Sweet Southern Hearts

by Susan Schild

  This was an understatement, Linny knew. Diamond had a huge and thriving practice.

  Diamond rested her chin in her hands and gazed at them. “Am I too old for a do-over?”

  Linny shook her head vehemently. “Never. Look at me. The queen of the do-overs.”

  “Look at my husband. He went from laid-off engineer to schoolteacher and he’s so happy it’s sickening. Practically skips around like a girl,” Mary Catherine said, glowering.

  Linny hid a smile. Her friend pinched Mike when he got too happy. Got on her nerves.

  A complimentary appetizer arrived and Diamond popped a shrimp into her mouth. “So here’s my plan. Total do-over. I’m selling the practice. I’ll quit being a career woman and become a housewife and a mother.”

  Trying to look like she was tracking with her, Linny asked, “Does Butch know this?”

  “Not yet. The plan will unfold. First I’ll prove to him I can live like a simple country girl,” she said, wiping cocktail sauce off her elegant talons.

  Linny nodded, having trouble picturing it. Diamond stayed in a wing of her parents’ mansion and had her own three-car garage and a chef’s kitchen equipped with an actual chef.

  “You know, Mama and Daddy are taking more and more ecotourism trips. They stay in grass huts, dig wells, and hand out mosquito nets.” Diamond shuddered prettily. “Ever since Daddy’s cancer scare they’re over the whole money thing and have practically taken vows of poverty. They’re selling the big house, and the King Air. They’re deeding me the guest cottage and the two acres it sits on.” She lifted her chin. “That’s where I’ll live simply. I’m joining the tiny house movement.”

  “Is the guest cottage that tiny?” Linny asked, trying to be tactful. She’d driven by it a few times and remembered thinking that she and Jack could fit two houses the size of theirs inside it.

  “It’s just twenty-eight-hundred square feet,” Diamond said, looking indignant. “I’ll grow organic vegetables and lavender. . . .” She waved airily, signaling that she’d make crop decisions later.

  “And you’re doing this to prove something to Butch?” Mary Catherine looked skeptical.

  “Mainly I want a different life,” Diamond said stubbornly. “But if Butch sees I can live a simpler life he might pop the question. If he doesn’t, I’ll find another man to marry,” Diamond added, a determined look in her eye. “I will be a homemaker. The little woman. The missus.” A smile played at the corner of her mouth as she tried on names for her new avocation.

  “Domestic goddess,” Linny added, warming to the idea.

  Mary Catherine looked intrigued. “You’re like those building demolition guys who use dynamite. You blow up everything in your life to start fresh. I like the plan.”

  Linny gave Diamond’s shoulder a pat. “I hope you get exactly what you want.”

  * * *

  Back home, she finally got traction with her packing. Roy stood beside her, ears and tail drooping as he looked at the suitcase.

  “Don’t worry, buddy.” Linny embraced him, giving his ears a scratch. “Promise I won’t be gone long.”

  Hands on her hips, Linny stared at the open suitcase and the shorts, jeans, and T-shirts she’d put in neat stacks surrounding it. Dessie, the only seasoned camper of the bunch, had cautioned them to pack light. But how light? And they’d be in the mountains, so it would get chilly at night. She put another fleece in the bag, saw how much room it took up, and pulled it back out.

  Padding into the kitchen, she went to the computer for advice on what to pack for a seven-day-long RV trip. She printed a list written by a traveler named Camping Cassandra and scanned it as she walked back to their room, hoping the snake bite kit, small hatchet, and emergency beacon on the list were overkill. Linny stopped in the doorway, startled. Roy had curled up in a perfect ball in her suitcase and gazed at her with soulful chocolate eyes.

  “Oh, baby boy.” Extricating his warm, soft body, Linny lay down beside him on the bed to give him a good long snuggle. She’d miss all her boys.

  She heard Jack and Neal blow into the kitchen. Giving Roy a last few scratches, she rose smiling and marveling at how noisy men could be. She listened. The keys clattered on the counter. The two were debating college football lineups. The refrigerator door opened, closed, and opened again. A loud, long burp sounded: Neal’s latest gross-out trick. Jack chided Neal.

  Jack called, “Lin? Where are you?”

  “Back here,” she called. “I’m packing.”

  Jack appeared, gave her a cautious smile, and kissed her cheek. “How was your day?”

  “Fine,” she said, not even mentioning she’d flown to the coast for lunch in a private plane.

  “You still mad at me?” Jack shoved his hands in his jeans pockets.

  “Some,” she admitted, noticing a scruffy spot he’d missed when he’d shaved that morning and the purplish circles under his eyes. Good. He’d had a rough night’s sleep, too. “What’s the latest with Vera?” she asked, busying herself refolding a shirt that was already perfectly folded.

  “Fine, I guess. I haven’t talked to her today.” He shrugged, looking helpless. “I got off the phone as soon as I could last night, but she was crying and going on and on.” He turned his hands palms up.

  “Maybe she needs a therapist,” Linny said crisply. “One she pays and wasn’t married to.” With more gusto than was called for, she balled up and stuffed clean white ankle socks into the toes of her tennis shoes the way Camping Cassandra had suggested.

  Jack nodded and rubbed his chin. “Linny, I just wanted to try to settle things down for Neal’s sake.”

  Linny looked at him, trying to keep her voice calm. “Vera told Neal that I was trailer trash. She told Neal’s teacher that you and I were the cause of his sliding grades. She’s tried to drive a wedge between me and your family. She’s tried to bully you for money.” Linny twirled back around to her suitcase and smoothed an imaginary wrinkle out of a shirt, blood pounding in her ears. The Bodacious Bonus Moms all recommended compromise and negotiation, but she just couldn’t muster an ounce of either.

  “You’re right.” He groaned, clasping his hands behind his neck. “But her not doing well means Neal suffers.

  Linny thought about it and nodded grudgingly. But he seemed to be trying to appease Vera, not fix things.

  “You tell me what to do,” he said, searching her face.

  Linny blew out a sigh and sank onto the bed. She didn’t want to leave him for seven days with so much unresolved. She had to tell him how she felt. “I wish you would tell Vera to get her house in order, straighten things out with Chaz, or get out of the marriage. Let her know how concerned you are that she’s creating such a tension-filled household for Neal. Ask her to put Neal first for once, stop the drama, and stop calling you to cry on your shoulder.” Her eyes fixed on his as she tried to gauge his reaction.

  He just shook his head, looking frustrated. “All you’re saying is true, but you don’t know Vera like I do. You can’t tell that woman what to do. If I’m that direct with her, she’ll take it as a challenge to her image as the perfect mother and start World War III.”

  “How much trouble could she start?” Linny asked, giving him a skeptical look.

  Jack rolled his eyes. “Under that fragile exterior, she’s a street fighter, especially if she doesn’t get her way. She’ll insist on keeping him even though there’s mayhem in her house. We’ll get dragged in to court. If you think Neal is in a bind now, wait until I try to tell her she’s messing up with her parenting.” He touched her arm and gave her a steady look. “Lin, I can’t put Neal through that. He’s endured enough and he doesn’t deserve more.”

  Linny gazed at him for a moment, then nodded grudgingly as she saw how troubled he was. Maybe this was one of those situations you had to be a biological parent to understand. Maybe she was right, but Jack was going to have to figure it out in his own time. Either way she’d said her piece and she needed to let it go. Jack was struggli
ng to do the best for his son. She stepped toward him and slid her arm around his waist. “Let’s leave it all for now. You’ll make the right call.”

  Linny stepped away from Jack as she heard a knock on the doorframe.

  “Hey, lovebirds,” Neal said, rolling his eyes and shaking his head but hiding a smile.

  “Hey, yourself,” Linny called, hoping the young man had come down the hall just that very moment and not overhead their conversation. She stuck her hands in the back pockets of her jeans.

  “What’s up, buddy?” Jack asked.

  “Are you almost finished packing, Linny?” the boy asked, his eyes wandering to her suitcase.

  “Almost,” Linny said.

  The boy shifted his weight from one sneakered foot to the other. “If you’re out in the woods and a raccoon or fox wanders into your campsite acting friendly, don’t touch it or try to feed it. The South has had an unusual number of rabies reports this year,” he said, pushing back a shock of his hair. “Even if it’s something as cute as a rabbit, although I never heard of a rabid rabbit.” He looked at his father. “Dad, can rabbits get rabies?”

  Jack stroked his chin, looking thoughtful. “Well, technically, rabbits are warm-blooded mammals so they could possibly get infected with the rabies virus if, say, another rabid animal bit them. Statistically, though, it happens very infrequently.”

  Neal nodded, looking relieved. “Good. Because you could see a soft little rabbit and think he was cute and he chomps you and you’re dead—or at least foaming at the mouth.”

  Linny just nodded at this odd turn of conversation. Mama was worried about rabid beavers drowning her in a lake and Neal was concerned about Linny picking up wild forest animal and getting rabies.

  Jack put a hand on Neal’s shoulder. “Son, Linny’s got a good head on her shoulders and will stay away from any odd-acting animals.”

  “I will, but I appreciate the reminder,” Linny said. “Let’s go feed the horses, buddy.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Campfire Girls

  The next day it was Neal’s idea to give them a festive send-off as they left on their trip. Neal, Jack, and Mack whistled, waved enthusiastically, and threw handfuls of improvised confetti—thistle they usually put in the birdfeeder and ryegrass seed Jack used for bald spots in the lawn—as the RV slowly pulled away from Dottie’s brick ranch. Linny grinned and blew kisses to the boys as she heard them call “bon voyage,” “safe travels,” and “remember to charge your phones.” The women waved out the windows and Linny blinked back tears, feeling a wave of homesickness even though they weren’t a quarter mile into their trip.

  “We’re off to see the US of A,” Ruby called gleefully as the motor home glided down Mama’s driveway, hardly registering the potholes in the long gravel road.

  Dessie had volunteered for the first shift driving. Behind the wheel, she had an erect bearing and a calm demeanor, her steely-eyed gaze fixed on the road in front of them. Linny glanced at her admiringly. She was like a younger Queen Elizabeth behind the wheel of the Class C as it headed toward 1-40 West. Soon Dessie confirmed Linny’s observation about her queenly manner by waving at a passing motor home in a decidedly screw-in-the-light-bulb manner.

  “So should we wave at other campers on the road?” asked Ruby, the co-driver for the morning. She held a pen poised over paper, ready to take notes. Ruby took her co-driver role very seriously.

  Dessie shrugged. “We always did when we camped. And sometimes we’d run into the same people we saw on the road at the campgrounds where we ended up staying.”

  “Oh, like a roving brotherhood of adventurers,” Ruby said, clasping her hands at the romance of it all.

  “Or sisterhood,” Dessie clarified. “We made a lot of nice friends camping,” she said, sounding wistful. Regally, she flipped on the turn signal and merged the RV onto the interstate.

  Linny tried to read the novel she’d brought along but kept reading the same line over and over again. She was jangled about leaving Jack and keyed up about being a passenger in the house on wheels. From her perch on the dashboard, the Waze lady spoke a clear and melodious voice. Linny liked her directions, but also her alerts: Debris ahead in the road or Car stopped on the shoulder ahead. The Waze woman was on top of things.

  Mack—aka Mr. Technology—had set up the Waze navigation system and backup GPS apps on all the women’s phones. He’d also mapped out the route on a set of paper maps from Triple A in the unlikely event that they ran into a geomagnetic Bermuda Triangle situation that took out all their electronics.

  As the miles went by, Linny felt her shoulders drop and the tension she’d been carrying start to ease. Dessie knew what she was doing and the Waze lady was reassuring, too. Traffic was light, the road stretched out in front of them, and as they cruised through the gentle roll of the North Carolina piedmont, Linny nodded off.

  When Linny blinked open her eyes, several hours must have passed because they were making their winding ascent up to the mountains. “Holy moly,” she breathed as she looked out the window and saw that a fragile-looking guardrail was the only protection against a steep drop over the side.

  Linny swallowed hard. What if they hit an oil slick or a patch of gravel? Her eyes darted around, trying to measure the fear level of the others. Beside her, Dottie busily polished her sunglasses on the hem of her shirt. At the wheel, Dessie looked as relaxed as if she was out on a Sunday drive. Co-driver Ruby murmured to Dessie, “You’re taking these hills like a champ. Very impressive.” Popping in one of the CD’s Perry had burned for their trip, Ruby started singing along with Willie to “On the Road Again.” Dessie chuckled.

  “What are those?” Ruby asked, pointing to the opposite side of the road.

  Linny looked, her eyes widening as she saw what looked like a giant sandbox sloping upward on the side of the road, gouged with truck-sized tire tracks.

  “Runaway truck ramps,” Dessie replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “If you lose your brakes coming down the hill—which we won’t—you can just steer your truck or RV into that sand and it’ll slow you down.”

  Linny shot a quick glance at Dessie to make sure she still looked calm, and she did. Her hands relaxed on the wheel, she hummed along with Willie. Dottie slipped on a pair of extradark wraparound senior-citizen sunglasses. Maybe Mama had bought these from a special store for women intent on looking way older than their years.

  “Be best if you didn’t look, shug.” Her mother reached out to pat her arm. “And try to keep breathing,” she suggested, pulling an oversize pair of knitting needles out of her purse and looping on some wool.

  Linny forced herself to stop searching for other sandboxes that might contain wrecked semis. Pulling her iPod from her purse, she slipped in earbuds. Leaning back, she closed her eyes, made herself breathe slowly, and listened to the mellow mindfulness meditation CD Kate had made her for the trip.

  * * *

  Finally, they arrived on the outskirts of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. The woman behind the desk of the visitors’ check-in center at the campground wore a name tag that said “Mrs. Don Boyer—Owner.” “Evening, ladies,” she said, speaking through shiny fuchsia lips that were so overly plumped that Linny had to fight the urge to lean over the desk and examine them more closely. “My husband and I hope you enjoy your stay. Here at Breathtaking Vista RV Resort, we run a quiet family campground. As our name says, we do indeed have breathtaking views of the mountains and a little lake for paddling, fishing, and walking or biking around,” Mrs. Don Boyer added pleasantly, but then looked at them sternly over the top of her half glasses. “But we don’t tolerate loud music, partying, whoopin’ it up, or foolishness. No tuning up your motorcycles for hours. We will kick you out if need be.”

  Linny found herself trying to look innocent and made herself stop, feeling a flush of annoyance. She glanced at the others. Ruby’s sweatshirt had kittens on it playing with a ball of yarn. Dessie’s T-shirt identified her as World’s Best Grammy and Dottie’s shirt was e
mblazoned with praying hands.

  Dottie gave the woman a level look and said in a plummy tone, “We appreciate the high standards you set here at your resort. We would hate to have our visit marred by riffraff.”

  Linny bit her lip to keep from smiling.

  “Well, we’re mighty glad to have you.” Mrs. Don flushed, looking apologetic. “My husband makes me give that speech to every guest checking in, and maybe because of it, we’ve never had a lick of trouble at this resort.”

  As they piled back in the RV, Linny patted her mother’s arm. “Mama, you sounded a little like that lady on Downton Abbey.”

  Dessie grinned mischievously. “There go our plans for an all-night keg party.”

  Dottie started to chuckle and Linny burst into laughter. The others joined in, with Ruby’s giggles fueling the hilarity.

  Grinning, Linny glanced at Dottie. “I’ll bet this is the first time in your life you’ve been viewed as a potential roughneck.”

  Dottie folded her hands on her purse and smiled. “I liked it.”

  As Dessie cruised slowly down the lanes, they saw the wide pull-through camping areas, and other guests offered them friendly waves and nods. Ruby pointed out the window at the sparkling blue lake, the pin-perfect landscaping, and the grass as manicured as a golf green. “This is such a pretty spot.”

  Linny whistled, glancing out the windows on the other side of the road. “Check out that view.” She pointed to the green lawn that sloped toward a backdrop of green-gray mountains. Cotton ball clouds floated by in a clear blue sky.

  Dottie nodded emphatically. “We are going to have a grand time.”

  Parking was surprisingly easy. With Ruby outside springing around and doing her enthusiastic two-armed signals that just lacked pompoms to be a full cheer, Dessie expertly eased the RV into their designated campsite.

  Ruby bounced back into the RV, all smiles at her successful signaling.

  The three of them stood together in the middle of the living room like sardines in a can, waiting for Dessie to push the button to open the slide outs and give them the extra six to eight feet of space that made it possible for them to fold out their beds and get settled into their quarters. Dessie pushed the button, scowled, and pushed it several more times. “Nothing is happening,” she muttered and ducked to look underneath the dash for the source of the problem.