Dusty cleared her throat. “Umm... thanks.”
“You never said. Dress or slacks?” Corinne called from the bedroom.
“What are you wearing?”
“A dress, but no pantyhose, not in this heat. Just a light summer dress and sandals. I have plenty of sandals you can borrow, too, by the way.”
“That sounds great.” Right now anything that would get her out of here sounded great. Cade stared up at her, and Dusty decided she couldn’t just stand here and stare back at those big brown eyes and soft blonde hair. She picked up the pair of pants Cade had shed. “Let’s see if we can get these back on.”
She stood him on the counter and used her body to brace him from behind while she picked up his foot to put into the pant leg. He knew the drill, and it didn’t take long to get them on. When they were buttoned and zipped, he turned and looked in the mirror and smiled at his reflection. “Pitty.”
“Yes, pitty,” Dusty agreed softly. Geez, he was gorgeous, with soft round cheeks and tiny white teeth and eyes that sparkled under dark lashes. She swallowed, and pictured Corinne standing over her child’s crib, watching him sleep and thanking God for the miracle that now lived in her house.
Dusty shook her head and brought herself back to reality. “Okay, where’s your shirt?”
Cade bent and picked up a washcloth and held it up.
“Umm, I don’t think so.” She carried him into his bedroom – she was afraid to let his feet touch the floor, at this point – and saw a blue shirt on his bed. “I think this is what Mommy wants you to wear.” She stood him on the bed, and Cade helpfully stuck his head out for her to slip the shirt over, and threaded his arms through the sleeves like a pro. “Good job,” Dusty said.
“Oh, thank you so, so much,” Corinne said as she breezed back into the room. “I don’t know why he always fights getting dressed for me. He’s an angel for everyone else.” She wore a sleeveless mint green dress with white polka dots, and was brushing the curls out of her hair as she moved around the room, finding Cade’s shoes and socks. “I laid a couple of dresses on the bed, and the sandals are on the shelf in the closet. Thanks a million for helping me. After a year and a half, I still don’t know how other mothers do it. I am absolutely overwhelmed every minute of every day.” She turned and smiled at Cade, then turned back to Dusty. “But isn’t it wonderful?”
Dusty bit her lip and swallowed. “I wouldn’t know. I’ll go get dressed so we can get out of here.”
A car door slammed outside. “There’s your daddy, the rat. Of course he shows up now, when most of the work is done. He can put your shoes and socks on.” She tickled Cade’s tummy and carried him from the room.
Dusty chose one of the dresses Corinne had lain on the bed, intensely aware that she was in someone else’s house. The items in the room told the story of a couple, and she felt mildly voyeuristic as she slipped the dress over her head, studying the intimate array of perfume bottles, cufflinks, hair clips, scraps of paper, and various daily objects that littered the dresser top. Her mind touched on the short time in her life when she’d shared such a space with another person, then shied away.
She left the bedroom as quickly as she could, but the scene that greeted her in the living room left her no more at ease. Corinne was straightening Toby’s tie, then she pulled him close to give him a quick kiss. “There. Perfect.”
He kissed her back before bending to pick up Cade. “Gotta be, to fit in with this handsome family. Dusty, you look great. Corinne has a dress just like that.”
Corinne held onto the tie and led him out the door, smiling at Dusty over her shoulder.
CHAPTER SIX
Dusty tuned her guitar and watched as people milled around the brown grass of the courthouse square, talking and visiting. Rows of white folding chairs stretched out before her, most of them still empty. At first glance, the scene was remarkably like the revival she’d told Luke about, when she’d played with her parents. Girls in light cotton dresses, boys with button-down shirts and slicked back hair. Not everyone was dressed up. She saw several women in slacks, and even a few people in shorts. But she was glad she’d borrowed the dress anyway, even if she did still feel out of place.
She picked up on threads of tension here and there, resentful glances and whispered conferences in tight little knots of people across the lawn. She watched with interest and a feeling of ‘I-told-you-so’ at the undercurrent of hostility snaking through the crowd.
Luke sat on the stool beside her and warmed up on a few scales. He was watching just as she was, she noted. He mumbled something under his breath, then turned to her. “I hope we get through this first night without a cat fight. Have you seen Mavis?”
Dusty shook her head. “Warn me if you do, though. I think she has a bullet with my name on it.”
“I see a few of her group, but not many. It looks like some are actually going to support her boycott.”
“That’s a little extreme, isn’t it? Just because someone didn’t like her singing, the whole choir is boycotting?”
“Some are boycotting because of Mavis. Some are upset over something Louise said.”
“That’s right. At least it’s not all because of me.”
“Different reasons, but they all have their…”
“Noses bent out of shape?”
“I was going to say ‘panties in a wad,’ but same difference. I’m surprised we’re having this good a turnout, actually.”
He quietly pointed out different people in the audience. One family sat down, and began immediately to glare daggers at a teenage girl and her mother across the aisle of folded chairs. “Cheerleading camp fiasco,” Luke whispered. He nodded in the direction of two farmers who stood side by side but looked straight ahead. “Water rights.” He nudged her knee gently with his. “See that woman over there?”
Dusty looked in that direction and saw a tall woman with the biggest Gibson Girl hairdo she’d ever seen, outside a nostalgic sepia photo. “How could I miss her?”
“That’s Thelma Jean Braxton. She’s the school librarian, and president of the Aloma Rose Society.”
“Okay.”
“Now, see that woman over there?” He tilted his head to the opposite end of the lawn.
“You mean the one who looks just like her?”
“That’s the one. That’s Thelma Jean’s twin sister, Tally Jean. They haven’t spoken in six weeks, even though they live in the same house. From what I have been able to figure out, it’s over the way Tally cans her pickles.”
“Cans her pickles.”
“That’s it. Oh, there’s a lot of other stuff mixed in there, too, mainly stemming from the vegetable garden, and then things just went downhill from there. Tally Jean always fixed Thelma Jean’s hair, and since the feud Thelma’s taken to having Barbara Slocum doing it. It was a pretty scary sight at first, mainly because Barbara has such a heavy hand with the mousse. Everyone says Barbara’s just doing it to get back at Tally for stealing her beau back in high school, that Thelma Jean asked Barb specifically because she knew she’d never forgiven Tally for stealing him, and Tally Jean had never forgiven Barbara for….” He bowed his head and chewed his lip. “It all falls apart on me at this point. I can’t keep it all straight.”
“Why would you want to?” Dusty rolled her eyes. It was exactly like she knew it would be: a bunch of bullheaded, self-righteous busybodies. What a bunch of hypocrites, showing up at a revival just to glare at each other.
“I don’t, really, except these people are my friends. So things that affect them concern me.”
She raised one eyebrow and nodded.
“See, I’ve only known you for five days, but already I recognize that look. You think I’m full of it, but you don’t care enough to argue about it.”
“You’re quite perceptive, Cowboy.”
Dusty motioned to the back of the crowd. “Is that your parents?”
He looked across the crowd to his mother and gave a smile and a slight wav
e. “Yeah, that’s them.”
“What are they fighting about?”
“You mean today?” He shook his head and busied himself with tuning a guitar that was already tuned. “Probably who was supposed to let the cat out and didn’t, or who spent too much money last month, or maybe Mom burned the oatmeal this morning. Their feud goes back a lot longer than this drought. I think it’s about time to get started.”
Dusty’s stomach lurched a little, but she’d practiced the hymns enough that she got over the nervous butterflies quickly. She and Luke played together as well as they sang, and when he started to sing, she enjoyed the sound of his voice so much she stayed silent and let him go solo, ignoring the eyebrow he raised in question when she didn’t join in.
They ended the song as Brother Mark came to the front of the room and welcomed them all there.
Luke leaned toward her. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Sorry. Lost my place,” she said because she didn’t want to admit she was simply immersed in the sound of his voice. She wouldn’t mind telling him he had a great voice. But going the rest of the way and admitting she felt carried away on the smooth flow of it…that could give him a tool to use against her, if he wanted to.
She tuned out the preacher and allowed herself to daydream a little about the night ahead. Despite what she’d threatened him with this morning, she hadn’t changed her mind about being with Luke after the dance. She just didn’t want him presuming too much. Confidence was sexy. Cockiness wasn’t.
“I want to talk this evening about something that many of you may not want to hear. I want to talk about… forgiveness.”
Dusty watched Brother Mark stroll casually up and down the aisle between the chairs, looking the members of the community in the eye, one by one. He held his Bible in one hand, his finger marking the scripture he’d just read. He was relaxed, casual. She’d expected more grandstanding, she supposed, more of a fire-and-brimstone attitude. But Mark walked among the people like he was… well, like he was one of them. Which, she supposed, he was. Unlike herself.
“Everybody knows what forgiveness is. We’ve all given it, and we’ve all taken it. Because we’ve all needed it, at some point. No one here is perfect, obviously, so we’ve all done things we shouldn’t have done, and said things we shouldn’t have said. And we’ve been sorry. We’ve asked for forgiveness, and hopefully, it’s been granted. But forgiveness is one thing that is much, much easier to talk about, than to do. Because a big part of forgiving someone is letting go of the hurt they’ve done you. And sometimes we want to hold on to that hurt.”
He moved slowly up the aisle, his lip between his teeth, his head down in thought. Dusty watched the audience as Brother Mark explained about the healing power of forgiveness and how it could turn the hard times Aloma was experiencing into a blessing. From the looks she was seeing, his message wasn’t getting very far.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking. I know, because this is the way I think, when I’m nursing resentment. You’re thinking, ‘Sure, I’ll forgive my enemy. As soon as he comes crawling back on his hands and knees. As soon as he begs for my forgiveness’.” A few in the audience laughed lightly. “As soon as he at least apologizes. I mean, I can’t be expected to forgive someone who isn’t even sorry, can I?’”
Of course not, Dusty thought. Then she remembered that this church stuff didn’t interest her, so she studied her cuticles. She really needed a manicure, she decided. She took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. This was going to be one long week, she thought, if she had to come up here and sit through this every night.
She told herself she wasn’t going to pay attention. So she took no notice of the words Brother Mark spoke. But she was sitting so close she couldn’t help but hear.
He was quoting some scripture, and since she wouldn’t recognize a passage from the Bible if it came up and introduced itself to her, she didn’t know if he was even making sense. But basically he was saying that they couldn’t move on and survive through this drought if they didn't let go of their differences and forgive the events of the past several months.
She scanned the crowd as he talked. A few heads were bowed as if in contemplation, but for the most part Brother Mark was facing an audience of crossed arms and stubborn chins.
She glanced over at Luke. He was one of the contemplative bowed heads. She wondered how all this applied to him. He didn’t seem the type to hold grudges.
Brother Mark motioned for someone at the back of the crowd, and they parted as a man wheeled a barbecue grill toward the front.
There were confused murmurs from the crowd, a few scattered laughs.
“What’s he going to do?” Luke murmured. “Threaten them with more of Stevie’s sauce if they don’t bury their respective hatchets?”
While the grill was being set up, Brother Mark brought a box from the side of the stage. “In this box are crucial tools in our crusade for healing and forgiveness.” He lifted out items. “Pen, and paper. Tools to create words, because we’ve learned over the past several months that words are powerful, powerful weapons. Words can hurt.” He tapped the pen against the paper. “And words can heal.”
He explained his plan, that anyone who felt a burden on his heart could come to the front of the room, and write that down on paper. “No one else is going to read it. No one else’s eyes will ever see it. You could be writing down your to-do list for all anyone else is going to know. You write what’s on your heart. You write what’s been bothering you, what’s been eating at you. And be honest. Write down why it bothers you. How it makes you feel. Why you’re mad or hurt about what happened, and what was said. Write it all down.”
Then they were to say a short prayer over the paper, write the words ‘I forgive’ across it, and throw it on the fire in the barbecue pit.
Of all the corny things she’d seen since she came to Aloma, Dusty thought, this had to be the corniest. Did he honestly think such a ridiculous exercise was going to change anything? These people needed rain. They needed relief from their stress. They didn’t need pointless feel-good nonsense.
She rolled her eyes, and saw her thoughts mirrored in some of the faces she saw. A few, of course, were falling for it. The suckers, Dusty thought. The ones who thought happy-isms were actually going to bring rain clouds.
“Once you’ve thrown the wrong onto the fire, it’s gone,” Brother Mark was saying. “It no longer exists. Whatever atonement you were hoping for is yours, and whatever has been a barrier between you and the people in your life is gone. All you have to do is live that forgiveness. Let the forgiveness into your heart, and let it into your daily walk.”
“This is so lame,” Dusty murmured. She looked over at Luke, expecting him to echo her sentiments.
Instead, he just raised a brow and shrugged. “It can’t hurt.”
“Yes, well, they’re not exactly stampeding to the front to participate.”
Brother Mark lit a fire in the grill. He turned back to the audience, his legs braced and his hands folded in front of him. “This fire is going to be here all week. I realize that not everyone is going to be ready to deal with this tonight. Some of you are going to have to think on it a while. And some of you may not come up here. Some of you may not need to. But for those of you with a burden on your heart, I invite you to come forward and give the gift of forgiveness. And receive the gift of peace.”
Dusty resisted the urge to once again roll her eyes. This was going to be a dismal flop, she thought. Did they have any songs prepared to cover awkward silences?
Luke leaned over and whispered, and they started to strum a soft song, leaving out the vocals. No one was going to come up there in front of the entire county and do something so silly. She wondered how long they would have to play before Brother Mark signaled that the service was over.
To her amazement, a woman stood and moved to the front of the audience, an embarrassed smile on her face. She took a piece of paper from Brother Mark and wrote somethin
g on it. She lay the paper on the fire and with a deep breath, watched it catch. As it curled in on itself, she closed her eyes and her lips moved in silent prayer.
What surprised Dusty more than the fact that someone had actually come forward was seeing the look of obvious relief the woman felt as the paper was reduced to ashes. She almost seemed to grow taller, and her face eased into a peaceful smile.
Dusty forgot she wasn’t paying attention. She watched as the woman made her way back to her chair, stopping momentarily to clasp hands with another woman along the way. She sat down and hugged her daughter beside her, wiping tears from her eyes as she did.
Unbelievable, Dusty thought as she shook her head and returned her attention to the front.
Now there were three people up there. Dusty almost lost her place in the song.
“Would you look at that.” Luke watched the proceedings with a grin.
She looked. She didn’t really believe what she saw, but she looked. One of the three newcomers was an older man with a permanently sunburned face and a crease between his eyebrows. He scribbled something quickly on the paper and tossed it on the fire. He started to move off, then stopped and stared, his face stony, at the growing fire. When the paper was nothing more than dark gray ash, he nodded once. Then he moved out of the way of the next in line, a teenage girl with a butterfly-shaped clip in her hair. She bit her lip and glanced back to someone in the audience as she wrote. She giggled nervously as she placed her paper on the fire. She moved back quickly and stood before the fire with her hands clasped in front of her for a moment before she, too, returned to her seat.
The next woman was one Dusty recognized from the fracas at the church. She wrote carefully on the paper and started to lay it on the fire. But she stopped and turned to Brother Mark. “I know we’re not supposed to say it out loud, but…”
“It’s okay, say whatever you need to say.”
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