Wandering Hearts
Preview
The following is an excerpt from the book Wandering Hearts
by Donna J. Grisanti
Published by Phoenix Corp., August 2006; $ 14.95US; 978-0970886095
Copyright © 2006 Phoenix Publishing Corp.
1
Raine Foster knew with certainty she would have to leave home as warm and humid spring when Nanny Vi started talking to the dolls. Through tears, he considered Raine do as she saw the bright pink glow of the sky washboard ending day. The Fosters' farm fell about Raine and his grandmother increasingly unconscious head.
Raine looked at his rough, chapped hands, asking that the soft, pink cotton candy bits in the sky would not have become gray and threatening. All too frequently lead heavens poured our constant streams knock which kept Raine running inside the house of the rusty bucket on the bucket farm, then abandoned horse troughs she dragged out of the barn decomposition. If his prayers cease buckling floors and no leak would be more in the spring on top of Swiss cheese over their heads, as they did not reply, she feared the second floor of the house would be down and kill them in their beds.
Raine said people leave the city and embark on his own life, even during this crisis. Back vultures tax have been round the earth in this place of turmoil, they said. The evaluator rolltop desk was littered tax notice, and nobody in this generation can afford to pay anything to save the properties of the longtime family. The landscape was riddled with broken dreams and lost fortunes large and small, like theirs, in the estimation of most people, the only way out was to leave Raine or marry. She had no money to leave, at least not enough to buy a nice seat on the train that stopped at Clinforks. So "starve here or get married" was the opinion solemn old rockers in a few crackles and stools barrel on the porch collapse Vitman general store, post office and the office of cotton-gin.
Almost halfway into 1941 in Bridgeville, the old city had nothing better to do than come every weekday and Saturday morning in their own but tattered clothes to rock on the porch in store crash comfort. They sat on their days off, keeping the clerk, postmaster, and determining its business man while people watching try to stretch their wages to supplies. Work hard to see people trying to scrape together pennies keep food on the table tired. Things were bad in Bridgeville as long as anyone could remember. The place Foster Raine's house, appeared next on the long list of failures that shows no sign of the end, the elders say they face wrinkles chewed on the ends their empty pipes.
The porch seniors were cantankerous mood, not be able to taste, smell or at least, the scent came from burning tobacco. It was a little old gentlemen of irritable denied the luxury of driving or chewing tobacco, because there was no more money, either in their pockets or the pockets of their families. Their audience fading aspired to the wave of the deep pocket of gold mining round tins or tarry shaved leaves. Sometimes they raise their bodies worn by rockers and porch around the front of the cash register, praying that the air currents bring a few puffs smelling the glass sanctuary where Vitman kept tobacco products lined up in boxes and pouches brilliant, so close yet so far from their lips, mouth, and bowls.
"We could be in luck, guys," Miller said Earll as he moved to the end of his pipe empty a damp corner of his mouth to another. "Listen to Mr. Wright Vestel Emil Vitman goes Fosters' place tomorrow. "He withstood a second to make sure everyone was listening to his piece of juicy gossip about the height, owner square jaw of most companies in their small town. Earll if she was entitled, he would be the provider something to keep people talking for weeks beyond advice buckling porch of the general store.
One thing that everyone already knew that Emil was Vitman mainly sour, spoiled by man for thirty wealth. Sat Earll forward in the best of old rockers, has made visual contact with each of the four old men sitting with him, and said softly, "It seems that something important is happening." He knew he had all the interested parties, as everyone of his fellow sat up and strained to hear every word. Earll solemnly shook his head, imitating the style of circuit preacher who came every four weeks the church by the dirt road called Pine Road.
Earll had obtained this important information Vestel Wright, the plump widow who was the cook Vitman and housekeeper since her husband died of rheumatic five years earlier. "Seems young Vitman going to take a wife."
Earll seemed pleased with the reception eyed his new buddies generated in its porch. He was particularly pleased with the reaction Pete Fisher. When Pete reached for old knees both hands, stretched his neck as if he had stopped breathing for a few seconds, then let all the air in his lungs wheezing, Earll knew the news, it spreads was the desired effect.
"Yes sir, Vitman and Raine Foster," Earll said with authority, as if it could afford to buy the local newspaper and was reading the four pages Bridgeville Weekly Gazette. "Maybe we'll have a nice meal and a better smoke when we attend the wedding. "The mouths of the men sprayed the idea of the taste of cigars and tobacco good curling from their pipes.
Brady Fell Vitman the "Fix it, man, was not so pleased by the news. Eavesdropping may be crude, but it was necessary in this case, he thought. If his seventeen years as an employee Vitman were any indication, being the wife of Vitman could save Raine Foster from starving, but there were other things to consider, as the cruelties of his wealthy and powerful boss, which Brady and everyone in town had witnessed.
Brady shook his head in disgust. He needed this job rewarding and necessary to mind its own business. It was the only thing that had taking his wife and their three children since the accident during the cotton mill Vitman had cost six broken ribs, a leg, buttocks, and loss of the family farm during his long convalescence. The farm belonged to act Vitman now, and Brady and his family were allowed to stay there at the whim of the average man. If he butted his nose in this situation Vitman and Raine Foster, he and his family could be on the dirt road without a house or a job before dark.
Although Brady was waiting impatiently for his oldest, Imogen, for a husband and give him a mouth less hungry, his conscience took hold of him. Even if it meant a decade to dilute the sauce and eat more cookies weeks old saved by the bin store Vitman, it was more likely when roaming Raine Foster marry her boss. Trying to give a sense of humor Emil Vitman thunder, has changed more often than hairdressing posters in the window washing Miss Clover and Curl Hair Salon in the street, probably killing a woman. Not only that, but was Vitman also known for adding physical violence to the mix mercury. Vitman escape the consequences of his irrational acts by using its power and money to store all the mess.
Brady thought things yet. He was tired, bone Wednesday afternoon and did not want to do anything other than his duties work. This information has changed her mind. It would be late for dinner and to warn Miss Raine as the devil in the form of Mr. Vitman, came calling.
To continue, Raine has worked in the fields of vegetables and flowers and selling flowers and produce at their roadside property. To calm Nanny Vi while working, Raine define dolls rest of the family collection down on small wooden chairs in a semicircle around her party tea today fragile grandmother hair wispy.
No matter how hard Raine tried to stop her when she was painting his grandmother once thick brown hair, keeping it very well, downy edges of the mass considerably thinned laced with strands of steel gray start slip knot tight around the neck Nanny Vi. Raine wondered if his thick auburn hair, which were curly and wavy at the root ends long, would look the same, if she lived as long as Vi Nanny. She now sets her hair in the same tight knot at the back of his own head because there was no time to play with her. Many things have gone, like parts of real tea in bulk and braids of capture to sweat from his face, she worked in the garden of vegetables and flowers.
Her grandmother had not been out of the house in a few weeks. On their last trip to Bridgeville for flour and lard, Nanny VI had begun to talk again to the dead as if they were alive. Raine decided she could not leave his grandmother being exposed to the sad case of eyes that recall another Vidalia Foster, strong rider and manufacturer doll who was now a frail woman nonsense. Raine had to lock all exterior doors and push the furniture to block access to Inside dangerous floor uninhabitable seconds of the house when Nanny Vi was a wandering mood.
There was also a debt to pay Brady. When she saw him on the last trip, Brady had told her, "I gave your grandmother a patch of three cents. paid for myself. "He Nanny Vi looked up a bunch of papers in the mailbox at the general store, while Raine was placed on the plots in the mule cart. Raine had still not understood how Nanny VI had learned to the stationery or managed to hide the envelope. She should apologize to the postmaster, if he discovered his grandmother gibberish with the rest of the e-mail. The last time she was in town, he was in bed with a cast mustard and hot lemonade and whiskey, the fight against a cold far post. Apologies to the postmaster could wait, but when she went to a store General at the end of the week she was going to give Brady the three hundred that she had amassed. Ms. Simpson would pay him tomorrow.
The money wasted was not the only thing. Ni Vi Raine or Nanny had worked in the doll making business for more than a year. There was neither a market for expensive porcelain dolls, or the money to buy parts for complex fragile beauties, their clothes decorated, or eyes Discount rocker that opens when the dolls were upright and closed when the dolls were sleeping in their beds. It has nothing to sell instead of home to buy the doll parts. All the money they had opted for food and necessities. The old mule was the only stock left in barns, and the only thing they were still able to feed themselves elsewhere.
Nanny Vi and Raine had tried to keep the tradition going with doll making cloth dolls and even corncob dolls. They sold only a few because people might them from their own waste and fields. Nanny Vi then fell ill. The dolls only have they done now for people without money who needed dolls for gifts and holidays. Raine kept hope alive and talent by collecting the best corn husks and scratching parts faded fabric that were too small quilts for his neighbors.
Raine wondering how long they last this way. As if the house falls around them was not enough, a few weeks earlier Nanny VI had begun to discuss with two invisible people. The old woman called them restively day and night. "Where are you, Ben? She had to call." Will you come here soon, Charlotte? "Raine did not want to do, thinking to sell the demands of her grandmother weakened shaky grasp on reality wife, but ultimately it shaped more two dolls to represent those individuals unknown. No matter how many times Raine tried to ask his grandmother about them, Nanny Vi would not say that Raine had never known of Charlotte and Ben.
The young woman had learned a hard lesson in peacekeeping. The last time that Raine had tried to tell his grandmother that Raine parents and husband Nanny Vi and parents were all buried on the hill slope at the edge of their property, Nanny VI, had left home. Though Raine has worked in the reign vegetable garden, Nanny Vi erred on two farms calling for her husband, whom she had spent at the farm Nelson to sharpen its tools in the garden whetstone that Raine and all other neighborhood knew had been sold two years ago in the sale of the property after Ella Nelson died. Mr. Nelson died five years earlier, and nothing will sharpen that day except the "gossips languages as they passed along this sad story about Nanny Vi and its out-of-the wandering mind.
Raine never wanted to feel the pressure in the chest or scream in terror as she had after her flight irrational grandmother's house. So she kept its peace and information to herself while stifling her grandmother and working on the creation of Charlotte and Ben dolls of wood and fabric. Then, after they had their late lunch and a trip to addiction, she carefully placed them in circle around wobbly doll her grandmother stuffed chair. Raine raised eyebrows in frustration, but said nothing.
Suddenly, Raine heard a noise. There was someone on the vegetable stand. Bridey Taylor himself said she would get by cabbage after it was removed from the laundry at the house of Judge Marshall.
After paying nickel for several large heads, Bridey rubbed his hands flayed. "I hope the judge does not want so much starch in his shirts, she said. "I can not understand how the stiffness can give me such a rash and neck of the judge while remaining as smooth as baby's bottom."
Raine gave her a dollop of cream on a bad piece of brown paper tied in a cloth.
"Thanks," said Bridey. "I need go home to wash my clothes, but you know I tell myself that I had the time to listen to the old general store. Might 've had news to share. "She looked in her bag." They seemed interested in a powerful tale or another. "She recalled men sitting around the general store where she went to get more powder starch. "Earll Miller and his boys all seemed to like cats had swallowed the canary, of course. If I was not so tired, I have asked them what was up. Even looked at my hem skirt to see if my slip showing, they look so beady eyes. "
Concentrate on his next task, Raine began to empty and bring the last of the motley collection of buckets, cans and a garden of water from the holes in the roof, which sat under the protection part of a majestic oak. The tree took the full brunt of the heat of the sun and showers, to protect the fragile garden stems. Raine took a chance Planting a few rows of corn earlier than usual, and the stems had withstood the heat early and all the rain. She hopes that her bring some money as well.
As Raine considering spring flowers that would make a pretty bouquet table Ms. Simpson, she heard a familiar voice whisper in the bushes, "Miss Raine, I got to talk to you."
"Brady? What are you doing in the bushes? Raine asked an amused tone.
"Do not say my name again, and keep doing what you do. This is important!" Brady said in a whisper difficult. Raine was confused, but she tried not to be rigid and artificial as it focused on flowers.
"I take Flowers for Tomorrow, The Simpsons, "" all she could think to say.
"I can not stay long, but there are some bad news. "Brady swallowed. He did not know how to say it, but knowing that Miss Raine has been her friend and she needed to know, he kept going all way. "Earll Miller said his friend, Vestel Wright said Mr. Vitman comes to ask you to be his wife."
Raine stood up as if someone had hit hard in the back. The flowers, she looked at became blurred, and then returned to the home. She grabbed her size with his hands as if she was protecting herself from a sudden freezing cold. "You're sure?"
"Miss Raine you know me better. I would not tell you no lies or risk being fired from my job without insanity, "Brady said, always jumping its bent-leg position, making sure he had his right foot on ground in case someone had followed him from the general store. Mr. Vitman had many spies in the fall cotton gin, paid to do anything. Starting to run everything he asked if had been followed.
Raine and swallowed, not having enough breath as his heart pounded in his throat, whispered, "You go to home now, Brady, and be careful. Thank you, and I'll take it from here. "His hands reached for the stems of flowers she looked and stroked the thin, green trees. It was as if she had seen his own death certificate signed. After a few short words, she knew now she would leave and never return. She could not turn down Vitman Emil and live anywhere near Bridgeville. Vitman would be poison if thought she had gone through. She needed to go into exile at all she knew and loved, to save his own life because she knew he either have or see the dead.
What will I do and how do I do? she wondered as coldness crept through it. Emil Vitman had been drinking, carousing, and the fight against his way around the area for years. Why should it be the target of his matrimonial projects? Since his dad died in the epidemic influenza that killed even his parents, there was nobody to bridle that man erratic or his henchmen, who acted first and then Vitman used the money to get out of trouble later. It was also said to be a snake and twice as dangerous, because in addition to money, he had the money added permanent family relationship for many generations. Several people have died in recent years years because they were too close to temper Vitman. Who can say anything when the thief owned most of the city and paid the people who knew things? Raine necessary planning – and fast. Thank you kindly warning Brady bought her time, she thought as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
When Raine tried not to think of new Brady, his mind would pull it back to the conscious thought to the enormity and horror of perspective. Emil Vitman was not a patient man, so it would save time. It was Nanny Vi of thinking she was gone from his mind right more often now. Maybe it would give some latitude Raine.
For all his fighting spirit, Emil was straddling the property among others. Delirium grandmother, brother-in home was not something Vitman Emil would like, and Raine was not going to send his grandmother the sanatorium in the state. It could play on people's feelings about a granddaughter wanting to keep his only living relative close to her, even if people think Nanny Vi was mad now. Raine is not safe. In his estimation, there seems to be room for one crazy person in the place Vitman, which was Emil himself.
Emil Vitman was the product of the beautiful, pampered daughter of a merchant too rum who died a few days after her child birth and lineage of watered once industrious respectable stock on the side of his father. Fortunately for him, respect the hard life, and connections can be purchased in these lean times. So, Emil success greased palms and fences repaired after failure and frenzy rabies. Like its neighbors, staff and customers of the store confirmed, he became increasingly depressed as his sober hours decreased.
As word spread on the possible marriage, some observers have been rather sarcastic to wonder privately if his feelings more and more surly could correspond to the least frequent lucid moments of his grandmother bride future. Although all the gossips of the city pointed out that looks good Emil were fading under the constant barrage of alcohol, they made their remarks outside his earshot to avoid becoming the subject its irregularity, vengeful anger. They never knew when they might need a favor from the swollen eyes, smoothing Vitman.
When Vitman made up his mind, he could not be deterred. He was convinced that Raine Foster was the answer to his problems. Raine, soon to be his wife always self-will, take care of the shop and its little problems. Acting on his orders, muscular assistants to the cotton gin could focus on handling more important things. It would be free to consider heavier questions and give orders to all in the comfort of the leather chair in his library, with cut-glass decanter of bourbon at his side.
Although almost penniless, Raine has a fine pedigree, which certainly added to his community. She could fix things in the church and social fronts. He had taken the books of his business, establish the rules of credit, and let the rest run – As long as it did not ask to repair the wreckage of a farm she and her grandmother lived in ramshackle house They should be filled with all kinds of evidence must and contagion, which came from hardy stock and Raine would make an excellent broodmare for her many children come. They would be his responsibility, too, he thought as he considered the pleasures of home, home, and businesses. Maybe he could even manage some discreet dalliances on the side.
He had to plan carefully. Just to be sure the pile of decaying wood house called Raine, he would call her on the lawn to discuss his plans and their coming marriage. With its hand-d'existence-mouth, she could not last much longer. If he spies was entitled, there were only a few dolls left from the collection of her great-grandmother of the French dolls. If Raine tight money, it will last one year. Then there would be nothing other than his vegetables and flowers to support herself and her grandmother.
Emil thought a minute. It could send Sweeney's cotton gin to fly over the dolls and accelerate the process. He tucked away the possibility as a last resort to get his ends. Although he relished winning by any means necessary, he has always considered the marriage of a fine, honorable thing. He did not use more force than necessary, unless Miss Raine gave her a reason to reconsider its tactics.
Emil looked in the mirror his face relatively beautiful, the missing signals of his alcohol consumption increases – redness of facial skin and the beginning of tiny broken blood vessels around his nose. He turned head and admired cocoa brown hair Vitman legendary, which has kept its color and for all men in the family than to the time they entered the afterlife.
There have been some changes in other Emil. At thirty-seven, he began to wear jackets even in the warmest weather because the material hidden size booming. Her blue eyes were bloodshot little, but there were still lice everywhere, was not there? He turned a little consider his profile. With her long legs, he still rode a horse well when he thought about taking a horse. But he preferred the sedan Brady Fell washed and waxed every Wednesday morning, or whenever Emil wanted to remove any dirt from Bridgeville puddles and ruts. Brady restock shelves could make an inventory or later. Emil enjoyed seeing his reflection in the clean coal-black finish of his Packard.
If this is how he greeted to his mistress? Emil asked. No, he thought, as he considered the classics of his tutor did read those long years ago, when he could not be bothered to pick them up himself. Even then, he had been misunderstood in the community school. His father hired a tutor for him, but the thin man with thin legs – named Harris, if Emil remember correctly – fled with a Farmer's Daughter night some of the other side of town. In the grand style of romantic literature, Emil thought he should go over to Foster's house on his horse, Renegade, to impress Miss Raine. Women have enjoyed this kind of romantic nonsense.
When Raine Foster said yes, his ride was over all the romance that would further her wedding day. So it would be worth having stable hands washing and curry Renegade and make sure Mrs. Wright got the smell of his clothes horse after his return from the venue.
Emil caught in the pocket of his jacket with satin gold, the feeling of the ring-making body of his aunt Clara after she had died seven years ago. If the memory was properly Emil, Miss Raine and his hand were similar, so it was unnecessary waste of good money. After all, there was still the cost of wedding bands. Moreover, women did not like feeling? He could Raine said the cock-and-Bull story and save himself the cost of a new engagement ring. She would not wear it long anyway after started working in the shop and take care of their children. It would just go back to him and sit in her jewelry box. She had obtained a strip of raw gold to his mark as his wife.
After a breakfast soup of ham and eggs with biscuits Wright, followed by a bourbon and water to hug, Emil Vitman Foster went to the farm on a Renegade light trot. Although he liked the idea of flying in the air on a galloping horse, he saw no reason today to jump fences and get the horse himself or sweat. Emil ring patted his Aunt Clara in his vest pocket. As he checked his fine black horse about fifty yards from the door of Raine, a slight breeze has affected large oak trees shading the front of the house once so proud Foster.
Copyright © 2006 Phoenix Publishing Corp.
About the Author
Donna J. Gristanti is a Tucson, Arizona based fiction writer. Wandering Hearts, her first published novel, was written over a five year period. A former senior nursing administrator, she now divides her time between writing, family, and church.
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