A Match Made in Dry Creek

by Janet Tronstad

  “Doris June had dirt on her cheek,” Charley announced as he opened the passenger door on Curt’s pickup and climbed inside.

  “Pansies are messy business,” Curt said as he shifted into reverse.

  “Oh, I thought maybe she got it from being kissed.”

  Curt turned to glare at his father. “She didn’t get it from being kissed by me, if that’s what you’re asking.” Curt paused. “You can pass the word along to Mrs. Hargrove if you want. I’m sure she’s curious, too, how your plans are going.”

  Charley mumbled something that could mean anything. “So, what are you wearing to the concert tonight?”

  Meanwhile, Doris June was being asked that same question by her mother. Not the kissing one. The wardrobe one.

  “I was going to wear that white blouse and the blue pants that go with my suit,” Doris June said. She’d already eaten one of the cookies her mother had given her. “But I’m thinking maybe I should give Aaron a break and wear something from high school. After all, the concert’s for the kids.”

  “You still like kids, don’t you?” Mrs. Hargrove asked. She stared at her pot holder so she’d look subtle. “I mean, even if you don’t want to get married and have any of your own.”

  “I’ve always liked kids,” Doris June said as she looked at her mother. “You know that. Why wouldn’t I like kids?”

  Mrs. Hargrove shrugged. “Well, they would limit your independence. I know how you like your independence.”

  “Well, yes, but if I had kids, I’d make adjustments,” Doris June said as she kept looking at her mother. “I mean, family is family.”

  It took Doris June another moment to figure it all out. “Are you worried I’ll miss my independence if I have to take care of you?”

  “Oh, no.” Mrs. Hargrove looked horrified.

  “Well, I wouldn’t, you know. You’re my mother and it’s only natural that I take care of you. I don’t want you to feel you’d be imposing or limiting my independence.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t, I mean—” Mrs. Hargrove sputtered.

  Doris June put her hand over her mother’s hand. “I just want to be sure that you’re not worried about anything. I’m here for you.”

  Mrs. Hargrove nodded. She looked as if she didn’t know what to say. Finally, she lifted the plate of cookies. “Want another one?”

  “Thanks,” Doris June said as she took one. “I think I’ll go up and look through the clothes in my old dresser. There has to be one of my old sweaters in there.”

  There was a moment’s pause as Doris June looked at her mother to be sure she was okay.

  Mrs. Hargrove swallowed. “Pick a pink one. You always look good in pink.”

  “I don’t need to look good,” Doris June said as she stood up. “I need to look authentic. If Curt and I dress up, we’ll really just be playing a part. Almost like those living history exhibits, except we won’t be that old.”

  “Whatever you say, dear,” Mrs. Hargrove said as Doris June walked out of the kitchen.

  Mrs. Hargrove hoped that Charley had been able to get more information out of Curt than she had been able to get out of Doris June, but she doubted it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was Aaron’s idea to honk the horn on the old pickup to announce that the concert was ready to begin. Linda had already made Aaron promise not to send any news releases to the local media. He assured her that he’d told the publicist for the Jazz Man to disregard his request. Then Aaron had promised Doris June that he wouldn’t mention her in any follow-up news releases he sent out later. Both women thanked him.

  “He should run for public office someday though,” Linda said ruefully as she gave Doris June a stack of flyers to pass out to the teenagers who were still coming. “That guy could convince someone to thank him for stealing their purse because their hands got tired from holding it. He’s always got an angle.”

  “Yeah, but look at all the trouble he’s going to for the kids.”

  The evening air was cool and the gray of dusk was deepening into the dark of a full night. About a hundred teenagers were sitting around in the grass. Some of them had lawn chairs. Some of them were sitting on beach towels. All of them were holding a bright orange paper ensuring that, if they stayed for the talking part of the concert, they would get school credit for coming to the whole event. They had a generator, and the parking lights from several pickups were on to provide enough light so people didn’t trip over any electrical cords as they found a place on the ground to sit.

  Doris June had worn one of her old sweaters to the concert, but she had been chilly until Curt had draped his old letterman jacket over her shoulders. He had walked away before she could protest and, now that the sun had gone down completely, she was glad for the jacket’s warmth.

  “I recognize about thirty faces,” Linda said to Doris June as she looked out over the teenagers. “That’s about what Ben and Lucy expected from their friends around here. The other seventy are all bonus customers that Aaron brought in.”

  Ben and Lucy had decided to charge five dollars for the concert.

  “And we’re opening the café afterward,” Linda said. “Lucy’s hoping for a run on pie. We’ve got blueberry, peach and dark walnut.”

  The teenagers started to clap their hands as Aaron held up the microphone.

  “Thanks for coming.” Aaron brought the microphone down and shouted into it as a drumroll sounded from some electrical equipment Lucy had borrowed from the high school. “It’s now my pleasure to bring you the one-and-only, the up-and-coming Bent Heart Band from downtown Dry Creek, Montana.”

  Ben and Lucy climbed up onto the back of the pickup amid the sound of cheers and began to sing.

  Doris June felt herself start to relax. The concert had begun and no one had pointed a finger at her and demanded to know what had happened that night when the sign got crumpled into its current shape. She glanced over at the thing. It was still just a rusted old sign, but it looked different tonight. Several candles in tall jars were burning at the bottom of the stop sign and someone had placed a cellophane-wrapped bouquet of roses next to the candles.

  “It looks like an altar,” Doris June muttered to Linda as they stood at the back of the teenagers.

  “Or one of those places where there’s been a shooting. You know, the ones that get on television because there’s some scandal involved.”

  “Hey, there’s no scandal here.”

  Linda grinned. “The night is young.”

  Doris June just chuckled. She was beginning to feel a little more comfortable about the whole concert. She knew that teenagers in a rural area often had to make their own entertainment. All this was, really, was a big party.

  Ben and Lucy finished their first song and the audience clapped with enthusiasm.

  Ben pulled the microphone closer. “Before we get any further along, Aaron is going to introduce the two people who made this all possible—the original Bent Heart Pair—”

  It took Doris June a second to realize Ben was referring to her and Curt. By then, it was too late to hide because Ben had already passed the microphone down to Aaron and they were both motioning for her and Curt to come forward.

  “Let’s give them a hand,” Aaron shouted into his microphone as the teenagers started standing up and stomping as they clapped and yelled. “These are the two people who were kissing so hard they hit a stop sign and made history.”

  “I don’t think you have a choice,” Linda whispered to Doris June.

  Doris June had already recognized that fact so she put a cheerful smile on her face. She’d agreed to talk to the teenagers tonight; she might as well have an introduction.

  Doris June hugged the jacket a little closer as she walked to the front of the crowd. The jacket was big enough she could almost hide inside it. She remembered that feeling from when she wore it in high school. She had never felt safer than the times when she had been in Curt’s jacket. It smelled like him, too, which was nice.

 
When she reached Aaron, Doris June stopped and turned around. Curt had walked over from another direction and they were each standing on opposite sides of Aaron.

  “Well, we can’t have this,” Aaron said as he looked at Doris June and then turned his head to look at Curt. “I’m not going to be the one who comes between this teenage couple.”

  Aaron took an exaggerated step back and motioned Doris June and Curt to close ranks so they would be standing next to each other.

  Doris figured she had agreed to be a good sport when she’d said she would talk to the students. She did hope, however, that Aaron would get to the serious part of things before too long. He probably felt he had to draw things out to make them more dramatic, she decided, as she took a small step closer to Curt. That was entertainment these days.

  “There you have it,” Aaron announced. “The original eloping couple.”

  The kids went wild with their clapping.

  Aaron encouraged them. “The couple that didn’t get away.”

  Doris June forced herself to keep smiling. The man couldn’t keep going on much longer. At least, she hoped not.

  “I give you our very own Doris June Hargrove and Curt Nelson,” Aaron shouted.

  The clapping got even more frantic.

  Finally, Aaron stepped closer and whispered to Doris June and Curt. “Can’t you two look a little more friendly?”

  Aaron kept the microphone covered so the crowd fortunately couldn’t hear his words.

  “We’re friendly,” Doris June snapped back in a low voice.

  “You’re still standing miles apart,” Aaron protested quietly. “You’re supposed to be in love.”

  “That was twenty-five years ago,” Doris June hissed back at him.

  Curt took a big step closer to Doris June so that they were standing beside each other.

  It wasn’t enough. The crowd had stopped clapping and was now stamping their feet on the ground. Doris June worried that the vibrations of all of that stamping might upset the candles by the stop sign and ignite a fire. She burrowed a little further into Curt’s jacket. She certainly hadn’t been this timid in high school. The girl who used to wear this jacket wouldn’t stand here letting a crowd build up steam like this. She knew what they wanted. Some kids were bold enough to call out their demand for a kiss.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Doris June finally said. There was no point in continuing to make a spectacle of themselves and she could see from the cautious light in Curt’s eyes that he wasn’t going to do anything to stop all this noise.

  Doris June was a businesswoman. She knew that the best way to move a meeting along was to finish up the one topic everyone had on their minds so they could concentrate on everything else. She took a deep breath and inhaled the scent of the jacket.

  Then she did what everyone wanted. She reached up and pulled Curt’s head down and gave him the same kind of kiss she’d given him twenty-five years ago in almost this same spot.

  Oh. Doris June was stunned. Not just because of the kiss, as good as that was. Curt had always been a good kisser. That hadn’t changed. Well, maybe it had a little. Her heart couldn’t take much more of this. She heard pounding and Lucy hadn’t turned on the drum machine. Oh, my.

  Doris June forced herself to think. It wasn’t just this kiss. She was suddenly remembering what had happened twenty-five years ago on this spot. She’d reached up and grabbed Curt just like she’d done now.

  Only, he’d been driving the pickup back then. Which meant she was the one who had caused them to run into the stop sign. It had all been her fault.

  Doris June was out of breath when the kiss ended. Part of that was because of Curt, of course. She was relieved to see that he looked as shaken by the whole thing as she felt. But that wasn’t all of it. She was horrified because she realized for the first time that she’d been blaming Curt for something for years and she had been the one who was responsible all along.

  “Wow,” Curt said softly.

  Doris June nodded. That was all she could do.

  The cheering had reached its peak with the kiss and the teenagers were quieting down now that they had what they wanted. Doris June started to walk away from the front stage area while Aaron was introducing the next song Ben and Lucy were going to play.

  “Easy,” Curt said as he reached out to steady her. “Electrical cord there.”

  Doris June only nodded. She let him lead her away.

  They were at the back of the audience again before Doris June found her voice. She looked up at Curt, the man whose jacket she still wore. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Curt said as his jaw tightened. “We were just doing what we had to do.”

  “No, I—” Doris June began again, but suddenly she was talking to empty air. Curt had stepped away.

  Linda moved closer to her. “Are you okay? I could get us some chairs.”

  Doris June shook her head. “No, I’m fine. I just realized what a fool I’ve been.”

  The air was filled with the sound of more cheers as Ben and Lucy finished another song.

  Linda nodded in sympathy. “We’ve all been there. We look at the man we thought we loved and realize it’s all smoke and mirrors. That’s what it’s been for years, of course, we just didn’t see it. Or didn’t want to see it.”

  “Oh, no, it’s not Curt,” Doris June said, as she decided maybe she would sit down after all. She slowly lowered herself to the ground and sat cross-legged. “It’s me.”

  Linda sat down next to Doris June and looked at her curiously. The song that Ben and Lucy were singing now required audience participation, however, and it was much too loud to talk so both women joined in the singing instead.

  Which was just as well, Doris June told herself. She needed to do some thinking before she even knew what to say about all of this. How could she have been wrong all this time? If Curt hadn’t been to blame for that day, what sense did any of it make? She’d spent years of her life thinking their botched elopement was his fault. Oh, maybe not every day. She’d hardly even thought about how wrong their lives had gone these past few years until her mother called and asked her to come back to help with the Mother’s Day baskets. But even when she’d stopped thinking about Curt, she’d let that day influence her outlook on life and on God.

  The stop sign was such a small thing to have had such a big impact in her life.

  Doris June didn’t know how she could have been such a fool as to not see that she had been the one who caused them to hit the stop sign. There was enough light from the pickups that she could see Curt now. He was standing over where Charley and her mother were sitting on a couple of folding chairs. She could see him talking to them and he seemed to be doing fine.

  Doris June wondered if Curt had figured out that she was the one to blame for them hitting the stop sign. Of course he had, she told herself. He’d probably figured it out that day in the sheriff’s office. Curt had never said anything to the sheriff about the kiss. He’d just said he wasn’t paying enough attention to the road. The fact that he hadn’t mentioned it didn’t mean he didn’t know it had happened, though.

  It isn’t often, Doris June told herself, that her world tilted on its axis. She was used to knowing what had happened, when it had happened and why it had happened. She wasn’t the kind of person who suddenly realized the past hadn’t been as she remembered it.

  She looked at Curt again. Why hadn’t he told her? That’s what a friend would do. A friend told you if you had broccoli in your teeth. No wonder he looked like he was waiting for her to say something more each time he’d apologized. He probably thought she was in complete denial.

  She cuddled a little deeper into the jacket Curt had given her to wear. Why weren’t things as simple as they used to be? She kept watching Curt as he started walking around at the edge of the concert. At first, she thought he was going to walk back to where she was. But he didn’t. He looked as if he was making his way back to their parents. Not that it matte
red. When the intermission came, she was going to find him no matter where he was in the crowd and tell him how very sorry she was that she had blamed him all those years ago. And, then she was going to say that she’d like to be friends again.

  He’d asked to be friends again and she’d thought at the time that he might have something more romantic in mind. Well, if he did, she was going to say yes. She missed Curt now and had for years.

  When the clapping died down from the next song, Aaron informed everyone that they were going to hear from another generation in the Bent Heart story.

  “Let’s welcome Mrs. Hargrove and Charley Nelson,” Aaron announced into his microphone.

  Doris June was glad to see that Curt was there to help her mother up from the folding chair and to hold her arm as they walked over to the front of the concert. Even though her mother didn’t need that kind of help during the day, Doris June knew her mother didn’t see so well at night any longer.

  The teenagers clapped just as hard for her mother and Charley as they had for Curt and herself. They really were good kids, Doris June thought to herself. She was glad she and Curt had said it was okay to use the old sign for the concert.

  Mrs. Hargrove waited for the cheering to die down and then she started to say something. No one could hear what it was she was saying, but Aaron moved his microphone over to her.

  Her words started to get louder in the middle of her sentence. “…why it’s important to give your parents their respect. They don’t always know what is best to do and they need your understanding.”

  “Are you saying you regret tearing your daughter and Curt Nelson apart all of those years ago?” Aaron swung the microphone toward him and asked his question as if he was Geraldo or somebody.

  Aaron moved the microphone back quickly so everyone would catch Mrs. Hargrove’s answer. “Well, seventeen is too young to get married. We all know that.” There was a groan in the audience, but that didn’t stop Mrs. Hargrove. She just looked out at the teenagers, many of whom she had had in Sunday school over the years. “You know that’s true, Tommy McLain, so don’t go thinking about it. No, what I am saying is that I regret the way I did it. Maybe if I had done things differently, it would have been better. I mean, I haven’t even told Curt Nelson how sorry I am for the way I treated him back then.”