"Ain't it funny, Clara, I'm always makin' mistakes like that when I talk in my regular voice, but when I do 'personations of folk, I can speak right if I needs to. Listen to this:..." the gangly, scruffy teenager suddenly stood up ramrod straight for some sort of recital.
Clara paused in her work and looked that direction, she would listen if for no other reason than to be polite - busy as she was.
"Arabella, would you please desist from precipitating those most distastful and less that utilitarian anecdotal confabulations. I find them most distressing!" All right, the words might not make sense, but anyone who knew Clara would have recognized the rhythm and tone of her voice.
Clara sighed, "People do not like being mimicked and an object of fun, Arabella. And, it is not nice."
Then she went back to her food preparations.
"Everybody can feather their nest, but it's not just anybody that can lay an egg!"
Clara sighed, "People do not like being mimicked and an object of fun, Arabella. And, it is not nice."
The other girl just grinned. "Oh don't be silly, I ain't makin' fun of you! Remember the old adage: 'Imitation is the most sincerest form of flattery' See, the reason I'm so good at 'personating you is cause I used to practice all the time, cause I wanted to be just like you... you was my, whataycallem? My beau ideal!" She got her spatchalor under the eggs so they didn't stick.
"Anyhow, I gotta practice pretending to be other people if I'm going to be an actress. Oooh, did you see my audition fer Mr Simons? I could tell that he was secretly impressed. He was just just pretending not to be so he woudn't have to pay me so much when he takes me on - that's called 'holding out'!" she explained importantly.
"I could also tell he weren't interested in me as a woman" she went on, holding her spatchelor up for emphasis "And that's a darn good thing, too, cause Lorenzo, er, Mr Crabbe, he done told me about this thing they got in theatres called 'The Castin' Couch' and believe you me Clara Anne Lutz, you don't wanna be messin' around on that thing, Lady MacBeth or no Lady MacBeth!"
She frowned for a second in thought. "nope, I never did meet a feller who was interested in me that a-way and, Clara, would you be completely amazed if I told you I don't even care?" she asked.
The other girl just grinned. "Oh don't be silly, I ain't makin' fun of you! Remember the old adage: 'Imitation is the most sincerest form of flattery' See, the reason I'm so good at 'personating you is cause I used to practice all the time, cause I wanted to be just like you... you was my, whataycallem? My beau ideal!"
"Oh? Well, that is most kind of you to put me on a pedestal like that," Clara had indeed been taken aback by the compliment, "Doubt I deserve it."
Ara also explained she now dreamed of being an actress, well Clara thought the girl was certainly not shy and also had a flair for the dramatic (often unnecessarily).
"Well good luck with that then, Ara, I think you would do well," Clara wanted to be supportive.
Of course the girl didn't stop there but brought up some sort of nonsense about a casting couch? Why on earth would someone audition sitting on a couch? Unless the role involved sitting....
"I see," Clara merely nodded, there was no stopping the verbal locomotive that was Ara barreling down the track.
Ara frowned for a second in thought. "nope, I never did meet a feller who was interested in me that a-way and, Clara, would you be completely amazed if I told you I don't even care?"
Clara had once thought no boy would ever show the likes of her any interest either and , boy, was she wrong about that as she glanced for just an instant down upon her wedding ring.
"Arabella, I am constantly amazed at so much you tell me. So you have not yet developed an interest in boys? It will come, probably quite soon I would venture," Clara answered.
"Everybody can feather their nest, but it's not just anybody that can lay an egg!"
"Oh? Well, that is most kind of you to put me on a pedestal like that," Clara had indeed been taken aback by the compliment, "Doubt I deserve it."
"Course you do! You ain't just the cleverest girl in Kalispell, you're the prettiest. And you still will be, even when you're all fat and full of babies!" Arabella declared, feeling a little guilty, for she was always telling Miriam the same thing (except for the babies part, of course!)
Conversation then turned to the young Virginian's proposed acting career and her (not necessarily unwelcome) unattractiveness to boys, and her own lack of interest in the same.
"Arabella, I am constantly amazed at so much you tell me. So you have not yet developed an interest in boys? It will come, probably quite soon I would venture," Clara answered.
"Hmm."
What? For once Arabella seemed to have nothing to say!
Arabella looked over at Clara; maybe it had always been a pretty one-sided relationship, but it had been a very important one to her. She couldn't but remember opening her eyes after her near death experience last December and seeing the girl who had nursed her through it standing over her: she had mistaken her for a Red Indian of all things! And she had bathed her: bathed her poor frozen, emaciated body, like Jesus bathed the feet of the beggars. She had seemed Christ-like to Arabella, then.
And how, in the intervening months she had run after and doted on the now married mother-to-be. But now she had Miriam and Clara had Jacob and things seemed sort of right in the Heavens. Her silly crush on the older girl had been just that, and now it must be forgotten.
But. There was always going to be that nagging thought of things that might have been; dreams, odd, intense, impossible little dreams, that could never come true. Arabella walked over to Clara's side and touched her arm, looking up with her dark blue eyes into Clara's Brown and a frisson ran through her whole body.
"Clara, I... you see... well... er..... I think these eggs is done!" she stammered.