Sweet Southern Hearts

by Susan Schild

  “Good morning.” Linny smiled as the call connected, noting that the young woman looked professional in a full-coverage, non-jogging-bra-type blouse with what looked like red fire trucks on it.

  “Hey there.” Chanel smiled wanly, but she looked tense, spring-loaded. Her eyes darted around the room as though she might bolt for the exit.

  Linny studied her and her mouth quirked up. “Don’t tell me. You hate public speaking.”

  “Despise it.” Chanel grimaced and raked her fingers through her short hair. “I’d rather do anything: go a few rounds with one of those women wrestlers on TV, go to a sorority pledge party . . .” She trailed off, looking defeated.

  Linny nodded sympathetically. “I understand. The first year I spoke in front of groups I learned never to hold papers because my hands shook so badly. It gets easier with practice,” she assured her. “You’re going to get more comfortable with speaking, though. You have to. You’re the leader.”

  “All right, all right.” Chanel gave a resigned sigh. “Now what am I supposed to say?”

  “Your talk is about how you want the company to move into the future.” Linny looked at Chanel searchingly. “Why is improved professionalism and customer service important to you?”

  Chanel froze, opened her mouth, and closed it again. “Can I look at my notes?” she croaked out.

  “You can, but you don’t need to,” Linny said. “Just don’t think too much and tell me why you want these changes.”

  Chanel drew a deep shuddering breath, blew it out, and closed her eyes for a moment. “Because we’re better than this,” she finally said.

  “Go on,” Linny said, smiling encouragingly.

  “Because we need to portray who we are: not a group of merry pranksters but a smart, talented, and capable group of professionals who offer amazing products and services.” Chanel still sounded tentative, but her voice grew more confident as she went on. “Because our business is going to double within the next two years and we need to be ready. We’re moving onward and upward, and that means we need to be a seamless, grown-up team with superb relationships with our customers. No I’m-with-stupid arrows. No almost running off smart colleagues because we’re playing the boys against the girls. No sports bras,” she said, finishing with a rueful grin.

  Linny beamed and held her hands palms up. “Excellent. You just gave me the basis for your speech. Your onward-and-upward speech.”

  “Huh. Onward and upward,” Chanel mused, looking slightly less like a flight risk. “I like that.”

  “Now you came up with a list of what you all are doing well, right?” Linny asked.

  “I did.” Chanel bobbed her head and held up a piece of paper.

  “And you came up with areas in which you’d like improvement,” Linny said.

  “I did.” Chanel held up three sheets of paper and made a face. “Slightly longer list.”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll fix that,” Linny said. “Put those two lists together and your speech writes itself.” She gave Chanel a crooked smile. “Oh, and add a mea culpa.”

  Chanel flushed, looking chagrined. “How about I’m sorry for micromanaging you and breathing down your necks instead of leading you. My bad for never holding staff meetings or performance reviews. I’m a dolt for not communicating about expected conduct, professional work environment, and relationships with customers.”

  “Something like that, but don’t beat yourself up that much. Just explain this is a learning process for you, too, and focus on the future,” Linny suggested.

  The young woman nodded and they started to work.

  Chanel was rehearsing her last run of the much-improved speech when Linny heard the office door open and glanced behind her. Neal raced in one door, sliding on the wood floors on his fuzzy socks—his arms outspread like a surfer catching a big wave—and surfed right out the other door. This sock-surfing routine was another one of his new things, like the corny science jokes.

  Linny felt the heat rise in her face. Bad timing given her preaching about professionalism. “I’m sorry, Chanel.”

  But the young woman was smiling broadly. “Tell your surfer buddy I said cowabunga.”

  “I will.” Linny smiled, relieved, but shot a glance at the clock, knowing a hungry baby might start crying at any moment. If that happened on top of Neal’s surf-by she’d really look unprofessional. “Let’s schedule the employee training courses you decided on . . .” she began and paused as it hit her. This was a huge project, one she’d be excited to lead. She was really good at these types of programs, too. But she would have to farm out some of the work to colleagues if she was planning on staying sane.

  Linny sat up straighter in her chair and her eyes met Chanel’s. “I’ll do the customer service segments for you, but I’m going to recommend a colleague for delivery of the program on professionalism in the workplace. She does an Employee Blooper of the Week segment and a What Not to Wear at Work Fashion Show. Participants love her.” As she read Chanel the contact number from her phone, Linny felt lighter. With all that she had on her plate, she had to be realistic about what she could and couldn’t do or risk failing her family or her clients. And surprisingly—even though she was saying no to the kind of work she loved—it felt good to let part of it go.

  CHAPTER 13

  The New Normal

  Later in the week Linny lay on a yoga mat and groaned as she tried stretching to one side and then the other. Turning over, she eased into a child’s pose. The muscles in her back were so tight that she might freeze in place, like Lot’s wife. The stretching felt good, though the snaps and cracks she heard were slightly alarming. Linny reveled in the absolute silence in her house. She was keeping Ivy, but by some miracle both babies were asleep at the same time and Neal was spending the day at his mom’s house.

  Linny’s phone vibrated on the floor beside her, and she smiled as Mary Catherine’s name came up. Scrambling to get up, she stepped out to the front porch to take the call. “Hey,” she said softly, glancing toward the window of the den and fretting about the sound-muffling qualities of the old farmhouse windows and walls.

  “Hey, yourself.” Crick, crick.

  Linny held the phone away from her ear. Mary Catherine’s eating pistachios while talking on the phone was irritating; not as bad as her soup sipping or slurping melting frozen yogurt bars but right up there. When laser-focused on work her friend wasn’t big on social niceties.

  “Any news?” Linny asked. She realized she was holding her breath and made herself draw in fresh air, anxious to hear the update on efforts to track down Kandi. “How did your meeting with Kandi’s mother go?”

  “She’s a lovely woman,” Mary Catherine said dryly. “Says she hasn’t spoken to her daughter in five years, doesn’t know or care where she is, and didn’t know anything about baby Lucas. In fact, she said, Lady, if you’re lookin’ at me to take care of that child, you can fergit it. And if you find my daughter, tell her she still owes me two hundred bucks.”

  Linny had to smile. Mary Catherine’s imitation of a mean country woman was so spot on it was almost scary. But her smile faded as she realized the woman had probably sounded a lot like Mary Catherine’s own beer-breathed mother, who tended bar down on the coast at Morehead City, married to no-account husband number five. “Yikes.”

  “Yup,” Mary Catherine went on. “The good news is, she’s Kandi’s closest living relative and probably won’t make a claim for Lucas if you and Jack decide you want to adopt him.”

  Linny was quiet for a moment. She and Jack hadn’t had a chance to talk about it yet, or maybe she’d just been avoiding that conversation with him. “Any clues on where Kandi is?”

  “Not yet. I did track down Buck’s old fishing buddies. You said they knew her,” Mary Catherine said.

  Linny flushed, remembering that old mortification. After a fishing tournament Buck and his carousing crew had all stayed at a hotel down on the coast. That was the night he’d died—while he was in his room w
ith Kandi.

  “They all claim that night was the last they saw of Kandi. They did tell me one thing, though. She always talked about the Bahamas,” Mary Catherine said. “That may be where she’s gone, but there are thirty inhabited islands in that chain. Could take time to track her down.”

  Something niggled at Linny’s memory. In her brain fog from the influx of babies she’d forgotten information that could help Mary Catherine. “When Diamond tried to find the money Buck stole from me, she learned Kandi had a police record.”

  “I’ll check it out,” Mary Catherine said. “Any other clues you’ve neglected to give me?”

  Linny paused, racking her brain. “Remember that time Kandi showed up at my place demanding money? She said she was going to take me to court and threw a lawyer’s business card at me. I didn’t keep the card and can’t remember his name, but Diamond will know. She called him.”

  “Excellent. I’ll call her,” Mary Catherine promised. “You still keeping the baby at arm’s length?”

  “Not really,” Linny admitted. “The men can’t do all the childcare, and he’s just so cute. He smiles a lot, and when I raise my eyebrows up and down, he gives this belly laugh. I fed him this morning and he just kept his eyes locked on mine the whole time.” Linny heard herself prattling and groaned. “Sorry, girl. I used to secretly roll my eyes at Kate when she went on about some clever new thing Ivy had done. I sound the same way.”

  “Well, as long as you’re keeping him at an arm’s length,” Mary Catherine said, a smile in her voice.

  * * *

  The next morning the baby started whimpering for his bottle at 5:00 a.m. He usually took his bottle later, but when the little guy was hungry, he was hungry. The whimpers could escalate into earsplitting screams in no time. Hurriedly, she turned down the monitor. Jack was as beat as she was so she’d let him sleep a while longer. Slipping from the bed, she pulled on a robe and padded in to pick up Lucas, who blinked at her and smiled a gummy smile. He looked natty in his sock monkey pajamas.

  After flipping on the coffeemaker and warming a bottle Linny sat on the porch swing with Lucas nestled in her arms and fed him. She sighed happily, breathing in the cool morning air and the scent of newly mown grass. After he’d finished most of the bottle Lucas began to hiccup. Linny smiled. His eyes grew wide each time the hic sounds came from his mouth. She slipped a cloth diaper on her shoulder, shifted him up into place, and gently patted his back in small circular motion. He gave a gusty burp.

  Linny remembered a dash to the store to pick up formula and baby food earlier in the week. In the baby aisle she’d stood beside a woman wearing gray sweats with her hair falling out of a messy ponytail. Dressed in an almost identical outfit, Linny saw the faint spit-up marks on the woman’s shoulder and the two exchanged tired smiles. She was part of that sisterhood now.

  Lowering him, Linny just looked at him: his sturdy arms, his precious tiny hands, his tiny shell-pink fingernails. She stuck out her finger and Lucas looked at her gravely as he latched his fingers on to it. Linny breathed that intoxicating baby smell of milk, clean baby skin, and a trace of almond diaper cream. Before she fell, Kate had told her that when she was out with Ivy, perfect strangers approached her and asked to kiss or smell the baby. “Someone should bottle that new baby smell,” one woman had gushed. Kate had put a stop to the baby kissing and sniffing. “No telling who has a cold,” she’d said indignantly. But someone should bottle that smell.

  As he leaned into her drowsily, she felt the warm heft of him and felt besotted. Just what she didn’t want to feel. But there love was, despite her best efforts to dodge it.

  The hamster wheel of worried thought started to spin. What if Kandi changed her mind? What if her rough mother claimed him, thinking there might be money to be made by demanding the baby back? What if Buck wasn’t the biological father and the real father showed up to take Lucas from them?

  She made herself take a long, deep breath and gaze out at the horses grazing, the morning mist around the red barn, and the fields that rolled in front of her. Things would turn out like they turned out, she reminded herself. As much as she wanted to control outcomes, she wasn’t driving.

  At the Memphis airport Dottie had kissed her good-bye and pressed in Linny’s hand a small book of daily inspirational passages. Linny remembered one she’d particularly liked: He directs your course as surely as rivers run to the sea. She closed her eyes picturing that and felt a sense of serenity steal over her. Settling back into the cushion, she pushed off on the floor with her toes and started to gently swing. Sighing, she simply let herself enjoy the miracle of a baby.

  Gently, she shook Jack awake, gave him a kiss, and handed Lucas to him. “I’m getting us coffee. I’ll be right back,” she said. When she came back bearing two fragrant mugs she set them on the bedside table, took off her robe, and slipped in beside Jack. She shivered. He felt so warm and lovely. Watching her stubble-cheeked husband gently holding a dozing baby on his chest, Linny knew her heart was melting.

  She propped herself on her elbow, met his eyes, and said softly, “Let’s do whatever it takes to adopt Lucas.”

  He snaked an arm around her, pulled her close, and said in his gruff, early morning voice, “I’d already decided that, darlin’, but I knew you’d come around.”

  * * *

  While the boys ate their peanut butter and banana toast, Linny spooned in yogurt and thought through her day. After his morning nap Linny would drop the baby off at Jack’s office while she went to her meetings. Ruthie, Jack’s office manager, had threatened to quit unless she got to do some babysitting.

  Linny would present her proposal to Dr. Eleanor Huffsteader and then give moral support to Chanel Green by sitting in on her onward and upward meeting with her employees. She’d swing back by the vet clinic at 11:00, pick up Lucas and Neal, and run by to check on Kate and Ivy. Then she’d buy Neal lunch—anything he wanted at Chick-fil-A, including fries—and head home. Jerry would drop Ivy off at 1:30.

  Neal took a long gulp of orange juice and looked poised for an extended burp, but Jack shot him a warning look. The boy shrugged and took another bite of toast.

  Neal seemed happier these days, but she and Jack hadn’t been able to spend much alone time with him since Lucas arrived. Neal liked helping out with both babies. He carried them around in a casual but careful way. He wrote shopping lists, helped pack lunches for him and Jack to take to the office, and did online research about the highest-rated organic baby foods. He’d been an excellent sport about the baby, but he didn’t need to be overlooked either. Linny took a last bite of yogurt and made a mental note to talk with Jack about it.

  After a shower, Linny slipped on earrings, smoothed on makeup, and dusted her face with powder. For her meeting she wore her blue silk wraparound blouse: her best blouse and the only clean one she owned at the moment. She hurried in to change Lucas. Knowing it was dicey to change him when she was dressed up, she plowed on. She needed to leave in a half hour.

  With Lucas on the changing table, Linny held her breath as she cleaned him up. Did fighting the urge to gag mean she was bad mother material? She’d have to look that up. While she smoothed on the almond diaper cream—the one Neal’s research said was the highest rated by the Jessica Alba baby crowd—she kept up a patter of small talk with Lucas.

  “So, little man, we have a busy day. It’s sunshiny out, though, and I saw a bluebird this morning. That’s good luck, you know.” He waved his arms and made a bubble so he seemed to enjoy it, but was this the right way to talk to babies? Should she be trying to use bigger words or more complex thoughts to help him excel academically later on? Another question she’d Google as soon as she found the time.

  After dropping Lucas at the vet clinic Linny pulled into the parking lot of the glinting office building of Wanazak Sciences. Releasing her seat belt, Linny took deep breaths and tried to get psyched for her meeting. She opened the car door . . . and shut it again. She didn’t want to work with Dr. Elea
nor Huffsteader or her company. So why was she going in to try to win the business?

  Here she was, cheerleading Diamond and Mama and everybody else in the world to go for what made them happy, but she wouldn’t do the same for herself. And Mama’s words came back to her: I hope I raised a daughter who pays attention to what she wants. She remembered what she’d said to Chanel Green about making time for love, family, and enjoying life.

  Linny rested her head on the wheel. Life was going too fast. She was careening around, not even taking the time to properly kiss Jack or look at the stars with Neal. She’d treated Lucas more like a problem that needed to be solved than a child to be enjoyed.

  After all she’d been through she had finally gotten the life she’d always wanted. So why was she rushing through it, and taking on new things she didn’t even want to do?

  Linny picked up her phone and glanced at the clock. Seven minutes before the meeting. Praying for voice mail, Linny entered the numbers with a trembling finger.

  “Dr. Eleanor Huffsteader,” the woman said, sounding irritated.

  Hearing the sociologist’s tone confirmed her decision. Firmly, Linny said, “Eleanor, I’m sorry, but I need to cancel this morning’s meeting, and I’m going to need to withdraw my name from consideration for your project. . . .”

  * * *

  As she steered the Volvo sedately from the parking lot of Wanazak Sciences, she resisted the urge to roll down the window, stick her arm out, and wave it madly as she yelled, yahoo! When she turned the car back on the main road Linny felt bubbling elation and grinned from ear to ear.

  With extra time, Linny swung by Jumpin’ Joe’s Bean House and got a skinny latte and two lemon raspberry muffins for takeout. She’d enjoy them as she checked out one of the local parks a Bodacious Bonus Mom had raved about in a post she’d read last night: Historic Pullen Park is the family friendliest park in the area! It sits on sixty-six wooded acres right in the middle of Raleigh and features a refurbished historic carousel with beautifully carved animals. The carousel works, and a train rides you and the kiddies around the park.