Chapter 31
Thirty-One
THE REST WILL TAKE CARE OF ITSELF
“There she is,” Clara announced. “The talk of the town. How are you, honey?”
Goldie waited until she was closer before answering so nobody else would hear.
“I know you’re not from this time, Clara,” she began. “I also know Stu Frey’s an angel.”
The older woman paused briefly, surprised, but then recovered and smiled. “Say, you are a good investigator, aren’t you?” She dipped a hand into her overcoat pocket. “You’d best come inside. I think I’m going to open a little late this morning.”
She unlocked her front door and stepped inside, the wooden floor squeaking as she did. But she didn’t turn around the sign hanging on the door’s glass from “Closed” to “Open.” Once Goldie was inside, she locked the door again, took off her winter coat, and carried it to the back room.
“I always thought you might’ve been a displaced soul,” she said as she went. “Right from your first day in town. But, to his credit, Stu never gave you up.”
“He wanted me to talk to you,” Goldie shared.
“Stu?”
“Yeah.”
“About what?”
“He gave me a choice to either stay here or go back to my own time.”
“And what time is that?”
“New York City in the 2020s.”
Clara nodded, hung up her coat in the back, then returned to the front of the store.
“The 2020s,” she mused, shaking her head as if she hardly believed it, but she did.
“He said that others before me have been given the option to stay or go,” Goldie continued. “Then he said I should talk to you. My challenge was the Banyans. What was your challenge?”
The mostly white-haired woman who always wore slacks started to move around the store, plugging in Christmas lights for various displays.
“I didn’t wake up in Sparkledove like you.
I moved here later. I woke up in Aurora, Colorado.
It’s on the other side of Denver, about sixty miles away.
” She plugged in some lights, then moved to another display.
“Like Stu no doubt said to you, my good versus bad choices were very much fifty-fifty. I was only twenty-three at the time, but even then, my choices toward the light and dark were pretty contradictory. Maybe I’ll tell you about ‘em sometime. But what you asked is: What was my challenge? I discovered and foiled a bank robbery that also involved the kidnapping of three small kids. That was over forty years ago.”
Goldie did some quick calculating in her head while Clara continued to plug in lights.
“So, you woke up in Aurora in the late 1890s?”
“1900 to be exact.”
“And you decided to stay?”
“Yes.”
“Did you replace another version of yourself in Aurora?”
“No. Stu’s told me a little about how that can happen, but it’s different for different people.”
“Where did you live before you woke up in Aurora?”
“Stevens Point, Wisconsin,” she answered, plugging in more lights. “I was in a car accident with a girlfriend. We were both pretty baked at the time and were driving back from a movie theater where we’d just seen Saturday Night Fever. That was in 1977. Is John Travolta still a big heartthrob?”
“Yeah, if you’ve got a pacemaker.”
“Oh,” she realized, “I guess he would be a lot older. You, uh, you want some coffee? Mine’s not as good as across the street, but not half bad.”
“No. I’m good. Thanks.”
Clara looked at her and chuckled. “I can’t tell you how strange it is to say ‘John Travolta’ out loud and have someone know who I’m talking about.
” She went over to the radio and turned it on.
“Stu wasn’t the angel in these parts back then.
It was a woman named Ruth, but yes, I stayed.
The Clara Dawson I left in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, never came out of her coma. ”
“Why’d you stay?”
“Oh,” the senior one sighed, “lots of reasons. I wanted to remove myself from certain people and temptations, and I fell in love with someone here. Matter of fact, we’re still together.”
“Really?” Goldie asked. “Who is he?”
“She teaches music over in Golden.”
Goldie nodded. “D-does she know where you really—”
“Oh, no,” Clara interrupted. “That’s against the rules.
If you wind up staying, you’ll get to know all about the rules.
Like, if you tell people certain things about the future, it won’t register in their minds.
The origins of what they hear get fuzzy.
For instance, I can recite song lyrics from my youth to people and they’ll remember the lyrics, but not where they came from. ”
The tubes in the radio warmed up just as Kay Starr was singing.
“You,” Goldie realized. “You’re the one responsible for me hearing lyrics from groups like The Jackson 5, the Bee Gees, and the Beatles.”
Clara smiled. “It’s my little way of messin’ with the universe and keeping Stu on his toes. As you might imagine, it was difficult for a young woman to go from listening to Linda Ronstadt to Kate Smith. By the way, did the Beatles ever get back together?”
“Uh, no.”
“Not even for one concert?”
“I, eh, I don’t know what I’m allowed to say and not say about the future.”
“Okay, honey. Don’t sweat it… if you stay, I’m sure Stu will give us some guidelines. For now, just talking to someone like you is Christmas present enough.”
The two women looked at one another for a moment, then Clara walked over to the visitor and took her hand.
“You did good, Goldie. Believe me, I know what you went through. I tried to reassure you as best I could. But every soul has to find their own way.”
“I understand,” Goldie said.
Clara patted her hand, then went over and flipped the “Closed” sign to “Open” and unlocked her front door.
“Once you made your decision to stay,” Goldie asked. “Was it hard?”
“Of course it was. Damn hard! No matter how much time you have to mentally prepare, you don’t fully appreciate all the things you’re giving up.
Not just people, music, and familiar surroundings, but things that won’t be invented for decades.
I’d kill for my toaster oven, or my Princess Phone, or my cassette tapes.
So, yeah, it’s hard. On the other hand, because you know what you know, you’re privy to some wonderful secrets and can help people in ways you never thought possible.
You can warn a friend about the effects of smoking.
Or teach people to be less wasteful and find new uses for things.
Or talk someone out of investing their life savings into an idea that you know isn’t going anywhere.
Even educate folks about gay rights. Most importantly, though, in the darkest days of this war, you can give others hope and encouragement because you know we’re going to come out of it on the other side.
It’s not being smarter than others, Goldie.
It’s just using what you know to make a positive difference. ”
“So, you don’t regret your decision to stay then?”
“It was the right choice for me. It may or may not be the right choice for you.”
Just then, a customer walked into the store.
“So, what’re you going to do?” Clara asked.
“I don’t know… but thanks for your insights.”
After she left Clara’s Gifts, Goldie tracked down Father Fitzsimmons and acquired the photography negatives she needed for her article.
Then she returned to her hotel and spent several hours writing two drafts of a three-thousand-word article entitled, Sparkledove: A Small Town With A Big Christmas Heart.
” It was a homey and positive profile about a town that valued its heritage and offered lots of holiday activities from yesteryear, but welcomed guests with all the modern amenities anyone would need.
She didn’t write about Charles and Peter Banyan but focused on several other townspeople instead; from Maddie and Dean, to Eli, Clara, Deke and Chad, and even Saul and Paul McCaw, who she described as “generous and charming, but diamond tough, as mountain men of the Rockies should be.”
It was close to 6:00 p.m. by the time Goldie took her article and negatives down to the lobby.
Dean, working behind the counter, had an envelope to accommodate her materials, and Goldie addressed everything to Owen Mitchell using the address on one of her business cards.
Dean promised to mail everything off for her, then Goldie thanked him sincerely for all of his and Maddie’s hospitality.
She had no sooner turned toward the restaurant across the busy lobby when Eli came through the front doors.
Slipping off some gloves, he smiled and limped over to her.
“Howdy,” he greeted.
“Howdy, Sheriff,” she responded warmly.
“Uh, haven’t seen you today.”
“I was holed up in my hotel room for most of the day writin’ my article. I just gave it to Dean to mail off to my boss.”
Eli looked over at the counter where Dean was. “Does that mean maybe you’ve decided to stay a little longer? I mean, you could just return to Columbus and write your article there. But if you’re mailing it in, then that could mean—”
“It means I’ve got another assignment,” Goldie lied. “I-I’ll be leaving first thing in the morning.”
“Oh,” he said, clearly disappointed. “I thought maybe you’d stay for the entire Tour of Homes weekend.”
“Me too, b-but this new assignment popped up kinda fast.”
Eli nodded and thought for a moment.
“So,” he said, self-deprecatingly, “the kiss was that bad, huh?”
She glanced around the lobby. Like the evening before, the town was buzzing with tourists. Wanting a little privacy, she took him by the arm and walked him past the Christmas tree and over to a corner near the phone booth.
“The kiss was wonderful,” she said quietly. “You know it was. But I’ve got another quick assignment and then I’ve gotta go home for the holidays. I’m not sayin’ goodbye. It’s more like, a ‘See ya later.’”
That wasn’t true. She was saying goodbye.
But she also wanted to spare his feelings.
Perhaps she should’ve been more honest, but with the lights from the nearby Christmas tree glowing, people smiling, and the radio behind the counter playing “Winter Wonderland,” acknowledging that she’d never see him again seemed too hard and final.
Eli’s blue eyes examined hers skeptically for a moment, then his face softened. “Look, if ‘See ya later,’ should turn into we never see each other again, I just want to say I really liked knowing you. You drove me a little crazy sometimes, but it was a good crazy.”
“Thanks,” she smiled sincerely.
“There you are,” they heard a voice say. Both turned around to see Stu Frey in his winter coat with the wool collar. He was carrying a large cardboard box.
“Howdy, Stu,” Eli greeted.
“Hi, Stu,” Goldie said more timidly.
“Goldie agreed to help me get ready for my appearance as you-know-who,” he said to the lawman. “Got the costume here, and Maddie and Dean let me change in their office behind the counter, but the boots are a little tight. You’ve got to practically bulldoze ‘em onto my feet.”
“You want a police escort to walk you down to your throne, Santa?” Eli asked.
“Yeah, that’d be great. Go get yourself a cup of coffee in the restaurant, and we’ll be out in a few.”
He looked at Goldie. “See you later?”
“See you later,” she agreed.
A little smile flickered on Eli’s face, then he turned and headed toward the restaurant. Goldie watched him go, then followed Stu around the counter and into the back.
“Help with your boots?” she asked quietly.
“Well, I needed to talk to you privately somehow, right?”
“Sure,” she said.
They greeted Dean, who was working the counter, then went behind it and into a short hallway where there was a supply room, the hotel office, and a half bath. They went into the office, and Stu shut the door.
“So,” he said, setting his box down and slipping off his coat, I heard what you said to Eli. I take it you’ve decided to stay?”
“No,” she corrected. “I’m gonna go back.”
He nodded slightly, then paused. “You realize you’re going back to an injured body. It’s going to hurt for a while.”
“Staying here will hurt more. I’ll miss my mom too much, and my sister, even though she hates me.
I’ll miss all the conveniences, the access to information.
I never finished high school, Stu. Everything I know I’ve learned through the internet.
You take that and social media away from me, and I’m just a dumb chick. I mean, dumber than I already am.”
“You’re not dumb, Goldie,” he assured.
“I’m too much a fish outta water here. The water may be polluted back in New York. But at least I know how to swim in it.”
“You sure?” he asked. “This is a one-way trip.”
Goldie thought for a moment with moist eyes, but then nodded.
“Yeah. I’m sure. But I’m grateful, Stu. I’m truly, truly grateful and honored to have been given the choice. I’m amazed how generous the Lord’s been with me.”
“On His behalf, you’re very welcome.”
“I, uh, I did write my article. I put it in a package with some photo negatives and addressed it to my publisher. Dean is mailing it for me.”
“Very good. I’m glad you’re leaving with that buttoned up.”
“Right… so, uh, what should I do now?”
He looked toward the restaurant as if he had X-ray vision and could see through the walls. “Eli’s still in the restaurant. Hurry through the lobby and go up to your room. Then just hop in bed and go to sleep.”
“Eh, it’s kinda early.”
“Oh, you’ll go to sleep. I promise.”
“Well, can’t I, like, say goodbye to people?”
“You did what you came to do, Goldie. You won’t be forgotten. People will carry your actions in their hearts whether you say goodbye or not. Considering the false hope you just gave to Eli, I think it’s best if you just go upstairs and sleep.”
“But, what about me packing, and checking out, and, and—”
“Are you going to stay?” he asked pointedly.
“Well—no—but—”
“Then the rest will take care of itself,” he smiled with finality.
She paused, then remembered she was talking to a celestial being, no doubt capable of handling all remaining details.
“Yeah. Okay… thank you, Stu. For everything.”
She turned and exited the office.
Coming out of the back hallway to behind the counter, she smiled at Dean, who was waiting on a customer, and said hi to Josie in the lobby, who was dressed in her elf costume and emptying a can ashtray next to the phone booth.
Pausing and taking time to look around the decorated lobby of the Sparkledove Arms one last time, Goldie smiled affectionately, then slowly turned and went up the stairs that led to room number 9.