Peaches in Winter Read online

  Didn’t she have a coat? Could that be possible, a working girl in the city in the middle of winter, without a coat?

  “Actually, Mr.Watterson…” she said slowly, twisting her lip under her teeth, and hesitating.

  “Don’t you have one?” he asked, gruffer than he meant to.

  “Oh, no, that’s not it at all!” Her eyes grew rounder. “You, you see—” She took a big breath and launched into a rapid explanation. “My only coat is the one I wore back on the farm. It’s big, old, and mostly red, and that doesn’t go with this dress at all. It’s my nicest dress, and I-I wanted to make a good impression. That obviously didn’t work.” She turned back to the sink, fiddling with the branches, rearranging them, and avoiding his gaze. She flicked a curl of golden hair back from her face with a wet finger.

  Jake opened his mouth to answer, but she continued speaking.

  “I should’ve thought,” she said. “It’s only a short walk from the agency, only eight blocks with a stop at the park. I didn’t think it would be this chilly. Frank was really kind to lend me his jacket.”

  “Frank? The cop?” Jake gaped at her. “He loaned you his coat?”

  “Yes, just on the walk over here. He said he didn’t want me to catch cold.”

  Jake stared at the girl in wonderment. She was either the most accomplished flirt he’d ever met, or the most clueless and friendly farm girl left in the big city.

  “Eight blocks?” he said. “In the cold? What were you thinking?” Surely even a farm girl would know better, unless she had fallen off the stupid wagon on her way from Hicksville, U.S.A.

  “Oh, it’s-it’s been really nice out, until today. In fact, I’ve never seen such mild weather this time of year. Don’t you think it’s been nice, except today?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been out much,” he grumped. Then he wished he hadn’t said it. Now she’d think he was a housebound recluse—which was too close to the truth for comfort. He cast her a stern look, challenging her to make something of it.

  It bounced off her cheery expression—if she even noticed. “Oh—” She flashed that white smile again. “You really should! It’s lovely out. Don’t you think winter’s lovely?”

  Winter—lovely? He had half a mind to stalk into the next room and close the door to escape her doe-eyed cheerfulness. Instead, he found himself simply saying, “No.”

  “Oh! Well, I do. I think I like spring better, and summer, and of course fall— that’s when we pick the peaches—you’ve never tasted a peach until you’ve had one fresh off the tree—but winter’s all right. I think it’s pretty. It feels like the earth is taking time to catch its breath and just think about things. Like it’s waiting.”

  She turned away suddenly and gave an embarrassed laugh, fiddling with the branches in the jar.

  “I’m sorry. I talk too much. You just tell me if I start doing that again. Pa says I’d be apt to chew the ears off a bear. Now, you just tell me what secretary work needs done, and I’ll get down to work and be real silent.” She looked at him expectantly.

  Which is doubtless silence indeed. He gave a little snort and turned and walked into the living room. He headed to the phone. He had half a mind to call Matt now and bawl him out.

  Of course, it would be rude to do it while the girl was here.

  But I don’t want a secretary!

  The girl was nice enough, in her way, if excessively talkative and cheerful. But to pretend she could help him with his work…that was begging for problems. He couldn’t work with other people when he was writing. For Jake, writing was an intensely personal and private enterprise.

  He turned to shut the door between the rooms, so he could call Matt in peace. He almost collided with Betty Ann.

  She looked up at him expectantly, full of innocent exuberance. “Do you want me to take dictation, Mr. Watterson?”

  Jake groaned inwardly.

  He spoke, making an effort to keep his voice quiet and calm. “No, I do not want you to take dictation. I do not write during the winter, and I certainly don’t need a secretary.”

  Her hopeful expression vanished. “Oh. I’m-I’m sorry.” She turned and started slowly for the kitchen, head down.

  Now what had he done? She was just a harmless farm girl, young, new to the city, and eager about what was probably her first ‘real’ job. He had no need—no right—to crush her youthful spirits. Even if she did like winter. Even if she talked too much and borrowed coats from policemen.

  “Wait, Miss Keene.” He took a deep breath. “I’m—sorry. You’re only trying to do your job. That was—rude of me. I’ll—” He gritted his teeth even as he said it. “I guess I’ll give dictation a try.”

  He motioned her, with a swallowed grimace, to his faithful desk and typewriter.

  His typewriter was a brand new model, and he kept it well-oiled no matter what else around the house he neglected. It was his pride, his joy, and he didn’t like anyone touching it. He swallowed back his protectiveness and ushered her to his chair.

  She sat down, fluffing her skirt out, so it wouldn’t crumple. She positioned her fingers carefully on the keys of his typewriter, as though preparing for a typing exam at school. She looked at him expectantly, still rather subdued.

  Sighing inwardly, Jake began to pace the room. He wracked his brain for a plot idea—any plot idea.

  He needed to give her something to do before he sent her, firmly but politely, packing. He simply had no call for a secretary, and he’d have to find a way to tell her that. But not yet.

  Come on, Jake! Think of something.

  He focused on the rich, worn carpet that his parents installed long before his birth. Then he stared at his socks, even at his fingernails, thinking, thinking, trying to come up with even one idea worth writing down. If she hadn’t been here, he’d have given up already.

  “It’s no good,” he said at last. He flung himself into a chair and sighed. He leaned his head back, his eyes falling shut with weariness, and ran fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry. I can’t think of anything.”

  “Oh!” said Betty Ann, sounding surprised. “Why, I can think of a dozen ideas! Of course, I’m not a writer, and they’re probably not good ones.”

  He opened his eyes and looked at her. “What?”

  A faint flush came into her cheeks. “I-I mean, the world’s such a beautiful place. It must be full of stories, as many stories as there are flowers in the spring.”

  She wasn’t real. She just wasn’t. This was all part of some bizarre dream.

  Wearily, he said, “I’m listening.” Let her try it. I’m sick of everyone thinking my job is easy just because they’ve never done it themselves.

  She looked up toward the ceiling, a faraway look on her face, her fingers still poised on the keyboard. (She seemed to have forgotten about them.) When she spoke, it was with a quiet, thoughtful voice. “I think if I could write, I’d write a story about a church yard, with the leaves falling, and all the beautiful colors lying on top of the grave stones.”

  A church yard?

  “It’s not—not just about a church yard, of course,” she added quickly. “It’s about the people who go there. Someone to be buried, and someone to be married, and how their lives might intertwine. Well…well not the buried person, of course—but a man who goes there to visit his dear wife’s grave on a cool autumn day, and a girl who goes to the church nearby to be married o-only her fiancé doesn’t show up, and she runs over to the graveyard to—to get away from everything—and they meet.”

  She stopped for a moment, her face deep in thought. Jake did not interrupt. For an instant, he could visualize her scene: the windy fall day, the leaves curling and blowing and lying.

  “He would wear black,” she said, in reverential tones, “and she is wearing her wedding dress, of course, which is white. He’s too sad to even notice her at first. Then he sees her crying. They talk, and he tells her about his wife—a-about how wonderful she was, and the girl starts to cry a
gain, and says, ‘No one ever loved me that much.’

  “He notices she’s wearing a wedding dress and realizes what must have happened. He offers to lend her his coat and drive her home. She says no because she thinks she might throw herself over a bridge. But he-he finds her, somehow, and stops her.” Her gaze came back to reality, and with it, her cheeks colored slightly. “I think they get married in the end.” She said it almost apologetically.

  Jake stared at her. He was surprised and a little disturbed that she’d grown so deeply involved in her little story and pulled him along. Somehow, he’d been her captive audience, until the guff about the bridge. Then the spell had broken. Still, he was surprised by her narrative ability.

  “It’s not bad,” he said at last. “But I don’t write romance.” He didn’t know what else to say. Besides, it was true. He didn’t.

  The color deepened in her cheeks, and she made a little motion with her hand, as though brushing something away. She stirred slightly in his chair. “No, of course not.” Then, seeming to shake off the mood of melancholy, she brightened visibly and looked at him. “What do you write?”

  “Mysteries.”

  “Oh good!” she cried, clapping her hands together, her smile lighting her entire face. “I love mysteries! I’ve only read one, of course, but—”

  Jake goggled at her. He rubbed his eyes. This girl was starting to give him a headache. She was positively seething with contradictions. Loved mysteries but had only read one? Impossible! She was impossible.

  “I was afraid you were going to be a library—no, that’s not what I mean…lit…literary writer.” She shook her head. “I just can’t understand them. I was afraid I would mess you up taking dictation, because I might not be able to spell all the words.”

  She continued cheerfully. “The mystery I read was called Murder at the Vicarage. It was set in England,” she confided, as though that was important, and she felt knowledgeable for knowing it. “I didn’t guess who did the murder, of course—not even close—but-but I couldn’t quite believe the story, either.” She bit her lip slightly.

  Jake remembered the book. It was supposed to be one of Agatha Christie’s best. He didn’t remember any problems in it. “What was it?”

  She stared at him. “Why, the-the murder, of course. Could-could anybody really hate someone that much, for weeks, maybe even longer, and plan ahead all that time, just to kill him? I couldn’t believe it.”

  He stared at her. “That’s kind of the point of a murder mystery,” he said. “That someone died, and the detective has to find out who it was. As for if anyone could premeditate and kill someone else, I think the whole of human history bears it out.”

  She shuddered. “It seems so wicked!”

  He just stared at her. It was the first time he had thought of it that way—murder being ‘so wicked.’ It was, of course. Murder, in stories, and in real life, simply ‘was’ in his philosophy. The world was evil, and people were evil, and they did what they could get away with. He didn’t especially like it, but he’d never have grown almost teary-eyed about it the way she seemed to be doing.

  For a brief moment, he saw the world the way she must—a good place, where even if things were hard, even if your fiancé left you at the altar or your wife died, you would find a happy ending. He realized he envied her.

  “But I’m sorry,” she said, smiling at him, rather regretfully. “We’re supposed to be plotting your story, and here I am distracting you.” She positioned her fingers over the typewriter and looked at him expectantly.

  ~*~

  He licked his lips and cleared his throat. He glanced at her, and swallowed. “I suppose I could use your original scene, the one in the graveyard—if you didn’t mind.”

  “Oh no,” she assured him with a vigorous shake of her head. It send her curls wobbling here and about. “That would be wonderful! An idea of mine in a real book. And my teachers always said I wasn’t too smart.” She beamed up at him, fingers at the ready over the typewriter.

  “Well.” He looked away. For some reason, his throat felt husky.

  He closed his eyes for a moment and considered. The graveyard was a scenic place for someone to visit. There would be no wedding, of course, but someone visiting a grave, maybe they would see another one, a grave of someone who had died under suspicious circumstances. Then the hero or heroine could wonder about it and decide to investigate.

  He thought for a full minute, setting the scene in his mind. “Here we go.” He opened his eyes, squinting to see if she was paying attention. She was, almost too much. He closed his eyes again and began to dictate, setting the scene with her wind, and leaves, and gravestones, and adding a few embellishing details of his own.

  He had spoken only a few sentences—just starting to become involved in it—when it dawned on him he wasn’t hearing anything like the amount of typing he should have heard. He opened his eyes and stared down at his blonde secretary.

  Sure enough, she was hunting and pecking—seeking out the letters one at a time and typing them with two fingers.

  “I thought you said you could type?”

  “Oh—well I can, just not real fast. To be honest, it’s faster for me this way. Don’t worry, I’ll catch up.” She gave him a winning smile.

  It’s a wonder she graduated from secretarial school. Then he wondered if she even had; served him right for not asking for her credentials.

  “Never mind. Let me sit down. I’ll do it myself.” He did not miss the relieved expression that flicked across the girl’s face.

  “Oh, that’s awful nice of you, Mr. Watterson. Can I help you by doing some filing maybe? I’m real good at filing, almost as good as the other girls were at typing. Miss Mabel said maybe I shouldn’t apply for a job where I had to do too much typing...”

  He took back his seat. The leather was now warm. He began typing rapidly. The sound of the typewriter only partially dulled her voice. She was still chattering, but he barely heard it.

  One last sentence made it through his concentration: “I’ll just go make you some lemonade then, okay?”

  He said, “Hm...” noncommittally and began to type again.

  A plot, albeit a sketchy one, unfurled itself in his imagination. It centered on this visit to a graveyard and someone realizing he didn’t know how his great-uncle had died. The circumstances looked suspicious, our hero decided to investigate, and eventually unearthed a few old skeletons in the family closet.

  ~*~

  It was only later, after several good hours of work that he realized Matt’s devious plan had worked. Jake had actually written something.

  The girl ‘helped’ in her own way—by plying him with drinks of lemonade (which was surprisingly good). She helped even more, in his opinion, when she kept quiet.

  He was barely aware of her most of the time.

  Whenever he surfaced for a sip of lemonade, or to pause and think, he looked around vaguely to see where she was. She gave him a friendly wave once and opened her mouth as though to start talking again.

  He quickly dived back into the story.

  Another time, he saw her curled quite contentedly in his biggest armchair, one of his own books in her hands and a frown of concentration on her pretty face. Her lips moved slightly as she read.

  She really was quite good-looking when she wasn’t talking, he realized. That thought sent him diving back into his work even more quickly.

  At the end of the day, he had a surprising amount of work done. The plot was, at least, a possibility. He’d done more with less.

  When he stopped typing, he glanced at the grandfather clock on his mantel and blinked at how late it had gotten. A glance at the windows showed it was indeed dark outside. He’d worked for nearly five hours.

  He frowned slightly. He had the distinct feeling he was forgetting something. He looked around—and then leaped to his feet, one eye twitching.

  It was the girl. He’d forgotten the girl.

  She sat slumped rather
forlornly in a big easy chair, asleep, her purse clutched in one hand.

  A quick glance at his watch reassured him it was only 6:00 p.m. Still, it was dark out, and he’d kept her late. She was probably too shy to say when it was time for her to leave, even though he obviously hadn’t needed her.

  He walked over and looked down at her sleeping face. For some reason, he stopped and did not immediately waken her.

  She looked almost like a child.

  A peaceful, yet somehow sad expression graced her artless face. She clutched a pillow by her side and stirred slightly in her sleep.

  Then Jake’s throat felt strange. “Wake up,” he said gruffly.

  He did not touch her.

  The moment her eyes opened—startled flecks of blue, searching around—he backed away. “Time for you to go home.”

  “Oh—I’m, I’m sorry! I fell asleep. I thought it might be time for me to go, but I didn’t want to disturb you, and I’m sorry I fell asleep. I’m awful sorry.”

  There she was again, chattering!

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said brusquely. “I’ll take you home. You shouldn’t be out so late alone.”

  It was easier, he thought, to think of her as a child. It let him tolerate her talkative nature, the fact that she couldn’t type, and the almost-too-innocent air about her.

  “Oh, no, I can’t let you!” She jumped up, a slight flush entering her cheeks. She smoothed down her rumpled skirt as she spoke too fast. “I could-couldn’t possibly let you do that—not after I made such a pain of myself. I couldn’t even type fast enough, and you didn’t send me back. No, sir, I-I’ll be fine. I’ll just walk fast.”

  “Nonsense,” he said, his voice made abrupt by annoyance. “I can’t let you walk home alone when I kept you here so late. Now don’t argue, it’s my fault for being distracted. If you don’t want me to take you home, I’m at least calling a cab.”

  She protested a bit more, but he ignored her. He strode to the kitchen, called a cab, and waited by the front door with her until it came. He made her accept the loan of his overcoat. It hung almost to her knees.