“They are fine.” At least I thought they were fine. I hadn’t heard otherwise, but I didn’t ask either.
“Okay.” Iris shrugged and stood up. “Just checking.”
“Sit. Down.” I made my words very clear and deliberate. “What do you know that you’re not telling me?”
“So now you want to know when I have a feeling, when usually you just want to not even acknowledge that they do have some merit? I mean, this house.” She gestured behind her. “I told you I had a feeling about Lee, and here you are.”
“Fine. I do want to know if you feel like something is going to happen to Grady.” I could see satisfaction written all over her face. My brow rose, my jaw set.
“I have a feeling something isn’t right with him and Julia. I mean. . . I’m feeling they aren’t happy right now, and something with your neighbor.” There was a seriousness to Iris that made me sit up straighter and take notice. “I don’t know what, but something is off. I got an idea in the middle of the night for you.”
“For me?” I questioned. “You know I never butt into Grady or Julia’s business.”
“No, but you’ve proven to be a middle-aged Nancy Drew, so why not just snoop around and see if there’s something or not before it gets bigger?” Iris had a point and a way of making me agree to things.
“What’s your idea?” As soon as the words left my mouth, there was a pit in my stomach that told me I was going to regret asking.
“I’m going to make Julia’s favorite dessert, and I’m going to make some “welcome to Sugar Creek Gap” cookies. You can deliver Julia’s dessert to the farm tomorrow for the family Sunday supper.”
Every Sunday since I was a child, our family had Sunday supper, and when I got married, Mom continued it with me and Richard. After Richard and I moved into the farmhouse with Grady, we hosted the Sunday supper for my parents. Now that Grady and Julia were living in the farmhouse, they had taken over the hosting, even though I did most of the cooking.
“Dessert would be great.” I agreed with Iris. She always had good ideas and plans.
“Tonight after work, you can walk over the welcome cookies to your neighbor. Have chitchat. You’re good at that.” She started to leave then stopped at the porch steps and lifted her mug in the air. “When you stop by the bakery to get the goodies, I’ll give you your mug back.”
“Clean it too,” I called after her and went back into the house to get ready for work, thinking I was going to need work today much more than usual because walking always cleared my head.
Iris made my mind one big jumbled-up mess. Not even my hot shower and extra coffee helped sort out Iris’s crazy feeling.
On my way out the door to go to work, I glanced over at Courtney’s yard. At least she’d gotten the mulch from the back of her small pickup to a pile in the front yard.
I told myself when I delivered her mail today along with the cookies, I’d offer to help her tonight to scatter the mulch. I’d bring up Grady to see what she had to say in hopes I’d be able to put Iris’s feelings aside.
“There is no time to dillydally and stare,” I said to myself and headed across the street. I walked over the little creek via the small wooden bridge that led to Main Street.
Even though it was much too early for anyone to be out, I still looked both ways before I crossed Main Street, where the post office was located next to the doctor’s building and the bank.
Sugar Creek Gap was a small town, but Main Street was where the local businesses were located. The old mill was on the right side of Main Street, along with the post office, courthouse, library, and funeral home. On the left side were the small shops like Social Knitwork, Tranquility Wellness, Wallflower Diner, Pie in the Face, the community center, the Roasted Bean, Tabor Architects, the general store, and the local radio station.
Of course we had bigger-box stores that were located on the outskirts of Main Street, but everything I needed was right here in this one block. Being close to work was a plus too.
I had three mail loops every day. The first loop Monica would have ready for me in my mailbag was the nursing home. The second loop consisted of all the shops located on Main Street. It also included Little Creek Road residences because there were only a few houses on the dead-end street. Then I finished my day with the neighborhood located behind the old mill downtown, which was where I lived.
Since my route was downtown and the houses were located around there, it was easier for me to walk back to the post office between loops than to drive an LLV, a lifelong vehicle—or mail truck as common language would say.
The LLV mail carriers were busy going over their trucks with Monica, so I didn’t get to ask how her subbing for me yesterday had gone, though I knew it was fine or she’d have called me.
When I went to grab my bag, I noticed that for the third loop, my neighborhood, I had a small cart, like I’d had a couple of times since Courtney had moved in a week ago. It made me think back to the knitting class yesterday when one of the Front Porch Ladies had commented on how many packages Courtney was getting.
Now that I knew she was a teacher and it was summer break, I too wondered what on earth those various packages sent from different parts of the United States were about. Clearly, being a mail carrier, I got a good glimpse into the personal lives of the folks in my town. I knew who ordered what and from where. Sometimes handing a package to my clients made me blush more than chitchat, especially when it dealt with personal matters. I could tell you what men were on Viagra and what women were shopaholics and keeping the secret from their husbands.
Take Kate Pitts. She was a little woman who lived with her husband in the assisted living part of the nursing home. Today there was a package for her from the home shopping network. This told me she would be waiting for me by her mailbox so she could intercept it from Willie, her husband. Today appeared to be one of those early mornings when I would see Kate, because there was a small package with the HSN logo on it.
The birds were chirping before the sun was even up, putting a skip in my step. It was going to be a good day. At least I told myself that and put Iris’s little feeling in the very back of my head.
I always made the Sugar Creek nursing home my first loop because it was directly behind the post office. The mailboxes for the facility were in one central location and all I had to do was use the master key to get all the silver doors to open, then fill their tiny mailboxes. If I was being completely honest, most of them were still asleep at five a.m., so I didn’t have to stop and chitchat like I did the other loops I delivered too. Plus being near the post office was easy. I liked easy. Easy day. Easy customers. Easy. Easy. Easy.
“Good morning, Bernie.” My good friend, and retired FBI agent, Vince Caldwell was an exception to my theory about everyone in the nursing home being asleep.
He always greeted me from the long front porch swing located at the main building, though he lived in one of the senior independent living condominiums, where my parents also lived.
“Hey, Vince.” I popped a squat next to him, tugging my mailbag off my shoulder and onto the concrete patio between my feet. “Any big news?” I gestured toward his newspaper.
“Not a thing.” He shook his head. “That’s a lie.”