Love Lifted Me

by Sara Evans

  Who knew the vintage mother ship had landed in Colby, Texas? Jade pressed her hand over her heart. “This is fabulous. Are you sure your nana doesn’t mind?” She held Asa’s hand tighter as she followed Kathy through the house. No way would she let him loose in this place.

  “Nana and Gramps Vance moved here in ’32. A year after they got married. This was the original house of the family’s ranch. In the late ’30s Gramps started selling off the land because he wanted to make more money and work less. He died in the early nineties, but Nana still lives here. She’ll be a hundred on her next birthday.” Kathy turned into a grand, sunny kitchen. “Nana, this is Jade Benson. The new coach’s wife.” Kathy bent down to the woman pressed into a brown mohair chair. She had a cloud of fluffy white hair and a teacup in her hand.

  “Another coach? What are they doing down at that school?” She shoved her saucer toward Kathy. “We’re never going to get our Warrior tradition back.” She smoothed her hand over her flowered housecoat and peered at Jade with soft but determined eyes. “Well, are you her? The coach’s wife? You’re right pretty.”

  “Thank you. As are you.” Jade bowed slightly. Mrs. Vance reminded her of Granny, with her white hair and forthright opinions. “Your home is lovely, Mrs. Vance.”

  “It’s old, that’s what it is. Got too much stuff and that dang girl who comes to clean . . . what’s her name, Kathy? She didn’t show again.”

  “Mariah Walberg, Nana.” She rolled her eyes at Jade. “I’ll check into it.”

  “Get me someone new.” Mrs. Vance sat back, closing her eyes. “Some people just don’t want to be helped.”

  “Listen, Nana, the kids are going to play out on the porch. Do you mind if Jade looks around? She owns a vintage shop in Tennessee. She might like some of the clothes in the attic.”

  “A vintage shop? What the blazes is a vintage shop?”

  “Just a shop that values old things,” Jade said.

  Mrs. Vance peeked at her. “Or just loves junk.” She chortled. “Up in the attic I got those flapper dresses my sister and I used to wear. There’s some Johnny hats and some old western wear from our rodeo days. A few fancy dresses. Go on, take a look. Take what you want.”

  “I’ll run you up to the attic,” Kathy said, “then come down and watch the kids. They’re okay in here, but I don’t like to leave them alone long.”

  Jade glanced at Asa as Kathy made sure Nana didn’t need anything. He and Lola were chatting in two-year-old speak at a toy kitchen setup. Her dark curls bounced as she talked and waved a plastic skillet. Asa glanced at Jade. She smiled. It’s okay. He dropped to his bottom and putted the truck he took with him everywhere along the carpet pattern, crawling away from Lola. Good boy.

  “Asa’s so sweet, Jade. He looks like you.” Kathy led Jade toward the stairs.

  “Yeah, h-he’s a cutie.” She was going to say he looked like Max, but did he?

  He looked like Rice, but Jade wasn’t about to say it out loud. She’d done enough by confessing her secret to Dr. Gelman yesterday.

  Kathy rounded the second-floor landing and climbed to the third, talking about Colby and football, Nana and the house. Jade listened, ducking through the low attic door and twisting up the narrow stairs toward the house rafters.

  “. . . so I hired Mariah Walberg to be Nana’s house cleaner . . .” Mariah? The woman with Dr. Gelman yesterday. “. . . known her forever, she got pregnant right after high school by Dex Walberg. One of those prom king and queen deals gone bad. Ha, like they all do. Dex was a talented wide receiver, but love makes some people really stupid and Dex was one of ’em. They got married.”

  Kathy and Jade emerged into a warm, bright dormer with dust swirling in the streams of light. The walls were lined with boxes. Jade’s fingers tingled.

  She’d go through each one. Methodically. Kathy went on about Mariah and Dex, shoving boxes out of the way, on a path to the back corner.

  “But he couldn’t let go of his dream to play college ball. He got an opportunity right after Tucker was born. Off he went. Never came back. Mariah fell apart and . . . let’s just say all the doctors in Colby couldn’t put her back together again. I feel bad for her, but everyone but Mariah knew he’d leave.

  Here we are. The closet.” Kathy opened an angled door tucked under the eaves and jerked on a light string. “Clothes from the last eight decades. Maybe more.

  I think my great grandma’s wedding dress is in here.”

  Jade inhaled the fragrance of wonder, the scent of cedar. “A cedar closet?

  Cedar is perfect for clothes storage, Kathy. I may have just arrived in vintage heaven.”

  She moved aside with a smile. “All of Nana’s daughters and granddaughters have come up here at one time or another, tried to find something we liked and wanted, but in the end we all curled our lips and said, ‘What’s on sale at Dillards?’”

  “You’re crazy. You just don’t know what you’re looking at, Kathy.” Jade ran her hand over the wool coats hanging on her right while spying on the fringe of the flapper dresses.

  “One woman’s junk is another woman’s dream-come-true.” Kathy backed out of the closet. “Have at it, girl. I’ll go down and check on the kids. If you’re not out in an hour, I’ll send up a rescue team.”

  “Oh no, just let me die in vintage.” Jade inched farther in the closet, understanding how Alice fell into Wonderland.

  The closet was a treasury. Jade had been to a lot of estate sales and auctions. She’d climbed through many a stuffed closet but not one of fragrant cedar. She breathed in. Then out. Cedar mixed with the scent of ancient sunbaked attic walls nearly made her giddy. She gathered the sleeve of a coat and pressed it against her face. It smelled of life, and time, and days gone by. Perhaps a wee bit of menthol from cigarettes.

  Jade pulled out her phone in front of the flapper dresses, took a picture and sent it to Lillabeth. Hello, heaven. I’m going to buy these. But Lillabeth had to promise to find the perfect customer.

  She texted back immediately. Where are you? They’re gorgeous.

  I know. At an old woman’s house. Met her gdau last night. Just as Jade pressed Send, something in the back caught her eye. She leaned, squinting. A black dress. Her breath paused momentarily in anticipation.

  Could it be? No, no, she’d never seen a vintage Coco Chanel little black dress. There were too many knockoffs. After all, fashion lived and died today by the little black dress. Jade had acquired and sold a few vintage Chanel suits—which were amazing finds. But an LBD? Only in her vintage dreams.

  Shoving aside boxes, Jade worked her way toward the dress. She could see the tag, but part of it was turned up. Women in the ’30s loved Chanel dresses. They were elegant and affordable. Electricity buzzed up Jade’s fingers as she reached for the tag. Slowly, she turned down the edge. Her knees shimmied.

  Chanel.

  Jade wheezed out a stuttered gasp, snapping her hand back as if she’d touched an ancient, hallowed shrine. Vintage Chanel LBD. Her heart stuttered in homage. Nana Vance owned the dress that revolutionized evening wear for women in the Depression.

  She had to have it. Simply put. She’d empty her accounts, and Max’s, for the contents of this closet. For that one dress. Jade scouted the rest of the clothes and peered through two cedar chests that were filled with gorgeous costume jewelry.

  This closet was a vintage shop all its own.

  Her cell pinged. Lillabeth. Well???

  Oh, this was going to be fun. Jade aimed her phone at the little black dress. She sent the picture with no text and barely drew a deep breath before Lillabeth answered. Is that what I think it is? I nearly passed out.

  Deets, please.

  Details to come. Hang tight. Will make offer to buy. Whole closet is a vint shop.

  Jade backed out of the closet into the cooler attic air. Perspiration beaded along her neck and back. More from the excitement than the heat. The flapper dresses, the coats, and the trunks of shoes and jewelry she’d purchase for
the Blue Umbrella. But the little black dress? Would hang in her own closet for a special night with Max.

  Running down the stairs, she calculated a fair purchase price, planning how and when she could retrieve the items. Max could trade Jade the truck for a day.

  “Kathy,” she called the moment she landed on the first floor. “That closet is amazing. I don’t want to take anything but I’m willing to . . . pay . . .” What was Asa’s diaper bag doing tossed against the front door. “Kathy?”

  “Jade.” Kathy appeared in the hall with Asa in her arms. “You need to leave.”

  “Why? What happened? Did Asa do something?” She examined him, listening for sounds of Lola crying in another room. Asa appeared fine. Brighteyed. Unscathed.

  “He’s not hurt.” Kathy jerked open the front door, kicking the diaper bag toward Jade. “I can’t say the same for me. How could you come here, pretending to be my friend, knowing what your husband was about to do?”

  “What?” Jade’s face tingled as warm blood ran cold. “Kathy, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Your husband fired mine this afternoon. Don’t tell me he didn’t talk to you about it. Coaches’ wives always know.”

  “Excuse me?” Jade dribbled a small laugh. “He fired your husband? Max wouldn’t do that, Kathy. He needs Kevin and Lars. I have a confession—he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

  “Apparently, he thinks he does. He fired Kevin, Lars, and the rest of the coaching staff.” Kathy kicked the door open wider. “You need to leave.”

  But the little black dress. “Okay . . . sure . . .” Jade bent for the diaper bag. “I’d like to buy the contents of the closet. There are quite a few amazing—”

  “The contents are no longer for sale.” Her icy words froze Jade to the floor.

  “I see. Or just . . . not for sale to me?”

  “Is there a difference?”

  Jade held the sobs boiling in her chest until she got in the car and gunned the Mercedes down Gallia under gathering rain clouds.

  She was humiliated. Sad. Embarrassed. How could Max fire coaches on his second day? Forget vintage heaven and the little black dress.

  The red light flashed in her blurry, teary vision. A gust of wind butted against the car, driving early raindrops across the windshield. Waving tree branches exposed the pale underside of summer green leaves, warning of the coming storm.

  “You fired the coaching staff?” Bobby moved like a locomotive toward Max’s desk, shooting daggers at Hines. “Could you excuse us?”

  “Max, I’ll stay if you need me.”

  “It’s okay. Go get your office set up.” He’d bear Bobby’s barrage for the both of them.

  When the door clicked closed, Bobby spun toward Max with a face of fury.

  “Who do you think you are, coming in here, firing my coaches?”

  “Yours? I thought they were my coaches. I’m head coach and can hire my own staff.”

  “Those men have been on the Warrior coaching staff for years. Between them they have more than twenty years’ experience.”

  “And yet you still have a losing program. Did it ever occur to you that maybe it’s not just the head coach that needs to go when a team is losing, but the assistants too?”

  “Those men have something you don’t. Or any other coach that’s come in here. It’s why they stayed. They bleed Warrior pride.”

  “They can still bleed Warrior pride, Bobby. From the classroom. From the stands. Not all over my season.”

  “I won’t let you. Rehire them.” Bobby smashed his hand down on the desk.

  His intensity challenged Max’s resolve. But the time he’d spent today with Hines, talking and planning, had fortified Max enough to fight for his right to have his own coaches.

  “First day. All I wanted was a meeting at seven a.m. No coaches. No players.

  I don’t need that kind of attitude to start off this season. We have a lot of work to do. Play-wise and heart-wise. I need coaches with a heart for me, the game, and above all the boys. Frankly, Bobby, I don’t see that in the coaches. My contract says I can hire who I want.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since I negotiated with Chevy. You didn’t know?” A bit of revelation dawned. Chevy and Bobby had different agendas. “I wasn’t planning on changing staff. Until they made it clear I had no choice.”

  “So this is how you want it? Coming in here and tipping over the applecart?”

  Bobby’s frown suddenly bounced to a smile. “Okay, okay, I guess I can see it.

  Next time, check with me first on the big changes. Just so I can be ready to field questions.” Bobby patted his hand over his heart. “You scared your poor athletic director, Max.”

  “Fair enough,” Max said.

  Bobby started for the door. “By the way, I scheduled a little press conference next week. But I have a feeling the press will be on this story by the end of the day. Guess we’re going to make the papers sooner than I thought. What’s the saying? Any press is good press.”

  “So they say.”

  When the door closed, Max exhaled down to his chair. Bobby came in like a lion. Left like a lamb. It spoke volumes of his character. Max gazed toward Hines’s office. The man knew something. But what? Max figured he’d have to watch his own back for a while. Keep it toward the wall, eyes peeled.

  He flipped the bill of his hat around to the back and scooted up to his desk. He had work to do before the media descended. If they descended. The press was the least of Max’s concerns. He’d managed them during high profile cases.

  What concerned him the most at the moment was putting eleven men on the football field.

  Seventeen

  “So you fired them?” Jade cut Asa’s peanut butter and jelly in half and set it on a paper plate. Since they had no furniture, Jade set him in the middle of the kitchen floor. “What happened to the great camaraderie from last night?”

  The little guy frowned, pouting his bottom lip. “No, no. Don’t like.” He jammed his finger on the crust.

  “Asa—” Jade sighed, her patience frail. “The crust is good for you. Eat it.”

  Max picked up the plate. “They were going to sabotage me, Jade.” He tore the brown crusts off Asa’s sandwich, eating them as he did. “Here, buddy.”

  Asa regarded him with big brown eyes that said thank you, then picked up the triangle closest to him and dove in.

  “Based on what evidence? They didn’t show up for your first seven a.m. meeting?”

  “Yeah, Jade, because they didn’t show up. Neither did any of the players. Those coaches have influence. If they wanted to be there, if they wanted the kids there, they would’ve been. Hines showed up, ready to work, ready to be on the team. But between you and me, something is going on. Something political, underhanded.”

  “Hines, the old coach you just met today.”

  “And hired as my assistant. Offensive coordinator.”

  Jade folded her arms and fell against the counter. “I was humiliated when Kathy asked me to leave. It was embarrassing. Just when I’d found an original Chanel little black dress, Max, an original. In all my years of vintage shopping and selling, I’ve never found an original. The contents of that closet were mine until you fired her husband.”

  Jade chewed the inside of her lip, her heart pressing hard to understand why she cared more about a little black dress than Max’s defense for firing his coaches.

  “I’m sorry, babe. I didn’t know.”

  And now he was being all sweet.

  “Kathy said we were going to spend so much time together as coaches’ wives, we’d be the best of friends.” Jade’s eyes watered when she glanced at Max. “We even joked that Asa and Lola might fall in love and get married. Friends, Max. I was making new friends.”

  Without a word, he pulled her to him, kissing her cheek, then her hair, soothing her wound with masculine understanding.

  “She probably has all the wives hating me by now.” A dark gust
of wind hit the house. More rain.

  “I didn’t even think of the wives’ side. I’m sorry.”

  “Max, did you really consider any of this venture before you said yes? Before I said yes?”

  “I thought I had.” He released her and paced toward the empty dining room. “Maybe I just wanted to come so bad—”

  “Hip-pocket dream?”

  He moved to the window. “I thought God’s will.”

  “Then we press ahead. Try not to offend any more wives so Asa and I can make a friend.”

  “Okay, I hear you, Jade. I understand today was hard, but there are other moms in this city who aren’t going to care I fired the assistant coaches.”

  “You hope. Kathy Carroll’s family is one of the oldest in the region. She could blackball me from the supermarket if she wanted.”

  “Jade,” he said, low. “I’m sure that’s not true, but let’s just play this out and trust God for all things to work together for good.”

  “Easy for you to say.” The first spatter of rain hit the window.

  “Easy for me? No, it’s not. I’m trying to see the big picture and it’s not very clear. I’ve disappointed Warrior coaches and their wives, the athletic director, fans, and above all, you. I’m trying to make a go of this opportunity. I can’t second-guess myself. So I go with what I think is right, what seems like wisdom, and if I’m wrong, I pray God has my back.” He was the One Max could trust.

  Jade’s first run of tears were thin, like the rain draining down the window.

  She wiped them away with the back of her hand.

  “What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

  “Because . . .” She reached for the paper towels. “I lost a friend. I miss home.

  I miss Mama. And oh, it was the most beautiful little black dress. A vintage dream. The mother lode.”

  His quick grin tipped over her heart. She couldn’t be mad at him. Not when he looked at her with those brown eyes. Not when he gathered her in his strong arms and whispered she was beautiful.

  “We knew this would be a challenge, Jade.”