by Susan Schild
After checking and rechecking her messages for the tenth time, she breathed out, and muttered, “Roy, your Mama’s trying to drive herself crazy.” No one was going to respond so quickly to an email she’d written just two hours ago. Frowning, she reminded herself that no one may respond, ever. The sliver of confidence diminished. She was green, a rookie. They’d be able to see that from her note. She shuddered inwardly, knowing she may need to saddle up and move to Austin if it meant a real, live job.
She jumped at the knock on her door. Cradling Roy on her shoulder, she opened the door.
Dare was red-faced, dripping with perspiration, and his guarded expression seemed to say, I know you’re in the same camp as my mother. His eyes did not meet hers as he mumbled. “I need to use your bathroom . . .” But his face lit up when he saw the puppy. Grinning, he reached out to pat Roy. “Who’s this little dude?”
Linny slid him over to Dare’s shoulder. “His name is Roy, and he’s a darling, but let me tell you the trouble he got into last week . . .”
At the Good Golly Miss Molly Sub Shop, Linny waited at one of the outdoor picnic tables while Dare placed their order. Glancing at the billowy clouds that hinted at afternoon showers, Linny sighed contentedly as the breeze cooled her skin—such a relief after the heat of the morning. Would this summer ever end? From behind her sunglasses, she glanced inside and watched Dare flirting up a storm with the goth girl at the counter whose black lips curved into a coquettish smile. Linny shook her head admiringly. Youth, beauty, and sex were powerful engines.
Catching her eye through the window, Dare held up a bag and gave her a gap-toothed grin as he walked out the door. Pausing to hold the door for a frazzled-looking young mother and her two whining kids, he shambled over to the table. “Thanks, Linny.” As he handed her change, Linny glanced at it, raised her eyebrows, and grumbled, “I need a job just to pay for your lunches.”
Dare grinned, slurped his milkshake and went to work in earnest on a foot-long sub stacked with meat. Six inches in, he paused to take another pull of his milkshake, and cocked his head at her, “Mom said you got canned.”
Linny eyed him, and sighed. Whatever happened to the notion of respecting one’s elders? “I did,” she admitted.
“Bummer.” He patted his mouth with a napkin. “So what are you going to do?” Sipping her iced tea, Linny looked at him, marveling at how fast the sullenness had switched off. The remote, ticked-off expression was gone, and his questioning look was earnest. Chewing a bite of her turkey sub, she thought about it. “I’m thinking about starting my own business.”
“Sweet.” He sucked down the last of his shake and pointed at her with a limp French fry. “You should hire me as an executive. I’m going to be a business major.”
Linny smiled. “We’ll see how your performance goes. You got off to a slow start this morning.”
He pretended to bluster. “The job was complicated. There was a steep learning curve.”
Linny laughed. From the corner of her eye she saw a familiar red truck pull into a parking space beside her car. Her heart pounded and she deliberately examined her last bit of sandwich. She watched him surreptitiously from behind her shades. If she kept her head down, Jack Avery might not see her.
But she saw him raise his brows in recognition, smile, and walk toward their table. Glancing at the muscled shoulders of the hunk across from her, he hesitated. Linny thought she saw a knowing look flicker across his face. Good grief. He thought she was a cougar, and young Dare was her boy-toy. Why should she care, though? He dated a nymphet. Dare gazed lovingly down at the remainder of his sub, but just maybe Jack thought his loving gaze was for Linny. She gave the boy a beguiling smile—which he didn’t see—and tried to toss her hair back over her shoulder in the wildly sexy way they do in hair color commercials, but the tossing movement created a sharp pain in her neck. Trying not to grimace, she watched Jack’s face close as he walked away.
Back home, Dare sat on her couch with the puppy draped over his shoulders like a fur stole, took a selfie and posted it with one hand. “I’m getting my teeth fixed this afternoon, but I can work for you all this week.”
She eyed him. “No texting, keep up the pace, and you’re on.”
Nodding sheepishly, the young man agreed, and they mapped out a plan for repairs.
A few minutes later, Dare whistled softly as he drew a measuring tape along the living room walls, and scribbled calculations for how many sheets of drywall he’d need. Pulling out his phone, he snapped photos, explaining, “Before shots. Fans love ’em.”
Linny put her chin in her hand and watched him, tried to hide her smile.
His brow wrinkled as he examined the makeshift floor of cardboard and torn linoleum. “This floor is butt ugly. Are we going to do something about it, too?”
Linny cocked her head. “Have you ever done flooring or carpeting?”
“Sort of. Worked one day with Jerry’s crew doing hardwoods.” He gave a cocky grin and pointed to her laptop. “But I can look up the parts I don’t know, right? How hard could it be?”
Rubbing her forehead, Linny thought about it. Her mouth twitched as she remembered almost coming to blows with Andy while building a brick walkway that looked so easy on the DIY channel. “You can give it a shot, but Andy had the ‘Twice Rule’ about projects. They’re always twice as hard, take twice as long, and cost twice as much as you think.”
Dare ducked his head and crouched to give a fake cuff to Roy, who counterattacked by fake-gnawing at his hand. “Andy was a cool dude. I liked him.”
“I did, too,” Linny replied softly.
Linny’s phone rang while Dare was at Lowe’s the next morning buying supplies. Assuming it was Mary Catherine calling to get a status report on her son’s work ethic, Linny chirped a cheery hello.
The caller’s voice was hesitant. “Uh, Linny? Is this Linny Taylor?”
Linny flushed, and worked at sounding crisp after her sorority-girl-voiced hello. “It is.”
“This is Sasha Morgan over at Badin Technology. Miriam Cason forwarded an email you sent her this morning. She knew we were looking at bringing in training, and she seems to think highly of you.”
Every one of Linny’s nerve endings was wired, and her breathing slowed. “Great.” She picked up a pen, and held it poised over a pad of paper. “How can I help you?”
“We got bad feedback on a recent client survey, and my Director, Faye Simpson, wants all of the call center staff to upgrade their customer service skills. She’s reviewing a handful of proposals, and I thought you might want to submit one.”
Could this really be happening? Linny’s heart raced. “I’d love to.”
Sasha continued. “The deadline for the proposals was yesterday, but if you can get yours to me by the close of business today, I can see that Faye looks at it. She’s going to make a decision within the next few days.”
“I appreciate the opportunity. Can you give me the details—team size, time frame, results you want?” Linny’s brain whirred.
Sasha spelled out the details, and ended the call by saying, “And, Linny, sharpen your pencil on the pricing, because we don’t have much of a budget.”
As she rang off, Linny scooped up the dog and did a careful but happy waltz around the living room. Roy snuffled her neck and licked her. Thank goodness, Linny exulted. Lowering Roy to the floor, she glanced at the clock and her pulse quickened. She’d have to scramble to pull together a strong proposal by the end of the day. Twisting a strand of hair, she stared unseeingly out the window. She usually ran a class with twenty-two participants. At a twenty-four-hour-a-day center for taking calls from customers, having employees available to answer the phones would be the big issue. Over several days, she could present the program to half the group in the morning and the other half in the afternoon, and keep the phone lines manned. The pieces came together in her head, and her fingers flew over the keyboard.
Later, Dare shuffled in, awkwardly embracing several sheet
s of drywall.
“I was planning to help you, but a company wants a proposal from me by the end of the day.” She tried to keep the excitement out of her voice.
“Very cool.” Pulling an iPod from his pocket, he slipped in his ear buds. “I’ll be as quiet as I can.”
Running a box fan to drown out the noise, Linny went to work on a design for the program. When Dare finished for the afternoon, she hardly noticed, giving him an absent-minded wave. At 4:40, she spell checked the proposal for the third time, printed it, and proofread the hard copy twice. She made herself get up and drink a Zing Energy Drink that Dare had left in her fridge, and after the caffeine kicked in, she proofread it yet again. Shuddering, she recalled the note she’d almost emailed to a Kipling client in which she’d left the L out of ‘public. ’ At 4:58, her eyes were bleary and her back ached from hunching at the computer. Sending up a fervent prayer, she rubbed the Lucky Duck, and hit Send.
Drained, Linny stood at the open door of the refrigerator, frowning as she gazed at her options—five more of Dare’s Zing drinks, a handful of deflated grapes, and the last smidgen of her Mama’s Hamburger Helper. She thought about Dottie showing up at her door with her gift of comfort food, and picked up the phone. It’d been too long since she’d seen her mother. “Hey, there. Are we too late for that Early Bird special at the cafeteria?”
At the K & W, a line of hungry seniors snaked onto the sidewalk, waiting for the doors to open. Glancing at her Timex, Dottie patted the side of her poufy hair and grumbled, “If they say they open at five thirty, they should open at five thirty. I’ve got five thirty-one.”
“Good evening, folks.” The manager waved as he opened the door.
Linny held the door for her mother who patted her arm and whispered, “This supper is my treat. You get whatever you want.”
Linny tried to demur, but Dottie wouldn’t hear of it. After loading their trays, the two women arrived at the dessert station. Dottie motioned with her head to yellow and red shimmering bowls of Jell-O. “Those might be good for you. Practically no calories.” She slipped a hefty piece of pecan pie and a bowl of banana pudding on her own tray.
“So what have you been up to?” Linny dipped her fork into the green bean casserole.
“I’ve been canning all week—carrots, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts, all fresh from what’s left of my garden. Remind me when we get home; I’ve got some set aside for you.”
Linny made a face. “Kate and I used to hate canning time. The kitchen was so dang hot.”
“Still is.” Her mother sighed happily as she took a bite of mashed potatoes. “But we always had a full pantry, even through the lean years.”
Linny cocked her head. “I know we didn’t have a lot of money, but I don’t remember us being poor.”
Her mother dipped her next bite of potatoes in gravy. “We bumped along, but I was always careful about money. We had bad stretches when your daddy started building houses, and then there were the other times when the economy was bad.”
Linny made a face. “I remember going to the grocery store with you and all the rules. You never bought one item not on the list.”
“Impulse buys will ruin your food budget,” Dottie said briskly.
“We were never allowed to buy chips, drinks, or candy, either,” Linny remembered feeling martyred.
“That’s right.” Her mother looked pleased with herself. “Wastes of money, plus, you girls ended up with good teeth and stayed trim, mostly.” She speared a stewed apple, looking thoughtful. “Being thrifty helped us through the ups and downs most people have.”
Linny flushed at the reminder of her current ‘down’, but glancing at her mother’s benign expression, saw she wasn’t making a dig. She felt a pang of guilt, realizing she’d been so consumed with her own instability that she’d just assumed her mother was doing okay financially. The squash in her mouth turned to sawdust, and she had to work to swallow it. What if she wasn’t? What if Dottie had listened to that Southern senator on the infomercial, and gotten one of those reverse mortgages? What if the rent she wasn’t drawing on the trailer was sending her down the red dirt road to poverty? She lowered her voice, and asked anxiously, “How are you doing for money? Are you getting along?”
“You remember I handled the money for the family,” her mother said quietly, “Your daddy was good at making money but not good at saving it, so I took that on.”
Linny thought about it, and remembered her mother was the only parent who spent time at the bill-paying desk. “I’m not sure I knew that,” she admitted.
“Saving money’s not rocket surgery,” Dottie began, taking a ladylike bite of pecan pie.
Linny dabbed her mouth with a napkin to hide her smile.
Her mother continued. “When the real estate market was high, I sold off a parcel of land to that man that built the convenience store, and I’ve always leased out the land that borders the house to other farmers for their crops. I put the money in no-load mutual funds with a conservative mix. I’ve saved up a tidy little sum.” Dottie’s eyes danced, and she whispered a number to Linny.
The amount she whispered made Linny gasp, and lay down her spoon.
“Good Lord, Mama.” She gazed at the woman she’d sometimes thought of as ‘Ditsy Dottie’ with new respect—and even a dose of envy—for using her smarts to gain security. She had not let her life get hijacked by a spendthrift man. Pointing at her, she said quietly, “You’re one smart lady.”
Dottie ducked her head, but looked pleased. “I don’t know about that.”
Linny grinned, and shook her head. The fact that her unassuming, brown wren of a mother was such an accomplished businesswoman made her more excited about the hatchling idea she had about starting her own business. Linny shoveled an extra-large spoonful of Jell-O in her mouth to keep herself from blabbing. She wanted to tell Dottie about her plans, but what if she failed yet again?
For a moment, the two women each chewed in thoughtful silence.
“I want to have a baby shower for Jerry and Kate at my house,” her mother announced. “I’ve got a little money set aside, and I want to do it right. Splash out a little bit.”
“Oh.” Her stomach gripped as she pictured guests traipsing through Mama’s clutter. Hurriedly, she added, “Kate and Jerry wouldn’t want any fuss.”
“Nonsense.” Dottie gave a dismissive wave. “It’s their first child. They deserve a celebration.”
When her mother had that stubborn look on her face, the discussion was over. She sighed, feeling heavy with dread. “Okay.”
“Then it’s settled.” Her mother grinned. “We can play all sorts of fun games. There’s one where you have to draw a picture of the baby on a paper plate on your head, and the guess-the-mama’s-stomach-circumference game, and the one where you get timed to see who can be the fastest at changing a baby diaper on a teddy bear.” Her mother shook her head and looked nostalgic, probably having rosy memories of past showers. “Let’s not forget the one with the melted candy bars in the diapers.”
Let’s do forget. Linny groaned inwardly. Kate would loathe a shower like that, especially at Mama’s house. How could she redirect her mother tactfully? “Mama, I got an idea from that Southern Living and Loving show you love so much.” she began. Linny had never watched a minute of the Southern prime time show that was really a soap opera, but she’d begun the lie. She took a long swallow of tea as she racked her brain for a likely plot twist. “That couple that’s always fighting but is really madly in love had a co-ed baby shower instead of a traditional all-female shower. They made it a barbecue, just for family and a small group of friends, and that party was a big hit.” She nodded her head for emphasis.
“Really? A baby barbecue.” Her mother looked thoughtful. “Which couple was it, because I thought I saw every episode?”
“It was the pretty, slim woman and that good-lookin’ man,” Linny said vaguely, and went on in a bright voice. “You have such a nice, big yard. It’d be great fo
r a pig picking.”
“Well, I think a baby barbecue’s a real nice idea. Creative.” Dottie mused.
“Well, let’s do it!” Linny wanted to seal the deal before Dottie changed her mind. “I’ll talk with Kate and Jerry, and get a guest list from them. How about two Saturdays from now? Let’s have someone bring it all in so you won’t have to lift a finger.”
“That sounds just fine.” Dottie reached in her pleather purse, pulled out her tip calculator card, and sighed happily. “Those women on Southern Living and Loving are so clever.”
Back home, Linny sipped a glass of wine and sprawled on the couch, her toes scratching Roy’s back. It had been a good day. She’d headed her mother off about the shower idea, had the dumb luck of getting a shot at the Badin program, and Roy was strong and warm at her feet. Glancing around the room, she was thrilled with the sections of drywall Dare had put up, even though the task was unfinished. Important items were getting checked off her to-do list.
Suddenly Roy’s hackles rose, he scrambled to his feet and began to bark. Jumping up, Linny looked out the window and watched a car throw up dust as it barreled down the driveway toward the trailer. She wasn’t expecting anybody. Her stomach gave a flip. Just to be on the safe side, she grabbed the baseball bat from under the bed and leaned it against the door. Stepping onto the porch, she watched a red Camaro with a primer gray door skid to a stop, and a teenaged girl step out, exhaling a plume of blue smoke.
Looking more closely, Linny saw the teenager was actually a pretty young woman with lined eyes and scarlet lips. Her flaming red hair was heaped into a tousled bouffant, and her sundress was cut low. Taking a final drag, she flicked her cigarette into the yard.
Linny felt a rush of anger. “Can I help you?” she asked, her tone sharp.