“You mean Queen Elizabeth?”
“Princess Elizabeth,” he corrected.
“Oh… right,” she remembered. “She wouldn’t be queen yet.”
“What about you?” he asked. “I heard what you said to my folks about traveling, but there’s got to be more to the story than that. Why hasn’t a looker like you been snatched up?”
“Actually, I was snatched for a long time… but he recently decided he didn’t want me anymore. Like,realrecently.”
Peter looked her over. “Then he’s a fool.”
“Yeah. I kinda figured that, too,” she grinned.
As they turned onto River Street and continued walking, Goldie determined that not only was Peter good-looking, he had charm to spare. She asked how he had gotten into the newspaper business, and he talked about his love of writing and how he hoped to pen a novel someday. But in the meantime, he also liked that his writing informed a local community and helped people make better decisions about their lives. Even if those decisions were about something small, like the potholes on Fox Cross Way. She had to admit, she liked Peter Banyan. He was, so far, one of the best things about her new, displaced life.
As they strolled by cross street after cross street down the main thoroughfare of town, she looked to her right and saw Sheriff Johnson, his friend Stu Frey, and several other people going into a small Catholic church carrying packages and bags of one kind or another. She figured it was some sort of Thanksgiving service and decided, after Peter had dropped her off back at the hotel, she might keep her coat on, wait a couple of minutes in the lobby, then walk back to the church. After all, it was early in the evening, and what else was there to do?
Six
THANKSGIVING #2
Before Peter said goodbye to Goldie at the hotel, he promised to see her again soon. She couldn’t help but wonder what that meant. Did he mean on a date? Or in his capacity as editor of the newspaper? Or did he simply mean it was a small town, and seeing each other was inevitable? She thought about it while listening to the musicians in the lobby play one of their final numbers for the day, then she left the hotel and walked back to the church.
Saint Mark’s was a wooden structure built in 1869 and lined with stained glass windows on both sides. It was small, and when filled, held only eighty-three of the faithful. To her surprise, when she opened the front doors and went inside, she found the plain but tidy church empty. Empty, except for a priest entering from a side hallway to the right of the altar to pick up a cardboard box sitting in front of it. He was very thin and had a baby face with a little acne. He looked like he was about eighteen, but Goldie knew that wasn’t the case. Seeing her, he smiled warmly.
“Hello. Are you the lady with the hot buns?”
The comment caught her off guard. She started to look around at her butt, but then stopped.
“Excuse me?”
“The buns. The dinner rolls. Do you need help bringing them in?”
“Uh, no. I’m not, eh, the hot bun lady.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. Then, you’re here for dinner?”
“No. I’ve already eaten.”
“Oh, now I understand,” the priest said. “We’re all downstairs.”
He walked past the box he was initially going for and stepped forward while extending his hand. “I’m still connecting names with faces, and I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Father David Fitzsimmons, but everyone calls me Father Fitz.”
“Karen Maraschino,” she reciprocated, shaking his hand. “Everyone calls me Goldie.”
“No doubt because you have a heart of gold,” the priest assumed.
“Sure. Let’s go with that,” she agreed.
“Maraschino?” he repeated.
“Yeah. I know,” she said.
He turned, returned to his box, picked it up, and then led the way. “I can’t recall seeing you in church. Are you Catholic?”
“Yeah, but I don’t usually go unless it’s one of the big four: Christmas, Easter, a weddin’, or a funeral.”
“Get all the answers you need going to church so infrequently?” Father Fitz asked, a few feet ahead of her.
