The Tangled Web(23)

"So what did they do, finally?" Fred asked Wes.

"Tabled it and adjourned until after New Year's."

Fulda, January 1634

"Great party," Fred said. "Post-Christmas, pre-New-Year, whatever you want to call it. I'm really glad that Kortney and Jared could come over to Fulda for the holidays. It was nice of the nursing school to let her take a whole month off from her classes."

"Well, they're calling it an internship and they got an exchange," Andrea answered. "She's substituting here for Gus Szymanski so he and Theresa could go home and spend Christmas with his sister Garnet. She's had a lonely life. Gus will be talking to the EMT students about his experiences during a year of actual field practice."

"True. Kortney was up before I was this morning, heading out to the barracks to check on people."

"Where's Jared?"

"Clara took him with her over to the abbey. One of the novices is going to show him around, and he'll write a report for having done a field trip, since he's missing a couple of weeks of school."

"Did you watch Wes dancing with Clara?"

Fred grinned. "Cheek to cheek and all that, for all that they are still officially on 'last name' terms. They had so much trouble prying their hands apart that I suspected Jeffie Garand of daubing their palms with super glue at first. Do you suppose Wes thinks that nobody has noticed that he is the only one of us who doesn't call her by her first name. We ribbed him about it. He says that he's 'way too old' for her to be interested in him."

"Well," Andrea said. "I had fun at the party. Wes danced with Clara. Johnny danced with Antonia. Jeffie danced with Gertrud. You danced with Kortney. And I got to dance with all the other guys. I was the belle of the ball. Too bad it didn't happen forty years ago, when it would have been more exciting."

"Yeah." Fred got up. "Better get to work, I guess. It's too bad that Eden and Jen couldn't come for the holidays too, but at least Harlan and Roy get to go over to Grantville occasionally to deal with the budget people."



"That fruit candy was good. Nice change from the usual stuff," Harlan said.

"Where did it come from?"

"Andrea's lawyer ordered it from Frankfurt. He knows someone down there who imports it. The fruit is called currants."

"Wes didn't eat much."

"He was too busy dancing with Clara."

"Would you call that dancing?"

"Wes is like me." Harlan grinned. "Methodists of the generation who still suspect that dancing is sinful, but think that God won't really be offended if you just get out on the floor and walk around, without actually performing a dance step. And ignore the music. If you have no rhythm at all, you're practically not dancing."

"Clara looked good at the party," Roy said. "She dresses a lot sharper than Andrea."

Fred grinned. "According to Kortney, her mom doesn't have any fashion sense at all."

"That," Roy said, "is really a relief to hear."

"How long do you suppose it has been since Wes asked a girl for a date?" Derek asked.

"He started going steady with Lena in high school," Harlan answered. "And he's what? Fifty, maybe? Fifty-two? Enough older than me that we were never in school together."



"Do you think," Andrea asked, "that Wes would be 'way too old for you' to marry?"

Clara looked at her. "If Caspar were still alive, he would be several years older than Mr. Jenkins. Plus, he would be much sicker."

Andrea raised her eyebrows.

Clara shrugged. "Caspar was always having a physician in to bleed him or going to the apothecary for a dose of medicine. If a disease existed that was not fatal, Caspar had it. At least, he thought that he had it. After thirteen years of that, I was really rather surprised when he actually died. It was his mother's fault, I think. He was her only child who lived and she was always afraid that he would die." Her eyes twinkled. "I am pretty sure that Mr. Jenkins is feeling quite healthy. He never takes time off work to be sick."

Her face became more serious. "I wish, though, that he was not always so angry. Not at people. To us, who work for him, he is kind. For all of the people in Fulda, he is anxious. Concerned. But angry at the world. At the things that happen."

"Wes didn't want this job. Ed Piazza twisted his arm to get him to take it. Grantville doesn't have that many people with degrees in public administration. I sat in on some of their arguments, before we came over here. Wes pointed out that he didn't handle this kind of thing. He was a manager, but he was deputy director of the Marion County parks department. The worst threats he faced on the average day were cracks in the asphalt on tennis courts or vandalism to the catchers' cages on the baseball diamonds. Anything worse than that, he called the sheriff's department and let them take care of it. He had a staff that worried about scheduling conflicts when more than one family reunion     wanted to use the same shelter on a Sunday afternoon."