Talk of the Town (42 page)
“Not likely we’ll have another day like this one anytime soon,”
Donetta sighed.
“Don’t know if I could take another day like this one,” I admitted. “I feel like I could sleep till spring.”
“It is spring.” Leave it to Donetta to point out the obvious.
“Next spring. I could sleep till next spring, I’m so tired.”
Donetta nodded, squinting out into the live oaks, where the rising moon cast a speckled shadow over the cars, the Dailyians in lawn chairs, and way in the back, that reporter’s big motor home. She’d started to interview folks in the crowd now, but she was being real polite-like. She asked some questions about Amber and Justin Shay, but not in such a mean way, and she didn’t bother Amber while Amber was talking to the crowd of friends and neighbors. I had to chuckle as the reporter worked her way through the church yard, though. Justin Shay was standing not five foot away, and she didn’t even know it was him, on account of the police uniform. He pulled his hat low and gave me a smile as the camera passed him by. I think he was enjoying being just regular folk for a change.
Donetta blew out a long breath. Her lipstick had rubbed off on her front teeth, and I made a motion to let her know it, just in case she got on camera later. She finger-brushed and gave me the once-over, too. Real chums do things like that for each other. You know you’re best girlfriends when you check each other’s teeth without even thinking about it.
I slipped my arm around her, and we laid our heads together.
“It’s been a real good day.”
“It certainly has,” she agreed, patting my hand on her shoulder. “I sure wish Carter woulda come back, though. I like that boy a lot.”
“Me too. I hadn’t done any matchmaking in a while. Maybe I’m a little rusty, but I had a feeling about those two.”
Donetta made a regretful
tsk-tsk
. “I did, too. I thought I saw it in the window that first day after they both came to town, but maybe I was wrong. Guess I’m gettin’ old. What good’s a hairdresser who can’t spot a real match anymore? Might be time for me to just go on out to pasture, start spendin’ my time playing dominoes at the old folks’ home.” Donetta sounded almost as down-in-the-mouth as Amanda-Lee had, her vision having failed to come true and all.
I swatted her fingers. “Donetta Bradford, we are neither one of us getting old unless we decide to let ourselves. I was thinking, maybe we could take one of those cruises that sails out of Galveston—go see some things we never seen before.”
Donetta craned back and broke the link between us, her neck growing three inches longer and her eyes bugging out. “On a boat?”
“That’s the only kind of cruise I know of.”
“You don’t even swim, Imagene.”
“I could learn.” I braced my hands on my hips, getting a little aggravated with her acting like we both had one foot in the grave. “We could take Lucy, and all three of us get on a big boat and sail off to Timbuktu—like that movie Thelma and Louise, only we’d have two Louises and we’d use a boat, not a car. And we’d have a happier ending. It’s time we did some things. Had some adventures.”
Donetta gazed up at the moon, thinking about it. “Maybe so . . .”
I started feeling a little hopeful, and a little scared.
No time to stop now, Imagene
, I told myself.
You need to set this plan in ink while you got your courage up. Lots of senior folks go on those boats, and you can, too
. “Where is Lucy, anyway? We could ask her right now.”
“Over in the tent serving food, I think.” Donetta squinted at the moon, like she was trying to imagine what it’d look like from the water. “If there’s work to be done, you know Lucy won’t be standing around. I’d better go help, come to think of it.”
“All right,” I said, figuring it might be best to let that cruise idea settle on Donetta a bit so she wouldn’t out-and-out say no. A piece of me couldn’t believe I was so determined to go through with it, but in the very back of my mind, I could see me, Imagene Doll, in a big pink sunhat far out at sea.
Donetta headed for the food tent, and I turned and walked into the church to see if anything needed to be done there.
The place was empty, except for Amanda-Lee, packing up some equipment by the stage.
“I thought I’d let the crew go get something to eat,” she said and smiled, but I could see in her face that she didn’t feel much like a party. “We have the footage we need. I think Rodney and I are going to catch the red-eye back to LA so we can get this into production. . . .” She took a peek toward the door as a set of headlights flashed by. “The more time we have, the better we can make it. We have some good material to work with, thanks to you.”
“Lands, I didn’t do anything.” I felt my cheeks go red. It’d been a long time since anybody gave me credit for doing something important, other than baking the pies at the café. To the countertoppers, a good pecan pie was important. “It was nothing any neighbor wouldn’t do for another, anyhow. We take care of our own here in Daily.”
“It’s a nice town,” Amanda-Lee said, and the conversation ran dry for a minute. She picked up a clipboard and rearranged some papers on it, then smiled at me a little sadly. “I’m going to miss the Dailyians, I think.”
All of a sudden, I felt like one of my own kids was moving clear across the country. I was going to miss her and all the excitement
American Megastar
brought to town. “You come back and visit, y’hear? Whenever things get too busy there in the big city, you just hop on a plane and head this way. Don’t feel like you have to call ahead, even. I got lots of guest rooms and not near enough guests.”
She seemed kind of surprised by the invitation at first, then her face brightened, like she was thinking she’d really come back. “I might just take you up on that.”
“I’d enjoy the company.” A meddlesome part of me figured that if she came back, maybe we could find a way to bring Carter here at the same time. Brother Harve said Carter was helping with some part of the wiring for the new Caney Creek Church building. Maybe Brother Harve could give him a call and tell him there was a problem back in Daily he needed to look at. It wouldn’t really be a fib. Not exactly . . .
Amanda-Lee started taking down some kind of lights that looked like what Jack used to keep out in his shop. I moved around to help her. “On second thought, though, you might want to call before you come, just to make sure.” If she gave some notice, we’d have a better chance of getting Carter here at the same time. “I’m thinking of taking one of those cruises like you saw on the internet. I figured I’d get my boys to help me find one. They’re a whiz with computers.”
She stopped halfway through folding up the light stand, smiled at me, and nodded. “Good for you. I bet you’ll have a great time.”
“It’ll be different from anything I ever did before, that’s for sure.” A queasy feeling stirred in the pit of my stomach. Telling Amanda-Lee I was going to take the cruise made it really seem like a commitment. “But I just got to thinking, life’s like that plate of fancy French nibblets the literary ladies brought tonight. There’s lots of things on there that look a little strange, but you’ll never know if they’re good or not if you don’t try something new. No telling what I missed out on because I let myself be afraid. You helped me figure that out, Amanda-Lee. You and the Lightning Snake.”
Amanda-Lee looked at me for a long minute. I had a feeling she was thinking about that night at the fair when she and Carter rode the Lightning Snake together and she asked me to be part of her plan to make Amber’s show the best.
“I want to thank you for doing right by Amber,” I said. “She was sure upset when she thought you were mad at her.”
Amanda-Lee went back to folding up the light holder. “I’m not mad at Amber. I already apologized for losing it with her.”
“You seem kind of down-in-the-mouth tonight, though,” I went on, trying to act like I was just making chit-chat.
She untied the cord and retied it. “It doesn’t have anything to do with Amber. She was great tonight. The show will be great.”
“She’ll be glad to hear that.” I was hoping the conversation would slip around to what’d happened with Carter, but so far, Amanda-Lee was being careful not to drift that direction. “Amber admires you a bunch. She really wants to make you happy.”
“It’ll be a good show,” she said, but there wasn’t much feeling in the words. She looked as blue as any little girl I’d ever seen. “That’s all that matters.”
“I suppose so.” I tried to look casual by moving into the choir loft and picking up some empty water bottles. “Guess it was meant to be, the show turning out just right and all, especially after so much unexpected excitement. Amber was sure worried you’d quit her after she spilled the beans about Carter.” I glanced over at Amanda-Lee, and she stiffened like a board the minute I mentioned his name.
Since the topic had come up, I grabbed it and dove on in. “You know, it’s a funny thing. Amber told me she’d been trying to call J. C. Woods about his music company all weekend, and he wouldn’t pick up his phone. Seems like if he was
really
here to steal her over to his company, he would have answered his phone . . . unless something’d happened to make him change his mind about meeting up with Amber.” I moved on around the choir loft, stacking up music books and letting the idea sink into Amanda-Lee’s head for a minute. From the corner of my eye, I saw her stop what she was doing and slowly turn toward me.
She didn’t answer at first. I guessed I’d gone too far and made her mad. “It doesn’t matter now,” she said finally. “After this hometown segment, Amber will have a good chance to make it to the Final Showdown, and if she does, the decision about where to eventually go with her recording career will be up to her. She can make her own choices.”
“Oh, I know that.” I hovered there for a minute with the trash in my hands.
Leave it be, Imagene. You’re pushing your nose in where it doesn’t belong again
. But of course I couldn’t help myself. I really did like Amanda-Lee, and it was a shame for her to be so sad, and for her and Carter to be at odds, being as they had so much in common. “I just meant that sometimes things aren’t what they look like. I don’t think Amber or Carter Woods really meant to do anything . . . well . . . anything underhanded. Seems like Carter was a lot more interested in other things than he was in Amber . . . if you ask me.”
Which she didn’t, Imagene. Butt out
.
I slipped out the choir loft door to go dump the bottles into the trashcan behind the sanctuary. When I came back in, Amanda-Lee was standing stock-still on the matted-down spot of carpet where the pulpit would normally be. She was watching someone walk up the stairs outside the front door. His face was hidden in the shadows, but I could tell by the cowboy hat and the Hawaiian shirt who it was.
My hopes rose up like Lazarus, and I looked up at the ceiling, sending out a silent
Praise the Lord
and
amen
. Then I slipped out the back and left things in bigger hands than mine.
Air caught in my throat, the room seemed to shrink around me, and my heartbeat slowed. The moment stretched like a cartoon imprinted on Silly Putty. For an instant, I had the thought that maybe something was wrong with me physically. I’d produced news reports about overstressed young professionals who experienced sudden heart arrhythmias, strokes, and anxiety attacks. The brain, lacking oxygen, chemically imbalanced, misfired in its internal connections, and convinced the eyes to see things that didn’t exist.
I blinked, focused on the stained-glass window high in the peak overhead, then looked back at the entrance. He was still there. Not coming or going, just standing in the darkened doorway, his face hidden in the shadow of his cowboy hat.
Maybe it wasn’t him. . . .
Every grain of my existence wanted it to be him. I didn’t know how to feel about that. All afternoon, I’d been fighting to push away the thought of Carter, trying to focus on work, to do the job that needed to be done, to make my business life a success even if my personal life was a wreck. I’d built up a defensive wall, brick by brick, hoped it would protect me tonight when things were quiet, when I was alone and some random image of my time with Carter, some flash of memory ignited a yearning that could only end in self-recrimination.
You sure know how to pick ’em, Mandalay Florentino,
I’d tell myself then.
You made a monumental fool of yourself. You’re just lucky Butch clued you in. . . .
Even that was humiliating—the fact that fresh-off-the-turniptruck Butch had discerned Carter’s identity and cracked Ursula’s secret code before I had.
I
was the Hollywood-savvy news producer, after all. Once upon a time, I could look in the mirror and see a woman who was accomplished, sharp, competent, nobody’s fool. Today’s revelations had rocked me to the core, left me feeling broken and uncertain of everything, including my own judgment.
My only salvation was the whisper-thin belief that, from the beginning, the unexpected trip to Daily, Texas, had knocked me slightly off center. I’d been preoccupied with the rapidly escalating Amber crisis and the collapse of my relationship with David. I’d been looking for any port in a storm. Otherwise I would have pegged Carter as a fraud from the very beginning. Once I got home, I would feel more like my old self, my
real
self. Amid the humiliating buzz of canceling wedding plans and getting back the belongings I’d stored at David’s apartment, these few days in Daily would be just a distant memory, a tiny little sound I couldn’t hear. Carter would be nothing but a silly vacation romance, a folly, a mistake. I would morph into Mandalay Florentino, defender of the little guy, too consumed with fighting evil Ursula and her Dysterco death ray to have a broken heart.