Million Dollar Dilemma

by Judy Baer

  “Jane is coming later, but her husband has to work.”

  The heads all bobbed in understanding.

  “Can you go for coffee?” Greta asked. “The café still has peanut bars.”

  My mouth automatically began to water. The bars are simply chunks of homemade white cake frosted with creamy white frosting and rolled in chopped peanuts. Fannie’s café should be recommended in every food guide in America for her peanut bars.

  “Sure.” I glanced at my watch. Ten-thirty on Saturday morning. I’d left the house at eight, Grandma Mattie already talking on the phone to one of her old cronies about the state of her flower garden. The fifteen-year-old boy we’d hired to water and mow had decided that it needed to be done only on an emergency basis—when he noticed something was wilted and dying.

  “Running” uptown for something in Simms is true only if one is running in something viscous, like chilled maple syrup. Once I committed myself to running uptown, I knew I had better be prepared to spend at least two or three hours doing it. More than once when dashing uptown for a bag of onions or a carton of salt, I’d been waylaid and ended up dragging home hours later after having been to an auction sale, the birthing of a calf or practice for a Sunday-school musical or a coffee party.

  “I’m glad you came home,” Greta said, great relief in her voice. “People were beginning to talk.”

  We entered the café and I breathed deeply, savoring the smell of fresh old-fashioned doughnuts, oatmeal sandwich cookies with pink frosting centers and steaming coffee. I could also detect from the back a hint of the aroma of the roast beef simmering in broth, which would be served at lunchtime. How many times had my grandfather and I come here, sat in the booth at the back and ordered half a hot beef sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy and a large orange pop? Pleasant memories washed over me, and I felt my shoulders relax.

  Tulip Torgerson, waitress at Fannie’s since its doors had opened in the early sixties, stalked over with two coffee cups and a steaming glass pot of coffee. Tulip, who took her job very seriously, still wore the uniform they’d required of her forty years ago—a pink waitress uniform, a white ruffled apron with pink piping and solid pink pocket, and a little white nurselike hat made of starchy fabric and lace and perched on the reddest of red artificially colored hair. Her uniform is crisp and pressed as ever. Her weathered and wrinkled face, however, could use a little ironing.

  A smoker, Tulip has developed those little lines around her lips, which causes her bright pink lipstick to run hither and yon on her face. The lipstick that makes its way onto her teeth, however, manages to stay in place.

  “We missed you,” she said bluntly as she filled two thick china cups. “What’d you run away for?”

  “I didn’t exactly run away,” I ventured.

  “Huh. Sure looked like it to me.” That put me in my place. “You’ll have a half a roast beef, mashed potatoes, extra gravy, orange pop and a peanut bar, right?”

  “But Tulip, it’s only ten-thirty in the morning.”

  “It’s ten forty-five now. Drink your coffee and I’ll bring it out at eleven. That’s when lunch hour starts around here.”

  I looked at Greta, who was grinning. “Oh, why not? And bring the same for my friend.”

  Tulip nodded approvingly and tromped off, filling empty coffee cups as she went.

  “It’s good to be back.” I leaned back into the cracked plastic bench and sighed. “It’s so much simpler here.”

  “Things don’t change much,” Greta agreed. “Best and worst is the fact that when you don’t know what you’re doing or thinking, someone else always does.” She lowered her voice. “Tulip is a hoot, isn’t she? With all that red dye she’s been putting on her head over the years, I’m surprised it hasn’t leaked down and rotted her brain.”

  “Be nice,” I chided, grinning.

  “Okay. I love Tulip, you know that. I’ll pick on you instead. What’s going on between you and Ken, anyway?”

  “Going on?” I said cautiously.

  “You never came home after you moved to the Cities. Ken was about as down-in-the-mouth as I’ve ever seen him. Then he went off to Minneapolis to see you, and since he came back, he’s been whistling, singing and calling the florist every other day to send you something.” Simms’s idea of a florist was a little stall in the back of the Laundromat with an FDS phone line.

  “He’s been very sweet.”

  “That’s it? Sweet? Cassia, you’ve got that guy wrapped up in a bow about you. What are your intentions?”

  “My intentions? When did you become Ken’s father? Are you protecting his innocence?”

  Greta grinned. “Sorry. I just like the guy. And I love you. Will he ever be able to lure you back to Simms to live?”

  Three weeks ago I would have said never. But now, who knew? I didn’t, that’s for sure.

  “I don’t know. I like it where I am. Dave and Jane are there, and the supermarkets are unbelievable. I’m teaching myself to cook Chinese food. The only thing alarming about that is fish sauce. I keep thinking about what happens in aquariums.”

  “Okay, I get it. You don’t want to talk about it. Just remember, though, Ken isn’t going to let you off the hook forever.”

  I was glad to see a group of hunters burst through the door of the café. Well, not hunters, exactly. There isn’t much to hunt in the middle of summer, but men here like three things—being ready to hunt when the season does come around, hunting itself and wearing hunting clothes. Even my grandfather ignored it when church attendees came wearing camouflage pants and a khaki T-shirts and hung their blaze-orange hunting vests in the foyer. He considered it great progress to get them there at all.

  It was an amazing mishmash of camouflage clothing and testosterone descending on the little restaurant and one of the two prized round tables in the place. Each large table held eight to twelve coffee drinkers, who solved the world’s problems, elected and unelected politicians and rewrote history there every single day. One table “belonged” to the old-timers, the men who descend on the café between six and nine in the morning to drink coffee, discuss the weather and speculate about who would be doing what in the hours to come. They return again at three for a rehash, some “Yupping” and “No siree-ing.”

  The other table belongs to the “young bucks,” everyone under sixty-five who still have to punch time clocks or report to jobs. The large tables fill with them at noon. Whoever thinks women are gossips should sit with those guys once in a while.

  At four o’clock the ladies come for coffee. It’s their brief respite, a calm before the storm of the dinner hour. Grandma, who has always been allergic to gossip, calls it the “Estrogen Hour.”

  I allowed Greta to drill me with questions for nearly an hour. She asked about everything from the lottery to my love life. I’ve learned to answer carefully, because talking with Greta is a little like yelling personal information into a loudspeaker. It will be all over town at the speed of sound.

  On my way home it took all my willpower not to stop at the Dairy Queen for an ice cream cone. I’ve been preprogrammed to buy a cone every time I pass, storing up for the winter like a bear preparing for hibernation.

  Grandma, who’d obviously missed Simms more than she’d let on, had every window in the house open. The curtains were fluttering in the breeze. She’d run a load of towels and bedding and hung them on the line to dry.

  “Feels good to be home, huh, Mattie?” I hugged her and smiled. She’d found her perfume and dabbed it behind her ears, too. Just like old times.

  She put her hands on my shoulders and pressed me away from her so she could study me. “Is it?”

  “Of course.”

  “Now say it like you believe it.”

  “Am I that transparent?”

  “He’s gone, honey.”

  “Who?” I asked, as if one of us didn’t know.

  “You have to get over what happened and move on.”

  “I am…aren’t I?”

/>   “What are you going to do with the money?”

  I sat down at the kitchen table and considered the question. Many of the proposals and requests I’d received, upon further investigation, I’d found to be questionable in one way or another. “I know for sure that I can’t give the money to a group that spends seventy or more percent on administrative costs,” I told Mattie. “I want the money to go directly to the ones who need it. The search is consuming much of my time these days and I’m looking in directions that, on my own, I never would have chosen.”

  “When God closes a door, He opens a window.”

  I can’t even count how many times I’d heard her say that over the years.

  “That’s it, then. God’s been closing doors, and He just hasn’t opened any windows yet.”

  Even as I said it, I felt relief. It made complete sense. My options were dwindling while the money was accruing. I no longer believed I could not in good conscience have someone else oversee the money. Besides, I had no job. Who else was there who could take it on full-time? All the signs are here that it is mine to do. Not only that, Adam is out of the picture. Any faint thoughts I might have had about our relationship turning into something more than friendship are gone. God appears to be clearing the decks for takeoff. Mine.

  CHAPTER 31

  Ah, Simms, the place where a traffic jam is five cars stuck trying to pass a tractor on a two-lane road. In Simms, if it’s six in the morning, then you’re surely up and ready for visitors.

  That’s why Ken arrived at 7:00 a.m. looking fresh and handsome, ready to take me on “the ride” he’d promised me. Winslow, who had been awake since six, was delighted to see him. I, on the other hand, needed another cup of coffee.

  “You’ve been getting slack, Cassia. Bad influences where you’ve been living, I can tell. Back here I could catch you jogging past my place by six-thirty.” He snapped his gum and grinned, flashing those amazingly perfect white teeth.

  I couldn’t help smiling back. He is a darling man, really. I’ve grown to appreciate him more since I have been away.

  “That’s what happens when I don’t have a job. I get lazy.” I held up a plate, “Caramel roll?”

  “Just one. I want to get going—there’s lots to see.”

  “What, exactly, is it we’re going to look at?”

  “You just wait, sweetie. I want you to be surprised.”

  And surprised I was. We drove out of Simms and toward the next larger town down the road. Winslow and Boosters sat on the bench in the back of Ken’s extended cab pickup and sniffed at each other happily. They were old friends, having gone on just about as many dates together as Ken and I. The dogs were perfectly content to wait for us to finish dinner and see a movie as long as they were together. Sometimes I longed for that kind of relationship for myself—content in the moment, happy with my companion and no worries (other than, for Winslow and Boosters, at least, who would get the bigger half of the doggy treat when we returned to the truck).

  We were headed toward Sioux Falls when Ken made a right off the highway and followed a wide gravel road through some rolling hills. South Dakota has a variety of terrains as one travels east to west. Sometimes there’s a surprising little aberration in the prairie like the one to which Ken drove.

  “A new development?” I’ve lived here off and on for my entire life and hadn’t known this scenic little spot existed—a pond, trees and an unmarred vista of the prairies from the ledge of a hill. It is spectacular.

  “My latest project. Do you like it?” For once he didn’t appear supremely confident. There were lines of concern in his usually unmarked brow. Ken normally didn’t really believe in worrying. He believed in doing.

  “I love it! How many homes are going to be here? I see you’ve started digging a couple basements.”

  “Fifteen. I want the lots to be big and I don’t want to crowd out the scenery.”

  “Have you sold many yet? They will go quickly.”

  “Could have sold them all by now. I’ve got a waiting list.”

  “What are you waiting for?”

  He looked at me so intently that my intuition went into overdrive. Something was coming.

  “I wanted you to come home and pick out your favorite first.”

  A roller coaster started its downward plunge in my belly. “Ken…”

  He held up a hand. “Don’t say anything. I know you’re as skittish as a doe in hunting season. I want you to pick your favorite. Nothing more. Then I’ll sell the rest. Most of the people who’ve been inquiring about sites are about our age. There’s going to be a big influx of little kids in this neighborhood. You can also tell me where you think the playground should be.”

  Pick out my favorite lot. People my age. Children. Playgrounds. The only thing Ken hadn’t done was hum “Here Comes the Bride.”

  Funny, but if I were still living in Simms I would have backed off, saying “No way.” Today I stayed silent. Things have changed. Randy is sweet, but I’m not sure he’s the kind of guy I want for a life partner. Adam, the one who might have had that potential, has messed up royally. And Ken has been becoming more sensitive and attentive to me than I thought possible. We’ve known each other a long time, and he has no designs on my money. And this gesture of the land…

  I stuck out my hand to him. “Come on, let’s go find that playground.”

  Ken must have been watching Oprah. Or perhaps he’d looked up the topic “How to woo a woman” on the Internet.

  We walked most of the lots, brainstormed house designs for each and settled on two primo spots for swings and sandboxes. Then we came to what was obviously the prime bit of land in the development.

  Shade trees hooded the earth from the blazing sun. From beneath the spreading trees one could stand and gaze out as far as the eye could see. The heat of the day shimmered off the earth. The colors, so dramatic when we’d arrived, were all simmering into a soft palette as our eyes filled with sunlight. It was the highest point in the development and the largest lot. It would demand a stately home to fulfill its potential.

  “Log, don’t you think?” Ken asked as we settled on an outcropping of rock to gaze at the view. “Not a squatty little log cabin, of course, but something majestic. A two-story, with vaulted ceilings and an overlook into the living-room area. Maybe a fieldstone fireplace or two.”

  “Hardwood floors.”

  “Of course. And lots of windows…and a hot tub.”

  “Professional-quality appliances.”

  “Stainless steel.”

  “Bedrooms?”

  “Five. The master, three kids’ rooms and something for guests.”

  Realizing what we were doing, I stopped myself before blurting, “And bunk beds for the twins!” Ken and I were mentally playing house. It’s a slippery path to the altar when the bride’s mind is fixed on the fixtures and not on who she’s fixin’ to marry.

  I slapped myself on the thigh and started to rise. “Well, that was fun. Now…”

  “Hold your horses. I’ve got something for you.” Ken jumped to his feet and dodged behind a cluster of shrubs. When he returned, he was carrying a picnic hamper.

  “Packed especially for us by Tulip. Hungry?”

  Although it was still early, I felt ravenous. No matter what else Ken did for me, he’d brought back my appetite.

  Tulip had outdone herself with fried chicken, hardboiled eggs and tomatoes with plenty of salt and potato salad—the kind I love—with no mustard or pickles. She’d included watermelon wedges, Fannie’s famous oatmeal sandwich cookies, bottles of juice, tea and water and—were my eyes deceiving me—breath mints. In case there was some kissing going on? What a fox, that Tulip.

  “Does the whole town know we’re coming up here?” I demanded, my cheeks reddening just thinking about it. I imagined the speculation going on at the café at this very moment.

  “Nah.” Ken looked at me slyly. “I can be dis-creet.” He drawled out the word. “I’m not a clod, you know.”
>
  I burst out laughing. “No, you certainly are not. You are one of the sweetest guys on the planet.” And I truly meant it.

  We didn’t say much on the way back to town. Ken had brought with him two big rawhide bones for the dogs and we listened to them happily smacking and chewing behind us. It was, all in all, an unorthodox but highly domestic scene.

  Ken pulled up in front of the house behind Jane’s car. “I see your sister has arrived.”

  “I wish she could have come with us, but she had to work and didn’t want to leave Dave any sooner than she had to. At least she drove down for part of the weekend.” I sighed, barely realizing it.

  Ken did. “It still feels like home here, doesn’t it?”

  “To some degree it always will.”

  “Then come home, Cassia.” His eyes darkened. “We all miss you—and some of us even more than others.”

  I put a finger to his lips. They were warm and dry and I could feel the moist heat of his breath on my fingertip. “Don’t say any more just now, okay? I’ve had a lovely time today. Thank you.”

  Ken nodded and gazed at me with a look that could have melted butter. “Me, too.” Then, more “dis-creet” than I’d ever seen him, he hopped out of the pickup, pulled his seat forward and loosed Winslow. The dog loped across the lawn and flung himself under a shade tree. Boosters whimpered in back, already lonely. Then, kissing his fingertips and touching them to my forehead, Ken mouthed the words “See you later.”

  I slid out of the pickup and watched him drive away. What a diamond in the rough Ken is. And he is a known entity, someone who had had feelings for me B.L. Before Lottery.

  My heart and my head are more confused than ever.

  CHAPTER 32

  “It’s about time you got back. We were ready to send out a search party.” Jane sat at the kitchen table eating an egg salad sandwich and nibbling on a pile of potato chips.

  “Well, hello to you, too.” I rounded the table to hug Mattie, and sat down.