Wife for Hire - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,20
likes to play bingo too. Life don’t get much better than that.”
Elsie took her apron off and put it in a drawer. “I saw that Linda Sue at the supermarket today. She was checking out groceries, and I tell you she could put a newspaper right out of business. Everywhere I went in town people were talking about you getting married to a dirty book writer. I wouldn’t hold my breath for that loan. Your reputation’s about as good as snake spit.”
“She’s not a dirty book writer. She’s writing about her Aunt Kitty.”
Elsie looked skeptical. “Don’t get me wrong. I like Maggie. She’s got something to her. And if I were you and had to make a choice, I’d take Maggie over an apple press any day of the year.”
Hank smiled at her. “You’re a pretty smart lady.”
“You’d better believe it, and I’m in good shape for being so old too.”
She took her purse from the counter when Ed Garber knocked at the front door.
“You’d better go pull Maggie’s nose out of that computer and get her down here while the corn bread’s hot. And it wouldn’t hurt to do something with her after supper. It isn’t natural for a body to sit that long. All her insides will get cramped up. I once knew someone who sat all day like that and nature never could take its course. Before you know it, you’re taking prunes and milk of magnesia when all you ever needed in the first place was to go for a walk once in a while.”
Ed Garber looked in at Hank. “Howdy,” he said. “Nice day.”
“Yup. Good weather for growing apples.”
“You still growing them organic? Don’t you have more than your share of rot?”
“I have to work at it, but so far they look fine,” Hank said.
“I should stop around sometime and see how you do it. I’ve got an apple tree in my backyard that’s plain pitiful.”
Hank closed the screen door on Elsie and Ed, and went upstairs after Maggie.
“Elsie says you have to come down to supper while the corn bread’s hot,” he told her. “And she says your insides will cramp up if you sit here much more. Then nature won’t be able to take its course, and you’ll have to eat prunes.”
Maggie finished typing a sentence and saved her file. “You sound skeptical, but she’s probably right.”
“I’m supposed to make sure you get exercise.”
Maggie shut the computer down. “I could use some exercise. We could go for a walk after supper.”
“That was my second choice.”
She wasn’t going to ask him about choice number one. “Would it hurt the apple trees if we walked through the orchard?”
“Nope. It’s crisscrossed with truck paths.”
In the kitchen Maggie ladled out the soup and took the corn bread from the oven. They sat across from each other in companionable silence while they ate.
“This is nice,” she finally said. “I always hated eating supper alone. Sometimes I’d set the table and fuss with a meal, but most of the time I stuck a frozen burrito in the micro wave and ate standing up.”
He grinned at her. “Does your mother know that?”
She laughed. “My mother is afraid to ask. And if my mother’s neighbor Mrs. Ciak ever found out…” Maggie shook her head. “My mother would be disgraced forever.” She buttered another piece of corn bread.
“At night, in my parents’ neighborhood, no one draws the shades downstairs. It would mean that you didn’t want anyone to see in. People would speculate that your house wasn’t clean. And all the women have dryers, but they still hang sheets outdoors because if you don’t someone might think your sheets weren’t white enough to be seen. I know it sounds silly, but it makes me feel claustrophobic. All those unwritten rules. All those comparisons. And as much as I tried, I could never fit my square peg into Riverside’s round hole. I guess I was too stubborn.”
“I notice you’re using that in the past tense.”
Maggie chewed her corn bread. “I’m better now.” Hank raised his eyebrows and Maggie laughed. “You’re right, I’m still stubborn. But being stubborn can be good when you’re an adult. Now I like to think of myself as having tenacity, strength of conviction, and character.”
Hank pushed away from the table. He went to the refrigerator, took out two puddings, and gave one to Maggie. “Is that why you wanted to come to Vermont? To get away from the white sheets and open windows?”
“I wanted to make a new beginning.