Читать книгу Christmas Town - Peggy Gilchrist - Страница 9

Nathan Ratchford scrolled through the E-mail file, hoping against hope that today he would find some sign from his dad.

Zip. Zilch.

Sulking, he pulled his feet up into Venita’s desk chair and made a circle with his legs. He picked at a raveling thread in the seam of his jeans and wondered what a seven-year-old could do to get his big-shot dad to acknowledge his son’s existence.

Nathan thought about sending another E-mail message. Maybe something had happened to the other message. Like maybe his secretary had accidentally, stupidly, moronically killed it out before his dad could see it. Or the humongous mainframe computer that ran the whole, entire bank where his dad was a big shot had crashed, paralyzing the entire banking industry of the Southeast. And if Nathan the Wonder Kid came in and got the computer up and running again, then even his dad would see that…

The tantalizing fantasy momentarily wiped the sullen expression off Nathan’s face. Until he realized that if anyone was being stupid or moronic it was one Nathan Ratchford.

“Yeah, I’ll send you another letter,” he muttered, signing off E-mail to page through the directory of other goodies available on Venita’s computer. “Dear Deadbeat Dad: In case it has slipped your busy, important mind, you have a son, aged seven years and eight-point-two months, who is growing up without the bare essentials—a computer, a pair of purple-and-teal high-top sneakers, or even one measly ticket to a Charlotte Hornets home game. Yours truly, Nathan the Half Orphan.”

The brilliance of his memo cheered him again briefly, and Nathan selected the Encyclopedia option on Venita’s computer directory. He had almost finished the A‘s. The way he had it figured, if he worked hard and kept to the schedule he’d worked out, he could finish the Z’s by the end of the sixth grade and sail right from elementary school to the freshman class at Duke University. Do not pass Go, do not stop at junior-stupid-high, do not collect two hundred dollars.

Azimuth was snore-city, but Nathan figured the Aztecs must be up next, so he plowed ahead. Keeping his mind on due northeasts was hard and he grew impatient with Venita for being late. He kept thinking she’d come out of her stupid meeting soon, but she didn’t. The old geezers had come out a long time ago and Venita was still locked up behind that big old door. Before he knew it, his mom would come after him and Venita wouldn’t even get to help him with his new plan, the way she’d helped him find out about his dad’s E-mail address. Venita knew stuff like that, especially stuff about Charlotte.

Venita knew more about Charlotte, North Carolina, than anybody in both the Carolinas, he supposed. Maybe in the world. Because she went to college there about a million years ago, back in the Paleolithic Era, circa 1965 B.N.

Before Nathan.

He’d taken his glasses off and placed them carefully in the middle of Venita’s big desk calendar and was about to doze off over Azoic Era in the computer encyclopedia when the big old door opened. Nathan’s eyes snapped open, but everything stayed blurry until he remembered his glasses.

He reached for his glasses, but not before a man followed Venita out the big old door. In that fuzzy, glasses-free instant, Nathan’s heart flew to his throat and he thought he might fall right out of Venita’s office chair.

Dad!

He realized it wasn’t so the minute he got his glasses on, of course. Still, the man made him think of his dad, who was also tall and broad shouldered and wore suits the color of number two pencil lead and really, really white shirts and striped neckties, but whose most distinctive characteristic was the grim expression on his face. Intimidating. Nathan had learned that word in a movie and he had always remembered it, because he knew that was exactly what his dad was. Intimidating.

And so was this man Venita seemed to like. She was paying such close attention to him she hadn’t even noticed Nathan. So he cleared his throat and rattled the middle drawer of her desk a little bit.

“Well, Nathan, hello.” She looked, as always, pleased to see him, but she didn’t look at him or talk to him in that cutesy way grown-ups usually did. She always acted as if she thought Nathan was as grown-up as anybody. Which, of course, he was.

“Hey, Venita. You’re late.”

“I know. And I am sorry. But Mr. Scoville and I had a lot of business to talk about today.” She glanced at the man again. They both looked tired. “Nathan, this is Jordan Scoville. Mr. Mitchell’s son. Jordan, this is Nathan Ratchford. He’s the best office assistant I’ve had in…oh, I’d say about twenty-five years.”

Nathan sat up straighter in the chair and offered up his hand for a shake. “Pleased to meet’cha, Mr. Scoville.”

“Same here, Mr. Ratchford.” And the man with the intimidating face took Nathan’s hand, shook it grown-up to grown-up. “I’m always glad to meet anybody who’s managed to impress Venita.”

Nathan wasn’t sure how to take that, and he didn’t have time to think about it because he suddenly remembered who Jordan Scoville was and it kind of shook him up. Jordan Scoville was the man everybody said was coming to town to fire them all and put them out of their homes. Wo! Nathan was excited. A real, live, bad-to-the-bone business tycoon!

“Jordan only says that because I was impressed by him when he was your age,” Venita said with the smile Nathan always thought she reserved just for him. For a minute that made Nathan a little jealous.

Then, he started to wonder if this was Venita’s way of letting him know that what she always said was true. Just because you’re growing up on the mill hill doesn’t mean you can’t make something of yourself, Nathan. If you apply yourself. Maybe Nathan, too, could grow up and be grim-faced and intimidating and wear pencil-lead suits and really, really white shirts.

He hoped so. Mom always said those weren’t important things in life, but Nathan thought she might be wrong about that one matter.

“Get any word on the E-mail today?” Venita asked and the sound of her voice seemed to say it was truly insignificant whether he had or not. Nathan was glad of that, because then he could pretend it didn’t matter, too.

“Nah.” He shook his head and unfolded his bony legs. “I think I’m going to have to plan another strategy.”

She nodded and dropped her files onto her desk. But before she could reply, the front door from the street opened and Nathan’s mom walked in. Forgetting for a minute all about what kind of impression he would be making on Mr. Bad-to-the-Bone Jordan Scoville, Nathan dashed into her arms.

“Mom!”

And she gave him that big, old hug that made it not even matter whether his dad hated his guts for the rest of his life.

Jordan felt that hitch in his heart again when Nathan Ratchford and his mom lost themselves in a hug. Once more he blamed his truck-stop lunch, because that was easier than admitting what he was witnessing struck at something vulnerable inside him.

He’d had a lot of hugs from Venita when he was that age, but not too many from his mother.

He wondered, as he watched mother and son, what it would be like to have a mother who was tender and welcoming instead of regal and imposing. Apparently Nathan Ratchford thought it was pretty cool, the way he pressed his oversize ear against his mother’s red flannel shirt. Jordan tapped the file Venita had given him and busied himself stuffing it into his briefcase.

Thank goodness he wasn’t a lonely little outsider any longer.

He glanced up in time to see the boy’s mother peer in his direction. It was then he really looked at her, and saw the short, dark curls peeking out from beneath a red baseball cap. The woman at the center of the brouhaha on Main Street.

Her arms loosened their hold on her son, while the rest of her stiffened visibly. “Oh. Come on, Nathan. Venita’s got important work to do.”

Jordan watched the soft expression on her face change as she took him in. No doubt she knew exactly who he was—little escaped the gossip mill in Bethlehem, unless things had changed drastically since he was a kid. Although the expression on her heart-shaped face grew a little timid, he also saw a certain pride. He studied her as Venita made the introductions. Joella Ratchford’s sharp, dark eyes issued a challenge. Her chin came to a determined-looking point. Color rose in her smooth ivory cheeks.

“I’m glad for the opportunity to meet you, Mrs. Ratchford.” He hated the way he sounded when he said it, like the king of the hill talking down to one of his subjects. His mother’s voice. The one that kept everyone in town at arm’s length.

“You mean before we all get put out on the street, Mr. Scoville?”

Jordan saw Venita’s eyebrows rise as she turned to study the effects of Joella Ratchford’s comment. He saw Nathan punch his glasses higher on his nose and stare at his mother in surprise. Jordan hoped he revealed nothing, because what he had to reveal was an enormous well of guilt and anxiety. It was hard to remember that he didn’t have a thing to be guilty about. This mess wasn’t his fault.

In fact, he was as inconvenienced by this as anyone else. Here he was, every penny he had tied up buying property that would—that might—be the location for a football stadium, if the National Football League ever got off dead center and made up its mind. And with all that going on, he had to drag himself away from the action to baby-sit the family business. He’d fought against being dragged into the family business all his life and now, with his future hanging in the balance, here he was. Back in Bethlehem. And finding out that everything was way more complicated than he’d imagined.

Mrs. Ratchford and her friends weren’t the only ones unhappy with the way things were going.

“I understand your dismay over the closing of Scoville Mill, Mrs. Ratchford,” he said, knowing how cool and heartless he must sound to a woman who was afraid of finding her family on the street. He wondered if anyone in town had any way of knowing just how realistic such a fear might be. If he’d been a praying man, he would have been praying for all he was worth right this minute that Joella Ratchford and her neighbors had no idea what was going on behind closed doors at Scoville Mill.

“I’m glad to hear that, Mr. Scoville.” If Jordan could have closed his eyes, he could almost imagine this mill hand dressed in a power suit and shaking a leather briefcase at him. She had a firmer voice than that initial hint of timidity had indicated. “I might as well let you know now that the townfolk have asked me to represent them in these bankruptcy proceedings. If it’s all right with you, I’d like to sit down with you and see what we can expect to happen this next month.”

A lesser man might have choked on apprehension, but not Jordan. “I can assure you, that won’t be necessary. The interests of all our employees will be first and foremost in our minds. I promise you that.”

He could see right away that she was no more ready to have him push her around than she’d been to have those townspeople push her around earlier in the afternoon.

Her eyes narrowed as she said, “I appreciate that, Mr. Scoville. But the townfolk have asked and I figure I owe it to them to do what I can to set their minds at ease. Don’t you believe that’s so, Mr. Scoville?”

Jordan’s grip tightened on his briefcase. He knew only one thing. There was no way anybody from the mill was going to sit in on meetings about closing the mill. Not until Jordan had figured out a way to cover up the things that needed covering up.

Otherwise, Mitchell and Truman Scoville would spend their last years in prison. And that was not going to happen while Jordan had any say about it.

“I’ll certainly do all I can to keep everyone apprised of our progress in this matter,” he said. “I’m certain no one expects you to spend your valuable time listening to a roomful of lawyers and businessmen throwing around legal and financial jargon, Mrs. Ratchford.”

“I appreciate the fact you’re thinking about my valuable time, Mr. Scoville. I really do.” Based on her tone of voice, Jordan doubted she appreciated a word he’d said. “But these folks—I’ve known most of them all my life, you know—have trusted me with something and I guess I’ll do the best I can. Even if it means having to listen to a bunch of fasttalking lawyers.”

Then she took her son by the hand. “Come on, Nathan. We’ve got to get supper on the table. I’ll be in touch, Mr. Scoville. So long, Venita.”

And they walked out the front door.

Venita let out a low whistle. “You’ve got problems, Jordan Scoville.”

“I can handle it,” he said.

Venita just grunted.

Joella had to call Nathan twice after she set the butter beans and cornbread on the table, he was so engrossed in lettering his signs for the grocery-delivery business he wanted to launch. Joella had tried to dissuade him, gently explaining that money would be tight in Bethlehem over the coming weeks. People might not have money for extras.

But he was that much like his father. Blind to anything but his own confidence in whatever he set out to achieve. Andrew Ratchford had gone far that way; no reason to suppose Nathan couldn’t do the same. Although it did bother her sometimes to think of sweet, serious Nathan turning into a hard-edged, unfeeling businessman. People like that—like Jordan Scoville, for example—scared her.

She smiled as she peered into the tiny living room and saw Nathan’s dark head bent over his poster board, a bold purple crayon clutched in his fingers. “Even budding entrepreneurs have to eat, Nathan.”

“Just let me—”

“Now.”

His shoulders slumped and he released his grip on the purple crayon. He dragged himself to his feet and headed for the table, making sure his disappointment was eminently readable in his body language.

“You’ll have plenty of time to finish your signs after supper,” she said after Nathan finished saying the blessing.

“I’ll bet Jordan Scoville doesn’t have to stop for supper.”

Joella frowned. She hated the notion that even a seven-year-old could see the difference between the Ratchfords and a man like Jordan Scoville. Breeding and power were written all over his face, were apparent in every inch of him, from the way he carried himself and the way he spoke, to the way he looked right at home in that suit. Why that suit was probably worth more than every single item Joella possessed, including her grandmother’s antique sleigh bed, the only thing she owned with any monetary value at all.

“You’re right about that,” she conceded.

“I knew it. If you want to be successful, you can’t let things like supper stop you,” Nathan proclaimed. “You’ve got to—”

“Rich folks don’t eat supper,” Joella interrupted. “Rich folks eat dinner.”

Nathan paused to consider that. “They do?”

“Yep. About six courses. First they get soup.”

“What kind of soup?”

“Not chicken noodle. Something like turtle or oxtail, maybe.”

“Oh, yuck! Mom, that is so gross.”

“Well, you want to be hoity-toity like Mr. Scoville, you better start cultivating a taste for turtles and oxtails.”

He screwed up his thin, freckled face and stared into his plate for a moment. “What else? For dinner, I mean.”

“Then you have to eat salad.”

“Okay. I’ll take potato salad. No onion.”

“That’s not upper-crusty enough, either. You’ll probably have to have avocado stuffed with artichoke hearts. How’s that sound?”

He responded by pointing his finger down his throat and making a gagging sound. “I’ll bet real rich people just eat peanut butter and jelly whenever they want it.”

Joella had a hard time imagining the Scoville heir eating peanut butter and jelly. “You think so?”

Nathan thought about it and apparently had the same problem with his imagination that she was having. “Naw. Maybe not.” Then he giggled. “All that grape jelly’d probably just squoosh out all down your tie and your really, really white shirt and boy would you be in trouble then.”

Joella laughed with him, despite the pang in her heart as she was once again struck by fear. What was she going to do? With the mill closing, how was she going to take care of Nathan?

The Reverend Martin would tell her—had told her many times—that all she needed was faith that God would meet her needs. But she’d tried that these past four years and look where it had gotten her. Living in a tiny little mill village house with butter beans and cornbread for dinner, and facing the day when even that little bit might be out of reach.

Having faith would be easier, she thought, if she had only herself to worry about.

If push came to shove, she’d have to humble herself and let all those social services people take Andrew to court for child support, the way Venita had been telling her to for years. Then Andy would think he’d been right all along when he said she didn’t have the brains to take care of herself.

All these years she’d been dead-set determined to prove him wrong. It hurt like crazy to think she might have to swallow her pride and let him know she couldn’t make it on her own, after all.

“I thought he was Dad, at first,” Nathan was saying.

“What? Who?”

“That Mr. Scoville.”

“Why in the world would you think that?” she asked, but she didn’t have to hear his answer. In all the superficial ways a child would notice, Jordan Scoville was exactly like Andrew Ratchford. Tall, imposing, well dressed, with that precise way of speaking that you didn’t hear much in a small town like Bethlehem.

“You know, Mom. ‘Cause he was intimidating.”

That he was. Her reaction to him had felt like fullscale panic—heart racing, knees shaking. Joella had no idea how she was going to make him take her seriously over the next few weeks. Maybe she ought to call Fred Roseforte right now and admit she was no match for Jordan Scoville.

Then she tried to picture prickly-pear Fred up in Jordan Scoville’s face and knew precisely how much that was likely to gain the hardworking folks of Bethlehem. No, as long as she was the only one who believed the Scovilles would treat them right, had every intention of taking care of them, she needed to keep Jordan Scoville away from people like Fred Roseforte.

“’Cept he didn’t intimidate you, did he, Mom? You stood right up to him.”

“Well, I have to admit, I was a little…scared.”

Nathan grinned. “I knew that. ‘Cause your hand was sweaty when we went out the door.”

“You scoundrel. What’re you trying to do, catch me in a fib?”

“Yeah.” He laughed so hard he almost slipped out of his chair. Then his mirth vanished as quickly as it had appeared and he turned his serious young face in her direction again. “Mom, when are we gonna get a Christmas tree?”

Joella looked down at her plate. “Um, I’m not sure, Nathan. I was thinking…maybe we won’t exactly have a tree this year.”

“Why not?”

“Well, you know I was telling you how money’s going to be tight. I was thinking, maybe we’d spend that money on other things, instead of a tree that we’ll have to throw out the first of the year anyway.”

“What things?”

She heard the challenge in his voice and knew she was treading on thin ice. She dared not say what she was really thinking. Things like bread and milk or one more month of paying the heating bill. No, that would never do. “I don’t know exactly, but…Christmas things, maybe.”

Nathan flattened a crumb of cornbread under his thumb, then drew it thoughtfully to his mouth. “I liked it better before Patsy Kelley told me Santa Claus didn’t bring the presents.”

Joella sighed. He was growing up so fast. Too fast to suit her. “I know. Me, too.”

“So, when is the town going to turn on all the lights and stuff?”

The ice she trod grew thinner yet. Explaining to the children of Bethlehem that there might be no lights this year would be just as bad as explaining there was no Santa Claus to bring their hearts’ desire. This year the Grinch was truly in danger of stealing Christmas, at least here in Bethlehem, South Carolina.

“Sweetheart, I don’t know the answer to that yet, either.” But she kept praying that the miracle of Christmas would come to Bethlehem one more time before the village rolled up its sidewalks for good. “But you know that lights and presents aren’t what Christmas is all about anyway, don’t you?”

He ignored her question. “You only call me sweetheart when something’s wrong. Something’s wrong about Christmas, isn’t it? I mean, something besides the money being tight.”

Joella stifled another sigh. Raising a son alone was hard enough without having to raise one who, to all appearances, was too smart for his own good. “Finish eating, Nathan. You’ve got all those posters to finish before bed.”

He put his fork down on his plate and stared at her with the unyielding look that was his father all over. “They’re not going to celebrate Christmas this year, are they?”

She sighed. No fibs allowed. “I don’t know, Nathan. Maybe not. Nobody’s sure yet.”

“It’s that Mr. Scoville, isn’t it?”

“It isn’t that, Nathan.”

“It is, too! Just look at him. If Patsy Kelley hadn’t already told me there wasn’t a Santa Claus, he’d tell me himself. He doesn’t believe in Christmas and he doesn’t care if anyone else does, either!”

“Now, Nathan, you don’t know that. You’re doing exactly what everybody in this town is doing, getting all worked up over something that may not even happen.”

“I’m not all worked up.” But Joella saw the glimmer of tears in his eyes before he picked up his plate and cleared it from the table. “But I don’t see why Mr. Jordan Scoville has to come in and ruin Christmas for everybody. It’s not fair!”

Seven wasn’t old enough to hear the explanation that life was seldom fair. So all Joella knew to do was pull Nathan close to her and give him a hug that she hoped would wipe away a little bit of his frustration. “Nathan, we don’t need the Scovilles’ lights to have a wonderful Christmas.”

“Yes, we do,” he mumbled against her chest. “If we don’t have lights, we won’t have any Christmas.”

“We sure will, sweetheart. I promise you. We’ll have the best Christmas ever, even if we don’t have a single light.”

She wasn’t sure how she was going to keep that promise. But she’d raised her son to know that one of the things he could count on was that his mom wouldn’t fib to him. As she ran a sinkful of hot, soapy water, she closed her eyes and whispered, “God, I know You’ve got a lot more important things to worry about. But please don’t let me be fibbing this time, either. If it means changing Jordan Scoville from the Grinch into jolly old Saint Nick, please help me see to it that my boy gets his fill of Christmas joy our last year in Bethlehem.”