The Potluck Club—Takes the Cake (29 page)
After leaving Lizzie, I hurried back down the sidewalk toward the card shop. I stamped my boots free of the packed snow I’d gained along the way. The delicious aroma of hot cocoa wafted upward; I was more than a little anxious to get back upstairs so that I could enjoy the little mid-afternoon pick-me-up Chris had sent me out for.
This was but one of the many things I’d grown to love about working for Chris Lowe. He was generous to a fault. He allowed for my personal life. He listened when I just needed to talk. And he often treated us to something wonderful from the café.
If Jack thought for one second that I was going to go back to being a housewife with nothing to do all day but clean his house and wash his clothes and cook his meals, he had another think coming, I reminded myself. I loved my job and I intended to keep it even when we reunited.
I felt a look of surprise splash across my face.
There. I’d said it.
When
we reunited. Somehow in my spirit I knew we would. In time. Some day. For better or for worse, I loved the man. Always had. Always would. He frustrated me to no end, but I loved him anyway. Charlene Hopefield, I decided, could have his baby. We’d deal with it. But the daddy was mine. All mine. I had managed to make a couple of counseling sessions with him over the past month, and we’d had a marvelous Christmas together with our extended family. I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel, to give up totally. Somehow, we’d make it work.
I squared my shoulders.
“Can I help you with that?” I heard a voice behind me say, just as I realized that I had but two hands and they were both full and that the door before me wouldn’t open on its own.
I turned to see Van Lauer—my friend from last year—standing behind me. He smiled, and for a moment I forgot where I was.
My, how that man could smile.
I naturally smiled back. “Van! What are you doing here?”
He reached around me, and I caught a whiff of his cologne, masculine and expensive. “I came into town to open this door for you; didn’t you know?” He pulled the door toward us, and I stepped into the card shop, stammering out a thank-you. “Chris didn’t tell you I was coming?” he asked. “That surprises me.”
I looked up at him and shook my head as we took a few steps into the store, then stopped. One thing hadn’t changed about Van in the month or so since I’d seen him last. He was still incredibly good looking. Six and a half feet of toned flesh—even for a man working on the last half of his life—crystal blue eyes, and a golden tan that didn’t seem to know it should go away in the cold of winter. I wondered for a fleeting moment if it were one of those airbrushed numbers I’d heard about.
“No, he didn’t. And it doesn’t surprise me.” I looked down at the hot cocoa. “Somehow I think he sent me across the street for a reason other than these.”
Van put his hand on the small of my back and guided me toward the back of the store. I felt a tingle rush down my spine; it settled behind both knees, and I wondered if I could even make the stairs. “You’re wrong. I’m here because of the Vesey case. I understand Donna Vesey is to be deposed tomorrow.”
I nodded. “She is. Nine o’clock. All the hotshot lawyers from out of town will be here too. The family of the baby. I don’t know how Donna is dealing with all this, but personally it makes me sick. There’s no finer deputy out there than Donna Vesey. She wouldn’t hurt a bug, let alone a child.”
We reached the stairwell, and Van opened the door for me. As I went before him he said, “That’s why I’m here. Van Lauer, Hotshot
Lawyer.”
I stopped on one of the stairs and turned sharply. “You’re here against Donna?”
Van’s head jerked a bit. “No. I’m here to help Chris. Didn’t I say that?”
I paused. “I don’t think so.” I sighed in relief. “I don’t think I
could stand it if you were here to hurt Donna.”
Van looked down with hooded eyes. “Still married?” he asked out of the blue.
“Mmm-hmm,” I said because all other words were stuck in my throat.
“Darn my luck.”
I cocked my head a bit. “That’s sweet of you to say.”
“It’s honest of me to say,” he replied, then nodded toward the top of the stairs. “Your cocoa is getting cold.”
I turned and began taking the stairs again, evermore aware of Van’s presence behind me and my rear end not far from his gaze.
“Life can be full of regrets,” he crooned.
I stopped and turned again, forcing the smile from my lips. “Van...”
“But, then again, full of good things... great things... wild and marvelous things.”
He sounded for all the world like Frank Sinatra. I bit my lip,
then said, “Thank you for that.”
He nodded. “You’re welcome. I think.”
As soon as Van and Chris were settled behind closed doors, I called Jack on his cell phone. He didn’t answer, and I didn’t leave a voice mail. But a few minutes later my desk phone rang, and it
was him calling me back.
“You called?” he asked. “Sorry. I was putting away some gear from practice.”
“That’s okay,” I told him.
“How are you on this blustery day?” he asked, and his carefree tone reminded me of the young man I’d fallen in love with so long
ago.
“Cold,” I said. “But Chris sent me out for some of Sally’s hot cocoa, and it’s doing the trick of warming my insides.”
“If you’d like, I can come over and warm your outsides,” he said with enough mischief to warm me all over.
I looked toward the back of the office to the closed door where Van Lauer no doubt sat, looking tan and wonderful. A man who was more than a little interested in me. A man who had never cheated on me. A man who didn’t have an ex-mistress about to swell in the
belly with child.
But a man to whom I wasn’t married, nonetheless.
“I’d like that,” I said softly.
There was a pause. “Hello?” Jack finally said. “Is this the party to whom I am speaking?”
I giggled. “It is.”
“Goldie?”
“Yes.”
“This is Goldie? My wife, Goldie?”
I giggled again. “It is.” Another pause. I’d say it was a pregnant pause, but... “I love you, Jack,” I finally said.
“Goldie, don’t mess with my mind, woman.”
“I’m not.” I took a deep breath. “We have some things to talk about.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
You know about Charlene?
“I know we have some things to talk about.”
“Oh. For a moment there, I thought...” I leaned back in my
chair.
“Thought what?”
“Nothing.”
Another pause. “Goldie?”
“Jack, can I come over tonight? To our home? I’ll bring dinner. And, we’ll talk. We’ll figure this thing out. Okay?”
“I have my meeting with the pastor tonight,” he reminded me.
I raised my chin. “Cancel it,” I said, my voice firm.
“Yes, ma’am,” he returned, and with that I ended the call.
When five o’clock came, Van and Chris were still in the conference room. I shut the office down without saying good-bye, closing the door with a click behind me. I took the stairs quietly and hurried toward the outside door of the card shop.
“Good night, Mrs. Dippel,” Britney called from behind a glass
shelf of what-nots.
“Good night, Britney,” I said, smiling at her.
“You sure are in a hurry there,” she said, picking up a Hallmark figurine and dusting under it with a white cloth I now spotted in her hand.
“Tonight’s a big night,” I said, then continued on, wondering just which way that door might swing.
Before the door closed behind me I heard her say, “My best to Mr. Dippel!”
I shivered in the freezing temperature before heading toward Higher Grounds, where I ordered dinner for two. To go.
As I left the café I spied Velvet James at the bus stop, and I wondered for a moment what trouble she was stirring up. I kept my eyes on the building just over her shoulder as I made my way to where Sixth intersects with Main. I hoped she wouldn’t see me, but I had no such luck.
“Hello, Goldie,” she said as I came near enough for her to be heard without yelling. “That is your name, isn’t it? Goldie?”
I stopped. “Yes, it is. How are you, Velvet?” My voice was terse, no doubt.
“I’m doing wonderfully, thank you.” She grinned at me, but it wasn’t genuine.
My lands, but she looks like Donna. If that poor girl
doesn’t have enough to deal with, now this
...
“That’s nice.” I continued on.
“My mother is doing well too,” she said.
I continued on. “That is also nice.”
“How’s your husband?” she asked, lifting her chin just enough that she no longer looked like Donna to me, but more like Doreen Vesey thirty years ago.
This time I stopped. “Why do you ask about my husband?” I
asked, an old fear washing over me.
She turned a bit and leaned against the lamppost that marked the bus stop while shoving her hands into the pockets of her long, deep blue coat. “Mama says that at one time your husband was quite the lady’s man. Why, she told me she imagines there’s not a bed in Colorado he hasn’t warmed.”
I felt my chest tighten.
Had Jack and Doreen... ?
“That’s really none of your business,” I said firmly, though I know my face
reddened.
“Mama says,” she continued as though I’d said nothing, “that the two of you haven’t been living together for some time, and that by this time he ought to be fair game.” Then she laughed. “But I told her that he’s too old, even for me.”
I stepped closer to her. “What are you doing here, Velvet James? What are your intentions? Don’t you think it’s enough that Donna is having to deal with Doreen being back in town? What’s
your
purpose?”
“Maybe I just think it’s time I got to know what it was like being my sister
.
Having Vernon Vesey for a father. She lived one life, I lived another.” She looked around her. “Summit View is a beautiful place. Why should she be the only one of Doreen’s children to get to live in it?”
“Oh, so that’s it?” I asked. “You want to make Donna miserable because you think she got the life you never had?”
She just stared at me.
“That’s what I thought,” I said.
Velvet raised a brow at me and growled. Actually growled.
I took a step back. “You don’t scare me,” I said anyway, then pointed my finger at her. “You hurt Donna, and I’ll be on you like white on rice. You hear me? Donna is not only the daughter of a friend—and I do
not
mean your mother—but she is a fellow potlucker.”
“A what?”
“Never you mind,” I said. “You just heed my words. Everyone knows who you are now. If you want to be the next big floozy around here, then you just have at it, but don’t you for one second do it in Donna’s good name. Donna may not be perfect, but she’s a good girl. And that’s a whole lot more than I can say for you right now.” I nodded my head once. “My supper’s getting cold, and I don’t have time to waste on this conversation,” I finished, then started to walk away.
“Oh sure!” I heard Velvet bark behind me. “Just walk away!”
I stopped for a moment, then continued on.
“I wonder what she meant by that,” I said to Evie on the phone not ten minutes later.
“I don’t know. There’s probably a lot we don’t know about Doreen and the children she had after leaving Summit View. By the way, have you told Donna?”
“No,” I said, then cradled the phone between my ear and shoulder blade as I shucked out of my clothes. I was standing in the chill of my bedroom. “And I don’t know if I will. Actually, I was calling to ask you to pray about something.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
I leaned over and picked up my clothes from the floor and laid them haphazardly across my bed. “Will you pray for me tonight? I’m going over to Jack’s to talk to him... to tell him about Charlene.”
“I was wondering if you’d done that yet.”
I stepped into the adjoining bathroom. “No. I was going to talk to him after the tea but then...” I burst out laughing as I turned on the water for my bath. “Then you... you and... you and
Doreen... put out your claws...”
“It’s not funny,” Evie said, but she was laughing too. “I had... I had scratches for days that I thought would... would never... would never heal!”
And we laughed all the harder as I added lavender bath salts to
the water.
Then Evie sobered as I turned off the water and stepped into the warmth of the tub. “Let me ask you a question, Goldie,” she said. “Do you think you stood up to Velvet on behalf of Donna out there at the bus stop or do you think you were really thinking about someone else?”
I sat up straight and extended my legs to immersion. “What do
you mean?”
“Like Charlene Hopefield, for instance.”
I wiggled my toes, and the burnt orange polish on my toenails winked at me as the scent of lavender reached my nostrils. “You are a wise woman, Evangeline Benson,” I said. “A very wise woman.”
Jack opened the door to our home before I even had a chance to knock. As soon as I took three steps over the threshold he took me in his arms and held me for a moment.
And I allowed it, nearly oblivious to the sack of food—and the news I had for him—pressed between us.
“Welcome,” he said when he’d finally released me and taken a step back.
“Thank you,” I said. I looked down. “I think we’ve crushed our dinner.”
“Who needs food?” he asked, then reached for me again.
This time I took a step back and said, “But we have to talk, Jack.”
He showed his disappointment. “Can’t we talk later?”
I shook my head and pulled away, knowing I had to keep my wits about me. “No. We really have to talk.”
I walked around him and into the kitchen with him following on my heels. “Do you want to try to salvage that?” he asked, pointing to the wrapped and crumbled food I placed on the table.
“Not right now, no.” I pulled out a chair and sat down, and Jack did the same, sitting directly across from me.
