Isobel and Alice had been friends forever. Their mothers had been friends in the church women’s guild in Kansas and the girls remembered playing in corners of the church as their mothers organized Christmas bazaars.
Isobel’s husband, Wade, had once remarked it was good they weren’t going to take on the same assignment, as he wasn’t sure how the two generals would manage not to trample each other.
Because both were generals in this 1877 bazaar. Since Colorado was now a state the women said the church needed a real building, not the cobbled-together shacks where they had been meeting. They needed money for pews and songbooks and other things. This bazaar had to be a success.
Isobel’s mother, Grace, had been in charge of the kitchen and baked goods at the church in Kansas. Isobel prepared Grace’s chili recipe for these bazaar goers to enjoy as they rested after shopping the bazaar. Alice’s mother, Susanna, had been in charge of coordinating handwork for sale, tiny-stitched embroidery, and knit and crochet goods. Now Alice did the same.
Dry Creek, Colorado, inhabitants poured through the doors of Faith Assembly church on December 1, the first Saturday in December, to buy the handwork and baking of the ladies of the church guild. No other church had such a bazaar, and Alice’s husband, Jack, remarked that was because no other church had Isobel and Alice.
Susanna had moved back to Kansas to care for her mother and both women had died within days of Susanna’s arrival. Alice hadn’t gotten the word before her brother, Alfred, had buried them. Alfred, imbued with the worst characteristics of the first born, had dismissed his mother’s deathbed bequests of her silver to Alice. The silver had belonged to Alice’s grandmother.
He had sold it, though one teaspoon had been overlooked in her mother’s last cup of tea. One lone spoon was not worth taking to the silversmith so Alfred set it aside for Alice.
Susanna’s will came to light only when the town’s attorney came back after a trip to Chicago.
The will bequeathed the silver to Alice, but there wasn’t much to be done about it now. Alfred was dunned the price received from the silversmith. Alice was ready to take on her brother, but he was in Kansas and her letter to him, though written with venom had been insufficient to quell her anger at his behavior. She finished reading his response to her letter one more time, folded it and put it in her apron pocket. Her face flushed and her brown eyes flashed. The lunch time lull left her some time, she left the sales tables and walked to the kitchen.
The tables were splendid in red and white checked tablecloths and full of people downing bowls of Grace’s chili and pulling apart her feather-weight cinnamon rolls with their rich buttercream icing. The aromas hung heavy in the air.
Isobel had just stirred a pot of chili in the oven, added more coal to the fire then walked outside to the ladies privy.
The chili pot on the stove was nearly empty and tiny bubbles danced around the edges. The cinnamon roll tray sat on the counter and whoever had served the last roll had failed to pull the tea towel fully over the remaining rolls.
A fat fly sat on an exposed roll.
Alice stood in the doorway surveying the diners, the servers, and then that speck on the rolls. Her first thought was that Isobel had put raisins in some of the rolls, the fly sat so still. But as she walked toward it she recognized the interloper for what he was. Her hands curled into fists. Where had he been, where in the Faith Assembly Church had flies made their home since fall? How had this one survived to be in this place at this moment?
Alice called, “Isobel!” When no one answered, she turned her head from side to side.
“Isobel, where are you!” she shouted. Isobel was coming in the back door. Alice? She walked into the kitchen.
“Alice!” she said, “what are you doing here?” Alice was not to step into the kitchen. Isobel, once in the kitchen, was not to leave it until the bazaar closed. Just like their mothers had taught them: Stay in your own area, they both had said, it’s what helped us keep our friendship, stay out of each other’s way. Someone else would take Alice a bowl of chili and a cinnamon roll at lunch time.
And what was Alice doing there? Isobel knew she’d eaten the chili and roll. The dishes had come back to the kitchen.
Isobel didn’t know that Alice marveled at Isobel’s buttery, flakey cinnamon rolls. She marveled at the spicy, but not-too-spicy chili. Jack loved both. He often stopped at Wade’s for a cinnamon roll when the men needed to work out something but he always told Alice that he’d stopped
For the first time Alice’s faith in her own chili and cinnamon rolls quavered. One of Alice’s flaws was thinking and rethinking. Alice could rethink something into something else entirely.
Alice thought of the times that Jack had commented upon Isobel’s cooking and baking. When had he said lovely things about her own sweet biscuits, cornbread or dumplings? Making light dumplings was an art and she wasn’t sure Jack appreciated the effort that she put into her chicken and dumplings.
“Isobel, why is the pot nearly empty? And why aren’t the rolls covered? There’s a fly on one.”
Isobel looked at her. “There’s more chili and I’m going to put those rolls out. They’re dry. What’s the matter? We’re not supposed to check on each other.”
Alice talked to Isobel about the chili and the rolls. She paused and out of nowhere she thought of her grandmother’s and mother’s deaths. She had wanted the silver. Jack hadn’t praised her cooking for months. She thought of her brother, that arrogant no-good, slug of a man who hadn’t taken a wife (if he’d taken a wife perhaps she would have taken the silver and Alice could get it from her). Alice remembered the years of watching Jack and their children manage their lives, barely tolerating it when she’d offered her guidance. She couldn’t remember a time – no occasion at all – when anyone had taken her advice like it seemed Isobel’s family always took Isobel’s.
She stood and looked at Isobel who had walked up to her and gently turned her around toward a back table. As Alice turned her stomach which had been roiling since she finished reading that leter took that moment to explode the now-offending chili and cinnamon roll all over Jack who had walked into the kitchen. Isobel put her arms around Alice and sat her in a chair away from the gaping mouths, nodding to the mess and then to one of the women in a silent request to clean it up.
“My mother died …..my grandmother died …. in Kansas and I didn’t see either of them one last time… and Jack… and Jack … and my life is … askew,” Alice wailed. She sat for a moment and dropped her face into her cold hands.
She mumbled, “The only memories I have of them are in my head. I don’t have one new thing, anything that they made or held near the end,” she sobbed. “Alfred has taken and destroyed …or sold it all. What am I going to do?”
She leaned back into Isobel who offered her a glass of water and a bowl to use as a basin. Alice rinsed her mouth and sat back up, looking at Isobel.
“What am I going to do?” she repeated.
“What of your mother’s did you have before the … the news came?” Isobel said.
“I have candles she made. And I wrote to her,” Alice paused. Isobel wiped her face with her apron.
“I wonder if she saved my letters? They won’t be worth anything to Alfred, maybe they’re still there. She wrote me a letter every month. I have those.”
“What would you have done with the silver?” Isobel asked.
“I wanted it for Jack, the money that is.” She heard Jack cough in his funny way.
“So,” Isobel went on, “maybe Alfred did you a favor selling it. You’ll get the money.”
Alice looked at her, startled. “Yes, but he took the choice from me. I wanted maybe get to hold back some pieces for the girls.”
“But this way you won’t have the agony of selling it off bit by bit.”
Alice sat up in the chair and squared her shoulders. Tears ran down her face.
“Am I going to lose Jack to you, Isobel? You have Wade. What do you want with Jack?”
Isobel looked at Alice and then at Jack. Isobel’s eyes brimmed with tears. Jack turned, walked through the crowd and down the hall.
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