Page 9 of Mail Order Bride

He looked toward the window. “You’ll have to be careful getting home. It’s going to snow before sundown. Won’t that be nice?”

“No. You know I hate the cold. And it matters because it matters.”

“I'm tired, Gina. Before you leave for work, can you help me to bed?”

I heard it in his voice, the agony, how much he hated to ask. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” I said, tears streaming down my face. “I know this is hard.”

“It is,” he told me, slipping his arm around my shoulder. I hoisted him out of the chair. “But it's harder to see you like this, Gin. You're so unhappy.”

I stood there listening to the house breathe, trying to allow him his dignity. I felt it when each breath rippled through the room like the respirations of a thick-skinned beast. Its breath was deep, long, and powerful. “I am,” I admitted. “But I can't help it. I don't want to get married.”

“I know, sweetheart. But sometimes we have to do things we don't want to.”

He reeked of desperation and frustration and something else that I couldn't quite place. My gut told me it wasn't simply the desperation of a dying man. I felt it in my bones. There was something else. Something he wasn’t telling me.

He took my hand and gave it a squeeze. “Your mama would be so proud of you. You're strong and smart and beautiful. You’re going to go far in life, honey.”

“Why, then, would I want to go and commit myself to one man?”

He smiled at me, a real smile, the kind that reached his eyes. And at that moment, I saw my father again. The man who used to swing me around in the air and tell me bedtime stories. The man who taught me how to drive a tractor and shoot a gun. “Especially,” I said, “knowing he could never be as good as you.”

He laughed, and it was the best sound in the world. “Oh, Gina-Girl. Flattery will get you everywhere.”

And just like that, he confirmed my suspicions.

Chapter Six

Gina

“Earth to Gina!” I look up and see Leonard, my boss, staring at me with a furrowed brow. In his hand is a tagging gun. “I was starting to get worried. Everything okay?”

I nod, realizing I’ve been standing there, seemingly in a trance—and the customers have gotten antsy. The line is now five people deep. Their light chatter rings in my ears.

“Sorry,” I say, shaking my head. I can feel the blood draining from my face. I'd been thinking about the argument with my father, about all the things I should have said, and more so, the things I shouldn’t have. But that isn’t all. I’d also given considerable thought to something I’d just read in one of the gossip tabloids that line the register. I often spend the time between customers imagining myself one day being in them, seeing my face on the front page. As they say, it’s good to have a dream. I just have to get to Hollywood first, and that’s a dream that seems to be taking longer than I thought it would. Daddy says I’m getting too old, that my time is running out. He says actresses have a shelf life, and that I’m better off sticking to simple things.

“I haven’t got all day,” Sharon Johnson snaps, looking at her watch and huffing impatiently. She might be a bitch, but I kind of loved her at the moment. No one in this town can cause a scene quite like Sharon. That and I can only imagine how much she hates me. It's written all over her face.

She scowls, looking from me to Leonard and back. “I stopped by the drugstore for areason.You know—to get in and out.”

She draws her words out, making what she’s saying take twice as long.

“Daddy’s having a rough day,” I say to Mr. Walton. “Sorry, my mind is elsewhere.”

“That’s perfectly understandable,” he says with a sigh. He looks at Sharon Johnson apologetically. “But Mrs. Johnson is in a bit of a hurry, so let’s get her rung up as quickly as we can.”

He speaks with a singsong quality, as though he is speaking to a toddler. His face is positive and optimistic, crafted to elicit trust.

“My little Billy is sick,” she says curtly. “Poor thing was up half the night coughing. It’s so hard to see your baby sick, you know.”

She glances at Leonard and then leans in and pats his arm. With a laugh, she says, “Well,youknow.” She looks at me and lowers her gaze, but not her voice. “And God willing, someday Gina will too.”

“I hate children,” I say. “Almost as much as I’ve always hated you.”

I ring up her cough syrup and her lipstick. I guess little Billy isn’t so sick that she couldn’t spend a half hour in the cosmetics aisle. When I look up, not only are Sharon Johnson and my boss standing there, eyes wide and mouth hanging open, half of the customers in the store are too.

I quickly look away from the customers in the line. They all stare at me, some with distaste and others with pity, but all incredibly interested in what I might say next.

“Gina doesn’t mean it,” Mr. Walton says, and I almost feel bad. His shoulders are slightly more slumped than they were at the start of my shift, his deep wrinkles more prominent. Especially the crease in his brow. “We all have bad days.”

---