Shop On the Corner, page 10
“It might be easier to talk about things another day when I’m not so upset.”
“If I had a bad day and was upset, would you be there for me? Would you want me to share with you or put you off ?”
She sighed. “That’s really not fair.”
“Isn’t it?” He stirred his spoon around in his coffee. “Even Becky Ray knows more about you than I do. I’ve noticed the looks between you two.”
“I’ve been trying to decide when to talk with you sometime about things,” she said in a small voice.
“Well, now is a good time,” he replied.
He heard her draw another deep breath and close her eyes.
“I have some family problems,” she said at last.
He waited.
“You have such a lovely family, Mitchell—your mom, the kids.” She hesitated.
“I also lost my dad, my sister Alise, my brother-in- law, and one of my uncles in the military. I know about hurt in families.”
“It’s not the same. You know my mother died young, too, and my father.”
Mitchell tried to remember if she’d mentioned any other family members. “You said you had a sister, living another kind of life.”
The tears started again, so he figured that must be where part of the problem lay.
“Is she in trouble?” he asked.
She leaned her head back against the sofa. “Yes, but she doesn’t see that. Oh, Mitchell, she was so talented, so gifted. It hurts so much to see what she’s become.”
Through tears and with a little encouragement along the way, she opened up and shared with him finally about all the problems she’d had with her sister.
“I feel so ashamed about her,” she said after telling him about Lillian’s call tonight. “I still can’t believe Georgina would act so mean to our long-time family friends. They’re such good people. They don’t deserve to be treated like that.”
“Neither did you before,” he added.
“Do you think I was wrong to move away and leave? Was it cowardly?” She sniffed. “I’ve thought about that a lot since. Maybe I should have confronted Georgina and Chance, insisted they move out of my house, been tougher.”
“Would you have stayed in Amory, signed the lease for the other shop or bought it, if they had moved away?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Nothing was feeling right somehow. I’d put off for weeks signing any paperwork for the new store, knowing I risked losing the space.”
“Was it only because of your sister that you didn’t make a commitment about the new building you’d located?”
Laura considered his question. “No. If I’m honest, no. I felt restless from the time I first learned the government was taking away the building, tearing down the place I’d always known. I’d already lost the family home.”
She looked down at her lap. “Daddy left the house to me and Georgina. He hoped she might straighten out, want to come home to live with me there. I don’t think he ever imagined she would make me sell it to get her share of the money as soon as he was buried. It was such a pretty place. Mother and Daddy were so proud of it. It had old shady porches, beautiful trees and shrubs in the yard—kind of like your family home—but more Southern in looks. I’ll show you a picture of it someday. It broke my heart to see it sold.”
She took a breath. “Daddy wasn’t unfair about the money either. He actually left Georgina much of his savings, leaving me the business instead. I didn’t have enough to buy out Georgina’s share of the house without going into heavy debt. Then it took all my energy and time afterward to clean out the house when it sold, find a small place to rent, get resettled and keep the business going, pick up all the work Dad used to do. It was a lot to handle even with Bobby and Lillian’s help in the shop.”
“I know that feeling. I remember the load of responsibility that fell on me when my dad died.” He set his cup on the coffee table. “I’d just moved to the apartment above the shop to be more independent but I moved back home with Mom then. The shock and grief was hard for both of us. Mom managed in part by pushing on with her teaching and painting. She’d never worked in the business, never wanted to. She came in to help in what ways she could at first but, like you, I had good people at Quinlan’s to help me through. Then a few years later Mom and I had to meet the additional sorrow of Alise and Hudson’s death and taking on the children, only four and two.”
Mitchell laced his fingers in Laura’s. “Taking on responsibility like we both did makes you grow up earlier, doesn’t it? I didn’t see myself as more carefree before but I realized quickly after Dad died that he carried the load of the business. I just worked there.”
She gave him a small smile. “I know what you mean. I felt overwhelmed at first when Daddy died. I think I almost forgot how to date until I met you.”
“I’m glad you did meet me.” He leaned over to give her a kiss on the cheek. “Do you ever think that maybe you were meant to come here? That there was a Greater Hand at play in your life?”
“You mean God?”
He nodded, realizing they’d never really talked much about faith together.
“Lillian told me that maybe all my restlessness was from God, that He was stirring up my nest to make me want to fly—like the eagle stirs up her nest to get her young ready to leave that snug safe place. I’m a real homebody type. I get attached to people and places. To things.” She grinned at the cup in her hand. “These were my mom and dad’s dishes with the roosters on them. I kept them and many of their things. I’m sentimental and I know I resist change. Even when it’s needed.”
“I remember that Bible story about the eagle. It’s in the Old Testament. It painted a pretty word picture of the mother eagle stirring up her nest to encourage the baby eaglets to fly.” He smiled at her. “Have you ever seen an eagle’s nest? They’re usually on a narrow ledge high up on a rocky mountainside or in the very top of a high tree. Any little eagle looking over the edge of the home nest would be scared silly to leap out. Yet that mother eagle knows they need to fly and she pulls the soft down out of the nest so the sharp sticks underneath poke the babies, making them uncomfortable.”
“After Lillian talked about that story, I looked it up. It’s in Deuteronomy. The other sweet part of the story is that when the little eagles do finally leap out of the nest, she flies above them so the updraft of her big wings holds them up and keeps them safe.”
“Until they sort of get their own wings and can fly safely on their own?”
“Yeah, isn’t that sweet? I guess that’s how God so often takes care of us in hard times, bearing us up, lifting us above problems and helping us.”
“That’s a nice thought.” He propped a foot on the coffee table. “I think I’ve always loved eagles. Mom did a painting of eagles for me for my birthday once. I have it in my apartment.”
“You need to invite me up so I can see it,” she said.
He shrugged. “I thought you might think I was putting too big a rush on you, asking you to my place.”
“Well, you’ve been to mine often enough.”
He grinned. “Your place is a lot bigger than mine and more colorful. I’m a plain tans and neutrals kind of guy. But you’re welcome any time.”
She twisted her hands in her lap. “Thanks for pushing me to talk and share tonight. I was so embarrassed when you came by. I hate people seeing me cry, and I knew you didn’t know anything about my sister and all my problems yet. But I admit it’s been good having you here, Mitchell.”
He glanced at his watch. “I’d hoped to take you out to eat tonight. It’s getting late. Are you hungry?”
“I am, but I don’t want to go out.”
“I could go pick something up and bring it back,” he suggested.
She glanced toward the kitchen. “No. Let me fix something here for us. You’re always taking me out and won’t ever let me pay. Let me make dinner for us. It will be good for me to do something useful.” She paused. “I have frozen shrimp in the freezer and the makings for shrimp with linguine. Would that be okay with you? I like it with edamame beans as a side, and I can slice one of those nice tomatoes I picked up at the market. What do you think? I’m actually a pretty good cook. I had to learn when Mama died. Georgina was off at college and Daddy was really pretty helpless in the kitchen.”
“That sounds great. I’m handy in the kitchen, too. Will you let me help?”
“Okay. We’ll work on dinner together.”
Mitchell spent the next hour congenially working with Laura in the kitchen to make dinner. She seemed less upset now and he felt glad he’d pushed her to let him stay and pushed her to talk with him. She’d had a rough and disappointing time with her sister and he could tell how much it hurt her.
They sat down in Laura’s little dining room beside the kitchen when everything was ready. As he forked into the shrimp and linguine dish he could tell she’d underestimated her cooking skills. “This is great, a really good dish.” He glanced at the beans. “I’ve never had these beans before, kind of like limas. How did you pronounce the name?”
“It’s pronounced eh-da-MAH-may. It’s a vegetable type soybean. When cooked, they’re really good for you, high in fiber and vitamins.”
They ate for a while, both hungry.
After a time, she said, “The main reason I didn’t tell you about my sister was because I thought you might think I was cruel to simply run off and leave her, without leaving an address. Basically, leaving her only a Dear John letter.”
He looked across the table at her. “What did you tell her in the letter?”
“That I was sorry we’d become so different in so many ways. I told her I hadn’t been happy with them staying with me, not helping out in any way, always borrowing money they never repaid, making fun of me, and never thanking me for cooking for them and cleaning up after them. I was honest and said I hadn’t liked them drinking and doing drugs in my house. I told Georgina it had really hurt me, too, how she’d acted and all the things she and Chance had said to me. I explained that when I decided to move to another town with Daddy’s shop closing, I also decided it would be best for us to not keep in touch for a time. That my heart needed some time to heal. I told her I loved her and that I hoped her life would be happy.”
“That sounds honest.”
“I tried to be.” She sipped her iced tea, obviously thinking back. “I told her I knew she might think it cowardly of me to leave without talking to her first, but that all the times I’d tried to talk to her before hadn’t worked out well. I explained that all the furniture I’d left at the house she and Chance could have, that I’d paid the rent for March and April for them, and all the other bills, like the utilities, and that if they wanted to renew the lease and stay they could. I gave them the name and number for the landlady, told Georgina the amount of the monthly rent. It was reasonable.”
Laura looked away then. “I also left her a thousand dollars. I didn’t even tell Lillian that. I knew they’d been evicted from their place in Nashville. I thought if they didn’t want to find work and stay in Amory that they could use the money to help them move to wherever they wanted to go.”
“You didn’t have to do that. It sounds like you’d done enough already and only been exploited, unappreciated, and taken advantage of.”
“That’s probably true, but I wanted to look back and think, that despite all, I had been generous and kind. I really love my sister, even after all the unkind things she’s done. She’s the only close family I have now. I think that makes it all feel worse. I wish we could be close, and I’d like to at least think she likes me. But, apparently, she doesn’t. She says I haven’t done much with my life, that I don’t know what it’s like to have a dream. Maybe I don’t.”
Mitchell reached a hand across the table to take hers. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You were running from a difficult situation that wasn’t going to improve. I heard, mixed in with your story earlier, that they were both often high on drugs and drank heavily. Those problems can become addictive and distort and change people’s lives. I hope, as your friend Lillian says, that Georgina has a wakeup call in future. Despite any talent that she or Chance have, an involvement with drugs and alcohol will ruin their chances for any real success or joy.”
“That’s the part that scared me the most then, I think. I didn’t know how to deal with those things, what to do or say.”
“If you’d been candid in every way with your sister, she would still have been angry with you. She wanted money, even what was legitimately yours. Her heart wasn’t right, Laura. You can’t fault yourself for that. If you’d told her where you were going, I think she and Chance would have continually bled you for more money. You weren’t wrong to shield yourself from that in some way. The situation might have become nasty, too.”
“I didn’t want it to end that way, becoming nasty, me having to contact the police to get them out of my home, to tell the authorities how my sister and her boyfriend stole money and things from me. After Lillian put the idea in my head about just leaving, it seemed the best solution somehow.” She bit her lip. “I had to take Becky partially into my confidence, to ask her not to tell people about my problems and where I’d come from. She was the realtor who handled the sale of the shop, so there were things I had to tell her.”
He nodded. “You do know that if Chance and Georgina really want to find you they probably can. Not telling people around here where you came from or being evasive about your family and your past won’t really protect you, Laura. I work in the staffing business. Every day we track down people’s background information to see if they’re being truthful for jobs. It isn’t that hard.”
“Do you think she’ll try to find me, try to track me down?”
“Probably not for a while. She’s moved away, resettled somewhere. She’s probably mad, too, right now.” He stopped to think. “Had you ever visited here before? Do you have family around this area that will make her think you might have come here?”
“No. Daddy’s people came from the Montgomery, Alabama, area. Many of them still live near Montgomery in a little town called Dothan, although my grandfather is gone now. Daddy’s mother lives near my dad’s older sister, my Aunt Dorothy. We used to drive over there to see them sometimes.” She ate a last bite of shrimp. “Mother’s father was a Methodist minister. They moved around a lot, but when Grandad Baylor retired, he and my grandmother moved to live in Gulfport, Mississippi, in a retirement community near their son Tom. It was fun to go down there for visits and to go to the beach. When we vacationed, it was usually to family in Alabama and Mississippi. I’d never been to Waynesville or even to North Carolina before I came here.”
She made a face. “I started looking at retail places far away from family, knowing Georgina would expect me to go to live near them. That she might call or bother them looking for me. She might have already. I know I’ll need to let my family know in time where I’ve moved.”
He smiled at her. “It was brave of you choosing a place you’d never even visited for a new home.”
She smiled back at him and he was glad to see her smiling a little again. “The pictures on the Internet of the town with all the cute awnings over most of the businesses simply charmed me, and the mountain scenes looked so pretty.”
She paused for a minute thinking back. “I called Re/Max about a retail building for sale on Main Street originally. Then after Becky began to ask me a few questions, she told me she actually had an upholstery shop for sale. As she talked about it and mentioned that it sat a block off Main Street and right on a corner it just seemed like a sign or something. The more I learned about it and saw the pictures of it, the more it seemed custom made for me.”
Laura smiled at the memory. “So I did one of the first impulsive things ever in my life and bought it. The government paid well for the building I owned on the corner in Amory. I was easily able to afford the cost of Renfree’s, even with all the furnishings. Becky teased me and said I should bring my store sign Shop on the Corner so I did. The movers also brought our store van, with the name on the side of it, and I packed the store’s work aprons and other items with Shop on the Corner written on them, too. I brought a lot of the old family store in Mississippi to the new one here.”
“Well, it seems to me like you were meant to come here, Laura O’Dell.” He winked at her. “If only to meet me.”
She laughed. “I admit that has been a perk.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re feeling better now after I pushed my way in on you tonight.”
Laura got up to take their plates to the kitchen. “I have some Neapolitan ice cream in the refrigerator. Do you want some?”
“Yes, one of my favorites. Did you know that Neopolitan immigrants, who came to the U.S. from Naples in the 1800s, first introduced ice creams with multiple flavors molded together? Their first concoction was spumoni, with chocolate and pistachio layers of ice cream with fruit and nuts between.”
“I didn’t know that. I always wondered at the name though.”
“I take no credit for finding that knowledge. Mother looked it up and told me.”
Laura got the ice cream out of the freezer and began to scoop out some for each of them. “I really like your mother. She came by here to visit, see the shop, my apartment and her paintings, and she took me to the Art Council to meet some the staff and her friends.”
“Actually, one of the reasons I dropped by tonight was because Mother wanted me to invite you to come to church with us this Sunday and then over to Nannie V’s for lunch. That’s Dad’s mother, Viola Quinlan. I think the plan has expanded now to also include Mother’s mom, Mary Dawson—who we call Mimi—and her sister Frances Killian, that she lives with. After both their husbands died, my Mimi moved closer into town to live with her sister Frances. They’re a case, those two. Will you consider it?”
She brought their ice cream back to the table. “They will probably all ask about my family, about where I’m from. It’s only natural. What should I say, Mitchell?”
“Well, I think you’ve evaded people long enough. It makes people imagine the worst scenarios. I think I’d just tell people a simplified version of the truth.”
“If I had a bad day and was upset, would you be there for me? Would you want me to share with you or put you off ?”
She sighed. “That’s really not fair.”
“Isn’t it?” He stirred his spoon around in his coffee. “Even Becky Ray knows more about you than I do. I’ve noticed the looks between you two.”
“I’ve been trying to decide when to talk with you sometime about things,” she said in a small voice.
“Well, now is a good time,” he replied.
He heard her draw another deep breath and close her eyes.
“I have some family problems,” she said at last.
He waited.
“You have such a lovely family, Mitchell—your mom, the kids.” She hesitated.
“I also lost my dad, my sister Alise, my brother-in- law, and one of my uncles in the military. I know about hurt in families.”
“It’s not the same. You know my mother died young, too, and my father.”
Mitchell tried to remember if she’d mentioned any other family members. “You said you had a sister, living another kind of life.”
The tears started again, so he figured that must be where part of the problem lay.
“Is she in trouble?” he asked.
She leaned her head back against the sofa. “Yes, but she doesn’t see that. Oh, Mitchell, she was so talented, so gifted. It hurts so much to see what she’s become.”
Through tears and with a little encouragement along the way, she opened up and shared with him finally about all the problems she’d had with her sister.
“I feel so ashamed about her,” she said after telling him about Lillian’s call tonight. “I still can’t believe Georgina would act so mean to our long-time family friends. They’re such good people. They don’t deserve to be treated like that.”
“Neither did you before,” he added.
“Do you think I was wrong to move away and leave? Was it cowardly?” She sniffed. “I’ve thought about that a lot since. Maybe I should have confronted Georgina and Chance, insisted they move out of my house, been tougher.”
“Would you have stayed in Amory, signed the lease for the other shop or bought it, if they had moved away?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Nothing was feeling right somehow. I’d put off for weeks signing any paperwork for the new store, knowing I risked losing the space.”
“Was it only because of your sister that you didn’t make a commitment about the new building you’d located?”
Laura considered his question. “No. If I’m honest, no. I felt restless from the time I first learned the government was taking away the building, tearing down the place I’d always known. I’d already lost the family home.”
She looked down at her lap. “Daddy left the house to me and Georgina. He hoped she might straighten out, want to come home to live with me there. I don’t think he ever imagined she would make me sell it to get her share of the money as soon as he was buried. It was such a pretty place. Mother and Daddy were so proud of it. It had old shady porches, beautiful trees and shrubs in the yard—kind of like your family home—but more Southern in looks. I’ll show you a picture of it someday. It broke my heart to see it sold.”
She took a breath. “Daddy wasn’t unfair about the money either. He actually left Georgina much of his savings, leaving me the business instead. I didn’t have enough to buy out Georgina’s share of the house without going into heavy debt. Then it took all my energy and time afterward to clean out the house when it sold, find a small place to rent, get resettled and keep the business going, pick up all the work Dad used to do. It was a lot to handle even with Bobby and Lillian’s help in the shop.”
“I know that feeling. I remember the load of responsibility that fell on me when my dad died.” He set his cup on the coffee table. “I’d just moved to the apartment above the shop to be more independent but I moved back home with Mom then. The shock and grief was hard for both of us. Mom managed in part by pushing on with her teaching and painting. She’d never worked in the business, never wanted to. She came in to help in what ways she could at first but, like you, I had good people at Quinlan’s to help me through. Then a few years later Mom and I had to meet the additional sorrow of Alise and Hudson’s death and taking on the children, only four and two.”
Mitchell laced his fingers in Laura’s. “Taking on responsibility like we both did makes you grow up earlier, doesn’t it? I didn’t see myself as more carefree before but I realized quickly after Dad died that he carried the load of the business. I just worked there.”
She gave him a small smile. “I know what you mean. I felt overwhelmed at first when Daddy died. I think I almost forgot how to date until I met you.”
“I’m glad you did meet me.” He leaned over to give her a kiss on the cheek. “Do you ever think that maybe you were meant to come here? That there was a Greater Hand at play in your life?”
“You mean God?”
He nodded, realizing they’d never really talked much about faith together.
“Lillian told me that maybe all my restlessness was from God, that He was stirring up my nest to make me want to fly—like the eagle stirs up her nest to get her young ready to leave that snug safe place. I’m a real homebody type. I get attached to people and places. To things.” She grinned at the cup in her hand. “These were my mom and dad’s dishes with the roosters on them. I kept them and many of their things. I’m sentimental and I know I resist change. Even when it’s needed.”
“I remember that Bible story about the eagle. It’s in the Old Testament. It painted a pretty word picture of the mother eagle stirring up her nest to encourage the baby eaglets to fly.” He smiled at her. “Have you ever seen an eagle’s nest? They’re usually on a narrow ledge high up on a rocky mountainside or in the very top of a high tree. Any little eagle looking over the edge of the home nest would be scared silly to leap out. Yet that mother eagle knows they need to fly and she pulls the soft down out of the nest so the sharp sticks underneath poke the babies, making them uncomfortable.”
“After Lillian talked about that story, I looked it up. It’s in Deuteronomy. The other sweet part of the story is that when the little eagles do finally leap out of the nest, she flies above them so the updraft of her big wings holds them up and keeps them safe.”
“Until they sort of get their own wings and can fly safely on their own?”
“Yeah, isn’t that sweet? I guess that’s how God so often takes care of us in hard times, bearing us up, lifting us above problems and helping us.”
“That’s a nice thought.” He propped a foot on the coffee table. “I think I’ve always loved eagles. Mom did a painting of eagles for me for my birthday once. I have it in my apartment.”
“You need to invite me up so I can see it,” she said.
He shrugged. “I thought you might think I was putting too big a rush on you, asking you to my place.”
“Well, you’ve been to mine often enough.”
He grinned. “Your place is a lot bigger than mine and more colorful. I’m a plain tans and neutrals kind of guy. But you’re welcome any time.”
She twisted her hands in her lap. “Thanks for pushing me to talk and share tonight. I was so embarrassed when you came by. I hate people seeing me cry, and I knew you didn’t know anything about my sister and all my problems yet. But I admit it’s been good having you here, Mitchell.”
He glanced at his watch. “I’d hoped to take you out to eat tonight. It’s getting late. Are you hungry?”
“I am, but I don’t want to go out.”
“I could go pick something up and bring it back,” he suggested.
She glanced toward the kitchen. “No. Let me fix something here for us. You’re always taking me out and won’t ever let me pay. Let me make dinner for us. It will be good for me to do something useful.” She paused. “I have frozen shrimp in the freezer and the makings for shrimp with linguine. Would that be okay with you? I like it with edamame beans as a side, and I can slice one of those nice tomatoes I picked up at the market. What do you think? I’m actually a pretty good cook. I had to learn when Mama died. Georgina was off at college and Daddy was really pretty helpless in the kitchen.”
“That sounds great. I’m handy in the kitchen, too. Will you let me help?”
“Okay. We’ll work on dinner together.”
Mitchell spent the next hour congenially working with Laura in the kitchen to make dinner. She seemed less upset now and he felt glad he’d pushed her to let him stay and pushed her to talk with him. She’d had a rough and disappointing time with her sister and he could tell how much it hurt her.
They sat down in Laura’s little dining room beside the kitchen when everything was ready. As he forked into the shrimp and linguine dish he could tell she’d underestimated her cooking skills. “This is great, a really good dish.” He glanced at the beans. “I’ve never had these beans before, kind of like limas. How did you pronounce the name?”
“It’s pronounced eh-da-MAH-may. It’s a vegetable type soybean. When cooked, they’re really good for you, high in fiber and vitamins.”
They ate for a while, both hungry.
After a time, she said, “The main reason I didn’t tell you about my sister was because I thought you might think I was cruel to simply run off and leave her, without leaving an address. Basically, leaving her only a Dear John letter.”
He looked across the table at her. “What did you tell her in the letter?”
“That I was sorry we’d become so different in so many ways. I told her I hadn’t been happy with them staying with me, not helping out in any way, always borrowing money they never repaid, making fun of me, and never thanking me for cooking for them and cleaning up after them. I was honest and said I hadn’t liked them drinking and doing drugs in my house. I told Georgina it had really hurt me, too, how she’d acted and all the things she and Chance had said to me. I explained that when I decided to move to another town with Daddy’s shop closing, I also decided it would be best for us to not keep in touch for a time. That my heart needed some time to heal. I told her I loved her and that I hoped her life would be happy.”
“That sounds honest.”
“I tried to be.” She sipped her iced tea, obviously thinking back. “I told her I knew she might think it cowardly of me to leave without talking to her first, but that all the times I’d tried to talk to her before hadn’t worked out well. I explained that all the furniture I’d left at the house she and Chance could have, that I’d paid the rent for March and April for them, and all the other bills, like the utilities, and that if they wanted to renew the lease and stay they could. I gave them the name and number for the landlady, told Georgina the amount of the monthly rent. It was reasonable.”
Laura looked away then. “I also left her a thousand dollars. I didn’t even tell Lillian that. I knew they’d been evicted from their place in Nashville. I thought if they didn’t want to find work and stay in Amory that they could use the money to help them move to wherever they wanted to go.”
“You didn’t have to do that. It sounds like you’d done enough already and only been exploited, unappreciated, and taken advantage of.”
“That’s probably true, but I wanted to look back and think, that despite all, I had been generous and kind. I really love my sister, even after all the unkind things she’s done. She’s the only close family I have now. I think that makes it all feel worse. I wish we could be close, and I’d like to at least think she likes me. But, apparently, she doesn’t. She says I haven’t done much with my life, that I don’t know what it’s like to have a dream. Maybe I don’t.”
Mitchell reached a hand across the table to take hers. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You were running from a difficult situation that wasn’t going to improve. I heard, mixed in with your story earlier, that they were both often high on drugs and drank heavily. Those problems can become addictive and distort and change people’s lives. I hope, as your friend Lillian says, that Georgina has a wakeup call in future. Despite any talent that she or Chance have, an involvement with drugs and alcohol will ruin their chances for any real success or joy.”
“That’s the part that scared me the most then, I think. I didn’t know how to deal with those things, what to do or say.”
“If you’d been candid in every way with your sister, she would still have been angry with you. She wanted money, even what was legitimately yours. Her heart wasn’t right, Laura. You can’t fault yourself for that. If you’d told her where you were going, I think she and Chance would have continually bled you for more money. You weren’t wrong to shield yourself from that in some way. The situation might have become nasty, too.”
“I didn’t want it to end that way, becoming nasty, me having to contact the police to get them out of my home, to tell the authorities how my sister and her boyfriend stole money and things from me. After Lillian put the idea in my head about just leaving, it seemed the best solution somehow.” She bit her lip. “I had to take Becky partially into my confidence, to ask her not to tell people about my problems and where I’d come from. She was the realtor who handled the sale of the shop, so there were things I had to tell her.”
He nodded. “You do know that if Chance and Georgina really want to find you they probably can. Not telling people around here where you came from or being evasive about your family and your past won’t really protect you, Laura. I work in the staffing business. Every day we track down people’s background information to see if they’re being truthful for jobs. It isn’t that hard.”
“Do you think she’ll try to find me, try to track me down?”
“Probably not for a while. She’s moved away, resettled somewhere. She’s probably mad, too, right now.” He stopped to think. “Had you ever visited here before? Do you have family around this area that will make her think you might have come here?”
“No. Daddy’s people came from the Montgomery, Alabama, area. Many of them still live near Montgomery in a little town called Dothan, although my grandfather is gone now. Daddy’s mother lives near my dad’s older sister, my Aunt Dorothy. We used to drive over there to see them sometimes.” She ate a last bite of shrimp. “Mother’s father was a Methodist minister. They moved around a lot, but when Grandad Baylor retired, he and my grandmother moved to live in Gulfport, Mississippi, in a retirement community near their son Tom. It was fun to go down there for visits and to go to the beach. When we vacationed, it was usually to family in Alabama and Mississippi. I’d never been to Waynesville or even to North Carolina before I came here.”
She made a face. “I started looking at retail places far away from family, knowing Georgina would expect me to go to live near them. That she might call or bother them looking for me. She might have already. I know I’ll need to let my family know in time where I’ve moved.”
He smiled at her. “It was brave of you choosing a place you’d never even visited for a new home.”
She smiled back at him and he was glad to see her smiling a little again. “The pictures on the Internet of the town with all the cute awnings over most of the businesses simply charmed me, and the mountain scenes looked so pretty.”
She paused for a minute thinking back. “I called Re/Max about a retail building for sale on Main Street originally. Then after Becky began to ask me a few questions, she told me she actually had an upholstery shop for sale. As she talked about it and mentioned that it sat a block off Main Street and right on a corner it just seemed like a sign or something. The more I learned about it and saw the pictures of it, the more it seemed custom made for me.”
Laura smiled at the memory. “So I did one of the first impulsive things ever in my life and bought it. The government paid well for the building I owned on the corner in Amory. I was easily able to afford the cost of Renfree’s, even with all the furnishings. Becky teased me and said I should bring my store sign Shop on the Corner so I did. The movers also brought our store van, with the name on the side of it, and I packed the store’s work aprons and other items with Shop on the Corner written on them, too. I brought a lot of the old family store in Mississippi to the new one here.”
“Well, it seems to me like you were meant to come here, Laura O’Dell.” He winked at her. “If only to meet me.”
She laughed. “I admit that has been a perk.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re feeling better now after I pushed my way in on you tonight.”
Laura got up to take their plates to the kitchen. “I have some Neapolitan ice cream in the refrigerator. Do you want some?”
“Yes, one of my favorites. Did you know that Neopolitan immigrants, who came to the U.S. from Naples in the 1800s, first introduced ice creams with multiple flavors molded together? Their first concoction was spumoni, with chocolate and pistachio layers of ice cream with fruit and nuts between.”
“I didn’t know that. I always wondered at the name though.”
“I take no credit for finding that knowledge. Mother looked it up and told me.”
Laura got the ice cream out of the freezer and began to scoop out some for each of them. “I really like your mother. She came by here to visit, see the shop, my apartment and her paintings, and she took me to the Art Council to meet some the staff and her friends.”
“Actually, one of the reasons I dropped by tonight was because Mother wanted me to invite you to come to church with us this Sunday and then over to Nannie V’s for lunch. That’s Dad’s mother, Viola Quinlan. I think the plan has expanded now to also include Mother’s mom, Mary Dawson—who we call Mimi—and her sister Frances Killian, that she lives with. After both their husbands died, my Mimi moved closer into town to live with her sister Frances. They’re a case, those two. Will you consider it?”
She brought their ice cream back to the table. “They will probably all ask about my family, about where I’m from. It’s only natural. What should I say, Mitchell?”
“Well, I think you’ve evaded people long enough. It makes people imagine the worst scenarios. I think I’d just tell people a simplified version of the truth.”
