Fair Game, page 10
part #2 of A Fair to Remember Series
It wasn't as if she was the first attractive woman to cross his path. He had been able to turn his eyes and heart away from similar distractions, knowing they weren't right for him. Why, then, did he find himself so caught up with thoughts of Dinah Mayhew?
He tipped his head back for another swallow.
"Are you planning to park yourself here all day?"
Seth choked on his root beer at the sound of the stern voice behind him.
"We do frown on loitering, you know."
Seth wiped the foam from his chin and grinned at the uniformed guard. "How are you doing, Stephen?"
The guard sauntered nearer and leaned on the railing beside him. "Not bad. Just doing my part to keep crime away from the White City."
"To all appearances, you're doing a fine job of that." He nodded at the peaceful scene around them. "Once people walk onto the fairgrounds, it's almost as if they've stepped into a fantasy world, where none of their everyday troubles can reach them."
Stephen Bridger nodded. "That does make our job easier. We have our share of petty crime, but for the most part, there are enough of us patrolling the grounds that we keep any major crime to a minimum." He slanted a grin at Seth. "You probably see worse on the way to your Bible studies."
"That's for sure." Seth rubbed the back of his neck. "Just the other night, I was walking one of the other teachers home, and we were accosted by a couple of hoodlums."
The grin vanished from Bridger's face. "Was anyone hurt?"
Seth shook his head. "They were just trying to throw a scare into me. A friend is being pressured to throw a fight, and they don't appreciate me interfering."
"You mean you appealed to his conscience instead of his pocketbook?"
"Something like that. I did have a talk with him. I hope it had an effect." Seth turned the empty bottle over in his hands. He hadn't had time to visit with Mac lately. He prayed his friend hadn't given in and gone along with the crooked scheme. If he had, it would never happen just the one time. Once you opened the door to people like that, they thought they owned you.
"That's a tough one." Bridger took his hat off and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "I'll be praying for you. Let me know if there's anything else I can do." Settling the hat back on his head, he strolled off to resume his patrol.
Seth watched him go, feeling better for the encounter. Bridger was a good man, and he was glad they had gotten acquainted during their months at the fair. He was even more glad to be able to call him his friend. The man wore his integrity openly on the surface. A fellow knew exactly who he was dealing with when he talked to Stephen Bridger.
Unlike Dinah Mayhew, who seemed destined to remain an enigma in his mind.
10
Dinah slipped the last file into its place, then retrieved her reticule from her desk drawer and began pulling the pins from her hair.
Millie's eyebrows went up. "What's this? Primping on company time?"
"Hardly company time," Dinah laughed. "Mrs. Johnson and Mr. Thorndyke have been gone for nearly an hour."
"That eases my mind. At least I know you haven't taken Lila's place in line for Mr. Thorndyke's attentions." Millie ducked when Dinah tossed a ball of crumpled paper at her.
"Don't be a goose. I'm going out to dinner tonight, and I want to look my best." Dinah smoothed her hair back into place and replaced the pins, then stood for Millie's inspection. "Do I look all right?"
"You look fine. Who are going with? Does this have anything to do with that note that came for you earlier today?"
Dinah nodded, not bothering to conceal her pleasure.
"Ooh! Dinah has a beau!" Millie planted her elbows on her desk and clasped her hands under her chin. "Tell me everything."
"I haven't any beau. It's my father." Dinah gurgled with laughter at Millie's crestfallen expression. "We haven't seen each other for a long time, and we have a lot of catching up to do, that's all." She looped her reticule over her wrist. "I'll see you in the morning."
Dinah stepped out of the elevator to find her father waiting for her near one of the arches, and her heart skipped at the sight of him. Apparently she wasn't the only one to take pains with her appearance. He wore a herringbone jacket over neatly pressed slacks. A warm glow suffused her at the thought he'd taken special pains to look nice for her.
"I thought we'd try the Café de Marine," he announced. "Have you eaten there before?"
Dinah shook her head and smiled. "That isn't exactly part of my regular route. I've seen it when I passed, but I never thought I'd be eating there."
"Then that will make tonight all the more special." He extended his arm, and she took it, feeling like a princess being escorted to the ball. She didn't try to make conversation while they walked, content just to enjoy the moment as they joined the throngs who strolled the length of the lagoon past the buildings housing the transportation and horticultural exhibits. They passed a number of women with their escorts, and Dinah wondered if any of them could be as happy as she.
Delight shivered through her when he drew up before the restaurant. "It looks like a castle, with all those spires and turrets."
Her father laughed at her excitement. A matter of moments later, they were seated at a small table in the center of the crowded dining room. A waiter handed them their menus before scurrying off toward the kitchen.
Dinah looked around. "I know you must be used to eating in fine places, with all the traveling you do. But I feel a little like a country bumpkin in the midst of all this. I hope I don't do anything to embarrass you."
She opened her menu and took one look at the prices, then gasped and slammed it shut. "Are you sure you want to eat here? This is awfully expensive."
Her father waved away her objections. "This is a special event. I feel like celebrating."
Dinah dared peek at the list of offerings again, then closed the menu and set it back down on the snowy tablecloth. "Why don't you order for me?"
"I'd be happy to." Her father motioned the waiter over. "My daughter will have the smoked Atlantic salmon." He consulted the menu once more. "I believe I'll have the same."
"Very good, sir." The waiter disappeared, and Dinah smiled her appreciation at her father.
"Thank you. This is a lovely place, isn't it?"
Her father reached across the table and covered her hand with his. "Nothing is too good for my little girl."
Dinah felt her cheeks flush. It was all just like a fairy tale.
The waiter returned and filled their water goblets. Before he could turn away, Dinah's father said, "Just a moment, I've changed my mind. I'd like the lobster à la Newburg instead." The waiter nodded and hurried off to attend to his other tables.
Dinah's father sat back and regarded her thoughtfully. "I must say it was very enterprising of you to leave the farm and find a job right here on the fairgrounds. So tell me all about it. I know you work in the Administration Building, but what is it exactly that you do?"
Dinah leaned back to let the waiter slide a plate of salmon in front of her. "It's a perfect job, really. I help keep track of all kinds of details about nearly everything that goes on at the fair, but I'm not stuck inside the office all the time. I carry messages and memoranda here and there, and that takes me outdoors every day."
She gave a little bounce in her chair. "I can hardly believe I'm being paid to wander the fairgrounds and take in all these marvelous sites! If I were to change anything, I'd like to take more time to really see the exhibits here instead of just dashing past them."
She picked up a bit of the smoked salmon on her fork and sampled it. "This is delicious! Thank you for making such a good choice. Now enough about me for the moment. What is it that you do for the Minnesota Threshing Company?"
Her father pleated the edge of the tablecloth. "I always had to travel while you were growing up. It seems like I was away more than I was at home, if you remember."
Dinah took a sip of water to help wash down the salmon, which had suddenly gone dry. She remembered all too well. Her mother had done the best she could to give Dinah a normal life, but nothing could completely ease the ache of having her father gone so much of the time. Nor could her mother's efforts quell the teasing of neighborhood children and their endless taunts about her father's prolonged absences.
"Then when your mother died, there wasn't anyplace to come home to anymore." Her father's voice grew rough.
Dinah pressed her lips together and squeezed his hand. It had been a dreadful time for them both. He had been left without a wife, and she wound up living with Aunt Dora and Uncle Everett.
And Gladys.
He gripped her fingers, then released them. The broad smile she remembered so well creased his cheeks. "But now I've landed the job of a lifetime. Instead of being on the road all the time selling farm implements, they have me in the company headquarters in Minneapolis, training other salesmen. It's as if I spent my whole life getting ready for this, and it just dropped into my lap."
"So you're staying in one place now? You're not traveling anymore?"
He shook his head. "I have a house just outside Minneapolis. They sent me here to represent the company during the fair, but once it's over, I'm going back home." He grinned again. "It's nice to be able to say that again after all these years."
The restaurant seemed to spin around them. Dinah pressed her fingertips to her forehead. This was even better than she had dreamed. "Tell me about Minneapolis."
She spent the rest of the meal eating mechanically, her whole attention focused on her father's stories about fertile farmland, lakes and waterfalls, and the big flour mills in town. When her plate was empty, she set her fork neatly on the rim of her plate and continued to listen, drinking in the description of the place she would be going at the fair's end.
She could already picture herself traveling around with him to see the sights. The house he described wasn't large, but she didn't mind. They wouldn't need much space for the two of them. And she would be in her own home again, cooking, cleaning, and caring for her father, making up for all the long, empty years.
The waiter sidled up beside the table and set the bill at her father's elbow. Dinah held her breath. She had forgotten those exorbitant prices in the joy of being with him again.
Her father turned the bill over, examined it carefully, and chuckled. He pulled several bills from his wallet and laid them on the table, then led Dinah outside into the balmy evening. He chuckled again.
Feeling as though her feet barely touched the ground, Dinah tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. "You seem very pleased about something."
"I am." He guided her across the bridge at the north tip of the lagoon, past the tiny Merchant Tailors pavilion, and into the shadow of the dome of the Illinois Building before he spoke again. "I made out quite well on that deal."
"Deal?"
A chuckle rumbled deep in his chest. "That waiter. When I changed my order, he never bothered to alter the bill. He charged me a good deal less than he should have."
Dinah stumbled to a halt. "Then we need to go back and take care of it."
Her father patted her hand and kept on walking. "Don't worry your head about it. It isn't my fault if they hire waiters who don't pay attention to details like that."
"But the poor man. Suppose he gets in trouble?"
"Something like this is good for him. It will teach him to be more careful in the future. It's a small price to pay for a lesson well learned." He turned toward the right and stopped. "Do any of your wanderings take you to the Midway?"
He pointed ahead to the crowded boulevard before them, with the silhouette of the Ferris wheel etched against the evening sky.
Dinah gaped at the sight.
Her father gave a soft laugh. "I thought not. Let's take a tour of the place, shall we?"
He led her past the Irish Village and through the Libbey Glass Works display. Dinah clung to his arm and enjoyed the sights, feeling like a giddy young girl basking in her father's attention.
"That's probably enough for one evening," he announced. "We'll have plenty of other times together, and there's no sense in trying to see it all at once."
They walked back to the main fairgrounds, where they found a bench on the terrace below the Woman's Building and sat watching the lights that outlined every building in the great Court of Honor. Nearer at hand, fairy lights twinkled along the edge of the Wooded Island.
"Quite a sight, isn't it?"
Dinah could only nod. She knew no words to describe this magical moment and wouldn't have spoken them aloud if she did. Why would she want to disturb the perfection of this most marvelous night of her life?
Her father took one of her hands and sandwiched it between his own. "We need to talk about the future."
Dinah turned to face him, wondering if he could see the pure joy radiating from her eyes. This was a moment she had waited for her entire life.
"Actually..." He gave a self-deprecating little laugh. "I need you to talk to Abby."
"Abby?" Dinah strained to see his face in the waning light.
"You met her at the booth that first day, remember?"
"Of course, but..." Dinah's head whirled and her mind scrambled for anything that would make sense of this sudden change in topic. "What does your coworker have to do with this?"
"Everything." Her father settled back against the bench. He stared out across the rippling waters of the lagoon, and a beatific smile lit his face. "I want you to talk to her, tell her about the good times we had when you were a little girl. Will you do that for me?"
Dinah stared at him, utterly at a loss.
His tone grew reminiscent. "You do remember those grand times we had together, don't you? How I used to carry you piggyback and the picnics we had under the big elm tree. Remember the way you used to come down to the station to see me off? I'll never forget how precious you looked, standing there on the platform and waving like you thought you'd never see me again."
Unease rippled along Dinah's limbs. The piggyback rides ended when she was four or five, and she could recall precisely one picnic, brought about by her own wheedling. As for the times she stood waving goodbye, those memories had long since been shut away in the shadowy recesses of her mind.
"I don't..." She swallowed once, then cleared her throat and tried again. "I don't understand what any of this has to do with Abby. Why should it matter to her what we did together when I was a child?"
"I've asked her to marry me, but she has a few reservations. She wants to talk to you before she agrees to anything."
"But I thought when you wrote and asked me to come... you said you wanted us to be together."
"And so we are." He rubbed her hands between his. "I expected more of a brief visit, though. I never dreamed you'd be so enterprising. Seizing the moment and pulling up stakes like you did—that just goes to show you're a chip off the old block." Her father winked. "But it gives us that much more time here together, and you'll have a chance to talk to Abby more than once in case she needs more convincing than I think."
Dinah felt as though a gaping hole had opened up beneath her. "So... your reason for asking me to come to you was so I could talk to Abby?"
"She wants to be sure I would be a suitable father for her little girl. Her late husband—Hannah's father—wasn't the most reliable man from what I've heard. She told me she didn't want to make the same mistake twice and had to know I would be able to provide a 'stable home,' as she puts it. I thought if she could meet you and find out how well I did with you, it would make all the difference."
"You want to be a good father for Hannah." The words fell from her lips like stones dropping into the lagoon.
Even in the dim light, she could see his eager nod. "She's a little sweetheart. Reminds me a bit of you when you were that age. We'll make a grand family, she and Abby and I. All I need is for you to put in a good word for me."
11
"No date tonight?" Millie's bright glance took in Dinah's droopy appearance.
Dinah forced a tiny smile and gathered up her reticule. "No, not tonight."
"How about joining me for dinner and a stroll around the grounds?"
"I don't think so, Millie, but thanks for asking. I'll see you tomorrow." Not bothering to wait for the elevator, Dinah trudged down the two flights of stairs, intent on making her way home for a meal with Mrs. Purvis and an early bedtime.
How could the mere act of carrying on her normal routine be so draining? This evening she felt as if she had climbed mountains all day instead of a few flights of stairs. Millie might see the bright lights of the fairgrounds as a cure-all for what ailed her, but all Dinah wanted at that moment was to crawl away like an injured dog to lick her wounds in private.
She reached the bottom of the stairs at last and stepped out into the rotunda. Involuntarily, she cast a glance over at the arch where her father had waited for her the previous night, before all her dreams had come crashing down like an avalanche of shattered hopes.
Dinah took a second look and blinked.
Instead of her father, Seth Howell stood waiting. When their gazes locked, he smiled and strode toward her. "Good evening. Would you mind if I escorted you home? I'd like the chance to talk with you."
Dinah opened her mouth to object, then closed it and nodded instead. Far easier to go along with his plans than to expend the energy it would take to argue. Besides, she found something infinitely comforting in Seth's presence... when she wasn't worrying about falling short of his standards.
Seeming to understand her need for silence, he fell into step beside her, and they joined the crowds strolling along the west shore of the lagoon. Seth waited until they were opposite the great golden doorway of the Transportation Building before he spoke.
