The Potluck Club

by Linda Evans Shepherd

  I signed back. “Sounds good. I’ll talk to Evie.”

  “Good,” Michelle signed, then went back to her cereal. I watched her for a moment. My goodness, she was so pretty. Long dark hair pulled back in a thick ponytail. Porcelain skin. Large dark eyes that mirrored every emotion she’d ever felt. She was so beautiful . . . so perfect . . . except that she couldn’t hear.

  Why my daughter? I’d wondered more than a few times over the years. There was no answer for it, of course. Life happens, and life isn’t perfect. “In a perfect world,” I’d been known to say, knowing it was something I’d never see until I reached the pearly gates.

  Michelle looked up at me. “What?” she said aloud. Her mouth was half full of cereal.

  I smiled at her. “I was just thinking how pretty you are. Obviously without the cereal hanging out of your mouth.”

  Her eyes rolled. “Mom . . .”

  “I can’t help myself,” I signed. “I’m your mother.”

  She swallowed, stuck her tongue out at me, then continued in her conversation. “Speaking of your children,” she signed, “your son called me yesterday at work.” Michelle’s job had installed a TTY telephone system just for her needs, enabling her to send and receive phone calls.

  “Sam or Tim?”

  “Tim.”

  I felt my eyebrows lift. “What’s up?”

  “Not the cost of living. Tim and Samantha have decided to build a new house.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Tim says he wants a bigger house.” I shook my head, bewildered. “But why?” I asked, raising my hands palm up.

  “Mom,” Michelle spoke aloud. “Ask him. Not me. He’s your son.” She stood and walked her bowl and spoon over to the sink. “I need to get going,” she signed.

  I merely nodded at her. What’s going on in Baton Rouge?

  “Have you spoken to Tim lately?” I asked Samuel as soon as he opened his eyes. He was still lying in the bed, flat on his back the way he’d slept as long as I’d been married to him, and I suppose his whole life long before that. How he manages to sleep flat on his back is a mystery to me, but he does.

  He yawned. Morning breath hit me square in the face, but I overlooked it. If something was going on with my son, I wanted to know about it firsthand. As far as I was concerned, if Samuel knew that Tim and Samantha were planning to build a new house and had not told me . . . well . . .

  I planted my fists firmly on my hips.

  “No, why?” Samuel asked, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He stood, stretched, and made his way to the master bath.

  “Did you know he and Samantha are planning to build a new house?” I asked, following on his heels.

  He stopped and looked back at me. “Really?” he asked, then continued on toward the bath, where he shut the door in my face.

  I spoke through the door. “Why in the world would they want to do that?” I asked. “Their house is big enough.”

  I heard the toilet flush and the sink water run before the door reopened. Samuel stood before me with a tube of toothpaste in one hand and his toothbrush in the other. “What are you stressing about, Lizzie? So the boy wants to build a new house. On his salary he can afford it.”

  I watched him squeeze a generous amount of Crest onto the toothbrush. “A mother knows when something is up.”

  Samuel chuckled in a way that bordered on loving condescension, if that makes a bit of sense. “All right, Mother.” He turned toward the bathroom sink. “I’m calling Pastor Kevin this morning. What about you? What are your plans with Jan?”

  I pulled my nightgown over my head. If I didn’t get ready soon, I’d be late for school. “I’m calling her during my lunch break . . . will probably go over after school today. I thought I’d take her some of my lasagna from the freezer.”

  “Sounds good,” he said, his words garbled from brushing his teeth. I heard him spit and rinse as I hung my gown on a hook inside our closet. For a moment I stood in the chill of the house, wearing nothing but my underwear. I just stood and stared at a rackful of clothes and wondered what to wear until Samuel came out of the bathroom and stopped short. “Well, good morning, sunshine!” he exclaimed.

  Something told me I’d be late for work after all.

  21

  The town’s most cautious woman—

  in a speeding car . . .

  Clay took his time getting ready that morning. He even made a cup of coffee, using the hot plate in his room and an instant coffee bag. It wasn’t nearly as good as Sal’s, but it would do in a pinch.

  He sat in his favorite chair—okay, the only chair—a La-Z-Boy recliner he’d purchased at a rummage sale sponsored by Grace Church some five or six or ten years earlier, turned on the television, and watched the morning news for updates from around the globe. He sipped on the less-than-perfect brew and made faces with each swallow, jotting words and quotes in his notebook. He called his editor, suggested they follow the recent news out of Brazil a bit more closely.

  His editor agreed, giving him some extra time to check the Internet before heading over to the newsroom. In the old days he would have had to go to the office to check the AP wire. Clay praised the morning for the Internet.

  Clay disconnected the line, then got dressed. According to the local weather, it would be a bit chilly, so he grabbed the jacket his mother had given him the year before on his birthday before bidding Woodward and Bernstein good-bye and then slipping out the door.

  Moments later, he stood on Main Street, waiting for a slow stream of cars to pass before crossing over to Higher Grounds. When at last there was a break in traffic, he stepped off the curb, ambled about halfway to the center of the road, then jumped to the yellow line in caution as a car nearly plowed him over.

  He spun his head around. No one was ever caught speeding in the center of town, and he wondered briefly where the fire was.

  Clay’s brow furrowed. Good grief, he thought. That was Lizzie Prattle, the town’s most cautious woman when it comes to driving safety. He shook his head as though trying to dislodge a thought, then made the rest of the way over to the café.

  “Wonder what that was about?” he said to no one, then pulled open the café’s door.

  22

  Café Chats

  My gasp sent the ghost of my breath swirling above the icy river that churned around me. I had somehow managed to pull free of my Bronco as the rapids dragged it into the deeper currents. What had happened? How had I come to be in these frigid waters? Clueless, I could only struggle to survive the freezing torrents.

  My next gasp for air was met by an ice-cold wave that pushed my head beneath the raging river. My ears filled with water, and I could only hear the fizzy shush of the roar above me. I pawed at the waves surrounding me, somehow jutting one hand above the icy froth. My hand was met by a strong clasp. I held tight, fighting to break my head free of the pounding surge. My would-be rescuer’s face was lost in the glare of headlights beaming through the mist, illuminating my fight to live. The river’s icy grip pulled at my body as my fingers, numb with cold, begin to slip from the hand that held mine. I gasped one last lungful of air before my head disappeared beneath the waves as my fingers slipped free. The frozen darkness pulled me downward, engulfing my very soul . . .

  My eyes popped open, and I stared at the red digits on my radio alarm clock. It was 9:00 in the morning. In a huff, I turned my back on the time, tangling my legs in the covers. For Pete’s sake, I’d only been in bed since 4:00 a.m. It was too early for the dream.

  I sat up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. There was no fighting it now. Once the dream interrupted my rest, it was over. I might as well get up.

  My misery was interrupted by a pang of hunger. Of course! I was out of bread last night and went to bed without my ham sandwich. No wonder I was awake. I was starved. Maybe I’d shower, then hit Higher Grounds Café for a good cup of joe and one of their famous Denver omelets. Sal, the woman who ran the
place, had once given me her recipe, and I was capable of making one myself, if I had such an inclination. Not!

  Besides, it would be good to see some of the regulars that gathered there every morning, though to tell the truth, I kept most of them at arm’s length.

  The bell above the door of the café jingled to announce my arrival from the autumn morning. Now, a person who had eight hours of sleep under her belt might enjoy how the sun backlit the last of the golden aspen leaves against a sky so blue that only the surrounding mountain peaks could interrupt its horizons. I, however, was not that person.

  As I walked in, the Gold Rush News reporter, Clay Whitefield, looked up from nursing his cup of coffee and nodded above his copy of The Denver Post. Clay was half Cherokee Indian and half Irish, which explained his dark freckled skin and auburn hair. He was outfitted in his gray boiled-wool jacket, still zipped to the top, over a pair of khakis. He was in his mid-thirties, with a slightly receding hairline and a pouch of a belly. He lived alone in a one-room apartment overlooking Main Street.

  “Deputy Donna, catch any wild bands of criminals last night?” he quipped, squinting against the ray of sun that followed behind me. I tipped my Rockies baseball hat. “’Fraid not.”

  He looked up at me over his reading glasses. “Oh, great. I’ll have to scratch my cover story. Got anything else for me?”

  I climbed onto the stool at the counter, playing along. “Like what?”

  “Jewel thieves would be nice. I’d plaster their mugs on the front page followed by Nobel-Prize-winning copy.”

  “Sorry, but no. Though . . .” I thought of David Harris and wondered if he had found his missing mother.

  “Though what?” Clay asked with hope.

  I grabbed a copy of the laminated breakfast menu, though I knew my options by heart. “Though nothing, unless you want to write about how Fred Westbrook lost the big one in Gold Rush Creek again.”

  Clay snorted a laugh. “Sorry, already wrote and printed that one too many times.”

  I looked up at Sally Madison, who was already waiting to take my order. Sal had probably landed in Summit View in the sixties, wearing bell-bottoms and a tie-dyed T-shirt that had somehow morphed into a red waitress uniform complete with her name embroidered on her breast pocket. I could almost imagine her forty pounds lighter with flowing blond hair. She could still be that flower child if it weren’t for the hairnet, wrinkles, and crisp white apron. Sal lived out behind the café in the Higher Grounds Trailer Park, not far from Wade’s charming aluminum home. Of course, the thing that distinguished Sal’s trailer from Wade’s was the psychedelic vintage peace symbols hanging about her windows. There was, however, another feature that distinguished Wade’s trailer from hers, and that was his Coors beer can collection littering the front yard.

  “Good morning,” Sal said a bit too cheerfully.

  I ignored the greeting and grunted. “The usual.”

  “Denver omelet?”

  “And extra strong coffee, if you’ve got any dregs,” I answered.

  “Coming right up,” she announced before handing the scribbled order to Larry, the short-order cook. He shot me a glare, still steamed over his gas pump ticket. It made me almost hope he didn’t poison me. Though my murder might tie up a lot of loose ends and give Clay his cover story.

  Sal sloshed a cupful of black coffee in front of me, and I took my first swig. It was nasty. Just the way I liked it.

  What was left of my peaceful morning was broken by the rustle of someone sliding into the seat next to me.

  “Deputy Vesey?”

  I leaned over my mug but cocked my head to the side. “Well, if it isn’t David Harris. I wondered if you were still around.”

  “Yeah, I took all my saved-up vacation to spend some serious time mountain biking and looking for my birth mom. Though, I can’t say I found any leads. Time to get back to work. I catch a plane back to L.A. this afternoon.”

  This time I really got a good look at the man, a rather Julio Iglesias look-alike. Okay, make that Julio’s son, Enrique. How had this little detail escaped my attention before?

  “What do you do out there? Star in the movies?”

  David’s eyes sparked. “Nope, though my mom’s Harmony Harris, a star in her own right back in the sixties. I’m just a paramedic.”

  “Your mom’s a movie star? I thought you said she was missing?” “Harmony was my adoptive mom. I just buried her a few months ago. Cancer.”

  I nodded. “A loss prompting you to look for your ‘real’ mother,” I stated in my matter-of-fact voice.

  David’s brown eyes met mine as a shy smile spread into a genuine grin, making my heart flutter, a reaction that I found extraordinarily annoying.

  “Something like that.” He leaned one elbow on the counter and turned to face me. “Deputy, I couldn’t help but overhear you say something about Jewel? Were you talking about my birth mother?”

  The intensity of his brown-eyed gaze startled me. How could I have missed his smoldering eyes? Maybe it was because he hadn’t looked so attractive when he was sick and with slush on his face. At least, not like now. Here he was shaven, his black curls combed back in a most attractive fashion, and wearing a camel leather jacket over a red button-down shirt with blue jeans. I gave him the once-over, for here sat a man who could break a girl’s heart. That realization made me determine that he wasn’t about to get near mine.

  “No, it’s been a rather slow crime month. We were just cracking a joke about imaginary jewel thieves stirring up some excitement. Sorry, but I haven’t turned up anything about your mother.”

  David pulled out a card and wrote his name and number on the back. “Well, I’ve got to get back home. But if you should run across any information about my mother, would you please give me a call?”

  “Sure. By the way, how was your stay with Wade?”

  “I wanted to ask you about that. Is that guy your boyfriend?”

  To my chagrin, I could feel a blush creeping across my cheeks. “Now, why is that your business?”

  “I don’t mean to pry. But . . .”

  I swiveled my stool to face him and folded my arms. “But what?”

  David shrugged. “It’s just that I saw your picture there.”

  My voice actually squeaked. “My picture?”

  “Yeah, of you and Wade. Looked like it was taken back in high school. You were all fancy, in pink chiffon. Wade had his arm around you and looked like a guy in love.”

  I swiveled back to my coffee and took a sip. “Oh, that.”

  “You were high school sweethearts then?”

  Sal plopped my steaming Denver omelet in front of me. “We were, but that was a long time ago.”

  “Then you’re not together?”

  “No, not that it’s your business.”

  “I’m sorry to pry, but that still doesn’t explain . . .” He caught my sideward glare and stopped.

  I put my fork down and turned back to face him. “What? Explain what?”

  David cleared his throat. “The Wall of Deputy Donna.”

  “What wall?”

  “He’s got a wall of newspaper clippings about you. You know, from the local paper, like when you first came to town, when you captured the bear that climbed into the mayor’s tree, stuff like that. It made for really interesting reading.”

  I stabbed a bite of omelet with my fork. “No kidding? Well, that’s news to me. Wade and I broke up thirteen years ago.”

  “Oh. Well. When I come back to town, I may look you up. After reading all those stories, I almost feel like I know you.” He smiled when he said that, a smile that this time made my heart almost stop.

  I wanted to say, “Forget it and good riddance” but instead, I croaked, “Sure.”

  I watched as David left, catching the smirk on Clay Whitefield’s face.

  “Donna, I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”

  “That man is not my boyfriend,” I said as I turned back in a huff to face my cooling omel
et.

  The bell above the door jingled again, and in walked Wade Gage.

  Wade folded his tall frame on the stool that David had just vacated.

  “Donna! Long time no see. Wasn’t that your boyfriend who just left?”

  I could hear Clay snicker behind me.

  “No,” I said casually. “But why do you ask?”

  “Well, when I allowed that guy to drive me home the other night, at your insistence, I might add, I had no idea he was going to use my entire stash of toilet paper.”

  “So he really was sick from Rosey’s enchiladas?”

  “I’m afraid so,” he said with a disgusted sigh.

  So help me, that was funny, and, try as I might, I couldn’t help but giggle. Wade did a double take. “I’m glad you’re amused. Toilet paper don’t grow on trees, you know.”

  I tried to take a sip of my cold coffee, but somehow I managed to breathe it up my nose. I grabbed my napkin as I snorted coffee all over my favorite white tee and jeans.

  Wade stared at me. “Donna? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I’m sorry, Wade. That just struck me as funny.”

  Wade gave me one of his most charming grins. “Can’t say that it’s not a pleasure to see you smile.”

  I stopped then and looked at him hard. I took another bite of my omelet before asking, “So, Wade. What’s this about the Wall of Donna?”

  Wade was just taking his first sip of coffee when he choked.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Whatever is wrong, Wade? Something I said?”

  Wade wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “That friend of yours told you about that?”

  “He wanted to know if you were my boyfriend.”

  “What’d you say?”

  I leaned back and glared. “No! Come on, Wade, we’ve been over for thirteen years.”

  Wade stared at me for a moment. “You’re right, Donna. I’m nothing but a drunk, and you’re nothing but a bitter woman with a permanent case of PMS.”

  Wade stood and flipped a few bucks on the counter.

  I turned to watch his retreat, which came complete with the revving of his truck engine before he peeled out of the parking lot. I caught Clay staring at me. “You know, Donna, if I started a gossip column, your antics alone would pick up my circulation.”