The Perfect Groom. Ruth Scofield

       Chapter Three

      Ivy dropped her keys on the kitchen counter of the apartment she shared with her aunt and sank into a chair. She let all her muscles relax. For the past week, with the exception of Sunday, she’d spent at least twelve hours a day at the store preparing for the approaching holiday shopping season. Last night she hadn’t arrived home until midnight and she’d left again at seven this morning.

      The day had been one ripe for a double headache.

      One of her suppliers called with the news he’d be two weeks late with a Christmas delivery; a three-year-old child had tried climbing the shelf display then pitched a temper tantrum when she gently insisted he get down—without a mother in sight for a full five minutes; the man who cleaned her floor quit for greener pastures; and her feet hurt. After letting Sherri go home early, Ivy had stayed until almost seven. She wasn’t even sure if the sun had made an appearance today. But at least her store was reasonably prepared for the holiday rush.

      She sniffed. The fragrance of a chicken casserole filled her nostrils, making her tummy clench with hunger. What would she do without Aunt Arletta? she mused. Probably live on takeout. She hadn’t taken time for lunch, either.

      “Kind of late home, aren’t you dear?” Her aunt popped into the kitchen and turned on the stove burner under the teakettle. “Well, never mind. You’re just in time for a quick shower.”

      Shower? Her thoughts had run on the lovely image of a long soak in a bubble bath.

      “What do you mean?” Ivy asked, knowing full well it meant her aunt probably wanted to go out somewhere. Couldn’t be grocery shopping—she’d done that last night She frowned. No, that had been three nights ago. Maybe she had a meeting of some church committee.

      Ivy hoped it meant her aunt only needed a ride somewhere and not Ivy’s company for the evening. After talking with customers all day, she was too tired to even crack a smile. “It’s Tuesday.”

      “Ah, yes. Tuesday.” Aunt Arletta met with a seniors group for Bible study and dessert on Tuesday afternoons, which usually satisfied her craving for company—at least for that day. On Tuesday evenings, they stayed at home.

      Not for the first time Ivy wished her aunt had learned to drive. The fact she hadn’t had caused Ivy and her mother, Brenda, more than one problem while Ivy was growing up. Aunt Arletta didn’t think anything of making plans without consulting anyone else first, but she was such a dear and contributed so much to other people’s comfort, Ivy never had the heart to refuse her. It hadn’t been so bad before her dad died; she was his aunt, after all. He cheerfully ran errands for Aunt Arletta or drove her to wherever she needed to go.

      Ivy shifted from her outer wrap and let her head drop back to rest against the chair. Closing her eyes for a moment, she pulled up memories of her dad—something she often did when she felt tired or down.

      Jonathan York had been of average size, but Ivy had thought him tall enough to touch the ceiling. They’d ridden bikes together, shoveled snow and made snow forts all winter, roller-skated in the hot summer evenings, jaunted down the sidewalks side by side every Saturday morning on their way to shop. They munched on donuts while strolling home, a bag of groceries in each of their arms, and he’d simply grin widely at her mother’s scold over spoiling her. She’d been her daddy’s girl and she’d adored him. No one would ever mistake her for anyone else’s child, her mother said frequently, with their matching coppery curls and hazel green eyes.

      Without realizing it, Ivy sighed. She still missed him dreadfully. When her father died of sudden heart failure, she’d just turned fourteen. She thought her world had stopped, and in a way, it had. Things changed rapidly for her and her mother afterward; although they’d never had much in earthly goods, their life became even leaner. Bless Aunt Arletta. They never would have made it if she had not moved in with them, throwing her own small income and nurturing instincts into the family pot.

      It was Aunt Arletta who had taught her about her heavenly Father. And how to talk with Him and what the scriptures said of Him.

      Aunt Arletta did a lot for the family, but she never learned to drive. They’d had the old car, then, already four years old when her dad died, and her mom took over the duties of ferrying the family. But they soon found that balancing the various needs was often difficult; taking the bus hadn’t always fit Ivy’s schedule or routes, and cabs were too expensive. Too proud, her mother refused to ask for help from anyone besides Aunt Arletta. They couldn’t always depend on someone else to cart one of them around, her mom had said. They just had to “make do”.

      Ivy was usually the one who made do. If she hadn’t a ride to somewhere, she walked. She walked almost everywhere as a teen.

      Ivy’d learned a great deal about personally making do. She made her choices of clothing and activity do triple duty, and budgeted her time and money with care, even while lavishing her time on learning all she could about fine furnishings, color palettes and design. The contrast between the exquisite furniture, fine art and carefully designed interiors she studied and the reality of their humble apartment made a deep impression on her, and she’d determined even then to have a better home one day.

      She took her first part-time job at a department store the month she turned fifteen and a half. During college, she switched to an upscale furniture store and juggled full-time hours with school. She socked away every penny she could, waiting for the day when she could invest it.

      She and Aunt Arletta, since her mother remarried and moved out west, still made do with their small apartment and frugal budget while she poured all her profits back into the store. But one day she’d have a big house and more than one new car. If their Christmas season was good, this was the year Wall’s Intrigue would more than break even. Someday, Ivy dreamed now, she’d have money enough to buy a brand-new car right off the dealer’s lot and take Aunt Arletta on a long driving vacation.

      “So what’s going on?” She let her daydreams go with a sigh.

      “We have a guest coming to dinner.”

      “Okay.” She didn’t bother to ask who. Aunt Arletta frequently asked her friend, Shirley, who lived two doors away to a meal. “What’s it being Tuesday to do with it?”

      “Well, tomorrow is your light day.”

      “Mmm…” Ivy closed at four on Wednesdays, but starting next week she’d begin her holiday hours when they’d be open until eight every night except Sunday when she closed the store entirely. “You haven’t set the table yet. Want me to do it?”

      “No, dear. You run along and have your shower. Oh, and Kelly called a few moments ago.”

      “They’re back?” Ivy scrambled out of her chair and headed down the hall to her tiny bedroom where she could return a call in peace. Two weeks without talking to her best friend left her with a hole to fill. Their friendship would be different now; marriage always changed loyalties and priorities. Rightly so, she’d told herself over the years as one by one her friends had entered into that state. But she and Kelly had been the last holdouts in their crowd and had made solemn vows they wouldn’t let marriage put distance in their friendship. Even so, Ivy mused, she wouldn’t see as much of her friend from now on. It was the way of things.

      She punched Kelly’s