Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen (20 page)

I also planted some corn along the garden's western edge. I water and fertilize that corn so it's certain to grow thick and tall, the perfect spot where I can go and think about each and every passing day. It's not a hiding spot or a place to run away from fears and painful memories. I let those go the day we put my daddy in the ground.

I don't even need to sit on top of that picnic table anymore. Oh, I still stop by the Dairy Queen every now and then and eat a Dilly Bar, but mostly I just talk with Eddie Franklin. We have a patient ear for each other. We talk about profound things, like the meaning of life and how to form the perfect curlicue on a chocolate-dip cone. He let me try making my own one day, but the ice cream fell out of the cone and into the pot of melted chocolate. We had to empty the entire pot. Eddie hasn't let me try that again.

But most of my garden is planted with strawberries, beautiful, red, juicy strawberries. Brother Fulmer let me borrow a little land from him where I've planted another couple hundred plants, maybe more. I harvest strawberries all summer long, freezing thousands of them by the time the first frost forces me to stop. By the end of the day my hands are blood red, permanently stained with the juice of my berries. Gloria Jean says my hands may remain a bright shade of pink till the day I die. That would be fine by me.

Come September, I spend most of my days in the church kitchen, where I've found the space I need to work making some sixty jars of Preacher's Strawberry Jam every single day. Gloria Jean taught me how to make jam, but my time at Davison's department store taught me how to make it special. And now my jam is shipped to gourmet food stores throughout the South, including the specialty food department at Davison's department store. Mr. Wallis said he was proud to carry my jam in his store. He said he knew I was going to make something of myself someday. He even invited me down to Atlanta to greet the customers and personally sign my jars of jam.

Ida Belle helps me out when she's not busy cooking church dinners. And Miss Raines and Gloria Jean keep track of the orders and the payments. Next year we're planning on buying another stove so I can increase my annual production by some fifteen hundred jars. Who would have thought that big-city folk would consider my jam to be a gourmet food product?

Hank comes by to see me every morning and every evening. He loves to watch me working in the garden. He says he can't get enough of looking at the big-city girl down on her knees with her hands buried in the red, rich Georgia dirt. Of course, Hank doesn't have far to walk. He's been preaching at Cedar Grove for the past ten months. The search committee was looking for a new preacher and asked Hank, since he had been Young Life leader and all, if he would consider preaching a couple of Sundays.

Brother Fulmer said the first time he heard Hank behind the pulpit, he thought he was listening to his dear friend, the great Reverend Cline. Before long, Hank knew he was meant to be a preacher, not a dairy farmer. The committee called off their search.

Everyone at Cedar Grove would love to see the two of us get married. Of course, only time will tell, but seeing Reverend Cline's daughter as the preacher's wife, well, they seem to think it'd be like carrying on the family name or something. Hank's mama keeps reminding me it was always her dream that the two of us would find our way back to each other. She says we're almost there.

Maybe. But dreams are a funny thing. Not so long ago, I was consumed with my dream, so consumed that I saw any other possibility as a disappointment. I was convinced that the Lord didn't
giveth
much of anything. I was convinced that He just spent all His time taking away, especially from Catherine Grace Cline.

Daddy said that Jesus talked in parables because people have a tendency to hear but not listen. They look but don't see. I guess I was no different than anybody else. I looked and looked for that dad-gum golden egg, and I finally saw it, just like Daddy said I would. Funny thing is, I didn't want it anymore.

About the Author

SUSAN GREGG GILMORE has written for the
Chattanooga Times Free Press,
the
Los Angeles Times,
and the
Christian Science Monitor.
She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband and three daughters. This is her first novel.

Acknowledgments

Neither Catherine Grace nor I would have found our places in the world without the following people:

Shaye Areheart, my editor, whose wisdom and kindness and passion for things Southern has made her as much trusted advisor as friend.

Barbara Braun, my agent, who pulled me from the slush pile and gave me this opportunity to tell a story. I am forever grateful for her faith in me and her constant guidance and sage advice.

Bonnie MacDonald, reader, mentor, counselor, friend, who has read so many words I have written, generously providing countless hours of instruction from the grammatical to the spiritual.

Lee Smith, who not only taught me to diagram a sentence in the seventh grade but has continued to teach and inspire.

My big sisters: Mary Hall Gregg, Alice Gregg Haase, and Vicky Gregg; and all my Bradford-Street girlfriends: Suzanne Holder, Lisa Morse, Athena Wood, Tricia Partridge, Jane Herzog, Susan Regas, Cindy Norman, Michelle Doney, Sally Storch, Carey McAniff, and Michelle Whang whose early readings and enthusiastic encouragement were as reassuring and comforting as the discovery of the perfect tomato.

Fred Gregg, the big brother Catherine Grace never had.

Mark Wax and Mark Herzog, the movie men who thought it best I write a book.

Anne Berry, always patient with even the simplest of questions.

Claudia, who snapped her mother's picture.

My husband, Dan, and daughters Claudia, Josephine, and Alice, who took care of themselves and gave me hugs when the gang in Ringgold demanded all of my attention.

And, of course, my mother, Mary, and father, Fred, who made me go to church every Sunday.

And my grandfather, Pop, who took me to get a Dilly Bar.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2008 by Susan Gregg Gilmore

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Shaye Areheart Books,
an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

Shaye Areheart Books with colophon is a registered
trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gilmore, Susan Gregg.
                                    Looking for salvation at the Dairy Queen : a novel /
                  Susan Gregg Gilmore.—1st ed.
                                    1. Young women—Fiction. 2. City and town life—
                  Fiction. 3. Self-actualization (Psychology)—Fiction.
                  4. Ringgold (Ga.)—Fiction. I. Title.
                  PS3607.I4527L66 2008
                  813'.6—dc22                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    2007032673

eISBN: 978-0-307-40729-0

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