The Happy Hour Choir (8 page)

“I
know
what happened. It was you and that Vandiver boy. Your Aunt Lucy told me you didn't go to the movies. Kari saw you two drive off in the other direction.”

 

But I never moved home.

My mother had been true to her word. Fortunately, so had Ginger.

Chapter 9

“B
eulah, show Tiffany where she can sleep,” Ginger said as she started arranging containers on the table. I took Tiffany upstairs to show her the guest room, a yellow monstrosity. I showed her the bathroom and where the washcloths were so she could clean up the tiny bit of blood at the corner of her mouth.

“What's that room?” she asked, pointing down the hall.

“It was going to be the nursery.” I cleared my throat, surprised I'd choked the words out.

“Oh,” said Tiffany. “Oh.”

Once downstairs I passed Tiffany a bag from the freezer to hold over her eye during lunch. At first we ate in silence, but then Ginger said, “If you tell us who the father is, we might be able to get him to help you out.”

Tiffany choked on her bite of the sub sandwich we'd decided on. I whacked her on the back. Soon it became clear she wasn't going to tell us even when she wasn't choking. No matter how hard Ginger and I tried, we couldn't get Tiffany to tell us who the father of her baby was.

“Tiffany, he has a right to know and a responsibility to help.” I purposely didn't look at Ginger while I took the bag of English peas Tiffany had been holding over her eye and handed her a different bag from the freezer. Good thing for her I didn't like English peas, and Ginger hadn't felt like cooking them. Otherwise Tiffany wouldn't have had anything to hold over the bruise.

“It doesn't matter, Beulah. He wouldn't be any help anyway.” She leaned back against the chair and closed her eyes. She was wearing my Bon Jovi tee because she had nothing else to wear but her church clothes. Sooner rather than later, we'd have to make a field trip to the Davis trailer to get her things. I sure as hell wasn't looking forward to that.

“But what are you going to do about food?” Ginger asked as she took one of Tiffany's strong hands in her skeletal ones. “You're not going to be able to keep working as a waitress at The Fountain for much longer, you know. Breathing all that smoke and standing on your feet's not good for you.”

“I know,” Tiffany moaned. “But I don't know what else to do.”

She sat up straighter. “Maybe I could help out around here to earn my keep. Clean up a bit, cook?”

My eyes locked with Ginger's.
Help the cancer-ridden woman go through her last days as comfortably as possible?
No, no need to tell Tiffany about Ginger until we absolutely had to.

I started pacing. “First things first, we're not going to mention this to anyone. That way, you can apply for jobs and not tell them you're pregnant.”

“Beulah, that's sneaky,” Ginger objected.

“It's a dog-eat-dog world. You know that. Tiffany's never going to get hired around here if people know she's pregnant and unmarried—trust me on that one. No, it would be much better for her to get a job and then ‘discover' her pregnancy.”

Tiffany sat up in the recliner. “Do you really think I'm going to be able to pull that off?” She'd thrown up three times since we got home.

“I think you should give it a try.” I stopped pacing.

“What are you going to tell Luke about Carl?”

I inhaled deeply. “I'm not telling him anything. What does it matter to him?”

Ginger frowned. “Don't you think Luke needs to know these things in case Carl decides to show up uninvited?”

We both looked at Tiffany. If a man would hit his daughter, who could predict what else he might do?

“Fine. I'll tell Luke. Then the next time Carl comes into The Fountain I'll let him know his services are no longer needed.”

Ginger stared through me. “You should probably ask Luke to be there with you for that, too.”

 

The next morning I drove over to County Line Methodist to give Luke one of our old box fans and to tell him what had happened. I wondered how his impromptu Bible study had gone. Knowing The Fountain regulars, they'd converted him to a life of beer and laziness instead.

And I should probably apologize for that “you're not Jesus” comment, but I wasn't going to. Nope. I needed to say my piece and get away from him as soon as possible.

I rolled into the parking lot blasting classic rock with the windows rolled down because my air-conditioning had long ago ceased to function. Turning off the engine and stepping into the parking lot during morning hours was like stepping into a different world. Birds chirped to one another as crickets and frogs sang their last songs of the morning. Sunlight caught each spiderweb and every sprinkle of dew, and the air around me sparkled with a haze that promised a hot day ahead. Even the cemetery looked cheerful with the bright sunlight and the sound track of the birds. And it was fortunate I looked over at the cemetery because Luke was there with a sketch pad, sitting on someone's tombstone.

I took a deep breath. Time to tell him about the sordid exploits of the Happy Hour Choir and hope he didn't give me too much grief for being an ass a few days before. I crunched across the gravel, then hiked through the dewy grass of the cemetery, my nose crinkling at the distasteful sensation of wet grass clippings clinging to my feet and ankles.

“Hey, Luke, whatcha doing there?”

He jerked around. “Beulah, I didn't expect you this morning, but I'm glad you're here because there's something I need to tell you.”

“That makes two of us.” I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my cutoffs. “I need to talk to you, too.”

“All right, you first.” His eyes opened wide and bright, a complement to the sky above him. He thought I was coming to share my secrets, but that wasn't going to happen. I wrestled with the desire to talk to him about Hunter, but I pinned down that unruly urge and brought up the real reason I was there. “I'm going to need to ask Carl to leave the choir, and Ginger seems to think this is something I should discuss with you.”

He put down the sketch pad and slid around on the marker to face me. I took a seat on the nearby Smith memorial. I didn't figure they'd mind that much.

“You like to express your opinions in the framework of what Miss Ginger likes, but, as I recall, she is quite good at expressing her own opinions.”

A lump of coal formed in my stomach and started to glow. “You don't know the first thing about Ginger Belmont, so you can take that tone back.”

We glared at each other for a moment. “I'm sorry. That was out of line, but I do wonder why someone as headstrong as you kowtows to an elderly lady.”

That lump of coal cooled but moved up to my throat. “She was there for me when no one else was. The least I can do is return the favor.”

Luke leaned back and studied me. He picked up the sketch pad and turned a sheet over to a new page before taking up his pencil. “She took you in when you had nowhere else to go?”

“I don't think that's any of your business, and I don't need a shrink.” I crossed my arms and stared through him with my best mean look, but it didn't faze him.

“Did she help you the way you're helping Tiffany?” He looked up from the sketch pad, one eyebrow raised as if he already knew the answer.

No matter how many times I swallowed I couldn't get rid of that lump. There was no reason in this world I should have been ashamed to tell Luke my story. After all, Daddy always said a minister is certain to have heard worse. But I couldn't form the words to explain it all, so I settled on a simple, “Yes.”

He nodded and looked down at his drawing. His lips pursed as his hand flew over the page in a flurry of strokes. I cursed him for his intuition. And for being so darn handsome there in the morning light with his sketch pad.

“So, how does all this add up to Carl leaving the choir?”

I exhaled with relief, more than happy to be back in familiar territory. “Carl smacked Tiffany around. As far as I'm concerned, he can go to . . . He can move all the way to Timbuktu for all I care.”

“I'm assuming she's in good hands, though, since I saw her leave with you and Miss Ginger.”

“Define ‘good hands.' ”

He chuckled and looked up at me with a half smile and his eyes twinkling in a way that made me melt. “I think your hands are better than you think they are.”

“I'm sorry for what I said the other night. I didn't mean it.”

He looked back at the pad where he was sketching. “No need to apologize for speaking the truth.”

“Even if I spoke the truth with a smart-alecky tone of voice?”

“Even then.”

He continued drawing, and I thought of the sketch of the beautiful woman in his office. She was probably his girlfriend, and I'd do well to remember it. “So the sketch in your office is yours?”

“Sure is.”

“Who is she?”

“My ex-wife.”

I swallowed hard. Of course he was still in love with his ex-wife. He would do what was right even if she didn't hold up her end of the bargain. “Still in love with her, huh?”

He looked up from his book again to study my face. “No, I keep her there to remind me I can't fix everything and everyone. Some people don't want to be rescued. Apparently, some people want to marry carpet salesmen and move to Georgia.”

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“Don't be. It's for the best, let me assure you.”

“Well, she's an idiot.”

“Thanks. I think that might be your first compliment to me.” He studied me with such intensity I was glad to have a row of graves between us.

I shifted around on the top of the granite marker. Those rough, rounded edges were definitely not made for sitting. “So which church is this for you?”

“It's my third church and second denomination. I'm hoping for that ‘charm' adage to come true because the first two didn't end well.”

I snorted before I could stop myself. “Because you couldn't pick out an invitation to save your soul.”

“Very funny.”

“Wait, your second denomination?” I fidgeted as he repeatedly looked up at me and down at the paper while his hand flew over the page.

“The Southern Baptists frown upon divorced pastors. Even if divorce wasn't the pastor's idea.”

He
was
still in love with her.

“Dad did for me what he could, but, in the end, the rules are the rules. Besides, I needed to go in a different direction.” He shrugged, but I could see an inner war there, an admiration for his father combined with the overwhelming desire to do certain things in a completely different way. No matter what he might tell himself or others, Luke secretly wanted to be like his father, and, based on his pained expression, he felt as though he wasn't even close. I could understand that.

“When did you start preaching?”

“Twenty-two,” he said. “I was going to be a star.”

Twenty-two? I was still busy doing really stupid things at twenty-two, making up for lost teenaged years, I suppose. I tried to imagine being married and in charge of an entire congregation at such a young age. Nothing I had ever experienced could possibly compare with that kind of pressure.

“A bit young, weren't you?”

He looked up. “Ever heard of the Reverend Barnabas Daniels?”

I frowned as I racked my brain on that one. “No . . . Oh, Reverend Daniels, who used to have the show on Sunday mornings out of Nashville?”

Luke nodded solemnly. “That's my dad. I was a bit of a prodigy, they said. I settled down in the outskirts of Nashville and prepared to take over my father's empire.”

“But it didn't happen that way, did it?”

“Of course not,” he said with a bitter smile. “But it all turned out for the best. Quid pro quo, Miss Land,” he said before looking back to his sketch pad.

Having a minister quote Hannibal Lecter was disturbing on many levels, so I felt it best to change the subject. “I guess I'll tell Carl tonight we won't be needing his services.”

Luke's head snapped up. “Nice try. My turn for questions.”

Oh, he'd told me all sorts of things about himself so he could find out more about me. Sneaky bastard. “I don't want to play your game.”

“I'm not playing games, and I still don't take you for a coward.”

“Fine,” I huffed. “I've lived here my entire life. My parents sheltered me. I made some mistakes. I live with Ginger, my old piano teacher. That's all there is to know.”

“What kind of mistakes?”

“A Tiffany mistake.”
Among others that I won't tell you even if you start prying off my fingernails with pliers.

“And that's who you lost, isn't it? The baby?”

“Yeah.”
And my father. And my mother's love. And I'm going to lose Ginger someday, too.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

“Me too. And on that cheery note, I have some errands to run for Ginger. Just wanted to let you know about Carl before I told him to get lost tonight.”

Luke frowned. “Maybe I ought to be there, too.”

“I think I can handle a drunken redneck, Preacher Man.”

He straightened. “I'll come anyway.”

“That's not necessary,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Free country, as you've so eloquently pointed out. Besides, I'm feeling a little thirsty.”

I stood and looked over the edge of his pad. The sketch was still rough, but it was me. Only, I was beautiful in that sketch, so beautiful I sucked in a breath. “Wow, you're really good. Or really bad, since you drew me to look like a mischievous fairy.”