Patricia Rockwell - Essie Cobb 03 - Valentined Read online

  “Stop it, you two!” cried Opal, gesturing firmly for her friends to cease their bickering. Fay mumbled in her sleep, raising an eyelid at the increased noise level. “See,” continued Opal, “you woke Fay up!”

  Fay shook herself and looked around. She peered down at her empty plate, and seeing that it contained no food, she slowly drifted off to sleep again.

  “That’s neither here nor there,” continued Essie.

  “It’s actually here, Essie,” snapped Marjorie. “Fay is at our table. She is about as ‘here’ as anyone can get, besides the three of us.”

  “You know what I mean, Marjorie! Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to tell you all. I actually have something I want to show you.”

  “Show us?” asked Opal with a deep intake of breath. She peered down her long, aquiline nose at Essie, then quickly over at Marjorie, almost as if daring her to interrupt.

  “Yes,” replied Essie, as Marjorie pouted with her trademark shoulder shake. “I received a valentine in the mail this morning.”

  “Oh, how nice!” exclaimed Opal. “From one of your children?”

  “I wish,” said Essie, scowling. Her shoulders slumped and she stared at her plate in renewed contemplation of her dilemma. Should she show the card to her friends? She knew that the minute they saw it, they’d begin to imagine some major romantic tryst between her and this unknown gentleman. On the other hand, without their input it would be unlikely that she’d ever figure out who had sent the card. Truly, her three friends had helped her solve other mysteries in the past and she had faith that their assistance would be key in deciphering this one. She leaned over to the seat on her walker and lifted it. Reaching inside, she drew out the large envelope on top.

  “I got this in the mail this morning,” she announced. She removed the valentine from the envelope and handed it to Opal.

  “My goodness, Essie,” said Opal, “this is a beautiful valentine. I’ve never seen such an elaborate card!”

  “That’s what I thought,” agreed Essie.

  “Let me see it!” demanded Marjorie, reaching across the table in an attempt to grab the card from Opal.

  “Wait a minute,” said Opal, shoving away Marjorie’s hands as she opened the card. “It’s signed ‘your secret admirer.”

  “I know,” said Essie.

  “You have a secret admirer, Essie!” exclaimed Marjorie. “I want to see it!” She reached for the card again, and this time Opal allowed her tablemate to have the card. Marjorie examined the card, both outside and inside, ooing and awing at all of its parts.

  “Who do you think sent it, Essie?” asked Opal.

  “I wish I knew,” responded Essie.

  “Hubert?” blurted Marjorie.

  “No,” said Essie. “It can’t be him.”

  “Why not?” asked Opal. “You know he has a crush on you.”

  “There must be other men here at Happy Haven, Essie,” noted Marjorie, “that like you. Any one of them could have sent this to you.” She continued to stare at the card, touching it almost reverently.

  “It isn’t anyone at Happy Haven,” Essie said emphatically. “In fact, it isn’t anyone in Reardon.” She turned over the envelope on her plate and handed it to Opal. “Check out the return address and the postmark.”

  “Boston, Massachusetts,” Opal read from the envelope.

  “Right,” said Essie.

  “Who do you know in Boston?” asked Marjorie, her eyes flashing with excitement.

  “No one,” replied Essie, slapping her palms firmly on the table. “That’s the mystery. No one. I don’t know a soul in Boston. So who could have sent this to me?”

  “Now, Essie,” said Opal, grabbing the envelope from Marjorie, and then examining it as if it were one of the crown jewels. “You probably do know who this person is; you’ve just forgotten that you know him.”

  “Right!” agreed Marjorie. “Maybe it’s an old college beau! He’s loved you for years and now is just making contact with you after all these years because…because…I know! His wife just died and he wants to get back together with you!” She clasped her hands together and almost swayed as if to some romantic tune that only she could hear.

  “So why didn’t he sign his name?” asked Essie.

  At that moment, Santos returned to their table with their four meals balanced expertly in his outstretched arms. He carefully placed each at the appropriate place and then turned to go. Just then, he glanced down and saw the elegant, flowery valentine in the center of the table.

  “What beautiful valentine!” he cried. “For you, Miss Essie?”

  “It’s from her secret admirer!” said Marjorie.

  “Marjorie!” Essie scolded. “That was supposed to be a secret.”

  “No worry, Miss Essie,” said Santos. “Santos can keep secret. I no tell anyone you have secret admirer.”

  “I know you won’t, Santos,” said Essie, looking pointedly into his eyes. “You’re quite good at keeping secrets.”

  The young man blushed and mumbled something about the kitchen and then he quickly headed out.

  “You shouldn’t have mentioned this to Santos, Marjorie!” said Essie.

  “Oh, Essie,” Marjorie replied flippantly. “He won’t say anything. He probably won’t even remember he heard about it.”

  “Even so,” said Essie. “I’d like to keep this quiet.”

  “We understand, Essie,” agreed Opal. She nodded politely to Essie while giving Marjorie one of her stern looks.

  “Personally,” said Marjorie, ignoring Opal. “If I had a secret admirer—no matter where he lived—I’d shout it to the world!”

  Chapter Three

  “There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”

  —Friedrich Nietzsche

  Essie had returned to her apartment. She was no wiser about the identity of her secret admirer, even though her friends all had numerous ideas—most of them frivolous—about who the person might be. She was peeved. As she rolled into her small living room, she headed immediately for her tiny bathroom where she performed her post-meal ritual of potty, purifying, and primping. That is, she first relieved her bladder which was always full and seemed to require constant attention. Her daughters were forever after her to wear those disgusting adult diapers, but Essie had too much pride, and as long as she could move, she would go to the bathroom on her own. After this, she always washed her hands religiously with the hottest water possible to prevent the spread of germs. Her purifying routine. Then, finally, after the necessities were complete, she indulged in a few minutes of face-fixing. That meant a bit of hair fluffing, cheek squeezing, and maybe the addition of a bit of lipstick. That was all she ever indulged in. Of course, she knew many women at Happy Haven who did much more to maintain—rather enhance—their appearance, but Essie was not particularly vain and she firmly believed that her best feature was her gleaming smile which she exhibited freely to almost everyone. Indeed, her late husband John had never seemed to be upset with her minimal use of make-up and that was all that mattered to Essie.

  She looked in the tiny mirror in her bathroom and squeezed her cheeks with her fingertips. A rosy glow quickly bloomed on her face. Not so bad, she thought. A friendly face with nice brown eyes encircled in her glasses and also by a ring of sparkling, snow white curls. She moved her lips around, puckering them, frowning, giving the mirror various types of smiles. You have a secret admirer, she said to herself in the glass. She tipped her head to the side flirtatiously, pulling off her glasses seductively. Oh, bungling burglars, Essie Cobb! You sound like some teenage school girl! Are you going to let a silly greeting card get you in a tizzy like this? She grimaced at her blurry reflection, the image seeming to provide her answer. She shoved her glasses back on over her ears and headed her walker out of her bathroom and into her little main room.

  Essie rolled her walker over to her favorite armchair, a big paisley recliner. She slid easily into the soft cushion, leaving h
er walker nearby. Placing the footrest up, she was now in her favorite spot. From here she could reach anything on her desk with her right hand and anything on her end table with her left hand. Pulling her walker closer, she lifted the lid of the seat and pulled out the secret admirer card. She leaned back and began to contemplate the mysterious piece of mail. For many minutes, she just stared at the envelope. Then, she removed the card inside and did the same for the greeting card, staring at it for a long time. She tried to describe the envelope and the card to herself.

  First, the envelope. As greeting card envelopes go, she thought, this one is fairly distinctive. The envelope was not plain white like most envelopes; it was a cream, or more a yellowish color. The paper was not the typical typewriter paper quality envelope that most of her bills came in. The paper that this envelope was made from was thick; she could see the weave in it almost as it it were closer to being cloth than paper. Very beautiful. Not only that, the inside of the envelope was lined with a gold foil, providing an extra layer of protection for the card inside. Essie thought that given how elaborate the card itself was, it was probably a good idea that the envelope was designed to be comparable in quality to the card. She also examined the back flap of the envelope. It was a typical gummed closing. She couldn’t tell if the sender had actually licked the envelope or moistened it with a sponge or some other device. Not that that is an important detail, she thought. Or maybe it was. Maybe her secret admirer was not only an over-the-top romantic, but maybe he was also a germaphobe and didn’t want to get his bacteria on the envelope that he was mailing to his beloved. Ridiculous, Essie! she thought. Now that is a flight of fancy.

  Next, she lifted out the card again for a more thorough examination. She realized the difficulty in extracting the card from the envelope. It wasn’t because the sender had included any additional items in the card. It was merely because there was so much decoration on the front of it. All of the doilies, ribbons, embossed lettering, and most important, the raised silk heart in the center made the card very thick. It took effort to remove it from the envelope. It took even more effort to replace it inside the envelope.

  Essie held the card gingerly in her hands. She stared at the front of it, delighting in its beauty. The design was simple but elegant. A large white doily formed the base and was attached (she determined by carefully pulling up an edge) with glue on the front of the card. Winding in and out around the edge of the doily was a thin, pink, silk ribbon. She realized that the effort required to accomplish just this portion of the card, the weaving of the ribbon into the doily, must have taken a huge amount of time—far more time than most greeting card companies would allot to such efforts. Surely, this aspect of the card alone made it an extremely expensive one. Expensive, she thought. Just how much would such a card cost these days? She mused about the last time she could remember buying a greeting card. She had a sack full of greeting cards that she kept in the lower left-hand corner of her desk that she used when she had to send birthday cards to her grandchildren or get well cards to friends at Happy Haven. But Claudia had bought all of these cards for her long ago. She never asked her youngest daughter how much she’d spent on these simple greeting cards. In her day, Essie remembered that the few times she ever purchased a greeting card, it cost her maybe 50 cents or so. That was probably not the case today, and certainly was probably not the case with this card. This card was probably very expensive—maybe several dollars. Maybe even ten!

  She put the doily back down, not wanting to rip it. Like most doilies, this one was paper-thin and very delicate. Essie put her finger on the gold letters on the front of the card. They were raised—embossed. The gold sparkled and shone. It didn’t look like it had just been printed by a printing press. It looked specially applied with just these unique letters for this particular card. She ran her finger over the smooth letters. They felt slightly rough to the touch—unlike the feel of the surrounding paper.

  She next focused her attention on the beautiful silk heart in the center of the doily. This heart was obviously made out of a silk-looking cloth. Maybe it was real silk. It was three-dimensional. That is, it looked like a stuffed teddy bear, only it was a stuffed heart. Essie touched it gently and there was a slight give to the heart. There was obviously some stuffing inside. Maybe cotton or whatever they put in stuffed animals, she reasoned. She carefully pulled at the edge of the heart, peeking underneath to see how it was attached. This endeavor was not as easy as her attempt to peek under the doily. The heart was firmly anchored to the doily beneath it. Apparently, its base was glued to the doily at all points. Strange, thought Essie. She continued gently pulling at the heart all around its edges to see if she could see any part of the perimeter that was not tightly attached to the doily beneath. There was no break. The heart would not give.

  Admitting defeat in this aspect of her greeting card investigation, Essie turned to the inside of the card. She re-read the poem printed on the inside page. The text of the poem seemed to her to be incredibly gushy, romantic drivel. She couldn’t imagine anyone—even her own husband—actually sending such sentimental claptrap with a straight face to anyone they actually cared for. This observation caused her to reflect on the many cards she had received from her late husband. He had definitely sent her cards for many different events—birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and even some spontaneous moments in their life together. Never, however, did he—or would he—send her anything as mushy as this poem. Most of John’s cards to her, Essie recalled, were personal and—yes—funny! He knew she liked humor and so did he! Most of the cards she gave John were funny too. We were just not a very romantic couple, she concluded. She knew that didn’t mean they didn’t love each other. It just meant that they were not as overtly demonstrative as…as…this cloying, almost creepy card from her secret admirer.

  Yes, the secret admirer. Essie glanced down at the signature. She stared at the handwriting. She tried to think if she remembered it from anywhere or anyone. It didn’t look familiar. The handwriting was simple. It was written in blue ink. That is, it had not been printed by machine. A real person somewhere (in Boston?) had actually signed this card and sent it intentionally to her—Essie Cobb. Now how could she figure out who this person was? Was it man? Woman? Child? She had no idea.

  She was becoming disgusted at having to deal with this problem. Annoyed, she flipped the card over and looked at the back. The only marking on the fourth and final page of the valentine was a logo declaring “Boston Bell Greeting Cards” in the center of the page. A black and white drawing of what appeared to be the cracked Liberty Bell sat on the left side of the logo, tipped at a jaunty angle. On the right, the letters indicating the company name were shown in a dramatic dark font that gave the entire logo an early American feel. I guess that’s appropriate, noted Essie. It did come from Boston. Then she remembered that the Liberty Bell was actually at Independence Hall in Philadelphia—not Boston. Was that a clue? Was the card actually produced in Philadelphia? And besides, thought Essie, who cares where my secret admirer purchased the card or what company made it? What matters is who sent it. The back of the card looked strangely naked with just the card company’s small logo in the center. Essie pondered why the greeting card back page seemed so barren to her but she couldn’t figure it out. Eventually, she picked up the card and stuffed it back in the fancy envelope and slipped it back in her walker basket.

  I wish I knew more about this card and all of its features, she thought. The doily, the ribbon, the fancy cloth heart. Who would know about these features and how they were made? Essie thought and thought and finally it came to her. The answer was actually fairly nearby and—she looked over at the Happy Haven monthly activity calendar on her desk—fairly soon. She rose, stretched her arms, grabbed her walker, and headed out her door.

  Chapter Four

  “A woman has got to love a bad man or two in her life, to be thankful for a good one.”

  —Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

  Essie zoomed do
wn her hallway, through the family room and into Happy Haven’s only elevator which slowly managed to deposit her on the second and top floor. I could probably climb the stairs, walker and all, faster than this dilapidated old can, she thought. Scooting around a group of residents who were positioned to enter the elevator, Essie directed her walker down a hallway that veered off the small central lobby on the second floor. A few yards down this hallway, an open double door revealed a large room filled with tables. All of the tables were covered with various art supplies. In the center of the room, Sue Barber, the Happy Haven activities director, was busy encouraging residents in the construction of valentines. Essie entered the room and quietly found an empty place at a table near the doorway.

  “What’s better than a homemade valentine?” Sue was asking the group. “Nothing says love more than something you make yourself!” She held up various pieces of paper. “You’ll notice that we have a wide variety of paper that you can use for the base of your card.”

  Essie slid onto the empty chair. There were three women already there, each of them diligently at work constructing a valentine. Essie thought she knew most of the residents, but these three were strangers to her.

  “Hi,” she said to the group. “I’m Essie.”

  “Donna Grimes,” replied the woman to her right. “I’m making a card for my husband.”

  “She doesn’t have a husband,” added the lady directly across from Essie and next to Donna. “She always makes him a card anyway.”

  “That’s nice,” replied Essie, not certain how to respond. Donna smiled sweetly, apparently oblivious to her friend’s comment.

  “I’m Velma. We’re from C wing, second floor,” added the woman.

  “Nice to meet you,” said Essie. “I’m Essie Cobb, C wing first floor.” She smiled.

  Sue Barber was describing various supplies that could be used to construct a valentine and how the residents might add their own individual touches to their creations. Donna and Velma were hard at work cutting, pasting, and folding.