by Becky Melby
April smiled and shook her head. All these fascinating people lived in Pine Bluff? “What did you do, Frank?”
“I donated my whole entertainment center to the Sanctuary Program.”
“Wow! For anyone who isn’t familiar with it, the Sanctuary Program offers housing and support for individuals and families in crisis. It’s run by Pineview Community Church. Frank, you’re an amazing guy. And what’s changed in your life because of that decision?”
“I lost forty-one pounds, I’ve got a girlfriend, and I’m heading to Guatemala on a mission trip next month.”
“Fantastic. Any advice to the armchair quarterbacks in our audience?”
“Yeah! God didn’t create you to channel surf. Get off your. . .couch and do something purposeful!”
Two names stared at April as she said good-bye to Frank. With a deep breath, she pushed a button.
“Hello, Seth.” There had to be more than one Seth among her listeners. “You’re the final caller. What words do you have for us to end the show?” At least to her ears, her voice didn’t lose a bit of its professional calm.
“Thanks for taking my call, April.” Maybe there was only one Seth in Pine Bluff. Thankfully, nothing in his tone hinted that he knew her personally. “I’ve just recently been challenged by a friend’s decision to color outside the lines more. I’m a pretty structured guy, but I’m excited about making some changes in my life.”
April took a quick sip from her water bottle. “What kinds of changes are you going to make, Seth?”
“Well, for starters, next Saturday night I’m going to have chocolate fondue for supper. I’m all in favor of eating healthy, but sometimes you just have to skip the veggies and go straight for the cheesecake dipped in chocolate. So I’ve got reservations for two at The Melting Pot, and even if I end up eating alone, I’m going to enjoy coloring outside the lines. As far as final words, I’d just like to give kudos to the watercolor artist who called in earlier. The world could use a lot more polka dots.”
Nine
Pushing the door shut with one foot, April set her salad from Burger King on the kitchen counter. Her second Saturday call-in show had just ended, and she was still basking in the afterglow. The first had gone better than she’d dared to hope. In light of the positive feedback from last week’s show, two members of the station’s board of directors had called Jill, thanking her for “pushing for change” and “believing in that young woman.”
She walked over to the fishbowls and pried the cap off the Betta food. “You two are looking particularly ticked off at each other today.” She added a pinch of flakes to each bowl. “Didn’t you guys listen to my show today? Life is too short to spend it mad at each other.” A sudden stab of guilt scrunched her mouth into a grimace. “Do as I do, not as I say. Willy, you want to make a phone call for me?”
She’d put it off for a week, jumping each time any of her phones rang. Apparently, Seth was leaving the next move up to her. Thanks to his corny phone number, she couldn’t claim she’d accidentally thrown the note away and lost the number. Staring at the clock, she reassured herself he’d be on set by now and not answering his phone. She dialed and listened, annoyed at the reaction his voice mail message had on her pulse. After the beep, she simply said, “Hi, Seth, this is April. Thank you again for the invitation, but I have to say no.”
Feeling the nudge from her conscience turn into a shove, she hung up the phone. At the very least, she could have offered an excuse. Brushing off the thought, she took her salad out of the bag, threw away the plastic fork, and got a real one out of the drawer. She settled on the couch and was engrossed in The Philadelphia Story when there was a knock on the door. Yvonne, no doubt, here to bug her one last time about going out with Seth. With a resigned sigh, she paused Cary Grant and opened the door, salad in hand.
“Hi, sweetie!” Aunt Midge filled the doorway in a daffodil-colored sweat suit, holding two cups and her key to the downstairs door in her hand. “I met the girls at Perk Place and thought I’d bring you a Polar Cap. I know how you love those mint things.” Midge handed her a cup and walked in. “Go ahead and eat your salad. I had a chicken salad croissant with Sue and Laura. Tried to get your mom to drive up and go with us. She always liked those girls, but. . . .” An impending frown suddenly morphed into a grin. “Maybe next time. I really came by to tell you that I loved your show today.” Her gaze dipped to the floor. “Oh, that’s not true. I just came by because I’m just dying to know if you’re going to The Melting Pot tonight.”
April held up her salad in answer and sat on the couch, gesturing for Midge to sit down.
“So you’re eating a salad now and going out for dessert later?” Midge tilted her head to the right with a look of hopeful expectation on her face.
“I’m not going.”
“Honey, you really need to give the man a second chance. . .or third, I guess. From what you’ve told me, he sounds like a sweet man who just had a little LOGR moment.”
April’s fork stopped in midair. “Logger?” Images of men in red plaid shirts floating logs down the St. Croix came to mind.
Midge giggled. “I just heard it at that women’s thing I went to this morning. ‘Lots of Grace Required.’ Isn’t that beautiful?”
“Yes. . .it is.”
Midge’s gaze went to the TV and then to the microwave. “The weather is on!” Midge scooped the remote off the coffee table and switched from DVD to TV. “I want to take my Sunday school kids outside tomorrow. I need to find out if it’s going to rain.”
Shaking her head, April flopped against the back of the couch. “That was lame, Midge.”
“Shh. Listen to the weather.” Midge pointed at Seth, who was perfectly filling out a tan sports jacket. “Look. . .it’s raining dimples. . .and the sun is shining in those amazing eyes. . . .”
“Stop!”
“You’re right. We should be listening.” Midge turned up the volume.
April took a massive bite of lettuce, chewing as loudly as she could. But Seth’s voice carried above her chewing.
“. . .with Daisy Troop 401 this morning. I had the pleasure of answering questions about cloud formations.” A video clip popped on the screen, showing Seth, sitting on a beanbag chair, talking to a circle of little girls. He held a microphone out to a five- or six-year-old with bright red hair. “What’s your question, Pamela?”
The camera zoomed in on the freckled face and the crayon-printed name tag that hung around her neck. “My dad said that fog is just clouds on the ground; so how come in the sky, clouds sometimes look like kittens or turtles or something, but on the ground they just look like steamy stuff?”
Sitting at the little girl’s eye level, the sleeves of his pale blue dress shirt folded back to just below his elbows, Seth smiled. It was, indeed, raining dimples. April stabbed a crouton and chomped, but she couldn’t block out his answer.
“That’s a wonderful question, Pamela. Wouldn’t it be fun if there were cloud animals all over Pine Bluff on foggy days?”
The little girl nodded.
“Fog forms when the air temperature gets so low that it can’t hold the water in it and. . . .”
April couldn’t drown out the voice, and she couldn’t keep her eyes off the screen. Seth’s gentleness with the little girl was touching her in ways she couldn’t ignore.
Midge turned the volume back down. “Laura’s sister’s daughter lives two houses down from Seth Bachelor, and Laura asked her what he’s really like, and she said that he’s just the perfect neighbor and—”
“That’s what everyone always says about serial killers.”
“April Jean!”
“Sorry.”
“You are not going to find a perfect man, you know.”
There was that word again. . .perfect. “I’m not looking for perfect. I just want a guy who doesn’t have a hair trigger.”
Midge wagged her finger. “Any guy with a pulse is occasionally going to lose it.”
“I
know. . .a LOGR moment.” April set her salad on the coffee table, no longer interested.
“I’ll make you a deal. If you go out with him, I’ll clean your apartment for a month.”
A moment of true temptation. A woman who cleaned for a living was offering to scrub her bathroom floor and chase her dust bunnies. April reached over and pulled her aunt into a one-armed hug. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. Okay, if bribery doesn’t work, how about guilt? I’ve heard you say that Caitlyn wanted you to do the things on the list because she wanted you to fully enjoy life. You know if she were here she’d be telling you to go for it.”
April withdrew her arm. “You tried that once before. That’s low, and that’s so not like you.”
Midge kept her eyes on her coffee cup. “I know. But sometimes the end really does justify the means. You’ve been moping around this dinky town with almost no social life for way too long. You need to practice what you preach. It’s time for you to dance, my dear.”
❧
It’s time for you to dance. Katharine Hepburn twirled, her calf-length skirt flowing out from her wasp waist. April pushed Pause and stared at the time on the DVD player. Seth wouldn’t have left the station yet. Lord, I need direction. The two people I trust most in this world are pushing me toward this man. I’ve always believed that there is wisdom in many counselors. Am I being overly sensitive? Is Yvonne right—am I projecting my dad’s flaws onto Seth?
Her eyes were drawn by a flicker of blue. Willy and Splash, in full battle mode, darted and dodged, their fins unfurled to intimidate. The threat seemed so real to them. April had separated them once, putting Splash on her dresser in the bedroom. But instead of finding tranquility, Willy had become hypervigilant, and Splash, if a fish can become depressed, appeared lethargic and melancholy. Though it was a love/hate relationship, they were good for each other.
Was the relationship between her Siamese fighting fish a metaphor for her life?
“Rrrrr!” She tossed the remote onto the couch. “Fine!” With a glare at her gridlocked Bettas, April picked up her phone. “Will you all leave me alone if I give him one last chance?”
❧
To say he was pleasantly shocked would be an understatement. After a week of silence, her first message hadn’t surprised him. Her second had almost knocked him off his chair. Seth stared at the girl in the teal blouse as he speared a maraschino cherry with a long, two-pronged fork and plunged it into the pot of melted chocolate. “So what are you going to cross off the list next? Salmon fishing in Alaska?”
A little divot formed at the right corner of her mouth. “I think you need to make your own list. I’m hoping to do a day hike on the Superior Trail in a couple weeks and something low-key this week. . . .”
“Sunrise at Sunrise? Minnesota, I mean.”
“Hmm. . .” Pale light from the fixture above their table glinted in her eyes. “Maybe.”
He chewed on his next thought for a moment before deciding to abandon caution. “I’ll make breakfast.”
April appeared to freeze mid-breath, like a kid in a spelling bee. Could you repeat the word, please? He decided to give her a way out. “Just a thought.”
He pulled his fork out of the pot and slid the smothered cherry onto his plate. “You know, before we get onto something else, I want to explain about that blowup with my station manager.” He’d already apologized—twice, if the flowers counted, but he wanted her to know it wasn’t a regular occurrence.
April’s shoulders lost their rigid lines.
Seth set his fork down. “Merv and I have a long history of getting under each other’s skin. The guy’s going to end up losing his job. He was out of line, but so was I. I apologized, and so did he. I’m just sorry you had to witness it.”
“So this wasn’t the first blowup?”
Now this was the thing—well, one of the things—he didn’t understand about women. He’d just explained that he and Merv had said their apologies. Over, done, finito. Why did women have to dig things up and dissect them after they were dead and buried?
“We’ve had our disagreements. I’ve never lost it quite like that before.”
“Obviously, you didn’t lose your job over it.”
Seth did everything in his power not to let his smile warp into a smirk. “No, I didn’t.”
April stared at him, as if wondering if he was worthy of amnesty.
Her silence made him antsy. “Maybe it’s just a guy thing. I didn’t waste any sleep over it. I’m pretty sure Merv didn’t either.”
Finally, she gave the subtlest of nods. “Everybody has logger moments.”
“What moments?”
“LOGR. Lots of Grace Required.”
“I like that. I pretty much constantly require lots of grace.” He smiled as he watched April attempting to rescue a drowning piece of marshmallow that had fallen off her fork in the fondue pot. “You don’t know how fortunate you are to be working with Christians.”
“Actually, I do. I thank God every day for it.” The blue- green stones in her earrings ricocheted light. Seth found it hard to stay disgruntled. He put the cooled chocolate-drenched cherry in his mouth.
Wrapping both hands around her coffee mug, April looked at him with an expression that reminded him of a nurse taking his pulse. “What are you doing in Pine Bluff?”
There were a lot of answers to that question, not all of which he was ready to share. “It’s a friendly town. I like the energy during the tourist season and the slow pace in the off season.”
April’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Do you ever feel like you’re not working up to your full potential?”
“I guess I don’t need the big bucks to feel good about what I do, if that’s what you mean.” He set his fork down. “That sounded defensive, didn’t it? I’m not really sure what you’re asking.”
“Do you ever feel stifled doing the weather on a little cable station when. . .” Her hand rose to her face, and she peered at him through spread fingers. “I’m sorry. That came out so rude.” She dropped her hand to her lap and gave a sheepish smile. “I’ve been accused of projecting. I shouldn’t be putting the junk of my life onto yours.”
Seth’s chest tightened. She couldn’t possibly know her question had caused physical pain. “Then I should ask you the same thing. What’s keeping you in Pine Bluff?”
Her eyes focused on the fondue pot on the built-in warmer between them. “I’ve been asking myself that question all day. My mother moved to Minneapolis last month. She was my reason for staying after Caitlyn died. I love the people I work with, but there’s so much more I want to do with my life.”
“Could you get your old job back?” Seth leaned against the back of his seat and folded his arms, wondering as he did what his body language communicated.
“Probably. But anchoring was really just a way to get my foot in the door.”
“You have higher ambitions? Management?”
She laughed. “No.” Staring up at the purple and green pendant light above their table, she said, “Promise you won’t laugh?”
“Promise.” Seth leaned forward, resting his arms on the table.
“I want to be a television talk show host.”
He studied her, imagining her on set, her earrings and eyes flashing in the lights, asking probing questions. He reached across the table and touched his fingertips to the top of her hand. “You’d be good at that. Describe it for me: What does an hour on the prime-time April Douglas Show look like?”
The touch seemed to startle her, but she didn’t pull her hand away. When she didn’t answer, he filled the silence. “Big names, lots of controversial topics?”
Her honey blond hair swayed as she shook her head. “No actors, no politicians. For years I’ve pictured a show with a setup like Oprah’s. . . .” She grinned and gave a one-shoulder shrug. “How’s that for pretentious? I just mean a comfortable setting. No desk like The Tonight Show. And even when I’m nationally syndicated”—
her smile was accompanied by a raised brow—“I’m only going to have regular people as guests. Real people with real stories of how God is working in their lives.”
“Kind of like your radio show today.”
“Exactly.”
Seth brought his fingertips together. “Then make it happen, April.” He looked down at the table then back to her eyes, not voicing the words in his head: Would you consider starting small. . .say, at a “little” cable station?
Ten
The clock on the microwave glowed the hour. Four o’clock Saturday morning. An hour and a half before sunrise at Sunrise. April set her camera and digital recorder on top of the blanket in her oversize straw bag.
The only light filtering through the living room blinds came from the streetlamps below. April yawned and slipped a Vikings hoodie over her head. Carrying her hiking boots, she looped the handle of her bag over her wrist, opened the door, and stepped into the hall.
“This is getting serious.”
April jumped at the sleepy voice. Whirling around, she laughed. Yvonne leaned on her door frame, wrapped in a purple satin robe, a towel on her head and lime green spacers between her toes. The smell of nail polish wafted through her open door.
“What in the world are you doing up?”
“Primping. I’m singing for a wedding in Edina at eleven.” Yvonne’s turban tipped to one side. “I heard about your sunrise breakfast. . .from Seth.” The insinuation wasn’t even close to subtle.
“I. . .was going to tell you.” It was true. She was going to tell her. . .after the fact.
Yvonne’s hands landed on her hips. “What did you think I’d do if you admitted you liked him? Do you really think I’m immature enough to say I told you so?” Even in the dim hall light, the bulge made by her tongue in her cheek couldn’t be missed.
“Yes.”
“You’re right. I am.” Yvonne stuck her thumbs in her ears and wiggled her fingers. “I told you so.”