The Potluck Club—Takes the Cake

by Linda Evans Shepherd

  “Cutie,” she’d called him.

  He’d head over there soon. A sudden thought occurred to him. Maybe two could dance to this tune, Miss Donna Vesey. Maybe he’d ask Britney to dinner tonight, and make certain Donna found out about it. He grinned, then got busy with his work, grateful he was in the building alone.

  A little while later, he went to the men’s restroom to freshen up a bit. Happy with his appearance, he left the building and walked the five or six blocks to the card shop. A light snow was beginning to dance in the air; he’d read over the wire that an early blizzard was due to hit the area. He’d have to keep that in mind if Britney agreed to go out with him. He shook his head a bit. When she agreed to go out with him. He needed to stay positive, be confident. He was a man not used to dating. To be exact, he was a man not used to having women agree to go out with him. All that was about to change, he decided. He took a deep breath and sighed. He hoped it was, anyway.

  About a half a block away he thought he saw Donna coming out of the card shop, but one look at the way this woman was dressed told him otherwise. Donna wouldn’t be caught dead in attire like that. Still, the girl was about Donna’s size. Had her hair color. Even had Donna’s walk. Something in the way she moved...

  He watched as she stepped toward a Nissan parked in front of the store. When she caught his stare, she smiled broadly at him and waved. No, definitely not Donna. Donna hadn’t gotten that excited to see anyone in her life.

  Still, he waved back, wondering who she might be.

  Goldie

  10

  Sweet Revenge

  By Sunday morning, I had a plan. I was going to make Jack Dippel pay if it was the last thing I ever did. And I was going to stay strong through it all, even if it killed me. Though, Lord, you know I didn’t start out that way. Oh no. Last night I was a complete wreck. Blessedly I didn’t wake—not one time—during the night. When I woke it was because the alarm on my bedside clock was beeping at me, jarring me out of my deep slumber. I reached for it, pushing the “off ” button, then rolled over on my back, aware that I’d not even moved in my sleep.

  For a brief moment—only a second, really—the memories of the night before stayed locked deep within my mind’s vault. That place where, while sleeping, humans put all the issues from the day before that they don’t want to remember. It’s almost like a gift from God himself. A fragment of time when, as far as we know, all is right with the world.

  Then I remembered. It started out as a heaviness in my stomach, then pushed itself past my shattered heart and burst into my memory. God ...

  I sat up and held my head in my hands. What am I going to do now? I asked the One who knows me best.

  But I didn’t wait for an answer. Not really. I just kicked at the covers, padded over to the bathroom, and began getting ready for church and the rest of my day. A day, ironically, that would end with me and my skunk of a husband heading up to a mountain cabin for two miserable days and two unbearable nights.

  It was sometime during church that my plan of action—of revenge—came to me.

  Jack and I were sitting in our usual pew. I had placed my purse between us, just so he could not touch me in any way, shape, or form. During the sermon, I happened to glance over at Lisa Leann Lambert, Texan transplant and all-around busybody. (By the way, did my eyes deceive me or was she sitting with Clay Whitefield?) Well, anyway, that was when I remembered seeing an old Oprah (or was it Montel?) show in which women exacted what they called “legal revenge” on the men who had hurt them. One of the women (like Lisa Leann, hailing from Texas) had received a call from her soon-to-be ex-husband telling her he’d run off with his secretary (or was it her best friend?). He and the wife owned a brand-new BMW (or was it a Mercedes?). He instructed the wife to place an ad in the paper so as to sell the car, then to send him the money at “this address.” Whatever else had been theirs was now hers. The other car, the house, the property, and the bank accounts. The now-jilted wife did exactly as he instructed. She placed an ad in the local paper and sold the car to the first respondent. As the new buyer handed her the check for $100, he said, “Why so cheap? This car is worth a fortune!” To which the woman replied, “He told me to sell it. He didn’t say for how much.”

  By the time I got home from church—having heard not one word of the sermon, I am ashamed to say—my head was swimming with all the rotten things I could do to Jack during our time away in Summit Ridge. It would surely not be a time he would soon forget! Sure, this wasn’t the Christian way to act, but right then, at that moment, as far as I was concerned, the Christian way just wasn’t going to cut the mustard.

  So to speak.

  Jack arrived right on time, grinning like a schoolboy about to make his first conquest. When I opened the door, he stood on the porch, hands on his hips and feet spread wide. As the high school’s head coach, he was most comfortable in this stance. “You ready?” he asked. He glanced upward. “It’s supposed to start snowing again any minute. I’d like to beat it if we can.”

  December in Summit View almost guarantees daily snowfall, though we could go days without seeing so much as a flake. But the ground and surrounding mountains were always snow-topped, as pretty as a postcard. The past couple of days had seen clear skies, but the weatherman had promised that by early evening we’d start seeing the “white stuff ” again.

  “Come on in,” I said to the snake, all the while giving him my bestest, most fakest smile. “I’m nearly ready.”

  As Jack stepped over the threshold, I pointed toward the kitchen, all the while heading back to the bedroom. “The groceries are already bagged up or in the cooler if you want to go ahead and load them.”

  I felt Jack’s fingers wrap around my wrist. I stopped cold, a fraction of an inch from clobbering him with the fist of my other hand. He tugged a bit, turning me toward him, pulling me into his arms, kissing me gently on the cheek. “Here’s to the start of a great weekend, Goldie,” he whispered in my ear. I shivered. Not out of passion, but disgust. I had planned and plotted. I wasn’t about to let a little thing like a kiss ruin my scheme.

  I smiled at him, reaching over and giving him a quick kiss in return. “I can’t wait,” I said.

  Well, at least that much was true.

  We were halfway to Summit Ridge, which was about an hour’s drive, when Jack declared that we needed to stop for gas. “Do you need to use the ladies’ room?” he asked me as we pulled into one of those new, fancy-schmancy truck stops, complete with showers, restaurants, shops, and such.

  I said that I could probably stand to stretch my legs.

  That wasn’t all I could stand to stretch. I’d like to stretch his neck from here to the maternity ward of Summit View Medical Center, but I didn’t add that little bit of info into the conversation. Not yet, anyway. That would come soon enough.

  It was all part of the plan.

  As soon as Jack parked and we exited the car, I noted he’d left his cell phone sitting in the cup holder of the console. I smiled with evil delight.

  “I’ll pick up a few snacks for us. Want coffee?” Jack asked as we entered through the glass doors.

  “You know how I like it,” I said, making a beeline for the restrooms. I even managed to smile at him for good measure.

  I have to say that the ladies’ facility—though meant for women truck drivers, mainly—was fairly impressive. If I hadn’t been in such a hurry to get back to the car, I would have taken the time to enjoy it. The wallpaper was feminine and completed with a matching border. The sinks and countertops were a nice faux marble, and there were little baskets filled with assorted lotions and soaps. Tiny paper cups were stacked near bottles of Scope, and there was even a cozy seating arrangement in one of the front corners of the room. The best part, though, were the electrically warmed toilet seats.

  Now that’s something worth coming home to!

  But I didn’t have time to linger, even on the warmth of a toasty toilet. I took care of Mother Nature’s call, wa
shed and dried my hands (and yes, I used some of the apple-scented lotion; I couldn’t help myself!), and then went right back to the car. Jack, I saw, was still standing in line.

  I hadn’t counted on the car being locked, though. As soon as the door handle popped out and back, I grimaced. Drat. Didn’t much matter, anyway. I looked toward the glass walls of the store and saw Jack making his way toward me, hands gripped around Styrofoam coffee cups and a small brown bag of goodies tucked under his arm.

  He smiled at me as he exited, and I folded my arms across my middle. “You locked the car,” I said.

  “Well, of course I did, Goldie,” he said, making his way to me. He extended a hand, and I took my cup of coffee. “Just the way you like it, sweetheart,” he said. “They were low on sugar, so I just stuck my finger in and stirred a bit.”

  Gag me. “Ha-ha,” I said, pretending the man had made a charming remark. But my pretense didn’t last long. “Could you hurry it up? It’s freezing out here.”

  Jack unlocked my door with the remote, and I sat down in the already chilly car, wrapping my coat around my legs as Jack shut the door behind me. When he scurried around to the other side and slid in, he handed me his cup of coffee and set the bag on the back floorboard. “I’ll just pull around and get gas. Boy, the prices are outrageous.”

  I just looked at him, then took a sip of my coffee. Darn Jack’s hide, it was prepared exactly the way I like it. Nothing to complain about there.

  “Coffee okay?” he asked me.

  “It’s alright,” I lied. “For truck-stop coffee.”

  Jack drove the car alongside the pumps, got out, and began the task of putting gas into his car, his gaze continuously on the pump. I slyly reached over and picked up his cell phone, smiling when I saw that it was on. I dialed a number I’d memorized earlier in the day: Weather and Time of Day for Tokyo, Japan. As long as I kept the line open, the automated voice on the other end would keep repeating the information I cared nothing about. This call would cost the man a fortune. The less money he had in his bank account, I figured, the less Charlene and her baby could get a hold of.

  I turned the volume down to zero and then slipped the phone under my seat.

  When Jack entered the car I rubbed my free hand (the other still holding the coffee) against my leg and said, “It sure is cold. Turn the heat up, will you?”

  Jack started the car and complied with my wish as we drove back onto the highway. “You’ll be plenty warm when we get to the cabin,” he said. “Pastor Kevin tells me there’s a massive fireplace in the living room and smaller ones in each bedroom.” He looked over at me and winked. “But maybe we’ll only need to build a fire in the master bedroom. You think?”

  I sat up straight. “Jack Dippel, you promised no—”

  Before I could finish my tirade he laughed. “I’m just teasing you a little, Goldie. Come on, now. I said I wouldn’t push that issue, and I won’t. But we are still married, you know. Won’t be anything wrong if we pretend we’re on our honeymoon again.”

  I pursed my lips together, looked straight ahead, and then took another long sip of coffee. Our honeymoon.

  Jack and I had met in a hotel in Washington DC while I was on a senior class trip and he was there with some college buddies on a break from school. The attraction was both instant and explosive. When we married a couple of years later, we returned to the same hotel, this time completing what we’d only lusted for before.

  We’d been married a year when Jack’s mother warned me of the possibility that her son would not be faithful to our wedding vows. His father hadn’t, she said. But, with each affair he bought her a lovely piece of jewelry to make up for it. I thought the woman had lost her mind, but a year later, she was proven to be correct in her assumptions. I’d been living with an unfaithful man ever since. Until a few months ago when I’d had enough and moved out.

  Jack spoke up suddenly, as if reading my thoughts. “I see you’re remembering those days,” he said. “And nights.” We hit a pothole, and I bounced a bit in my seat, raising my right arm, careful not to spill my coffee.

  I looked at him hard. “For the record, I have no intention of sleeping with you until you’ve been tested for every venereal disease out there.”

  His head jerked toward me. “What brought that up?”

  “Logic. It’s probably a miracle you haven’t been infected before now.” I turned my gaze toward the stretch of highway before us.

  He grew quiet. “I was always careful about things like that,” he said finally.

  I remained silent as I collected my thoughts. “You’ll forgive me if your word isn’t good enough.”

  He had turned back to face the road. “I’ve been tested. You want the medical report?”

  I turned back to face him. “You have?”

  “Every six months whether I thought I needed to or not. From the time this started.”

  I stiffened and returned my focus ahead. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “You brought it up. Pastor says if we want this marriage to be saved, we’ve got to be honest. That’s as honest as I can get. I’ll have the reports sent to you so you can rest your mind.”

  “Rest my mind? Rest my mind? Oh my goodness, Jack. What do you know about my mind?”

  He grinned. “I know your mind. Better than you know it yourself, I’d say.”

  I remembered the cell phone beneath my seat. “Maybe you don’t know me at all,” I said. “Maybe you only know the part of me I allow you to know.”

  “We’re playing that game, are we?”

  I crossed one leg over the other. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jack Dippel.” I reached into my purse on the floorboard for the book I’d been reading over the past few days. “I’m going to read while you drive,” I said, opening the pages. “I brought plenty of books to read, by the way. Don’t know what you’ve got planned, but I thought this would be a good time for reading.”

  I sensed Jack’s frown as I looked down to the pages of the book. “I’d like to do some ice fishing. Thought maybe the two of us could do some hiking. And, I brought a book—though only one—to read.”

  “Oh, yeah? What book? Wild at Heart?” I didn’t bother to look at him, or the incredible scenery outside the car, for that matter. I just focused on a single word on page ninety-seven of the book, though I couldn’t tell you what the word was.

  Jack shifted a bit in his seat. “Actually, yeah.”

  Now I looked at him. “Really?”

  “It’s good. I’m learning a lot about myself.”

  I took a moment to study my husband. Though a bit stockier than when we married (back then it was all muscle and no pudge), he was still a good-looking man. He wore glasses now, but they only made him look more distinguished. His hair was a becoming shade of gray, and his face was naturally tan and slender with only a few character lines near his mouth and jaw. If I were to go blind tomorrow, I would carry his look in my memory forever, and it wouldn’t be a bad thing either.

  But inside... inside, Jack was a mystery. For years I’d known him only as the father of my child, the provider of my financial needs, and the thorn in my flesh. Now he was turning on me. He was changing. And I was not sure if I liked it or not. At least before, I knew what to expect from him. Now, every day was a mystery.

  I shook my head a bit. No, Goldie. Focus on the real issue here. The man was about to be a father again. He didn’t know it, but that didn’t make him any less guilty.

  Jack looked down to the console then. “Hmm.”

  “Hmm?” I repeated, glad for the change of subject.

  “I could have sworn I left my cell phone in the cup holder there.”

  I put my cup of coffee in the second holder and pretended to look around. “Well... let me see. We hit a bump a ways back. Maybe it just fell out.”

  When did I become such a liar, Lord?

  Staying in the character of a fraud, I reached under the seat and pretended to search. “Oh, h
ere it is,” I said, pulling it out and carefully ending the call. “Good as new,” I said.

  Jack took the phone from me and looked down at its face. “My battery is low. That’s weird.” He placed it back in the cup holder. “I probably need to buy a new one. This one’s not holding a charge like it should.”

  I didn’t respond. After that we continued toward Summit Ridge in silence.

  Summit Ridge turned out to be everything Pastor Kevin had said it would be and more. My thoughts immediately went to his late wife, our beloved Jan, and remembrances of how much she loved coming here. “A home away from home,” she’d said. “A place to unwind, reconnect to God and to each other.”

  Well, the God part sounded good, and even the unwinding. But right now the only connecting I wanted to do with Jack was my fist up against the side of his head. Still, I couldn’t help but notice God’s natural beauty as we drove through Gold Mine Pass, which Jack immediately pointed out as being haunted.

  I gave him my best “give me a break” look.

  “I’m serious,” he countered from the driver’s seat. “I saw a show about it on the History Channel. Old miners who got trapped up here when the snow banks collapsed from the weight of the snow. Sometimes they got trapped for months.”

  I jerked my head to look out the window and up the rising slopes of the pass. “I can see where that could happen,” I said, then looked back to him. “Not the ghost part. But the snow causing a slide.”

  “They interviewed all these eyewitnesses. Said they occasionally see old miners walking up and down the road here.” He winked at me. “Soon as they slow their cars down, the old miner turns and looks at them, then”—he lowered his voice to a whisper—“just disappears.” His eyes grew wide.

  “Jack, stop the nonsense.”

  He held up his right hand. “I’m serious,” he said with a chuckle. “That’s what they say.” He jutted his neck out a bit. “I’ll keep driving, and you can keep your eyes peeled for ghosts.”