Free Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger by Lee Smith Page A

like stars, and a way of shuffling just a little when he walks. I saved a paper cup he threw down at the concession stand one time, and a potato chip bag. I flattened them out and put them in my scrap-book, and when Becky Brannon pointed at the page and said, “Now what’s that all about?” I wouldn’t tell her.
    But it never crossed my mind that we would ever get together, me and him, not even in my wildest dreams.
    Then came Thanksgiving, and Anne Patrick Poe came home from college putting on airs, and then came Christmas vacation and they ran off to South Carolina in her convertible and got married. The Poes almost died. First, Mr. Poe declared he would disown her and shouted out in public that Billy was nothing but trash. Then he calmed down and got Billy a job as a lineman at Tennessee Power and Light. Then he made the down payment for them on a new brick home in Sunnyside subdivision. Then, in April, she lost the baby. What did Mr. Poe think then ? I reckon he was ready to eat nails, don’t you? But they were already married, Billy and Anne Patrick, so there was nothing he could do. She got a job at Susie’s Smart Shoppe in the mall, and Billy stayed on at the Power and Light. I’d see them around from time to time, such as at the Kiwanis pancake breakfast. “They look like they oughtto be on TV, don’t they?” Becky said to me at the time, as we were getting some more pancakes. “Like Luke and Laura on General Hospital. ” I had to agree. Furthermore, Becky was not that far off when she mentioned the soap opera. I’ll get to that.
    But now, I am coming into the picture!
    All through high school, as I believe I mentioned, I lived with old Mrs. Hawthorne. I had that little room on the third floor with a slanted ceiling. It was the first room I had ever had all to myself, so I loved it. Not that I didn’t appreciate my years at the mission school, but Mrs. Hawthorne’s house had pictures on the walls, and flowered rugs, and real silver. She said I could do whatever I wanted to in my room, so I painted it yellow myself, sunshine yellow with white woodwork, and Becky’s mother made a yellow flowered spread for my bed. “Oh, Dee Ann,” she used to say, brushing my hair, whenever I’d be over there visiting Becky, “whatever will become of you?” She said I had beautiful hair. Becky’s mother was real good to me. So was Miss Parsons, who bought me a sewing machine junior year, which sat on its own little table in my room at Mrs. Hawthorne’s house. Miss Parsons acted like she won that sewing machine in a contest, so I wouldn’t think she had gone out and bought it for me, but of course I knew better all along. She’s the one that recommended me to Home Health, which is how I started taking care of Billy’s mother. Social services paid for it.
    But first, Mrs. Hawthorne died. I will never forget it. I’d been there six years. There is somebody like me in every town, that is good at staying with old people. Just as soon as Mrs. Hawthorne started failing, people started coming up to me in the Food Lion to say that if I ever needed another job, well, their mother would be needing some help, too, before long. I could see that the rest ofmy life was all laid out before me like the flagstone path that went straight from the street to Mrs. Hawthorne’s front door. I’d live with first one, then another. I’d take care of everybody.
    Mrs. Hawthorne slipped away by degrees until finally there was nothing left in the bed but a little cornhusk doll. She quit talking. She quit eating too. I’d fix boiled custard, tapioca pudding, milk toast, all her favorites. I’d feed her myself with a spoon. Oh, I was desperate! Finally I called her family up long distance, and everybody came. But Mrs. Hawthorne wouldn’t talk to them either. She didn’t have time to talk. She didn’t have time to eat. She didn’t have time to sleep, hardly — when I’d go in there at night to check on her, there she’d be with her