Love on the Line - Deeanne Gist [10]
If the rest of them rang, she’d have to break into Fred and Birdie’s conversation. The young sparking couple had been on the phone all morning and had provided no small amount of entertainment for the boys down at the depot.
She wondered if Bettina had been successful in chasing them off. She pulled line one’s key back, activating her earpiece but not her mouthpiece.
“—should have seen Chili slip the dogcatcher’s noose,” Birdie said. “He threw it right over her, but instead of running, she backed up, so he couldn’t tighten it.”
“That Chili’s a smart one, all right,” Fred answered.
The line was much clearer and louder than before, which meant fewer people were listening in. Returning the key to neutral, Georgie smiled. That was one way to ensure some privacy—talk so long everyone grew tired of listening and just hung up.
Placing her hands on her back, she arched and glanced out the giant bay window overlooking her backyard. The pink columbine had just begun to bloom, beckoning birds, bees, and butterflies. Even now, a ruby-throated hummingbird hovered over one of its bell-like flowers, sipping sweet nectar from deep within.
Georgie reached blindly for her opera glasses, then focused on the tiniest of the bird species. As if sensing its audience, the showy male flew sideways, backward, and hovered in midair before zipping out of view.
A sense of awe and delight filled her. Winter’s quilt had been thrown off, leaving the way for spring. She hoped it would bring even more birds to her doorstep than last year.
She examined her yard as if from a bird’s point of view. It offered plenty of open sky for flying and chasing. Yet surrounding its perimeter were trees, brush, vines, and ground cover specifically designed to entice.
Evergreens for the grackles, holly for the songbirds, Mexican plum for the fruit birds. Honeysuckle and Virginia creeper for a whole array of feathered friends. Wild rye for nesting material. And at the top of a five-foot pole, a wooden starch box with a rounded-out entrance and perches at either end. In just a few short months, some lucky family would have a private, cozy cabin for nesting. She wondered who it would be this time.
Under her back porch eaves hung alternating containers of sugar water and birdseed. Scattered throughout the garden were three different kinds of birdbaths, for more young birds died from lack of water than from any other cause. She had even planted items for coaxing insects to her yard, knowing they were an essential food source for her birds.
She returned her opera glasses to the corner of the switchboard table. One by one, she pulled each toggle key backward to see if anyone was still on the line. All had disconnected—even Fred and Birdie had finally hung up. She unplugged a cable, activating its spring-loaded reel, which coiled it up beneath the desktop, leaving only the metal plug visible. When all cables were in ready position, she checked her watch. Lunchtime.
Luke eyed the giant telephone pole in front of a quaint cottage on Cottonwood Lane. Thick wires radiated out in all directions. Yet every single one originated from the roof of the cottage. He assumed they terminated at the switchboard inside.
Tying Honey Dew to the hitching rail, he let himself through the front gate. A covered veranda stretched across the tiny yellow clapboard house, offering a haven for a green bench to the right of the door and two rattan rockers and a porch swing to the left. A squirrel on a lawn settee beneath a giant burr oak sat on its hind legs and twitched its nose.
Luke wondered if the telephone company provided the outdoor furniture. While preparing to go undercover, he’d been surprised to learn SWT&T gave their rural switchboard operators a fully furnished home. He could see doing that for a married woman, but a single gal?