Norah's Ark Read online

  Lilly’s expression told me what I already knew. She was terribly, terribly hurt and had already made up a story about the roses and drawn a not-so-pretty conclusion.

  “Nothing is going on between us. Absolutely nothing. I don’t even know why he got it in his head to send these. Maybe it would make sense if I’d stuck around and talked to him after we went to Ziga’s but I raced straight home to walk Bentley.”

  “You did?” That seemed to console Lilly somewhat. “You didn’t, like, you know…”

  If she said the word kiss I was going to barf. Me and Connor? After Lilly’s vocal “staking her claim” where he was concerned? No way, no how. I’m a loyal friend and it hurt that she’d even question that.

  Still, there were these incriminating flowers….

  “He’s just being friendly, Lilly. No big deal. I’ll talk to him….”

  “No!” Her eyes got wide with alarm. “Don’t you dare tell him that I asked about them. You’re probably right. No big deal. But I just can’t see…if what you say is true…why…”

  If what I say is true? My stomach landed somewhere around my knees. Could a bouquet of flowers annihilate a friendship?

  “He has every right to send flowers when and where he chooses,” Lilly said, her voice controlled. “I’m sorry. I can see you’re as surprised by this as I am. Maybe I’d better get used to it. Connor is such a generous man—he probably does this all the time.”

  I watched her talk herself into a new frame of mind, all the time wondering what was really going on in Connor’s head and wishing that he’d sent the flowers to Lilly and not to me. By the time I’d left, she was feeling much better and there was even a spring in her step a few minutes later as she made her way across the street to the Java Jockey and to Joe.

  Fluffy as Lilly appears and acts, she’s a realist at her core. I don’t blame her for being upset. If I were in her shoes, I’d be disturbed, too. But if things were the other way around, I’d also believe Lilly if she said she’d had nothing to do with the attention Connor was paying her.

  And if the flower fiasco wasn’t enough, I had to go to Julie’s party. Attending a tea party and trying to be pleasant when I knew Julie’s son had intentionally set out to hurt Winky is not my idea of a good time.

  On my way back to the store, a tinny sound caught my attention. Nick and Sarge came around the corner. Nick was leading Sarge who now had a sleigh bell attached to his headstall.

  “What’s this?”

  “Auntie Lou gave it to me. Said she couldn’t hear me coming and Sarge scares her so she wants some warning when he’s around.” Nick smiled and scratched his horse’s ears. “Not regulation, of course, but I’ll keep it in my pocket so I can humor her once in a while.”

  My heart warmed. “You’re a good guy, Nick.” When he’s around I feel comforted, as though he can take charge of any troubling situation and turn it around.

  I wonder if he’s a Christian.

  “I didn’t mean to keep you,” he said with a tip of his hat.

  “It’s okay,” and I told him where I was going, but he said little. I guess he’s just not into ladies’ tea parties, either.

  As it turned out, I couldn’t go to Julie’s party anyway.

  Annie met me at the door of the shop. “Joe called. Everyone has called in sick but him. He’s desperate and asked if I could please work there this afternoon. I told him I thought it would be okay. Is it?”

  I hadn’t mentioned Julie’s party to Annie, so, rather than cause Joe any more disruption, I let her go.

  Fortunately, Julie was very understanding. And, by the sounds of talking and laughter in the room, the rest of her guests had not disappointed her.

  “You’ll have to come sometime and just have tea with me, Norah. I’d love that.” The new lilt in her voice was unmistakable. “I’d like to get to know you better.”

  “It’s a deal.” I paused before adding, “You sound happy.”

  “I have high hopes for this place and our move. Things are going better than we expected.”

  Far be it from me to ruin her day by telling her about Winky’s tail feathers.

  It was after six when I got home. Bentley and Hoppy were sitting in the window, their heads and paws visible on the back of the couch. Hoppy gets on the sofa using several graduated stacks of books that make a little staircase for him. Bentley just flings himself at the furniture and hopes for the best. He’s not terribly agile or graceful. Poor fellow has an overdose of neuroses and few physical gifts. Fortunately, his personality makes up for his shortcomings.

  The phone on my answering machine was blinking so I grabbed a soda, pushed the play button and flopped onto the couch to listen.

  “Norah? Is that you? I hate these answering machines. Who invented them anyway? People should just stay home and answer their own phones….” Auntie Lou ranted for a few more seconds about technology being the demise of civilization before she got to her point.

  “You can call me crazy if you want, but I’m not. Remember that jewelry display that was in the case at the back of the store? Well, it’s gone. Not everything, but the good pieces. That old diamond ring, a pair of ruby earrings and a gold watch. I can’t figure it out. How could anyone have gotten in there? I don’t think I left it open, I—” The machine cut off the rest of Lou’s message.

  I closed my eyes and put the cool soda can against my forehead. Everything had been going so nicely on Pond Street and now things had gone topsy-turvy. There was the influx of eligible bachelors to cause needless trouble and misunderstanding between Lilly and me as well as tension with Joe, a rash of disappearances from newspapers to diamonds, not to mention Auntie Lou’s falls and black eye….

  Bentley padded over to stand on my lap and gaze at me with soulful eyes. Then he dipped his head and licked my arm as if to say, “It’s all right, Norah.”

  I put down the can and gathered the goofy dog into my arms. His warm, solid body felt firm and comforting against my chest as he nestled in. Animals don’t make up stories, get offended, cause trouble between people or open display cases to remove jewelry that isn’t theirs. No wonder I like them so much.

  I was grateful to wake up to such a beautiful Sunday morning. Not only did it put a finish to a tumultuous week, it gave me a chance to go to church, the place I can reconnect not only with God but also with myself. Sometimes He gets a little lost in the hustle and bustle of the week. If I don’t take daily time to spend with Him, my issues grow bigger and bigger and push Him to the back burner. I know from experience that this is a recipe for trouble. As long as I’m focused on Him, I’m fine, but the minute I start trying to do everything by myself, my peace disappears. It had happened this week. Between Auntie Lou’s issues, Winky’s tail feathers and the Lilly-Connor fiasco, I’d spent too much time in worry and not nearly enough in worship.

  And something else brought a smile to my face. Today was the day I was invited to Nick’s.

  “What do you think he’ll be like when he’s away from work, Bentley?”

  Bentley yawned and rolled into my spot in the bed. He often sleeps flat on his back with his hind legs stretched straight out, his head thrown back and his front paws crossed in a corpse-like position over his barrel chest, sort of like I do, actually.

  “Oh, no you don’t. You aren’t sleeping in without me.” I returned to the bed and scratched his belly. “I need your opinion on what to wear.”

  After my shower, I walked into my closet where Bentley was waiting. He knows the program. I pulled out three skirts and held them up for his perusal. Bentley stood up, walked over and sat down again by the frothy floral skirt.

  “Okay. Camisole or cotton sweater?” He pointed his nose toward the rosy pink camisole I held up.

  “And shoes?”

  Bentley went to my shoe rack and gently with his teeth extracted a single waffle-bottomed hiking boot. Bentley has never been good at picking out shoes.

  Bentley and I interact like this daily. He, unl
ike Lilly, is never offended when I say I don’t like his choices of clothing.

  Of course, the fact that I let my dog choose my wardrobe might have something to do with the reason that Lilly’s always telling me I need to be more fashion conscious.

  Lilly.

  I can still see the hurt and confusion in her eyes when she read the card with those roses. I couldn’t blame her. How would I feel if I thought she was pursuing a man for whom I’d fallen head over heels?

  Dressed, I twirled once for Bentley’s approval. He’d done well. I felt very feminine. I clapped my hand over my belly which was doing excited little flip-flops. Surely that wasn’t from the idea of seeing Nick today? Nah. No doubt I needed oatmeal.

  My church, like everything else in Shoreside, is picturesque. It has clapboard siding and a steeple pointing toward heaven which hearken back to the little old country churches that still dot the countryside in the Midwest. I’ve always believed that it’s built of some amazing expandable material because its walls stretch to hold as many people as want to come. On Christmas Eve, when God is looking upon us, I imagine He sees a little white church with a bulging belly, full of worshippers and love.

  No matter how early I start out for church, I arrive late. So, as usual, I was hurrying up the steps at the last moment and nearly collided with a broad male back standing just inside the doorway. He was jiggling the coins in his pocket and waiting in line to find a seat.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to run you over.” The man turned around. “Nick!”

  He smiled. Though his lips move, he smiles mostly with his eyes, I’ve realized. Those mirrored sunglasses are a shame, really, because they hide something so beautiful.

  Before we could say any more, the usher beckoned us forward. “I have seats for a couple in the front. Follow me.”

  Obediently Nick and I fell into step behind the white-haired gentleman.

  Couple? An interesting mistake.

  When he meant “in front” he meant in front. Nose to nose with the pulpit where Pastor Gregory could keep an eye on us.

  As a holdover from my childhood, I feel duty bound to sit very still and not turn my head in church. After all, I didn’t want the preacher to think I wasn’t paying attention. I was eight years old then, but the habit remains. Today it was easy. He was talking my language—stewardship and animals.

  “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’” Genesis 1:26

  Dominion. Power over, control, authority. In my book, that also means responsibility for. Not much. God created us to be responsible for His other creatures. And He gave me the gift of nurturing those creatures—which I take very seriously.

  Christ was humbly born in a stable, with animals as witness, privy to the most miraculous birth of all time. Though I may never know why, no one will ever convince me that this happened by accident.

  Afterward, we were expelled from the church with the rest of the parishioners like frosting out of a pastry tube. As we spread across the lawn like sugar roses, people gathered into little groups to visit.

  “There’s a potluck picnic today,” I said after introducing Nick to everyone in the vicinity. “Are you going?”

  “I didn’t bring anything to contribute.”

  “Are you kidding? Potlucks are like Matthew fourteen, verses twenty and twenty-one. ‘And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.’ There’s bread and fish for everyone no matter how many come. More than once I’ve seen people ordering pizza to be delivered so that the food never runs out.”

  “I am entertaining later today and I still have some food to prepare.” There he was again, crinkling those smile lines around his eyes.

  “You aren’t supposed to fuss. I’m not company. I’m just me. I’m flattered, though.”

  “Then why don’t you come to the farmers’ market with me? I need to pick up onions, tomatoes and avocados. I’ll buy you a hot dog at the food cart.”

  “Great. I’d love to.”

  “Good. My car is in the parking lot. Come on.”

  And that was how I came to be squeezing avocados, sniffing melons, picking out perfect strawberries and discussing the freshness of tortillas with the friendly neighborhood cop. Not only that, I was grateful to Bentley for choosing a pretty outfit this morning.

  Nick, I discovered, is a different person away from Shoreside and from work. I would never have expected him to buy me a tambourine with a hand-painted parrot on the calfskin drum and colorful jingles.

  “You didn’t have to do this.” I bumped the drum with the heel of my hand. “But I love it.”

  “How could you resist something with a perfect likeness of Winky on it?”

  He’s right. The bird on the tambourine is without a doubt, a lory identical to Winky. He even has the same roguish, up-to-no-good twinkle in his beady eye.

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard you laugh so much,” I commented as we examined a display of vegetables with novel shapes—a carrot with a protrusion like Jimmy Durante’s nose, a zucchini like a boomerang and a bulbous potato with the profile of the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz.

  “I’m off duty.”

  “You take your job very seriously.”

  His expression grew shuttered. “I have to. It can be a risky occupation.”

  I wanted to ask him more, but there are invisible No Tresspassing signs posted around that part of his life.

  As we sat at a picnic table in a tiny park eating hot dogs smothered in sauerkraut, I said, “I thought sometimes you were on duty at the market.”

  “Sometimes, when they expect unusually large crowds.”

  He looked at me with warm eyes and I felt my insides grow shivery.

  Not an acceptable reaction to a man I barely know, so I decided to bring up Auntie Lou. She’s a safe and unromantic subject.

  “Have you talked to Auntie Lou about…”

  “The jewelry? Yes. She called me right after she talked to you.”

  “Good. She was a little hesitant, thinking you might believe…”

  “That she’s old and forgetful and the jewelry would turn up somewhere later, like inside her stove or behind the china?”

  “Something like that.”

  “My grandparents’ biggest fear was that someday, someone—my father, most likely—would decide they were ‘incompetent’ and force them out of their home and into a nursing facility. Grandma refused to admit that she’d lost something and Gramps would never ’fess up to forgetting a detail. They thought that would be the beginning of the end with my father.”

  “And would it have been?”

  Nick frowned and his tanned forehead wrinkled. I wanted to reach up and smooth away the lines in his brow. “Maybe. With my father.”

  “Why did you stay with your grandparents so much?”

  “My parents should never have married. They loved each other, I think, but they couldn’t live together. Sometimes the arguments would escalate to a point where I’d beg to go live with my grandparents.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too. You don’t know how many times I’ve wished that my parents had never met or married.”

  “But then you wouldn’t be here.”

  He looked at me with unhealed pain in his eyes. “I know. As a child, I thought many times that not being here would have been better than what I was going through.” He paused. “I never thought that way again until an incident when I was with narcotics.”

  He’d wanted to die. Whatever it was, it must have been nasty.

  We were quiet then, except for a squishy chewing sound of the hot dogs disappearing. Life is so complex and people come with such thorny baggage t
hat there’s no way to get through it in one piece without God.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring you down. Life is better for my parents now. They’ve made some peace with each other.”

  “They’re still together?”

  “Incredibly, yes. God is good.”

  I leaned forward. “He is, isn’t He? Amazingly good.”

  Though Nick only smiled, a sensation of lightness and pleasure fluttered within me. Completely of its own accord and without my permission, my brain put a little check mark by “Christian” on the mental list of qualities I want in a partner. Nick is already halfway to filling the bill.

  I was so startled by this act of mental mutiny—Score one on the marital checklist for Nick!—that I felt a flush head up my neck and onto my cheeks.

  I’m not looking for a guy. I’ve got Joe who wants to marry me and Connor who gives me too many roses. I hardly need another one to complicate matters. I gave my brain a good scolding and started to pick up the food wrappers and put them in the trash.

  “I’d better let you get your groceries home,” I offered, feeling flustered and desiring to regroup.

  “If you don’t have any commitments for the next couple hours, you can come over and help me cook. We can eat a little earlier than we’d planned.”

  “Ah, well, I have to…” I could hardly admit that I’d planned to spend the afternoon sorting my underwear drawer, polishing shoes, taking a brush and some TNT to the toilet bowl and generally giving my closet an overhaul. There was nothing on my list glamorous or important enough to beg off until later.

  “I suppose I could,” I said reluctantly. “But I’m not much of a cook.”

  Nick held out his hand to take mine. “That’s okay. I’m a great one.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Nick lives in a small but picturesque house across the street from the lake, a former guesthouse for the mansion-like home next to it. I have to admit, my curiosity ran rampant. The way people decorate their homes says a lot about them and I want to know more and more about Nick.