Emilie Richards – One Mountain Away (страница 17)

“If I had to guess, I’d say you’re reconsidering them.”

Harmony smiled a little. “What happened next? After you got to town?”

“It was pretty awful.” Charlotte glanced out the window at the expansive lawn stretching away from the house, at the dogwoods in bloom, the magnolias in bud. She hadn’t gotten this far in her journal, and it was hard to find the right words. It had been awful. She still felt a stab of fear when she thought about it, even though she had worked so hard in the intervening years to put that day behind her.

“I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t have any place to go.” She turned back to Harmony. “Was it that way for you when you arrived?”

“I had a friend from middle school who had moved here. That’s why I chose Asheville. Her family gave me a place to stay for the summer, but they’re gone now, living in California. Still, they helped me get on my feet, find a job and car, make some new friends….”

Charlotte didn’t point out that Harmony’s security net was still full of rips and tears. No one knew that better than the girl herself.

“I had a little money,” Charlotte said, “but not much. What the preacher gave me, the little my grandmother had been able to save. It was late by the time we got to town. Bill and Zettie took me to a cheap hotel, and they paid for a week, even though I hated that, because I knew they couldn’t afford it. They told me to call if I couldn’t find a job or a place to live, and they would come and get me. But I knew if they did, I’d never come down from the mountains again, that I’d never find a different path.”

“You must have found one,” Harmony said, looking around, because Charlotte’s house spoke for itself.

“It was the end of the week, and I had one more night at the hotel. I’d walked everywhere, talked to everybody. I bought a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter on sale, and that’s what I ate every day until it was gone, then I bought more. Nobody wanted me. Nobody needed me. I didn’t have any experience. I didn’t have the right kind of clothes. I was desperate, but what does that mean?” She looked at Harmony. “Call the preacher or the Johnstons and admit I’d failed? Rob a bank?”

The last got a smile out of Harmony. “It kind of looks like you did,” she said. “That would explain things.”

Charlotte was glad her story was helping, and telling it was easier than she’d expected. “I was sitting in a café, reading the paper, hoping I’d missed something, some job I could apply for, some lead, anything at all. Two women came in and sat next to me, and ordered breakfast. I’d ordered the day’s special. One egg, a slice of toast, a cup of coffee. Ninety-nine cents. Do you believe that price?”

“Where is that place?”

“Closed, I’m sorry to say. The women ordered these huge breakfasts. Bacon and sausage and French toast. I was so hungry I wanted to steal the food right off their plates.” She saw that Harmony understood, and she reached over and touched her hand again. “You know, I’ve never told anybody that part before.”

“Not everybody would get it.”

Charlotte patted her hand. “I was close to tears, so I started listening to them to keep my mind off my future. One of the women was in her thirties, and I realized she was complaining about how she needed a live-in babysitter for the summer, but nobody wanted a low-paying job like that. Her friend laughed and said that maybe the problem was they didn’t know what to do with two active boys. It would take somebody young and energetic. And stupid, the other woman said, and they both laughed.”

“Nothing like a hard sell, huh?” Harmony said.

“So I stood up and leaned over. And I said, ‘I’m not stupid, but I am looking for a job for the summer and a place to live.’ They looked me over like I’d just crawled out of a tunnel. I knew I had thirty seconds to sell myself. So I told them I had references, that I was from the mountains but I had a high school diploma and, more important, that I really needed the job and the place to stay because my grandmother had just died. I said if that mother hired me, she could be sure I wasn’t going to up and leave—that’s how I said it—because I really didn’t have any other place to go, no matter how much trouble her little boys were, and besides, I had helped my gran teach Sunday School for years, so I knew kids.”

“It’s like somebody put that woman in your path.”

Charlotte considered that. Maybe at the time it had felt that way, but in the years afterward she’d convinced herself that people made their own luck—probably so she could be even prouder of herself for what she had achieved.

“That’s the definition of faith, isn’t it? I honestly don’t know whether I believe that, Harmony, but I do believe this. If life hands you an opportunity, you grab it and hold on to it the way you hold on to a child who’s squirming to be set free. That’s what I did. Mrs. King was never sorry, not for one moment, that she grabbed her own opportunity and hired me. I stayed with the family a couple of years, and by the time they moved away, I wasn’t afraid anymore. I knew I could make it, and I did.”

“Lottie Lou?”

Charlotte felt herself smiling. “My mother’s idea, and I’ll tell you a secret. It’s not even a nickname. It’s the name that was right there on my birth certificate. I changed it legally the moment I had the money to do it, but Charlotte Louise Hale is a fraud.”

“Never a fraud. You’re a kind woman. And all this, this part of your past? That’s why you’re offering me a place to stay?”

Charlotte thought of all the reasons why she had offered, so many more than she could tell the young woman. She had already made herself uncharacteristically vulnerable, and that was enough for one day.

“That’s the reason,” she said. “Because I know what it’s like to need a safe place to get back on your feet. I was homeless. I know what it feels like to worry about where you’ll sleep and whether you’ll be safe. I wanted you to know that I really do understand.”

“Wow.” Harmony’s eyes filled with tears. “But that woman at the restaurant gave you a job, Charlotte.”

“Harmony, you have a job. You don’t need another one.”

“No, you worked for what you got. I’d just be living here and taking up space.” She brightened. “I could cook for you. And clean.”

Charlotte saw that earning her way made all the difference to Harmony. “I have a housekeeper who comes in part-time to clean, but she doesn’t cook. Do you like to cook?”

“I love to when my stomach cooperates. But I’m a vegetarian. I don’t cook meat. And I’ll have to fix things early in the day if I’m working the dinner shift. Would that be okay?”

“Better than okay. I have a small appetite, so I won’t need anything fancy. And I’ll pay for all the groceries.”

“May I do the shopping? You can tell me what you like, and I’ll make sure we have it in the house.”

Charlotte reached over and held out her hand, palm up. “That would be such a big help.”

Harmony slapped the outstretched hand with her own. “You’ve turned things around to make me feel better about this. We both know you’re helping me.”

“Trust me when I say it’s mutual, okay?”

“What could you need that you don’t have already?”

Charlotte tried to smile. What did she need? A thousand “first days” to fix all the mistakes she had made? Her daughter and granddaughter safe in her arms? A chance to tell Ethan she was sorry she had so easily discounted the life they had shared?

“I’ll get back to you on that,” she said. “For now? A friend and a cook.”

“May I look around the kitchen? You know, to see what’s here?”

“I’m officially turning it over to you.”

Harmony looked as if Charlotte had just given her a present. “You won’t be sorry.”

Charlotte wasn’t sure about much in her life, but she was sure she wouldn’t be sorry she had made this offer. No matter how it turned out, what did she have to lose?

Chapter Nine

IF ANALIESE HAD one complaint about the Church of the Covenant, it was the migraine-producing administrative tasks that fell to her. The meetings, the committees, the pledge campaigns, even her association with Covenant Academy, the private school affiliated with the church. On the day that she had heard the call to ministry she had envisioned a different life, filled with prayer and the spiritual needs of her flock. Instead, too often she combed through budgets, fiddled with mission statements, coordinated volunteers and staff alike. Even their competent church administrator couldn’t save her from the worst of it.

During her first week she had realized she would burn out quickly if she allowed her days to be swallowed by paperwork. So she’d made rules. Except for emergencies, Thursdays were devoted to the Sunday service, the sermon and liturgy, and whatever research they required. Fridays were devoted to pastoral calls and counseling.

Usually Fridays were her favorite day of the week, but today she awakened with a vague feeling of dread.

She made two hospital visits before stopping for sandwiches downtown with the new chairman of the finance committee. The young CPA had recently gotten a divorce, and instead of budgets and endowments, they talked about how well he was coping. Well enough, she decided, when he admitted his biggest concern had been who would get custody of their collie. Analiese hoped he would wait a few years before he tried married life a second time, but she was glad he’d ended up with the dog, if not the wife.