Chapter Eighteen
W hat’s the matter?” Mama asked as we went into the Dairy Queen.
“Nothing.” I looked up at the menu above the counter while we waited behind a couple of bikers in leather, chains, and gray beards.
“Are you thinking about me being gone?” she pressed on with a worried expression.
“Honest, nothing is wrong. I’m over-the-moon happy that you are taking a vacation, as long as”—I leaned over and whispered in her ear—“you and Annie don’t take up with bikers and become road-queen mamas.”
“We make no promises and have no shame. What happens on a road trip does not come back to Ditto,” she said out the side of her mouth. “We might go hog wild while we are away.”
“So you might come home with another secret that no one can figure out?”
Mama smiled back, and we stepped up to the counter.
A middle-aged woman with short gray hair dried her hands on a paper towel and hurried over to the counter. “Hey, Sarah, I hear you and Annie done retired and that you are about to go on a trip to Nashville. I’ve always wanted to go there. Think you’ll get to see George Strait?”
“That would be nice,” Mama said. “When are you going to retire, Miz Brenda?”
“Never.” She frowned. “The boss doesn’t get to take days off, much less retire. Not with as tough as it is to keep good help these days. You want a job when you get back from your vacation? I’ll let you pick your hours. Or ...” She leaned over the counter and whispered, “I’ll sell this place to you.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Mama said. “I don’t know what I want to do, but I know it’s not café work. We’d like a couple of burger baskets. Mustard, no onions, on both burgers. French fries on one and onion rings on the other and make that to go. And we’ll need another one with fries, too, for Jasper.”
“We’ll get that right out.” Brenda glanced over at me. “Lila, do you want a job?”
“I’ve got one,” I assured her. “I’m learning the strawberry business.”
“I heard that you were out there working in the fields yesterday.” Brenda hung the order on a round rack, just like I’d seen Mama do so many times where she worked, and then set two empty cups on the counter. “Are you really not going to renew Everett’s lease?”
“I don’t have to make a definite decision until January.”
Mama picked up the cups and headed to the drink fountain.
“But who would have ever guessed that you would come home and take over the strawberry business? Or that the big secret is just that Miz Gracie had a wild side?”
“Not me, for sure,” I declared. “And where did you hear about Aunt Gracie?” My voice had an edge to it. Even though I knew there were rumors, it still angered me that folks had heard about her red underwear.
“Gossip travels fast in small towns,” Brenda said and lowered her voice. “I would have never thought such a thing from a prim and proper lady like her.”
“Who truly knows another person? Now that the secret is out, will folks stop talking about it?” I wanted to ask her what color her panties were, but I kept my mouth shut.
“Oh, no, honey,” Brenda chuckled. “Now we want to know who she was wild with. Was it Jasper or some other man in these parts?”
“Not Jasper, for sure.” I would do my best to divert any rumors away from him.
“Why would you say that?” Brenda asked.
“Just a feeling I have. Did you know that he was in the emergency room with an upper respiratory infection?” I said, trying to change the subject.
Brenda nodded. “I heard about that. Poor old darlin’. I’m glad you moved back here to help take care of him. That takes a load off Sarah’s shoulders.”
“Order up!” the cook yelled, even though she was only ten feet from us.
Brenda held up a finger. She brought a sack back and set it on the counter. “Here you go, and if either of you change your mind, just let me know.” She nodded toward the parking lot, where folks were getting out of half a dozen cars. “Looks like church has let out. We’re about to get swamped.”
“Thank you, Jesus,” I muttered on my way out to the vehicle, where Mama was waiting.
I slid in behind the steering wheel and set the bag on the back seat. “We didn’t order Jasper anything to drink?”
“When I called him, he said he already had tea made up,” Mama said. “I’m just glad we decided to eat with him on his porch and not in the restaurant. Brenda had more questions than a four-year-old can conjure up.”
“Now everyone is trying to figure out who Aunt Gracie wore her red panties for.” I started the engine and backed out of the parking lot.
“Bless their hearts—and I do not mean that in a nice way,” Mama whispered. “When will people learn to stop gossiping?”
“When they’re laid out in the cemetery, I guess. Maybe there’s a special little area in heaven for the ones who can’t wait to tell what they know. It’s got barbed wire fences all around it so they can’t be a hindrance to the other folks up there.”
“You could be right,” Mama giggled. “Lila, I’ve got to admit, I’m so excited about this trip. I keep waiting for something to come up to prevent us from going.”
“Not if I can help it.” I drove through town and turned onto Highway 16, then made a left onto the road to Ditto a few minutes later. “Do you think this secret stuff will ever completely die down?”
“Someday,” she said. “The next generation won’t be interested in something that old any more than they are interested in their grandmother’s crystal and silver. They probably won’t even know who George Strait is. They’ll be too lazy to pick strawberries, and the big wine companies and jelly businesses will be the ones who are buying the berries.”
I parked the Ford in front of the house. “No secret ... no Strait ... That’s too depressing to even think about.”
She got out of the car and carried our drinks around the side of the house. “Instant gratification is what children are being taught, and they’ll teach their kids the same. Picking strawberries is tedious work. Young folks today are too lazy to do hard work, and they’ll teach the next generation by example.”
Jasper held on to Sassy’s collar while we went through the gate and turned her loose the moment we locked it behind us. “I told her that company was coming, so she got all excited. Let’s eat before y’all play with her. I been lookin’ forward to a big old juicy hamburger all morning.”
Mama set the two drinks down beside his tea on the stump. “It’s good that you’ve got an appetite. I see you’ve already brought out another chair. We could have done that.”
“I keep tellin’ Lila that I’ve got my strength back and don’t need no more medicine,” he said.
“And that rattle in your chest when you cough says otherwise.” I took the food from the bag and set his burger and fries on the edge of the stump. “You go ahead and start eating. I’ll get your medicine and be right back.”
“Gracie didn’t just leave her the house and land,” Jasper told Mama. “She also left Lila enough bossiness for half a dozen women.”
“That, she did,” Mama agreed.
“And I love it!” I yelled from my back porch.
Gina Lou was still gone when I came home from helping Mama pack, but Connor was sitting on the front-porch swing. I sat down beside him and set the swing in motion with my foot before pulling both feet up and wrapping my arms around my legs.
“Did you get Sarah all packed up and ready to go?” he asked.
“I did. Where are my manners? Can I get you a glass of sweet tea or a beer?”
He leaned over and picked up a six-pack of sweating bottles. “I chilled them before I came over. Are you ready to get busy picking weeds tomorrow, or would you rather mow?”
“I don’t know nothin’ about no ’chinery,” I said in the heaviest fake southern accent I could muster up. “Let me pick weeds. That’s more my speed.”
Connor chuckled and then laughed. “Have you ever mowed a lawn?”
“Oh, yeah, lots of times before I moved to the big city.”
He twisted the top off a bottle of beer and handed it to me. “It’s no different than that. The commercial mowers they use are the width of a strawberry bed, so your job is just to keep it steady. Why don’t you give it a try? You said you wanted to know the business from the ground up, and this year will be your only chance. Next year, you’ll just turn it over to the supervisor of the crew.”
I took a long drink of the cold beer. “This tastes wonderful. I suppose if I mess up, I can always go back to pulling weeds.”
“That’s the spirit,” he said. “So, how is Gina Lou working out?”
“Fantastic. I’m going to hate to see her leave in the fall.”
“Why would she leave?” He turned up his beer and downed a third of it.
That old advertisement came to mind. Beer: ten dollars. Finding Connor on my porch: free. Sitting beside him: priceless.
“Earth to Lila,” he whispered.
“Sorry, I crawled into a time machine.” I reminded him about my plan to offer college tuition to Gina Lou. “I already told you that Aunt Gracie helped several young women follow their dreams. I want to pay that forward.”
He held the beer in his left hand and slipped his right one around my shoulders. “So you are still serious about that idea.”
“Yes, I am,” I said.
“You are an amazing woman, Lila Matthews.”
“No, I’m not,” I protested. “I’m only doing what I can to empower other women, like Aunt Gracie and Mama did for me all from the time I was a little girl.”
“Well, whatever they did, it made you who you are, and I like you. Please don’t ever change.” He held his bottle toward me.
I touched mine to his. “I like you, too, Connor Thurman.”
Not even the cold beer could put out the heat inside my body right then. I changed the subject to something that didn’t have me thinking about taking his hand and leading him upstairs to my bedroom. “Have your muscles stopped aching?”
“Almost. Yours?”
“Same.”
“Okay, enough small talk,” Connor said. “Let’s talk about us.”
“You go first,” I told him.
He set his bottle on the porch, scooted over, and cupped my cheeks in both his hands. “I really, really like you,” he said in a low voice that sent more delicious little shivers down my spine.
I barely had time to close my eyes before his lips pressed to mine. My arms wrapped around him; I leaned into the kiss and didn’t even try to stop my hands when they found their way up his neck and pulled him closer for another.
I reminded myself that this wasn’t the movies. I didn’t make out with a guy and then fall backward onto a bed and pull him down on top of me, but that sure didn’t keep me from wanting to take the session upstairs. My heart might have won over my good sense if Gina Lou hadn’t driven up.
“Hey, y’all, what’s goin’ on?” she asked as she got out of the SUV.
“You want to tell her, or should I?” Connor chuckled.
“Neither one,” I whispered.
He raised his voice. “Want a beer?”
“Love one,” she replied and sat down on the porch step.
“How was your day at home with the family?” I asked.
“I had a fantastic day with my family. We went to church and then went back to the house for dinner. Mama fried chicken, and we all pitched in to help. Then we played board games. They were still at it when I left.”
“I love fried chicken,” I said, trying to turn the conversation to food rather than answering her question about what was going on.
Connor opened a bottle and handed it to her. “It should still be cold. Sounds like you really enjoyed your Sunday.”
“I did, and Mama is so excited about my job here. She even said”—she paused and took a long drink—“that if I ever quit, she’s applying for the job. Of course, she wouldn’t live here, but she’d be a good employee. Not that I’m even thinking about turning in my resignation. Not until I have enough money saved up for a semester of college. You’ve made me think that I can do anything, Lila.”
Connor gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze. “She’s good at that, isn’t she?”
“You bet she is,” Gina Lou said. “I’m going to take this in the house and finish it off in a long, hot bath. I just love that claw-foot tub.” She paused as she turned. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to butt into whatever y’all were talking about.”
“You didn’t,” Connor said. “We’ve got a tub like that at Grandpa’s place, and it is pretty great when you need to soak tired muscles.”
Gina Lou slid a long sly wink at me as she went inside the house. “See y’all later.”
“Did that kiss affect you like it did me?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t know, since I’m not you. But if it curled your toes, then the answer is yes. I’m still feelin’ it.”
“Have you always been this blunt?” he asked.
I snuggled down against him and laid my hand on his chest. His heart was pounding almost as hard as mine still was. “Yes, I have. I inherited that trait from Aunt Gracie. Jasper says I’m as bossy as she was, too. Which reminds me, I have to go take him some supper and medicine.”
“And I have to go home. Grandpa wants me to drive him to Sunday-night church service since we missed this morning.” He kissed me on the forehead and stood up.
“That’s all I get?” I teased.
“One more little make-out session like we just had, and I would be begging to spend the night,” he flirted right back. “See you in the strawberry field tomorrow morning.”
“Eight o’clock,” I said as I pushed up out of the swing. “I’ll be the one in the floppy hat.”