“I’m sorry I didn’t notice earlier. I don’t know much about little girls.”
Janey hugged him more tightly, and Hector put his hand on Adam’s shoulder.
“Most loving God,” Adam prayed. “Thank you for the Firestone children. They have blessed my life so richly.”
“Hey, Pops, stop or you’re going to make me cry, and players don’t cry.”
* * *
As she walked home from the diner, Birdie glanced at the sky. Getting cloudy. Forecast said rain, not good weather for homecoming. She got to the front of her house and stared at it. She’d have to paint it soon but where would the money come from? Maybe she could hire Hector. And the Adirondack chairs, the ones Elmer had made so they could sit on the porch and wave to their neighbors, needed a coat of stain.
After Elmer passed when the girls were young, Birdie’d spent a lot of time out here, praying for strength to get through the next day. With the girls’ activities, she didn’t have time now.
Two chairs. No one to sit in Elmer’s and she never sat in the other. Maybe she should give one away. Could be she should find someone to sit in the other.
Should she encourage Farley a little?
Ptsh. She was too old for romance.
But a little companionship, that would be nice.
* * *
In Kentucky, the rain usually pattered down. Sometimes it pelted but usually it pattered gently for hours or days or, in February, weeks.
Texas rain also pattered and pelted, but many times it came down in one huge mass. At times, it seemed as if the clouds gave up on sending the drops down one by one and, as if worn out, they dropped the whole cloudful of water at once. It looked and felt as if a pail had been turned over on the Hill Country, over land too hard and dry to absorb it all.
Not that this fit any scientific explanation of rain, but it worked for Adam.
“Surely they aren’t going to play in this weather, are they?” Adam asked Miss Birdie. The high school football game—the homecoming game followed by the dance—was scheduled for that night. He’d ducked into the diner when the storm started and decided to stay for lunch.
“Not if there’s lightning in the area, but this doesn’t look like a thunderstorm.” She placed his order in front of him: a chicken salad sandwich and Coke. Then she surrounded that with a basket of more fries than he could consume in a week, a huge dish of fried apples, and a piece of cherry pie with two dips of ice cream.
“Now that you’re putting on some weight, we can’t let you get skinny again,” she explained. Then she stood back. “A little rain never hurt anyone. The players wear special cleats and such.”
“But the band doesn’t march in this weather, does it?” He took a bite of the sandwich.
She stared back at him as if he were speaking classical Greek. “Why wouldn’t they?” she asked, her tone scathing.
He finished chewing. “Because the field will be muddy?”
“So?” She put her fists on her hips. “We aren’t some namby-pamby Kentuckians. We’re Texans. What would have happened at the Alamo if Jim Bowie had decided the weather was too cold or rough or rainy to defend liberty?”
Adam thought he remembered that the siege of the Alamo hadn’t been about defending liberty but stealing land, but he didn’t respond. Nor did he mention that Jim Bowie had a lot of Mexicans shooting at him and had little choice whereas the students didn’t really have to march down a slippery field. The pillar probably thought they, as Texans, did have to.
“And the area band contest is next week. Our kids placed in the top group in the region and will move on to state if they do well. They need the practice.” She turned and strode away, still angry, Adam thought, that he’d questioned the fortitude of Texas youth.
If anyone was more fanatic than a football coach, it was the band director and the grandmother of one of the band members.
“And,” she proclaimed from halfway across the restaurant. “If you want fields of bluebonnets in the spring, you’d better welcome rain in the fall and winter.”
With that, the other diners turned to glare at him, which made Adam feel as if the whole town would blame him for a drought and the death of wildflowers should the rain stop.
That evening, he watched the players sliding and falling on the field. Adam settled in to watch a game of mud ball, glad he’d worn a sweatshirt and jacket under the waterproof poncho. “Are you all right?” he asked Janey. She had demanded to come because Bobby played on defense.
She nodded.
“Tell me if you get cold.” Before they’d left, Hector had bundled his sister in several layers, then turned to Adam and said, “Pops, I’ll be home from the dance late. Don’t wait up for me. Makes me feel like a kid to have to check in.”
“I don’t wait up because I don’t trust you,” Adam said. “I wait up because I want to make sure you’re home. Can’t sleep if I don’t know that.”
“Aah, that’s nice.” With a grin, Hector had loped off to watch Bree play volleyball.
At halftime, the band slipped all over the field, tripping on the ruts dug out during the first half, but they kept playing the program. That impressed Adam. He had no idea how one controlled a trombone or tuba while falling down, but the musicians did with only a few missed notes.
The members of the dance team, wearing their cowgirl outfits, finished the performance covered with splattered mud but with huge smiles.
Despite the slips and falls and pitchy notes, the crowd cheered every second of the performance. These kids belonged to Butternut Creek. As the students marched off the field, everyone on the home side of the stadium stood and pulled their arms from their plastic coverings to clap and cheer proudly.
That night, to keep Hector from feeling like a kid, Adam pretended to be asleep when he came home.
Didn’t fool Hector. He came into the bedroom and sat on the side of the bed to scratch Chewy’s ears. “Had a good time. Pop, you can go to sleep now. I’m home.”
* * *
As the fall grew closer to winter, leaves changed, at least the little bit they changed in Texas. Most of the green leaves stayed the same. Some of them turned a bright red, but the rest looked as if they’d rusted.
With basketball practice starting, Hector and Adam didn’t get much time to play ball together, but a lot of kids in the neighborhood used the hoop in the parking lot. Adam joined occasionally and considered those contests good for the relationship of the church with its neighbors.
He and Janey rode the family-of-the-team buses to Hector’s out-of-town games in Bandera and even as far as Dripping Springs. Hector’s play had improved so much, Adam knew he could no longer challenge him. Not that he’d confess that to the kid. Bobby, a feisty and intelligent point guard, attracted scouts as well. The team looked great, well coached and intense.
“We’re going to have a great year,” Adam emailed his sister, attaching a picture of Hector going up for a rebound that had been in the newspaper.
The next day, Hannah wrote back, “What’s the matter?”
He sent an email about another win, the coach, and Hector’s improvement playing point forward.
“I don’t care about the coach.”
Adam reread those words. Hannah had never been a fan of athletes, but she sounded angry and mean. Probably under a lot of stress. He wished he could help her.
He read on. “I don’t really care about basketball unless you’re playing. I do care about Hector and hope to meet him and Janey someday, but what’s wrong with you?”
He wrote back, “Leave me alone.”
She answered, “Okay, now I’m really worried. What’s wrong?”
He solved her persistence by not answering. Nothing she could do from Kenya.
Wrong. Hannah wrote their mother, who emailed, “Your sister tells me there’s something wrong. What?”
He couldn’t ignore his mother. Well, he could, but it was useless. She could challenge the Widows for the title of most relentl
ess. However, she also knew when to shut up, a skill the Widows and his sister should learn.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he wrote back and copied it to his sister. “Leave me alone.”
Both did.
* * *
“I don’t think that new blond woman is going to work,” Winnie said. “She’s not minister’s wife material. Entirely too worldly and here for only six months while her bank opens a branch down on Highway 29.”
“Only six months?” Birdie asked. “The preacher can’t work that fast.”
“Where does that leave us?” Blossom asked. “Where can we find another single woman?”
“We should send out a message to the churches in the area, see if they have any single women who might be interested in a minister,” Winnie suggested. “Send it to the president of their women’s group and ask for suggestions.”
“Winnie, will you be in charge of that?” Birdie asked, to regain control. Then she looked at each woman. “What ideas do you have to help us find a wife for the preacher?”
“We tried Reverend Patillo, but that didn’t work out.”
“Oh? The Presbyterian minister?” Blossom asked. “What happened?”
“Nothing.” Birdie snorted. “Absolutely nothing.”
“That was the problem,” Mercedes added.
“Then Bird recognized that if Pastor Adam and Reverend Patillo got married, the children might all attend the Presbyterian Church with their mother. Might could live in the manse instead of the parsonage.”
“Oh, dear, no.” Blossom gasped. “That would ruin everything. We need their children at the Christian Church.”
“Exactly,” Birdie said. “So we have to come up with something to keep those children in our church.”
Each took another sip of coffee. “I could check with my neighbors about their daughters or nieces,” Blossom volunteered.
“Most important, we have to find him a wife everyone will like and will make the preacher happy,” Winnie said.
“My sister in Abilene has a daughter.” Immediately after Blossom said the words, she shut her mouth firmly and puckered her lips as if maybe, if she just sat silently, everyone would forget what she’d said.
“Well?” Birdie asked.
“I forgot, she’s a nun. But they would share a common interest in theology and churches.”
“Don’t need a celibate woman for the preacher,” Birdie said. Good thing Blossom had other good attributes like having a very good cook and knowing just how to entertain, because nothing she said ever contributed to the discussion.
“I’m concerned.” Mercedes looked around the group. “I don’t see anyone better for Pastor Adam than Gussie Milton. I really don’t.”
The others murmured agreement.
“I think Gussie’s the one. We should do everything we can to bring them back together,” Mercedes said. “That has to be our goal.”
After a moment of silence, Blossom suggested, “We could invite them for dinner at my house.”
“Might not be a bad idea,” Birdie said as she nodded at Mercedes.
* * *
As soon as Adam hung up, he leaned back in his chair and stared out the window.
What do the Widows have in mind?
When Blossom called to invite him to a little get-together at her home, suspicion filled him. It had the fingerprints of the matchmakers all over it.
And yet it could be nothing more than a thoughtful invitation from Blossom, a dinner party for him and a few others. She hadn’t specified who else would join them, and he was too polite to ask. The words Are the other Widows going to be there? had trembled on his lips, but he’d swallowed them.
He had to warn Gussie. He didn’t want her to be embarrassed and he couldn’t face her again, not with the Widows clucking around and matchmaking. Of course, if they hadn’t invited Gussie, the email would seem strange. But if they had, she’d appreciate the warning.
Maybe they’d invited another woman, in which case he’d have to go and act polite. Maybe they’d dug up a woman who fit him. Maybe they hadn’t. Regardless, he couldn’t turn down an invitation from a church member no matter how suspicious it sounded. He looked forward to getting to know Blossom and eating the wonderful dinner he knew her cook would prepare.
Just in case the invitation came from the Widows’ usual motive, he wrote a quick email to Gussie and sent it. Later that evening, he received a message from her.
“Thanks for the heads-up. The invitation was on my computer when I got home. I declined. They never give up, do they?”
No, they didn’t, but now he could look forward to a great meal and chagrined Widows.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Gussie couldn’t sleep. Every night, she tossed and turned and found herself staring at the ceiling at three o’clock, knowing she’d have to get up in a few hours. In an effort to gain a little rest, she breathed in and out, deeply, and recited the Lord’s Prayer. After thirty minutes, she felt closer to the Lord but even farther from sleep.
After a few days during which she dozed during slow periods at work, Gussie set a pattern to soothe her to sleep. It started with a long, hot bath, after which her skin was so wrinkled she felt like a shar-pei puppy. After that, she listened to relaxation CDs. She followed all the instructions, but no matter how long she stayed in the tub or how far she descended on the fantasy elevator or how warm and relaxed she felt lying in the imaginary sunshine of the flower-covered meadow, she could not make the final descent into deep, restful slumber.
On the advice of friends, she drank warm milk, chamomile tea—not on the same evening—put a lavender sachet under her pillow, and ate a graham cracker. None worked. She refused to try feng shui because she could not believe having the bottoms of her feet face the door would help in the least.
Finally, she dug through the drawer where she tossed stuff and pulled out a little machine that played various soothing sounds. She’d never found sounds of the forest relaxing because the birds tweeted so loudly. Her father had ruined sounds of the sea, telling her he could hear calls for help from far away. The sound of rain made her have to get up and go to the bathroom, hardly conducive to deep sleep, and thunderstorms woke her up. She chose the soothing babbling stream. After replacing the batteries, she placed it on her bedside table, turned it on, relaxed in bed, closing her eyes and, again, breathing deeply and rhythmically.
Five minutes later, she’d fallen into a deep slumber.
When she woke up in the morning two hours later, she realized she spent far too much time preparing herself for a few hours of sleep. She needed to do something different. She needed help, and she really needed sleep.
* * *
If there was anyone Gussie did not want to see that afternoon, it was Clare.
Actually, she had a list of people she would prefer not to see. It included many citizens of Butternut Creek, but Clare’s name appeared at the top.
And yet Clare’s huge black SUV sat in the parking lot of her studio. She was just too tired to have this conversation and yearned to drive off without stopping at the studio, but she couldn’t. She had a disk filled with photos she had to download and print. Besides, she hadn’t seen her best friend in such a long time.
Several times Gussie had emailed Clare that, although she and Adam had split, she was fine. Clare knew her too well to believe it. Then, in her most recent email, Gussie had foolishly mentioned the invitation from the Widows for their matchmaking dinner and Adam’s warning. When she confessed she’d turned down the invitation, Clare had called her immediately. Gussie’d allowed the machine to pick up. But Clare would never give up, even if she had to show up in person towing all three children with her. When she heard honking behind her and realized she held up a line of traffic, Gussie turned into the lot and parked. Once inside, she saw Clare holding her youngest, Ashley. She knew she couldn’t hold her friend at arm’s length. She could not resist mother and baby. Clare had pulled out every weapon she had. How un
fair.
Gussie hardened her heart—one last effort to escape Clare’s loving insistence. Then Ashley gurgled.
Darn it!
“Okay,” Gussie said, giving in. “Let me have the baby. Come into my office and we can talk. I don’t have any more appointments today.” She waved to Justine behind the reception desk. “Go on home. I’ll close up.”
Once they’d each grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, Gussie and Clare settled in the two comfortable chairs and Gussie cuddled Ashley. Clare didn’t bother with how long it had been and how good it was to see her, or with giving an update on her other two kids. No, she got straight to the point, as usual.
“Gus, do you love Adam?”
Gussie looked down at Ashley, who was waving her little fists in her honorary aunt’s face and making baby noises.
“Gus.” Clare’s voice sharpened. “You know I am genetically incapable of staying out of the lives of people I love. You know I won’t go away.”
The two sat in silence for nearly a minute before Clare said, “But I will leave you alone. Because I love you so much, I will fight my instinct to pry into your personal life. All you have to do is tell me to leave.”
“Yes, I think I love Adam,” Gussie mumbled.
“Does he love you?”
“I don’t know.” Gussie shrugged. “He said he wanted to. I think that meant maybe he does.”
“He’s a minister,” Clare said. “Don’t you think he usually tells the truth?”
“Probably.”
“Okay, let’s try this again.” Clare slid her chair over the laminate flooring closer to her friend. “Do you think Adam loves you?”
Gussie swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“Why aren’t you together?”
“You make it sound so simple. Sometimes love isn’t enough.”
The Matchmakers of Butternut Creek Page 28