“Well, maybe later then,” Charley said as he set the dollar bill on the table.
Charley noticed that Ben had already sat down in the chair that was on the far end of the table, closest to the kitchen. Charley looked up to see if Mrs. Hargrove had noticed Lucy and Ben, but he saw by the look in her eyes that she had her mind somewhere else. He followed her eyes to the door of the café. Ah, that’s what she saw.
Mrs. Hargrove had noticed Doris June the moment she stood, stopped in the doorway. The color on her daughter’s face was high and Mrs. Hargrove thought that must be a good thing. She told herself she should have taken a hand in her daughter’s wardrobe long before this. Doris June looked more kissable in that swirly pink dress than she had in years and, as her mother, she should have pointed out the problems with business suits to her daughter sooner.
“Oh.” Mrs. Hargrove noticed in surprise that Charley was holding out a chair for her.
“You don’t have to—” Mrs. Hargrove said, and then noticed the flush on Charley’s face. She had forgotten they were setting an example for their children. She smiled and sat down. “Thank you so much.”
Charley sat down in the chair next to her. “You’re welcome.”
Mrs. Hargrove kept the smile on her face. She was glad Charley could remember what they were supposed to be doing here. For a moment, back there in the doorway, she’d completely forgotten why Charley was wiping away the tear that was rolling down her cheek. The tear had come from her discouragement and Charley had given a convincing performance. He’d almost had her believing he felt the kind of tenderness for her that a man felt for a woman he loved.
“You’ll need to sign up for the next pageant the church does,” Mrs. Hargrove said, leaning over to Charley. “I never knew you had so much stage talent.”
Charley grunted as he looked up.
Doris June had walked over to the table by now and pulled out a chair next to the one her mother sat in. That left Curt to share the far side of the table with Ben.
“Who has stage talent?” Curt asked as he looked around the table.
Lucy had gone back to the kitchen to get some menus. She was bringing them over to the table now.
“Everyone in your family has talent.” Mrs. Hargrove didn’t want to call attention to Charley’s performance. “I bet Ben is good with that guitar of his.”
“He plays wonderfully,” Lucy said as she handed out the menus. “And he can sing, too.”
“He can?” Charley asked as he took one of the menus from Lucy. “I’ve never heard him sing.”
“The two of you will have to do a duet in church some Sunday,” Mrs. Hargrove said. “We’d love to hear you perform.”
Ben took a sudden interest in the menu.
“Oh, we already have some performance plans in the works,” Lucy said with confidence. “We’re putting together an outdoor concert with some other kids. Linda said we could use her portable sound system and we’re hoping to use a pickup truck for the stage. We have a Web site and everything.”
“Why, I had no idea.” Mrs. Hargrove wondered if all of the Nelson men were so closemouthed about their talents. “A concert sounds wonderful.”
Doris June tried to discreetly step on Curt’s toe. They were not sitting next to each other at the table, but she could estimate where his toe would be and she wanted to call his attention to their parents without saying anything aloud to alert them. She hadn’t missed the dreamy-eyed look on her mother’s face as she was glancing over at Charley and talking about talent.
Of course, if Doris June wasn’t worried that her mother might be suffering from senior confusion, she wouldn’t have the nerve to interfere in her mother’s love life. It’s just that she couldn’t believe her mother even had a love life. Her mother had never seemed to notice any man, at least not after Doris June’s father had died. Her mother had been good friends with Charley Nelson for decades, but that couldn’t mean anything. Besides, Doris June didn’t want to see the two of them lose that friendship just because one or the other of them had an episode of confusion and thought they had romantic feelings for the other.
Doris June knew the line between friendship and love could be fuzzy and it wasn’t so easy to cross back and forth. What if her mother only imagined she felt something romantic for Charley, or what if she only imagined he felt something for her? Doris June knew her mother would be very sad if she lost Charley’s friendship.
Doris June decided she must have pressed against the top of Curt’s shoe a little too hard. She got his attention, but it was in the form of a scowl. Still, she didn’t let that stop her. She nodded toward her mother so Curt would take note of the expression in her mother’s eyes as her mother looked over at his father.
Curt looked and then looked back at Doris June, a frown accompanying his scowl. Doris June was glad to see he didn’t look any too happy about what was happening between their parents, either.
“Does anyone want to hear the specials?” Lucy offered. She’d been waiting patiently for their order.
“I think we’ll just have pie, dear,” Mrs. Hargrove said as she looked around the table.
“Cherry or lemon meringue?” Lucy said as a phone rang in the kitchen.
“Can you heat the cherry pie up and add a scoop of vanilla ice cream?” Charley asked.
Lucy nodded.
“Then, that will do it for me.”
Doris June wanted lemon meringue, but everyone else chose cherry.
“Not that we should be ordering pie in a restaurant when your mother can bake any kind of pie known to man,” Charley said to Doris June. “She’s a marvel in the kitchen.”
“She hasn’t been cooking much lately.” Doris June said. She hoped it wasn’t Charley who was pretending to be interested in her mother just because she could fry him up liver and onions whenever he wanted. Her mother deserved someone who appreciated her for more than her cooking skills. “Usually she eats cold cereal and canned soup.”
“Well, only when I’m alone, dear,” Mrs. Hargrove said to Doris June. “Now that you’re here, I’ll certainly do more cooking. And I always enjoy your cooking, too.” Mrs. Hargrove smiled at Curt. “Doris June is a wonderful cook. She makes that lasagna you like even better than I do.”
Doris June groaned. Fortunately, no one heard her because Linda had come to the table with a cordless phone in her hand.
“It’s the state,” Linda whispered to Charley and Mrs. Hargrove. “Some guy wondering how you’re coming along with the write-up for the tourism board. I tried to stall him, but he has questions. We’re going to get an official Dry Creek telephone number so the calls don’t always end up at the café. I don’t know what to tell him. He says he’s in Billings today, but he wants to drive over to Dry Creek tomorrow late afternoon and meet with you to see if he can help. Something about the students and class schedules and moving the deadlines.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Hargrove said.
“Oh, no,” Charley echoed.
There was a moment of silence.
“Well, he can’t come here,” Mrs. Hargrove finally said. “We’re not ready for him. Besides, no one said anything about someone coming here. We were just supposed to send in the form.”
“I can help you with the form, if you haven’t finished it,” Doris June offered. She didn’t like to see her mother so flustered.
“No.” Charley shook his head.
Doris June saw her mother look around in panic and was going to say something to reassure her when Charley reached over and put his hand over her mother’s hand. Doris June noticed her mother calmed right down.
“We’ll figure out what to do about the state guy,” Charley said.
“He said he’d be here at four o’clock tomorrow,” Linda said as she held out the phone to Charley. “Why don’t you talk to him?”
“I guess we should see what he has to say.” Charley took the phone from Linda and put it up to his ear.
Charley only said a few words here and ther
e, but Doris June knew he wasn’t hearing good news.
“He’s determined to come here tomorrow,” Charley said, after he hung up from his call and gave the phone back to Linda. “Said he’s always wanted to have a look around the town of Dry Creek anyway. Wants to see where the—you know,” Charley looked meaningfully at Mrs. Hargrove. “Anyway, he wants to make sure it’s still standing.”
Doris June wanted to reassure her mother and Charley. Fortunately, she could do that with the truth. “That shouldn’t be a problem. All of the buildings in Dry Creek are standing, especially after someone fixed up that one old building and made it into a dance studio. It was the only building that needed attention.”
Doris June looked at everyone around the table. Curt looked as bewildered as she felt so he must not know what their parents were worried about, either. Ben didn’t seem to know anything. Only Linda looked at Doris June with sympathy in her eyes before she headed back to the kitchen.
“It’s not a building,” Charley finally said as he looked over at Mrs. Hargrove. “I think we need to tell them. The news will be all over town tomorrow anyway when the state guy gets here.”
“It’s not the church, is it?” Doris June asked. Maybe something was wrong with the foundation of the church building and her mother and Charley didn’t want to alarm anyone. She had to admit that she had fond memories of the church and wouldn’t like to see anything happen to it, although she knew the church was more than the building itself. “I hope it’s not the church.”
Doris June heard her mother take a deep breath.
“It’s the stop sign, dear.”
Doris June thought she had heard wrong. “The what?”
“You know,” her mother repeated. “The stop sign.”
There was silence for a moment.
“You mean that stop sign?” Curt asked.
“What could anyone possibly want with that stop sign?” Doris June asked. She hoped this was all some kind of a mix-up.
“The old sign that’s shaped like a heart?” Ben asked quietly.
Mrs. Hargrove and Charley both nodded their heads.
“They want to feature the sign in their Montana tourist book,” Mrs. Hargrove said.
“One-Stop-Sign Towns,” Charley added. “It’s some new gimmick to get people to visit the state.”
Doris June would have a question or two to ask the tourism guy if he did show up tomorrow. She might not be paying taxes in Montana, but her mother was. Surely they had better ideas than this.
“I can’t believe people would come to see a stop sign,” Curt said. “What happened to the parks? I thought Glacier and Yellowstone were enough to bring people to Montana.”
“Well, they’re both in the west,” Charley said. “This guide book is for southeastern Montana.”
“We have Custer’s battlefield,” Curt said. “That should be enough.”
Doris June just sat there. She finally realized why her mother had been acting so strange lately. Her mother knew how they would all feel about seeing the stop sign used in some guidebook. No wonder her mother had been all teary eyed and confused. It had nothing to do with senility or newly discovered love. “What are we going to do?”
Doris June saw her mother and Charley exchange glances. No one even noticed that Lucy had come back with their slices of pie and was setting the plates in front of everyone.
“We were hoping to get the tourism board all excited about the pansies we’re growing for Mother’s Day,” Mrs. Hargrove finally said. “We thought they might like that better than the old stop sign.”
“Maybe we could find a field of Montana wildflowers, too,” Doris June said. “People always love flowers. Look at Holland and their tulips.”
“Someone should take the sign down,” Curt said. “It’s a nuisance. Should have been brought down years ago.”
“It’s state property,” Charley cautioned.
“I’m willing to pay whatever fine there is for removing it,” Curt said. “Besides, no one stops at that intersection anyway. Dry Creek doesn’t need the sign.”
“We need it for our concert,” Ben said quietly.
Everyone was silent.
“You’re not talking about that sign, are you?” Lucy said as she put the last slice of pie on the table. She looked aghast. “That sign’s a landmark.”
“What do you mean you need it for your concert?” Curt asked.
“That’s where we’re holding the concert,” Lucy explained. “We’re doing old love ballads at the broken-heart sign. It’s our theme. We’ve got the Web site and we’ve already made flyers. We might even get extra credit for the concert at school if Mr. Jenkins will okay it.”
Lucy pointed to the bulletin board just inside the café and, sure enough, Doris June saw a yellow flyer there with a drawing that resembled the old stop sign.
“Wouldn’t it be better to hold your concert in the church?” Mrs. Hargrove suggested. “It’s so much more comfortable there. There would be enough pews for a lot of people.”
“We don’t need pews. We plan to sit on the grass,” Lucy said. “You can’t have an outdoor concert inside a church.”
“Besides, we need the sign for our theme,” Ben added as he looked at his father. “It’s all about love and broken hearts and—”
Curt sighed. Doris June knew Curt was going to give in even before he cleared his throat. “When are you planning to hold this concert?”
“This Saturday night.”
“The night before Mother’s Day?” Mrs. Hargrove asked.
Ben nodded. “Lucy and I don’t have to worry about Mother’s Day.”
Doris June knew that if Curt didn’t fold on that remark, she would fold on his behalf. Lucy’s mother had died years ago and Ben’s might as well have. “I don’t think it would hurt to wait until after Mother’s Day to do something about the sign.”
“So we can have our concert?” Lucy asked.
Curt looked at Doris June and she looked right back at him. She wondered if he was remembering what it felt like to be fifteen. They both looked up at the two teenagers and nodded.
“You won’t regret it,” Lucy promised.
“See that we don’t,” Curt said. “I’m sure you’ve planned to have some adults at the concert to see there’s no alcohol or drugs.”
Lucy and Ben stared at him blankly.
“Well, you have four adults now,” Curt said as he looked around the table. “Make sure kids know when you invite them that it’ll be supervised. No alcohol. No drugs. If we see anyone with something, we call the police.”
“You won’t walk around or anything, will you?” Ben asked anxiously.
“Not if everything goes by the rules,” Curt agreed. “We’ll watch from the corners.”
“Okay.” Ben nodded and then asked, “Maybe you could sit in the old pickup during the performance.”
Curt looked at his son. “What old pickup?”
“Ben said you still have the old pickup out in one of the barns at your place,” Lucy finally said. “You know, the one that hit the sign. We thought it would make a great stage.”
“We need a place for the performers,” Ben added. “Those old pickups are big in the back.”
“I doubt the old thing even runs anymore,” Curt said.
“We could pull it into town with Grandpa’s tractor,” Ben suggested. “Please.”
Curt nodded in defeat. “But when the concert’s over, that sign’s coming down.”
Doris June wondered if the man from the tourism board would accept the fact that the sign he was interested in was still standing but that it wouldn’t be standing long enough to make it a tourist attraction.
“You’re sure you’re okay with all this concert business?” Curt turned to Doris June and asked.
She nodded. She couldn’t say no to the looks on the faces of Ben and Lucy.
“Well, it’s only a sign,” Curt finally agreed. “One stubborn piece of metal sticking out of the ground.”
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br /> “I’m sure the highway department will agree to let us take it down eventually anyway. It’s a menace leaving the thing up,” Doris June said. “Maybe the guy from the state will pass word along to the highway department that someone needs to do something about the sign.”
Doris June decided her mother was finally looking like her old self again.
“I don’t know why we fretted so much about telling you about the tourism board wanting to use that sign,” Mrs. Hargrove said.
“The two of you always have a mature view of things,” Charley added. “We should have taken that into account.”
Doris June didn’t answer that remark. No one had thought they were mature twenty-five years ago.
“Maybe if we tear down the sign, we can let bygones be bygones and be friends again,” Curt said, looking directly at Doris June. “I know I’m sorry for the way things turned out.”
Doris June wasn’t quite ready for that yet. She had heard Curt earlier when he mumbled something about being sorry for what he had done, but she hadn’t expected him to apologize again so openly in front of everyone like this. “I’m sorry, too.”
If Curt noticed that she hadn’t directly accepted his apology, he didn’t give any indication of it. He just nodded his head at her as if her words settled everything. She wished they could settle it. It made her feel small that she couldn’t forgive someone for hurting her twenty-five years ago.
Maybe if she prayed about it, she could release some of her bitterness toward Curt. After all, it wasn’t all his fault that she’d never married and had children. She certainly could have married someone else. She had known after he got married that there was no point in waiting for him. She’d put him out of her mind as best as she could. It was just that she had never met a man who compared to the Curt of her youth.
Doris June looked over at Curt now as he ate his cherry pie. He didn’t look all that different from other men. It must have just been that she knew him so well. He had been her childhood friend. What other man could compete with that? He had been her best friend.
A Match Made in Dry Creek Page 7