She leaned over. Her eyes converted to slits as words hissed through her teeth. “I know things you wish you knew,” she said. “You have no idea how much grief your little win on national television has caused.” She took another unsteady step. “Why couldn’t you just leave well enough alone?”
“What are you talking about?”
From over her shoulder I saw Donna’s Bronco rolling into a parking spot. My shoulders drooped. No daughter should ever have to arrest her own mother. Oh Vernon, why didn’t you listen to me and give this child the night off?
“You don’t know, but you will soon enough,” she said.
I reached out my hand. “Doreen, please. Let me help you.”
“Stay away from me!” she said, slapping my hand away just as Donna, dressed in her starched deputy’s uniform, stepped through the front door.
“Please, Doreen.” I reached out again. As I did, Doreen fell backward against the display rack, falling to her backside. As packets of candy and gum jostled from their places, the chips, beer, and wine bottle tumbled out of Doreen’s basket, onto her abdomen, and then the floor.
I dropped my basket then, tried to retrieve some of the falling merchandise, stumbled over the bottle of wine, and then promptly fell on top of the crumpled barmaid.
“She’s killing me!” Doreen screamed in my ear.
“If you don’t shut up!” I yelled back.
“All right, all right, all right!” Donna’s hand wrapped around my bicep and then jerked me off her mother as though I weighed no more than a flea. “Ladies!”
“I fell!” I pointed to the guilty bottle of Cold Duck. “Because of that thing!”
I heard people laughing then. Well, I was certainly glad they thought it was funny, because I surely didn’t. All I’d wanted was some pork chops and frozen yogurt. Why did I have to run into the likes of Doreen Roberts?
“She pushed me down!” Doreen was saying as Donna helped her mother up. “You all saw her! I’ve got witnesses!”
“You’re drunk,” Donna said. Her face was etched with sadness and anger, and I’m not sure which emotion was taking front billing. “Come on. I’ll get you home.”
“I’ve got my car.”
“You can pick it up tomorrow.”
Doreen wrapped her arms around Donna like a limp rag doll. “Oh, my baby. My baby girl. You’ve come to your mama’s rescue.”
“Stop it.” Donna righted her mother, turned her toward the door, and escorted her forward. “Show’s over, folks. Go back to your shopping.”
I kept my eyes on the two of them until they reached Donna’s Bronco, then started picking up the items from the floor. The manager was by my side, asking if I was all right. I assured him I was, though my whole body was quivering and my voice gave it away. “I just want to get my pork chops and get home,” I said. “Vernon’s waiting for supper.”
———
I decided against driving straight to the house. I was too shaken by the whole incident with Doreen. Instead, I stopped at Lake Dillon, got out of the car, and walked to a little bench overlooking the water and the mountains behind it. I took a seat, a deep breath, and then exhaled. My hands rested on my knees for a moment before I closed my eyes and allowed the late afternoon’s sunshine to warm my bones, which were now growing stiff from the fall.
I opened my eyes and studied the mountains. They were so majestic, one giving way to another, one rising higher than the last. Some peaked. Some rolled. Each was filled with stories and history, myth and legend.
One I remember well. One my father used to tell me when we’d sit on this very bench as he regaled me with story after story.
“There was an old miner,” Daddy had said, “named Zeke Hannah. ‘Old Zeke,’ they called him. ‘Crazy Old Zeke,’ said some. Now, Father Dyer—who established Grace Church—was always kind to Zeke. Every Friday after a week of mining for gold and finding none, Old Zeke would come to town—not Summit View, another town on Father Dyer’s circuit—go to the saloon, and get liquored up. He’d always tell folks he was just this shy of finding the mother lode.” Daddy pinched his thumb and index finger together. “But when Zeke was asked where the gold was, he’d always say he couldn’t tell. If he told, then they’d all want a piece of it. Not that anyone paid attention to Zeke. No one even believed he’d found a glimmer of gold, much less a lode. But Father Dyer would always listen to him like he had sense. Treated him with respect, like Jesus did the lepers.
“Now, one Friday night came, but Old Zeke didn’t. Didn’t show up Friday or Saturday. Then, on Sunday morning, just as Father Dyer was finishing up his sermon, Old Zeke stumbled into the church, shouting at the padre that he needed to see him bad. The two men had a meeting behind the church building, and then Father Dyer went one way while Old Zeke went another. Someone said later on that afternoon that they’d seen Zeke give the Methodist preacher a satchel full of something. Someone else said that was all just malarkey.
“Legend says that a group of men determined that Zeke had finally done it. He’d finally found the mother lode, had given Father Dyer some gold for safekeeping, and had gone off to mine the rest. The men saddled up, split into two groups, one to find Old Zeke, the other to find Father Dyer.”
“But they never did find Old Zeke,” I said to my daddy.
“Nope. Old Zeke was never heard from again, though the story goes that if you sit right here, late at night, you can see his old miner’s lamp swinging back and forth up there in those mountains. Some say he died in an accident. Others say he was killed by those men when he wouldn’t own up to where the gold was.”
“And Father Dyer claimed to not know anything,” I supplied, having heard the story twenty times or more. “That he had loaned the old miner a Bible and that the miner had given the Bible back.”
“But to this day,” Daddy said, pointing, “folks say that somewhere—maybe buried in one of the churches Father Dyer established—is a mother lode of gold.”
“Maybe right here in Summit View,” I whispered.
“Maybe.”
———
I laughed now at the memory, then stood to go. If I sat there much longer, dark would overtake me, and I’d be able to search the mountains myself for the light of a swinging lantern. Not to mention there was frozen yogurt growing soft in the car.
I turned and walked up the slight incline toward the road and my car, then stopped short. A man—old and thin, wearing a ragged ball cap, a khaki-colored safari jacket over a plaid shirt, and a pair of dark slacks, stood near my car. He was unshaven. He wore dark glasses, but even still, I could feel his stare slicing right through me.
“Who are you?” I asked, keeping my shoulders straight. “What are you doing at my car?”
The man jerked, turned, and ambled away. “Sorry,” he mumbled over his shoulder. “Didn’t mean to bother you.”
Lisa Leann
4
Frosted Love
One thing I’ll tell you in confidence is that I’d never have cheated on my husband if he’d even noticed we were a couple. Honestly, the two of us have spent our thirty years of marriage as two singles who coincidently lived in the same house with the same children. I don’t know if my Henry is merely passive-aggressive, or if he’s a Vulcan like Star Trek’s Mr. Spock, who doesn’t have the words or the capacity to communicate his feelings. Then again, maybe Henry is so into his own little galaxy that he forgets I exist. Even after all these years, I still don’t know what to think about his conduct or lack thereof.
Of course, his recent discovery of my indiscretion, which happened a few years back, hasn’t helped our relationship. Though, it at least got him to talk to me about our issues in the privacy of our pastor’s office. Plus, our time together in New York helped us decide to stay together, though our marriage isn’t out of the woods, not by a long shot.
I know my husband’s lack of interest doesn’t make up for or even excuse my affair with that despicable Clark Wilkes. I mean, what was I t
hinking? Clark may have given me enough attention to make me lose all sense of propriety, but he turned out to be—as Evie is fond of saying—a snake, snake, snake.
But what does that make me for rolling in the hay with him? I can tell you, it makes me pitiful, not to mention ashamed. It’s a good thing I’ve developed my own interests and talents as a businesswoman or I’d have nowhere to escape my past, not to mention my present. Of course, knowing God forgives me has been a great comfort—not an excuse, mind you, but a comfort. Though, I’ve noticed that being forgiven by the Almighty hasn’t stopped the pain created by my mistake.
Still, I’d like to try to improve my relationship with Henry, if I can. But how can I break through his resentment much less his passive demeanor? The whole sorry situation would be hopeless if I weren’t such a good cook. As my mama always told me, if you can set a tasty table, you can always call them home.
There’s a lot of truth to her wisdom, which is why I was just pulling out the fudge pie, hot from my oven. The pie was a recipe I’d engineered to taste like the fudge pie they serve in the Bluebonnet Café in Marble Falls, Texas, a place Henry and I used to roam during bluebonnet season back when we still lived in the Woodlands.
I sliced my pie and placed two warm slabs of the chocolate treat on my rosy dessert plates before topping the slices with scoops of vanilla ice cream. I placed the plates on my kitchen table’s beautiful rose chintz placemats complete with matching cloth napkins. I poured two steaming mugs of coffee, which I splashed with vanilla-flavored cream, and served the mugs as if they were a garnish to the pie.
I handed Henry a shiny dessert fork over his newspaper and sat down in my chair across the table from his. He stared at the pie in front of him, then up at me.
“Looks good,” he said.
I had already slipped a bite into my mouth. If this didn’t taste like love, nothing did.
“Anything happen while I was in Denver?”
Henry shrugged. “No,” he said as he cut his fork through the rich fudge.
I pressed on, hoping for a snatch of meaningful conversation. “So what did you do with yourself while I was gone?”
“Not much.”
“Any calls?” I asked.
“Hmmm,” he said as he thoughtfully chewed. “Seems like the phone rang when I was in the garage earlier this afternoon.”
Hurray! A multiword response!
I took another bite of pie and a sip of coffee, then stood and walked over to the answering machine, which was perched on our kitchen desk, and pressed the message button.
To my delight, our daughter’s voice filled the room. “Mom, where are youuuuuu?” I could hear my grandson cooing in the background, probably balanced on his mother’s hip.
I had to smile at that picture: my baby with her baby. How I missed them.
I listened as Mandy waited for me to pick up. When I didn’t, she continued her message. “Listen, I’m on my way to the airport. I’m giving Ray a quick send-off as his company called him to Cairo to resolve some sort of emergency, a problem they’re having with the latest software update they installed in the subway system, the Metro, they call it.”
I looked over at Henry, who was still enjoying his afternoon snack. Our daughter continued, “With Ray’s mom on her Hawaiian cruise, I thought I’d check the fares to Denver for the weekend so I wouldn’t be here alone with Kyle. So, believe it or not, I found a wonderful deal and . . .”
Kyle laughed, followed by what sounded like Mandy readjusting him on her hip. “So, Kyle and I, we’re on the way to Denver, today. Surprise!”
I clapped my hands and squealed in delight.
Mandy added, “I’ll be in Denver about 7:30 tonight. I hope you get this message and you’ll be there to pick me up.” She hesitated. “I’m on the Southwest flight 335 from Houston, okay?” She continued, “I hope to see you in the pickup lane at DIA.”
I grinned and glanced back at Henry. “That’s what I get for forgetting to turn my cell phone back on after the TV interview.” Henry simply nodded, then stood to take his empty dessert plate to the sink.
Though I felt like twirling around the kitchen, I suppressed my delight for Henry’s sake. “If we leave now we’ll have just enough time to run by Walmart before we head out to Denver,” I said.
“Let me grab my wallet and keys,” was his no-nonsense response.
I spent the two-and-a-half-hour drive to the airport with an all-but-silent Henry, who played Kenny Rogers’s classics on the CD player, including his favorite song, “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town.” Unfortunately, those lyrics stood as a musical wall between us every twenty or so minutes of our trip. I was relieved when he pulled our Lincoln into the underground pickup lane at the Denver International Airport. It was there, just under the Southwest sign, where I spied my babies. Mandy—a redheaded beauty like her mama—was standing next to her luggage, a collapsed stroller, and a car seat that was shrouded by blue fabric. All I could see of the baby were two chubby hands reaching for his own kicking feet. Mandy, who was already back in her prepregnancy jeans, was looking good while fumbling in her large red-leather purse for her cell phone, to call me, no doubt. I pointed and exclaimed, “Look, Henry, there!”
“I see them,” he said as he pulled up to the curb into a space a car was just exiting. Before Henry came to a complete stop, I’d shoved my door open and bounded toward my daughter, my arms outstretched. “My darlin’,” I cried as I wrapped her in my arms. I hadn’t seen her since she and Kyle had vanished some eight months earlier from the departure lane one level above me in this very airport. It wasn’t that I hadn’t tried to get down for a visit; according to Mandy, it was never “the right time.” But what I really think is that she was just trying to show her independence after having to live with us through so much of her pregnancy.
“You got my message,” she breathed with relief as she hugged me back. “Where were you all day?”
“Didn’t I tell you? I had a TV interview in Denver. I forgot to turn on my cell phone after the show,” I admitted as I turned to my grandson. There he was, my beautiful, precious grandchild in his car seat. I leaned over and spoke in a soft singsong, “How’s Mimi’s little Kyle?”
Behind me, Mandy hugged her dad, just before he scooped her luggage into the trunk of our car.
Kyle gave me a cute little baby grin and raised his arms to me. I quickly unstrapped the child and lifted him into my arms, and he snuggled onto my shoulder while I patted his bottom.
I turned with my prize and said to my daughter, “He’s beautiful.”
Her smile faded. “I had him all settled in his car seat, Mom.”
“Never mind that,” I said. I lowered him so I could gaze into his startling blue eyes. “I’ll get him resettled into that contraption when I’m done squeezing him.” I turned back to Kyle. “Now you’re with your Mimi. Don’t you worry about your ol’ mommy.”
I grinned at my daughter, who seemed as dumbstruck as her father.
Well, she is his daughter, after all.
“This is going to be the best visit ever,” I said, ignoring their rude behavior.
I put my grandson back into his car seat while his mother watched. “Now Mimi is gonna take you home, little darling, right where you belong.”
Donna
5
Crushing Circumstances
My mother leaned on me as we walked out of the Gold Rush Grocery Store. Her frail body was shaking, probably from the alcohol in her system as well as the confrontation she’d just had with Evie. And, as far as I’m concerned, regardless of my mother’s blood alcohol level, Evie had no call to create or add to such hysterics. I sniffed. Why, if I could charge Evie for either her immaturity or lack of good judgment, she’d be in handcuffs right now, stepmother or not.
Why couldn’t she see Dee Dee for who she is, a woman who’d lost so much? I mean, if Evie was the good Christian she claimed to be, where was her compassion and grace? As far as I could tell, Evie was stil
l stuck in junior high, brawling with some girl over a guy. I shook my head. Poor Dad, what has he gotten himself into with this new bride of his?
When Doreen stumbled on a small stone in the parking lot, I pulled her close in an effort to help her catch her balance. Being in this near embrace ignited a thirty-year-old memory of her as my mom, snuggling with me in a rocking chair, reading a bedtime story, singing a lullaby as I drifted off to sleep in her arms. Her voice had been so beautiful. It was as if, even now, I could hear her sing, “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder . . .”
When Doreen looked up at me, I was surprised to see her tears. “I’ve gone and embarrassed my baby,” her voice cracked. She patted my shoulder, as she’d swung her arm around me for support. “Donna, can you ever forgive me?”
“Sure, Mom.”
My use of the word Mom brought another gush of tears. “You know I love you,” she said. “No matter what happens or what anybody says, you know I came back to Summit View to tell you I love you.”
I could only nod as I opened the passenger door of my Bronco, glad I’d called in a 10-7 when I arrived at the market, letting dispatch know I was offline. I’d turn my radio back on when I got Doreen settled. For now, I pushed aside my brown bag lunch of cold pasta chicken salad to clear off the seat before finally facing my mother. “I do know you love me, Mom,” I said with a slight crack to my voice.
Calmed, she climbed into the passenger side of my truck, then looked down at me. “Are you taking me to jail for embarrassing you and your stepmother?”
“No, I . . .”
She held the door open. “You should. I mean for my safety. That woman threatened me, didn’t you hear?”
I shook my head and looked up at Doreen. The lines in her forehead had hardened into such desperation I had to pause. “No, Mom, I’m not taking you to jail. I’m taking you home.”
Bake Until Golden: A Novel (The Potluck Catering Club) Page 3