A Match Made in Dry Creek (6 page)

Curt looked down at Doris June's face. The smile she had on looked too much like the kind of smile a person reserved for a difficult customer who came into a store complaining about some milk that had gone bad. It was
impersonal and polite. In fact, she wasn't even focusing on him. She was looking at his chin.

“It wasn't that long ago,” Curt said. He wished she would look at him. “And I think we still have issues to work out.”

Now what had he done wrong? Doris June had stopped even looking at his chin. Instead, she'd turned around and was looking straight ahead at the café. Curt followed the line of her gaze and saw she was still looking at their parents. Curt frowned. His father seemed to be wiping a tear off Mrs. Hargrove's cheek. He didn't know whether he was more astonished that Mrs. Hargrove had shed a tear or that his father was tenderly wiping it away.

“See?” Doris June whispered as she looked up at him.

“I'm sure there's some explanation,” Curt said.

“Like what?” Doris June demanded.

Curt squirmed. Now she decided to look him in the eye. “Maybe your mother got a spot of sauce on her cheek from dinner.”

“There was no sauce at dinner.”

“Well, then, maybe it's the lipstick she was wearing,” he said.

“She doesn't wear lipstick on her cheekbone,” Doris June answered as she started walking toward the doorway of the café. “And what do you know about lipstick anyway?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Curt asked, but
Doris June was already walking away from him. The doorway to the café was empty. The two older people and Ben had all gone inside. Only he and Doris June were outside and he was wasting his chance to talk with her privately. At the moment, he didn't care if Mrs. Hargrove was crying and his father was turning soft.

“Wait,” Curt called as he saw Doris June reach the steps of the café.

She didn't wait, of course, and he had little choice except to follow her inside. He did notice, though, that the light inside the café flashed pink through the material of her dress as she walked through the door. She looked like a sunrise. A sunrise that was moving awfully fast, of course, but a sunrise nonetheless. That was his June bug, all right.

T
he inside of the café was dimly lit. It had a floor with black-and-white tiles alternating across it and big street windows with white eyelet café curtains covering their bottom halves. Red-checked cotton cloths covered all of the tables. Two couples sat in the front of the café. Linda, the owner, gestured Mrs. Hargrove and Charley to a table at the back.

“We'll need room for five,” Charley said as he looked behind him. Ben was inside the café, but Curt and Doris June were still halfway outside. Charley hoped that was a good sign and that they were at least talking to each other by now. This matchmaking stuff was wearing him down and he wasn't sure how much more of it he could do, especially because Edith, well, Mrs. Hargrove, seemed so discouraged by it all.

Charley didn't know why, in the midst of all their
matchmaking plans, he'd started thinking of Mrs. Hargrove as Edith, but he had. Of course, he hadn't said her first name aloud to anyone yet and he wasn't planning to do so. She'd been Mrs. Hargrove to him for too many years to start changing the rules now. Besides, he wasn't sure she'd answer to Edith. Everyone called her Mrs. Hargrove.

Names were a funny thing, Charley thought to himself as he watched Lucy bring an extra chair over to the table where he and Mrs. Hargrove were headed.

“Anyone ever call you by your full name?” he asked the young woman.

“Lucille? Not in years. Why?”

“I just wondered.” He also wondered if he should tip Lucy for bringing the chair and decided he would. He wanted to make a contribution to her guitar-buying funds. He wasn't so old that he couldn't appreciate good music.

Besides, even in the dim light of the café, Charley could see that Ben's face was bright pink. Charley figured Ben must have a crush on Lucy and it wouldn't hurt his grandson's cause to give her some money for her effort with the chair. As far as he knew, this was the first girl his grandson had shown any interest in.

“Here.” Charley held out the dollar bill he'd pulled out of his suit jacket.

Lucy just looked at the bill. She had her blond hair
pulled up in some kind of a fancy ponytail and had tiny red disks dangling from her ears. Ben needed a friend who wore red like that, Charley decided. She would bring him out of his shyness.

“It's a tip for bringing the chair,” Charley said as he stepped a little closer to her with the money.

“But you haven't even been served anything yet,” Lucy protested. “No one needs to tip when we move a chair around. That's just doing business.”

Charley figured if it was a good sign that the young woman was so opinionated. The Nelson men always liked strong women who spoke their minds.

“Well, maybe later then,” Charley said as he set the dollar bill on the table.

Charley noticed that Ben had already sat down in the chair that was on the far end of the table, closest to the kitchen. Charley looked up to see if Mrs. Hargrove had noticed Lucy and Ben, but he saw by the look in her eyes that she had her mind somewhere else. He followed her eyes to the door of the café. Ah, that's what she saw.

 

Mrs. Hargrove had noticed Doris June the moment she stood, stopped in the doorway. The color on her daughter's face was high and Mrs. Hargrove thought that must be a good thing. She told herself she should have taken a hand in her daughter's wardrobe long before this. Doris June looked more kissable in that swirly pink dress than she had
in years and, as her mother, she should have pointed out the problems with business suits to her daughter sooner.

“Oh.” Mrs. Hargrove noticed in surprise that Charley was holding out a chair for her.

“You don't have to—” Mrs. Hargrove said, and then noticed the flush on Charley's face. She had forgotten they were setting an example for their children. She smiled and sat down. “Thank you so much.”

Charley sat down in the chair next to her. “You're welcome.”

Mrs. Hargrove kept the smile on her face. She was glad Charley could remember what they were supposed to be doing here. For a moment, back there in the doorway, she'd completely forgotten why Charley was wiping away the tear that was rolling down her cheek. The tear had come from her discouragement and Charley had given a convincing performance. He'd almost had her believing he felt the kind of tenderness for her that a man felt for a woman he loved.

“You'll need to sign up for the next pageant the church does,” Mrs. Hargrove said, leaning over to Charley. “I never knew you had so much stage talent.”

Charley grunted as he looked up.

Doris June had walked over to the table by now and pulled out a chair next to the one her mother sat in. That left Curt to share the far side of the table with Ben.

“Who has stage talent?” Curt asked as he looked around the table.

Lucy had gone back to the kitchen to get some menus. She was bringing them over to the table now.

“Everyone in your family has talent.” Mrs. Hargrove didn't want to call attention to Charley's performance. “I bet Ben is good with that guitar of his.”

“He plays wonderfully,” Lucy said as she handed out the menus. “And he can sing, too.”

“He can?” Charley asked as he took one of the menus from Lucy. “I've never heard him sing.”

“The two of you will have to do a duet in church some Sunday,” Mrs. Hargrove said. “We'd love to hear you perform.”

Ben took a sudden interest in the menu.

“Oh, we already have some performance plans in the works,” Lucy said with confidence. “We're putting together an outdoor concert with some other kids. Linda said we could use her portable sound system and we're hoping to use a pickup truck for the stage. We have a Web site and everything.”

“Why, I had no idea.” Mrs. Hargrove wondered if all of the Nelson men were so closemouthed about their talents. “A concert sounds wonderful.”

 

Doris June tried to discreetly step on Curt's toe. They were not sitting next to each other at the table, but she could estimate where his toe would be and she wanted to call his attention to their parents without saying anything aloud to alert them. She hadn't missed the
dreamy-eyed look on her mother's face as she was glancing over at Charley and talking about talent.

Of course, if Doris June wasn't worried that her mother might be suffering from senior confusion, she wouldn't have the nerve to interfere in her mother's love life. It's just that she couldn't believe her mother even had a love life. Her mother had never seemed to notice any man, at least not after Doris June's father had died. Her mother had been good friends with Charley Nelson for decades, but that couldn't mean anything. Besides, Doris June didn't want to see the two of them lose that friendship just because one or the other of them had an episode of confusion and thought they had romantic feelings for the other.

Doris June knew the line between friendship and love could be fuzzy and it wasn't so easy to cross back and forth. What if her mother only imagined she felt something romantic for Charley, or what if she only imagined he felt something for her? Doris June knew her mother would be very sad if she lost Charley's friendship.

Doris June decided she must have pressed against the top of Curt's shoe a little too hard. She got his attention, but it was in the form of a scowl. Still, she didn't let that stop her. She nodded toward her mother so Curt would take note of the expression in her mother's eyes as her mother looked over at his father.

Curt looked and then looked back at Doris June, a
frown accompanying his scowl. Doris June was glad to see he didn't look any too happy about what was happening between their parents, either.

“Does anyone want to hear the specials?” Lucy offered. She'd been waiting patiently for their order.

“I think we'll just have pie, dear,” Mrs. Hargrove said as she looked around the table.

“Cherry or lemon meringue?” Lucy said as a phone rang in the kitchen.

“Can you heat the cherry pie up and add a scoop of vanilla ice cream?” Charley asked.

Lucy nodded.

“Then, that will do it for me.”

Doris June wanted lemon meringue, but everyone else chose cherry.

“Not that we should be ordering pie in a restaurant when your mother can bake any kind of pie known to man,” Charley said to Doris June. “She's a marvel in the kitchen.”

“She hasn't been cooking much lately.” Doris June said. She hoped it wasn't Charley who was pretending to be interested in her mother just because she could fry him up liver and onions whenever he wanted. Her mother deserved someone who appreciated her for more than her cooking skills. “Usually she eats cold cereal and canned soup.”

“Well, only when I'm alone, dear,” Mrs. Hargrove said to Doris June. “Now that you're here, I'll certainly
do more cooking. And I always enjoy your cooking, too.” Mrs. Hargrove smiled at Curt. “Doris June is a wonderful cook. She makes that lasagna you like even better than I do.”

Doris June groaned. Fortunately, no one heard her because Linda had come to the table with a cordless phone in her hand.

“It's the state,” Linda whispered to Charley and Mrs. Hargrove. “Some guy wondering how you're coming along with the write-up for the tourism board. I tried to stall him, but he has questions. We're going to get an official Dry Creek telephone number so the calls don't always end up at the café. I don't know what to tell him. He says he's in Billings today, but he wants to drive over to Dry Creek tomorrow late afternoon and meet with you to see if he can help. Something about the students and class schedules and moving the deadlines.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Hargrove said.

“Oh, no,” Charley echoed.

There was a moment of silence.

“Well, he can't come here,” Mrs. Hargrove finally said. “We're not ready for him. Besides, no one said anything about someone coming here. We were just supposed to send in the form.”

“I can help you with the form, if you haven't finished it,” Doris June offered. She didn't like to see her mother so flustered.

“No.” Charley shook his head.

Doris June saw her mother look around in panic and was going to say something to reassure her when Charley reached over and put his hand over her mother's hand. Doris June noticed her mother calmed right down.

“We'll figure out what to do about the state guy,” Charley said.

“He said he'd be here at four o'clock tomorrow,” Linda said as she held out the phone to Charley. “Why don't you talk to him?”

“I guess we should see what he has to say.” Charley took the phone from Linda and put it up to his ear.

Charley only said a few words here and there, but Doris June knew he wasn't hearing good news.

“He's determined to come here tomorrow,” Charley said, after he hung up from his call and gave the phone back to Linda. “Said he's always wanted to have a look around the town of Dry Creek anyway. Wants to see where the—you know,” Charley looked meaningfully at Mrs. Hargrove. “Anyway, he wants to make sure it's still standing.”

Doris June wanted to reassure her mother and Charley. Fortunately, she could do that with the truth. “That shouldn't be a problem. All of the buildings in Dry Creek are standing, especially after someone fixed up that one old building and made it into a dance studio. It was the only building that needed attention.”

Doris June looked at everyone around the table. Curt
looked as bewildered as she felt so he must not know what their parents were worried about, either. Ben didn't seem to know anything. Only Linda looked at Doris June with sympathy in her eyes before she headed back to the kitchen.

“It's not a building,” Charley finally said as he looked over at Mrs. Hargrove. “I think we need to tell them. The news will be all over town tomorrow anyway when the state guy gets here.”

“It's not the church, is it?” Doris June asked. Maybe something was wrong with the foundation of the church building and her mother and Charley didn't want to alarm anyone. She had to admit that she had fond memories of the church and wouldn't like to see anything happen to it, although she knew the church was more than the building itself. “I hope it's not the church.”

Doris June heard her mother take a deep breath.

“It's the stop sign, dear.”

Doris June thought she had heard wrong. “The what?”

“You know,” her mother repeated. “The stop sign.”

There was silence for a moment.

“You mean
that
stop sign?” Curt asked.

“What could anyone possibly want with
that
stop sign?” Doris June asked. She hoped this was all some kind of a mix-up.

“The old sign that's shaped like a heart?” Ben asked quietly.

Mrs. Hargrove and Charley both nodded their heads.

“They want to feature the sign in their Montana tourist book,” Mrs. Hargrove said.

“One-Stop-Sign Towns,”
Charley added. “It's some new gimmick to get people to visit the state.”

Doris June would have a question or two to ask the tourism guy if he did show up tomorrow. She might not be paying taxes in Montana, but her mother was. Surely they had better ideas than this.

“I can't believe people would come to see a stop sign,” Curt said. “What happened to the parks? I thought Glacier and Yellowstone were enough to bring people to Montana.”

“Well, they're both in the west,” Charley said. “This guide book is for southeastern Montana.”

“We have Custer's battlefield,” Curt said. “That should be enough.”

Doris June just sat there. She finally realized why her mother had been acting so strange lately. Her mother knew how they would all feel about seeing the stop sign used in some guidebook. No wonder her mother had been all teary eyed and confused. It had nothing to do with senility or newly discovered love. “What are we going to do?”