by Becky Melby
Bending to retrieve the candy bar from under a chair, April stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“At the citywide cleanup. He’s the cochair, and you’re interviewing him.”
The wrapper on the candy bar in April’s hand crackled as her fist clenched. “Get someone else.”
“Why?”
“I’ve got. . .reasons.”
“Well, get over them. You’re doing the interview.”
❧
“April?”
The flat voice coming through her office phone elicited a familiar wave of trepidation. April set her purse back on the floor and leaned against the back of her desk chair. She wouldn’t be heading home soon.
“Hi, Mom.”
“You should have warned me.” A tiny, muffled sob finished her mother’s last word.
For a split second, April considered playing dumb. But what was the point? “I didn’t think you could get my show since you moved.”
An empty space, filled with ragged breathing, followed. April closed her eyes, willing warmth into the cold spot in her chest. Too many guilt-inducing silences, over too many years, had leeched emotion from her soul.
“I drive up to the Goose Creek rest area on Saturdays to catch your show.”
The picture of her mother sitting alone in her car, listening to her talk about Caitlyn from the top of the water tower, finally brought a twinge of empathy. “I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t—”
“I can’t believe you’re exploiting your sister’s suffering like this.”
Indignation rose like bile in April’s throat. “How can you think for a second that I would do that?”
“It’s getting you closer to your goal, isn’t it? My daughter, the next Oprah.”
April’s mouth jarred open, but nothing came out.
“Midge told me you were on the news, too.” Her mother spat the words. “The weatherman—you do realize he’s the one—”
“Yes. I know. I have to go, Mom.” Without waiting for a reply, she slammed the phone into its base.
❧
Over the next few days, the calls and e-mails generated by what the station employees were now referring to as “The Water Tower Show” lifted April’s spirits from the pit her mother’s call had left her in. Jill and the station owners were excited—the new kid on the block was having an impact. On a personal level, the e-mails stirred emotions that had just begun to settle. “Your words resonated in my soul,” one woman wrote. She then went on to tell of her son’s battle with leukemia. The boy had died just a week ago.
Resonate. That was the reason she’d gone to school—to make a difference in someone’s life. But this level of public transparency was going to cost her something. On Wednesday morning, she was in the middle of a reply to the woman who’d lost her son when her phone rang. The young receptionist, usually poised and articulate, stammered over April’s name. “I’m sorry. I know you’re busy, but I didn’t want to put this girl off. She’s just been told she has an inoperable brain tumor.”
Just listen and share your story. The advice had come from her grief support group. “I’ll take it.”
She listened. The girl was only sixteen, a year younger than Caitlyn had been. When the girl ran out of words, April spoke the one thing her sister had told her never to say again. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“I love your idea.” The girl’s voice was hoarse with tears. “I don’t want to spend whatever time I have left just thinking about dying. I want to live, like you said. . .to embrace life.”
“That’s a beautiful attitude, Libby. Are you going to make a dream list?”
“For sure. And the first thing on it is to lose my virginity!”
Lord. . .help! It was going to be a long morning.
❧
April recognized the boy with the wild swirls of light blond hair from a story she’d done on the Special Olympics. He was holding up a full trash bag as if it were a trophy fish.
“So why are you helping with Cleanup Day?” April held a microphone out to him.
“It’s good to make the world cleaner. And I like the hot dogs. And the garbage bags are going to make a huge pile and get bigger and bigger and bigger like a volcano.” He pointed to several volunteers in orange vests who were adding their bulging bags to a pile near the entrance to Founders Park.
Thanks in part to April, a picture of the finished “volcano” would make front-page news in the Sunday paper. She’d asked the city for permission to count the bags and estimate the weight. The director of the Pine Bluff Chamber of Commerce had taken her idea a step further and had arranged for all the bags to be dumped into a pile in the park where the volunteers would gather after the cleanup.
“Looks like you’ve worked really hard. You earned your hot dog.” She switched off the microphone. “Follow that path to wash your hands first.”
As she watched the boy’s attempts to swing his bag to the top of the heap, she thought once again that she wished she were filming a television spot.
“Hey, if it isn’t the Lone Climber!”
Yvonne’s voice, coming from behind April, brought a smile. Taking in the three-inch heels, white skirt, and the lace that stuck out beneath Yvonne’s mint green tank top, April shook her head. “You’re a little overdressed.”
“As if.”
April laughed. The two words needed no explanation. Yvonne didn’t own clothes for manual labor. She was a transplant from Minneapolis, having followed her fiancé to Pine Bluff just over a year ago. Like a hothouse plant exposed to the elements, Yvonne wasn’t thriving well away from the city. She and April had moved in on the same weekend, meeting as they both carried boxes up the steps to their apartments above the chamber of commerce office.
Stretching her hands out, April threatened to hug Yvonne with her trash-picking gloves and was rewarded with a horrified grimace. She lowered her arms in a gesture of surrender. “What are you up to? Oh yeah, you’re singing for a wedding in the Cities, right?”
Yvonne nodded. “It’s an evening wedding, but I’m heading in early. The church is only a couple miles from Nordstrom’s. Anything you need?”
“As if.” As if she could afford even a pair of pantyhose from Nordstrom’s.
“You doing okay today?” Yvonne gave her the kind of look most people reserve for stray kittens or children with skinned knees.
“Yeah. . .no.”
“I’ve been thinking about you this morning, and I couldn’t leave without seeing your face. I knew this was going to be a tough day for you.”
A year ago, Caitlyn had roped April into helping with the cleanup. In her track uniform like the rest of her team, her sister had looked the picture of health, making it easy to deny her recent diagnosis. They’d talked nonstop as they picked up fast-food wrappers and soda bottles along the highway, laughing so hard at times they had to stand still to catch their breath.
As they’d stood in line for hot dogs, Caitlyn had made a proclamation that would be forever etched in April’s mind: “I feel invincible. I’m going to beat this thing.”
And she had, for five months. And then she’d gotten caught in a thunderstorm, and two days after that she was in the hospital. A month later, April knew all the hospice nurses by name.
April shrugged and attempted a smile. “Thanks.”
“Can I pray for you?” Without waiting for an answer, Yvonne placed a perfectly manicured hand, adorned with three silver rings, on April’s arm.
As always, the words she spoke were poetic and cut straight to the heart of the emotions that pressed down on April like a physical weight.
Long after Yvonne left, her prayer remained wrapped around April like a warm shawl. Her friend was a contradiction in terms. A shopping guru who wore nothing but name brands, never went anywhere without makeup, and drove a bright red BMW, she also taught a junior high girls’ Sunday school class and worked as program coordinator at the local nursing home. More than once, she’d literally given the shirt off her back to
a resident who had admired it and gone home in a scrub top.
While the “material girl” image had never appealed to April, there was something about her new best friend that she envied. The girl knew who she was. Two years ago, April would have said the same thing about herself. Back when she was twenty-four and starry-eyed. Before her seventeen-year-old sister was diagnosed with leukemia. Before she’d left her job at the television station in St. Paul. Before she’d moved back to the town she’d waited eighteen years to escape.
“Describe yourself in one word” was something she said often in interviews. What word would fit April Douglas on this sunny April morning? Lost? To some extent that fit, but it made her sound helpless and pitiful. She was neither of those. If anything, she’d become stronger, not in herself, but in the knowledge that God could carry her through anything.
Before she found her one word, a girl about April’s height, her hair in stubby pigtails, approached her. The girl appeared dressed for a rave instead of garbage duty. Multiple strings of shiny red and black beads hung over her orange reflective vest, and a tight black-and-white-striped shirt showed beneath it. April smiled. “Hi.”
“Are you April?”
When April nodded, the girl said, “I’m Libby. I just wanted to say hey and thanks for inviting me to this trash thingy, you know? And I figured you’d want to know that maybe something good came out of all the bad with your sister dying and stuff ’cause I really did listen to what you said about staying pure, and I really do want to do something important with the ti—”
The sound of a motor in high gear stopped her words. April whirled around just in time to see a four-wheel ATV careening around the corner, heading straight for them. Whipping back around, she shielded Libby with her arms while yelling at her to move.
Missing her heels by inches, the ATV plowed into the mountain of bags. Paper and plastic debris exploded from the pile. The ATV slowed to a stop several yards beyond, leaving a wake of litter behind it.
Like a creature from a low-budget sci-fi movie, the driver, dressed from head to toe in black with a full-face helmet on his head, rose from the seat. With hands still on the grips, he half stood and turned. By then, April was within yelling distance.
“You could have killed that girl! You could have killed me! If this is your idea of fun, I can guarantee that you’re not going to think picking up all that trash and rebagging it is—”
Black-gloved hands removed the helmet, and April stood face-to-face with the man she’d dreaded encountering today.
Three
“Are you done?” Seth wondered if there was actual steam shooting out of his ears. “Because I’ll just wait until you are, and then I’ll explain that the brakes failed and I couldn’t stop the stupid thing if my life depended on it—which it did! You’re not the only one who could have been killed, lady!”
To her credit, the girl with the goldish blond hair looked appropriately mortified. She moved her sunglasses to the top of her head, as if needing to examine him better. As she stared at him, her expression evolved from anger to shock to embarrassment and then to the most artificial smile he’d seen in a long time. Strained though it was, he was pretty sure the corners of her mouth were pointed more up than down. Not that any hint of it was reflected in her eyes. They were pretty eyes—deep, deep blue surrounded by long lashes. She wasn’t wearing too much makeup. Then again, she’d probably spent hours layering on the natural look. He knew from experience that the pretty ones were always stuck on themselves.
Maybe he’d come on a little harsh. He could take the high road here. “Are you two all right?”
The girl who looked like she was dressed for Mardi Gras nodded as she backed away, eyes wide with shock or fear, then turned and ran. The blond gave something closely resembling a nod. Wasn’t this where she was supposed to ask how he was? Your brakes? That must have been frightening! You’re not hurt, are you? Should I call 911? Please accept my apology for completely spazzing out like that.
“You’re. . .Seth Bachelor.”
Did the woman have lockjaw? Not only did she seem incapable of an apology, she seemed to have trouble forcing words through her teeth. Was her mouth wired shut? Nobody could be that angry over a couple of busted trash bags. Who was she, anyway? Maybe she was the mayor’s daughter and the garbage bags had come out of her allowance. He refrained from hurling that one at her. “I am. And you are. . . ?”
“April Douglas.”
April Douglas. . .why did the name sound familiar? He’d remember that face if they’d ever met. Her eyes challenged, as if her name was supposed to elicit some response. He rifled through the little black book in his head. Sadly, most of the pages were blank. And if they’d dated even once, even years ago, he would have remembered those eyes. “Have we met?” It was the oldest pickup line in history; he hoped she wouldn’t think that was his intention. She was absolutely not his type.
“Not exactly.” Her tone was flat. “But I thought we shared a meaningful moment at the top of the water tower last week.”
Oh no. Not her. Lord, you do have a sense of humor. Not sure what he was supposed to say, he opened his mouth, but she spoke first.
“Can I interview you?”
Interview? Ah. . .this was her way of getting even. She’d probably focus her questions on his qualifications for driving an ATV instead of his cochairmanship of Cleanup Day. Well, he wasn’t going to make it easy for her. “Before or after picking up this mess?”
“During.”
❧
April shoved a crumpled beer can into a filled bag that sat on the ground. “How long have you been cochairing Cleanup Day?” Head down, she didn’t even look at the man in black as she held the microphone in his direction. If her equipment wasn’t good enough to pick up his answers, she’d wing it with a summary of the interview.
“Three years. Gil Cadwell did it before me. KXPB-TV has been sponsoring the cleanup since the seventies.”
If the leather jacket had buttons, they would have been popping. You’d think he was talking about running the country instead of garbage pickup. “Cosponsoring with the chamber of commerce.”
He bent over, creating a tempting spot for April to plant her hiking boot. She reeled in the thought. Tossing a wad of newspaper into his bag, he turned, still bent over, and looked at her. “For the past five years, yes.”
“But it was originally started by high school students. Yes?” Copying his word, she added her own inflection.
“No. It was started by the Kiwanis Club. They got the kids involved.”
Did that little detail really matter? “I heard there were almost two hundred volunteers signed up this year. That’s a bit of an increase over last year, isn’t it?”
“Two hundred and three this year. Last year there were a hundred and eighty-seven.”
The man was a master at splitting hairs. April stood, pressed dirty gloves against the small of her back, and stared at Seth Bachelor’s hunched-over spine. “Who provides the food for the volunteers?”
“KXPB supplies the food and does all the recruiting of volunteers. The chamber of commerce donates the bags, reflective vests, and gloves.” He stood up. One eyebrow crept a fraction of an inch higher than the other. “Your radio station foots the bill for the portable toilets.”
That was it. April tied the top of a half-full trash bag. The toilet comment was the last straw. Not the fact, but the delivery. “Thank you, Mr. Bachelor, for your cooperation.” Her bag sailed through the air, missing the weatherman by a good two feet.
❧
“You know him?” April handed a glass of sweetened tea to Yvonne, who was sitting cross-legged on April’s faded denim couch. “How come you never told me?”
“I did tell you.”
“You made it sound like you knew him like you know the snowplow driver! You didn’t say you knew him knew him. How come you never mentioned him?”
“It never came up. He’s been in my Wednesday night Bible study for
a couple of months.”
“He’s a Christian?” April didn’t try to temper the incredulousness in her voice. “My sympathies to your pastor and his wife.” After pouring her own glass of tea, she moved her giant white teddy bear to the floor and sat down on the other end of the couch she’d nabbed from her mother’s basement before she moved. “The Larkins must have the patience of Job.”
Yvonne’s expression turned defensive. “Seth’s a really nice guy.”
Was she serious? Maybe Yvonne was just overtired from singing and shopping in the Cities. It was, after all, past midnight. April took a gulp of tea and a relaxing breath. Her emotions had been frazzled all day. She hadn’t felt good about her show this afternoon and had spent the evening in a mental boxing match.
“Then maybe I met a different Seth Bachelor. I could hardly use anything he said in the interview. It was like he was deliberately condescending, and enjoying it. If I’d said the sky was blue, he would have said it was purple.”
“And he would probably have been right. He’s the meteorologist.”
Yvonne’s effort to lighten the mood almost worked. April gave a weak smile and stared at Yvonne. Was it possible she had more than a passing interest in Seth Bachelor? Yvonne was engaged, but until that license was signed, things could change. If that were the case, April shouldn’t let her personal issues interfere. “Okay, so if he’s not the obnoxious, argumentative know-it-all he appeared to be, tell me something good about him.”
“He knows how to dress.”
April’s iced tea slopped over the side of the glass when she laughed. “You’re right. How could I have been so wrong about the guy? His style sense should cancel out all the negatives.”
“He’s cute.”
“A sad waste.”
Yvonne lowered her head, staring through curled top lashes. “He’s got a headful of Bible knowledge.”
“ ‘By their fruit you will recognize them.’ ”
“He’s really a nice guy!” Yvonne set her glass on the coffee table with a thud. In the silence that followed, a siren screamed below them, heading north on Main Street. “You just got off on the wrong foot with him. He’s witty and deep and discerning—he’s always got some new insight into whatever we’re studying.”