Chapter 31

Suzie got home in late July. She arrived without calling ahead, and with no fanfare. She had a week before she needed to be in Kansas City to find an apartment and get ready for med school. She stopped at the Chumley manor first, though no one in her family knew that. She thanked them again and they kept her there for over an hour as she described what their scholarship had meant to her.

She left stunned. No student loans for medical school would be necessary, if she agreed to come back to Granger and practice medicine there. They’d pay everything, including the stipend to live on, so she wouldn’t have to work.

“Give us five or six years, here in Granger,” Chester had said. “We’ll call it even after that.”

“It’s too much!” Suzie had gasped.

“A drop in the bucket.” Chester had waved a hand negligently. It had held a cigar in it.

“You need to stop smoking those things,” Suzie had pointed out.

He had laughed. Felicity had hugged her, and walked to the front door with her.

Now she parked, feeling the euphoria of knowing that she wouldn’t be in debt up to her eyeballs when medical school was over. She was home. She could relax and do nothing for a whole week! She’d get to see her mamma, and her sisters.

And she’d get to see Bobby.

Bobby, as it turned out, was gone on a job when Suzie got there. The twins were at work too, so she got to spend some time with her mother.

Even though Suzie wasn’t a doctor yet, hadn’t even received her white coat yet, in her mother’s mind she was already a physician. The news about the Chumley’s extended “scholarship” only reinforced that perception.

And people will talk to a doctor ... at least one they trust.

It was from Mirriam, that she learned what the twins had been trying to find out, about Bobby. Mirriam was Prudence’s best friend, and they had no secrets. Prudence had described a daughter who was acting much the same way Mirriam’s son was acting. Both knew the cause, but neither knew what to do about it. It was ironic in the extreme that Mirriam not only asked her daughter for advice, but that she asked the only daughter who, as far as Mirriam was aware, had no experience with men either.

“I have an idea,” said Suzie, after a two hour catch-up session.

“What is it?”

“Bev,” said Suzie. “She was Connie’s best friend.”

Mirriam’s eyes widened. “I should have thought of that!” she moaned.

Then she told Suzie why she’d been having a hard time thinking about much of anything, and about the new man in her life.

Suzie found Bev and another catch-up session evolved, this one only an hour long. Part of that was admitting to Bev what had happened in Manhattan. She left her roommates out of it, but confessed the rest. Bev knew what Bobby was like, and wasn’t surprised or judgmental. But she was agitated when Suzie told her about Connie and Bobby.

“I knew she was nuts for him,” sighed Bev. “I should have seen this coming.” She stamped a foot. “But then she met Tim, and I thought it was all taken care of.”

“Well, if they’re right ... it wasn’t.” Suzie shrugged.

Bev frowned. “When Tim died, I didn’t know what to do for her. We drifted apart, and I shouldn’t have let that happen. But Bobby was the only one who could get through to her, so I just let him. I should have seen it then too. I’ve been so stupid!”

When Bev and Suzie showed up at the door, Prudence was a bit surprised. When Bev asked, almost shyly, to talk to Constance, Prudence simply stood back.

This catch-up session took four hours, and Prudence didn’t see or hear a peep from Connie’s room the entire time. When Bev came out she looked drawn and tired, but she smiled.

“You were right,” she said. “She’s in love with my brother.”

“I knew it,” said Prudence. She didn’t sound like she was happy to be vindicated. “Is she okay?”

“Were you ever okay when you were in love?” asked Bev, with wisdom much older than her chronological age. “Were you ever okay when a man was involved?”

Prudence smiled. “Yes, actually. I was. And you are too.”

Bev flashed a wide grin. “I know, but it’s so much fun to blame everything on the man.”

“Where’s Suzie?”

“She’s still talking to her.”

“What now?” asked Prudence, looking toward her daughter’s door.

“Now we figure out how to talk to Bobby, and try to straighten all this out.”

“We?” Prudence felt a stab of fear that Bev would expect her to help “talk to Bobby.” Prudence didn’t do well when she talked to Bobby. She had a tendency to stare into his blue eyes, and that led to things she was resolved not to do any more, considering how her daughter felt about the man those blue eyes belonged to.

“My sisters and I,” said Bev. “We’ve ganged up on him in the past. We’re older now. It might even work.” She smiled tiredly. “I have to go. Suzie is going to talk to the twins and Linda. I need to go find Mary and Flo. We’re going to try to start things happening.”

“What should I do?” asked Prudence.

“Just be there for her if this doesn’t work out,” sighed Bev.

The girls gathered in the twins’ room, in the barn. Nobody knew when Bobby would be home, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t invited to this part of things. Mirriam was told that they were coming up with a plan, and to occupy him with chores or anything else she could think of so that he didn’t barge in on them. Mirriam said she’d cook extra food, but that the table wouldn’t hold both the boarders and all of them. They told her they’d come get it and eat in the barn.

Bobby got home around nine. Once again he was trying to avoid the twins. He’d been done with his work at five and then driven to the lake, where he threw rocks into the water for an hour. Then he went to the Wagon Wheel and had supper. He was glad Jill wasn’t there. Sal was his old self, and Bobby felt cheered up when he left.

It was for that reason that he decided to go see Erica. She was delighted to see him, but not for the reason he went there.

“Come in!” she squealed, pulling him into the house. “I have news!”

He knew about Terry, of course, having seen him at the park on the fourth. They had been reserved there, though, and it had seemed to Bobby like things were just in the exploratory stages. Erica hadn’t talked about Terry when she was together with Bobby, before this.

What she told him now revealed that things were much farther along than he’d thought. She had applied for a job in Hutchinson, and been offered a contract. She’d start there in two weeks. She was looking for an apartment, though Terry had offered to let her stay with him. She wasn’t comfortable with that. She felt more strongly about him than she had any other man, in ways she wasn’t used to feeling strongly about a man, but she wasn’t going to hurry things. If she couldn’t find a place she could afford, she’d just commute until she did.

She’d obviously given this a lot of thought, and Bobby’s initial almost-desire to seek solace in her arms melted away. She was obviously excited about this new relationship.

“I owe it all to you, Bobby,” she said, pulling him into a hug. “If it hadn’t been for you, I’d probably never have given him a chance.”

“Yes you would,” said Bobby. “You gave me one.”

“That was different,” she said. “You let me find out who I am inside. You let me feel free to be myself.” She saw something in Bobby’s face, and pulled back.

It suddenly occurred to her that he had just shown up, like he had in the past, and she remembered what they usually did in the past.

“Terry likes Owen, Bobby,” she said, more subdued now. “I know he’s yours, but...”