“Are you comfortable?” Bemused and tentative, she nodded. While he looked inside his hat once again she scanned for an exit. Her disappointment was unexpectedly bearable.
Mr. Lincoln removed and replaced several different-sized pieces of paper and at least one envelope from the lining in his hat until he found the note he was after—then he set it on the floor.
Rising slowly, he read the memo, clearly perplexed. “I must be honest with you; I am surprised by this report.”
“Ooo?” Elise craned her short monkey neck to make out the words.
“It says you are cynical and judgmental and unwilling to balance your checkbook.” He looked as perplexed as she was.
Their eyes met and held; observant and reflective—hers wavered first.
Okay, so the checkbook thing was true. And sometimes she was a little pessimistic, who wasn’t?—aside from yoga instructors and Jamaicans, of course. But judgmental? And with that disapproving undertone?
She wasn’t very curious anymore. Elise became an Angry Bird, soaring over rows of costumes with a head-on trajectory to the far wall at the back of the store. She was about to crash and disintegrate . . . and there was no pig in sight to make her trip worthwhile.
Terrified, she squeezed her eyes shut tight, held her breath, felt herself falling and landed on her feet with a jolt.
At first, it was hard to see beyond her new bulbous nose, but the long white beard, the red jacket, the soft leather booties . . . and her still short stature left little doubt of her present emotions—or who she now appeared to be. She stomped down the aisle and around the corner to the next to confront Mr. Lincoln with her hands fisted on her hips.
“Grumpy.” The light in his eyes danced. “Perhaps you should run for Congress after all.”
“Humph.” Her eyebrows formed a near perfect V on her forehead. In a deep, rough voice she asked, “Who’d you expect? Sneezy? Dopey?”
“It is the gap between our assumptions and expectations that deliver most of the surprises to our life—and would not our lives be abysmally dull without them?”
“Hah! I hate surprises. They make life sloppy and unstable. Not for me, no, sir. A fine kettle of fish, they are.” Elise started pacing back and forth, agitated. Abe watched her until she stopped in front of him and asked, “What were we talking about?”
“I was reporting to you that there are certain people who believe you are the skeptical sort and an atrocious bookkeeper, despite your profession. But I believe it was the assertion that you are also judgmental that had you flying off the handle . . . in a manner of speaking.”
“Right.” She made a gruff noise, clearing her throat. Her language was full of contractions and almost completely g-less. “Judgmental. Molly told you that, didn’t she? Of course I’m judgmental.” She threw up her arms. “Everyone is judgmental. It’s how we mark people and places, things and ideas, as right or wrong, good or bad, healthy or not.
“But here’s this about that: No one ever says you’re being judgmental if you think something is right or good or healthy. Only the opposite—only if you don’t like it and only if they do like it. And there’s something else . . .” She filled her lungs with air. “If they don’t agree with what you decide is right or good, they got no problem telling you how wrong you are about it. But they’re just expressing their opinion, not being judgmental of my choices. Fact is, if that’s the way Molly wants it, then she’s being judgmental by calling me judgmental. What do you think of that?”
The tall man stared down at her thoughtfully—considering, not judging, her perspective.
“Pfft. Molly is the patient sort—everyone she meets is her best friend. She’s everybody’s pal. I love that about her. I’m more discriminating is all; private-like and choosy in my friends. We aren’t all the same.” She hesitated. “And I think you’re more like me.”
“I am.”
“She’s always saying I can’t judge a book by its cover. And maybe I can’t, but reading the first couple pages will tell me if I want to waste more of my time on it. A gooseberry pie can come out of the oven looking perfect and taste so bitter it’ll take a week for your face to unpucker. Why would I take another bite? And people—what we’re really talking about—well, people are the same. They can look as normal as me and you but it doesn’t take long to know if you want them always in your life.”
Mr. Lincoln considered this. “But people are not books and they are not pies. People are never fully cooked or completely written. What if the first time you encounter a person they are not at their best?”
Elise turned her hands palms up. “So what if they aren’t? They’ll be out of my life in two swings of a pickax—why would I care?”
“But what if it is someone you will encounter again?”
“Are they back to being their normal self?” Abe’s nod was provisional. “Then I’d say I still got at least a fifty-fifty chance of liking them. Same as the first time I met them. I can’t always be my usual charming self either. Most everyone deserves a second chance. I believe that. I do. Ask Molly.”
“And if they happen to not be at their best . . . again? What if it is a particularly bad time in their life?” One corner of Elise’s mouth tilted upward in dissent—the odds had already diminished. “But what if they are truly charming and exciting people once—”
“Once they aren’t around me?”
“No. Just . . . once you have had more time to warm up to each other.”
“Eh. I’m to keep rubbing up against people I don’t give a lick for until I can love them like my brother? To make everyone else happy? To make them stop judging me as judgmental?” She folded her arms across her chest and tapped her right foot. “In a pig’s eye! I’m not mean and I’m not uncaring. But I’m also not the type to be making friends with those I’ve got no interest in.”
Martin/Abraham sighed. “But if you do not give them all the chances they need to connect with you, how will you ever know for sure?”
“I won’t.” A Grumpy Elise bobbled her oversized head loosely on her shoulders. “Now I reckon I’m supposed to lose sleep over not knowing about all the things I don’t know about?”
His smile was kind, but not convinced and not discouraged. He opened his mouth to speak—
The muffled growling noise came again, vibrating the floorboards beneath their feet; distant and close at once. It furrowed the president’s brow and alarmed Elise nearly as much as becoming an Angry Bird had.
“What is that?” she asked.
“It’s time. We must hurry.”
CHAPTER THREE
For a second time, President Lincoln bent to take hold of her hand—not to pull her up into his arms but to draw her around another endcap, this one featuring a large Shrek. Once there he stepped behind her and placed his hands lightly on her shoulders; then slowly pushed her forward.
The brightly colored costumes on both sides of the aisle began to fade—first to gray, then completely away, to reveal a filmy image of a woman she knew.
“Molly.”
Abruptly, the figure turned toward the sound of a voice saying, “Ready?”
“Yes,” Molly said.
Elise—looking very much herself—emerged from a cloudy dressing area in the beautiful red cocktail dress she bought four weeks earlier on one of their late-afternoon shopping trips. With a short gossamer skirt and spaghetti straps that crossed over the low-cut back, it had the wow-power to burn her image into Max’s brain until the day he died . . . maybe a little longer.