by Rebeca Seitz
“What?”
“Didn’t he tell you?”
“No, which seems to be a running problem around here.”
“He goes over to Heartland now.”
“No!” Tandy glanced down the sidewalk to see if anyone was within hearing distance.
“Yep. And don’t bother looking around, everybody knows. Every Friday night, like clockwork, you’ll find him cutting a rug on the dance floor.”
“Daddy? Our daddy?” Tandy squeaked.
“The same.”
Tandy shook her head like a diver getting water out of his ears. “Daddy goes country dancing every Friday night.”
“You heard me.”
“And the deacons of Grace Christian haven’t done something about it?”
“Other than join him, no.”
“The deacons are at Heartland too?” Tandy sat back hard in the seat.
“I asked the same thing. Daddy said, and I quote, ‘David danced before the Lord.’” Tandy’s eyes grew wide at that and Kendra put her hand over her heart. “I kid you not.”
“David, as in the Bible? King David? That David?”
“Yep. I went home and looked it up and, sure enough, Daddy’s right. David danced before the Lord when he was overcome with happiness. His wife lit into him for it, though.”
“Wonder if Momma would do the same to Daddy?”
“I doubt it. Momma loved to dance. Don’t you remember them dancing in the living room together?”
“Yeah, but they didn’t dance in public.”
“Momma told me once they danced all the time in public before Daddy took the pastorate at Grace Christian.”
“You’re lying!”
“If I’m lying, I’m dying. No joke. Daddy didn’t want to upset folks, though, after he started preaching. So they quit going.” Kendra sighed. “Bet Daddy wishes now they’d kept it up.”
Tulips swayed in the cool breeze as they thought about Momma and Daddy dancing.
Tandy remembered one night when she’d been awakened by the sound of music. Tiptoeing out of her room, she found the sight of Daddy and Momma, swaying together in each other’s arms. Patsy Cline sang in the background. Momma noticed her and motioned for Tandy to come over.
Tandy had only been with them for six months by then, not long enough yet to fully trust that Momma and Daddy were as nice as they seemed on the outside. She walked over to Momma, knotted red hair hanging to her bony shoulders, nibbling on a fingernail already bitten to the quick. Momma scooped her up and said, “Tandy sandwich!” Daddy put his arms around them and, suddenly, she was squished between them both just like the creamy middle of a sandwich cookie.
“Earth to Tandy.” Kendra snapped her fingers in front of Tandy’s face. “You with me?”
“Hmm?” Tandy blinked. “Sure, yeah, I’m with you.”
“Groovy! Then I’ll pick you up around 7.”
“Pick me up?”
“Unless you want to show up with Daddy. I didn’t figure you could get ready in time for him. He leaves right at 5:45 to be there when Heartland opens at six.”
“We’re going to Heartland?”
“That’s what I said. Are you with me or not?”
What else did she have to do on a Friday night in Stars Hill? If Meg was going home to make dinner, they wouldn’t all be getting together to scrap again in Momma’s studio. “Why not?”
“Okay, see ya at seven, then.” Kendra turned to go.
“Wait, can you sit here with the kiddos while I run inside? I ran out of adhesive last night, and I think my paper supply is dwindling.”
“I’d never stand between a scrapper and her supplies.” Kendra pulled Tandy’s door open wider and made a sweeping gesture like a butler. “Your store awaits, milady.”
Tandy giggled and stepped onto the sidewalk. “Thanks, Ken.” She entered the store, impressed by the changes Emmy had made since taking it over from Emma. An immense scrapbooking section stretched the entire length of the store. In back, above a double doorway, hung a sign that read Scrapbooking Classroom.
Circle racks of Kaleidoscope and Basic Grey paper drew her in. She turned the wire racks, snatching up several sheets of almost every option. The swirls of red, blue, and brown were going to look fantastic with her pictures. And the cards she’d make with the leftover scraps would be color-suited for pretty much any purpose from birthday to anniversary to thank you.
The thought of cards sent her toward a Peg-Board full of card kits hanging in the hues of the rainbow. At the far end were columns of cards and envelopes in basic colors like tan, black, white, and ivory. She pulled ten ivory, ten white, and six tan from their stacks, adding them to her growing armload of product.
Remembering the discovery of a distressing tool last night, Tandy prowled around the store until she found the little pink disc with the white cursive words Heidi Swapp on it. Using Kendra’s distresser last night had added just enough dimension to make the paper leap off the page.
Falling back into a world she now realized she’d been neglecting, Tandy overloaded her arms in a matter of minutes. She went in search of a basket.
“Tandy Sinclair! As I live and breathe!” Emmy Dotson stood behind the register, ringing up Meg’s sale. She clapped her small hands, reminding Tandy of James’s face at Chuck E. Cheese, and came scurrying around the counter. “Get over here and give me a hug, girl! It’s been too long!” Emmy voice was the biggest thing about her. Not more than five feet tall and small enough to still shop in the Juniors section, Emmy’s size gave no indication of her energy. Tandy leaned down to hug her and smelled caramel and apples in the fabric of her white apron.
“Hey, Emmy. I love what you’ve done with the place.”
Emmy stepped back from the hug and looked around the store as if seeing it anew. “It’s getting there. I swear Momma would have turned this into a nursing home if I’d let her.” She touched Tandy’s shoulder and leaned forward. “Told me I was crazy to bring in scrapbooking stuff and I needed to stick with the basics of sewing and painting. But I was having none of it. I told her, ‘Momma, either let me do this, or I’m taking my idea and going down to Sara Sykes.’ You should’ve seen how fast that woman changed her mind.” Emmy snapped her fingers. “Like a dog smacked by a cat’s paw, she backed off and told me it was on my own disrespectful, foolhardy head if it failed.”
Emmy waved a short arm around the room. “But it didn’t! We started out with about half this much stuff, and everybody kept coming in here wanting more. Pretty soon, it just about took over the store. Momma finally said I might not be as foolhardy as she thought, though she didn’t say a word about the disrespectful part, and gave me full ownership of the store. Now she’s down in Florida sunning herself on a beach half the year, and I’m in here working myself silly making caramel apples and fruit punch for the nightly classes.”
Tandy rushed to get a word in. “I noticed you had a classroom over there. Who teaches?”
“Your sister teaches sometimes for us—” Emmy turned and looked at Meg. “Oh my stars! I completely forgot about you, Meg.” She darted back around the counter and continued ringing up Meg’s sale. “Let’s see, where was I? We just lacked the paper, right, Meg?”
“You’ve got it.” Meg smiled and winked at Tandy.
“Anyway, Meg here teaches some of our classes, and Kendra and Joy have both taught for me, too. It’s pretty much the Sinclair School, I guess, except, you know, Meg and Joy are married so they’re not Sinclairs in name anymore.”
Emmy punched buttons on the register and filled a bag with products.
Tandy knew this could go on for another half hour if she let it. She stepped to the counter and set down her supplies.
“Look what all you found! Did you see the new letters from K & Company? They’ve got glitter! I put clear embossing powder on them and then use my heat gun.” Emmy leaned across the counter and spoke in a whisper, though Tandy had seen no one else in the store. “Seals in the glitter. Makes it s
o it doesn’t spread all over your page over time. Just a little trick I figured out.”
She leaned back and finished up Meg’s sale.
“Thanks, Emmy,” Meg said. “Tandy, I’ll wait for you in the van. I’m sure Kendra’s wondering what’s happened to us.”
“Oh, are the little ones out there? You know you can bring them on in here, Meg. They can play over there with the crayons and colors.” She waved to an area that Tandy now saw was set up as a children’s play station. Legos and balls filled three baskets while dolls and doll clothes filled three on the opposite wall. A blank television screen was set within a built-in bookcase lined with DVDs.
“Thanks, Emmy,” Meg said. “But they fell asleep in the van, and I hated to wake them up.” She backed toward the door as she spoke. “I’ll see you later!” She pushed the door open with her backside and escaped into the April sunshine.
“So, Miss Tandy, what’s going on in the big city?”
“Oh, not much. Just working hard, I guess.”
“You’re still working?” Emmy cocked her head, looking for all the world like a little wren contemplating a worm. “I thought I heard you were in between jobs.”
“Where in the world did you hear that?”
“Come to think of it, I’m not sure. Maybe Mrs. McMurty? Or Sandra Hanover.” She shrugged and resumed ringing up Tandy’s purchase. “But you give me the skinny, and I’ll make sure to correct anybody who says otherwise. You know this town. Everybody knows everybody else’s business and just loves to share it with anybody who will listen. Why, I had Mrs. Crowley in here last week telling me my momma was surfing waves and wearing a bikini like she’d lost her mind down there in Florida. I thought she’d caught the Alzheimer’s or something and went running to a phone. But, no, turns out she had told Edna Johnston about a girl in a bikini on the beach who had a, shall we say, wardrobe malfunction, when she fell off her surfboard. Now how that turned into my God-fearing, respectable momma wearing a bikini is anybody’s guess. But there you go. So you just tell me what happened to make you come home, and I’ll get it straightened out for you.”
Tandy forced a smile. Emmy had a good heart and meant well. “I’m afraid there’s not much of a story, Emmy. I just wanted to come home and visit with the sisters and Daddy for a while.”
Emmy finished her scanning and looked at Tandy. “It’s gonna be hard to get folks to repeat that. No juice to it. No meat to sink your teeth into.” She glanced at the window on the register. “It’s $21.67. So nothing happened to make you come home?”
Tandy handed over her money and picked up the bag of product. “Nope. Just a boring old visit. Tell the townsfolk I’m sorry to disappoint.” She backed toward the door as Meg had done earlier.
“I’ll try, Tandy. You hurry back in now, you hear?”
Tandy nodded and pushed through the door onto the sidewalk. She yanked open the van door, nearly falling into the seat and slamming it closed.
“Do you still have both your ears?” Meg asked.
“What?”
“Your ears. Did she talk one of them off?”
“Very funny. I can’t believe she’s still like that.”
“And this was a good day.”
Tandy’s look of shock was as genuine as Cooper’s the day they’d gone to PetSmart and found his food brand was discontinued. “It’s worse?”
Meg started the van and pulled onto Lindell, nodding. “Mm-hmm. One day I got to hear the entire story of Brent’s colonoscopy. You haven’t lived until you hear a woman describe her husband’s invasive medical procedure.”
“Ewww. So she and Brent are still married then?”
“Yep. Former cheerleader. Former football player.” Meg lifted a shoulder. “Guess it was inevitable.”
“She’s got good product, though.”
“I know, that’s why she’s successful in spite of herself. She had every single one of the three new Cricut cartridges. And did you see that Kaleidoscope paper?”
Tandy held up her own bag. “Yep.”
Meg glanced over and laughed. “Great minds think alike.”
“Now that I’ve got more paper options, I’m itching to scrapbook again. Think everybody could find some time tomorrow?”
Meg tapped her finger on the steering wheel, thinking. “Joy’s cutting my hair at nine in the morning. Then Savannah’s got gymnastics at ten.”
“She’s in gymnastics class? She’s three!”
“Yeah, but they can start as soon as they’re potty trained now. She loves it, so we let her go. She’ll come home and do somersaults all over the living room until she falls asleep.”
“That’s too funny.”
“It is pretty cute. She’ll do a half turn and then just lay out in the floor in a dead slumber. I’ve got a layout of it I’ll show you tomorrow.”
“Cute.” Tandy pushed down thoughts of her own personless pictures. “Okay, so how about noonish?”
“Works for me.”
“I’ll ask Kendra about it tonight, and you talk to Joy in the morning, okay?”
“Deal.”
“Oh, and see if she managed to get me an appointment with Taylor. These knots are only getting worse.”
“Will do.”
They pulled through the gates and drove up to the house. Tandy gathered up her purse and bag, pulling on the door handle.
“Hey, Tandy?” Meg’s soft voice made Tandy pause and turn.
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry if I said something to hurt you today. You know, earlier.”
Tandy smiled. “Hurt me? Of course not. Don’t worry about it for a second. We’re good.” She backed away. Hurting isn’t something I do anymore.
“You’re sure?” Meg narrowed her eyes, unconvinced.
“Absolutely. Good to go.” Tandy kept backing.
“Okay, if you say so. See ya tomorrow?”
“See ya.” She turned and trotted up the porch steps.
* * *
INSIDE, A NOTE was propped up on the middle step. She picked it up and read,
Gone up to the church for a while. Be back around 4:30. I’ve got Coop.
Love,
Dad
She stuffed the note in her pocket and climbed the rest of the stairs, a small smile on her face. Cooper was probably running between the old mahogany pews, sniffing out every corner, chasing down dust bunnies and ladybugs. Grace Christian had endured a problem with ladybugs ever since she could remember. Like the hawks of Orlando, the creatures refused to go anywhere else, no matter what measures they took.
Several Sundays she’d sat on the front pew with Momma, watching a ladybug crawl all over her hand for the half hour of Daddy’s sermon. Momma said God loved the color of her hair so much he’d made a fun ladybug to match it. That way the rest of the world could see the beautiful color, too.
Entering her bedroom, she tossed the Emmy’s Attic bag on her Dutch doll quilt and headed for the closet. Heaven only knew if she’d brought something suitable for Heartland. Hangers clacked together as she considered and discarded each option. Finally, a yellow silk skirt presented itself. Its wide ruffles fell gracefully, and Tandy remembered how they’d shifted in the ocean breeze the night she wore it to a dinner for the firm. It was a bit dressy for Heartland, but if she wore a white cotton button-up and could find her old boots, it would work. If she decided to dance, the length would be perfect, hitting just at her knees.
She laid the skirt and shirt out on the bed and heard Daddy’s truck pull up outside. A few seconds later Cooper’s welcoming woof sounded downstairs, and she went to meet them.
“Hey, Daddy! Everything ready for Sunday service?”
“Ready as it’s gonna get,” he said, coming down the hallway and turning into the kitchen. She followed him in. “How was Nashville?”
“Still there,” she said.
“Good to know.”
“So Kendra tells me you’re going dancing tonight.”
“That child has a mout
h the size of Texas.” He pulled a bowl of chili from the refrigerator.
“She says you go every Friday night.”
He spooned chili into two bowls, then put one in the microwave.
“We thought we might join you tonight.”
At that she got his eyes. “You and Kendra?”
“Yes, Kendra and me. Who else would I go dancing with?”
“After last night’s visitor, I wasn’t sure.”
Tandy felt her face turn fourteen shades of red. “Visitor?”
Daddy smiled. “Don’t go making it worse by lying about it, Tandy. If I’d had a problem with you talking to Clay Kelner, I’d have come out to the barn and said so.”
“Why didn’t you?”
The microwave beeped, and he pulled the bowls out, stirred them, then put them back in.
“Because I thought it’d be good for you two to talk by yourselves for a little while.”
“I thought you didn’t like Clay.”
“I don’t like what Clay did to you back in the day. I don’t know the man well enough to have an opinion about the present.”
“You think he’s changed?”
“I guess that depends on what part of him you’re referring to.” The microwave dinged again, and he pulled the bowls of chili out. Carrying them across the kitchen, he motioned with his elbow for her to follow him. She grabbed spoons from the utensil drawer and followed. “If you’re asking me about his wanderlust, I’d say a man with the itch to travel in his bones doesn’t open up a diner in a town the size of Stars Hill. Owning a business pretty much locks you into a location.”
“True.” She sat down and took a bite of chili.
“You’re going to choke on that.”
“What? Oh.” She bowed her head and tensed up, waiting for him to say grace.
“Thank you for this food, Lord. In your Son’s name, amen.” He took a bite of chili, and she relaxed again. “Now if you’re asking me would he hurt you again, then I don’t have an answer. Nobody would. Including Clay.”
“Daddy, I didn’t come home to start a relationship. This was just supposed to be a time to kick back, relax, see you, see the sisters, get some scrapbooking done, that kind of thing.”