That’s Not Love! (a Harshbarger Mills story, 1944)

              That’s Not Love!

            Agnes works at First Mills Bank; she’s the teller at Window Number One. She’s always early because it’s a short walk from the house she shares with her mother. It’s the two of them though Olivia, her older sister, is always barging in. Agnes thinks that now that Olivia is married with a huge home in Harshbarger Heights, she should stay there, but Olivia say she has a right to come and go in the house she was born in. And as for telling others what to do, Agnes should watch herself with that Garrett boy. All those Garrett men were cheats.  

Why I could tell you things that would burn your ears. I just might, if you don’t straighten up. 

            Olivia was referring to Woody Garrett, Agnes’s beau. The sisters haven’t spoken since.

            This morning, Olivia is taking Mother to Dr. Veach, so Agnes has left even earlier, stopping only to snip off a Patience rose. She tries to fit the rose behind her left ear but Trixie, the rat terrier, keeps nipping her hem. Agnes kicks out before Trixie rips her nylons.  

            She peels off a thorn, and the stem slides easily between her ear and the thick of her hair. Agnes is proud of her hair. It falls past her waist and when she lets it down, everyone stares. Mother helps her apply the Zenia mix every six weeks. Mother has been “brightening” her  hair since Agnes was thirteen years old and threatened to drop out of school over algebra. The Zenia application had been a bribe, but it worked. She’s been strawberry ever since. 

            Agnes is so early that she wonders if she’ll have to wait for Otis with the keys, but the janitor is there, ready with his cheeky salute. Otis was a navy man, and she salutes back. She is, however, surprised to see the office door open. Paul Valentine, the bank president—red nosed and red faced—has a hard time getting up in the morning.

            When Cora Valentine’s head pops out, however, Agnes feels her heart bump. Coral is her friend for life, and all because Paul Valentine wore his shoes on the wrong feet.

            Here’s how it happened: 

            One early summer morning, Paul was limping and moaning inside his office. Agnes heard everything because Window Number One is a few steps from the office door; separated only by a thin wall.  When he began to curse, Agnes stepped in. 

            “Oh, Aggie,” he shook his head. “I’m in a bad way.”

            “What’s wrong?” The room smelled of aftershave and his usual “medicine,” but it wasn’t strong.

            “My feet are killing me.”

            “Your feet?”

            The bank president had raised his pant cuffs, and at once, she’d recognized the shoes. A pair just like them was currently on display in the window of Heck’s Clothing and Dry Goods. The summer shoes, two- tone oxfords, had been placed on a shut suitcase, surrounded by shorts and socks. A pair of sunglasses clips was nearby.

She and Woody had passed the store on their return from the riverbank, and Woody had stopped to stare.  He’s sighed, and because she was heavy with love, his new longing hurt her.  “Someday,” she told him, squeezing his arm. “You’ll look that fine.”

            On Paul Valentine’s feet, however, they didn’t look fine. The stitches seem about to fly apart. Plus, his ankles were swollen. It was on the tip of her tongue to asked about his gout when she realized the problem. 

            His shoes were on the wrong feet!

            Her next step required care. Paul Valentine, the mildest of men, could get touchy when he made mistakes.

            “Mother says she wishes we’d go back to the day of the shoe cobblers,” Agnes knelt and began taking them off as though she undressing a toddler. She didn’t tell him what was wrong. Paul sighed his relief. “Everything looks alike these days.”

            “Your mother is a wise woman,” he said, then, “And you’re a good girl, Aggie.”

            And a devious one, for the minute she left his office, Agnes headed straight for the telephone kept for general use in the back room and dialed his wife Cora. Agnes told her what happened and the first thing Cora said was, “Can he drive?”

            Agnes paused.  Paul had had his shoes on the wrong feet since at least nine o’clock—and the smell, while slight, was definitely discernable. Another thing. He’d been alert when the shoes were on but the second she took them off, he fell back like a punctured balloon.

            “Maybe,” she said.

            “Maybe means no,” replied Cora and then proceeded to tell her what to do.

            With wide eyes, Agnes listened to the most ingenious plan she’d ever heard. Cora lived in an “in case of emergency” mode. Agnes was to return to the office and check on Paul. She was to tell him his face was splotchy and the vein in his temple was big. No, use the word protruding, Cora corrected, Say it’s the one on the right. Agnes should add that while she wasn’t an expert on blood pressure, he didn’t look good. Paul was an expert on blood pressure. He would rush home to use the Baunmanometer Pressure Monitor he’d ordered from Physician’s Supply in Cincinnati.

            “It’s attached to his arm like a vine,” Cora explained. “Alongside his chair with the spittoon.” 

            It sounded good, but duplicity was not Agnes’s strongpoint. “What if he won’t go?”

            “Tell him I’m not home.”

            “But you are!”

            “I won’t be. I’m going to the club house to check on the garden show. Olivia will be there. Tell him that’s how you know.”

To be con’t.



Copywright “Harshbarger Mills” by Joan Spilman, 2023