Stardust Miracle (2 page)

“Do you see that?” Becky motioned at the letter on the back window of Ivy Cantrall’s van.

“It’s an A.” Lori frowned at Becky, as if she wondered about Becky’s mental stability.

Becky wondered the same thing. “Anything else?” 

“It’s dirty.” Lori frowned. “Is this a sneaky test? What am I supposed to see?”

Though Becky knew the answer from Lori’s lack of reaction, she asked, “Do you see any sparkles?”

Lori’s frown lines deepened. “Sparkles?”

“Never mind.” She gave Lori her ‘everything is wonderful’ smile. “The sun was in my eyes and one of the windows sparkled.”

Lori’s forehead cleared. “One of us needs our eyes checked. Most of the windows are so filthy, I’m surprised anything would reflect off them.”

Becky laughed dutifully. Lori winked and strode on. When Becky glanced back, half the cars with letters were headed toward the back of the church where the Girls for Christ were ready with their hoses and their sponges. The remaining letter-free car windows looked like...windows. No sparkle, no shine.

Maybe there was something wrong with her eyes. Maybe seeing the tiny twinkling lights was like hearing a sigh no one else could hear. Just for an instant, and then gone.

She should check the Internet, type in her symptoms and see if she had a disease. Even though it didn’t feel like a disease. Today’s occurrence felt...magical.

“Miracles,” a child’s voice rang out. Making it a song. “We’re gonna have a miracle, a miracle.”

“Stop it.” Tiredness dragged down Diane Lofy’s voice. She’d worked at the cheese factory for the past ten years and in that time she’d had four kids. “You heard Pastor Jim. There is no miracle.”

“I want one! I want one!”

“Me, too!” another small voice called.

Me, three.
Becky crossed her hands over her baby-free belly and prayed that Jim was wrong.

Chapter Two

At least the squabbling kept Becky awake.

This would be her last year on the village board, she promised herself. She’d made the same promise the last two years, but this time she meant it. It was almost as boring as being back in high school listening to Mrs. Petersen talk about algebra. A subject that Becky had worked her fanny off for a B- when she was sixteen – and had never used in the twenty years since.

Gloria was giving Earl the evil eye, the look that said ‘I don’t care how many years you’ve been village president. It’s about time you had a pointy high-heeled shoe shoved up your ass.’ 

“Don’t change anything,” Earl Raasch said. The owner of Miracle Taxidermy and Reupholstering, Earl spoke slowly and loudly. With his grizzled beard and hair and thick body, he reminded Becky of a bear who’d recently come out of hibernation. 

“Everything changes.” Gloria Ehlke shot the words out like bullet points. “The trick is to take advantage of change.”

“When you get to my age, you’ll know more people complain about change than those that don’t.”

“Not everyone in this town is your age,” Becky said. Besides, Earl had changed last year, too, when he gave into complaints grudgingly and repainted his shop sign so it no longer read: You Shoot ’em, We Stuff ’em.

“And not everyone wants to stagnate.” Gloria gestured dramatically, as if the cold and bare room in the Miracle Village Hall were her stage, they were her audience and she was about to break out into a passionate song. “The world is changing. Either we keep up or we disappear.”

Earl scowled at her from across the table. “You’re talking about your business. I’m talking about government. You change one little thing and someone will complain.”

“They’ll complain more if we don’t fix the potholes.” Gloria glared at him as if she wished he were one of his own stuffed animals to be mounted on a wall on one of the houses she sold. Though perhaps not. Earl’s mounted body wouldn’t be a selling point, and Gloria was all about the deal.

“She’s right,” Becky said. “Angie Newhart was complaining at church about the one on First Street being as big as a baby gorilla, and a dozen other people chimed in.”

“Maybe fixing the pothole is the miracle that’s coming.” Gloria narrowed her eyes at Earl. 

“They’re going to like it less if we raise taxes next year.” Earl turned to Derek Muench. “What do you think?”

Becky exchanged a glance with Gloria. It was like Earl to want Derek’s opinion over theirs. Just because he and Derek had the same plumbing.

“Well...” Derek rubbed his chin, putting off the moment to give an opinion.

Becky crossed her legs. She suspected the only reason Derek had run for the village board was to get away from his mother for a few hours on a regular basis. Elaine was a sweet woman – though a tad controlling – who had muscular sclerosis, and he didn’t like to leave her alone too long. He even managed to work from home, doing tech things that no one else in the area could do.

If someone needed a website, Derek was their go-to guy. Thin with glasses, he even looked like a geek. But he had a sweet smile and his shyness was kind of endearing. It made Becky want to cuddle him in the same way she wanted to cuddle kittens and small dogs.

She didn’t know why some girl in her twenties didn’t snap him up. As if reading her thoughts, Derek smiled at Becky then shuffled his papers.

“Don’t keep us in suspense.” Gloria leaned across the table. “The roads aren’t going to fix themselves.”

“Gloria’s right about the roads.” Derek turned to Earl. “We could go to the state for funds.”

Earl’s fist thudded on the table. “No damn way I’m asking the state for anything. We don’t want the state poking around in our business.”

Becky took a gulp from her bottle of water. She suspected Earl had let his licenses or permits for his taxidermy business lapse...if he ever had them. He probably didn’t report his income. She set down her bottle and saw that the left side of Derek’s mouth, the side away from Earl, was kicked up.

So, Derek had said that on purpose. Living with Elaine, he’d learned how to be sneaky. How to say one thing and think another. How to convince someone they wanted to do something when they originally wanted to do something else.

The unwritten job description of a minister’s wife.

She blinked. Where did that thought come from?

“We could sell the old Chevy dump truck to Trey Nieman,” Earl said.

Trey?

“What dump truck?” Becky asked, even as her brain cells woke up. The cells in the rest of her body brightened, too. 

Trey had been the bad boy in high school in Tomahawk, two years ahead of Becky. He lived in Tomahawk, while she was bussed there. With his dark hair worn long, as if he flaunted his quarter-Ojibwe blood, he was the guy that every girl’s father warned her to stay away from.

Not that Becky had wanted to go out with Trey. Everyone knew she and Jim were perfect for each other. Besides, Trey had made her nervous. Too much testosterone for her back then.

“The pile of rust behind the village garage,” Gloria answered Becky’s dump truck question.

Becky nodded. Trey did pretty much the same thing as her brother-in-law. The difference was she’d heard Trey made money at it.

“How much is he offering?” Gloria asked.

Becky’s mind wandered. She’d been relieved when Trey left for California shortly after she started college. According to gossip, he’d only returned a couple months ago when he found out he had a seventeen-year-old son. Apparently the bad boy was turning out to be a good man. 

Welcome back to small town Wisconsin, she thought. Where the beer flowed freely, the village board president didn’t pay taxes and the biggest entertainment was each other’s lives.

“Two thousand,” Earl said.

That got Becky’s attention. She sat up straight.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell us?” Gloria demanded.

“I’m trying to get more.”

“What’s it worth?” Gloria asked. 

Earl scowled at the fake wood table top, as if it had done something to offend him besides being ugly. “I looked ’em up. Depends on the condition.” 

“That thing’s so rusted it doesn’t have a condition.”

“I got him up five hundred. I can get him up five hundred more. Some old ’55 Chevy dump trucks sell for five figures.”

“Does ours run?” Derek asked.

“Nope. But it could be fixed.”

Gloria rolled her eyes. “When’s the last time you took your car in for anything? It costs a bundle. And that’s when there are parts available.”

Earl transferred his glare from the table to her.

“Let
me
bargain.” Gloria’s eyes gleamed. “That’s what I do best. I’ll know when he’s ready to walk away. I’ll know when he’s bluffing.”

“What’s he want it for?” Derek asked.

“He thinks someday he might use it for a movie,” Earl said.

“
Someday
?” Now Gloria’s face looked like a toddler’s when he or she was about to spit out an ‘icky’ food. “That doesn’t sound promising, but if anyone can do it, I can.”

“I vote that Gloria handle it,” Becky said. “And I vote we go ahead and fix the pothole. It won’t break the village, and people are getting cranky about it.”

Derek and Gloria quickly put in their ayes, then Earl said he was the president and he was the one who should say they were voting.

“Then vote to end the meeting,” Gloria said. “My feet hurt and I’m going to soak ’em.”

“None of us need to know about your feet or any of your body parts,” Earl said, but he did announce the end of the meeting. Then he noted with surprise that they were done early and he should get back home to watch his favorite TV show.

Gloria asked what it was, and he was about to say when Becky reached for her brownie container to put the lid on. Earl slapped his arm forward to grab two of them, moving fast for a man of any age. Becky suspected he would have grabbed more but Gloria and even Derek reached in to take two each, then wrapped them in napkins.

Becky couldn’t help but think she’d done something right.

Putting the cover on the container with its lone brownie, she scolded herself. What was wrong with her lately? Acting like she was walking around with a dark cloud over her head, when she was one of the luckiest woman in the village. Sure, her life wasn’t perfect, but self-pity was like quicksand. Dip one toe in and it slowly sucked in the rest of you, until you were drowning in gloom.

As she walked out with the others, Gloria slapped Earl on his back. “Don’t be so grouchy. Selling the old dump truck hardly counts as a change.”

“That’s what people say when they feel a tremor in their house. The next thing you know, it’s a full-scale earthquake and the walls are falling down.”

“You’re confusing an earthquake with the big bad wolf,” Becky said.

Gloria laughed. “If it were up to Earl, the village newsletter would announce a new motto for Miracle: Leave everything as it is. Do nothing. Because nothing is always better than something.”

“You should’ve heard the other mottos,” Earl said.

“What’s that?” Becky asked, only because she could tell he wanted someone to ask. And she always did what someone wanted, even when she was thinking about eating the last lone brownie as soon as she was in the car. If she waited until she got home, Jim would pounce on it as if he were starving. As if he deserved it.

A sudden cold wind whipped at her as she and the others reached their cars. A reminder that spring might be here but if Mother Nature were so inclined, she could still drop a blizzard on them.

“We had a contest for a motto just after Vietnam,” Earl said. “None of you were born yet.”

“How come I never heard it?” Gloria looked at Becky and Derek. “Did you know about it?”

Becky and Derek shook their heads. Shrugged their shoulders. Another wind gust hit Becky.

Shivering, she sent a silent message to Earl to hurry. She wanted to go home. She wanted to turn on the heater. She wanted a few moments with her husband.

Once Jim found out the brownies were gone, he would probably go into his office. Maybe she wouldn’t eat the brownie after all... Maybe if she didn’t, he would sit and eat the brownie and listen while she told him about the meeting.

 “You don’t know about it,” Earl said, “because Becky’s grandpa refused to let us use any of the top choices. Said we’d be a laughing stock on all the comedy shows. That even the news shows would make fun of us.”

Becky frowned, not surprised. She remembered her dad’s father was always serious. Always ready to give his opinion. Whether it was wanted or not.

“C’mon, Earl,” Gloria said, “spill. I’ve got a bottle of Merlot waiting for me at home.” 

“It’s been a while, but the brain box is still ticking.” Earl knocked his knuckles on his head two times. “Here it goes.” Of course it didn’t go immediately. He looked around, his lips pursed, making sure he had their attention. Only then did he nod. “‘Don’t give a damn.’”

Laughing, Becky put her hand over her mouth. 

“‘Under the radar.’” He winked at Becky. “If I remember right, that was from your Uncle Sam.”

Still choking back laughter and with her hand covering her mouth, Becky nodded, though the motto would fit a few dozen villagers. Sam was her mother’s stepbrother, but she and Sarah still considered him to be their uncle.

“Your mom liked that one,” he added.

Becky’s laughter stopped. Her hand slid down to her side.

“Is that it?” Derek asked, which was verbose for him, since he usually never spoke unless asked a question directly.

“Two more. ‘We can always secede.’”

“Are you making these up?” Gloria asked.

“Nope. Ask around. I’m not the only one who remembers. You wanna hear the last one?”

Becky nodded, an odd feeling building in her chest. Her mother liked ‘under the radar’? She mostly remembered her mother in the last few years. So sick and so needy. Always apologizing to Becky. Making Becky cry because she wanted to help her mom.
Wanted to.

And at the same time she hated helping. She wanted to be like the other girls. With her mom healthy and taking care of her.

“What are you waiting for?” Gloria asked. “A drum roll?”