CHAPTER SIX THE PROPOSAL #2
All weekend, her stomach balled into tighter knots worrying about how to tell Roscoe and Benny she wouldn’t do it.
Benny had built his hopes on her agreeing to the plan, and she felt selfish for wanting to refuse.
He would be crushed when she turned Roscoe down.
And she couldn’t stop thinking about that hurt look Roscoe had quickly hidden.
Or about how Momma worried about money and about the future.
If there’d been no Lee, it might have been a good plan.
She’d always been fond of Roscoe. He was the sort of decent man a person could learn to love.
But she already loved Lee, and as flattered as she was by Roscoe’s sweet offer, she couldn’t imagine anyone filling the gaping hole Lee had gouged out of her chest when he left.
‘It’s not just the money, you know,’ Benny said on Sunday night after they’d gone to bed, the curtain drawn closed between them. ‘He’s been sweet on you for a long time. And he’d take good care of you.’
She felt a pang of guilt that she’d only ever thought of him as her brother’s friend. ‘You don’t need me to marry Roscoe to enlist,’ she said. ‘If you want to go this badly, you could just go. Lee did.’
‘Yeah, but the difference is I care for you and Momma. I can’t just leave like he can.’
Her throat closed up in the dark room. He didn’t know about her and Lee, so couldn’t know he’d put words to the worry she’d carried since Lee left.
The difference is I care for you. If Lee loved her like he said he did, how could he just leave?
And since he’d left, did that mean he never really loved her?
Momma had warned her enough times that a man will say anything to get a girl to lie with him.
But that hadn’t been Lee. He’d meant the things he said to her. All those promises.
Doubt crept in and lingered like a foul odor, keeping her awake and wondering until a quiet fear slid through her, that maybe she’d been wrong about Lee, maybe Momma and the church ladies were right.
At work on Monday, Cora’s mind churned over the same questions she hadn’t found answers to all night. She felt Loretta nudge her and blinked to attention to see Mr Griffin looking at her with an impatient eyebrow climbing up his forehead.
‘She’s working on that letter right now, sir,’ Loretta said, coming to her rescue. ‘The typewriter got jammed, is all. But it’s fixed now, right, Cora?’
Cora looked at the letter in her typewriter where she’d got as far as ‘Dear Mr Palmer’ before her mind had wandered. ‘Yes,’ she said, with a grateful glance to Loretta. ‘Jammed typewriter.’
‘You have a nice lunch, Mr Griffin,’ Loretta said, ‘and she’ll have it for you by the time you get back.’
‘On my desk,’ he said, heading for the door.
When it closed behind him, Loretta rounded on her. ‘What on earth has got you thinking so hard you’re gonna get yourself fired?’
Cora slumped in her seat and put her head into her hands. In a breathless rush, she told her how Lee’s leaving had devastated her and how badly she felt to turn down Roscoe’s sweet proposal, delivered with Benny’s help.
‘You and Lee?’ Loretta said, her eyes going wide. ‘You should have known better than to put your trust in someone like that. You know his past, don’t you? He’s been in trouble with the law since he was twelve years old.’
‘That was before. He’s different now.’
‘Oh, honey, please. You have a good man like Roscoe trying to take care of you, and you want to turn him down to wait on a hooligan who ran off without a backwards glance? You need to say yes to Roscoe before he changes his mind.’
‘But I don’t love him. I love Lee.’
Loretta looked at Cora like she was simple-minded. ‘Every woman has a story about some good-looking bad-boy they went ga-ga over, but you don’t wait for them, you don’t marry them.’ She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. ‘Especially when he didn’t even propose.’
‘Loretta—’
‘And you don’t turn down a good man like Roscoe for them.’
Cora felt sick to her stomach. ‘But—’
‘Did Lee ask you to wait for him?’
She thought of the last time she’d seen him. She’d placed his hands on her body and he’d pulled them off. Her eyes filled with tears, remembering how he’d walked away from her. ‘No.’
Loretta pinned her with a look that was almost pitying. ‘Then don’t wait for him.’
After work, Cora walked to Roscoe’s, her heart thudding in her chest. Reason and logic told her she was doing the right thing, even if her whole body told her she wasn’t.
She reminded herself of what Loretta had said and what Benny had said and what Lee hadn’t said.
She’d followed her feelings long enough.
Roscoe opened the door, looking surprised and happy to see her. She stepped inside and found Benny with him. The hopeful expression that settled over her brother’s face was almost painful to see and steeled her resolve. She could do this. This was best for everyone.
‘I’ve thought about it,’ she said, her eyes flitting around the room, too nervous to rest on anything. The tension in her neck made her ears ring. ‘It’s a kind thing you’re wanting to do for me.’ She swallowed. Licked her lips. Swallowed. ‘So, I’ve come to accept your offer.’
Roscoe grinned and Benny sprang forward, grabbing her shoulders and pulling her toward him to kiss her forehead. ‘Thank you.’
Already she wanted to take it back, but the relief and gratitude in Benny’s voice silenced her. Tears of frustration and sadness flooded her eyes, and when they fell, it was Roscoe who wrapped his arm around her.
‘It’s gonna be okay,’ he said quietly into her ear, and she nodded, hoping it would be true.