The Potluck Club—Takes the Cake

by Linda Evans Shepherd

  When we arrived in the actual “town” of Summit Ridge, located on an upper ridgeway between two passes, Jack slowed the car and parked it in front of the general store. “Need anything?” he asked me as he opened his door.

  “Ah... no.”

  “I thought I’d pick up a few things. What groceries did you bring, by the way? Anything you might have forgotten?” He was now standing outside in the snow, with his head dipped down to look at me.

  “Oh no. I think I remembered it all,” I said with a nod. Tonight, the chef is preparing your least favorite food in the world: hamburger quiche, a dish you had once claimed real men would never eat, even under the threat of starvation. Well, we’ll just see about that, won’t we?

  “Alrighty then. If you want to get out, stretch your legs, look around...” He shut his door, and I scrambled out of mine. With a single blink I could take in the whole town.

  “What are you getting?” I asked. “I mean, I think I have everything.”

  “Firewood. Pastor Kevin said we’d need to stop here and get some firewood.”

  I felt a small sense of relief. “Oh.” If Jack bought too much in the way of food, then part of my plan would backfire. And I couldn’t have that.

  I saw a small bookstore sitting alongside the general store and pointed to it. “I’ll take a look inside there.”

  Jack nodded and then walked into the general store, bells tinkling as the door opened and closed. I had taken no more than two steps toward the bookstore when I felt a few flakes of snow on my face. I looked up then toward the way we’d come. A distant sheet of falling snow suddenly made the surrounding mountains indistinguishable. In mere minutes, the approaching whiteout would blanket this little burg.

  I hurried inside the bookstore, hearing the same sound of chimes as when Jack had entered the general store.

  When I say that the bookstore was small, I’m talking really small. A very studious-looking teenager sat in an old cushy chair next to a wood-burning stove, one leg tucked up under her and her nose pointed straight toward an open book that rested on the chair’s arm. She was so engrossed, she didn’t seem to realize that someone had walked in. I stood for a moment, watched her blow a bubble from the gum she chewed ever so slowly. She closed the book then looked up at me. “Oh, hi,” she said. “Can I help you with anything?”

  I smiled at her, then looked around the short, narrow room. Four long bookstands crowded the space. “What kind of books do you have?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “All kinds, really. Used, all of them. People bring their books up to Summit Ridge, read them, then want something else, so they come here.”

  I took a few steps to the nearest stand, which was filled with thick romance novels. Even though there was no way I’d read one of these, I picked one up anyway and rummaged through its musty pages. “Do you live here?” I asked, then thought that to be a stupid question. “I mean, all the time?”

  “Yeah. My parents own the general store. I’m Jenna, by the way.”

  I looked at her. “You’re not in school, Jenna?”

  “My mom homeschools me.”

  I replaced the book. “Does it get pretty lonely up here?”

  She rolled her eyes, but not in a rude way. “I have a few friends, but, yeah. It can.”

  I pointed to her book. “So what are you reading?”

  She looked at the book, then back to me. “It’s about the old miners who died during the slides just on the other side of town. Back in the 1800s. There was a show on the other night about it, and I got sorta interested.”

  I crossed my arms. “My husband and I were just talking about that.” I turned a bit to look out the windows and noticed that the snow was falling full force now. “The miners. And ghosts.”

  “Can’t say I believe it for sure, but you never know. The ghost part. I mean, what do we really know about what happens after we die? Maybe if someone dies tragically like that, their souls really can’t get to God.” She shrugged again. “I dunno.”

  “I don’t buy that,” I said. “I think we either go to God or to the devil.”

  “You religious?”

  I smiled at her. “I’d like to say I have a relationship more than a religion.”

  She smiled back. “I believe in God too. You can’t live up around here and not believe in him. I’m young, but I know grandeur when I see it.”

  Grandeur. She was right about that. If God had left his fingerprint on anything on the whole planet, it was the Colorado Rockies.

  Jenna laughed, then stood. “You want that book?” She pointed to it. “It’s sleazy as all get out, but sorta well written.”

  I picked up the book again. “You’ve read it?” I asked. And, why?

  “I’ve read every book in here,” she answered, moving toward the L-shaped cashier’s counter near the front door. “What else am I going to do with my days? Very few people actually live up here, and it’s not like we have a mall or anything.”

  I took the book over to the counter. The price tag was only a dollar plus tax, and I figured it could be her only sale of the day. “Sure, why not,” I said, feeling—in a way—sorry for a young girl who appeared to be about sixteen, trapped in a village comprised of a general store, a bookstore, a beyond-tiny post office and bank combination, a coffee shop, a motel, and a gas station.

  She grinned at me. “Read this trash and you might actually learn something. My mom says if husbands were to read these books, wives wouldn’t have to.” She shook her head and giggled. “Cute, huh?”

  The idea of Jack reading a book in which the cover is highlighted by a chiseled and tanned man with hair flowing in the sea breeze, arms filled with the almost lifeless, barely dressed damsel in distress, and the pages filled with words like loins and passion was too much for me to imagine. I pulled two dollars from my purse and handed them to the girl. “I suppose you could call it cute.”

  “Well, you know what I mean,” she said, slipping the book into a paper bag, then handing it across the counter to me. “Happy reading,” she said and handed me my change.

  I took the book and smiled at her. “Thank you,” I said.

  As I reached the door to leave, Jenna added, “How long you here for?”

  “Just a couple of days,” I said, turning back to her. “I can’t believe that in all the years of living in the area, I’ve never come here.”

  She leaned across the counter, elbows and forearms resting on its unpolished surface. “Sometimes when something is so close, you don’t pay it enough attention.” She shrugged. “But two days for your first time? That’s hardly long enough to enjoy the view.”

  “My husband and I both have jobs. We took tomorrow and Tuesday off, but we need to be back home by Wednesday.”

  She looked around the room, then back at me. “I know, right? Work. What a pain.”

  11

  A New Detective in Town

  It was becoming a new habit, running his fingers through his hair. And Clay was beginning to understand the power women had exercised over the years by the simple movement. And he liked it.

  Sure enough, Britney noticed right away.

  “Your hair,” she said with a smile from the other side of the front counter. “Sharp look.” Then she stopped. “Wait, there’s something else too. What is it?”

  Clay stepped up to the counter and returned her contagious smile. “Weight loss.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Had some highlights put in my hair.”

  She tilted her head, and the overhead fluorescent lights made her blonde hair shine all the more. “Nice touch.”

  Clay feigned a frown. “You don’t think it’s too much?”

  “Not at all.” She leaned over the counter, startling him by running her manicured nails through his hair. “Very good. Who did it for you?”

  “Had it done over in Silverthorne. At a salon there.”

  Britney winked at him. “Next time, call me. I won’t charge you half a week’s salary.
In fact, I wouldn’t charge you at all.”

  “You can do this?”

  She nodded. “Foils, right?”

  Clay nodded back.

  “Every girl worth her weight in high school and college has to learn how, don’t you know that?”

  He laughed. “I guess not.” He turned slightly and looked toward the front door. “Say, who was that woman who just left? Maybe a minute before I walked in?”

  Britney shrugged. “Don’t know. I can check her credit card receipt.”

  “Would you?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “For you? Sure.”

  Clay watched as she opened the cash register then pulled the one and only receipt from the drawer. “Says right here, Velvet James. Wow, what a name. Do you know her?”

  Clay shook his head. “No, I don’t. She must be new here.”

  “She bought a real pretty Christmas card and mother/daughter ornament for her mother.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Clay shifted his weight and leaned a hip against the counter and looked back to where the Nissan had been parked.

  “Maybe she’s here visiting her mother?” Britney speculated.

  “Maybe. I’m pretty sure there aren’t any Jameses living here, though.” Then he turned his attention to the pretty woman on the other side of the counter, forgetting about the one who’d just left the store. “You really are quite the detective, aren’t you?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “First you find my email address, then you get the scoop on the new girl in town.”

  Britney placed the receipt back in the drawer and pushed it shut. She laughed lightly and said, “Ask anybody in my family; they’ll tell you. I know how to get what I want. That’s all.”

  Lizzie

  12

  Family Upside-Down Turnovers

  Immediately after church I’d hoisted myself into Samuel’s black Lincoln Navigator and closed the door behind me, then looked out the windshield with eyes darting back and forth like a spy. Or a madwoman, perhaps. Five minutes, I thought. I just need five minutes of quiet.

  Outside, on the snowy church grounds, my family was gathered in small clusters, talking to other church members. My son Tim, his wife Samantha, and Pastor Kevin were near the front steps, deep in discussion. I hoped—no, I prayed—it was about setting up marriage counseling appointments. I knew Kevin could help them, even for the short period of time they would be staying with us.

  A month or so ago Tim had left his wife and children—Kaci, age ten, and Brent, age six—in Louisiana. When he’d arrived, it was with a cock-and-bull story that Samantha was demanding too much of him, both financially and materialistically. I was immediately suspicious. I may not know everything about my daughter-in-law, but I do know she is one of the least greedy people with whom I’ve made acquaintance. She’s always been a loving wife and devoted mother. When she and Tim “had” to get married (as they say) while in college and were forced to live on a lean budget, she never once complained. At least, not to me and—according to Tim—not to her husband or to anyone else that he knew of. When Kaci was born, she discovered the joys of shopping at second-hand stores and the humbling experience of filing for government assistance. Samantha always said these were her “Growing in Grace” years.

  When Tim finished college and began working an entry-level job, they were able to let go of some things and grab hold of others, but I’d never seen even a hint of Samantha craving more than she could afford. She was always content.

  My son, however, was another story. Tim was gung-ho on succeeding mightily in everything he did. He worked hard and climbed the corporate ladder at an impressive rate of speed. By the time Brent was a toddler, Tim’s little family wanted for nothing. Still, Samantha volunteered at a homeless shelter once a week, and now that the children were both in school all day, two days a week. So, for Tim to tell me that Samantha had become materialistic was... well... just silly.

  But Tim moved back to Summit View with his story, got a job at the same Breckenridge resort where our daughter Michelle works, and seemed to be settling in to the notion of living at home with Mommy and Daddy again. I was willing to be silent and prayerful and bide my time. But the night he proudly dressed for a date with one of Michelle’s co-workers, I took immediate action. First by putting him in his place and then by calling his wife, insisting she and the children fly in for a surprise visit.

  I’d picked Samantha and the children up from the airport last Thursday, but already it seems a lifetime ago. When Tim came home from work that evening—totally unsuspicious of his mother’s plotting side—Samantha met him on the front lawn. When he saw her, he stopped. I watched from the living room window as they embraced and witnessed firsthand the power of prayer on my son’s face. He was a young boy in love again, and I was the proud mother hen, clucking about in her roost.

  I told Samuel later that evening that I suspected Tim & Co. would stay on through Christmas, then head back to Louisiana. Over Friday evening’s dinner I asked Tim if he’d put in his notice at work. He looked up at me with a mouth full of spaghetti (albeit one stray noodle hanging from his pursed lips). His eyes registered surprise, then made their way over to where his wife was sitting, as though to say, “Not now, Mom... not in front of Samantha.”

  I dropped it. They have, after all, three weeks before the first of the year.

  I sighed, closing my eyes. Three weeks.

  It’s not that I don’t love my children. I do. I love them very much. It’s just that for the past several years our house has been home to “just the three of us.” Meaning Samuel, our daughter Michelle, who is twenty-five, and myself. With Michelle being deaf and Samuel and me being quiet by nature, our home had become a sort of silent retreat. I’d grown accustomed to it, eagerly anticipating coming home from my job as a high school librarian. I’d long ago forgotten the chaos children can bring into a house.

  Later that night, as Samuel and I lay in bed together, holding hands and looking up at a ceiling shadowed by the moon and the evergreens outside our bedroom, I’d giggled a bit. “Remember the good ol’ days?” I asked him.

  I turned my head and watched in the moonlight as his smile spread across his still-handsome face. “You mean when the kids were little or when the kids were gone?”

  I looked back to the ceiling and waited before I replied. “Good question.”

  We talked then about how it felt to have all the children, their spouses—or, in Michelle’s case, boyfriend—and our grandchildren together for a meal. The night before we’d all gone out to Apple’s, Summit View’s best restaurant, for dinner. There were sixteen of us, total. Samuel and myself. Michelle and Adam, the new fellow in her life. Tim, Samantha, Kaci, and Brent. Sam Jr., his wife Mariah, and their children, Mia, Haley, and Julia. (The joke in the Samuel Prattle Jr. household is that Sam Jr. is so outnumbered, even the dog and cat are female.) Finally, there was our oldest daughter, Cindy (who we’ve always called “Sis”), her husband Isaac, and their son Elijah.

  Too many for this old woman to keep up with.

  Now, for the past hour or so, we’d occupied the better part of two pews at Grace Church. Samuel sat proud, and, I admit, I did too. It does a parent’s heart good to know that all her children, children-in-law, and grandchildren love the Lord. It truly does.

  I breathed in deeply, taking in the scent of the car’s glove-soft leather. I shivered in the frosty air, knowing my time alone was about to come to an end. The cold would drive the entire crew—or, as many as would fit—within this vehicle in seconds.

  Sure enough, it did. I sat passively and forced a smile as my brood turned from their various places on the church’s front lawn and advanced toward me like a pack of hungry wolves wrapped in wool and leather.

  I’d already begged Samuel to take us out for lunch, because I had not one single bit of energy for cooking for sixteen people.

  “The café okay?” he asked me.

  “Works for me,” I said.

  When we entered Higher Ground
s we were greeted by the owner, Sally, who stood by Clay Whitefield’s table, poised with a full pot of coffee.

  “Table for sixteen,” Samuel said with a grin.

  I watched Sal blanch. Her eyes darted behind me, bouncing as she mentally counted the number of Prattles coming in behind us. One of Sally’s servers, Eleana, stepped up.

  “Eleana, put some tables together in the back, will ya?” she asked, though the question was more of a demand than a request.

  Eleana, young and pretty, turned on her heel and moved to the back of the café. Within minutes, the Prattle family was sitting down, doing the two things they do best: eating and talking loudly.

  Too loudly.

  Just three more weeks, Lord. Just three more weeks. And then, back to what we call normal.

  Tim and Samantha made the announcement in our family room over coffee and the cake I’d bought from the bakery counter at Higher Grounds. I was sitting in my favorite chair, legs crossed, plate of cake in one hand, fork in another, ready to cut into the rich velvet of million dollar pound cake when my son barked out, “Mom, Dad, we’ve decided to stay.”

  Clusters of mini-conversation ceased. My mouth, opened and ready for its first bite of cake, froze. Samuel jutted forward in his recliner, and Sam Jr.—in his manner—snickered. “I knew it,” he said. He looked over at Mariah, who swallowed hard, and said, “Didn’t I tell you? Do I know my little brother or what?”

  Mariah stood, placed her dessert plate of uneaten cake on the coffee table, then walked over to Samantha, reached down, and hugged her. “It’ll be good to have my sister-in-law so close by.”

  Cindy pretended to be offended. “Hey, what am I? Chopped liver?”

  Together the three young women embraced each other, no doubt envisioning days of shopping or skiing together, followed by dining out at Apple’s or in Breckenridge. Fun-filled family outings that—God willing—would not include Samuel or me babysitting at every turn.