Prints Charming

by Rebeca Seitz

  I would consider that man for one second. Scratch that—one millisecond. No, one nanosecond of a millisecond.” Reaching her car, Jane yanked open the door and threw her purse across to the passenger’s seat.

  “That’s a lot of protesting,” Lydia noted with a knowing look.

  “I’m only trying to make it exceedingly, abundantly, crystal clear to you that I am not in the market and am in no way interested in this guy. Because I know you.”

  “Oh, you know me?”

  “Yeah, I know you.” Jane turned in the open doorway and faced Lydia as she shoved her hair behind her ear. “You think everybody needs to be married to be happy and that being single is akin to being sick. You want to cure everybody, but some of us see marriage as the sickness and want to stay far away from it.”

  “Marriage is not a sickness.” Lydia straightened and turned serious. “Some people get into marriage and sicken it because they have a wrong perception of what it’s about. But don’t confuse the sick person with the quite healthy institution.”

  Jane saw the hurt look on Lydia’s face and knew she had let her anger over her current situation spill over into her words. “I’m sorry, Lydia. I didn’t mean to imply there was something wrong with you for being married.”

  “No, it’s okay.” Lydia softened, and her face took on a concerned expression. “I know what you meant. I just want to be sure you know what I meant. Don’t give up on marriage just because your first husband was horrible at it, okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah, okay.” Jane sighed. “Geez, let’s go scrap. I need some fun.”

  “Amen, Sister. I’ll head over to Mac’s as soon as Mari gets to my house.”

  chapter 5

  Mac hummed as she opened the drawer and took out a wooden spoon. She loved baking. She loved everything about it. The work of putting all the ingredients together in just the right order, the waiting for things to rise or bake at the perfect temperature, the anticipation of warm sweetness on her tongue, the smell of baked goods permeating the house. It all made her feel as if there was, indeed, good in the world. For the time that treats were baking in her oven, there was the feeling of home.

  She opened a bag of dark chocolate chips and another of mint chocolate chips and dumped them into the cookie batter sitting in a mixing bowl on the counter. As she stirred, Mac gazed out the window and thought back to when Tabby was just a baby and she’d been an eighteen-year-old widow. The feelings of terror and loneliness still came back when she thought about those days with a new baby and a dead husband she had loved with everything inside her. She’d have lost her mind if it hadn’t been for the Center those first few weeks.

  Mac chuckled as she continued turning the wooden spoon in the batter and thought about the long nights with little sleep that had left her wondering if she was simply living a nightmare that would end if only she could wake up. She remembered showing up at the grocery store wearing two different colored socks and two different kinds of shoes and not having a clue how she got there.

  It had turned out all right, she supposed. Tabby was a good girl deep down, who just had a hard time staying on the right path when she was surrounded by the wrong people. But surely all that would change now that Tabby had Kesa.

  “Yessir, Lord,” Mac said aloud. “My Tabby’s been plowin’ some crooked rows, but she knows how to make ’em straight.”

  Mac nodded her head. “Let this baby be her reason to plow straight, sweet Jesus. Keep my baby in Your hands while she raises this new baby, Kesa, and use me however you see fit.”

  Mac stopped stirring and set the bowl down. Reaching under the counter, she pulled out two cookie sheets and began dropping the dough onto them in small clumps.

  She hummed as her fingers pushed each new dollop of dough onto the sheet. All the ingredients were there; they just had to go through the fire to become complete. She filled the two sheets, then nodded in satisfaction and licked her fingers.

  After placing them into the oven, she bent low to look into its window. Yes, just a little heat and they would rise to the occasion, filling the room with the sweet scents of mint and home.

  She straightened and headed to the sink to begin washing the dishes.

  “Just a bit of fire, Jesus. That’s all my Tabby needs. She’ll come out the other side shinin’ like gold, I just know. I’m askin’ you to hold her hand through that fire, Lord. It ain’t easy, but it’s worth it, I sure do know. Just a bit of fire.”

  Mac picked up her humming again and tried to strengthen her resolve to let her baby fall a little bit so she would learn what it was like to hurt as a result of her own choices. This was going to be a hard row to hoe, letting Tabby fall without little Kesa having to hurt.

  “And, Jesus,” she added, “I’d really appreciate you holdin’ my hand, too.”

  The phone rang, and Mac dried her hands on a dishtowel as she made her way to the phone hanging on the kitchen wall.

  “Hello?”

  “Will you accept a call from the Davidson County Jail?”

  Mac’s heart sank as the familiar words came through the line. When would Tabby get her act together?

  “Yes, I will.” She waited as the connection was made, and then her daughter’s voice came through.

  “Momma?”

  “What happened, Tabby?” She waited for the sad tale that Tabby was sure to weave, just as she had done countless times before. The phone calls were getting fewer and farther between, but, Lord, when would they taper off completely?

  “Momma, I swear I wasn’t doing anything this time. I was with Leticia, and we decided to go get our nails done out at

  Sammy’s at the mall, but we had to wait ’cause the good guy had a line of women waitin’ a mile long. So we went across and were looking at clothes, and Ticia grabbed a shirt when I wasn’t looking. I swear I didn’t know, Momma, but she put it in my bag, and the cop thought I did it.”

  “How much is bail?” The words changed, but the story stayed the same.

  “Three hundred dollars,” Tabby said.

  “I’ll be down in a little bit. I’ve got some cookies in the oven for the Sisters. They’re comin’ over this afternoon.” She strung the telephone cord across the kitchen and opened the drawer for the Saran Wrap. No sense in letting the rest of the cookie dough go to waste.

  “Oh, thank you, Momma. I promise I’m on the right path, and I wasn’t doing anything this time, honest.”

  Mac heard cursing and yelling in the background and closed her eyes at the thought that once again her baby girl was amid criminals.

  “It’s just they’re holding my past against me, and when the judge saw all that stuff from before Kesa, he just looked at me like he knew I was guilty and set the bail.”

  Mac rolled her eyes. As if Tabby had any reason to wonder why someone would hold her past against her. “Where’s Kesa?”

  “She’s at Mama Ray’s. They took her to church this morning.”

  Well, at least the baby was being exposed to the right path, even if her mama was spending Sunday morning in jail.

  “Why weren’t you in church this mornin’?”

  “I told you, Momma. Me and Ticia wanted to get our nails done. Are you listening to me?”

  “I’m listenin’, child. I’m listenin’ to way more than you seem to be listenin’ to. I’ll be down in a little while.”

  Mac sighed deeply as she hung up the phone. Tabby probably was innocent in this particular instance, which made her feel a little better about the situation. She’d been doing really well, staying off the drugs ever since finding out she was pregnant with Kesa. The phone calls for bail money had gotten fewer and farther between, a fact Mac was more than grateful for.

  “She’s just got no sense when it comes to friends, Jesus,” Mac mumbled as she checked on the cookies. “Can you send her some new friends? Some that don’t do drugs and who manage to pay for things before they walk out the store?” She reached into the drawer by the oven and pulled out a pot holder. A
blast of heat hit her face as she opened the oven door and reached in for cookies that were just beginning to brown on top.

  As she set the tray on a cooling rack by the sink, it occurred to her that timing really was everything. A few seconds longer, and the cookies would have been bitter and burned. A few seconds earlier would have given her a soggy mess. Maybe Tabby needed to sit for a few more minutes in that jail, though the thought of it made Mac’s heart twist. Prostitutes and drug dealers were, no doubt, Tabby’s cell mates.

  She tossed the pot holder back into its drawer and slammed it closed. “Leave her be or rescue her again, Lord?” she asked out loud, knowing the blessing of a note with written instructions dropping down from heaven wasn’t going to come. She sighed and pulled a minispatula from the yellow ceramic pot by the stove.

  Timing. Everything was about timing. Pull her out of jail too early and she might not learn the lesson the Almighty was trying to teach her by landing her there in the first place. Pull her out too late and her heart might harden.

  She scooped the cookies onto a plate and made up her mind. “Just give me a flat tire, Lord, if You need a few minutes longer in that jail cell. Or else put a scrapbook sale right smack in my path. That worked before, remember? And I got my good Sister Lydia outta that deal.”

  chapter 6

  Jane pulled up to her apartment building and put the car in Park. She rubbed the blisters on her aching feet and picked her shoes up out of the floorboard. There was no way she would be able to put them back on, even to walk the few feet to her front door. Looking around, she couldn’t see anyone to witness her barefooted dash across the sidewalk and down the open breezeway to her apartment. Bundling her purse up with her shoes, she held everything close to her chest and stepped out of the car.

  So far, so good.

  Dashing to her door, she jammed the key into the lock, already sending up words of thanks as she heard the deadbolt snick back out of place.

  “Lost your shoes?” Her heart hit her toes. Of course he would be here. She turned, holding up her shoes as evidence.

  “No, I have them right here. It seemed they were better on my hands than rubbing blisters on my feet, though.”

  He grinned and her heart flip-flopped. He has a cat, Jane.

  “I see. Sunday-sermon shoes?”

  “How do you know about Sunday-sermon shoes?”

  “Now, if I answered that, how would I be the mysterious stranger living across the hall from you?”

  “Oh, we’re going for mysterious stranger status? Well, then I should go inside before I endanger the little story you’ve got going here.” She waggled her fingers at him. “Ta ta.”

  Twisting the old knob, she entered her apartment and closed the door, eliciting barks from Wilson.

  “I’m coming, Wilson. It’s just me, no terrifying strangers to kill or maim.” She struggled inside on her aching feet and walked into the bedroom, dropping the offending shoes on the bed and making her way around it to the dog crate. The latches creaked as she loosened them to free her Houdini mutt. “Guess crate number four did the trick, hmm, little guy? You thought you had me on those first three, but I’ve found the invincible crate now.”

  She let the last latch loose, and Wilson raced out of the room, tail wagging furiously all the way. Jane straightened and began changing out of her church clothes. Ah, the bliss of being loosed from restrictive clothing. Stretching, she reached for her jeans and a T-shirt as she heard Wilson scratching at the front door to go out.

  “I’m coming, buddy. Just a second.” She finished her quick change and grabbed the leash.

  “Now, there will be no chasing of the cats this time, got it, mister?” she said with as much authority as she could. “Mommy’s had just about enough embarrassment for one day.” She was positive her feet sighed in relief and gratitude as she slipped them into comfy flip-flops and snapped the leash onto Wilson’s collar. “I mean it, dog.” She looked into Wilson’s big brown eyes. “No funny business.” Wilson panted at her and looked toward the door. “Oh, all right. Let’s go.”

  As soon as she opened the heavy door, Wilson tugged her across the breezeway and toward the bright sunshine and grass. She scanned the field for any cats and, noting the lack of any other animal within viewing distance, loosened her grip on Wilson’s leash as they walked toward the pond.

  It was a beautiful day. March in Middle Tennessee was always a guessing game. Some days the skies were covered with gray and the wet was so heavy it seeped right down into a person’s bones. But then there were days like today, when the sun was so bright it hurt, and there was the tiniest hint of warmth in the air, like a little whisper from spring that promised it would come soon. Jane tilted her head up toward the sun and smiled. Sunshine on her face. It seemed like eons had passed since she’d felt the sunshine on her face.

  Stopping beneath the very tree Wilson had run the cat up earlier that morning, Jane folded her legs and sat down. The bark of the old tree felt rough against her T-shirt. Her fingers felt soft little shoots of grass, proof of spring’s promise. The trees were showing the barest hint of life again. Tiny little buds would become huge canopies of leaves in another month.

  A gaggle of geese flew over her head, honking loudly and flying in perfect V formation. “Bet their mates don’t leave them,” she muttered, hooking Wilson’s leash on her flip-flop and folding her arms across her chest. “No e-mistresses to worry about. Just fly, eat, rest, and repeat.” Jane sighed and shook her head. She was too young for this. Women in their twenties who had the world by the tail should not find themselves dumped for a virtual woman and left to start over with an empty apartment and a dog.

  A breeze kicked up and blew strands of hair across her face.

  She reached up to jerk them behind her ear. Hearing her sigh, Wilson ceased his sniffing and came to sit beside her. As he nuzzled his way under her hand, Jane absentmindedly petted him and looked back up into the tree. Those little buds were easy to miss if a body didn’t look closely. But they were there, just the same. It’d been a year, and maybe, just maybe, Sisters, Ink was a new bud of life for her.

  “You know, we have to stop meeting like this,” he called across the field and felt his heart flip when she turned. He had been watching her for a few minutes, noting the slump of defeat in her shoulders, the heavy sigh, and the comfort her dog was giving.

  “What?”

  Wow, she looked worn-out.

  “I said, we have to stop meeting like this.” He continued across the new grass, closing the distance between them. “People are going to start talking about us, and then I’ll have to tell them about how dangerous you are, though I don’t even know your name.” He smiled and held out his hand as he came to a stop in front of her. “Hi, I’m Jake Cline.”

  She took his hand and shook it. He was pretty sure that was due to years of learned manners since her eyes telegraphed how unhappy she was with his presence.

  “Jane.” Her back straightened, and her eyes took on a wary look. “And this is Wilson.” She let go of his hand and gestured toward the canine still sitting at her side. Though Wilson’s gaze was now fixed on Jake, his stance was a mirror image of Jane’s.

  Her voice was like silk, even laced with tension and fatigue. He smiled, hoping to set her at ease.

  “Where’s your cat?”

  “Major Carter? She’s taking her afternoon siesta.” He pointed back toward his apartment.

  “Major Carter?” He noticed the little wrinkle of confusion that formed on her forehead, and his smile grew.

  “As in Stargate SG-1?” Okay, so she wasn’t a sci-fi buff. That could be remedied with a few Friday nights in front of the TV.

  “Um, sure. I know a little about it. My ex watched it all the time.”

  There was definitely a land mine in there somewhere.

  “Well, then, we must remedy the situation at the earliest possible convenience.”

  Her eyebrows rose up. “What situation, exactly, are we remedy
ing?”

  “Your flawed Stargate experience that has left you with the mistaken impression that it is anything less than a stellar show.”

  He noticed the dog had dropped the wary look and was now licking his right shoe. That had to be a good sign.

  Jane tilted her head and looked at him with what he hoped was amusement, and he hurried on. “Stargate is a really good show that should be viewed with an objective eye—not one clouded by the stench of the company, excuse me, ex-company, within viewing range.” He knelt down and scratched the dog behind the ears.

  “So what’s your remedy?” She was laughing at him now.

  Laughing was good, much better than defeat. The sparkle in her eyes was amazing. Who had taken that from her?

  “It’s Sunday. Stargate will be on in five short days. It comes on Friday nights at seven p.m., so we’ll need to start dinner around six. Sound good? I make a mean spaghetti.”

  She studied him for a few minutes, and he did his best to appear honest and trustworthy, opening his eyes wide just like all the detective novels said. After all, he was asking her out, and he’d barely even learned her name, though Wilson had now rolled onto his back and offered his tummy. He kept scratching, hoping the dog’s approval would translate to hers.

  “You’re on.” He opened his mouth, but she held up her hand and went on. “But only because I’m usually dead on my feet by Friday, and the idea of somebody else making dinner— no cleaning up after dinner—is worthy of suffering through some horrible sci-fi show.”

  She grinned at him, and his heart pounded a bit harder. Who cared why she was coming, so long as she was coming? He’d give her a night off from all that stress and have some great company to boot. Not a bad trade-off for some cooking and cleaning.

  “Great. See you at my place. I’m that door there.” He pointed to the last door across the breezeway from her. “I better get back to Major Carter. Her claws and my couch aren’t best friends.”