much as she enjoyed gathering in the purple blossoms, stems, and seeds—left too much freedom to think about things, about her and Martin. She kept hearing
Are you going to trust Me?
in her heart, and a particular scripture kept circling in her head,
“For wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge”
If she lived by that scripture or the message in the country-western songs, she thought, she should stand by her man and move to San Francisco.

When the weekend came and went without Martin making an appearance, she called him on his cell phone. She fought to appear unconcerned as to where he was or who he might be with. “Martin, we have to talk. I don’t want to live my life without you. I love you.” Handset to ear, she sat down in the kitchen and spooned honey into her teacup. Maybe the tea would help keep her calm. And maybe the honey would help sweeten her tongue.

He heaved a sigh that echoed through the phone lines. “Me too. I don’t know what the solution is for all this. I have a week left before I have to give them my answer.”

“Honey, I know that if we put our heads together, we can figure out a workable solution. Did you talk to them about our, I mean, my situation here?”

“No. I haven’t had a chance, but it won’t do any good. It’s their way or no way.”

Andy bit back the retort that popped into her head.
Make nice, Andy. Use your motherly coaxing skills.
“Come on now, honey. Surely once you explain, they’ll understand. You can tell them we’re working toward the time when I can hire someone.”

“As if
that
would ever happen,” he was quick to reply.

Shari’s words came back to her like a slap in the face.
Could he be jealous?
“What do you mean by that? I told you before that there isn’t enough cash flow right now to hire someone, but as soon as there is, I will.”

“You’ll move here, to San Francisco?”

“Yes. And no. If moving there means giving up our home here, no. But I would certainly consider staying there a few weeks at a time. We could have two homes. Would that work for you?” She put all her love and encouragement into her voice.

“We can’t afford two homes, Andy. Are you nuts?” Against all the screaming going on in her head, she kept her voice even. “But you said they offered a big raise and
big
semiannual bonuses. Maybe you should tell me just how big
big is.”

Silence met her outburst. Then, “We’ll talk about this later, when I get home next weekend.”

“Martin, listen to me—” But all she heard was the dial tone. She pulled the handset away from her head and glared at it, as if it were to blame for his hanging up on her. “Martin J. Taylor, you’re a coward!” she shouted at the inoffensive instrument. “You need to grow up, fella, and learn to deal with the problem, instead of running from it.”

She gulped at what had burst from her mouth and then sat down at the computer, ready to write him a blistering e-mail. But the tears blurred her eyes so badly she couldn’t see the screen to know what she had typed.
If Martin really loves me, why won’t he talk to his boss? Why won’t he try to help me come up with a solution?

Out of the blue, two answers surfaced in her mind. Maybe he didn’t love her anymore, and maybe the reason he wouldn’t cooperate with her was because he didn’t really want her to move to San Francisco.

Hurriedly, Andy dried her tears and punched out a hot one-liner:

Surprisingly, his reply e-mail came back immediately.

“Then prove it. Tell your boss my circumstances.”

Looking in the mirror after a night of crying was not a good idea. Her hair looked as though she’d stuck her finger in a light socket—gray caught the light, bright silver against the dark mink strands. When had all those appeared? She moved closer to the mirror and looked at her bloodshot eyes. Martin always said she had laughing eyes. Well, not today. They were so swollen it would be impossible for anyone to discern that they were hazel. Green and red were great Christmas colors, but they did nothing for her eyes and skin. She turned to head back to bed but sat down at the vanity instead. Perhaps if she applied a mask and left it on for a week, it would tighten the drooping under her eyes and the corners of her mouth.

“You look terrible,” her mother said when Andy walked into the workshop.

“Thank you. Good morning to you too, Mom.”

“Something’s very wrong, so you might as well tell me and get it over with.” Alice turned from the bench where she’d been filling the lace sachets she’d sewn the night before.

“You’re not going to like it.”

“Let me be the judge of that. All I know is that you’ve been sighing, and you’re walking around with the weight of something really terrible on your shoulders.” Alice leaned back against the workbench and crossed her arms over her midriff.

Andy caught herself in another sigh. Might as well get it over with. “Martin has been offered a big promotion.”

“I know, he told me.”

“Did he also tell you that the job requires us to move to San Francisco?”

“No, but the way you’ve been acting, I was afraid he’d asked for a divorce or something irreparable.”

Andy sighed again. “It might come to that.”

“Not if you don’t let it.”

“Mom, he wants us to sell the house and the business.” Andy-watched her mother’s face, saw the tightening of her eyes, the jaw line.

“I know what you’re thinking, honey, that we—your dad and me—won’t be able to get by without you, but the way things are going, we can probably hire a part-time employee to fill the gap.”

“Maybe after the next big order, but not right now. And the problem is, we don’t know when the next big order will come.” Andy pulled out her latest business analysis and showed it to her mother. Then she launched into a full retelling of Martin’s giving her his news, ignoring her concerns, and refusing to help her find a resolution.

“You’re risking your marriage, honey. Your dad and I would never forgive ourselves if you and Martin split up because of us. We can work the business without you, and if it’s too much for us and we still can’t afford an employee, then we’ll sell it, along with the farm. We should get a pretty penny out of the place, the way real estate prices have been soaring. Enough to last us the rest of our lives. Lots of people are looking to get into good home-based businesses these days.” She took her only child’s hand in hers. “We’ve been so fortunate to have all of you, Martin and the children, right here on the farm with us all these years. I thank God every day for—” Her voice broke.

“No, Mom, listen to me. I don’t want to move to San Francisco.” Andy told her mother all the personal reasons why, the same ones she had told Martin, only this time she added, “I wasn’t cut out to be a corporate wife. I don’t like charity balls and women’s club lunches. I like it here, with you and Dad and the animals. And I like being a businesswoman again. I’m good at it, and I get a lot of personal satisfaction out of it. I gave all that up once for Martin, and I’m not going to do it again.”

“Not even if it means losing him?”

Andy fought the tears, but when she reached out to hug her
mother, they collapsed in each other’s arms. “He … he never even acted pleased about the Nordstrom order,” she sobbed. “I … I have always cheered him on, but he shrugged off my good news like it didn’t mean anything.” She clung to her mother, a little girl again, a little girl whose kitten had just died.

That night, Andy brought herself back to stare at the face in the mirror. “God, what am I going to do?”

Are you going to trust Me?

“Yes, I trust You, but that isn’t what I asked.”
At least, I’m trying to trust You. But You have to help me out here, so I know what to do.

Kansas City

Julia Collins accepted the congratulations of her trial assistant with a smile. “Thanks, and thank you for finding that last witness. She was the clincher. I wouldn’t have laid money on the outcome before you brought her into the picture.”

“Something just kept niggling at me and wouldn’t let go, so I went back through all the transcripts until I found her name.” Adam Jefferson, fresh out of law school, was also Julia’s latest hire, and she had no doubt he would be a keeper.

“Well, anytime you feel a niggling, you follow it.” She turned to accept the grudging congratulations from the opposing lawyer, a good friend of hers outside the courtroom. “Thank you, Glen. I can’t say I’m sorry you lost this one.”

“Luck of the Irish, I tell you.” The man shaking her hand shook his balding head at the same time. “I thought sure he was innocent.”

Julia tucked a strand of deep brown hair with auburn highlights back behind her ear. “Pretty weak strain of luck, I’d say. Just good work on my assistant’s part here. Adam, have you met Glen Heinsmith?” She kept a smile on her face in spite of the weariness that
nearly knocked her knees out from under her. If only she could fit in a massage this afternoon to work the kinks out of her neck and shoulders. Although she was known in court as the picture of calm, that image frequently came with a price.

Dreams of her granddaughter, Cyndy, had awakened her three times last night from sleep that was already too short because she’d been fighting to bring this case to a satisfactory conclusion.

“May I take you to lunch?” Glen asked, a hopeful note in his voice.

She started to say no, then thought better of it. “I’d like that. Thank you. Just give me a second.” She turned to her assistant and handed him her briefcase. “Please take this back to the office and ask Joanne to cancel my appointments for the afternoon. There’s not much on the calendar anyway.” At his nod she said, “Thanks.” After handing over her briefcase, she turned to Glen and slung her black leather purse over her shoulder. “It’s been too long since we’ve done this.”