Bluegrass Blessings

by Allie Pleiter

  Oh, great, here we go again. As if a creative choice in footwear was the oddest thing this guy’d ever seen. Granted, it was cold, damp and January. The morning’s rain had only barely avoided being slush and she had to pick her way around a frigid puddle or two, but it wasn’t as if she’d sprouted a third arm or turned purple or anything. Certainly flip-flops in winter—however unconventional—didn’t come near warranting the expression he bore.

  “Aren’t you cold?” he asked as he shifted his thick notebook to his other arm. He’d been taking notes all evening, but she hadn’t been so brash as to lean over his shoulder far enough to read them. “I mean, aren’t your feet cold?”

  Now that was a rather laughable question, wasn’t it? Dinah was an intelligent woman, perfectly capable of reaching into a bureau drawer and extracting a pair of socks should she find her feet cold. They were not in the farthest reaches of Africa—several very good clothing stores were within four blocks of her house. The answer to that question should be obvious. “I do own socks, you know. Several pairs. I even know what they’re for. If my feet were cold, I’d put them on.”

  “How can your feet not be cold?” He looked around them, as if the elements of the Kentucky winter would somehow back up his argument.

  “How can you be so concerned with the state of my feet?” She pointed to the cashmere paisley monstrosity around his neck. It looked ridiculously stuffy with the casual navy pea coat he was wearing. “I could tell you I think your scarf makes about as much sense as my shoes, but some of us have better manners than that. Y’all must not put much stake in tolerance up there in New York.” She threw the “y’all” in there just because the wince it produced in him was so much fun. The problem with this guy was that he was just so easy to tease. He seemed to come pre-loaded with irresistible things to make fun of—and he got so out of joint when she did.

  Lord, remind me to go easy on him. I was once a newcomer, too, and look at the home You’ve given me here. It’s not fair to pick on people when they’re down, I know that. “Okay, the scarf’s a bit fancy for this part of the world, but it’s not so bad. And you still haven’t told me why you went to the meeting.”

  “Reconnaissance.”

  Dinah stopped as they turned the corner onto Ballad Road and looked at him. “You been here all of—what? One week?—and already you’re at war?”

  “No.” He looked annoyed, as if his combat-like behavior was perfectly normal. “I just like to know all I can about who I have to do business with. And not just town council, but half those people in there are on the zoning committee, right?”

  Dinah ticked down the list of town council members in her head. “True.”

  “Those are the people I have to convince if I want to rename Lullaby Lane, or change an ordinance, or do something so benign as put in sidewalks, evidently. I need to know the players.”

  It made sense. It was just the way he said it—all ferocious and mogul-like. Reconnaissance? Players? He acted as if there were some grand and omniscient moral principle at stake instead of one dumb old street name. One silly street name, granted, but Dinah would never put Lullaby Lane’s name on a list of things worth so much time and energy. “So what do you do with your free time, Cameron? I mean when you’re not studying for that test or scoping out the enemy?”

  “You mean like hobbies?”

  “I suppose. What did you do in New York when you weren’t at work?”

  The question seemed to catch him off guard, for his steps slowed. “I know what I wanted to do. I never did it, though. I was always at work. I worked all the time.” His voice took on the tone of someone thinking out loud rather than having a conversation. “I mean, I went to church, I’d go out to dinner with friends and stuff, but that was just what I did in between working. Like sleep.”

  She’d seen loads of people like that back in New Jersey. People whose “off hours” were simply sleep bracketed by train rides in and out of Manhattan. The kind of people who did paperwork on their decks on Sunday afternoons or kept their cell phones right next to their dinner plates at restaurants. She supposed he hadn’t even had cause to think of it before his life had ground to a halt and landed him in Middleburg. The slower pace of life was one of the things Dinah treasured about living here. You had time to be someone. Not just to do something, but to be someone. Time to ponder and hear God whisper in your ear.

  “What did you want to do—you know, that you never got around to doing?” she asked.

  “Play basketball,” he answered without hesitation. “I wanted to be one of those guys who gets together at the city gym with his buddies every Saturday morning and shoots hoops.”

  Boy, that was sad. She expected something enormous and unattainable like climbing Mount Everest or photographing white tigers in Siberia. But hoops on Saturday mornings? That could happen. “That doesn’t sound too hard,” she said. “Especially now that you’re here. I mean, this is Kentucky, where basketball is a very serious subject. Really, that’s a low bar for life dreams.”

  Cameron shook his head and gave a half-hearted laugh. “Yeah, that’s the worst of it. Not a high bar at all. And I couldn’t even make it happen. Seems kind of sad now that I look at it. I was so busy getting ahead that there wasn’t time for anything. College to MBA to job, all at full-out speed. I just realized yesterday that I kept a basketball in my New York apartment for three years and it’s still in the box. I unpacked it yesterday, and the receipt was still in the bag with it.” He hunched his shoulders against the evening chill and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Three years and I didn’t even find the time to take the thing out of the box.”

  There were times when Cameron seemed so angry with himself that Dinah thought he’d bubble up and boil over like a pot left on the stove too long. There was always something simmering just under the surface with him. Nothing she could ever put a finger on, just an inkling, but always there. “Balls come in boxes?” she asked with a mock fascination just as they were getting to the apartment building.

  “The good ones do. I can see you know your b-ball.”

  She grinned at him. “It’s that big orange thing that goes through the circle up off the ground, right?”

  He laughed. It was the first time since he’d moved in that she heard him laugh. Granted, it wasn’t much of a laugh—only a notch or two above the pathetic chuckle he’d given moments ago, but still an improvement.

  “Go get it.” On the list of potentially unwise suggestions, this one was at the top of Dinah’s list, which did nothing to explain why it leaped out of her mouth. Maybe it was the way the regret darkened the corners of his eyes.

  Or maybe it was the three varsity basketball letters stacked up in her high school yearbook.

  He looked up in complete surprise. “What?”

  “Well, this seems a pretty easy problem to fix. Get the thing out of its box and bring it down here. I’m not as good as I used to be, but since you’ve not touched a ball in three years, we ought to be even.”

  “As you ‘used to be’?” He opened the door to the foyer shared by the two rowhouse-style buildings. “Is there something I ought to know? Besides,” he pointed down at her flip-flops, “can you play in those things?”

  There it was. The first spark of life in his voice. She kept wondering how the Cameron Rollings she’d met so far could take Manhattan markets by storm. There had to be more to him and for the first time, she saw a hint of it behind his eyes. The guy evidently had a competitive streak as wide as the Mississippi. The guy also didn’t know she had a pair of socks and running shoes behind the counter in the bakery.

  She stuck her key in the bakery door, applying a twang as she called over her shoulder, “Y’all telling me you’re a’ feared of a gal in rubber shoes?” Well, that was legal; sneakers are made of rubber, too.

  His chuckle broadened out into a full laugh as he put his key in the door that led upstairs to his apartment. “Should I be?”

  Dinah pointed at him as she pus
hed the bakery door open. “Unpack that ball and get down here in sixty seconds, mister.”

  Chapter Six

  An hour later, Cameron was hunched over, bracing his weight on his knees as Dinah did a little victory dance around him.

  “Three years on the varsity team,” she admitted when she was up by a dozen points.

  He should have known. “‘The big orange thing that goes through the hoop?’ Ha!”

  Dinah dribbled and executed yet another perfect layup. “Well, would you have unboxed your ball if you knew I was any good?” The ball swooped through the chains that hung from the park basketball hoop, their chiming echo affirming her position.

  “I’ve been whupped,” he said, making a sorry attempt at a Kentucky drawl. “By a girl.”

  She palmed the ball against one curvy hip, her breath puffing white against the night air. “You’ve been bested by the 1999 regional collegiate champ left wing, that’s all. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Well…” he started to disagree.

  Dinah smirked and bounced the ball back to him. “Besides, now you’ve got time to practice. I’ll be getting ‘whupped’ in no time. And then there’s the little matter of the Middleburg Community Church men’s basketball league.”

  “You’ve whupped them, too?” he moaned, enjoying the feeling of making jokes again.

  “No, but you might. In a year or two. If you put your mind to it.”

  Cameron grabbed his jacket off the bench where he’d left it twenty minutes ago when play got decidedly serious. “I knew all I needed was a new life goal.”

  “Oh, I think you can aim a bit higher than that.” She re-fastened the elastic that held all that wild red hair at bay. “But that’s up to you and God and not necessarily my business.”

  Business. That was it, wasn’t it? They were business associates. He didn’t even know yet if she paid her rent on time. He checked his watch. “Don’t you get up in…like…two hours?” It was past eleven. He felt completely exhausted, but it was a satisfying, spent tiredness rather than the stagnant exhaustion that had plagued him since leaving NewYork.

  Dinah checked her own watch. “Five, actually.”

  He picked up her coat from where it had been lying next to his and handed it back to her. “Middleburg’s sweet-tooth population can’t be kept waiting.” He spun the ball absentmindedly on a pair of fingers and turned toward the road.

  “If you make any ‘loafing around’ jokes, I might be obliged to whup you again.”

  “If there is a next time, you’ll play in flip-flops.” He was her landlord. There should not be a next time, he thought to himself. “Tomorrow’s the seventh,” he said, even though it was an abrupt change in subject. They were back on Ballad Road now and it was a good idea to end this evening on a more formal note.

  “Right,” Dinah said, tucking both hands into her back pockets as she turned and walked backward to look at him. “Rent’s due. Do I make the check out to you?”

  “CJR Properties, actually.” Dinah’s rent check would be his first actual income for his new real estate development company.

  “I’d guess that would be Cameron J. Rollings Properties? What’s the J stand for?”

  “Jacob.”

  “Good biblical middle name.”

  They’d reached the apartment door, and he was suddenly thankful her apartment was in the next building. He didn’t like the idea of their standing in the hallway in front of their respective apartment doors saying good-night—that would feel just too weird.

  “Good night, Cameron Jacob Rollings, promising real estate tycoon but paltry basketball star. Y’all sleep well and I’ll bring the rent checks over in the morning.”

  Aunt Sandy had told him Dinah paid her apartment rent and the bakery rent with separate checks.

  She hadn’t told him he might have more trouble separating the tenant from the woman.

  “Bible study? You don’t waste a lot of time getting settled now, do you, Cameron?” Pastor Anderson seemed a bit surprised to see him the following morning. “You’re more like your aunt than I thought.”

  “Well, Aunt Sandy can be…”

  “Relax, son, we love Sandy here. She’s a strong dose at times, I agree, but there isn’t a woman who can get anything done faster in these parts than Sandy Burnside. She’s got her fingers in a dozen different pies at any given moment and loves every minute of it. She’d be one of the first people I’d call in a crisis, that’s for sure. Not much knocks that woman for a loop.” He flipped through a large circular Rolodex, the kind Cameron hadn’t seen on a desk in decades. “Now, it’ll be the Thursday night one you’ll want, right? You hardly strike me as the Tuesday night kind of guy.”

  Guys come in nights? he wondered. “I don’t know. Who’s on Tuesdays?”

  Anderson made a dismissive gesture. “Oh, just a bunch of old coots like myself. George Burnside—that’d be Uncle George to you, I suppose, Vern from down at the hardware store, Howard Epson—oh, I bet you’ve met him by now, Monty Upshaw and Ted MacCarthy. You may have met Ted’s son, Mac, he’s more your age. Nobody under fifty. Hardly your crowd.”

  Nobody under fifty, but two of the members of the town council. “Oh, don’t be so sure.” Not that Cameron chose his Bible studies for professional advancement, but he needed to get to know these people and right now he’d had his fill of young urban professionals. He didn’t need social connections from his Bible study; he needed wise counsel. Odd as he might have found it two months ago, a handful of seasoned, Godly men sounded like just the ticket for his current state. Besides, Aunt Sandy had already threatened to fix him up with endless clusters of “you young people.”

  Pastor Anderson raised a surprised eyebrow. “Us old coots? Really?”

  “Pastor Anderson, I’ve had my life turned inside out, upside down, and moved halfway across the country. What I need from a Bible study is good advice, the voice of experience, and—quite frankly—someone who can’t beat me at basketball. Being a ‘coot’ sounds perfect. If you’ll have me, that is.”

  “You’re sure?”

  He was. Cameron had that grounded feeling in the pit of his stomach that he usually got in the middle of a good decision. And it was refreshing to make a good decision that didn’t cost him loads of anything. And really, Howard wasn’t as bad as everyone made him out to be. He was enthusiastic, rather self-promoting, but he was downright humble next to some of Cameron’s former colleagues. Somehow, and for some unknown reason, Cameron liked Howard. He had a good relationship with his own father and had always been comfortable around older people. This seemed like the perfect choice, even though Pastor Anderson looked at him like he’d asked to join the Women’s Guild.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Anderson smiled. “Now cut that out. If you’re going to be MCC’s first ever ‘young coot,’ we’d best get on a first-name basis right this minute.” The blond, balding man held out his hand and grinned. “I’m Dave. Save the ‘pastor’ title for formal occasions, okay?”

  “Fine by me.”

  They said their good byes, and “Pastor Dave”—as Cameron decided he’d call him just for the time being—handed him a copy of the Bible study the men were using and a schedule of which chapters were covered on which nights. Finally, something to put on his calendar. Sixteen dates and seven phone numbers had never felt more precious. As he walked home from the church—a whopping eight-minute stroll—Cameron had to stop and stand in wonder.

  Whatever would the commerce wizards back East think of this “young coot” now?

  Bang.

  Mumble, mumble, bang! Cameron looked up from the place where he was sweeping snow off the building’s back stairs late that afternoon. Another aggravated moan, followed by the unmistakable sound of breaking glass, wafted out into the darkening air. He looked over and noticed Dinah’s back door was open—it often was, even in winter, to help let the baking heat out of the kitchen. Based on the sounds escaping through the door, all was far from well at Tas
te and See. Cameron propped the broom against his railing and wandered down to the bakery’s rear entrance.

  Dinah was crouched over a dustpan, trying to clean up glass shards while sucking two fingers on one hand. Her shoulders heaved in frustration—she was either about to cry or was crying already. No, Lord, you know I’m not good at this kind of thing. Good or not, he was here and Dinah was bleeding if not worse. Only a coldhearted goon would turn around and walk away. Taking a deep breath, Cameron poked his head through the doorway. “Hey, you okay in there?”

  Dinah turned her back quickly, but a telltale sniffle escaped her as she dumped the shards into the wastebasket. “I dropped something.”

  Cameron leaned against the doorframe. “From what I heard, you threw something. Somethings. Sounded like some first-class Kentucky fit-pitching down here—not that I’d know or anything.”

  She turned to look at him, her face more embarrassed than angry. He’d never seen her look like that. Something—or someone—had hurt her badly. The sight of her forlorn and red-rimmed eyes made his chest tighten up. “We pitch fits in New York, too, you know,” he offered, looking for a bit of brightness to return to her eyes but finding none. He ventured a few steps into the kitchen, picking up a baking pan that lay near the door. It had a large dent in one corner. “I think we call it ‘wigging out’ or something less colorful, but the sentiment’s the same.” He set the pan gently on the counter between them. “Lousy is lousy all over the world.”

  “I’m fine.” She straightened her back and he recognized the defiance of the supremely wounded. He’d barked the same two words to dozens of people as he carried his box of possessions out of the office not too long ago.

  Cameron saw a broken wooden spoon on the counter where he’d set the pan and picked it up. “Somehow I gather this is a bit bigger than a burned loaf of cinnamon bread.”