The Dreeson Incident(89)

He'd have to ask her, some time, if she had written "Wesley and Clara" on her note paper and drawn hearts and daisies around the names. If she hadn't, it was probably because it hadn't occurred to her.



The boy didn't seem to be offended by "Cherry."



Wes said, "Yes, that is interesting." Because it was. And smiled at her again.





"Actually," Ron said. "He's young enough that he still has a lot of options. Nothing's set in concrete, yet."



"Give it up, Ron," Gerry said. "I am going to be a Lutheran pastor."



Ron groaned to himself. Gerry had not indicated in any way at all that his plans were confidential. He had proclaimed them right out loud. By this time next week, it would be all over town.



He sat there, thinking about his brother Faramir—Frank, to Grantville—and Giovanna's two weddings. One Catholic, performed by a cardinal, in the Sistine Chapel, believe it or not; the other by way of his father's mail order credentials as a minister in the Universal Church of Life in . . . whatever . . . and . . . stuff. His older brother would probably end up Catholic, no matter how socialist and atheist the rest of the Marcolis were. After all, Giovanna had promised the pope himself that she would do all that was in her power to convert Frank. He had a feeling that Giovanna was the kind of girl who kept her word. Plus Frank was chums with Father Gus Heinzerling. Catholic on one side of him, Lutheran on the other. Himself . . .



Ron was never likely to be "any of the above." His mind didn't work that way.



That was how he lost track of what people were talking about. Only to come back to reality and find out that Missy's father was telling everyone about that ultimately improbable and utterly unfortunate mechanical event, back before the Ring of Fire, in the days when there were car lots in Grantville and his brother had been dating Missy.



Ron had sort of hoped that Chad Jenkins had forgotten that those two had ever dated. It hadn't been for long. Six weeks, maximum.



Why did we come here? he asked himself. We could have gotten a meal from the staff cafeteria out at the plant.





"Mom has quite a display up, doesn't she?" Chad stopped next to his new sister-in-law, who was looking at a wall full of framed family photographs in the rec room.



"I am always fascinated by photographs," Clara answered. "If the Ring of Fire had happened earlier, we in Badenburg, ordinary people, could have had pictures of our grandparents. Not only wealthy people who can afford to have portraits painted. Though my brother Dietrich does have a drawing of my grandfather Pohlmann, who lived in Arnstadt, made by a student at the Latin School. He was no great artist, but it is said to be a good likeness. It is in pen and ink, though, so it does not tell us the color of his hair and eyes any more than these 'black and white' ones.



She looked at the wall critically. "Though, mostly, they are shades of gray, and some are more tan or brown. Wes says that we will have our photograph made and give a copy to your mother for Christmas. And to my father."



"Your family is okay with having you marry an up-timer?"



"Yes. Maybe they would not have been 'okay with it' two years ago, but there has been enough time now. In any case, I did not ask them. I did not request their permission."



It was an oddity in her English, Chad thought. A tendency to say the same thing, or almost the same thing, two or three ways in succession, as if she were trying out different model sentences from a conversation manual to see how they fit.



Clara turned back to the wall. "Who are all the people?"



Chad toured her through the Jenkins and Newton families, with a side trip through the five Williams sisters.



"A violinist," she said, looking at Joe Newton's picture. "That is interesting. And this man is your other grandfather, Hudson Jenkins?"



"A fiddler more than a violinist. On the other, Hudson Jenkins, yes. He died young and Grandma Mildred married again. This is her second family, with Clarence Walker, taken right after World War II. That's Dad, over in the corner, at the end of the back row."



Clara looked back and forth, from Hudson Jenkins to his son standing in a far corner of the Walker family photo, then to Joe Newton with his wife and daughters.



"Perhaps," she said slowly, "it is as well that we do not all keep photographs of our families."



Chad raised an eyebrow. "Meaning?"



Clara frowned at the photos she had been examining. "I knowed—knew—already that Debbie was a widow when she married you." She pointed. "There is the photograph for her first wedding, to the soldier who was killed. Don Jefferson. You said that this child"—she pointed to a snapshot of a little girl about six years old—"is her daughter, Anne, the nurse who has gone to Amsterdam. But there is no first husband for your mother."