Page 27 of The Christmas Mittens
That got the gals wound up. I sat back, nodding along, as they cited every wrong Dominque had committed since she graduated from high school in 1974. Small towns never forget a slight. Everyone was deep into the scandal of ’87 when Dominque and Buster Forks, a local politician, were caught canoodling in the back of the local theater—long since closed, sadly—by his wife when I felt the heat from an assessing eye. Glancing up from the dark blue scarf that would match Anders’ luxurious coat, I found Franny eyeballing me.
“Did I miss a stitch?” I asked and looked back at my scarf. No, it was a nice, neat Suzette stitch.
“Where have you been haring off to from noon until two every day this week?” Franny asked, and the chit-chat about Dominque fell off instantly.
Well shit.
“I’ve been going home to eat lunch,” I lied like a liar with flaming pants.
She cocked a silver eyebrow. “Your house is the other direction.”
Well, double shit. All eyes were now glued to me, many stalling in their knitting. What did Franny do? Stand in her window and watch the world go by with her birding binoculars? Shaking my head, I forced out a gruff, nervous chuckle.
“True, it is, but I’ve been feeling a little blue of late as I do in the winter,” I said and looked around. The Woolverines knew I felt down when the days got shorter. It was no secret. “So I’ve been going for a drive to see the sun a bit. It’s a nice detour out by the Titterman chicken farm.”
They all nodded. All but Franny. She leaned over the pair of booties she was making for the bazaar table to try to peer into my soul.
“You drive all the way out to the Titterman poultry farm?” Franny enquired. I nodded vigorously. “Then where do you go? Last I talked to Larry Kingman, that road was dead-ended for bridge work that the state couldn’t get to last year. So, if you went that way, the only thing to do would be to turn around at the chicken farm or go down Parkers Grave Lane.”
Oh shit. I’d forgotten about the bridge being out. “Yes, that’s right. I travel Parkers Grave Lane to pick up the shortcut to Miller Street.”
Now they were all gaping at me. “But Parkers Grave Lane has no winter maintenance,” Lorna pointed out. “Don’t you get stuck out there?”
Shit. Damn it. Poop. Yes, that route was less traveled than most so the township never plowed it. “Nah, I have a Subaru!” I announced gleefully and expertly led them back into a rousing round of tittle-tattle about the mayor and his wife’s new coat.
The only one who wasn’t talking about a garish yellow coat was Franny. She was watching me like a hawk watches a mouse. I swallowed, gave her a wide smile, and lowered my head to attend to the scarf for Anders. I’d have to be a bit more sneaky from here on out if I wanted to keep my lunchtime rendezvous a secret. Why I felt that they had to be hidden, I wasn’t sure. Maybe I wasn’t ready to admit to the world that I’d found someone new. Maybe if I did announce a new beau, everyone in town who had known Katie forever would think I was beingdisrespectful of her memory. Maybe I was scared of being openly queer in this tiny town in a very red part of the state. Maybe I was all the above, plus a few other things. I put all my attention on my gift for my secret lover and tried not to think too hard about all the maybes in my life.
Chapter Twelve
Friday, December 18
The night of the school play, I found myself in an awkward position.
During our lunch date, we had yet another tumble into his bed for a sizzling frottage session followed by an open-faced sandwich on bold white bread with salmon, lemon, dill, and little shrimp with a side of coleslaw. I enjoyed the smoky, savory sandwich quite a bit. While we’d been eating, I’d mentioned that the school play,Humbug High, a contemporary Christmas Carol set in a fictional high school, was debuting this evening. Anders had grown so animated over the mention that I felt I had to invite him. Which I did. And now I was driving to the middle school with Anders on my left. We both had dressed up a bit, and it felt a lot like an actual date.
“I love how the town and the schools are so festive,” Anders said while I pulled into a narrow slot in a very packed school parking lot. There were people everywhere, hustling around parked cars to get into the heated auditorium. Gilda had remained after classes to help with any last-minute things thatmight have popped up. She was starring as a lunch lady who leads the teenage protagonist to meet three ghosts that change his miserly outlook on things. I’d made a fast stop at the corner mart for a bouquet of flowers, mostly red and white mums, to give to her after the show.
“Yeah, we do like our holiday decorations,” I commented as I turned the ignition off. The engine ticked as it began cooling. I looked over at him. “Uhm, so this is a small town with some pretty conservative attitudes…”
He gave me a knowing, sad smile. “I’ll not grab your ass in public, I promise. I might hold your hand when the lights go down if that’s okay?”
“It’s very okay.” Relief flooded through me.
We exited the car. I grabbed the bouquet, and we jogged to the double doors and pushed into a packed vestibule filled with parents. There were lockers on both sides of us, and a trophy case ahead holding sports mementos from the mid-’50s—when the school had been built—to now. The old gal was showing her age. Nothing had changed much since I’d raced through the halls about twenty years ago. Other than the addition of a computer lab in the late-’90s, no major improvements had been made. The funds simply were not there for our little rural schools, so the paint peeled and the cinder blocks cracked, and we ran fundraisers to fix things.
Several people stopped me to talk. I introduced Anders to them and then neatly pulled him away to find our seats. The mass of proud parents had started to file into the auditorium as we made small talk with Pastor Pete, so we ended up in the next-to-last row. Pete kept glancing at Anders as we settled in, removing our coats and scarves, and placing them on our laps. I pretended not to notice the good pastor checking out my date. Not date. Play friend. Sure, we’ll roll with that.
“Hey, Mitch,” a male voice called from behind us. I turned to find Ralph Jenkins and his wife, Irene, here to watch their grandson in the lead role, grinning at me. “Thanks for hooking me up with that refurbished snowblower. Sure has saved my back.”
“My pleasure.” I smiled at the bald old gent with the big nose. “Glad it’s working out for you. Shoveling is so hard on a man’s back.”
“Amen to that,” Ralph said. My sight darted over his shoulder to light on two huge men, dressed like Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones inMIB, squeezed into seats far too small for their bulk. The same two brutes that I’d seen out at Anders’ camper. They looked horribly out of place amongst the lower-to-middle-class dads, moms, siblings, and grandparents here to see a holiday musical. They both glanced at me at the same time, light blue eyes sharp as Bowie knives, locked on Anders. I spun in my seat and nudged Anders in the side.
“There are two men behind Ralph and his wife who are eyeballing you,” I whispered. His placid expression grew hard. He did not turn to look at the bruisers. He drew in a breath, let it out, and then peeked at me. “Are they a danger to Gilda?”
“No, no, they are no danger to you or Gilda. That I assure you,” he whispered with such intensity that I felt reasonably reassured. I trusted him despite the unknowns in his past. I’d give him a chance, but I would keep a close eye on my child while in his presence. My trust in him with my body was one thing. Me trusting him with my baby was a whole other level of faith that we had not reached yet. “We’ll talk later,” he said softly.
An argument bubbled up inside me, but the lights dimmed at that moment. I fell into a worried silence, my overactive imagination fueling a hundred or so scenarios centered on Anders and his illicit activities. Okay, yes, I’d been involved in afew carnal activities with him, but surely the feds wouldn’t hold those against me.
