When my phone rang a little after ten, I hoped it was Bree. She’d warned me she’d be putting in long hours helping her dad with the farm and there’d be times she wouldn’t be able to talk to me until after dark. Which was fine with me because I did some of my best talking late at night.
“Does it work?”
“Dex?”
Silence. I took that as a yes. His question had been so uncertain I wondered what exactly had taken place while I was gone during the day.
“Yes, it works.”
“I was late for another job.”
“There aren’t that many places to work around here,” I said, daring to tease him. “Did Sally give you a job as a waitress?”
“No.”
Obviously teasing Dex was like playing tennis when no one was on the other side of the net. Still, he’d made that “shaken not stirred” comment, so maybe there was a sense of humor buried in there somewhere. If someone had the patience to look for it.
“I’m not coming over tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll be back on Monday to start in the kitchen. Did you want me to replace the cupboards or paint them?”
The image of a crowbar and splintered wood sprang into my head. “Paint them. Definitely. And thanks for the Chinese—”
He’d hung up on me again.
“Food.”
In the name of dessert, I grabbed another handful of Tootsie Rolls, tucked my Bible under my arm and curled up in the chair by the window to talk to God.
Psalms was always a good place to hear His voice. Even though David was a guy, he tried to live honestly before God. There were times he praised Him, times he questioned Him and times he asked Him for things. And times he asked God—in no uncertain terms—to squash his enemies. Which, truthfully, made me a little squeamish. But after having met Mrs. Kirkwood, I was a little more understanding. David also asked God to direct his steps, something I was doing on a daily (hourly?) basis. We had a lot in common.
My Bible fell open to Haggai again. Not because a divine hand stretched out and turned to it but because there was a folded-up piece of paper there. A receipt for sweet and sour chicken from the grocery store. Scrawled on the back of it was a question.
What does it mean that the people earned wages and put them in a purse with holes in it?
Dex had hijacked my devotional time!
Panicked, I thumbed through my Bible, looking for the extremely personal poetry, musings and notes to God that I sometimes wrote on the back of church bulletins and making sure The List, safely hidden in the Song of Songs, hadn’t been tampered with.
I breathed a sigh of relief when everything seemed to be in its rightful place. Not that Dex had been rifling through my Bible, but still…how had he known I was accidentally reading Haggai?
I skimmed through the verses and found the one he’d questioned. Why did he think I knew what the purses with holes passage meant? I wasn’t exactly a Bible scholar.
I did, however, know purses. They were kind of my specialty. And I was pretty good at finding shoes that matched, too. Encouraging him might not be a good idea, but I couldn’t resist. I grabbed a pen, took out a fresh sticky note and wrote the first thing I thought of when I imagined a rip in my Juicy bag.
You might lose something important.
I put it back in Haggai, chapter one. A booby trap to see if I’d catch a snoopy handyman.
Chapter Seven
Likes children (and not just because he thinks you do) (The List. Number 8)
No one had warned me that Friday was payday at Whiley Implements. There was a line waiting outside the Cut and Curl when I skipped downstairs. I had three walk-ins before I finally figured out why business was so brisk at the salon and that was because one of the women asked me to cash her check so she could get her hair cut.
I hesitated, not sure if Bernice made a practice of this. When the rest of the women lined up by the window noticed me staring at the check, they all came to her rescue and set me straight. Bernice did cash payroll checks but only the first two or three—then she’d remind everyone the Cut and Curl wasn’t a bank and she’d pencil them in while they went to the drive-thru.
Payday turned the salon into a gathering spot for women who hadn’t had time to pamper themselves for two weeks. There were kids playing tag around my shampoo chair and by noon I’d made three pots of coffee.
At the end of the day, just when I was getting ready to indulge in some possible first date scenarios, Annie Carpenter, the youth pastor’s wife, burst in. Her hair was in two loose Laura Ingalls Wilder braids and the yellow sundress she was wearing made her look like a daffodil.
I hadn’t seen her since the gift opening on Sunday. I’d been thinking about her, though, because Bernice had made me promise I’d keep an eye on her over the summer. Annie was a first-time mom and having two babies had to be an adjustment. I’d loved Annie the minute I’d met her, which had been at Faith Community Church the day after I’d met Bernice for the first time. Bernice had told me later she’d never set foot in a church until that morning. It was through Annie and Elise’s influence that Mama B had become a Christian, but she’d also said it had had a lot to do with the message I’d left on her answering machine. Which made me think of another one of Grandma Lowell’s favorite sayings.
God’s timing may not match ours, but it’s always perfect.
“You’re twin-less,” I said as Annie wrapped me in a hug. She smelled like a combination of baby powder and men’s cologne, probably from snuggling with her favorite three people.
“Stephen took the afternoon off so I could sneak out for an hour. When I left, he was practicing his Sunday school lesson on the twins, but he wanted me to invite you over for dinner after church on Sunday. He’s going to grill chicken and I’m practicing potato salad this week.”
Practicing potato salad?
“That sounds great. What can I bring?”
“We got an ice-cream maker on our last anniversary,” Annie said. “The old-fashioned kind. I’ll buy the ingredients if you figure out how it works.”
The phone rang and I leaped toward the counter to answer it. That’s another thing Bernice had forgotten to warn me—the boss and only employee of the Cut and Curl—about. I didn’t know how she made it through the number of appointments scheduled in a day with the phone ringing constantly.
“Cut and Curl.”
“You sound like you own the place,” a teasing voice said.
“Mama B!” I’d been wondering if she’d call. I’d been dying to check in on her but she was on her honeymoon so I’d resisted the temptation. “Where are you?”
“I don’t even want to tell you. It’s too embarrassing.”
“Can
