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Chapter Twelve
Gina
Mona showed up at the house this morning unannounced, like some kind of omen. In one hand, she was carrying a pot of chicken soup for my dad, and in the other, her toolbox to fix the broken door. “I can’t pay you,” I tell her as she unloads her things. “Mr. Walton hasn’t reopened the store, nor has he offered my job back.”
“It’s on the house,” she says with a wink. This is the kind of woman Mona is.
I shake my head. “They don’t make ‘em like you anymore, Mona.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” She finishes unpacking the items she’s brought and she turns to me. “Speaking of—that Smith boy asked about you the other day.” Her voice is hot with mischief. She walks over to the sink and strikes a match, but she doesn’t say anything else. She just goes about her business, humming a tune.
I’m guessing my father has told her about the ad. If her behavior is any indication, I’d say she’s just as shocked as I was to hear of it. A strange feeling creeps over me, but I can’t quite put my finger on what it is. Maybe it has to do with Mona walking around the house with something burning in her hands. She’s stopped humming and now she’s whispering some weird prayer or something.
“What’s she doing?” I ask my father.
“How should I know? Maybe she’s losing her mind.” He shrugs. “Or maybe she’s onto something.”
I sniff the air. “What is that?”
“Martha dying,” Mona says. “It feels like some kind of bad juju. I’m clearing the air.”
“Bad juju?”
“You know,” she says. “Like karma. A little ceremony ought to take care of it. I just need a few minutes…”
“It’s smoking up the house!” I tell her, fanning the room. “Daddy’s already short of breath!”
“It’s just sage,” she says. “He’ll live.”
“I always liked Jacob,” Daddy remarks. “Maybe Mona is right. Maybe you should give him a call. Take your mind off things.”
“No, thank you. You said you wanted me to have options. Now, I do.” I say this, though I’m not sure that’s entirely true. The truth is, I'm scared. What if every one of those men who wrote those letters are duds? What if I hate all of them?
“The energy has been cleared,” Mona announces with a full exhale, like it took a lot out of her. I watch as she takes her smudge stick to the sink and puts it out. “And that Smith boy is a fine option.”
My father’s eyes sharpen. “He’s always had a thing for you.”
“It’s just a crush,” I tell them, adding another lie to the pile. I’ve told so many lately, it’s hard to keep track.
Jacob has been in love with me since the third grade, maybe sooner, but that was when I took notice. He proposed marriage ten months ago, right before Christmas. I didn’t mean to, but I laughed in his face.
“You can’t be serious,” I said, my heart sinking as I realized he was. He looked crestfallen, his cheeks reddened with the kind of humiliation I have known only once. I took his face in my hands, and I leaned forward and kissed his lips.
“You don’t want to marry me, Jacob,” I said. “I am not the kind of woman who could ever make you happy.”
“That’s not true,” he protested. He thought he was right, but most people don’t know themselves, much less anyone else.
I scanned his face, searching for a reaction. “I know you think I would make a good wife,” I told him. “But what you think is pure fantasy. I have no intention of sticking around this place. It’s like a shoe that doesn’t fit. You understand that, don’t you?”
His eyes showed an inner conflict as I spoke. He leaned back. For a moment, he was silent. He seemed somewhat soothed by my honesty, but disappointed nonetheless.
“I’m going to be an actress. In Hollywood.”
“I could visit you,” he said, his eyes bright with hope.
His optimism made me smile. “I would like that.”
I meant it when I said it, but I knew it would never happen.
