Down Home Carolina Christmas

by Pamela Browning

  The kitchen phone rang again, and this time she answered on the first ring.

  “This is Mike Calphus,” said the young voice on the other end.

  “Oh, Mike,” Carrie replied, wondering what was up. Mike was just ten, and she felt a worrisome niggle of alarm at the sound of his voice.

  “Carrie, Shasta wasn’t at the garage this morning. Do you know where she is?”

  “Why, no, Mike.”

  “Me and Jamie, we looked all over. Hub wasn’t there yet.” Mike sounded as though he might cry.

  The Calphus boys had become mightily attached to Shasta in the short time that she’d been hanging around. They’d been stopping by in the mornings on their way to baseball practice to give her treats and play catch with her out back of the garage.

  “Oh, Mike, I’m sorry. Tell you what, we’ll hunt for Shasta as soon as I get there, I promise.”

  “Mom went to work, and Grandma doesn’t drive, but if you ride us around the neighborhood and we holler out the windows, maybe Shasta will come.” Mike still sounded perilously near tears.

  “I’ll be there in twenty minutes or so,” Carrie said. She hung up in dismay. Last weekend, the boys had carried the dog home with them, but Ginger Calphus, a single mother, had put her foot down and refused to keep her. The boys’ grandmother, who lived next door, had too many other responsibilities to take on a dog, and despite Carrie’s best efforts, no one else had offered a home.

  Killer, Carrie’s lop-eared rabbit, so named because of his aggression toward almost everyone but her, hopped into the kitchen and wiggled his nose hopefully. “If it weren’t for you,” she told him sternly, “Shasta would live with me.” Carrie had developed a true affection for the pup, but Killer would not have much chance of survival if the two ever found themselves in the same room together, even though the rabbit owed his name to a deadly hind-leg kick.

  Leaving Killer happily chomping on a newly harvested lettuce leaf, Carrie headed for town. She called ahead on her cell phone to inform Hub that he’d be doing the brake job and drove straight to the Calphus house. Ginger Calphus had been a classmate of Carrie’s and lived next door to the house where she’d grown up. This simplified child-care arrangements for Ginger, who had been divorced for a couple of years and worked at the bank with Joyanne. Ginger’s parents, Edna Earle and Fred Hindershot, kept an eye on her two boys during the day, and Carrie stopped to ask Edna Earle if it was okay for Mike and Jamie to come with her to look for the dog.

  “Sure, go ahead. They do love that dog, but Ginger’s devoted to those cats of hers and can’t consider adopting another animal. I’d give Shasta a home myself, but Fred says I don’t need a pet, considering that I’m busy enough taking care of Mike and Jamie and him, too.” Fred had retired on disability and could barely get around anymore.

  “I know, Edna Earle. I always figured that I’d find the perfect person to adopt Shasta if I let her hang around long enough. She’s a sweet little old thing.”

  “Well, maybe she’ll turn up.” Edna Earle called into the house, “Mike! Jamie! Carrie is here. Y’all come on out.”

  The boys erupted from the house, and Carrie held the SUV door open for them as they swarmed in.

  “Can we drive down Begonia Street? Sometimes Shasta goes down there to drink from the creek,” Jamie said, sounding worried.

  “Of course we can,” Carrie assured him. “Then we’ll check Memorial Park and make sure she isn’t having a good old time chasing ducks around the pond.”

  They drove slowly down Begonia, waving to Mrs. McGrath, who was kneeling in the dirt, deadheading her marigolds. On the corner of Cedar Lane they stopped to talk to Jason Plummer, a high-school athlete who was jogging around the block. He hadn’t seen Shasta, but he promised to notify Carrie if he did.

  Finally, after driving up and down every street in Yewville calling the dog’s name, Carrie gave up.

  “Maybe Shasta found a real home,” Mike suggested.

  “Yeah,” Jamie said mournfully. “With her own yard and everything. But how are we going to play catch with her if we don’t know where she lives?”

  Carrie had her own private concern, namely that the dog had wandered out to the bypass and met with a gruesome fate that she’d rather not discover while in the company of two small boys.

  “Tell you what,” she said. “Let’s get some ice cream.” She hoped she didn’t sound as forlorn to the boys as she did to herself.

  “I’d rather find Shasta,” Mike said, showing a hint of stubbornness, but Carrie convinced him to accompany them inside the Eat Right, anyway. They all sat down in a booth, where the boys ordered rocky-road ice-cream cones and Carrie asked for a dish of chocolate and strawberry. The ice cream distracted them from thinking about their failure to turn up any evidence of the missing dog.

  Kathy Lou Watts, the waitress behind the counter, was in a cheerful mood. “I hear Luke Mason stopped by your gas station a couple of Sundays ago,” she said chattily.

  “He did,” Carrie answered. She watched helplessly as ice cream dripped onto Jamie’s spotless blue T-shirt.

  “Is he as handsome as he is on the screen?” Kathy Lou asked.

  “Handsomer,” Carrie answered without really thinking about it. “Imagine! Luke Mason himself was right here in the Eat Right this morning. The girls on the early shift said he ate eggs and bacon for breakfast, just like any ordinary person. And link sausage. He must really like sausage ’cause he asked for three orders to take out.” Kathy Lou scrubbed energetically at a stain on the counter with one corner of a damp dish towel.

  “I suppose just about everybody around here will get a gander at Luke Mason before they’re through filming that blamed movie,” Carrie said.

  “I heard that the casting director is going to interview local people for minor speaking parts,” Kathy Lou told her.

  “Is that so?” Carrie asked with little interest. Kathy Lou talked nonstop; how she could run on.

  Kathy Lou stopped scrubbing and leaned toward Carrie confidentially. “My niece is going to try to get herself a part. Wouldn’t that be something? Mikaila Parker from Yewville, South Carolina, in an honest-to-goodness Hollywood movie?”

  “Mmm,” Carrie said absently, wondering if she should close the station and haul Hub with her out to the bypass after she dropped the boys off at their grandparents’ house. She and Hub could call Shasta; they could whistle. Maybe they’d even find her alive and well, thumping her tail in someone else’s dust.

  Kathy Lou was still talking. “You get paid by the day. For being in the movie, I mean. If they pick you, that is. Big Jessie is going to take Little Jessie for an interview so she can sing “Tomorrow” from that play. Annie. Little Jessie already got her a part in the parade twirling her baton, but Big Jessie says she’s got more talent than that.”

  “Um, yes, indeed,” Carrie murmured, though the specter of Little Jessie decked out as Little Orphan Annie and twirling her baton while singing an off-key rendition of “Tomorrow” tended to curdle the ice cream in her stomach.

  “You should aim for a speaking part, Carrie. You and Dixie. Either one of you girls is pretty enough to be a movie star. And Dixie’s already been chosen to be a beauty contestant, I hear.”

  “She can get off work at the real-estate office to be in the movie, but I have a garage to run. Jamie, hurry up and finish your cone. Your grandma is going to worry about what happened to us.”

  “Like I’m worried what happened to Shasta,” Jamie said disconsolately. He kicked his heels against the bottom of his seat.

  “I wonder where that dog’s gone. Dog gone. Doggone, Jamie, get it?” Mike said.

  This ended the morning on a slightly cheerful note. The boys wiped their hands obediently with the damp napkin that Carrie dipped in her water glass and uncomplainingly left their seats when she said it was time to leave.

  “Bye, Carrie,” Kathy Lou called after them.

  “Bye,” Carrie called back.

  Carrie shepherde
d the boys out of the restaurant. She certainly didn’t want a speaking part in the movie. But she sure would have liked to know where Shasta had disappeared to.

  LATER THE SAME AFTERNOON, Carrie was setting her vegetables out on the table in front of the station, when she spotted the Ferrari coming down the street, convertible top down. The car didn’t really register at first. She was sick at heart because there was still no sign of Shasta. Out on the bypass, she and Hub had explored every cul-de-sac, but they had seen no sign of the pup. At least they hadn’t found her dead on the side of the road.

  The Ferrari’s turn signal was blinking, and the car slowed in front of the station. Carrie rushed through her task, meaning to go inside. Luke Mason could pump his own gas. She didn’t want to be involved in any discussion about what had happened out behind the refreshment stand the other day, nor did she think it would be a good idea to engage in more kissing. The trouble was that she wanted to. But she wasn’t going to give in to unwieldy desires. She had her principles.

  She started inside, telling herself that it wasn’t the man who was the big attraction, only his car. She sneaked a peek at the Ferrari out of the corners of her eyes. She couldn’t believe it when there was Shasta, sitting on the front seat big as you please.

  “Shasta!” she cried, so glad to see the dog that she wanted to hug her. While Luke Mason gazed at her from behind his sunglasses, she hurried over. It was Shasta, all right, no mistake about that. No mistake about Luke, either. “What are you doing with this dog?” she demanded as he got out of his car in a leisurely manner. He wasn’t smiling, so maybe he’d had the same second thoughts as she had about that kiss.

  “I’m bringing the dog back. How could you leave her outside after you closed for the day? Something could have happened to her.” He sounded angry.

  She glared at him. “She’s not my dog. I feed her and give her water, and I’m trying to find her a good home. I don’t suppose you’d be interested,” she suggested pointedly.

  At that, Luke backed off a bit. “I can’t have a dog, but I can certainly provide temporary quarters when an animal is being mistreated,” he said self-righteously.

  “Shasta is not mistreated. She’s homeless, that’s all. Has she been with you all night? I’ve searched everywhere for her.” She figured she had at least as much right to be angry as Luke Mason.

  Luke nodded. “She spent the night in my room on a down-cushioned bench belonging to the previous residents. Oh, and I bathed her and fed her, too.” He seemed right proud of himself, which only ticked her off.

  “Do you have any idea how upset I was when the Calphus boys called and said Shasta wasn’t here at the station this morning when they came by? You had no need to kidnap her.”

  Luke held up his hands as if to deflect the torrent of words. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Who are the Calphus boys? It’s not their dog, is it?”

  “I already told you, she’s a stray,” Carrie began after drawing a deep breath, but then she realized that as an outsider, Luke wouldn’t know Mike and Jamie and their situation.

  “Look,” Carrie went on, speaking more kindly this time. “The boys and I were worried sick when we couldn’t find her.” She reached in through the Ferrari’s open door and tugged at Shasta, but there was no budging her. The dog resisted, panting all the while through a big, openmouthed doggy grin. Then the shameless mutt slid sideways on the seat until she was lying down, rolling over on her back and gazing up at Carrie, daring her to remove her from Luke Mason’s car.

  “I’m sorry if I caused any trouble,” Luke said. “Your dog wolfed down a great breakfast this morning—three orders of link sausage from the Eat Right Café. Oh, and I gave her all my grits. I’ve discovered I hate grits. They taste like cooked goose bumps.”

  She suppressed a grin. “Do me a favor and make an effort to get Shasta out of your car while I go call Mike and Jamie to tell them she’s safe.”

  “Okay, you little rascal,” Luke said to the dog. “Get out of there. Come on.”

  Carrie left Luke prodding and pulling while she went into her office to use the phone. By the time she had finished explaining to a jubilant Mike and Jamie, Shasta was lying in the doorway.

  “Thanks for bringing her back. The boys are probably riding their bikes over here right this minute.”

  “Will they take her home? I don’t like the idea of her wandering around.”

  “Their mom won’t let them keep her. I’ll leash her to a stake out back under the big tree if that makes you feel any better.” She paused, deciding that if she moved only a foot this way and Luke moved only two feet that way, their heads would be perfectly aligned to pick up where they’d left off at the casting call. Then she was ashamed of herself and sighed. “Okay, so we’ve sort of solved the dog problem. Now, don’t you have a movie to make?”

  Luke stared at his feet for a long moment. “I’m glad you mentioned that. Whip Larson, our producer, asked me to give you this.” He yanked a sheaf of folded papers out of his back pocket and handed it to her.

  Silently, keeping an eye on Luke, Carrie opened the packet and perused the lines of fine print.

  “This seems to be a contract,” she said.

  “That’s exactly what it is,” Luke told her with an air of smugness that she found most unappealing. “All you have to do is sign on the dotted line, pass go and you collect twenty thousand dollars. Plus an extra five if you’ll sell Whip the Marilyn Monroe calendar. He’s a collector.”

  The fact that someone had gone to the trouble to draw up the contract without consulting her made her furious, and she felt her face flush.

  “Just sign on the dotted line and let the movie people run around my station for weeks,” she said, her tone dripping venom. “Oh, and sell Granddaddy’s calendar besides.”

  “Well, that’s a minor point,” Luke said with the hint of a grin.

  “And you expect me to put my signature on here.”

  “Why not? Your friends and neighbors have all been most cooperative.”

  She shook her head in disbelief. “Luke, will you please listen for once? I don’t want to rent Smitty’s to you or anyone else. And besides,” she added, “I don’t like being pushed around.” She quickly folded the contract into a paper airplane and sailed it past Luke Mason’s shoulder. He grabbed at the missile, but it landed under the rack of empty Coke bottles.

  “Yet you didn’t seem to worry about losing customers when you closed up before five o’clock yesterday afternoon,” Luke pointed out.

  “Yesterday was Wednesday,” she said.

  “Today is Thursday. So what does that mean?”

  “Most of the businesses in town take Wednesday afternoons off during the summer. I usually leave Smitty’s around one o’clock. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do,” Carrie said.

  She went back outside and began to arrange her produce on the table, glad that he couldn’t know how hard her heart was beating. Luke picked up the airplane she’d made out of the contract, and she felt his gaze upon her as she lined up the baskets just so. When she ignored him, he took his time getting back in the Ferrari, and she didn’t spare him so much as a flick of an eyelid as he drove away.

  The physical attraction had been there, but at least neither of them had followed through on it. Maybe someday when she was an old lady, she’d remember the occasion on which she’d kissed a movie star. She’d tell her great-grandchildren about it, and it would become part of their family history.

  Blamed movie people. She wouldn’t care if they took their money and their glitz and their contracts and disappeared, all of them. Except she supposed there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that this could happen any time soon.

  Chapter Five

  Luke had been a bankable box office star long enough to recognize when someone was intimidated by his star status, and that was no doubt Carrie Smith’s problem. He’d encountered this situation before with people outside the business, which created an ongoing dilemma beca
use he wasn’t interested in women who were aspiring actresses or even in those who were already successful.

  He was ready to settle down with one woman if he ever found her, and common sense and experience had taught him that relationships between two people in show business almost never worked out. On the other hand, women who weren’t involved in the business often didn’t understand. When he was around them, he tried too hard to act like a normal, everyday person. That was what he’d been doing with Carrie. Some actor he was, he reflected ruefully. These days, playing himself was the hardest role of all. The achievements toward which he’d strived in order to validate his own self-worth—namely fame and stardom—were sometimes the very things that worked against him to make him feel insignificant in the real world. It was a melancholy thought, one that he’d have liked to share with someone. Except he didn’t know anyone who would understand it.

  After he left Carrie, he headed down Palmetto Street, at loose ends until he remembered that Whip and Tiffany were presently at Dolly’s Truck Stop and decided he might as well give Whip the bad news about Smitty’s. The unsigned contract in his pocket was proof that Carrie Rose Smith wanted nothing to do with the movie; she’d made that quite clear.

  At Dolly’s, Whip and Tiffany Zill were perched on adjacent stools at the bar. He nodded to Tiffany’s bodyguard, a big block of a guy named Ham Fancher.

  As soon as Luke sat down beside Whip, he realized he had interrupted the producer’s conversation with his costar, for whom he felt a solid affection mitigated by a certain amount of worry. Tiffany required a great deal of TLC when on location.

  “Why here?” Tiffany said disconsolately. “Why film this movie in Dullsville?”

  Oh, jeez, she was complaining already. Luke concentrated on the beige ovoid shapes of the pickled eggs in the big jar in front of him and treated himself to a long grateful pull on his beer, affording Whip a chance to handle this on his own.