Phoebe's Groom

by Deb Kastner

  In many ways he was like a new man. Much of his gruffness and surly attitude was gone—he’d even attended church with everyone on Sunday. Emerging was the kind, gentle-hearted man Phoebe had known he’d always held inside.

  Amazing what a good boost to a man’s self-confidence conquering his own fears could be. Or at least, Phoebe thought that must be what she was witnessing, because she couldn’t think of any other reason for the change. In any case, she was glad for him and for his family.

  Now that Aunt Jo, as Phoebe was unconsciously beginning to think of her, was home from the hospital and they didn’t have the two-hour roundtrip drive, running the café wasn’t quite so difficult. She and Chance still didn’t see much of each other, though, as someone always had to be at home to make sure Aunt Jo followed the bed part of bed rest and to have someone by her side when she took in her daily recuperative exercise.

  The situation continued to be taxing on Phoebe both mentally and physically, and she found she was beginning to feel the effects of long hours and little sleep.

  After a long, busy Friday at the café, she was looking forward to nothing more than putting her feet up and watching some television at home with Lucy—er, at the Hawkinses’ home, rather.

  But the moment she walked into the house, she knew something was wrong. The television wasn’t blaring, for one thing. Lucy always had the TV on, whether or not she was watching it. It was the silence that unnerved Phoebe.

  Aunt Jo was, hopefully, in her room resting; but Lucy should have been home. Where was she?

  Curious, Phoebe decided to track down Lucy and see what was going on. It didn’t take her long. She found the girl huddled up on the oversized easy chair in the family room. Lucy was staring off into space, and Phoebe could tell she’d been crying. Most tellingly, there was no sign of the girl’s cell phone or MP3 player, the two devices Lucy was never without. Chance had often teased that they were extensions of Lucy’s hands, which usually resulted in the girl rolling her eyes.

  Phoebe took a seat on the couch opposite her.

  “What’s up, hon?” she asked gently. She tried to catch Lucy’s gaze but the girl looked away from her.

  “Nothing,” Lucy muttered.

  “Really? Because if I had to guess, I would say this is about a boy.” It was a shot in the dark, a random guess, meant to make Lucy laugh.

  Instead, she burst into tears.

  So it was about a boy. Phoebe’s track record with men was less than stellar, but she supposed she ought to be able to share some junior-high-aged wisdom with the girl.

  “Brian?” she prompted gently when Lucy didn’t offer anything.

  Lucy sniffled and shook her head. “Michael Avery.”

  Phoebe quickly wrapped her mind around this new piece of information. Teenage girls were especially flighty when it came to their love lives, so she wasn’t really surprised that Lucy had moved on to new territory, just caught off guard a little bit.

  “You want to tell me about him?”

  Lucy’s eyes brightened through her tears and she sighed dramatically. “He’s so chill.”

  “Chill?” Phoebe obviously wasn’t in touch with the current teenaged lingo. “Does that mean he’s cute?”

  “Super cute.” Lucy flashed her a wavering smile.

  “And he goes to your school?”

  “He’ll be in ninth grade next year and will go to the high school. Don’t tell Dad, though. He’d pitch a fit.”

  Phoebe chuckled.

  “It’s our secret, then,” she said, making a zipping motion over her lips and crossing her heart. “So what’s the deal with this guy?”

  Lucy studied her for a moment as if deciding what and how much she wanted to reveal. Phoebe wasn’t offended. They’d been through a lot in the past couple of weeks, but she was still a relative stranger to Lucy. Still, it was clear the girl needed to talk to somebody. She gave her an encouraging smile and waited.

  Finally, Lucy sighed. “The Sadie Hawkins dance is coming up.”

  “But you’re out of school for the summer,” Phoebe commented, confused.

  “Yeah. It’s something the community puts on for the kids in town in the summer, I guess to keep us out of trouble or something.”

  “Sadie Hawkins. Is that the one where the girl asks the guy?”

  Lucy nodded glumly.

  “And this Michael turned you down?”

  Poor Lucy. She’d had a rough couple of weeks as it was. She really didn’t need a rejection from the guy she had a crush on to add to the list.

  “Uh-uh.” Lucy shook her head. “I haven’t asked him.”

  “Because…?”

  “I don’t want him to say no.”

  “So instead, what? You’re not going to go at all? You know it’s perfectly fine for a girl to ask a guy out in this day and age, especially for Sadie Hawkins, where it’s expected. You may as well take advantage of it.”

  “Maybe I’ll just go with some of my friends,” she said miserably.

  “You could do that,” Phoebe agreed, leaning forward. “Or, you could use that as a back-up plan. First you ask Michael to the dance, and if he doesn’t want to go with you, you go with your friends.”

  Lucy snorted. “You make it sound easy.”

  Phoebe chuckled and shook her head. “Oh, no. It’s anything but easy. It takes a lot of courage to face a situation where you might be rejected. Trust me. I’ve had my fair share of rejections.”

  “Really?” Lucy sounded genuinely surprised. “You?”

  Phoebe laughed. “Yes, me.”

  “But you’re so pretty.”

  That had Phoebe blushing. “Well, thank you. But you know, you’re pretty, too. Beautiful, actually.”

  Lucy frowned and looked at the floor. “No, I’m not. Dad calls me his little tomboy. Guys like girls who wear dresses and makeup.”

  “First of all, I can state without a shadow of a doubt that your father would be the first in line to tell you what a beautiful young lady you are. You’re cute no matter what you’re wearing, and you definitely don’t need makeup to highlight your nice facial features. But if you want a dress for the dance, we can do a dress. Maybe even some lip gloss, huh?”

  This Phoebe could handle. It would be a great deal of fun to take Lucy shopping for something other than the denim overalls she always wore.

  “Even if I did ask Michael and he said yes, Dad would never let me go to the dance,” Lucy said morosely.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” Phoebe said. “You ask Michael to go to the dance with you, and I’ll take care of your father. What do you say?”

  Lucy brushed away her tears with her fingertips and nodded. “Okay.”

  “Great,” she replied enthusiastically. “I can’t wait to take you shopping. You’re going to knock the socks off this Michael guy.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “I know so.”

  “But I still have to ask him. He might say no.”

  Phoebe gave Lucy an impromptu hug, and to her surprise, the girl hugged her back.

  “Just remember, hon, you are a Hawkins. Your family is made from sturdy stuff. And hey—you know what?”

  Lucy shook her head but looked hopeful, an enormous change from her earlier glum countenance.

  Phoebe smiled and winked. “You might just be a relative of old Sadie Hawkins. You never know. If she could do it, I know you can. I have a good feeling about this.”

  Sending Lucy off with a smile, she prayed she was right about Michael. And about Chance, for that matter. Only time would tell.

  STATUS UPDATE: PHOEBE YATES: Sadie Hawkins. That’s a name I haven’t heard in a while—try high school. I think I’m going to have to look her up online. If she was anything like the Hawkins family I’m staying with, she must have been one tough breed.

  JOSEPHINE HAWKINS MURPHY: We are a pretty sturdy people out here in the West. Now what’s this about Sadie Hawkins?

  It was the end of another tiring but fulfilling
day cooking at the café. Chance was cleaning the grill while Phoebe washed the last of the dishes.

  It had been a week and a half since Aunt Jo had returned home from the hospital. She’d had a surprisingly quick recuperation for a woman of her age and the severity of her injuries. Not only was she up and walking, but she’d insisted on returning to work at the café, although Phoebe and Chance forced her to observe limited hours, no matter how hard she squawked that she was a prisoner in her own home. Her health came first, even if she didn’t want to admit it.

  As for Chance, he was feeling better than he had in years. Reconciling with God had given him not only an overwhelming sense of peace, but a new direction for his life. He was determined to move forward, not only as a child of God, but as a better father, nephew and friend.

  If he could classify Phoebe as a friend. She seemed like more than that, somehow. He cast her an unobtrusive glance, knowing she couldn’t see him watching her, since her back was turned to him. As always, she attacked her work with relish, humming a cheerful tune all the while.

  Perhaps the most surprising part of the changes he’d experienced over the past couple of weeks was in this very kitchen. He found that he no longer resented having to share his space with Phoebe. In fact, if he were being honest, he liked having someone to talk to and share the work with. Her gleaming hazel eyes, pretty smile, generous laughter and sweet vanilla scent didn’t hurt, either.

  Best of all, somewhere along the way, Lucy had warmed up to Phoebe. One evening he’d even caught them with their heads together, whispering secretively to each other. They’d sprung apart guiltily when he’d walked in, which of course left him to wonder.

  He couldn’t imagine what was up with that, but he was grateful for the change just the same.

  At that moment, as if his thoughts had summoned her, Lucy burst into the kitchen through the back door. Her eyes were wide, her face was flushed and she was breathing heavily, as if she’d run all the way from the house.

  Maybe she had. Fragments of panic and alarm burst through him.

  “What’s wrong, Luc?” he asked hastily, wiping the grease from his hands onto the front of his apron.

  As if he hadn’t spoken, Lucy ignored him completely. She launched into Phoebe’s arms just as she removed them from the dishwater, before she’d even had the opportunity to dry them off.

  Chance’s alarm subsided a little when he realized that the hiccupping sound coming from his daughter’s throat was not distress, but laughter. But suspicion and a growing sense of fatherly unease edged in right over the receding panic as Phoebe began laughing with Lucy and dancing them both around in merry circles.

  Something was going on here, and Chance had no idea what it was. Phoebe, on the other hand, appeared to be completely in the know.

  Chance scowled. He didn’t like feeling left out, particularly where his daughter was concerned—even if what he was witnessing was some kind of female camaraderie thing. His very male and very fatherly premonition was that whatever was going on here couldn’t be something good. Whatever that something was. He wanted to know.

  Now.

  “Does somebody want to fill me in on whatever it is that is making you girls dance around my kitchen?” he growled, his brow furrowing.

  Phoebe glanced at him, her eyes glazed over with joy, looking at him as if she’d completely forgotten he was in the room at all. She stopped swinging the Garfield the cat–grinning Lucy around, but kept a firm arm around the girl’s shoulders.

  “If I were to guess,” Phoebe said, her smile as big as Lucy’s, “I would have to say that somebody is going to the Sadie Hawkins Dance.”

  “The Sadie what?” he demanded.

  “The Sadie Hawkins Dance,” Phoebe supplied. “It’s the one where the girl asks the boy. Didn’t they have that when you were a teenager?”

  Chance’s scowl deepened. “No, they did not.”

  Actually, he couldn’t remember if such a thing existed in his time or not. He’d never been much of a dancer; and besides, he’d dated Lindsay all through his high school years. She wouldn’t have had to ask him to go with her.

  “So, your dad and I are on pins and needles here,” Phoebe exclaimed, turning her attention to Lucy once again. “Give us all the juicy details. What did you say? What did he say?”

  Pins and needles was one way to put what he was feeling, he supposed—sticking sharply into his skull. “He said yes,” Lucy cried out, her voice lined with excitement. “I can’t even believe it.”

  “He?” Chance repeated, picking up on the only word that meant anything to him. “He, who? That Brian kid?”

  He was not liking the way this conversation was headed. If Lucy thought she was going to go to some dance with some boy she had another thing coming.

  “Dad,” Lucy protested, blushing.

  “Not Brian,” Phoebe corrected, her smile widening. “Michael.”

  “Michael Avery?” Chance knew the boy. He was a good kid, but he had to be a couple of years older than Lucy, at least.

  No, no, no, no, no. The word echoed in Chance’s mind.

  “Yes!” Lucy and Phoebe exclaimed simultaneously.

  Chance had moved beyond confusion and unease into full-blown resentment. He understood what was going on now—what had been going on right under his nose over the past week.

  All the secretive whispers. All the laughter.

  Phoebe was in on this, and it infuriated him. As much as he wanted Phoebe and Lucy to get along, going behind his back and encouraging his daughter to ask some boy to a dance nonsense was beyond the pale.

  It was wrong.

  And it was totally out of the question.

  He turned to Lucy. “You didn’t ask me first.”

  He tried to keep his voice gentle, but it came out with a sharp edge just the same.

  “We thought—” Phoebe started, but he cut her off with a glare.

  “I don’t care what you thought,” he growled.

  “Please, Dad. This is really important to me,” Lucy interjected.

  “I’m sorry, Luc. You are not going to this dance, and that’s my final word on the subject.”

  “But Dad,” Lucy protested, tears springing to her eyes.

  “No buts,” he countered. “My mind is made up.”

  He was going to tell Lucy to go home so he could speak to Phoebe in private—ream her out, more like, as he had a lot to say to the meddlesome, interfering woman—but Lucy beat him to the punch.

  “I told you,” she said to Phoebe with a broken sob. “I told you he would be this way.”

  Then she turned on Chance.

  “I hate you,” she snapped viciously before charging out the back door with all the fury of a cyclone.

  Chance’s heart fell as he watched his daughter leave. As angry and frustrated as Lucy sometimes got with him, she’d never before said she hated him. Here he’d just rededicated his life to the Lord and had promised both God and himself that he was going to be a better father, and his relationship with Lucy had just taken a giant step in the opposite direction.

  “That went well,” Phoebe muttered, sounding annoyed—no doubt with him. As if she had the right.

  In the skirmish with his daughter, Chance had momentarily forgotten that Phoebe was in the room—and, more to the point, that she was the direct cause of all this trouble.

  “You,” he roared, whirling on her in a fresh bout of temper. “What did you say to her? You two have been planning this all week, haven’t you?”

  Phoebe’s eyes widened but she didn’t back down an inch. Instead, she stiffened her spine and tipped up her chin. “As a matter of fact, yes we have.”

  “You had no right,” he spat. “I am her father. She should have talked to me. You should have talked to me.”

  “Would it have made any difference?” she asked softly. “Would your reaction have changed if I had told you first?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “This is important to Lucy, Ch
ance. She’s growing up. I know it’s hard for you to do, especially given your painful circumstances, but you have to let go of her, at least a little bit. If you don’t, the channel of communication between the two of you will close down completely. She’s going to stop asking you about things, seeking your advice. She might even start doing things behind your back. You don’t want that.”

  Chance swallowed hard to ease the pressure of emotion building inside him.

  “She said she hates me.”

  Phoebe reached out to rub his shoulder and chuckled softly. “She doesn’t mean it. All teenage girls are drama queens, so you’ll have to get used to it for a while.”

  Chance groaned. Somehow this conversation had turned back on him.

  “It’s not as bad as all that,” she assured him. “Although I have to admit that in moments like these it might appear to be so.”

  “You should have spoken to me, even if Lucy didn’t,” he insisted.

  Phoebe nodded. “I had every intention of telling you, but I was waiting to see how things panned out with Michael. I saw no reason to burden you with this if it wasn’t going to work out.

  “I thought she’d come to me first with the news so I could pave the way before she made her big announcement. I guess she was just too excited to wait to tell you.”

  Chance groaned again and swiped a hand down his face. “And I just ruined it for her.”

  Phoebe’s silence spoke volumes.

  “Maybe not,” she said after a long pause. “Do you have any objection to Michael Avery, other than that he wants to spend time with your daughter?”

  He shook his head. “No, not really. He’s a good kid. I went to school with his parents.”

  “You went to school with everybody,” Phoebe commented wryly. “I still can’t get used to some of these small-town dynamics.”

  “So you think I should let her go.” It wasn’t a question, exactly, but she answered it anyway.

  “Yes, I do. It means a lot to her to know that you trust her. You can still give her some boundaries—like where exactly she is and isn’t allowed to go, and what time she should be home. That sort of thing. She gets to go to the dance, and you get to strengthen your relationship with your daughter. Everybody wins.”