Wielding a cloth as though he were scrubbing the finish off the buffet, Tom Tweedle banged his arm into the metal pan warmers.  Why do I have to wipe up spills that I paid Arley to do?
        Ever since Liddy Underhill had become a boarder, he found himself obsessed with cleanliness.  He hovered during meals with his crumb brush and dustpan, a damp cloth hanging out of his pocket.  If a guest dropped a utensil, he reacted almost before the clang of metal on wood.  Diners dared not leave the table without posting lookouts, in case Tom swooped in to clear their areas.
        On this last Tuesday evening of October, the north wind whipped in off Little Trot Mountain, barreling through oaks and shaking the drafty boardinghouse.  No one will be sitting on the porch tonight.  
 
After the diners retired to their rooms or left for home and he’d washed and put away the dishes, Tom took his polishing cloth to the dining table in the center of the room.  He shined it to a satiny gloss.  The chandelier above it provided the best light now that the sun had disappeared.  He  moved the chairs away so Liddy could stand close to the table.  He mopped the waxed floorboards.
        Usually content in his solitude, Tom—cook, dishwasher and janitor—felt edgy and conflicted.  At supper, Liddy had asked to use a table to cut out her wedding dress.  The soon-to-be-groom had left after his mother’s funeral to parts unknown.  Like he was running away from something.
        Before Tom realized it, he spoke.  “That rat!  Treatin’ Liddy like a piece of trash.  Not even seein’ her to the door after the buryin’.  What does she see in him anyway?”  
  
Tom pulled down the “Dining Room Closed” shade.  He checked in the mirror by the door to be sure no food stained his shirt.  He slicked down his dark hair, ran his tongue over his teeth, and rubbed the cloth over his shoes.
        Then he opened the door to the first-floor hall and the stairwell to the second story.  Pulling himself up with the help of the banister, he hobbled to Liddy’s door and tapped lightly.
        “Miss Liddy, the table’s ready.”  
  
Back downstairs, Tom left the door
ajar and busied himself at the buffet, checking that the clean cloth-covered silverware faced down.  He hefted the opaque salt and pepper shakers to see if they needed filling.  He eyed the pepper sauce bottles to make sure they were full.  The diners doused their turnip greens with this specialty of the house that he cooked himself—the recipe his granddaddy had passed down to his mother and his mother gave to him.
        At the creak of the door, Tom looked up.  Liddy, her arms full of sewing goods, closed the door with her foot.  Balanced atop the material were a pattern envelope, scissors, and a rose-colored cushion, whose silver pins reflected the light as she glided to the table.
        “Real nice of you to let me do this down here, Tom.”  She smiled shyly.  “My bed wouldn’t have worked very well as a cutting table, and it was too dark on the floor for close work.  Not that it’s dark in my room, mind you…”  She needn’t have worried that he would take her words as criticism.   
        “Oh, no,” he said.  “Glad you asked.  I’ll sit over here at the counter, out of your way and…”
        “No,” the young woman interrupted.  “I’d like it if you sat…” and she motioned across the table.  “That is, if you’re not too busy.”  
  
Tom was eager to be near Liddy, so he locked the register and the front door and limped over, pulling a wooden chair that he turned backwards and straddled.  He crossed his arms over the back and watched, a smile playing about his eyes.
        Liddy laid her scissors, pattern and pins on a nearby chair, and unfolded the ivory crepe.  She opened the envelope and pulled out the directions, to find out whether to fold the material lengthwise or crossways.
        “Mrs. Whipple warned us about how crepe crawls—how hard it is to sew together without puckering.  Maybe I should have chosen a different fabric,” she said.  “Too late, though.  I’m bound to do this right, or else.”  
        “Who’s Mrs. Whipple?” Tom asked, guessing she must have been a teacher or a neighbor.  He felt the tension in his upper body lessen.  Dropping his chin on his arms, he waited for her answer.  
  
While she straightened, pinned and cut, Liddy regaled Tom with stories of Mrs. Whipple’s home economics classes—how Liddy had scratched the marble table with her and Lewie Cooper’s initials, the only time she “got in trouble” at school.  She described the green-and-white checked material her mother had bought for her first dress project, a horrid garment with white waffle pique collar and cuffs, that Liddy never wore.
        Tom kept his eyes glued to her face.  Her skin glowed under the sparkling light.  Like an angel.  Little did he suspect why.  Men didn’t usually pick up on such things.
        Liddy stabbed the air with her scissors as she talked about the county fair competition, when she and CoraMaude had to test their fashion sense by choosing the best blouses to go with different skirts, the most suitable accessories for a black dress.
        “We lost,” she said with a laugh.  “Anyone who’d make a gored dress out of checkered material—we didn’t have a chance against the girls from bigger schools.”  
  
Immersed in the sound of her voice and her innocence, Tom forgot time.  When he broke from his reverie, Liddy was staring beyond him, her face as white as the cloth covering the silverware.
        “Could I have a glass of water, Tom?” she asked, and stumbled to the nearest chair.  “And a cracker, if you have one.”
        Tom hobbled as fast as he could to the water jug on the counter, grabbed a glass from the open shelf and filled it.  He reached into the cracker bin on the buffet.  He wondered for a second if he should wash his hands, but her look frightened him, and he hurried back.

         In the sudden quiet of the room, Tom noticed that the wind had died, as if it had tucked itself into the treetops with the squirrels and gone to sleep. Liddy drank a sip or two and devoured the cracker.
        “Guess I just got hungry,” she said.  “I usually have a snack about now.  Sorry to bother you.”
        “Would you like a cup of ginseng tea?” Tom asked.  “Or is it too late?”
        “I’m finished with the dress. That crepe wasn’t as hard to cut as I thought.  Yes, I’ll drink a cup if you will.” She stood up, swayed for an instant, then gathered her things.  Pushing the stack to the end of the table, she drew the chair close and sat.
        “I can’t believe I talked so much tonight, Tom. Why didn’t you shush me?  I don’t know why…”
        Tom waved his hand in protest.  “Oh no, I enjoyed hearing about your school capers.”
        Neither of them spoke.  Liddy closed her eyes and rubbed the back of her neck.  Tom flicked the fabric lint from the table.
        He broke the silence.  “So you knew Heth Coursey before you came to St. Luke?  I thought you met him after you moved here.”
        “My mother met him first.  She told me about this skinny young peddler who would drop by when he ran out of something his customers wanted.  I guess we always had what he needed.”
        Her last sentence hung in the air like a maple seedpod on a March wind. Tom winced, reflecting on its larger meaning, but he knew this sweet girl did not intend such a message.  
  
Liddy ran her fingers over the polished wood of the table.  “I remember the first time I saw him.”  She sipped her tea.  “It was early June.  My high school days were over.  I was restocking the lower shelves and Mother was in the back totting up the ledger.”
        Tom had never seen her mother.  He would, though, when she brought her three other children over for their sister’s wedding.  He wondered where Liddy got her good looks, her black hair with the slightest curls wisping around her fine face.
        “‘I need some blueing,’ this deep voice above me said. ‘Mought this establishment have some I could bargain for?’” Liddy mimicked, and Tom grinned.
        “I looked up into this thin-faced, brown-haired peddler, who took off his hat, and I knew he was the one Mother had told me about. Can you imagine how embarrassed I was when I realized I was gawking at him from a squatting position?  Thank goodness I’d worn my gathered skirt—the ugly green and orange feed sack one.” She grimaced.  “But that’s another story.”
        “Did your mother ever come to the counter?”
        Liddy shook her head.  “I felt red running up my neck, and somehow I pulled myself up and stood eye-to-eye with this handsome hayseed of a customer.  ‘Name’s Coursey, Heth Coursey, area peddler of various and sundry necessaries for the discerning lady.  Of which I take you to be one, Miss…’  He stuck out a long-fingered hand, never taking his eyes off me.  I know, because I never stopped looking into them.”  
  
Liddy made a mock bow, then crumpled to the floor.  For a split second, Tom thought she was still playacting.  But when she didn’t move, he knew something was wrong.  His chair crashed to the floor as he untangled his gimpy leg from the bottom rung.  He limped around the end of the table.  Liddy’s eyes were closed.
        What to do?  What to do?  Tom wrung his hands as his granny had done when he was sick.  A wet cloth on her face?  A sip of water?  Yes, Granny would do that.  He ran to the kitchen and came back with a clean dish towel.  He got down on his knees and laid the cold cloth over her young face.  What if it doesn’t work?  Did the tea make her sick?  
        But Liddy roused and opened her eyes.  “What in the world?  Tom, what happened?  Why am I on the floor?”
        “You fainted, I guess.”  He recreated the scene with his hands. “One minute you were acting out your meeting with Heth and the next, you were…” 
        “I’d better get to my room.  It’s late. Thanks again for letting me work down here, Tom. And for listening to me carry on so.  I don’t know why I…”
        “Glad to.  I’ll take your stuff,” though he’d rather have scooped her up and carried her over the threshold like Heth would soon get to do.  They turned toward the inner hall and climbed the stairs.  At her door, she took the sewing materials back, said goodnight, and entered the room.
        “Will you be all right?” Tom said.  She smiled, nodded and touched his outstretched hand.
        “Thank you,” she whispered, and closed the door.
        Tom floated downstairs and turned off the lights.  In the darkness, he raised to his warm cheek the hand that Liddy had touched.  He smiled.
  
   
   
                About The Author                  
   
        Pat Laster considers Calliope the most writer-friendly publication around.  The editors have published her poetry, nonfiction and fiction.  She has been on both sides of the Pen Pal Critique service and recommends it.  She belongs to two writers’ groups, directs the choir and bells at her church, and is raising a grandson, now age 17.
        She has placed in many of Calliope’s writing contests, including a Special Honorable Mention in the 2005 Fiction Contest.  She is also a guest columnist, writing about topics that interest her and would be of benefit to member/subscribers.
        This spring, she spent two weeks as one of five writers-in-residence at the prestigious Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs, AR (called the Little Switzerland), a “dream come true,” she says, that allowed her to totally devote her time to writing.  She hopes to report a completed first draft of a novel by summer’s end. Because of her positive experience, she recommends that other writers consider a retreat or residence to sharpen their skills.  Next year, she will be spending time on the grounds of the Hemingway-Pfeiffer House (located in the east Arkansas delta), in a week-long writers’ retreat, networking, polishing her craft, sharing experiences, and of course, writing.
 
 
 
                                               Copyright © Pat Laster