by Riser, Mimi
Harvey followed with Debbie’s duffle and old Gibson, while Debbie tagged behind humming a holiday tune to herself. Suddenly it felt a lot like Christmas.
Inside the house, it looked and smelled like it, too. Garlands decked the living room, and a fat, fragrant evergreen stood in the corner, all lit up like…well, like a Christmas tree. From the kitchen wafted the scent of home-baked goodness. Wanda had probably been cooking up a storm for days – all her specialties, cakes and candies and cookies galore. Debbie’s mouth watered, remembering those cookies. The star-shaped ones had been her favorite. Even as a child she’d always been reaching for a star…
---
Bug Baker welcomed the prodigal with a big bear hug, but could’ve done without Bubba.
“Wanda, what’d you think you’re doin’? You wanna feed that thing, do it outside.” He glowered at his wife as she set bowls of water and milk and a dish of tuna on the spotless kitchen floor. “I mean it, woman, either he goes or I do! You know I can’t stand cats in the house.”
“Suit yourself, old man.” She planted hands on her ample hips. “You know where the door is. Don’t let it hit you in the tail feathers on the way out.”
“Hmph!” he grunted, snatched an oatmeal cookie from a plate on the table, and stalked off into the living room.
A little later, his tummy full, Bubba padded after him as though he owned the place.
Debbie waited for a holler that never came. Cautiously, she peeked through the doorway. Laughter bubbled up in her throat.
“What?” Harvey looked over her shoulder, then motioned for his mother to look, too. Together they stared at Bug snoozing in his recliner in front of the TV, with a ball of black and white fur curled up on his potbelly.
“It’s just like I’ve always said,” Wanda murmured, “that old dog is all bark and no bite.”
And his son doesn’t even bark, Debbie thought. It suddenly occurred to her that she’d never seen Harvey really angry or ill-tempered. He’d been a sweet, gentle boy, and didn’t appear to have soured any with age. Still slow and steady in his movements. Still quiet and kind and quick to blush.
Still Harvey.
He caught her studying him.
“What?” he said again. “Somethin’ wrong?”
Hardly. For the first time in a long time things were starting to look right.
She smiled at him. “I was just thinking how much I’ve missed you.”
“Oh. Um…yeah…same here.” He reddened under his West Texas tan and turned to help his mother take two trays of buttery rich shortbread cookies from the oven. Working with a spatula and obvious experience, he scooped Christmas stars onto platters and sprinkled their warm tops with red and green sugar crystals.
Wanda winked at Debbie. “I’ve raised that boy right. He’ll make some girl a good husband someday.”
“I always thought so,” Debbie said softly. Except she hadn’t realized she had until that moment. Harvey had been such a fixture in her early life, it had been easy to take him for granted. Too easy to become bored with the plain boy next door and start yearning for a handsome knight in shining armor. She hadn’t known back then how fast armor could tarnish.
Harvey’s shoulders tensed, but he went on working, never turned, never looked at her. “If that’s what you thought, why’d you ever leave Star?”
He said it lightly, like a joke, but underneath the tease, Debbie heard a hint of hurt. She understood. Regardless of girlish fancies and boyish bashfulness, she and Harvey had been friends from kindergarten through high school. Once upon a time, everyone in town had figured they’d end up married. But, heck, the reason they hadn’t wasn’t all her fault.
“Maybe because someone never asked me to stay?” she suggested.
“Well, maybe ‘someone’ didn’t want to stand in your way.” He swung round then and met her eyes. “Dang it, Debbie Dawn, you were always quicker and brighter than me. You had the looks and the talent and the dreams. You were going places. I wasn’t.”
Wow, for him that was quite a speech, quite a show of emotion – though few besides Debbie would have noticed. Even at his most agitated, Harvey was pretty low-key, never raised his voice. He gave her a crooked grin, blushing again, embarrassed by his outburst, soft as it had been.
It was the grin that got her, but good. It gripped her heart like a fist. Her throat constricted, and her reply came out sounding like it had been forced through a knothole.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t get very far, did I?”
She glanced down at her toes, then around the kitchen – anywhere to avoid looking at Harvey. She didn’t want to see any pity. Especially not his.
At some point during their careful confrontation – when, Debbie wasn’t sure – Wanda had discreetly disappeared, leaving a saucepan of penoche on the back of the stove. Harvey moved it to the front and stirred in some butter, vanilla, and nuts. He did know how to cook. Several years ago, Aunt Ivy had mentioned Harvey was in charge of the Star high school cafeteria, and doing right well for himself.
Better’n me.
He poured the finished penoche into a buttered pan and set it aside to cool, then gathered a fresh bunch of ingredients and began mixing up a batch of peanut butter chocolate dots – her second absolute favorite (the star cookies being her first favorite, of course), and she hadn’t had any in ages. The man was merciless.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said while he worked, “you were in Nashville almost ten years. It couldn’t have been all bad.”
“Bad enough. I got a few okay gigs now and then, but mostly I just sang backup in the studios.”
“There’s good money in that, I’ve heard.”
“Can be. But it costs a lot to live in the city, too. No matter what I made, there was never enough to last for long. It got so I felt like I was running as fast as I could all the time just to stay in place.” She leaned back against the kitchen counter beside him, feeling like a portrait of defeat.
“I’m tired, Harvey. Tired of the hype and tired of pretending I’m something I’m not. I mean, I love playing music, but I sure don’t like the games you gotta play to get anywhere. You wanna hear what happened a few days ago?”
She didn’t wait for an answer; she had to confess this whether he wanted to hear it or not.
“My agent – well, ex-agent now – called to say he’d landed me a gig at the Grand Ole Opry. ‘You’ve finally made it!’ he yelled. And all I had to do to seal the deal was be nice to a certain music promoter. ‘Be nice,’ that’s how he put it…” She shook her head. “The worst part is, for a minute there, I almost agreed. Then something snapped inside me, and I thought no! I may have sold a good chunk of my life for a handful of glitter, but I will not sell my soul. I packed my car and couldn’t get out of Nashville fast enough. And that’s that.”
“Why, that son of a…” Harvey drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You did the right thing.”
“Y’think? My agent called me a coward and a quitter and a failure.”
“Shows how much he knows.” He slipped a tentative arm around her shoulders, but when she didn’t pull away, grew bolder and tightened his hold into a half hug. “What you did took real guts.”
“Not much. Not really. The fact is if I hadn’t made it in ten years, even an Opry gig probably wouldn’t have helped me. I am a failure, Harvey.”
“Bull feathers. I always thought you sang like an angel.”
“That was the problem.” She couldn’t help laughing. “They don’t want angels in Nashville.”
“That’s their loss. It still doesn’t make you a failure. There’s no shame in reaching for a star, Debbie Dawn.”
“Even if you never catch one?”
“Heck, at least you tried. That’s more than a lot of people ever do. You don’t need to have any regrets about the road not taken.”
He had her there. And in the end her road had brought her to a star – even if it was just a dusty little one-horse town. She stared out the k
itchen window at an old tin shed and a sorry strip of back alley choked with dry weeds. Star, Texas wasn’t much to look at, and frankly neither was Harvey, but then beauty was in the eye of the beholder. Both the town and the man looked darned good to Debbie.
So did that plate of cookies on the other side of him. She pressed in close, snaking an arm around and behind him.
“Debbie Dawn, what are you doing?”
“Don’t get your hopes up, Harvey. I’m just reaching for a star.”
She caught it, too – a magical sugar-sparkled star that melted on her tongue. Debbie finished it in three bites.
“Mmm…delicious.”
“Yeah? I ain’t tried this batch yet.”
“Oh, poor hungry Harvey. We can’t have that.” She grabbed another one and held it to his mouth.
He crunched into it, his lips grazing her fingers. “Mmm” – his eyes closed in ecstasy – “almost too sweet.”
Somehow she didn’t think he was referring to the cookie.
“Harvey Baker, are you trying to flirt with me?”
“Um…yes, ma’am, I guess I am. But if you can’t tell, I must be doing it wrong.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake, boy, just kiss the girl,” Wanda scolded from the doorway. “What do I gotta do, hold a clump of mistletoe over her head?” She bustled out again as though fully intending to find some amidst the decorations in the living room.
Harvey glanced at Debbie. “Well, it is Christmas Eve. A little mistletoe might not be amiss. Y’know?”
“No, I don’t.” She pretended to scowl at him. “If you need an excuse to kiss me, Harvey, just forget it. You always were too dang shy.”
“Oh, heck…” He anchored her face between his hands and planted a big juicy one square on her pouting lips.
“Mmm, you taste like star cookies,” he murmured. “Only better.”
Yeah, baby!
Sighing, Debbie sank against his chest and wrapped her arms around his waist. He felt warm and solid and secure – felt just like Harvey. Just like home.
“So, um” – he cleared his throat – “how long you think you’ll be stayin’ in Star?”
“Well now, I’m not sure…” She tilted back her head to gaze into his eyes. He’d lost his glasses during the kiss and was squinting. Debbie didn’t care. “Does forever sound like too long?”
That big silly grin stretched from ear to ear. “No, ma’am, forever sounds just about right.”
Then he kissed her again. Or maybe she kissed him. Either way it worked.
“Merry Christmas, Harvey.”
“Welcome home, Debbie Dawn.”
---
Wanda paused in the kitchen doorway, a sprig of mistletoe in her hand and Bubba purring around her ankles. She smiled down at him.
“I don’t think they’ll be needin’ this after all, do you?”
“Mrrrooww,” he answered – his way of saying, God bless us everyone.
=========
<<<>>>
Bonus excerpt:
The first two chapters of…
All Fired Up
A “Stardust” Story
(Kindle: B00CXN0N54)
Chapter 1
One broad main street and a handful of smaller ones, the whole connected by a weed-trimmed tangle of dirt alleyways… houses sprouting between the paths like tomato plants, some well-staked and tended, some abandoned and toppled into decay… a scattering of businesses dotted among them, clinging to their vines like last season’s forgotten fruit… a quaint white church with clock chimes you could hear all over town. And beyond that? The sun, the wind, and the ever-present dust. Just a tiny twinkle of humanity floating on a sea of rugged open range beneath a bottomless blue bowl of a sky.
It was Star, Texas – a southwestern hamlet that knew exactly what it was and had no silly pretensions to be anything else – quiet, friendly, and blissfully free from the ravages of progress. Some people enjoyed its small size and slow rhythm.
But Winslow Larkin wasn’t one of them.
The chimes of the church tolled the dreary hour of four as Slo slammed the backdoor of his grandmother’s house and stomped out into the summer sunlight. To him, Star was a boil on the backside of nowhere, a hot, dry, dusty dead-end. With each visit the place seemed to have shrunk, gotten shabbier, dustier, more dismally dull. He’d been back less than a day this trip – had two weeks to go – and was already bored out of his gourd. It was like Chinese water torture, without the water. Tedium dripped onto his head with merciless mounting force.
But this was the last time, he promised himself. When he left this time, the reason for his visits would be leaving with him – whether she liked it or not – and he’d never be choked by “stardust” again.
Angling through the vegetable garden on his way to the back gate, he accidentally flattened a few of his grandmother’s prize tomatoes – an unforgivable sin, but at the moment he didn’t give a damn. Good. She wouldn’t need this shit where she was going. Let it rot. With a sudden flare up of the temper that had plagued his teen years, Slo deliberately trampled several more tomatoes, then some cucumbers and squash, a couple of cantaloupes—
An ominous click sounded behind him.
He’d been spotted.
And the spotter would be boiling mad. But she wouldn’t yell. His grandmother rarely yelled – didn’t have to. Ina Lorene Dixon was the best shot in the county and owned an heirloom Winchester, affectionately dubbed Betsy.
That click was the rifle being cocked.
Ignoring the gate, Slo vaulted the fence and ran. He felt like an idiot over the escape, and the tantrum that prompted it, but that’s what Star did to him. Half a day in his hometown, and he was fifteen years old again and climbing the walls.
“Ina Lorene almost got you that time, Winslow.”
The call and its accompanying cackle came from the ruddy faced, tobacco chewing Earl Goodman three doors down.
Slo winced at the “Winslow,” but skidded to a halt and retraced his steps to the old man’s yard, scraping some cantaloupe pulp off his boots in a weed patch en route. “Nah, she threatens, but she wouldn’t really shoot her only grandkid.”
Earl grinned and spat, narrowly missing the black biker boots Slo had just finished cleaning. “Probably not, boy” – another name geared to annoy – “but she might fly a little birdshot past your tail. What y’all been fussin’ about this time?”
As if it’s any of your business, you old coot.
Then again, in this nosy community, it was. Privacy in Star was a contradiction in terms.
“Same old argument. I want her to move to Houston where I can keep an eye on her. She’s too old to live by herself.”
Earl winked. “And I bet she thinks you’re too young to.”
Perceptive son of a gun, wasn’t he?
“You got that right.” Slo had left at the age of eighteen to attend art college in Houston – and stayed. For ten years he’d lived in the city. He had a successful business established, earned good money, but his grandmother still considered it an adolescent pipedream, still expected him to settle down in Star.
“Well, you can watch her here as easy as there, can’t you? Why don’t you just move home, Slo?”
Why don’t I just whack myself in the head with a hammer?
“My home is in Houston. My work is there.”
“Heck, there’d be plenty of work for you here. A good mechanic never goes hungry.”
God, would he ever be able to explain to these people that he was an artist, not a mechanic? All they understood was that he “worked on cars.” The concept of elaborate custom paint jobs for vehicles was as comprehensible to them as the Stock Market was to a band of chimpanzees.
“Um, thanks for the idea, but everything has already been arranged. I’ve listed the house here with a realtor and found her a nice apartment in one of those assisted-living complexes. She’ll be happy as a Junebug once she’s there.”
“Don’t you mean if you can
get her there?”
“Not this time. She’s going if I have to rope and hogtie her.”
Earl chuckled. “Now that is something I’d dearly like to see. You be sure and give me a holler if it comes to that, won’t you? I still got the bulletproof vest from my sheriff days. Be happy to lend it to you.”
“Thanks” – Slo smiled in spite of himself – “but it would probably be easier to just hide her Winchester after she goes to bed.”
“Good luck on that. She sleeps with Ol’ Betsy.”
She did?
The smile fell into a frown. Was his grandmother feeling threatened? Why? The thought of her in any kind of danger made Slo’s gut clench.
On the other hand, if she’d become nervous about living alone, it would be easier to move her out, right?
The frown relaxed. “When did this start?”
“Danged if I know.” Earl scratched the bald spot on top of his head. “A month maybe, not long.” He turned toward a plump figure in red slacks and floral print top, who’d just burst out of the house and was huffing forward at a jerky trot. “Faye might remember.”
“Faye remembers everything,” the figure said. “But Faye ain’t speaking to you, old man, ’cause you don’t remember nothin’.”
“I forgot our anniversary again,” Earl whispered to Slo. “Wishful thinkin’, I guess.”
“I just came out ’cause I heard my honey,” Faye announced. “How you doin’, handsome? Saw you pull in this morning and been waitin’ for a visit all day. How long you gonna be home?”
Before he could escape, Slo was crushed in a big bosomed, heavily floured hug. Faye had been baking, but he hoped it hadn’t been for him. Her eyesight was failing, and she kept mistaking the iodine bottle for the vanilla extract.
“Jus…just till the end of the month,” he coughed out. “Sooner, if I can get the house packed up before then. I’m moving Gran to Houston.”